The Center is Missing

Chapter One hundred-ten

Sawdust

When six a.m. rolled around and Colgate still hadn’t slept, she decided to climb out of bed, get dressed, grab her pulse crystal, throw on her saddlebags, and trudge out into the overcast morning-noon. Heavy weather had been threatening since the night before, and some of the other early risers were setting up protection over their stalls and vehicles. At a stoplight, she watched a griffon place jars of dark liquid at the four corners of his carriage, wave his wings a little over the final one, and then stand back for the shadowy shield that expanded. It reminded her of something a Datura might do.

She was on her way to Partial Thoughts’ house. In their talk two days ago, she had alluded to coming back home, despite the fact that Peaceful Meadows was still alive, and the more Colgate thought about it, the more it bothered her. They didn’t know either mare, really, and the fact that one had been out of town just in time for Peaceful Meadows’ attack seemed to her more than coincidence. The idea that stuck, in a night full of fevered thoughts, was that both mares would team up for the second attempt, and simply barge into the hotel one morning with their crystals and electric shock collars. Not wanting an argument with Octavia, Colgate did not voice her fear.

“Don’t worry, Octy, I’ll be home in time for dinner,” she thought, and her heart warmed a little. She didn’t have a plan, but Partial Thoughts had been accommodating both times they visited her in Little Snowdrift.

A savage wind was coming in from the south, carrying her up into the tangled residential streets with a gentle rain on her back. The churches and corner shops were coming to life, more ponies and griffons were putting up protection for their buildings, trees were shaking, leaves were flying. She passed Umbrella Park, where the party preparations were at a stand-still, half erect and sad-looking. Pinkie had told her that Versus was still missing, and Vinyl had said that it was no surprise, but Colgate wasn’t so sure. Everyone else of her number was out and about, they had not shirked their duties, so what gave Versus that license? Colgate veered into Umbrella Park and sat for several minutes at a freezing bench, letting the soft rain wet her outermost coat, contemplating the flags hanging between trees, the icy fountains, the frosty statues. There was a statue near the park’s center that depicted a pony’s hoof and griffon’s claw, both disembodied, pressed together in a show of friendship, and Colgate went to it and thought about what it was trying to say.

When she found Partial Thoughts’ house, mailbox empty this time, it was seven-thirty and Partial Thoughts was outside latching the shutters down on her windows. Colgate cut through the front lawn and hollered at her, and Partial Thoughts whipped around as though frightened. Like in Little Snowdrift, Partial Thoughts looked at her for a few seconds before deciding to engage with her; it was in those few seconds that Colgate was able to figure out something to tell her, rather than the customary and ineffective “I don’t know.”

Peaceful Meadows had a similar plan. Since waking up in the woods with no money, no car, and wounds she could not account for, she had locked herself in her house and brooded. The first night she spent by the door with her pulse crystals—she thanked Luna that no one had robbed her house in all her missing time—and waited for someone to come and finish her off. When that never happened, she took stock of her situation, the most important detail of which was that she had been allowed to keep her clothes. Whoever had dumped her in the woods could have let her freeze to death, but they hadn’t. So she was not dealing with killers, necessarily.

She remembered Snowdrift and why she had come there, and she remembered trying with limited success to make herself part of the Mansel business, but she could recall no friends or trusted coworkers. There was nothing in her house, and she searched it top to bottom, that told her what she had been up to before losing her memory. The list of phone numbers she found yielded nothing special: just her boss, a few other important-seeming employees at the Mansel bank, and a bookkeeper who never answered his phone.

Piecing together her memories had taken the entirety of the following day. There was an invoice for a rental car, but when she called the dealership, they told her it had been anonymously dropped off. There was a pulse crystal receipt, which said nothing special, and receipts for various clothing stores and eateries, from which she got a vague idea of the neighborhoods she had been frequenting in the lost week. Her eventual conclusion was that she had, whether on purpose or not, uncovered something of the Mansels’ that they did not want her to know, and they had taken umbrage. What she did not know, and which worried her all the way to Partial Thoughts’ house, was whether they had wiped her memory as a warning, or whether she had escaped something worse.

Coming from the other side of town, Peaceful Meadows had the luxury of a car to keep out the inclement weather. That she had chosen to rent a car, when she already owned one, said to her that she had been up to something illegal. She could only hope that she had not blown any cover, and that there was not a warrant out for her. She drove cautiously, avoiding the larger roads when she could, with the radio turned down and the heating turned up. Her stomach felt like a ball of wire, and her head was fuzzy, and like Colgate, she carried a pulse crystal under her heavy coat, and a coil of wire.

She parked on the curb, watched the neighbors’ windows for a minute, and walked up the driveway toward voices coming around from the back porch.

Over breakfast in the hotel café, Twilight looked around moodily and asked whether anyone had seen Colgate. No one had, and they argued a little before deciding to go forward with the day’s plan and search for their wayward friend later. The day had come for them to face the warehouse hazard, and it showed in Twilight’s speech and manner.

“They’ve already got cameras and reporters set up outside the evacuation zone,” she said. “And the sheriff’s there too, I guess, to watch and congratulate us when we get it. There’s probably some secret agents scattered in there too, but I don’t know if they’ll help.”

“You haven’t heard from Aloe an’ Lotus, have you?” Applejack asked.

“Not since their note.”

“I thought the media was not supposed to bother us,” Octavia said. “Has that changed?”

“Snowdrift’s too far from Canterlot for the princesses to do anything,” Twilight said. “Laws like that are looser here.”

“Talk to the sheriff,” Big Mac said.

“I already did, she promised they’d stay out of our way. Right.” She glanced at Rainbow and mumbled, “if one of them comes at me with a camera, I’m decking her, I don’t care.”

“Where did Aloe and Lotus go?” Vinyl asked, and Rarity scoffed.

“They didn’t say. Colgate said they’re important in their whole… thing, so it’s probably big, whatever they’re doing.”

“We don’t need them, do we?” Pinkie asked.

“I’d have loved Lotus to be there, but no, I think I can do this on my own. At least… Well, we’re set up pretty well.”

“So what is the plan, then?” Rainbow asked.

“First, I need to get the rest of the cat litter down to the site.”

“‘Bout time we get that outta the room,” Applejack said.

“We’ve got the roof off and our wood chippers out and ready with the cranes. I told the operators to get out there early, so hopefully they’ll have everything suspended when we get there.”

“They’re just picking up those big tree-shredders?” Applejack asked.

“Basically. We had a dry run yesterday, it went great. Rarity, with you diverting the wind, we should be golden.”

“The wind,” Rarity said, picking at her grilled vegetables. “Wind has never been my strongest suit, dear.”

“I don’t need it entirely blocked out, just do what you can,” Twilight said. “We need to minimize sway, as well as make sure the sawdust doesn’t disperse too much over the parking lot. That’s all.”

“What can I do?” Rainbow asked.

“I want you above, watching the hazard. I’ll give you a voice enchantment, don’t let me forget.”

“I assume I’m there for medical emergencies,” Fluttershy said.

“Yep. The rest of you aren’t vital to the operation. Applejack, you should be there just in case we need to do anything weird with the ship. You can reach it from a pretty good distance, right?”

“Not from outside the zone, Ah can’t,” Applejack said.

“That’s what I thought. Rarity, can you protect Applejack?”

“And keep the weather out?” Rarity asked.

“I can give her a shield,” Octavia said. “Not as good as Rarity’s, but I can do it.”

“Hopefully we won’t need you to.” She nodded to Pinkie. “You and Big Mac, I’d actually like in the park today, working on our party.”

“A perfect day fer it,” Big Mac said.

“Some of the precogs are talking like it’s gonna happen later than you planned,” Pinkie said. “Should we be worried about that?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight said. “What the precogs think is pretty low on my list of priorities, if I’m honest. As long as they’re distracted, I’m happy.”

“So the Contraction plan is still in place?” Rainbow asked.

“They took down my lights yesterday, and I think they might be working on removing my echo enchantments as well. Magic has been coming in slower than usual.”

“So they’re onto you,” Rarity said quietly.

“They know something’s up, but I don’t think we’ll be here long enough for them to figure out who’s behind it. That wreath of crystals I showed you, the thing storing all the magic, I’ve got that tucked away in my magical space. They won’t be finding that any time soon.”

“Will you have enough?” Fluttershy asked.

“I think so. Barely. If not, I can send another logger out there with some fresh crystals and skim the rest. Oh, actually, Vinyl, if you could go into town and pick up some more crystals for me, that would be great. Big ones this time, as big as you can get. Get like five.”

“Sure thing.” Vinyl sipped at her mimosa, her third. “How long do you think this’ll all take?”

“No clue, but we’re trying to leave tomorrow. If you’ve still got business here, go ahead and take care of it.”

“I don’t want to not help with the hazard, if you need me.”

“We’ll be fine,” Twilight said, not unkindly. After a moment of thought, she added, “in my mind, you’ve already made it as an Element.”

Vinyl reddened.

She had time for a fourth mimosa while Twilight got the cat litter out of their rooms, and they stepped into the blustery outdoors. She said she would drop the crystals off in the hotel and then meet them at the warehouse, then disappeared into the meandering crowd with Pinkie and Big Mac, hoods pulled up and cinched tight around their faces. The remaining Elements got a taxi to the evacuation zone.

The driver only took them as far as the radio station, and they walked the rest of the way through freshly abandoned town, following the sound of the crowd that had accreted on the parking lot’s edge.

“One thing I forgot to mention,” Twilight said, happy to speak at full volume in the emptied neighborhood. “I’ve been doing some more divination lately. That’s how I knew we’ve got all these reporters waiting for us.”

“What have you seen?” Fluttershy asked.

“A fair amount.” She let them wonder what she meant for a moment, thinking what was worth divulging. “I’ve peeked in on all the major cities. Most of them up north are doing okay, except Manehattan. From what I can tell, and from what I’ve heard from the princess, Manehattan’s really fallen off lately. That, uh, I forget his name. The businesspony we met, the cable guy, helped us secure those two towers.”

“Strawberry,” Rarity said.

“Thank you. Him, I guess he’s out of the picture, or soon to be, I’m not sure. He did a number on that city.”

“What happened?” Rainbow asked.

“Looks like the economy's on the downturn. I saw this giant picture of him on the side of a building with the words ‘know your enemy’ underneath. Seems he got in trouble after we left.”

“Serves him right,” Rarity said. “Did you… have you seen anything—I doubt you have, actually—that awful mare we found in Trottingham?”

“Oh, Lacey…”

“Kisses.”

“Yes, her. No, I haven’t seen anything, though I haven’t really gone looking for her. I still can’t see anything in Canterlot, they’ve still got their anti-divination enchantments in place. Remember running into that? The first night?”

“Vaguely.”

“Ponyville seems fine. I think they’ve turned the spa into a secret agent headquarters or something, there’s some ponies coming and going there at weird hours.”

“Who? Who?” Rainbow asked.

“Oh, I didn’t recognize anyone. Applewood is Applewood. It looks like Tartarus. The Bright Road is utterly demolished. The river swept it away.”

“Good Celestia,” Rarity said.

“What really scared me, though, was Moondrop.”

“Well, duh,” Rainbow said.

“No, not for what you think. They’ve got it completely blacked out, like Canterlot. I can’t get within a hundred miles of the town or the crater.”

“Like you can’t see anything?”

“It’s just darkness. If I try to look at it from afar, there’s just a black pillar, all the way up. I can see the smoke up top, where it spreads out past the pillar’s edge, and I can see the barriers they’ve set up in the desert.”

“They’ve got barriers?” Rarity asked. “For what?”

“What do you think? They’re sparse, but they’re there. Last night, I watched an airship land at one for a few minutes and then go into the dark zone. I’ll bet you they’re pulling secret agents in to work on getting Princess Celestia out of there.”

“That’s probably where Aloe and Lotus had to go,” Fluttershy said.

“That’s my guess too. Oh, this is just super.” They turned at an intersection and came face-to-lens with a crowd of reporters and photographers, bunched up in jackets and windbreakers, under umbrellas and tight, magical shields. They stood still for a couple seconds, letting them take pictures, and then Twilight parted the crowd and approached the parking lot.

Partial Thoughts sat with her back to the driveway, so when Peaceful Meadows came around, crystal already out, and Colgate dove out of her chair for the lawn, she didn’t know what was happening at first.

Colgate raced for a small gardening shed and squeezed behind it, fumbling for her crystal under all the layers of clothing, ears up and breathing already heavy. She wasn’t sure precisely what she had seen, impulse had pushed her out of the chair so fast, but she saw the glint of crystal and the shape of a stranger; it was enough.

Peaceful Meadows was speaking calmly to Partial Thoughts, who did not sound calm at all, and for a minute, their voices were taken away by the wind. Fog was rolling in through the distant pines, and water was trickling down her tail where it had escaped her cloak.

“You come on out now, lady,” Peaceful Meadows called. “I’ve got no quarrel with you.”

To Colgate, though, it was part of the trap. Peaceful Meadows and Partial Thoughts were in league with each other, and this was an act to lure her into the open, where they could dispose of her easily. Aloe and Lotus leaving, that was to make her feel safe. “Celestia, Lotus had this planned from the second I overstepped,” she thought. Still, she scrambled to get out from behind the shed, falling sideways into a brittle bush growing up through a space in the fence.

From the porch, she knew neither of them had a good angle on her, and to keep the shed between her and them, she would need to run deeper into the backyard, find her way into the neighbor’s yard, and to the street from there.

She was too slow in getting out of the bush. Despite her clothes, the cold made her stiff, and the crystal had fastened to her hoof at an awkward angle. Peaceful Meadows rounded the shed’s other side, flashed her crystal at Colgate, and led her back, where Partial Thoughts waited with hooves bound. The three went inside.

Versus was back, but still shaken; she had spirit enough to pretend that she was feeling better. Whether Pinkie recognized it was unclear, but to Big Mac, the forced banter between them was painful, almost insulting. She could not force her naturally expressive face to match her loud laughter at every little quip Pinkie made. Her eyes moved ceaselessly when she laughed, occasionally landing on Big Mac’s, not long enough for him to convey what he felt, and though he tried to stay near her, nothing came of it.

Soon enough, the three of them split up naturally, and he was able to get his mind off her. With a pair of black griffons, he worked to scrape wet rime off tables and chairs. “Least we don’t have the bandstand up yet,” one griffon said, and Big Mac only smiled. Their work was cut out for them, as only one single precog had come out to help. Pinkie said it was probably the cold that had kept everyone away from the park that day, and Big Mac supposed that was reasonable.

Sometimes, he would see Versus tugging at tent canvasses or trimming dead growth from shrubs, and he would watch her for signs of her mood. He wanted an excuse to leave his work to help her, but Pinkie was right there; she would notice, and probably say something tactless. Worse, Versus herself might rebuff him.

Platonic though his intentions would appear, they did not feel that way, and knowledge of her recent trauma kept him back when Pinkie’s presence did not. For himself, he could already tell that he would recover without much ordeal. The blindfolded drive out of town had terrified, but the memory did not stick with him as it appeared to for Versus or Vinyl. The pain had seeped away with a good night’s sleep, and he did not read into it more than that.

Still, it would have been nice if Versus had asked him how he was doing. They had bonded in Peaceful Meadows’ car, he felt, and he wanted her to feel the same. This, too, he searched for in her body language.

Pinkie trotted past with a lawnmower rolling behind and yelled out at him. “What’s shaking, Mac-a-doodle-doo?” She didn’t stop until she was on the other side of the clearing, where she labored with the mower’s rip cord on a checkered lawn.

The moment that had caught in his memory, stronger than the standoff under the bridge or the interminable drive, more wrenching than the trip back and the tacit disposal of their unconscious body, was the abrupt and bloody sight of Versus launching a rock onto Peaceful Meadows’ unprotected face. He hadn’t seen her eyes then, but he could imagine how they had looked: wide, wild, rolling blue irises behind fluttering lashes, manic and detached; animal’s eyes. That was the final reason he wanted to meet her eyes in the park, to see whether that cornered look had been sealed back away.

The hazard appeared to be coupling with their airship when Twilight finally got past the reporters and onlookers. She stood on the parking lot’s edge and trained her binoculars on the scene. From a distance, it appeared to have affixed itself like a melted marshmallow to a twig, but closer, she could see the individual strands lashing it to their ship and to the lot’s surface. It had wrapped around their rudder and sent vitreous tendrils, like a pea plant, through the eye holes of their collapsed balloon. The ship had been pulled off its center of gravity, and Twilight could only see its bottom, but the hazard’s shape and position told her what she needed to know. From the warehouse, there stretched an improbably thin extension of the white substance, the hazard’s only connection to its former anchoring spot.

Rainbow got into the sky while Fluttershy and Rarity remained at the flapping warning tape, marking the old danger zone’s edge. The wood chippers were rising on all sides, groaning and wrapped in thick, taut cables, their shapes awkward and unnatural. When everything was off the ground, Rarity produced their shield around lot and the closer onlookers. Ponies gasped and cheered when the rain ceased and the wind slowed to a gentle breeze, and Rainbow yelled for quiet from atop a light pole. All around the parking lot, Rarity’s magic sparked with raindrops and the natural scintillation of static magic. Twilight was not the only one reminded of the river in Applewood.

“You know what yer doin’, Twilight?” Applejack asked. It was her first time seeing the operation, and she was not hiding her incredulity. The wood chippers hanging openly over the parking lot, the crude loading systems for sawdust and cat litter, and Twilight on the edge and plainly meaning to go inside the danger zone; Twilight did not begrudge Applejack her uncertainty.

With a cocky smile—she felt entitled to it, after all—Twilight dipped under the warning tape and tromped up the slick concrete steps onto the lot proper. The rain had made miniature swamps of the lot’s selvedge, tide pools of its potholes. Rainbow glided above her, not too close, and the crowd chattered behind. Cameras flashed, video recorders ran, a few ponies shrieked Twilight’s name in adoration or concern. She ignored them all, her eyes and mind on the hazard.

Though herding her volunteers to test the hazard’s movement patterns had been uniquely frustrating, she was glad she had done it, for she had learned more than what Lotus could have told her. Toward the end of her test run, she had dangled an illusory pony just in front of the hazard, and been shocked to watch it lash out like a rattlesnake, dissipating her illusion with a barbed extension of itself before deflating a second later. Roughly, she had calculated its speed to be about fifty miles per hour. It had not crossed the parking lot, or even come close, with such speed, but Twilight had to assume that it could. If so, it could be upon her in a matter of seconds where she stood.

The ship rocked gently with the hazard’s suction, but halted, and Twilight did too, magenta shield at the ready. Whether it had noticed her, she could not be sure, and she stood still for a minute, watching for movement and listening for the scrape of hull on concrete.

“Good, Twilight?” Rainbow asked.

“What’s it doing?”

“Just sittin’ there.”

Without looking up at Rainbow, Twilight walked around a wide, shallow puddle until she could see the airship’s broad side and the hazard attached. It had not disconnected, but it had reached out to feel the ground around it, a few exploratory feelers twisting up a light pole. Behind the ship, she could see the edges of forest where she had had it cut down.

“Get the chippers ready,” she said up to Rainbow, who repeated the order at a yell that her voice amplification enchantment made into a startling boom across the neighborhood, its reverberant aftershock cut short with the snarl of encircling machines. The hazard had no ears, but Twilight believed it could feel sound waves at certain frequencies.

She grunted as she put her mukluk into a smaller puddle, but didn’t take her eyes off the moving hazard. It gave no indication that it wanted her, but it undulated in place, gliding its huge body across blacktop, turning, expanding and contracting, appearing to breathe with the gentle wind. She was close enough to see faint striations in the semitransparent mass, and stood still for another minute to study it. She could not deny that she was fascinated with the hazard: its inscrutable, organic wildness; its unsophisticated hunting instinct, and the danger it could pose despite that; its sheer incongruity with the land, a pollutant spat out of Tartarus.

“They can’t really reach it, Twilight,” Rainbow said, swooping down too close and blasting Twilight’s ears. “Sorry.”

“Get back up there!” She spared the second to look up at the bleak sky. “I’ll try to draw it to an edge.” She backed away, tracking again through her puddle, soaking her shoes, until she felt she could safely look back and decide where she wanted to lead the hazard. In the back of her mind, she thought it was possible that it could not move at all until it had finished coupling with the airship, and she did not know how long that would take.

“Let’s just try this,” she mumbled, conjuring a bead of light on her horn to hurl at the hazard. It exploded in a whorl of sparkles off its glassy exterior, for a second lending the hazard an opaline sheen, but Twilight saw no reaction. Its pea-plant extensions clung weakly to the gunwale, the balloon cables, and the propellers, while the mass of it lay like a melting scoop of ice cream on the pavement. The wood chippers buzzed in the background, and the crowd still went on, nervous but impressed.

She stole a look Rarity’s way, but could not clearly see her friend, could not tell how she was doing with the shield. Underneath, it appeared strong and healthy; she could see the rush of rainwater coursing down its sides.

Her heart was finally starting to beat faster when she walked back toward the ship. She had assumed it would come after her, as it had during practice, and she could simply keep a safe distance and let the wood chippers do their work. She would bring up a shield of her own on the hazard’s back, to contain it, and the rest would be easy. She had not much entertained the idea of actually getting close to it. A few seconds’ reaction time was acceptable, but her time got shorter with each step, and with no measuring instruments, she could only guess whether she was at the fatal point.

Commotion was all around her, but under the shield and well inside the lot, she could hear her softened hoofsteps, her breath, the rustle of her clothes, and the gentle creaking of the airship as it shifted imperceptibly. Soon, the hazard would notice her, and she slowed her advance in anticipation of that, shield up and strengthened for a sudden strike. Cold was creeping up her legs from her damp shoes, but she did not cast any magic to warm up, not wanting to expend power that could be better used differently.

“How we doing, Twilight?” Rainbow asked.

“How does it look?” she wanted to respond, but just said, “fine so far.”

Following the curve of a concrete median downwards to a wide drain, she was able to see a portion of the ship’s deck, where the hazard had affixed part of itself like glue on a wall. She could see the subtle movement of light across its surface with each motion, and could see a pale version of the ship’s deck through its body. She tried another bead of light, with no effect.

Though she did not believe the hazard was clever enough to lure her in, she approached with that sense of knowing dread. If it were a trap—and it probably wasn’t, she told herself—it would be her magical skills and shortening reflexes that would save her, not the strength of her planning. Thinking thus, she changed her mind and gave herself a small coat of magical warmth.

She was close enough to see the individual ropes that held the balloon in place, deflated and looping across the ground. The hazard’s trailing extension was a thin strand of unbroken white goo all the way back to the warehouse, and in it, she could see the same striations she had seen from afar, like glass hairs embedded in the vitreum. The ship’s bowsprit wiggled back and forth and she heard the smooth slide of flesh across wood and concrete. The smell of brine tingled in her nose.

No closer would she step. The warehouse strand lay harmless-looking to one side, the hazard’s bulk before her, and she would have only a fraction of a second to react if it should lunge at her. Yet it still appeared not to care about her presence, and the wood chippers ran on, waiting for her signal to begin conveying up their payloads.

She threw one last ball of light, which vanished with the same effect as the first two, and told Rainbow to get higher up.

Twilight spent a minute walking around the ship’s safer side, just studying its details, paying special attention to its size and dimensions until she could picture it in her mind. She summoned up her magic, and the magic that Vanilla Cream had grafted onto hers, into a weighty telekinesis spell. Wrapping the side without the hazard first, she meant to lift the ship off the lot and peel the hazard with it, like gum stuck to a shoe, but as soon as it shifted, the hazard pulled into itself, tensed up, and became more transparent. The warehouse strand quivered like a bow string, taut and straight, and the pea-plant tendrils lost their pliability to become tight, annealed coils. She had lifted one corner up, and the hazard had felt it, and now, in the awkward place between holding and not holding her prize, she had to decide whether she thought it would stay with the ship or snap back into the warehouse, where chasing it would be a logistical nightmare, even with the missing roof.

She did not have time to think with the ship’s strain already hitting her horn. With a grunted “get ready,” she lurched backwards and heaved the ship with her as one giant piece, balloon and all, up into the air. The poop deck swung high, pieces of forgotten luggage tumbling off and hitting the lot noisily, popping like ornaments, and the hazard stretched with it, for a moment catching the light like a trail of harp strings before twisting and bulging with a slithering noise that only Twilight was close enough to hear. The warehouse strand waved and bounced on the lot’s surface, kicking up splashes of freezing water, and at the ship’s base, white goo spread and pooled into a loose udder that was still connected by the gunwales. Twilight raised her head as she pulled the ship higher off the lot.

With only the strength of the one connecting strand, the hazard could offer no resistance as Twilight dragged it through the air toward the edge. Above her, Rainbow flew in rapid circles, assuring her that it was all still there, that she hadn’t left any pieces of the hazard behind—which Twilight did not think was possible anyway.

“Have them wait until I put it down,” Twilight yelled up to Rainbow, who repeated her orders.

She doffed her magical warmth spell and gasped involuntarily at the cold air that penetrated her coat. Above her, rain still hammered Rarity’s shield, which had collapsed into a flat dome while Twilight was approaching the ship, and which she now was in danger of scraping as she lugged it back. Her own magic was receding as well, which she had expected. It was why she had been so concerned with being able to picture the entire ship, so she could hold up key places on the structure without wrapping the entire thing. If she could hold the corners and a few other places aloft, then the rest would follow just the same, and it was from the inessential places that she could see her own magic fizzling away.

Her heartbeat was in her head, and she was distantly aware that she was probably on the TV news in that exact instant, but her breathing was ragged and her vision was tunneling as her horn burned hotter and brighter, like a match she had let go too long. The sizzle of her own magic filled her ears, and she was losing track of her steps—“No good, Twilight, you gotta wake up.” She shook her head to clear it.

Wrong move. She knew it the second she took her eyes off the ship, the sickening, freeing feeling of something huge giving way. Her mind cleared in an instant, the spell forgotten, its exertion slowing her and rendering her reaction down to a surprised, distraught squeal when the ship crashed back down right in front of her. Pitching and rolling, it hit the lot like an avalanche of noise and small pieces as she backed away. Wood clattered and shuddered, bits of metal tinkled off the macadam, cables hissed, turbines juddered in housings, upset water roared and recollected itself. Twilight fell back with the rush of air, not hearing the shouts of alarm from Rainbow or from without, pedaling frantically to get out of the ship’s way as it scraped toward her.

“Get it!” Rainbow yelled, and the fuzzy whir of sawdust streaming at her filled the empty space where the ship’s noise had just been. The hazard was not in sight, and Twilight pulled herself to a median and sat down to wait for her nerves to unclench. Sawdust coated the ship’s exposed side, and Twilight waited a second before realizing that they were wasting it. She screamed for them to stop, and several seconds later, they did.

“Where’s the hazard?” she asked, as much of herself as of Rainbow.

“I think it tucked inside,” Rainbow said.

Twilight got to her hooves and trotted around to see the ship’s deck, the cold and magical fatigue gone from her mind, in their place base anger. By her own stupidity, she could have crushed herself under the ship; it was enough to release everything else.

With a lance of magic that hurt her to cast, the ship’s deck split open to reveal the egg-white hazard shrunken within, a cornered beast. “Here!” she yelled, ripping the ship forward with more force than was necessary, dancing to the side to avoid getting run over. She was emboldened by rage, and she distantly knew it, and even more distantly thought she could use it to her advantage. “Hit it now, and don’t miss!” The sawdust came out in a collected stream from two wood chippers, a scant fifteen horizontal feet away, and much of it made its way into the hole she had punched.

At last, she got a reaction. The hazard bubbled and tensed in its space, trying to escape first and then to corner itself, but it was tight in their cabins and had nowhere good to go. Twilight grabbed the ship’s starboard gunwale and yanked it down toward the lot, to angle the hole in the deck upwards at the falling spray of sawdust. Rainbow hung just over them both, watching the hazard, ready to call should it find a way out.

The problem with giving each wood chipper a supply of sawdust was that no one chipper had very much, and when the stream stopped, Rainbow had to race around hollering for them to hurry up and bring over the rest from the others. Twilight’s anger had cooled, and she watched their ship, coated with sodden sawdust and cat litter, disheveled in the tiny crash and broken open by her own horn, with disdain. When the hazard oozed out of its hiding place, furred with sawdust in places, she quietly erected a magical wall over the hole in the deck and then called for sawdust from a different angle. They were close enough to the edge that she had a few more wood chippers to call on before Rainbow had gotten the rest of their desiccants over.

When the sawdust came down, the hazard flattened itself against Twilight’s barrier, then climbed and stretched over the ship to the other side, which she had expected. With a blunt smack of magic, she spun it back around into the stream of dust, and, frustrated with the hazard’s movements, grabbed it in depleted magic. It squirmed and wriggled, fast as a bird in flight, and Twilight’s horn stuttered to activate and reactivate her magic to keep a hold as protrusions of hazard shot out to leave her magic grasping air. It flattened in places, bulged in others, writhed and turned over, sometimes stretching and sometimes contracting or looping under itself as sawdust showered on, and somewhere in the mess Rainbow yelled that more dust was ready.

Then, too fast for her to think, the hazard broke free of her weakened magic and slid like a flashlight beam across the lot, back to the ship. She backed up quickly as it unfurled itself and flew like a sheet in the wind the last ten feet, hitting the ship with enough force to pivot it around on its crushed rudder. It swung her way with a guttural grinding noise, tipped, leaned down as she was backing up. Her eyes were on the hazard, not fully registering the ship’s movements, or the fact that she was too close. A metal peg, one of the fasteners for a balloon cable, came dislodged and spun down, connecting and bouncing off. Light flashed behind her eyes, and the pain came a second later, dulled by cold and adrenaline, an indistinct sting on her cheek. She did not pause for that, but when she saw the blood, her spell faded and she stared down at it. All sound became an atonal drone, and time seemed to slow, and she narrowed her eyes as if not completely sure that the blood was her own. After a few seconds, she was newly aware of Rainbow above, calling for Fluttershy and Octavia, flapping in a frenzy right over her head under the fan of sawdust.

When she tried to speak, fear turned to panic as the pain turned white hot under her skin, and she let out a soft, long moan through clenched teeth. She knew she needed to keep her eyes on the hazard and her magic on the ship, but all she could see was the blood on her collar.

“Where’s Fluttershy? Where is she?” Rainbow was booming across the lot.

Octavia stopped beside her, panting, looking down and trying to see where the hazard had gone at the same time. “Versus took off with her. Colgate is in trouble. I think she said she has been shot.”

Peaceful Meadows screamed down the narrow street, swerving into the wrong lane when oncoming traffic was light, blowing through stop signs, honking when pedestrians got too close to the curb. She knew she was past the point of no return, and she could only pray that somewhere in the week of lost time, she had stashed an emergency go bag at the train station.

Partial Thoughts’ house was not the place she wanted to conduct her interview, but there was no way she was driving both her and the blue unicorn back to her house, not with the long, exposed walk down Partial Thoughts’ driveway.

The problem was, she had only brought one magic suppressor, not expecting to encounter a second unicorn, and though she held her pulse crystal on the blue stranger the whole time, she could not hold her focus the same way. There was always a moment when her eyes would slip away or her attention would flag, and the unicorn spotted the moment sure enough, throwing a weak spell straight into Peaceful Meadows’ eyes and giving them time to break apart. She had been tackled and bludgeoned with the coffee table book, and in that time, Partial Thoughts had stumbled to the kitchen, cut her bindings, and driven off—not before Peaceful Meadows had winged the blue unicorn with her crystal, point blank on a back hoof, stopping her in her tracks and filling the room with the smell of burnt flesh.

Peaceful Meadows was only a couple minutes behind: the time it took to get her wits back, set the wounded unicorn on the couch, cut the phone line, and race down the driveway to her own car.

Her first thought was that Partial Thoughts was running to the bank, but her car wasn’t there. She cursed her broken memory, thinking that Partial Thoughts must have a secret hiding place that she had known at one point. In her mind, the only priority was stopping the white unicorn. The blue one, she did not care about, but the white unicorn was with the Mansels, and she could not have the family on her tail. Their reach was farther than any train could take her.

With the windshield wipers on their highest setting, visibility was still poor as the rain was turning to hail, sweeping in from the north and soon to rattle the warehouse district as well. Ponies and griffons ran down the sidewalks to escape the ice, and cars drove cautiously, but Peaceful Meadows did not. She was wound up, scared, angry, bitter with hatred and with disgust for how it had all unraveled so fast. It had been years since a target had gotten under her skin, and this too angered her.

She skidded onto the circular road around Umbrella Park and forced a covered carriage to screech to a stop, its pullers—shielded with personal forcefields blooming out of crystalline top hats—yelling obscenities at her. The park whipped by, and she watched for Partial Thoughts’ car, a deep black Roan model to oppose its driver’s white coat. She almost passed it, she was so caught up, and had to turn abruptly or else miss the nearest park entrance. She ran up onto the curb, her car clunking loudly as something that she hoped was not important hit the pavement.

One hoof on the wheel, one on the seat beside her to reach for the pulse crystal, she lost traction on wet grass, spun around, and almost hit a tree. Those who were still there to set up the Contraction Party gawked at her, and a few dropped what they were doing and ran, among them the paper-white Partial Thoughts. Peaceful Meadows gunned her car, got it going again with an unhealthy chugging sound, and rolled toward the onlookers, carving deep ruts in the grass and flowerbeds, horn blaring. She knew she was finished in Snowdrift the second she had shot the blue unicorn, so there was no point in subtlety anymore.

In Versus’ car, Fluttershy had managed to calm down after a quick cry. It had happened only minutes ago, Versus said: they were setting up in the park when a black car raced in, parked askew and halfway on the sidewalk, and Partial Thoughts cannoned out in only a bathrobe and slippers. Peaceful Meadows had found her at her house, thought she was the one who had taken her memory, and was after her. She had shot their blue friend just as Partial Thoughts was grabbing her car keys. Versus was the only one in their group with a car, so she dropped her bundle of lights and drove as fast as she could to the warehouse, looking for Twilight and getting Fluttershy instead. The gray mare had told her Fluttershy could help, but no one had explained how.

Fluttershy herself had nothing to say after receiving Versus’ account. She just sat there, staring intently out the window, sniffling occasionally but holding herself together. Versus didn’t say anything, but thought to herself that they should have let Peaceful Meadows freeze in the woods when they had the chance. Some of the old anger from the kidnapping remained, but Fluttershy, vulnerable and upset beside her, softened her mood.

When they got to Partial Thoughts’ house, they found Colgate on the couch, her back leg raised and wrapped with a wet dishtowel. She had rolled her pant leg up, frayed and charred, to expose a black and red wound beneath, just its edges visible around the towel. She did not appear to recognize Fluttershy or Versus at first, but when she finally did, she said only, “oh.”

“How bad is it?” Fluttershy asked. Versus noticed for the first time that Fluttershy had no first aid kit with her.

“See.” She removed the towel and winced at the air touching her blistered flesh, her exposed muscle. A chunk of her hoof was missing, and the rest was black and cracked, like a rotten tooth around the exposed, reddened frog. Fluttershy moaned and looked at Versus, who just stood there.

“I… I can help,” she said.

“Don’t tell anyone what you’re about to see,” was all Fluttershy said, and then she got to work healing her friend.

Partial Thoughts was shivering uncontrollably as she tried to climb out of her soaked bathrobe. She had taken shelter under the bridge with Pinkie and Big Mac, but only long enough to get their bearings, for the bridge was the only obvious hiding place in the park. They could hear Peaceful Meadows’ car trundling closer, see its headlights peeking through the trees. To get back to Partial Thoughts’ car, they would have to circle around the south side of the park, for which the only cover was a jagged row of trees and a few rain-blackened picnic tables.

For Big Mac, it was everything terrible about Snowdrift come at him all at once. The rain was even colder under the bridge, in the draft, and the car’s approach set his teeth on edge and his heart fluttering. Having survived the mare once, he did not feel he could do it a second time; he could already feel the same helpless tears germinating quietly. He looked at Pinkie, but saw no solutions there, and she looked at him with an expression that suggested she felt much the same.

“I don’t s-s-s-suppose either of you have a pulse crystal?” Partial Thoughts asked, winding up her robe to stow it under a rock.

“Just Colgate,” Pinkie said.

“You don’t?” Big Mac asked.

Partial Thoughts just looked at him and went for the other side of the tunnel. The grass sloped up gently, and they could see across the expanse to the beginnings of the vast pine forest.

“Can we hide in there?” Pinkie asked.

“Not with my color.” She hunched her shoulders and rattled her teeth, and Big Mac, hesitatingly, drew up beside her. “In another month, I could disappear anywhere.”

Nearby, the car honked long and abrasively, and Pinkie almost bolted; Big Mac was able to grab her coattail and yank her back. She inched up to the slope and poked her head into the weeds.

“It’s coming down the trail,” she said.

“Which way?”

“Around, to our backs.”

“She’s gonna flush us out,” Partial Thoughts said, looking back at their tunnel, withers and shoulders quivering.

“Can we run now?” Pinkie asked.

“We can’t stay here.”

They could hear the engine idling by the bridge, the squeak of windshield wipers, and when Partial Thoughts stumbled out into the pelting rain, the engine raced up to a powerful roar. They knew what was about to happen, and Partial Thoughts skidded to a halt and tried to dodge away. Tires clunked past them, deep and distant through the earthen slope that still protected Big Mac and Pinkie, and for a second, the white unicorn’s angry face was caught in the swerving headlights as she jumped aside.

Pinkie ripped free of Big Mac’s grip, and he followed her at a lope. The car had just missed, skidded off the grass into a loose circle on the muddy path at the park’s perimeter, and was revving with Peaceful Meadows’ attempt to correct her course. Pinkie stopped at Peaceful Meadows to help her up, and Big Mac meant to do the same, but something forced him past them, straight toward the car and the dead-eyed mare within. Her pulse crystal was out, but he could see her fumbling with it, out of sorts after missing her target and not paying him as much attention as she should have.

Not about almost mowing down Partial Thoughts, or about scaring them, or her connections to the Mansels, but purely in bitter hatred for tying him up and bringing him out to the woods, Big Mac ran to the car, ignoring the wind and rain that stung his face and made his eyelids feel like they would stick open. He ran across grass, across mud, across magical flowers that could be killed by only the most savage winter, all the way to the turning car. Peaceful Meadows noticed him too late, and as she was bringing up her crystal, he reared up, turned around, and with his years of experience on the farm, put both crimson hooves through the window. Glass snapped—did not shatter—and he was thrown forward by his own strength.

Mud and water spumed up as the car tried to gain traction, and finally did, and he got back to his hooves and charged again. He was already behind, and in the slop, he could not catch up until Peaceful Meadows stopped and let him. Without turning off the car, she kicked open the door, fired a warning shot, and then got out, but he was too close to stop, so he plowed into her. A hot flash of magic went over his head, and the two of them scrambled as one. Her forelegs were pinned back and her legs kicked and wheeled to hit him in the groin. Mud and grass were in his eyes and wind was in his ears, and her snarling face came to him in moving fragments.

“Mac! Car!” Pinkie shrieked.

“Off!” Peaceful Meadows growled, her knee finally finding its target and sending Big Mac sprawling off her with a shout of sudden pain. At the top of his eyes, he saw her shape tangle with Pinkie’s at the car door, and a third shape jumped in just as Pinkie was thrown out. More noise, the tinkle of glass pieces falling away, the clang of hooves and crystal on metal, the thick tumble of entwined bodies on the lawn. He rose slowly and fell to the side with the hot coil of pain running up through his stomach and pelvis.

On the other side of the park, the first police sirens were emerging, and Big Mac, breathing heavily, could only gesture in their direction as Pinkie again joined the fray, grabbing hold of Peaceful Meadows’ crystal and trying to yank it away. Magical lights tore black streaks in the ground with the crystal’s discharge, and Peaceful Meadows caught Pinkie in the nose as she flailed to free herself. All four of them were breathing heavily, and for a second, they looked at one another.

“Cops,” Partial Thoughts said, her tone making clear her feeling. Like a shot for racers, her word was a signal for them all to make for the car, Pinkie and Peaceful Meadows meeting at the door and battering each other with hooves and crystal. They were too close for Peaceful Meadows to shoot her, and her shots rose only to shade the clouds. Across the field and through the trees, police were galloping their way with crystals of their own. A line of red magic ran like a leash from one to another, tied at their collars, giving all their uniforms and faces the same eerie cast.

Finally shoving Pinkie aside, Peaceful Meadows dove into the car and twisted into position, and without looking back at her friends, Partial Thoughts threw open the back door and did the same. The car was rolling unevenly toward the bridge when Pinkie and Big Mac caught on and hastened to join them. They were enemies in the park, but neither wanted to involve the police; in the car, an icy truce silenced all as Peaceful Meadows guided them under the bridge and up the path into the forest’s edge, the same path she had forced Versus to drive. She killed the lights, and when they were close to where the path diverged from Umbrella Park’s perimeter, she floored it. The angry sound of a protesting engine filled the space and sent the police scattering back to their cars, but she slowed as soon as they were around a bend and deeper into the woods. Big Mac recognized the area; if they kept on course, they would merge with the road to Little Snowdrift.

“You sure you want to go out of town?” Partial Thoughts asked.

Peaceful Meadows did not respond.

“I’m just saying, there’s three of us.”

Peaceful Meadows wiped a mixture of blood and rainwater off her muzzle, then turned on the air conditioning. She smiled, angling the vents toward the back of the car.

“Is this the part where we negotiate, maybe?” Pinkie asked. She was between Big Mac and Partial Thoughts in the back, and her voluminous mane clung in freezing strands to her back, her tail to Big Mac’s legs.

Peaceful Meadows sighed.

“Safe passage to Roan? That sounds nice, right? I bet it’s warmer there.”

“Shut up.”

She looked down, and Big Mac looked around her at Partial Thoughts. Her wet fur lay down in patches on her skin, making her look partially bald. She flicked her eyes up at Peaceful Meadows, and her lips parted just a fraction. She blinked deliberately long.

Big Mac exhaled through his nose. He thought he knew what she was suggesting, insanity to him, but he was the only one who could do it. As a unicorn, Partial Thoughts could not do anything without Peaceful Meadows’ notice, and Pinkie was too far from the front seat.

Driving was slow on the curved road, with lots of brush to rumble over, capillaries of water to loosen the already loose ground. Worse, they were entering a bank of fog, and Big Mac did not know the road well enough to be sure they would ever see the rail again if they lost the way to Little Snowdrift. If they deviated in the fog, they might not come back.

“Gotta be now,” he thought, twitching, but hesitating. Peaceful Meadows snapped her eyes to him in the rear-view mirror, and he barked as he lurched forward, shocked into action. She was ready for something, but she only put a hole in her windshield as her body and the seat were roughly pushed back, him straining awkwardly to put his entire one hundred-forty-one pounds into slamming forward, reaching the wheel, and wrenching it violently to one side.

They caromed off the road into a narrow swale of river rock, bouncing noisily off to get stuck where the rock gave way to a rise between two spruces. Peaceful Meadows was twisting back, trying to angle her crystal at them, but Big Mac did not let go the wheel, and instead pressed his weight into her further, crushing her against the seat, where she could only impotently hit his muscled side with weakened forehooves. Behind, the mares hurried to escape, and Partial Thoughts circled around to open the driver’s side door and let them fall out. As soon as she was on the ground, Partial Thoughts set to her sides and ribs, kicking and stomping and yelling for her to release the crystal. Big Mac, caught on the gearshift and leaning uncomfortably onto the seat, could only watch as the beating got quieter, more furious, and then stopped. Panting, he crawled over Peaceful Meadows’ body on the wet ground.

She breathed still, eyes slits, crystal divorced from her hoof, muddy hoofprints dashing her clothes and exposed fur. Big Mac took the crystal gingerly and set it on the ground by Partial Thoughts, who looked at it and shook her head.

Another quiet moment passed, when no one knew exactly what to do or say. They had lost the sounds of police and almost the sounds of the city, and they could see the fog rolling, shrouding the trees they had almost hit. Big Mac limped to the car and removed the keys.

“You gonna kill me?” Peaceful Meadows groaned.

“We don’t want to,” Pinkie said.

She lay her head back on the ground with a thump. “So you’re gonna let me go.”

“We can’t do that either,” Partial Thoughts said.

“No way,” Pinkie echoed.

Under fog, he saw the pull of a smile. “You can’t stay with me forever, out here. Let me freeze? That’s worse than the crystal.”

Partial Thoughts turned away and disappeared into the fog, and Big Mac took her place beside Pinkie, looking down on their attacker. He could not help his heart from going out to her, twinging with guilt at the beaten mare. She was no threat anymore; could they not just walk away, give her her car back, and tell her to stay away from them?

“Obviously can’t do that,” he thought. He kicked a twig her way.

Pinkie, meanwhile, only stared, stupefied.

“What’s it gonna be?” Peaceful Meadows asked, voice dry and soft.

“There’s no way you can get Twilight, right?” Partial Thoughts asked from within fog.

“She’s at the warehouse,” Big Mac said. He looked at the pulse crystal, secretly hoping, in small part, that Peaceful Meadows had somehow gotten a hold of it. If she could give them a reason, then things might go more easily.

“Talk it over in private if you want,” Peaceful Meadows said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Let’s bring her back to town, let the cops sort it out,” Pinkie said. “That’s what they’re there for.”

“No police,” Partial Thoughts said.

“But—”

“No.” She stomped over and took up the pulse crystal, looked closely at its design, and brought it level with Peaceful Meadows’ face. She shook her head.

“No wonder they kicked you out of Roan,” Peaceful Meadows said.

“Sit her up.” Big Mac and Pinkie were both frozen, so Partial Thoughts went behind Peaceful Meadows herself, labored to get the injured hatchet pony into a sitting position, and pointed the crystal at the back of her neck. “Last words?”

“I said my piece.”

She took a deep breath, then another, and flinched back with the noise. The crystal shot came as a rapid, pressurized suction sound, and fog parted in a ring around the hot magic as Peaceful Meadows slouched forward unnaturally. Behind her, Partial Thoughts stood, wide-eyed and trembling, before passing out.

Applejack ran into the danger zone to help Twilight hobble out, her face split and running blood across the cheekbone, her horn intermittently flashing with weak magic. Rainbow remained above, Octavia took Twilight’s place at the ship, and Rarity heard without seeing just inside her own shield. She had to keep her eyes closed, she had held it up for so long.

Twilight was insisting that she was fine, and Applejack was telling her that Octavia had the matter well under control. Rarity was not so sure; she could hear Octavia popping off smaller magical explosions on the lot, their flat cracks resounding like artillery over the wood chippers’ buzz. From what Twilight had told of the hazard, Rarity was not sure why explosions were necessary.

“There you are,” Applejack said. She and Twilight were just nearby, and Rarity thought she heard the suggestion of a voice in response. Vinyl.

“I’m fine,” Twilight repeated slowly, not sounding fine.

“We’ve got Octavia out there now, keepin’ the hazard down. Shouldn’t be long now, but—listen, that ain’t really the biggest problem. You don’t got a car right now, do ya? Off chance?”

Rarity pricked up her ears.

“‘Cause Fluttershy had to run off across town, emergency. Somethin’ happened to Colgate.” She paused, and lightning lit the insides of Rarity’s eyelids. “No, Versus told us. She was in a state.”

“Here we go!” Octavia yelled, and Rainbow repeated her, and a crash of fire and wind expanded toward her. Rarity flinched, but the shield held.

Somewhere out by the shield’s perimeter, strange voices were cheering, and these were joined by more before they made it back to Rarity’s side. Applejack’s premature “yeehaw!” came first, then Rainbow asking whether Octavia was sure, then a triumphant “yeah!” coming out of the sky as Rainbow dipped and weaved in excitement.

“Can I drop my shields now?” Rarity shouted. Under the cheers, which had spread to the crowd of witnesses and reporters well behind, she thought she could hear the cranes coming back to life, hauling down their wood chippers.

“I have to see,” Twilight mumbled close by.

“In your face, Discord!” Rainbow yelled, her amplified voice overtaking all as it rose. Rarity could imagine her, shooting as high as she could to yell her triumph at the top of the storm, and not long after, Rainbow did exactly that. Slipping into the clouds, her war cry was muffled like the purr of thunder, guttural and hearty. Exultation rolling from above, it brought a smile to Rarity’s face, and she risked opening her eyes.

For a moment, she thought that Octavia had destroyed the airship, for her eyes went right to the smoking craters in the parking lot. Mounds of sawdust connected the ship, merely pushed aside, to her shield’s edge in a dotted line, and Octavia stood in the middle of it all, looking ready to collapse. With the wind that made it through Rarity’s shield, her long mane swirled on the lot’s surface, filthy and tangled with wet sawdust.

“Twilight,” Rarity called. “How much longer do I need to hold this?”

Twilight’s head bobbed where Applejack had rested her against an abandoned carriage, and she looked at Rarity blankly, her face soaked in blood, her lips pale.

“You can take it down, Rare,” Applejack said. “We have to get her to a hospital.”

“Right, a hospital.” She looked around, yelled as loudly as she could that she was dropping the shield, and let the weather slam back onto the lot with a heavy roar. The water that had condensed on her shield came down loudly with the hail and the wind, no longer diverted. She could hear the black pines whistling far away.

“Or bring Fluttershy. She went to… Partial Thoughts’ house, Ah think? You know where that is?”

“I’ll get the others,” Rarity said, not sure what else to do. “Get everyone on the ship, there’s still first aid there. I’ll be back.”

Applejack saluted, the gesture almost comical were her face not so serious, and helped Twilight up with Vinyl. Rainbow and Octavia were coming back, and Rarity, not wanting to get caught up answering their questions, galloped down the sidewalk and through the crowd, parting them with the magic she had left.

Colgate said not a word as Versus drove them back to the park. She felt sick again, nauseous from being healed. The pain lingered as diffuse prickles around her hoof, and her fur was still gone, but it was the raw fact of the healing itself that made her so uncomfortable. It was for the same reason that she had been uncomfortable with Octavia picking her up in the mines, or with riding on the airship with Applejack as captain. To see Fluttershy come into the house, focus her eyes on the wound, and go to work, Colgate had felt the same old fear for nothing.

“Leave me there,” Colgate said suddenly, surprising herself a little. “The big park.”

“That’s the plan,” she expected Fluttershy to say. Fluttershy instead looked at her with a sad smile. “You sure?”

“I have friends there. I’ll meet you at the hotel later.”

“Not me,” Versus said. “As soon as I’ve dropped you both off, I’m going home.”

“I think you should,” Fluttershy said.

They pulled up to the curb by Umbrella Park’s entrance, let Colgate out, and then slid into the lessening hail. Colgate put her newly-healed hoof in a puddle between cobblestones and let the frigid water sting her skin. All was quiet in the park, and she walked to a set of tables. The Contraction was supposed to happen that day, perhaps the day after, by Twilight’s schedule, but the party was nowhere near complete. Dead lights were hung in some places, but no other decorations; tables were out, and chairs, but not enough; the bandstand was nowhere to be seen. Tents were rolled into huge tubes, carnival games packed into weather-beaten crates on the grass. The precogs, it seemed, expected the Contraction to come later than Twilight wanted.

Colgate followed tire treads to the site of Peaceful Meadows’ encounter with Big Mac and his friends on the grass. She saw the ruined flowers, the broken glass from his mighty kick, the scorch of pulse crystal fire, the scores on the tree Peaceful Meadows had rammed earlier. In her head, the events were jumbled, and she envisioned a sequence of car stunts. Perhaps Peaceful Meadows had arrived to find Partial Thoughts already gone, and had torn around the park to let off some steam.

She was resting and contemplating one of the fountains when Rarity arrived, panting and soaked from sweat and weather. Her mane and tail were lank, and she kept jerking her head violently to keep her mane from tripping her up. She hailed Colgate at a distance, startling her.

“I heard you got hurt,” Rarity said.

“The Mansel scum-pony shot me with a crystal. Fluttershy fixed it.”

“Oh. Okay—you’re okay, then? She did a good job?”

“Fine.” She showed Rarity the hoof in question.

“Where is she?"

"Just passed. Versus is driving her back to the warehouse."

Rarity sighed in relief, and Colgate, thinking it a queer thing to do, only nodded in agreement. She asked how the work with the hazard was going.

“Twilight’s hurt too, but they got it. I guess now they’re going to clean up and grab the Element. One to go.”

“That’s good. Why did Twilight get hurt?”

“I’m not sure. I just hope Fluttershy can help her too.” She craned her neck and started toward the forest. “I'm sure she can.”

They walked under no shield to the forest’s edge, by the bridge, where the tire tracks led and which Colgate had not bothered to follow. After a minute, they recognized the others: Big Mac, Pinkie, and Partial Thoughts, just as soaked and unhappy as Colgate and Rarity. Partial Thoughts was the worst, in just her short fur; the soaked, white coat had become semitransparent, and she could not stop shivering. Big Mac and Pinkie were little better, their outer clothes dark with rain and hanging heavily off their frames, streaming water. The groups retreated to a Ramada to get out of the hail, but the wind slanted across to them still, and there, they shared what had happened. Pinkie cried, and Partial Thoughts relayed her experience impersonally and at length, explaining how it felt to use Peaceful Meadows’ pulse crystal. The act of taking a life had temporarily shocked the feeling out of her, which many of them understood.

Inside the evacuation zone, there were too many ponies and too many abandoned vehicles for an ambulance to safely navigate, and with Fluttershy not yet back, they made do with the medical supplies on the ship. Applejack had inexpertly stemmed Twilight’s bleeding with cotton pads, swabbed in antibiotic ointment and wrapped around her face with gauze. Meanwhile, in grinding lines, the cherry pickers and wood chippers made their ways back to the garages and facilities from which Twilight had called them. Many of the operators and drivers wanted to speak with her personally, and Twilight insisted that she meet them. She sat on the gangplank, on a pile of sawdust, and shook hooves and gave thanks. Her color was returning, just, but Applejack did not feel good about it.

While she worked to clean the ship and get it back in working order, flashing between the waking world and the dissociative world of magic through which she controlled their machine, Octavia and Vinyl scraped sawdust off the lot and Rainbow hunted for the Element in the emptied warehouse.

Reporters and bystanders flocked and dispersed soon after, a very few remaining to help clean the lot. The hazard had been absorbed and dried out, much of its mass sucked into the dust, hardening it. In places, small husks of the hazard’s processes could be found, like spun sugar, beaten flat by hail.

Versus arrived as the last of the crowd was turning back, and she drove straight up through the lot to the airship and climbed out, having donned a smile for the sake of her friends’ triumph. She fawned over Twilight, and Fluttershy tried without success to heal her, and then the two joined with the cleanup effort.

“We’ll get you stitched up if Fluttershy can’t help after this,” Applejack said. “There’s a hospital just a hop an’ a skip away from the hotel.”

“I don’t want to waste our time,” Twilight said, but she knew Applejack was right, and Applejack knew it too. There was no argument.

“So,” Applejack said, trotting down the plank, “you gotta feel good ‘bout it, though. You kicked that thing’s butt, if it’s got a butt.”

“I got hurt.”

“Like anypony coulda, Twilight. And that wasn’t the hazard got ya, that was this dang ship. That was just bad luck, but other than that, you made it look easy.”

Twilight smiled in spite of herself. “It’s just good planning.”

“An’ it shows.” She sat down and put a leg around her friend. “One more. Based on the last few, we’ll be off straight to the final one in no time, too.”

“About time.”

Applejack took a deep breath. “It feels good, my friend.”

Rainbow took the hole in the roof and sped across the lot, the Element dangling from her hoof. She landed, did a little jig, and presented the Element to Applejack: it was Big Mac’s, two pale green gems fused, one around the other, to form his single apple cutie mark. The jeweler had even added flecks of onyx for the apple seeds.

“Ooooh, let’s see,” Versus said, trotting over. Applejack hesitated, but after a confirming look from Twilight, let Versus look.

The questions and explanations came next, and by the time they were done, Octavia and Vinyl had finished with the lot. They had merely pushed the sawdust off into the bushes at the periphery, assuming it would decompose and feed the bushes.

For her part, Versus accepted the idea of new Elements without reservations, and she did not ask any of the big questions Twilight was afraid of: how would three new Elements affect the future? Would the princesses accept the change? Might there be another, unknown, reason why it had to be six Elements; and adding more had only destroyed them all? For these, Twilight had no good answers, but she was not tested. For a moment, it appeared that Applejack was about to engage Versus in another philosophical conversation, and bring up the implications of new Elements herself, but Octavia reminded them that they had not the time. Twilight drew Versus the tiny sigil that would enable them to send letters back and forth, and Applejack promised to write once they were in a better place.

Versus watched from the lot’s edge as Applejack put them in the air for a few minutes. The hole Twilight had punched in the deck had not damaged any machinery, just the floor and cabins, but her friends kept tactful silence about Twilight’s momentary surge of emotion.

“Let’s get this to an actual airship lot and get back,” Rainbow said. “Fluttershy, how you doing? Ready to heal?”

Fluttershy shook her head.

“Right. Twilight, you’re going to a hospital as soon as we land. We’ll find the others. They should be still at Umbrella Park, right?”

“That’s where we left ‘em,” Applejack said, taking off her Element and hefting her brother’s. “Just fer fun, let’s see.” She donned the heavier Element, where it rested just as naturally on her chest. “How do Ah look, girls?”

“Patient,” Octavia said, and it took them a second to realize she was making a small joke.

“You’re glowing,” Vinyl said.

“Ah like it too,” Applejack said.

“No, you—look.” She tapped the green apple, warm to the touch, and Applejack yanked the necklace off and lay it on the deck. It glowed from within, and after a second, thin tendrils of smoke were seen seeping from around the gem’s edge. The smoke coalesced above, tightened, solidified, and out came a curled note.

“Uhh, that’s not s’posed to happen,” Applejack said.

“Just great,” Rainbow said, taking it and reading.

* * * * * *

Evening was coming on the clock, and not the sky, in Hoofington as for the world. In the guts of the Astra fortress on town’s edge, Lumb was engaged with light reading. His preferred room was a small parlor with a ship’s porthole as a window, part of an entire wing fashioned from a decommissioned airship fleet, recovered and butchered into squished little rooms and bracing for the fortress’ higher reaches.

He had woken that day with a sense of impending action, which had not quit him for one second as the day wound up. Over his life, he had learned to trust such feelings implicitly, no matter how obscure, and he went first to his museum to close it for the next few days. His second step was to go to the Astras, who were not yet his family—he was waiting for Violet Astra to return from Canterlot before marrying her—to warn them, of what he could not say. They understood that he intuited things sometimes, and the family stayed closer to home that day. Third, he went to his mansion, formerly Octavia’s, and with the servants’ help, purged it of valuables and locked down what could not be easily removed. He called up every mover who could help on short notice and had the paintings, the silverware, the china, the vases and flowers, the rugs and aged wine, and the smaller instruments conveyed back to the museum for safe keeping. The library and instrument room, he had locked away and boarded up, and the servants he discharged home on the spot, every single one, not laid off but temporarily suspended. With urgency that bloomed into frantic energy, Lumb moved, gave orders, handled details, argued with ponies who questioned his intuition. In the space of a day, he turned his life upside-down, and never once did he stop to question himself.

At five o’ clock, with his instinct running hot to tell him that time was direly short, he got in his limousine and drove it from the mansion to the Astras’, just to check in, and there waited for the next impulse, if there was a next impulse. He sensed that he had completed his task in enough time, barely, but could not be comfortable until he saw for what he had done everything. The Astras left him alone, for they knew he did not like to be bothered in this state.

Finally, like fog lifting off a field, knowledge emerged inside his brain. He put down the book and went out to his car, driving it as carefully as he could to the middle of the park. The statues of the Elements of Harmony were behind him as he parked too close to the gate, and waited. Passers-by gave him strange looks, which he did not heed. His intuition told him he was complete, and that the next steps would be easy and clear.

Only twenty minutes later, magic flashed on the lawn, upsetting a pair of stallions on a picnic blanket, and out tumbled some old friends. The ponies came first, rubbing their heads and eyes, obviously surprised, and a globe of light came second, rising into the sky and exploding like a dandelion to leave behind an image that solidified into a damaged airship. It hovered noisily, and the ponies looked around and cried out in disorientation but not anger, and Lumb waited for them to come to their senses before stepping out and approaching them.

Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Octavia, and a pale mare he did not recognize, were scattered across the lawn, trying to figure out what had happened. One of them waved a letter and told the others to be quiet, that it was obvious if they’d just listen. Lumb noted Twilight’s pallor, her wound, the fact that she lay on the grass while the others stood, and he knew then why he had needed to bring the car, and not simply show up on hoof.

“Long time no see,” he shouted, snapping their attention back to him. “Help me get her in the car, I’ll take you to a hospital.”

“You!”

“Who is this?”

“How did you—never mind.”

“This is Hoofington, then.”

“What are you doing here?”

They babbled questions as they got into the limousine, and then were underway, Twilight up front and dripping blood through her bandages on Lumb’s upholstery. When they were quieter, Lumb spoke again.

“I’ve been up since seven this morning, laboring under large feelings.” He paused for half a minute, as was his wont. “Much of it, I still fail to understand, but this is clear. I was to meet you all.”

“You’re a friend,” the pale mare said softly.

“We’re all friends here."

“You’re an intuiter,” Twilight mumbled. “We were just surrounded by precogs, and now you.”

“Don’t talk, Twilight,” Rainbow said.

“Is that the word?” Lumb asked. “An intuiter. I prefer ‘artist’.”

The Hoofington hospital was five minutes away, and before Lumb’s dinnertime, Twilight was checked in and waiting to receive stitches. When the doctor said Twilight would need a blood transfusion, Rainbow cut her off to volunteer.

By eight, Twilight and Rainbow were stable but weak, Applejack had found a place for their ship, and Lumb had gone back home. He bade them a formal goodbye, as if he believed he would not see them again.

“The others are still in Snowdrift,” Applejack said, at the same time as a coil of smoke was coming off Octavia’s head. Their friends had figured it out too, and the letter, in Pinkie’s long script, asked where they were and whether they were okay. While Octavia formulated a response, Rainbow read the letter that had come off the Element of Patience.

“He watches me now, so this is the final time you shall hear from me. I cannot meet you, so instead, I’ve put the magic in this note. Hope you’re all together when you read it. V.C.” Rainbow balled the note up and threw it in the wastebasket. “But this is where we need to be, right? Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy nodded solemnly. “It’s on the other side of the river. It’s maybe… two miles away.”