By Any Means Necessary

Twilight Sparkle groaned, hauling herself up over the rocky ledge as she and her friends ascended the first of several mountains that made for a natural border between Equestria and Altai, the kingdom of the griffins. She paused to catch her breath before extending a scuffed hoof to Pinkie and helping her up. While the pink mare’s constant diet of sweets had given her seemingly endless energy at home, it had done her no favors where hard physical activity was concerned. Heavy, rolling breaths escaped through Pinkie’s smile as the group scrambled up the mountain range’s many steep inclines and precipices.

The trek through the foothills had been quite pleasant, like a Sunday morning stroll with all six friends chatting and laughing. As the foothills grew steeper and the group left the comfortable green grass behind, the chatter had died down. Rarity, however, still had enough energy to complain about the condition of her hooves and the metallic taste of the mountain air. If she ever fell quiet, then the group would know for certain that it was time for a rest.

While Twilight did not share her friend’s penchant for complaining, her desire to punch whoever had the gall to name this jagged border between tectonic plates the Amity Mountains grew with every step. Of all the things to name this treacherous series of peaks and sheer cliffs…

“Remind me again... why can't we just fly there, Twilight?” Rainbow groused, stretching her unused wings.

“Rainbow, you already know the answer to that: we all have to stick together and less than half of us can fly. Not to mention our explicit instructions to 'keep a low profile.' Why even ask?”

“Well of course I know that in my head, but my wings don’t want to accept that I’ll be walking for the next few days.” Rainbow fell into step beside Twilight, making a great show of how heavy each of her legs were to lift.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “You don’t have brains in your wings.”

“You know what I mean. They’re already starting to cramp up. And it’s not like we can’t still stick together; Hell, you could just teleport us across all this and we could skip this stupid climbing.” Rainbow nudged a small rock to punctuate her statement, sending it tumbling down the mountainside.

“I can’t teleport anywhere I don’t already know well. Putting the fact that teleporting all six of us across an entire mountain range would totally exhaust me aside, if I don’t know the landscape we’ll be arriving at, we could all easily end up teleporting inside a boulder. Have you ever seen what happens when a unicorn tries to teleport into a space where something already is?”

“No. I went to flight school, not egghead school,” Dash said with a smirk. No matter what was going on, it was fun to get a rise out of Twilight.

Twilight, however, didn’t take the bait. “Two separate objects can’t exist in the same space at once, so the universe tries to reconcile this contradiction by fusing their atoms together. You get a nightmare of half rock, half flesh. No one’s done a full study, but I’d like to think they’re dead before they can realize what’s happened to them.”

“Awesome…” Rainbow Dash whispered, causing Rarity to groan.

“Awesome? Rainbow Dash, that’s gross.”

“What? Gross is awesome. It’s edgy and stuff. And besides, if you gotta go someday, might as well turn into a wicked terror-fossil.”

“No. On the contrary, it sounds absolutely horrible.” Rarity turned up her nose.

“Oh really? Then how would you rather go?”

“Honestly, I haven’t put too much thought into it, but since you ask… I suppose I’d like to be laying in an empress-size bed with silk sheets, with my husband and children by my side, my husband holding my hoof and telling me how much he loves me, then tenderly singing our favorite song so I leave filled with thoughts of when he and I first fell in love.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. Haven’t put too much thought into it, my hindquarters. I bet she’s already made a list of preferred songs for her funeral.

“Boooring,” Dash said as she wiped the sweat from her brow.

Rarity was just about to reply when Fluttershy, who’d spent the journey in contemplative silence, spoke up. “Um… could we please not talk about dying? I don’t like it…”

At the front of the group, Applejack scrambled up another cliff several body-heights tall before turning around to offer a strong hoof to help her friends up. “I’m with Fluttershy on this one. We gotta concentrate on getting ‘cross these mountains safely, and I’d really rather not be thinkin’ about how one misstep would send us tumblin’ down twenty hundred feet.”

Fluttershy whimpered. Rainbow looked back over her shoulder and slowed down to walk side by side with her first and oldest friend. “Aw, Fluttershy, there’s nothing to worry about. We’ve got this climb in the bag. We were just having a bit of fun.”

Fluttershy shook her head and ruffled her wings. “N-no. Talking about dying’s not fun… it’s scary. No matter what you do, it’s going to come for you eventually, and after that… I don’t know, and that’s what’s even worse.”

Rainbow cocked her head as she tried to think about it. When it proved to be too hard, she did what she always did: bugged Twilight. “Hey, Twilight? You’re the egghead. What happens after you die?”

“Rainbow, we are so not getting into those kinds of questions right now,” Twilight grunted, rubbing her temples with her forehooves.

“Oh! Pick me! I know what’ll happen!” Pinkie chirped, waving a hoof frantically in the air.

Just great… Fluttershy thought, keeping her eyes on the ground. I try to ask them not to talk about dying and end up making them talk about it even more. Me and my big mouth…

“What, Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash asked, her ears pricking up.

“I’m gonna donate my body to mad science!” Pinkie grinned. “Deep in a secret laboratory beneath Canterlot, intrepid scientists bold enough to go beyond the limits of conventional ethics shall create… Robo-Pinkie! Jet-powered baker, gospel singer, and terror of the high seas!”

Silence reigned for nearly a minute as everyone tried to process how any of those things fit together. “Um, Pinkie…” Twilight said eventually, “there are literally a million questions I could ask you about that statement, but what does gospel singing have to do with the high seas?”

Pinkie giggled. “Duh, silly! Wade in the Water is about walking the plank!” Everyone else turned and stared blankly at her. “Um… isn’t it?”

“Pinkie… no. Just… no. Wade in the Water is about the Zebrican slaves crossing the Red River during their exodus from… you know what? Forget it. It’s a long story and I know your attention span well enough to know it’s not going to sink in.”

“Aww, but I like stories. Especially long ones, but only when I have popcorn. And I don’t think I have any now, so I guess you’re right, Twilight.”

“Yeah, maybe sometime when we’re not crossing treacherous mountains.”

Throughout the conversation, Fluttershy stayed at the back of the pack, keeping her head down and trying to think about happier subjects. Applejack was focused on plotting the best route to take around each obstacle, Rarity with the ways she was going to fix the damage done to her mane and coat by the journey when they stopped to camp for the night, and Twilight and Pinkie with their chatter about death, robotics, and gospel singing. Trying to keep herself from staring at the many razor peaks surrounding them, Rainbow noticed her friend’s reticence and draped a protective wing over her.

“Hey, it’s going to be all right, Fluttershy. We may not even have any reason to worry; maybe we’ll get to Altai and everything will be fine,” she said, guessing at what was troubling her friend.

Fluttershy couldn’t put a hoof on what it was that was bothering her - a vague sense of unease, the brief cresting of some troublesome serpent among the rolling waves. Unable to articulate this, she simply said “Thank you, Rainbow… I don’t know what I’d do without you around.”

“Natch.” Rainbow Dash smiled. “That’s what friends are for.”

“Hey, y’all!” Applejack called down at the pair of pegasi, who had fallen behind their friends. “Come on up; we’ve reached a plateau and are gonna camp for the night.”

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy looked up as one. Neither had noticed the sun beginning to set on their group of friends, and the sky had shifted from cheerful blue to a shimmering burnt orange.

_

Twilight rubbed the soreness from her shoulder as she stared at the small fire they’d built in the middle of their circle of sleeping bags. The original plan was strictly “no fire,” as it could be seen easily from above and give their position away. However, the height of the mountains meant they were exposed to the harshness of the high winds, so after some debate they had compromised on a small fire with a canopy above to hide it from aerial view.

With a frown, Twilight watched as the flames wavered and danced. They reminded her of Celestia’s eyes when she set them on their mission. The mixture of fear, impotent self-loathing, and anger hidden behind a calm motherly mask.

The princess paced restlessly as she thought about how to begin. The six bearers of the Elements of Harmony shuffled their hooves and cleared their throats. Celestia knew all of the facts of what had transpired last night and had sent the missive out to each of them promptly, but now that they stood before her, words failed her. Taking a deep breath, she began.

“I do not wish to alarm you, but this is a matter of the gravest importance. Currently, no one in Equestria save for Luna and myself knows what I am about to tell you. I apologize for not explaining anything to you in my letter, but once you are made aware of the situation at hoof, I hope you will understand the need for secrecy.”

The six summoned ponies looked nervously at one another, wondering what could have happened. Celestia’s letters had only said that their presence was needed in Canterlot immediately, so they forewent the train and had Twilight teleport them to the palace at once. Twilight was still dizzy from the affair, and was leaning against Rainbow Dash for support.

“Last night,” Celestia said solemnly, “Discord disappeared from the palace.”

There was a collective intake of breath and all six began to speak at once, but Celestia silenced them with a raised hoof.

“This may not mean anything dire; in truth, I hope that it does not. It’s entirely likely that he may simply be toying with us for a laugh. However, despite hoping for the best, we must also prepare for the worst. Luna told me that she thought she saw something passing over the border into the Altai, the griffin kingdom, though she couldn’t be certain. I believe this thing she saw must have been Discord, and I shudder to think of what he may be up to there.

“Again, this could simply be a trick of his. He did promise that he was reformed, and could well be hiding nearby and laughing as we panic, but I will not gamble the safety of Equestria’s citizens on optimism. What I ask of you six is simple: travel to the Altai and investigate whether there is truly any cause for concern. As a safety precaution, you will carry the Elements of Harmony with you. You will also have to cross over the border between our kingdoms in secret. I’m sorry for the trouble, but if Discord is truly working his dark magics in the griffins' homeland, there’s no telling what effect he could already have had on the populace. You may not be met with a… warm reception…”

Spike had no small amount of complaints about being left in Ponyville to stay at Sweet Apple Acres: He was her Number One Assistant, he’d proven himself during the dragon migration, Twilight needed someone to talk some sense into her when she worried too much, and so on. In the end, though, Twilight’s authority won out and he agreed to stay behind, though she could see in his eyes that he did not agree with her decision.

“I’m sorry, Spike. I really am,” Twilight whispered to the dancing flames, “but if I let you come with us and something were to happen to you, I could never forgive myself…”

_

Twilight could not be sure when she had fallen asleep by the fire, but she was roused from slumber by a cacophony on all sides.

“Hey, lemme go!”

“You beasts!”

“Y’all are gonna regret this!”

“P-please!”

Whipping her head around, Twilight saw a group of at least twenty griffins in rough leather armor, ragged red cloth masks obscuring their faces save for their eyes.

“W-what’s going on?!” she cried. “Who are y-”

A sharp jolt of pain at the back of her skull was her only answer.

The scene grew fuzzy before her, then dark. She could hear the harsh, indistinct barking of orders between their assailants. Then, sound too began to fade. As Twilight fell into the cold blackness, all she found herself able to think about was that old slave song Pinkie had mentioned.

Wade in the water.
Wade in the water, children. Wade in the water.
God’s a-gonna trouble the water.