Founders of Alexandria

by Starscribe

Rating: teen
Tags: Human, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure, Alternate Universe
Length: 105714

Four months after the end of human civilization, six ponies come together to rebuild. They learn that the apocalypse has not made friendship any easier.

Alexandria; a name its founders hope might again become synonyms with scholarship in a world that only four months earlier hosted human civilization. Now only the last remnants known as the Human Preservation Initiative have retained their species, the remainder of the population has been transformed completely into ponies. Adapted to survive in a world now saturated with magic, the ponies of Alexandria settle in for what they expect to be long and boring lives.

They are mistaken. Between the gradual approach of winter, being completely new to the magic of their bodies, and the HPI constantly breathing down their backs, life in Alexandria proves to be anything but boring.

Note To E-Reader users: This story contains illustrations in each chapter, which will be lost in the standard fimfiction chapter export. The generous Phoen1x took the time to produce an epub version with all the illustrations intact, which you can download here.

A huge thanks to Zutcha , the artist for this story. Also a huge thanks to my editors Two Bit and Sparktail.

Published 2015-07-13 19:50:02 UTC
Last updated 2019-07-25 15:00:04 UTC

Part 1 (Adrian) - Chapter 2

Dinner in Alexandria was a community affair. Everypony took breakfast and lunch on the go, often using prepackaged pre-Event food. But no matter what you were doing, no matter where you were, you always came for dinner.

It probably helped that the group was so small; it helped that there was more than one pony who enjoyed cooking, as well as more than one who enjoyed gardening. Adrian was neither, which meant he got all the reward without any of the effort. Well, effort cooking anyway. Just because he didn’t like to stick around after he got bored of a place didn’t mean he was afraid of hard work.

Adrian limped into the pavilion beside Sky, who had to slow down in order to avoid outpacing him during the short walk. She hadn’t done any of the lifting or hauling today, but telling himself that only sorta helped soothe his pride. Of course, the smells coming from the pavilion quickly erased any trepidation he may’ve had.

The pavilion was big enough for dozens of ponies to all have benches and a little wooden roof over their heads, so of course they only needed the one table. A food truck had been driven right onto the grass beside the pavilion, though they generally only used it to keep their food away from raccoons and foxes during the night.

“What’re we having tonight?” he asked nopony in particular as he moved for the largest empty seat on the bench, climbing up onto it. Cloudy Skies sat in the middle, next to him.

Moriah apparently didn’t care much about the community spirit of the meal, because she was already eating, though the salad she ate looked as though it had been gathered from random plants nearby. The idea of eating just anything like that made his stomach turn. “Mad science,” she said, through a mouthful of something. Had she even washed it?

“Not mad science; food science.” Alex sat on Sky’s other side, but even from there Adrian could feel her glares for Moriah. “Oliver is making burgers.”

His stomach did another somersault at that. Like many ponies who’d been around right from the beginning, Adrian had loved meat when he was human and tried to keep eating it. He’d quickly learned that pony tongues did not work the same way human ones did, because he could not get himself to swallow. “Like… meat burgers?”

Oliver was behind the grill, and surrounded with the sizzling of something cooking. He had a spatula in his mouth, but still he shouted. “Nhmt rhll mett! Onn of-”

“He’s trying to say it’s one of the Equestrian recipes.” Alex smiled, gesturing at a cookbook resting beside the freshly baked buns Sky had made that morning. The spread also contained homemade cheese, some sort of leaf for lettuce, and typical store bought condiments. “You don’t want to know what’s in it, but I had these twice when I was in Equestria. It’s not quite the same, but your tongue can hardly tell the difference. They’re like what burgers should taste like. The way they used to be.”

Moriah rolled her eyes. “I saw them making the patties. It’s mad science.”

Adrian was a simple pony; he would trust his nose. His nose told him the burgers would taste amazing. Probably shouldn’t call them burgers, since he knew none of the “Equestrian” food would have meat in it. He’d never liked it when vegetarian food pretended to be “real”. “Did they have fast food in Equestria?”

Alex leaned sideways past Cloudy, so she could talk to him easier. Like the older mare, she had a short list of subjects that really interested her, and her visit to Equestria happened to be one of them. Unlike with Sky’s farming obsession, a visit to another universe actually seemed really interesting.

Adrian hadn’t believed for a second she had really gone to another world. Not until he saw the memory crystal, and relived exactly what she had felt at the time. Everything, from her racing heart, the way her dress felt on her back, the rage boiling in her chest as she learned what had really happened to humanity. Something about watching the memory had written the experience permanently into Adrian’s mind as well, as fresh as when he had first experienced it.

The implications of magic like that were terrifying. Thank goodness worrying about things like that was over his head. Like Alex, really. It was a shame she was too young for him, they’d probably have got along better than he did with Sky.

Of course, he had accidentally been tuning her out while he thought. “— they don’t have cars, so it’s not quite the same. They figured out deep frying though.” She nodded emphatically. “I never saw a chain. I wonder if they had corporation there.” She swiveled her head around over her shoulder, meeting Oliver’s eyes. “Does the library have any books on law?”

Oliver shook his head. The spatula wasn’t in his mouth this time, so he was able to reply more clearly. “Nope. At least, no books with titles about it.” He moved behind the grill again, though he shouted from behind it. “I thought the point was to help us learn to be ponies?”

“Yeah.” She looked down, disappointed. “But law might be really complicated with all these different species living together! It would be nice to have some sort of guide to make suggestions.” She sighed. “I wish Sunset Shimmer had come back with me. You guys would’ve thought she was awesome.”

Moriah glared. “I doubt it. She willingly works for a murderer. Some of that guilt has got to be communicable by proxy. It might’ve been her idea!”

She went on, but that was all Adrian listened to. He didn’t really understand why the unicorn Moriah hated the Equestrians so much. To him, they’d seemed well-meaning and genuine. Or had that just been how Alex had felt? Probably not; otherwise Moriah would’ve felt that too. Not that well meaning meant that they’d been justified in sending his family away in time, so far that he’d probably never see them…

No! He couldn’t get angry. Being upset about a pony he’d never even met, a pony he’d never meet, just didn’t make sense. Not when he had a real life in the present to live. Maybe if he ever saw her, he’d see how hard hooves could punch, for his family.

“You didn’t die, Moriah,” Alex pointed out.

“But people will! Just because I got lucky and saw your campfire doesn’t mean others will be so lucky. There will be thousands of deaths. Tens of thousands.”

“It would’ve been billions!”

Oliver cleared his throat, and the mares both stopped, staring. He had a plate of burgers in his mouth, so he couldn’t talk until he set them down beside the buns and everything else. “Eat up!” he said, louder than he had to. “I only made one for each of you, so no seconds.”

As one, everypony but Moriah rose from their seats and followed Oliver. The other mare kept talking, but Adrian wasn’t listening and apparently neither was anypony else. By the time they’d all returned with their plates, she’d given up and gone back to her salad.

As usual, the food was fantastic. Maybe the cheese was a little runny and the leaves weren’t lettuce, but Oliver and Cloudy sure knew how to cook. Alex hadn’t been lying either, it did taste like having a burger. Even after, when he’d learned it was made of hay and mushrooms, he hadn’t complained. No sense not enjoying something just because his old self didn’t enjoy it.

“How’s the water situation coming?” Adrian asked, when he was half done and starting on the fries. Real fries, with real potatoes! Thank god he could still eat those. And the ketchup was good too! “Did you figure out the pressure… stuff?”

Alex groaned. “I’ve learned more about pumps than I ever wanted to know.” She held up her legs a little higher. Even with her shirt, Adrian could see the grease on her legs. “We’ll have it by the end of the week, I’m sure. You’re sure too, right Joseph?”

She glared at him. Moriah glared back, but for entirely different reasons. Even Adrian wasn’t that stupid.

Joseph was, though. He showed no sign of recognizing the jealousy Moriah radiated on an almost constant basis. “Yeah, yeah!” The unicorn was still playing his 3DS while he ate, but he nodded vigorously anyway. “Sure, right. Whatever she said.”

The little earth pony rolled her eyes. “He’s somewhat more helpful when we work, thank God.” She lowered her voice. “It doesn’t really matter if he pays attention so long as he does what I say with his magic. We’ll… be there soon. I’m sorry it’s so horribly annoying to fill up the water truck.”

He shrugged. “It’s only once a week. It’s not like the water tower is that far.” He liked feeling useful. He didn’t like something so dreadfully boring, but he wasn’t about to say so.

“Any news from the other settlements?” Oliver ate more slowly than the others. He was also the least involved in the intricate web of relationships that was Alexandria, at least so far as Adrian could tell. Oliver was a doctor, and maybe a little bit of a cook. Nothing else really mattered to him that much.

Adrian played with one of his fries. It was harder to do with hooves. “There would be more if you let me tell them about your library.” He couldn’t help but let a little resentment slip into his voice. “I know a dozen ponies at least who will be jumping to get here when they learn you’ve got books to help them learn their powers. You can’t hog them all here forever.”

“Not forever.” Moriah again, looking serious. “We can’t let people take them from us. Knowledge is the scarcest resource; we could get all kinds of things in exchange for what’s in those books!”

Adrian felt his ears swivel back, his muscles tensing a little. He wasn’t the only one, if the anger in Alex’s voice was any guide. “We already discussed this. You were out-voted, Moriah!” She turned to Adrian. “We just want to be a little more situated. Those books are going to help the colony, but not because we hoard the knowledge. We want the books to stay here… and that means we need a system to make sure they don’t grow hooves and gallop away once we start letting other ponies into the library.” She looked to Adrian. “Same reason we haven’t told the story of what really happened yet. We want proof. The library will be the proof.”

“Just another week?” To Adrian’s credit, he only sounded a little sarcastic.

Alex looked like the remark might make her upset, but Oliver apparently did something because she settled down again, going back to her burger when he answered. It wasn’t as though it didn’t make sense for Oliver to answer, anyway. When he wasn’t dealing with the garden, the library was his responsibility. “Two more tops. I’ve just got the tags to install. Joseph already finished with the computer, so it should be painless.”

Unlike Moriah, he wouldn’t belabor an argument. Cloudy seemed to know he was upset, because she spoke up then. “So what news is there? Are the others doing well?”

He nodded. “For the most part. A few ponies are getting sick in New York right now. Some sort of cold. Their doctor is trying to figure out exactly what’s causing it, but it doesn’t seem to be that serious. Nopony stays sick for more than a few days.”

Oliver frowned, stirring his food around with one hoof. “It wasn’t like we thought we’d be immune forever. Some of the Equestrian books talk about disease; it was only a matter of time.”

“Anything else?”

Adrian shook his head. “Nothing much. I planned out my next trip, once I’m not needed here anymore. Colorado Springs.”

That provoked no positive reactions, particularly from Cloudy Skies. Talking about leaving in front of her got to her more than slashing her tires would have, more than dumping out all those little terrariums she made in old jars.

But it wasn’t as though he was leaving tomorrow! He’d been pretty clear with these ponies he wasn’t going to be around forever. He had way too many colonies to visit for that.

“You think they’re broadcasting?” Alex hopped up onto her hooves, hurrying over to the radio. “They usually are. Wonder if there’s any news we haven’t heard of.”

“There won’t be!” Adrian watched her walk away, though there wasn’t as much to see. It was a good thing Cloudy wasn’t the jealous type. Not that they had any sort of relationship… “Nobody’s got a network as good as mine! You can hear their broadcasts, they don’t know there’s even anypony else out there!” He tried to cut back on some of the passion from his voice. “That’s why I’ve got to keep moving. Ponies need to know that, no matter how crappy things are, they’re not alone.”

His wing twitched painfully, though he managed to keep any discomfort from his face.

Alex, meanwhile, had reached the radio. She twisted it on, and a voice from halfway across the country echoed through the pavilion “-know about. So even if we are far away you can and should head to us. We have power, food…”

Even the radio was calling to Adrian tonight, and he wasn’t anywhere close to finished in Alexandria. It was going to be a rough few weeks.

Part 1 (Adrian) - Chapter 4

Distant tears came to Adrian like a knife in his soul. He had never taken responsibility for anyone before, never had a younger sibling or a nephew looking up to him. He’d never experienced pain like this in his life, not until that exact moment. Just as in New York, or earlier in Niagara, he knew a pony needed his help, and Hell itself couldn’t stand in his way.

He bounded past Alex, into the maze-like interior of the building. No, maze wasn’t strong enough. This building was a labyrinth. He took several sharp lefts, turned across a bridge, and suddenly he was in the depths of a simulated cave. Its ceiling, probably built for humans, was cavernous above him. Stairwells twisted strangely into the walls, becoming simulated rocks. Many of them were too steep to climb without fingers. Humans, after all, were primates.

He wasn’t anymore. He ignored Alex’s pleading voice, shouting over the radio that they’d found someone and for everyone to come to the old factory down the street from the outpost. He would let Alex deal with that; he would find the child.

He did not attempt to rationally consider how likely it was that a child might still be alive after all this time. The crying wasn’t very loud, and it was getting weaker. If he had to guess, he would’ve said the kid was probably crying herself to sleep. “Hello!” he shouted, as loudly as he could. “Is there anyone here?”

The cave wasn’t like others he had seen simulated in theme parks. Its edges were rough and strange, and rough concrete stuck out at strange angles, sometimes with bits of rebar visible underneath. One slid over his saddlebags as he passed, catching on the thin bandage he wore beneath to protect his wings. He didn’t even slow down, resulting in brief agony as it tore the bandage free. It began to trail behind him in strips, unraveling from his back as he ran.

Adrian stumbled through the darkness, clambering out onto a walkway, then abruptly sideways onto the floor of what seemed like an ordinary building, except that the banister had been made with numerous, colorful cylinders. Had this building been designed by Cthulhu or Dr. Seuss? Both?

“Hello?” The voice was feminine, and weak. Younger than Cloudy, younger than Alex. He couldn’t tell how much. There was a strange echo about it, no doubt caused by all the twisting hallways between him and the speaker. It was astounding he could hear it at all. But the building was cavernous and empty, with thick walls. Had that insulated him from the birds and wind outside? “Is… Is someone there?”

“Yes!” he called, pounding up another flight of stairs towards the voice, this time ending on a wooden landing branching into several hallways. He slowed then, realizing that his hooves pounding on the wood might frighten the little pony he had (maybe) discovered. He still walked fast, as fast as he could without making too much noise. He seemed to have completely lost Alex somewhere in the twisting corridors. He hoped she hadn’t gotten herself stuck in the cave somewhere. If she had, oh well. He could rescue her later.

“Keep talking, where are you?”

“In a room full’a old stuff.” Her answer was feeble, and clearly afraid. It still sounded strange, like she was speaking while sitting in a massage chair or something. “Glass cases on the wall.”

It wasn’t far away. As he drew nearer, Adrian began to smell the place. It didn’t just smell like someone had been living in unhealthy dirty conditions. Rather, it smelled as though someone had crawled into unhealthy living conditions and died. He turned again, past a gigantic hamster wheel set into the floor (because who didn’t want one of those?), and he could get a good look at the room the child’s voice had been coming from.

The first word to come to mind when he saw it was “nest.” Dozens of sleeping bags had all been piled together, each brightly colored and obviously child-sized.

Huge plastic crates had been dragged against one corner, and the worst of the smell seemed to be coming from inside. They were all filled with food, and by the smell of it most had gone completely rotten months ago. Thankfully the room also had windows, letting sunlight in. Even with the headlamp, pony night vision was pretty lousy.

“I’m here.” He stopped in the doorway, lifting the gun off his shoulders and setting it on the ground, on the other side of the doorway. No reason to frighten a child. “I know you’re scared. You’ve probably been alone a long time, right?” He couldn’t see her, though there were several lumpy bundles visible in the tangle of blankets and pillows and backpacks. “You don’t have to hide, please come out. I promise I’ll be nice.”

The blankets began to stir, and his eyes jumped to a half-illuminated form in the single corner of the room with any shadow, under a glass case filled with thousands of pinned insects.

For a few seconds, he imagined he was only seeing a mask, perhaps befitting what was apparently a bug exhibit. Then the mask moved, turning to face him with its bright yellow, catlike eyes.

Bile rose up in his stomach, his ears flattened, and his pulse briefly raced. It had fangs protruding from its lips, and a hard black carapace that sparkled in the sun from outside. It was like coming face to face with a disgusting alien bear. His legs twitched, and it took all his concentration to resist the desire to flee. Adrian hadn’t survived so many adventures because of a lack of respect for danger!

Then he saw the tears that streaked down the creature’s face, and the way its chest was rising rapidly with breaths nearly as frightened as his own. He saw transparent wings fluttering slightly in unrestrained anxiety. He saw the creature was mostly wrapped in a bright pink sleeping bag, holding a stuffed bear to its chest with a pair of legs riddled with holes.

In that moment, the revulsion warred with compassion in Adrian’s soul, and for a few seconds he felt both. I came to rescue her.

Compassion won. Adrian stepped into the room, ignoring the strange crunching under his hooves, ignoring the disquieting visage the strange child presented. With only a few seconds to fight back his animal fear, he reached the rational humanity beneath. No matter how this girl might look, she was very clearly a victim of the same spell that had struck everyone. He did not see the young monster, not really. He saw what she really was; a lonely, frightened little girl.

All the while she stared, in utter disbelief. His instincts had screamed that she would attack, pouncing and sucking the life out of him, but she did no such thing. She just stared.

He stopped just out of reach, resting his hooves on a pile of old pillows. This was evidently her sleeping corner. He extended a hoof, and it was no longer his disgust for her he had to fight. Rather, he bit back the anger with himself, the loathing that he had even considered running from a pony in need. “I’m Adrian.” He extended one of his forelegs to her. “What’s your name?”

“Riley.” The girl met his hoof with hers, and Adrian wasn’t even bothered that it yielded strangely at a touch. He was bothered by how thin she looked up close. “Are you going to hurt me? Are you going to run away?” She was crying again, though she managed to contain the sobs. She either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. “The last ones did. When I found them… shot at me…”

The closer he got, the less healthy she looked. It wasn’t just the holes in her legs either, though those couldn’t be good. Poor girl looked like she was starving up here. Had she been alone for months?

“No.” He got down, ignoring the stench to embrace the girl as tightly as he dared. “I won’t do any of those things, Riley. I don’t know what other ponies did, but you’re safe now.”

He felt her strange body tense, uncomfortable at first with so much physical contact. Had she been this close to another pony since the Event? Another pony who wasn’t shooting at her, anyway. After a few tense seconds, he felt feeble limbs curl around him. While she didn’t say anything, she did break into unrestrained sobs, holding him like she was the last desperate survivor of a shipwreck.

She was still like that when Alex finally found them, maybe twenty minutes later. “There you are, Adrian. You didn’t answer your radio! Did you find-” She went abruptly quiet. Adrian couldn’t see what she was doing, but he could guess it wouldn’t be good. “Are you okay? We’re all here, looking for you…”

Adrian chanced a glance over his shoulder, only to see that Lonely Day had rested one of her hooves on the edge of the rifle, though she looked as torn as Adrian himself had felt. He shook his head once. Was it just his imagination, or did he feel a little lightheaded?

Lonely Day set her rifle down, reluctantly. She advanced a few steps, scanning the room with rapid glances. No doubt she would be taking in all the minor details, piecing together some story the way she always did.

“This is the girl we heard.” He watched her visible effort to bite back the disgust and the fear.

Eventually she did, and to her credit she waited that long to approach. “How is she?”

He released her then, turning slightly and standing between the doorway and the insectoid equine. Where Alex had remained calm enough to understand what he had learned, Moriah might just shoot. Joseph almost certainly would shoot first, though for totally different reasons. “She’s been alone for too long,” he replied. “It does things to a person.”

“I remember.” The earth pony tried to smile again, and this time it was much more genuine. It was friendly, but it wasn’t love. “Hi there!” Her eyes twitched to the pile of mostly-rotten food, then to the strange black pony. The signs of malnutrition were obvious in her now, despite not being clearly mammalian. “We’ve got sandwiches in the cooler across the street. Salads, pasta. Probably tastes better than…” She twitched, swallowing. “Whatever that stuff is. Not rotten stuff.”

Riley sniffed at her, clinging to Adrian’s back. She spoke only quietly, her voice a warbling whisper. “Only if Adrian says it’s okay. I don’t wanna leave…”

She looked unperturbed. “Tell you what, then: I’ll just bring some.” She met his eyes again, and he nodded. No words were needed, words that might’ve frightened the strange pony if she heard them. Adrian found himself reminded why he had voted Alex for their leader as she hurried away, scooping her gun up by the strap as she left.

Riley recovered quickly, rising to her hooves and looking past him out the door.

Adrian could see her quite clearly now, as he never could’ve in the gloom. Her whole body was dark, formed of the intersection of dozens of pony-shaped parts. She had a horn on her forehead to compliment her wings, and shiny green armor growing along her back. She had a tail and a mane like any other pony, both of which were also faintly green. Somehow, their wispy shapes also managed to have holes like her legs. She was perhaps ten centimeters shorter than he was. Maybe he was hallucinating, but she didn’t look quite as starved as she had when he first saw her.

“Who was that?”

“Alex.”

The girl moved past him, through the piles of disordered junk that was her home. She seemed to be looking for something, though it was impossible for him to guess what that something might be. “She was angry with me, and scared.” The pony sat down, pulling out a backpack in her teeth and beginning to go through it. “When she saw you, she wasn’t anymore. Why?”

He couldn’t imagine how such an emotionally damaged little girl could be so perceptive, particularly after being around other “humans” for so short a period. He needed some sort of answer though. “She was worried about me. I helped her see that you were the one who needed help, not me.”

She pondered on that a moment. “There are more? More than you and her?”

“Yeah. Six of us. Seven if you count dogs, but there’s no room in the car.”

“Are they all as nice as you?”

He wasn’t going to lie about it. “No.” He didn’t leave it that way, wouldn’t risk frightening her off. “But Alex will talk to them.”

She rose, dragging the backpack behind her in her teeth. Only when she had reached him did she sit down, her naked body shivering. “I don’t want to be alone again.”

“You won’t be.” He smiled. “Promise.”

Author's Note

Hey everypony! Hopefully you're all enjoying the sequel so far, with its new style. I know it's been a blast to write so far, even if switching perspectives every week is a little difficult for me. Thank you to all of you who take the time to comment; I do read and try to respond to as many as possible.

As usual, Zutcha continues to do fantastic art for this story, so my thanks go out to him for all the work he goes through to make sure you have the most rewarding reading experience possible. I've turned this and all future art pieces into links to their larger versions, in case you want to see them in their full size. I would!

Part 1 (Adrian) - Chapter 5

Adrian tried to get Riley to come back to their outpost several times, but no promise could elicit her to leave. Telling her about the real mattresses or the hot water for a shower didn’t either. It wasn’t entirely her fault; the others had made their way upstairs to see her one after the other, and none had been very friendly.

If he had been upset with Alex’s reaction, the others outright disgusted him. He could only imagine the things they were saying about her in the lobby. He couldn’t even go down to argue her case, because Riley just clung to his leg and wouldn’t let go. By then any trace of fear for her had long gone, and only love remained. This child knew the loneliness he sometimes felt, the pain that drew him to travel from colony to colony. Only she had been too scared to search. The more time he spent with her, the more absurd he considered the fear the others had demonstrated, as well as the revulsion. It wasn’t what he really felt.

He had promised not to leave Riley alone, so he called to Alex and asked her to bring him whatever he’d need to spend the night. He didn’t even leave the radio on to see what she might say in reply. If he had, Riley would hear what his friends were saying about her. No child deserved to hear people talking about her like she was a monster. Perhaps in the alien universe called Equestria these things were monsters, but this was Earth.

“So Riley, are you excited to come with us tomorrow?” Adrian had drawn the shutters as far as they would go, taking advantage of the failing light. The light was helpful: it made it easier to see the boxes of rotting food and other detritus he was dragging away with his mouth. That part was pretty gross, just not as gross as sleeping somewhere filled with rotten food.

Riley tried to make herself helpful, and she was piling up all the backpacks and unused sleeping bags in another corner. Her wings twitched, as they seemed to do whenever she was nervous. “I-I’m not sure if I want to go. I’ve never gone anywhere else. What if I can’t live there?”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem!” Adrian kicked another crate into the broom closet, slamming it shut on the stench. When he returned to the room, it already smelled better. The strange musk of some sort of insect hive remained, but that didn’t exactly surprise him. He would’ve smelled like stallion if he didn’t bathe on a daily basis.

“You won’t be living alone there, for one.” He grinned, trying to look as excited as he could. It wasn’t too hard, not about a topic he cared about. “I’ve got this amazing RV; it has a loft with a real bed you can sleep in! Not to mention we do way better for food. We already have a greenhouse; garden should start giving us fresh fruits and vegetables in just a few weeks with as insane as it grows. Not to mention we’ve got electricity, so you can watch movies and play video games, have lights on at night, or the air conditioner during the day.”

“I want… I want my family.” She dropped onto her rump, whimpering. “Mom would know how to fix this…”

Adrian had already explained the basics of what happened, but he risked reiterating it anyway. He didn’t want to make it seem as though his arrival was anything magical. He wanted to make things better for Riley, but he couldn’t stop the Event from ever happening. He would’ve done that back in May, if he could have. “They might not come back in time to see you,” he said. “But… tell you what. Do you remember where you live?”

She nodded. “How about we visit tomorrow, just to make sure. We can leave a note with directions-”

“It’s too far to walk. I t-tried once, but it… it got too dark.” She whimpered, tears threatening to overflow all over again.

“We can drive!” He smiled, touching her briefly on the shoulder. “I know I look small, but I’ve been driving all over North America.”

“Okay.” She didn’t say anything else on the subject, and he didn’t press her.

Eventually, Alex returned with the supplies. Not just dinner, but a pair of inflatable mattresses, a propane lantern, plus a can of fuel and all the supplies they would need for s'mores. She didn’t stay, though she looked like she wanted to.

“Alright Riley, time for your first real meal! No more rotten cafe food!” He unwrapped one of the large sandwiches, dragging it along the floor by the plastic and setting it at her hooves. “Homemade bread, fresh greens; Alexandria has better food than any settlement I’ve visited so far.”

He took a few steps back, opening his own and beginning to eat. He sat on his haunches, and gripped the sandwich between his hooves. So long as he pushed just right, it wouldn’t fall apart. It was a very delicate balance, between holding it together and dumping the ingredients all over the floor. He lost the battle more often than he won.

He watched the insect pony as she sniffed at the sandwich, trying to recognize familiar human emotions there. She didn’t look like a starving person being offered her first meal, that was for sure. Had she been eating grass? “There’s no meat. You guys don’t have any of that saved away?” She shrugged and took a bite, lowering her head to the floor and chewing. She took a long time before the next bite, as though tasting every bit before swallowing. She didn’t look impressed, which was strange to him. Adrian loved this sandwich, it was one of the Equestrian recipes!

“God no!” He set his sandwich down. “Ponies don’t like meat. Apparently it doesn’t hurt us, but… I’ve never seen a pony get it down.” He leaned close to her, grinning. “Dodged a bullet there, Riley. Trust me. The ones who make that mistake usually puke.”

Riley looked indignant. “No way!” She flicked her tail towards the hall and the broom-closet. “There were cans and cans of those — teeny hot dogs they put in grownup drinks — once I figured out how to open them…” She sighed, licking her lips with the memory. Even her tongue looked strange. “Ran out in three days. I probably should’ve eaten a little slower…”

She looked at Adrian then, her catlike eyes focusing on him for a moment. He couldn’t tell what she was seeing, and for a moment he felt a flicker of that same fear from before. Her fangs gleamed in the white of the propane. There was a brief, uncomfortable silence, before she offered, “No matter how much I ate, I didn’t feel full. Like, it would help for a while, but then I would feel hungry again.” She tilted her head slightly to one side. “Do you ever feel like that?”

“N-no,” he admitted. “I can eat like a horse, but there’s still a limit. These sandwiches are the perfect size.”

“They’re really filling! After… After the last few days, I’d given up on eating. But this- this is great!” She beamed, pushing half the sandwich away. “I guess it doesn’t need meat after all.” She patted her belly. “I’m full!”

Adrian didn’t put down his own until he was finished. “I hope you’re not completely full.” He gestured at the grocery bag with their desert. “Think you’ve got room for S'mores?”

For a moment, Riley looked skeptical. She approached the bag, sniffing at it, and nudging it with a hoof. Her eyes widened, and she nodded vigorously. “Yeah! I’ve got room!” She practically started bouncing up and down. “S'mores were the best! My parents used to take me and-” Riley froze, face falling. She sat back down.

Adrian had long since adapted to using his mouth for things, so he didn’t have any trouble wedging his pocketknife into the fire can and exposing the fuel-jelly inside. It had been a long time since he had cooked with one of these, and the results had been… fairly mediocre. To say nothing of the stale marshmallows they were using. At least the crackers and chocolate still looked good.

Getting the marshmallows onto the sticks was actually the hardest part. In the end, Adrian held them between his hooves while lowering the stick with his mouth. That done, he set out the rest of the ingredients and sparked his lighter, sending the fuel-gel into flickering blue life.

“Mhre, Riley.” He offered her a stick, ready to go. “Ymm mkow how mooo hmmld it?”

She rolled her eyes, but took the offered stick. So the roasting began.

It wasn’t as relaxing as it had been as a human; you couldn’t really talk while you did it, not easily. Maybe there was a way to get hooves to do it, but Adrian didn’t want to fight with it today. Even if he thought he had the dexterity, he didn’t want to make Riley feel bad if she didn’t. Alex had made sure to give them sticks long enough that their faces wouldn’t be burned in the attempt. Practical little pony she was.

Riley burned her first three marshmallows, giggling the whole way. Adrian kept giving her new ones, and she kept burning them. That was okay, though. Seeing her smile made the effort of preparing new marshmallows well worth it.

They stayed up for hours after that. Riley wanted to know about everything. Adrian didn’t talk about the Event, but he told her everything else. The colonies he had seen, the pony magic.

“But… your wing!” She gestured across the fire at his bad wing, protruding strangely from his side. “It looks hurt. Smells bad, too.” She wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah.” He tried to keep cool, but inwardly Adrian cursed himself. He hadn’t replaced the bandages when they tore! Nevermind what Riley had seen; the others had all visited too, at least for a few minutes! How many of them had seen, and he hadn’t even thought to cover it up! He felt like the stupidest pony in the world.

It wasn’t anything Riley had done though, so he forced himself to smile. “It doesn’t fly, no. But other ponies can! You’ve got wings; maybe Cloudy Skies can teach you!”

She shivered, glaring at the floor. “The pink one? She hated me.”

“What?” Adrian shook his head as vigorously as he could. “Cloudy Skies is one of the nicest ponies I know! She was just shocked to meet someone so different!”

“Nope.” There was no argument or malice in the word. Riley spoke it like it was a simple truth, without any doubt. “She was really, really scared. Guess I can’t blame her. I am a f-freak…”

And so began the third and last breakdown of the night. Adrian couldn’t staunch the tears this time, though he tried valiantly. It was all he could do to embrace her anew, holding her until she stopped, and reassure her all the while that he didn’t think so.

Yet somewhere deep inside, a part of him still did. Could she sense that too, as she had somehow sensed with Sky?

If she did, she made no sign. Soon she was asleep. Adrian covered her in the sleeping bags, then curled up on his own mattress on the other end of the room, staring at nothing.

He felt drained, listless, and ashamed.

It would be another sleepless night.

Part 1 - Interlude

August 25, 2015

Dear Journal,

Our latest salvage operation to St. Louis ended better than I could’ve predicted! No rabid animal attacks this time, and as a matter of fact nopony even needed their rifles. I wish we didn’t have to keep them with us so often, but until we get better with our powers… better to have a gun and not need it, right? I’d be dead like three times now if I hadn’t learned how to shoot.

We found everything we’d planned to bring back in the city. Two new motor-homes for Alexandria’s thriving trailer park. It’s funny, I had no idea RVs were made with this level of luxury before the Event. Oliver’s has a balcony. Whatever. I want to live in a house with a balcony!

When I was younger, we went to Newport Beach once. I’m not sure how Mom paid for the hotel; I think it was a friend’s reservation or something. I sat on the balcony and watched the ocean for hours; fell asleep out there. Woke up with mosquito bites all over my face, because of course that was my luck. I wonder if mosquitoes would try to bite me if I slept outside in northern Illinois.

Aside from the two RVs, we also brought the truck we loaded last time, the one we filled from the Tesla dealership. Okay, so it was mostly floor models; but we’d already known that Tesla had problems with stock. Shame their headquarters was so close to Los Angeles… it’s probably ashes now. I used to love driving by their showroom in LA.

Batteries do not live forever, and the batteries in electric cars like these will not be easy to replace. Tesla vehicles are so specialized that I know very little about how to repair them. My garage wouldn’t touch them, so I never really got to tinker. This means the transport truck full of them we brought back with us is only a stopgap measure; eventually we’ll need to make biodiesel of our own. With so many dead vehicles, it’s likely we could keep a few running from spare parts for a century if we had a way to preserve a few dozen vehicles we aren’t using.

So that makes the final inventory: -1 sedan, +2 RVs, +1 auto transport truck and contents, +1 luxury pickup, +1 cargo truck. 60 kw additional weatherized solar panels, 10 boxes assorted digital media, 1 freaky bug.

Our next trip will be in three days, though I think Adrian’s going to be sitting out. Next mission: deep cycle batteries. Joseph’s computer magic indicates there is a shipping crate full of said batteries waiting in a warehouse to be shipped out west. There’s a catch, though. They’re dry batteries (actually, this is good for us, kinda), which means they haven’t been filled yet. St. Louis also has several chemical plants. We’ll have to fill a transport truck with sulfuric acid of the correct concentration, without melting our hooves off.

You might ask; why the hell are you doing something so stupid, Alex? Aren’t there auto shops and golf carts all over the world with batteries already filled and ready to go? Why melt your face?

Yes, I answer. That’s just the problem. I’m thinking long-term, baby! Batteries are all about chemical reactions. It takes acid to get the reaction going. No acid in the battery, and it won’t degrade. We can keep them in storage for decades if we want. Fill them up, and they’ll be ready to accept a charge like we’d just picked them up at the store, even if the stores are all gone.

The more I think about it, the less this sounds like a good idea. Getting the acid now, I mean. It’s not like it’s going to keep. Manufacturing sulfuric acid isn’t actually that complicated. I read up on the process during the drive back. Okay, listened up. Whatever, same thing. Taking this drive half a dozen times doesn’t make it more fun than it was the first time. I’m discovering a newfound love for audiobooks (public libraries often have tons, did you know that?). I prefer the nonfiction ones. My life is fantasy enough without reading fiction.

Probably another fuel truck, maybe another RV or two during our next trip. We’re running out of time. We could get snow in as little as two months, which means the more often we travel now, the better. I don’t expect too much to decay in a single year, but once winter comes… we’re not going to be able to travel very easily. I would like to have enough stocked locally that we can keep working (weather permitting) through the cold months. I think we’re well on-track. We’d be closer if Joseph took driving lessons a little more seriously.

So I finally got someone to come with me to the St. Louis City Museum! If you’ve been reading, you know it isn’t a museum at all, but a gigantic indoor playground. It’s a playground the same way old chemistry sets used to be in the fifties, with little vials of acid and real uranium in every box! I learned this a little… too personally. The building is divided into several different sections, each of which is large enough for a human adult but would probably be much more comfortable for a child.

We heard something when we got there, Adrian and I. It was a child crying, probably just a filly (she was just a filly, but we didn’t know it yet). Adrian’s faster and better about getting around in tight spaces, so I lost him pretty quickly. I think I must’ve got turned around somewhere in the dark, because I sprinted into a part of the playground that was still under construction.

Holy crap was it unsafe. Power tools just sitting there, rusty metal bars just sticking out of the ground at chest level, some pretty sharp from where they’d been cut. I know I’ve never worked construction, but there’s no chance in hell this place would’ve passed any kind of inspection. I guess the most fun places usually were that way.

It’s fine, though. It hurt less than last time. I’m taking some penicillin to be safe, but I don’t think I’ll get anything. I was up with all my shots before it happened. As usual, nopony noticed, I made sure of that. I cleaned up pretty good before I went looking for Adrian. It wasn’t as though he was going to get hurt finding a kid somewhere locked up in the building. He could wait for me to find some water and clean up. I went through the building much slower the second time.

The others hadn’t really gone far, and I waited outside for them to find me before I went in. Yeah, sight and sound. Yeah, I set a bad example. It made sense, okay! I didn’t like the idea of risking any of the others might make my mistake. Found Adrian upstairs. Just like I thought, he’d found the kid.

There’s no getting around this; she’s something weird. When I first saw her, I felt afraid. Kinda like I did with the HPI, but not the same. More like… what I’d fear for a wolf. It was like being near a predator. I could see she had fangs so that makes sense I guess. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if Adrian hadn’t been there to stop me. Probably run away. Ponies like to run away. It’s in our genes.

Adrian stopped me, and with his help I saw that she wasn’t some predator at all, she was another human left behind, another person whose life was completely screwed up by the Event. She got double-screwed… while her sex and age seems to have remained the same, she’d become a species that regular ponies find disturbing and dangerous! She seems to be a very different kind of life than ordinary ponies. Like seeing a spider, but way worse.

Picture… the biggest, ugliest bug. Lots of thick armor bits, wings, gross stuff… now make it almost as big as you are (and would’ve been as big, if she wasn’t a kid). That’s Riley, Riley the bug.

Riley is also a 12-year-old little girl, one without the slightest clue what she’s become or why. She’s an innocent child who has done nothing wrong. Yet other ponies have abandoned her in the city. We aren’t the first to pass through. Some even tried to hurt her if her story is true, but she ran away.

So what is her story? Apparently she was with her class on a field trip, spending the night in the museum. Next thing she knew, she was alone… you get the rest. She thinks she’s been alone in there for a few weeks, but she can’t tell us exactly how long. She doesn’t keep a diary. She said she ate food from the cafe downstairs, which I believe. There was so much rotten food up there, and all of it looked like it’d been stolen from someplace like that. Pretty disgusting, really.

A little kid was left alone to fend for herself, in a world she thought hated her for nothing she did. She was forced to eat rotting food and live in a scary room full of taxidermied animals. Well, maybe not forced. She could’ve left and lived anywhere. But she’s a kid, and anyway we might not have found her otherwise. We don’t have some magical pony-senses, we don’t have any way of tracking down the ponies who don’t make tons of light and sound or don’t come to us. She didn’t really, but by sheer chance, we happened to want to visit the same building she did.

Maybe there’s a lesson there. We can better anticipate where we’ll find other survivors by making sure they want something at a place we can find. I guess that makes sense. That’s Moriah’s logic about the library. And I can understand for now. I’m sure we’ll be able to change that once we’ve got copies made of every book. The sooner we get that knowledge working in the world, the better.

The others are… let’s just say “less than enthusiastic” about her. Cloudy Skies is scared out of her mind, won’t get within twenty feet of her no matter how many people tell her it’s safe. Moriah thinks that her story doesn’t check out, says that it’s possible she’s actually older and that she’s got some nefarious plan in mind. Oliver says she looks like she’s dangerous, and there are things about her biology he can tell can’t be good for us. He’ll still talk to her and pretend to be nice, which is good. Joseph was actually the kindest, he just seemed ambivalent and disinterested in her.

I don’t understand how the others can treat a little girl this way. She’s the freakiest thing I’ve seen in my whole life, but since when is that her fault?

Riley didn’t want to leave at all that night, so Adrian stayed the night with her. I was a little nervous about it, but it’s been long enough that the predator population in cities has plummeted pretty sharply. Might as well enjoy the respite before all the natural predators like wolves and stuff move in and fill the void, right? Adrian didn’t want to leave the girl, so I did my work preparing our vehicles alone.

Spent the night in our outpost of course, nothing eventful there. I wish Joseph and Moriah would keep it down sometimes. I can’t wait to see the look on her face when she ends up pregnant. I’ll draw it, see if I don’t!

Adrian spent the night convincing the girl to come with us. She was afraid of all sorts of things, her family coming back and missing her chief among them. We delivered the hard news, and Adrian and I drove her to her old house. She knew where to find it. Nothing was there. You know the drill.

While she was packing some old things, I snagged a picture of her from the wall. We’re going to have a meeting about her tomorrow, once she goes to bed. I’m gonna bring the picture, so they can see.

Nobody mentioned bugponies during my week tour in Equestria. I didn't see anything like her, or else running into her wouldn't have been so startling. But if they're in the transformation spell, I bet they're in the library too. Something to look into tomorrow as well. Adrian’s furious. I bet he would’ve left Alexandria if I wasn’t here to calm him down.

Riley is going to be living with him for the time being. He suggested she live with me, but she didn’t want to, and I’m ashamed to say I was glad. I know she’s just a kid, I know she’s safe and everything, but… I’ll sleep better at night with just Cloudy Skies in my "house".

Of course, there is another serious concern with Adrian, one we didn't mention to him but everypony was thinking. His wing. We all saw it, what he'd been keeping covered for all this time. He let it get bad. It was all I could do to keep Oliver from grabbing him right there. In the interests of sanity, and not separating him from bugpony, I got him to wait until we got back to Alexandria. Tomorrow, after our meeting, we're staging a medical intervention. We will not let Adrian's wing kill him.

-Lonely Day (not the loneliest!)

[img] https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/qo5yq7nrhj5rxy0/8f62a4b444ee2ca8097425520007a8e95c5cc353.png[/img]

It's hard to draw her as scary as she looks. I couldn't really do it, but I did my best!

Author's Note

Hey everybody! So I'm not switching styles for the story. I just wanted to throw in a little interlude section between each character's part, to sorta tie everything together. They may all be journals, or they may not. I might use them to experiment with other things too, we'll just have to see.

Part 2 (Joseph) - Chapter 1

Part 2 (Joseph) - Chapter 1

Joseph was bored.

This was no exception for him; actually it was the rule more than any other feeling. Little could challenge him, little could push the limits of his intellect or aptitude for more than a few moments. When those moments were over, it was back to playing Pokémon.

That was what he wanted to be doing now; what he would’ve been doing if he hadn’t been dragged into the library too early in the morning by the neediest pony in the whole colony. “Why don’t you have your boyfriend do this?” he muttered, his voice as sour as he could make it. Unfortunately he hadn’t slept properly in days, and it barely came out as decipherable English.

Alex shoved him in the side, harder than her little body would’ve suggested was possible. No, not little. She would see that thought, and take revenge. She was sixteen. That was an “adult”, and she would wrestle anyone who told her otherwise. “Oliver and I aren’t seeing each other. And he isn’t a computer expert. Just because you taught him how to scan the books doesn’t mean he knows how to search them.”

Joseph contented himself with the thought of the mare waiting for him in his warm bed back in the fancy RV he lived in now. It still smelled like a new car, though he liked the other smells better. All he had to do was figure out a way to get Alex off his back. One look at her fiery glare, and he quickly ruled the best thing to do was solve whatever problem she had as quickly as possible. It might sting his pride, but… Alex hadn’t exactly been this insistent on something when it didn’t matter before. Whatever this was about, it had to be important.

Joseph had only been awake for ten minutes or so, just long enough to roll out of bed still smelling like the night before, not washing his mane or even brushing it. He’d at least remembered to pull on a pair of pants, which wasn’t always a constant if Moriah wasn’t there to suggest it.

The library they had chosen wouldn’t surprise anyone; it was the county library. The entirety of their modifications consisted of 5kW of solar panels on the roof to keep the lights on and run the hardware the HPI had given them. No AC, no other computers, and nothing at all at night. It was practically the stone age.

Still, the library had become another of their unofficial meeting spots. The building was very old, with stone and mortar dating all the way back to 1858. Joseph ignored the huge pile of random books that was Alex’s spot, or the neatly arranged Equestrian volumes where Oliver usually sat. He passed the magical saddle-bags containing the Equestrian library without even a second glance, though they remained fascinating to him when he was awake. He passed his own corner, where he had put together a fort with a knocked-over table and posters of spell diagrams he had copied. No, he wasn’t going to be learning anymore magic today.

When they learned about the Equestrian library, the HPI had transported several machines at once to help digitize the books. They were nothing special really, just scanners with light-plates to get as clear a read on the text as possible, along with a database computer. It was that computer that was his target.

“If anyone paid attention when I explained things, I wouldn’t have to do this.” He hopped up into the chair, landing on his haunches and jittering the mouse about with his magic.

There was something otherworldly about the feeling, even now. Time had not made the act of commanding reality itself seem more mundane. The rush of energy, the brief sensation that the mouse or the chair was a part of him, his substance to command. It was tearing control away from the laws of the universe themselves. Was it like programming? That comparison felt like comparing his smartphone to a similarly-sized abacus.

Alex didn’t sit, instead propping her hooves up on the edge of the table so she could see the screen more clearly. He shoved her to one side, since of course she’d chosen to stand right in the way. “You’re going to find it!”

He rolled his eyes, though each passing second made him more awake. If he kept at this much longer he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep! That made him want to kick something, but instead all he did was briefly shout. “Gaaaaaaah! Alex, you’re… you’re… you haven’t even told me what I’m looking for!” The keyboard shimmered with his magic too, and a few keystrokes brought him to the right directory. “Hell, it’s probably not in here! There are only a few hundred; most of the library is still in there!” He pointed back at the saddle-bags with a hoof, fuming. “Go in and look yourself! It’s your magicsack!”

Alex turned over her shoulder, glaring at him. “Don’t think I haven’t. This will only take a second. Search for “magical creatures”.

Joseph complied. “Four thousand hits.” The scroll-bar had become so slim on the one side that he would’ve had trouble clicking it accurately without his magic. “Anything else?”

“Insect.”

Joseph’s eyes widened a little, though he didn’t look around. “You’re trying to find out more about the freak, huh?” He added the term, and many more results vanished. Books with those two terms in proximity were not nearly as numerous. “Two hundred. Mostly in… three different books, it looks like. Which one do you want to look at?”

Alex’s eyes barely seemed to even see the page, and she answered without hesitation. It unnerved him a little. “How about ‘Guide to Preservation Biology’.”

“Why?” Maybe if she explained, he would be able to follow her logic.

She shrugged. “It was one of the red-cover books, the ones they wanted us to read first. Back cover said…” Her eyes glazed over a little, as if she could see something he couldn’t. “‘A comprehensive guide to the species assigned by the Preservation Spell, from hooves to tail...’” She trailed off. “I didn’t actually read it. I meant to, but…” She glanced at the huge pile of books that were at her workstation. The entire Harvard Classics collection was on the top of the stack, a rickety table barely standing under the weight. “Human books were more interesting. I was gonna get to it!”

He raised a hoof, silencing her. “I don’t care why you didn’t read it. Let’s both read it right now.” He opened the book, or at least the scanned copy. Text filled the screen, accompanied by crude illustrations. The highlights were from the same paragraph of text under a heading called “Changelings”. Joseph jumped quickly to the header, where somepony had sketched a horrific-looking image.

The pony depicted was a great deal like Riley, if Riley was five feet tall with the body of a majestic monster. Elegant, lean, and powerful. Another sketch beside it showed a much smaller member of the same species, much more in proportion with a regular pony. “Next page.”

Joseph was indignant. “What? I’m still-”

She reached up, forcing the mouse down manually. She clicked through several more pages, past the section about changelings into the next strange species. “This can’t be right.” She let herself fall onto her hooves, glaring at Joseph. “Can you check to see if there was a problem with the scan? I think maybe Oliver must’ve not turned the pages right or something… Damnit, that isn’t right, they’ve got numbers! Why are there only three pages about changelings when there are sixteen about diamond dogs? How is that fair? There should be whole books!”

“Most of the library isn’t scanned yet, maybe it’s with the rest of the books,” he suggested, reversing through the pages she had skipped past. Sure enough, they were about griffons for all but the last three.

“If it is, the ‘Further Reading’ section lied about there not being anything. Information scarce my flank!” She turned away. “Oh, thanks for your help, Joseph. It would help even more if you don’t call Riley a freak next time.” She galloped off, kicking the double-doors open and practically flying out onto the street. He groaned, but a few seconds later he heard the sound of a car starting. The car that had brought him to the library.

He nearly fell out of his seat in his desire to make it to the doors as fast as possible. He didn’t stand a chance; by the time he made it out to the parking lot, not even brake lights were visible down the road.

He swore loudly, shaking the empty village with the most inventive profanity he could think of. Unfortunately nobody was around to compliment him on his cleverness, not even Huan. A noble, yet ultimately fruitless endeavor. When he was done, he stomped back inside, fumbling around until he found the walkie-talkie in its charging stand. “Joe here; is anyone else awake yet? I’ve been dumped in the library by an inconsiderate pony, and I need someone to come and pick me up.”

He waited, hoping Moriah at least would be awake. She would’ve come and got him, no question in his mind. Unfortunately, she liked the early mornings about as much as he did, and made no sign she’d heard him. Even Alex hadn’t had a radio with her, not that he’d seen in the car. She was going to get a sternly worded piece of his mind when he saw her next, and he was going to get an apology.

It was only fair.

He wasn’t left completely without response, though. After a few seconds, he heard Oliver’s voice. “Hey, Joseph! You at the library?”

“Yes.” He tried to keep his annoyance from showing through. He failed dismally.

“I was headed there anyway. Sky made doughnuts, you want me to bring you any?”

That cut his terse response short. “Y-yeah, I would. Maple bars?”

“I’ll bring two.”

Joseph saw no sense in waiting outside in the sun, so he headed back into the library proper and over to his workstation. It was hard to say if he or Alex kept their area least clean; Joseph had fewer books, but he had also written on every nearby surface with permanent marker. The strange letters of the runic alphabet covered everything, each with their own supernatural meaning. Learning a language often meant first mastering the keywords and the differences in syntax between the languages he knew. Joseph postulated he could thus learn magic quickest by first mastering the language of magic.

He didn’t return to the computer, not right away. He already felt sour about Alex leaving him behind, and he knew if he tried to read anything new he wouldn’t really get much out of the experience. He had to be calm to read.

He did, on the other hand, have three Equestrian books, each weighted down to various pages. All three had red covers, which meant they belonged to the set Alex called “READ FIRST.” Unlike the strange book on species they had located during a search, “Mastering Unicorn Magic for Foals and Beyond” made no reference to humanity, Earth, or the Preservation Spell. Nor did “A Beginner’s Guide to Runes” or “Levitation for Dullponies.” Joseph had read each in their entirety, sometimes several times.

Unfortunately, just reading something did not mean he understood. Joseph got himself comfortable on a pile of cushions he had stolen from a nearby church, resting his back against the wall as he levitated the first book down from the table and into his field of view. If nothing else, all this reading was great practice for his endurance; levitating even something very light for hours at a time was not nearly so easy as merely holding it.

The simple illumination charm will be one of the most versatile enchantments in your repertoire, and requires very little practice to master. Any unicorn wishing to…

Part 2 (Joseph) - Chapter 2

Joseph frowned, listening to the plan again. Alex’s “meeting” hadn’t included Adrian. At first, he had thought it was because she wanted to lecture them about being nicer to Riley, and somepony had to stop the bugpony from stumbling into the conversation.

It had been, at first. But there were only so many different ways she could explain that “Riley couldn’t help what she’d been turned into and she needed their kindness.” She showed a picture of a little girl, got everybody to feel guilty, and promised that she would personally take responsibility for any of Riley’s bad behavior.

It was all he could do not to fall asleep, and he mostly didn’t. Until he heard his own name. “Once I’ve got Riley out and we’re driving away, Joseph grabs him and holds him still. He’s got guns in there, so you can’t let him reach them.”

“I only need ten seconds to find a good vein and get the sedative injected.” Oliver folded his forelegs across the table. “Probably less than that. I didn’t like what I saw; his wing might already be gangrenous. It’s possible it’s even necrotic, and its poisoning his blood. If so, I might have to ampu-”

Two voices shouted then, in perfect unison. One was Cloudy Skies, looking more shocked than angry. The other was Moriah, who hadn’t only jerked into a standing position but was practically frothing at the mouth. Moriah was louder, and sitting right next to him, so he heard what she said over Cloudy.

“If you find out you have to amputate, you wake him up and tell him first! I don’t care if you think you know better, it’s his right to chose whether or not he’ll let you do that! Helping him is one thing; I think we’re doing the right thing. But if you try and make a life-changing decision like that without his consent, I’ll shoot you myself!”

Joseph could feel the tension in her body, the fury in coiled muscles and saturated in every inch of her slight frame. He stared sideways in shock, uncomprehending. What had her so worked up? She turned and met his eyes, and somehow he knew she expected him to take her side. That was what couples did, right? He’d never been with a girl this long before!

Desperate, Joseph forced himself to form words. “We, uh… yeah! We won’t do it without telling him! We can always wake him up first!” He patted her shoulder. “So we help get-” He closed the screen to his 3DS, looking away from her. “Why are we cutting his wings off?”

Moriah sighed loudly, huffing back into a sitting position just far enough away not to be able to touch him. Oliver opened his mouth as though he wanted to speak, but Alex spoke first. “You know how Adrian always wears those wraps on his wings?” At a nod, she continued. “We saw under them at the museum yesterday. He’s got a really serious injury, one that would leave him in constant pain on a daily basis and will eventually cost him his wing.

Oliver has the hospital ready. We’ve got a generator running, tons of different medications, and lots of books on pegasus anatomy and wing structure. We’re going to sedate him, take a few x-rays, and see what has to happen. Maybe it’s something simple to fix, maybe it’s not. But we won’t ever convince Adrian to let us help him, so we’re going to compel him. Haven’t you been listening?”

No, no he hadn’t. If she’d wanted him to pay attention, she shouldn’t have started the meeting with a guilt-trip and a picture of a kid. “Okay, I get it! Let’s just do it already!” Did he want to get back to his game? Maybe a little, but he also didn’t like the idea of Adrian dying, even if he’d been around the shortest. They would have to protect him from himself.

“Right, so… it’s not going to put him under right away. We haven’t tested human medicine nearly as much as I would like. I’m just going to make him pliable, so we can get him to the hospital. I can figure out a more precise dosage when we get there.”

Joseph wasn’t very involved with the next part of the plan. Alex went in, spent about a half hour talking to the ponies there, and emerged with the insect in tow. He pretended not to be watching, though of course he was staring. Why did other ponies make such a big deal about her, again? Yeah, she looked like a bug. So what? Bugs looked like bugs, and he didn’t mind so long as they stayed away from his face and his monitor.

Once Alex and the girl were gone, they all headed over to Adrian’s RV, to willingly perpetrate the first-ever crime in Alexandria.

He hadn’t actually gone inside as they walked over, waving to them. There was something feeble about the gesture, as though he barely had the strength to lift his limbs. “Hey guys.” Adrian glanced between them. “Must’ve been a good meeting. We gonna plan a party for Riley or something?”

“Yeah!” Cloudy Skies reached him first, embracing him unexpectedly. She wasn’t quite so large as the stallion, but she was big enough to obstruct most of his vision with a hug. Oliver was able to get behind him, removing a prepared syringe. “It’s going to be a ‘your friend saw a doctor’ party!”

“Now, Joe!”

Adrian shoved away from Cloudy, or he tried.

That was when Joseph reached within himself, drawing upon the magic of his race.

Alex had asked him several times to describe the sensation of casting a spell. Maybe, she had told him, if he could be detailed enough, she could recreate that same feeling in herself and master magic too. That had been in a simpler time, before they learned their assigned species had discrete differences. Even then, he had struggled.

There was no deactivating the magical senses that came with his horn. Like an irritating bit of clothing or a persistent sound, he generally tuned them out, letting them fade into the environment. He had to call this vision back in order to use his levitation, and so he let his eyes lose focus. It wasn’t sight; more like volume. He saw the ley lines of the universe, and the invisible mana that traveled through them. Time seemed to slow around him as he focused on the mana trapped around Adrian’s body.

This would be far more difficult than levitating an object. Objects had mana the same way a stagnant pool had water. A pony, though… a pony was like an ocean. Adrian in particular seemed to be roiling with it, twisting with invisible convection and forming invisible patterns to imitate his thoughts. They took angry dissonance with his fury, a roiling cumulonimbus towering above and around him.

To succeed, Joseph’s will would have to be stronger. First came the step his book called the imago, the vision of the spell. He saw an invisible hand of iron, its grip firm enough to shatter stone. He saw the hand descend into the angry field that surrounded Adrian, ignoring the dissipating energy and becoming real. It would hold him without interfering with the magic of anypony else.

Magic did not come from nothing; he had known that long before he had learned about Equestria or read their books. Magic required more than simple willpower, and more than belief. It required faith. It wasn’t like a religion; it didn’t much care where his faith was. When Joseph cast a spell, it was his absolute confidence in an ordered universe that gave him the strength to perform magic. Hydrogen would always collapse to form stars; light would always move the same speed in a vacuum, and time would always flow forward.

That confidence formed the core of the spell, the nucleus around which Joseph could draw mana from himself and the space around them. Generally the amount of energy it took to move an inanimate object was so insignificant he could scarcely feel it. Now though, he felt the rush from within, like a brief blush to his whole body and fluids drawn up to his horn. All that energy came together in a blazing instant, exploding out in a glow of pink illumination.

Adrian shrugged, but Joseph’s will crushed down upon him. Adrian’s body was strong, but Joseph didn’t let him fight that way. He brought his very soul to bear, resting on a foundation of physics and mathematics. It really wasn’t a fair fight.

Rather than give up the spell, Joseph used it to help guide Adrian into the back of the waiting ambulance. Only then did he move into the last stage of the spell, disassociation. Magic tended to take on a life of its own once given form by a pony; if he didn’t make an effort to disassociate himself from it, it would draw on his life force to keep doing whatever it wanted. With most levitation that only meant reminding the object it was actually supposed to be sitting on the ground. In this case, it took a sustained act of concentration, reminding himself that he didn’t have a gigantic glowing hand made of metal.

The strength left him in a rush, leaving his limbs momentarily shaky. He abruptly found Moriah beside him, letting him lean against her with a reassuring smile. She knew what that feeling was like, and more. After all, she had somehow performed a spell that reversed seven years of time in a small area, including several objects and one pony. She would know what the exhaustion was like.

“Do you need us?” he asked, when he had enough strength to get his mouth to move again. “I could… use a rest.”

Oliver shook his head. “Not for a few hours. Alex already helped me with the power situation. I might need you if there’s any surgery to be done, though. Magic is more precise than hooves. Just stay close to a radio.”

He nodded. “Sure, radio. I’ll eat extra radio, doc.”

Moriah shoved him slightly, glaring at Oliver. “Remember; don’t do anything permanent without waking him first.”

The stallion looked as if he might say something to argue, and for several tense moments his eyes met Moriah’s. Joe could practically see the sparks and feel the heat, though much of that was probably because his magical senses were still itching to be used. Eventually he said, “I’ll wake him if amputation is the only way. Otherwise, I won’t. His judgement has clearly been compromised by his injury."

Cloudy looked helplessly between the two of them, then hopped up into the back of the ambulance beside Adrian. She pulled the doors shut from within, meeting Joseph’s eyes once with a single sympathetic glance before she vanished inside.

Joseph tugged at Moriah’s coat, trying to draw her away. She would keep an argument going for hours if she got her way. Fortunately Oliver didn’t seem very interested in fighting her tonight either, because he turned and hurried into the truck too.

“We’ll be in touch!” The engine roared, the wheels tearing several deep divots in the grass before gaining enough traction to take the ambulance away, out onto the street and into Alexandria proper.

Part 2 (Joseph) - Chapter 3

Moriah was still seething by the time they made their way back to their house.

Okay, maybe not house. The tiny town of Paris, Illinois had hundreds of homes. Unfortunately, all of them were set up to require a connection to power, water, and sewage. As they had yet to repair or replace any of these three systems on a universal scale, they would all have to live like nomads for a little while longer.

After having the last city he lived in burned to ash around him, Joseph actually liked it. If the same thing happened here, he could take his home with him this time. Well, he would’ve if he’d known how to drive. He had Moriah for that.

All of them had chosen from among the most expensive and luxurious models available, knowing full well that by the time they wore down they would long since have switched to living in proper homes. There was a subtle irony in the unit Joseph had chosen: it was meant to transport horses. The back third of the vehicle contained enough space for two of the gigantic animals, though it had none of them now. The choice had been made for good reason, though; it was where he kept the servers of the Kimballnet.

The reassuring blue glow from behind the glass divider told him all he needed to know about the current functionality of the system, so he turned his attention to something more pressing: calming Moriah down. He went straight to the wine-cooler, as he generally did whenever somepony got her into one of these moods.

He found what he had been looking for: an expensive bottle he had “liberated” during his visit to St. Louis, and popped the cork with a simple effort of will. He hardly even heard the mare ranting, focusing his attention instead on drawing two crystal glasses from a cabinet and filling them each about a third of the way. He had been with her long enough that acting like he was paying attention had become almost reflexive. Nod here, “I completely agree” there, and the mare was none the wiser!

Or so he told himself.

Joseph took both glasses over to the couch where Moriah sat, offering her one in his glowing pink grip. He was tired enough from having to hold Adrian that he actually noticed the difference when she took it and he had half the weight to hold.

“I’m really going to do it, Joe,” she said, after taking a gentle sip from her glass. “If he mutilates Adrian in his sleep, I’ll kill him.”

Joseph hopped up onto the couch, careful not to agitate it too much. Unlike Moriah, who had to sit strangely in order to give her access to her forelegs to manipulate objects while she sat, Joseph could just sit on his haunches the way the pony body seemed to want to and use his magic for what his hands had once done. He also couldn’t tell the difference between a ten dollar bottle of wine and a five-hundred dollar bottle, but apparently Moriah could, because her first few sips were all it took to make her smile.

“We’ll have to get the rest of this on our next trip; this is amazing.” She swirled the glass around in her hooves, which Joseph personally found just a little amazing. The other ponies in his group could demonstrate some fantastic dexterity, including holding crystal wine glasses without breaking them. Maybe there was another form of magic he just didn’t need to learn.

It was all he could do to keep up with her train of thought. “He won’t do it.” Joseph took another crude sip. “Oliver knows how much you don’t want him to do it without asking Adrian’s permission first.”

Moriah’s face darkened again. “Oliver doesn’t care what I think.”

“No,” he reluctantly agreed. “But he cares what Alex thinks, and Alex wants Alexandria to be peaceful.”

She glowered at her glass, before taking a long swig, wiping the excess away on the back of her leg. It wasn’t a particularly ladylike behavior. Joseph didn’t really care; he wasn’t very ladylike either. “I guess not. It still seems wrong to me she would even consider subjecting another pony to what I felt. Taking something precious away in your sleep like that-”

Her words hit him like a null pointer exception, and made him feel equally stupid. Of course Moriah wouldn’t want Adrian to get a wing amputated while he slept! How had he not realized what she was going on about for so long? Clearly life needed to teach him a little humility. “We could go to the hospital and make sure,” he offered, briefly resting his head on hers. There was enough of a height difference between them that it was easy, even with the difference in the way they were sitting.

“Not yet.” She took another sip of wine. “He’ll have to properly sedate him. Get an x-ray, dig through Equestrian books… we’re safe waiting a few minutes. Just don’t pour me any more of this, okay? I might drink it if you do, and we’ll need to think clearly.”

Joseph nodded. It took more than half a glass of wine for him to feel much of anything; Moriah too. Ponies didn’t have nearly the resistance humans did, though; they just didn’t have the mass. They wouldn’t be any help to Adrian if they were drunk. “How’s the radio coming? I saw all those trucks of stuff you drove to the courthouse…”

Moriah relaxed. “Nobody wants to let other people know we’re here more than I do.” She accepted his touch, leaning against him in a way that was far more friendly than sexual. He was glad for that; he was far too exhausted for anything more than friendship right now. “I’m getting better at the electrician stuff. The problem is energy; the wider the area we cover, the more power we need. You don’t just lay solar panels on the ground and expect them to work, you’ve got to get the angle right, make sure they won’t be shaded, wire them all up correctly so the voltage works right, get them into the inverter without ending up with too little or too much current. Not to mention that depending on solar means we don’t get to send anything at night. Unless you want to have a room full of batteries, which means we would be setting up three battery backups. At some point it would just be easier to get the city’s power on again.”

“You think we have enough ponies to set that up?”

She grunted. “Probably not. But we’d be closer if the ponies we had could use their powers.” She looked up towards her forehead, towards the void. “I feel like trying the prosthetic again. We could practice some levitation together before we go to the hospital. I might need it, if Oliver tries anything.”

Joe felt a chill behind his heart. He really, really didn’t want to do the prosthetic thing tonight. Moriah had a tendency to blow holes in things whenever she wore it. “You sure you wouldn’t rather take me down to the courthouse? We could work on the radio together! We could make the first broadcast! Maybe we could get your antenna to transmit all the way to those other ponies in… wherever they’re at…”

Moriah shoved him, before setting her empty glass down and hopping down onto her hooves. “I’m going to practice again, Joseph. I would prefer you come with me, but I won’t force you.”

If she tried unicorn magic without him, she might set the town on fire, might end up a crater… “Okay!” He hopped onto his hooves, glancing longingly at his 3DS before following Moriah down the steps and out onto the gravel path that led to their door. Moriah led the way to the many pull-out drawers on the side of the RV, gripping one in her mouth and drawing it outward. She didn’t have to take it very far, just far enough to expose a slim wooden box inside it. She carried it in her mouth over to a folding table and chairs, flipping on the exterior lights with a hoof as she went.

The tiny rosewood box was one of the many gifts Alex had brought back from Equestria, apparently one that had been given to her after inquiring about Moriah's condition. Alex hadn’t said much about it, except that they were extremely expensive in Equestria and that there weren’t any more in all the gifts Equestria had given them. Moriah had to treat it like a sacred relic, since they would have to reverse-engineer it one day. A flick with her nose undid the latch, and she delicately lifted the front of the box away with her teeth.

The prosthetic rested on a bed of felt, insulated from any motion by the protection of several little wedges of foam. It consisted of a single piece of carved wood, shaped into an average-looking horn. A chunk of crystal emerged from within, wrapped with thick cloth and attached to a harness meant to wrap around the head. Several little brass straps and clips secured the whole thing in place, though the little charm made the straps take on the color of Moriah’s coat and mane when it was actually worn.

Of course, not having a horn meant getting it on her face was basically impossible without help, but Joseph was equal to that. He undid the buckles one by one, lifted the whole assembly onto Moriah’s head, and tightened each until it was secure. It wouldn’t have been true to say that he couldn’t tell Moriah was wearing a prosthetic, but it looked worlds better than the stump she normally had.

“Don’t try anything!” He set a hoof on her shoulder, firm enough to push her down a little. “Let’s get away from the RVs. That field back there will be perfect! Away from where anyone lives.”

Moriah complied, though he was fairly sure she wouldn’t have if he hadn’t been so insistent. Moriah was like a flame, fit to consume everything if not carefully controlled. That was just fine with him, though. Joe could do fire. Even if he generally preferred peace, war could be fun too.

“What are we doing first?” Moriah asked, eager. “Something awesome, right? Something awesome!”

“Yeah.” It was full on night now, and pony vision just wasn’t good in the dark. The glow of the RV had barely been enough to get this far. So before he could search, he had to make light. Good thing he had been reading about the light charm today. Perfect time to give it a shot.

His horn flickered under his concentration, sparking several times before it finally began to glow, radiating a soft pink like a little lava lamp. Maintaining the glow while levitating over a few rocks for Moriah was trivial after that; neither took very much of his energy. That was a good thing, since he had so little to spare right now. He picked the smallest stones for that reason, making a pile on a clear patch of dirt and dismissing the levitation spell. Once cast, he could keep the glow going effortlessly.

“We’ll try levitation again, since it’s the most important skill. Try not to hit me with anything this time, okay?”

“I will!” She beamed, cheeks a little rosy. No, that had to be his imagination. She had fur, after all! “I read the books you gave me! I can do this!” She focused her attention on the stones. “I can completely do this.”

She completely couldn’t.

Part 2 (Joseph) - Chapter 4

As it turned out, Joseph was needed that night, and not because Oliver had to amputate. The medical details were all lost on him, but he ended up spending enough of that night and the next morning in the hospital that he abandoned his plans for the next day and just slept solidly through the whole thing. It was a good thing blood and fluids didn’t bother him, because he had seen more of both than he had bargained for.

Working beside Oliver was enough to remind him that he wasn’t the only pony with magic. Despite lacking hands, Oliver’s intuition and skill were downright supernatural. More than once Joe had thought Adrian would die, or at the very least they would have to sever the wing in order to let him heal. In the end they had been forced to cut away a large part of the muscle and break at least one bone back into place. The wing itself would (hopefully) not have to be amputated.

Adrian was hurting too much to be furious, when the procedure was said and done the next day. When he protested, Oliver showed him a plastic container reeking of death filled with what they had removed from his wing. “You could’ve done another two weeks, maybe. Would’ve spent them in agony. Really, it’s a miracle you could still stand.”

Actually they discovered that part wasn’t a miracle at all, and that Adrian had been abusing various painkillers in order to stay on his feet. His time in the hospital would be extended into getting him off a nasty painkiller addiction. Joe was thankful he wasn’t really being asked to help with that; it sounded completely overwhelming.

Even if he hadn’t known Adrian for more than a month, he did want to help him recover. Once his first week was over and they had started bringing him down from the ocean of chemicals Oliver prescribed to him, Adrian started asking about the satellite network. He insisted Alex be the one to retrieve a set of books from his RV, since she was the “only one he could trust.” Joe, meanwhile, had come to set up a satellite phone in the interior room. Since the transmitter needed a direct line to the sky, he’d had the incredibly difficult task of laying some wire about twenty feet to a window and hanging the antenna accessory outside.

That done, he levitated the cable and Adrian’s phone into the hospital room, trying to smile. “Hey, Adrian.”

The room had been decorated since last he had visited three days ago, though the decorations and color scheme had very clearly been chosen by a child. Paper hearts and half-inflated “get well soon” balloons hung limply from bedposts and random points on the wall. A mountain of stuffed animals in one corner seemed also to be somepony’s bed. The room had no windows (Joe wasn’t exactly sure why that was, but he suspected it had something to do with preventing Adrian from escaping), but someone had strung up a chain of bright LEDs, and those did a passable job simulating sunlight… at least enough for him to see.

There were three ponies inside. Adrian was in bed, covered with a thin sheet with his books beside him. He looked weak, and Joe knew he couldn’t walk more than a few steps without collapsing. Flying, of course, was out of the question.

Riley and Alex were also here, not far away. Alex had a hotplate and several different cooking ingredients, and was apparently making a morning omelet. Judging by the smell she was trying her best, but she clearly lacked Sky or Oliver’s talent for cooking. “Hey Joe.” She took a spatula in her mouth, flicking the little omelette over on itself “Mmgm wnnn nnn?”

He shook his head, though it wasn’t because he wasn’t hungry. “Nah, I’m good." He passed Riley, ignoring the girl’s strange eyes and stranger body. He hadn’t ever really tried to get a good look at her, nor did he intend to. Dealing with children was not something he wanted to do, strange bug-body or no. Thank goodness Alex and Adrian took it upon themselves. Like medicine, children were outside the narrow sphere of things Joseph cared about.

“Got my phone set up?” Adrian asked, his voice a little weak.

“I will in a minute.” He set everything down on the bedside table, connecting the outlet to one of the extension cords on the ground and the antenna to the waiting port. “Probably haven’t missed much though, right?”

Adrian glowered. “I don’t know, I haven’t been in touch.” He reached once towards the phone, straining with his foreleg. Joseph ignored the gesture, moving the phone through its bootup and configuration process using his magic.

“Mr. Joe-” Riley squeaked. He ignored her, and she spoke up again. “Mr. Joe, have you been near a radio today?”

He stopped, not bothering to suppress an exasperated sigh. “No, I haven’t. It’s only ten.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Why?”

“There’s a transmission! Or… Or there was? Earlier. Alex heard it, she said I could tell you… cuz you’re good with codes? You broke one a few months ago…” Her wings perked up on her back as she spoke, similar to the way Sky acted when she spoke. Was it cute? Maybe a little. Not cute enough for him to want to go through her instead of the pony who had actually noticed it.

“Why didn’t you call me?!” He advanced on Alex. “Moriah and I are in charge of the radio now!”

Alex wasn’t a large pony; even standing to cook she had to be a foot shorter than he was, probably more. She didn’t flinch under his anger, not the way Sky or even Moriah might. Even Oliver. He supposed he knew why; she had stood down Moriah and been blasted with some of the worst unicorn magic could offer, after all. That hadn’t killed her, so why should she be afraid? It still annoyed him. She scooped the omelette up onto a plate, took the plate right past him without answering, and set it down on the table next to the bed. “You want ketchup too, Adrian?”

He shook his head. “Hot sauce, please.”

She walked past Joseph again, rummaged through her spices, and carried the sauce over to him. Only after did she turn around. “It stopped transmitting already, a few more minutes wasn’t going to change anything. It wasn’t as though we have a working transmitter to reply.”

“Wrong, Alex!” He puffed out his chest. “Moriah’s going to have it working by the end of the day. Power’s all working, all she has left are a few basic tests and we’ll be good to go!” He nodded smugly. “That’s why we have the walkie-talkies, isn’t it? So we can tell each other about important news right when it happens! You’re the one who said that!” It felt good to be the one telling her off for once.

She just nodded, turning back to meet Riley’s eyes. “You still have the paper I gave you?”

Riley nodded, rummaging around in the pile of stuffed animals for several moments before drawing out a piece of notebook paper in her mouth, offering it to him. He took it in his magic. “We didn’t know how long it would take for you to show up today, so Alex said I could hold it until-”

“Yeah.” Joseph turned, unfolding the slightly damp square of paper in the air and smoothing it with invisible fingers so he could read it clearly. The text read:

H-tul-q-kar-ydk-qh-bvlt-tul-p-mak-kar-xb-tul-kar-vp-tul-pcz-kum-jq-kar-nml-pw-tul-mwfg-x-kum-n-kum-tul-dbbqf-lv-tul-x-mak-kum-min-hpfl-min-mes-gmyh-p-tul-vri-hh-min

“This is… This is all of it?” he asked, when he had gone over it at least a dozen times. “There’s nothing missing at the front or the back?”

Alex nodded. “It repeated twice. I could repeat it from memory if you want to-”

“Nah.” He didn’t want to see that skill demonstrated again, even if it was its own kind of impressive. “If you’re sure.” He stuffed the sheet away in one of the pockets of his pants, turning back to the satellite phone. He worked while Adrian ate, though neither of them seemed very interested in what they were doing. Already his mind was spinning. He wouldn’t let it take months to decipher the code, not this time. This time, he would show them his lifetime of experience was worth something.

“How long are you gonna be stuck here?” Riley asked, sitting herself down again beside Adrian’s bed.

“I’m not sure,” he answered, mouth full. “Until that bastard Oliver lets me go.” He spat the name, venom in his voice. “It’s not like there’s anything wrong with my legs…”

Riley’s voice did not share any of his burning loathing. “Oliver said he didn’t have a choice. Wouldn’t you have died if he didn’t do anything?”

Adrian was mercifully silent for a time, letting Joe think long enough to enter a few more commands. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t work while people were speaking! One more bandwidth test, and he could get out of the stupid hospital and do some real work.

“I guess.” Adrian pushed the plate away from him a little. “Can I have another, Alex? I swear these drugs are starving me.”

“Sure. Just give me a few minutes. You want to help me crack a few more eggs Riley?”

“Yeah!” The insect-pony lept to her feet again, buzzing across the room towards the stove.

“SHUT UP!” Joseph glared around the room at them all. “YOU WANTED ME TO GET YOU ON THE NETWORK, BUT I CAN’T SO LONG AS YOU ALL KEEP RUNNING YOUR GODDAMN MOUTHS!” His horn flared briefly, though only light came from it. Nobody said anything, though Riley cowered behind the grill.

“Good. You all just stay shut up for a few more minutes.” They did. Without the distraction of constant conversation, Joseph was able to get the phone connected. He pushed it towards Adrian, stepping back. “There you go, Adrian. You’re on the VPN, you can make calls, knock yourself out.” He looked to Alex. “I’ll let you know when I get this translated. Moriah said she would need me for some of the computer stuff, so I might not get time until tonight.”

“Okay, Joe.” She didn’t look happy. “Let me know if you learn anything.”

“Thanks,” Adrian offered, sounding distinctly half-hearted. “I’ll ask the other settlements if they heard that radio thing. Maybe we can figure out where it’s coming from.”

Joseph left without a word. There was no car waiting for him, but there was an electric ATV. He twisted the key and set off down the road, balancing himself precariously on the seat built for humans. Naturally he hadn’t made it half a mile before his phone started ringing. It was that kind of day.

There was no caller ID. Joe levitated his bluetooth headset out of a pocket, clipping it to his ear somewhat painfully before pressing the button that would answer the satellite call. “Joe,” he answered, with all the venom he could muster. “How can I help you?”

“Joe,” said a female voice on the other end. “As in Joseph Kimball, perhaps?”

“Yeah. Who is this?”

“I am specialist Taylor Gamble, HPI Corps of Engineers.”

He suppressed a gasp. The HPI were calling anyone besides Alex now? “Okay Taylor. How can I help you?”

“Are you the one responsible for the digitization of alien intelligence? We’re eager to get started on those books down here, but we haven’t received anything.”

Of course. Freakin’ HPI call, and it’s a wrong number. “No, I’m not. You want to talk to Oliver Pittman. Do you need his number?”

Pause. “No, thanks. I’ll call him instead.” He expected her to hang up, but she didn’t. Instead she said, "Would you mind if I asked you a question?”

He had to think about that. Good thing there wasn’t traffic anymore, or else he probably would’ve been run over. Granted a town like Paris probably hadn’t ever had that much traffic to begin with… “Okay.”

“What’s it like? Being something else. It sounds fascinating. You know, there are so many stories in mythology about creatures that can change their shape. Or about people who were cursed by the gods or the ancestors or the spirits or whatever to take on animal form. You’ve actually done it!”

He took a deep breath. “It’s, uh… It was pretty terrible at first. Losing your hands is probably the worst. Tripping over yourself when you move… What do you care, lady? You’re not going to be changed into anything. You didn’t get changed into a screwy alien horse.”

“Yeah.” She sounded almost wistful. “Oh, one more thing. You’ll probably get another few calls today. The boys in satcom wanted to have a word with the one who screwed with the Iridium network, and my notes here say that was you. Unless we’ve got that wrong too…”

“No.” He groaned. “That was me.”

“Excellent! Have a great day, Mr. Kimball!” The line went dead.

Joseph found himself wondering if he would ever get to work on the code.

Author's Note

Hey everypony, just a friendly reminder to please be considerate with the spoiler tags!

Part 2 (Joseph) - Chapter 5

Joseph knew almost nothing about how to be in a successful relationship with a woman. Indeed, he had never been in one prior to the Event, and his brief experiments and attempts had shown him that what little he had learned online and in printed media fell woefully short of the mark when it came to providing useful instruction. So far, he had only managed to discover a few things. The most important thing was that, just like men, women liked it when you spent time with them and cared about the things they cared about.

It seemed a revolutionary idea to him, so much so that he wrote it down somewhere on his computer where he would see it every day. Of course, the most difficult part wasn’t writing down something that seemed wise, but living it.

Finding a shared interest with Moriah hadn’t been difficult; both of them enjoyed video games, and they probably played more of them than anyone else in the colony. Indeed, they had spent a good number of hours making changes to one of the town’s theaters so they could play games on the big screen. A colossal waste of resources, but also an amazing way to let off steam.

But what else did he have in common with Moriah? A love of magic, for one. Moriah’s generally disastrous results when she tried doing magic had cured Joe of any real interest in helping her with it. Her power was tremendous, probably greater than his own. Unfortunately, the prosthetic seemed only to be a way to open up the floodgates at will, not a way to improve the quality of what came through.

There was one other thing they both loved, and it happened to be the only other thing that presented tangible benefits to the colony: solving mysteries. Moriah didn’t have any particular skill for it (or anything besides flying, that he knew), but she was fiercely stubborn and attentive to detail. That was often the most important factor.

The Edgar County Courthouse was located in the center of the town’s square. It was quite large and would probably make for all sorts of things for the community one day (as it had for two hundred years), but for now, one of the courtrooms made for an exellent work area. The building already had power for the radio (which Moriah had got working over a week ago), along with a wifi network sharing the satellite connection.

Joseph had his laptop upstairs, along with several rolling cork boards, all arrayed on the floor in place of the tables for defense and prosecution. The semicircle was ringed with the text of the transmission, covered with all sorts of printouts, probabilistic models, and charts from his attempts at hand-translation. So far, nothing he had done had turned into an answer, which was more or less to be expected at this stage.

Joseph liked to pretend he was a cryptographic genius, but in truth he was far better at keeping people out than breaking in. His “cutie mark” didn’t help him either, so much as he had otherwise felt his ability with computers had improved after he got it.

Moriah sat beside him in a hard wooden chair, sipping black coffee and scanning the text of the message. She looked to be deep in concentration, though Joe couldn’t even guess what she might be thinking. He was thinking that she looked cute when she was thinking, but he wasn’t going to say so. Moriah didn’t like it when he initiated things. She had to be the one in control, or she would shut down and not want to be around him for hours.

He would save the compliment for later.

“I think we’re going about this the wrong way,” she said, rising suddenly to her hooves and setting the coffee aside.

“Oh?” He watched her, trying to sound curious. He would never have admitted it, but he didn’t really think there was much chance she would solve it. She was here to help him, not the other way around. Still, he had to keep an open mind. Commercial pilots were many things, but he had never known them to be generally stupid.

“I think we should take a step back. We need to figure out who’s sending the message before we can try and decode it. Figure out why they’re encoding it. If we can crack their mindset, cracking the code should be easier too.”

“Okay.” He rose too, pacing along the length of the boards. The text itself was printed in gigantic letters to huge paper signs, a poster that spanned the whole distance. “So who’s sending it?”

“I don’t think it’s survivors, first of all.” Moriah gestured around the empty room. The courtroom could’ve easily seated 75, though they were the only ones inside. “We thought we were the only humans in the world for months. Why would we hide ourselves? We want to be found!

And no, don’t say it’s bad people left behind, because that doesn’t make sense either. What’s there to do that’s bad? There are so few other settlements, and they’re so spread out, you could rampage through half of them and nobody would know if it wasnt for the satellite phones… which I think it’s clear they don’t know about.”

“Because…”

“Because if they did, why would they be broadcasting their code for all the world over a transmission anyone could pick up and try to break? Those phones might be monitored, true, but they could’ve used their code over the line exactly like they’re using right now! That would’ve reduced the number of people who could try to break it to whoever is in control of the Iridium network.”

Joseph took a moment to process all that. Eventually he nodded. “Okay, so it wasn’t someone from the settlements Adrian has visited, because it makes more sense for them to be using the satellite network… and if they were, we’d never have known, because we actually don’t monitor anything. Who does that leave?”

“Not the HPI, we can kick them off the list. They have their own military satellites, and they don’t use vocal codes. We wouldn’t get anything from them. I don’t believe it would be other survivors at all… pretend I’m right, okay? That only leaves aliens. Equestrian aliens, to be specific.”

“The other universe is sealed off, right? For thousands of years.”

Moriah’s eyes narrowed. “That information is suspect.”

“Seriously?” It was his time to look incredulous. “If we can’t accept that, what can we accept? We’re not here to question everything they told us. We’re trying to crack a code.”

Moriah gave an exaggerated sigh. “FINE! We’ll pretend the ‘princess’ was being honest. Equestria has been cut off, so there wouldn’t be any point in sending radio messages back.”

“Not to mention this isn’t the Equestrian code. That was numbers, and it was a transmission powerful enough that we heard it all over the world. This one isn’t. The HPI didn’t hear it, and they’re only a few states away.”

“Yes.” She smiled. “Consider this: Sunset Shimmer sent her messages in code, and Alex never learned why. It wasn’t us she was trying to keep her messages from, it had to be other ponies. I would bet receiving a transmission from another universe takes some specialized equipment. I would bet that the people she was afraid would overhear were on this side. It’s even possible: likely given the evidence, that the ponies she was trying to conceal herself from chose to stay behind when Equestria supposedly drifted too far to allow for travel.”

It was quite the string of inferences, no doubt about that. Joseph didn’t know if he should be impressed or merely annoyed by it. He supposed that would come down to whether she turned out to be right. “Suppose that’s what happened: you’re saying the code is coming from more Equestrians. They’re stranded here for the rest of their lives. What’s the point of using code now? If they were opposing Sunset Shimmer and her group, it doesn’t matter because all of those ponies went home.”

“Let’s say they did.” Moriah paced past the corkboards, not seeming to really see them at all. “What kind of person is willing to leave their old world behind forever? Willingly sever themselves from family and friends forever. Like what happened to us, but… doing it to yourself.”

He considered that a moment, before finally answering, “Heroes and monsters. Could be ponies even more noble than Sunset and the ones like her, staying behind to help us rebuild. Or… Or it’s people who are so dissatisfied with their lives that they wanted a fresh start. Pioneers, or… revolutionaries. Criminals, political dissenters.”

“There would be no reason for the first group to hide. But the second-”

Joseph levitated a pen in front of him, guiding it and an empty piece of paper to the table and beginning to write. “So let’s assume we’re dealing with bad ponies from Equestria. What does that tell us?” He frowned. “They’re going to use an analog cypher. They won’t have or even understand computers. They’d be hiding either from… us, or from each other. Maybe they’re competing, or…”

He set the pen down. “It’s just speculation at this point, but it could be. If we could only decode it…”

“Hope to god it’s actually a code, not just some Equestrian language we don’t know. None of the books have anything about them. Unless they didn’t want-”

“Stop.” He put a hoof on her shoulder, though not in a romantic way. "We’re not trying to second-guess Luna or any of the ponies she sent. That’s another discussion, not related. We can’t have confounding variables. So… it’s bad ponies, or just political dissenters. They’re separated in more than one group, and they’re close enough that their transmitter doesn’t reach that far. What are they saying?”

Moriah stood beside him, resting her head on his shoulder. “That’s the question. Figure it out, Joe. I know you can.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I’ll… figure it out.”

The code had confounded him for over a week now. He would get it this time, and soon enough to actually make a difference.

“When you do, we can give them a call. Use their code… If they’re ponies who disagreed with how the Equestrian monarchs handled Earth, then they’re our friends. Maybe they can learn all the things we didn’t get books about. Learn how we can get even for what they did.”

Part 2 - Interlude

September 19, 2015

Dear Journal,

BREAKTHROUGH!

Yes, I did take the time to write that in capital letters, despite the fact I haven’t had hands for half a year and it took extra time. No, I didn’t rip through the page with my pen this time, ‘cuz I’ve become such an amazing BAWSS.

You might ask what the breakthrough is, because that would be a very sensible thing to wonder about. It has to do with the radio, because we knew that was going to be how we met people. We have ourselves a pretty nice rig now, even if it’s nothing near as nice as what they must be running out of the CMC for a signal to reach all this way.

We’ve been announcing our intentions to found a colony here, as well as advertising the library and its instructions for how to reboot Equestrian society. We didn’t want to start until we had a way to keep the books safe, since making them public almost certainly makes them one of the most valuable things in the world.

You might think that the HPI would be able to provide something similar for rebooting an industrial economy. Unfortunately, you would only be kinda right. The HPI is in a far worse situation than simply losing everyone to keep industry running. For them, the Earth is deadly. They cannot revert to more basic technologies without facing certain death. It’s not about giving up video games or air conditioning, it’s about running the shield that keeps them alive.

What does this mean for us? Mostly that we have to do our own research. Joseph has anything we could care to look up cached on the Kimballnet, and the HPI can get us digital versions of anything from the Library of Congress if we want it. Unfortunately we’re several generations too early to be able to actually reboot anything. With a population this small, it will be all we can do just to keep our existing machines running.

Equestrian industry is radically new, and we have the only guide to it in all the world. Instructions for earth ponies like me to grow crops in a third the time, keeping weeds from choking them out through force of magic instead of pesticides. Instructions for the pegasi on how to create weather. Granted, this seems a little like a luxury good right now, but in the future… can you even imagine the consequences?

Humanity has always been forced to bow before the natural might of the planet, as much as we say we don’t. Even at the height of industry, a storm barreling down the coast meant all we could do was board our windows and drive for our lives. Imagine a world where hurricanes never strike coastal cities. Where if there’s a drought, ponies just bring some rainclouds and end it. A world where we create our own rivers, and thunderstorms only rage away from where anyone lives.

I look forward to seeing that field mastered one day.

And the magic of unicorns? That power almost defies prediction. I know from personal experience the right magic can literally slice between worlds, take back what time has stolen, or change you from one species to another. Levitation is a great substitute for hands, but it’s only the exposed edge of the possibilities ahead of us.

What’s going to happen when we put magic and technology together? Will we see nuclear fusion at last, with magic spells containing the reactions? Flying cars animated by thaumic fields instead of gasoline? If humans had been given access to magic instead of being destroyed by it, it could’ve let us revolutionize our world.

Ponies all over the world will know about the library. Hopefully when Adrian eventually moves on, he’ll be able to find those ponies running the radio and they can get the word out to more than just the ponies in the few hundred miles around us. If I was a magical unicorn and I could teleport the way Sunset Shimmer could, I’d be teleporting myself around with satellite phones to give away.

Guess Adrian won’t be leaving for a little while. He’s walking just fine, but he’s still real tender. You know there are several major arteries in a pegasus wing? Who knew! It’s nothing short of a medical miracle he kept that wing. Medical magic, really. Don’t nopony say earth ponies can’t do magic in our own way.

Riley the changeling doesn’t like that she can’t spend more time with him. Not sure what Adrian thought. I wonder if he realized rescuing her was going to come along with such serious responsibilities. I guess you could say today was another kind of breakthrough with that pony, but that's probably a subject for after talking about the important one.

So, Moriah’s our radiophone. Radio operator. Radiologist- No, that’s something else. Anyway, she’s been in contact with several little groups since we got the radio up and running.

A caravan is on its way up. Several ponies looking for a place to live, plenty of others who intended to stay and study before bringing digital copies of the most important books back with them to wherever they came from. They’re on the clock to get here and learn what they can before winter freezes the roads (not to mention the fuel going bad all over the country). We expect the population of the colony to double if not triple when they arrive.

It’s going to change all kinds of things. The community we built isn’t going to feel the same, and who knows how we’re going to balance things with lots more people around. I’m not worried about food, and the water purifier supplying the RVs can handle way more load, but the social dynamics are already getting tricky. We can barely hold together with six, what are we going to do when there are eighteen? Fifty? Thousands?

Obviously, we’ll need a real government at that point. Make ourselves a real city, just like in the old days. Hopefully I don’t have to be a part of it, and I can go back to my farm. Err… my auto shop? Guess we probably won’t need auto shops by then.

I had another dream today, strange enough I thought it might be worth writing down. I’m not sure if dreams really mean anything. You’d think I would’ve taken advantage of my time around Equestria’s spirit of dreams to ask about a question that important, but I didn’t. So many questions I would’ve asked, if only I’d considered them at the time.

I was in a dark and dreary waste. I traveled for the space of many hours, and never saw another face. The wind howled, and I had only crude animal skins to hold against my bare skin and keep out the chill. Snow drifted as high as my knees, and hunger gnawed at me. I grew desperate for meat, but my arm was weak with cold and I could not throw my spear hard enough to catch anything.

When I felt as though I had spent the last of my strength, I collapsed to the snow and resigned myself to death. There was a shape already waiting there, and I nearly tripped on him. It was Huan, though even larger and stronger than I remember. I saw the flash of his teeth against the drifting snowflakes and knew I was doomed to die.

“I see your struggle,” he said. “I watch your crude hunters blunder in darkness, passing easy prey to follow those large enough for you to see. Take me with you; we will be one pack, and hunt together. Swear your friendship to me, and we will triumph together.” So I broke my spear, and wrapped it around his neck (don’t look at me, it made sense at the time), and we were one pack. Together we could conquer any creature. I hungered no more, nor did I fear I would be devoured in my sleep. Together we brought ruin to all creatures who opposed us, hunting many until none survived.

It did not last. The frozen waste dried, and the snow vanished from before my eyes. I stumbled knee-deep through dust, and beside me Huan’s fur became caked with it and his eyes clogged with it. We had hunted our largest sources of food, hunted until we had consumed all and again were left to hunger. The berries and fruits I found could not sustain us. Eventually I could walk no further, and I collapsed in the center of a grassy field to die.

The grass rose up all around me, into the shape of a great woman. “Why do you hunger?” she asked, her voice the whisper of a thousand thousand grains.

“There are too many,” I replied, “and the prey too few. We have hunted and bred and now I starve all over. Dog and I will die. Who are you? Why do you care?”

“I am Wheat,” the grasses said. “I am a rare and feeble grass. My fruit is not large or delicious, and I am too weak to war with all the other grasses. Alone, I will die.” She extended her hand. “Fight for me, and I will feed your starving children.”

I took her hand, and I planted a field that fed the world.

Dog and I starved no longer, though we didn’t hunt anymore. I met many other creatures, and they too struck bargains with me. Those that would not swear had to flee or be trampled into oblivion.

Yet still I was not content. I sat in the quiet of the night and looked up at the stars, and I wondered. I climbed the highest tree atop the tallest mountain, but still I could not reach them. I threw the largest rock I could with all my might, but I could not strike them. I did not understand, and I knew it.

In my despair, I thought I was doomed to die anew. Yet at my feet was the stone, a large black lump that had failed to strike the stars. In my haste to throw it, I dislodged the dirt, revealing a rock unlike any I had seen before. “Why do you despair?”

“We have overcome so much,” I said, of Dog and I, “but there is so much we cannot reach. If the boundaries of our lives are set already, why take the time to live at all?”

“Take me from the ground,” said Iron, extending his hand, “and together we will conquer the world.” And so we did.

The dream ended there, though. I’m not exactly sure what it meant. I think maybe I should stop glance-reading through the Harvard Classics. I think they’re doing strange things to my subconcious. When Equestria wasn’t so far away, I used to think that Princess Luna might still be trying to communicate with me, and that every dream I had might mean something. But that universe has drifted far, and might not ever return. Beyond that, I’m not sure how Luna could possibly know any of those things. I never told them the history of my species, not like that. Our conversation couldn’t have been more than four hours, if you count her explanation and then that encounter with her and her sister that evening.

“You are humanity,” they told me. “You are the will and the spirit, the dream and the soul.” What did they mean? They never said anything about what would happen to my memory. Their spell didn’t say anything about being impaled or surviving car accidents. Why does everything about magic have to be so esoteric? Magic needs to be more empirical. There have got to be some fundamental laws at work, right? The laws of physics as we understood them might have been lacking, but I don’t know why very much of it would’ve changed. It’s the same universe. I’m not going to throw out everything I learned in school just because we’d never seen real magic before.

Riley was the only one who saw. She’s the only one who knows; it is our little secret.

Today was a big day; I told her what I’d read about her species, the changelings. I will speak to the others tomorrow, though I fear what their reactions might be. She is (and has been) a literal emotional parasite. Adrian’s weakness, and occasionally my own, is directly explicable because of her being here. It’s never been anything serious, never enough to slow us down, but imagine the paranoia when I tell everybody that she’s sucking on our souls and taking the little bits that float to the top. Okay, that might be a silly way to explain it. Probably not that way.

I’m not sure why I feel like we have so much in common, Riley and me. Don’t say that it’s because we’re the closest in age either, because if you do I’ll break your face with one of these earth-pony hooves of mine. Maybe it’s because we’re both freaks now, though me more because I opened my big dumb mouth and less something I had no control over. Maybe it’s because we both like these stupid, shallow chick movies, the ones with a two dimensional romance and a few attractive actors. Cloudy Skies likes them too; just a little drama but generally super uplifting. She’d never watch anything with me if she knew Riley was going to come along.

But what am I supposed to do? Cloudy Skies is my friend! Riley needs companionship she can relate to better than a 26-year-old stallion. She already lives with him; Adrian needs some time to spend apart or else he’ll explode and we both know it. Nobody else will take Riley. Yeah, I guess she’s twelve. Yeah, I guess she could spend some time on her own… but I’m not sure where.

What’s worse, is that she can get into twice as much trouble. The Changeling section of the big book with all the different things people can turn into was only a few pages long, as I’ve ranted about before. It does say they can use magic, just like unicorns. Those wings aren’t vestigial either, they can also fly like Pegasi (but no mention of being able to kick down metal doors and grow plants, guess you aren’t stealing my abilities!) I told her today, and she looked as excited as a little girl on Christmas. Guess that makes sense: I was “giving” her all sorts of new powers. Well, she’d kinda guessed at the flying thing, but thought that her wings were too weak and holey to actually lift her.

We’ve got one pony who can fly: Cloudy Skies. Chances of her being willing to teach the changeling to fly? 0%.

We do have a unicorn, though! Riley would be much more able to contribute if she could magic things around with her horn. If she could do that, I could use her to replace Joseph! She’s much more fun to be around, actually laughs at my jokes and doesn’t mind it if I decide I just wanna run around and enjoy the day for a few minutes. No judgemental looks like keeping Moriah in the car with me.

Also that would free up Joseph for important-type work with computers. Also it would mean she could actually be useful to the settlement, instead of being just another mouth to feed, literally draining our emotions. Also, Joseph isn’t frightened of her like Cloudy Skies. He never really has been, doesn’t seem to care much about her either way. Didn’t have to overcome it like I did, or if he did there wasn’t much to overcome.

I don’t even feel weird around her anymore. I don’t see a freaky monster bug, I just see a scared little kid who lost her family. We’re her new family, and we’re a pretty lousy substitute. Doesn’t mean we can’t try, though! Or I can’t try. The big question remaining to me is: how do I get Cloudy Skies to get over her instincts and give Riley a chance?

Alex

Part 3 (Moriah) - Chapter 1

“You know you're going to love it, Sky.” The mare in question had supplemented her typically nonexistent wardrobe with a long black scarf with a red streak, along with a pair of flying goggles. Moriah had a pair too, taken from the many gifts Equestria had given, though she also had a leather jacket and pants, both tailored for her by the pony who called herself "Cloudy Skies".

“I'm not sure I will...” Sky advanced to where the aircraft sat, nudging the open door with one hoof. “These just look like tubes...”

“They are. Aluminum tubes!”

“And cloth. We're... going to fly in this? Just some tubes and some cloth? Is that safe?”

Moriah nodded vigorously. She had swept her mane back that morning, gelling and grooming it in preparation for the new arrivals. Just because she now lived in a body that disgusted her didn't mean she would let it fall into disrepair, or look less than presentable when making a first impression. “Don't you fly with less, Sky? Just those feathers and those wings. I promise your bones are weaker than these poles.”

Of course, Moriah didn't actually know that. This was the same model ultralight she had learned on as a kid. Assembling it had been harder than she remembered, but it hadn't flown that differently. It would’ve been easier if she had been able to use her horn, but considering things she pointed it at often disintegrated, she wasn’t about to take that risk with the plane she was flying. “Well yeah, but if something bad happens, we might not be high enough for me to get out!”

“I won’t let something bad happen.” She gestured to her own sides, notably devoid of wings. “I don’t have any chance of living through it. You can bet I’ll be careful.”

“Lonely Day really went with you?”

“Every weekend. Alex loves flying. She’s begged me every week to let her take the controls. She’s not afraid, and she doesn’t even have wings.”

“Day isn’t afraid of anything…” She poked her head into the belly of the little plane. “Looks pretty secure I guess.”

“It’s very secure.” She privately added, ‘I made sure of that this morning when I finished assembling it.’ She didn’t say that part out loud, though. Poor Sky was fearful of enough without her adding enough to scare her out of flying. Moriah could go alone, of course. But that wasn’t much of a first impression. The first new colonists ever were arriving in Alexandria today, and Alex wasn’t here to greet them. Nobody else seemed to want to, so that meant the duty fell to her. If she just arrived on her own, it wouldn’t look like Alexandria cared about them. Nevermind they were going to have a feast tonight, blow some of the last of their fresh food. It would be cans and more cans until Oliver’s next crop came in.

“We can’t just wait until they arrive? You said this wasn’t much faster than driving anyway, and if they’re close enough we’re going to reach them today…”

“Might be slower. Depends on the wind.” She gestured. “Get in, Sky. You’ll enjoy it. Quit second-guessing yourself.”

“O-Okay.” The pegasus pondered the door one last time, then hopped up, crawling around the front seat to sit in back. There were no controls back there; it wasn’t a copilot seat. This was only an ultralight, a plane with less power than some go-karts. There was a thrill to soaring through the air with so little between you and the sky, as close to truly flying as Moriah would ever experience.

If only the goddamn “Preservation Spell” hadn’t made her a unicorn. If only it hadn’t got lots of things wrong about her. Maybe she wouldn’t resent the Equestrians so much if they had given her more reason to be grateful. Maybe she wouldn’t loathe herself so much either. Pity Joseph was too frightened of heights; it was always good to have him around to drown her sorrows. She wouldn’t trust herself to drink just one glass of wine before flying.

Moriah kicked the triangular stops away from the wheels, slamming the door shut behind her by the rope tied there. The cockpit had been cramped before, but for a pony it was practically roomy. There was little to be done to adjust the joystick for pony control; even clumsy hooves could manipulate it with ease. Her legs could even reach the pedals, though they had added padding to the seat so her back wouldn’t go unsupported through the entire flight.

She made a show of the last of the pre-flight checks, going through them as though moving through a carefully choreographed dance. Alex had been a rapid learner and been able to help; she had done most of them herself this time, and only had the last few to go. Five minutes later, and she flicked the electric ignition. The engine roared, and the little ultralight began lurching forward along the ground. Her heart began to pound as they rolled along the deserted street. She felt the lightness as the wheels tried and failed to rip themselves free of Earth’s cruel grip, then the elation as they did, taking her up and up into the sky. Nothing like the heights a commercial aircraft might reach, which was part of what would limit their speed. The turbulence at such low altitudes could easily shake an ultralight to pieces.

A brisk wind could too, though she wouldn’t want to be airborne in anything during storm conditions, be it made from cloth or metal. Sky cheered from behind her as they rushed up and up, though they never got higher than about two thousand feet. So low, that the objects below them were still easy to distinguish. On a day like this, Moriah could easily navigate just by following the highway. That was exactly what she intended to do, fly along the highway until they saw any sign of the caravan moving in.

“We’re so high!” Sky shouted over the engine, which roared not so much because it was actually that loud as because it was only a few feet from their heads and the cabin wasn’t fully enclosed. That made things more exciting too, plus it justified wearing awesome flying goggles. Shame none of the helmets she found had fit on a stupid pony head. “I’ve come up this high a few times, but it’s been hard building up the endurance! The books from Equestria say that pegasus ponies can walk on clouds, but they’re way too high up to find out!” She glanced up out where a window would’ve been, looking straight up above them. Moriah was fairly impressed she could shout loud enough to be heard at all.

“I could bring you up if you want! I could probably slow down quite a bit over some clouds. You could hop out! Not sure how you’d get back in, though!”

Moriah didn’t see her expression, only heard her shout, “Maybe another time! I’d rather have a pony parachute if I was gonna try that, but I feel like it would probably get in the way of my wings! Maybe I’ll wait until Adrian can fly up with me!” Pause. “You’re really good at this, Moriah! How long have you been flying these?”

She glanced briefly back. “Since before I was old enough for it to be legal! Got my Private Pilot the day I turned seventeen. Best birthday present ever!” She took them into a sudden dive (well, as sudden as was safe for the delicate little plane), pulling gradually up and grinning.

“You were gonna be a pilot professionally then?”

“Yeah! My family’s been doing it for three generations now! I had less than twenty hours before I was gonna be eligible. Guess I’ll never make ATP now…” She trailed off, leveling them off in the air and staring off into the endless sky.

So the flight went. There wasn’t really much to be seen soaring above Illinois; not a single city to speak of anywhere they would be visiting today, only endless dead fields and rolling grasses and the occasional little farmhouse or town even smaller than Alexandria. Moriah found herself settling into a routine. There was no autopilot to set, but she found herself almost going into autopilot, watching the road in front of them and the sky and letting her mind drift amid the clouds.

Was flying easier for her now that she was a pony? It felt that way; like her hooves were operating on muscle memory, even though until a few months ago she had never used hooves to control anything. There were other kinds of instincts too, the sort that her father had sometimes talked about. Having a sense for what the weather was going to be, or knowing how to adjust her flightpath to compensate for pockets of turbulence. She was sure that in the event of something more serious, she would know what to do without even thinking about it even if it hadn’t been a circumstance she had been specifically trained for.

A few hours of flight later and Sky called out from behind her. “That’s them! See them in the distance?” She didn’t, not until she saw where Sky was pointing. Damn those pegasus eyes were sharp. Being so light meant it didn’t take long to bring them in for a landing. She gradually reduced their speed, pulling up for a gentle landing on the flat, featureless center of the highway. She used what remained of her momentum to coast to the side of the road.

“Help me turn ‘er around. We want to be ready to go as soon as they get here. Unless they’re slow as balls, they’ll beat us back to town anyway. Might as well not keep them waiting too long.” The ultralight was not heavy, not with two ponies pushing. The hardest part about getting it turned around was avoiding putting pressure anywhere they weren’t supposed to; even a pony might pop a support out of place (or worse, tear fabric somewhere). Such minor damage would nevertheless ground them; Moriah wasn’t stupid enough to trust her skill over substandard equipment.

They didn’t tear anything, though, and together they turned it around with plenty of time to spare. Enough time to relieve themselves, and to sit down by the little plane to await the caravan.

Once she had overcome her disgust from even such basic bodily functions, Moriah returned to feeling pretty good about the flight. Yeah, she couldn’t do anything special with the ultralight. Yeah, they hadn’t gone that fast. That hadn’t made it less fun, though. “You regret coming?”

Sky shook her head, grinning. “Way better than staying back at home without Alex to keep an eye on the freaky bugpony.” She glanced over at the ultralight. “I bet Alex didn’t even have that much fun riding in that HPI plane. Uh… Hummingbird? Yeah, that’s what they called it… Bet it’s not nearly as much fun without having the wind in your face…”

“Did you never fly before the Event, Sky?”

“Nope,” she agreed. “My family didn’t really… I was kinda lucky when they just forgot about me. Fancy trips? Not a chance in hell!” One of her hooves ground into the dirt, just a little.

Moriah was surprised she could even hear it. “Sorry to bring it up. I don’t mean to make you relive something unpleasant…”

Sky sniffed, wiping a few angry tears away from her face before nodding appreciatively. “It’s not your fault I lived in a shithole. It’s all good now, though. I’ll never have to see those people ever again. Gone forever… gone forever…”

Part 3 (Moriah) - Chapter 2

They didn’t have to wait long for the caravan to appear. It wasn’t all that loud, though Moriah found herself impressed by the resourcefulness she saw even at a distance. Most of the vehicles appeared to be military. As they drew closer, she was able to count a total of four vehicles: one cloth-covered personnel carrier, one covered military cargo truck, one fuel tanker, and one civilian semi towing what looked to be a daisy-chain of three different trailers. What the hell kind of engine was in that thing?

Sky, with somewhat reckless friendliness, made her way to the center of the road and plopped herself down there, so that the caravan would be forced to notice them and to stop. When she had spoken with the caravan’s “leader” last night, she had told him they would meet them on their way into Alexandria. She hadn’t hinted they might do it in a small, hobby aircraft. She expected to be both amused and smugly satisfied by the expressions she saw.

She wasn’t disappointed. Ponies stared openly as the vehicles approached, though ponies were not the only creatures she saw. The cargo truck brought up the front, and at the wheel… she had no words to describe this creature, had never seen anything like it.

Sky did though, and she exclaimed, “Oooh, a diamond dog! I was reading about those the other day.”

“Those biceps are insane,” Moriah whispered, as he parked the truck. Air brakes screamed in her ears as the caravan lumbered to a hault. “He must not skip arm day.”

Sky nudged her slightly. “That’s not nice… Actually, they use their forepaws to dig burrows, so they get much stronger than their legs. The book said other things about them, but I kinda only skimmed after the first page.”

Moriah didn’t get to reply, because at that moment the door opened and the “diamond dog” hopped out.

Holy crap was he tall. He probably would’ve been at a height with her before the Event, thickly muscled and covered with dark grey fur. His “paws” clearly had opposable thumbs, though they looked closer even than a great ape’s. Like massive bludgeons more than paws. What sort of damage would it do if he decided to hurt them? He probably could’ve snapped her little ultralight if he wanted.

He wore military fatigues, though his strange body deformed them with knees that bent the wrong way and a tail that shouldn’t have been there. He also had a black tee-shirt, with military identifiers Moriah couldn’t read.

“You folks must be from Alexandria.” His voice was gravely and strangely deep, his expression wary. Moriah noted a holster prominently on his belt, holding a large pistol. It looked like something had been done to the trigger, but she didn't want him to see her staring at it. “I guess this means we’re going the right way.” Several faces poked out from the back of the cloth-walled personnel carrier, but nobody actually stepped out to talk. Evidently they trusted their leader to handle the situation. Whatever.

Moriah moved close enough to reach him. Then, with a supreme effort of balance, she rolled back onto her hind legs and offered him her hoof to shake. “Moriah Strickland.” He looked surprised, but took her hoof and shook it firmly. It didn’t hurt, though she was sure it would’ve if she still had hands. That was a hell of a grip! “You’re Mr. Abrams?” She couldn’t hold the gesture longer than his “handshake” and fell immediately back onto her hooves when it was done.

The “diamond dog” looked a little uncomfortable with the name, but he nodded anyway. “I suppose I’ll have to get used to ‘mr.’ sooner or later.” Pause. “We’re going the right way then, I take it. No obstructions on the road? Though I suppose you might not have noticed if you flew all the way here…”

“Nothing serious,” she replied, taking another look at their vehicles. “Nothing that would slow down a convoy like yours. Minor debris. If you’d come up from the south instead, it would’ve been clear. But we haven’t traveled north that often past the neighboring towns. We’ll get around to it eventually.”

He nodded, directing his attention to Sky, who was at that moment poking her head past Moriah while simultaneously trying to remain unseen behind her. In the second at least, she did not succeed. “Are you Alex Haggard then?”

Sky blushed, shaking her head. Her mane cascaded down in front of one of her eyes, and she made no effort to free it. “N-No, Mr. Abrams. I’m just… nopony…” She retreated a pace, staring suddenly at the ground.

“That’s Cloudy Skies,” Moriah explained. She had to fight not to roll her eyes while she said it, but she managed. “Alex was called away. She should be back by tomorrow. She’ll miss our celebration tonight I’m afraid… but she’s still eager to meet your group. She’s put me in charge while she’s away.”

“Ahh.” He glanced over his shoulder, frowning just slightly. “How long to Alexandria from here?”

“About two hours. Lots of little small towns along the way. The highway goes right through it though, so you can’t miss it. Just follow the signs for ‘Paris.’ We’ve painted over the ones in town itself, so you should know when you’re there. Take your first right onto Main Street and follow it until you see the courthouse. If you beat us back there, our ponies should be waiting for you there. I was thinking we would worry about the intricacies of housing and stuff when Alex gets back.” Mainly because she had forgotten to ask what Alex had planned when the HPI came for her. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. Somehow Abrams struck her as the sort of man who didn’t tolerate the slightest sign of weakness or incompetence.

“Alright, ma’am. We’ll meet you there. Safe flight.” He didn’t wait for her to answer, just turned around and loped back into the truck. Soon the caravan was passing them, Sky waving timidly and Moriah just standing to watch. She tried to count the ponies, but couldn’t get a good look into the back of the truck.

She would say this for the caravan: they sure knew what they were doing. Had she expected different? Maybe a little. Most people would’ve been helpless at the end of the world. She would’ve been, if it hadn’t been for Alex and her group. She could admit that freely now. Was Abrams that same sort of force for these ponies? She looked forward to finding out, even if having so many newcomers to the settlement made her nervous. They had put so much time and energy into Alexandria. If they lost it all again, after what happened in Los Angeles… she wasn’t sure if she would be able to cope.

The flight back was unremarkable, except in that she learned Sky could shout for nearly two hours straight without losing her voice. For all she had been nervous during the meeting, she seemed extremely excited. Moriah tried to share her enthusiasm, though privately she had already started forming contingencies. What would they do if the new ponies tried to take over? What would they do if Abrams decided the Equestrian books really belonged to him, and that his group would take them for themselves? If the library became a disputed asset, it was likely to remain that way for all of time. Would the Equestrian princesses be happy if their books were used as pieces in violent political chess?

Moriah didn’t care. She would give those “princesses” the bird with both hands to their faces. If she… had hands. Too bad she wouldn’t get the chance. She found herself tuning Sky out for much of the flight, turning over envy in her gut. Maybe if she had been with Alex, she would’ve gotten to go to Equestria too. Even if she couldn’t give the princesses a piece of her mind, it seemed reasonable to her they would at least be able to find the time to fix certain mistakes the spell had made. She couldn’t have her humanity back, but that would’ve been fair, right?

Every time she woke up beside Joseph in bed, every time she had to use the bathroom, and every twenty-one days, she found herself wondering why Alex hadn’t asked Equestria’s ruling monarchy to fix her body. They had the power, didn’t they? But in all the memory Moriah had seen, Alex hadn’t bothered to even try.

She didn’t understand, fixing the transformation would’ve been her very first request. Had Alex even asked during the secret, second meeting when she had met with all four princesses, instead of just the one called “Luna?” To her never-ending frustration, Alex wouldn’t say. She wouldn’t talk about that second meeting at all, in fact, except to explain that she had formally been entrusted with the guardianship of the books and some made-up title of ambassador for a civilization that might not even be within speaking distance again for thousands of years.

As it turned out, they beat the caravan back into town after all. Moriah pushed the ultralight as fast as she dared, while the caravan kept to about 55 miles per hour the entire way in. It meant she could be there to greet them again when they arrived, along with all the other ponies of the colony. She didn’t even have to cajole Joseph to get him away from his computers. She felt much better with him beside her as the big trucks made their way towards the courthouse, though she couldn’t say if it was his large form or the might of his magic she knew he had. He alone wore a weapon, since he alone could hope to draw and fire it with speed or accuracy. Besides, it didn’t seem to make sense to greet new friends armed to the teeth.

Beside Joseph sat Sky, much to Moriah’s unease. Was it instinct that made her get so upset so quickly whenever she saw another mare around Joseph, or was she just that needy and disgusting by nature? The Equestrian books hadn’t said anything about it, but she hadn’t read many that weren’t about unicorn magic. Huan sat beside Sky, as though he had appointed himself her guardian while Alex was away. Moriah supposed he might’ve, the dog was far too smart for his own good.

Adrian and Riley sat a little apart from everybody else. Adrian still had a splint on one wing, though the other wing was free by his side. Beside him sat Riley, wearing far more clothes than Moriah had ever seen on her. It looked as though she was trying to conceal just how freakish and frightening she looked, with a pair of long pants rolled up by her hooves and a sweatshirt that must be baking her. Even her wings were covered, and the hood was high over her head, with only a slight peak suggesting there was even a horn inside.

“Good thinking, kid,” she called, looking past her to Oliver. Getting him to agree to leave the kitchen even for a few minutes had been a fight, though it had been one she eventually won. Take that, Alex, she could be a leader too! “All right, everyone. Let’s be nice and friendly. We want the people who don’t stay to talk about how great visiting was.” Alex’s words, but that didn’t mean Moriah couldn’t own them. “We’re gonna keep our cool, meet our first wave of immigrants. Let’s make sure they want to stay.”

Author's Note

And here we are, making our way into the Moriah section. I'll state this explicitly because I've been sensing some confusion in the comments: Each part skips a great deal of time that would've passed in-between, and are an average of one month apart.

My goal right now is just to get the story finished up before school starts and I can't write this much anymore. A huge thanks to those of you who take the time to comment. Sequels always mean a decrease in leadership, but reading what you have to say (and how I did with each chapter) makes this whole adventure worth it. Hopefully I'll be able to make this an enjoyable ride.

Part 3 (Moriah) - Chapter 3

“Alright, Alex, I’m here. Why did you want me to drive miles out of town and not tell anyone, exactly?” Moriah leaned closer to the headset, trying to tune out the annoying static coming from Alex’s end.

Another few seconds of frustration, and she heard the other pony’s voice. “Because I don’t want our newcomers to see yet. I’ll tell the others about it later.”

“You’re going to have to tell the immigrants something, Alex. I only told them you were out on business, but… are you really going to try and keep the HPI a secret?”

“Oh, no. We’re not allowed to tell them where we think they live, but other than that there’s nothing secret about the HPI. They want to have a corporate relationship with Earth’s ponies. They were founded ostensibly to protect our interests and preserve our culture.”

“Then why am I wearing the thaumic suppressor and meeting you five miles from Alexandria at five in the morning? You still haven’t answered.”

“It’s the Hummingbirds I don’t want the newcomers to see. One of them is staying behind: it’s gonna be our baby. You get to learn to fly it. I don’t want ponies to know where it’s parked who we can’t trust.” Moriah looked up into the early morning sky. She heard it before she saw it, though. A dull roar, a muffled jet engine as it tore across the sky. She saw it seconds later, though it looked like the aircraft was actually using its engines to decelerate.

Even after seeing them on several occasions, Moriah still couldn’t get over how impressive the aircraft looked. It astounded her such a sophisticated piece of hardware had been produced without creating more of a stir. Was the long range carrier the HPI called the Hummingbird the last and greatest aircraft produced in the fabled Area 51? And she was going to get to fly one? She wondered just how much Alex could be overestimating her abilities.

The jet engines died abruptly, replaced with rapidly spinning props as the nimble craft lowered itself down towards the field. This farmhouse was a full three miles off the highway, probably twenty miles away from Alexandria proper. The Hummingbird crushed short weeds with its landing struts as it touched down. Only when the rapidly spinning props finally stopped spinning did a ramp extend from inside and Alex emerge.

She looked the worse for wear. Paler than Moriah remembered, with bandages wrapped around one shoulder and a slight limp. There was some sort of device on one of her forelegs, though Moriah couldn’t say for certain what it was. She was still wearing the shackles, and made no effort to remove them.

A man emerged just behind her, wearing the bio-thaumic armor humans needed to survive outside the protection of their powerful shields. “Will you be needing me, ma’am?” The soldier’s voice came from within, strangely muffled by the suit he wore. Moriah felt nothing strange around the plane, which she supposed was the work of the dark metal wrapped around the stump of her horn.

“No, Captain Wright. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for the safe flight back.” She turned, gesturing at Moriah. “This is Moriah, our pilot. She’ll be the one flying us.”

The man inside the suit chuckled, turning towards Moriah. “I hope it never comes to that. Still, the documentation is all on the computer. I showed Ms. Haggard how to get into simulator mode.” He reached forward, patting Moriah’s shoulder.

Unlike Sky, Moriah wasn’t the least bit intimidated to be around humans. It felt natural, the place where she belonged. Pity she hadn’t been good enough at anything to earn a spot in that bunker before the Event.

“I can’t even imagine the training it must take to fly that,” Moriah responded, glancing into the cavity of the ship in awe. She had never actually been aboard an HPI aircraft, and was more than a little eager to get a glance inside.

“A human pilot? I don’t want to think about it either!” He laughed again. “You’ve only got to be there in case something screwy happens to the computer. I didn’t touch the controls except to map the route.” He walked down the ramp, past her and towards the empty field. “Your boss gives me too much credit.”

Moriah could see a second aircraft moving in for approach, also keeping frighteningly low. Once it had landed, the captain waved a gloved hand, vanished up a ramp, and the Hummingbird took off again. It must’ve accelerated frighteningly fast, because even with the relatively flat ground it had vanished after less than twenty seconds. “What did he mean, Alex?”

Alex beamed, gesturing for her to follow her inside. “You wanna see? It’s pretty amazing.”

Moriah did. “But are you gonna be alright, Alex? I’m introducing you to the immigrants in…” She glanced down at her watch. “Two hours. Would you rather take a nap or something?”

“Nah.” Alex drew back her hooves, taking a key from around her neck and slipping it into the mechanism. They clicked off, striking the earth with a resonant thud their weight never would’ve suggested. Moriah could almost see the color and energy rush back into her, a faint power flowing up from the earth. It gave its strength freely to its favorite children, if what she had read about earth ponies was true.

Moriah unlocked the restraint on her horn, tossing it down beside the shackles. She took a moment to try and sense the difference. She could feel very little more than before, except perhaps that she wasn’t being slowly strangled by an invisible cold. She tried to ground her hooves, tried to push her mind into the unfocused calm the books described as conducive to sensing thaumic fields. As usual, nothing happened.

“Oh, you get one of these!” Alex reached into her (totally ordinary) saddlebags and drew out a black bracelet like the one she was wearing. She tossed it lightly towards Moriah.

She caught it, turning it over in her hooves. It was thicker than she had first thought, maybe a quarter inch. It had quite a bit of heft, though nothing that would slow down the hooves of a pony. She swung it open, stuck her hoof inside, and clicked it closed. It began to hum, and she held it up to see a curved screen set into the plastic, filling with rapidly cycling text.

“Oh, I should probably warn-” Something stabbed into her leg, though not very deep. It took all her self-restraint not to bash the thing off right then. “It’s registering you as a user. They only gave us two. You’re the pilot, so you’re in.”

Sure enough, after a few more seconds, the bracelet chimed “User Registered” in a synthetic-sounding voice. Alex walked past her, waving her own bracelet on a patch of slightly elevated metal near the ramp. It retracted, closing off the interior of the aircraft. A second wave and it descended for them.

“Pretty neat, right?” She stepped up onto the ramp, hooves clopping with each step. Moriah followed, watching as the onboard lights came on with each step. The ramp actually took them up quite high, through a sloped area with six seats mounted on each side, retracted to keep the floor clear. “You don’t want to know what’s below us.”

“I… what?”

Alex gestured to a manhole-esque opening, a ladder visible through its transparent cover. “Down there. The soviets couldn’t do it, and we couldn’t do it, but we’re doing it now!” Where had all her energy come from? Did this thing have an espresso dispenser she hadn’t seen? Alex hadn’t been wearing the thaumic suppressor for an hour, she had been wearing it for days. Could getting magic back really make that much difference for a pony? “Power of the atom, taking us straight through the sky.”

Moriah took another glance at the hatch, and the radiation hazards printed there. She had to take a deep, deep breath. “This aircraft is… nuclear powered?”

Alex nodded, walking past the hatch towards what had to be the cockpit. “The technical details went over my head. I could repeat them back to you if you want, though! If you think you could make sense of-”

“No. I’ll read it myself. He said the manuals are all on the computer…” She hurried to catch up, stepping down into the slightly lowered cockpit. There was only one seat. As she neared it, she saw a display superimposed on curved plastic, including a projection of what was outside. The HPI never had windows on any of their vehicles. She stepped away again, and the display went dead. “Nice.”

Alex nodded, holding up her bracelet. “It uses these. They had to modify a few to fit our legs, but it actually isn’t that hard since they’re made to be worn over those bulky suits once they’re configured. Did you ever notice that all the HPI’s soldiers wear these things?” She sighed, resting against one of the slightly padded walls. “But nevermind this. I want to know about the new ponies!”

“One question first.” Moriah looked around the cockpit, then down towards her hooves. “Why did they give us a plane? A resource like this has got to be pretty scarce.”

“Oh, it’s not to keep.” Alex nodded, understanding. “They could remotely fly it back if they wanted at any moment. But we’re way more useful if we’re mobile. They’ve got assignments for us. In exchange for our hard work, we get to use this beautiful machine.” She tapped the soft felt with one hoof. “So answer the question, Moriah. What are the new ponies like?”

“Not all of them are ponies,” she responded, scanning the controls. They were not built for a pony, nor did they look like anything a pony had any chance of operating. How many thousands of people had been employed to build an aircraft like this? “The ponies actually come from three separate groups, so far as I can tell. Little cadre of military ponies put the idea of the caravan together. They don’t really seem to have any plans to stick around. Just came to ‘gather intelligence’ on what our bodies are and what they can do. I’m sure they’re eager to learn about what the Equestrians did to us, though I’m not sure if they’ll buy your story without-”

“I’m not going to show ponies the crystal until we can copy it!” Alex interrupted. “It’s fragile. Somebody steps on it or breaks it intentionally, and I don’t have any way to show anypony again. They’ll have to do with the book Princess Luna wrote about the Preservation.” She sighed. Whatever rush of energy returning magic to her had brought seemed to be fading. “What are the other groups?”

“Six ponies all came from the New York City settlement. Didn’t give me any specifics about why they came, just that they felt like they had better chances away from the city now that the world had ended. They brought three trailers, probably intend to live in them. We can get them moved into the park today once Adrian gets up.”

Alex nodded again. “Any others?”

“A handful of refugees they found along the way. Five, I think. I guess they’ve been isolated for a long time, maybe damaged by it. I couldn’t get anything useful out of them except that one of them came down from somewhere back east.”

“Hmm.” Alex looked thoughtful. “You said not all of them were ponies. Did you count which species were which? Ages, sexes, that sort of thing?”

Moriah nodded. “I couldn’t give it as precisely as you. More women than men. A few teenagers, the rest adults. Mostly ponies, but two of them aren’t. Sky called one of them a 'diamond dog', and the other one a griffon. What was the point of the spell making so many different species again? Wouldn’t it have been easier if we had all been one species?”

“I don’t know.” Alex looked down again. “Luna said something about having a balance. Magic moves through the ecosystem just like carbon or water does in ours. Without the right species, the ecosystem doesn’t work right. I don’t know why you need some species but not others. That’s too theoretical for our books.”

“Sounds like one of many mistakes those princesses made.”

“Maybe.” Alex started walking towards the exit, and Moriah had to hurry to catch up. “I’ve thought about how much better it could be. If they hadn’t sent people forward so far in time. If they had warned us of what they were going to do, so we could at least prepare ourselves, say goodbye to our families…” There was real anger there, and Moriah shared it. It was part of why she had remained loyal to Alex, despite all her other failings. At least her heart was in the right place.

“But then I think, as screwed up as this was, at least we’re alive to think it’s screwed up. If Equestria hadn’t interfered, we wouldn’t even be alive to hate them.” She shivered, and her eyes took on a haunted look. “I saw footage, Moriah. A volunteer exposed to a thaumic field… before everything really started. He didn’t die with dignity, Moriah. I wouldn’t wish that death on anyone. I can see how the Equestrians, after seeing that, would’ve felt they had to do something about it. Anyone who would sit by and let suffering like that happen when they had the power to help would be monsters.”

She followed Moriah to her car, scooping up the thaumic suppressors into her saddlebags as she went. Moriah said nothing, considering her words. Alex didn’t seem to expect a reply from her, because she kept going after another few minutes, once she had backed out onto the empty highway.

“Any other news?"

Moriah nodded. "Joseph got another broadcast, really brief just like the last one. Different voice."

"Did you get anywhere close to translating it?"

Moriah shook her head. "Unfortunately not. Joseph is fairly certain they haven't changed the cypher, so it's only a matter of time before he's 'brute forced' the thing. Whatever that means."

"Your guess is as good as mine. I brought a copy in case you wanted to look at it." Moriah removed a scrap of paper from one of her pockets, passing it to her. It read:

kum-b-kb-tul-zgzyz,-hkm-xqqhqpqr-k-min-pq-yqwqz-hkmmq-drvy-vri-mes-tul-dbbqf-wp-tul-f-kh-tul-tul-k-rh-kum-ndcb-bbqw-tul-tul-tul-dy-mes

Alex glanced at the paper once, then passed it back. "I got nothing. How about our friends? How are they doing?”

“How are they doing?” Moriah’s eyebrows went up. “You’ve been gone for three days. How much can really have changed?”

Alex shrugged. “Well, the last of the pregnant cows was set to deliver the day I left, and I know Sky’s been stressed about that. I also know Adrian’s been planning to ask her on a date, something with go-karts and model building… I helped him plan it!” Her weary expression turned proud, though it didn’t stay that way. “Oliver said he’d discovered something amazing about earth pony magic, but he refused to tell me before we could meet in person. Riley, obviously, figured out how to play Minecraft with hooves a week ago, and she really wanted me to see the replica of Alexandria she was working on, including some ‘ideas about things we could build one day.’

“Then there’s you. Joseph’s been telling me you were really close to being able to levitate, that he expected just a few more days before you got it. Not to mention all that work you’ve been doing into designs for a small-scale CHP plant. I’ve seen how much time you put into those books, and on the Kimballnet tracking parts down. Bet you planned on telling me you’d got a working design during the ride back.”

Moriah was stunned. She drove on without speaking for several seconds, before squeaking, “Y-You remember all that?”

Alex nodded. “Not like I do with visual stuff. People aren’t books. But… I guess I do.” She leaned back, and looked for a moment as surprised as Moriah herself. “Guess I never really thought about it.”

Moriah didn’t tell her about any of those things, though she could’ve now that she had been reminded about them. Instead she said something she had been thinking about for a long time, something she had been putting off since forever. “Sorry!”

The younger mare tilted her head to one side. “Sorry?”

Moriah had to struggle to get the words out, but struggle she did. “All those months ago. You reminded me of some things I was trying to forget. I… lost control of my magic. Could’ve killed you. Caused some pretty… long-term damage. I’m sorry.”

She almost couldn’t bear to look at Alex to see her reaction. She did though. She couldn’t not look after how long she’d been putting this off. Alex didn’t look upset. Actually, she was smiling.

Part 3 (Moriah) - Chapter 5

“I’ve already explained, you can’t get in yet. Reactor is in pre-start sequence.”

Moriah paced back and forth by the parked Hummingbird, growing increasingly frustrated. For instance; she wasn’t really “by” the Hummingbird, since they had been told to retreat to a distance of 500 meters or greater, while the HPI people did something remotely using the something or whatever. She hadn’t really caught any of it. It didn’t bother her there were pre-flight checks to run, didn’t bother her that it might take even an hour or more to get flying.

Actually, that had been a relief when she first heard it. She wanted every second she could to tear through the manuals and find the most basic information. For instance, how to activate its internal autopilot and maintain a constant height. A few bits of simple knowledge, even if they wouldn’t let her actually do any flying herself, might save their pony butts from even a serious technical fault.

She couldn’t get on board to look at it, though, because the pre-flight procedure had already started by the time she drove there, and they “absolutely couldn’t under any circumstances” get closer than 500 meters.

“I’m not going to try and fly it,” she explained, as simply as she could. “I’m not going to be doing anything to draw power. I won’t even start the main computer! I just need one of the maintenance terminals to open a damn PDF! Which I wouldn’t need to do if your damn operating system let us access the documentation.”

“The manuals are classified, but I think you-”

“Yes, classified.” She glared at the phone Joseph held in his magic for her, as though doing so might cause it to combust using the force of her anger alone. If she had a horn, it might have. “Because the goddamn commies might steal your autonomous nuclear VTOL designs! Better yet, the ponies. We clearly have the technical skill to build nuclear aircraft.”

The speaker on the other end, a cheerful woman named “Taylor Gamble” who seemed to grow frustrated right along with Moriah, replied in a near shout. “It’s a damn unshielded nuclear reactor, horsehead!”

That gave her pause, suddenly conscious of the stares of her friends around her. They had moved all their supplies, enough food and water and camping gear to last for a week, into a pile so far away from the farmhouse they were near the road. “Huh?”

“Think about it, if you can,” Taylor continued over the phone. “Nuclear fuel has some of the best energy-to-weight ratio in the world, short of topping the thing up with antimatter. Problem is, shielding a reactor is heavy. The reactor on a Hummingbird or an Albatross has thermal shielding only. The body is insulated, but only minimally. If you step into a Hummingbird before pre-flight is complete, you’ll be glue.”

When Alex had given her the phone and introduced the engineer on the other end as “a friend”, Moriah hadn’t realized that would translate to “constantly reminding her she was a pony.” It almost made her upset enough not to take what the woman was saying seriously, even though the warning was clearly not the sort she should ignore. “If there’s an unshielded nuclear fission reaction happening under my feet, how is a pre-start sequence going to stop us from being cooked alive?”

The woman on the other end sighed deeply, exasperated. “This is an HPI Hummingbird, Moriah Strickland. Like all HPI vehicles, it’s equipped with a CG- a… CPNFG. A… look, it makes a sphere where energetic radiation of all kinds gets neutralized. We’ve reconfigured this one only to produce a shielding radius large enough for the reactor itself once it's cleaned up all the radiation it made getting started… but until it’s running, it’s not safe to go inside. Do you understand?”

Moriah didn’t answer for several seconds, letting her own heart settle down. Maybe it was possible she had let her emotions get the better of her over something minor. “Yes, Ms. Gamble, I understand. I… apologize for being difficult. I think the stress of being asked to fly this thing is getting to me.” She considered for a moment, forcing herself back to neutrality. She would have meditated if she thought she had the time. She knew she didn’t, though. “These communicators of yours can send data too, right? Could you send me the Hummingbird manuals? I’m nowhere close to ready to fly this thing.”

The instant Moriah calmed down, the voice on the other end seemed to relax too. “Sure! We’re not supposed to send HPI data anywhere outside the network, but… your communicator isn’t off the network, is it?” A second later the communicator’s screen lit up again, informing them a PDF had just been downloaded. “Couldn’t pay me to fly one of those death traps, even if I had the certs for it.”

Moriah sat down, gesturing for Joseph to release the phone. He did, and it dropped right out of his levitation into her waiting hooves. “Sorry again, Gamble.” She clicked the phone off before the HPI engineer could respond, taking a stylus in her mouth and beginning to navigate the screen.

A few hours later she was in the pilot seat, “flying” what might very well be the most sophisticated machine humans had ever built that hadn’t been designed to travel into space. She didn’t really consider it flying, since she knew absolutely nothing of what was happening and would have had little recourse at all except in the most basic of malfunctions.

While in operation, the screens that represented her “windows” filled with images of the outside, superimposed with maps and instruments and readouts. The Hummingbird made an absolute mockery of FAA safety standards. There wasn’t a single analogue redundancy in the entire cockpit, nor was there a single non-digital control.

The operations manual actually justified the design choice, albeit it somewhat cynically. “In the event of a central computer failure, the CPNFG unit will immediately cease operating. The four seconds needed to accumulate a lethal level of exposure was not deemed a sufficient time to safely land and evacuate.”

There were dozens of levels of digital redundancy and protection she didn’t understand. Remote piloting itself was a redundancy, meant to supplement the on-board supercomputer. The manual went on and on about its command-stream being sent in real time for automatic and human verification back in “central”, with the remote host taking over if the slightest discrepancy was detected.

Even still, she felt uneasy. How long would it take to bounce a lightspeed signal off a satellite and back to earth, then process the input, then bounce another signal back? She sat behind controls she didn’t really understand thinking of how significant a difference of a few seconds response time could really be. Answer? Way more than she liked.

If their onboard computer malfunctioned, or miscalculated, they would all be very dead.

For once, she was the cheerful one. She didn’t want to convey to the others just how vulnerable and completely suicidal this felt, so instead she just looked stoic and answered any questions they gave her with a nod. She had already protested, and they had ignored her protests.

A pilot is always calm and collected, she told herself, feeling neither. I will be at my best and most able to respond to threats when I retain control of my emotions. It was no easy task, but she managed. Up until the sirens started.

Took her nearly ten seconds of scanning to locate the icon, one of a dozen different unfamiliar symbols on the electronic display. Of course, by the time she had found it, verbal warnings had started. “Warning: Thaumic spike detected! Active compensation will reduce operative thrust! Engage?”

“Yes!” Moriah screamed at the display, searching wildly for whatever might be causing the computer to scream at her. She felt a sudden jolt of acceleration, not enough to jar her from her restraints, but probably enough to knock someone into a wall if they weren’t prepared. She felt the aircraft start to descend, stubby wings slowing them only slightly in the absence of power.

Then she looked up, and saw what had set the computer to protesting. No, it wasn’t anything Joseph was up to in back. The HPI had, as they had patiently explained, set the internal thaumic radiation sensors to their lowest possible level. The readings were coming from outside, and Moriah could see why.

There in the sky, coming straight at their aircraft, was a dragon. A conflagration in the air, roaring blue and purple and green flames with runes blurring almost too fast to read along its back. It was a long, elegant beast, with fins running along the spine of its transparent body, like something Moriah might’ve seen in a Chinese New Year parade.

There was no time to think. She checked the altitude (65,000ft and dropping), searching for the controls and not finding them. The dragon was heading straight for them. A sturdy aircraft like this might be able to take a great deal of punishment. But flying through the body of a fiery serpent?

Still, she had a hunch. “Pilot override!” she shouted, using the words she had been explicitly told not to use under any circumstances. “Divert all power to the CPNFG! Engines, life support, communications, anything but the computer! Give me the biggest, strongest field you can!”

“Command acknowledged.” The deceleration wasn't as sudden this time. The lights above her went out, and somewhere above her the constant roar of jet engines abruptly died. No pumps recirculating the air, no fans, no music from the cargo area. Only the distant, sonorous hum of the reactor remained, like the heartbeat of the world. That, and the rush of air from outside, and the terrified screams from the cargo compartment.

As she watched, the pinnacle of human technical achievement began its battle with a sudden onslaught of supernatural might. Below her hooves, the energy of an ancient supernova was coaxed out into a soup of boiling salt, and over only a few moments, into the superconductor running the length of the ship. That energy poured into intricate coils of composite wires, reflectors around the magnetic bottle that contained at its very center a glob of exotic matter. Trillions of calculations a second modulated the wave of energy pouring into the CPNFG.

As the dragon neared them, opening its jaws wide to swallow the Hummingbird whole, Moriah felt a sudden wave of emptiness wash over her, deeper and more complete than anything she had felt in her life. She saw what happened next as if from far away. The wave was invisible, yet she saw it strike the dragon. Runes and teeth and scales alike were shredded to nothing, leaving only a vague haze in the air.

That, and a torrential vortex of air. Perhaps the Hummingbird might’ve breached it without faltering, but that was before. Now they had slowed down to subsonic speeds, lost the split-second corrections of the supercomputer and the connection to the HPI’s secret bunker.

They were slammed to one side, and Moriah was suddenly hanging from the ceiling. She was spinning, seeing red then black then red again, and knew she might lose consciousness at any moment. She had to cancel her previous commands or they would all die, perhaps even more painfully than the death the transparent sky-spirit might’ve brought them.

Apathy surrounded her. Pain crushing her, an avalanche of blaring alarms and rushing air. Through it all returned an old voice, that same one that had been speaking to her in the forest.

It will be easier now than ever, it told her. Simply do nothing. No one will know you meant it to happen. It won’t even be that painful, not really. A few more seconds and you’ll be unconscious anyway.

In the crushing emptiness, Moriah felt a brief flicker of magic. It didn’t come from outside; it didn’t even leave her body. It was the same spark she had felt the first time she had really felt magic. Vibrant and beautiful, it lasted only a second before the overwhelming crush of the field swallowed it and left her empty again.

That second was all she needed. “Disregard previous command!” she shouted, praying the computer could understand her over all the alarms and the screaming from behind her and the air. “Restore the engines and resume previous heading!”

In the world she knew, even the most experienced pilots would have difficulty escaping from a crash now. The miles of the altitude were only prolonging the inevitable, and even then not for long. 70 tons of metal and composite might withstand the colossal forces acting on them now, or they might be ripped apart before they even met the ground. Too fast a correction would guarantee that kind of death. Too slow, and she wouldn’t be able to correct in time.

But Moriah wasn’t the one making the correction. Their onboard supercomputer might not know the first thing about what to do in the event of a magical fire-dragon attack, but it knew exactly how to recover from a runaway descent.

The engines roared back to life, acting in perfect, gradual concert with the flaps and the rudder and even the props. Thousands of gradual movements, each perfectly timed, brought the Hummingbird out of its meteoric descent, at an altitude that couldn’t have been more than a few hundred meters.

That was when she really heard the screams.

Part 3 - Interlude

October 29, 2015

Dear Diary,

Sorry about not writing this week. I would call this last week suboptimal, but I feel like that might make me liable for some sort of criminal understatement suit.

Okay, it might not be completely fair to say this entire week hasn’t gone well. After all, the first wave of immigrants arrived five days ago and that went pretty well! Not all of them plan on staying, and some aren’t sure whether or not they want to stick around. Already it looks like the colony is splitting off into cliques, but… forget about all that!

The day started with a phone call I’d really rather not have gotten, now that I know everything else that would come of it. Hindsight, right? It was the HPI, using the communicator they gave me last time I visited. Well, visited might be a little weak. Last time I volunteered myself as a living subject for experimentation.

The goal was pretty obvious: determine what about pony bodies makes us immune to the damaging effects of the thaumic field. Got DNA, brain scans, that whole bit, but none of the scientists looked that thrilled about any of it. Honestly I’m not sure if it helped… but what they got was just the first wave of results, right? All kinds of great things might come when they get the chance to fully sequence my genome, get down into the really nitty-gritty stuff. It took decades of research to perfect the first antibiotic!

Spending time with the HPI reminds me a little of Princess Luna. Edmond Clark… I’m sure you’ll remember him… he’s the one in charge. He’s more far-seeing than anyone I’ve ever met, maybe even more than the Princess herself. To hear that man speak is like hearing the schemes of a Greek god.

To be fair, I would be quite surprised if there was a single person in that bunker with an IQ lower than 130. Say what you want about IQ not being a comprehensive or even accurate evaluation of intelligence (and you’re right), but there’s a POINT! The point is that they picked the very best humans in the world. Strongest, smartest, fastest, you get the idea.

To lead them, the greatest of all. Clark isn’t frightening until you hear him speak. His plans stretch centuries after his own death, a comprehensive branching web of goals and projections. Some good news: The HPI have accumulated more nuclear material than any organization has ever possessed. So much, that he tells me the heat generated by the fuel supply is actually used to generate much of the ordinary electrical demands of the bunker.

He shared some other numbers with me. Based on optimistic predictions of existing hardware lifetime, the bunker should last about a century. Assuming they are able to make repairs and replace the components of the CPNFG (and that the exotic matter they invented for its core doesn’t degrade somehow), then Clark’s engineers give them somewhere between 500 and 1000 years, depending on how much they’re able to salvage during the next few decades (and everything rots).

You’d be correct to say that’s an awful long way to be making predictions, that they’re all pretty meaningless that far. You’d be right. I think it underestimates the value of advancing technology. After all, weren’t we convinced we were going to run out of oil at one point?

I’m serious. It used to be a big deal, back when hu-MANs were men and meat was tasty. I spent my childhood hearing about things like “peak oil” and how we were sucking the planet dry. If the Kimballnet’s still a thing, go ahead and look at the known reserves of oil by year, and compare it to production. Even though humans made more and more each year, the known supply of untapped oil kept going up!

How is that possible, you might ask. Probably because you think oil comes from olives or soybeans or flax or something by this point. Peanuts? Didn’t one of the first diesel engines run on peanut oil? I think I saw a Mythbusters episode about that once.

I think the point of my stupid rambling is that TECHNOLOGY is what stopped us from running out of oil. We kept getting more advanced, so we were able to tap resources better, find them better, make what we found go further.

The HPI will need to do that in order to survive. The absolute key for them, the project that’s consuming more of their resources than any other, is making survival in the thaumic field possible. Ultimately, they wish to perfect an inoculation or vaccination against its effects.

They have technology down in that bunker I didn’t know existed. Apparently, in the few years leading up to the Collapse (as they call it), there was a wave of unprecedented cooperation and innovation all over the world, a sort of interdisciplinary renaissance to create everything the last survivors of mankind might possibly need. Much of it was brought to their bunker, but much of it remains at large. After all, once everyone was dead, they would be able to fly all over the world and collect it, housing it in the hundreds of underground warehouses that have been built to receive them.

A number of cultural artifacts are already there. If you had the bright idea to raid the Smithsonian or maybe snatch up the Declaration of Independence, forget about it. Objects of similar worth had been brought in from each of the member nations, since of course the HPI is not a merely American endeavor.

I learned some fascinating things about my own physiology during my time in the bunker, though I’m not sure how much the HPI have learned about magic. They’re working on an entirely robotic research station, one that will soon be running nearby. It will be able to take measurements of our interactions with the thaumic field, which of course doesn’t exist in the HPI bunker. They are somewhat limited in what they can learn about magic when no magic is allowed inside.

If I sound like I’m avoiding an important subject, it’s because I absolutely am. Ultimately there wasn’t much to say about my visit with the HPI. I know they’ve got things well under control, and I trust the management there to make the best choices for humanity’s future they can. I made it back a little sick from being away from magic so long (not to mention what passes for food in that place, I don’t recommend it), but that was ultimately it.

They gave us a Hummingbird. Gorgeous machine, one of the most impressive creations I’ve ever seen. I can safely say that my understanding of mechanics gives me very little insight here. Ultimately things turn and it moves, that’s the familiar part. The rest? God only knows.

I got such a wonderful chance to learn more about it yesterday. As fun as I’ve had flying the ultralight (flying on it, technically), I think I might prefer the ground from now on.

The HPI gave it to us because they trust us now, and because we can go out into the really dangerous areas (or areas with ponies in them), and recover things for them. They’ll give us manufactured stuff we ask for each time we bring something in, so it’ll be a bit of a trade. We go on adventures, they give us some crap we don’t know how to make.

We don’t have much use for anything like that right now, since we can pretty much salvage anything we want. But I fully realize that won’t be the case forever, and that having this relationship established now will make a huge difference in the years ahead.

Getting distracted again. No, distracted is the wrong word. I’m avoiding the subject.

The HPI detected something big in Philadelphia, something bigger than the arc radio transmitter Sunset Shimmer used by an order of magnitude. My thought was that they’d spotted an Alicorn, perhaps arrived here by accident, or (my hooves tremble at the prospect), born of a returning human.

It wasn’t that last one, thank god. According to Equestria, the chances of that happening are astronomically small. Hopefully smaller than one in seven billion. That’s pretty astronomical.

Something tried to attack us as we got closer to the city. I can only call it a something, because I didn’t get to see it. We’ve only got Moriah’s word and some frightening readings from the ship’s computer. She described it as a “goddamn dragon made of fire.”

I didn’t have my doubts at the time, because I was at the time having one of the worst days of my life. She had to use most of the power to run the CPNFG, which makes sense. I tried to get everypony into their restraints at the first sign of trouble, but there was one pony who didn’t make it in in time.

Me. We started a dive, then we started spinning. The ceilings are fifteen feet in some parts of that plane. Or, if you’re traveling vertically, the bottom can seem like forty feet away. Those of us not pegasi have no recourse but to pray we don’t break our necks.

It felt like something broke. I bled badly, felt some stuff poking out where it shouldn’t have. I’ve never seen an injury that bad, and I’m thankful I haven’t yet. One of those little blessings I guess.

When I came to, things were much better. Oliver and the others were pale as death, and he’d just finished with some medical miracle. We were on the ground by then, had been for awhile. The others were just relieved, but not Oliver. I met his eyes, and I saw at that instant that he knew. Probably something to do with that medical cutie mark of his.

Unfortunately, my accident and recovery was eclipsed by what we discovered. I wasn’t allowed to go out and see on account of what had happened, so I spent the day getting casts from Oliver I didn’t need and getting fitted for a neck-brace that I was not looking forward to wearing.

The stories the others brought tortured me, though I could do nothing to investigate. True to what Adrian told us, there was a fairly large group of ponies living here. It’s hard to guess at numbers, but they had huge painted signs and didn’t really try to hide anything so it’d be hard to miss their handiwork.

They’d turned some kind of shelter or halfway house into their home, and it looked like they were doing quite well.

Apparently it’s burned. Not the city! Not like what we saw in Los Angeles (though talk of a “fire dragon” makes me want to break somebody else’s neck this time). The shelter is apparently burned, along with lots full of cars and trucks, a nearby warehouse, a church… basically all the buildings on that block, but the fire didn’t spread to the surrounding blocks.

The others found bones in the wreckage. Oliver is the only one with any hope of piecing together how many they were, and he refusesto leave my side even now. It’s incredibly kind of him. Not that I’m interested in company, but if I was, I could do worse. He’s given up being there on the scene to care for a patient who needed much more emotional support than she needed physical.

Does being still alive after these accidents make me lucky? Or am I unlucky because they keep happening?

There were runes everywhere, at least according to what I was told. Oliver can’t read most of them, though he was able to translate a single passage based on what he’s studied of the “unicorn alphabet.” Apparently it says “Odium Forgives.”

I don’t have a clue what that means. We’ve radioed back to Alexandria. Sky’s not happy we’re staying away. She doesn’t know the half of it. We don’t want to say anything until we’re sure something bad happened, particularly since it’s obvious at least some of the immigrants came from this direction. Perhaps the shock of surviving something like this is why Ryan is so reticent about where he came from, or why Carol is so often on her own. I’m no psychiatrist. Psychologist. Not even psychic. Need Joseph and Moriah for that.

Sorry, Doctor’s pestering me about sleep. Apparently I shouldn’t be making so many movements with my neck and head, and I should be laying down. I guess I’ll do that. See if I don't have nightmares again, Oliver! This is what happens when I don’t get to properly decompress with my diary!

—Alex

Part 4 (Lainey) - Chapter 1

Lainey Park sniffed at her dinner, taking in all the grassy smells. There wasn’t much of a smell, not compared to the fresh fruit and vegetables Olive had often prepared for them. As she walked, she was conscious of the canine form of Huan beside her, close enough to reach but never actually close enough to touch.

There were now two full tables instead of just one, though theirs was largely empty. As she usually did, Lainey sat down beside Wanderlust. There was no Lonely Day today, no Whiplash and no Mystic Rune. Not even the disgusting insect. Just her, and Wanderlust.

Rather than keep to their old cliques, several of the newcomers had joined them at their usual table, with plates of their own. Lainey didn’t mind that, since the pair that had taken seats closest to her and Wanderlust were easily her favorites out of all the newcomers.

“How was the reading today?”

“Books,” Kirk said, as though he considered it a perfect answer. The pegasus was several years older than his brother, with dark feathers and a tight bundle of sticks for a cutie mark, the head of an axe or something emerging from the side.

His brother Dean had similar coloration, though it was brown and green instead of brown and blue, though he was a unicorn and too young for a cutie mark of his own. “You’re just mad you can’t learn flying from books as easy as I learn magic.”

“Yep.” He reached over, mussing his brother’s unruly mane with one hoof.

“Yuck, Kirk! You got hay in my hair!”

“I know!” He beamed, though he didn’t meet Lainey’s eyes for very long. “Sorry. Was that what you wanted to know?”

“Yeah.” She nudged Wanderlust with one shoulder. “A few more weeks, and we can all learn to fly together. Isn’t it great you let Olive treat that wing?”

Wanderlust grumbled in response, though he didn’t actually say no. He couldn’t, not without being dishonest, and they both knew it. Even if he showed clear discomfort whenever he was forced to be around Olive for extended periods… he was healthier than ever.

“It’s amazing you figured out how to fly on your own, Sky!” Kirk gestured with one of his wings. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but she wasn’t sure he knew either. “I tried a few times too, and I never got off the ground. The book said we could expect to take weeks building the strength to actually do it. What kept you going that long? Did you ever think that maybe you just couldn’t fly?”

She shook her head. “Not for a second.” No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she wanted them back.

Predictably, the pegasus raised his eyebrows. “Why not?”

She could try to lie, but there really wasn’t any reason. Sky wouldn’t hesitate to lie if she thought it would get her out of something uncomfortable. It wasn’t as though it mattered if she kept Sunset’s secret, did it? The unicorn was gone now, her search completed in Lonely Day. “Because I met one of the Equestrians. Before… Before I met anyone else.”

Maybe it was bad timing. Maybe it was that she had never said anything about it to the newcomers before. Regardless, it felt like the entire meal suddenly fell silent, and every eye fell on her. Even at the other table, where the gigantic Abrams had been talking animatedly with his gryphon second-in-command. All stared.

Well, except for her friends. Wanderlust looked confused, watching the others more than he saw her. Maybe, like her, he was trying to tell what was such a big deal to all these ponies.

“You… actually met a pony from Equestria?” There was an almost reverent tone to his voice, more than she expected. He had only had a few days to read their books!

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I wasn’t allowed to talk about it before. She said there were bad ponies who might want to stop her. But since she’s already gone… She found me on the street, failing to be a pony. Told me how it was supposed to be like. Said that with wings like mine, I’d make a great flier one day.” Lainey sniffed, fighting back tears. It had been the first kind thing anyone had said to her in her entire life.

Kindness had been the trend with Sunset Shimmer. Even though she had her own mission, she had taken the time for friendship. Lainey had known in that moment that was exactly what she wanted to be. If that meant sacrificing some of what she had been before, that was no terrible loss.

Humans had never shown Lainey kindness. Ponies had. “She’s the one who gave me my name. ‘Cloudy Skies.’” In that moment, Lainey Park had died. But she didn’t tell them that. Some dead were best unmourned. There were a dozen eyes on her. Her voice quavered, but she managed to keep from whimpering this time. She wasn’t sure if they would judge her, and she didn’t want to give them anything to judge with if she could avoid it. “Showed me what magic was like, too. So I always knew we could fly. She never would’ve lied to me. That’s not what friends do.”

Silence. This was more than she had told to anypony, even to her friends. It seemed as good a time to speak as any. “Her name was Sunset Shimmer.” Somewhere, from within the crowd, something made of glass hit the ground and shattered. Sky didn’t see where it was, so she didn’t stop or offer to clean it up. “She was a pretty important pony, I guess. She only stayed with me for a night-” but it had been the best night of Sky’s life. Kindness was wonderful.

When she had left, Sky had despaired of ever finding someone who would treat her like an equal again. Yet after less than a week, she had met Day; who was strong and kind. She had been a pony too.

“Did she say what she was doing?” Another voice spoke from behind her, one she hadn’t noticed until that moment. It was Carol, the pegasus with bat-wings instead of the birdlike ones they normally had. Thestral, batpony, something like that? Sky didn’t remember.

Again, she wasn’t sure if she should answer. Yet she had never seen an expression so curious, so desperate for information. She just had to say something! “Looking for a pony. A leader. I wasn’t one though, so she left. Went north to Oregon. I never saw her again after that.”

The silence ended then, for which she was grateful. There were other questions, and she answered. She ate the rest of her bland dinner, pretending to enjoy it with all her might. She almost did, too.

Wanderlust walked her home again that night. It wasn’t as though there was much reason for it; she didn’t suspect anything would happen to her with such a low population (nor was she worried she couldn’t get away, as the only pony in her world who could fly so far as she knew). Yet the pretext of living right next to her and Day was generally enough for him, and she appreciated it.

Dating Wanderlust wasn’t like her long-distance admiration for Mystic Rune. Wanderlust made no show of ignorance; actually he seemed to understand mares a great deal. He was kind, attentive, and polite. He remembered what she liked to do (build terrariums) and her favorite color (green), and the foods she hated (daisy was disgusting no matter how many different ways Olive cooked it or prepared it raw). He wanted to spend time with her, even if all she had to do was milk the cows and make bread.

They talked about everything, and she listened. Wanderlust spoke of the news he had learned from the other settlements, of the ways other ponies had found to survive the Event. He listened to her recounting the drama in the field today when Patty had insulted Betsy’s selection of grazing spots.

He had his limits, and Sky knew them. Linger too long on one subject, and he’d begin to drift, automatically repeating acknowledgements without actually hearing her. Sometimes he would ask questions he knew she didn’t like the answers to, just to see if asking them different ways might prompt her to be a little more forthcoming. It didn’t, not when he asked about her life before. Lainey Park was dead and buried. In time, Sky would ensure she was forgotten as well as dead.

Yet he didn’t ask about anything like that today. “Did you see the message from our fearless leader?”

She slowed, shaking her head. “I wanted to, but I got distracted helping with dinner.” She suddenly moved closer, close enough to touch. She wouldn’t, though. Never that. “They’re okay, aren’t they? I had heard Whiplash was really nervous about flying.”

He nodded. “They’re fine, yeah. Alex got pretty screwed up. Banged up her head pretty good, but apparently she’s fine. Not even a crack in her skull.”

Sky shivered, fighting back the rush of fear at the mere mention of her friend in such pain and danger. “She’s not hurt? Are they flying back now? There wasn’t a storm, was there? We really have to get better about weather magic, so we’ll be able to stop those one day!”

Wanderlust stopped, resting one hoof softly on her shoulder. “No, Sky. We couldn’t have. That thing moves faster than the speed of sound. I don’t think we could’ve flown with it even if I could fly.” He lowered his voice. “Let’s talk about it when we get inside.” He glanced once around them, then quickened his step, nudging her to follow.

She did, growing increasingly confused. He put on an ordinary face for the rest of the walk, though he didn’t talk about anything meaningful until they were at the RV she shared with Day. Normally he would leave her at the door, but it was easy to see from his expression he expected to come inside this time and it had nothing to do with their painfully slow romance.

Once the door was shut, Wanderlust locked every door, drew every blind, and took Day’s P90 out from where she kept it hidden under the bed. “What… What are you doing, Wanderlust?”

“Checking, and making sure.” He checked the whole RV, top to bottom. “Wouldn’t want anyone to be here and us not realize it.”

“Why not?”

Wanderlust didn’t answer until he had finished. She sat down by the table, wrapping a blanket about herself and feeling more nervous by the second. Wanderlust was many things, but she had never known him to overreact.

“They found something terrible in Philly.” He sat down beside her, making eye contact and speaking very slowly. “Ponies died. They don’t know how many yet, but it’s at least as many as lived here before the new ones arrived.” He glared out the window.

“What happened?” She dreaded the answer, yet curiosity compelled her to ask.

“There was a fire. Big one. They don’t know if it was intentional, or some kind of accident. Alex said the route the immigrants took passed pretty close to Philly. Some or all of them might be from there. Or…” He took a deep breath. “They might’ve been the ones who caused it. Some kind of hostile invaders. They might plan on doing it again here.”

Suddenly, she understood the gun. “W-What… What are we supposed to do?” She shivered, leaning against him without realizing it. “Alex is gone, Whiplash is gone… it’s just you and me! We can’t fight that many ponies!”

“And Riley.” He steadied her, letting her finish before he answered. “We need more information. It seems like the newcomers came in different groups. Alex wants us to learn everything we can about them. I’ve got an idea…” He glanced briefly at the door. “Is it okay if I get Riley?"

Sky’s fear only grew when Wanderlust suggested bringing a changeling into the discussion. Yet what grounds did she have to argue? A little kid frightened her, so what? Day was adamant they needed to accept the insect, strange voice and weird eyes and fangs and all. “Okay. Fine. Get her.” She shivered. “I don’t like it. But if you promise she’ll behave…”

“Yeah. She’ll behave.” He rose, pushing the gun closer to her. Neither of them would’ve stood much chance of firing it, even with Lonely Day’s modifications. “Just one sec, I’ll sneak her in.” He vanished out the door in a rush. She waited by it, watching him through the peephole.

The immigrants couldn’t really have anything to do with what happened in Philadelphia, could they?

Author's Note

For those confused by the use of names from this narrative perspective...

Cloudy Skies = Lainey Park
Wanderlust = Adrian
Mystic Rune = Joseph
Whiplash = Moriah
Olive Garden = Oliver
Lonely Day = Alex

Obviously you probably knew some or all of those, but... in case you were confused! I know switching narrative styles can be a little jarring.

Part 4 (Lainey) - Chapter 2

An hour later, and their covert “meeting” was winding down. An uncomfortable amount of what they had decided seemed to weigh on her more than anypony else. Sky took another deep breath, looking closely at the screen and the markings Wanderlust had made. “You're sure... this is where they meet? That close?” She gestured to the satellite picture, centered as it was on the roof of a house on the end of the lane, not quite within sight of the makeshift pasture (but almost).

“Positive.” Wanderlust nodded. “It should be easy for you to ‘accidentally’ wander into the house.”

“There might not be anything in there. Maybe they just go there to light up or something! Maybe they’re remodeling the house! Maybe they just want to be alone and relax away from us! There’s nothing that says they’ve got to be doing anything bad.”

Lonely Day’s voice came over the satellite radio after a few seconds. She didn’t sound good, about the same level of worn-out that she had sounded the day she came back from the HPI. “It would be a mistake to lump all of them together, just as it would be a mistake to assume that just because they arrived so close to when this disaster happened they have to be responsible for it. None of the ponies who came to Alexandria could’ve been there, unless they planted some sort of device to cause it.”

“I wish we had a forensic fire investigator, but what we’re seeing makes it seem like the flames were recent. We were attacked by a gigantic flaming fire-monster, which suggests a possible cause for the fire here.”

“If we see new ponies arrive in the next few days, and they seem to know any of the ponies already in Alexandria, then we should be worried. What happened to us was a spell. Somepony had to cast it. But… we don’t really know magic well enough to know if the spell was cast in real time, or if it was put into an object or something and left to be triggered by its victims.”

“I only saw magic in Equestria for a week, but if what I understand is right, a spell like that couldn’t be performed by the average unicorn. It would take lots of them working in concert, or else a fantastically powerful single caster, like an Alicorn.”

“I guess what I’m saying is, we’re probably looking for an Equestrian. Even if a former human had a natural talent like that, he or she would never have the experience and skill after so short a time.”

“Look for runes, Sky. That’s all you’ve got to do. See if you find any in that house. We know we’ve got the only library, and they’ve only had a few days to read it. Find runes, and we know we need to be worried. Well… that would mean we’re dealing with Equestrians, Equestrians who chose to lie and claim to be from Earth. Still doesn’t mean any of them are guilty of anything.”

Wanderlust rubbed against her side, though not very hard. She enjoyed the gesture, at least until she saw the way the bug’s head pivoted to watch, her eyes almost hungry. Of course she was hungry. The filthy parasite would eat their love if she could. Whatever that meant. “Riley and I will be close, ‘taking a drive’ the whole time. If we hear anything even slightly unusual from your radio, we’ll speed straight there.”

She nodded. “Y-Yeah. I know. I’m not worried. It’ll be during the day. They’ve gone to the library every day since they got here! Besides, we could always call it off if we weren’t sure the house was empty!”

“The HPI might be willing to help us, if things go bad,” Lonely Day said. “Captain Wright has a team standing by. They value our cooperation too much to let us get replaced at this juncture. At least, I think they do. But I can’t call down their help unless we’re absolutely certain we need it. It isn’t the kind of thing they’ll do for us more than once or twice. Ultimately, we aren’t that irreplaceable. If we’re more trouble than we’re worth, they’ll find other ponies to work with-”

“-And there goes our best chance of making any fuckin’ difference, ever.” Whiplash’s voice cut in, harsh and poignant. But Sky wouldn’t have argued the point, at least not so far as “preserving humanity” was concerned. Not that it mattered to her, but it mattered to Lonely Day.

That was enough.

“We understand.” Wanderlust’s voice was firm, but also a little annoyed. Not that he didn’t get that way more and more when Whiplash spoke, these days. Nor was he the only one. At least her objections were more reasonable this time. “I’ll let you know if things get violent. I don’t think they will, though. New ponies could’ve taken over when they got here, and they didn’t. Could’ve tried to steal the library, and they didn’t.”

“Since the Event, there have been tons of opportunities for people to get violent with one another. Ponies in the other settlements have had disagreements. But so far, I haven’t seen any sign of people hurting each other. Well… almost no sign.” He shifted uncomfortably, looking disturbed.

“Point is, since this whole mess started, people almost universally want to work together and help each other out. It’s going to clear up. This is just… just a precaution, that’s all!”

“Yeah,” Whiplash’s voice again, obviously in agreement. “It makes sense to eliminate the immigrants as suspects. Whatever they’re keeping secret in that house, it makes sense to check and make sure it’s nothing to do with the people who died. Eliminate suspicion.”

So on that charming note, with Wanderlust and Whiplash agreeing on something for the first time she could remember, their meeting ended. Sky ended up staying the night on Wanderlust’s couch.

It smelled like bug, and she just knew the bug was up most of the night watching her. But even so, the changeling hadn’t burned down a village. Really, the girl hadn’t done anything except look and smell absolutely terrifying. Better her than take the risk somepony who was willing to kill might find her alone in her trailer during the night.

The next day, she went about her business as she always did, with one exception. Though Sky never carried a gun of her own, she did keep her saddlebags and the radio within reach at all times. She did put off her caring for the cows a few hours, long enough that the visitors would have time to eat and make it to the library before she attempted her incursion to the house several of them visited when they thought they were alone.

Of course, before she could be some kind of pony-based spy, she had to accomplish her regular cow-related responsibilities. There was milking to be done, cleaning, washing and maintenance that wouldn’t just happen. Smart as the cows were, they were cows. They had not bothered to develop the ability to care for themselves when they never expected to need it.

“Hey, everypony.” The little herd of cows was already grazing. Almost as one, the group turned away from her, showing their backs to her. She was sure she heard several fart, or otherwise relieve themselves.

“Come on!” She moved closer, raising her voice. “I’m three hours late!”

Betsy, the largest cow in the herd (though there were two bulls larger), glanced over her shoulder and made an annoyed sound Sky took for ‘Three hours later than you should’ve been!’

“Yeah, I know.” She kept her distance, staying well out of kicking range, making her way past them to the generator. A flick of the electric start and a few agonized noises from inside and it was running, and water was flowing again into the mostly-empty troughs.

While the elders of the herd were shunning her, the calves seemed not to notice or care. There were three now, each smaller than she was (though not by much in one case).

“Hey guys!” She took the pitchfork briefly out of her mouth, waving at them with a hoof. “Sorry to keep the best part of your breakfast waiting.” She shoveled, and the young bovines watched with interest. To their credit, they didn’t go for the food, knowing not to interrupt her and that their parents got it first regardless.

It was scary how smart the calves could be. Some days, she was sure they had actually spoken. Not the animal-noises she could kinda understand kind of talking, but the kind where they used her words.

There were books about Equestrian farms, and she had read a few of them. They had many of the same animals apparently, though the relationship worked differently. Nothing was kept for meat, obviously, and animals were never killed. The single book she had finished about farming talked about cows like they were somehow partners in the process, not property to be kept and traded. Yet she had also seen no mention of cows moving about Equestrian society, nor were they listed as things the “Preservation Spell” might transform humans into.

In Equestria, she was pretty sure cows could actually talk, and that they made money for what they provided. How long would it be before cows on Earth were doing the same?

“I’m not sure what I’m gonna do,” she said to the watching “children”, tossing the pitchfork down and pausing to catch her breath. “When you all start talking, I mean. We don’t even have money, so I’m not sure what I’ll pay you with. Maybe we can trade… like building you all a nice barn, and making you better food, and stuff like that.”

She shrugged. The calves shrugged back, making a sound she took for giggling. They imitated her gesture several more times, repeating it until it had lost all meaning, chasing each other out of the barn and into the field with their parents.

A few minutes later and she had dragged the food over beside the newly-refilled water tray, and the cows were “talking” to her again. There was milking to be done, though she used a portable milking machine for it now and it was much easier on everypony involved. Really it was too fast, since she knew what fun was waiting for her when she was done.

Sky stretched her farm work as long as she could, a full hour and a half. Any more, and she would risk the ponies leaving the library and coming upon her. She would take many risks, but that was one she would prefer to avoid. It was only reluctantly she said goodbye to her bovine friends and began the brief walk to the house some of the visiting ponies had made into a temporary headquarters.

Her dread grew with every step. There were many ways this might go, and she didn’t think very many of them were good. She was going to have a rough afternoon.

Part 4 (Lainey) - Chapter 3

Sky’s hooves felt like she had tied lead weights to them with how easily she moved. She was about to break into the house that Alexandria’s first ever visitors were using for their private business. She was about to betray their trust and possibly reveal them as some sort of awful, homicidal murderers. More likely, they would be guilty of nothing, and she was going to destroy their relationship with Alexandria.

That, or she wouldn’t be caught, and she would feel horrible and guilty every time she was around them. Lying, that she could do. But breaking into somebody’s home? That was something else.

“Nobody’s in there?” she asked for the tenth time, crouching behind a car parked on the side of the road and glancing sidelong at the mysterious structure.

There was absolutely nothing to set the house apart from any other on this street. At the edge of town, they were perhaps half a block apart, separated by long and winding gravel paths. She could get no closer without coming out into the open and being obvious to all around. This was the point of no return.

The house itself was a tad run-down, with tin sheeting on parts of the roof and plywood tacked to some of the windows. It was the last place any of them would look for salvage (though raiding houses still seemed silly when retail stores had everything you needed without needing to walk around so much).

“Yes. I was just in the library a few minutes ago. They’re all there or nearby. Riley is watching the door from the third story of the bank, she’ll tell me the instant any of them leave. You’ve got the getaway car close, right?”

The “getaway car” was actually a rusty ATV converted for ponies to drive and towing a trailer filled with salvaged food. It was her pretext to be in the area if she was caught nearby, though she didn’t expect to need it.

“I have it.”

“Good. If we need to run, we can run for a few days and wait for everyone else to get back. It’s a shame Riley can’t fly out and meet us, but… it shouldn’t be that big a deal. You get in, tell me what you see, and get out. We’ll pretend nothing happened until everyone else gets here.”

“Yeah.” She stepped out and cantered up to the house. She was wearing her boots today, specifically to muffle the sound of her hooves on the cement. Sky spread her hooves as she moved without really meaning to, as though she might take off and escape from the task her friends required of her.

Sky stopped on the edge of the house, not actually going in. She didn’t even bother with the front door, pacing around it and searching for ways she might use to get inside. At Adrian’s instruction, she would avoid using any of the doors, in case the newcomers had taken measures to protect them. Not that she expected the alarm to be on or anything, with as far as the house was from their “electrical grid.”

Sky eventually found her means of ingress: a secure-looking basement window hidden behind some tall grass and an overgrown hedge. She peeked inside, but it was either caked with dust or else intentionally blacked-out, because she could see nothing of the room within. She didn’t break it open. As tempting as it was to shatter windows with a hoof, she didn’t like the idea of needing stitches afterwards, or leaving damage that could be easily traced. It would be better to feel guilty later than to leave some sign that the house had been invaded.

The window wasn’t locked. She wedged a crowbar into the opening, then very slowly edged it open. It took a little force, but she only used her mouth. Any more, and she might crack it. Light spilled into the darkness of the basement, though it wasn't enough for her light-dependent eyes to get a good look. She switched on her headlamp, then wedged herself into the opening.

It would’ve been too small for a human, but Sky wasn’t human anymore. She made it easily, spreading her wings for a glide that ate the distance and set her down almost soundlessly. It felt amazing to use her magic that way, though she couldn’t have easily described what it felt like or how she did it. She called upon the winds, channeling her intention through her wings in the sure knowledge that she would not fall. They hadn’t disappointed her yet.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloom even with the help of the flashlight. As they did, the basement came into focus. She prepared herself for the guilt of invading the home of some innocent ponies.

It never came.

Equestrian runes covered everything, written onto every surface with black paint. The floor was almost totally clear, and within it intricate designs had been sketched. They meant nothing to Sky, though she was fairly certain Joseph would’ve been able to tell more. She couldn’t commit everything to memory, but she snatched a photo of a single diagram on one of the walls that seemed self-contained.

Aside from the runes, there were books and papers of various kinds, all printed in the standard Equestrian size (larger than a paperback, but smaller than many hardcover textbooks), and bound with the standard faux-leather covers. Their titles were all in the same runes, and Sky snapped a few pictures there too, along with the room as a whole.

“Are you hearing me?” she whispered into the still-broadcasting radio. Thinking about the earpiece made it itch.

Static, sounding sorta like his voice. “Right, underground. Gimmie a sec. If you can hear me, I can’t hear anything you’re saying through the ground. I’m gonna try to find a way out.” She might be able to glide down, but she couldn’t yet fly inside such cramped spaces. Stacking things up to the window did not sound like a good way to get out without getting noticed.

Sky took in the intricate diagrams from a higher vantage atop the stairs, looking down at the paint. It was impossible not to feel uncomfortable when looking at a pattern like that. As she looked, a sense of drowsiness pressed briefly on her consciousness. Why not lie down and rest? She’d gotten up quite early! She’d worked hard on the farm today! A few minutes lying down wouldn’t be a problem! The ponies would be at the library for hours more, she could spare a few.

But as she closed her eyes, she felt something else in the blackness behind her eyelids. A presence was there, something very much like a nightmare.

Sleep, the hatred said. Now.

The command had an impact exactly the opposite of what the speaker probably intended. She bolted in sudden fear, jerking awake and galloping up the rest of the stairs as though the enmity of an entire nation was on her heels. She didn’t care how much noise she made, didn’t think about anything except how to get away as fast as she possibly could. This desire was so strong it felt almost as alien to her as the voice, as though it was itself an alien compulsion.

She pounded up the stairs, practically kicking the door off its hinges in her rush to get away from the runes. She didn’t scream, though she knew the house had to be empty and that nopony would hear her even if she did. Empty of people maybe, but not the strange form the runes had given her mind. There was a nightmare in this house, and she wanted very much to be out of it.

The strange impression faded almost as soon as it had come. By the time she made it onto the ground floor, she found herself struggling to remember what had frightened her so much about the basement in the first place. Curious, she looked around, as though expecting to find a comically-labeled canister of “fear-gas” following over her shoulder.

Instead, she got a good look at the interior of the house. From the inside, it was easy to see none of the windows were actually broken, that they had been boarded up to keep out of sight of the outside. With a few more seconds to investigate, she saw the walls here too were covered.

Not runes this time, or else she might’ve started running all over again. No, this time it was maps. They weren’t particularly detailed, most could easily have come from gas stations or chambers of commerce in any number of cities. Most depicted very large areas, though her eyes were drawn to one that was, unmistakably, that of Alexandria itself, back when it had still been called Paris. She moved closer, even as her ears were assaulted by a sudden wave of sound.

Adrian’s voice. “Sky, you’ve got to get out of there! Something happened! It’s like you startled the hornet’s nest or something! All of them, all at once, they’re all leaving the library! I don’t know what happened, but they know! Get out right now, they’re coming! Forget the alibi, just fly! Fly as far and as fast as you can!”

She didn’t, not for a few more seconds. She saw the map of her new home, marked as it was with a regular search pattern. About half the houses were marked off with red ‘X’s, while many others remained blank. What did it mean?

She had no way of knowing that a few seconds of delay would already make her too late. There was a loud crack and a momentary throbbing in her ears, along with a flash of white light. Suddenly, the empty house wasn’t so empty at all. A pony stood there, magic rising from his horn like the smoke of a recently fired pistol.

Ryan seemed momentarily dazed from the effort of his spell, because he staggered for a second, eyes unfocused. Long enough for Sky to start running, bolting past her towards the door.

Ryan’s weakness didn’t last long enough to reach it. She felt something around her back hoof, a sharp force pulling back and up. It broke her stride, yanking her into a tumble that ended in a painful collision with an empty bookshelf. Her headlamp cracked against her head, though the LED resisted the shock and didn’t break.

“This is most unexpected.” Ryan still seemed to be panting. She was still dazed from the impact, and the light upstairs wasn’t much better than the basement. How the hell could the unicorn even see her without doing a light spell or something? The pressure on her leg vanished almost as quickly as it had come, however. Evidently the unicorn’s magical reserves had largely been exhausted in the impressive effort the teleport had cost. “Cloudy Skies, right?”

Sky rolled over, readying her hooves to protect herself. Adrian’s voice screamed from the floor, where her earpiece had fallen in the impact. She was too stunned to reattach it. She nodded, trying to fight back the fear that was threatening to paralyze her.

She knew the worst thing she could do was to stay. She might be able to escape a single unicorn. If the crowd from the library arrived, there would be no getting away.

Ryan kept his distance, eyes wary of her hooves. “You need to relax, Cloudy Skies.” Again she felt pressure on her brain, like the weight of sleep deprivation making her eyes sore and her mind sluggish. “Take a deep breath.”

She did.

“We need to talk about how you ended up in here.”

Part 4 (Lainey) - Chapter 4

Part 4 (Lainey) - Chapter 4

Sky blinked, trying to settle in her mind which sensations came from within and which did not. “Why did you pick this house to investigate in particular? There are so many others. Have you been watching us? Do the others know?”

Answer his questions, said the voice into her mind.

She shook her head, gritting her teeth together and closing her eyes. “I won’t…”

You will obey me — the voice changed. It was someone else. I’m your father, Lainey. You’re going to obey, or I’m going to punish you again. She felt the stings of his blows all over again. Heard her mother’s tears, felt the impotent rage as the will bent down on her. Lainey was a broken pony; she had no chance of resisting a force like this.

“We were.” She covered her face with her forelegs, expecting a belt to come down on her despite her obedience. She could smell his sweat again, and the earthy smell of the barn. Some of that smell was blood. Some of it was hers.

No blow fell, however. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” She felt a gentle hoof against the side of her head. “I’m sorry about this, Cloudy Skies. This is all very premature. It’s nothing against you personally, little pony. Now tell me, how many of the other ponies know you’re here.”

Again she felt the presence in her mind, the nightmare hatred deep as an ocean. Was it her father? Even the end of the world couldn’t protect her. He had always said she would never get away. She opened her mouth to answer-

And something else pushed back. She couldn’t say where it came from. There were no other ponies nearby (though if she waited much longer, there would be). It felt like herself, but also like someone else. It wasn’t a word, wasn’t an invader, or even a presence exactly. It was an emotion, one she seldom felt. Rage. The rage of a tribe who watched its members freeze to death in the cold, a tribe with numerous predators and no natural weapons. A tribe without magic, without friends, and without hope. It was the defiance of humanity.

But she wanted to be a pony! The nightmare voice was suddenly soothing, her father’s memory gone. She remembered Alex instead, remembered the kindness Sunset Shimmer had showed her and the acceptance she had felt. It was a tempting prospect, and not one she had rejected. But the pony was not the part of herself she needed. The part that Lainey needed was Lainey.

Lainey Park let her pony instincts go, at least for now. She embraced the defiance and the rage, and at once she surged forward. Ryan the unicorn looked utterly stunned, and Sky sent him into a tumble. Once he had been shoved out of the way, Sky kept going, colliding with the door with all the force she could muster and slamming the thin wood into splinters.

“Up!” she screamed, pounding away down the steps and spreading her wings. Ryan’s shouts followed at her heels, along with something much worse. The nightmare was not trapped inside, as she might’ve hoped. Could she fly that fast?

Sky spread her wings, beating with all her strength. She let the breeze embrace her, filling her wings and her soul and blowing what remained of the nightmare from her mind. It only took her a few strides before her forehooves left the ground this time and she soared up and away over Alexandria’s empty buildings. As the distance between her and the ground continued to grow, so did the strength the wind gave her.

The wind couldn’t be captured or compelled; it blew where it listed. Sky didn’t know if the unicorn attempted any other spells to try and hold her; they failed.

But the nightmare was still following her.

Lainey drew on all her strength, breaking with her wings as though she was riding ahead of a fleet of invisible aircraft. The clouds seemed impossibly far away, yet she knew safety waited there. There was magic waiting in those clouds, waiting for her. “Up!” she shouted, willing the winds obey her. They did, twisting into a spiraling updraft that carried her away from the roaring Odium tugging at her soul.

It would not steal her today. Borne on the rushing of a gale that hadn’t been there, Sky reached the clouds for the first time in her life. She would be safe in there! Sky had read about weather magic, and she knew there was a technique to pass through the clouds without getting stuck. Other ponies would fall through without resistance, but not her.

A pegasus had to want to pass through, or else clouds were semisolid to them. Smacking up against the underside and plummeting back down would hardly serve her escape.

She concentrated the wind into a point in front of her, driving it into the clouds above her. She began boring through it like a drill, swirling them into a thin fog. It was suddenly as though she was swimming instead of flying. Yet she’d been prepared for that, already braced herself for the impact. She only had to make it through the clouds, a few hundred more feet.

Her momentum and strength were both almost gone by the time she made it out, breaching the overcast sky into bright sunlight. She dropped back a few feet, and despite what she had read she expected to start falling again.

Instead, the clouds wrapped themselves around her like a huge, damp towel. She sank a few inches, but the clouds held firm. She didn’t fall, even without the use of her wings.

The nightmare was gone. Rage echoed impotently below her, but the invisible being could not follow. The warmth of the sun cascaded through her, banishing the contagious nightmare like dew.

It was magic, a magic she had never realized existed until then. The sun controlled much of Earth’s climate; its heat made life possible. It warmed the water that rose to make clouds and heated the winds that carried them. It warmed the currents that Earth’s rotation twisted. Eight light-minutes away, the ancient might of primordial hydrogen gave up its nuclear brilliance and lit up the vastness of space.

The sun always banished dreams. It could banish nightmares too.

It was cold up here, and the wind blew furiously. Yet she wasn’t so uncomfortable as she had expected. Pegasi, it seemed, were well-adapted to the conditions where they spent their time. She took that moment to catch her breath, working through what she knew.

Ryan could use advanced magic. There was something in the house, something she suspected Ryan had probably invited there. She had lost her earpiece in the house, which meant she hadn’t heard anything her friends had said since she had confronted the angry unicorn.

How many of the new ponies belonged to Ryan’s group? Three, that she knew of, all from the same place. Carol the batpony, Ryan himself, and an Earth Pony named Ed. Would she be seeing bat wings up here in the sky with her at any moment? She hoped not, yet something she had done alerted the whole group, and all of them had left the library! Were they less separate than they had seemed? Or had Dean, and Kirk, and Abrams and the rest all tried and failed to resist the same nightmare of hatred that nearly swallowed her?

There was no time to rest, not when her friends were still down in Alexandria, still in danger. She might be safe, but they weren’t.

She lifted the radio carefully out of her sealed satchel, knowing full well the clouds wouldn’t be able to hold its weight. Resting it in her forelegs, she removed the wireless headset receiver from the audio port and twisted the volume all the way up.

“Hello? Wanderlust, are you there?”

Was she even close enough to the ground for her message to reach him?

Static buzzed over the rushing wind for several seconds. It transformed into a voice. It wasn’t Wanderlust at all, but the harsh, strangely reverberating tones of the changeling.

Yet as haunting as the voice was, she also sounded terrified. “Sky, I’m in trouble!” She whimpered. “They saw me watching! I tried to stay hidden, but they saw me!”

“Where is Wanderlust? Is he on this frequency still?”

The insect whimpered. “N-No! I’m not sure what happened to him! B-But Sky, they’re… they’re breaking down the door! I’ve never felt hatred like this before... not even from you. I think… I think they might be trying to kill me!” Her voice was full of tears, making her hard to understand over the rush of the wind. Only the strange, reverberating quality of her tone gave Sky even a hint at what she might be saying.

A dark voice somewhere deep in Sky’s soul whispered that Alexandria’s bug problem could be solved, and she wouldn’t have to do a thing about it. She wouldn’t have to be guilty of anything, nor would anypony else she cared about. It would be an outrage, an accident nopony could’ve prevented! She could be as outraged as the rest of them, when they found out. Besides, there was a more pressing issue! Wanderlust had been waiting for her, and when he had heard her in danger had probably gone straight for the place she had been last. If he hadn’t been captured, he would be.

Riley. The insect, the girl, she had a name. Sky saw the picture of a child, gray eyes and dirty blonde hair and a goofy smile. Instinct screamed disgust at the frightening predator with holes in her legs and a wickedly pointed horn. Cloudy Skies the pony could keep running away, and leave the insect to her fate.

How many times had she pleaded in vain for someone to come and rescue her? How many years had she suffered? Since she had been younger than the eleven-year-old Riley. No one had come for her, and the result had been a life of agony. She knew nothing of what the mob would actually do, didn’t know if Riley’s intuition about their intentions was right, but it didn’t matter. Cloudy Skies might leave the girl to her fate, but Lainey Park never could. Humanity had no magic, after all, no semi-divine princess. All they’d ever had was each other.

She had to help. “Get to the roof! You can do that, right?” Sky stood up, holding the radio in her mouth as she started to run, searching for an edge of the cloud. It was gigantic, one of an ocean of them that had turned this entire day to gray, but she remembered seeing several openings. She would have to find one. Her hooves sank a little into the fluffy substance, and in her frustration she started to beat her wings again.

Up here, it took only seconds to get airborne, no long running start. The clouds seemed to dance and swirl about her, and suddenly she knew the quickest way down, banking sideways towards the place she knew the clouds parted. She barely heard Riley’s terrified voice over the rushing wind. “Y-Yeah! I t-think I can. I c-can’t fly, though!”

“Jsmmm gmtmmm thmmmm!” she yelled, before twisting the radio into her satchel and cinching it closed. Only once it was secure did she speed up, twisting along the pattern she had only glanced at in the “Basics of Weathercraft.”

Would it be enough? She was about to find out.

Part 4 (Lainey) - Chapter 5

Part 4 (Lainey) - Chapter 5

It was amazing how different the sky could look when you were traveling down instead of up. It was a good thing Sky wasn’t afraid of heights anymore. The whole world stretched out below her, for so far that she imagined she could see the curve on the horizon. All around her she felt the wind, a thousand different twisting currents moving down from the Arctic towards the desert. The books on weather engineering spoke of such patterns. She hadn’t read them, though, and wasn’t particularly interested in their manipulation just now.

Sky didn’t need to change the weather worldwide, or even regionally. A change like that might take hundreds or even thousands of ponies, and she didn’t have resources like that. Sky only had herself, and that would have to be enough. You’ve never given me anything before. She prayed, though she didn’t have anybody or anything to pray to. Not her father’s god, that was for sure. Maybe Lonely Day had one she could borrow. If I’ve ever earned anything, I’m cashing in.

There was no reason this should work. The few books she had bothered to read suggested making weather could take years to learn. Even gathering a few clouds should’ve been beyond her.

Yet there was fury in the sky. Had she taught the clouds to feel that way? Fury might not be the right word. Maybe righteous indignation was better. As her wings cleaved through the sky, the clouds above grew darker, and the wind began to rise. Somewhere above, she heard the first distant peal of thunder, shaking her deep in her chest. It wasn’t a large storm, but it didn’t need to be. A few blocks would do.

Even from up high, she recognized Main Street, and the bank where a terrified little girl was in danger. Maybe she would spot Wanderlust on her way down, maybe she wouldn’t. He would have to wait.

The storm followed her. Was it merely the current of air towing it behind her, or was it her will? It didn’t matter. In front of the huge dark anvil was a little white cloud, one she hadn’t gathered into the massive storm. She had to take special effort not to let it be swallowed, since she had no idea if she could take the fury from the storm once she had given it.

It occurred to her that for the first time in her life she was flying into danger instead of away from it. Nightmare hatred waited down there, a will that had tried and failed to twist her thoughts against her friends. Could it come after her again? Let it try. She wasn’t alone this time; this time she had the sky.

As she ate the meters she could see the little crowd gathered around the bank. She couldn’t hear a word they said over the terrible roar she had called down. Either something had heard her prayer, or else Sky had a talent for this weather stuff. Unlike the little cloud she shepherded, the storm as a whole didn’t travel down with her. Within it, winds rose to gale-force, and rain began to pour. The first bolt of lightning struck the ground far below, than an instant later she shook again with the force of thunder.

Gunfire sounded from below her. Glass shattered, and a small explosion shook the bank. Had they noticed her yet? She would have to make sure they did. “Another one, right there!” The storm roared in acknowledgement, and she was suddenly almost blinded. Lightning struck a parked car far below, just beside the bank. A full tank of half-spoiled gas exploded into an orange fireball, shattering nearby windows with the force. Was the storm actually listening to her?

Riley was there, struggling to hold onto the roof of the building under the force of the wind. She concealed much of her body in a thick jacket, though her strange changeling features were still visible in her face. For once, Sky hardly noticed. She could see Dean on the street, cowering in an alley. She heard banging on the door. As she got closer, she heard Carol's voice. “We must destroy it! She and her kind would drink all the life from the world and enslave us!”

It was beyond bizarre to hear somepony voice the fears that she had felt every time she looked at young Riley. Now that she considered them, they sounded absurd! The poor child really would be dead if they caught her!

“Riley!” Lightning flashed across the sky. This time it struck a metallic figure at the top of the courthouse, causing it to glow and distort. Sky didn’t watch though. Instead, she pulled into a painfully sharp dive, pushing the cloud to a stop beside the building. She used the cloud to slow her fall, colliding with it and soaking the rest of her momentum. She emerged from within with bits of it clinging to her face, clambering to the surface and searching wildly for the changeling.

The door banged open, and Carol stood there, looking on in shock. Behind her was the hulking form of Abrams, his expression strangely dark. The nightmare was here.

There was a four foot lip around the edge of the bank. Easy for a human to hop over, but nearly high enough to stop a pony completely. “Get on!”

Riley hurried to the edge, staring at Sky and her cloud and the raging storm just behind her. Sky felt the sprinkling of rain on her back; if she waited too long, her little storm was going to ground her as much as the ponies that she expected to be following. If Carol was leading this group, then she was probably from Equestria, which would make her a vastly better flier than Sky herself.

Could she quell the storm Sky had summoned? Could she fly in it? Sky didn’t want to stick around to find out.

“I can’t fly!” Riley’s wings briefly flexed on her back, folding and unfolding.

“You don’t need to know how!” Lainey offered her foreleg towards the filly, even as the little mob poured out the opening on the roof. “Trust me!”

How did she know the changeling was going to be able to stand on the cloud with her?

Riley glanced over her shoulder, and her eyes widened. She jumped, little wings buzzing. She didn’t go up that high, but it was high enough. Sky caught her and tugged, finding her unexpectedly heavy. She would have thought those holes and such a small body would’ve meant she would be extremely light. Not so.

Still, she appeared to be correct about the clouds being able to support her, and the filly struck the cloud with a soft thump.

“Stop, pony! You have no idea what you’re doing! That abomination can’t be allowed to escape! You have no idea the horror she’ll bring!”

Sky ignored the shouting, ignored what sounded very much like gunshots, ignored everything. She rolled off the cloud and started beating her wings for her life, pushing against the cloud and shoving it back up and forward. The storm closed behind her, and the shouting and noise faded to the background. A quick glance over her shoulder proved that Carol wasn’t trying to follow through the gale.

She was panting with the effort of pushing an occupied cloud, but it didn’t matter. She would get Riley out alive, that was all that mattered.

She encountered no resistance for several minutes, flying with all her might and gaining altitude over the seconds. She kept her eyes alert for Wanderlust as she passed over the town, but saw no sign of him. Maybe he had seen and heard their conversation, and was wisely laying low. She didn’t have time to find out just then; unlike Riley, Wanderlust wasn’t helpless. He could handle himself.

She didn’t hear the changeling say anything until she started screaming. “Behind us!”

Sky looked, and froze for a second, dropping several feet once her wings stopped moving. She caught herself, rushing to catch up with the cloud.

Beneath them in the sky was a dragon. It wasn’t the way she had imagined dragons, not like they were in the movies she had started watching with her best friend or with Wanderlust. No, this dragon was of the sort Lonely Day had described, made entirely of flames and written over with runes. It opened its mouth and roared steaming breath towards them, almost as loud as thunder.

Thunder.

Old Sky might’ve left Riley behind, particularly after hearing the awful things Carol said about her. Old Sky would’ve turned her back on a threat like this dragon and not even attempted to reconcile it. They had sent a dragon after them into a rainstorm.

“Don’t fall!” she shouted, giving the cloud one last kick and pelting up and away from it, back towards her storm. Steam began to rise from below as well as orange light, along with the flickers of a very angry looking dragon. Its face already looked furious.

After being so low to the ground, it took Cloudy Skies a few moments to open up her perceptions to the sky again. She had precious little time, what with the terrifying monster twisting upward towards Riley with every second. It was clearly ignoring her. Behind her, she could see the little changeling peeking over the edge of the cloud in horror. It probably looked like Sky was flying away, abandoning her.

I’m sorry I’ve been treating you awfully enough that you’d think that, she thought, closing her eyes. I hope this is enough, kid! The currents surrounded her again, and again she was filled with the indignation of the storm. She felt its anger, wrath at some pollution beneath them. Was it the dragon? Not specifically.

It wouldn’t take much to change that. Sky twisted around in front of the storm, creating a vacuum to encourage it forward. She drew up the wind into another furious gale with her movements, compacting it still further. The interior of the cloud was now as black as the night sky, flickering with the near-constant sparking of electrical potential.

Thunder rolled across the earth, thunder Sky had called. From the cloud came a downpour the likes of which had been unknown in this part of the world since the world was young and giants walked with men.

She watched as a practical wave of water struck the dragon. It roared again, though this sounded far more like a screech of agony. Fire blazed white then blue, but the wave of heat wasn’t enough to quell the ire of heaven.

Sky had to fly for her life to escape the huge bubble of steam that accompanied the death of a fire-dragon, which was probably still hot enough to cook her alive in seconds.

There was no sticking behind to see what happened after that. She returned to where Riley watched. The transformation in her face was so significant Sky almost thought she had picked the wrong cloud. Riley didn’t look at her as though she were afraid Sky was going to hit her anymore. A significant improvement. “That was incredible! I didn’t know you knew weather magic already!”

“Me neither.” Sky pushed the cloud the rest of the way up, until they joined the celestial mass and vanished from sight of the ground. She left the storm to exert the rest of its rage on the earth, hopefully grounding any pursuit long enough for them to get far, far away. “Did you see any sign of Wanderlust?”

She shook her head. “N-No. He was on the radio one minute, gone the next. He went off only a little after you did!” She turned, gazing out at the vast field of clouds, stretching out from horizon to horizon.

The darkness of the storm was gone with the hatred from below. Up here, there could be only light. Only friendship?

Part 4 - Interlude

Changelings are enigmatic beings, largely unknown throughout Equestrian history despite coexisting with ponies at various points since its founding and likely before. Several of the ancient masters mention beings that are or might have been changelings.

To our knowledge, the essence of no changeling has been incorporated into the preservation spell. Unfortunately, the clandestine nature of these beings practically assures a few managed to make changes insignificant enough that they could not be prevented. Even the smallest weighting of probability is guaranteed to manifest given the staggering numbers of humans present prior to Thaumic Manifestation.

To those unfortunate enough to find themselves in the body of a changeling, we are sorry we could not prevent what you are experiencing. We are sorry we cannot provide you with more. Princess Celestia would have you know that the antagonism and fear ponies feel for you was well earned in Equestria, but that does not make you party to it. She hopes a new world of ponies might also be an opportunity for reconciliation, and that you might live in harmony with the ponies who rebuild humanity’s world.

Riley the changeling queen rested securely on the thick cloud as it scuttled across the sky, knowing she needed to stand but afraid of what might happen when she tried to make the cloud bear more weight. Everything she knew about the world already suggested she should be plummeting through the sky.

But then, what she had previously known about the world obviously didn’t hold true anymore, if the world she lived in now was a place where a pegasus could fly through the air and battle a dragon made of fire using a rainstorm. Yes, things had changed since the world of her birth. Every day Riley was reminded of how much she wanted things back to the way they were supposed to be.

Still, she couldn’t deny there was something wonderful about literally riding through the sky on a magical cloud with a pegasus pushing it for her. Ignoring certain inconvenient facts, Riley’s life was the dream of many children.

Her brain didn’t work the way it used to. Now all she had to do was consider a thought, and in the time it would’ve taken her to form a few words before, she could fully explore its every facet. Thus, in the time it took her to look up at Cloudy Skies and prepare to listen for what she had to say, Riley had made a mental list of all the good things her life had going right now.

No rules.

No need to wait to buy things, she could just take what she wanted!

She could eat anything she wanted; nothing made her sick anymore.

She had a whole city to explore whenever she wanted (at least until the newest wave of settlers had arrived).

She was no longer hungry on a daily basis, but now felt sated and strong constantly.

No more school.
~~7. No more being bullied.~~

Great new friends like Adrian and Alex.

And just like that, before even fully exploring her first thought, a separate branch of Riley’s consciousness immediately shifted to the list that was on her mind more and more since the immigrants had arrived: all the lousy things. She ranked them in order of the amount of discomfort they gave her. Not because she wanted to, or because she liked lists very much, but because she had to.

Being a freaky monster.

Mom and Dad are gone.

People hate her.

No more Facebook.

Live TV is gone.

Not sure what she’s eating.

Not sure if she wasn’t a monster.

Thus went her considerations, in the time it took Cloudy Skies to say: “You know, Riley, I’ve been thinking.” It took an effort of will for her to turn her attention on the pony, offering her one hoof to help her clamber up onto the cloud. Riley did so only after spreading her legs, anchoring herself so the effort would not make her fall. Other ponies felt light to her, so she wasn’t worried. One tug was all it took.

There was something strange about the way she heard voices ever since her transformation, something shallow and washed out. She never let it show in her face, though. Hadn’t ever told anyone about it, not even Adrian.

“I’ve been thinking you could use another name.” Sky reached forward, tugging her hood away from her face so she could see her. Riley braced herself for the wave of revulsion and fear… but it never came. Instead she felt only compassion. It was the difference between tasting the putrid smell of oil in the air and the sweet perfume of a roast cooking downstairs. It wasn’t food; not yet. But it was close. “Ponies need pony names. Even if you only use it as a nickname, like the others. It’s high time somepony give you one.”

“Does that mean you think I’m a pony now?” she asked without thinking, the words spilling out of her mouth before Sky had a chance to resume speaking.

Sky retreated a step, the cloud deforming under the pressure of her hooves. Her ears flattened, and she nodded. “Guess I probably deserve that.” She reached out, patting Riley on the shoulder.

Riley might’ve pulled away in disgust from someone whose mere presence had made her feel hated and feared (and who happened to be dating the pony she was living with, so she was always around!). Riley the child had been that way, but Riley the changeling was much more pragmatic. She felt a few slivers of love in that gesture, so she accepted it.

“You were always a pony.” Sky glanced down over the edge of the cloud, though there wasn’t much to see. They had merged with the thousands of other clouds that had transformed the day from clear to overcast, hiding the earth from sight. This worked to their advantage, since otherwise she was sure they would've stood no chance of escape. As it was, their chances still didn’t look good. “I guess I just took a little longer to figure it out. One day I hope you’ll forgive me… Blacklight.” Sky nodded, as though immensely satisfied.

Riley quivered under a sudden wave of emotion, a wave so sharp and intense it caused her to gasp and nearly fall over. Life rushed into her, from the pony that had never given her life before.

No matter how many times Riley experienced it, feeding was never less intense. She felt whatever emotion drove the pony, rushing through her mind as though experienced a thousand times as intense. Mere affection became zealous passion, more than her young life had ever prepared her to feel. Stronger emotions, like the fatherly paternalism Adrian felt for her, came to her as an almost worshipful zeal. The rush flowed into her as though it were air, lighting up her body with a tingling electricity that raged inside her chest like a storm. It rushed throughout her whole body, surging into every pore and healing all the little scratches and bruises she had acquired during her daring escape to the roof of the bank.

For some reason, giving her a new name was extremely important to Cloudy Skies. A name given like that had power, though she didn’t yet understand why. If the name was synonymous with Sky’s kindness, then she would probably end up using it at least some of the time. A new name for a new life?

“Sounds nice.” Riley nodded, shaking some of the water out of her sweatshirt. She hadn’t exactly dressed for the rain, and the garment clung to her like a parasite, sapping her warmth. If Sky wasn’t going to be disgusted anymore, then she would take advantage; she shrugged it off without a second thought. Unfortunately, she didn’t anticipate at least one of the consequences of removing a jacket up here. As it turned out, clouds did not hold jackets very well.

“Dangit!” Riley glared down at the opening in the cloud, watching it close. “I didn’t think-”

“Yeah.” Sky grinned. “No big deal. They’ll never find it.” She sighed, holding out her radio. Riley could see it had been soaked through, and the fancy LCD display was now a little black and brown explosion. When Sky twisted the dials, it only crackled once before going quiet again. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a satellite phone in those gym-shorts of yours.”

Riley shook her head. “It’s too big to carry. I had a regular walkie-talkie in my jacket, but…” She shrugged. “It was probably broke anyway, like yours. We should get the waterproof ones next time.”

Sky sat down on her haunches, frowning off at the horizon. “What should we do, Riley? Wanderlust is still down there. He probably needs rescuing. Our friends are up in Philadelphia and don’t know what’s happened. They might not know whether or not the visitors are really dangerous. We’ve already lost Alexandria. This is a mess.”

Of all her statements, the first motivated little Riley the most. He cared about her; he had stopped her from starving. He gave her a place to live.

She owed him for all that. More than that, he was her friend! If he had been safe, he never would have let a mob find her in that bank. That meant he was in danger.

Her mind simultaneously considered each and every possible permutation of their actions, at least so far as she understood the world. Being a queen removed the restrictions of sequential thought, but it did not impart any additional wisdom.

Even so, Riley found herself coming to a decisive conclusion within another second or two. “There’s too many.” She spread her wings in what she hoped would be a definitive, hopeless gesture. “They’re too good with magic. If we had to fight a dragon on the ground, we’d get roasted.” She shivered. “I don’t wanna be roasted." Pause. "Do you know anypony's phone numbers?”

Sky shook her head. “I know if we call the operator on the Iridium network it should get forwarded to his phone, or someone in the HPI if he doesn’t answer.”

“Okay, that works. Then… we should land far away from Alexandria, where they can’t see us.”

Sky took a moment to process the suggestion. “It’ll be way harder for them to find us on the ground! If it wasn’t cloudy, we’d be in trouble. You think we should get a phone, then hide out somewhere until we hear back from our friends.”

Riley moved past her, feeling more and more confident on the cloud as the seconds passed. She had been afraid of heights before today. Now, she wasn’t so sure she even remembered why she was supposed to be afraid. “Once we tell them, we could try to sneak up at night and see what happened to Adrian. If we think it’s safe. Or we could just wait until they get here; their plane is really fast!”

“I don’t think we should wait.” Sky glared over her shoulder, in the direction of Alexandria. “They had to come here for a reason, right? I’m sure mean ponies wouldn’t have come just to ruin our lives. Probably… I’m sure there’s something in all the runes I saw Joseph could’ve figured out.” She took out a regular cell phone from her satchel, as drenched as the radio had been. The screen flashed and came back a mess, just like everything else. “Figures.” She tossed the phone to one side, where it plunged through the cloud and out of sight.

“No!” Riley wasn’t sure what she was doing, or even how she was doing it. All she knew was that she didn’t want to lose that phone! To her shock, she found the waterlogged phone levitating back up towards them, glowing bright green. A similar glow came from her forehead, right up until she set it back down in Sky’s hooves. “Don’t you know anything about phones?”

Sky sighed. “I got my first phone six months ago. I never had one before the Event.”

Riley was silent for a few moments, not knowing what to say to that. Eventually she gave up on a logical response, and just said, “We just need some rice! Though… it probably would’ve helped if you hadn’t tried to turn it on. If we turn it off, somebody like Joseph might still be able to get the pictures off.”

She leaned closer, curious. “What’d you see, anyway? What set them off?”

Sky rose to her hooves. “Not very much. But… we should probably walk a little ways from here before we try to come down.” She gestured left, to the alien landscape rising around them. “I can tell you on the way. I don’t want Carol or somepony to find us up here.”

“Yeah.” Could Riley even walk on clouds this uneven without being able to fly like Sky could? She was about to find out.

Part 5 (Oliver) - Chapter 2

“You’ve been calling every hour?” Alex frowned at Oliver, not seeming the least bit reassured.

“Every thirty minutes, while we were out. Haven’t heard from Adrian or Sky in hours now.”

Moriah pushed her half-eaten lunch away on the table, glaring at it. Nevermind all the effort Oliver had spent preparing it, just as he spent on every meal he prepared. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t make a banquet out of vegetarian MREs! “We should go back right now. There’s nothing else for us to learn here.”

Joseph looked nervous, perhaps even more so to be directly contradicting Moriah. But he wasn’t so timid that he could be so easily cowed. “Even if nobody in Alexandria is connected to the fire, we might run into the ones who are eventually. If you give me enough time to crack the runes they’re using, we might be able to look up a defense in the books.”

Oliver watched this exchange without comment, observing the way Alex took charge; that even after becoming sixteen, they still considered her an authority. He did too, though her recent “death” had apparently only reinforcedher authority in their minds.

After a few seconds of consideration, Alex looked back to him. “The fact they dropped out of contact right as they went on their spying mission can’t mean anything good. Even normally reasonable and kind ponies might have got angry about the spying. Either way, our friends need us.” She turned to Joseph. “Do you already have pictures of all the runes you found?”

“There weren’t very many. Looked like they’d been deliberately destroyed. But I found a few excerpts, like this one:”

Kar-kar-t-nt-kar-w-bb-tul-bn-bbqm-vmy-min-w-kar-t-vq-p-kar-qhp-mak-g-mes-min-fx-hk-min-n-wbr-vri-nt-mak-b-min-lq-p-kar-qhp-mak-g-vri-cxz-vri-m-kum-tul-jhv-nd-min-hz-m-tul-tul-kb-mes

“Pretty sure they’re using some form of monoalphabetic substitution. There are some patterns in the letters that suggest a key of twelve letters or less. It isn’t Odium Forgives, I already tried that. I can’t quite pin down what those short letter-groups are, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with vowels and I know I’m close. Just-”

Alex cut him off. “But you have pictures of all of it, right? So you could keep working on the way?”

He nodded, and looked like he wanted to speak. Moriah very gently put a hoof in his mouth, and Alex smiled approvingly. “Good. It will still take hours to fly back. You can keep working on the way; let us know if you come up with anything.”

Alex looked between Oliver and Moriah. “Is that okay with you two?”

He shrugged in response. “Nothing I can do for someone who’s been burned to death but pray. I’d prefer we get the chance to bury them, but we could always come back. It’s not as if we’re the ones paying for gas.”

They were agreed. Oliver had little to do with the return procedures, except in insisting that they were all secure before they actually took off. There would be no repeats of the day before, particularly with those who lacked the ability to regenerate broken necks and broken skulls. But despite their fears, there was no fire-dragon attack, wasn’t even any turbulence. Once they’d reached their cruising altitude and supersonic speed, Oliver reluctantly acknowledged that they were probably safe to leave their seats.

“We need a plan.” Alex was already in the seat next to him. With Moriah as the pilot and Joseph engrossed in his codes, he was the only one she had to test her ideas. “Have you ever planned a rescue mission? Maybe we could just use one of your old ones.”

He shook his head, smiling a little. “Never. I help people make diet and exercise plans, but I don’t think that’s the same.”

“No.” She was silent for several moments, fiddling with the large metal bracelet she wore. There was a screen there, and after a few minutes or so of tinkering, it filled with an aerial image. He thought it was the plane’s cameras or something, until he saw that the ground wasn’t moving, and that he recognized it.

“HPI satellite?”

She nodded. “Damn scary how close they can look, isn’t it? They got this picture three minutes ago. I think the message said they’ll send us another one the next time one of their satellites pass, in… another twenty-three minutes. This is all the intel we have. See anything interesting?”

Oliver had to lean close to her to look, which was much easier now that he had removed his bulky restraints. He couldn’t help but feel that she had intended him to have to from the beginning. So he leaned and he looked, taking in as much as he could from the tiny screen. He noticed what she had been indicating in seconds. “That’s Adrian!”

His distinctive coloration had been somewhat washed-out by the satellite image, though Oliver was still sure it was Adrian he was looking at. “The resolution on this… must be half a meter at the largest.” He shivered. “It’s hard to tell, but it looks like he’s with several of the new ponies. I think those… might be Carol’s wings there, with that color. Wish this was video, so we could see if he was restrained.”

Alex looked troubled. “There are stationary satellites that can give us a steady picture, but they can’t spare the cameras for us right now. Couldn’t get anypony to tell me what it was about though.”

“And they’re the ones with the spy satellites.” He frowned at the image a moment. “They’re heading straight for the library.” He steadied himself, trying to make himself as calm as possible for the suggestion he would make next. “Could it be a problem with their equipment instead of the ponies around them? It is possible their phones or ours stopped working for unrelated reasons.”

“Yeah.” Alex nodded, then rose. “I’ll ask Joseph to check once we land. I think he said something about not being able to get reception when we’re moving this fast.” She hopped down onto the floor. “I’m going to discuss landing sites with our pilot.”

Their pregnant pilot. Who hadn’t said a word about it to anypony, so far as he could tell.

He had thought about telling Joseph about his suspicions more than once over the last few days, since he figured it out. Technically, since they were just suspicions and Moriah had never come to him for medical advice, he had no responsibility to keep it secret.

More practically, he didn’t want to face the fallout something like that would cause. Still, he might be able to walk the middle ground somehow. “Could you let her know that if the treatment for nausea I gave her isn’t working, she can come talk to me and I’ll give her something stronger?”

Alex raised an eyebrow. “Sure, but I hope she’ll wait until we land first. Autopilot or no autopilot. We’d already have died once without her.” She gestured at the wall. “Maybe you can help Joseph with the code. Or maybe you want to try calling using the HPI communicator. I think there are instructions for how to contact civilian satellite net-”

He interrupted her. “Joseph and I can figure it out.” By that of course, he meant mostly Joseph. Assuming the unicorn could be persuaded to leave a code half-broken for a few minutes.

Oliver moved over to Joseph’s seat. The unicorn had made a few adjustments since they had been able to move around, propping himself sideways on blankets and pillows stolen from both of their bunks. With most of the seat beside him detached, he’d created a comfortable space in which to sit facing sideways and work on the laptop, his horn glowing whenever he needed to manipulate the mouse or press a few keys.

He watched carefully for several minutes, waiting for a break in Joseph’s concentration. Only when the unicorn looked up did he speak. “Hey Joe; can I borrow you for a few minutes?”

The unicorn gazed back with a glare that could’ve curdled milk. “Is it more important than breaking this code?”

Oliver very nearly failed to stop himself from saying that no amount of codebreaking hours were actually worth anything to them until the point when he actually broke the code. He was thinking it, but stopped himself from actually getting the words out. Somehow, he doubted they would be very convincing. Instead he said: “It’s just as important and it won’t take very long. I’m afraid that we might just have some kind of equipment failure on our hands. We have no way of knowing if Cloudy Skies and Adrian Wong both lost access to their phones for some reason, but we can at least eliminate the possibility that it was ours by using the one the HPI built into this plane. Alex said there was a communications station, and that you could help me make a call on the civilian network. You think you could set that up for me?”

Joseph looked very much like he was going to say no. He didn’t actually say anything though, just looked Oliver up and down, before snapping his laptop lid closed and rising to his hooves. “We’ll use the computer back here. It’s closer than the one in the bedroom.”

Ten minutes later, and they were online. Joseph had left him to his work as soon as he verified the phone was working using technical wizardry that impressed Oliver almost as much as the magic he did with his horn.

That left Oliver in an extremely uncomfortable position. Really though, it was a situation he found himself in more and more as the apocalypse wore on: being social. Before the end of things, he could’ve counted his friends on one hand. Before, he had never been in a serious relationship for more than a few months before it ended in ice rather than fire.

Oliver did not like being around people. Even when the world ended, the very idea of making a phone call, even to ponies he knew, filled him with dread. Merely getting up the courage to get out of bed in the morning, when he knew some large portion of the day was going to be spent around other ponies, it took genuine restraint not to hide and just let the world happen around him.

The last six months had done something unexpected, though. After all that time around the same people, Oliver was finally beginning to learn what it was like to have friends again. He could not abandon them now, not when his failure to act might cause bloodshed. Moriah was already on the warpath, and Joseph would be too if he thought Sky might be in danger. The best thing he could possibly do was learn that they had been wrong about everything, particularly their belief that they had working phones.

So he forced the headset designed for a human head onto his own, twisting it sideways so at least one of the earpieces actually rested in his ear, and the microphone pointed askew in front of his eyes. Then, with a single, deep breath, he dialed Adrian. The phone rang, rang and rang with the strange delay only satellite phones possessed. Though maybe it might be more true now to say that all phones had it, since satellite phones were all that survived.

On this network, most phones would ring ten times before a call would be transferred to voicemail, which equalled a disconnection. Those servers had long since gone offline, so instead of transferring to a working switch station, calls just went dead.

The phone stopped ringing on the ninth this time. As it did, Oliver could hear the sound of loud conversation in the background, though it was impossible to make out what they might be saying. He reminded himself that he was hearing the world several full seconds into the past, then started speaking.

“Adrian, are you alright?” he asked. “This is Oliver. We haven’t heard from you or Cloudy Skies since noon. We just wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

There was a long, muffled silence, as though someone had just covered the receiver with their hand. Not that anyone had any of those left these days. “Adrian can’t talk now,” said a voice, not Adrian's. It belonged to one of the newcomers, actually. He was dreadful with names, so he couldn’t remember which. Male, but not so deep as Abrams. “I am Night Speaker; there is important business to discuss.”

Part 5 (Oliver) - Chapter 3

Oliver had many reasons to dread using the phone. Talking with strangers was near the top of the list, though it wasn’t quite at the top. There was not yet an entry on the list for “negotiating with the possibly insane for the return of his friends.” He didn’t say anything, just stared at the screen, trying to figure out what he should say.

The speaker on the line sounded familiar, though he still couldn’t put a name to the voice. Maybe it would come to him as he spoke. “When will you be returning to Alexandria, Oliver? Your presence is urgently needed here. One of your friends hurt one of my friends, and we have no doctors.”

It was all he could do not to continue to stare in silence. “What happened?”

For someone whose friend had been hurt, the voice didn’t sound upset. More like he was commenting on a bit of inconvenient rain. “Adrian the pegasus attacked several of my ponies with human weapons. Two of my friends were injured. I think there is still metal in their bodies. We did our best to stop the bleeding, but we really need you back.”

Oliver nodded, though he knew the speaker couldn’t see him. He spoke without thinking, the words almost automatic. “Of course. We should be back in four hours. Did you take them to the hospital?”

“No, they’re in the library. We would not take them near that human place.” Pause. “We are prepared to trade you Adrian in exchange for your help with our wounded and a visit from the filly.”

The filly? Oliver knew from Cloudy Sky’s insistence on using horse words that a filly was the equivalent of a girl, and he only knew of one of those. “Riley isn’t with us. She stayed in Alexandria. Why would you want her, anyway?”

There was a brief silence, accompanied by a chuckle. Something sounded sinister about it, though he couldn’t have said why. “No, not that thing. The crows will have her soon, and we don’t need any pact to make it so.” Oliver felt cold, like a chip of ice had suddenly been lodged in his heart. It wasn’t just that the speaker casually spoke of harm to a child. It was the matter-of-fact way he said it, without the slightest doubt. No human or pony was meant to sound that way. In an unpredictable world, most ponies spoke with at least a little reservation. None could know all things.

This one sounded like he thought he did. “Your leader, the thing that calls itself Lonely Day. Your master must speak with ours. For this, we offer Adrian's life in exchange.”

Oliver muted his microphone, long enough to shout down the hall for Alex. He wasn’t sure she would hear, but he yelled a few more times. If nothing else, Joseph would’ve. He wasn’t really fit to be doing this negotiation stuff. Oliver was a healer, and maybe a gardener. Politics was beyond him.

Still, there was something dark in the image the speaker’s words gave to his thoughts. He couldn’t help but feel anger. Insinuating that Adrian had attacked them had been one thing; that was an accusation of action (which they would probably learn was false as soon as they spoke with him). This was different. They hadn’t accused Alex of anything, they were just insulting her. Perhaps a little bizarrely, but the intention seemed clear even so.

He switched the mic back on. “You must mean Alex. She’s not our master, she’s just our leader. Those aren’t the same thing.”

There was always a long delay with satellite communication. “Her kind do not lead,” said the voice. “They own. Equestria has bowed to its own for long enough, and now they wish to seed your world with more of the same. We’re here to put a stop to it. To protect you. To do that, we must speak with it, and we must have your help to treat the injuries our friends received.”

Again he nodded, though there was nobody to see. “I will help regardless. I’m not sure who you really are… if you came with the immigrants, or if you’re somebody else. But in my country, doctors are afforded a certain level of respect. I have no desire to get involved in politics. We take an oath to ease pain and treat the wounded. I would have helped anyway.”

“And the filly; will it speak with us?”

“She will.” It was not his voice that answered. Oliver glanced over his shoulder, heart suddenly pounding in his chest. How was Alex’s… Of course, the answer came from the screen. She wasn’t doing anything magical; she had just joined the call from the other room. Evidently his shouting had accomplished something after all. “Though I believe you may be technically mistaken about terms. I have my cutie mark; I’m grown.” She sounded more defensive about that then being called an “it.” It was almost enough to make him laugh. “Whatever you want to say, Ryan, say it now.”

There was shocked silence from the other end. “A fictional name for a fictional pony. My true name is Night Speaker. You have no true name.”

“Not true.” Alex took a breath. “Princess Luna of Equestria named me Archive.” She said the word slowly, as though it were something heavy she were putting down. It wasn’t a name Oliver had heard before. Just how much did he know about Alex? “What do you want, Night Speaker?” Oliver expected Alex to be more confrontational, perhaps getting angry about the fire-dragon that had attacked them on their landing. Perhaps she would demand an explanation for what had happened in Philadelphia, even though they still weren’t sure yet if these ponies actually came from there.

She did none of those things.

If he expected reference to the Equestrian royalty to soften Ryan’s voice on the other end, he was disappointed. Instead, the unicorn’s voice came off harsh and clipped, as though barely containing his emotions. “She had no right to tamper with this world!”

“You’re not the only one upset with how Luna did things,” Oliver interjected. “I’m probably never going to see my mother or cousins again because of her. My whole life was uprooted. She’s not our favorite pony either.”

“No.” That cold amusement was back. “She should not have interfered with your world at all. Fate’s judgement was clear. But she interfered. The vultures of the void will not be cheated. Odium forgives.”

Oliver tensed. In two words, this “Night Speaker” had confirmed all of their suspicions. The same message had been scrawled in Philadelphia. Ryan could not have been there when the fire started, so some other pony must’ve been responsible. At least a dozen people were dead because of the actions of whatever group he represented. How many more deaths did he want?

“What do you want from me?” Alex asked again. “I already know what you want of Oliver. You have hurt ponies. I’m no doctor, I can’t help them.”

“You lead Alexandria. I wished to warn you of an urgent danger and trust you to remove it. Our… more entrenched disagreements can wait.”

“I’m listening.”

“You have among your number a dangerous parasite called a changeling. These beings caused devastating wars in Equestria. They enslaved and devoured the minds and hearts of ponies. With the help of the pony Cloudy Skies, she has escaped into the wilderness. If she is allowed to survive to reproduce, her kind will infest your world as they did ours. But you’re her leader. If you can find and kill the parasite before her filth spreads further, you might prevent countless deaths. You claim to lead the ponies here; show wisdom beyond your years and protect the ponies of the next generation.”

“I thought you said fate had judged humanity.” Oliver wasn’t sure where the words came from, but he said them. “What do you care if she causes some of us to suffer down the road? Wouldn’t you want us to experience as much pain as possible?”

The voice sounded shocked. “Of course not! Odium forgives. Even you.” Oliver felt something then, as though a force was traveling through the phone into his head. Like thick cotton was filling his brain and making his thoughts slow down, making it harder to consider anything important and trying to dredge important memories from the last few days to the surface.

“He will wipe away the stains of the pretender princesses and their pretended compassion. One day, he will make this world even greater than the fallen place I come from. On that day, we might be enemies. But not today. Today, our interests align. Destroy the changeling, Archive, and protect our children from her spawn.”

Alex didn’t answer for some time. When she did, it sounded like the young mare was fighting whatever strange sensation was invading her mind as much as he was. “I-I will consider… your suggestion.” Pause. He felt something shift in the aircraft, and another sudden wave of discomfort. He felt the icy chill of the anti-thaumic shield on his soul, strangling the strength from him. Yet as it did, he felt his mind clear. It was the best the shield had ever felt, like being splashed with cold water after having a little too much drink.

Alex’s voice sounded clearer too, and twinged with just a drop of satisfaction. “We arrive in three hours. I will give you an address when we are ten minutes out. You may bring your wounded there, and Oliver can care for them.”

“No.” Ryan’s voice was callous, with only a twinge of regret. “They’re too hurt to be moved, and must remain in the library. You must send Oliver there. You may accompany him if you wish.”

“Absolutely not.” Alex sounded equally uncompromising. “Assuming all the ponies who arrived with you are somehow working with you, you outnumber us two-to-one. You can’t possibly expect me to put Oliver into that situation; we would be trading one hostage and medical care for one hostage. A very poor trade.”

Oliver felt the fury building. “No, Alex.” He spoke calmly, except that his voice shook a little. The only clue to the anger seething under the surface. “If there are hurt ponies there, I’m going. I don’t care who they’re working for. If trading me for Adrian is how I help them, then that’s how it’s going to be.”

Alex did not argue with him, not then. Not until they’d hung up and she made her way over to him in the cargo area did she finally say anything.

Oliver didn’t stay angry long. Alex still smelled furious when she rounded the corner from the cockpit. At least, that was what he thought she smelled like. The smell of anger was so close to another smell that he very nearly couldn’t tell the difference. Her face told him which of the two emotions she was really feeling, though. Her eyes bulged wide, ears faced forward, and teeth bared. Did she even realize she was doing that?

“Absolutely not!” She was only slightly more than half his height. Still, her shout was enough to sound quite clearly over the engines. “Oliver, you can’t go! Nevermind not presenting a united front to a homicidal enemy, which might’ve cost us big. There’s no guarantee they won’t just kill you the instant you get close. There’s no guarantee Adrian is even still alive. You can’t go in on their terms!”

Alex might be raging like waves, but Oliver was a rock. He withstood all of it, without escalating to anger himself. It was only at the outset that her presuming to speak for him made him upset. Now, he was only resolved. Ryan had said Alex was his master. The word nagged at him; he wouldn’t allow it. He would prove their world was better than that. There were no masters in Alexandria, and no slaves. Only friends.

“I don’t care what might happen,” he said, so calmly that he could practically hear the hot air leaking out of her. “I’m going.”

“What?” She blinked up at him, the teenager that had once been their confident leader. “Why?”

“Because ponies are hurt. They’ve been shot, and I’m the only doctor. I don’t think I’m in danger; even evil cults need doctors.”

Alex sat back on her haunches, making her look even smaller. At least she had a cute angry face. He would probably have to wait until she was calm enough to hear something like that, though. “You’re helping them. They already outnumber us; wouldn’t it be better if they’re in worse shape?”

“We don’t know that.” Oliver removed the headset, turning away from the computer. “Maybe the others were just complacent in whatever they did. Maybe some of the immigrants are prisoners too, and they don’t even know. But even if I am helping them, I don’t care.” He glanced briefly at the reflection of his cutie mark in the screen. “I swore to guard growth and ease pain; to put away death for life. I won’t see that oath violated, even if it would be convenient for me to sit by and let our enemies die.”

Master, Ryan had said. How would his master respond?

Alex opened her mouth, chest puffing out again as though she was going to argue with him. She didn’t say anything, though. Instead she nodded, and he could hear the crack in her voice when she spoke. “I don’t… I don’t want anything to happen to you, Olive. But I’m glad you’re willing to fight to be you.” She nuzzled his leg, then hurried away.

Oliver looked down at the place she had touched, rubbing at the strange feeling there. Of course, Alex’s logic was sound. He probably would end up a hostage. He just didn’t care.

Part 5 (Oliver) - Chapter 4

Oliver had no weapons as he made his way into Alexandria. He slowed his ATV as he neared the square, not wanting to seem hostile. Being a doctor often conveyed protection (at least when dealing with an honorable enemy), but taking advantage of that protection required that you make yourself obvious. The enemy couldn’t even be blamed if you didn’t make it clear enough, and they mistook you for a combatant.

So he wore the white jacket he had come in, smeared as it was with ash and smelling like charred flesh. It wasn’t as though they’d had the time to wash it. There were ponies back in the city that might be in critical condition.

That didn’t mean he had come in completely unprepared. Once Joseph had learned of his intention, the unicorn had switched gears completely, working with Alex on a way to mitigate the danger of his mission. Unfortunately a few more hours of flying time hadn’t been enough to invent some magical force-field he could hide on his person or anything like that, but it had been enough for something else.

His first preparation didn’t go on his person at all; it would go in him. The invention was apparently used for locating HPI hardware even when it traveled vast distances or deep underground; a battery-powered radio beacon small enough he had literally swallowed it. Along with a few drugs he had taken to alter his digestion briefly, that would mean at least two days when the others would be able to find him, no matter where the hostile ponies took him.

The second device was a little more mundane; an audio bug he would conceal in the many crevices of his surgery kit. It didn’t have the greatest range, but Joseph had explained that he had put a repeater in the ATV, which would use the- technical magic he neither understood nor cared about.

For Oliver wasn’t terribly concerned with anything other than helping ponies in need. Only when that was done would he be able to consider the ponies of this “cult,” and judge their cause.

After Joseph had given him everything, the others had said their goodbyes. Moriah called him a “fucking idiot,” while Alex just gave him a hug and a strange promise. “It won’t get you the way it got them,” she had whispered into his ear. “You’re one of mine. I promise, I won’t let it keep you.”

He hadn’t known what to say to that, so he just waved and drove away, his electric ATV pulling a little trailer behind it filled with his medical gear.

Thus, he found himself approaching the library.

The public library looked exactly as he remembered it, with one important difference; there were armed ponies standing around it. As he approached, several ponies emerged from inside, not all of them immigrants he knew. He kept his eyes open for Sky or Adrian, but saw no sign of either one.

Ryan met him on the sidewalk. The dark purple unicorn had swapped out a pair of baggy pants for nothing at all. Nor was he the only one who had made similar moves away from human clothing styles. He could see the unicorn's cutie mark now, a broken crown of gold in a style he'd never seen before.

Oliver could see at least a dozen different ponies, and most of them were unfamiliar. They hadn’t been part of the group of immigrants that had made their way into Alexandria. Where the hell had they come from? “I’m here.” He got off the ATV, switching its motor off and leaving it parked right in front of the steps. He moved very slowly. He felt all the eyes on him, though none of the ponies raised weapons. A few, including Ryan himself, were unicorns. Why bother with guns when you had a thaumic projector on your head? “I’m unarmed. Here to help with your injured. Let Adrian go.”

Ryan nodded very slightly, and the gathering of strange ponies moved very subtly to surround him. None got close, but they formed a loose ring, ready to spring if he tried to bolt. Oliver was fast, and he was strong. These ponies would not be so easy to escape from.

Of all the faces he actually recognized, only Carol and Ryan had ditched their clothes. The others, such as bulky Abrams, remained dressed as they had been. Was this his way of telling the Equestrians from the humans? Did it even matter which was which, if one group was helping the other?

“Of course. He is inside, with the injured. Is that large box for healing?”

He nodded. “It’s a field surgery kit.” He made to reach for it, but Abrams stepped up to block the way. There was something strange in his eyes, something Oliver couldn’t quite place. It unnerved him all the same, sent a shiver down his spine.

“No need to carry it, human doctor. My ponies will get it.” He made a gesture, and one of the unicorns he hadn’t seen before lifted the box in her magic, hefting the huge surgery kit as though it weighed nothing at all.

Unicorn levitation was incredible stuff.

“How is their condition?” Oliver followed Ryan as though he had just arrived at his shift in Mercy General. It didn’t matter that he was surrounded by dangerous cultists, and might never escape. It didn’t matter that at least some of them might be from another world. All that mattered was healing.

“They are alive,” Ryan answered, flicking his tail in a shrug. Watching him, Oliver found that all the pretended awkwardness was gone from his appearance. He didn’t stumble anymore, didn’t pretend to trip on his hooves, or let his horn spark with random magic. He moved smoothly, more smoothly than anyone in Alexandria ever had. His sense for health told him that he was observing the movement of a healthy, adult native who had never known another body.

They were in trouble. Not only were they outnumbered, but they were facing down unicorns and pegasi and earth ponies that understood how to be what they were. It was a good thing he didn’t have to concern himself with how to win. Alex would worry about that. He only had to do some healing.

They passed a charred pile on the dry grass, surrounded by stones. It still smelled like charcoal and burning plastic. He didn’t concern himself with that, not yet. There were bigger problems to worry about.

He found Adrian waiting for him in the entryway, in worse condition than Oliver had ever seen him. This said a great deal, since he had operated on his wing with only the preparation of a few medical books and had nearly watched him die under the knife.

Adrian had sweat on his brow, and shook on his hooves as though he were terrified of something that Oliver himself couldn’t see. His heart pounded in his chest. Yet there was no sign of physical distress on him, apart from a few bruises and some feathers out of place. Nothing to explain the look of horror on his face.

Oliver realized with another wave of icy chill to his soul that he recognized that look. It was the same one all these ponies wore, though for most of them it never left their eyes. “There we are.” Ryan stopped, and Oliver stopped beside him. “We’re here. Your friend is safe, just like I promised.” He turned. “Adrian, you are free to go.”

The pegasus looked up towards Ryan, shaking the whole way. It seemed as though he was fighting every part of it, and losing all the while. He shook, and Oliver feared he might bite through his tongue from the violence of it. Eventually his body steadied, enough that Oliver could make out halting words. “I do not want to leave. I would rather stay with you. I would rather serve.”

Ryan raised his eyebrows, in exaggerated surprise. “Really?” He glanced briefly to Oliver, meeting his eyes with a satisfied sneer. “You’re free to go, Adrian. Are you telling me you don’t want to go?”

Adrian lifted one hoof. The gesture was small — only a few millimeters. Oliver wouldn’t have noticed at all if he hadn’t been looking for something like it. He held up the hoof for just a few seconds, then put it back down where it had been resting. “N-No. I… do not… wish to leave. The others have been… deceived. I would rather stay. I would rather help… protect my home… from them.”

Oliver had never seen anything more horrific in his life, and only last night he had watched a good friend's neck break right in front of him. He would've turned and ran right then, heedless for his chances, except that there were still ponies in danger. He had volunteered to come here. He would see it through, regardless of the consequences.

“He will be happy for your service,” Ryan said, then. “I was true to my word, pony. The pony Adrian has been released, he is free to go. We cannot be blamed for the choices he makes.”

Oliver felt revulsion as he watched. Adrian's eyes were helpless; his body plagued by constant twitches and strains. It was like watching a miniature seizure. He knew what it must be; the poor pegasus was prisoner of his own mind. Could the others be as well?

Oliver’s mission changed then, even though he made no sign of it. He had come to treat injured ponies, and that he would do (assuming they even existed). Yet beyond that, there was a far greater sickness to cure. These ponies had an infection of the soul, one he felt no less clearly than the injuries he had seen Alex acquire on the way to Philadelphia.

He had been helpless to treat her mortal wounds, though he had not needed to. Somehow he doubted Adrian or any of the others would overcome this strange domination on their own.

Would he be next? If the process made a pony shaky and unsteady as it had made Adrian, he couldn’t possibly be expected to accomplish anything medical once it happened. That could mean only one thing: he had time. He would probably have until he finished doctoring before they tried it. That meant he had to come up with a cure before they did.

Could he? Oliver knew little of magic and nothing of what it could do to twist a pony’s mind. How could he possibly cure an illness he had never before even observed?

Just because he never had didn’t mean he wouldn’t try. It was his sacred oath. It was his cutie mark.

“You’ve done something to him,” he said, slightly louder than he needed to. Not because he really thought confronting Ryan would do him any good, so much as because he wanted the others to hear. “He’s shaking all over. He’s struggling. Adrian doesn’t want to stay. Release him.”

Ryan shook his head. “I have been true to my word, doctor. Now will you be true to yours?”

Oliver frowned, then nodded. He glanced sympathetically towards Adrian one last time, then turned away. “Take me to them then. These injured ponies.”

Ryan led the way through the library. Oliver tried to take everything in as he walked. There was something different about the place, though it was hard to say exactly what that something might be. Only when they reached the children’s section did he realize what it was. All the Equestrian books that had been there, the red-covered “Read First” section, were gone. Their shelves and piles were deserted. There were no other Equestrian books; the rest were all kept in Alex’s enchanted saddlebags. All the tablets and kindles holding the digital copies of the books they had managed to copy were gone too.

He didn’t comment on this, though, not as he was led to a pair of cots and a pair of ponies resting on them. They didn’t look familiar, their faces strange to him. Nor did they look good. One, a cream-colored pegasus mare with an upside-down umbrella for a cutie mark, the other a large earth pony stallion with a white and brown coat and a hammer mark. They had been bandaged badly.

“Your cult doesn’t have a doctor?”

Of the crowd of ponies that had been with him, only Ryan and Abrams and the unicorn mare he had never seen before remained. Abrams carried a large rifle, and seemed the only one armed near him. He looked ready to use the gun at a moment’s notice.

“Our cult-” he practically spat the word. “Had one until five months ago. She was killed by a human machine, intentionally. We have others, but none are close enough to help now.” He gestured towards them. “Heal them. If either of them dies, so will Adrian. If they both die, so do you.”

Ryan turned away. The unicorn set his medical supplies down at his hooves and made to follow. “Stay with him, sister Light Spinner. He may need your help.” His eyes met Oliver’s again. “I will be back for your report at nightfall. It would be best for all of us if you have finished by then.”

He left. Oliver’s “guards” moved to surround him, even as he went through the motions of opening his tools, sterilizing his hooves and preparing to work.

Field surgery on a species he barely knew, with the pressure of his own death and that of a friend weighing on him? Simple! Having to solve the problem of apparent mind control during that same period? It couldn’t be that much harder, could it?

It was going to be a long day. At least his radio transmitter was one-way. It would be good not to have to hear anypony say “told you so.”

Part 5 (Oliver) - Chapter 5

It took twenty minutes or so to clear a large enough swathe of the library that he had room to work, hanging sterile sheets and turning reading tables into operating tables. He had the help of all his “guards” except Abrams, who kept his distance and watched everything he did with passionless eyes. Oliver had never seen eyes like that before, not in the week or so the immigrants had been in Alexandria. Why had it only happened now?

Oliver felt the solution must be in whatever had happened once Adrian and Sky began their spying mission. He wondered what they might’ve learned that would have provoked such a strong reaction, transforming friendly ponies into a militaristic enemy with dead eyes overnight.

He had more important things to be thinking about just now. Two ponies with poorly treated bullet-wounds. He quickly dismissed the mare’s wounds as superficial, and determined neither of the injuries (both to her legs) had done serious damage. Indeed, neither had trapped the bullet or any shard of it. He covered her back up and focused his attention on the stallion.

The signs he saw were not good. Injuries to the abdominal cavity, still seeping dark blood despite the bandages. He considered it a miracle the pony was even still alive, and that was likely because of his earth-pony nature. There could be no tourniquet, and his pleas to move the procedure to the hospital were summarily denied.

Oliver adopted a battlefield innovation: using a sensitive handheld metal detector to find the bullets instead of an x-ray. He had no life support, and no guarantee the drugs he had would work as intended on ponies. The deeper he probed, the deeper the damage proved to be. One of the bullets, as it turned out, had probably punctured the pony’s liver and one of his kidneys. It was a miracle nothing had punctured a lung or the stomach, or else he would’ve already been dead.

Oliver did not get discouraged, did not once even consider the difficulty of what he was attempting. Perform high-pressure surgery on a species he barely knew? He was no surgeon, not yet. Yet he would have to be, improvising procedures he had seen or read about during his training. If he failed, Adrian might be killed.

Even more important than that, failure to save this patient would be another way to break his oath, and that he could not abide. Oliver was a sworn enemy of death, in all her forms. She could not be allowed to take even a dangerous enemy. Wasn’t this enemy’s life just as precious and unique as any of his friends? Even if he didn’t know the stallion’s name. He didn’t ask, didn’t want to know until after he succeeded. Yet still it weighed on him.

At one point, he asked, “Can you please go to wherever you took the pony library and get the illustrated guide to earth pony anatomy? Or… one of the tablets, that would work too.” After all, the entire “read this first” section had been scanned, so he could read the book on any of the tablets if he had to.

“I can’t,” offered his makeshift assistant. She sounded regretful. He had given her a sterile gown and mask to wear, both of which were stained with blood. “We burned all of it. Every book from Equestria is gone. All the ‘tablet’ devices are burned too. We found the deceiver's lies all through them; we had no choice.”

Oliver didn’t know what that meant, nor did he much care. He felt furious at the idea of those books being burned, though more for what it represented than any real loss of knowledge. If anything, all his mindless hours scanning books now felt validated.

But he had learned something else about their enemy. “You’re saying you burn books?” he said towards his surgical kit, very loudly. He couldn’t think of a single case of book burnings from his own world that had been done for positive reasons. Whenever an ideology suppressed knowledge, it meant it had something to hide. It meant it couldn’t stand up to honest scrutiny.

But giving that scrutiny wasn’t what Oliver cared about right now. Right now he just wanted an anatomy book, so he could make sure he wasn’t about to cut into an artery or something.

Oliver wasn’t utterly without resources, though. He had something more than his lifetime of medical experience, more than the books he didn’t have. Oliver had magic. It was hard to say exactly how he called on the magic that came with being a pony, hard to say what he did different than he would’ve done if he had been performing this procedure on two legs instead of four.

Yet just as it had when he had been working on Adrian's gangrenous wing, the magic came. It flowed into him through the floor, though his hooves and their contact with the building’s foundation and the heart of his planet below that.

Healing was magic unlike any other. Healing was to unravel the little threads of the tapestry creation had made into people, then find the frayed ends and tie them back together again. With the perfect combination of dexterity and compassion, he could prevent an entire section of the fabric from being lost forever.

He felt the life of the pony beneath him as though it were something solid. He saw the damage a bullet had done, beginning its work of ending that life. Thus began his two tasks; to remove the foreign object, then repair the damage it had done.

No part of his medical training had prepared him for the sensation of magic. Nor had he needed to be prepared. Once the procedure began, it seemed as though all the secrets of living creatures unraveled themselves to him.

Every movement was a dance, one whose steps he did not know, but carefully choreographed all the same. His body knew the steps. He sliced with dexterity no hoof should’ve possessed. He administered drugs, stitched, and cleaned. All the while he didn’t feel hungry, didn’t feel thirsty, barely seemed to breathe. He didn’t need to.

Some motions required more dexterity than he could manage; he used his unicorn assistant for that. Even without any medical knowledge, she could hold things like a sewing needle with perfect precision.

He had no concept of time, no perception of reality outside of the injured pony and his equipment, like a spotlight in the center of time.

Then the procedure was done, and he found all the energy leaving his body like the air drained from a balloon. He stripped off his protective clothing onto one of the plastic sheets (to avoid staining the floor), then collapsed onto his side, a few strides from the patient.

Against all odds, the stallion was still breathing. He had accomplished everything without life support, without a trained staff, without any drugs not contained in his trauma kit.

The world swam around him, and he bobbed atop it like a fish. An ocean rose up around him, an ocean dark with nightmares. The ocean broke on him, but it had no more impact than Alex’s anger had earlier today. One pony remained untreated, his business was unfinished.

The nightmare whispered strange things in the dark. He saw speeding vehicles and dark nights. He saw snow, he saw blood. He banished all these thoughts with a concerted effort of will, drawing in a new wave of strength from the earth beneath him and the defiance in his soul.

The nightmare faded from around him, and he rose to his hooves again. He cleaned the operating theater, then switched patients.

Rather than an intense surgery, the injuries of the cultist mare were mild enough that he was able to finally relax. He found himself breathing normally again. Relaxed enough that he was able to devote some portion of his thoughts to the deeper problem: whatever had been done to the minds of these ponies.

For instance, was the process complete? There were drugs that increased suggestibility, but these varied in effectiveness between individuals. There was also magic as a variable, which was particularly meaningful since he knew almost nothing about it.

Only what he had learned from Joseph, whenever the unicorn got drunk and rambled about it (it was far more interesting and less disgusting than his rambling about Moriah).

Still, he figured the effects, whatever they were, would be most pronounced in those who had been affected by it the longest. One of his guards, Abrams, had seemed like a strong-willed individual in all their encounters. He had been an officer if the stories he told were true, and not an unimportant one either. Nobody had ever managed to make him reveal his rank, or his previous position; it was his bearing that had spoken for him. He set the highest standard of behavior, was always well groomed, always spoke with respect and courtesy. Like the gentry out of some story.

What force could turn a creature like that into a simple guard to wave a gun around? “I take it you and your men are helping these… ponies.” He gestured vaguely at his patient, as non-threateningly as he could. “What did they say to convince you?”

In the face of death, Oliver felt only spite. Yet Abrams was more than just death. His face was dark. His movement bespoke none of the twitching resistance Oliver had seen in Adrian, however. Did that mean all the fight had gone from him?

His words were less stiff, too. Did that mean the enemy had more complete control? That he was more indoctrinated? Or just more cooperative. “We know our history, Oliver. We know an untenable situation when we see one.” His voice alone was anywhere near as deep as a human’s, rougher than gravel on his ears. “You know what happened to Agamemnon. His men fought bravely for ten long years. But, eventually, he realized there could be no victory, and he had no choice but to turn his ships around and flee. Taking Priam’s city would be far easier than standing against Odium.”

Oliver was so stunned that he very nearly dropped the needle he was holding between two of his hooves. Even so focused as he was on the health of the mare beneath him, he could not miss at least some of the implications of those words.

Abrams was still enough of himself to remember human history. Not only that, but his words were obviously meant to draw clear parallels between himself and his men and the Greek armies.

Oliver wasn’t much for history, besides the history of medicine and the songs he liked to sing. Yet this story was so well known, even he didn’t fail to know it.

Agamemnon had not taken the Greeks home in defeat. They had traveled only far enough to appear gone, while Priam’s city rolled a treacherous wooden horse within the walls.

Not only was the diamond dog still himself enough to remember history, but he was still himself enough to be subtle. No brute at all, even as he stood there with a rifle he was prepared to use.

The communication strategy appeared to be working, because the unicorn agreed with a nod. She hadn’t seemed to understand anything Abrams said, not until the very end. “Odium will forgive you too, doctor. He will take your hatred from you and give you absolution in its place. Not even the pretender princesses can stand against our master.” Oliver couldn’t remember hearing anyone say a name with more spite than the way Light Spinner said “princesses.” He had heard more understanding from speakers at hate rallies he saw on TV.

“He will free you of your hatred,” Abrams agreed. “He will free the whole world. But first, Alexandria.”

Oliver did not know what this Odium was, not yet. As he finished with the injured mare, the weight of the fact he had made himself a prisoner began to weigh on his shoulders. He could not go back and erase the choice to come here, not now. He had not saved Adrian. Instead, he might very well have subjected himself to whatever alien thing suppressed the will and strangled the soul. Maybe Alex knew something he didn’t, and the promise she had made that he wouldn’t be left to these beings would somehow come true. He knew that if anypony could make this whole thing right, it was probably her.

It didn’t matter either way, though. Without his help, there wasn’t even a chance the stallion would’ve lived; now that he had done his best, his oath was satisfied. Oliver’s part of that fight, aside from keeping him sedated and supplied with antibiotics, was largely over. His fate was in God’s hands now. Or whatever god the pony believed in. Probably

Odium.

Part 5 - Interlude

The pony who had called herself Carol cut through the chilly air above the human planet like a nightmare. She had no source of illumination, but did not need it. Her sharp eyes pierced the night, and what they could not see she could pinpoint with the sensitive ears constantly swiveling about atop her head. She wore nothing but a light satchel, and in the startling chill of an Earth night there was nothing in any world that could take away her joy. Odium permitted her this, as it permitted all joys that served his greater purpose. It approved of finding joy in her work. Make no mistake, she was working.

Flight did not bring her the same kind of innocent thrill as it had when she was an innocent filly, unsullied by the hate that Equestria’s usurpers had instilled in her. She could take no happiness from dreams either, for fear she might find the pretender waiting for her there. The pretender still claimed to care for her children from the first age.

Carol knew the truth. The pretender realized the danger that Nightmare’s sons and daughters represented to the papier-mâché of their “government”, if only they would rise up together. That one had failed her; failed all her ancestors and theirs before them. She had promised a new golden age for the only ponies in all Equestria that had loved her as they ought to.

That had not been what they received.

With a start, she realized she had spotted her target, and swooped into a soundless descent on wings of thick membrane instead of feathers. Carol's real name was True Sight, and for good reason. Even miles up, she could spot a light on the ground with ease and zero in on it.

Pegasi in any world were creatures of day. The land around Alexandria was so vast they never could’ve located the escaped ponies if they had stayed in the dark. They had not, however. Far below her was a house all alone, the sort that Earth’s monsters made. Something in her would not allow her to consider how very similar it looked to the farmhouses in Equestria, right down to the orchards and the white picket fences. That thought slipped through her head like butter sliding down a hot pan, sliding out of her head and into the chill of the night sky.

True Sight would not capture the ponies, not on her own. She needed only to confirm they were actually here, then turn tail and fly back to get help. There was, after all, a changeling queen on the loose. Such beings rated even lower than the monsters of Earth in the way her master saw the world. At least monsters had dreams. Changelings didn’t even have those.

Sight casually noted that the creatures Odium seemed to like the least were those least likely to bow to his rightful rule. Real ponies rarely resisted for long. Humans, even the transformed, could cause difficulty. Changelings? Not one had served her master, not ever.

Even as she thought it, she found herself distracted by other matters. She saw motion from below and felt the wind in her mane, and the thought slipped from her grasp. As she always did, she would soon forget she ever had it. There was a duty to do here tonight, and duty was always joy. A pony was captive to a dangerous monster, and she might not even know it.

Something worked in her then, twisting her thoughts so subtly that she hardly noticed. Sight had felt that touch on her mind for so long that it was not alien anymore, the way she sometimes completely lost her train of thought, the way some memories simply ceased to matter while others suddenly became important. She had lived that way for so long that she couldn’t imagine any other way to live.

Sight forgot her fear, and the facts that there were procedures to follow and a deadly monster nearby were suddenly unimportant. She thought instead of the glory she would win for her master by slaying the beast on her own. She thought of how proud all her brothers and sisters would be, and the joy she would feel at doing the will of her master. She was more than the match of a changeling queen made out of monster. Maybe the real thing would’ve been dangerous to her. “Riley” was not the real thing.

Sight circled the house, attentive for any other sign of motion. Though she had not seen a trace of them, she knew there were deceived ponies near Alexandria tonight. The doctor had been close enough to travel here in just a few hours.

Yet the other group was apparently wiser, because she hadn’t seen them. That would have been the greatest prize tonight. In the absence of it, she would settle for a little pest control.

The house was small, only a single story. There was no motion at the windows or the grounds, other than the ordinary movements of Earth’s animals. The light that came from inside was that of a fireplace, blasting light into the night so intensely she had to look away at first lest she blind herself.

She saw the sleeping form then, resting on one of the gigantic pieces of furniture the lumbering monsters of Earth had used, relaxing in the warmth of the fire.

It was, unmistakably, the changeling. Its thick armor shimmered and danced with the embers of a fire, wicked horn twisting up from her forehead. Sight alighted on a nearby tree, watching for several minutes. She judged the breathing of the young queen, watching to see if there was any sign of consciousness.

She saw none, only the peaceful sleep of a little filly after a hard day. Yet that comparison too slipped away from her, leaving only hatred behind. A full ten minutes went by, and she still saw no sign of another pony, or anything other than the steady rising and falling of her chest.

She did not fear the strange things that some of these beings could do to the minds of ponies. Her master was greater than they; he would protect her if the creature woke. Yet it wouldn’t. If she did her job now, it would never wake again.

Since she was only a scout, True Sight had none of the powerful human weapons that could kill a pony from great distance; the ones that left metal in your chest and took a skilled doctor to remove. She hadn’t been intended to fight tonight.

Night Speaker would forgive her when she returned with the little demon’s head. Or whatever part of it Odium required her to carry. She kept a little knife with her, the kind made from obsidian and sharpened with unicorn magic. The blade, thus made from the frozen blood of the planet, had magical properties that no metal blade could match.

It could cut through the thick chitin of a changeling queen. It would only take one thrust; carefully timed. Even if she couldn’t convince the pegasus to come back with her then, she would be out of danger. Cloudy Skies would see reason.

And if she didn’t, their master would make her see. That was the way of things. The luxury of choosing to make the wrong choice would be taken away. The world was in too much danger to allow ponies to risk failure. Maybe in a few decades, when the true Lord of ponies sat atop the throne again. Not now.

When Sight determined waiting would no longer improve her odds, she made her way on silent hooves up to the edge of the farmhouse. Nopony anywhere could match the stealth of a bat who didn’t want to be heard. She took each step carefully, blending her movements into the natural sounds of the night. The chirping of crickets and the hooting of owls covered her steps, and the creek of the door, and the sound of sliding fabric as she removed her ritual dagger from its sheath.

The thought of invoking such violence on another pony absolutely revolted her. This thing was no pony, though. An act of depravity transformed to an act of justice. As she crept up on the changeling, she let the night surround and embrace her. In the darkness outside, she would’ve been invisible.

Under the false light of human technology, the magic of her species worked flawlessly. The fire that burned a few feet from the sleeping changeling was not false light, but true heat from wood once living. There was magic in that; enough that she knew she would be seen by anypony looking for her. It didn’t matter when there was nopony awake to see you. Soon, there would be nopony alive.

She hardly noticed as she stepped off the wood of one part of the floor and onto a thick carpet, though it wasn’t quite so soft as she would’ve expected. She stopped, rising up to her hind legs above the resting body. She transferred her dagger from her mouth to her front hooves, preparing to bear down on the sleeping form of the changeling queen. Alien joy surged in her, triumph that was not her own but that was still owed to her, somehow.

She never got to strike. She felt sudden, white-hot agony travel up her legs, sending her whole body into convulsions. Loud clicking sounded in her ears, and she couldn’t determine the source. As she fell, the pain got much worse. Wherever the strange magic touched, it made her whole body extend and flex completely without her suggesting it. Nausea filled her, though it wasn’t actually severe enough to make her throw up. She lost her knife, twitching and spasming wildly on the ground.

The changeling queen sat up, pushing off her blanket. There was no sleepiness in her eyes. Her voice bubbled with childlike mirth, with the strange echoes characteristic of her species. “I think you got her Sky. You can stop.” The burning sensation stopped, though her body kept twitching and flopping around the floor for a few seconds more. Her vision was still watery, and she could only make out vague details.

She heard the voice of the pegasus quite distinctly, coming from a few feet away. “Guess so. I didn’t know these things worked on horses.”

“It’s cuz we’re so tiny.” The changeling rounded on her, leaning over the edge of the couch and baring her teeth at Sight.

Just like that, their roles were reversed. Queens were dangerous creatures; far more dangerous than common ponies. To be captured by one was certain death, or much worse. The doctrine told her that she would be lucky if this one killed her. At least she would die as herself that way.

There was something worse than the pain of it, though. The pride and elation in her mind hadn’t faded. The touch of her master’s influence continued to approve of her. It didn’t fill her with anger, didn’t give her the strength to turn and run. Rather, it filled her head with flax and cotton and stole all will to fight.

Did her master… want her dead? She had no strength, and could do no more than lay on her back and wait for whatever the changeling was about to do. What had she done? True Sight had been willing to give up everything to come to this world! She had given up her comfortable life, given up the chance of ever seeing her loved ones again. Ultimately, she had sacrificed a lifetime of dreams on Odium’s altar.

In the next instant, she felt something worse than the alien magic that had paralyzed her. She felt her master’s presence flee, leaving her utterly and completely alone. Left to die, or worse.

Only that wasn’t what happened. “Sorry about the taser.” Sky rested a hoof on the strange object she had carried, which Sight could now see had something metallic connecting it to the floor. Actually, she was wrapped in metal, though it was something she hadn’t noticed. Metal wires finer than any Equestrian smith could draw, thin enough she should’ve been able to snap them. She hadn’t, though. Whatever they were made from was stronger than steel. “It’s just, we have a few questions for you.” Sky closed the distance, looking far angrier than Riley. Actually, the Changeling began to retreat, looking almost bored.

“Don’t fight, or I’ll have to zap you again. We just want to talk.” She nodded, her face growing dark. “I actually mean that! Not like when Ryan said it and he did all sortsa magic to me…” She shivered. “We’re actually just going to talk.”

“Torture.” She coughed, her voice coming out ragged. She nodded towards the thing in her hand. “That… is an enchanted torture device, yes? You’re going to shock me with it until I betray my master?” That would never happen! It didn’t matter if she felt more alone now than ever. It didn’t matter that she had apparently been betrayed into the hooves of the enemy. Sky was evil, and she was probably a slave to the changeling.

“No.” Sky said it so quietly, so disarmingly, that Carol knew immediately it was true. “We just want to ask why you’re doing this.” She sat down on her haunches. “And hopefully, convince you to help us get Adrian back. But if we can’t…” She shrugged. “We’ll let you go. We’ll let you go anyway. What are we supposed to do with a hostage?”

The changeling nodded. “It doesn’t make sense to keep you trapped once we’re done. Neither of us is willing to hurt you, so keeping a hostage will be dumb.”

Everything True Sight knew told her the pony and the monster were lying. Yet everything she knew about the way to judge behavior told her they were telling the truth. It was far more effective than torture ever could have been. She had been mentally prepared for torture all her life. Kindness, on the other hand, honesty… those were far more painful.

“Here.” Without warning, Sky tossed a blanket over her shoulder. She kicked the knife away with a hoof, then helped Sight into a sitting position. Sight was too weak to fight, but she wouldn’t have even if she could. Striking out against a pony that was helping her just wasn’t part of the spectrum of things she could do. It was beyond her capacity. Her entire world, a world of moral absolutes until moments before, had suddenly gone gray.

This was going to be a difficult night.

Author's Note

And with that, everypony, we have nearly made our way to the end of the story. Only Alex's chapters and the Epilogue remain, before we wrap things up. It's been fantastic so far. When this summer started, I never dreamed all these stories might be waiting at the end of a silly idea I thought nobody would want to read.

A huge thanks to all of you who have stuck with me, those who decided to comment or write stories of your own. It's been fantastic so far. School will be starting for me soon, greatly reducing the amount of free time for writing I have, but not removing it entirely. I'm not quite ready to get off this train, and I hope you aren't either.

Part 6 (Alex) - Chapter 1

Somewhere above, great birds circled on glacial winds. Eyes flickered like dead stars, all fixed on her. When their mouths opened, sounds that were not sounds glided down towards her. It was hunger, but not hunger as any mortal understood it. It was the ravenous sound the starving might make after going without food for thousands of years, knowing that they might not find it for thousands of years more.

She couldn’t say what she was; whether she was a pony or human or something in-between. Whatever she was, she stood tall in the dark, resplendent in a robe of pale silk written all over with runes. “Not yet!” Talons that had torn apart worlds bore down on her to rip and tear.

She might be without help, but she was not without defense. In her fifty thousand years, she had learned much about the universe. With friction she slowed the flight of the voidborn birds, and with gravity she was suddenly standing somewhere else. She filled the space between, but not with advanced alloys. Given this enemy, she chose iron, dredged from the blood of the earth and given form by fire.

The birds of hunger screeched in anger and frustration, hideous talons digging deep gashes into the barrier. “Your time is over, human! Your age is done. Let us in, and we will take your pain! It won’t hurt!”

She did not believe their lies. She was weak; much weaker than she should be. But buried somewhere in the earth was a single diamond of faith, a diamond that was her soul. Their faith in her had not wavered. Their faith was her.

So was their understanding. Rocketry was her chariot, and the CPNFG kept out the ravenous beaks. “Not today!” they said. “But soon. You are already dead! You just haven’t realized it! You belong to us!”

She banished them; ignoring the cackles and the angry calls. Perhaps they would come for her; not tonight.

She was not alone in the darkness. In her sleep, the dark thickened and congealed, stretching its many tentacles around her. “Archive.” Darkness wormed around her legs, wrapped around her eyes. Of course it was not true darkness. It was hatred.

“This planet is yours no longer. You will submit.”

“No!” Alex awoke in a pool of sweat, curled against all the pillows in her bunk.

She heard moaning from the bunk above her, and Mariah's voice. “Shut up.”

She did. Alex pulled out one of the many pairs of bicycle shorts that served as her underclothes these days. A quick glance at the screen set into the wall revealed it was three AM, so she didn’t bother with anything else. She slipped out the door, creeping past the stallion’s bay, then out into the head. After doing her business and a quick rinse with a warm towel, she felt a little better.

Not sleepy, though. She rarely felt sleepy anymore. Her strength came from the Earth. It wasn’t the kind of strength the earth had given her before, when she’d kicked down doors and broken concrete with her hooves.

Her role was not to have great strength, not anymore. What she needed was endurance, to carry forward the memory of humanity into the indefinite future.

Alex wandered into the cargo area, stopping by the armory. She lifted the hoof bearing the gauntlet, waving it in front of the security lock. The armor opened, sliding with the whir of servos and revealing the weapons the HPI had prepared for them.

Like all their small hardware, the hard polymer had a slightly layered look to it, like it had been 3D printed. It was a compact submachine gun, plastic except for a little metal rectangle in the back. The trigger guard was huge, wide enough for even an earth pony stallion to fit his hoof inside.

Half the weapon’s mass came from a spring-loaded bipod, which could be deployed to about a pony’s height with a single press if she needed it. Alex had been impressed that the HPI had managed to modify their own weapons for ponies after only a few months, with everything else they had been up to.

At the same time, she couldn’t help but feel serious concern that the HPI had thought there was going to be a need for them to have weapons specifically designed for pony use. Had they anticipated armed resistance? Wild animals? She didn’t ask now.

Instead, she slung the strap over her shoulder and slid down the ramp into the night. She could not see in the dark the way she had been able to before, though the full moon high above promised she would be able to see something once she gave her eyes time to adjust. So she relied on other senses. She stood in place long enough that she could feel the earth beneath her. She held still, slowing down her perceptions with an effort of will.

Beneath her, at a distance her mind could scarcely conceive, was the beating nickel heart of the planet. Her planet. She let the life fill her, then let it take her. She could not misstep or trip, even if she couldn’t see the ground she was walking on.

Alex didn’t know where she was going. It was a cold night, but the stamina of her race was enough to ward off the winter wind. She had felt colder things in her sleep anyway. Her eyes began to adjust as she walked, but she resisted the temptation to use her sight. It was still a shadowy night, and hidden roots and rocks could still trip her. The earth would not let her trip, though.

Alex found herself surrounded by trees, at the trunk of a willow tree. Its branches cascaded down around her like a blanket. She sat beneath the branches and thought about the monster that had taken her city from her. She rested her bare back against the bare trunk, and felt less lonely for it.

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do,” she said to nobody. She wasn’t even really sure why she said it. “There’s something evil in there, taking ponies’ free will away. It already got Adrian. Oliver’s probably next.” Then in a voice that was barely a whisper: “I don’t want to be alone.”

The moon shone through the trees, fuller than she had ever seen it. There was something changed about the sky, though she couldn’t say what it was. Without the light-pollution of the city, she could see thousands and thousands of stars.

“You’ve overcome worse,” said nobody.

She didn’t even think it strange, though she hadn’t talked to herself before (unless she counted her journal). She did now, though. “I’ve never fought anyone before. I’ve never had anyone try to hurt me before. You’d think, living in the city-”

The voice interrupted her. “You fought every day of your life, my daughter. And your parents before you. And their parents before them, and their parents before them. You’re just better at it than you used to be.” The strange voice seemed to surround her, like all the trees in the world were whispering at once. It laughed.

No, it wasn’t a laugh. It really was just the rustle of the trees. There was nobody there.

Alex didn’t say anything, listening for the voice she thought she heard. Sure enough, her patience was enough to help it speak. If it was an “it” at all. “Guests I could tolerate, but this is no guest of mine. You will end it for me. Favored son, champion. My strength is yours.”

Alex blinked, searching with her night-weakened eyes for the speaker. She saw nothing at first. After a few moments had passed, a form began to take shape in the distance. “Who are you?”

“Have I been so long a time with you, and yet have you not known me?” The strange feminine voice faded into the wind, dissolving back into the trees.

“How?” Alex rose to her hooves, frustration rising. She didn’t know if she was still dreaming, didn’t know if the person she was speaking to was really there or not. “I’m not a unicorn! I don’t have magic!”

“You never have before,” the night said. “It hasn’t prevented you. The vastness of creation lifted itself in anger, and you didn’t let that stop you. You always had magic, daughter. From the moment I bore you into blood and darkness. Think about it, human. Of all the others, how many can look at the aftermath of a lightning strike and see not fear, but safety? How many could learn enough to try and kill me? How many could care enough to try and save me? That is magic, human. Not runes and spells.”

The motion she had seen far away began to solidify before her eyes. Alex expected some exotic figure, perhaps a goddess. If not that, then at least an empress. Instead, the being that came running at her through the dark was her dog.

“Huan?!” She grinned, even as he ploughed into her, knocking her sideways to the ground. After a hearty wrestle, one he always let her win, Alex was on her hooves again, shoving the excited animal away. “I guess they never found you either?”

The dog didn’t reply, and neither did the strange voice. He only met her eyes, seeming concerned.

“I know you would’ve gone with Cloudy Skies if you could. You always do what I ask.” He rubbed against her, almost as she was beginning to do with other ponies. A very animal way of showing support and affection. That much, at least, she understood. Even if it made her feel less human.

It isn’t hands that make you human. It wasn’t a voice anymore, not even a whisper. It was just a thought, one she wasn’t entirely sure hadn’t come from within.

“I’m glad you found me.” She turned back towards the Hummingbird. Not because she could see it, but because she remembered each and every step she had taken to get here. From them, she could imagine the circuitous path she had taken, one which would eventually take her back. “Things are gonna get pretty crazy. I wouldn’t want you in the middle of it.” The dog licked her face, then hurried off ahead of her, tail wagging. “Yeah, whatever.” She scowled. “Night vision it up, mutt. See if I don’t get goggles one of these days.”

She didn’t get goggles during the walk back, but she did get a call. She had no satellite phone. She hadn’t brought anything besides her gun, shorts, and the electronic device she wore around her right foreleg, which she had taken to calling her “cyber-bracer” because it sounded cool.

The thing didn’t have much more computing power than an average smartphone, at least when it wasn’t within a mile or so of an HPI vehicle. This close to the Hummingbird, it could make use of the aircraft’s main computer, or any of its communication network.

The face that appeared on the screen was one she had become accustomed to seeing over the last few months: Taylor Gamble. The light and color nearly blinded her to look at, at first, face bright and freckled and hair glowing red. She might’ve thought her pretty, in the days Alex had been human and noticed such things. But as time went on, she was beginning to forget what she had found sexually attractive about humans. She remembered finding them attractive, just not why she had felt that way.

The others thought Taylor was an engineer. That was true, though it was far from her main responsibility. Taylor’s primary role was as a diplomat; a coordinator with the “non-human auxiliary.” Alex sometimes spoke with the HPI’s director, but far more often it was their handler, Taylor. Her presence generally meant that some matter or another just wasn’t important enough to warrant Clark’s attention.

“Hello Alex!”

“Hi.” She yawned, pointing the bracelet camera away from her face so Ms. Gamble wouldn’t see.

“You’re up early! Burning the midnight oil?”

Alex shook her head. “Couldn’t sleep. Weird dreams.”

The camera briefly jostled, as though the world on Taylor’s end of the call had suddenly been shoved to one side. “Know the feeling.” Her words stretched a little as she said them, like repeating a mantra.

“You do?”

The woman reached up, brushing a few loose strands of hair away from her eyes, nodding. “I’ve got a theory; there’s a constant supply of weird dreams in the world. With all the people gone, they’re not getting spread out anymore. So all the people — and ponies too I guess — left behind have to get them. Get used to the parade.”

“Have you been dreaming while you’re awake?”

Taylor chuckled. “I hope you’re not. That’s a sign of some serious medical conditions.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “What’s the occasion, Ms. Gamble? You don’t usually call this early, or riding in a vehicle.”

Taylor beamed. “Oh, those two things are definitely related.”

“Commander Clark agreed to my request for help?”

Alex was dimly aware of a sound in the distance, like thunder bouncing off clouds. It was quite faint, but getting louder by the moment. “Yep! And seeing as I happen to be a fairly competent drone pilot myself, and I know more about you ponies than anyone else, I got volunteered! Pretty neat, right?”

It was getting difficult to hear her over the roar. Alex looked up, but she saw nothing. Not at first, anyway. As she looked, she saw a patch of sky darker than the rest. She followed it with her eyes, since she couldn’t hear Taylor anymore. Far above, she saw a few flashes of light, along with the sound of faint explosions. The roaring began to fade, but the darkness wasn’t moving forward. Actually, it was traveling up. “Sorry. The drones don’t like to be dropped from altitude. We lose a few when we do that.”

“You’re not landing?” Alex asked, her ears still ringing.

“Land an Albatross a few miles away from your pony city?” Taylor laughed, warm and genuine with flashes of white teeth. “Hell no!” A few seconds later, Alex heard a terrible crashing sound in the distance, and felt the earth groan beneath her hooves. Something, a very heavy something, had just landed.

“I’m uploading positional data to your wristcom now, if you want to see if they landed okay.” Taylor’s smile widened. “I understand we’ve got a city to liberate.”

Part 6 (Alex) - Chapter 2

In her youth, Alex had read about the meetings of the “Big Three” during the second world war, as they made sweeping plans to end the Axis powers, plans that would have consequences stretching long past their own lifetimes. Yet now, as she sat in the cargo area aboard a loaned HPI Hummingbird, she imagined she knew a little of what those men might’ve felt.

There were no nations at stake; all of those were already gone. Alex was no Alicorn, she couldn’t imagine the scales of time the Equestrian princesses used. Yet even so, she couldn’t help but feel the weight of destiny pressing on them. Just as mighty ships could be steered by minor adjustments of a comparatively small rotor, much of Earth’s history might now depend on just a few. The loss of the Equestrian library would mean rediscovering magic from scratch. The loss of the “proof” of what had happened might create a future rife with suspicion and fear. Without that, why believe what they had to say about the cause of the Event? Without it, the future might bring chaos and war.

Who best to capitalize on that than the being called Odium? Alex didn’t know how to fight something that could pry apart the minds of ponies, but what else could they do?

It had not taken her very long at all to reach the conclusion that the scale was outside her capabilities. She had thus summoned every ally she knew together. The cargo area of the Hummingbird was transformed into a war-room, with a folding table and a collapsable whiteboard and a projector.

“Let’s review.” She took a deep breath, stepping up before what were left of the ponies of her city. Her friends. Perhaps the last hope for a peaceful future. Moriah slouched in her chair, sipping a coke and looking disturbed. Joseph was beside her, surrounded by papers and at least three different tablets. They had kept empty seats for Sky, Adrian, and Oliver. As sitting in the room with them would have killed her, a drone with a screen for her face stood in for their HPI representative. Was Taylor Gamble their friend?

Yes, Alex decided. Not because she was sure it was actually the truth, but because she needed it to be. Only her friends could sit at her table.

“We have three goals here. First, recover the library. Second, rescue or find our missing friends. Third, get Alexandria back. Does anyone disagree with those priorities?”

Taylor looked uneasy. Her image hesitantly raised a hand. “Forgive me Alex, but… didn’t you tell me you’d listened in on lots of what they said?”

“Yeah.”

“And didn’t you say they’d burned the books already? I don’t understand how we can get them back if they’re already gone. At this point aren’t we just left with the digital copies you managed to send to us? About… a fourth the collection, if I remember. We can do some amazing things with reconstructive forensics, but not get a book out of charcoal.”

Alex frowned, though she didn’t hold anything back. The true nature of the library was actually fairly important for them to understand if they were going to plan anything together. Not that she didn’t think Alexandria’s ponies all understood. “We never actually unloaded all the books. We planned on it, but we figured out something better. Instead of using barcodes, we would only have digital copies available. That way, no matter what happened we couldn’t really lose anything. Even if people kicked us out of the building, you would always have the digital originals in that bunker of yours.”

“Yes, but…” Taylor looked as though she were trying to be delicate. “You said you had one of your people turn traitor. He had to know where you were keeping the books, right? Unless you hadn’t told anyone…”

“He knew.” Alex didn’t know if the strange manipulation would compel Adrian to reveal a secret like that or not. It was possible raw torture could, though she couldn’t imagine anypony actually doing something like it. “But even if he led them right to it, he wouldn’t be able to get it open. The saddlebags Princess Luna gave me weren’t just made of cloth. They were a…” She reached back, to some of her first “perfect” memories. The memories she had put down just after emerging from her time with Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Twilight, and the nightmare being that wasn’t a pony at all. She could still see a tree made from crystal, still see the little gathering of ponies that had assembled for her goodbye breakfast.

She heard the purple Alicorn’s words as though she were still there, and repeated them exactly, intonation and all. “A singularity-class temporospatial claudication. My soul is the key. If anypony but me opens the bag, it’s just a bag. Pretty annoying if somepony puts something in there, cuz’ I can’t get to the ‘just a bag’ part of the saddlebags myself. Somepony else has to open it for me and dump out whatever crap got shoved in.”

Moriah glanced briefly up at the stump of her own horn. “You’re sure they won’t just be able to trash the bag somehow? What good is a ‘claudication’ if you can’t get in to get our books out?”

Alex shook her head again. “The pony who made it was pretty sure it would be really hard to destroy. Its most basic defense would be to come right to me… She didn’t really explain how it would, but she was the Princess of Magic, so I trust her.”

“Princess of Magic.” Taylor repeated the term, and didn’t even sound like she was making fun of it. Much. “Too bad we didn’t have any of those before the Collapse.”

“If they’re smart, I still think they could do it. Attacking the saddlebags with something mundane would just send it to me. So they’ll want to ruin the spell instead. I don’t know anything about how that works, but with how proud of it that pony was, I’m guessing it won’t be easy. If we’ve got any hope of finding it intact, we’ll have to get there before they complete whatever spell it takes to ruin a spell made by an Alicorn. So that’s our time limit. One of two. Based on the audio we got back from Oliver, it seems like the longer you’re under this Odium’s control, the less you can resist. We already know they’ve done it to Adrian. If they haven’t tried Oliver, they will soon.”

She looked to Joseph. “Please tell me all that writing you collected and all the studying you’ve been doing are going to pay off and tell us what to do.” All eyes turned to the unicorn then.

He fiddled with his papers for several more moments, not seeming to notice. He didn’t notice, not until Moriah nudged him and he looked up. Then he blushed, ears flattening on his head. Had he even heard a single word in the last ten minutes?

Rather than embarrass him, Moriah whispered in his ear, and he nodded hastily. “Y-Yeah! Of course! I, uh… I’ve got it here somewhere…” He pulled his laptop closer to him, and the projector lit up. Alex saw the screen full of their books, at least the ones they had managed to make digital so far. Joseph brought up one of the titles: Unseen Dangers and Unlikely Threats: the Illustrated Guide to Equestria’s Rarest Predators. It was one of the few hundred non-essential books they had managed to scan before the newcomers had arrived and they had suspended digitalization. “This book, uh… talks about a number of creatures that lived in Equestria. Lots of the ones in here aren’t physical, so they’re afraid that some of them might’ve found their way across. I looked for anything that might be able to influence the actions of multiple ponies at once, and… it’s a pretty short list.”

He brought each up in turn. “First, the Morpheans.” He opened to a page of the beautiful full-color volume, depicting an elegant gray pony with a black cloak and a medieval farming implement leaning on her back. Alex gasped.

Taylor actually laughed. “No way you didn’t draw that.” She learned forward, so the screen only showed her forehead for a moment. “The Equestrian aliens have an angel of death myth?”

Joseph nodded. “I think it’s something like that. They don’t exist in the real world, at least, not according to this. It’s confusing, but it talks about dreams like they take place somewhere, somewhere almost real. There are several different ones, each with crazy powers they’ll use on ponies who get in their way. This one is death, but there’s more.” He flicked through a few different illustrations on successive pages. She was sure each had correspondences in Earth mythologies somewhere, if she had known where to look. An elegant tempter, a monstrous spider with shears and red silk thread, a great stag.

“The Morpheans are like dream gods. I only skimmed it, but the book didn’t seem to know if any of it was real or not. But if it was right, some of them could mentally influence ponies. Infect them through their dreams, then force them to do things when they wake up. Your friend Princess Luna fought some.”

Alex frowned at the latest illustration, then shook her head. “Looks like a very specific list. Like a pantheon. Even if most aren’t real, I’m guessing you’d tell us if there was one of them named ‘Odium’.”

Joseph spluttered for a moment, as though she had just tripped him. Alex realized with a twinge of guilt she might’ve done just that by mentioning what might’ve been his next point. “Sorry for interrupting.” She blushed, suddenly staring at the marker resting by her hooves. “What else could it be?”

The unicorn took another few moments before he finally answered. “Yeah, well… there weren’t very many other things that were able to manipulate whole groups. There’s one that was able to corrupt a princess, but it could only have one host at a time. The only thing this book talks about-”

“Which might not even be the same thing!” Moriah added.

“Yeah, might not. But the only thing close is this.” The page changed, displaying a creature Alex could barely describe. It was like a half-melted pony, twisting into shadow with a wickedly pointed horn. “It’s called an ‘Umbrum.’ These aren’t like the Morpheans, they’re real. Well…” He paused. “I think they are. Equestrian books talk about such crazy stuff that I don’t always know if it’s supposed to be literal or not. I think this one was though, because it talks about one of them enslaving a whole country. It’s not physical… but it’s not omniscient. Its essence has to be contained, or else it will disintegrate over time. Like an object, or a pony. It could roam around for a few miles from its host, but not further.”

Alex shivered as she took in the wicked horn, the bright green eyes. She had never seen so much hate in a simple drawing before. “They can force ponies to act against their will?”

Joseph nodded. “Not at first. They have to break your will first. They feed on hatred and anger. Eventually, when that’s all you’ve got left, the shadow can fill you up and you won’t have the strength left to fight. Force you to do whatever it wants. These guys used to be a whole race, though the book says they’re generally thought to be gone now.”

“Apparently not. There’s at least one left. Odium.” Alex remained quiet, letting the reality of what they had just learned sink in. True, there was no guarantee the being these ponies called Odium really was one of these ‘Umbrum.’ It might be, or it might be something else entirely. But they had nothing else to go on; not a drop more information. They had no choice but to make some assumptions, or else just make no plans at all and charge in blind.

“So, we know the ponies in there are acting against their will. That means we absolutely can’t kill anypony, and we should avoid hurting them as much as possible.” Moriah opened her mouth to speak, but Alex just kept going, getting louder. It worked, and the unicorn remained quiet. “Adrian would never hurt us. He was the one who came up with the plan to sneak into that house and learn what was really going on. If he had been evil, he could’ve stopped us from leaving, could’ve told them where the Hummingbird was so they could stop us from getting in, all kinds of things. I will not have us wasting time debating it. Agreed?”

She waited for assent from the others, which all of them gave except Moriah. Eventually she just grunted. Enough.

“We need nonlethal weapons then. It’s a handicap, since I bet they’re using the real thing. Do we have those, Taylor?”

The young woman’s image nodded. “Most of our combat drones have their biggest payload of nonlethals. When there are only a few hundred of you left, you can’t afford to kill anyone no matter what. We’ve got rubber bullets on most of them, as well as for the hoofguns we made for you… they still use standard sized bullets.” Her image was briefly replaced with that of the other drones, then the boxes that contained nonlethal ammo and where they could find them on the Hummingbird. “You should know, though. They’ve got a reduced range over the real thing, basically no penetration, and they can still kill if you hit somebody wrong. Get them in their temple for instance, or an eye…” She made a gesture with two fingers across her throat. “Kiss mortality goodbye. Aim for the center mass. You’re much less likely to kill someone if you hit them there.”

Moriah got up, opening the designated cargo locker on the wall. Sure enough, the boxes were waiting for them, covered in HPI barcodes. She lifted one out and over to the pile of weapons without another word, beginning the work of switching out the ammo. Without magic, it was bound to be grueling, menial work. Even if her hoof-dexterity was much better than it had been. “I’m still listening!” she called. “But since this is gonna take freakin’ forever, I’m going to start now if that’s okay.”

Alex nodded appreciatively, then turned back to the projection of Taylor. “Anything else? Besides the bullets, I mean.”

Taylor frowned. “Well, our soldiers have more. These new long-range tasers are pretty interesting. Use this little beam of charged plasma to conduct without wires. Or maybe it was a lazer…” she trailed off, shrugging. “Not my department. The energy draw is too high for a drone. Only a soldier plugged into one of the MTRs can use them. We didn't give you any.” Alex didn’t say anything, letting the silence weigh on Taylor along with her eyes. Eventually, the young woman spoke up again. “B-But there are a few other things! I have a net for hunting dangerous wildlife with a netgun. Only two shots, but they’ve got an electrical threat-suppression built in. Enough voltage in there to knock out a horse. Err… a properly sized horse.”

“We’ve also got smoke on two of them, and a few tear-gas grenades. They’re in this locker here, I’ll unlock it for you.” She fiddled with something on her keyboard, and suddenly there was a click from one of the walls. “We didn’t think you’d be needing riot gear, but we left some of it just in case.”

“Alright.” Alex took the marker in her mouth, adding the guns, nets, and gas grenades to their “assets” column. Then she turned to Joseph. “Suppose this ‘Odium’ thing is in an object. What happens if you break it?”

Joseph made a gesture like the one Taylor had used, sans the fingers. “It’ll go back to the place it came from. Not sure where that is, but… I’m pretty sure we won’t see it again. Not in our lifetimes, anyway.”

Alex felt a stab of guilt at that, though she wasn’t entirely sure she should. After all, she didn’t know that she was immortal. Not particularly hard to kill, either. Just hard to make things “stick.” None of her friends even knew it. She wasn’t going to tell them now, either. “Could you recognize the thing if you saw it, Joseph?”

The unicorn nodded. “Easy. If it was in something inanimate, it’d be sucking up magic and probably make the whole area feel like crap. It would probably attack me if I even got close, though. Even during the day, these things can throw magic around. But… Alex, it might be in a pony. What do we do then? We’d have to-”

She didn’t need him to finish. “Could you get it out without harming the host?”

Joseph’s face darkened. “Probably not.”

Moriah shouted from several paces away. “You’re stuffed full of magic, Joe! Just fuckin’ blast it out!”

Joseph looked frustrated. “It isn’t about magic! It’s about will. These things don’t age like people do; it might be thousands of years old. The book doesn’t suggest fighting them under any circumstances. Just says we should call the princesses and let them deal with it.”

There was silence then. Alex remembered her time in Equestria, remembered the glory that radiated from Princess Celestia like an invisible wave. She had never felt safer than in the presence of that celestial pony. If only they could ask for her help now. How was it fair that Equestrian predators were being loosed on Earth?

Would it have been better for everybody to get killed instead? No. It still sucked though. Like many things in her life. Like the fact one of her friends who she was beginning to venture she might have feelings for had been captured by evil ponies and possibly enslaved. Like her missing family and being made into a mare. Like the life she had ahead of her. Nothing was ever fair.

But it didn’t matter. The universe didn’t care about being fair. It didn’t care about anything. “If anypony has to die… I’ll do the killing. I won’t burden any of you with it, so don’t even think about it.” She took a deep breath. “We don’t have much time. If this thing is more powerful at night, we’ve got to move before then. Ms. Gamble, do you have those satellite activity maps we asked for?” At the nod in response, she continued. “I’ve got a plan. It’s not perfect, but… with only the three of us, it will have to do.”

She took a deep breath, then explained it. And, of course, she had been right.

They didn’t like it.

Part 6 (Alex) - Chapter 3

“Was it really smart not to bring the unicorn with you?” Taylor’s voice in her earpiece didn’t sound petulant, or even all that questioning. Just curious. “They might or might not find resistance in the house. You already know most of them are waiting for you. You said they’re armed, and at least some of them can still shoot.”

“Yeah.” Alex shrugged. She was putting her life’s worth of confidence into the strange transformation the ponies of Equestria had worked on her. The magic was well-tested now. She had died in a car wreck, electrocuted herself, been impaled, irradiated, broken her neck… what more could these ponies do to her? Only one pony knew or even suspected her secret. That pony was now a captive. Had his will broken yet? Adrian had been a pretty strong-seeming pony, and he hadn’t lasted 24 hours. Thank God that Cloudy Skies and Riley had escaped. That pegasus was so delicate she probably wouldn’t have lasted the hour.

Alex wondered idly what would happen if her body was burned, or if she was beheaded. Would she stay dead then? Or did they have to stick coins in her eyes or something first.

It didn’t matter. Alex wasn’t supposed to get into any real danger. It was all about the appearance. “I am driving a tank. Well… you’re driving it.”

“It’s not a tank, it’s an APC. That’s an important difference for your survivability.”

Alex shrugged to nobody, propping herself up again so she could get a good look out the front display. Like all HPI vehicles, the APC had no true windows, only cameras and screens. “I’m expendable, Ms. Gamble. The others aren’t.”

She chuckled grimly. “Not really. This little group would have fallen apart months ago without strong leadership. If you die, they’re finished.”

“Alexander Haggard died three months ago. I’m something else now; I don’t think bullets are going to kill me. Not so long as you HPI folks still believe in your future. You do, right? You’ve still got hope?” She felt a shiver run through her body, one completely unrelated to the air conditioning blasting down at her from the right and making her skin feel clammy.

Taylor’s answer came hesitantly. “Some of us do. Hope doesn’t stop bullets, pony. Maybe unicorn magic does, but you don’t have that.”

“Yeah.” She didn’t try to explain any further. It was a waste of time. She switched channels with a flick of one hoof. “Joseph, Moriah. Are you two in position?”

There was a brief pause, then Moriah’s voice, with only a little static. “Affirmative. Waiting on you.”

“I’ll get that house empty.” Alex’s hooves gripped a directional joystick as tightly as she could, though she had next to no dexterity to control the damn thing. “God go with you two. Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

Joseph responded, his voice somewhere between annoyed and amused. “You’re religious now?”

“Not really. But I feel like we need a miracle. Might as well not exclude anyone who wants to help.”

Moriah sounded approving. “Just so long as you don’t start invoking the Equestrian princesses like Sky does.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t do that. They didn’t really seem like the sort of ponies you pray to. I think if there was a god, it would eat less cake.”

Moriah spluttered and coughed. “W-What?”

“I’m starting. Cutting the chatter!” Alex switched back. “Okay Taylor. Let’s take my city back. Those turret-looking things on that library roof, let’s start with those. Try not to knock down the whole building if you can.”

She laughed. “No promises, horse. You’d rather have to rebuild that roof than have a fifty-caliber AP turret that still works, I promise you that. Those bullets take off limbs and explode elephant skulls.”

Alex shivered, forcing down the question of how anybody could possibly know either of those two things. She quickly decided she preferred not to know how it was possible. “Take ‘em out, keep the rest of your drones out of sight. You separated them into the three groups I suggested?”

“Yeah. Seems a little complicated for a civilian. I sure as hell couldn’t come up with tactics like this. Were you an officer cadet before the Collapse or something?”

Alex laughed, though her humor was cut short by the violent acceleration of the vehicle beneath her. “Nah, I was an auto mechanic. I’ve just been doing lots of reading. I didn’t come up with this; I’m just adapting something Caesar did during his campaign in G-”

An explosion off in front of her robbed Alex of breath, causing her ears to flatten and her to briefly take cover on the ground, covering her face. Though the APC isolated her completely from the earth beneath her, it didn’t stop her from feeling the shock. It burned against her retinas. The APC tore up the center of the road, making straight for the library and the largest gathering of ponies in the city. Including both of her captured friends. The one she admired, and the one she liked.

You will end it for me. Favored son, champion. My strength is yours. Had she imagined that voice?

She hoped not. She hoped something was going to help her, or else she might really be dead this time. She saw flashes of magic on the screen, along with blaring alarms. “Take out those unicorns!” Alex couldn’t see them, but she felt the vehicle strain beneath her, as a flash of energy slammed her sideways into a parked car. Needless to say, against 25 metric tons of APC, the car didn’t stand much of a chance. She heard the turrets switching on, though of course she had nothing to do with it. She hoped nopony would be killed by rubber bullets today.

Alex didn’t know the first thing about her vehicle, but she did understand how to twist a knob. So she diverted all available power to the thaumic shield, slowing her forward progress but putting an end to the blasts of fire and light before they reached her. She could hear ponies shouting, and feel the little pings as bullets struck her vehicle. No small arms could penetrate the thick armor, and there were no windows to shatter. For once, she was thankful for that design feature.

“Four targets down!”

Alex could not draw on the strength of the earth, not the way she wanted to. Between the metal box and the thaumic shield, Alex was on her own. She had no strength but that her life had cultivated to steel herself against the ringing in her ears and the shock. She drew on images of burned ponies in Philadelphia, recalled in perfect clarity. Those dead, though nameless, would be with her forever. She was their champion now, nominated by Earth and Alicorn and aptitude. Her sister and mother would not return to a world ruled by a foul god of hatred. She would not bring children into such a world. She would not suffer her friends to be slave to such a being. She would not suffer any would be kept as slaves.

This planet was hers, damnit! Odium could find his own.

More ponies came rushing out of the library, Adrian among them. Alex watched several go down, wrapped up together and twitching in electrical spasms. “Is the house clearing out?”

“Affirmative. Three ponies leaving now, getting into a car. No more thermal readings inside.”

She switched signals. “The hounds are loose, Joseph! Send that thing straight back to hell; I’ll get our friends.”

“Got it! Good luck, Alex-”

She didn’t listen any longer. Alex took in every detail, her mind working as fast as it could. She saw the library, counted the ponies, and realized there were still five unaccounted for. “Ready for the big entrance! Make us a door!”

“You can’t imagine how long I’ve wanted to do this.” A loud BANG momentarily made her slide back, even as the main gun above her rocked the APC back on its treads. She watched the north wall of the building, far from the ponies she had seen, gain a tank-sized hole on the ground floor. Paper rushed into the air from the shelves and shelves of books. "Oliver’s in there, I see him. My saddle bags too."

“Don’t leave the APC, Alex! He might’ve already turned!”

Alex ignored the command. “Drive us into the opening. Neutralize any target you see.”

“Got it. One of my drones is down; one of the unicorns hit it with something before I could net her.”

“That still leaves three watching my back, right?”

“Yeah; but none of them can go into that building with you.”

“Park the APC in the door. Use the turret to shoot anything that moves and isn’t Joseph or Moriah or me.”

Taylor Gamble complied, and Alex felt the APC driving up into the opening she had made. The sound of gunfire was gone now, replaced with the low rumble of the APC’s main engine. Alex made her way to the ramp, sliding the gun over her shoulders as she did so. “Keep them off me.”

She flicked her bracelet against the proximity sensor. The armored ramp flipped open, disgorging her onto the ground. She expected to feel strength rushing back into her through the dirt, but she felt only coldness. The thaumic field kept all of that away. Alex had only her own strength, the strength of a frightened filly with way too much responsibility for her own good. It would have to be enough.

Alex rushed into the darkness of the library. A single overhead light flickered, before growing suddenly bright and burning out. Burned paper and books were everywhere. Several shelves had tumbled, and rock covered the ground near her entrance. There was no sign of ponies near the entrance, just as the drones watching the windows had indicated.

She could already see Oliver, standing still in the center of the room. His eyes were wide and his ears erect, clearly in shock. Curiously, she sensed no sign of struggle anywhere. No ponies leapt at her, none shot her from the corners. It was eerily quiet, save for the sound of the drone engines in the air above them. Alex rushed in, and saw that the lumps Oliver had been standing over were in fact the prone forms of ponies, resting in sleep, surrounded by his medical kit. “Oliver.” She reached out, resting a hoof on his shoulder. “We’ve gotta go!”

Oliver looked at her as though gazing across a great distance. She focused her attention on him, tugging with all her might on his forelegs. He tumbled, but not before catching himself. This seemed enough to break his trance.

“Oh God, Alex.” She felt his forelegs wrap around her in a hug so tight it threatened to crush the wind from her. “You shouldn’t be here.” He released her, shoving her towards the APC. “The CPNFG is keeping him away, but it won’t work for long! He wants you dead, Alex… You need to leave, before he claims you too!” He shook, face pale. “Thought I could cure it… thought I could treat it… not easy. Thoughts metastasize. Desires mutate. Too strong. He wants you too, Alex! You need to get out!”

In her ear, Taylor was screaming her agreement. Alex ignored them both. She was about as likely to leave her friends behind as she was to grow wings and fly away. “We’re taking care of it, Oliver! There’s no reason to leave. We’re going to send this monster right back where it came from. Then you should get better!” Alex reached for him, her body quaking, but he pulled away. Alex would get no strength from him now.

“You can’t stop Odium. No ordinary person could stand a chance against it. Not just that… Alex, it knows what you are. It got in…” He whimpered, beginning to sob. “Saw everything I know. It knows how to destroy you! It has to; it hates everything about humanity and what we represent! It’s going to-”

But Alex didn’t get to hear what it would do. Really, she should’ve been listening to Taylor. If she had been paying a little less attention to Oliver, she might’ve noticed her screaming about the loss of her other drones. She didn’t hear any of that, though.

When the APC went down, she heard that. It was all she could do to stumble back in shock as a lance of sickly black crystal shot up from the ground, burning through the soft underbelly and out the other side. Several little explosions shook the inside, before the thirty tons of tank were lifted contemptuously into the air and thrown back onto the street. It landed on its back with a crash that knocked more books off their shelves and shattered windows.

The thaumic shield went down.

A figure moved into the opening, flanked by several other ponies. Alex could tell it was Ryan, or it had been. Pits of living darkness had replaced the pony’s eyes, his mane and tail transformed into flickering shadow. Ghostly wings formed in the air around him, in a mockery of an Alicorn. When the figure opened his mouth, Alex heard two voices. One was Ryan’s, as deep and gravely as that pony could naturally sound. The other was, unmistakably, that same voice she had heard in her nightmares. Odium.

“You arrive at last, slave and worse than slave to pretenders. At last I see your face.”

Part 6 (Alex) - Chapter 4

Behind her, Alex’s friends made their way into the library. First came Joseph. One of his legs looked broken, and he had burns up and down his side. Yet his face made no sign he registered the pain. His steps were rigid and mechanical. Moriah came behind him, moving forward with great resistance in every step, as though she were battling an army of invisible ghosts. She dragged Alex’s saddle bags behind her along the ground, though she looked very much like she didn’t want to. Behind them were several more of the enemy; Abrams with a rifle she was fairly sure would not be loaded with rubber bullets, and several of the ponies she had always thought were ex-military. She supposed that was probably still true, though they were unfortunately no longer on her side.

Alex did not run. Not just because she was sure she would just be put down like a rabid dog, though that was part of it. Alex couldn’t run, no matter how much she wanted to. Darkness surrounded her. Darkness filled her mind, filled her body with smoke and shadows and refused to let her budge. She now experienced firsthand what Odium was like, trapped though he might be in the pony who called himself Night Speaker. With every step Speaker closed, Odium neared her also. The very light of day outside seemed to fade to pale shadows through the windows, as all the world bowed to the might of those beings.

This time, only one voice spoke. Alex had no way of knowing if Odium was speaking out loud, or else the strange being spoke directly into her mind. Whoever it was, it burned at her consciousness to hear. It was like listening to the words of a black hole, pitiless and vast. “Weak human will, veiled in flesh. It is good the pretenders created you. It is less of a burden than waiting for you to arrive at your power naturally.”

Night Speaker seemed to tower above her. Tens, hundreds, thousands of feet. Nothing was any bigger, nothing was any smaller. Odium was showing her how her power compared to it. She could not move, not even an inch. “Your species is an abomination. When you have been erased, I will rewrite their nature in my image, better subjects than even the Equestrian vermin.” One of Ryan’s hooves took her face, forcing her to look up at him, into those empty eyes.

The contact lasted only moments, but the agony that flowed from it would have set her body to retching if she had the freedom to move. This creature, this was the abomination! Every part of her soul, human and pony alike, screamed this creature had no right to exist. It corrupted the very ground it touched.

It must’ve heard her thoughts, because Speaker released her, shoving her roughly to the ground. Its laughter sounded like gunfire, like the noose of a hangman’s rope snapping taut around a neck. Hatred, so pure it was a physical thing. “You will bow before I consume you, feeble species.” He gestured imperiously, and Moriah tossed the saddle bags in front of her. Alex couldn’t actually turn her head, so they suddenly filled the space in front of her, latched “sun” side facing her. “I know the reservoir of Equestrian deceptions lies within. Open it.”

Alex reached forward, her hooves moving of their own accord. She gripped the edge of the lock in her forelegs without any desire at all. She screamed in her mind, curling away from the shame. She had been trusted with something sacred, trusted over hundreds of other candidates. The future of humanity might very well depend on the magical knowledge still contained in the library, unburned. Once she opened it, there was nothing to protect the books inside.

The satchel opened. For the first time in her life, Alex saw what other ponies saw when they opened it. Stitched faux leather, empty except for a little lint and a little dust. There was no door, and no library. For the first time, Alex felt a ray of hope, burning away a shred of the shadows that snaked around her mind. Princess Twilight had said her soul was the key. It wasn’t her soul opening the bag. She could not be forced into violating her sacred responsibility after all.

Alex felt her body close and open the satchel several more times, faster and rougher each time. She tried both sides, with the same result. There was nothing inside no matter how many times the spirit of hatred puppeted her.

Alex realized if she could not be forced into opening the satchel, there might be many things she couldn’t be forced to do. She decided to try speaking. It worked. “What’s the point of getting in and burning the books? Couldn’t you just hide the library? That would get rid of it as sure as burning.” Alex, of course, knew that would not get rid of the library. But she was pretty sure they wouldn’t, not after so short a time to study the spell that had created it. Alex had faith in Twilight Sparkle, the Equestrian Princess of Magic. She had faith in many things.

She didn’t expect a response from the nightmare creature, any more than she would have expected a response from a hurricane. In a rush, she felt a knife pressed up against her throat. Her own hoof held it, though she didn’t know where she had gotten it or how a single hoof could apply pressure like that. “Unseal the gate, feeble creature, or you bleed.” All at once, Alex felt one of her hooves released, able to move again. It was the hoof that didn’t have the knife, mere inches from the saddlebags. If she willingly opened the front, she had no doubt it would work, even under great duress. The spell was smart, but it couldn’t possibly be that smart.

The filly didn’t move her hoof. She did move the other part of her body she had control over, the one she had taken rather than been given. Her mouth. “Fuck you!” She spat in the dual-creature’s face, and didn’t blink as the metal pressed against her throat. “I don’t obey you!” Again the force rushed in, rushing to take back her hoof and her mouth and the rest of her.

The knife came at her throat. Though she knew she would not really die, she also knew there would be terrible pain. She felt wet blood where the knife pierced her, and she did not regret it. She would not bow, regardless of the consequences.

The strength of the earth flowed into her in a torrent, mightier than ever she had felt it before. Her skin filled and filled and filled with it. The blade caught in her flesh, which had suddenly gone stronger than steel. It shattered, leaving only a miniscule shard and a few drops of blood running down her neck. Alex wrenched back control of her other hoof, setting them both back down and glaring up at Odium with the contempt of a planet burning in her eyes. “I do not bow to you.” She could not move from that spot, yet in it she stood erect, defiant.

“We will see.” Her headset clattered to the ground, Taylor's voice still screaming from the floor. An alien force lifted her clear off the ground, dragging her by her throat down away from the windows and down the stairs. The deeper they went, the thicker the shadows became. As they neared the bottom and all traces of sunlight faded, Alex felt the magic from the earth begin to weaken. Night Speaker’s magic, or Odium’s, or whichever had taken her down into the dark, was holding her out of reach of the earth. Though she regained enough will to kick and struggle, it was no use. She couldn’t reach. The strength of her planet faded by the second, and the grip grew stronger and stronger. Her world began to stretch and contort as the air left her lungs. She was being strangled.

Yet somehow, she remained aware enough to hear Odium’s voice, calling out to someone she couldn’t see. At the top of the stairs, Carol with her dark wings spread, watching with helpless horror. All the world was filled with his spectral face. It was going to be the last thing she saw when she died. “Dog, use your weapon. Shoot her.”

She closed her eyes, bracing herself against the pain. Alex had died several different ways, but bullets would be new. She couldn’t imagine it would be very enjoyable.

The bullets didn’t come. “Dog, I said to use your primitive weapon and kill her. Odium demands it; she will be more compliant when she is stripped of her body. You are no lich, no Alicorn. You will obey.”

Alex felt the grip around her throat slacken, enough for her to take a single merciful gulp of air. The world came into sudden relief. Odium’s servants, even the ones that had been her friends until she had foolishly sent them to stop a being as ancient and powerful as this. Abrams was at the front of the group, aiming his M4 directly at her chest. His huge paws shook, one finger lifting towards the trigger and back again, over and over. Life flickered in his eyes.

His effort was for nothing. Under the directed, personal attention of this nightmare being, he could not possibly resist. He pulled the trigger.

But not before altering his aim, by just a few degrees. Bullets whizzed through the air, but only one grazed Alex’s shoulder. White hot blood poured out, and she screamed. She screamed and screamed without any resistance for her speech now.

Beside her, Ryan had done far worse. Abrams's bullets had taken him in the head. There was no stirring of life. The strange pressure vanished from her mind, though the pain did not. This wound didn’t threaten her life, so it probably wouldn’t heal all that much faster than usual.

“That’s for Philly, bastard.” Abrams leaned close to the corpse, all trace of his calm fracturing. “We will not be your slaves, or your victims!”

For one wonderful, glorious moment, Alex let herself hope that it might be over. Granted, she spent it coughing and spluttering on the floor, filling herself with the magic of the earth to strengthen her and let her breathe freely again. In that moment, she thought that all it would take was killing the host. She had not known Night Speaker, wasn’t sure yet if she would have done the same, but it didn’t matter now. He was dead. He would take Odium with him to hell, and the danger to humanity’s future would be over.

The moment passed. From the corpse came a surging, flickering shadow. It grew and grew, a patch of darkness in the center of the room that expanded as it consumed all flickers of illumination. Alex could only just make out a face in the billowing purplish smoke, looking only vaguely pony. Rage boiled from this being like heat from a star, and its eyes were fixed immediately on her.

“It needs a new host!” Joseph’s voice from the top of the stairs, no longer baring a shred of the compulsion on him. He said more, though she couldn't hear all of it. Only a few threads of the conversation from above made it down to her. “We have to let the light in! Somepony get a mirror!” Alex could see no sign of the light from the upper world. Light was a dream, a distant memory. Only her memory of Celestia’s mane remained clear to her just then.

The shadowy presence reached Abrams first. It did not even try to take him as a host, though Alex was sure he would be able to do nothing to stop it. Instead the anger surged and boiled over, and the shadows tore him to pieces.

It happened so quickly, she didn’t even get the chance to look away. Once moment, triumph on Abrams face, defiance and rage against cruel fate. The next, Alex had been splattered with something foul and the nightmare was advancing on her.

She knew without knowing how she knew that no other host would do. The shadows thickened and secured around her, forcing themselves into her eyes and down her throat. She spasmed and convulsed, fighting valiantly, but not even her earth pony nature could help her now. That might strengthen her body, make it resistant to knives or bullets or strangulation, but it could do nothing to shield her mind. The hatred rushed in unopposed.

Alex’s perception of the physical world abruptly ended, the sensations of her body severed. Lonely Day was torn from her body then, and cast into the depths of her subconscious.

Part 6 (Alex) - Chapter 5

Form and meaning unraveled in the void, where symbols were as true as the things they represented. Time ceased to matter, just as space did. A battle raged; a battle she could not possibly win on her own.

The other wished to frame it in terms of Equestria, of ponies and spirits and magic. Alex refused, and so gave the duel form in another way. A human way.

Archive saw a roadside diner, right out of any number of 1950s era movies. It was late at night, and she pulled up to escape the wrath of a torrential downpour outside. The diner had a covered parking area, so she wouldn’t get any more hail-dents so long as she took the time to rest. She was fiercely hungry, and so elected to brave the wind and the rain enough to make it to the door. Even under the covered parking-area, she was soaked before she reached the entrance.

She was dressed for the period, just like everyone else. Under her thick raincoat was a green skirt and white blouse brought in above the waist. Archive had never been a human female before, but she didn’t even think about it then. That was just the way it was, just as she was back in time and in a diner because that was the form she had accidentally wrought upon the dream. There could be no arguing with it. Her skin was pale again, just as it had been. Her proportions modest, just at the beginning of womanhood. Only her hair showed sign of the truth beneath; it was the exact same shade as her mane had been. Instead of poodles, her dress had her cutie mark. She didn’t notice that either. After hanging up her raincoat in the room full of other storm clothing, she passed through into the restaurant itself.

She felt strange to be visiting alone in the middle of the night. It seemed like she should have company, perhaps a father or a brother. Yet she had none, so she would have to act strong. There were a few other patrons in the diner, all looking like they had come in for the exact same reason she had. She saw a huge blind man, a dog sitting beside him on the ground with a leash, speaking to what looked to be relatives in hushed voices. There was a couple at the bar, drinking wine from tall glasses. She hadn’t known public drinking was legal here!

There were others. A young man sitting alone had put down his book to stare at her, though his expression seemed more flattering than unnerving. A little black-haired girl sat beside her father, yawning between sips of a huge strawberry milkshake that he occasionally took from her to refill.

Too late to turn around now, the waitress had already noticed her. The woman was taller than Archive had ever seen before, with skin as dark as bark and hair even greener than Archive’s. It did not seem strange here. “Out a little late, aren’t we?”

Alex wanted to collapse and let the woman hold her. Somehow, she knew she would. She didn’t, though. She was an adult. She had to act like it. “Yeah. I didn’t mean to come; I’d rather be home. I think I got lost on the road somewhere.”

“Didn’t we all, sweetie.” She touched Archive on the shoulder, then picked up a menu. “Follow me. I’d rather take you somewhere else, but there’s only one seat available.” She started walking towards the back of the restaurant, where there was apparently a banquet hall. Even though the room outside had been filled with strangers, Archive found herself missing their company. It felt better not to be alone.

The banquet hall was unlit. A pale figure sat in a chair at the corner, staring at the wall. A huge meal was set before him, a feast to fill every spot on the table. It was almost as though the table had been set for fifty, all prepared and ready to go. Then, without warning, they had all gone.

Archive supposed the figure was male, though it was hard to tell for sure with the shadow. “Can’t you do something about the lights?” she asked, even as the waitress pulled out the seat across from him. “It’s so dark in here.” She thought it strange the figure didn’t rise when she sat down, but didn’t have the energy to make a scene about proper manners this late at night.

“Not much.” The woman took an unlit candle from the next table over, one with the oil wicks, and set it down next to Alex. “I’m afraid I don’t have a lighter. You look like a clever girl, though. I’m sure you can handle it.” She took Archive’s drink order, then departed, leaving her alone with the stranger.

“You cannot stop me from claiming you.” As her eyes adjusted to the shadow, Archive saw the figure across from her, all dark suit and attractive features. She had never seen a face more handsome or dangerous in all her life. Mostly dangerous. She had liked the look of the young man in the lobby much better. “This obfuscation merely delays, and not even any meaningful fraction. Within the demesne of the mind, time is lightning. If you think to delay me long enough for your ‘friends’ to escape my reach, you think in vain.”

“I know.” Archive looked at the table. Much of the food here had been good. It was expensive looking stuff, much nicer than she would ever expect to find in a roadside diner. Alex saw a heaping plate of law, arranged beautifully by the chef. Someone, doubtless the man across from her, had taken a single bite from one corner. The entire thing had deflated into a squashed mess. Functional, but disgusting. She pushed it aside. All her favorites were already here, waiting for her. Civilization was the main course, arrayed on several large platters. One looked like something foul had been dumped onto it, while the other looked as though rot had spread from the single missing bite, making the whole thing reek of mold and decay.

“Your race is strong-willed, but not so strong as the love-sucking insects that live in rock and slime. We could not abide them, for they did not bow. We tried to change them first, but they would not bow, so we fought to exterminate them instead. Your weakness promises a kinder fate. Your dead civilization will have new rulers.”

Archive found a little plate of technology, still glowing in parts despite the man’s best efforts to spoil it. She reached down with her spoon, selecting only the good parts, and taking them in one gigantic bite. After the horror of the storm outside, after the cold and the weakness, that one bite felt wonderful.

Her dining companion shifted in his seat as he watched her, shoving over a nearby plate in agitation. Archive felt a brief surge of annoyance as the food went all over the floor. She hadn’t even had a chance to see if anything on that tray of friendship could be salvaged or not. “Be grateful for your death. When I take you for myself, when I change you, they will change also. There will be no need to exterminate them anymore. They will serve us, as is their place.” He paused, a flicker of anger in his dark eyes. “Well, perhaps some of them. Your servants spoke to me of living humans that abide in secret places despite the advent of magic. I will extract their location from your mind before I erase it. I will cleanse them with flame and crystal.”

“Maybe.” Archive’s drink order arrived, a very strong pot of coffee. She took one long swig, then reached out and swapped out her plate for another, most precious of all. It had no name she had ever known, not until very recently. Yet she had always known it was her favorite, somewhere deep down. The waitress looked approving as she left them to their meal. “Maybe not.” She opened the little pot. The grains inside had been scattered and arranged absurdly, like the pot had been held upside-down. Yet none had been soiled and none had escaped. She sprinkled them on her coffee. “I don’t think so. I think you won’t find another host strong enough. Someone mortal wouldn’t work, and I haven’t invented any enchanted objects strong enough to hold you yet. My library won’t accept you. If you can’t take me, the sun will take you.”

Archive looked at her enemy then, really looked. She could barely see him now. He was just a shadow of a dream, not nearly as solid as any of the other patrons outside in the lobby. They were real. Her soul filled with pity then, for the being that had none. “And when it does, you’ll be gone forever. Joseph said you would go back to where you’re from, but… you’re not from anywhere, are you? There’s only oblivion waiting outside these walls.”

The man across from her raged in his seat, throwing his glass and several plates onto the floor. They shattered, sending food everywhere. Some of her favorite foods, too. “If I do, I’ll take you with me. There can be no victory for you, human. At least in servitude I will let your existence continue, whatever shred I permit to remain.”

“I thought you could.” Archive set her cup down. The coffee had been fiercely hot, warm enough to heat away much of the chill she had brought in with her from the storm outside. On a whim, she stuck her candle into the dark liquid. It was so hot the wick caught in a rush of blue and sizzling green. She set it down beside her on the table, and the man recoiled several feet, outside the range of its weak little flame. “Before you took me here, before I saw what you really are. You were so strong. You forced people to do horrible things. I think-” She whimpered, wiping away a tear with the back of her hand. “I think you killed a good man right in front of me.”

“Maybe you are all those things, maybe you’re strong. But it doesn’t matter.” She bared her teeth, flashing white in the candlelight. “If you really knew me, you wouldn’t have come to Alexandria. If you really knew me, you wouldn’t have even come to my planet.”

“You?!” That sick laughter came again, awful enough that Archive felt more of her food going bad. This was her feast, she realized more and more. It hadn’t been set for anyone but her. This man hadn’t even been invited. “Helpless, primitive child race! Defenseless, magicless, soulless! You are nothing to me. I’ll sweep you and your kin away like dew!”

Archive didn’t feel angry, even though she knew the words the stranger spoke were not true. They were so far from the truth, there was no reason to get upset. He was like an infant, wailing that he had been denied a sweet. “Child? That’s hardly your place to judge, stranger. It’s true, I don’t know anything about magic yet. But I’m learning. If you think I won’t, just look and see what I did with just three years to prepare. I survived the blow meant to kill me.” She leaned closer to him, narrowing her eyes. “You do not know me. I have survived far worse than you. I’ve watched my planet freeze, watched my villages crushed by glaciers, been hunted by predators a dozen times my size. I’ve seen sicknesses that turned whole cities to carrion. I’ve lived in every climate, from the scorching desert to endless perpetual snow.”

Her hand tightened on her knife as she began to clean away the filth from a dish of mercy. It was still warm; she would have to make sure she kept as much as she possibly could. As if summoned by her work, she felt a little hand on her wrist. It was the child she had seen in the lobby, black hair and bright green eyes. “We have the mirror ready, Archive. The basement is lit up.” Then she turned and skipped away.

“You come here, you find me harder to control, and you don’t even stop to wonder why. I will tell you, stranger. Not only have I conquered all those and much more, I faced an enemy greater than all of them. I faced myself. You think you’re cruel? I cracked the elemental code of my world, only to purify those elements and pour them down from the sky, killing hundreds of thousands. I stole the fire that burns in stars and used it to burn my own kind into shadows on a sidewalk.”

“Yet for all that and worse, for cruelty the likes of which you could not even imagine, there was also light. I took poison and turned it into fertilizer, and transformed the inhospitable to fruitful. I mapped the sky, and left the bounds of my world. I ended wars and sent my children home safe again. Though I was sometimes cruel, I more often chose kindness. Though I was sometimes spiteful, I often chose friendship instead. Though my world fought to kill me, I abandoned despair for hope.”

“You cannot own me. You cannot change me. I have no destiny but my own, and I choose to keep it.” She rose to her feet, gown billowing about her legs. “You are not welcome here, Odium. Not here in my mind, not in the minds of my children, and not on my fucking planet. Get out.”

Her imagined battlefield began to crumble as the demon that was far older than Alex surged upon her to take away her mind and write her anew according to its own desires. If she had been her old self, there would have been no fight at all. No mortal could stand against darkness that old and that filled with hatred. But behind the being named Archive was a fifty thousand years of struggle, of a daily war for survival. Fifty thousand years of cruelty, fifty thousand years of kindness. Alex knew little. Archive was sixty billion lives of invention and discovery and knowledge. By those terms, it wasn’t much of a fight.

Author's Note

Sorry guys, I guess I picked a bad day to switch to my new school schedule! (Not that I'm actually late, but I know I'm posting later than some people would like)

So as you can tell from this point on, the story clearly isn't over. Under pressure for my editors, I extended the story by a full chapter, which will be told from the perspectives of all 6 previous characters. We'll have an interlude after this chapter as normal, then that chapter, and finally a short epilogue.

After that, I expect to take a break of a few weeks to get a backlog of content ready for the third and final main story in the Last Pony on Earth series.

A huge thanks to everybody who's made it this far. Most particularly to my wonderful artist Zutcha, who's never missed a day despite all the pressures of life. As an artist of a different kind whose also never missed a day, I know how hard it can be, so I'm way thankful for all his hard work. Maybe one day he'll finish his patreon page so I can finally donate...

Part 6 - Interlude

Last night, little Riley had learned that the information Alex had shown her from the library hadn’t been wrong after all. Just as the Equestrian books said, she could will herself into new forms. The effort was exhausting, and she had very little idea of what she was doing. Yet the instinct was there. With the original pony helpless before her, she had all the time in the world to make sure she got every detail exactly right. The pony who called herself Carol, whose real name was apparently True Sight, had been easy to copy in the end. The body of a changeling was literally built for it.

Transforming for the first time had been almost as wonderful as feeding for the first time, and not just because of how it felt. Imitating Carol, changing hard chitin to soft fur, meant more than just taking another body for herself. If she could do it once, she could do it as often as she had the strength. She didn’t have to be a freak anymore! She could look like somebody normal, and it would be easier for her to get their attention. It would be easier not to go hungry.

Yet her first change had come for good reason: Alexandria contained a danger far more severe than the survivors that had shot at her in St. Louis. As surely as she knew that love was good and pain was bad, she knew that the thing in Alexandria would do far worse than just kill her friends. It would swallow their insides and fill them up with shadow. She wouldn’t be able to feed, then. A shadow could not feel anything, only pretend. How Riley knew this she couldn’t have said, but know it she did. Beings like herself did not hesitate, they acted.

She couldn’t fly into town, much as she wanted to. She didn’t have enough practice with her wings, and anyway Carol’s batlike wings didn’t work the same as her graceful transparent ones. She would have to act without flight.

Not being able to fly wasn’t nearly as strange as being suddenly gigantic. Carol the batpony was taller than Cloudy Skies, at least a foot taller than Riley had been. Not only that, but she felt so strangely adult, mature in ways her young mind didn’t fully comprehend. What little girl hadn’t dreamt of being an adult, and enjoying all the privileges of adulthood? She couldn’t explore her mystical adult powers now, not when there was a city to save.

Perhaps not save. She hadn’t gone into town knowing what the state of things would be, after all. She hadn’t even known for sure if looking like the captured pony would be enough. What if there were secret handshakes Carol was supposed to know? What if the batpony hadn’t really been won over to their cause? What if they planned for changeling infiltrations, and all the secret words she had been told were really code for “Please kill me now!”?

But they hadn’t been. After a ride into town with Cloudy Skies, Riley had bound her wing in the most convincing way she could, smearing it all over with stage blood. Apparently she was a natural at that too, because every pony she saw seemed quite concerned to see her.

Concerned wasn’t quite the right word. They had seemed positively befuddled. Somehow, she knew why that was too. The being that controlled them had its concentration elsewhere. It was mighty, yes, but no god. It was a fallen, disgusting imitation of the real thing. Her sworn enemy without even having to meet. Even when the strangers had first arrived in Alexandria, she had known something was wrong. She had reconsidered attending their first meeting at the last second, choosing to hide in the trailer when she felt the strange twisting in her gut for the first time. She never went out on her own after that, and almost never left the trailer during the day.

That decision had probably saved her life as surely as this one might cost it. She might be dressed up, but she was still going straight into the creature’s den, delivering herself right to the platter. This mission didn’t call for her. It called for… she didn’t really understand. Lesser versions of her? Like limbs she wasn’t afraid of losing. She longed for true versions of the phantom bodies she sometimes felt, and now that she had need of one she positively ached for them. Whatever the strange urge was, it wasn’t granted.

So Riley the Changeling Queen, ever pragmatic, had rolled up her nonexistent sleeves to get the dirty job done herself. At the very least, she could learn more and deliver that information to Alex when she returned from Philadelphia. She would know what to do. Alex always knew what to do, it was as much her nature as needing the attention of ponies was part of Riley’s.

When she had started hearing gunshots, Riley had abandoned the pretext of her injured shamble and galloped for the sound right along with her escort. She knew where they would be going: Alexandria’s library. Yet as she neared it, she felt again at a distance the strange chill that would tear her magic away. It felt awful, like it was turning her body to clay the closer it got. It wasn’t painful exactly, but she recognized the feeling anyway. It was the reverse of what she had felt when she had taken this form.

The HPI vehicles had machines to take magic away. Evidently those machines worked on her magic too, strange brand though it was. She couldn’t approach. With their distraction and her own natural stealth, Riley slipped out of the rush, letting them continue along without her for the library. She dared go no closer than the movie theater, slipping inside and collapsing to pant on the floor.

She had no way of telling Cloudy Skies how she was doing: they hadn’t wanted to risk her bringing anything Carol hadn’t flown out wearing. She probably could have gone much closer to the field before she was actually forced back into her original form. She was far too afraid to take the risk. What would happen to her if she drew Odium’s notice and it sent its puppeted ponies after her again? Cloudy Skies wouldn’t be coming to her rescue this time. Nopony would.

As she thought, a distant explosion shook the city. Without preamble, the anti-magic field and all its horrible implications abruptly vanished from her sensation. She gave caution ten seconds before turning back out the door and galloping the rest of the way. Though she could see little out of place in the direction that was her destination, her strange senses showed her a very different picture.

It was loose. A naked singularity, a great invisible snake that radiated despair and mocked the sanctity of life. She too knew what it was like to be unwelcome in the world. What her body could not produce on its own, she obtained from ponies who could, and that was how she found her place. This being hadn’t even tried to weave itself into the tapestry of life. A dozen different names for the creature flashed through her mind, words she wouldn’t have been able to pronounce as a human. Eventually, she settled on one she could pronounce. Abaddon. Every step she took brought her closer to the light that cast shadows the wrong way, dragging life and strength towards it as black holes drew cosmic gas. Yet against all her expectations, ignoring every instinct, the being did not attack her. It didn’t even notice her!

As she reached the library, she found a warzone. A hole had been blasted in the building, and a huge HPI vehicle like a tank had been torn into pieces and scattered about the street. Ponies had been stunned, ponies lying on the ground or trapped in nets. A few still held guns, or rested near them, yet stood staring off into nothing. Among them she saw Adrian.

She went to him, fleeing to the first pony in all the world that had ever been kind to her. She sensed the dark malice about him like a cloud, swirling around the event-horizon that was Abaddon. It twisted and constricted about him, preventing his movement but little else. It had not dragged him down with it yet, much as it wanted to. The being’s influence was thin around him. Whatever was going on inside evidently required most of its concentration.

She stood right before him, and spoke with Carol’s voice. “Adrian, are you alright? Can you move?” He seemed confused. He looked at her, then through her. One lip nearly quivered, one hoof nearly lifted. Neither did. The weight pressing down on him was too great.

In her few months in Alexandria, Riley had needed to relearn much of how to live. Kindness she had learned from Adrian, who had seen her soul and ignored her body. The importance of knowledge she had learned from Joseph, who had been able to discover the answer to any question. Oliver had taught her to see beauty again in growing things, which looked and felt so strange to her now. Sky had taught her two lessons; that she was a monster, and that she could be something else. Moriah had taught her too, though it had only been by example. She had seen in her that she had the power to decide to be happy, if she wanted to be.

From Alex last of all, Riley had learned. Learned that no sacrifice was too great to save the ones you loved. Instinct whispered other words; caution was always safest. She ought to move slowly, never attract attention, and never take risks. Yet that same instinct came from the part of her that knew Abaddon. The part of her that revolted the souls of the ponies she met. The part of herself that she hated. Riley would not be controlled, she wouldn’t be a doll or a puppet, not even to herself. She would be Riley no matter what the world tried to do.

What was the point of living if you lived in shame? What was the point of having a family if you wouldn’t protect them? The world itself had taken her first family away, and she had been able to do nothing. How could she live with herself if she stood by and let it happen a second time?

Riley pressed her forehead to Adrian, though she knew what she was about to do would draw the attention of the thing her people called Abaddon down upon her. She did so, and didn’t care.

Blacklight did not understand what it was like to be a changeling, not really. She knew from the Equestrian books that she somehow ate emotions. She took something from ponies, something creatures like her couldn’t ever have on their own. It was the very essence of life, since her body could not exist without it. She was not Odium, to blight the world and draw all that was good unto itself to be consumed.

Yet still she consumed. Not this time. This time she gave.

She had to change back to do it. In a flicker of light and green magic, her form began to twist. She felt the strange energy flowing around her, heard the creak of bones and the squelching of fluids in her chest. Fur vanished along with the false cutie marks, and her horn returned. Adrian grew taller and taller before her, and she only reached his chest. All the while instinct screamed she was making the wrong choice, screamed that she was going to get herself killed, that she shouldn’t let anypony see her in her real skin ever again.

She ignored it all. Once she had her fangs, she bit down on Adrian’s chest, hard enough to break the skin. She ignored the coppery taste of blood with the same ease any Queen would, devoting the multitude of her separate conscious threads to reversing the process of her usual feeding. What had always been a subconscious process became quite difficult when going the other way, yet not impossible. She managed in the end.

Where the being called Odium had taken passion from Adrian and left him a shell, the little changeling did the opposite. Through the wound, Riley poured a flood of passionate love more intense than anyone could naturally experience. Pure, concentrated emotion. She felt herself extend then, quite reflexively. Without knowing how she did it, Riley’s consciousness extended in a way it had never done before. While the rest of her was concerned with the physical world, a single fraction saw something else.

A young stallion, gray in flesh and form, lay supine in a desert like old bones. The ground sloped downward, slow but inexorable, and a stone rested not far away from him. The stone had a huge chain wrought of words, running to his hooves and fastening there. Though he resisted, the stone dragged him down with it, further and further from the distant light at the horizon.

Well, he was almost Adrian. Some of his features blurred the difference between human and pony. The shackles never touched skin, but furred flesh where hooves were instead of feet. She watched him reach for the chains with his hooves, only for them to pass through them as though they weren’t there. She watched the color flood back into him. Gray skin going dark mahogany, his face taking on one of his characteristically stubborn expressions. She kept pouring the emotions into him, until the tide of feelings was too great for Odium to suppress.

“What do I do?” he asked.

“Whatever you want.” She reached out, and with their strength together they broke the chains. “You’re free.”

And just like that, he was.

Part 7 (Founders) - Chapter 1

Adrian was alone in a world of pain. The spirit called Odium pressed down upon his mind, trapping him in his worst moment, stretching into forever.

Thousands and thousands of times Adrian watched that memory replay. The pain of the crash was bad, but it wasn’t even close to the worst part. He saw the mare on the roof of the hotel. He heard her over and over, a hopelessness crushed by the weight of an uncaring universe. Nothing he could say made a difference. Eventually, when she thought he wasn’t paying attention, she jumped. It was ten stories to the ground. Enough time to try and catch her.

Maybe it would’ve been if he had been a proper pegasus, with Cloudy Skies's flying ability. Instead, he had been a pony just a few days. He could barely open his wings, let alone fly with them. He jumped anyway, tried to catch her.

He didn’t. She died. Over and over she died, and he lived. He lived his broken wing over and over again, though that wasn’t the worst part either. The worst part was the sound her body made when she hit the ground. Pegasi landed soft. Unicorns didn’t. He had scrubbed the blood off his body till it bled, but never felt clean after that. “You failed to live on your own,” the voice told him, over and over. “Those around you suffered. With me, you will not fail again. You would have caught her if I was guiding you then.” He had not believed the voice the first time, or even the hundredth. In the end though, everyone would bow before the might of Odium. His rulership of Earth would be absolute, nothing could defy him.

And Adrian believed that, too. He saw Oliver captured, watched his brave struggle against the voice of hatred. Watched his medical detachment and the will to fight death in his own way crumble. Oliver had bowed before the might of Odium, and his will too was now subject. All humanity would serve, and there was nothing any of them could do about it. It was as inevitable as the tide.

With no contrary evidence, Adrian stopped fighting. Odium gave him more and more freedom the more he was willing to believe. After all, a servant was more useful when he wanted to obey. Obedience meant he could act again, and so he obeyed. It was simply the way of things. When Alex came, he fought with everypony else. Something struck him in the chest, something that felt like being hit with a baseball bat. Nothing broke, though it was a near thing. He was stunned with pain, unable to act for nearly a minute.

Then there was silence. Odium’s voice vanished from his mind, and he was left alone. Alone with the agony of a gunshot. Adrian hurt too badly to do anything other than wish it would kill him. Maybe it would, maybe that was why Odium had abandoned him. He was no longer useful.

The instant the red started to fade, Odium was back. He demanded that Adrian rise, and so he rose. The pain burned at him, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop him. The spirit demanded service, and so service was what he received. Adrian hardly noticed as his influence began to fade. Enough of it remained to remind him that resistance would not help. Enough to bring the crushing weight of inevitability down on him. He heard voices from within the library, but those voices were not for him. Odium demanded nothing more of him but stillness, so stillness was what he gave.

Then True Sight was there, standing in front of him and looking worried. She said something, but Adrian didn’t hear it through the haze. The conversation was not for him, and so Odium had taken sound from him. It wasn’t as though his ears were gone, or they had ceased to be sensitive. Just that whenever he tried to listen, whatever he heard suddenly became unimportant.

Then she was gone, replaced with someone far more precious to him. Riley. He wanted to scream, wanted to warn her to turn and run as fast as she could. Odium knew his thoughts, he would know she was here. If he ordered Adrian to fight, he would fight. If he ordered him to kill the girl with his bare hooves, he would. He wouldn’t have a choice.

He felt the cool touch of the changeling’s chitinous horn against his chest, then the sharp pain of her teeth. He ignored it. Ignored it with all the force he had. Odium was spread among many ponies, and not focusing on him. If he didn’t seem interested, if he made himself as bored and focused on the pain in his chest, maybe he wouldn’t be forced to do anything.

The mist on his mind began to clear. The gray around his heart began to fade, as passion boiled it away. He loved Riley, he loved the ponies of Alexandria and the world they had come from. He loved clear skies and watching hockey games and action movies. He might love Cloudy Skies, he wasn’t sure about that one. Yet most of all, he loved being able to make a difference. Being able to try. What do I do?

“Whatever you want,” Riley whispered. “You’re free.”

He was.

“It’s going to try and take Alex! You can’t let it!”

They needn't have worried about fighting the other ponies on their way in. Like him, they had been frozen on their hooves. Like him, even a major threat didn’t seem to register. Odium’s attention was elsewhere.

He noticed something else on his way in, though. A squawking radio, resting on the ground beside the largest piece of the APC. Evidently Ryan hadn’t noticed it, or else hadn’t cared. Adrian scooped up the earpiece.

“Damnit I need to know what to do, pony! You shouldn’t have-”

Adrian recognized the speaker’s voice even through her anger. He cut her off. “Taylor, this is Adrian.”

The other end went abruptly quiet for several seconds. “Hello, Adrian,” she eventually said, voice thick with suspicion. “What have you done to Alex?”

She knows they got to me, he thought, frustrated. He cast his mind about for a solution, but he didn’t have to come up with one. Riley was there. She tugged him down by the shoulder with surprising strength, taking the headset off his ear. “Taylor, Adrian’s good for the moment. I got the parasite out of his head.”

Adrian could only hear the other side of the conversation because Riley kept her head purposefully close to his. “Riley? Alex told me you’d got away. What are you doing there?”

“Getting my friends!” She sounded exasperated. “Look, Alex is still in there. I know you’ve got drones watching us. Use them and look at us. Adrian’s not stiff like the others, see? He’s one of us. I’ll get our other ponies too, gimme a minute. They haven’t been captured as long, so I th-think it’ll be easier. I… I think I’ve got a little juice left…” She passed the headset back to him in her flowing magic, and he took it.

“What the hell is going on over there, Adrian? Something tore my APC to pieces, and it was running a CPNFG. Granted, it was a little bitch compared to the ones we use for aircraft, but the alternative would be making an APC large enough for a nuc-” she cut herself off. “Question stands. What’s going on?”

“Odium is riding around in the pony named Night Speaker,” he explained. “He’s got way more powerful magic than a unicorn should because of it. I think he broke your APC. Alex had already left, though. She’s inside.”

Little Riley was curled up into a limp ball in front of Joseph. As he approached, he heard her mutter. “Didn’t h-have enough for Moriah… s-sorry… later…”

“You did fine, Riley.” He reached her side and bent down to stroke it once. “You’ve done enough. Rest.” He helped her into a corner, even as he watched the intelligence return to Joseph’s eyes. His recovery was far swifter than his own had been. Yet even as he touched her, some energy seemed to flow back into the little pony. The fog cleared from her eyes, and as she rose, he watched her change.

Horrifying wasn't quite the right word, particularly after all that he had seen. Unnatural? Yes. Disquieting? Sure. But it was no stranger than her appearance. It took her only seconds, and she'd grown and grown and grown, returning to the body of True Sight.

“Where is Alex?” Adrian asked, just as Taylor asked it in his ear. He scanned the room, but didn’t see Alex or Ryan or Abrams for that matter. There might be other ponies missing too: he hadn’t yet learned the faces of all the newcomers that had been hiding themselves away. Just a ruined library floor, wrecked furniture, and the stairwell leading down. Down those stairs Adrian’s eyes could not pierce the darkness.

Joseph gestured. “Down there. We need light.” His horn lit up with a faint glow, and he started forward.

“Not yet. The ponies up here are stunned. Get their guns away and follow me.” There was a fight going on down there, but he wouldn’t leap in blindly this time. He had done that in Niagra, and it had only ended with death and a broken wing. This time he would be prepared. “Did you ponies have a plan?”

Joseph spoke as he worked, levitating each firearm or knife he could see out into a growing, glowing cloud in front of him. “Alex was supposed to draw everypony here while Moriah and I destroyed whatever thing Odium was hiding in. Turns out it was hiding in a pony. Moriah attacked him, even though Alex told us not to. You… saw what happened.”

“Yeah.” Adrian gestured at the empty space behind a return-desk, out of sight unless you walked right up to the desk and looked behind it. He took a lantern from the desk even as Joseph piled the weapons of the cult ponies behind it.

“I don’t know why it’s just letting us do this.” He sounded nervous. “Odium is vast. It could control thousands of ponies at once if it wanted to. Even if it doesn’t need them for whatever it’s doing, shouldn’t it be using them to stop Riley from getting us free? The only-” He froze. A gunshot rang out then, and Adrian turned to race towards the stairs.

Taylor broke the silence. “I’m en route with Alex’s backup plan. It’s about two minutes away. Ask Joseph if he thinks it’ll work!”

He did, and Joseph frowned. “Not if we let it get away.” He darted down the stairs, lighting up his horn as he went. There was only one living pony at the bottom of the stairs. It was like Niagra all over again, and the proximity to his torturous memories nearly made Adrian lose control of his stomach. He held it in, but only just. There were two bodies, and standing only a few feet from them was Alex. Darkness boiled about her, burning from her eyes and out her ears and her mouth, as though a cloud of malevolent smoke was trying to choke her. He supposed that was exactly what was happening.

“It needs a new host!” Joseph exclaimed from beside him, seeming detached from the carnage at the base of the stairs. “It wouldn’t need this much to take one of us. For some reason it looks like it's pulled in almost all of itself.”

“Why?” Adrian frowned down at the cloud, puzzled. “She’s just a teenage earth pony. There isn’t anything we can do, is there? She’s going to lose.” Adrian had felt what Alex was feeling, though even then it had only been a small fraction. When Odium had taken his will, it hadn’t had to freeze its other followers to take more of its power away. If it had… he shuddered to think of the agony Alex must be experiencing. Within her mind, it would be seizing onto every reason she hated herself, every failing, and twisted until she bled. Would there even be any of the real Alex left when she emerged on the other side? Could Riley save her too?

To his surprise, it was Riley’s voice that spoke from the stairs. She barely stood, her limbs shaking with the effort, but she fought on anyway. “She won’t lose, but we still need to help. When she kicks Odium out, we need to make sure he can’t go anywhere. Do either of you know how?” She no longer sounded like a fearful child. She sounded like a confident ruler, without the slightest hesitation about being obeyed. She sounded very like Alex might sound, if she had been a freaky bug with a freaky voice.

“We have to let the light in! Somepony get a mirror!”

“There are big ones in the bathrooms.” Adrian turned, happy to be helping while simultaneously getting as far away from the carnage at the base of the stairs as he could. Joseph joined him as he kicked the locked bathroom doors open. Together they unscrewed the mirrors from the wall, using scrap metal and unicorn magic. Adrian opened all the blinds, working out the best angle to reflect the most light downstairs. With three mirrors and a little cleverness, they could get some serious light down there. He could only hope it would be enough.

“Plan B: inbound. Twenty seconds!”

“What is that?” Adrian held one of the mirrors, while Riley propped up another and Joseph levitated the last one at the necessary angle. It was very strange: Adrian had never seen sunlight so bright. The sun blasted past him like the blazing heat of midsummer noon, though it was November. He had to look away, lest he go blind in the brilliance. Through his peripheral vision, he could see the brilliance flood down the stairs, lighting up the basement like a star. He felt strength in his limbs that was not his own. Good, he thought, though he wasn’t sure the thought was his. Brighter.

In the light of the sun, Alex’s body was all that remained. Only thin wisps of shadow radiated from around her, cowering behind her and away from the light like a snake. Was he only imagining it, or was the light stretching to fill the space, reflecting off stone and concrete as though it were polished steel. There was nowhere to hide.

He heard Taylor’s answer right as engines roared from overhead. “Your Hummingbird! Field ain’t running, but it’s about to be!”

Alex opened her mouth to scream. “GET OUT!” Adrian knew resisting Odium was futile. He had experienced what it was like to have only a fraction of its mighty will pressing on him. Alex had faced all of it. Yet out it came, darkness pouring from her mouth and her eyes and everywhere else, pooling like tar at her hooves. Much of it burned away as the light touched it, save for a pool of the deepest, thickest filth, which started to snake away behind her into the basement.

“Closed range, engaging projector!”

Adrian felt the chill of the HPI’s thaumic field neutralizer, the same one that let them survive in a world now hostile to human life. He had felt it before, but never like this. It was as though gravity was suddenly pressing on him, crushing him to the earth with a relentlessness he had never experienced. The strength that had filled his limbs vanished abruptly, leaving him entirely on his own. If he dropped his mirror, half the light that flooded into the basement would be gone. He didn’t drop it. Joseph did, glass falling to shatter from levitation that suddenly no longer worked. Thank god for Riley's quick thinking, or else they would've lost the light entirely.

Ponies all over the room began to quake and tremble. Some screamed, some whimpered, one tried to run out the door, only to stumble and trip over herself before she could. Of course, the greatest change came from below. Alex’s strength waned at last, and she collapsed into unconsciousness. Behind her, the serpent made from darkness spasmed and convulsed. He heard screaming, screaming that burned his ears even though he didn’t speak the language it used. The creature began to boil away like dry ice on a sidewalk, popping and sizzling and radiating a fine mist. It took only seconds before it was gone completely.

Odium was dead.

Part 7 (Founders) - Chapter 2

Cloudy Skies did not return to Alexandria until near nightfall. Her mission, though important, felt hopelessly mundane. Without knowing when Lonely Day and the other ponies would return from Philadelphia, and with no way to call and tell them, it was her job to find a satellite phone, make it work, then report on what they had learned.

It would’ve been far worse than boring to travel off on her own when Blacklight was putting herself into danger with all her other friends. Except Cloudy Skies had company, a pony who might very well turn on her at any moment. She didn’t hold a gun to the pony; that wouldn’t have been a very friendly way to do things. Rather, she disposed of all their weapons, and made it a point to avoid any location where True Sight might find new ones. She had bound the other pony’s wings, though that had been more Blacklight's idea. That way at least she would know she couldn’t change her mind and return to her master easily. Nothing else; no bindings on her hooves or leashes or weapons. Aside from not being able to fly away, she was just as free as Cloudy Skies.

They talked a great deal; much more than she had expected. Sight wanted to know about how living on Earth had been, really know. She wanted to know what Sky liked to do. She wanted to know what made living in Alexandria so great, and when winter was scheduled. Sky answered every question, as well as responding with some of her own. She learned that Sight was from Equestria itself, and that she had left her family behind forever to come to Earth. She couldn’t easily explain what had driven her to do it, or much at all from the last several years of her life. Whenever she tried, she just got a distant, sad look on her face.

That was okay with Sky. She knew that look all too well, and knew from personal experience pressuring her to talk wasn’t the way to go. She would just change the subject. She learned about the sort of games young ponies played in Equestria, learned they had fantasy novels just like on Earth. She learned Sight’s favorite food was apparently some huge species of moth, and she had missed it terribly when coming to Earth but been too afraid to say so. Sky didn’t recognize it, but she promised the batpony to help her find them if they existed. They probably didn’t, but it would be worth a shot.

Eventually she found a survival store, along with a pack of working batteries. She had never been that good with technology, so it took some time to get the phone working. Over an hour, actually. At least there were no complicated subscriptions to enroll in or accounts to make: Mystic Rune had removed all of that. Eventually she was sitting outside in the sun, holding still as the phone rang and rang. She didn’t remember anypony’s number, so she had just called the operator, knowing well that it redirected to Rune’s personal phone.

He answered. “Hello? I don’t really have time to talk right now, if you could call back tomorrow.”

“Wait, Rune! It’s me, Sky!”

Pause. He sounded breathless when he answered. “Cloudy Skies? Thank God you’re safe! Where are you? Riley said she didn’t know, and we weren’t sure-”

“I’m a few hours away. Had to drive to this city called Champaign to find a specialty store with one of these weird phone things of the right brand.” She glanced briefly at Sight, who had moved closer and was watching with interest. “Have you got to Alexandria yet? Or are you still on your way?”

He chuckled. “We’re back in Alexandria. Well, what’s left of it. Alex pretty thoroughly destroyed this library. Most of the rest of it is intact, though.”

The phone was on speaker, so she wasn’t all that surprised to hear Sight shout from beside her. She wasn’t even upset. “Is Night Speaker alive? Did it-”

“We got the bastard,” Joseph interrupted, voice flat. “Abrams shot him right in the head. The rest of us took care of the smoke monster inside him. They’re both gone. It’s safe to come back.”

Cloudy Skies frowned. The pony on the other end sounded like Mystic Rune, but Sight had explained that it was easy for Odium to force the controlled to act like themselves. That had always been part of his power. She covered the microphone with a hoof. “How do we know he’s telling the truth?”

“Have him put on the changeling. Master couldn’t control them, we all knew it.”

She did. Within ten minutes, they were on the road again, headed back to Alexandria. They hardly spoke during the drive back.

Sky passed through the center of town on her way to the hospital, passing through the wreckage of the battle. She saw one of the heavy armored vehicles, ripped to pieces, and the damage it had done to the library. Rune hadn’t overstated the damage. The generators were running and the lights were on in the hospital as she headed inside.

Whiplash met her at the door with an HPI rifle held in her glowing grip, prosthetic firm on her forehead. “Hey, Whiplash!” Sky nodded approvingly at the prosthetic. “You figured it out!”

“Yeah.” She pointed the gun towards Sight. “She’s just walking around? Wasn’t she their second-in-command?” She drew back the bolt. “I’ll give Adrian a call so we can bring her in.”

The pony beside her retreated a pace, whimpering. Sky felt anger boiling in her chest, and she moved to block the pony. “Hold on, Whiplash. True Sight has been cooperative since we caught her. She told us things. She’s never done anything that wasn’t helpful, never tried to hurt me or get away. She’s not to blame for what she did. She didn’t have a choice. Neither did any of the others. You ought to know that.”

Whiplash glared at her, though she lowered the gun. “It’d be mostly for her own good,” she eventually said, gesturing for Sky to move closer. She did, and the unicorn whispered in her ear. “One of the other Equestrians tried to kill himself a few hours ago. We got him down in time, but… we’ve got all of them in the psychiatric cells for evaluation until we’re sure.”

“Oh.” Sky glanced back at her new batpony friend, then shook her head. “I’ll keep an eye on her, but I don’t think that’ll happen.” She forced a smile, and raised her voice to make sure the batpony could hear. “True Sight is feeling much better now. She wouldn’t do something like that, would she?”

The pony nodded, though she seemed to grow more nervous as Sky returned to stand before her, as though a few seconds of private conversation had spoiled their relationship of trust. Sky ignored her retreat for once and gripped the rope in her teeth, tugging the knot free. It fell to the ground in coils, pooling about her hooves. “If Odium’s really gone, we don’t need that anymore.”

“N-No… I would like to see my friends, though. If… if it’s okay with you, Sky. The ones who made it.” She looked down, whimpering. “You didn’t kill anyone else, did you?”

“No.” Whiplash tossed the gun over her shoulder, and seemed relieved not to be levitating it anymore. “A few of ‘em got pretty beat up, but Alex was careful not to kill any. Bruises, a few broken bones, nothing severe. Our doctor’s patched the hurt ones up as best he can. They’re in the same wing with that stallion Adrian shot a few days ago.” She turned, gesturing with her tail. “I’ll show you.”

She did. Even though Sky insisted she didn’t have to go into confinement, True Sight insisted she should go see her fellow cultists. She was fairly sure they would still see her as a leader, with the monster they served finally gone. She had been right. Sky followed the batpony as she urged them to cooperate, repeated Sky’s promises from earlier that they would be treated well and not punished for anything they had done while controlled by Odium. The captured ponies practically melted at her words.

“I’m sorry we locked them up,” Sky said, as Sight prepared to climb into one of the padded cells with several of the other flying ponies. “You don’t have to go in there. I know you won’t try to hurt yourself.”

“I won’t,” she repeated. “But I want to make sure they don’t. I’ll try to convince them. In the morning, you let out the ponies I ask for, okay?”

Sky agreed, though Whiplash looked furious. Somehow, she thought the unicorn had other reasons for wanting the ponies locked up.

All the ponies Cloudy Skies was excited about seeing again were gathered into a room on the second floor, eating MREs and speaking in hushed voices. “Hi.” She felt the exhaustion of her day crashing down on her then, but she fought it off. Long enough to end up in a huge hug between herself and Blacklight and Rune and Wanderlust. Even Whiplash there, at the end. Olive only said hello, working as he was at Day’s side. He was the only one in the room (besides Whiplash) who didn’t have a plate of something.

When the hug finally ended, Sky made her way past the group to look down at the filly resting in bed. Day looked the worse for wear; burns covered her face, particularly around her eyes and mouth. She looked strangely thin, and her ragged breaths came unsteadily. Sky’s best friend looked worse than anypony Sky had ever seen. “How is she?”

Olive shook his head. “No telling. She was barely alive when I brought her in. Whatever that thing did really tore her apart. No telling when she’ll wake up. Or if.” He reached over to the desk, lifting a light leatherbound book from it and tossing it onto a bare part of the bed near her. “Apparently she wanted you to have this if anything happened. Figure you should probably take it now.”

Sky looked, feeling a sudden chill as she realized what it was. Lonely Day’s journal. “No.” She shoved it away, pushing it near Day’s leg. “She’s still alive, right? I’m not taking that if she’s still alive.” She fought back the tears, though only barely. Her voice still cracked.

Olive looked like he was going to insist, but Mystic Rune stepped in, levitating the book off the bed and back to the little table. “She doesn’t have to take it now.”

“Maybe not. But Alex might not ever wake up. That thing might’ve actually been able to kill her. She looks like she’s getting worse, no matter what I fucking do!” He slammed one hoof down with enough force to shatter a tile, huffing and puffing like a horse about to charge.

“We should get out,” she suggested, and they did. Rune headed off with Whiplash to keep an eye on the prisoners, while a limping and bandaged Wanderlust came with her to a room a few doors down the hall, lit only by moonlight streaming through the window. They sat together there in the empty room, staring up at the night.

Neither of them spoke, not for what felt like hours. They didn’t really need to. It wasn’t conversation they wanted after watching their city destroyed. Sky rested her shoulder on Wanderlust’s, and he wrapped his wing around her in turn. She shivered, whimpered, and cried. So did he.

Maybe she slept, maybe he did. It was hard to say for sure.

Eventually she must’ve woke, because she remembered asking: “Are you still going to leave soon?”

“No.” Wanderlust shook his head vigorously. “Not soon.” He met her eyes. Neither of them looked away. “Maybe not ever. I’ll have to see if anything keeps me. Like… like having somepony I care about.”

She chuckled, though she didn’t want to. “Somepony? I thought you thought those words were silly.”

“I do.” He nuzzled her. “But the somepony doesn’t. If silly words are what it takes, that’s pretty cheap.” His face darkened, and he turned away again. “Small price to pay. Compared to… to…”

Sky embraced him again, holding him as tightly as she could. “Don’t pay anything, Wanderlust. I don’t want you to change. Don’t compare me to a monster.”

“Right… you’re right.” He sat up, smiling weakly. “I do mean it, though. I’ll be sticking around for the foreseeable future. Besides.” He tossed his shoulders vaguely towards the window. “It’s not like there aren’t other ways for ponies to learn about the satellite phones. Those radio ponies talk about it now. We’ve got our own local broadcast, and Joseph’s rerouting the operator calls. I call that enough for a little while. I can afford to take some time off.” He met her eyes again. “That is, if you’ll spend some of it with me.”

Sky considered that a long time. She thought about Lainey, and how she would shiver and convulse at a man’s touch. She couldn’t feel it, couldn’t even hear a man’s voice without thinking of the barn behind her house, or the cellar she had been locked in. Cloudy Skies wouldn't live in Lainey's hell for another second, but maybe Lainey Park could come visit Sky's paradise.

“I’d like that.”

Part 7 (Founders) - Chapter 3

They were all there, the day they had the vote. Everyone but Alex, unconscious as she was in a hospital bed. There were no more attempted suicides; not now that the shock of having Odium gone for good was finally over. That left Alexandria with a problem, of course.

What could they do with a dozen ponies that had tried to take over? Moriah participated in several of the proposals that were made, just as all of them did. Rather than keep all of them locked up in little cells during the week or so it took them to work out what they would do, Cloudy Skies helped the ponies move into the high school gymnasium, which they kept locked.

Nopony resisted. None of the recovering ponies seemed to have much in the way of willpower left, really. Odium had taken it, claimed it for himself. It was only the beginning of what he had cost them. Oliver didn’t know if those ponies would ever be fully independent again.

“What have you decided?” True Sight, first of the cultists to be free, seemed to speak for them now, though they were actually three distinct groups. The Equestrian ponies numbered about nine, plus another five humans that had been captured in Philadelphia. Another three were ex-military human ponies, part of Abrams’s band. Evidently they had been “recruited” when their convoy met up with the ponies leaving Philadelphia.

As a result, they were the most intact, since they had only been under Odium’s control a few weeks. Even so, there was an empty look in their eyes whenever Moriah looked at them.

The three separate groups sat a little distance apart from each other in the gym, all surrounding the table where the ponies of Alexandria sat. Well, most of them. Alex remained unresponsive, possibly brain dead. Oliver still didn’t know if she would ever wake up, despite all the medical magic he could pour into her as she slept.

Moriah wore her prosthetic horn all the time now. It took enormous concentration and effort to actually use the damn thing, but it was getting easier every day. Another few months, and she might be able to lift multiple objects the way Joseph could.

Joseph had taught her daily for more than half a year, but Moriah would always think of magic as the first gift her “little parasite” had given her. Then again, she supposed he was responsible for that too…

Cloudy Skies had led their meetings in Alex’s absence, just as she always did. When speaking with other ponies though, it was Moriah who rose to her hooves. “We have.” She lifted a piece of paper, and tried to make her voice as official as she could.

“Refugees and former slaves to the spirit Odium, we have reached our decision about you. We considered your proposal, and considered a few other options.” She tried to linger longest on those words, since many of the "other options" had come from her mouth. Some had been accepted. Most had not.

“The ponies of Alexandria have voted unanimously to accept your request to join our settlement as permanent citizens.” She tried to meet each set of eyes for a second, like she imagined Alex might do. “We will work with those who were living in temporary housing before to find somewhere permanent to live. Those who wish to change their housing arrangements may also do so if you wish, using one of our trailers if you want water and electrical, or any home in the city if you don’t. We will discuss at a later time the ways in which you might contribute to our city. We do expect, however, that each of you will contribute to the degree you are physically and psychologically able.”

“We also understand the mental and physical trauma you suffered was severe. We hope to offer you all the support we can, so long as you choose to live with us here in Alexandria.” She fell silent then, waiting for their response.

The dozen ponies muttered in hushed tones for a few minutes. Moriah could’ve strained to hear them if she really wanted to, but she didn’t see the point. She made quiet conversation with Joseph until Carol stood up again.

“We are all very happy you decided to accept us. I know how hard it must be, after the way we treated your hospitality last time. That won’t happen this time. We’re grateful you’ve given us another chance.”

Moriah admired Carol’s discipline, and not just because of her delivery now. She had heard her impassioned pleas in the last few days; about how winter was coming up and some of her ponies could barely feed themselves without help, so complete had Odium’s damage been. Of all those that had been with the cult since childhood, only Carol herself seemed intact for the experience. She hadn’t been willing to talk about why.

Moriah nodded, and proceeded to explain the rest of the plan in detail. How, for the next six months, each of the ponies of Alexandria would take one of the most helpless of the immigrants into their homes, and care for them in addition to their other responsibilities. Even Moriah with a heart of iron had wept when she considered the horror of these ponies’ experiences. Those worst off, though adults, had an independence and level of development equivalent to a young child.

There were four such cases. She knew the torture Odium’s voice could bring, and she had felt it for less than an hour. The thought of the horror it might work upon someone in a lifetime she could scarcely comprehend.

The human ponies, for all their shock and confusion, seemed to have emerged relatively unscathed. She listened diligently as each in turn answered their questions about their skills and training, doing so honestly this time.

It was about the best list they could’ve hoped for. A few paper wranglers, a truck driver, a policewoman, a high school teacher, and an electrician. That last guy was going to be a celebrity if he ever got his crap together.

Oliver was too busy caring for Alex to cook like he used to for these big dinners, so they had to make do with a large pot of Sky’s “everything soup” and the greens she had gathered that morning from Oliver’s withering garden. It was enough to feed them all without delving back into canned food, so it would have to do.

When all was done, when she and Joseph had made room for their two new guests, when the new ponies were asleep and the stress of the day was finally over, Moriah dragged him away from his game and into the waiting car. She didn’t tell him where they were going, which he took to mean she had entirely the wrong intentions.

On any other night, she might’ve found the idea of going somewhere secret by the dark of night with her lover very, very interesting. Not tonight, though. Given the reason for this conversation, she couldn’t have had less interest in sex.

She took Joseph to her secret place, where the tiny patch of forest met lake. It was very beautiful there, though they had to use their horns to light their way. She had picked up on the light spell in the last few days, which came from the tip of the prosthetic even though it was just wood.

That seemed strange to her, but she wouldn’t question it. What mattered was that her magic was finally working. Lose it on her very first day as a unicorn, and it took getting knocked up to finally bring it into focus. The world wasn’t fair.

“Joe, stop!” She gave him a shove with her magic this time, the only sort of touch he seemed to understand. It was always easier to get through to Joseph when magic was involved. She shoved him against a tree and pushed him into a sitting position. She never could’ve done it if he had been resisting, but he didn’t. He never did.

“What?” He looked like he genuinely had no idea why they were here. Was that possible? Moriah’s magical senses were feeble even with the prosthetic, but she couldn’t not sense the foal, no matter how hard she had first tried not to. As it got larger, it was becoming more difficult. It wouldn’t be long now before it was going to be obvious she was carrying a passenger, eleven-month pregnancy or no. Better now than Oliver’s hints he was going to tell instead.

“It’s about that, but it’s not that.” She dropped to the ground, taking several deep breaths. She didn’t close her eyes though, for fear she would see what Odium had shown her: her own death, alone and unloved. Damn that monster if it thought she was going to let its prognostications come true. She twisted sideways, putting a little pressure on her belly. Even with her baggy sweatpants, she expected this would be enough for him to understand. “We should’ve been more careful, Joseph. I’m not sure I’m ready to start a family…”

The stallion stared. From the expression on his face, Moriah knew instantly that he hadn’t known. Joe was about as good at lying as Alex: not. He tried to speak, but only weak gasps emerged from his mouth. Eventually he seemed to give up entirely.

“I thought you knew. My magic… I can sense it. Every day. Every minute. It’s the first thing I ever felt, I don’t know how…” she trailed off, realizing it didn’t matter. What did she care why he hadn’t realized? It had served her purpose, in any case. It meant she could confront this on her own terms.

He shook his head. “N-No.” He coughed and spat, though the subject of something not actually the foal itself seemed to make things easier. Ease him back into the real word. “I knew your pattern changed, and it was changing all the time, but- I thought it was because you were finally understanding magic! You were levitating! Working on other spells — I expected it to change.”

“Well, it did, and here we are. I read about it; it takes eleven months for a mare to carry a foal to term, if nothing goes wrong. That means we have about nine left, if I’m working the math right on when it was… conceived.” She shivered. Even now, the thought of all this female stuff made her uncomfortable. The Equestrian princesses would mock her until she died.

“I guessed- I thought it might happen eventually… but it hadn’t happened to anyone else! I just figured- we couldn’t be first…”

“Of course we would be.” She glared at him. ”Joe, who else is active?”

He had no answer but to strike his face with a hoof. “Oh. I guess we should’ve… thought about this. Guess it’s a little late for those pills that-”

“Yeah.” She knew what she was about to say would probably offend him, but she said it anyway. It was better to tell an unpleasant truth than put even more between them. “I asked Oliver; there’s nothing he can do. None of the books had anything about abortions, and the danger of testing something meant for humans on an alien body…”

“The Equestrians don’t have birth control?”

Moriah shook her head, and started to answer, before she shoved him with a hoof. “It’s a little late to be asking about that now, Joe. We’re stuck. Anyway — it’d be selfish of us to try and stop it even if we could. We’ve already lost Alex. We need every pair of hands. Weren’t you the one who ran the numbers and told me that ponies won’t return fast enough in our lifetime or several lifetimes after? We have to get the numbers up before all the machines break down. Isn’t that what you said?”

Joe looked down, pawing at the ground and muttering. “I didn’t think it would be us.”

“Maybe not.” She looked up, eyes wide and pleading. “Please, Joe. I need you tell me you’re not going to abandon me.” She reached out for him with one leg, more desperately than she had felt in her life. “I needed you back in Los Angeles. I fucking need you now. It’s too much for one person…”

Moriah knew full well what he must be thinking. Joe might be able to understand codes and crack computer systems, but when it came to the rest of his life he was simplistic and predictable. Within his mind, she could practically watch the gears turning as his fear of commitment clashed with his desire for her. Could there be something more in there? Moriah had never imagined she’d felt anything more than what her body demanded she felt.

Yet now, as he reached out to embrace her and pull her close, she imagined that maybe, just maybe, she did.

For the first time, she was okay with that.

Part 7 (Founders) - Chapter 4

Joseph reviewed the translations around him one at a time. He had read over each thousands of times, both the originals and the eventual descriptions. Even now that he knew the simple code the cult had used, he still shivered at the patterns the letters elicited when written in runes. There was something special about runes, something the books about it described as almost sacred. Runes gave the whole world new instructions. To use them to tear the tapestry apart instead of making it stronger disgusted him.

H-tul-q-kar-ydk-qh-bvlt-tul-p-mak-kar-xb-tu-kar-vp-tul-pcz-kum-jq-kar-nml-pw-tul-mwfg-x-kum-n-kum-tul-dbbqf-lv-tul-x-mak-kum-min-hpfl-min-mes-gmyh-p-tul-vri-hh-min
Triumph in philadelphia, Shadowspeaker directs us to gather in Alexandria. Make haste.

Kum-b-kb-tul-zgzyz-hkm-xqqhqpqr-k-min-pq-yqwqz-hkmmq-drvy-vri-mes-tul-dbbqf-wp-tul-f-kh-tul-tul-k-rh-kum-ndcb-bbqw-tul-tul-tul-dy-mes
My children, the deceived have known these ponies. Gather that we may destroy their mark.

Kar-kar-t-nt-kar-w-bb-tul-bn-bbqm-vmy-min-w-kar-t-vq-p-kar-qhp-mak-g-mes-min-fx-hk-min-n-wbr-vri-nt-mak-b-min-lq-p-kar-qhp-mak-g-vri-cxz-vri-m-kum-tul-jhv-nd-min-hz-m-tul-tul-kb-mes
All that think they see will be blinded. All that know they are blinded will be given truer sight.

Of course, nothing in the messages they had intercepted as radio codes was nearly as disturbing as what they had found written in the house. Joseph hadn’t been able to get himself into the basement, and neither had any of the former members of the cult. Instead, they had Taylor send in a drone and photograph everything. After that came something they could all enjoy: a bonfire.

The gasoline was all bad then, and the early December air practically burned his skin through his fur if he walked outside without heavy clothing. For being rotten, the gas had still burned pretty good. Joe had even imagined to himself he heard screams as the basement burned, along with all its profane runes.

They had salvaged the books, despite the objections of Sight and the other former cult-members. They gave every volume to the HPI, the only people on Earth who couldn’t attempt the magic within. If fiction was any guide, there might be something evil in those pages. If the CPNFG could kill Odium, they figured it could probably kill whatever awfulness had been there. Since their human friends kept calling, Joe had assumed it worked.

Even the upstairs of the house had been written in code, though there was no magic in it. He had read the universal list of members, organized by rank and assignment, and shuddered when he saw not even half were accounted for in Alexandria. Most disturbing of all was the matter of Ryan’s equal, the only name as high up the pyramid. Who was Shadowspeaker? Beneath him were nearly a dozen ponies, all with Equestrian names.

What had the ponies of Odium’s cult been able to tell them? Only that Night Speaker had been the only one to communicate with this pony of a strangely similar name, and Odium had kept information about their mission to the ponies on it. Only one word was written of it on the board, in the writing Joseph had come to recognize as Night Speaker’s. “Charybdis”

Joseph had asked what the word meant, grilled each of them individually (except for the ones who weren’t “there” enough to bother asking). None had told him more than a quick search of Wikipedia could. A giant sea monster that swallowed ships? Obviously that hadn’t come to Earth. He was out of ideas.

What did Joseph do when he was out of ideas? Spend time with Moriah. He did that, though things weren’t as fun as they had been when sex was new and strange and consequence-free. Now he was afraid he might pop her stomach if he was too forceful, and being around her was a reminder of the responsibility ahead. Joe didn’t really mind, so long as he would still have time for his video games. He just— hadn’t expected he would have to be a father for another few years yet. Would he do a good job?

He had been playing The Sims every few days for practice, and practically scratching his eyes out to figure out why anyone enjoyed having families or playing The Sims. At least the real thing wouldn’t come on Origin.

Joe wasn’t like Moriah, he didn’t really have a place to go and relieve stress. She had told him he was welcome to use her forest if he wanted to, but he hadn’t seen the point. How were trees supposed to help him feel better, exactly? Even his video games could only get him so far, and in the end even the most exciting games would get boring. Unless he or other ponies with computer knowledge made them, there weren’t going to be more video games. Certainly no AAA titles ever again. When he thought about the awful travesty that was being taken into a society of scavengers, it made him want to break something. Exactly why couldn’t he have come back several thousand years, after computers had been re-invented and life could be normal again?

Exactly what was he supposed to do with his life now? Father pony babies and play the same old games over and over?

Joseph was the sort of person who ate the same meals for weeks at a time, but the prospect of living the rest of his life the same way disgusted him. He had become a software developer because he liked making things. He wanted to see people using them, feel like he had given those people something by making the system they depended on work. Even a database or an internal memo system or something would still be helping people, despite the fact that its users would never know his name.

What would make Joseph feel like he was useful again? He needed to make something, something more than making himself better at pony magic or making there be more ponies in the world.

It took him days to figure out what he wanted to do, days he spent doing absolutely nothing he was supposed to do. What did he care; Alex couldn’t pester him when she was unconscious. Who was going to call him out of not digitizing books fast enough, Cloudy Skies? The idea of her confronting anyone was laughable, tall tales the cultists told about her summoning up a whole thunderstorm notwithstanding.

Eventually the idea came to him fully formed, like Athena in the mind of Zeus. He knew his purpose as clearly as if some god had given it to him. Something challenging enough to be worth the attempt, but also possible given their resources and rewarding enough he could keep doing it for the rest of his life and not get bored. If Alex ever woke up, even she couldn’t be upset about this course. She would probably compliment him on the idea.

Alexandria had a library, but it lacked a school. The real Library of Alexandria hadn’t just been in the scrolls locked up in some musty room, it had been about gathering together the best scholars in the world. His world needed something a little different now: they had one civilization’s powers to preserve and another civilization’s powers to discover. They had a never-ending supply of new students traveling through time. How much faster would society evolve if they had a place to come and learn their new powers quickly?

They had the books, but they also had the scholars. Real Equestrian ponies who could be their teachers. Former cultists? Maybe! But what good were they going to be to the colony doing other things, anyway? Why waste them pulling ploughs or laying pipe when there were former humans for that? If the last few months were any guide, pilgrims to the library would continue arriving by the week, and at least some of them would want to stay.

They voted on it later that day. For the first time since his satellite phone idea, one of Joseph’s ideas was met with both support and enthusiasm from everypony. Moriah seemed thrilled, since it gave her something she could keep working on even when her body lost the ability to be very physical for six months or so. Odium’s ponies from Equestria were excited too, since without Earth skills they would basically have been relegated to menial labor. As Sight put it, “if we can make up for burning your books by giving you our knowledge more directly, we’re excited to help.”

There was no university in town, not even a modest community college. They would use the high school instead, with more pony-sized desks and supplies scavenged from the elementary school. Besides, it had a library they could expand using the collection of the now-unsafe Paris Public Library, plus all the digital versions of Equestrian books. Might as well make knowledge available all in one place.

He set up the entire system using computers, mapping out the classes and assigning every student peers they could practice with together. The school would have discrete areas for each of the Equestrian races, since each one seemed to have fairly unique powers that were not compatible. The only exception was flight, which seemed fairly similar between each of the races that could fly.

It was halfway through December by then anyway; too cold to do any planting, and too cold to work outside comfortably. Alex probably would’ve had them out in it anyways, expanding the solar capacity or digging a bigger sewer or something else miserable. Instead everypony in town started to spend at least some of the day in the high school. Joseph became the university’s supervising director, and under his care the school quickly surpassed the trailer park as Alexandria’s civic center.

Studying the books had been wonderful for everyone, including himself. Having ponies actually demonstrate how to do the things the books talked about was even better. Joseph was as much a student as anypony else, though the single unicorn from the cult’s ponies with an intact mind was so impressed with his magic she took him on as an assistant to help with basic levitation.

With his passion finally channeled into something that mattered to him, time took on a different meaning. He worked very hard; the university’s director was also its administrator, secretary, web developer, and discipline officer. Often that meant giving up free time, or class time, in service to the growing little college. That was okay, since he had been the one to choose to sacrifice himself for the school. It hadn’t been an assignment, even the sensible kind like Alex had used to give. It was his idea, and it was a good one.

It was snowing, though not very much. He sat in the administrator's office with Moriah resting at his hooves on a warm carpet as he worked, levitating several different markers into the air and drawing on the glass. He monitored performance by the day, drawing out each class and making little marks for each student. He could do that when the college was so small.

Moriah nudged his legs with her head, groaning. “You’ve done enough, Joseph. Come down here. I picked something nice.” He glanced down and saw she had brought a bottle of something (more of the crappy non-alcoholic stuff she was drinking these days), along with a portable DVD player.

“Not if it’s boring. I hate boring movies.”

“Not even!” She tugged on his leg, a little more forceful. “You know I hate ‘em too. It’s a classic. Remember the Matrix? I thought computer people loved that movie.”

“Nineties computers, hurrah.” He did like that movie, but he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. So he made a show of shutting down the computer, grumbling as he pushed in his chair and levitated the light switch off. Still, he sat down beside her in what was a comfortable resting position for a pony, pulling the edge of a blanket over the two of them. He poured as she fiddled with the DVD player. Moriah seemed more eager just to spend time with him these days, given he was often too busy with work and too tired after to do anything as strenuous as their old pastimes had been on most days.

That was okay. He didn’t mind spending time with her, either. It’s not like he had anywhere else to be. The movie started, they cuddled, and snow blew outside.

It seemed a shame their leader wasn’t around to see what Alexandria was becoming.

That was okay, though. As Joseph the unicorn fell asleep beside his mare and his movie, he imagined this was exactly what Alex would’ve wanted for them.

Author's Note

Hey everypony! So just a few chapters to go before the end, just one for every living founder + the epilogue. I've got maybe ten thousand words of the sequel so far, but I'm not sure that's going to be enough with the burden of school on me now. I'm sorry to say that story probably won't be updating daily when it arrives. Still, better some updates than none, right?

This one will continue its regular schedule until it completes, which won't be that much longer. Thanks for sticking around 'till the end!

Part 7 (Founders) - Chapter 5

Oliver had never invested more of himself in a patient than he did in little Alex. In school, he’d been taught over and over about the necessity of detachment. Any personal investment in a patient would destroy his impartiality and create a conflict of interest. Fundamentally, he was to be a scientific technician, compassionate only to the degree it was required for his bedside manner.

That detachment had not survived the end of the world. His friends were so rare now; too precious to let death claim. Even the friend he’d thought would never need his care. Especially her. Little Alex had been a dozen things to Oliver since they’d first met. She’d been the first pony he met after months of isolation. She’d been the first (and only) who enjoyed singing with him. Her Alto sounded wonderful with his tenor, even if she wasn’t nearly as good or interested in gardening. She’d been a friend, a leader, a pony he’d started to sometimes think about in ways that made him uncomfortable, and finally a martyr.

Or rather, she’d tried to be. Her body was always finding new ways to try and die. He refused to let that happen. He’d lost track of the surgeries he’d performed, the hundreds of different drugs he’d had to use at one point or another. He’d worked until his magic was exhausted and he couldn’t lift his legs. He’d worked so long on some nights that he forgot to eat, with only the unconscious pony and the medical monitors for company.

He was vaguely conscious things were changing in Alexandria, but he didn’t really notice unless the changes made it to the hospital. He never left anymore, not even to tend his garden. The winter would have claimed most of it anyway by now. Death could have his flowers so long as he could keep his friends.

Oliver only left Alex’s room to shower and to eat, and even then he didn’t go far. He’d turned the room next-door into his living quarters, though he barely visited. For “pleasure” he read only the Equestrian medical books, at least the digital ones he had. If the answer to how to help his friend was in the other books, it was inaccessible. An unconscious Alex could not open the library.

Occasionally ponies came to visit him. He usually took them in Alex’s room, so long as his single patient wasn’t trying out a new way to die. Yet he couldn’t listen for long without his mind drifting, and they all left before they’s stayed an hour. The only member of the Alexandria colony who spent more time with fallen Alex was her dog, Huan. The loyal canine never left her side, except on his brief forays downstairs for food or to use the bathroom outside.

Only the medical needs of ponies could break through his haze. Under that auspice he could hear and understand again. Then he could learn the news of the city while they spoke.

At those times, little Riley acted as his receptionist and nurse both, though she no longer looked like herself. She was still black, her mane still electric blue, but she’d given up the holes and the chitin and the wings too. It was an impressive trick, though Oliver wasn’t sure why she needed it and hadn’t cared enough to ask.

It was she who interrupted him that day, her jacket tight about her and a clipboard hovering in her green magic. Oliver thought she looked quite convincing, though he also knew she doodled pictures of ponies kissing on it and used it for no other reason than to look like she knew what she was doing. “Hey Oliver.” She poked him with her clipboard, bringing him crashing back to the real world. “Ponies here to see you.”

“Joseph dislocated his pelvis again?” he asked, exasperated. “Maybe one of the Odium ponies cut a fetlock open on a can?”

She giggled. Riley might not have made herself look any older with that strange magic of hers, but at least she appreciated his jokes. “Not either. They’re part of the last group to come in. Last night, actually. She tried to bring her sick foal in then, but I knew you were busy, so…”

He had been restarting Alex’s heart last night. It took him so much magic that he thought he would shrivel up like a prune. He hadn’t. “Yeah. I was.” He sighed, beginning to remove his gloves. Wearing rubber gloves over hooves didn’t really do much good, but he kept at it because he didn’t know any better. He tossed his in the trash, along with the mask he had been wearing. “You’ll get me if anything happens?”

“Quicker than lightning,” Riley agreed, levitating a fresh pair of gloves onto her hooves. She wouldn’t do anything but doodle, but he didn’t mind. For an eleven-year-old, the changeling had become remarkably disciplined in the few short weeks she had been helping him.

Oliver shrugged then hurried out of the room before he changed his mind. He had to compose himself; there had apparently been more immigrants (or at least visitors), making this the third group to arrive. Or were they the fourth? He had lost track.

He had to go down a hallway and through a set of swinging doors to reach the clinic, the only other area with any lights on. It was also the only area with heat, which meant he had to cross what Riley called the “great air-ice river.” He didn’t really understand what other ponies found so uncomfortable about it. But then, the strength of earth was in his bones.

He found them waiting in the clinic, a pair of unicorn mares with a pile of coats and jackets on one of the too-high hospital benches. There was a step-stool leading right up to the edge, but neither had climbed atop it and neither had the foal between them. He spared little concentration for their appearances beyond what he needed to do his job. He couldn’t get a good look at the foal as he came in, but he could see the both of them. One was snow white, the other icy blue. Both had cutie marks, but he didn’t really pay attention to either.

“Hello.” He inclined his head slightly, much more slightly than he ordinarily would. “I’m Dr. Pittman, I’ll be assisting you today.” He glanced between them, letting his mind lose focus and drift. He nodded abruptly. “Neither of you is my patient.” He stepped forward, looking down towards the foal.

His breath caught in his throat. Oliver had never even seen a pony this young before, unless he counted the ultrasound. He wasn’t entirely sure of what his sense of pony health was telling him as he looked, though the poor thing was clearly sick. “Who’s… Who’s this little pony?” He hadn’t been training to be a pediatrician or anything, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try his best to smile for the foal. “And what’s been bothering her?”

“She came down with a fever two days ago on the way up here. We aren't sure how she’ll react to medicine for humans so I’ve just been keeping her as warm and happy as possible.”

“Hmm.” Oliver leaned down, sniffing the child once at a safe distance to see if that might reveal something. It didn’t, which meant he would have to do things the old-fashioned way. No magical pony tricks today, it seemed. “That’s an understandable worry. For your information, most of the medication I’ve tested behaves exactly as designed on ponies, once you adjust for a reduced body mass. I wouldn’t suggest taking anything prescription without a doctor’s consultation first, though.”

Oliver gestured to the table. “If you could get her up there, I’d like to take a look. First though, has she shown any other symptoms? Maybe… rashes? Vomiting? Coughing? Anything like that?”

The mare nodded before her horn lit up with a creamy white glow, unwrapping the foal with her magic and carrying her carefully over to the table before setting her down. “No, other than coughing and sneezing, just the fever. I- Starlight, stay still ok? You need to stay still for the nice doctor…” He wasn’t really listening after that. His mind was back in the other room, with the patient he had been caring for for months. The patient whose insides he had gotten to know far more intimately than he had ever wanted to.

His head jerked up as he heard the foal squeak out a high-pitched “Mama stay?” So she was a little older than he had guessed. Or were ponies just fast learners?

He watched the mare mother her child, cooing to her and brushing a few loose strands of hair out of her eyes. It took her a moment to get the foal settled, long enough that he started to drift again.

All Oliver knew of pony foals he had learned from books, but that didn’t really matter. As it turned out, the principle was much the same. He thanked God the foal hadn’t suffered some sort of injury he might not have been able to treat. Would his innate magic and connection to the earth be enough to heal a delicate child?

He was happy not to find out. He had to climb up onto the step stool, taking the tools he needed from his pockets where he almost never needed them. After less than five minutes of gentle poking and prodding, he stepped down with an exasperated sigh. “She’s almost certainly caught a cold,” he said, with far more annoyance than he ought to. “It’s nothing serious. God only knows where she managed to find one, or if it’s even really the same disease that people were catching before the Event.”

He turned away, his tail flicking impatiently. “Keep her out of the cold, get her plenty of fluids and don’t let her be too active. I’ll send my receptionist back with some medicine you can give her every few hours to keep the fever down.” He started to walk away. “Come back if the fever gets worse, or she has trouble breathing, or develops sores. Otherwise, there isn’t anything else I can do.” He tossed his mask off into the bin along with the gloves, then hurried for the door, his steps getting faster by the moment.

He had left his real patient, and for what? A cold? He stopped in the door, then took the walkie-talkie out of his pocket so the unicorns could see. “Riley, meet me in the pharmacy. I’m going to need you to fill a prescription for our patient.”

“Wait!”

He stopped, rolling his eyes as he faced the mares, one silent and one mother. “Yes?”

She stepped over to him and pulled him into a hug. “I feel like I interrupted something important, but thank you so much! I don’t know if you had children before humanity was changed-” She said more then, though he didn’t hear it. Didn’t, because at that moment she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. It had been something about her friend being a dentist?

Oliver was stunned, and it seemed for a moment he was about to fall over. Aside from Riley, he hadn’t had any meaningful “human” contact in what felt like months. It was difficult to take in all of it at once. “Y-Yeah-” he stammered. “She would probably have been fine. But it was good you came in. Never know until you check.” He hurried out the door, without another word.

Taking care of Alex had been his whole life, so much so that he hadn’t been alive himself. Why did it take a sick foal’s mother to remind him of that? How the hell was he supposed to resuscitate Alex if he didn’t have any life to share with her?

He sang on his way back to the pharmacy, one of the sillier bits of Gilbert and Sullivan he knew. He sang on his way back to Alex’s room, one of the lovestruck Phantom of the Opera ballads they had always done as a duet. He had to fill in her parts, since she couldn’t sing anymore. But that was okay. At least he remembered why he had loved to sing.

The world did not change right away. Being more cheerful did not make the work any less difficult, or transform it into something besides work. What it did do, was let Oliver see things differently. He wasn’t working because Death was his enemy, though that was true enough. He fought because life was precious.

As his perspective changed, so did his vision. As Oliver sang, his eyes opened, and he saw he was not alone. He suspected he never had been.

The being in the room with him matched the description of no creature he knew. So long as he didn’t look directly at her, she seemed a towering woman, taking up an entire corner of the room. A huge curtain of leaves hung behind her instead of hair, and her skin was brown and wrinkled like a tree. Grass grew where she stepped, and little insects buzzed.

Yet if he tried to look at her, he found the vision hurt his eyes, and the human illusion broke down. Was that an arm, or the trunk of an elephant? Was her face beautiful, or was a hideous insectoid proboscis poking between her lips? Did those strong legs actually end in reptilian talons? The details didn’t stay the same, either. She was not one species; she was all of them.

He didn’t know how long she had been there; she noticed his attention at once, and chuckled. “About time you open your eyes, son.”

Oliver sat down, lowering his head. He felt like maybe he should bow, but he didn’t. After Odium, he had a bad taste in his mouth about the practice. Probably would forever. “I feel like I should know you. I know my mother though, and you’re not her.”

The figure rolled her eyes, which wouldn’t have been so disturbing if she had only had two. She ignored the remark. “Perhaps now that you see me, we can accomplish something. You think it’s easy to keep her alive when I’m blind? Treading water since November.”

“What are you?” He didn't bother with who. Somehow Oliver knew she seemed human to him only because that was what he expected to see. Trying to look her in the face broke down that illusion, and so he made sure not to. She was much easier to look at this way.

Her laughter was like birdsong in the hospital room. No, it was an actual bird, a bright red cardinal perched on the windowsill. How had he not noticed it there? “A friend.” She gestured down at the bed. “I may be cruel, but I am also fair. I pay my debts, and I will not allow her to die in my service.”

“Alex served you?” Oliver backed away a pace, feeling suddenly sick. The longer he remained, the more he was reminded of Odium. Had they been rescued from one monster to fall into the hands of another?

She shrugged. “Perhaps it’s better to say her creation served my purpose. Yours as well. Not every voice need be raised in anger, child. Nor is every creature you do not understand an enemy.”

“What purpose is that?” Oliver tried to move protectively between his patient and the stranger, but found her form too vast to approach. He stood beside the bed instead, though he knew if it came to a fight he wouldn’t stand a chance.

She laughed again, more energetically this time. “You have no words for it, not yet.”

“Try.” He pulled the rolling bed towards him, drawing in strength through the ground as he always did. It was harder to get at when he was on the second story, or at least he had expected it to be.

Not today. The bed rolled with such force it nearly ripped out of its electrical cables, nearly tore away from the IV and crushed him against the back wall. Oliver’s strength had not come from straight down, the way he was used to feeling it. It came from right in front of him, in the corner of the room.

If the strange figure had even noticed the gesture, she made no sign. “Perhaps it would be closest to the truth to say that she is creation’s way of being conscious of itself. The universe is vast, yet what good does beauty do if not experienced?” She reached down towards the bed. Oliver wanted to resist, but he was paralyzed with fear. His fear was in vain, in the end; she only stroked the little mare’s mane out of her eyes, as tenderly as the mother had for her child. Where she touched, the mare seemed less gray, more alive. Still unconscious, but more peacefully asleep instead of comatose.

“She has been my most successful attempt so far. Not the last; if you think being successful now grants you immortality, talk to the dinosaurs. I would’ve replaced her in time, as all things must die.” Her hands went white, scrunching up the misty fabric of her gown. “But my work was not finished.”

“You’re not talking about Alex, are you?”

She just smiled in reply, rising to her full height again. “Give me your hoof, child. I still have need of her. I have need of you too.”

He lifted his right leg, though he didn’t offer it to her. She stepped closer, bending down as if to reach. She had a long way to stoop. “Don’t be afraid, child. You have always served me. In the working of strangers, you now see me with new eyes, but I have always been there. It is not so strange to serve me now.”

He withdrew, back against the wall. He could go no further, and he nearly collapsed from fear. “The spirit, Odium… he sounded like that. He wanted our service too.”

Lightning flashed across that alien face, and for a moment her eyes went darker than any shark’s. “Do not compare me to that monstrosity. We are nothing alike. He took from you my most precious gift. He gave nothing to the world, only took and took and took from all he touched. Not I.” She reached out even further. “I take nothing from you, Oliver. I will not take your will; I ask you to use it. Demand, in fact. If all I ever wanted to be was obedient, I never would’ve needed animals.”

Still he hesitated, though he lifted up his hoof again.

She continued closer. “My unwitting allies gave you tools I never imagined. You will make them your own in time, just as you always have. But there is no time. I need her, and to have her I must have you. I cannot speak to the strangers, even if they are more talented with what they call magic. I have tried, yet only you and the sleeping child ever heard me. So hear me now; save my daughter.”

Oliver looked down at the hoof one last time, then reached up and offered it to the stranger. She took it with her hand, squeezing hard with fingers like pine roots. It hurt, it hurt so much he screamed. But it didn’t matter; it was a good pain.

This nameless being needed him to save Alex? That was exactly what he would do.

Author's Note

Hey everypony! Nearly done with the story, juts a little left to go. I'll talk about the sequel in the A/N for the last chapter, so I won't bore you with it now.

Fun fact: had some guest characters appear in this chapter, not for the first time in this series, but certainly it's pretty rare. In this case, the crossover characters are from this story!

Just wonder I guess?

Part 7 (Founders) - Chapter 6

Lonely Day did not wake again for some time. Though she had not seen it in any form more concrete than a few plates breaking, she had suffered badly during her time being mentally invaded.

When next she woke, she was no longer in the basement of the library. Alex couldn’t feel her clothes anymore, or her saddlebags. Instead, she felt a flimsy hospital blanket, and a similarly flimsy pillow behind her. The bed seemed massive to her little equine form. The light coming in from the window was bright orange, and to her sleep-addled eyes it seemed as though the whole space was bathed in light. An IV needle had been lodged in one of her forelegs, and a screen behind her diligently displayed her vital signs. There were tables around her, tables filled with stuffed animals and cards and flowers. The whole thing had the look of Sky’s touch about it, as though she had been about the room for days or weeks to make it look as welcoming as possible when Alex awoke.

How long had it been? She found the HPI wristband had been removed, and was no longer sitting on the table beside her. The clock on one of the beeping medical machines told her it was about seven.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Lonely Day.” A familiar voice spoke from her room somewhere, though she couldn’t make out anyone. This seemed very strange to her, since there was no thick shadow to hide in. Where could anyone hide? She sat up, concentrating on her vision. That was when she saw the figure, resting on her haunches in the corner of the room. She was quite large, about as big as Oliver, though Alex smelled only a mare in the room with her. Her hair matched the orange and reds of the clouds outside, and so did her coat; that might’ve been why Alex hadn’t noticed her at first.

She would’ve squealed with delight, but her head started pounding and she ended up whimpering instead. “Hmmmm. Sunset… Shimmer… what you doing… here?”

Even in her addled state, Alex could see a little surprise on the face of her friend. Sunset looked a little different. Less girlish, more mature. What did that even mean? The mare rose to her hooves, pulling back the hood of her robe. Even her horn looked a little bigger, though Alex was sure she was imagining that. “What your well-meaning doctor couldn’t do.” She was tall enough that she could reach Alex’s face without having to climb up on the edge of the bed. Even with the bed as low as it would go, Lonely Day was impressed.

She felt the touch of Sunset’s horn on her forehead, then held still. Magic glowed from the tip, the color of warm sunlight. It was like ice-water, rushing over the aches and the swelling and filling all the empty places Odium had made. She almost wanted to fall right back asleep, it felt so warm and wonderful. She somehow knew her friend would leave as soon as she did, and not be there when she woke.

Lonely Day waited until Sunset pulled her horn back to speak, for fear that saying anything might interrupt whatever she was doing. Her friend staggered back with an exhausted but triumphant expression, the glow fading from her horn. “T-There. Done.” She sat back on her haunches. “That thing really tried to make itself at home in there, didn’t it?” Alex nodded, and she went on. “It might take a few weeks before you feel like yourself, but you’ll heal. All the rest are healing. Though… some of the slaves he kept longest will never be themselves. The monster filled them with too much of itself, didn’t leave them enough space to be ponies. They’ll have to learn how all over again.”

“How long?” She managed to ask without sounding hopelessly drunk this time. “How long have I been out?”

The pony looked sad. “The monster, Odium… it tried to erase you. It might have, if your friends hadn’t been clever with sunlight and mirrors. You’ve been putting yourself together again for the last few weeks.”

Alex felt her heart seize in her chest. “W-Weeks? I’ve been unconscious for weeks?” She tried to sit up and roll out of bed, but she felt Sunset’s magic pushing her down.

“A few more minutes. You might collapse again if you try to walk so soon.” Her friend looked pretty close to collapsing herself, from the exertion of whatever spell she had done to Alex’s brain. She wondered if Sunset had needed to do the same spell on everypony who had been controlled by Odium, or if that was a special privilege reserved for hosts. She supposed Ryan hadn’t needed it, unless there was also a spell to put brains back together.

Thinking about that still made her sick, so she forced herself not to. “If I can’t leave, you’ll have to tell me how everypony is doing. Is anyone hurt?”

Sunset shook her head. “Your ponies?” At her nod, Sunset continued. “None so bad as you. No physical injuries except a few bruises. I haven’t told anypony I’m here, exactly, but they don’t seem to be missing anypony.”

“You’re hiding?” Alex wasn’t sure she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t force herself not to. “Sunset, I… you said I might see you again. If you knew you were staying behind, why didn’t you tell me? I… would’ve really wanted to know that. We would’ve loved to have you with us! Given you a place to live. Maybe not as nice as that castle you live in in canterlot, but-”

The unicorn silenced her, gently closing her mouth with a hoof. “No, Day. I couldn’t, because I didn’t know. I’d thought about it, but I hadn’t made up my mind yet. Not until I actually said goodbye. Thought about all you ponies, struggling here without anything more than a few books. Princess Luna and Celestia and Twilight were all going to be out of reach. Who would you turn to when something went wrong?” Her expression darkened. “What if we’d accidentally let in a few pests? We came and went between your world many hundreds of times, something was bound to follow us.” She smiled, patting Alex on the shoulder. “Guess you didn’t need our help on that after all.”

Alex blushed, though she felt stupid for it. It wasn’t as though she had actually done anything. It had been the princesses who changed her. If her changed nature was harder to conquer, than they deserved the credit. Though she supposed if Odium had really been defeated, Joseph deserved some credit too. He had been the one to figure out the thing’s weaknesses. And Taylor for softening up their defenses. And Moriah for saving them from the fire-dragon.

It had been a group effort. She told Sunset Shimmer so, explaining everything as best she remembered it. In the end, her friend only laughed. “Well, you’re just learning an important lesson about friendship.” She glared as Alex giggled, waiting for her to finish. “Don’t laugh, pony. Friendship is powerful stuff. Stopped me once…” she trailed off, staring suddenly down at her hooves.

Alex didn’t know what to say to that, so she tried to focus on something else. Instead she said: “You look different. Did you get taller?”

The unicorn seemed to shift uneasily on her hooves, looking away. “Y-Yeah, I guess I did. Being big is not a blessing. Guess it might be in your world, though.”

Her strength was coming back. With that strength came senses, senses she hadn’t entirely known she had until Odium had attacked her within her own mind. It was hard to describe what she felt, except that Sunset Shimmer was a little more solid than the rest of the world. Like the hospital might wither away to nothing, and leave her standing right there in the air. Her in the air, and Alex on her bed. It would be a pretty lonely hospital. She really wanted to see the doctor…

“You’re not just taller, are you?”

Sunset looked up, meeting her eyes for several seconds. It was like looking into the eyes of the monster in her mind, only it wasn’t. Those eyes had starflicker and the fire of July summer, they had the clouds outside, and a burning sun setting beneath the ocean. They had something else, too. Something more important. Compassion. “No. I’m not just taller. You’re not just lucky, either. There’s no such thing.”

“Are you an Alicorn? Like the princesses back in Equestria? Does being an Alicorn mean you can travel back and forth?” She felt the excitement returning. “That must be the reason you’re here, isn’t it! You can be our lifeline with Equestria!”

She sat back down across from her, shaking her head. Her flowing mane cascaded in front of her for a second, seeming more like light than hair. But no, she quickly realized, that had just been a trick of the light. It was still solid. “I am your lifeline, but not because I can go back. Princess Celestia herself couldn’t open the ways anymore. Princess Luna can no longer send dreams reliably, not even to thestrals. The way is shut. But I’m here, a time capsule. Like you, eventually.”

“Eventually.” Alex pulled the blanket off herself. She didn’t feel embarrassed with just Sunset in the room; she had been just as naked during most of her time in Equestria, after all, and it hadn’t bothered her then. Somehow, it was the expectations of the ponies around her that made the act embarrassing, not anything about herself. Maybe she would get over that eventually, like Cloudy Skies did.

Maybe, but not today. At least her friend let her rise without protest, watching carefully as Alex found her footing. When she could stand, she took a few slow steps just to be sure.

She made her way to the window, then pulled the curtains open with her teeth. The sun was indeed setting, though it was fading now and taking its light with it. Not long now, and she would have to turn on a light. Somepony would notice. Somehow, she knew Sunset wouldn’t be staying. “Why not?” she asked without even thinking. When the pony only looked confused, she added, “Why can’t you stay behind? I know you won’t. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have hid.”

Sunset sat down beside her, letting Alex rest against her. “I wish I could.”

Lonely Day sniffed once, then started to cry. She cried until the sun went down, cried about the ponies she had seen die, cried about how awful she had treated Riley, cried about how worried she was they wouldn’t survive the winter, cried about how she was too scared to tell Oliver how she felt and she was sure he would think she was weird. She cried about all the horrible things Odium had wanted to do, all the ponies and humans he had already killed and destroyed. She even cried for her missing mother, banished from her through the doorway into summer. She cried as she had never cried in front of her own ponies. Those ponies depended on her for strength, they couldn’t see even a hint that she was anything else. Her sex made her small and her age made her weak, so she had to compensate every day.

No longer. Sunset Shimmer wouldn’t judge her. She wouldn’t tell another soul, and she would give her exactly the warmth and love she needed. After what Odium had shown her, after a fight not for her life but for her very right to be, a little love was far more effective at healing her than any spell.

Eventually, her eyes dried up, and her patient friend answered her question. Despite the interruption, she hadn’t forgotten. “Princess Celestia and Luna agree that Equestria has interfered enough. You were adamant about it during your meeting, Luna said. If I moved about the ponies of this city or any other, I would interfere even if I didn’t mean to.” She let the robe fall from her shoulders then. Alex had been hugging her pretty close; she wasn’t even slightly surprised to see wings there. “All ponies respect Alicorns. Yours wouldn’t bow to me as Odium wanted, but…” She shook her head. “The chances I might get tied up with whatever you set up are just too high.”

Lonely Day considered that a moment. Eventually, she agreed. If Sunset Shimmer was intimately involved with the lives of ponies, she would shape their society without even meaning to. Any immortal would, through the sheer weight of years and power. “So why’d you come? If you can’t talk with us at all, there wouldn’t have been any point…”

Sunset smiled. “You’re right. I’m still here; just hidden. Searching for threats we introduced involuntarily, or magical threats your ponies can’t fight yet. Looking for ponies who appear alone and far from help, and helping them to safety. I’m not alone.” She levitated the robe back onto her shoulders, adjusting it with a subtle shimmer of her magic. “They just needed a leader. When I realized… When I realized my purpose, finally became what I am now, that was the sign we needed. I’ll be their leader, but I won’t be yours. I will stay in touch.” She nuzzled Day, in the parental way she had come to appreciate while in Equestria. “If a pony can be trusted not to rely on me too much, or to talk about me, there’s no reason I can’t make sure I’ve got an agent in your town. No reason I couldn’t visit. Discretely. For now. Maybe in a few hundred years your ponies will have decided what they want to make of themselves, and I’ll come out into the open. Just… not yet.”

She turned Alex’s face to look directly at hers, looking very serious. “You will keep me secret, won’t you? Until I decide I’m ready.”

“I wish you could be around more… but I understand. Professional courtesy. Oh!” She grinned. “On one condition.”

Sunset’s expression grew more nervous. “W-What condition?”

“You bring a satellite phone with you!” At the pony’s blank expression, she continued. “It’s that thing I showed you when we first met, remember? That little box I used to call for help? Like a radio, but more advanced. You could even go all the way down to Antarcticaand it would still work fine! So long as you don’t leave without letting me give you one, I’ll keep my mouth shut. Scout’s honor.” She held up a hoof, though she wasn’t any kind of scout and had no fingers to make the sign with.

“I’m guessing it’s smaller than the radio I brought when I came here. You humans seem to like your stuff small.”

She laughed again. “Yeah. It’s… quite a bit smaller than that.”

There was silence then, and both of them turned to regard the darkening sky. Alex could hear ponies moving about the hospital, not far away. She suspected Oliver was preparing her supper, and would be in to check on her. Granted, it might’ve been a supper he was preparing to inject with an IV again… she could only hope he would be happy to see her. “One more question, Sunset.” She had hundreds of questions about what the cult had been and what had become of them, though she figured most of them could wait. Only one had been nagging at her, and it had nothing to do with the cult.

“Ever since I got back from Equestria, I’ve been… hearing things.” She stopped, feeling very strange. She expected her friend to have something supportive to say, but Sunset remained silent. Expectant. So she went on. “Mostly voices. When I’m alone, when I’m out in the forest. Then when the ‘Odium’ ponies showed up, I was sure one of those voices told me it was my job to put an end to them. It even promised me I’d be stronger. Then, when Odium tried to kill me, I felt more earth-pony magic than I have in my whole life. Stopped a knife right on my skin, shattered it like glass! Probably could’ve stopped a bullet if I’d wanted to. What happened? Was that something about what I am now?”

“I’m… not sure,” Sunset said, after a long time. “I haven’t seen anything like that since I got here. But I’m new; this planet isn’t really my home. I wouldn’t be surprised if it or something else noticed you more than it did me.”

“Planets can… notice? They can do things?”

Sunset Shimmer shrugged. “Magic changes things. It’s changing your animals, changing your plants. It changed you. It will change everything, eventually. If you’re wondering, I’m not the one to ask. You should find the one who helped and thank them. It wasn’t me.”

She did, though not that night. There were tearful reunions, the first of which was with her first and loyalist of friends, Huan. He'd waited patiently for her to finish with Sunset before tackling her to the ground and overwhelming her with canine affection. There was a makeshift party in a cramped hospital room, and tons of news. She learned that all the visiting ponies had eventually elected to stay in Alexandria after all. They had come against their will to destroy the library and the influence of Equestria’s Alicorns, but they had found freedom instead.

A few, she didn’t know how many, had willingly joined the cult back in Equestria, without fully realizing what they were giving up. They knew now, and none expressed any thought that was not relief at their master’s death. Alex didn’t like the way she had apparently been deified in their mind to fill the void, didn’t like their passive obedience and instant submission to her, but she figured it was something they could work on. Learning to be independent took time.

She learned other things too. Learned that Moriah was pregnant, learned that Cloudy Skies might be too, if she kept things up the way they were going. It hurt to hear that last, but not as much as she had expected. Maybe if things had been different…

But they weren’t different. Lonely Day wasn’t the same person she had been before the Event, and their world wasn’t the same world. Besides, she had learned that Oliver actually quite admired what she had done; throwing herself in harm’s way for Alexandria. Maybe he just liked it because it reminded him of himself. Whatever the reason, he had told her that he had taken the opportunity of working on her injuries to perform a few more examinations. Using a digital copy of one of the Equestrian medical texts, he had determined she wasn’t too young for real relationships after all. If she ever wanted to take him out somewhere, he would be happy to take time off from his gardening. Strangest of all, she had learned the thought no longer disgusted her the way it had a few months ago.

She might be Archive, might be something that was living and dead and maybe something in-between, might even be as immortal as the supernal truth she represented, but that didn’t also mean that Lonely Day couldn’t enjoy a life with her friends while she had them. Her friends the founders wouldn’t be alive forever, but that didn’t matter. There was still plenty of time to get to know them.

She wouldn’t waste a second.

Author's Note

Hey everypony! Just the epilogue left now... once that's posted, I'll talk more about my sequel plans. Until tomorrow, awaaaaaaay!

Part 7 - Epilogue

Several months later…

Lonely Day extended a hoof, and Dr. Clark leaned down to shake it. The shackles made it difficult to lift the hoof to any meaningful angle, but she did her best. Human fingers felt warm and strange, like little squishy spiders. They had no analogue in her life anymore, even if she had possessed some of her own over a year ago. Before everything had fallen apart, and the dream of human society ended. He towered over her, a sturdy man with slowly graying hair. He wore a uniform, like every other human she had seen in Raven. His was less a technician’s jumpsuit and closer to something a naval officer might wear, big sleeves and medals. She sometimes wondered what those medals were. So far as she knew, Dr. Clark hadn’t ever served in any military.

“I was told you had something to show me, Doctor.” She gestured vaguely over her shoulder, at the automated carts filled with pre-event electronics, still in their boxes. “The change in shipment requests. Don’t get me wrong, the scouting teams love it. Flying around the country in the Hummingbird, raiding electronics stores. They told me it was like a shopping spree. Not sure why it would be more important than food, though.”

“Of course.” He gestured to the massive elevator, the one that formed the center of Raven City’s core. “Come with me.”

She followed him inside with clanking footsteps, and barely made it before the doors closed on her tail. It was amazing how much she relied on the magic of her race, without even knowing it. When it was stolen from her, even willingly, she felt as helpless as a filly. She supposed that was probably because she almost was. This elevator wasn’t for cargo; it was only big enough for passengers, and as such had been built out of a large curved piece of glass, which gave her a panoramic view of Raven City as it began to descend. The upper levels were built to the height of Pre-Event engineering, mostly surfaces of polished stainless steel or concrete.

Whatever Raven Rock had looked like before humanity had been warned of the approach of thaumic radiation and the Collapse that would follow, she doubted any of that original structure had survived. It had been entirely stripped and expanded, filling in every gap that the perfectly spherical shield at the center could protect. Day knew they had been able to expand as a result of their alliance with the ponies outside; with ponies doing most of the scavenging instead of humans. Less energy spent on shields outside meant a larger and larger area could be protected inside.

As the elevator descended, she watched emitters flick on automatically, expanding protection to these areas while simultaneously scouring the area of any latent magic that had radiated inside. Instead of smooth metal, the floors here were bare rock, and only robots moved. As they passed, automatic lights came to life, then faded again, creating a strange flashing strobe all around the elevator. “I have discussed our situation before.”

She nodded.

“As we’ve discussed, it is completely untenable. Even with half your town and a dozen others running salvage operations for us. Even with thousands of tons of pre-Collapse hardware piling up in warehouses upstairs. Even with the food you provide us.”

“I know. Your MHS is a miracle, but it still takes raw materials. You can’t recycle the same components forever. Things break down.”

“Things break down,” Clark agreed, as the elevator came to an abrupt stop. Like everything in Raven City, the elevator was built using the MHS, or Modular Hardware System. Its few thousand separate components were like structural legos, combining into guns as easily as they made water purifies or computers. She understood a number of pre-Collapse corporations had been very close to releasing the first models, only a year or so after the date of the collapse. A pity they never would. “When you live in conditions like ours, hardware failure and death are the same thing.”

He stepped out through the doorway. Rows of lights came on with regular clicks, illuminating a vast space all around the elevator. It was largely bare rock, though a walkway had been placed atop it leading out, and he walked along it. Alex set off after him, even though the rough grip of the metal stung the more sensitive parts of her hoof with every step. Pity she hadn’t worn horseshoes. “When I was given this assignment, I was given a single directive above all others. You can guess what it was. I was chosen for my vision, Lonely Day. I was instructed that the period just following the Collapse would be the most critical for human survival. We have opportunities, all fading with each day.”

“More than that spell we might figure out one day? The one that makes it so humans can live outside the shields?”

He stopped walking, frowning suddenly. “How much progress have your ‘unicorns’ made in a year?”

She didn’t blush, but her ears flattened on her head. “Not much.” Not any, but she wasn’t about to say that. It wasn’t as though she had expected to make any headway, though! Equestria itself, a country practically operated by magic, had tried that first and failed! It wasn’t as though they were going to do better with just a few ponies, in less time.

“Precisely.” The lights behind them clicked off, though the path ahead remained clear. She could hear the quiet whirring of electronics, metal grinding and sparking, pneumatics, in the near distance. The cavern had changed too, from regular tool-marks to a ceiling getting higher and higher. Natural formations glinted in the distance, distant stalactites and pools of crystal water. “Humanity cannot depend on your ponies for its long-term survival. We are still grateful for your help, and we will continue to work with you as long as possible.”

“But our time is limited. The key, more than resources, is knowledge. An industrial nation depends on the work of many specialists, each devoting their entire life to a single, specific discipline. Globalism meant that few nations actually had the resources to be truly self-sufficient. We must not just function with a population smaller than a medieval village, we must maintain sophisticated technology in the face of death if even some small part of it collapses.”

He slowed a little, as they neared the source of the noise. A large object, perhaps the size of a greyhound bus, sat on rolling support struts on the stone. She wasn’t close enough to get a good look through the dark. “So Raven lives on borrowed time, unless we do something dramatic.” He stopped, gesturing at the large object. “Tell me, Lonely Day: have you heard of a Von Neumann probe?”

The little earth pony shook her head, taking a few clanking steps past him for a better look. White, sterile surfaces, like those she had seen on television, the surfaces of martian landers and the interiors of space shuttles. Most of what she saw was raw material, tiny pieces made from individual MHS components.

“This is human salvation. When it’s finished, this probe will be launched into the asteroid belt. It will travel for a year, perhaps, before it selects a mineral-rich asteroid. It will harvest minerals, and over the course of another year or two, it will assemble an identical copy of itself. Both probes begin replicating, and after another year there are four. Eventually there are eight, sixteen, thirty two… you get the idea.” He walked forward, to the edge of a round walkway. As he crossed some invisible barrier, the spinning robotic arms at work on the probe hummed down to silence.

“Something like this would have been impossible, even during the year of the Collapse. Not anymore.” He reached out, to where the blue and white logo of Earth itself had been painted. “This design uses only sixteen elements, in less than a hundred simple compounds. All can be found in abundance in the solar system.”

He removed his hand, turning back to face her. “Understand, it will be many years before the probes have reached numbers useful to us. I will not be alive. My children and grandchildren will be long gone. Eventually though, they’ll reach critical mass. They need not remain restricted to the pattern we first wrote for them; our transmitters can send new innovations, and their swarm intelligence will grow. Eventually, they will assemble our second home. Raven City will become a station of vast size, and our population won’t be restricted by our feeble shields. Freed from the gravity-well of a planet, their range will be greater by an order of magnitude at least.”

She could see his vision. Hell, Alex could almost see the station already. A thriving population of her own true species, living again in safety. They would leave the ponies of Earth behind. “How long?” She was almost speechless at the prospect. “How long would it take?”

He frowned. “It’s hard to be certain. If we’re right, the probes could do their work without our interference. They might be ready to begin construction of a sizable station in as little as five hundred years, sooner if this first one gets really lucky. But we’re missing certain… critical technologies. Nuclear fusion will be essential, and we aren’t quite there. Many more technologies, which mankind had nearly grasped before the Collapse. That will be the task of my people, in the hundreds of years my probes need to work.”

He turned to face her, and she could practically smell the intensity radiating from him. “Alex, we need your ponies to make this happen. Raven does not have the resources to get this probe into orbit. We have the talent; the Initiative knew space was our only hope, even if they didn’t have an answer to where we would get the manpower.”

“We could never assemble everything it would take to get my probe into orbit, but we don’t have to.” He smiled. “Do you remember NASA, the way they stopped building spacecraft because the Americans wouldn’t pay for them?” At her nod, he continued. “They never did. Our delivery system is waiting, sealed in warehouses and waiting for us to assemble it.”

“It’s all rotting away. Even with all our preparations, there is much work to be done. Repairs to our facilities, running fuel refineries, transporting and assembling everything. If we don’t act now, then in a few years in will be too late.” He took a deep breath. “The change in our import requests was only the beginning. We need every available pony in your colony. We need every available pony in every colony. We’ll fill the sky with Hummingbirds, expend every resource to get that probe into orbit before next winter. I believe your ponies are capable of doing much of the work. A partnership with the other colonies could bring even more manpower. Together, the organized population of this continent could see it done.”

“So I ask, Lonely Day, do you love humanity enough to sacrifice for us one more time?”

Her mother’s face flashed before her eyes. Her sister. Orphans and finger-painting and traffic. Even her brother. “We do. However…” She took a deep breath. “This won’t be easy, Doctor Clark. Taking so many ponies from the field would mean living off cans and grass again. Many ponies wouldn’t be happy about that. If we do this, we’re going to need compensation. Most ponies won’t put their lives on hold for humanity.” She lowered her voice. “Lots of ponies think you abandoned them. They resent the HPI, and everything you stand for. They think you should’ve saved everypony or none of us.”

“You?”

She shook her head. “Not anymore.” She looked up, taking in the probe for the first time. Little spindly legs, with sharp grippers, like a bacteriophage blown up to gigantic size. Many surfaces were covered in solar film, and ports for smaller probes opened up at numerous points along its body. “But I know my ponies. They’ll want you to pay for their help.”

He nodded. “We expected as much. Once the probe is complete, I could focus manufacturing on whatever you required from us during the duration of the project.”

“I know. More than that, though.” She turned away from the probe, looking way up at his face. “I would want a policy created, hardcoded into the drones. All of them get it, every copy.” She gestured vaguely at the probe. “We hope you succeed. They build your station or whatever, and get you up to it somehow. When that happens, and every human is off Earth, those drones become ours, along with everything they built. Whatever drydock they used, all their little waystations and mines out in orbit. All belong to the ponies of Earth. Control transfers to me, or my chosen successor. You can inject a nuclear tracker in me or something.”

“Just you?” He raised his eyebrows. “You think one man ought to control all that?”

She shook her head. “I think a tool like that could facilitate genocide and war, and that even a really good group of ponies might forget what they were supposed to be doing after a few years. Maybe they think they’re better than everypony else, and they use your probes to make sure we don’t forget it.”

He looked concerned, and she thought his eyebrows might lift right off his face. “But you’re not like that. You’re different.”

“No.” She sighed. “I’m not a person, Dr. Clark. I am Archive. My desires only exist to reflect humanity’s desires. If I use this tool to enslave and conquer, it is only because all of humanity has become slavers and conquerors.”

“And when you die?”

She looked away from him when she answered. “I won’t.” She said it with such certainty, such absolute confidence, that Dr. Clark nearly staggered. Still, he knew enough to know she wasn’t just claiming that because she wanted to. He had to have read the reports.

Clark’s expression became unreadable. “We might remain in the solar system for… many years. Thousands, more. We can’t even speculate about the enabling technologies for interstellar travel. We might never be able to leave. Frankly, there might not be a point unless we somehow managed to find somewhere without thaumic radiation. Somewhere we can walk under the sky, somewhere our children can feel the wind. Maybe humanity will be adrift in a flotilla for eternity.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “But humanity is down here too, doctor. Me, the others… our children. We’re humanity too. Even if we don’t look it anymore. Our governments, our society, they all failed us. They were willing to let us all die; only the Equestrians prevented that. Yes, I realize you had no choice, and I don’t blame you.”

“The point is, you owe us more than just a few turbines and replacement transponders for helping you. You owe us our society back. Maybe when you’re gone, there will be enough of us to use those drones to put ourselves back together again, even if we still have hooves. The tiny slice of humanity you saved can build new probes. You can go wherever and mine whatever. Just leave us the ones you used to get there. That way, in time, we both win.”

The older man ran a hand through his graying hair, stepping back so the robotic assembly machines could go back to work. “I see you are as far-seeing as I.” Pause. “Do you think this will satisfy your ponies? As preoccupied with survival as they are, do you think they will see the significance of an gift they won’t live to receive, nor will their children and grandchildren? It may take so long to see the fruit of this exchange that nobody outside this bunker remember it when that moment comes.”

She smiled. “Do you think your successors will honor your promise if you make it with me now?”

He nodded dismissively. “Absolutely. Humanity is good for its word. Can you be sure your species will know what to do with the probes when they get them? A network that size, hundreds of thousands or even millions of probes, could easily be used to destroy a society.”

Lonely Day looked down at the rough floor, at her hooves and the magical shackles that took away her strength. Then she opened her mouth, and told Dr. Clark something she hadn’t even told her best friend, though her mate had discovered on his own. Clark listened, nodded. They shook hands. Well, she shook his.

Seven months later, Alex sat beside her friends to watch the last launch of the human space program, in a field so full of ponies that she could not see the grass through the colorful bodies. Not a single human was in attendance, though she knew they watched through the cameras of drones.

The earth shook, and the fire of chemical rockets burned one last time. One final rocket vanished into the morning sky, disappearing beyond the limits of sight. Once in orbit, the slow acceleration of its ion thruster sent a single probe off on its journey to the asteroid belt. With it went the hopes of all humanity, and perhaps the future of ponies as well.

The next day, the Posthuman General Cooperation Treaty was signed by eighteen separate city-states and one human bunker.

Life was good.

At first.

Author's Note

And that, everypony, is the end of Founders of Alexandria. Thank you so much to everyone who made it this far! Thank you for your patience with me, your encouragement in the comments, all the nice things and criticism both you said. Without your input, I know I never would've been able to write a sequel. A special thanks to my wonderful artist Zutcha, who did every piece of original artwork in this story and the one previous. I hope one day he makes a patreon or something so I can link to it. Without that, I'll just express my sincere gratitude.

Obviously there is much left to tell. The stories of these characters aren't over yet. Unfortunately I won't be able to tell the stories of their whole lives, but I would like to give a little more. If everything goes according to plan, I will publish the third and final installment of this series on September 19th, 2015. Sadly, I won't be able to update daily anymore now that I'm in school, but I will continue a regular update schedule of some kind until the story's finished.

Desperate for something else to do? The community has a very active skype chatroom open to all readers. Visit this group forum page for instructions on how to do that.

And for those who don't, it's been a fantastic ride so far, and I hope to see you again on the 19th!

Part 8 (Cody) - Chapter 2

Alex blinked, opening her eyes in the gloom of her hospital room. There was no pain, only a strange stiffness in her limbs, particularly on her belly. All around her, the room was in shambles. Her own green fur was all over the floor, though none appeared to be missing from her body. There were bloodstains on the edges of the room, splashed near the door or soaked into the mattress. She'd woken quickly enough that they hadn't even cleaned up after her.

Her heart started beating, and the monitor beside her began to beep. Her lungs filled with air, and she began to hack and cough. Coming back felt so often like she was about to drown, her first breaths as much a struggle as they would be for a newborn pony.

Someone moved across the room, though she had trouble focusing on him at first. Purple coat, mane like lightning, jacket stained with iron-smelling blood. He approached her bed in a daze, smelling like sweat and worse and still wearing a dirty mask on his face.

Alex was still too weak to resist as he lifted her right foreleg, checking the monitors, feeling at her pulse with his own sensitive hoof. "God, what are you?" His words came through stretched and distant, like she was hearing them from very far away. Her brain was still coming back.

"Alive," she croaked, hacking up a mouthful of blood and slime onto her chest. Her chest that now looked pristine, no trace of stretching, or swollen teats in preparation for her birth, or any other sign that she'd been pregnant for almost a year. She looked like the day she'd come back from Equestria. She could almost smell Equestria in her mane. "Almost. Gimmie a minute."

Oliver tore off his mask, gold eyes watery. There was still blood in his mane. "Death doesn't give up its captives," he said. "To die is not to exist. There's nothing left to return."

Alex couldn't help it—she smiled. She knew the expression didn't belong, knew it would probably further upset him. But she couldn't help it. "I met a religious pony y-yesterday... was it yesterday? I don't know. I think his was more traditional."

She'd been right, of course. That wasn't what she was supposed to say. Oliver's expression darkened, his eyes growing sharp. "Don't mock me, Haggard. Not after the night I just went through."

She opened her mouth to snap back—at least that part of her brain was still working. But she swallowed what she would've said, sitting back in her chair. "I've seen the place you're thinking of," she whispered. "I don't think it's so scary."

Oliver grunted. "And yet you keep coming back."

She smiled again. "That's because you're here. And some other ponies, I guess they're okay too."
He didn't smile back.

That was when her memory fully returned. Alex wasn't in the hospital because of any of the battery of accidents that had happened to her over the years. She hadn't been shot, or run over. She'd been doing something much more important. Was that why Oliver was so upset? "What about the baby?"

His expression didn't change. "He's fine. Cloudy is watching him. Healthy, stable."

"It was him or me," Alex muttered, looking down at the bed. "I hope you... I hope you know it had to be him."

Oliver rested his head on her shoulder. She took hold of him, waiting there in the silence, and ignoring the smell. She didn't know how long it took Oliver to speak—a long time. "I'm not... I'm not happy about the ones I love giving themselves away over and over. Death has never given back anyone else I ever lost. One of these days, it will keep you too."

"Maybe," she whispered back. "Not today."

Alex got to her hooves then, rolling off the other side of the bed and feeling a little of the nastiness still present there. This wasn't at all like her husband—the hospital was kept impeccably clean most of the time, up to the strict pre-Event standards of cleanliness. But most of the time he didn't watch his wife die in front of him.

"Careful!" he shouted across the bed, rushing towards her. "You shouldn't be on your hooves yet! Get back in bed!"

She didn't, standing and straightening without difficulty. "Olive," she said, her voice as soft as she could make it. "I died, remember? I won't have a recovery time." She turned sideways, lifting her tail out of the way. "See? No damage. No stretching. Nothing."

"Oh." He waved a hoof, dismissively. She could still see the pain in his face as he removed his bloody coat, tossing it onto the bed where she'd been resting. "I guess you won't need all the get well cards, then."

She hadn't even noticed everything sitting on the bedside tables—well wishes from the ponies of Alexandria. It had far less color than back in the days of Hallmark and store bought cards, and there were no balloons to speak of. Plenty of fresh flowers and other tasty treats, though. Everything a new mother might expect.

"Cloudy is down the hall with our son," Oliver said. "Waiting for you."

“What did you tell her?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “I knew you didn’t want anyone else to know. Just said you needed time to recuperate.”

Alex didn't let herself think about any of the bad stuff, not just now. How could she feed the baby if she didn't have milk? How would the ponies of Alexandria react to her overnight recovery? None of that mattered just now.

With a population as small as theirs, the nursery was never exactly busy. A handful of births a month didn't justify having ponies assigned full time. Ordinarily Oliver or one of his medical assistants would've done everything. Under the circumstances, Cloudy Skies was there instead.

She was even wearing one of the nurses outfits, tailored specifically for her, resting in the corner of the room beside her own eldest daughter, Amy. The foal could already walk on her own, but had been confined to a rocker of some kind, something she did not look happy about.

“Damn,” Sky said. “You’re walking around already? Earth Pony must be a helluva drug.”

There was a single incubator in the center of the room, warm lights and beeping status indicators continuing as uninterrupted as they might've done in the world before the event. And in the center was Alex's first child.

She felt something between them then, something none of her magic had prepared her for. Looking through the glass at the tiny pony within, at the coat like her own, but bluer, with a few wisps of a mane a little like Oliver's, she felt something known to mothers throughout time, and to few others. She almost didn't even hear Sky's relief to have her back, didn't feel the hug, she didn't have an eye for anything else. She didn't feel satisfied until the little pony was in her arms.

Well, hooves.

There was nothing supernatural about the feeling, as was becoming increasingly the case with so many other things in her life. Nothing more than simple love in the huge violet eyes. "I think you were right," she said, looking up at Oliver. He had switched over to hovering nearby, watching her closely for any sign of distress from either of them. He was recovering his bedside manner a little the further they got from her death. "I think Cody would be a good name for him. Cody Pittman. That's you, sweetheart!" The baby seemed to be smiling at her, at least she imagined he was. She smiled right back.

"That's not a very good name," Sky said, her voice flat. "Maybe if he was a human baby it would be. But that's a pony right there. You should give him a pony name."

"It's Cody," Oliver said, looking exasperated. "Alex and I talked about it. Cody if it was boy, Mary if it was a girl."

Cloudy Skies rolled her eyes. "Well, fine with me. It's not my kid who's getting condemned to a lifetime of bullying. Isn't that right, Surefire?"

The foal looked up from her crib, whining and squealing and struggling against her bonds. Cloudy didn't let her out.

"Cody," Alex said again, testing it in her mouth one last time. "Yeah, feels good. Modern."

Sky grumbled quietly in a corner.

A few hours later and they'd moved into a different hospital room, one that lacked any of the leftover viscera from Alex's last death. Cloudy Skies wasn't wearing her nurse's outfit anymore. For good reason, since she was the one nursing the baby. It helped that her own was only a few months old.

"We'll figure something out," she said, her voice soft, reassuring. "Mystic Rune's had over a year to read over all the magic books. I bet Equestria has a spell for this."

Alex watched closely, ready to catch her little son if he fell. But pony babies weren't like humans—they could stand and walk almost from birth. He didn't fall. "You think there's a spell for helping ponies make milk?"

“It seems like the sort of thing Equestria would've thought of. On the farm, animals had trouble giving milk all the time. Humans have formula... but Equestria probably couldn't make that stuff. They'd invent a spell."

"Can you ask him?" she asked, slumping to the floor. "If I do... he'll probably hold it over my head for weeks."

"Sure," Sky said. "No problem. I was hoping this wouldn't be a bad experience for you. Weren't you saying we all need to do our part to have as many foals as possible?"

She shivered all over, remembering being cut open on the operating table. It was one of the most painful deaths in her memory. "I don't think I'll ever have another one, Cloudy. Not unless I grow up a little more. Turns out being technically big enough isn't the same thing as actually being big enough. Oliver did his best, but we just don't have the same technology."

At least Oliver was off getting the rest he deserved. Even Earth Pony magic could only keep a pony awake for so long. “It was horrible.” And that was all she said. Going into detail about her death… she didn’t want to tell another pony. Even Sky.

Someone knocked on the door, before pushing it open. Alex looked up, and was unsurprised to see Adrian and Moriah standing there. No Joseph to be seen, though they were all carrying food in various glass trays. Moriah even had a table levitating behind them in her magic, albeit a tiny plastic folding one. She'd really improved a great deal with her prosthetic in the last year. With her own hooves she pushed a stroller, with Dick sleeping quietly inside. He was the oldest of all their children by far, and also fairly well-behaved. Unlike his father…

"Hey, Alex," Adrian said. "Shouldn't you be in bed?" He glanced briefly at Cloudy, but didn't say anything about her nursing Cody. Alex wondered to herself if he'd even noticed.

So they haven't heard about what happened yet. "Nah," she said. "I'm more worried about Cody."

"Shouldn't be," he replied. "Nobody knows kids like Cloudy.” He set his containers of food down on the table, then embraced his wife. "You can rest. You don't have to be leading the charge as Alexandria's brave mayor all the time."

She obeyed, more to placate them than anything else. Cody watched her go with those big eyes, but was apparently too hungry to cry out. This was good, since by then Alex's hunger was starting to catch up with her too. Coming back to life was hard work.

"Joe's coming," Moriah said, when all of them but Sky were sitting around the table. "He said he just had one more thing to finish up at the office, and he'd teleport right here." There weren't any chairs, but ponies didn't really need them. Not when they sat like animals. Even Moriah wasn't wearing a full outfit anymore, though she still had a pair of shorts. Adrian had given up on clothes, though he had his utility belt.

"I'm sure it's important," Alex said, between mouthfuls of cornbread. "I hope he realizes he's stuck as mayor for at least another month. Maybe longer."

"He knows," Moriah said, exasperated. "Believe me, he knows. He goes on about it every night when he gets home. He says you and Oliver should've been more considerate—you could've had your baby when you were done with public office."

Cloudy Skies laughed. "Yeah, Rune's the model of restraint." She eyed the stroller, then Moriah. "Are you pregnant again yet?"

Moriah glowered. "This isn't about me, it's about Alex. We shouldn't stress her with this kind of thing right now—it's obvious she's had a really hard time with her birth. Just look at her, so pale, can barely even lift a spoon..."

Alex pushed her plate away, frowning. So maybe one of them noticed. "I'll take the job back as soon as Cody's ready to be separate. I don't know how long that is—I'm sure the Equestrian parenting books talk about it. I'll follow their advice."

"Oh, yeah. Interuniversal mass murderers give great parental advice," Moriah said. "You should put up a mobile with their despots on it, like Cloudy did. That way your kid grows up knowing who his friends are."

Now she really was feeling stressed. Joseph actually did arrive about an hour later, when they were done eating and Adrian had already left. He had a harsh conversation with Moriah, a hushed one with Cloudy Skies, then popped away again as quickly as he'd come. When he came back, it was with a photocopy of a spell diagram, and any resentment Alex might've felt at his tardiness melted away. Joe could be an idiot with his priorities, but at least she wouldn't have to rely on Sky to feed her son.

Alex had many visitors over the next few days. Not that she really needed to be locked up in the hospital anymore, but Cody did, and Oliver wanted her to. She obeyed if for no other reason than his blood pressure. Everyone who was anyone in the political scene of Alexandria came to wish her well—militia officers, traders, ordinary citizens. Some of them even left little gifts. She relished each one of these visits, mostly because she was losing her mind being locked in one small room and sick of pretending to be weak.

But one visit was unlike the others. It came near the end, when she was about to leave the hospital and return to her trailer. A dark figure came in so quietly she almost didn't notice him, until she smelled the plate he was carrying in his faint green magic.

It was cookies—her favorite cookies, as it happened.

Unfortunately, the natural pony fear of changelings extended even to foals, and Cody began to whimper and cry in the crib beside her bed, hiding from the newcomer as best he could with the blankets inside. Only covering the side of the crib with a blanket, hiding the changeling from sight, calmed him down.

"Hey," Alvin said, setting down the plate of cookies he'd brought on the edge of her bedside table. He looked far better than when she'd last seen him—much less starved, with his little wounds scabbed over and healing. "I wanted to apologize for our first meeting. I didn't know at the time, but I would've had Hiram wait if I had."

Alex smiled, reaching for the plate of cookies but not quite making it. "We'll see how those taste. Maybe I'll forgive you."

"Better than yours!" He levitated one over for her to try.

And he was right—it tasted much better than her attempt. Somehow he'd brought them here still warm, and the thick chocolate chips were still molten in her mouth, but not uncomfortably warm. She closed her eyes, enjoying something so good after so long eating whatever ponies happened to bring for her. The sweetness was exactly what she craved. "Yes, you're forgiven," she said. "It wasn't your fault to begin with, Alvin."

The changeling shrugged. "Not Alvin, if you don't mind. That me was a better person than I am now. Whatever turned me into this... made me a soul-sucking parasite... clearly I failed whatever judgement you all passed. I don't want my old name stained with who I've become." He nodded once at the cookies. "Just Chip now, if you don't mind. Since I'll never get the memory of what you fed me out of my mind."

They both laughed. "You want to talk about not being able to forget bad memories?" she asked. "You can't even imagine."

He stopped laughing. "Maybe not. But at least you get to be a real person, Mayor Alex Pittman. You're still you, just in a different skin. The Event didn't take your soul away. Your son there, he'll grow up not having to starve if he can't suck the life out of people. He won't frighten children just by walking into the room."

Alex opened her mouth to reply, but found the words came only with difficulty. "I-I... no, you're right. Being a changeling isn't an easy prospect... Chip. But I don't think that means you're doomed. I've heard stories of... some awful stuff other changelings have been doing. Really living up to their name, in other parts of the world. But not here. Riley wants to be different. She doesn't lie to anyone, and she doesn't have to be a parasite. I think you're lucky to have found her."

"Yeah," he admitted, his tone wistful. "I think I am. I've never seen anyone so pretty in my—" He trailed off, his wings opening awkwardly. He looked away, scratching at the ground with one hoof. "If you could just, never mention that to her ever, I'd really appreciate it."

"No point in trying to hide it. She'll know how you feel just by being around her." Alex gestured at the plate. "But fine. Bring another plate like this, and you've got a deal."

Author's Note

This is the end of the LPoE 2AE anniversary update. Hopefully everyone enjoyed it--it was a lot of fun to revist these old characters again. Those reading the story for the first time should be able to keep going as normal through the series--just know that these chapters weren't always here. Hopefully they've added to the world and made some things that weren't clear a little clearer.

For those interested in continuing on who maybe lost interested in Alex's personal journey, you might want to check out Bedtime Stories, which focuses mainly on other characters throughout the ages and visits the main characters from this era (including Alex) very little. But even if you aren't, thanks for joining us for this little adventure. Not my last in the setting, but getting there. It's been fun.

Part 8 (Cody) - Chapter 3

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Part 5 (Oliver) - Chapter 1

In the absence of the mare Cloudy Skies, Oliver was always the first to rise. He took great pride in this, though not so much pride as the fact he could get up before sunrise without a cup of coffee to keep him going. Most mornings were an absolute joy; after his hot shower Oliver would take a walk before the sun came up, singing to himself and imagining all the wonderful things that would happen that day. It was hard to say what he would sing; whatever struck his fancy, really. It wasn’t as though there was anyone to hear him, or anyone to complain. Only Sky even knew he did it, and she hadn’t said. They had an understanding. And when he returned from his walk, either Sky would have breakfast cooking or he would start it cooking himself.

But there was no hot shower today; the Hummingbird didn’t have one. When he took his morning walk, Oliver found himself overwhelmed with the stench of fire and death, and so he returned after only a few minutes. There was no breakfast cooking when he came back, or indeed any way to cook one. He ate oat trail bars instead, which despite the world ending still had another six months before they expired. Nobody else was awake yet, not with the lazy unicorns and Alex still drained from her injuries the day before. His garden was back in Alexandria, so there was nothing to water. He couldn’t sing, not without waking everybody up within the cramped space.

So Oliver had to content himself with an hour of exploring a space that was probably smaller than most homes. It was apparently some really fancy, expensive airplane. It should be easy to occupy an hour of his time exploring such a place, right?

Yes, as it turned out. Oliver tossed on his jacket, mostly because he didn’t feel human without it (not that it had any real power besides the emotional significance he gave it), and started to wander, starting at the launch ramp. He opened each of the lockers, at least the ones that would open, and found most of them were still stocked with supplies. Machines he didn’t recognize, with markings in English and sometimes Chinese too. Weapons he had never seen used by any military, and scientific instruments with purposes he could only speculate. Every inch of space had been filled with a pocket or a pouch, and nowhere at all was there a patch of totally bare wall or floor without a removable section.

The plane looked like it held 20 seats at one time, though the center of the cargo area was now bare, providing them with enough space to fit a single APC or something similar if they wanted one. Until the day before, he had never thought he would ever need one. Until yesterday, Oliver had considered the disgusting business of war gone for good. Now he was less certain.

Oliver stepped towards the hallway, onto the section of floor that constantly vibrated with the hum of the reactor. If they had thought themselves safe, they would’ve shut it off. But given the danger they had encountered on their way in, they kept it on its lowest functional setting, ready to accelerate to full power at a second’s notice. Even knowing the effectiveness of the radiation-neutralizing CPNFG, Oliver didn’t exactly feel great to be standing on top of it. A hatch baring several nuclear symbols was made of some transparent material, and showed him the ladder that went down to the reactor level.

Given Oliver didn’t know if he could climb a ladder without his hands, he didn’t get to explore down there. Would it have even been safe if he could? Beyond the cargo area was the hallway leading to the cockpit, where Moriah slept. There wasn’t enough floor space for a proper human, but ponies took just about half as much. Less, if they tried.

He didn’t go in there, knowing how late a night she had spent investigating and the rage she was likely to feel at being interrupted. He would have to play with the ship’s controls another time.

The Hummingbird also had a head, one so small even their pony bodies had trouble using it, particularly with the dire consequences if something went wrong. He had already explored in there as much as he wanted to, so he moved on to the sleeping quarters. Yes, the Hummingbird had them, though only for a crew of eight humans.

There were two such rooms, divided by sex. Each had a single bunk-bed with two bunks, and just enough space to stand in and access the storage locker under either one. Moriah had told him yesterday that the Hummingbird could stay airborne with its eight-man crew for three years without maintenance, though she personally doubted it could hold enough food or water for more than three months or so. He found the idea of hot-bunking for that long almost as disgusting as the idea of using the Hummingbird’s head again.

It was a dark reminder of humanity's future, where every vehicle had to be able to function as a home-away-from-home. Thus was life when dangerous radiation suffused every corner of the planet. Alex thought that humanity had a fighting chance of surviving, with all the preparations the HPI had made. Oliver’s prognosis was far more realistic; he gave them twenty years.

Maybe, with the help of transformed ponies (and lots of exercise) they could push it to forty. But survive long enough to find a cure? Not in the world he knew. If whole pharmaceutical companies took decades to develop vaccines, how could five hundred people living in a hole in the ground expect to vaccinate themselves against a fundamental force?

The light flicked on from the mare’s sleeping quarters. Without Moriah, Alex would be alone. Maybe a chance to finally speak with her in private about what he had seen.

Oliver stepped forward, raising his head a little so the sensor would notice him. With a satisfying whooshof pressure, it zoomed to one side, admitting him. “Morning, Alex. If you’re up, I was hoping-” He froze.

Alex was dressed like Sky, just then. Which was to say she wasn’t dressed at all. The room smelled like mare, thicker than any human would’ve noticed. Damn horses for their superior senses of smell! He would have traded his for his night vision back in a second. “Oh. I was… yeah.” He blinked, then forced his medical detachment upon himself.

Regular people might not be able to ignore things like that smell, but Oliver was a doctor. Damnit if his quarter million dollar education didn’t buy him something! In the end, all he had to do was remind himself of what he had seen the day before. That was more effective than any bucket of cold water he had ever experienced. His tone changed, and just like that Alex was no longer a very attractive pony, not to mention the only mare he knew with anything even approaching emotional stability.

Instead, she was a patient. Nothing weird about examining a patient, nothing the least bit awkward. It was just part of the job. “Just wait here. I’ll go get my medkit, okay?”

Alex, for her part, hadn’t remained frozen. Once the moment was over, she sat down on her haunches, covering herself as best she could with the positioning of her forelegs. She yawned. “Whatever, sure. Bring me some orange juice while you’re at it. Or… whatever we’ve got.”

Oliver did, returning five minutes later with a canteen filled with Tang and his equipment. True to his instructions, he found Alex hadn’t gotten dressed, though she had wrapped a blanket about her lower body that made it both easier for him to concentrate and easier for her to remain relaxed.

She wrinkled her nose at the smell of the drink, but accepted it anyway. She drained the entire thing in one long sip, passing back an empty canteen. “Thanks. I guess… I guess you’ll want to change my bandages…”

“Probably not.” Oliver walked around her, something possible in the closed quarters only because they were ponies and not humans. “Could you lie down on your back? The less we move things, the better.” Though he was beginning to suspect it wouldn’t matter. That was the real reason he had come.

She spread out on the bunk, doing her best to keep herself covered. That was just fine with him, though he would have to move the blanket when it came time to inspect the rest of her spine. Oliver proceeded with his examination as quickly as he could, removing the bandages.

There was something about living things that just made sense to Oliver. It didn’t matter if they were plants in his garden, or patients under his care. A touch here or a prod there gave him more than an intuitive sense of how they were feeling. It was as though their bodies spoke to him in a way that was deeper than words.

Yesterday, they had nearly crashed in flight. Alex hadn’t been restrained, and had slammed her head with enough force that bone was visible. Once their flight stabilized, he had rushed to her side, and heard the grim story her body told him. It hurt to lose a friend.

By the time they landed, she had been breathing again. By bedtime, she wasn’t even bleeding. Now the body beneath his hooves spoke of vibrant, perfect health. Her neck wasn’t broken anymore, as though he hadn’t been able to use her ability to move freely to learn that. Her skull wasn’t broken. She wasn’t even missing fur from the back of her neck, where the injuries had been the most gruesome. She was starving, thirsty, and only five days away from the sort of thing he liked very much to avoid. At least, he always had before.

When he removed the bandages, they came away clean. He didn’t bother trying new ones. He hadn’t bothered with a neck-brace the day before. What was the point of putting a brace on someone who could come back from the dead?

“Alright, done.” He gestured, moving away. Alex sat up, making sure her blanket was in place as she did so.

“No bandages?” She looked confused, though not as confused as he thought the situation called for.

“Have you ever seen a miracle, Alex?”

The young mare only stared back at him, silent. He went on. “I have. Watched a man die on the table, me and my classmates all taking notes. Helpless, nothing we could do. We probably would’ve made things worse.”

“Doctors did what they could, tried to get the patient back on life support, but there wasn’t enough time. His heart just wouldn’t start. I’d never seen death before.”

Alex glared up at him. “That’s it? Your miracle story is about some guy dying? That doesn’t sound like a miracle.”

Oliver ignored the interruption. “I never believed in a soul until I watched someone die. Watching a living human being, with a father and a mother and hopes for the future and skills and regrets and everything, transformed into a slab of meat. Something was missing; something unique and wonderful would never exist again.”

“I knew right then I’d chosen the right career. One day, I wanted to be the sort of doctor who could steal the dying right out of Death’s fingers.”

“Yesterday I saw another miracle. I think you know what it is.” She nodded, but didn’t interrupt, so he went on. “The dead don’t return, Alex. Once you’re transformed into meat, that’s it. Except… except you did come back. Now you’re back to normal. I can’t think this is normal for ponies, not with the months it's taking Adrian's wing to heal.”

“No, it isn’t.” Alex looked down at her hooves. “Have you read anything about the Equestrian princesses?”

He nodded. “Not much. Just that the Equestrians believe that they're the same ponies who've been ruling for thousands of years. They think they move the sun and the moon too. I figure they’ve got some sort of dynastic rule in place. Daughters replacing mothers…”

“No. I know you’ve seen one of my memories… it’s nothing like that. Those ponies really are thousands of years old.” She took a deep breath. “They never said I couldn’t tell anypony. I guess it might make more sense if I’m not the only one who knows. Alicorns like them, their lives aren’t their own anymore. They’re bound to concepts instead. I don’t really understand how, so don’t ask. Princess Luna, for instance, she’s the night. She’s everything to do with the night, the stars and the moon and dreams too. So long as those things matter, she’s strong. If ponies stop caring about the night… she’ll grow weaker, less connected to the world. If they forgot altogether, she’d die.”

“Princess Celestia is the day. She’s the sun, she’s the life it gives and truth and purity and lots of other important things. The more ponies care about those things, the stronger she is. If those things ever ceased to matter, she’d fade away too.”

“I don’t know how it works. They said things about magic, but my memory wasn’t as good as it is now. I think… I think they were trying to do the same thing to me. It’s got to be something like that, because what happened yesterday wasn’t the first time.”

Oliver considered that, then he considered all of the implications. They stung, though not just because he was out of a job with her. Would she live thousands of years, like the monarchs of Equestria? Why did that bother him so much?

“I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell the others. I’m still kinda… figuring myself out. I wasn’t even sure about what I told you until a few weeks ago.”

He nodded. “Of course, of course. Doctor-patient confidentiality, all that.” He rose. “I’ll wake the others. We’ve still got a crime to investigate.”

“And friends in danger back in Alexandria. Or… maybe in danger.” She rose too, seeming to forget about the blanket. “It still might be us that are in danger. Can I get back to not being in bed? I think I’m about the safest pony here, no matter what happens.”

“Yeah.” He hurried out. There was much to do, and it was probably high time the unicorns woke up. It wasn’t all bad. Alex was still alive, and they might get to stay friends for many years to come. He hadn’t lost anypony yet.

Part 8 (Cody) - Chapter 1

Alex made her way to the door with halting hoofsteps. Less than twenty feet, but a monumental distance in her current state. If I burn my cookies because of this...

Alex had never imagined she would ever have to know the difficulty and physical strain of pregnancy. She knew it now, had known it for almost eleven months. Never again, Oliver. You're lucky I don't stab you right in the— She opened the door with her mouth, swinging it outward.

Three ponies waited outside—one who should've known better than to visit her now, and the other two she didn't recognize. Riley and an earth pony stallion stood on her porch. Behind them was a rough wooden wagon, the sort many refugees made for themselves to transport their stuff by hoof long distance. Much of the supplies of travel were still inside, which explained why the earth pony smelled so awful. Yet there was also a changeling in back, a changeling bound by ropes so tightly they'd gouged deep in its black chitin.

"Riley," she said, forcing a smile. The queen was taller than Alex now, her body grown into terrifying changeling maturity. Like the ideal healthy mare, but stretched and exaggerated still further, thinner than would be healthy for a pony. "I, uh... I'm not in the best shape to deal with..."

"I know!" she said, her voice a mixture of frustration and fear. "I'm so sorry we came. I know your husband will be furious. But I didn't know what to do, and he insisted you were the pony to see."

"I'm a bit compromised at the moment," Alex said, turning slightly to expose her swollen belly more clearly. Not like they wouldn't already be able to see it. "I've been on administrative leave from the mayor's office. Joseph's office is—"

She didn't finish, because at that moment the pony interrupted her. This wasn't the first time this had happened—the more pregnant she got, the less energy she had for anything else. Even the magic of the earth could help her only so much. If someone wanted to stop her from doing anything, they would probably succeed. Just a little bit longer, kid. Then I get my body back.

"Forgive me." The pony removed a wide-brimmed hat, lowering his head respectfully. The reason he smelled so sweaty and awful was pretty obvious—he wore a pair of dark trousers and a tee shirt, both of which only sort of fit him. He also had thick boots on, construction style with steel toes. "My name is Hiram, Hiram Young." He pointed back at the cart. "My friend here is Alvin. He's, uh... well, I'll get right to the point. He's broken."

She leaned a little to one side, looking out at the cart. The changeling looked like it was struggling even now, fighting against her bonds. "Wait," she looked back to Riley. "You couldn't help her? Use that... mind thing you do?"

Riley shook her head. "I tried, Alex. But he isn't a drone. At least... I don't think he is. He's fighting me. I'm not strong enough to force him."

"Him," she repeated. Alex took a deep breath, drawing on the strength of earth to keep herself standing. She should probably be back in bed. "That's a... you found a male? So they do exist!"

"I didn't find him," Hiram said. "We were coworkers. Driving around, when..." He waved one hoof, replacing his hat. "He was alright at first. He built the radio, said we should come down and find you guys. But he got worse. The longer we traveled, the less... rational... he became."

"I'm sorry," Riley said again. "I know this doesn't have anything to do with you. You can go back to resting. I'll probably be able to keep him alive, if nothing else. We're only here because this man insisted on disturbing you."

Alex was tempted to take Riley up on her offer to make this go away and get back to bed. Her body felt like it might explode on any given day. Any given moment, really. Oliver made her carry a radio at all times, and wanted her sleeping at the hospital until she delivered. But she'd refused, for this exact reason. "Why?" she asked. "What made you think I would be able to help? I'm not a changeling. I'm not a doctor. My husband, now... he knows what he's doing. I could give you directions to the hospital."

"No!" Hiram exclaimed, so loudly that Riley turned to glare at him. "Sorry, no. I don't think that's what he needs. I'm supposed to talk to you."

"Supposed to?" She raised an eyebrow. "I don't know who told you that, but... I've got cookies in the oven, and they're about to burn. How about we talk inside?"

As she turned away, Huan darted out through the door towards the stranger. "D-don't worry about the barking, he—" He wasn't barking. "Oh. Huan, come on back. We can talk inside."

A few minutes later, and Alex had removed her cookies from the oven, just in time to stop them from burning. She resisted the urge to swallow several of the chocolate-chip cookies before they were even solid, instead returning to the living room of her RV. It was a cramped fit, particularly when the new earth pony set the changeling down on the ground in front of them. He was certainly struggling, his mouth and hooves all bound. He struggled anyway, inching his way across the room towards Riley.

"So..." she began, as she sat down in the chair across from them all. "Why did you come here, Hiram? Did Joseph refuse to help when you asked? Because if that's what it is..."

"No," Hiram had removed his hat indoors, and set it down on the couch beside him. "It just... it felt like you were the pony I was supposed to talk to. When Riley told me about you, I just knew you could help him."

Alex rolled her eyes. "You just knew it, huh? I assume Riley explained I was due any day now, and it wouldn't be a good idea to bring any new stresses into my house."

Riley's expression was all the confirmation Alex needed. But it wasn't like she would've expected any less.

"You'll help him," Hiram said again. "I know what you are, Misses Pittman. God put you here to preserve humanity—well, you've got a human who's losing his right in front of you."

"God put me—" she began, indignant. But she stopped herself, taking a deep breath. She was not going to get riled up pointing out the factual errors. Oliver had been quite clear in his insistence she avoid all sources of stress. This certainly qualified. "I'll look," she said. "But I don't have magic. I'm an earth pony, just like you. I don't know what you expect me to do."

"Your best," he said.

Alex rolled her eyes, rising again and advancing on the fallen changeling. He was not in good shape—the bindings were tight enough and old enough that they'd worn away at his armor, and what passed for changeling blood oozed out from within. He looked like Riley had on that first night, withered with hunger. Riley hadn't been driven mad by her hunger, but the same couldn't be said for him. He looked a little like Riley, but there were some differences. He had no growth on his head, and no mane and tail like hers. There were fins down his back instead, and slightly bulkier armor.

"Alvin," she said, her voice clear. "That's your name, isn't it?"

The changeling male stopped struggling, twisting around to fix its faceted eyes on her. Archive swallowed her disgust, trying to see through the body in front of her to the person this pony had been. "Nice to meet you, Alvin. I'm Alex. Our names both start with the same letter, isn't that neat?"

It was harder to read emotions through eyes so different from her own. But she kept staring, until she could feel the poor pony's fear. Fear of Riley, by the way he kept struggling. He was like a cornered animal, desperate to fight past the source of the danger.

"Riley, could you go into the kitchen for a minute?" she asked. "I've got some cookies in there. I think you should try them. It's Sky's recipe."

If the changeling queen noticed what Alex was really doing, she didn't object. "Of course, Alex." She strode away down the hall, as elegant as ever.

"How could you—"

Alex cut Hiram off with an angry glare, raising one hoof in a silencing gesture. She took another step towards the bound changeling. "You're in Alexandria now, Alvin. We're trying to rebuild. I think maybe we could use your help."

Oliver would not be happy when he heard about this, assuming he ever learned the details. Alex would have to hope he wouldn't. She leaned in close, grabbing the ropes around the pony's mouth and tearing through them like they were made of paper.

Hiram gasped, reaching out towards her with one hoof, but nothing happened. The changeling didn't snap at her with his sharp teeth, only coughed and hacked and dropped the rope onto the ground in front of him.

"There, is that better?" She retreated out of reach, though not fast enough that it would look like she was running. "I'm sorry about the other ropes, but I don't know if you'll run. Can you understand me?"

Alvin didn't react one way or another, just kept staring up at her. At least he didn't seem afraid anymore.

"Well, I've got something for you," she said. "I just baked them. Just one of those cravings, you know?" She looked down at her belly, then blushed. "Well, maybe you don't. Wish I didn't either... but maybe you'll want one. I know you changelings aren't big on pony food, but... you look pretty hungry. I'll be right back." She rose, turning back to the kitchen, and began to make her struggling way there. At least I still have earth magic. The trailer wasn't thick enough to keep her away, though she didn't have the same kind of magic she would've had right in the dirt.

But the Equestrian medical books had been quite explicit about the need for her not to be on the ground all the time. An earth pony mare who did that might keep herself from delivering when she should and making the delivery more difficult. She couldn’t just live out in a field and let the magic keep her comfortable, much as she wanted to. It's only a few more weeks at most. Then I'm free.

Alex stepped into the kitchen, and found Riley hiding on the other side of the wall, looking distressed. She hadn't touched the cookies, of course, and just pawed at the ground, shivering a little and wiping a tear away from her face. From the other room, the changeling finally spoke. Well, not spoke exactly. It sounded like a mewling cat, terrified and pathetic.

"I shouldn't need you," she said. "He's a changeling, I'm a queen. I should... I feel like I can do this."

"You're young," Alex whispered back, touching to her affectionately. "And you're a changeling. I can feed him, you can't."

"So could his friend," Riley pointed out. "How did he starve with a friend nearby?"

Alex shrugged. "Ponies have instincts. It isn't enough to act nice if deep inside you're afraid. We learned that, remember?"

Riley only shrugged, looking away as Alex went for her tray. She lifted the chocolate chip cookies gingerly, using the oven mitt in her mouth to avoid burning herself. She could still feel the heat radiating from it. But she had years of practice with her mouth now. Even unbalanced and bloated, she didn't fall.

Alvin stopped whining as she approached, watching her with interest but ignoring the food. She set the tray down right next to him, close enough that he could lash out and bite her if he wanted. But Alex didn't feel afraid—if she had, this wouldn't have worked. "Here," she said, lifting one of the cookies in her mouth and holding it out to him. "Moclate mipp. My favorite."

The changeling opened his mouth, and took the treat. Only when he had it did Alex pull away.
Alvin chewed, then swallowed. His expression changed quickly, shifting through so many different emotions Alex wasn't even sure she could name them. He rolled to the side, spitting up all over her carpet. "T-that... was the worst... cookie... You used applesauce instead of eggs, didn't you?"

"I did." Archive smiled down at him, reaching one hoof down to where the bindings on his forelegs were tied, and tearing through them. "You're done with chains, Alvin. Forever." The rest of the ropes came off just as easily, thanks to a little more earth pony magic.

"I knew it would be you," Hiram said, rising to his hooves and staring down at his friend. "You still in there, Alvin?"

The changeling rose only with great difficulty, shaking on his limbs. Hiram rushed to support him, though Alex could catch a trace of the disgust she knew many ponies felt towards changelings. Enough to make him useless as food.

"Y-yeah," the changeling squeaked, returning his friend's embrace only with great difficulty. "I'm not... dunno if I'll stick with that name, though. I've had a long time to think." He looked down at her tray, then kicked it over with one hoof. Half-dried cookies went everywhere. "I'm doing you a favor," he said. "Nobody should eat those."

Riley came back around the corner, staring openly at them. She made it to within a few feet, one of her wings lifting slightly. "I, uh... I'm sorry... sorry I scared you earlier," she said.

The changeling turned to face her, and their eyes met. There was silence in the trailer for several seconds. Hiram was the one to interrupt it, clearing his throat loudly. "Well, we should get going, Alvin. Misses Archive has..." he trailed off as he turned to her, staring at a patch of ground behind her. "I didn't know horses did that."

Alex winced, twisting her head around to see. She hadn't noticed before, but now that the stress of the situation was over, she could feel the moisture coating her back legs and tail, and pooling on the ground behind her. That little break in her concentration was enough for her to stop pulling in magic, and stop dulling the pain. She felt the contraction come like a sled of bricks, making her knees buckle and her eyes roll back into her head.

Riley caught her with some magic, holding her carefully in the air until the painful moment passed.

Alex struggled with one hoof, pointing to where the radio rested on her couch. "C-call... Oliver," she squeaked. "He'll send a car."

Things were a blur after that. Alex's perfect memory was only as good as her senses, and her senses were an absolute mess. She knew pain in many different ways, pain her little body wasn't meant to contain. The magic of earth offered no solace to her.

Birth was always a process of blood, but for her that process was particularly bloody. Her body was so young, so small, she wasn't ready. She died, in the end.

But she got better.

Author's Note

Here's the first of two parts of the commemorative 2AE update for Founders. I doubt there will ever be more like these, but I wanted to do something special for the occasion, maybe visit some of the things that happened here that didn't get a chance to appear on-screen. See my blog entry for more information.

Part 1 (Adrian) - Chapter 1

Adrian hadn’t had this much fun since the Event. This said a great deal, since Adrian was a pony whose whole life was a never-ending search for adventure. He couldn’t sit still for more than a few minutes before his hooves started to tap and his wings started twitching, and he knew he had to get out and do something.

Behind the wheel of a huge truck, hauling a freakin’ house behind him, Adrian could feel like he was doing something. Metal groaned every time he turned or hit a bump; inside, possessions fell over and wood splintered, and the engine of his truck growled in almost animal protest.

Of course, the fact he had a cute mare along for the ride didn’t hurt, neither did the fact that Cloudy Skies was always naked. Adrian couldn’t exactly say at what point over the last three months he had started noticing ponies the way he had noticed women. Pretty early, probably. When in Rome…

But Adrian wasn’t in Rome, he was in Paris. Paris, Illinois. Or, as they had voted to rename it, Alexandria. He was also the only pony in town besides Alex who really knew how to drive a semi, even converted for pony use.

“I’ve never driven like this before!” Cloudy Skies perched in the passenger’s seat with her head out the open window. There was no padding there like had been put in place on the driver’s seat, so she had to practically stand to reach the window, resting her hooves outside and watching the empty town pass by.

Adrian had to keep his eyes on the road, so he couldn’t actually watch her. It would’ve been distracting if he tried. Towing such an enormous weight was not an easy task, even if he didn’t really take danger seriously. “That’s ‘cuz you haven’t rode with me before!” he shouted over the wind and the thumping music and the roar of the engine. “It’s always like this!”

She didn’t respond for some time, tail swishing behind her like an excited dog. There were plenty of dogs in the world bigger than a fully-grown pony, and lots of other animals besides. Not being human anymore did not make life easy. Still, she spoke eventually. “My dad drove a truck when I was a kid. He'd never let me ride with him, though. I wonder if he had this much fun.” She turned, sliding back into the cab and curling up in her seat. Neither of them were wearing seatbelts.

“Probably not.” Of all Adrian’s virtues, humility was nowhere to be found. “Hauling half a house, littering crap all over the road behind us, helping to build a new town… nobody could’ve said that before the Event.” He reached over, twisting a knob and lowering the volume with his hoof. He had to stretch to reach, even with the feet of padding that held him close enough to actually reach the wheel. The pedals were far too low, but levers mounted just below the wheel operated those. The shifter had been extended nearly two feet, and together the hideous contraption could be driven even in a handless world.

“Before, Sky, everybody was just another wheel. Not now. Now everybody matters. All of us can do something important if we want to.”

“Yeah.” Cloudy Skies seemed to deflate a little, avoiding his eyes. The fact his words had been meant to encourage didn't mean they actually would.

Which was the problem with this mare in the first place. Right age? Yeah. Attractive? Absolutely. Was even a pegasus, the only other pegasus in Alexandria. There was just one problem: she was completely insane.

He’d heard that said of many women before, though he’d never bought into the stereotype himself. Sky, though, she made them all true.

Adrian could do many things, but actually comfort the mare wasn’t one of them. Whenever he said something that set her off, his only recourse was to misdirect and divert the conversation to something he did understand. “How many more of these trailers do we have to move?” he asked, conversationally.

“Oh! Uh…” The pink-and-blue mare perked up at once, reaching for the clipboard in front of her with its map. “This is the last one for today! Day has us moving four trailers tomorrow, and… then we’re done!”

“Great.” Adrian… wasn’t much of a conversationalist. His bad wing continued to ache, despite the pills he’d taken that morning. No way those weren’t working less and less well every day. He’d probably have to upgrade to something stronger soon. He resisted the urge to scratch it, though. Sky would see, and ask questions, and make the drive even more awkward than it was.

Adrian tried to make the bandages out like another part of fashion he wore, like the pants and jacket in their black. Really, he thought they went well with the gray of his coat. Of all the ponies here, most left him alone about it. Cloudy Skies was one of the ones who didn’t. The other, Oliver, was even more annoying. No, he didn’t want to let anypony look at it. Yes, he was fine.

There hadn’t been a junkyard in Paris before the Event. That had changed now. Without anybody to tell them different, they’d chosen a field just north of town. Anything made of metal (including old trailers) they didn’t need would end up in the junkyard. Why did everypony want to repurpose a trailer park to live in when they had a whole town full of houses to live in? Adrian neither knew nor cared.

He stopped the trailer with some careful pressure, using one hoof on two of the levers and grinning slyly at the pegasus beside him. “Ready?”

Cloudy Skies answered by flying right out the open window. Okay, flying might not have been the right word. Despite all her flapping, she could only manage a glide after her initial jump. She could fly only after a good running start.

Adrian had to bite back the tiniest flash of envy as he had to use his hooves and the steps to make it outside. He couldn’t fly. He probably never would. It’s your own dumb fault. Live with your mistakes!

Nevermind that every time he looked up at the sky, he felt a terrible longing he couldn’t explain. Whenever the other pegasus told him about what she’d accomplished that day, he had to smile and pretend it didn’t hurt to hear.

It was either that or take to the road again, and break one of his rules.

#4. Leave every settlement with a phone.

Couldn’t leave Alexandria until it was situated, even if sticking around was sometimes boring and sometimes sucked. Fortunately, now was neither of those.

Cloudy Skies made her way to the edge of the junkyard. It was a fairly disorderly mess, with the nearer trailers fallen on their sides, broken glass and straining metal everywhere. “Don’t even think about it, Adrian. You can’t do it.”

“Oh yeah? I totally will! If Oliver and Alex can push over a trailer, I can!”

Cloudy Skies walked up to him, looking up at the hitch. It hadn’t come undone and dragged the trailer by the chains this time! “Olive Garden and Lonely Day are earth ponies. They’ve got magical strength. You’re a pegasus.” She nudged him with her side, right in the wing. Thank God it was the good wing, or else he’d have to bite his tongue not to scream. “You should go flying with me, not try to push over the junk.”

Junk it was; half a mobile home, divided in the middle. Junk was everywhere inside, from where it had been the moment everypony vanished. As everywhere else in the world, the people had vanished right in the middle of their lives. Food had been left half-eaten, beds had been left without occupants. The owners of this particular trailer hadn’t treated it kindly, and opening it had released a fairly unpleasant smell. Or maybe that was the intensity of his new pony nose combined with three months of time for things to rot?

Adrian didn’t respond to what Sky had said. Instead he said, “Wanna help me with the hitch?”

“Sure.” Life was harder for ponies; giving up hands had been far more difficult than giving up meat or losing half his height. Driving had taken days to figure out, but life continued to throw little roadblocks in his way. Even something as simple as lifting a trailer out of the hitch required dexterity difficult for hooves. The hitch rattled, and it would shake its way free of his grip unless he had a way of holding it still while he cranked it. Two human hands would’ve been perfect for the task, but those were in very short supply these days.

Without hands, Adrian could use his mouth on the crank. Fortunately, he had a friend. Everything was easier for ponies when friends were involved. Cloudy Skies held the trailer with two of her hooves, which freed Adrian to use his mouth to lower it down onto the ground. It hurt a little to put so much pressure on his teeth, but not as much as it would’ve if he had been human. Pony teeth were tough.

Adrian pulled the truck forward, so it would be out of harm’s way if any of his tipping techniques worked. Cloudy Skies fluttered up to another trailer they’d brought a few hours earlier, perching there as she watched. “This one looks heavier than last time!” she called. “Not a chance!”

He ignored her, moving to the center and trying to get the best leverage he could. It shouldn’t be that hard to push a trailer! It wasn’t as though he had to move all its weight.

Unfortunately, the laws of physics just weren’t on his side, and neither was Equestrian magic. Damn pegasi probably weighed half as much as unicorns, despite being the same size. He just didn’t have the mass, or the height. Maybe if he could’ve flown, and pushed from the top… no. Not even Cloudy Skies could hover like that, and she was much better than he was. Not the best flier he’d seen, but definitely on the list.

When he’d pushed hard enough to get himself panting and sweaty and reduced Sky to several fits of giggles, he eventually admitted he wasn’t going to do anything but embarrass himself and shrugged. “Alright, pony, you were right! I can’t do it. You can stop laughing.”

She did, gathering herself up and leaping off the edge of the trailer. She spread her wings, gliding elegantly down to land beside him as though her body were made of clouds and not flesh. He could’ve been that graceful, if he hadn’t been so stupid. “Okay, okay. You tried really hard. Even if you couldn’t knock it over.” She blushed and turned away, hopping back up into the truck. He followed with a sigh.

Mares.

“You want me to drop you by the pasture?” he asked, after hopping up into the seat and tugging the door shut behind him. He didn’t bother with the seatbelt.

“Probably.” Cloudy shrugged, leaning on the armrest of her seat and looking at nothing.

He didn’t respond until after the engine was running and he was pulling out and away from the makeshift junkyard. “It’s on the way back, anyway. I know you like to spend time with the cows.”

“Yeah.” She hopped up onto her haunches, her head on the soft fabric of the seat. “I probably should. They get angsty if I’m not around more than once a day.”

He glanced sideways, raising his eyebrows. “Cows feel angst?”

That got her animated. “Oh, absolutely. I’m pretty sure they could already get grumpy before the Event, but now…” She rolled her eyes, leaning closer to Adrian as she spoke. “You wouldn’t believe how difficult they can be sometimes. The grass is too damp today, there’s not enough shade, the water isn’t fresh enough… I get that magic kills humans, but it made all the cows difficult.” She shrugged. “Helpful though. Much cleverer. They help me with the heavy lifting sometimes, as much as they can.” She smiled. “They aren’t oxen, but they don’t mind helping.”

He tried to think of something to say on such an incredibly dull subject. It was hard to concentrate with her smiling face only a few inches away, ears pointed right at him. “Do you… think they’ll help us full time when the fuel goes? Make them into oxen plowing the fields and stuff?”

Sky wrinkled her nose in disgust, but at least she didn’t seem mad at him. “Make oxen? No way! Do you know how they usually turn bulls into oxen?” She leaned closer to him, whispering. “They cut the balls off.” She shivered, and for once Adrian echoed the gesture.

“O-Oh. I didn’t know that.” He’d only recently learned that oxen and cows were generally the same species, also from her. It wasn’t the sort of thing he usually thought about. “Guess they wouldn’t like that.”

“No, they wouldn’t.” She shrugged, relaxing back into her chair. “It doesn’t really make sense to have the same roles for animals we had before. Often oxen were stronger just because they hadn’t been eaten long enough to get strong, not to mention all the hard work they did. Plus, you had to train them. We wouldn’t have to train the cows anymore, just… get their cooperation.”

Cooperation, from an animal. It sounded ludicrous. But he didn’t say that, because Sky really liked her cows. If she wanted to pretend that they’d become people, he wouldn’t tell her not to. “You think they’ll want to keep living here?”

She turned, looking at him like he’d asked the most obvious question in the world. “Well, duh. Course they will. Cows were bred to live with people. They’ve been doing it for thousands and thousands of years. You think they’re gonna try and go on their own now that we’re ponies?” She shook her head vigorously. “Course not! Actually, they like us much better now; now that we don’t eat them.”

He pulled the truck alongside the pasture, which was really just a large field gone to grass with a very secure fence around it to keep out predators. Sky had built a pavilion and there was a little pond, but otherwise it was empty. As the truck got close, half a dozen or so cows that happened to be near the water all stopped what they were doing and watched. Their eyes did not look as dull as they should. Even though she’d since rolled up the window, he felt the need to whisper. “They knew about that?”

She shrugged. It was something she did a lot. “Dunno if they knew before. I told them, so they know now. It didn’t seem right to try and work together with them without being honest.” She hopped out, then looked up. “Would, uh… you wanna come? I could introduce you to the herd. I know they’re big, but they’re actually really nice!

Adrian thought about it a second, but not long. He had all of zero interest in the cows; if he was done with his work for the day, he really ought to get back to the satellite phone and see what messages he’d missed.

On the other hand, Cloudy Skies was pretty, and she wanted him to be there. Not really a fair contest. “Sure! I’d love to meet them.”

Part 1 (Adrian) - Chapter 3

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Alex called back, grinning too broadly. “Under five hours! We’re making better and better time every time we come down here!” She parked the car the same place they always did, in front of a fancy bank building that became their city headquarters whenever they visited St. Louis.

The ponies in the backseat, Adrian included, groaned loudly, and stumbled over each other to get to the outside. There were four of them in the back of the tiny sedan, and while it wasn’t nearly as cramped as it would’ve been with humans, it still wasn’t pleasant.

“Don’t wander off!” Alex hopped out, the only one without wobbly legs. Earth ponies and their magical endurance! She moved past Adrian to the trunk, popping it with a twist of her mouth and the key. It wasn’t very full: a locked rolling cooler and a single hard-plastic crate. “Joseph, could you-” The unicorn complied, levitating the box onto the sidewalk and popping it open. Six weapons waited inside, along with six custom-made tactical saddle-bags.

The creation had been Sky’s idea, and even Adrian had been impressed at the time. A fusion of saddlebags and the tactical vests worn by human militaries before the Event, the thick black fabric gave immediate access with dozens of little pockets.

“Moriah, did you check the radio batteries before we left?”

The mare glared, even as she continued shaking out her hooves. “Yes. They’re all fully charged.”

Alex nodded, though she didn’t look the least-bit intimidated by the unicorn’s anger. The stories of what Moriah’s magic had done absolutely terrified Adrian. If he was on the wrong end of a broken horn, he was damn sure he’d be finding something thick to hide behind.

“And Oliver, the guns are loaded?”

He didn’t look upset. Adrian wasn’t either, no matter if Moriah and Joseph might find this ritual boring. He’d much rather learn by the car that they weren’t prepared than right before being run down by a pack of wild animals or something. In some ways he was very like Moriah. Neither of them had much control over the magic being a pony had given them.

“Absolutely. Two full clips in each vest, one in each rifle.”

“Remember, they’re a-”

“-last resort!” everypony else supplied, loud and monotone.

Alex smiled slightly. “Glad you all remember.” She slid into her saddlebags with casual dexterity, zipping herself with a tug. Each of them followed, though the worst part by far was that all the noise was enough to activate the radios, broadcasting painful feedback from the vests. Adrian tugged his own well away from the group before slipping it on.

He had enough dexterity to get to the zipper himself these days, but he didn’t try. “Cloudy, can you…” She did, and they both smiled.

When they were all done, Lonely Day went back to being boring. “Alright everypony, let’s review. Today’s teams are Adrian and I, Joseph and Cloudy, and Moriah and Oliver. Stay within sight and sound of each other at all times.” She tossed her rifle onto her back, catching it by the strap. “What are we all doing?”

“Packing solar panels. Foam between each panel, wrap each bundle of eight. Don’t stack more than two bundles,” Cloudy recited, fighting not to sound bored. “We keep going until we run out of panels to stack.” Neither her nor Joseph had removed their guns, probably because they were going to be driving the car to the solar distributor on the other end of town. Well, Cloudy would be driving. Joseph couldn’t drive.

Alex nodded, directing her attention to Moriah and Oliver. “We’re picking out trailers or RVs. The biggest, nicest ones we can find. Then we’re looting every movie worth watching from the public library and every best buy in walking distance. After that, we’re on camping stores again.”

Moriah took a step towards the only other vehicle in the parking lot, a converted moving van they kept in town for every trip. “Can we go now?”

“Yeah.” Alex sighed, slumping a little as she dragged the cooler out of the back of the car on raw strength. It was almost pitiful to watch, except that somehow she managed not to drop it. “Go ahead. Adrian and I will convert the vehicles, as usual. Good luck, everypony. If you’re in trouble, say something. If you see evidence of ponies here, say something.”

They dispersed. Alex took the cooler, dragging it by the handle in her mouth towards the door of the bank.

“Be safe,” Cloudy whispered, hugging Adrian briefly as she passed him. It was the same hug she gave all her friends, but Adrian still thought it was nice.

“You too.”

She grinned. “I can fly, Adrian. I’ll be safe.” She flared her wings for emphasis, angling them back as though she were pulling into some aerodynamic dive. It was one of the sexiest things she’d ever done, and Adrian didn’t even know why he thought so.

He only managed a “yeah” before she hopped in the car and drove off.

Alex dumped the cooler inside before hurrying back to him, with a pair of wrapped sandwiches in her mouth. She set them down on the sidewalk, offering him one. “The others are gonna remember they’re hungry and end up eating stale chips.”

Moriah and Joseph often complained that all Alex cared about was work. Adrian knew better, though. She had fun while she worked. Besides, Cloudy Skies had made the sandwiches, and that made them amazing.

Alex lowered her voice, speaking quietly enough that the radio wouldn’t pick it up. It wasn’t hard; you had to shout or make some other noise similarly loud for the microphone to pick it up. Otherwise, they’d all go completely insane hearing snatches of each others’ conversations. “So we’ve got until 7:45 before it’s dark.” She grinned. “Wanna completely waste time for an hour? It’ll be awesome!”

Adrian made sure to keep quiet himself, raising his eyebrows in gained skepticism. “Shouldn’t we be productive or something? The others are all going to work…”

Alex laughed, and he could see her visibly fighting to keep it from being too loud. “I think we both know how much of a lie that is. Five hours of driving? They’re going to relax.” She started walking backwards, towards the huge empty street. “Nopony else will appreciate this, c’mon! I’m sick of raising pedals and putting in hoof controls. Let’s do something different first.”

“Alright.” Adrian was pretty sure Alex was the least interested in companionship of the group, so he was pretty sure she wasn’t coming onto him. Couldn’t be positive until he saw what she had in mind, though. She had been the one to set up the work assignments. Had she set things up so they could be alone?

No, as it turned out. They hadn’t been wandering for more than a few minutes before they turned the corner on the most bizarre sight he’d ever seen. An old plane, suspended over the open air in what looked like a gigantic, unnatural jungle-gym. His eyes searched for the boundaries, and he could see it went right into the building. The building looked old, like some sort of converted factory, and like every building in town there was no trace of activity.

“You’ll need your headlamp.” She tugged hers out, adjusting it on her forehead with her hooves. She had to stop walking and bend down to do it, and Adrian was only sorta tempted to look.

He didn’t, instead imitating the gesture. He was faster. It was amazing what hooves could do with a few months of practice, particularly when you had a hard surface to use as leverage. “Okay. What is this place?”

She grinned, practically bouncing up and down. “It’s like… it’s the biggest playground ever.” She raced towards the door, galloping rapidly across the concrete so much that the gun jostled on her shoulder. It didn’t actually come off, though. She stopped at the locked door, then casually turned and bucked. Wood splintered, and the lock came tearing out. “I found it when I was researching the stuff we were going to come and pick up, but I wasn’t sure if it was really safe. I figured the hardiest ponies we have ought to be the ones to explore it first. Make sure it’s okay.”

Adrian stared. He almost couldn’t believe what he was seeing, and not just because it looked awesome even from outside. “There’s a school bus hanging off the roof.” He pointed with his hoof. “How was this place even legal?”

“I know, right!” She giggled, turning and racing inside.

Adrian found himself smiling in spite of himself. Maybe he was a little old for a playground. That didn’t mean he couldn’t have a little fun. Couldn’t let a little apocalypse ruin the rest of your life!

The lobby was cavernous, a mismatch of bright colored glass and junk. He sped up to catch up with Alex, as the flickers of her headlamp vanished into the bowels of the building. It wasn’t hard, particularly since she stopped after less than ten seconds.

He did too, ears swiveling to point deeper into the building. He heard it too, a child’s voice echoing from the deepest recesses of the building.

Crying.

Part 3 (Moriah) - Chapter 4

Whenever Moriah wanted to be alone, she wouldn’t fly. She didn’t want to contaminate her favorite activity with the stains of frequent despair. No; whenever Moriah was taken with such moods, she took to the forest. Illinois had long lost its largest forests before encroaching humans and their farms. Some trees had been permitted to remain however, and some of those were by the country club. With her car parked on an empty road, Moriah could wander into the trees and expect to be left alone as long as she needed to.

Rarely was she as disturbed as she was now. What was worse, she knew she had nobody to blame but herself. Like most of what caused her to feel this way. Ever since the Event, she was often brought to wonder if it was even worth it to keep living every morning. She spent many nights reminding herself of the pleasures of life. Yet in the morning, she always woke up feeling even more disgusted with herself than before.

Only in the trees could she forget herself. As she stumbled down familiar trails, she wept openly, not worried that anyone might find her here. Nobody had ever tried to follow her on these trips. Why should they start now? She found the natural smells far more soothing than she ever had when she was human, before the Equestrian spell had taken a life she only tolerated and replaced it with one she actively loathed. There was little sympathy to be gained from the trees.

Sometimes she took a hatchet, and threw it with her mouth into the bark of a tree. It was dangerous enough that she enjoyed the thrill, sometimes wishing she would steer it wrong and cut herself somewhere fatal along the way. Sometimes she just kicked things, destroying bushes and small trees with hooves far sturdier than human hands had ever been. Sometimes, if she was feeling really daring, she would try a spell. She had set a part of the forest on fire with that one once, though it’d been small enough that she had been able to contain it. Even in her rage, she brought a fire extinguisher these days whenever she wanted to try magic for relief.

None of her usual techniques brought her relief today, though. “Of course, they wouldn’t work!” she practically shouted, banging her hooves against a tree. Nothing much happened, except the little shock of impact up her leg, making everything a little wobbly for a few moments. “Of course it’d be you!” She tried to make her next kick even louder, tried to make it bring more pain. It did, but it didn’t help. She still felt terrified.

“You knew this could happen and it didn’t stop you. You knew this could happen!” She briefly considered everything that was going to happen now, advancing rapidly through the chain of reasoning. Moriah was pregnant, she was certain of it. Not just missing one of those positively infuriating cycles of hers, though it was certainly that. Not just the nausea she had started to feel in the mornings, following her through the day and resurging in force whenever she smelled anything cooking.

No; the greatest insult of all was that the thing she had actually wanted to master, magic, had begun to cooperate with her only with her internal environment. Moriah could barely sense the so-called “thaumic field” that made all magic possible, couldn’t sense the supposed radiation that flowed from all living things and had driven her species extinct. Yet even without the prosthetic horn, it took her only a slight moment of concentration to sense the energy coming from within her own body, similar but distinct from her own.

The thing couldn’t be more than a complex ball of cells, right? How could she sense it already? There was so much she had failed to fully process, so much that became clear once she had realized what she was feeling from within herself. Thaumic radiation was a soft thing, like invisible ripples in a pond. She couldn’t see them now, but she could feel them as she moved through space. Her perceptions were woefully clumsy if what Joseph described was any guide: he could feel for dozens of meters all around, pinpoint the positions of living things and ponies in particular with his eyes closed. He could even tell when someone was emotional, though he couldn’t pinpoint what emotion they were feeling.

This last she knew only too well, which was why she came out here in the first place. Joseph knew when she was upset, and would try to comfort her with all the precision and care of a rockslide. What was worse, if she could sense the tiny life within herself, if she had been able to feel it for nearly a week now (though it had taken days to guess what it might be), she was fairly certain he would be able to feel it too.

They would be parents. Moriah felt it with all the grim certainty of someone handed a terminal medical diagnosis. There could be no fighting, no escape. In a world without medical science, even a simple surgery might kill her. Not to mention it felt pretty stupid to try and keep their population down when what they desperately needed was as many people as possible to help rebuild. Even if everyone in this first wave of immigrants stayed, even if there were others… the idea of harming the child revolted her.

Considerably more than the idea of harming herself, as paradoxical as that was. A pity insane urges didn’t follow logical rules. Why had she come out here? What did she hope to accomplish? She couldn’t answer.

Not that anybody asked. Nobody knew. If anything, learning that Alex had endured something similar was almost worse. It reflected on Moriah herself; demonstrating clearly that it was possible to endure the indignity, and to thrive in it. Alex’s success proved what a truly worthless human being Moriah was.

Not even that, anymore, whispered a voice, deep inside. She heard it, and recognized the truth at once. Her only skill and passion, flying, would soon be out of reach. Soon she would be lucky if she could get an ultralight running, with as scarce as fuel would become. She would never fly a jet again, that was certain. Her one real passion, rotting away in tanks and fuel trucks all over the world. What supreme cruelty it would be, to have thousands of little aircraft all over, but none she could fly.

Was the struggle of living really justified by the reward? Moriah considered this very seriously; it wasn’t merely an academic argument. Unfortunately, she usually just went in circles. She had thought over the same points hundreds of times, but never had they been so personal.

She was still considering them when she realized, rather abruptly, that she sensed three thaumic fields nearby, not just the two that were her internal world. Her eyes shot open and she sat up on the ground, searching for the interloper.

Had one of the colonists followed her? A complete stranger from the new colony? Or worse, someone she actually knew? No, as it turned out. They weren’t even “human.”

Her new magical sensitivity showed her where to look, and standing there was a deer. A buck, though his antlers were small and short, so he was either a juvenile or just not very healthy. Even so, the deer towered over her by what felt like at least two feet. He was larger, stronger, and probably faster too.

Fear bubbled up from that same corner of her soul that whispered dark things to her at night. Yes, her life was truly without value. Her ultimate and most prominent fear, which hadn’t even existed until the Event, was about to be a reality. Of course this was what the universe had for her, it wasn’t as though life wasn’t plenty awful enough on its own.

The deer approached, sniffing at her. She froze, as though a wasp had just landed on her nose, not daring so much as a shiver to either side for fear she would prompt retaliation.

There wasn’t any. After a few seconds of energetic sniffing, the deer retreated a pace or two, meeting her eyes.

Moriah had seen deer before, when hunting with her father. She had met their eyes in the moment before pulling the trigger, and it hadn’t slowed her hand. She hadn’t even felt bad about it, really. She was a sapient predator; they were sub-sapient prey.

Something subtle had changed about the eyes. More than that though was the overwhelming evidence coming from where her horn had been. Evidence screaming to her that this “sub-sapient prey” was far more like her than he was different.

“I-I’m sorry if I intruded.” She took a breath, trying to steady her voice. “I come here every few days. If I was imposing in your home, I didn’t mean to…”

Silence. The creature seemed to be listening closely, watching her with more insight than any dog she had seen before the Event. More even than Huan. As though he somehow knew he was hearing meaning, even if he lacked the concept of a language.

Was she communicating with the cavemen of animals? While many animals seemed clever, it seemed Moriah had discovered something not even Alex had anticipated: the spell had apparently uplifted one of Earth’s natural animal species.

“Unless… you used to be human!” She completed her own internal dialogue out loud. Who was going to complain, the deer? “You aren’t human, are you? I get that being alone probably drove you crazy…”

Silence. The buck held himself still as she spoke, watching her mouth. As she watched, he even imitated, opening and closing his own mouth. The motions were at random however, and no sound emerged but those deer normally produce.

“Guess not. If you’d been human, you’d still know how to talk. All of us do, anyway. Unless your mouth can’t make words anymore.” She felt suddenly worried; had she just found someone who had life even worse than she did? “Nod if you can understand me!”

Nothing. Not a tilt, not a gesture, the creature just stared. She sighed then, though she hadn’t relaxed. “Guess you must be like the cows. Sky talks like they’re intelligent. Well, more intelligent than cows are supposed to be. You must be like that too now.”

She walked past the deer, feeling a little braver. He made no gesture to stop her, though she was conscious without even looking that he was following her. Deer were swift creatures, far too swift for her to get away if he wanted to stay with her.

She didn’t run, in case sudden movement might trigger an end to whatever strange fugue provoked his behavior in the first place.

She kept talking all the way back to her car. He followed, silent all the while, looking (as much as any deer can) like he was taking what she had to say very seriously. She went back to her previous line of reasoning, with all her worry about what a terrible parent she was, how she had no desire to pass on her genes. The buck listened, listened the way a good dog would listen, though he made no reply.

Eventually she reached the edge of the wood, where trees faded into a winding country road. She walked over to her car and found he would follow no more. He watched as she climbed up inside, and continued to watch as she started the car and switched on her radio again.

Joseph’s panicked voice came to her over the radio. “-iah! Moriah, say something!”

She reached down, depressing the transmit button with the edge of one hoof. “I’m here. What is it?”

“Thank god!” She could feel the relief in his voice like a physical weight. “We’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour, Moriah!”

“What is it?” She looked to the horizon, but didn’t see any smoke coming from the direction of town proper (or any other direction, for that matter). She left the radio in her lap, driving past the watching deer into a loop that would take her back to Alexandria.

Alex’s voice came in over the radio. “Moriah, something happened in Philadelphia. HPI noticed it during their most recent satellite scan; apparently its the strongest thaumic field they ever measured. It’s fading. We have to get there. We need you to fly us there immediately.”

Moriah’s knee slammed into the break-knob hanging from the wheel, and she nearly skidded off the road. She coughed several times. “You want me to fly somebody to Philadelphia?”

“Four of us, actually. You, me, Joseph, and Oliver. Satellite shows signs of ponies living there recently. Apparently there was some kind of explosion, and some stuff is still on fire. There could be injured in the city somewhere.”

She started driving again, cautiously. “It won’t be very fast, Alex. The learjet is still parked in Indianapolis. That’s hours to drive, more hours to test the fuel and run our pre-flight checks, hoping to God I can manage the weather-”

“Too slow. At the rate the thaumic field is fading, it might be gone in six hours. Any hope we have of getting Joseph there and identifying it depends on getting there before then. Not to mention anypony who might be injured! We’re going to take the Hummingbird. We’re already waiting there, and you remember where I parked it. I need you to drive out and meet us here. No time to grab supplies!”

“Alex…” She took a deep breath, trying not to sound patronizing. Then she realized the effort was futile, and tried to sound as patronizing as possible. “We’ve had the Hummingbird for three days. I’ve spent a few hours playing with its simulator. Asking me to fly it now is beyond suicide. I’m not even convinced a pony could fly it without hands for all those controls. If you want to die, a fuel-bomb would be much easier.”

Alex wasn’t amused. “They’re going to fly it remotely, Moriah! You’re only there in case there’s some kind of emergency, but we still need you!”

“Please Moriah.” Joseph’s voice again. “Ponies could be hurt. Adrian said there is a big group in Philadelphia, maybe bigger than ours. They might need our help.”

Alex wasn’t enough to convince her. Alex she would’ve happily told to shove it. Not Joseph, though. “It’s certain death if I ever have to fly it,” she said. “But there’s no way I’d let you take anything that beautiful without me. Give me ten.”