“… and I think that’s it.”

With a huff of relief, Spike dropped the quill and spun his wrist. Any claw cramps he’d ever had before were nothing compared to this… but then again, they had never scoured a literal thousand-page book, line per line, with this magnitude of attention before. It was an incredibly detailed analysis, even by Twilight's standards.

Twilight gently took the bundle of sheets from the desk with her lips and walked over to where her mentor sat, still fiddling with the practice set. Celestia had her brow furrowed and her eyes closed, beads of sweat rolling down her forehead. Shakily, one block floated to the air, enveloped in an uneven yellow coat of light. The aura around the object quivered and spiked, as if demanding release.

The younger pony wasn’t an expert in sensing, but even she could perceive how unstable the Princess’ magic was acting, much like her own, but on a far greater scale. It was scary, actually – during her entire upbringing as her student, the unicorn had never seen a single unintentional fluctuation in Celestia’s power. To see her role model having problems with controlling a simple levitation spell made her uncomfortable in a way she could not describe.

The block dropped lifelessly to the ground, and Celestia opened her eyes. Her gaze fell on the purple pony in front of her. “Can you feel it, Twilight?”

Said pony broke out of her own musings, blinking. “Hm?”

“I asked: can you feel it? Our magic – yes, ‘our’, I saw you are showing the same symptoms – is not only boosted, but it has gained an offensive trait; an edge, so to speak.” The alicorn stood up, her hair whipping considerably more fiercely than usual, and ran a fetlock over her damp face. “I can’t keep it balanced long enough to perform even a menial levitation spell.”

After setting the papers down on the table, the apprentice tapped a hoof to her chin. “Yes, I noticed it too… It doesn’t feel bad per se, but it’s like every spell I attempt is altered to hurt somepony in one way or another.” A moment of silence passed. “Maybe your book has something that explains it?”

Celestia shook her head. “I don’t believe it is a good idea for us to lay eyes over those pages again, my dear. Our magic may flare again, and…”

The words were left hanging. There was no need to finish the sentence; its ominous point had already been made.

Another moment of silence stretched on and on, with neither pony knowing how to break the ice that had formed both between each other and in the pits of their stomachs. Uncomfortable, Celestia silently collected the recently written resume, while Twilight turned to look for Spike. Once again, the dragon was sitting, admiring the pool of mana on the library’s floor with a peaceful, almost hypnotized expression. “Spike?”

With a jolt, her assistant was on his feet once more. “Oh, yeah? What now?”

“Nothing, I’m just wondering why you’re always so fixated by this pool. It’s just mana.”

“I don’t know either,” he shrugged. “It just makes me feel calm. Maybe it’s the swirling…”

“Swirling?” Twilight squinted a little in concentration, and saw that indeed the mana whirled, very slowly, but it did. There were colors as well, very faint wisps of pink, green and purple light that a cursory glance wouldn’t catch. But there was more to it than just a magical lightshow, especially inside its eye. There was…

“I wonder what it is that you find so interesting in this.”

Celestia’s tone wasn’t one of disapproval – in fact, it was rather amused –, but the startled librarian still felt like crawling into a hole. Twilight chided herself; it wasn’t the time for sidetracking. “Sorry, Princess. Anyway, I’ve finished the resume you asked for.”

The alicorn nodded. “Indeed, I was browsing through it, but I presume it’s better if you explain it to me vocally. Reading it all would take time we don’t exactly have.”

She made a move to sit on one of the room’s cushions, and Twilight, already entering what was often referred to as ‘lecture mode’, followed. Once they were comfortable, the purple pony began explaining. “This is what I’ve collected: the basic mechanic of the teleportation spell is that it ‘bends’ our dimension over itself, and links two separate spots: departure and destination.”

The royal pony nodded quietly to show her attention. Both of them already knew these details, but a refresh might bring something up that might be overlooked otherwise.

“Theoretically, there is no limit for how far the spell can reach; that is only limited to the amount of mana used in the casting. And finally, there is a failsafe embedded in the pattern to ensure the safety of the caster and any load they may be transporting as well.”

“And that failsafe consists of…?”

“A scan array that ensures the target is in an environment not critically different from the point of departure, both chemically and physically. In a nutshell, it detects the closest location to the destination that has atmospheric composition and pressure included within a certain threshold, so that the subject doesn’t materialize inside of solid objects or harmful fluids, including toxic air.”

“Excellent work, Twilight Sparkle.” Said filly beamed. Praise from her tutor always made her feel good, no matter what the situation was. “This reduces our field of search in quite a bit, and ensures that wherever they were sent to is at least relatively safe, yes?”

“Yes, exactly.” She frowned. “But you said you cannot sense them with your magic as it is, Princess, and there is no way for anypony to track the transported. How can we find them, even if our search area is smaller?”

‘And so we return to the grim aspects…’ “Unfortunately, this is where we reach a bit of an impasse. I do have an idea of what could quell the fluctuations and allow me to try and sense them, but it will take some work. Firstly, I need you to gather your friends, the bearers of the Elements of Harmony.”

Twilight was taken aback at that. “The Elements?…”

A wave of a hoof quieted her. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it, my faithful student. For now, I kindly ask you to gather your friends. I will explain it when you are all assembled.”

The door led to another, darker room. It was hard to see what it actually was, with the little light there was coming from three low-power torchlights. The smell of it tortured the ponies’ nostrils, its aroma of rot, dust and rusty metal inflaming their senses.

“Listen, sweetie, I’m gonna put you down, alright?” Rochelle said to Scootaloo. “I need my two arms free to defend us.” The filly nodded shakily, and was set down onto the wooden floor. “Stick close.”

Behind her, Ellis did the same, and Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom took the opportunity to get close to their friend while the Georgian collected one of the molotovs from the counter. “Guys?” the pegasus asked.

“Y’alright, Scoots?” Apple Bloom responded. “Yer not hurt, are ya?”

“Kinda…” she confessed. Had there been more light, the angry bruises around her little body would have been clearly visible. The pain of the compression had made it hard for her to take a deep breath, and woe forbid the thought of moving her wings even a millimeter. “That thing did a number on me.”

“That smoker?” Ellis interrupted. “Yeah, those sons o’ bitches are nasty. When they get ya, only way out is to cut the tongue or kill ‘em.”

“Th-them?” the pegasus asked, her voice faltering. “You mean there’s more than one?”

“Lots more.” He grimaced. “Ah think of all the people that turned, one outta ten are smokers.”

Another bomb went off, rattling the booze bottles off the shelves. The ponies recoiled as if struck, and Ellis flinched. “Alright, that reminds me, we gotta keep movin’. C’mon.”

The Crusaders reluctantly fell in pace with the human, cantering to his walk speed. Apple Bloom mustered what little courage she could and asked, “What’s goin’ on?”

“What, ya mean the bombs?”

The child stared blankly at his back.

Before he could continue, they stepped beyond an archway into a room full of flipped chairs and overturned tables, and hushed voices made their way into their ears.

“I’m telling you people, this is a bad idea. We’re barely standing as it is, we can’t just be charitable. Hell, we don’t even know what those things are!”

Ellis stopped, paying attention to the conversation he unintentionally eavesdropped on. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle, all of which were less than distracted by the voices, looked around the new room. The place had a stage – going by the bottles strewn on the floor and lying on the counter and the deactivated light cannons, it seemed like a spot where parties took place. Seeing it dead, dark and covered in bodies and blood made for an absurdly eerie sight, and the trio moved closer to Ellis, anxious to get away from it.

“Nicolas, do you remember Vergil?” Ellis recognized Coach’s voice. “How he had no food, just a bit of fresh water, and almost no fuel? And how he still went to that plantation to save our asses? That guy got us outta that swamp, shared the lil’ bit he had with us, and never asked for payback.”

“Yeah, well, unless you forgot Ducatel, we had ways to return the favor.”

The set of telekinesis blocks lay beside the manuscript, both forgotten on the table. Their user had left them in favor of pacing back and forth, deep in a brainstorm session. ‘Sure enough, there’s no way for me to track them directly, but there must be an indirect way, a trail to follow. Every magic leaves a residual… effect…’

She unconsciously turned to the mana pool. It wasn’t a mere absentminded search for a distraction, she knew it – something was pulling very lightly on the edge of her mind, almost as a physical sensation… and that force came from the center of the eddy her surrogate children were so immersed in.

Even after she closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to concentrate, it took the aurora-maned mare a while to recognize it: her mana was being siphoned from her. It was an absolutely insignificant amount even to her magic at normal levels, and with the impulse she had received, actively feeling it actually took more effort than the drain itself. ‘How long has this been happening for? It can’t have been long, the pool doesn’t have a noteworthy concentration of my mana. Unless…’

She tried to extend her magic sense, to feel through the faint line, but no matter how hard she concentrated, no matter how hard she tried to rein her magic in, the power seeped through; if she pressed more, the sheer tension of the control would cause even more mayhem on the output, further increasing the spikes of power. There was no middle ground in it; she couldn’t read even the energy within her own being. ‘No use; I’ll have to do this later. I just hope this link still exists by the time we are done…’

A subtle knocking on the door broke the alicorn out of her thoughts. Opening it a notch, just enough for her to take a peek outside without being seen, she saw a mass of blue, white, yellow, pink, purple and yellow. The bearers had arrived.
However, another thing called her attention: the sun was at its zenith, much higher up in the sky than she had expected. ‘Oh no…’

Opening the door just barely enough for the average female pony to fit through, she called them in with a strict voice, “Quick, inside. No questions until all are in.”

One by one, the sextet entered the library, Pinkie Pie being the first, followed by Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack and finally, her student. The fashionista and the farmer were fidgeting quite noticeably, even though the rest of them, particularly Twilight, weren’t too far behind in terms of agitation. They all bowed, a gesture she paid no attention to as she closed the door.

“Girls, it’s very fortunate that you managed to come. Without any of you, this would be a lost cause.” She noticed the obvious increase in their discomfort. “I’m sorry to usher you in such short notice, and will not waste your time. The Elements of Harmony are needed again.”

Discomfort turned to shock.

“No, Nightmare Moon hasn’t returned. It’s not about any threats to Equestria's security, either.”

“Um, ‘scuse me, Yer Highness,” Applejack said, “but will this take long? Y’see…”

“… there are three foals missing from the town,” Rarity completed. “Mine and Applejack’s sisters, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, and their friend, Scootaloo. We were in the middle of organizing a search party.”

Celestia’s neutral expression didn’t betray the block of solid nitrogen that dropped in her belly. Twilight, her mane slightly disheveled, moved to the front of the group. “Princess, girls… I think there may be a parallel here.”

“Parallel?” The blonde pony narrowed her eyes. “Twi’, are ya hidin’ somethin’ from us?”

An awkward grin and some beads of sweat on Twilight’s brow betrayed the answer.

The farmer’s ears pulled back tight against her head. “Twilight Sparkle, if y’all know somethin’ ‘bout what happened to mah sister, ya better tell me now,” she continued sternly, taking a step forwards for emphasis.

“Ahem,” Celestia cleared her throat loudly, garnering the general attention. “Girls, I know the situation is dire, but please, let’s maintain our calm. Twilight…” Her gaze asked the question in the minds of everypony present.

The purple unicorn kicked at nothing with a foreleg, clearly distressed. “Princess, you said you had heard a few foals during the… incident. Do you remember that red bow you tried to grab?” There was another moment of pregnant silence, during which Applejack’s expression twisted into something unreadable. “Well… I’ve never seen anypony else use a similar bow, except for Applejack’s sister, Apple Bloom.”

That broke the dam. Applejack, Rarity and Rainbow Dash rushed to Twilight, rapid-firing question after question, while Fluttershy paced around frantically in circles while muttering to herself. Pinkie Pie sat still, even quieter than before – Celestia swore she could hear gears gnashing their teeth together above her head. Another ‘ahem’, notably louder this time, was necessary to restore order.

“Very well, it seems we have come to a conclusion: at least three of the children we have lost are the same you are looking for. As insensitive as it may sound, this diminishes our workload. Now then, since we know both issues are one and the same, will you help me, my little ponies?” A mix of nods and positive verbal responses made her smile. “Excellent, I knew I could count on you. As such, let us tell you exactly what happened.”

“So, y'all were tryin' a spellbook and the girls interrupted, and the spell did some thingamajig that it shouldn't have?”

Twilight nodded solemnly. “And that’s why we need your help.” She turned to Equestria’s sovereign. “Princess?”

“We may have a chance of bringing them back, but as we’ve explained, I have a factor of instability in my magic. That is where you come in, girls: I need you to use the Elements of Harmony to purify me and get it under control again.”

A collective gasp resonated from the group. “But, but Your Highness,” Fluttershy asked, concerned, “aren’t the Elements supposed to be used against evil? I-I mean…”

Celestia smiled. “Do not worry, child. The Elements of Harmony have their name for a reason: they bring harmony and order to the world when they are activated. That is not limited to smiting evil; they can heal and restore just as easily.”

The relieved silence that followed was broken by her student. “But, Princess, after we defeated Nightmare Moon, you took the Elements to Canterlot for safekeeping. How are we supposed to use them if we don’t have them?”

That was a problem Celestia had considered. It would be problematic for her to simply leave the library, let alone go to Canterlot. Even if it wasn’t, it was too far to gallop, and she wasn’t sure the unbalance that ailed her magic had affected her pegasus abilities. With their uncertain time constraints, she didn’t want to make an attempt. The mail option wasn’t viable, either: nopony would take a letter explaining the current situation seriously if it wasn’t written by the alicorn herself, who had no real way to write a message – as much as she would like to deny it, magic was so much more convenient for writing than using one’s mouth that, like many unicorns she had seen through the ages, her mouthwriting skills were rusty at best and illegible at worst –, and even if she could, she would not risk burning the letter to Luna as usual with her magic out of control as it was. There was Spike, but he didn’t have the necessary information to direct the mail to her sister, the only other pony in Equestria with the ability to access the vault where the Elements were now kept.

Fortunately, one did not use the Elements twice without learning at least a little more than general knowledge. “Twilight, am I right to believe this library still has a copy of The Elements Of Harmony – A Reference Guide?”

She had barely finished the sentence before a purple hand holding a large tome appeared in her vision. “This one?” Spike asked.

“Why, yes indeed! Very efficient, Spike.”

The compliment left the baby dragon’s cheeks colored a funny shade of pink, and most of the mares present couldn’t hold their amused giggles in.

Soon the moment of reprieve waned, though, and the book was opened. A gold-plated hoof ran over the index’s contents, browsing to the ‘appendix’ section right afterwards. “Here, I found it. ’… though the Elements of Harmony themselves are the most efficient and powerful way to harness the bearers’ power, there is one known alternate method. Through the usage of the Sigil of Harmony – refer to page 866 for details – the power of the bearers can be unleashed in a lesser scale.’”

The sheets whipped past their eyes until the number 866 could be read at the foot of the page. Above it was an explanation on the steps necessary for the preparations, which, to general relief, were surprisingly simple. “Firstly, the sigil must be drawn on a perfectly flat surface, clockwise from Honesty to uh huh, to... mmhmm... and finally Loyalty,” Celestia read out loud. She turned to her subjects. “There is very little room for flaws here; one misguided point will unbalance the matrix.” A gold-clad hoof scratched at the floor. “Unfortunately, at the present time, I cannot successfully do it myself. I must ask of one of you to draw the sigil for us.”

The white-coated unicorn of the group took a step forwards. “Your Highness, if you’ll excuse me, it shall most likely be no problem to a fashionista worth her salt such as myself,” she said in her usual slightly posh, but good-natured, tone, hiding well her previous nervousness. Less than five minutes later, Rarity was done with her self-assigned task, the large sigil drawn with almost mathematical precision.

“Excellent work, my little pony,” Celestia complimented. “Now for the next part: the bearers must stand in their respective spots over the sigil…” she pointed to the spots on the edges of the pentagon on the floor as she read, “… and attempt to invoke forth the power of their respective elements. If you may…”

They all took their positions, with Twilight in the central point. As one, they closed their eyes. “Remember, girls, it’s not a matter of forcing it out,” the studious one reminded them. “Just think of the good things we’ve been through together, the obstacles we overcame, and the lessons we learned.”

However, even with that advice in mind, it didn’t seem to work. One by one, the Ponyville mares opened their eyes, looking amongst themselves at first with confusion, then deject. That is, all but one. Having learned, and gained, the most out of all of them in their experiences together, Twilight Sparkle didn’t break her focus, and slowly, as drops trickling down the aqueduct of memory, it all came to her. The brunch with the Apples. The welcoming party to Ponyville, courtesy of Pinkie Pie. The end results of the ticket dispute. Helping Applejack out of her stubborn fit during the apple harvest. The parasprite invasion. The Zecora affair. Accepting Pinkie’s sense. The amiable end of the Running Of The Leaves. Supporting Rainbow Dash in Cloudsdale, earning her the first place on the Best Young Flyer Competition. Fluttershy standing up to the dragon after she realized the way her friends had suffered in his claws. And above everything, Nightmare Moon, and the consolidation of their bond.

She felt lightweight, joyous, and oh so peaceful. If the enhancement provided by the tome felt good, this was positively divine.

The emblem she stood on began to radiate light, the inky lines of the sigil turning white as the magic flowed through them, trickling over the lines like fluid filling a crevasse. First Applejack, then Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and finally Rainbow Dash, all were engulfed by the gentle power emanating from the unicorn. Assaulted by the same jolly sensation as their friend, they closed their eyes a second time.

Suddenly, a pillar of light the exact size of the sigil hid their features, allowing Celestia to see only dark silhouettes of the bearers. Twilight opened her eyes, two empty holes pouring white light, and from the top of the phenomenon, a double helix of rainbow-coloured light beams shot up and swirled around an invisible pivot, conjoining high above in a single wave that hurtled towards the alicorn.

Relaxing all of her muscles and forcing her mind clean, the princess waited.

As they reached a small stop inbetween the set of stairs Ellis was climbing up, and Sweetie Belle, at the head of the Crusaders, turned to continue, she was stopped by one of her friends. “Sweetie Belle, wait jus’ a sec… Is that… yer cutie mark?”
The unicorn stopped dead in her tracks, her vision snapping towards her flank, and sure enough, a wide emblem of a yellow and gold sun was emblazoned on it.

Her cutie mark. Her cutie mark. The one thing that she had yearned for almost her entire foalhood, the one reason she had banded together with her two fellow blank flanks, and the cause of so many embarrassments and pains from the crusading they did in search for them.

She felt like she should be prancing with joy… but the very idea of happiness about it only existed in her head; her heart was void of it. Of course, it was a unique event, the coming of age for anypony, and something worth a very special celebration, but the present situation overshadowed it, glooming her senses so much she could only see her cutie mark as a useless decoration. “Yeah…” she muttered as she turned ahead and continued climbing up.

“Hey, what do you mean with ‘yeah’? It’s your cutie mark, for crying out loud!” Scootaloo interjected indignantly. Even the shock of the current situation couldn't hold her bafflement back. “That’s, like, the thing you joined the Crusaders for! And now you have it; you’re almost a grown up now, Sweetie Belle! Why aren’t you happy?!”

“Scoots… I’m sorry. I just… I think my head is a bit full right now,” she said. The chalk-white pony was comforted by the silence that indicated her friends relenting; though she knew it wasn’t over, and they would ask a ton of questions later, that they respected her want for silence at the moment made her feel warm inside.

At the top of the stairs, they were greeted by the sight of Coach and Rochelle, both looking rather grumpy, in a discussion with an annoyed Nick. The light-skinned man noticed them first. “Speak of the devil,” he said as he stood up from the pool table he was leaning on.

They flinched collectively against his hard tone. “Nick…” Rochelle drawled sternly. “Did you forget what we were talking about just now?”

“What, that I think this is gonna get us killed? We haven’t met them even ten minutes ago, and they’re already slowing us down! Ro, it’s not a matter of me liking them or not, it’s a matter of them being a liability we don’t need!”

“Nick, do I have to remind you that, when we met, you were a shady fellow that sounded like you’d stick a knife up our backs the moment you didn’t need us anymore?” Coach retorted. “You ain’t one to talk much about liabilities.”

Nick opened his mouth to say something, but closed it back again and just sighed, placing one hand on his forehead. “All right, fine, but I’m not gonna play babysitter.”

Apple Bloom huffed in irritation, despite the silent threat in the former criminal’s mannerisms. “Mistah, ah’d rather y’all know we may be young, but we ain’t no babies either. We can take care of ourselves jes’ dandy.”

That confrontational resolve vanished at the threatening metallic 'clack' when Nick pulled menacingly on the cocking handle of the Russian-made rifle he was carrying. “Says the one whose friend ran straight into a smoker’s tongue.”

Scootaloo blushed and shivered at the same time. “I didn’t know that… that thing was out there, alright?” she retored indignantly.

Apple Bloom, however, had latched onto another part of the phrase. “What is a ‘smoker’ anyway?”

The con man didn’t answer, moving carefully to a door on the other side of the room, rifle raised and ready. The yellow filly turned her eyes to the woman of the group, who sighed. “Never mind Nick, he’s just a bit untreatable at first. He can be nice… sometimes. Mostly when he’s not hungry or sleepy.”

It was obvious that the pony didn't fully buy the story. “If ya say so... But what’s a ‘smoker’?”

“Tall, lanky, got more tongues than a starfish got arms,” came the response from behind her, with a Southern accent. “Keeps waitin’ somewhere high up, like a roof or somethin’, an’ when someone pass, they get snared just like a calf on a rodeo.” Ellis lifted his shirt up to his chest, showing a number of faint purple marks among the various bruises and small lacerations on his skin, like he had been wrapped by rope that was tied far too tight against his torso. "See?"

“Ugh, that looks painful,” Sweetie Belle commented, raising one foreleg in a reflex of self-preservation. Apple Bloom shared her opinion, if the surprised grimace she had on was any indication. The pegasus of the trio just shivered, looking away at her own body. Under the orange strands of her coat, the marks were more or less the same as his, she could tell that much.

“Sure is. And y’all better hope ya have a knife or somethin’ to cut the tongue, ‘cause if ya don’t, there ain’t no way in Hell y’all gonna get loose if someone don’t go an’ help yer ass.”

“Ellis, sweetie, can’t this wait?” Rochelle interrupted him. “We really gotta keep a move on.”

“You got it, Ro.”

With that, he set his clothes back down, and the five left the hall, moving towards the door Nick had gone through. As they found out, it led to a small catwalk taking to a small office. Beyond the handrail lay the back area of the bar, comprised of a small storage place with the shutters open.

Inside the small office to the right, the man in the dirty white suit scrounging through the contents of a small crate looked back at the entourage and grunted. “Thirty-two, three-five-seven, thirty-oh-six... Guy bought out a gun shop, left it all behind, but forgot to get calibers actually worth a crap.” He tossed a box of .22 Long Rifle rounds against the wall. “Damn it!”

“Figures…” Coach sighed. “We're really only gonna get the bores we need at those evac outposts, aren't we?”

“Guys, there’s no ladder down,” Rochelle observed from the suspended junction. “We’re gonna have to take the express route.”

“Is it too high?”

“Not exactly, but there’s a soda machine we can climb down to. Beats leaping all the way down.”

“Sounds good to me. C’mon, everyone, we’re leaving.”

Rochelle went first, carefully propping her feet down on the top of the machine, praying to whatever entity was out there for the roof not to sink under her feet. Once she was sure it was stable enough, she gestured for the fillies to come, and set them down one by one, whereas they jumped to the floor below. The process was somewhat laborious, but in the end, all seven made it to the bottom without injury. An open shutter led to a back alley completely devoid of life or useful objects.

Nick continued ahead around a corner, leading the group into the entrance of an apartment building offering a better way ahead than having to jump over the fence at the end of the alleyway. “God, I hate blocked paths,” the fillies could hear him grumble.

“It’s so quiet here…” Scootaloo mused as they reached a door, with Nick leaned against the wall right beside it.

“Hope it stays that way,” Rochelle said, keeping her eyes glued to the way they had come through.

With a quick exchange of gestures, the con man let his elder take point - the extremely wide choke on his shotgun might not have much ground for range, but the cone of buckshot showed itself deadly against clusters of former humans. Coach opened the door and, two spent shells later, motioned for the others to come in. As they did, the humans turned on their torches, while Sweetie Belle called upon the magic within her, making her horn light up and providing the Crusaders with a way to watch their own steps. The silence was oppressive, overwhelming, filling the heads of all with ominous uncertainty.

A supersonic boom startled them out of their minds, and the following explosion, strong enough to rattle the foundations of the structure they were in the process of exploring, sent them all rushing for shelter. Coach and Ellis ran on upstairs, while Nick and Rochelle huddled in a corner on the ground floor, the quadruped children trembling next to their legs. Once the ground was still again, they breathed a sigh of relief. “That was a close one,” Ellis sighed, mostly to himself, though he nonetheless received a few assertive responses in return.

Scootaloo tried to control her breath, even as her psych wished to break down into a nervous mess. Not an hour prior, she was prancing about Ponyville with her two best friends, thinking of ways to earn their so-craved cutie marks, with no worries in her head except for taking care of her scooter and keeping her grades high enough. Then, with a burst of light, they were in a strange place full of monsters and explosions – it wasn’t nearly as cool as she would have dreamed, to boot –, depending on four strange creatures that looked like nothing she had ever seen, one of which had no reservations in showing how much he didn’t like them. To make it worse, Sweetie Belle had a cutie mark, but didn’t even pay any attention to it. ‘When did the world turn upside down?’

As Sweetie Belle bounded up to the third floor and through another broken wall – ‘Doesn’t anypony know what doors are around here?’ – she noticed the three older humans quietly discussing something in the middle of the bedroom they were in. An open door on the opposite side gave leeway to a sound she hadn’t heard before, a deep, heavy snarling. “Aw, hogwash, man…” Ellis cursed, looking outside.

“Y’all eat hogwash?” Apple Bloom asked, tilting her head to the side.

At that exact moment, a very quiet grumble filled the room, and Ellis put a hand on his stomach, but he didn’t answer.

Quietly, the ponies moved to see whatever it was that held the young man’s attention so much. What they saw would certainly not get out of their heads easily: a positively enormous creature, vaguely similar to the Crusaders’ companions, but very different at the same time – between its much stockier build, overly muscled arms and hunched over posture, it looked more like a shaved gorilla than anything else – paced around the courtyard below. It stomped around and scratched at the floor, leaning forwards at every louder growl it uttered, seemingly angry at the world and some more. They all ran back inside as the beast turned their way. “What’s… what is that thing?” Sweetie Belle whimpered pitifully from behind Coach’s leg.

Coach sighed. “Should’ve known shit was going way too smoothly…”

“So, how do we do this?” Rochelle asked. She moved to the doorframe for a quick peek, standing with her back to the wall. “All of these buildings around us are pure wood, so fire's not exactly an option. Do we do it the usual way?”

Once again, the – very relative – peace was interrupted by a sonic boom and an explosion not too far off. The Tank let out an ear-splitting roar as it beat on its chest, bounding out of a corner and out of sight, with the ground literally shaking under its limbs as it left. The fillies stepped further back at the sheer volume of its voice, their ears pulled back.

“Well,” Rochelle, who had been watching the turn of events, deadpanned, “that was convenient…” She stepped outside, both head and rifle on a swivel. “We’re clear, guys.”

One by one, the posse left the dilapidated bedroom. Coach veered to the right, following the walkway to a small drop onto a rooftop, next to which stood a scaffold. “Look over there! Safe house ahead!” he hollered to the others, pointing to a drawing on another building. “Just gotta cross that gap!”

A show of dull color caught Scootaloo's eye. It belonged to the head of a jester, affixed to an unfinished parade car. The planks on it were on level with the gap she'd been made aware of, just sufficient for a makeshift bridge. “Can't we use that?”

The small-ish voice grated on Nick’s nerves, but curiosity had him looking down at the object the pony was indicating anyway. Sure enough, the cart was connected to a tractor – one that seemed to be in working condition. “Looks like it. We just gotta move that tractor.”

Ellis took the initiative to move down and inspect the draft vehicle as soon as he was sure the others were covering him. It was a little battered after a few days of exposure, but the fuel level was above the red and the engine seemed to be in good condition. “Looks like it’s gonna work!” he announced. His hand floated over the tractor’s startup key. “Can ah?”

“Sho sho, boy!”

“I got your back!”

“Whenever you're ready.”

Satisfied by the three verbal nods, the mechanic turned the key and engaged the first gear. The float started moving as expected. ‘Lookin' good, lookin' good...’

The young southerner immediately rescinded that line when the float began spouting out a cheery jazz tune… at over a hundred decibels. “SHIT, THIS DAMN THING HAS A SOUND SYSTEM?!”

The end of his outcry was almost overshadowed by an almost deafening roar. The Tank had returned to its turf, and it fully intended to find out who was messing around in it.

Author's Note

Remember, season 1. That means no complete railroads.