Space Captain Pinkie Pie

Chapters

1: The Challenge
2: Fluttershy's Wagon
3: Pinkie's Wish
4: Research, Unicorn Style
5: Research, Earth Pony Style
6: Research, Pegasus Style
7: Unveiling the Jelly Jar
8: Lift Off!
9: Ascent
10: Crash Course
11: First Contact
12: Party Games
13: Easiest Mission Ever
14: Point of No, Return
15: Fixing Tess
16: Moon is Mine
17: Traps and Wards
18: Three Dreams
19: Mass Transit, Moon Style
20: Ancient Prophecies of Doom
21: Chasing Rainbows
22: Escape From Ponyville
23: Mirrors and Zombies
24: Cherry and Trixie's Big Adventure
25: Confrontation
26: Core Problems
27: Rainbow Dash vs. the Wonderbolts
28: Twilight Descends
29: Midnight
30: Down to Earth
31: Going Batty
32: Closing the Loop
link to sequel: Earth to Twilight

1: The Challenge

It all started with a simple question.

“How high can you fly?” asked Twilight Sparkle, interrupting her friend’s rambling narrative about her plans to improve the aerial acrobatics display she’d just spent the last two hours practicing.

“What?” Rainbow Dash replied, looking at Twilight as if she was crazy. “Were you even listening?”

“I figured you were mostly talking to yourself at this point,” the unicorn replied, rolling her eyes as she got to her feet. One of her legs got caught in the blanket she’d wrapped herself in against the chill autumn air, but she managed to untangle it with her magic without falling down or looking too foolish. “But I was thinking about your flying, and you didn’t seem to have much trouble flying straight up when you needed to. What would happen if you just kept going?”

“I’d get bored,” Rainbow Dash said, in a tone of voice that already sounded bored just thinking about it. “Do you think I haven’t tried it? Every pegasus tries it at least once. Except for Fluttershy, of course.”

“Yes, but how high did you get before you had to stop?” Twilight asked. “I’ve heard that the air gets thinner and colder, the higher you go…”

“Yeah yeah,” Rainbow said, waving that off with a wing, “Pegasi don’t really care about that. I mean, we can tell that it’s cold and that the air is thin but it doesn’t really bother us. But there’s nothing up there, Twilight. You get a few miles up and even the wispy cirrus clouds peter out, and then it’s just empty air forever. Unless you’re asking if I could fly to the moon or something.” She stifled a giggle at the look on Twilight’s face. “You are! You think I could fly to the moon! BWA HA HA HA!”

Twilight looked distinctly unamused.

“You can’t fly to the moon, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said. “It’s basically, like, a million billion miles away. I’ve flown up until all of Equestria was like a big blue and green ball beneath me, and the moon was just as far away as ever.”

“So you don’t know if you could fly there, because it’s far enough away that you got bored,” Twilight said, folding up the blanket she’d been sitting on and stuffing it into one of her saddlebags.

“You try flying through an endless empty void sometime and tell me how far you get before you turn back,” the pegasus replied, hovering over Twilight’s head and poking her on the horn. “For a pony that likes boring stuff you get bored faster than anypony. You didn’t last ten seconds when you thought you had to stand there and do nothing all week.”

“I bet you’d get bored before I would,” Twilight said, her horn glowing as she lifted and folded the blanket lying across her back and put it in the other bag, shivering a little – it wasn’t a long run back to Ponyville, and the exercise would keep her warm. She trotted around Rainbow Dash, then turned back to add, with a smug little smile, “I’d bring a book.”

“You wouldn’t get bored because you’d freeze to death,” Rainbow pointed out.

“Oh,” Twilight said, sheepishly, “Right.”

===

Later, at Pinkie’s ‘Last Night of Fall’ party, Rainbow Dash giggled to Pinkie Pie by the snack table as she recounted the conversation. “…and then it turns out she thought I could fly to the moon!”

“Well, how high can you fly, Dashie?” Pinkie asked, dribbling a bit of hot sauce into her punch. She’d learned better than to spike the punchbowl.

“I can fly as high as I want,” Rainbow Dash said.

“So, would you like to fly to the moon?” Pinkie Pie said. “I know I would! I mean, I’ve heard the moon is made out of glowing magic moon cheese that Luna had to eat for a thousand years, and covered with all her notes on how to conquer Equestria, and even if I didn’t find that I could look down at Equestria and wave to everypony at once! Not to mention all the parties I could throw for the poor moon ponies. I mean, do they even have parties on the moon?”

“I guess it would be kind of cool,” Rainbow Dash said. “I mean, can you imagine it? I’d be the first pony to go to the moon under her own power."

“So then you can’t fly as high as you want,” Pinkie Pie said, shaking her head. “So sad!”

“Nnng!”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Rainbow,” Fluttershy said quietly, as she gingerly set a cucumber sandwich on her plate. “The ground’s much nicer anyway.”

“That’s it!” Rainbow Dash said, loud enough to draw every eye in the room towards her. She hovered up off the ground, and pointed a hoof at the pink pony who’d just joined Twilight and the others near the fireplace. “Pinkie Pie, I’m taking you to the moon!”

2: Fluttershy's Wagon

The next day was overcast and snowy, as winter rolled in across Equestria. Twilight Sparkle put on her warm fluffy hat, scarf, and saddle, and headed outside with her checklist of Winter Fun. But before she could even make the smallest snowpony, Rainbow Dash was there, hovering over her and looking at her expectantly.

“Come on,” the pegasus said, “we’re going to meet over at Fluttershy’s place.”

“Okay,” Twilight said easily – it was always fun to hang out with her friends, after all. “Any special reason?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Fluttershy never comes out of her cottage on the first day of winter, because she’s afraid she’ll get pelted with snowballs.” A pair of snowballs came arcing from the schoolyard, narrowly missing the two of them. The giggling of rambunctious foals came from the playground. “And she’s right, but she really needs to lighten up.”

“Did she invite us over?” Twilight asked, narrowing her eyes at her friend. “Or are you trying to get me to help drag her outside against her will. Again.”

“Come on, Twilight. I’m going to need everypony’s help if I’m going to keep my promise,” Rainbow said, wincing as a snowball splattered against her back. At the unicorn’s confused look, she added, “To take Pinkie Pie to the moon? Remember?”

Twilight blinked. “What, are you planning to load Pinkie into Fluttershy’s old wagon and wrap her up in blankets to keep her warm?”

“See! That’s why I need an egghead like you on board,” Rainbow said, patting Twilight roughly on the back. “That’s way better than my plan.”

Even though they were using her cottage as their base of operations, they didn’t actually end up spending much time with Fluttershy that day. It was getting dark by the time they’d finished running all over Ponyville to beg, borrow, and bake everything they thought they’d need, and the moon would be rising soon.

“If it’s okay, I’ll watch from here,” Fluttershy said from her door, as the others loaded everything into her wagon to take it out to the park.

“Are you sure, Fluttershy?” Twilight Sparkle asked, glancing up at the overcast sky. “All the little fillies and colts should be in bed by now.”

Fluttershy nodded, without saying anything, and backed quietly into her cottage. “Just be safe, please,” she whispered.

“Oh, we’ll be better than safe!” Pinkie Pie said, appearing behind her and draping a hoof over her shoulders. “We’ll be on the moon!”

===

Twilight Sparkle paced nervously around the muddy hilltop, teleporting a few feet now and then to avoid getting in anypony’s way. Spike wasn’t so lucky, and had to keep dodging around the working ponies, or slip between their ankles, as he followed her around with a checklist.

“What’s next on the list?” she asked, as she watched Rarity put the finishing touches on Pinkie Pie’s glittering teal wrap.

“Only one item left!” Spike said, then grimaced. “Triple check the checklist? Can’t I just check this off?”

“Yeah, come on, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said, prancing in place in the wagon’s harness, spreading and folding her wings.

“Okay, okay,” Twilight said, “we can go with a verbal confirmation of every pony’s status. Rarity?”

“All done!” Rarity said, with a winning smile, then seemed to catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of her eye. “Oh, wait, I think this part is a little assymetrical…”

“Rarity!” Rainbow Dash complained.

The white and purple unicorn sighed, and forced herself to look away from the slightly unaesthetic blanket. “Ready,” she said, through gritted teeth.

“Ace? How are we looking for air?”

“Full pressure on all cannisters,” the athletic earth pony responded, tugging on the strap holding the air tanks from Ponyville’s entire supply of scuba gear in place in the front of the wagon. “And tied down tight.”

“Applejack?” Twilight asked.

“Pinkie Pie keeps eatin’ her supplies. But I don’t see how goin’ one night without vittles is gonna ruin anything, so I guess we’re good.” Applejack said. “Rainbow’s stuff is in her saddlebags, where miss greedy-guts can’t get at it.”

“I’m just storing the food inside myself,” Pinkie Pie said unapologetically. “To save on weight!”

“Rainbow Dash,” Twilight Sparkle said next.

“Ready!” the blue Pegasus replied quickly, “Set,” she added, crouching down, and then before anypony could stop her, “Go!” she launched into the sky, dragging a screaming Pinkie Pie along with her.

“Rainbow!” Twilight screamed, then realized that it was too late to stop her, and concentrated on sending up a flare. The weatherponies who’d volunteered to clear the sky hardly needed the signal – they were already desperately opening a hole after seeing Rainbow Dash’s sudden launch – but it was still too slow, and the two were tossed aside, tumbling, as Rainbow punched a hole in the sky.

By the time they’d recovered, and cleared a large enough hole for the ponies on the ground to get a good look, Rainbow and Pinkie were already a tiny, glittering dot rising into the darkening sky.

“Ain’t that a sight,” Applejack said, staring up after them, as the other stars started to appear with the onset of night.

“Do you think they’ll be okay?” Rarity asked.

“I hope so,” Twilight Sparkle said, walking over to a small portable telescope and sitting beneath it to get a better look at her friends. “I just can’t help feeling like I’ve forgotten something.”

Ten minutes later, as the chatter was starting to die down, and just as Cloud Chaser launched herself off the cloud she’d been watching from to spiral down towards the earth ponies and unicorns watching from the ground, there was a flash high in the sky, and a ring of rainbow light spread across the night sky.

Applejack laughed. “That’s the way to do it, RD!” she said, only to stop her hoof-pump with her foreleg halfway in the air as she, and everypony else, realized that the thin rainbow trail from the center of the explosion wasn’t turning back up to meet the moon. Instead, it stayed on its original path, making a beeline for the ground. “What in tarnation?”

“Oh no!” Twilight said, as her eyes followed its path to the large building on the edge of town. Rainbow Dash was heading straight for Ponyville Hospital.

In a flash of purple light, she was gone, before the rumble of thunder reached the ground.

3: Pinkie's Wish

“What’s the situation?” snapped the doctor as the pink pony was cut free from her swaddling blankets.

“Nng,” said the orderly, horn glowing brightly as she struggled with the shears. “Who wrapped these? And why so many?”

The duty nurse tried to explain, “She was brought in by a pegasus –“

“You’ve got to save her!” cried the rainbow-maned pegasus in question from the public area, frozen tears streaked across her cheeks. Behind her was a smashed wagon, one wheel missing, the other hanging loose at an angle, its axle nearly torn in two.

The doctor nodded. “Deceleration trauma then?” His own horn glowed as he scanned the pink pony, finally denuded of her wrappings and transferred to a rolling bed. “Odd. No broken bones…”

Twilight Sparkle appeared in a purple flash, making the doctors and nurses squint and cringe away from the sudden burst of light and sound. “Pinkie! Are you okay?” she asked, rushing to her side.

“You can’t be back here!” shouted the orderly, her magic grabbing hold of Twilight’s tail. With another purple flash, the intruder teleported to the other side of Pinkie’s bed.

“What’s wrong with her?” Twilight asked.

“Everything…” croaked Pinkie Pie weakly, her eyes still held tightly shut. “I’m dying, Twilight…”

“She’s not dying!” the doctor insisted, catching Twilight Sparkle’s gaze as she looked up, and holding it with his fierce stare. “Just let us do our jobs!”

===

Several hours and several very confused doctors later, and Pinkie Pie was bouncing around her hospital room. “It was awful, Twilight!” she said to the worried purple unicorn sitting by her bed. “It was like the most non-non-non-non-non-amazingly wonderful thing ever! I couldn’t keep the air mask on and it was way too hot instead of cold like we thought it would be and everything just hurt so much and I screamed but Rainbow couldn’t hear me! I couldn’t even hear me!”

“How did she know to come back down?” Twilight asked, eyes wide as she imagined what could have happened. “And – aren’t you supposed to be getting some rest?”

“Aren’t *you* supposed to be waiting until visiting hours to visit?” Pinkie Pie asked. Twilight glanced nervously at the door, but it was still closed, the hallway outside dark.

“Was it just… luck?” Twilight asked, blinking back tears.

“Nah,” Pinkie Pie said, unconcerned. “I never leave home without an emergency confetti bomb. Especially when I think I’m going to be partying with Moon Ponies. Do Moon Ponies even have confetti?”

“I guess we’ll never know,” Twilight said. “I’m just happy that she did bring you back, and that you’re going to be okay. Does it still hurt?”

“Only when I touch things,” Pinkie Pie said, then demonstrated, going, “Ow, ow, ow,” with each bounce for a bit. “It hurts a lot more when I stand still, or try to lie down. Like my whole body is one big bruise.”

Twilight’s horn glowed as she lifted Pinkie Pie up into the air. Pinkie laughed, “That works! Are you going to carry me around until I’m ready to try again?”

“What?” Twilight Sparkled asked, eyes widening. “You want to try again?”

“We have to, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie replied. “We smashed Fluttershy’s wagon, lost half the air tanks from the Ponyville scuba center, got a dozen of Rarity’s blankets torn to shreds and nearly killed me! If we give up now it was all for nothing!” She gave a wide grin. “But don’t you worry, Twilight. I know exactly what went wrong, and how to fix it.”

“Yes?” Twilight asked, levitating Pinkie Pie over in front of herself and leaning close.

“I’m going to make a wish!” Pinkie Pie said. As Twilight leaned back a bit and raised one eyebrow, Pinkie Pie started her chant. “Twilight, star bright, first twinkly winkly Sparkly star I saw tonight, I wish I may, I wish I – MAKE ME A PEGASUS!”

Twilight laughed. “I wish I could!”

Pinkie Pie pouted. “You can’t grant my wish?”

Twilight shook her head, smiling.

Pinkie Pie frowned. “What about your own wish, to be able to grant my wish? Can you grant that one?”

Twilight giggled, “No, Pinkie, I’m not actually a wishing star, even if I was named after one. The last wishing star in Equestria was lost hundreds of years ago.”

“Then…” Pinkie Pie’s eyes widened, and she somehow managed to bob up and down in Twilight’s purple aura. “Can we go on an epic quest to recover it? Please please please?”

“How about we go on an epic quest to the library, and try to find a way to get you to the moon safely, without changing tribes?” Twilight Sparkle suggested.

4: Research, Unicorn Style

“Useless!” Twilight cried, throwing yet another book onto the pile near the ‘magic’ shelf.

Her assistant ambled out of the kitchen and looked at the growing pile with dismay. “You know, Twilight, we’d spend a lot less time reshelving if you’d put the books back when you were done with them.”

“Quiet, Spike,” Twilight said, staring at one of the half-dozen books still hovering around her. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Drop everything, Twilight! I found a spell that will solve all our problems!” came Pinkie’s excited voice from the other room. Twilight let her hovering books fall to the ground as Pinkie dropped a large tome onto the table in front of her, open to a page near the middle.

Twilight read the title aloud, slowly, since it was written in old Equestrian. “The magnificent spell to turneth the Earth Pony like unto the Pegasus.”

Pinkie bounced around happily. She was still looking a bit beat up, but it didn’t seem to be slowing her down anymore. “And you said it couldn’t be done.”

“This spell isn’t nearly as hard as I thought – where did you find this?” Twilight asked, lifting the book up in a purple aura and flipping it around to look at the spine.

“I’m surprised you didn’t know about it,” Pinkie continued. “I mean, Starswirl the Bearded is one of your heroes, isn’t he?”

“Pinkie –“ Twilight said, dropping the book face down as she read the spine.

“And you even had it filed under ‘Classics’!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted, prompting the pink pony to pause. “Pinkie, this is a book of amniomorphic spells.” Pinkie Pie stared at her, smiling vacantly. “Amniomorphic spells are cast on a foal still in the womb.”

“Oh,” Pinkie Pie said, “Well, okay.”

“I’m sorry, but we’re not going to solve this by transforming our passengers,” Twilight Sparkle continued. “What we need is to find a force field spell that will hold air –“

“Or a time travel spell, that would let you go back in time and cast your omniomathic spell on me while I’m still in the womb!” Pinkie Pie suggested eagerly. “I know just where to find one!”

“That spell only works once, and I already used it,” Twilight said, getting to her feet and pacing back and forth. “Besides, it only creates stable time loops. Why would pegasus Pinkie Pie send me back in time to change her into a pegasus?”

“I could leave myself a note?” Pinkie Pie suggested.

Twilight paused in her pacing. “Spike! Take a note. Dear Princess Celestia…”

===

“To my faithful student, Twilight Sparkle,” Spike recited from the unfurled scroll he’d burped up in response, “Ponies were not meant to travel to the stars, or even the moon.”

“What?” Twilight said, recoiling.

Spike rolled his eyes and skimmed to the bottom of the rather long scroll. “Calm down, she goes on. Yada yada spirit of exploration, blah blah danger and hardship, ‘So while I will not forbid you and your friends to pursue this path, I’m afraid that the only aid or advice I can offer you is this: Wear sunscreen.’”

“So sunscreen will protect us from the ouchy heights of empty space?” Pinkie asked. “Wow. They should really charge more for that stuff.”

Twilight yanked the scroll out of Spike’s hands, and read it herself, twitching a bit or grimacing as she read certain passages. “Nng. She’s still mad about the Smarty Pants incident. ‘The forcefield spells about which you inquire were banned for a reason. They can be a deadly weapon in the wrong hooves, and a dangerous tool even for those who mean well.’”

“So should we go get our ninja suits?” Pinkie asked. “I still have your old eye-patch.”

“I think –,” Twilight Sparkle started, through gritted teeth, crumpling up the scroll in her magic until it suddenly burst into flames and burned to ashes. Pinkie Pie and Spike stared at her. “Eheh,” she said, collapsing to the ground and covering her face with her hooves. “I think I might be getting a little too obsessed with this,” she admitted.

“That’s okay, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said with an easy smile. “You just rest, and let auntie Pinkie Pie worry about getting herself to the moon. I think I’ll go see what Dashie and Applejack are up to.”

Twilight moved a hoof an inch, peeking out from underneath it. “Are they up to something? Why would you think they were up to something? What sort of thing would they be up to?” she asked, suspiciously.

“I don’t know,” Pinkie Pie said. “That’s why I’m going to go check.”

“It better not involve a giant see-saw,” Twilight said. She sighed, and got to her feet. “I’d better come along and make sure they don’t hurt themselves.”

5: Research, Earth Pony Style

It did not involve a giant see-saw. It involved a giant jelly jar, ten feet tall, sealed with a giant canning lid, with Applejack inside, eyes closed and hooves pressed against a small apple tree. The tree was planted in a thick layer of dirt at the bottom, and somehow had all its leaves despite the season. Rainbow Dash was outside with a stopwatch, while the rest of the Apple family gathered around watching, occasionally cheering her on.

“Please tell me you’re not timing how long until she suffocates,” Twilight Sparkle said, approaching the small crowd.

“Well…” Rainbow Dash said, “it’s kind of a contest?”

“There’s no contest!” screeched an old green mare. “Applejack already kicked your patootie, and now she’s going for the world record!”

“It was a contest,” Rainbow Dash said. “Granny Smith said trees make the air breathable, and we wanted to test it. You know, for science. Only science is boring, so we made it a contest.”

“Which you LOST!” Applebloom said with a grin.

“Photosynthesis does produce oxygen,” Twilight Sparkle said, leaning close to the jar to get a better look at Applejack. “I’m surprised a tree that small can produce enough for a pony. Are you sure she’s alright in there?”

“Ahm fine, Twi,” Applejack said, not opening her eyes.

“Photo-right. I know I’ve heard that word,” Rainbow Dash said. “So I understand completely, and you don’t need to explain.”

“When sunlight hits the leaves…” Twilight started, anyway.

“Leaves! That’s how she’s doing it!” Rainbow Dash shouted, then tapped on the glass. “Hey! Cheater! How come you didn’t tell me the tree needed to have leaves?”

“You didn’t ask,” Applejack said, smirking. “Sides, the tree looked just the same when I went in the jar as when you did. Not my fault if you’re no good with plants.”

“She must be using Earth Pony magic to make the tree grow in winter,” Twilight said, taking out a notepad and quill as she continued to observe the process. “And probably put out extra oxygen, too.”

“Ah ain’t usin’ no magic, Twi,” Applejack said. “You just gotta know how to talk to the plants.”

Pinkie Pie’s hooves thwacked against the side of the jar, as her slow, quiet, approach finally reached its natural conclusion. “Let me try! If I’m going to go play with moon ponies, I need to prove I can talk to anypony. Even a leafypony. Treepony?”

“Timberpony?” Applebloom suggested.

“It’s just a tree, Pinkie,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Those too!”

Twilight concentrated for a second, and in a purple flash, Pinkie Pie and Applejack switched places.

“Hey!” Applejack said. “What about my record?”

“Do you even know what the world record is for an Earth Pony meditating on growing a tree in a giant jelly jar?” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“Fifteen days,” Applejack replied. “And now I gotta start all over.”

“Soooo…” Pinkie Pie said at last, after staring at the tree for a while. “How are you doing today, Mister Leafybottom?”

“That’s not his name, Pinkie,” Applejack said, turning back to the jar.

“Barktholemew?” Pinkie Pie guessed, addressing the tree as she bounced around it. “Bigtwig? Blossomforth? Ooh, he liked Bigtwig.”

“Really?” Twilight Sparkled asked, approaching the jar and watching Pinkie closely. “How could you tell?”

Pinkie Pie nuzzled up against the tree’s young bark. “Can’t you see his big leafy smile? He’s my special somesapling.”

“What?” Applejack said. “Get away from Mister Knobblysticks! He’s mah tree!”

“Not anymore!” Pinkie Pie said, turning her head away from the farmpony. “We’re going to be married, in the spring.” She bounced to her feet and started dancing around the tree on her back hooves, one forehoof hooked around its narrow trunk as she burst into song.

Hi hi hi mister leafy leafy tree!
I I I am your bestest friend Pinkie!
Why why why won’t you shake your little leaves!
Fly fly fly into the sky sky sky so very high high high to the mooooon with meeeeee!

The tree shook back and forth as she circled and sang, until with her last extended chord, it suddenly lost all its leaves. Pinkie Pie blinked from under the leaf-pile.

Granny Smith sighed. “You went and oversold it, you silly filly. You gotta move slow with apple trees.”

“Really, Pinkie, you can’t bring up marriage on the first date. That always scares the colts off,” Rainbow Dash said. She noticed everypony was looking at her . “Or, er, so I’ve heard.”

6: Research, Pegasus Style

“We’ve trained hard,” Rainbow Dash said to the assembled crowd of pegasi. It wasn’t nearly as large as the crowd she’d drawn when Ponyville was going for the Tornado record, but then this meeting wasn’t mandatory. “The ponies here have shown that they’re the best of the best that Ponyville has to offer.”

“Are you sure they’re the best of the best?” Pinkie Pie asked, from the corner. “I mean, you only did one round of elimination so that would make them the best of the ponies who showed up.”

“Well, only the best ponies showed up, okay?” Rainbow Dash said. “If you aren’t even willing to try, then that’s worse than washing out. No offense Fluttershy… um… Fluttershy?” Dash did a double take as she noticed the shy yellow Pegasus sitting next to Pinkie Pie. “Did you change your mind about helping?”

“Um… no…” Fluttershy said, looking down.

“Well,” Rainbow Dash said, pausing a little too long, “good. I couldn’t play favorites anyway, since you skipped the trials. Wait – you’re not here about Tank, are you?”

“No…” Fluttershy said, “I was just wondering…”

“Right. Well, if you’re here to cheer for the winners, I’ve got the list right here,” she said, tapping a hoof against the covered easel.

“…if it wouldn’t be too much trouble…” Fluttershy continued.

“Now before I show the results,” Rainbow Dash said, pacing back and forth in front of the crowd, “I want you to know that I’m considering only relevant factors here – wingpower to weight ratio, endurance…”

“…would it be possible if you could…” Fluttershy said, getting softer and softer as no one seemed to be paying any attention to her.

“…radicalness, style, and of course, spirit!” Rainbow Dash finished. “Twilight helped me come up with a formula to weight all your scores. And might have helped a little with the math. So if you don’t agree with the standings, you should go complain to her.”

“…get around to – you know, when you have time – thinking about maybe…”

“That said, our number one flier in Ponyville, leader of the ‘A’ team for the Jelly Jar, is… me!” Rainbow flipped up the cover to show a picture of her own face.

“Get on with it already!” complained a blue and yellow Pegasus from the middle of the crowd. “Who’d you pick to go with you?”

“…giving me back my wagon?” Fluttershy squeaked.

“Not you,” Rainbow Dash said. “Sorry, Raindrops. I just couldn’t get past your mane. It really screams ‘phys ed teacher’, and that’s not the image I’m looking for to take on the first ever Pegasus-powered moon voyage.”

“I mean… you’re not using it anymore? And I’d be really really grateful…” Fluttershy added, under the laughter of the crowd.

“The number TWO flier,” Rainbow Dash said, flipping to the next sheet, “surprising us all by actually putting forth an effort for once in his life, Thunder Lane!” That, finally, was met with some real cheers and congratulations as he pranced to the front of the room to stand next to Rainbow Dash.

“I have to make twice as many trips to the forest without a wagon,” Fluttershy said.

“The number three flier, who scored amazingly high in the endurance test, and showed some real spirit cheering the rest of you on, is… Derpy!”

“Woo! Thanks Rainbow Dash!” said the gray and yellow Pegasus as she hovered up out of the crowd and made her way towards the easel, kicking several other ponies in the head as she passed. “Sorry!” She bumped the easel as she landed, and Rainbow Dash had to steady it with a wing. “My bad,” she said.

Twilight Sparkle opened the door to the library, and after a quick look around, quietly made her way over to Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy. Pinkie Pie offered her some popcorn.

“Did I miss anything?” Twilight asked.

“Yep,” said Pinkie Pie, not taking her eyes off the stage.

“And our last place winner, for spirit, style, and some really radical muffins, Ditzy Doo!”

Another gray and yellow Pegasus, with an identical bubble cutie mark flew out of the crowd and did a quick circle around the room before landing next to Derpy.

“Wait,” Twilight Sparkle said quietly, so as not to interrupt Rainbow Dash, who was explaining the mission in more detail, “we’re taking Ditzy Doo on our team?”

“Uh huh,” Pinkie Pie said.

Twilight took a bite of her popcorn. “Who’s the, um… the other one.”

“Derpy,” Fluttershy said. “And, um, hi Twilight.”

Twilight stared at them. “Derpy and Ditzy are two different pegasi.”

“Uh huh,” Pinkie Pie said.

Twilight leaned forwards and rubbed her eyes. “Who look exactly the same, and have the same cutie mark.”

“There’s actually six of them,” Fluttershy said. “But Daffodil, Daydream, Dizzy, and Dandelion still live in Cloudsdale. They were all sitting together to cheer Ditzy on during the young fliers’ competition.”

“…so if you look up a couple nights from now, and see a really bright falling star – catch us!” Rainbow Dash finished, to the laughter of the crowd.

“I’m surprised to see you here, Fluttershy,” Twilight Sparkle said, as the crowd started to break up. “Did you change your mind about coming along? It’d be crowded, but we could probably fit in *one* more pony as a passenger…”

“No… I just wanted…” Fluttershy started, looking down and scraping at the floor with her hoof. “I just wanted to cheer everypony on,” she finished, with a smile.

7: Unveiling the Jelly Jar

“This has got to be some kind of sick joke,” Rainbow Dash said, as she watched Pinkie Pie bouncing towards the launch hangar – also known as Applejack’s barn – with a huge box full of familiar blue plants floating after her in Twilight’s pinkish-purple levitation aura.

“They’re not sick, silly. We picked the healthy ones!” Pinkie said with a grin. “Well we didn’t pick them, we put them in planters. It is a joke, though. Poison joke!”

“Given the constraints placed on us by our mission parameters, it’s really the only choice,” Twilight Sparkle explained. “We need magical plants that can grow by horn-light, since we’re travelling at night, and they have to appreciate Pinkie Pie’s sense of humor.”

“And this was really the best choice?” Rainbow Dash asked, fluttering up into the air and backing away from the box.

“Well, it was the first thing we tried, and it worked,” Twilight Sparkle admitted. “And a good thing too, since there aren’t that many magical plants that we could find in any quantity, even if winter hasn’t actually started inside the Everfree Forest yet.”

“Twilight, those plants are evil,” Rainbow Dash said, pointing at them gingerly, unwilling to put her hoof any closer to them than she had to.

“Nuh uh,” Pinkie Pie said, “they’re chaotic neutral. It’s totally different.” She gasped, and ran into the barn. “Is that it? Is it is it is it?”

“Well, think of it this way,” Twilight said, following at a steadier pace. “Which is worse, poison joke or Discord?”

Rainbow Dash folded her arms. “I wouldn’t want trapped in a jar with either of them.”

“The point is, even Discord didn’t kill anypony,” Twilight continued. “He was a ‘big dumb meany’, but he didn’t even turn ponies into stone. If things go horribly, horribly wrong, and we end up touching the poison joke, it’s not going to do anything really dangerous.” She carefully maneuvered the box through the barn door, and gave a gasp. “Oh! Wow.”

“I know!” Pinkie Pie said, staring back at her through the giant jelly jar. It was still easily recognizable, since the overall shape hadn’t changed, but in the week or so since they’d last seen it it had undergone quite the transformation.

“So we’ll be sitting on the middle level with all the cushions?” Twilight asked. “The plants go in the bottom, with that –“

“Automatic sprinkle-system plant-waterer!” Pinkie squeaked.

“And the top part with all the nets is for the pegasi to rest in?”

“Hammocks!” Pinkie Pie said. “And look! There’s cupboards and drawers for all the food and water and games and confetti bombs on this side, and the other side has a huge pile of scary fiddly metal and glass and creepy colored liquids for you!”

“Well, that I knew about,” Twilight said, teleporting the poison joke plants out of their planters and into the layer of dirt lining the bottom of the jar. “They’re instruments to help us navigate, and, well, gather data. After all, it isn’t every day you fly to the moon.” She set down the box, and started telekinetically planting the poison joke through the glass wall. “And I had Applejack pack my chemistry set, since there are a couple of mixtures that should come in handy.”

“And an OVEN! They put in an oven!” Pinkie Pie said, pressing her face up against the glass as if trying to get to it by osmosis. “Now the moon ponies can have fresh cupcakes!”

“It’ll come in real handy when you need to heat up the bubble bath after you get us all joked,” Rainbow Dash said. “You did bring some antidote, right?”

“Yes, Rainbow, we had Zecora mix up some of the antidote,” Twilight said, her saddlebag glowing as the flap opened and a small paper packet hovered out for a second before dropping back in. “But this looks surprisingly professional. I’m sure we’ll be just fine.”

“I’m glad you gals like it,” Applejack said, entering behind them. “The whole family pitched in to build it. Just make sure you bring it back in one piece, okay? A lot of that stuff is borrowed, and we don’t want it to end up like Fluttershy’s wagon.”

“I can’t make any promises, Applejack,” Twilight said. “The biggest danger is that the jar will shatter as soon as the pressure outside drops. That should happen while we’re still low enough to teleport everypony home, but I don’t think I’d be able to save the whole jar.”

“Oh, don’t you worry none about that,” Applejack said. “Granny Smith put this jar through its paces, and it’s a good’un. It won’t crack under pressure.”

8: Lift Off!

There wasn’t as large of a crowd for that night’s launch, at least not on the ground. Part of the problem was that they were launching much later at night – loading all the supplies to Twilight’s specification had taken hours, even skipping the triple-check – and the other was that most of the spectators were pegasi, and were waiting up on the cloud deck.

That didn’t mean that Pinkie Pie and Twilight were alone. There was the rest of the crew, of course: Rainbow Dash and Thunder Lane were harnessed up and perched on top of the jar, waiting for the signal to go, while Ditzy and Derpy were supposed to be resting in the hammocks hanging over Twilight’s head, low enough that she couldn’t stand up without having to worry about getting at least a dangling tail in the face. In reality, they were moving around, waving and posing to the ponies outside.

“Bye, Rarity! Bye, Fluttershy! Bye, Filthy!” called Pinkie Pie, waving through the glass.

“Call me Rich!” came the latter’s muffled reply. “And bring back lots of moon rocks!”

“Save me some muffins, little muffin!” Ditzy called out to her foal, who really shouldn’t have been out that late.

Pinkie scanned the crowd, “Bye Cheerilee! Bye AJ!”

Twilight had said goodbye to everypony at once, efficiently, before teleporting herself and Pinkie Pie into the jar, and so was free to concentrate on her light spell. A pink light at the tip of her horn brightened until it was more white than anything, too bright to look at comfortably, and then detached from her horn and started floating around the inside of the jar while she charged up another.

“Oh wow, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said, staring at the sight, with her eyes squinted half shut. “You didn’t tell me this was going to be a firefly lantern! That would have been a much better name.”

Twilight concentrated until she had half a dozen ‘fireflies’ drifting around the jar. “It’s not too late to change it,” she said, letting her horn rest for a bit.

Before Pinkie Pie could answer, there were three loud bangs on the jar’s metal lid. This was the signal that Rainbow Dash was getting impatient. Derpy peered down at Twilight over the edge of her hammock, nearly falling out of it onto the unicorn’s head, but managed to tangle herself up safely instead. “Are we ready?”

“Yes we are,” Twilight said proudly. “Signal the pilot to begin liftoff!” Derpy stared at her blankly. Twilight sighed, “Just bang once on the lid, I think she’ll get the idea.”

Derpy was having a little trouble getting a hoof free, so Ditzy gave the signal. To the cheers from the small crowd below, the Jelly Jar (or possibly Firefly Lantern) rose into the sky.

Twilight hooked her hooves around the cushion she was sitting on, and tried to think of it like riding in a chariot, or her balloon. It didn’t work. “This is… really fast,” she said, as they reached the winter clouds, and the glass walls surrounding them suddenly went blank. She started to feel a little seasick, as the gentle rocking of the off-balance jar (why had they let the two off-duty pegasi pick hammocks on the same side?) was no longer matched up to any visual reference point.

“Not nearly as fast as last time,” Pinkie Pie said, face still pressed up against the glass, waiting.

“Isn’t that cold?” Twilight started to ask, but then they were out of the clouds and Pinkie Pie was trying to rattle out a rushed goodbye to the two-dozen pegasi cheering for them from the cloud deck.

Twilight quickly slammed a hoof into her stopwatch and read off the time. “Time elapsed, 118 seconds. With the cloud deck set at 12500 feet, that gives a time-to-moon of…” she flipped the beads on her abacus back and forth. “That can’t be right.”

“What’s wrong?” Pinkie Pie asked, staring at the abacus with no sign of comprehension. Ditzy was looking down at her as well. Derpy was still untangling herself, but presumably listening.

“According to this, it’ll take us fifteen hours to reach the moon at this speed,” Twilight said. “And these are our faster flyers! We’re going to be caught out during the day!”

“Didn’t we bring a week’s worth of food and stuff?” Pinkie asked.

“Well, yes,” Twilight said. “We brought plenty of supplies…”

“And the plants’ll grow just fine during the day,” Pinkie Pie said. “Unless they get bored,” she said, scratching her chin with her hoof. “But it’s okay! I can stay up another fifteen hours noooo problem. Just leave everything up to me!”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Twilight Sparkle said, putting her hoof against the side of the jar, which was already getting cold. “We prepared for cold and dark, not direct sunlight. What if it gets too hot? What if we run into the sun?”

“I bet that’s why Celestia told you to bring sunscreen,” Pinkie Pie said. “She’s good!”

Twilight’s pupils narrowed to points and wandered in different directions. “Right. Sunscreen.”

“You did bring sunscreen, right?” Pinkie Pie asked. “I mean, it wasn’t on your checklist, and you like putting everything on your checklist, but I figured it must have been because it was such an obvious thing to bring that it went without saying. Or checking off the list. Or double checking…”

“I’ll be right back,” Twilight said, and vanished in a purple flash.

Pinkie Pie looked at where Twilight used to be, then up at Ditzy. “We’d… better tell Dashie and Thunder to head back down.”

Ditzy nodded.

“How do we do that?”

===

The second launch that night took place with a lot less fanfare, although it was delayed ten minutes to wait for Rainbow Dash to stop laughing.

9: Ascent

“Isn’t this going to be fun, Twilight?” Pinkie Pie asked as they rose past the last of the winter clouds and saw nothing but the moon and stars above them. “It’s like Equestria’s longest sleepover!”

“Going to be?” Twilight asked, as she carefully mixed several chemicals in a test tube. She smiled as the mixture turned blue, and set it aside for the moment. “I thought we’d already started?”

Pinkie Pie stood up and leaned around the cluster of nailed together furniture (and an oven) that made a sort of pillar in the middle of the jar. “Well, yeah, technically, but we just barely started. We’ve got so much fun ahead of us! What do you want to do first?”

Twilight’s horn glowed as she unrolled her checklist, and turned it so Pinkie could read it.

Pinkie Pie backed away from it like it, making a pained face. “None of that looks fun at all!”

“I know it seems like we have a lot of time to play around and have fun, but there are dozens of experiments and observations I want to run, and if I’m going to get through them all I need to start right away,” Twilight said. “And some of them will be fun! Look – I have a solid half hour scheduled for testing the effect of extreme altitude on muffins.”

“Did someone say muffins?” came a lazy voice from overhead.

“Go back to sleep! You need to be rested for your shift on lifting duty!” Twilight replied. “We’ll have muffins when you wake up.”

“Okay…” Ditzy replied, and the hammock over Twilight’s head shifted and hit her on the horn as the pony inside shifted around to get comfortable. The vial she was mixing wobbled and dropped a few inches, but Twilight caught it, put a stopper on it, and added it to the rack.

“Are you making punch?” Pinkie Pie asked, peering around the other side of the central pillar to avoid the terrifying checklist.

“It’s to monitor air quality,” Twilight replied, as she started mixing a third batch. “If it turns red, it means the poison joke isn’t working.”

“And then what do we do?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Then we figure out what we’re doing wrong before we all suffocate?” Twilight said. “I guess we’d kick the pegasi out first, since they can survive outside.”

“Well, I know what we’re doing wrong,” Pinkie replied. “We’re not having fun.”

Twilight glanced at the vial she’d left open. It was still blue. Was it getting paler? No, that was probably her imagination. “I don’t think party games are going to matter to the poison joke,” Twilight replied. “It’s only interested in pranks.” Pinkie’s eyes lit up dangerously, and Twilight quickly added, “Pinkie, if you perform a prank on my precious procedures I’ll –“ she paused before saying ‘pummel’, “-- pout.”

“Even if my prank perfectly preserves any practical purpose your procedures profess?” Pinkie asked.

Twilight looked skeptical. “Pinkie, your perception of perfection may be painfully posthumous. Please, play politely.”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Perhaps!”

She did play (or possibly prepare pranks) more quietly for a while, so Twilight mixed a dozen of the air-quality potions, then started opening drawers and cupboards, looking for her astronomical equipment. The workspace was kind of cramped, especially with the unused beakers and jars of reagents lying around everywhere, but she’d forgotten to add ‘clean up after chemistry’ to the checklist again, so tidying up would have to wait until somepony had a free moment.

Speaking of which, “Pinkie, do you have a moment?” Twilight asked.

“For you? Always, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said, setting something down on her side of the countertop with a clack.

“Do you think you could clean up this mess?” Twilight asked, as she levitated the rack of finished potions to get at a set of drawers behind them. “I normally have Spike do it, but he said he was allergic to certain death and stayed home.”

“Cleaning’s more fun when you do it together,” Pinkie Pie said, poking her head around the pillar again. “We can do a sing-along while we work! I know lots of cleaning songs.”

“I’d love to help you clean, but I really need to take some baseline measurements for calibration purposes,” Twilight said, finally finding her sextant. “It’s essential to plotting our path. You do want to actually get to the moon, right? And not just watch it sail past from hundreds of miles off-course?”

“So I need a song about cleaning up a chemistry set *and* doing astronomy? That’s a tough one,” Pinkie Pie said, resting her chin on a hoof.

Twilight had to giggle in spite of herself. “Twinkle twinkle little star, illuminate my pressure jar?”

Pinkie grinned at her. “Go on…”

“Um…” Twilight said, “Pack away my tubes and flasks as I move on to other tasks?”

“Are you still talking to the star?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Because if you can *wish* for your chemistry set to get put away I should really be a pegasus by now.”

Twilight threw down her sextant in frustration. “Argh! I give up.”

“Oh don’t give up, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said, “Writing new songs always takes time!”

“No, I mean I can’t get accurate readings because the jar keeps swaying!” Twilight said, covering her eyes with her hooves. “We’re completely off balance and every time we move around or do anything it just makes it worse! I was hoping that being outside the atmosphere would make for a uniquely unobstructed viewing platform but without some sort of stabilization armature I’m not going to be able to take any astronomical readings at all!”

“Really?” Pinkie Pie asked, eyes wide.

Twilight raised a hoof to peek at her. “Pinkie Pie? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because that means it’s time to party!” Pinkie Pie said happily, showering Twilight with confetti. After a second the unicorn realized it was the remains of her checklist.

===

Twilight awoke to the warm light of the morning sun. She mumbled something to Spike, and tossed around on her bed as she tried to get back under the covers – it was chilly. She couldn’t find them, though, and eventually opened her eyes to realize she was still in the Jelly Jar, curled up on her cushions, and the sun was being filtered through a thick layer of frost.

Also, with growing horror, she realized that a bushy growth of poison joke was draped across her hindquarters. “Pinkie!” she said in alarm.

The blue bush lifted its head, revealing a drowsy pink pony face beneath. “Wha?” Pinkie Pie asked, yawning and shaking her… bush. Pinkie paused at the odd noise her new mane made, and pulled a bit of it in front of her to look at it. Then blinked, and smiled. “Oops?”

“What –“ Twilight started to ask, but the answer was obvious. “When?” she asked instead.

“The poison joke needed water, and the sprinkler system was frozen,” Pinkie said. “I thought I was careful, but I must have touched it by mistake. You were already asleep.”

“Is it real?” Twilight asked, pulling herself away from Pinkie Pie as far as she could without pressing too hard against the icy walls. “Did you just poison me by using me as a pillow? Why were you using me as a pillow?”

“Well, I was mostly asleep, so this is just a guess, but… my hooves were cold?” Pinkie Pie suggested. “I’d better turn on the oven.”

“Right,” Twilight said. “We need to warm up the air in here before we freeze to death, and melt this ice so we can see where we are.”

Pinkie Pie pulled back to her side of the jar, and turned on the oven to preheat while she got out her baking supplies. “And bake some muffins for Ditzy. You promised her muffins, Twilight. You don’t want to know what happens if you break a muffin promise.”

Twilight, meanwhile, popped the cap off an air-quality potion, watching it anxiously to see what color it turned. “What happens if you break a muffin promise?” she asked, curious now. “Something happens?”

“You don’t want to know,” Pinkie Pie said.

“I’ve been keeping a record of all the things that happen because of broken Pinkie Pie promises,” Twilight said. “Some of them are scary, but –“

“You don’t want to know!” Pinkie Pie insisted.

Twilight popped around to give Pinkie Pie a look. “I don’t want to know?” she asked, skeptically. “Have you even met me?”

Pinkie Pie smiled sadly, and shook her… bush as she stirred her mixing bowl. “Okay, Twilight. I’ll tell you what happens. I wouldn’t want you to get so curious that you went and broke the promise on purpose just to see.”

“I’d never do that!” Twilight protested, but her ears flattened as she remembered a few times when she’d done things that were almost as bad.

Pinkie Pie looked down into her bowl, and said, “First, her eyes go really wide, like watery puppy eyes, and she asks in a sweet little voice, ‘no muffin?’”

“Yes?” Twilight asked, fetching a quill and parchment, already covered with figures and scribbles, but with a bit of spare space in one corner where she could take muffin promise notes.

“Second, she pouts,” Pinkie Pie said. “And her ears droop, and her tail droops, and then…”

“And then?” Twilight asked, breathlessly.

“And then her eyes start to wander in different directions, she smiles, says ‘okay’, and forgets about the whole thing,” Pinkie Pie finished, in a much cheerier tone. “It was just horrible Twilight.”

Twilight stared at Pinkie Pie. “Uh huh.”

“You don’t understand, Twilight. She had no muffin! She just walked away, and there was nuffin I could do!” Pinkie Pie waved her forehooves for emphasis, knocking over the mixing bowl and the bag of sugar.

Twilight caught the errant baking supplies with her magic, and set them back on the counter before anything could spill. “It does sound sad, but why wouldn’t I want to know?”

“Because now you know you can get away with breaking the promise and she’ll forgive you,” Pinkie Pie said. “And then you’ll get in the habit of not taking promises seriously, and you’ll break promises to everypony and make promises you don’t have any intention of keeping and eventually you’ll make a fake promise to the princess and get banished from Equestria and thrown into a dungeon in the place you were banished to! And it’ll be all my fault, for telling you.”

“Pinkie – I’m not going to turn into a promise-breaking liar just because I think I can get away with it,” Twilight said, laughing. “I promise!”

“Pinkie promise?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my – ow!” Twilight rubbed her eye after hitting it with her hoof again. “I’m never going to get the hang of that.

===

Soon, Derpy and Ditzy were happily munching away on morning muffins. Derpy had managed to mostly untangle herself from the hammock, and dangled by one hind-hoof, her front half resting on some of Twilight’s cushions. This forced Twilight to press up against Pinkie Pie and her poison mane, which had been a lot more comfortable before the oven overheated the air.

It hadn’t done much to melt the ice, though. Twilight stared back at Derpy, and then up at Ditzy, and couldn’t quite make herself actually say anything, especially when she was never quite sure if either of them were paying attention to her or not, with their lazy eyes. For their part, they seemed perfectly content to stay quiet and eat, and Pinkie…

“…if I do get to choose how to prank you, I’m probably going to turn you into a wishing star, Twilight. Because if my mane works to joke ponies when it’s just a joke itself then your wishing powers might work to wish ponies into pegasi and then…”

Pinkie was babbling away, and seemed to have Ditzy and Derpy’s attention, although who could tell?
“What do you think, Twilight?” Pinkie asked.

“I think I need to know our current altitude,” Twilight Sparkle answered. “Is this ice ever going to melt?”

“I can clear it!” Derpy said eagerly, flapping her wings to swing herself back and forth by her tangled hoof. Her flapping wings came right at Twilight, who caught a face full of stringy blonde mane as she ducked. It only lasted a second before Derpy was swinging back down, diving at the side of the jar with hooves outstretched.

“No!” Twilight said, grabbing on with her magic and holding the crazy pegasus back. She idly noted that Pinkie Pie’s hooves were over her shoulders, pulling her into a tight embrace – this wasn’t the first time Pinkie had tried that, although Twilight wasn’t sure where she’d gotten the idea that that could possibly help.

At any rate, disaster was averted. “Careful, Derpy,” Ditzy Doo said. “If you break the jar, Filthy’s going to make Applejack buy it.”

“And Pinkie and I will probably freeze to death,” Twilight added, rolling her eyes.

“Aww, don’t be such a downer, Twilight,” Pinkie said. “We’d suffocate way before we froze.”

Twilight had to laugh. “Still, I need to be able to see through this ice so that I can find some way to calculate our altitude. I need to know our altitude so that I can tell Derpy and Ditzy what to do, since it might not be ‘fly straight up all day’. And I need to tell Derpy and Ditzy what to do before I send them out because we don’t have any way of talking to the pegasi outside.”

“Yes we do!” Ditzy Do said. “We worked it out when we had to go down and get you.”

“Really?” Twilight said. “Show me!”

Ditzy rolled onto her back on her hammock, and bucked the metal lid of the jar as hard as she could.

Twilight’s mouth dropped. Ditzy, oblivious, kicked the lid again, and again, with a deafening crash each time.

“Stop!” Twilight said. “For the love of Celestia, stop!”

“It’s okay, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, patting her on the head. Twilight tossed her mane and pushed Pinkie away.

“It’s not quite as crazy as smashing the glass, but it’s still plenty crazy!” Twilight said, clambering up the central pillar to examine the damage. “They can’t even hear you!”

“They can see the dents!” Ditzy said.

Twilight looked at the dents in question – densely packed over Ditzy’s derriere. There were big dents, and small dents, and she recognized the patterns. “Horse code,” she said. “’Stop stop stop go down get TS’?” She glanced over at the newer dents, but Ditzy hadn’t finished the first word so it was basically nonsense. “That’s brilliant!”

“The whole weather squad studies horse code so we can send cloud-signals,” Ditzy said. “It was Pinkie’s idea to use the lid.”

“Well, I am a genius,” Pinkie Pie said as she grinned up at her friends. “And now I’ll use my super-genius powers to help Twilight calculate our altitude, by baking an imaginary cake.”

Ditzy and Derpy stared at her blankly, but Twilight sat down to watch the pink pony pretend to mix cake batter without ingredients, then pour the empty bowl out into a cake pan, with utter faith that Pinkie Pie could accomplish exactly what she claimed. And as the pink pony pressed the empty, heated cake pan against the ice to melt a port-hole, there was only one thing she could say.

“Pinkie, you are a genius!”

Pinkie Pie smiled. “What kind of a party pony would I be if I didn’t know how to break the ice?”

===

“So… what did you just do?” Ditzy asked, after Twilight finished staring out the melted window with her sextant to take measurements, looking up tables of numbers in one of her books, and clacking beads on her abacus back and forth too fast for anypony else to follow. She’d ended by writing a single three digit number on a piece of parchment, and was staring at it thoughtfully.

“Using the assumption, based on our flight plan, that our Cartesian coordinates place us directly over Canterlot, I measured the angle of inclination from the horizontal to a known landmark – in this case, the Manehattan meteorological lacuna. The rest was simple trigonometry – well, simple if you know how to read a tangent table,” Twilight explained. “And based on the results, I think I have a flight plan for you two to follow today.”

“You’d better write it down,” Ditzy said. “I’m not so good with memorizing numbers.”

“Okay,” Twilight said happily, and levitated her quill to write out on a parchment, ‘Fly straight up until noon’.

Ditzy stared at her with at least one eye, while the other wandered from the parchment to the port-hole.

“It’s actually a little more complicated than that,” Twilight said, “but Rainbow Dash and Thunder Lane made excellent time, better than I expected from my initial estimate. Even if you only manage half their speed, you should be able to lift us a comfortable distance above the sun by noon. If you can position us directly over the sun at its zenith, we’ll be in the perfect position to catch tonight’s moon! Also, that’ll let you use the Jelly Jar for shade and keep from burning to death.”

Ditzy Do’s eyes stopped circling and focused on Twilight, with obvious effort. “You’re giving us double sunscreen.”

“Don’t worry,” Twilight said, “I brought plenty for everypony.”

===

“So, let’s go over the checklist one more time,” Twilight Sparkle said, as Pinkie Pie slathered sunscreen on a giggling, wriggling Derpy. Derpy never had managed to extricate her hoof from the tangled mess of a hammock, and after the frenzied thrashing of her last attempt smashed half of Twilight’s empty flasks, everypony had agreed to just leave her hanging until it was time to teleport the pegasi outside.

Ditzy just sighed as the unicorn brought out the checklist. Again.

“Provisions,” Twilight started, opening Ditzy’s saddlebags and looking inside. There were muffins for snacks, and a thermos full of warm water – standard Pegasus cold-weather fare.

“Yes,” Ditzy said.

“You’re supposed to say ‘check’,” Twilight said. “Or else I can say it.” Ditzy just stared at her. “Check!” Twilight said, making another check next to the already checked check-box next to ‘provisions’.

“You didn’t check Derpy’s,” Ditzy noted.

“Well, she seems…” Twilight glanced over to where Pinkie Pie was basically sitting on Derpy’s head and rubbing her hooves over the inside of the pegasus’ thighs. She looked away, blushing. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

“If you’re not going to do it right, then we might as well just skip to the part where I actually do something,” Ditzy said.

“Well, what fun is that?” Twilight asked. “Besides, Derpy and Pinkie are still…” She didn’t look. The noises were bad enough. “Busy.”

“Nope! We’re done,” Pinkie Pie said. “Your turn next, Twilight!”

“Okay!” Ditzy said, spreading her wings. “Let’s go, Derpy!”

“Have fun you two!” Derpy said.

Twilight rolled her eyes and teleported the two pegasi outside in a bright purple flash. In less than a second, she found herself glomped by a fuzzy mass of pink and blue.

“And now it’s just the two of us, Twilight. Alone at last,” Pinkie whispered in her ear.

“For about thirty seconds, until Rainbow’s ready to come in,” Twilight said, not bothering to resist.

Pinkie laughed, and said, “Ah, but that’s plenty of time for us to get… you know.”

“Covered in sunscreen?” Twilight suggested.

Pinkie Pie giggled. “No no, it’s not nearly enough time for that.”

Then the jar lurched, and tilted, and the two of them screamed as they went sliding across the floor to land in a pile of loose cushions. Twilight’s horn glowed, holding back the cascade of glassware, knives, and heated baking pans that otherwise would have buried them. “What’s going on out there!”

There was a loud smack from the bottom of the jar, and it righted itself, then with another lurch started tipping in the other direction. The pegasi managed to recover more quickly this time, and the two ponies inside let out their breath, although they didn’t stop hugging each until Rainbow Dash’s face appeared in the port-hole, mouthing ‘let me in’.

In a flash, she was inside. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Why are you still in your harness?” Twilight asked, staring at Rainbow Dash with a confused look on her face.

“That’s the problem,” Rainbow replied, flicking her tail to toss the frayed end of a rope over to Twilight and Pinkie.

Pinkie Pie poked at it. “It’s freeze-dried! Neat!”

“It was working fine until I tried to take off the harness,” Rainbow Dash said. “It wasn’t coming off, and I guess I must have tried to bend the rope too much or something because it was really stiff. Then it just snapped! If I wasn’t the fastest pegasus in Ponyville, the two of you would be on a one-way trip to crashing the Princess’ garden party, because Thunder Lane’s rope didn’t hold out much longer.”

“We’ve got plenty of rope,” Twilight said uncertainly, pulling a replacement down from the upper storage space. “We need to freeze-proof it though. Pinkie, can you get Rainbow out of her harness while I look up a spell?”

“Nope,” Pinkie Pie said, tugging on one buckle with her teeth. “Ith thtuck on tight. An now my tongue ith thtuck!”

“Yeah, the buckles are frozen or something,” Rainbow Dash said, looking around nervously, then letting out a yelp as she finally noticed Pinkie Pie’s new mane. “Ahh! Get it off me!” She tried to pull back, but Pinkie was firmly attached.

“Don’t worry, we’re pretty sure it doesn’t actually work,” Twilight said as she scanned through the spellbook. “Right. This should do the trick,” she said, reading over the spell, and focusing on the rope.

“Ith not fwozen,” Pinkie said, “ith aww wome peef!”

There was a clatter as a ripple of purple light flashed over the new rope from one end to the other, transforming it into a chain of glittering glass links. “It was originally invented for decoration, but glass seems to be immune to the lack of air,” Twilight Sparkle said. “I hope,” she added, under her breath, thinking of the walls of the jar getting slowly more brittle as all their water was sucked out. Except that glass didn’t have water in it, she was almost certain.

“Hewp!” Pinkie Pie cried, tugging on her tongue, until Twilight teleported her back half an inch to dislodge her.

Rainbow Dash chuckled. “That’s really your favorite spell, isn’t it.”

“Now, about the buckles,” Twilight Sparkle said, illuminating one with her magic as she tried to undo it. “Huh. It really is all one piece.” She leaned close to get a look. “Almost like it was welded shut by the sunlight.”

“The sun wasn’t that hot,” Rainbow said. “I bet it was some evil spirit. It zapped the ropes and the buckles to try to make us fall.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Twilight said. “It was probably just some previously undiscovered property of the sunlight or atmosphere at this height. There’s no such thing as spirits.”

“Except for Discord,” Pinkie Pie said. “Wasn’t he the spirit of chaos and disharmony?”

“Yeah! I bet it was Discord!” Dash said, hovering up and doing a quick circle of the jar. “Come out, you stupid snake!”

“That’s completely different!” Twilight said, tugging Rainbow Dash down so that she could look at the buckles again. “Discord wasn’t a real spirit. He had a physical body. You could see him. He didn’t go around invisibly putting random evil curses on people!”

“Um…” Rainbow said.

“He kind of did, Twilight,” Pinkie noted, then gasped. “And now he’s making us fight! That proves it!”

“If Discord is free again, why is Equestria not in chaos?” Twilight asked.

“Maybe it is,” Rainbow Dash said. “Maybe we just can’t see it through all the clouds.”

“Clouds, yes,” Twilight said triumphantly. “Clouds which are not made out of cotton candy.”

“Unless it’s vanilla flavored,” Pinkie pie suggested.

“And the sun! Look!” Twilight pointed at the blurry glow of the sun through the slowly melting crust of ice. “The sun isn’t whirling around like a dog chasing its tail! It’s plodding slowly towards us exactly as if it wasn’t a giant flaming toy controlled by a mad god.”

Pinkie Pie tsked at that. “You really shouldn’t talk about Celestia that way, Twilight.”

“We’re in the middle of empty space,” Twilight growled. “No pony can hear us.”

Some pony took that opportunity to knock loudly on the bottom of the jar. It wasn’t horse code, but the three of them got the message.

“Sorry Thunder Lane!” Rainbow Dash shouted back, uselessly. “Look, we’ll deal with Discord later. Can you fix these buckles or not?”

Twilight cast a quick spell, and the buckles abruptly undid themselves. “Come to Life spell, works every time.” Rainbow Dash quickly shed the harness, and she and Pinkie Pie backed away from it as far they could go, as if it was about to rise up and attack them. “Relax, I only did the buckles,” Twilight said.

“Twilight…” Pinkie Pie said, pointing nervously. “These are heavy duty super-strong buckles. They have teeth.”

One of the buckles lunged at the pink pony with a snapping sound, and one by one the rest of them started to clatter and bounce around, tethered by the harness.

“Eh heh, it’ll wear off soon,” Twilight said, cringing. “I think?”

===

It took an hour of sweet-talking the now animated buckles, teleporting pegasi in and out of the jar, listening to the deafening rattling clatter as the glass chains slapped against the outer wall of the jar, and above all a double dose of nerve-wracking waiting for something else to go wrong, but in the end they got Derpy and Ditzy hooked up and hauling, and a groaning Rainbow Dash and Thunder Lane were able to rest at last.

“Okay, this isn’t going to work,” Rainbow Dash said, thrashing around in her hammock. “Twilight, Pinkie, we’ve got to switch places. My wings are killing me and I need to stretch out.”

“There’s just as much room up there as there is down here,” Twilight said.

“No, I mean I have to do some stretches. Cool down properly before I get stiff from all that flying,” Rainbow said.

“I could give you a massage,” Thunder Lane suggested. “Work out all the kinks.”

“What, you’re volunteering?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Come on, Twilight. Thunder Lane is volunteering for something. We’ve got to encourage him or he might go back to his old lazy self, and then where would we be?”

“Fine,” Twilight Sparkle said, flattening her ears. “Come on, Pinkie. Let’s get in the hammocks.”

“Yay! We can be hammock buddies!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing into Derpy’s effortlessly, and somehow untangling it in the process. Twilight, for her part, held Ditzy’s perfectly still and rigid with her magic while she carefully climbed into it, one hoof at a time.

“Thanks, Sparkle,” Rainbow said, hopping down, Thunder Lane following right on her tail. “Come on, big guy. Show me what you got!”

A few minutes later, Twilight levitated up a pair of pillows to squeeze over her ears so that she wouldn’t have to listen to the moaning, and cries of ‘harder, faster! No, no, slower…’ that ensued. Pinkie Pie giggled as the unicorn curled up with her eyes shut tight. “It’s just a massage, Twilight.”

“Oooooooh… that’s the spot,” Rainbow moaned. “Right there!”

“I know,” Twilight squeaked.

“Then why are you acting like it’s some horrible scary thing that you don’t dare listen to or watch?” Pinkie asked. She leaned down over the edge of her hammock. “You don’t mind if we watch, do you?”

Rainbow Dash and Thunder Lane laughed. “Nah, we don’t mind,” Rainbow Dash said. “Maybe that egghead could take some notes!”

“Stop it!” Twilight said, rolling onto her side and curling up tighter.

“Hey, maybe she could come down and join in,” Thunder Lane said. “I wouldn’t mind having someone do me while I did you, Rainbow.”

“Aww, but I was looking forward to being on top,” Rainbow Dash said, making Pinkie Pie giggle, and Twilight squeak.

Pinkie Pie reached over, and pulled Twilight into her hammock, glomming onto her and pulling her into a tight embrace. “Look, Twilight, it’s not going to work to just close your eyes and imagine what’s happening. You need to take matters into your own hooves!”

Twilight stayed perfectly still, petrified in Pinkie’s grasp.

“And I’m just the pony to help you do that!” Pinkie Pie said, rubbing her hoof to tousle Twilight’s mane.

“What? Pinkie!” Twilight protested, wiggling a little to try to get out of the pink pony’s grasp, to no effect. “You can’t mean –“

“Yep!” Pinkie said. “It’s the only solution.”

“Here? Now?” Twilight asked, incredulous. “With Rainbow and Thunder Lane down there?”

“Well, yeah!” Pinkie Pie said. “What kind of a Plum-tuckered Pegasus Pony Massage Party would it be without a pair of pegasuses?”

“Right,” Twilight said, relaxing a little. “Massage.”

“It’s was always just a massage,” Pinkie said, kissing her horn.

===

It was awfully crowded with all four of them squeezed onto the middle level, but it did go faster, and it was certainly a lot more fun to participate in a bit of innocent horseplay instead of imagining the worst. It did get a bit steamy – even with the oven off, the heat from the sun was finally melting the ice, and filling the jar with a misty fog. Even that turned out to be a double blessing, not only clearing the glass – or at least, putting it in a state where it could be cleared with a swipe of a towel – but giving Rainbow Dash plenty of vapor to spin into a cloud-cushion to make the hammocks suitable for Pegasus habitation.

But the sun just kept getting closer. It was the dim winter sun, but that still made it a huge, roiling ball of flame, that seemed to be heading right for them – probably because it was. Derpy and Ditzy were doing their best, but if they were above the sun’s track it wasn’t by much, and the light came at them almost horizontally. Pinkie and Twilight protected themselves with a massive pillow fort, but the sun’s light still filtered through the cracks in their wall, and the sun’s heat didn’t seem to be dampened at all.

“This is bad, Pinkie,” Twilight said, spread out on the bare wooden slats, sweating.

“Just like the sauna…” Pinkie Pie said deliriously, staring at the stove. “Twilight? How do you put the oven in reverse?”

“This whole jar is an oven,” Twilight moaned. “At least sleeping beauty up there doesn’t seem to notice,” she said, looking up at the pegasi, who were sleeping soundly, the heat meaning as little to them as the cold had. “I guess that’s a good thing. No sense for all of us to get roasted alive.”

“You better cast an ice spell,” Pinkie Pie said. “Or a snow spell. I could really go for a snow cone.”

“Don’t know one,” Twilight croaked. “Or I’d have used it by now.”

“How about water? Make it rain?” Pinkie suggested, looking up at the cloud-hammocks, which were quickly evaporating.

“No small rodents of any sort!” Twilight snapped.

Pinkie Pie blinked. “What?”

Twilight stared at the wall of pillows she was holding in place as a barrier against the sunlight. A useless barrier. She tried to remember what Pinkie Pie was asking about, but her brain wasn’t working. “I don’t know,” she said. “Too hot. Can’t think.”

“Pink,” Pinkie Pie said.

“You’re Pinkie,” Twilight replied. “I think… ie.”

“No, look,” Pinkie Pie said, pointing to Twilight’s air-quality potions. After several hours of monitoring them, and not seeing any signs of trouble, she’d kind of forgotten about them. The last one left open was almost faded, but it was clearly more lavender than blue.

“Must be too hot for the poison joke too,” Twilight said, standing up with an ultimate effort and trying to clear her head. “Or too bright. But it’s still a little blue… I think we’ll burn to death way before we have to worry about suffocating.”

“For the record, I’d rather go with suffocation,” said Rainbow Dash from the clouds above. “What’s the deal, Twilight? Turn down the heat already.”

“Ditzy and Derpy are flying us into the sun,” Pinkie Pie said, examining her mane which was looking a bit wilted.

“Ugh, that featherbrain!” Rainbow Dash groaned. “I knew something like this would happen.”

“I don’t think she’s doing it on purpose,” Twilight said. “The two of them just aren’t fast enough. It’s all my fault – I should have left more of a margin for error.”

“It’s okay, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, closing her eyes. “Partying on the sun is good too.”

“Would it help if I got out and pushed?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight stared at her. “Yes. Yes it would.”

Rainbow kicked the cloud-hammock next to her, waking up Thunder Lane. “Come on, lazybones, you’ve slept long enough,” she said as the other Pegasus stared at her groggily. “Time for us to pull Twilight’s tail out of the fire.”

Rainbow and Thunder Lane did a lot of pushing, and not all of it was straight up. They fled before the sun for a while, giving Derpy and Ditzy more time to gain altitude, then changed directions to swoop over the sun and minimize the time spent nearby. It was still a close thing, even with all four pegasi giving it their all. For a few minutes, they were floating over a lake of fire – but a few fewer minutes than they would have been if they’d followed Twilight’s original plan.

But then they were past, and the worst of the danger was over. Seeing how utterly exhausted Rainbow Dash and Thunder Lane looked, Twilight wasted no time teleporting them back inside the jar, where they immediately burst into flame.

“Put them out, put them out!” Pinkie Pie shrieked, and Twilight did her best, pummeling them with pillows to try to beat out the flames as the burning pegasi flailed around in a panic. “Put them out of the jar!” Pinkie Pie clarified, and with a purple flash they were back outside and not on fire.

Their fur was missing patches, and their wings didn’t look so good, but both of them were flying, although they were struggling to keep up. The jar lurched and tilted as Derpy and Ditzy saw what was going on and slowed down, slightly out of sync, to catch Rainbow Dash and Thunder Lane. There was a pair of loud thumps as the two singed pegasi found a resting place atop the lid.

“Rainbow…” Pinkie Pie said, looking up at the roof.

Twilight stared at a burning pillow, and screamed as she reared up and stomped it with her hooves, over and over, until the fire was smothered, but she didn’t stop until she was out of energy, and collapsed onto the tattered remains. She lost her grip on the rest of the pillow fort, what was left of it, and sat there senselessly as the plush cushions rained down around her.

“It’ll be okay, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, still looking up through the dented metal lid. “Right?”

===

Somehow, they were still alive when the sun set. Figuring things had had enough time to cool down, Twilight teleported Rainbow Dash and Thunder Lane back inside to take a look at their burns. Both pegasi were unconscious, and from the looks on their faces that was probably a mercy. Twilight had packed a first aid kit, and a book on the treatment of various wounds, and she and Pinkie Pie did their best to salve and bandage them appropriately, since they were nowhere near Ponyville hospital.

By the time they were done with that, the moon had already risen.

“There it is,” Twilight Sparkle said, as she and Pinkie Pie sat flank to flank, watching it approach. “See any moon ponies?”

“I’m not really in the mood to party,” Pinkie Pie said, but managed to laugh. “Maybe tomorrow, after we check these two in at Moon Pony Medical.”

“It’s a rock,” Twilight said, her head drooping until her horn clacked against the glass. “It’s just a stupid rock. I mean, look at it!” The top half of the moon looked a lot like the bottom half, gray and cratered, three quarters of it aglow, the rest dark.

“Magical glowing rock,” Pinkie Pie pointed out. “Maybe they live underground?”

Twilight closed her eyes. “If there were ever any moon ponies, Nightmare Moon probably wiped them out during her thousand year temper tantrum.”

“I think I see a building,” Pinkie Pie said. “Right in the middle. It’s weird, though.”

“So is it a building, or a vaguely building-shaped mountain range?” Twilight asked.

Pinkie Pie was quiet for a while, then left Twilight’s side to go get one of the telescopes, and was quiet for a longer while as she tried to figure out how to focus. “Definitely a building,” she said at last. “But a really weird one.”

Twilight opened her eyes, and borrowed the telescope. “I think it’s two buildings,” she said. “There’s that hexagonal part that looks like a pre-classical temple, and then that… other part.”

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Only in science fiction,” Twilight replied. “It’s the wrong shape for a rocket ship though. And there aren’t any fins.” She looked around the jar for something appropriate, and settled on Rainbow’s thermos, lifting it up to the jar’s lid to use as a makeshift hoof. “I’ll tell Ditzy and Derpy to aim for it,” she said as she started to bang out a message.

Half an hour later, the jar waggled back and forth in what was either an attempt to make the passengers airsick, or an acknowledgement. By that point, the target could be seen with the naked eye.

“It won’t be long now,” Twilight said, resting her hooves on the glass as she watched the moon approach. “It’s coming up fast.”

“Really fast!” Pinkie Pie said, her mouth widening into a grin. “Oh, I can’t wait!”

A few minutes later, both of them looked at each other, and said in unison, “Too fast!” Twilight lifted the thermos a few feet, then dropped it since it was obvious that she wasn’t going to be able to bang out ‘slow down’ before it was too late to matter.

She grabbed onto Pinkie and yelped as the jar swung towards the moon, the bottom briefly pointed right at the oncoming rock as Ditzy and Derpy realized the danger. But it was too little, too late.

“Twitchy tail, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, panicked. “Twitchy tail!”

Then the moon slammed into the Jelly Jar, with the force of a single moon. There aren’t many things that need more than one moon to break them.

10: Crash Course

Looking back at it later, Twilight Sparkle would think that it was probably lucky that they’d hit the moon at such an oblique angle. Ditzy and Derpy had been aiming for a landing near the building on the very top of the moon, which meant that the rocky plain the Jelly Jar crashed on was very nearly horizontal. It was also somewhat lighter and fluffier than one might expect from a rocky plain, although not as soft and rubbery as a moon made out of cheese would have been.

But even after the pegasi realized the danger and tried to fly away from the onrushing moon instead of towards it, the closing velocity was still several hundred miles per hour. The bottom of the Jelly Jar plowed into a fluffy field of moondust and sheared off, and explosive decompression sucked out the contents of both halves and swirled them around in a brief whirlwind of broken wood, flailing ropes, blue leaves, and far too little air. The torque from the impact slammed Ditzy and Derpy into the ground, leaving a pair of Pegasus-shaped craters in the dust, and the half of the jar they were still chained to flew over them and shattered against a rocky ridge, spraying broken glass across the landscape.

The tiny purple force field bubble Twilight put up around herself and Pinkie Pie bounced off the ridge, skipped across the field of broken glass, and buried itself in another drift of moondust. Twilight dropped the bubble shield to try to get her bearings, and got a face full of freezing dust instead, leaving her blind, deaf, freezing, and of course unable to breathe.

Pinkie Pie grabbed Twilight’s mane in her teeth and yanked her head up into the open, but she still couldn’t see. Twilight felt a pair of firm hooves yank her head around and aim her horn, then a kick to her flank. The only thing she could think to do was teleport blindly, but at least she had a direction. She landed on her hooves on a rocky plain, and felt Pinkie Pie – of course she’d brought Pinkie with her – climb onto her back.

Pinkie adjusted her aim, and kicked Twilight in the flank three more times. *Flash* Dust. *Flash* Dust. *Flash* Air!

Pinkie Pie gasped loudly, sucking in as big of a breath as she could manage. Twilight tried to breathe, and mostly ended up coughing. She felt dizzy, woozy, everything hurt, and she collapsed on a cold metal floor and may or may not have passed out for a few minutes.

“Where?” she managed to croak, once she was pretty sure that she was awake for good. That brought on another coughing fit.

“Moon pony central,” Pinkie Pie said happily. SHE wasn’t coughing, although she was a little hoarse. “Oh my Celestia, Twilight! Look at this moon dust! We’re glowing!”

“Still can’t see,” Twilight managed between coughs, rubbing at her eyes with her hooves, but there was too much dust caking her face, and she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyelids. Pinkie pulled her to her feet, and carefully led her over to a basin set high in the wall. The controls were odd, but by poking at random stuff they managed to trigger a stream of warm water and wash out Twilight’s eyes. She blinked the last of the dust out, and took a look around.

It was a kitchen for giants. That was the first impression. There were cabinets, a countertop with a sink, a fridge, and what might have been a toaster oven, all at about 200% normal scale. There was a table towering so high that the ponies could almost have stood up under it without hitting their heads, with precarious adult-sized high-chairs arranged around it haphazardly.

And like Pinkie had said, the room was lit by the two ponies, the moon dust worked into their fur giving off a soft pink and purple light that left the room just bright enough to see. Despite the lack of light, the room felt alive – it was chilly, but there was still some heat, and a faint breeze that smelled like lightning. The fridge gave off a low buzzing sound, and the floor vibrated just beneath their range of hearing. Not to mention the running water.

“You were awesome, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said, poking around in the cupboards. She had to brace her hooves and yank to get each one open – some force tried to hold them closed. Maybe magnets. “You got us here in ten seconds flat! You’re as fast as Rainbow Dash!”

“I screwed up,” Twilight Sparkle said, sitting down heavily and letting her muzzle droop. “I forgot the sunscreen, almost flew us into the sun, and had Ditzy and Derpy in charge of landing? And now we’re trapped Celestia-knows where…”

“Are you sure?” Pinkie Pie asked, nosing through box after box of tiny white packets labeled in some alien language. “We’re on the moon, so it seems like more of Luna’s area. Luna-knows where doesn’t really flow off the tongue, though.”

“I’d settle for Rainbow-knows where,” Twilight said. “We just left her there!”

“So let’s go find her!” Pinkie Pie said. “Lead the way!”

Twilight looked around. There were at least two things that looked like doors, although there was no sign of a doorknob on either of them. “I think I’ve done enough leading for this trip,” she said, looking up with determination. “This whole idea is crazy, and I was crazy to think I was crazy enough to make sense of it. No, Pinkie Pie, from now on, you’re in charge.”

Pinkie Pie stared at her, and blinked. “Wasn’t I already?”

“What?” Twilight asked, pulling her head back in surprise.

“Who did you think was in charge?” Pinkie Pie asked, screwing up her face. “Rainbow Dash?”

“Well… it doesn’t matter,” Twilight Sparkle said, smiling. “You’re in charge now. What’s our next course of action, Captain Pinkie Pie?” She pulled her hoof up to her forehead in a salute.

Pinkie Pie nodded. “We’ve got to locate Lieutenant Dashie. She’s our ticket home! So lead on, Expendable Ensign Sparkle.”

“Ensign?” Twilight asked, with mock outrage.

Pinkie Pie looked to the side and said, “I had to demote you after the sunscreen thing. That was just embarrassing.”

===

One of the two doors opened as they approached, letting the two gingerly make their way down a terrifying hallway that curved rather quickly out of sight. Pipes in the walls gurgled and hissed, and there were tiny loops of unknown purpose strung in chains along the walls, ceiling, and floor, along with decorations made out of some transparent material that wasn’t glass, and more writing in the spidery moon pony script. There were also several more doors, although none of them opened automatically when Twilight approached.

“I could teleport past one,” Twilight Sparkle offered, standing in front of a door, which glowed along with her horn as she tried to push, pull, or slide it open, to no effect. There was a little give, but it felt like it was locked or latched, and she didn’t think tearing the doors off their hinges was the best way to make new friends.

“That would be kind of rude,” Captain Pinkie said, shaking her head. “Besides, if Rainbow was locked in one of those rooms she’d be screaming and banging on the walls. You don’t hear any screaming or banging, do you?”

Twilight stopped for a second and listened, but while there was plenty of noise, none of it sounded like it was trying to get their attention. “I just don’t like this,” Twilight said. “That one door opened when we approached – it could just be enchanted to open for anypony, but none of the other doors are opening for us. It reminds me of Canterlot Castle – only a few public places, with everything else mysteriously locked down.”

“You don’t like Canterlot?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Didn’t you grow up there?”

“I don’t like walking through deserted hallways in a building that is obviously not abandoned,” Twilight said. “Where are the moon ponies? We’re not exactly being stealthy. Why haven’t they showed up to welcome us, or at least arrest us?”

“I can think of one reason,” Pinkie Pie said, the corners of her mouth turning up as her eyes went wide with glee. “Surprise party!” Her face suddenly fell. “Oh no! If I know it’s coming the surprise will be ruined! Twilight! Quick! Erase my memory!”

Twilight was about to say ‘no’, but Pinkie Pie was in charge. So she turned and rested her horn against Pinkie Pie’s forehead, and erased the last thirty seconds of her memory with a quick spell.

“What?” Pinkie Pie asked, suddenly confused.

“Emergency memory spell,” Twilight said. “Come on, Captain. We need to find one of these doors that’ll open for us.” She trotted down the hallway, with Pinkie following after her with her usual bouncing gait. She was almost surprised when one of the doors they passed actually did slide open, and she and Pinkie stopped and peeked inside.

It looked empty – just another giant table, and half a dozen of the odd chairs. “No Rainbow here,” Twilight said. “No surprise party either.”

“What? We’re expecting a surprise party?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Oh my Celestia! That must be why we haven’t seen anypony! They’re planning a surprise party for us!” She lept into the room, and stood there posing, waiting for the moon ponies to leap out and greet her.

“Pinkie…” Twilight started, only to recoil and cover her eyes as the room suddenly lit up with a blinding blue glow. The far wall was now a portal to an unfamiliar snowy mountaintop, with weird asymmetrical clouds that any weatherpony would be ashamed to set in the sky streaming past impossibly fast. Twilight held a hoof up to shield her eyes, and braced herself for a wave of cold air that didn’t come.

“Neat!” Pinkie Pie said. “A movie is almost as good as a surprise party!” She hopped up onto the table, and started making shadow puppets, only to stop in confusion as the shadows failed to form.

“Right. A movie,” Twilight said, and approached the screen, looking around to try to see the projector. The only shadows she saw in the room seemed to be cast by the light from the wall itself, and even standing directly in front of it, close enough to touch, no part of the screen was shadowed by her body. It was like the wall was the screen and projector all at once – or a portal.

So she touched it. Her hoof made a ‘clack’ that sounded like hitting wood more than anything else, and the wall went dark.
Well, mostly dark. The background was actually a slowly roiling pattern of brown and black, while bright gray letters appeared one by one, spelling out a message – in Equestrian.

WELCOME STAR SAILOR PONIES
to the star ship “here to Help”
is Your language
PHONETIC or IDEOGRAPHIC

Twilight Sparkle took a step back, glancing back as she bumped into the table, to see Pinkie Pie waving her hooves around wildly trying to find the projector that probably didn’t exist. Since her captain was occupied, Twilight poked a hoof at the part of the picture with ‘PHONETIC’ written on it. She paused at the last second, as the screen seemed to react to her hoof’s approach by extruding a large rectangular block with the word in the middle, although closer examination revealed that it was an optical illusion caused by false shadowing around the edges. Moving it over to ‘IDEOGRAPHIC’ had the same response.

“Well, it’s both,” Twilight said, and pressed her hooves against the screen on both words. The ‘clack’ of her hooves was echoed by a ‘click’ from behind her. Both ponies turned to look, but nothing else in the room had changed.

Pinkie Pie looked back at Twilight, then pointed past her, at the screen. “Look, Twilight! A party game!”

please move these cutie marks
in the right boxes

Underneath the slightly garbled instructions were pictures of two boxes, one above the other, labeled ‘phonetic’ and ‘ideographic’, as well as falsely-shadowed squares with letters in them to each side. The left side had ‘T’, the right side ‘pony’. Pinkie Pie leapt off the table and pressed her hoof against ‘pony’, sliding it into the ‘phonetic’ box. A scraping noise sounded behind them as it moved.

“No, Pinkie,” Twilight said, sliding ‘pony’ into the other box. “The letters that mean things go in the bottom box, letters that sound like things go in the top.”

“Well, duh,” Pinkie Pie said. “I was just wondering if mister screen was smart enough to tell if I was doing it right.”

“I think mister screen is trying to learn our language,” Twilight said. “Why don’t we humor him?” She slid ‘T’ into the top box, and another pair of symbols appeared. Once they’d sorted all the letters, the screen went blank again, then a new set of instructions spelled out letter by letter.

Please pronounce the Following phrases

“The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” Twilight said, obediently, careful to watch her diction.

“Pony!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully, as the single symbol appeared, replacing the long sentence.

“Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb?” Twilight said, squinting at the screen a bit confused.

“Everypony!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing happily as three pony symbols appeared next to each other. “Although you should really stack them like this –“ she tried to slide the third symbol over the top of the other two, but this game apparently wasn’t set up to let her move the symbols around. “You only write them next to each other when you’re typing…”

Then the screen cleared, and it was Twilight’s turn. “Warning, excessively long response detected. Please indicate the beginning and end of the relevant phonemes,” she read, then both ponies waited expectantly for the screen to give them their next sentence.

Nothing happened for about a minute. Twilight Sparkle noticed a strange squiggly bit under the words, and leaned down to try to make sense of it, while Pinkie Pie started poking around the edges of the screen. “If you broke mister screen, I’m going to have to demote you again, Ensign,” Pinkie said sternly.

An ‘X’ symbol briefly lit up in the top right corner of the screen, right under Pinkie’s hoof, and then the game was replaced by a chaotic mess of boxes and symbols and lines and circles and squiggly lines, all moving. The only comprehensible part of the chaos was the part that instantly attracted both ponies’ attention, as they leaned in close to a moving picture of their lunar crash site, and shouted, “Rainbow!”

11: First Contact

-Hey, sweet stuff. Do you have the Equestrian language patch installed?-

-Is this really the time, Chance? She’s still out there!-

Tess peeked out from behind their overturned electric cart, which had taken them almost all the way to the crash site before a rainbow streak rammed into it and kicked it over onto its side. Neither she nor Chance had been hurt – with ponies in danger, their cybernetics had kicked their adrenals into high gear – but the attack had come too fast for them to save the clumsy vehicle.

Which had dents in the side. Horseshoe-shaped indents, in solid metal. And of course, this being a rescue mission, the two of them were unarmed and naked, unless you counted Tess’ vest, which she mostly wore for the pockets.

-I’m just saying, I think I just got some vocal data,- Chance replied.

-Probably a glitch. You should have let me program it.-

Chance looked thoughtful. -Or else they’re already on board, running the training sequence.-

Tess sent the data-link equivalent of an exasperated sigh. -Focus, Chance. Where is she?-

Chance opened a compartment on the carriage and quickly assessed which of the contents were durable and/or expendable enough to use as projectiles, while letting a pattern-matching subroutine scan the feed from the Here to Help. -She’s not in the field of view of any of the cameras,- he sent over the short-range radio, -But if they are on board the ship they could seriously hurt themselves.- He hefted a roll of vacuum tape, tossing it between his clawed, furry paws. -So time to stop messing around.-

Tess pulled back behind the barrier and stared at him.

-Make like you’re going for the victims,- he sent, peeking over the edge. -I’ve got you covered.-

-Yes. Captain.- Tess sent back, scowling as best as she could with all her orifices sealed shut against the vacuum. She leapt gracefully over the edge of the carriage and landed in the moondust, kicking up a huge spray as she awkwardly scrambled across the dusty plain.

Sure enough, the rainbow streak reappeared, banking to kick dust into Tess’ face, then continuing the turn to spin around and around and form a tornado of dust and debris, mostly sharp pieces of wood and glass. It would have been easy to dodge, if Tess had been able to do anything but stare in terrified denial.

Just before the funnel cloud reached Tess, Chance sent -Got her!-, and whipped the roll of tape past her head, knocking a blue pegasus out the other side of the whirlwind. Bits of glass and wood rained down around Tess as the tornado fell apart, mostly bouncing off her fur, although she had to brush off some weird blue leaves along with the moondust blurring her vision.

Tess sent, -I am officially freaking out, Captain!- Her paws shook as she retrieved the tape and used it to secure their erstwhile assailant, before she could recover from the impact. -That was a tornado. In space.-

-Bad move on her part,- Chance replied. -Easy to track her trajectory when it repeats like that.-

-SPACE! TORNADO!- Tess screamed at maximum gain.

===

“Oh no! They’ve got Rainbow Dash!” Twilight said.

“And they’re gift-wrapping her!” Pinkie Pie said. “Bad moon ponies! Rainbow isn’t a present!”

“We’ve got to get her back,” Twilight said, and concentrated on the image of Rainbow Dash being taped up on the wall screen. Her horn glowed, the screen sparkled, and with a tinkle like the shattering of delicate china, Rainbow Dash disappeared from the screen, and plopped onto the table, where her eyes shot open.

“Mmmph!” she said, struggling against the tape until Twilight tore it off her muzzle. “Get me out of this junk! I need to save the others!”

“Not so fast,” Twilight said. “I need to know whether you’re the real Rainbow Dash or just an image.”

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie was tugging at the tape with her teeth. “’is is on ‘eally good,” she said.

“This is going to involve you blasting me with something, isn’t it,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Heh heh,” Twilight said. “That’s the easiest way,” she admitted. “It shouldn’t hurt much, unless you’re actually an image, in which case you’ll be torn into little pieces and that would probably hurt a lot now that I think about it.”

“What’s the not-easiest way that doesn’t involve killing me if I were an image. Which I’m not,” Rainbow Dash added quickly.

“The moon ponies on the screen are acting like she suddenly disappeared,” Pinkie Pie said, after spitting out a length of tape unwound from Rainbow Dash’s wings. She pointed to the picture of the crash site, where, according to the scrolling transcript of her conversation with Chance, Tess was freaking out even more.

“Their images are,” Twilight Sparkle said. “That doesn’t prove anything.”

“Go Derpy!” Rainbow Dash said, as the grey pegasus bowled one of the weaselly moon-ponies over while they were distracted by Rainbow’s disappearance, and grabbed hold of Thunder Lane’s still-unconscious body. Ditzy swooped into help her sister carry him, and they flew off over the impossibly near horizon. “Talk about lazy! I can’t believe Thunder Lane slept through that whole thing. But at least everypony got away!”

“Or they didn’t.” Twilight said, exasperated. “Once you remove part of an image from a mirror, it stops being a faithful representation of the physical world! It’s a basic principle of captromancy.”

“So what we need is a different mirror to see if it reflects the same thing, right?” Pinkie Pie said. “Leave it up to Captain Pinkie Pie! This wall does things when you touch it, so if I touch it enough it’s sure to open up another mirror.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Pinkie…” Twilight said.

“Touch!” Pinkie Pie said, thrusting her hoof at a random place on the screen. A box full of swirling lights briefly appeared, and then they heard a long, low groan in the background, and felt it through the floor. “Touch!” This time, a large blank box appeared, obscuring half the wall screen.

“Okay, I’m sure this is not a good idea!“ Twilight said frantically.

“Touch!” was Pinkie’s reply, and this time the whole screen went dark.

“Great,” Rainbow Dash said, still working on peeling the tape off of herself so that she could move. “You broke it.”

The darkness intensified, becoming a window into an infinite void. Then, in the depths, far far behind what should have been the surface of the wall, lightning flashed, and suddenly they were looking down at a chaotic, stormy cloudscape. The clouds started to glow, and with a cascade of lightning and a rumble of thunder, a single word in the moon pony script emerged, the letters crafted out of floating, riveted metal, damaged by explosions that left faintly glowing cavities here and there in their strange sharp points and loops.

Twilight stared closely at the letters as they floated behind the screen, just as the cloud-covered mountain had earlier. This time she was sure – the picture had depth, which wasn’t even scientifically possible, unless the screen was using cleverly hidden illusion magic. She couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to touch it again, but it still wasn’t a portal.

“That is so awesome!” Rainbow Dash squealed, the one wing she’d managed to free sticking prominently up into the air. “Break it more!”

===

In the machine shop, Chance helped Tess strap on the last salvageable bit of his encounter suit to augment what was left of her own. Keeping the suits in good repair had never really been a priority, and the last functional ones had disappeared along with the only crewmembers qualified to maintain them. Still, between the two of them she was mostly covered. -There,- he sent, patting her on the armored plate covering her spine. -Do you feel safe now?-

-No,- Tess sent back, pouting underneath her faceplate. -We have no idea where they are or what they’re doing. If we live through this, we’re installing internal cameras.-

-Uh uh. No cameras on my ship,- Chance sent. -A pony needs his privacy, if you know what I mean.-

Tess hefted the Ultra-Taser 3000 in both hands, and pushed the test button. Lighting crackled between the probes, and, satisfied, she slung it over her shoulder.

-You look ridiculous, you know,- Chance sent, slipping a mini-taser into the pocket of the one-size-technically-fits-all jumpsuit he’d settled for, since Tess had claimed all the armor. -Warp built that as a joke.-

-I look terrifying,- Tess sent back. -They’ll think twice before trying something this time.-

-Right,- Chance sent, -Just let me go first. I’m sure this is all a big misunderstanding, and no pony wants any pony to get hurt.-

Tess hissed out loud at the colloquialisms. -Did I ever mention that you suck at language patches?-

Despite Tess’ grumbling, finding the intruders was easy once they made their way to the crew quarters. Even if they hadn’t left a trail of glowing dust, the speakers in the conference room were turned up full blast, and the soundproofing wasn’t up to containing the sounds of lasers and explosions.

-Hold up,- Chase sent, reaching back and resting a paw on Tess’ chestplate. The explosions had paused, replaced with a deep, menacing voice. “FRESH MEAT!” It was followed by a chorus of girly screams.

-What. What now?!- Tess sent back, muzzle scrunched up into a scowl.

-I recognize the game, and this is a pretty epic boss fight,- he said, looking back and smiling.

Tess shoved him out of the way. -No! Not more waiting. We’re doing this my way. We’ll zap them all before they pull any more freaky wizard crap.-

She burst through the door into the conference room, and shouted, “Eat lightning, pony scum!” as she pulled the trigger. The Ultrataser sent out hundreds of miniature electrical probes, filling the whole room, or at least the part of the room not protected by a reflexively cast purple force field. That is, the part of the room with only Tess in it. She had time to send -oh, horseapples!- before the Ultrataser fried her.

“Did you get… any of that?” Pinkie Pie asked, looking at the twitching moon pony askance.

“I got ‘pony’?” Twilight Sparkle said uncertainly.

“I got ‘hey ponies, come kick my weaselly little tail,’” Rainbow Dash said, thumping and wiggling as she laboriously turned herself around to face the door.

Outside in the hallway, Chance detached a sheet of smart paper from his notepad, folded it into a paper airplane, and hooked it around the edge of the door, where it sailed gracefully across the room until it bumped against the force field. Twilight caught it with her magic, and approached the purple bubble to read the paper through it.

“Dear Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, and Rainbow Dash,” she read out loud. “Welcome to my ship. Now that my twitchy second in command has calmed down –“ Twilight looked down at Tess, who was still twitching. “—why don’t we put down our weapons and –“

“MEAT!” screamed the sound system, and the ponies whirled around to watch the bloated figure inside the screen messily devour the front half of Pinkie’s image-duplicate.

12: Party Games

Luckily for the cause of interplanetary peace, Rainbow Dash was still taped into near-immobility, and by the time she or Tess could move again it was too late for either of them to pretend that conflict was appropriate. The visiting ponies were almost done going through the vocal training regimen to complete Chance’s language patch, and they and the moon ponies could already mostly understand each other speaking out loud.

“Stupid verger force field,” Tess grumbled. “Next time…”

Rainbow Dash peered down at Tess over the edge of the table. The pegasus’ fur was still fairly sticky from the vacuum tape, and she had hours of preening ahead of her if she wanted to fly at full speed. “Any time you want a rematch, weasel girl.”

Twilight Sparkle looked up at Chance from her place in his lap. “’Verger’? I thought you said you turned off cognates,” she said. “Unless it means ‘one who verges’, I suppose.”

“Thought cough though dough tough!” said Pinkie Pie, over by the training program, bouncing in glee as another five points were added to her score.

“In which case the question would be, ‘verges on what’,” Twilight added.

Chance stroked his claws through Twilight’s mane, in lieu of a comb. “Once upon a time, in the magical land of the Milky Way galaxy…”

“Don’t sugar-coat it,” Tess said. “The singularity nearly wiped out all life, but that doesn’t stop crazy vergers from pushing right up to the edge of sustainable technology.”

“Ignore her,” Chance said. “She’s twitchy.”

Rainbow Dash laughed as Tess twitched and looked away.

“It’s a technical term,” Chance continued, frowning at Rainbow Dash. “She needs someone to go in and adjust her behavioral implants, but she doesn’t trust me, and there’s no one else left who’s qualified.”

“Behavioral… implants?” Twilight said, squinting as she tried to picture what that might mean. The first few images that came to mind were not very nice things at all. “Please tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means.”

“I’m not sure I can even explain this in Equestrian,” Chance said, frowning as he doodled a picture of a ferret in his notebook. “Do you have a word for ‘amniomorphic’ – well, what do you know! You do!”

Rainbow Dash glanced at Twilight. “It’s your fault they have a word for that, isn’t it.”

“Maybe,” Chance said, continuing his sketches with a bipedal but scary, jagged looking ferret. “If she ever read a book on it by moonlight. We’ve been spying on you for months, collecting language data.” He drew a line from the original ferret to the scary one.

“So you’re wizard-created monsters, like griffons or manticores,” Twilight said, trying to ignore the ‘spying’ part.

“I thought they looked suspicious,” Rainbow Dash said. “Skulking star weasels…”

“We’re not weasels,” Tess snapped. “We’re moon ponies.” She paused for a second, then added, “God damn it, Chance!”

“Sorry, Tess, but I had to turn off cognates,” Chance said. “I had no idea if their language even used the same sounds.” To the ponies, he added, “The actual word is –“ he made a sound like an extremely hoarse bird trying and failing to chirp, “—but it’s short for ‘space ferrets’.”

“The important thing is that we’re…” Tess paused, and braced herself. “Ponies. Not monsters.”

“Well of course you are!” Pinkie Pie said, leaping onto the table. “Anypony that wants to be a pony is a pony to ponies!” As everyone stared at her, she added, “Oh, and I finally won your game, Chance. Which means it’s time for cake!”

“Pinkie,” Twilight said, “Chance was in the middle of explaining something important.”

“Cake is important,” Pinkie Pie said. “It’s not a party without cake. He can explain while it’s in the oven.”

“Um, hate to be the one to tell you this, Pinkie? But your oven is kind of smashed into a million pieces,” Rainbow Dash said.

“So we’ll use their oven! You don’t mind if we use your oven, doooo yoooou Chancie Wancie?” Pinkie Pie asked, grinning wide, giant sparkling eyes staring into Chance’s relatively small and beady ones.

Chance winced. “Well, it’s a special oven, Pinkie. Advanced oven technology. I don’t think it’s a good idea to play around with it if you don’t know how it works.”

Pinkie Pie laughed, and leaped off the table, heading for the door. “You sound like Twilight! But don’t worry, I’m a professional!”

-Go with her,- he told Tess silently. -Show her how it works.-

Tess sighed. “I’d better go with you and make sure you don’t blow anything up. The rest of you wait here. In this room.”

Rainbow Dash glared at her, and flapped her wings to hover up into the air, but then looked back at Twilight, not wanting to leave her alone either. “If anything happens to Pinkie you’ll be answering to me,” she said.

===

Pinkie Pie bounced into the kitchen ahead of Tess, and headed for the fridge. “You know your own kitchen better than me, so why don’t you find the flour and sugar and stuff, and I’ll get the milk and eggs and butter?”

“The what?” Tess said, ignoring her as she opened the cabinet with the cake mix packets. She heard a hiss as Pinkie Pie opened the fridge. “Hey! Stay out of there!”

Pinkie Pie stared at the contents of the refrigerator, then nosed it closed. “You moon ponies eat really strange stuff. I mean, that doesn’t even look like food.”

“Look, this is really easy,” Tess explained, pouring the cake mix packet into a baking pan and adding a little water at the sink. “All you do is take the mix and add a little water, then put it in the oven and tell it what it’s baking.“ She demonstrated.

Pinkie sang the second verse. “Just mix it up and beep beep bleep, no sugar, milk, or butter? That’s really kind of boring, how long will it be taking?”

The oven beeped again, and Tess took out the finished cake. “Five seconds.”

Pinkie’s eyes went wide. “Do it again!”

“Why?” Tess asked.

Pinkie Pie hopped onto the counter and stuck her head in the oven. “How does it work? Is it cooked all the way through? Do you use moon pony magic to make it cook so fast? Or time travel! Does it travel in time from the future where it’s baked to deliver it to us now?”

“No, it uses coherent light beams – damn it, Chance.” Tess closed her eyes, and calmly read out the overly verbose description of ‘x-ray lasers’. “Coherent light beams in the 0.005 to 5 billionths of an inch wavelength range.”

Pinkie Pulled her head out of the oven. “I have no idea what you just said, so I’m going to go with ‘magic oven created by evil wizards’. Is that okay?”

“Sure, whatever,” Tess said, one corner of her mouth turning up for a second, before slipping back into her usual frown. She tossed a smaller packet of mix at Pinkie Pie, who caught it in her mouth. “That’s the icing. It doesn’t need to be cooked.”

“Yay!” Pinkie Pie said, “I get to do the icing! You’re my second-favorite moon pony, Tess.”

Tess rolled her eyes as Pinkie Pie started whipping the frosting mix in a tiny bowl.

“You remind me a lot of Dashie,” Pinkie Pie said, a bit garbled around the spoon, although she had plenty of practice talking with spoons in her mouth. “You never smile though. What would it take to get you to smile?” Pinkie smiled at her, letting go of the spoon for a second. “Normally I’d try slapstick, but that’d probably just make you worry.”

Tess sighed. “Look, Pinkie Pie, it’s really simple, okay? If you want to make me happy, fix the ship, give back Warp and Wolf, and let us out of this crazy pocket universe you’ve got going here. OR…”

Pinkie Pie leaned close to her, expectantly.

“…let Chance mess with my behavioral implants and force me to be calm and happy, like a moon pony is supposed to be,” Tess finished. “Maybe I’d forget all about our friends, like he seems to have.”

“Or,” Pinkie Pie said, “you could enjoy the party, have some fun, and then worry about getting off the moon and finding your friends and what the poison joke is going to do to you later.”

Tess looked at Pinkie Pie, and tried to grin. Pinkie backed up, stumbling over her hooves with a look of terror on her face, and ending up falling into the sink. “Yeah,” Tess said, as she fished the pink pony out, “didn’t think that’d work.”

===

“Wait,” Tess said, as Pinkie Pie bounced down the hallway with the finished cake inexplicably remaining balanced on her backside, “The poison what?”

===

“This is amazing!” Twilight gushed, as she waved her hooves to zoom and scroll the three dimensional image of the crash. “I’ve heard of magic mirrors, but they were always ‘show me the fairest of them all’. Nothing like this!”

Chance and Tess were eating cake near the back of the room with varying degrees of nervousness.

“Wow, how did we survive that?” Rainbow Dash asked, as they watched the jar shatter in slow motion.

“You shouldn’t have,” Tess replied.

“Stop,” Twilight said, and the picture froze. She made a dotted box around a purple blur. “Computer, zoom and enhance.” Sure enough, it was her tangled saddlebags, marked with her cutie mark and bulging with books and, more importantly, the cure to the poison joke. “Computer, advance at 1% speed.”

In extreme slow motion, the ponies and moon ponies watched the saddlebags get ripped open by a sharp piece of glass, scattering the contents. “Stop,” Twilight said, then highlighted a spray of herbs erupting from a small torn packet.

“Well, that’s it, we’re hosed,” Rainbow Dash said.

Pinkie Pie giggled, and rustled her leafy mane. “Oh Dashie, it might not be so bad. My joke’s kind of growing on me.”

“What’s going to happen to us,” Chance asked, still sounding calm, but a bit scary at the same time.

“No pony knows!” Pinkie Pie said happily. “It’s a surprise! Maybe we can make it a party game – guess the joke?”

“It won’t be fatal,” Twilight Sparkle said, sighing. “I mean, we’re safe in here, right? If we were all disabled for a few days or weeks we wouldn’t die.”

Rainbow Dash curled up on the table, her wings folded tight to her sides. “Pinkie Pie’s already been joked, and her joke was completely harmless. Maybe ours’ll be harmless too. Right?”

“What do you mean by disabled,” Chance asked.

“It could do pretty much anything,” Twilight Sparkle said, zooming in on Thunder Lane to try to figure out if he’d been as lucky in the crash as the rest of them. “The last time I was joked I lost the use of my magic, and Rainbow Dash had her wings put on backwards.”

“Rainbow Crash!” Pinkie Pie giggled.

“But it could really do anything,” Twilight said. “Any joke. It’s not like it’s going to turn us into stone or something.” She felt a twinge in her back hoof, and glanced back at it, to see it turning gray and pebbly. “No… no!” she said, trying to scramble back away from her own hoof as the effect climbed up her hindlegs. She looked at Pinkie desperately. “Pinkie – Captain! Make it stop!”

“I’m not doing it!” Pinkie Pie said, but shook her mane and concentrated anyway. It failed to have any effect.

Twilight’s horn glowed as she tried to counterspell the transformation, but unicorn magic had never had any effect on chaos magic, and by the time her hindquarters were stone she collapsed, exhausted, grimacing in pain.

“Where’s the exit?” Rainbow Dash asked, leaping to her hooves. “I don’t care if the packet’s scattered across the plain, I’ll find the pieces and we can still make the cure, alright Twilight?”

“No – don’t go outside!” Twilight said, wheezing as her lungs hardened. “No pony who’s joked! It might… mess with… space…”

“Don’t worry, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, staring into the unicorn’s eyes as the wave of stone crept up her neck. “I’ll stay right here and keep you company. You won’t have to be alone.”

“I won’t… hear you…” Twilight gasped, and then her face was frozen in an expression of horror.

Pinkie Pie stared into the eyes of the unicorn statue, and waved a hoof in front of it a few times. “Huh,” she said. “Never mind then!”

“Tess,” Chance said, “I think you really need to let me adjust your implants before you suffer serious trauma.”

“She took off,” Rainbow Dash said. “Want me to go after her?”

-Tess!- Chance sent over the radio, but she didn’t respond.

“I think I’m going to have to add this to the list of bad party games,” Pinkie Pie said gloomily.

===

They found a brown and white unicorn which, by process of elimination, had to be Tess in the kitchen, fumbling at one of the guns from the refrigerator with her hooves. It wasn’t clear who she’d been planning to shoot. By that point Rainbow Dash had also turned, shooting stunning blasts of electricity from her mane and tail and wings whenever she got near any pony or anything metal, which was most of the ship. Chance was lucky enough not to be affected by the poison joke at all, although he’d been standing next to Rainbow Dash and got zapped pretty badly when she started to discharge.

“This isn’t as bad as it looks,” Pinkie Pie said, nuzzling at the weeping unicorn while Chance was off in another room, trying to write a program to track the individual leaves and flowers that sprayed from the bag, in the hopes of recovering the poison joke cure.

“It’s pretty bad,” Rainbow Dash said, stomping her feet with little sparks as she stood on the table in the middle of a perfectly empty room across the hall from the kitchen. “Twilight’s a statue, Tess is a basket case, and I’m stuck here next to all these awesome toys and can’t play with any of them. I can’t even go outside and fly because Chance thinks I’ll break his air lock.”

Pinkie Pie started to sing a quiet song, while combing Tess’s mane with a fork. "Some days are dark and lonely, and maybe you feel sad, but Pinkie will be there to remind you that it isn’t that bad!"

“Ditzy and Derpy probably left for home hours ago – if we got separated we were supposed to meet up back on the ground,” Rainbow Dash said. “I guess they might send a rescue team with another batch of magic bubble bath, but it’s Ditzy. And Derpy.”

“Mud’s healthy, though,” Pinkie Pie said. “Rarity’s always taking mud baths, right? I bet moon mud baths are super duper extra healthy, and good for your mane, too.”

“They won’t cure poison joke, though,” Rainbow Dash said, adding an “Ow!” as a particularly large snap of static electricity arced from one of her wings.

“They will if the bubble bath is mixed in with it, right?” Pinkie Pie said. “Just like if you mix up cake and frosting before you put it in the oven, it comes out as a horrible gooey mess but you can still eat it and you won’t die or anything.”

“Centrifuge,” Tess said, blinking away her tears. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash stared at her blankly. “Tell Chance to go gather up all the dust from the area the packet sprayed over, and put it through a centrifuge. Even he should be able to operate one of those.”

“I have no idea what you just said, but I’ll go get Chance and you can tell him. You won’t hurt yourself while I’m gone, will you?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“I’ll go with you,” Tess said. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash said. “What am I, chopped lavender?”

“Don’t tempt me,” Tess grumbled, as she and Pinkie Pie headed down the hall.

13: Easiest Mission Ever

“Be careful,” Tess said as Chance drove the electric cart into the airlock lift. She was feeling calmer, at least. Maybe it was Chance’s advice to pretend that her unicorn transformation was like controlling an avatar in a virtual reality program, maybe it was Pinkie Pie spending fifteen minutes comforting her. Maybe it was just having a plan to get themselves out of at least this latest disaster.

Chance was certainly being more careful than last time, wearing his jumpsuit, thick gloves and boots, and the helmet from what was left of his space suit. The patch where the poison joke cure was scattered was itself contaminated with poison joke, and he’d have to pick out the evil blue leaves, since it was unlikely the centrifuge would separate them. “As long as Pinkie Pie is right about it needing direct leaf-to-fur contact, I should be fine,” he said. “And I’ve got some tongs so I won’t even have to risk touching it with my gloves unless I screw up.”

“Yeah, well, you’re our single point of failure,” Tess said, a feeling of impending doom looming over her. “If something happens to you we won’t even be able to come help you without somehow fixing up a working space suit, and guess which of us is the only one left with the implants to run the skill software and the hands to work the machinery?”

“Tess?” Chance said, staring at her strangely. “Your horn’s glowing.”

“Again?” Tess said. She couldn’t quite focus her eyes on her own forehead, but she could feel something tingling there. “It was doing this before, but nothing happened. Nothing I could see anyway.” She reached up and rapped her hoof against it until the tingling stopped. “There. Stupid thing’s probably on the fritz.”

“Don’t worry,” Chance said, forcing his face back into a neutral expression. “I’ll hurry back as fast as I can. Even if you’re really as okay with this as you’re pretending to be, Twilight’s probably stuck in a sensory deprivation state and that’s not something you want to play around with.” He looked at her frown, and smiled. “Relax, this is a really easy mission – drive a few hundred feet, pick out the blue leaves from the target area, then scoop the rest of the dust and debris into the back of the cart. What could go wrong? We’ve been stuck here for more than a year and this terrain doesn’t even have any real hazards. It’s not like I’m going to the edge of the moon to check on the probes or something.”

“Right,” Tess said, feeling a sudden chill. “The probes.”

Chance hit the button to cycle the airlock, and the door slid closed, followed quickly by the hiss of the pumps and the rumble of the lift as it carried him to the hatch on top of the ship.

“The probes that should have seen those pegasi flying away if they really left the moon,” Tess said, turning away and walking back towards the crew area. “But we didn’t check, did we? Because Rainbow Dash said they were supposed to meet up back on the ground if they were separated.” She broke into a trot without thinking about it, and rammed her hoof into the ‘open’ button of an internal pressure door. “And of course ‘separated by accident’ is exactly the same as ‘kidnapped by moon ponies’, so I probably shouldn’t even bother scrolling through hours and hours of recordings using voice commands and hooves because I don’t have a direct neural interface!”

“Do you want some help?” asked Pinkie Pie, who’d heard the last part of that as Tess galloped past.

“Yes!” Tess shouted.

===

“So, is this the bridge?” Pinkie Pie asked, as the two of them sat on the table in the conference room. Or at least, Tess sat on the table -- Pinkie Pie was perched atop Twilight Statue, ‘just in case’. Tess hadn’t wanted to ask.

“What?” Tess asked, trying to concentrate on scanning the feeds for anything that looked like a pegasus. The big screen was split four ways to show the raw footage from the four probes Tess and Chance had set up on the edge of the moon to monitor Equestria, once it was obvious that they were likely to be stuck for a long time.

“You know, the bridge? The place where you control the ship? I’d expect there to be more controls but maybe one giant magic window is enough for a moon pony ship,” Pinkie Pie asked. “And better chairs. No offense Twilight! Your chairs are awful, although not as awful for moon ponies in moon pony shape as for normal ponies I guess. Although I know a pony who likes to sit in them like I saw Chance sitting in his but doesn’t that do terrible things to your back?”

“This is the conference room,” Tess said, ignoring the babble at the end. “There’s a bridge, somewhere, but I usually fly the ship from my bunk.”

“You fly the ship?” Pinkie Pie asked, hopping to her feet. “That’s so cool! Woooosh! Swoop! Oh no, asteroids, dodge!” Tess paused the feed as Pinkie Pie ran around the table, waving her limbs madly as she acted out the maneuvers she was describing. “Ah! Space pirates! Pew pew pew!”

“That’s… completely wrong,” Tess said.

“Aww,” Pinkie Pie said. “But you still need a love for speed and really fast reaction times, right?”

“Those don’t hurt, but any moon pony has that much,” Tess said, shaking her head. “If you need to react, you’re doing it wrong. Things move too fast, and space ships don’t turn on a bit. You need to plan ahead, and make intelligent guesses for the factors you can’t pin down. It’s not about reaction speed, it’s about predicting the future.”

Pinkie Pie gasped, and grinned, and gave Tess a tight and extremely unanticipated hug. “I bet that’s your special talent! Have you cast any fortune telling spells yet?”

“I hope not,” Tess said, disentangling herself from the pink pony. “Because if this,” she waved at the screens, to try to get Pinkie Pie’s attention back on them, “is just ordinary paranoia, then maybe we’ll find those pegasi winging it for home after all, and I’m wrong about the impending doom.”

“You’re probably wrong,” Pinkie Pie said. “I see them – see? Right there.”

Tess turned back to the frozen screens, and saw the glowing spot that Pinkie was pointing at, looking awfully like a faint star, among all the other faint stars and minor planet-based light sources that looked awfully like faint stars from a distance. Leaning very close, she could see that it was faintly pony shaped. “How did you –“

“It’s also in that picture but in a different place,” Pinkie Pie said, pointing to another glowing spot on the far side of the screen. “Weren’t we playing ‘spot the differences’?”

“That’s one way,” Tess said. She traced a tiny box around the spot with her hooves, and had the computer zoom in. There, up close, they could see Thunder Lane resting comatose on the back of an exhausted looking pegasus in a power dive.

One pegasus.

===

Chance nearly flubbed the easiest mission in history before technically leaving the ship. They’d modified the cart with some extended walls for the cargo area, to hold more of the moon dust if the cure fragments ended up being deeply embedded. Between that change, and having only the one moon pony in the driver’s seat at the front, the center of gravity was high and forwards enough to let the cart dig its front end into the dust at the base of the final exit ramp, at which point it flipped end over end like some sort of spring-loaded scoop.

Chance threw himself to the side in time not to be crushed underneath, but the controls were jammed and he spent a few minutes dancing around the overturned cart and its dangerously whirling wheels until he finally found an opening to shut off the controls, after which he still had to flip the thing over.

After that, he spent another half hour gathering moon rocks to prop up the ramp at a lighter angle, since on the way back it’d be even more top heavy. It was a good thing they weren’t in any hurry.

“Chance?” came voice data over his wireless neural interface. “Chance, are you still there? I can’t find you on the external camera.”

-That’s because it’s still focused on the crash site,- he sent back, -I’m not there yet. Had to do some modifications to the exit ramp.-

“You’re still at the ramp? Look, you’ve got to hurry. We checked the probe data to make sure the rest of those bucking pegasi headed home, and it looks like there’s one left, that might be lurking nearby.”

-Which one?-

“Pinkie couldn’t tell which. Ditzy and Derpy are their names, apparently – do those ring any bells? They’re not celebrities like the others. Neither of them should be hostile, but Rainbow Dash shouldn’t have been hostile either.” There was a pause. “You tried to kill me with a freaky tornado! You’re lucky all I used was the tape!” After another pause, the voice link cut off.

Chance drove on, keeping an eye out for anything flying, but there was nothing but the glow of the moon and stars. Before long, he was at the crash, and a comparison between his stored imagery and the current state of the debris showed that only minor settling had occurred since the tornado incident. He drove the cart carefully along the pre-arranged path overlaid on his vision, and parked it perfectly in the designated rectangle. -Driving 300 feet, check.-

“Hiiii, Chancie!” came another voice stream, Pinkie Pie on the microphone this time. “Tess is busy keeping Rainbow Dash distracted so that she doesn’t break all the locks on your air trying to go help you, so I’ll be your control tower buddy tonight!”

-Okay, Pinkie. Can you read my responses?-

“Affirmative, badger one. Translation circuits on line, logging enabled. We are ready for phase two. Engage manual toxin removal clamp!”

Chance picked up the tongs he’d brought with him for the purpose, and stood on the edge of the designated area, picking out the blue poison joke leaves and setting them aside. Even though the area was only ‘lightly contaminated’, there were still dozens of leaves to move, and they were fragile after exposure to vacuum and tended to break into multiple, smaller pieces if he moved too quickly.

“Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh don’t look up!”

Chance looked up, and saw a blonde-maned gray pegasus sitting not ten feet from him, staring at him silently. -Where did she come from?- he asked.

“I don’t know! Just don’t look in her eyes!” Pinkie replied, terrified.

It was too late, though – Chance had already met her gaze, and found himself unable to look away as the mare’s bright yellow eyes started to rotate in opposite directions.

Information-based attack detected, shutting down visual sensors, said one of Chance’s anti-hacking subroutines, and he felt his eyelids squeeze shut on their own, breaking him out of his trance.

Something kicked him while his eyes were closed, and he went sprawling into the dust. He opened his eyes to see the pegasus flapping her wings slowly as she floated above him, then she swooped down at him and he only barely managed to roll out of the way. Before he could get to his feet, she landed between him and the cart, and lunged at him, trying a headbutt. He grabbed her mane and forehead to stop her charge.

-I think she’s hostile,- he sent back to the ship as she kept up the pressure, slowly pushing him back. -Sorry, girl,- he added, as he pulled his mini-taser out of his pocket and jabbed it into the side of her neck.

Somewhat to his dismay, if not to his surprise, the pegasus failed to fall over unconscious like she should have. Instead, her wings flared, and her eyes spun again, and she took an unsteady step towards him, so he zapped her again, on the nose. That stopped her advance, at least, and as lightning seemed to crawl across her feathers and fur, she sat down heavily.

There was a crash of thunder – in space? – and lightning flew everywhere. “Chance? Chaaaaance!” cried Pinkie Pie over the microphone, as his consciousness faded.

He awoke to a terrible pain in his tail – he was lying on his back, on the surface of the moon, and some pony was dragging him by his tail. His perspective was upside down, but he could see the electric cart less than fifty feet away, so he couldn’t have been out for long. Judging by the gaping hole in its side, and the sparks occasionally flying from severed bits of the internal workings, it wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

-Ugh, what hit me?- he asked, as he flipped to his feet and yanked his tail out of the teeth of the gray pegasus, who’d been dragging him deeper into the crash site.

“You’re alive!” Tess said. “Damn it, Chance. I told you to be careful!”

The gray pegasus stared at him, but this time he knew to avert his gaze before she could hypnotize him. She lunged at him, mouth open to try to chew on his hand, but he dodged, and when she took to the air to try to headbutt him from behind, he dodged that as well, and started running back towards the cart.

“Uh oh, I think you made her mad, she’s stomping at the ground now.”

Sure enough, the cart was dead, and worse, the scuffle with the pegasus had mostly taken place inside the dust he was supposed to be collecting, which meant that it was scattered across a wider area now, with more blue leaves. -How do I make her leave?- Chance asked.

“Woah. How is she -- that’s not even – Chance, heads up!”

Chance looked up in time to see a larger-than-pony-sized bundle of ropes and sacks plummeting towards him. Not quite in time to dodge it fully, although he managed to avoid being crushed. The pegasus landed on top of it and stomped on it while glaring at him.

-I think I’m outgunned,- Chance said, yanking his leg out from under the bundle and making a run for the ship. -Any bright ideas?-

“Duck!” Tess said urgently, and he threw himself flat, just in time to avoid being beaned in the back of the head as the bundle went flying past. The ropes holding it together finally came loose as it bounced and rolled across the field of broken glass in front of him, and it disintegrated into a spray of smaller sacks.

As he got to his knees, the pegasus landed on one of the loose bags, and reached her muzzle inside, pulling out a small paper-wrapped packet and whipping it at him like a grenade. Chance batted it aside before it could hit him, and it burst open, spraying flowers and leaves – familiar flowers and leaves.

He caught the next one. -Is this what I think it is?- he asked, bringing up a picture of the poison joke cure packet from Twilight’s bag. It was the same size and the same kind of wrapping, at least. He looked back at the pegasus, who had three more in her mouth, and was staring at him, exasperated.

-Right, you!- he sent, although there was no chance that the pegasus could hear him. -Let’s go inside and talk.-

===

The vents hissed as air filled the lock, and the platform rumbled as it sank deeper into the ship. “So, um, Ditzy?” Chance asked his new companion, who’d followed him into the airlock without asking, but without any further signs of hostility at least.

“Derpy,” she replied, rubbing her neck where he’d zapped her. The fur there was scorched.

Chance nodded. “Derpy. Let me guess. You figured out what I was there for, and were just trying to get my attention the whole time.”

“Um… no?” Derpy said. “I was just trying to get you to take some poison joke cure to Rainbow Dash. You know where Rainbow Dash is, right? Ditzy told me you’d probably know and that I should take you some poison joke cure for her, before she went to take Thunder Lane to the hospital.”

“Told you how?” Chance asked. “Can you hear each other talk?”

Derpy stared at him, and he looked away before her eyes could catch him. “Oh! You mean in space! No, she wrote it in the dust,” Derpy said. “Oh! I should have written what I was doing in the dust. My bad.”

“Well, yes, writing notes to each other might have made things easier,” Chance said, tucking his notepad deeper into its pocket. “But no pony got hurt, which is the important thing.” The lift reached the bottom, and the airlock door hissed open, revealing the winding corridor that led through engineering to the rest of the ship. “Welcome to the Here to Help!”

Derpy stared at the narrow corridor, lined with pipes and conduits. “It looked bigger on the outside.”

14: Point of No, Return

Twilight Sparkle gasped loudly as she surfaced from the warm, aromatic pool. Her hooves hooked over the edge, but instead of the wooden slats she expected, it was the same odd, smooth substance that the moon ponies used for their furniture. There was a splash and a giggle behind her, and she blinked her eyes open and looked back to see Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash having a splash fight.

The room was dimly lit – there were plenty of lamps, but boxes made out of some sort of paper were stacked almost to the ceiling, leaving the pool in the middle in shadow. A narrow pathway through the boxes led to a doorway, beyond which was a sadly familiar corridor.

“I don’t understand,” Twilight said. “We’re back on the Here to Help?”

“It worked, you’re awake!” Pinkie Pie said, lunging through the water and wrapping Twilight up in her hooves. “And not stony at all! So was it the same as last time? Were you all cold and lonely and couldn’t see a word I was saying?”

Twilight Sparkle frowned. “Was I asleep?”

“You were a statue,” Rainbow Dash said. “Remember? From the poison joke that you were sure was perfectly safe?”

Rainbow’s words sparked memories. They were not good memories. Being immersed in warm water, and Pinkie Pie’s embrace, helped keep them from bringing more than a momentary wince, at least. “Well, that’s kind of a relief, actually,” Twilight said. “I guess I must have been hallucinating the descent, and the audience with Celestia, and… everything else. In case you’re wondering, it didn’t go well.”

“You were banished and imprisoned?” Rainbow Dash asked, smirking.

“Worse,” Twilight said. “The moon ponies were turned to stone, and all their technology – well, what was left of it after I screwed up getting us down from the moon – was set on fire and buried. We got off scott free.”

“Sounds like it’s a good thing we met you instead of Celestia,” said a brown and white unicorn, walking in from the hallway. “It worked? She’s completely de-stoned?”

“I think so,” Twilight said. She climbed out of the bath and balanced precariously on the small patch of floor left between the water and the boxes, looking herself over. “I don’t see any stone, do you?”

Pinkie Pie lifted up Twilight’s tail and checked underneath. “Nope!” she said, giggling as she dodged a hoof to the face.

“Then I guess it’s my turn,” said the unicorn, but hesitated as her first hoof was about to touch the surface. After a second, she sat down at the edge of the shallow pool and stared into the murky water instead.

“You don’t have to change back, Tess,” Pinkie Pie said, helping Twilight back into the water. “I’m sure Twilight would be happy to teach you magic! She even knows some time spells.”

“I cast one time spell once,” Twilight said. “It’s not like I memorized a spell you can only use once.” She looked at Tess. “Can you actually cast spells? I wouldn’t expect poison joke to be able to grant magical ability, but it is chaos magic so I couldn’t say for sure. Heart’s Desire was able to give Applebloom a wide variety of talents during the Cutie Pox incident.”

“It lights up, but nothing seems to happen,” Tess said.

“That’s consistent with a unicorn just learning to use their horn, actually,” Twilight responded. “Would you mind remaining a unicorn for a while longer? It’d be a fascinating experiment to see what kind of magic, if any, you’d be able to use.”

Tess stared at the water, and shuddered. She stood up and took a step back. “It’s not going to become permanent if I leave it on, is it?” she asked.

“Nooo, no no no!” Twilight said. “Probably not. I’m sure we would have heard about it if poison joke was permanent. If nothing else we can get more of the cure once we get back down to Ponyville.“

“We’re good on cure,” Rainbow said. “Ditzy and Derpy didn’t trust the poison joke either, and squirreled away like a dozen doses.”

“Then I guess I’m okay with putting off having my body torn apart cell by cell and reassembled,” Tess said, scampering back farther from the pool. “Anything in the name of science, or whatever passes for science to magical purple unicorns.”

Twilight frowned, then forced her face back into a friendly expression. “You’re right, this really can’t be a proper experiment without the ability to reproduce your situation on demand. Still, I think it’ll be an interesting longitudinal study, as well as a sorely needed data point about the effects and limitations of poison joke.”

“And a sorely needed FUN point for the grumpiest moon pony,” Pinkie Pie added.

“Fun. Right.” Tess didn’t look convinced. “So… what was this I heard about Celestia turning us to stone?” she asked.

“The princess wouldn’t do that,” Rainbow Dash said. “You guys are cool. She only stones bad guys.”

“She hasn’t stoned any pony in more than a thousand years!” Twilight added.

“And it’s been thousands of seconds since she had us turn someone to stone for her,” Pinkie Pie added, a bit less helpfully.

“And what would you do, if she asked you to imprison us?” Chance asked, lounging against the door frame. Tess whirled and slammed her posterior into a stack of boxes, which wobbled a bit but didn’t quite topple. “Hi, Tess. You’re looking a bit less bipedal than I expected. Cold hooves?”

“Yeah,” Tess said. “The idea freaks me out more than staying the wrong shape at this point.”

“Aww,” Pinkie Pie said, pouting. “You’re not gonna use the excuse Twilight gave you?”

“It wouldn’t fool him, and he’d enjoy it too much if I tried,” Tess said.

“Do I need to get the knockout gas?” Chance asked.

Tess laughed. “Ask me again in a week? If it hasn’t worn off on its own.”

“I thought you’d be frantic to get your implants back,” Chance said. “I know I’d be crawling out of my skin if I suddenly had to rely on my brains for math and memory. Not to mention hormone regulation. You’re always riding my tail about it, and now you’re walking around without any controls at all?”

“And somehow, I’m still not even remotely attracted to you,” Tess said. “Twilight, do you think we could get started on the magic lessons? I want to do something that’s not anywhere near that… bath.”

“Um…” Twilight said, “actually… the water is nice and warm, and I just spent a few hours or possibly months as a statue,” Twilight said, sinking lower into the water. “I don’t suppose you ever spied on a book of kindergarten-level unicorn magic? You could practice some of the exercises.”

“You know,” Rainbow Dash said, splashing lightly at the not-quite-transparent water, “between the herbs and spices and a couple days’ worth of pony juice we built up flying up here, it’s not really water anymore. It’s more like Zecora’s special pony stew.” She fluttered up out of the aromatic pool, and shivered her wings to shed most of the water on them.

Pinkie Pie started humming her ‘evil enchantress’ song.

“Don’t care,” Twilight said, letting her eyes close. “It’s warm and it smells good.”

“I think I’m going to go check on Derpy,” Rainbow said. “If Tess and Chance are both here and she’s not, then I figure we’ve got fifteen minutes tops before something explodes.” She swooped past Tess and Chance, and headed down the hallway calling Derpy’s name.

“Rainbow!” Tess called, running after her, “I left her hooked up to the virtual reality rig – she’ll be fine!”

Chance let the door slide closed behind him as he headed over to the bath, giving it a sniff. “That does smell nice,” he said. “Mind if I join you girls?”

“Not at all!” Twilight said.

Pinkie Pie giggled. “The more the hairier!”

Chance stripped out of his jumpsuit, and slid into the water with a sigh. “Oh, I’ve missed this,” he said. “We should have cleared out the boxes years ago, but you know how it is. It takes an emergency to get you to actually get off your butt and do something.”

“What’s in all the boxes?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Just some random cargo,” Chance said. “Salvage. Scrap. Junk.” He pointed to a random box. “That one has fifty seven yards of thermal piping. We stripped it out of an abandoned sulfur mine.”

“Ew,” Twilight said, opening her eyes and looking at the box suspiciously. “Why would you mine sulfur?”

“I did say it was abandoned,” Chance said, with a chuckle. He ducked under the water, and swam across the pool, bursting up out of the water between Twilight and Pinkie Pie and pulling them into a giggly, squirmy group hug. “Oh, it’s so nice to have friends here!” he said, “We are friends, right?”

“Of course!” Pinkie said, giving him a nuzzle.

“I’d like to be friends,” Twilight said, relaxing in the water next to the moon pony so that he could brush her mane with his claws again. “But I barely know you.”

Chance nodded as he stroked the ponies flanking him. “Well, I hope we can get to know each other. It’s weird – I feel like I already know you from reading all the stories about you from our, uh, language files, but that’s just some image of you I’ve built up in my head. I’d like to get to know the real you.”

“This isn’t going to turn into some creepy moon pony technological horror story, is it?” Twilight asked. “You’re not going to implant monitoring devices in my brain?”

“What I meant was, you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you want,” Chance said. “That’s all. Consider myself, this ship, and everything on it completely at your disposal.”

“Yay! Cakes for everypony!” Pinkie Pie said, splashing water up in the air.

“Everything on the ship?” Twilight asked, her eyes lighting up.

Chance nodded, lifting her chin to meet her gaze with his own. “Everything,” he whispered.

“Do you have a library?” Twilight asked, rubbing her hooves together. Chance laughed, and nodded. “Oooh, I can’t wait! All the secrets of the moon ponies!”

Pinkie Pie glommed onto Chance’s back, and nuzzled his cheek from behind. “You’re the best moon pony ever, Chance!” she said. “If the princess tells us to turn you to stone, we’ll totally argue with her for at least five minutes!”

“And if she banishes you from Equestria, we’ll write you letters once a week,” Twilight said.

Pinkie Pie grinned. “And if she locks you up in prison, we’ll take really good care of your ship until you’ve served your time!”

Chance smirked. “And what if she gobbles me up?”

“Then I’d probably suffer a total mental breakdown,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Because that would just be weird,” Pinkie Pie added. “I mean, you’re almost as big as her. How would she gobble you up?”

===

“We had a library,” Chance said, staring at the screen in the conference room.

“Didn’t the wall used to have a lot more… stuff?” Twilight asked. The screen was nearly blank, with only the magic mirror showing the crash site – with reams of gibberish scrolling up the side where Chance and Tess’ radio communication used to be – and the slightly undulating background pattern showing that it was still working.

Tess and Derpy were already in the room, Tess poking at the screen to no effect while Derpy sat on the table, every part of her drooping as much as a pegasus could.

“I’m sorry!” Derpy said, miserably turning her head just enough to see Twilight and Chance. “I don’t know what went wrong!”

“I don’t know how she managed to completely wreck the system from inside a virtual reality sandbox, but -- ponyfeathers!” Tess said, staring at the screen. “I can’t get it to respond at all.”

“My direct interface is telling me that the system still exists, but every command I try just reports an error,” Chance said. “Should we try to restart?”

Tess scowled. “I don’t know. That’s the first thing I’d try if we were running on the main system, but this was just something I threw together out of the pieces that still worked after everything was trashed. At the very least we’d have to shut down all the core systems – put the reactor on autonomous mode…“ Tess’ horn suddenly lit up. “I have a really bad feeling about this,” she said, eyes rolling up to try to see the glow as she felt it tingle.

“It’s not all broken,” Derpy said, reaching towards the one remaining window. “This one’s still working.” She touched the crash site mirror, and the image froze with a loud ‘Ping!’. After a few seconds it disappeared.

Tess turned to Derpy in alarm. “Stop! Don’t touch anything!” she said. Derpy, startled, fell off the table and faceplanted into the screen.

All the lights went out, and the constant rumbling and hissing that every pony on board had learned to tune out suddenly made itself notable by its absence – all was silent, except for the rustling of Derpy’s wings as she meandered around, trying to find somewhere to land that didn’t involve crashing into other ponies.

“Oh, buck me,” Tess said quietly.

Twilight cast a floating light so that they could at least see each other. “What just happened?” she asked.

“Tess. Reactor. Now,” Chance said, turning and running out of the room.

“Buck buck buck buck,” Tess said over and over as she followed the moon pony out of the room and down the hall, adding, “Don’t touch anything else!” as she left.

Derpy hovered in the middle of the room, glancing nervously at the walls and ceiling and the table beneath her. She wobbled back and forth as she tried too hard not to accidentally touch them.

“Touching the table is probably okay,” Twilight said.

Derpy landed heavily on the table. Two of the legs snapped off, sending her tumbling into Twilight and getting them both stuck in the doorway, which tried to close on them. Twilight’s magic forced the door back into its recessed slot, and dragged Derpy out into the hallway. “Okay, that one was my fault,” she said, as they collapsed on the floor.

===

Later, every pony met in the kitchen. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were hiding inside a massive cake fort they’d built on the table before the power outage, Derpy was underneath the table, trussed up with tape like a turkey so that she couldn’t touch anything, and the other three were sitting in the uncomfortable chairs.

“The good news is, we’re not going to die,” Chance said.

“Right away,” Tess added.

“We have air, and water, and – well, cake,” Chance continued, ignoring her. “In an emergency we can eat the food packets raw.”

“The bad news is that we couldn’t restart the reactor,” Tess said, “so once our energy storage cells run out this ship turns into a tomb.”

“On the good side, the reactor isn’t damaged,” Chance said. “We might be able to get it running again.”

“We tried everything,” Tess said, “and drained half our storage cells in the process. We couldn’t make a large enough ‘spark’ to get the fusion reaction going.”

“Do you want me to try?” Twilight offered.

“No!” Tess said, looking horrified.

Chance shook his head. “Only as a last resort. I was actually remembering something you said, Twilight, about getting the ship down to the surface?”

“Right,” Twilight said. “In my dream, while I was stone, I thought I knew how to get the ship down safely, but it didn’t work. I did manage to teleport every pony off before the crash, at least.”

Chance smiled. “Why don’t you explain the idea that didn’t work, and we’ll see if we can fix it?”

“Of course!” Twilight said. ”First, we slide the ship off the moon. The moon’s much too small to have its own gravity, so the ship is only stable resting here because you landed on the very top of the moon. We wouldn’t have to move it far before gravity would take over.”

“Move it how?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I hope you don’t think Derpy and I can lift it – this thing’s huge.”

“Well, um, it’s a ship, right? It has engines or something? Maybe a balloon to deploy?” Twilight suggested. “In the dream it was really a rocket-ship and we just turned on the rocket for a few seconds.”

“We have rockets,” Tess said. “I could probably get them to fire even without main power, assuming Derpy didn’t delete the controls.”

Derpy struggled to apologize from under the table, but her gag held.

“The moon’s full of mountain ranges, though. You know what would be really neat? If we had some sort of big screen on the wall there, where we could bring up a map of the moon and plot a course,” Tess said, glowering at the gray pegasus.

“I’ve got a map on my implants,” Chance said, closing his eyes. “South. If we head south there’s no major barriers.”

Tess nodded. “Of course, once we slid off the edge, we’d be tumbling end over end like a flipped coin, and every pony inside the ship would be smashed against the walls over and over until we broke our necks.”

“Maybe we could spin it like a Frisbee?” Pinkie Pie suggested.

“Or use a ramp,” Rainbow Dash said. “If we built a giant ramp at the edge of the moon, we could launch off sideways and keep the ship upright. And if we aimed slightly wrong so that we hit the edge of the ramp, we could even fly off sideways, spinning.” As every pony stared at her, she crouched down behind the cake battlements. “What? I use ramps all the time for my tricks. Normally I’m trying to stop them from sending me spinning when I go off the edge, but – I’m not an egghead!” She sulked a bit as Pinkie Pie patted her head.

“The ‘build a giant ramp’ step doesn’t seem especially plausible,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Maybe if I could get out onto the surface I could use my magic…”

“Well…” Chance said, “we do have the mining coherent light projectors – wow, that’s awkward. Mining rays?” Chance listened to what he’d just said and nodded. “Mining rays.” He walked over to the refrigerator and opened it. “They’re fully charged, so we might be able to carve a ramp, especially if we aimed for an existing mountain range and just smoothed it out a bit. There’s one to the east, but we’d have to carve a tunnel through some hills.”

“Those are mining rays?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking at the scary black devices stacked inside the fridge.

“Of course. What did you think they were?” Tess asked, defensively.

“Ray guns?” Pinkie Pie suggested. “Pew pew?”

“Don’t be silly,” Chance said. “It’d be highly illegal for a civilian ship like ours to have lethal weapons on board.”

“And the little mouth-held ones that look exactly like ray-guns?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Pinkie Pie giggled. “They’re for making ITTY BITTY mines!”

“Or welding,” Chance said.

“Why are they in the fridge?” Twilight asked.

Tess shrugged. “We need to keep them close to the crew quarters, in case we need to do some… emergency mining.”

“And the fridge has extra heavy insulation to keep them from being damaged by cosmic radiation or inspectors scanning for concentrated energy storage,” Chance added, with a smirk.

“Uh huh,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Anyway, we’ve got at least three ponies that can go outside. Tess, if you change back we’ll have four –“

“We’ve only got three mining co – mining rays, unless you want to go back into the temple and see if you can find Wolf’s,” Tess said.

“Do we really want Derpy to have a mining ray?” Twilight asked. “I’m guessing that it isn’t safe to point at ponies or ships.”

Derpy whimpered.

“Fine,” Tess said. “I’ll change back.” She shuddered. “Chance? I think I’ll need that knockout gas.”

“Hold up,” Chance said. “So far, we’ve got the ship off the moon, spinning and upright, but falling to the planet below at terminal velocity. What’s the next step?”

Twilight nodded. “I cast the cloudwalking spell on the ship, and we aim for a really thick cloud. In my dream we aimed for a normal cloud, and the ship burst right through it and crashed. So, thick cloud is important.”

“A thunderstorm,” Rainbow Dash said. “We stack those up ridiculously high.”

“And when the spell wears off?” Tess asked.

“The spell lasts for days,” Twilight said. “I’m sure we’ll be able to gather together enough pegasi to bring the ship down safely before then. Or if not, I can keep recasting it until we figure something out. It’s a pretty easy spell and yes,” she added, “it’s actually meant to be cast on building-sized objects.”

“Yeah, most of the heavy equipment in the weather factory is permanently enchanted with it,” Rainbow Dash said. “Still, Twilight, you’d better make sure you can actually cast the thing before we send the ship careening to its doom.”

“I’ll practice while you’re working on the ramp,” Twilight responded.

“So how do we find a thunderstorm?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Oh! We could send Derpy and Dashie down to make a thunderstorm?”

“It’s usually a twenty-mare job,” Rainbow Dash said.

“We could send Derpy and Dashie down to set up a weather party!” Pinkie Pie said gleefully.

“Yeah, I could rally the weather squad, that could work,” Rainbow said. “Lots of paperwork afterwards, but that’s why I have Raindrops.”

“Then I think we have a plan,” Chance said. “Only one more thing to worry about – the princesses.”

“If we’re sending Rainbow ahead, she can tell them we’re coming,” Pinkie Pie said. “We can invite them to the weather party! Then it’s sure to go off without a hitch.”

“And if they say ‘no, don’t drop a giant metal Frisbee on our heads’?” Tess asked.

“Then we probably get in a lot of trouble, because it’s going to be too late to abort,” Twilight said. “The pegasi can fly down to the planet easily enough, but flying back up would take days – we can’t really send messages back and forth, especially with your windows all broken. I’m guessing no more spying on Equestria until you get that fixed.”

“We could interface with the probes directly,” Tess said. “It’s not safe to get that close to the edge, though, and it’s a long walk.”

“The moon is tiny, I could fly to the edge and back in ten seconds flat,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Except that you won’t be here,” Twilight noted.

Rainbow blinked. “Oh, right.”

“So, what?” Chance asked. “We just go ahead, with no signal, assuming Rainbow Dash will get the clouds ready for us?”

“Plan B, I fire the retro-rockets and try to soften the crash,” Tess said. “They’re not meant for a planetary landing, but if there were any clouds and it slowed us down a little, maybe something would be salvageable.”

“And I’ll teleport us to the surface, so there’s no risk of any pony being hurt, as long as we aim for an uninhabited area, like the mountains west of Canterlot,” Twilight added. “We’re risking the ship, but I should be able to keep every pony alive.”

“You’re not risking anything,” Rainbow Dash said. “I never leave my friends hanging.”

15: Fixing Tess

Twilight and Pinkie Pie followed Chance into the storage room with the pool, and watched as he lowered the unconscious Tess into the water.

“I wish the water was less opaque,” he said. “I’d really like to watch the process more closely.”

“As far as I can tell, the cure is always instantaneous,” Twilight said. “You’d better pull her out before she drowns.”

Chance reached down and dragged out a sopping-wet moon pony. There was no sign that she’d ever been a unicorn. “Well, that was anticlimactic.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a long gray wire, which he plugged into the side of his head, just behind his ear, then reached down to search for the corresponding port on Tess’ head.

“What are you doing?” Twilight asked, grabbing the end of the wire with her magic before he could insert it.

Chance looked back at her, confused. “Fixing her.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Twilight said firmly. “She specifically said that she didn’t want you working with her implants.”

“This is not up for discussion,” Chance said. “I can’t have a twitchy moon pony waving around a mining ray.”

“It’s bad enough that you have implants that control your emotions,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Nothing I’ve heard about them makes me like the idea at all. But maybe, maybe, there’s a good reason why you need them. You never got to finish that explanation and I’m certainly not going to force you to justify it now that time is critical.”

“It won’t take long, if I leave off the candy-coating,” Chance said. “Feral moon ponies are monsters, created by evil wizards as slaves. I can’t risk Tess reverting to her true nature. Before I put a deadly tool in her hands, I need to make sure the bindings that keep her evil soul in check are secure.”

Pinkie Pie snickered.

“Really?” Twilight asked. “Evil wizards? That’s what you’re going with? How ignorant do you think we are? You’re clearly from an advanced technological society with little if any magic.”

Pinkie Pie laughed out loud, and fell over on her back, wiggling her legs as she laughed.

“Fine, laugh at my metaphors,” Chance said. “Tess is my best friend, or at least my best friend left. I wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for her own good.”

“Betraying a friend’s trust is the best way to lose a friend,” Twilight said.

“FOREVER!” Pinkie Pie added, staring at Chance intently, if still upside down.

Chance scowled and calmly started dragging the end of the wire towards Tess’ port, pulling against Twilight’s magic. “As her captain, I have the authority to alter her implants however I see fit,” he said, muscles straining as his hand started to move. Twilight’s eyes widened, and her horn brightened with an overglow as she pulled harder against his inexorable advance.

“As the ship’s medical officer, I have the authority to override her consent when she’s not in her right mind,” Chance continued, his heart beating faster and his breath quickening as his glands pumped adrenaline into his system. Twilight grimaced and closed her eyes for better concentration as he pulled against her magic with impossible strength, but she was the strongest unicorn in Equestria, defending her friend from a terrible fate, and she would not fail.

“And as a sneaky weasel,” he said, reaching over with his other hand and smacking Twilight’s horn, disrupting the magic. Twilight screamed and collapsed from the backlash, holding her hooves to her forehead. The wire clicked into place in Tess’s socket. “I don’t need your permission to do what needs to be done.”

There was a purple flash, and the wire disappeared. “Ow,” Twilight said, eyes slightly out of kilter.

“Is your horn smoking, Twilight?” Pinkie Pie asked, leaning close. “It smells kind of like lavender.”

“Darn it!” Chance said, leaping at the ponies, knocking Pinkie Pie aside and pinning Twilight against the floor, his claws at her throat. “We don’t have time to play around. What did you do with it!”

“You’re not going to hurt me,” Twilight said, meeting his gaze. “And you’re not getting your little wire back until and unless Tess agrees to let you work on her.”

“Don’t test me,” Chance said, snarling. His claws dug painfully into her neck, almost breaking the skin.

“Your behavioral implants are working as designed, which means that this anger you’re showing is a trick,” Twilight said, confidently. “Besides, killing me would render this entire exercise pointless, since not only would you no longer have any reason to build a ramp, but even if you somehow got to the ground without me, Celestia would not forgive you for hurting her personal student.”

Chance sighed, and released her. “Fine, you win. But we’re both going to regret this, Twilight.”

Twilight got to her feet. “Some stands have to be taken, and I will never regret doing what’s right.”

“Just spare me the moralizing and leave me alone,” Chance said, closing his eyes and panting heavily. “I went into overdrive for a second there, and I need time to recover. And time to try to figure out if I can forgive you for forcing the issue like this. Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m not going to jeopardize the mission, at least not any more than you already have. But I’m not sure if I’m going to want to talk to you, once we’re done with this.”

“Chance…” Twilight said. “Argh! Fine. Be a big jerk.” She turned and stomped out. Pinkie Pie made a very fake angry face at Chance, and did a rather bouncy sort of stomp to follow her.

Once they were both gone, Chance reached into another pocket, and pulled out a backup wire. He plugged it into the port behind his ear, and was just about to connect it to Tess when it suddenly vanished in a purple flash.

“Nice try,” Twilight said, from the doorway. “I can do this all day.”

“Well, that was my last wire,” Chance said, rolling his eyes. “Congratulations, you’ve doomed us all.”

Tess glowed purple and floated out of the room, over to Twilight and Pinkie Pie. “We’ll be taking this,” Twilight said, “at least until she wakes up.”

“Then you two can argue about it when Tess is actually awake to hear you,” Pinkie said. “Are you going to do the magic arm-wrestling thing again? Because that was the best part of this rehearsal.”

===

The unconscious Tess was laid out in the cake fort, guarded by Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, with Twilight and Chance standing to either side, ready to do battle. Chance glanced at the bound and gagged pegasus under the table. “Good to see you’re consistent about taking the moral high ground,” he said.

Twilight tore off Derpy’s gag with her magic. “Derpy, do you mind being tied up?”

“You tied me up so I wouldn’t break stuff, and I haven’t broken anything since I’ve been tied up,” Derpy said. “You’re really smart, Twilight!”

Twilight replaced the gag, and smirked at Chance. “See? Consent.”

A few minutes later, Tess finally regained consciousness. She blinked, sat up, and saw the two still glaring at each other. “What’s going on?”

“Chance tried to fix your behavioral implants while you were unconscious,” Twilight said, seizing the initiative. “Despite your express lack of permission!”

“Come on, Tess,” Chance said. “Mining ray plus twitchy implants equals friendly fire – you don’t want a repeat of the ultra-lightning-spear, do you?”

“Ugh,” Tess said, putting a hand to her face, although at least half of it was from the translation of ‘taser’. “Fine.”

“Yay!” Pinkie Pie said, tossing confetti into the air. “Every pony wins!”

“What?” Twilight asked. “Just like that?”

“He’s kind of got a point,” Tess said, her voice tired. “And after being turned into a unicorn and back, worrying that he might turn on my hormones just seems kind of petty. But you’d better not!” she added, glaring at Chance.

Chance coughed, and held out his hand towards a grumpy-looking Twilight. With a purple flash, a pair of interface wires reappeared. “For the record,” he said, as he hooked himself up to Tess, “if I’d known she’d cave that quickly, I wouldn’t have tried to do it while she was out.”

While every pony watched, Chance and Tess sat and stared at each other. Tess’ stare was blank while Chance’s was thoughtful, and when she didn’t react to Pinkie Pie waving a hoof in front of her face, it was clear that she was effectively unconscious again.

“So how long is this going to take?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Do I have time for a nap?”

“I’ve already recentered all the dials,” Chance replied, distantly. “I need to figure out what set them out of whack in the first place or it’ll just happen again, when I don’t have a super-critical mission to convince her to let me back in.”

Pinkie Pie’s ear twitched. “I know this… I know this… oh!” she said suddenly. “She said she didn’t want to forget about her friends!”

“That makes sense,” Chance said. “If she was fighting a trauma intervention…”

“What happened to your friends, anyway?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Did Nightmare Moon gobble them up?” Twilight and Rainbow Dash giggled for about a second and a half, before realizing that Chance wasn’t laughing.

“Why don’t I go ahead and tell you the story, while I search through the implant logs,” Chance offered. “It’s not a long story, really. I was going to show you the recording, but…”

Derpy whimpered, under the table.

===

Two space-suited moon ponies – one twice the height of the other – entered the ancient moon temple rather casually. The large one was carrying a huge, blocky mining ray over one shoulder, the small one was staring at a small, portable screen. The temple had six stone walls, covered in luminescent runes, but no roof, so the glowing disk of the Here to Help was clearly visible against the star-studded sky. Tess had done an excellent job of piloting, and the ship was locked into place by its anti-gravity field only a few hundred feet away from their target.

-The energy readings are definitely coming from the statue,- said the small one: Warp, the ship’s engineer. -Let me mark a target, and then make a bore hole gradually. We want to find the source of the energy, not destroy it.- She walked up to the statue dominating the center of the room -- an angry, rearing horse, with outstretched wings and a huge, voluminous stone tail, and a long, sharp horn emerging from its helmeted skull.

-Odd,- she said, after waving her little screen all around the statue. -The readings are strongest in the tail.- She made a mark on the statue’s flank, right next to an engraved symbol of a crescent moon. -Try here, I guess; we might hit a power conduit but it’s unlikely to be anything vital.-

-You want me to shoot the horse in the butt,- replied Wolf, the large one, as he unslung his mining ray and aimed it one-handed at the statue.

-Carefully!- Warp said. -While I hide behind one of those pillars.-

Before she could get to the indicated cover, Wolf pressed the button on the side of his mining ray and shot an impossibly bright beam over her shoulder, hitting the statue right in the center of its moon. His pulse was only a fraction of a second long, but the spot it hit glowed brightly, and brilliant, white cracks started to crawl across the statue’s surface.

Warp, who’d thrown herself to the ground after nearly being shot by the mining ray, scrambled backwards from the gradually exploding statue, ending up cowering at Wolf’s feet.

-Get out of there!- came Chance’s voice. -Tess, get them out of there!-

The Here to Help tried to approach the temple, but its antigrav was not meant for fine maneuvering, and its path was unsteady and jerky, and didn’t really get it any closer. -I don’t think I can without firing the retros and frying them,- Tess complained. -Do you want me to just crash? I think I can crash.-

-Do something!- Warp cried as Wolf dropped his mining ray and pulled her to her feet. The two of them turned to run…

…but they had no time. Their back and forth communication took only seconds, but the statue’s transformation was just as quick, and instead of a statue, there stood a jet black mare of darkness, with a nebulous, sparkling mane and tail. As Warp and Wolf ran for the doorway, the creature dissolved into a blue cloud and swallowed them up in a whirlwind of night, then flew from the temple and rose into the sky.

-No! NOOO!- Tess shouted, firing the engines at last and trying to ram the cloud that had just eaten her friends. Lightning shot from it, engulfing the ship and sending it careening out of control, into the side of the temple.

===

“And we don’t really know what happened after that, since both of us were knocked unconscious in the crash,” Chance said. “When we woke up, all our exotic matter was gone, and most of the ship’s systems were fried. Tess spent two months wiring together everything that still had a working computer into a makeshift network that could access the library and control the parts of the ship that still worked, while I was out on the surface exploring. Nightmare Moon shot down our probes, but four of them were still in decent shape, and I set them up at the edge of the moon so that we could see what was going on.”

“So it was Nightmare Moon,” Twilight said. “YOU freed Nightmare Moon? YOU were the stars spoken of in the prophecy?”

“Duh,” Rainbow Dash said. “I figured that much out as soon as I saw their ship crashed into that spooky moon temple.”

“Nightmare Moon did gobble them up!” Pinkie Pie said, eyes wide. Then she tilted her head and squinted. “How do you think they tasted?”

“We don’t know that they were eaten.” Twilight said. “In fact –“

“We do know,” Chance interrupted. “Nightmare’s mane and tail might be strange and mystical-looking to you, but we’ve seen molecular machines before. The glow and the sparkles are from the coherent light they use to coordinate within the swarm. You horn works the same way – your ‘magic’ isn’t really very mysterious. Why do you think Tess is so sure that you’re vergers?”

“However you might think that magic works, being swallowed up in her sparkling mane and tail is not how Nightmare Moon gobbles ponies up,” Twilight continued. “It’s how she teleports. If Warp and Wolf vanished into the ‘swarm’, all it means is that she took them with her when she returned to Equestria. They’re probably hiding somewhere on the surface right now!”

“I don’t know,” Rainbow said. “Wouldn’t some pony have noticed a couple giant weasels skulking about?”

“Not if they’re sticking to the wilderness because they don’t speak the language and don’t want any pony to panic over a pair of giant weasels skulking about,” Twilight said.

“Eee!” Pinkie Pie said, grinning widely, eyes sparkling. Every pony looked at her. “You’re going to find your friends! Tess is going to smile again, I know it!”

“How will we find them if they’re hiding?” Rainbow asked.

“We’re not sneaking or hiding,” Pinkie Pie said. “We’re going to make the biggest light show ever when we smack down right on top of a whole thunderstorm. They’ll find us!”

“I don’t suppose any of this helps you fix Tess,” Twilight said, looking over at the moon ponies, still wired together.

“Yeah,” Chance said. “It helps. If they’re still alive, then she’s not locked into a cycle of helpless self-recrimination. I can cancel the trauma intervention, and let this new information keep her from falling into depression. But if it turns out they’re actually dead…”

“They’re not,” Twilight said, confidently. “You’ll see them again.”

“And I’ll throw the best ‘welcome back’ party ever!” Pinkie Pie promised.

16: Moon is Mine

Rainbow Dash flapped her wings slowly, hovering in midair. The mining ray was taped to her belly, with loops of tape going across her shoulders and haunches – it was longer than she was, and thick enough that she wasn’t able to walk with it on. Her legs were able to reach the safety and trigger buttons on the side, at least, although without being able to read the dials she was forbidden from touching the intensity and wavelength settings.

The moon ponies wore theirs slung over their backs. They were bulky, but not really heavy.

All three of them wore special anti-coherent-light goggles, taken from a box in the fridge’s crisper. “Without these, you go blind,” was Tess’ terse explanation. The lenses weren’t positioned quite right for a pony, and it took both moon ponies fiddling with the supposedly-adjustable elastic to get them on Rainbow Dash properly.

“How do I look?” Rainbow Dash asked, folding her forelegs across the mining ray’s huge square barrel, as if she was lounging on it instead of taped to it.

Pinkie Pie bounced a couple times. “Pretty awesome!”

“Pretty awkward,” was Twilight’s analysis.

Tess eyed the lazily flapping wings that were barely creating a downdraft, let alone enough lift to hold the mining ray in midair even ignoring the weight of the pegasus. “Physically impossible.”

“That’s my deal,” Rainbow Dash said. “I make the impossible happen!”

“Good,” Tess said. “We’ll need it, since none of us have the slightest idea how to actually mine with these things.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“It’s not like that,” Chance said. “We have a skill patch in the library, but we can’t get to it right now. So we’re just going to have to figure it out through trial and error.”

“The funny kind of error, or the oh my Celestia what happened to my leg kind of error?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“It’s kind of funny either way,” Chance said, grinning. Rainbow Dash laughed and held up a hoof towards him. He slapped it instead of hoof-bumping, but it was close enough.

===

The surface of the moon was quiet and creepy. The hills they’d come to mine were far enough down the slope that the ‘flat’ ground to either side of the rise was obviously tilted, and the moondust in the area didn’t glow. Even moondust they tracked from the still-glowing sections darkened as soon as they crossed the line into the dark area – apparently it was all in cahoots.

Rainbow glanced down at the piece of ‘smart paper’ taped to her fetlock. Tess had set it up to show her a transcript of what the moon ponies and the ponies back on the ship were saying, like the script to some sort of play, and supposedly she could write back using the fake quill hung around her neck, although mouth-writing was never her favorite thing in the world and she hadn’t actually tried it yet. The moon ponies weren’t being very talkative either, since trudging through the thick dust was tiring for ponies without wings. That left it covered with an uninterrupted stream of consciousness rambling from Pinkie Pie.

PP: The stars are yours my dear.
PP: They’ve never looked so near.
PP: They sparkle like your eyes,
PP: that spread as wide as pies,
PP: when I say have your stars.
PP: We’ll share the sun, it’s ours!
PP: It’s okay, dear, it’s fine…
PP: because the moon is mine!

Rainbow Dash grabbed the stylus, and wrote, ‘Is she singing?’ at the bottom of the page as the rhymes kept coming.

CE: Yep.
TS: Do you really have to ask?
TT: We can’t make her stop.
DH: Hi Rainbow Dash!
PP: Mine all mine, with rays or shovels
CE: Okay, I’m going to mark out the edge of the tunnel we want to dig.
PP: And other things that somehow rhyme with shovels
TS: Hovels?

Rainbow looked up from the nonsense on the paper as Chance started firing his mining ray. It was a bit disappointing not to see any visible beam – was that the goggles’ fault? – but a spot on the hillside glowed too brightly to comfortably look at even with the goggles, and as it moved across the slope it left a trail of reddish molten rock behind. When he finished, Rainbow Dash looked down to see if there were further instructions.

PP: Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine
PP: Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine
TS: PINKIE!
CE: Okay, now just zap everything inside that box.
TT: On it.
PP: Mine mine mine mine mine mine mine
TS: ARGH!

The three of them out on the surface started firing at the rock inside the box, and managed to make the rock glow bright red, then sort of slump and liquefy. The molten rock blocked the rays, though – it spit and bubbled as the mining rays played over the surface, like boiling oil, but most of it stayed pooled in the hole they were trying to dig.

Rainbow Dash shut off her ray, and wrote, ‘this isn’t working’.

DH: I wish I really did have a wishing star.
PP: What would you wish for?
CE: Do we need to use a higher setting?
DH: I’d wish for a million wishing stars!
TS: There were only ever three.
TT: I don’t think that’s the problem. We need some way to get rid of this molten slag so it doesn’t fill our bore hole.
PP: Wishing for impossible things is half the fun! There’s no point wishing for things you can do yourself.
TS: Actually, the most efficient wishes were always the ones that could be granted coincidentally.
TT: Can you please mute the transmitter if you’re going to talk about something unrelated? It’s really distracting.
PP: Nope! We have no idea how. Just like you have no idea how to mine. Do you want me to come out and help? I grew up in mining country, so I know a few things about mining.
CE: With coherent light? Or magical unicorn beams that act like coherent light?
PP: Unicorns would have made it *lots* easier! The miners I knew mostly used drills and picks and shovels.
TS: Are you trying to dig the hole from the top down? Maybe it would work better if you started at the bottom and let gravity work for you.
TT: And by ‘work for you’ you mean ‘cover us in molten lava’.
CE: We could stand to one side. That’d probably work.

Rainbow looked at the others, and shrugged. They shrugged back, and the three of them headed up over the hill. The moon ponies walked so slowly, though – Rainbow Dash could keep up with them flying upside down and backwards. When that lost its novelty, she glanced back at her paper to see if anypony was talking.

DH: How about yellow snow? My friends always tell me it’s good to eat but it’s so hard to find and when I do find it it smells rotten. I could wish for some fresh yellow snow.
PP: If you want to eat the yellow snow you have to make it yourself!
TS: Pinkie!
PP: With lemons! And sugar of course. Everything needs sugar.

Ugh.

===

Princess Luna stared at the council of mortal advisors with carefully measured disinterest, the better to hide her utter boredom. She had little to offer at such meetings – Princess Celestia preferred she bring up her ideas privately, so that the co-rulers could present a united front. But she attended, for her sister’s sake. Celestia was convinced that with time and exposure, the ponies of Equestria could forget that Luna had once styled herself Nightmare Moon, and tried to take over the world. Twice, if you counted her thousand-year banishment as a time of peace between invasions.

As this was the beginning of winter, business was even less interesting than normal – mostly, they were planning Celestia’s winter appearances, and budgeting for the various celebrations that graced the cold months.

Suddenly, Luna’s mask cracked, as a sharp, burning pain lanced into her skull. All conversation stopped, and Luna realized that every pony was staring at her. She forced herself to stop scowling. “I fear I must take my leave of this meeting, sister,” she said. “I seem to have a headache.”

There was a flash of confusion and alarm on Celestia’s face, but it was quickly subsumed in her normal calm amusement. “I suppose there’s little chance of any huge disasters being brought to light at this day’s Twilight Court,” she said.

“I pray you are correct,” said Luna, as the burning pain continued, if anything only getting more intense. “Guards, attend me,” she said to the two cat-eyed, bat-winged ponies assigned to her personal service as her night guard. They showed little of their Royal counterparts’ discipline, the concern clear upon their faces as they took their positions to either side, and escorted her out of the room.

===

Melting the moon rock from the bottom of the hill worked better, the molten rock flowing out of the hillside and down the slope of the moon, hardening into a dark slab that Twilight said was called a ‘mare’. And no, she hadn’t done anything useful like read a book on moon mining, or even ordinary mining, she just remembered random useless moon trivia.

It was still really boring. Rainbow Dash caught herself dozing off a few times because pointing the ray at the tunnel and just slowly… moving… it… was so boring. SO. BORING. Worse than bucking apples. Worse than bucking bucking bucking apples! It was like trying to clear the clouds by evaporating them with sunlight or something.

The dial to turn up the beam intensity started whispering to Rainbow. ‘Turn me. Tuuuuurn meeee…’

RD: Can we try other rays? This is slow.
TS: How far have you gotten?
CE: 0.3%
TS: That’s it? I don’t have my abacus, but I’m pretty sure that leaves us running out of air before you finish.
CE: This is the setting to melt rock. Turning it up higher would just waste energy.
RD: So that’s a yes?
TT: How do you possibly get ‘yes’ out of that?

The highest intensity beam made the mining ray heat up noticeably against her belly… and the rock she was aiming at exploded. Gravel sprayed everywhere – some bounced painfully off her face, and she was glad the anti-coherent-light goggles also worked against small rocks. Chance and Tess were screaming, or at least waving their arms at her to get her attention.

TT: I’m going to kill her. I’m going to bucking kill her!
CE: That was... dramatic.
TS: What happened?
RD: It exploded!
PP: Awesome!
RD: I know!
PP: If you have an exploding ray then you can mine a lot faster!

===

Crescent glanced nervously at every side passage the three ponies passed, as if judging his chances of escape.

“We’re not going to eat you,” said the night guard behind him, exposing her pointed predator’s teeth as she talked. “Princess Luna merely requires your services.”

“This is not her usual summons,” the blue-furred unicorn managed in a shaky voice. “She usually sends Moondancer…”

The three reached Luna’s chambers, and the other night guard unceremoniously bashed open the door with his shoulder as his partner hurried the unicorn inside. There, Luna’s hoofmaiden looked on helplessly as the Princess of the Night sat miserably on her bed, holding her head and grimacing, two medical unicorns already casting what healing spells they could, to no apparent effect.

“You fix,” said the guard in front, gruffly, standing aside to give him access.

“But I’m an astronomer,” Crescent protested.

“Please,” added the guard behind, emphatically.

A white and blue unicorn in distinctive purple armor approached from the hallway outside. “Hey! What’s the meaning of this!” demanded the guard captain, “My guards said they saw you kidnapping --”

The night guard bucked the door closed in his face.

===

“-0.211, 10505, -2195,” came Chance’s voice over the transmitter/receiver device the moon ponies had left with the ponies who had to stay behind.

“That’s another cake for Chance,” Twilight said, her horn glowing as she concentrated on the coordinates and remotely levitated a few tons of moon rocks out of the now swiftly-growing tunnel. Under Pinkie Pie’s direction, the moon-miners had changed their tactics, boring deep holes in the rock using the ‘melt’ setting, then exploding the rock from inside with the ‘explode’ setting, where the resulting kinetic energy was absorbed by the surrounding rock, shattering it into rubble.

Pinkie Pie dutifully slurped up one of the cakes from Chance’s stack. Twilight eyed the three piles of cakes, stacked next to each other on the edge of the table. “He’s really cooking. Why is Rainbow Dash going so slow?”

Tess answered, since Rainbow wouldn’t ‘hear’ the question unless she looked at her fetlock. “She’s having trouble keeping the mining ray steady.”

“You can still win, Rainbow Dash!” Derpy said, hovering next to the cake chart. They’d untaped her wings, since the plan had her flying all the way back down to Equestria soon and cramped wings might be bad, but they still didn’t want her wandering off too far, so now her tail was taped to the edge of the table. That had been enough leeway for her to completely destroy the cake fort, but that was okay, since now they had a much more practical diagram of the relative progress made by the three ponies on mining duty.

“No she can’t,” Tess said. “Even if she had a targeting computer, a hovering platform is inherently less stable.”

“She needs a cloud to sit on,” Pinkie Pie said. “Do they have clouds in space?”

“Nebulae?” Twilight suggested. “Really… tiny nebulae?”

“She can make space tornadoes, why not space clouds?” was Tess’ take.

Chance gave a new set of coordinates. “-0.153, 10560, -2204”

“That’s Tess,” Twilight said for the benefit of the other ponies in the room, concentrating as she moved another couple tons of rock at several miles’ distance.

“Let me do it!” Derpy said, reaching for the cake and knocking the whole pile over again. Twilight effortlessly held the falling cakes in place before they could fall too far, and Pinkie Pie restacked them. Again. Derpy didn’t notice, too busy eating her ‘moon muffin’.

Chance already had another set of coordinates for her. “I think I’m getting the hang of this. -0.211, 10490, -2192”

“That’s Chance – woah,” Twilight said, as her horn pulsed brighter against her will. “I feel –“ she started, then stumbled and fell as an intense wave of dizziness washed over her. Derpy tried to catch her, knocking over the entire cake chart, burying Pinkie Pie in a cake-alanche.

“Twilight? You okay?” Derpy asked. The purple unicorn didn’t reply, her eyes staring blankly straight ahead as her horn continued to glow fiercely. Derpy looked around the room helplessly. “What did I do?”

===

“Victory!” Luna proclaimed, her face still pained as her horn glowed brightly. “We have located and entrapped a foreign magical nexus upon our moon! The source is now under our power, and shall plague us no longer!”

“Then he was right?” asked one of the medical unicorns, incredulously. “Your headache was really caused by Lunar interference? It’s hard to believe…”

“It’s – it was an old rumor,” Crescent said, cowering back from the Princess’ display. “More of a philosophical rambling, really – a thought experiment that no pony dared test. Not – not until now.”

“What are you going to do to the creature?” asked one of the night guards, casually leaning against the door, which occasionally glowed as a unicorn outside tried to open it, or shivered as a pegasus guard tried ramming. Luna’s room was heavily reinforced, of course, and their efforts had little chance of success.

“This appears to be unicorn magic,” the Princess said. “As one of our subjects is responsible, we should be able to find out more about this incursion by –“

===

“Assuming direct control,” intoned Twilight Sparkle in a hollow voice, her eyes still blank and white. Her body glowed with the aura of her own magic, and as Derpy flung herself under the table to take as much cover as she could with her tail taped in place, Twilight lifted into the air, her mane and tail spreading out and waving gently as if she was immersed in a pool of water. She spun slowly, doing a full circle to take in the entire kitchen as if she’d never seen it before. The end of her survey left her staring straight into a grinning pink face, emerging from what at first glance had seemed to be a mountain of small yellow cakes.

“What art th—mmmph!” Twilight started to say, interrupted by Pinkie Pie shoving a cake in her mouth.

“It looks like somepony hasn’t been getting enough sugar!” Pinkie Pie said, giggling. “Here, have some cake!” With that she impaled a double hooffull of cake on Twilight’s horn. “You know, to take with you,” she said, as the purple unicorn’s magic vanished instantly from the violent contact, and she fell to the floor with a thump.

Twilight groaned, and put a hoof to the side of her head. “What happened?”

“Something really scary,” Pinkie Pie said. “I think it was trying to take control of your mind!”

“It sounded to me like it succeeded,” Chance said. “How’d you drive it out?”

“Right, right,” Twilight said. “Something latched onto my magic – why is there cake on my horn?”

“Because it really seemed to hurt when Chance punched you, so I thought maybe the cakes would be softer,” Pinkie Pie said. “But you look just as worn out this time. I guess next time I’ll just hit you,” she added, with a friendly smile.

“Well, if your evil ghost is gone, you dropped the last load halfway out of the tunnel. Do you want the new coordinates?” Chance asked.

“Actually, I think I’d better hold off on using magic until we figure out what just happened,” Twilight said. “If there’s some sort of unicorn parasite in those hills, maybe I’m better off pretending to be an earth pony for a while.”

===

“That was… confusing,” Princess Luna said, as her magic was abruptly cut off.

“You didn’t hurt her, did you?” Crescent asked, eyes wide with terror.

“Some external force interrupted the magical flow,” the Princess explained. “Specifically, a pink earth pony that I’m certain I’ve seen before.” Her expression hardened, and her voice returned to its determined official tone. “We must seek out Celestia at once, and demand to know what the Element of Laughter is doing on our moon!”

Crescent cringed. “Do you feel any better? Without the magical interference?”

“No,” Luna said, scowling, “It still hurts. Curse that pink pony! Every time we meet I find myself sorely vexed!”

17: Traps and Wards

Rainbow Dash and Derpy – released from the Here to Help with the understanding that she would under no circumstances be allowed near a mining ray – were not a replacement for Twilight’s magic, although once they took a side trip to the crash site to get the moon ponies’ wrecked cart they weren’t insanely slow. They were slow enough that there was no point having more than one moon pony on the mining ray, though, so Tess was standing guard, looking out for any sign of the creature that had attacked Twilight through her magic, just in case it was a surface-dwelling, visible creature with a physical body that she could shoot, which frankly she thought was a bit unlikely.

-I don’t get it,- sent Tess. -They struggle to lift the individual rocks to fill the cart, then once it’s full of dozens of them they grab the chains and fly the whole thing out without any apparent effort.-

-Well, duh. It’s always easier to haul weight than to lift it,- Pinkie Pie replied. -I mean, that’s why we have carts.-

-Don’t think about it too hard, Tess,- Chance said. -You’ll break something.-

-No. That’s not an option. If we ever want to get out of here, we need to know how this place works,- Tess said. -And if we never get out of here, we really need to know how it works. How can you just sit there and not care?-

-If we get safely down to Equestria, I can show you some wonderful books on pegasus flight physics,- Twilight said. -The more rigorous ones require a background in magical theory, of course, but there are plenty written for laymares.- She paused. -When we get down. When. Not if. Because nothing will go wrong!-

-Bit late for that,- Chance said, lining up his mining ray as the pegasi vacated the tunnel with the last load of rocks.

-Nothing important will go wrong,- Twilight corrected herself.

-It’s kind of important for you to be able to use your magic,- Pinkie Pie pointed out, -since you still haven’t cast your bounce-off-the-thunderstorm spell on the ship.-

-Nothing fatal will -- -

-Stop!- said both moon ponies, interrupting Twilight before she could finish.

-Nothing apocalyptic will go wrong!- Pinkie Pie proclaimed. -We won’t fulfill any ancient prophecies of doom! Princess Luna won’t appear in a puff of smoke and demand to see our moon-mining permits!-

Right about then, Chance fired the final ‘exploding’ blast from his mining ray, and the moon rock around his latest bore hole shattered and slumped, just as expected. What was less expected was the puff of smoke from the rubble. Every pony stared nervously, but Princess Luna failed to materialize.

-Just a gas pocket,- Chance said. -Nothing to worry about.-

Rainbow Dash and Derpy went to work clearing the frost-covered rocks, until the two suddenly stopped working and stared into the back of the tunnel. Rainbow Dash grabbed her stylus in her mouth and wrote, -are gas pockets usually square?-

===

Every pony from the mining team gathered in the square chamber unveiled by their excavations. It was obviously artificial – the right angles were a dead giveaway, and there was strange writing all over the walls that no pony could read. There was also what looked like a waypoint teleport pad from any of a number of fantasy-themed games sitting in the middle of the room, which Rainbow Dash confirmed led to a matching pad hidden under the dust at the top of the ridge they’d been tunneling through.

-I can’t believe you just did that!- Tess said, when the rainbow-maned pegasus reappeared in the circle a few seconds after vanishing. Rainbow just grinned and did a little flip in the lack-of-air. Tess was about to yell at her more before remembering that Rainbow hadn’t even read her first outburst yet, and wasn’t deliberately mocking her.

-What did she do?- asked Twilight over the transmitter. -Is she alright? This is so frustrating! There you are investigating an honest-to-Celestia ancient ruin, and I have to sit here and… eat cake, apparently. Thanks, Pinkie.-

Chance stood near the center of the chamber, just next to the teleport pad. He carefully turned around to get a good look at the entire room – carefully because the room was aligned with the surface of the moon, which made it dangerously tilted for ponies that couldn’t fly. -There,- he said, making his way to a section of the left wall. -The pattern changes here. I bet it’s a door.-

Rainbow Dash flew over and kicked the prospective door, to no effect. -How do we open it?- she scribbled.

-Everypony stand back,- Chance said, as he unslung his mining ray. -Or use the teleporter.-

After the dust had settled, and Chance defrosted himself from the new blast of air released by melting the wall, the four explorers looked down the forty foot corridor his excavation revealed. At the far end was another square chamber, with another teleport pad. –We’re in luck,- Chance sent, after describing the setup in detail for Twilight and the others. –This is probably some sort of security checkpoint.-

-Lucky us,- Tess sent, -we get to play with the security system.-

-The what?- Rainbow Dash wrote, giving Tess a look.

-Traps,- Chance translated for her.

-Traps?- Rainbow Dash wrote. –Awesome!-

-Be careful, - Twilight said. –This isn’t a Daring Do novel!-

-Are you sure?- Pinkie Pie asked. –It sure seems like one to me. I bet that tunnel is just full of traps!-

-I’ll check,- Rainbow Dash said, before swooping down the corridor fast enough to leave a rainbow trail. Behind her, force fields sprung to life, walls slammed together like crushing hooves, darts shot from tiny holes, and a set of massive scythe blades slashed through the middle of the corridor, right where a pony’s head would be if they were travelling at a more reasonable speed.

-Yep! Just like Daring Do,- Rainbow Dash wrote from the far end, as the traps reset themselves, vanishing or retracting into the walls, which once again looked like bare, seamless stone. -Who’s next?-

-How do you think they’re triggered?- Chance sent. –She didn’t touch any of the walls or the floor, and there’s no air for sound or pressure triggers. Coherent light in the tenth of an inch – right. You don’t even have a word for that.-

-They probably just used magic,- Twilight said, from the Here to Help.

-Can you be more specific?- Chance asked.

-They’re probably magical traps,- Twilight said, pedantically, -using the ‘magical trap’ spell. -

Chance put a hand to his forehead, and asked, -How do we keep them from triggering?-

–The spell’s senses aren’t very good, so it’s too easy to fool if you try to have it recognize specific ponies,- Twilight said. -So it’s usually set up with a ritual of some sort to tell the trap not to trigger.-

-Like a password,- Chance sent. –Hopefully not a password, since we let out all the air.-

Tess, meanwhile, was crouched near the entrance of the tunnel, staring carefully at the tilted floor. –There’s a pressure plate,- she said. –Why would there be a pressure plate if it’s triggered by magic?- She reached into the tunnel, and poked at the faintly-outlined square. It sank slightly into the floor, then popped back up as she released the pressure. –I get it,- she said, standing up, and stepping onto the plate. No trap triggered.

-Really?- Chance said, as Tess hopped and danced her way down the tunnel. –That’s it? Step on the pressure plates to disable the traps?-

-There’s some fake ones,- Tess said, as she hesitated, looking left and right, about halfway down the tunnel, before making her choice and continuing. –But yeah, pretty simple, compared to what we usually run into. We should loot magic temples more often.-

Chance followed Tess without incident, and then it was Derpy’s turn. She stood near the tunnel, and uncertainly reached out towards the first pressure plate with a shakey hoof.

Rainbow Dash flew back up the tunnel, setting off all the traps, and tackled Derpy away from the opening. -WAIT HERE,- she wrote in large letters on her paper, -WATCH FOR ENEMIES.- She showed it to Derpy, waiting until she nodded that she’d understood, then taped it to the other pegasus’ hoof, and with a toss of her head flipped the lanyard with the stylus off her neck and gave that to Derpy too.

Derpy saluted, and sat down to stand guard.

===

Shining Armor, Captain of the Royal Guard, shuffled his hoof uncomfortably as his strongest guards bashed their shoulders against Luna’s door again, to no effect.

“I think we almost got it that time! I felt it give!” said Sharp Wing, as he stood back up and resisted the urge to poke at his bruised shoulder.

“It’s designed to give,” Shining Armor said, horn glowing as he analyzed the ward for any sign of weakness. “Semi-flexible barriers are harder to shatter. I designed the alteration myself after the changeling incident.”

“You’re the one who cast the ward,“ Blazing Arrow noted. “You cast all the wards. Can’t you just turn it off?”

“A year ago, I could have,” Shining Armor replied. “After the incident, I personally went through everything to make sure there were no back-doors to circumvent security, even for myself.” Shining Armor had been mind-controlled by the changeling queen during the incident, and as a result, the changeling invaders had had access to all the guards’ secrets and codes. The battle had gone poorly.

Designing security procedures that still worked even with half the guard subverted and the enemy in possession of all secret information had been difficult, but Luna had been surprisingly knowledgeable about such things, and had helped him design a completely air-tight system. Once he somehow managed to teach his guards to quickly multiply twelve-figure prime numbers, they might even be able to put it into practice.

But Celestia forbid that the Princess of the Night actually follow the procedures she herself had helped develop. Instead, as soon as something went the slightest bit wrong, her suspiciously un-pony-like guards were flitting through the hallways like shadows, disappearing key members of the palace staff.

“Can we teleport past with an invisibility charm, and open it from inside?” suggested Shifting Sands.

Shining Armor shook his head. “Only if you want your teleport redirected to the castle dungeon.”

Blazing Arrow looked to the side. “Blast through the walls from an adjoining room?”

“They’re covered. Floor and ceiling too.”

Sharp Wing eyed the two unicorn guards. “Have the 'corns hold the barrier rigid while we try to break through?”

“We tried that first,” Blazing Arrow said. “It only made the barrier stronger.”

Shifting Sands eyed the door impassively. “Have we tried knocking?”

Shining Armor walked up to the door, and knocked three times. The wards were soundproof, with the door closed, but he imagined the night guards snickering at him from behind the barrier.

The door opened, after a few seconds, although the purple force-field covering the opening meant that they’d left it locked. One of the night guard stared at him silently from behind it with her creepy yellow eyes.

“Do you think you could keep it down?” she asked. “The Princess has a headache.”

“The princesses don’t get headaches,” Shining Armor replied. “The guard should be involved.”

The night guard scowled. “Involving the guard means dealing with your ridiculous security procedures that you can’t even manage the math for. We’ll handle this ourselves.”

Shining Armor leaned towards her, his horn almost touching the barrier. “Kidnapping the medical staff means involving the guard, whether you want it to or not. At the very least, you need to inform Celestia.”

“Okay!” she said, with sudden fake cheerfulness. “I’ll go inform Celestia.” The barrier sparkled as it altered itself to let her through. “In the meantime, keep the noise down, ‘k?”

“We’re going with you,” Shining Armor said. “Guard, fall in. Escort procedure delta.”

“Yes sir!” came the chorus as the guards saluted.

===

The three explorers teleported into a huge vaulted chamber, lit by glowing runes spiraling their way up six supporting pillars, each in a different color of the rainbow. The teleport pad was in the middle of a roughly fifty-foot diameter platform suspended over a foggy abyss, surrounded by couches and tables, with the occasional fountain or statue in no obvious pattern. Six narrow bridges arched from the center platform, between each pair of pillars, ending in large, ornate doors.

“Sweet,” said Rainbow Dash, taking it all in. The moon ponies looked at her, alarmed, as they realized that the room was full of breathable air.

“This is… elaborate,” Chance said, frowning a bit. He sniffed at the air. “It’s not even musty. Whatever they use for life support must still be running.”

-I can’t believe you’re actually breathing the air,- Tess sent, keeping her mouth and other orifices sealed shut, running on her internal oxygen recycler. She nodded towards Rainbow Dash, who was flitting around poking the cushions and tasting the fountains, without a care in the world. -We already have one test subject; we don’t need two of you keeling over from some invisible toxin.-

-You found a section with air?- Twilight Sparkle asked, from the ship.

-Yep. It looks like the whole complex is pressurized,- Chance replied. –It’s a shame we don’t know where we are after that last teleport, or you and Pinkie Pie could join us here.-

-And then we’d have four test subjects,- Tess said sarcastically. -Almost a clinical trial.-

-You have the coordinates for the teleport pad, right?- Twilight Sparkle asked. –The one past all the traps? A few seconds in vacuum isn’t going to kill us. We could probably get Derpy, too.-

-What happened to ‘not using magic’?- Tess asked.

-One little bitty teleport shouldn’t hurt,- Pinkie Pie said. –Well, it shouldn’t hurt more than any other time I have to kick Twilight in the face. You’d be surprised how often that comes up!-

-Well… it’s a risk,- Chance said, -but it would take a lot of pressure off the Here to Help’s energy stores. We could shut down everything.-

-Then it’s settled!- Twilight said eagerly. –Send me the coordinates, and we’ll all explore these ancient ruins together!-

-Not so fast,- Chance said. –If you’re going to be teleporting to us anyway, we should really have you bring some supplies. We’re kitted out for mining, not salvage. We don’t even have any rope, and you can hardly explore a strange alien temple without rope.-

It took twenty minutes to find everything on the moon ponies’ list of ‘essentials’, and another ten to bundle it all on Twilight and Pinkie Pie’s backs. Five minutes after that, they were still trying to satisfy Tess that they actually had everything.

-The scanner. You’re absolutely sure you have the scanner, right?- Tess asked.

-Is that the little hard glass square thing that glows when you turn it on but I won’t turn it on again because you said not to do that?- Pinkie Pie asked.

-Yes. That.-

-Nope! Don’t have it,- Pinkie Pie said.

Twilight sighed, -I have it. Pinkie, this is going slowly enough without fooling around.-

-But it’d seem three times as slow if I wasn’t fooling around,- Pinkie protested.

-What we really need is a checklist,- Twilight said. –Chance, you still have your notebook, right? I can start reading off items -- -

-0.256 9716 -2066,- Chance said, almost as bored as the near-comatose Rainbow Dash, who couldn’t even hear the conversation.
Eee! We’re on our way!- Twilight said.

Chance and Tess watched the teleport pad, but Twilight and Pinkie failed to appear. After about 30 seconds, they started to get worried. Suddenly, both of them looked down at the floor as a signal came in from completely the wrong direction.

-Okay, the good news is that I didn’t get possessed trying to teleport,- Twilight said. –The other good news is that wherever we are has air. I think we ran into some sort of anti-teleport barrier that redirected us, because this is nothing at all like the chamber you described.-

-We’re in jail!- Pinkie Pie added, happily. –And it’s a super-duper awesome high tech science fiction jail with a force field instead of bars!-

-I’m glad some pony’s happy about this,- Twilight grumped.

-Am I!- Pinkie Pie said. –Do you know how long it’s been since I got to sing my jail songs?-

-We’ve got a vector on your current location,- Chance sent back. –We’ll be there as soon as we can.-

-Hurry!- Twilight Sparkle said, as Pinkie Pie started to hum the opening melody.

===

“Halt!” said the guards standing watch outside Celestia’s door, crossing their halberds to symbolically block passage.

“Captain Shining Armor and patrol, with a pony of interest, to see Celestia.”

The guards didn’t budge. “This is an unscheduled visit. We’ll need to verify.”

Shining Armor nodded. “Of course.” Then waited as the guard fetched the secure abacus from the rack near the door, and stuck his muzzle inside its opaque casing as he fiddled with the beads. After a few minutes, he hoofed it over, and Shining Armor read the public key off the guard’s breastplate and used it to decode the encrypted sign, then re-encoded it, along with his daily authorization certificate from Celestia herself. They passed the abacus back and forth a few more times to complete the hoofshaking process.

The night guard snorted, her face screwed up as she held back a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Shining Armor asked as he floated the abacus back to its wall sconce.

She lost it, bursting into giggles. “I can’t believe you actually went through the whole process. With an abacus!”

The guard captain frowned. “You should show more respect. Princess Luna herself helped us develop these procedures. We’re working on a way to make them less… cumbersome.”

“I know, I know,” the night guard said. “Well? Did he do it right? Can we go in now?”

“He checks out,” the door guard replied. “We’ll contact Celestia.”

===

Pinkie Pie’s prison songs were surprisingly melodic, even with only her own tapping hooves as accompaniment.

“I was once a happy camper, eating cupcakes in the park,
“then a navigation error left me trapped here in the dark.
“I was thrown into a dungeon, in a city on the moon,
“and I really hope they come to feed me soon!”

Twilight joined in for the chorus, hooking her forelegs against Pinkie Pie and spinning her around with a somewhat risqué dance move, the two of them balanced against each other as they pranced about on their hind legs.

“I’ve been banished! Banished!
“All my hope has! Vanished!
“And my greatest fear… does any pony even know I’m heeeeeeeere?”

Twilight half-tossed, half-levitated Pinkie Pie onto the prison cell’s single tiny bed, and the pink pony made a face of surpassing sorrow as she folded herself up atop the threadbare sheet and sang the next verse.

“I’ve cried ‘till I was dry, I’ve screamed ‘till I was hoarse,
My mind spins round and round as I reiterate… the –“

The song cut off as the light outside the cell flickered, and the two imprisoned ponies watched in awe as a swirling cloud of blue mist spun itself out of nothingness, and resolved into a semitransparent image of Nightmare Moon.

“Princess Luna?” Twilight Sparkle said, uncertainly, bowing to her through the cell’s force-field wall just in case, but keeping an eye on her.

“Foals!”screamed the Nightmare. “I see my defenses are still as impenetrable as ever. Tell me why I shouldn’t leave you here to rot? By what right do you invade my ancient home?”

“Are you –“ Pinkie Pie asked, eyes going wide. “Are you asking to see our moon mining permit?”

“MINING!?” shouted the image, leaning forwards, enraged.

“No! No mining!” Twilight Sparkle said hastily. “Just… tunneling. We didn’t think there was anything here –“

“Speak for yourself, sister,” Pinkie Pie said. “I came here to party with the moon ponies.”

“Moon… ponies?” the princess asked, looking at Pinkie strangely. “It matters not. Since you are my sister’s favorite, Twilight Sparkle, I shall release you from your well-deserved imprisonment for her sake. And I suppose I must release the pink one as well. But you must leave the moon at once, and do no more tunneling!”

“But that’s just it, princess,” Twilight said. “We’ve been trying to leave the moon, but since we can’t breathe outside – we found a crashed vessel at the very top of the moon, and –“

“We’re going to make a giant ramp!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing. “So we need to do a little more tunneling, but then we’ll be out of your mane. Or at least out of your moon. Heehee! We’re going to fly out of Luna’s –” She dissolved into giggles, falling onto the floor and wiggling her hooves in the air.

“Oh, is that all,” said the image, shrinking to look more like Princess Luna’s day-to-day form. “Return to the central chamber, and pass between the orange and red pillars. In the back of that wing –“

The image of the princess suddenly vanished as the wall opposite their cell exploded, showering the force field with head-sized chunks of rock. “One rescue, coming right up,” Chance said, aiming the mining ray at the cell’s doorway. He paused, as he looked over the two ponies inside. “Put on your goggles, girls. This is going to get flashy.”

===

“Ah, my two captains of the guard,” the Princess said, as Shining Armor and the night guard approached. The other royal guards waited outside – Celestia had asked to keep this meeting informal. And it was informal indeed – the princess was out of her regalia, and several of her hoofmaids were seeing to her bed. The sun had set almost an hour ago, after all. “To what do I owe the rather unusual pleasure of seeing the two of you together, and at this hour? Does some great disaster threaten the kingdom?”

“I’m not your guard,” the night guard said. “I’m here to ask you a few questions on Luna’s behalf. She has some concerns about what your agents have been up to.”

“She’s also here to explain why Luna has been sending her guard around the palace, snatching ponies for some secret purpose which she refuses to divulge,” Shining Armor added.

The bat-winged pony frowned. “If I have to.”

Celestia was grim. “Perhaps you don’t. Her reaction at the Twilight Council suggested that she was under some sort of attack, presumably she commandeered the ponies she felt would be useful in repelling it. Do you think my ‘agents’ are somehow responsible?”

Shining Armor was smart enough not to make a fool of himself by saying anything, at this point. He set his face in the stoic, disciplined expression that Celestia preferred all her guards to wear when on duty, and listened.

“Why is Pinkie Pie on the moon?” the night guard asked, flatly, staring back into Celestia’s face with no sign of respect or fear.

“Ah,” Celestia said. “It’s good to hear that they made it safely – I presume she’s safe?” The night guard shrugged her black, webbed wings. Celestia sighed. “I assure you that I had nothing to do with this crazy idea of hers, but it’s never been my policy to interfere with my little ponies’ desire for adventure and exploration. I tried to dissuade them –“

“Who is ‘them’?”

“Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and several pegasi from the Ponyville weather team that you’ve probably never heard of,” Shining Armor answered, unable to stay silent any longer. “She sent me a letter saying that they were going on a trip, although she didn’t mention the destination.” He stared at the night guard, incredulously. “That’s what this is about? You think that Twiley and her friends are attacking Princess Luna from the moon? Even if they could, why would they? Twiley’s always tried her hardest to be Luna’s friend!”

Celestia looked rather grim. “I wish I could discount the possibility so easily,” she said. “Sometimes, new information comes to light that a friend might consider a betrayal of trust. Information was left on the moon – a full accounting of Nightmare Moon’s crimes and atrocities – in an attempt to divert an ancient prophecy that managed to come true regardless, since it turns out that the ‘stars’ don’t read Old Equestrian.

“As for the mechanism by which a pony on the moon might cause Princess Luna distress – I refuse to speculate, in the presence of anyone but my sister. I love her too dearly to even inadvertently put her at risk,” Celestia said, looking somewhat abashed.

“So what are we going to do about ‘Twiley’ and ‘the pink one’?” the night guard asked.

“I can dispatch the Royal Guard to the moon to retrieve them,” Celestia offered. “Shining Armor already knows the restricted barrier spells necessary for safe travel in the outer void.”

That was news to him. He kept his expression neutral – presumably the princess would go into more detail in a private briefing, if it came to that.

The night guard didn’t seem very keen on the idea, though. “Yeah, that’s just what we need. More ponies up there, poking around,” she said. “I’ll relay the offer to Luna, but I don’t think she’ll go for it. If we decide to handle this ourselves, do we have your blessing?”

“I specifically withdrew my protection, as part of the warning I sent to my student when she made me aware of her goal,” the Princess replied. “There will be no official penalty for any actions that Luna takes to defend herself against attackers outside the boundaries of Equestria.”

The night guard held her gaze on the princess. “That’s not an answer.”

“Please don’t hurt them,” Celestia said, closing her eyes.

===

"These inscriptions are driving me crazy," Chance said, as the party of five took a short rest from the exhausting climb back up the ragged, near-vertical tunnel he’d blasted through the moon complex, as he’d tracked Twilight and Pinkie Pie through the transmitter’s signal. The climb was steep, and there were too many places where Chance had blasted through the ceiling and floor of the same room, making climbing per se impossible. If they hadn’t had Rainbow Dash to fly up and tie off rope ladders, they might have been tempted to brave the no doubt trap-infested corridors. "These letters almost look like Latin."

Twilight Sparkle smiled, as she looked around at the inscriptions in question, which lined the walls of the room they’d chosen as a safe place to catch their breath. "Well, of course they do. Latin script was based on Old Equestrian phonetic runes."

Chance laughed. "I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure Latin predates Old Equestrian by several thousand years."

"Are we talking about the same Latin? The artificial language created as an experiment, to try to switch over to a fully phonetic alphabet with regularized grammar? It never really caught on, so it's fairly obscure outside of scientific classification," Twilight said. "Pinkius Piecus, and the like."

"If it wasn't the same Latin, I wouldn't have recognized it, and it wouldn't have been translated as 'Latin'," Chance said, a bit peeved at the insinuation that something was wrong with his translation patch. "That's an interesting backstory to excuse the use of Latin roots in a supposedly alien language. I assume there's something just as clever to explain other nonsensical cultural match-ups? Like, say, why you use teacups with hooves?"

Twilight Sparkle gave him a look. "Well, it's clear that you aren't really aliens. Your technology and culture is far too familiar, not to mention that you're basically mammals. I guess it isn't really fair to expect the author to come up with an alien race that's truly alien – whichever book Nightmare Moon summoned you from is already amazingly imaginative just by virtue of your strange technology.”

Chance laughed. "I think you have it backwards."

"You were summoned into a book?" Pinkie Pie asked. She was being unusually quiet, during this rest stop – the others might write it off as fatigue, but Twilight saw her moving her mouth occasionally, talking under her breath, and figured that she was working on another song. This was actually a good sign – the songs that Pinkie Pie planned out ahead of time were often quite catchy, especially compared to her attempts at improvisation.

"We fell into a pocket universe," Tess said, her voice coming from the transmitter since she still refused to breathe the air. "Some pony, in the middle of a technological singularity, decided to create a magical world full of ponies, and two hundred years later we were stupid enough to get sucked inside. We should be thankful that our technology works at all -- they must have been expecting visitors or something."

"That, or we're in a simulated world inside a Jupiter Brain," Chance said. "If I had to make a bet, that's what I'd guess. The rules aren't consistent enough for this to be anything but a simulation."

"This isn't a simulation," Tess replied. "Where's the instant communication and transportation? The personalized realities? Changeable avatars? The immortality? No pony copies themselves into a fake computer world so that they can grow old and die there."

"So you think our world is fake," Twilight said, looking back and forth between them.

"No," said Tess, "just artificial. This doesn't act anything like a simulation."

"It does if you consider just who the users are," Chance replied. "There are at least two immortals here -- every pony else might just be window dressing. No offense," he said to Twilight.

"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to avoid being offended by that," Twilight said. "You're saying that we're just toys to amuse the princesses, and not really ponies at all."

"Actually, he's not," Tess said. "Artificial intelligences are functionally indistinguishable from copied personalities. The only difference would be in the level of access you have to the instructions that control the world -- oh, and little things like the rules saying that you get old and die for no apparent reason. If Chance's interpretation was correct, the princesses would be able to make any pony into an immortal alicorn at will, and instead decided to surround themselves with mortals."

"Well," Twilight said, "then he's wrong. I've seen the Princess after the funerals of ponies she knew -- she tries to hide it, but she's always quiet and sad for the next few days. For all that to be fake, to cover up the fact that she could stop death with a flick of her horn --" Twilight glowered at Chance. "She's not the monster you imagine."

"Maybe she's not faking it," Pinkie Pie said. "Maybe she just likes being sad, the way Luna likes being angry and scary."

"Or maybe she's not in control," Chance said. "After all, even your own myths make it clear that the princesses didn't create the world. There's an obvious candidate for a super-user sitting in the Canterlot Statue Gardens. I believe you and your friends put him there?"

"Maybe we can stop arguing about boring stuff and get back to looking for treasure?" Rainbow Dash suggested, poking her head down from the hole in the ceiling, and dropping a rope ladder that clattered to the floor. "You guys are slow. I think I’m starting to see why Daring Do does this alone.”

===

One of the Royal Guard's unicorns fell into place next to the night guard as she left Celestia’s chambers, and headed back towards Luna’s palace suite. “Wait up! I’ll walk you back.”

“Isn’t that an unscheduled change of orders?” she said, giving him a wary glance. “You’d better get your abacus. How else will I know you’re not a changeling?”

“Technically, I went off-duty an hour ago,” he said. “I’m day shift. We were staying late because of the situation, but if you’re being released on your own recognizance, presumably the situation was resolved. That, or you just assassinated the captain and Celestia.”

“Not tonight,” she replied, showing her pointy teeth as she smiled. “Although I have to admit it was tempting.”

“So when do you get off duty?” he asked.

The night guard laughed. “Are you asking me on a date?”

The unicorn stared her right in the eyes, and said, “Yes.”

Her wings flapped a few times, before being tightly folded against her sides. “Sorry,” she said. “Not interested.”

“Well…” he said, “crap. Can I at least get your name?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “You’re asking me out, and don’t even know my name?”

“No pony does,” he said. “We’ve been calling you ‘hey you’, or ‘the night guard’. All Luna ever calls you is ‘guards’. I don’t think we’ve ever seen her address you individually, let alone by name.” He hurried a little to get in front of her, and offered his hoof. “I’m Shifting Sands, by the way. My friends call me Shifty, you can call me any time you want.”

Somewhat to his surprise, she paused and bumped his hoof with her own. He noted idly that it was cloven. “Warpath,” she said.

“That’s a rather… aggressive name,” he said, falling in next to her again as she continued on.

“I come from an aggressive tribe,” she replied. “But that’s the name my mother gave me, and I still miss her, even if she was a bit of a nag.”

“Mind if I call you ‘Path?” Shifty asked.

“I prefer ‘Warp’, actually,” she said, as she stopped near a familiar door. “Thanks for the chat, but we’re here, and I’m not letting you inside. We’ve still got a ‘situation’ to deal with.”

Shifting Sands’ eyes went wide. “I’d better get back to my patrol, then.”

Warp smirked at him, then turned and knocked on the door, as he teleported away.

18: Three Dreams

Twilight Sparkle walked through the gleaming glass halls of the techno-sanctuary, every wall covered in moving pictures, flashing indicators, and scrolling script in a language she didn’t understand – yet. Around her, ‘ponies’ of a hundred varieties – weasels, yes, but also bears and birds and monkeys – went about their inscrutable business, talking to each other without words, or poking at the walls, occasionally sparking a rainbow cascade of glowing, snaking lines. Ahead of her was a towering doorway of dark iron, surrounded by valves and pipes and gears, guarded by two massive clockwork statues.

One of them spoke a sentence to her in the language she didn’t yet know. “I’m here to see the wizard,” she said in Equestrian. Her horn glowed as she presented them with a glowing, pulsing spark taken from her saddlebag. The giants’ eyes glowed, and each shot a faint ray at the spark, then they stood aside satisfied with what they’d scanned, and the door opened onto darkness.

She stepped inside. As her eyes adjusted, she could see that she was alone in a dark chamber with no exits. A surgical bed sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by mechanical arms. One had a fearsome copper claw, another a circular saw blade. A voice spoke harsh words in the language she did not yet know, and, guessing as to the meaning, Twilight stepped towards the table, and set a hoof on it.

“Wait,” said a gruff voice, in broken Equestrian. “You understand consequences of procedure?”

“I do,” Twilight found herself saying. “And I accept them eagerly. Bind my soul in chains, that I might join the sisterhood of the stars!”

“Then get on table, pony,” it said, with an unfriendly chuckle.

She did, and found her hooves snared and clamped, spreading her out on the metal surface. The copper claw clamped around her neck, leaving her rapid breathing labored. The saw started to spin, and lowered towards her forehead.

“Shouldn’t there be some sort of anesthetic?” she squeaked.

“You will forget pain,” the voice said, and then the saw hit.

Luna and Warp watched from an unseen observer’s booth above the operating floor as Twilight’s skull was sawn in half, horn and all, and a glowing crystal inserted into her brain. She never stopped screaming, the whole time.

“This is… very… inaccurate,” Warp said, staring in morbid fascination.

Luna seemed unfazed by the horrific display. “Is what she desires possible?”

“If we were able to leave, you mean?” Warp asked. “Beats me. She could probably find a cyberneticist willing to try, but there’s even odds she’d die from the attempt.”

===

Chance ran down the mossy stone corridor with the golden idol clutched to his chest, dodging past previously sprung traps as he struggled to stay ahead of the massive boulder barreling down the tunnel after him. “Rainbow!” he called, “wait!”

Luna and Warp watched in the form of shadows, cast against the wall in the dim light filtering down from above. “If you die in a dream, you just wake up, right?” Warp asked, nervously, as Chance leapt over a gigantic spike-filled pit, windmilling his free arm on the other side as he almost fell back onto the spikes.

“Not always,” Luna replied. “Sometimes you continue to dream that you’re dead. But nothing here can harm you – much of the wonder of dreaming lies in the lack of consequences.” Chance tripped and fell as the ground shook from the boulder ending its roll in the pit. Rocks fell around him, narrowly missing his head, one only missing because he rolled to the side in the nick of time. “Besides, this is Rainbow Dash’s dream. Every pony else, aside from us, is merely a figment.”

Chance scrambled to the edge of another pit, this one far too wide to jump, as the cave continued to crumble around him. Rainbow Dash waited on the far side, watching impassively as he looked around for some way to save himself. The end of a rope dangled from one of her saddlebags.

“Rainbow! Thank Celestia! Throw me the rope!” Chance said.

“Throw me the idol,” Rainbow said, taking one end of the rope in her mouth, but not tossing it across to him. Chance didn’t hesitate, tossing the lump of gold across the pit. It fell a bit short, but Rainbow Dash was able to dive into the air and catch it, then fly back to the edge safely. She shoved the idol under a pith helmet she was suddenly wearing, and grinned at him. “Thanks!” she said, still not throwing the rope.

“Come on, throw me the rope,” Chance said. “You can’t leave me here.” A large rock fell from the ceiling and shattered next to him, making him flinch as the rock shards bounced off his fur.

“I don’t know…” Rainbow said. “If I leave you here, I get to keep everything for myself. Plus I can just fly back instead of waiting weeks for you to walk through the jungle.”

“This is your Element of Loyalty?” Warp asked.

“Celestia’s, not mine,” Luna replied.

Warp rolled the spooky glowing eyes of her shadow-form. “Let me rephrase that. This is the pony whose loyalty defeated you at the height of your power?”

“The elements are not especially picky,” Luna admitted.

“Sorry, pal,” Rainbow Dash said, grinning as she turned away from Chance, and giving him a last flick of her rainbow tail. “I’d love to save you from certain doom, but I’ve got places to be.”

“No consequences, right?” Warp asked.

“Indeed,” Luna replied.

With that, Warp peeled herself off the wall, morphing into her night guard shape, swooping down and snatching up Chance from the crumbling ledge, then heading towards the mouth of the cave. By the time they arrived, Rainbow Dash was long gone.

She set Chance down, and changed herself into the form she’d known him as, a smallish humanoid ferret. “I didn’t think you were still alive,” she said, leaning her head against his chest as she hugged him. It was just a fantasy, but to see him again, feel him again – it was nice. Especially since it meant that he was actually still alive up there somewhere for Rainbow Dash to meet.

Chance grinned, and started to pet her head. “Yeah, same here. It’s good to see you again.”

She looked up at him, and he smiled as he looked back down at her. “Very good to see you again,” he said, and then leaned down and kissed her.

Warp’s eyes went wide, but she didn’t pull away, at first. After all, it’s not like she hadn’t dreamed about this before. But then she pushed back, and asked, “Why didn’t you ever look for me? Or call? If there was enough left of the ship for you to survive, you could have at least fixed the radio.”

“The what?” Chance asked. “Wait, is that one of those transmitter things that Chance always dances around the name for because it comes out as ‘light in the blah blah blah I’ll spout nonsense for ten seconds’?” He paused. “Wait, I’m Chance. Right?”

Warp shivered, and shifted back into a night guard as she danced back a few feet.

‘Chance’ suddenly perked up. “Oh, I get it! This is a dr—“

The dream world winked out as Rainbow Dash woke up.

===

After an amusing but meaningless interlude rescuing a wall-eyed gray pegasus from a horde of muffin ponies that she’d enraged by inadvertently eating their children, and a failed attempt to access Chance’s dream that ran afoul of his implants’ info-war routines and only managed to wake him up, Princess Luna gingerly approached the pink, pulsating dream that beckoned to her with the faint sound of music and laughing ponies. As she and her companion dove into the pink light, they were separated, and she found herself tossed through a vortex of mocking laughter, disembodied mouths and eyes swirling around her, the pink fading to red, and then to black, before the princess suddenly smashed into a hard, flat surface.

When she recovered from the impact and dragged herself to her hooves, the princess found herself in a featureless black void, the only sound being faint, menacing laughter. Her eyes flashed, replaced with the turquoise dragon-eyes of her nightmare form, and with new vision she scanned the darkness. To her dismay, it was still dark, but she could see things in it now, circling around her stealthily. Some of them were giggling – quietly, but loud enough for her to hear if she focused on them.

Princess Luna reared up, and brought her metal-shod forehooves down against the black surface beneath her, shattering it. Two flaps of her wings lifted her into the air, and lightning flashed from her horn to the broken ground below, transforming the rocks into stone spiders, with glowing red eyes.

Her new minions spread out through the darkness, hissing as they leaped on the creatures that thought they were hidden, clinging to them with razor-sharp legs. Soon, the quiet laughter was replaced with a cacophony of agonized shrieks, and Luna smiled. Some of the creatures tried to flee, but Luna reanimated the fallen with another Come To Life spell, and set them to hunt down their former friends.

A small structure loomed before her, and she approached it confidently. She shouted, in the Royal Canterlot Voice, “YOUR MINIONS HAVE BEEN VANQUISHED, LAUGHING ONE! SHOW THYSELF!”

The darkness flickered, and the lights came on. Luna was in the palace ballroom, standing before the stage. The room was decorated with balloons, shaped like moons and stars and bats, and a table of snacks with a punchbowl sat overturned to one side, crawling with her stone spiders. The bodies of the other partygoers lay scattered on the floor, or shambled about mindlessly, animated by her spell. On the stage, underneath a banner reading ‘Welcome Princess Luna!’, Pinkie Pie grinned as she shouted, “Surprise!”

Pinkie’s face fell as she realized she was the only one to call out, and she looked around at the devastation in horror, her rear dropping to the ground with a thump.

Luna laughed. Her wings took her to the stage, where she grinned at the pink pony and pulled her into a crushing hug. “An excellent nightmare, for a beginner! But while this play-acting is quite amusing, we did not come here to play.”

Pinkie Pie gave up her act, and smiled back as Luna released her. “Why are you here, then? Are you here to spy on my seeeecret desires while I sleep? Or did you want to suck out my soul and carry it back to your dark palace in a glowing pink crystal?”

“Harmony yet keeps that power sealed,” Luna replied. “And any intelligence I gathered would be useless, since you can apparently control your dreams. Still, I suppose it doesn’t hurt to ask. Did any pony in your entourage examine the writings in the hexagonal structure at the very top of the moon?”

“Nope!” Pinkie Pie said. “Should we have?”

“You should not!” Luna replied, stomping a hoof on the stage. “There are secrets there, dark secrets, banished to the moon along with the Nightmare. Indeed, perhaps Equestria would be safer were those secrets destroyed.”

“So you want us to blow up the moon temple? Aye aye, princess!” Pinkie Pie said, saluting. “Anything else? Oh! Want to play pin the tail on the pony?” she asked, grinning widely as she gestured to the shambling zombie horde. “We’ve got a bunch of ponies, and at least two or three tails lying around loose.”

Luna considered it, but shook her head. “Another night perhaps. Show me to my guard, and we shall depart.”

“No can do,” Pinkie Pie said. “She’s in the slug pit.” Luna stared at her. Pinkie Pie made a face. “It’s full of slugs!”

“Why –“ Luna started, but before she could finish, she was interrupted.

“I mean, all of this was made special for you because I know you like being scary, but I had no idea what your *guard* likes in her nightmares,” Pinkie babbled. “I figured since she was pretty scary and kind of gross with the bat-wings and cat eyes that something scary and gross would work, so I threw her in the slug pit.”

“So why –“ Luna tried again, but Pinkie wasn’t done.

“But of course once she was in there she tried to fly out and what good is that! So I had a bunch of cockatrices waiting at the edge of the pit, and she turned to stone and sank back into the slugs. Only I left her eyes unpetrified so that she could see the slugs, only she can’t really see them because they’re crawling all over her eyes. Still, slugs on your eyes is pretty scary, right?”

Luna waited. “Are you done yet?” she asked.

“Done with what?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“Why can’t you retrieve my guard from the slug pit?”

Pinkie Pie laughed. “Because the cockatrices will get me. Obviously. I mean, this may be a dream, but I still have to follow the rules.”

“In that case, you leave me no choice,” Luna replied. She lowered her horn, and lunged forwards, impaling the pink pony upon it.

Pinkie Pie squealed, and squirmed, and wiggled her legs and planted a hoof in Luna’s eye as she tried to pry herself off, to no avail. “That hurts!” she whined. “What did you do that for?”

Luna sighed heavily, blinded in one eye by a pink hoof, and the other by the warm fluid running down her face. “You were supposed to wake up,” she said.

===

Pinkie Pie woke up screaming, and rolled over onto her back – falling off the couch – and started touching her own chest repeatedly, feeling around for a wound which wasn’t there. There was a hurried rustling from one of the other couches, and she looked over to see Chance and Rainbow Dash sitting next to each other, looking innocent.

“Bad dream?” Rainbow Dash asked, casually.

“I threw Luna a surprise party, and she killed all the guests and stabbed me with her horn!” Pinkie Pie said, indignantly. “I bet it was because of the slugs. Stupid slugs.” The two of them stared at her, so she asked, “Why are you two up? Did you have bad dreams too?”

“Not bad,” Rainbow Dash said, weighing her response.

“Neither of us could sleep,” Chance said. “So we were –“

“Talking,” Rainbow Dash interjected hurriedly. “Just talking about normal, boring stuff, so that we could bore each other enough to go back to sleep. Separately.”

“You know,” Chance said, giving Rainbow Dash a smug grin, and trailing a clawed finger down the line of her cheek, “now that Pinkie’s awake too, maybe she could join our ‘conversation’?”

Which seemed like a really strange reason to buck him in the crotch, but Pinkie figured that was just Rainbow being Rainbow.

19: Mass Transit, Moon Style

“This is just like a camping trip!” Twilight Sparkle said cheerfully, over a cup of the strange brown tea the moon ponies brewed. They were all gathered in the central chamber of the ‘ruins’, although after seeing them Twilight felt a little embarrassed that she’d assumed they’d be in poor repair, just because they’d been abandoned for thousands of years. The only part of them that was in ruins was the part Chance had destroyed getting her and Pinkie out of jail.

“A what?” Tess asked, sipping her tea.

“Oh! It’s where you get tents and sleeping bags and a camp stove and marshmallows and corn on the cob only you don’t cook them on the camp stove you use a campfire but we don’t have a fire here I mean I guess we could light one of the couches on fire but that probably wouldn’t make a very good fire for cooking and it might set off some sort of alarm because just because there’s no traps in here for ponies moving around and sleeping on their couches I’m sure there’d be some sort of alarm if we started setting fires although there wasn’t an alarm when Chance started blowing holes in the floor so maybe –“ Pinkie Pie bounced around and waved her arms to illustrate the various camping-related actions.

“It’s where you do this,” Twilight said, sipping her tea. It was pretty awful and bitter, although it smelled nice at least – par for the course for tea, really. “Usually in the woods, though.”

“Right! Because in the woods you can make a fire and tell scary stories.” Pinkie Pie moved her hooves around spookily. “Although this is more like a camping trip morning, when every pony’s tired from sleeping in a sleeping bag or I guess on a couch.”

“You’re tired, Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash asked, groggily. She’d waved off the tea, and was watching Derpy try to cook breakfast. She probably should have offered to help, but Derpy seemed happy to keep trying on her own, no matter how many packets of dehydrated pancake batter she accidentally spilled all over the floor.

Twilight and Pinkie had brought enough cakes for every pony to eat, but Derpy was adamant that no pony should eat any more ‘moon muffins’, hovering over them protectively when any pony tried. It was almost enough to make Twilight wish she’d left the pegasus out in the cold, instead of teleporting her in (to the jail, where Rainbow had to fly down and let her out). But soon there would be pancakes, and all would be forgiven.

“I’m exhausted!” Pinkie Pie said, leaping onto a couch and sprawling on her back, putting a hoof to her forehead like Rarity often did when she was being dramatic. “I couldn’t sleep after that nightmare with Nightmare Moon.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t get back to sleep either,” Rainbow Dash said. “I think some pony was messing with my dreams – they were using words I didn’t know. Ellayetio or something like that.”

“It’s probably just a coincidence,” Twilight said, smiling. “I mean, I had some pretty strange dreams last night, but there’s no reason to think that they were caused by outside interference. We were exposed to some pretty strange things yesterday, so of course our dreams are going to reflect that.”

“My implants woke me up last night,” Chance said. “Outside interference. Could just be a glitch, but with three of us –“

“Four,” Derpy said. “Luna saved me from the muffins!”

Twilight looked around at every pony. “Well. That is suspicious, and I’d be pretty foolish to insist that Luna couldn’t visit us in our dreams if she wanted to. No pony really knows what the limits of the princesses’ powers are. I don’t suppose she had any sort of message for you?”

“Not really,” Rainbow Dash said. “She was just mad that Chance hadn’t fixed the – thingie. On the ship. And tried to contact her. And I’m not sure it was Luna, it looked more like Tess actually.”

Tess frowned, trying to remember what Rainbow had tried to pronounce earlier. “Radio?” she asked, carefully pronouncing the word so as not to inadvertently translate it.

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash said. “That!”

“She told me to blow up the moon temple!” Pinkie Pie said. “But she also killed every pony and stabbed me with her horn, so I don’t know if I want to.”

“Let’s hold off on blowing things up,” Twilight said, cringing. “Luna already told us how to get off the moon while we were awake. We just need to get to the back of the red-orange wing and… well, she was cut off before she could explain what to do then, but hopefully it’ll be self-evident. A teleport pad to the surface, maybe?”

“And leave the Here to Help?” Chance asked, frowning.

“We can always come back for your ship later,” Twilight said, “when we’re better prepared. Maybe with enough pegasi to move it cleanly, instead of using some crazy plan where we fling it off the edge of the moon.”

“You say ‘crazy’, I say ‘awesome’,” Rainbow Dash said. “Still, it’d be a little more awesome if I didn’t have to worry about my friends riding down with it.”

===

“This is really an amazing place,” Chance said, as they headed down the wide main concourse of the red-orange wing. “Air and water recycling that’s still working after at least a thousand years, technology – sorry, ‘magic’ – hundreds of years in advance of anything on the surface even now, and a security system designed by an eight year old.”

“Hey, some of those traps would have been nasty if you hadn’t had me around,” Rainbow Dash said. She was flying upside down and backwards again, so that the others could keep up. “Like that thing with the –“ she moved her hooves around in a scissoring motion, then waggled one of them behind her head as she rotated upright. “You know. The green thing?”

“The door to the main security station was locked with a puzzle,” Tess said, fingering the glowing red and orange checkerboard amulet that each of them had acquired from the station in question, which testing had confirmed made the traps inside the wing ignore them. “A puzzle that we figured out using clues written on the door itself.”

“Is that unusual?” Twilight Sparkle asked, horn glowing as she analyzed the amulet the moon ponies insisted on calling a ‘key-card’. “I’ve never been that interested in ‘security’ magic beyond the standard locking and force field charms.”

“Well, when you lock, say, your private diary, do you write the pass-phrase to unlock it on the cover?” Tess asked.

Twilight laughed. “No! I wrote it on a scroll that I hid in the –“ she paused, and chuckled nervously.

“Exactly.” Tess said. “Even a random pony off the street knows not to write the password on the thing it’s protecting.”

“Twilight isn’t a random pony, silly,” Pinkie Pie said. “She’s a super-special magical unicorn pony!”

“Pinkie’s the random pony,” Rainbow Dash added.

“Right!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing happily. “And I keep the key for my diary under my pillow. Or at least I did until Gummy ate it. But that’s okay, I never actually wrote anything in my diary anyway.”

Chance and Tess looked at each other. Chance turned to the ponies. “So, what’s your biggest secret, that you don’t want any pony else to know?”

“Um…” Twilight Sparkle said, considering it. “Probably that I secretly fantasize about being the next Nightmare Moon? I don’t think I could actually hurt any pony, but you know how it’s fun to pretend sometimes. And Equestria could be so much more organized!”

“I’ve kind of given up on the Wonderbolts,” Rainbow Dash said. “I mean, I’m still a big fan, but I think I want to go into archeology. Dodging traps is way more fun than just showing off in front of a crowd. Although if there was some way to combine them…”

“Oh, are we playing Truth or Dare?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Dare!”

“Pinkie Pie passes,” Chance said. “Rainbow, Twilight, you fail. Derpy – you completely ignored the question, which either means that you’re even more on the ball than Pinkie Pie, or you’re off in your own little world and aren’t even listening to a thing I say.”

“Fail at what?” Twilight asked, pouting. “It wasn’t a good enough secret?”

===

At the end of the main concourse there were three major routes to take, each blocked by a large door labeled in Old Equestrian, which no pony could understand, except for possibly Twilight Sparkle. She did her best to translate them, at least.

“Alright,” she said. “I wish I had a reference book here to look up some vocabulary – I’m not actually fluent in the language, but I think I’ve got a partial translation.”

“Hopefully it’ll be enough to work with,” Chance said. “I don’t suppose any of them say ‘teleporter’?”

“No,” Twilight said. “The one on the left is ‘big bubble something something moon’. It’s the modern rune for Princess Luna, but in Old Equestrian, it just meant ‘moon’.”

“Bubbles!” Derpy said, pouncing on the door and staring at the runes close up. “I like bubbles?” she said, glancing back at the others with a sheepish smile.

“I don’t think bubbles are going to get us home, Derpy,” Rainbow Dash said.

“I don’t either,” Twilight Sparkle continued. “The middle door is ‘something something every little pony belonging to the moon something outside’. At least, I think this rune means ‘little pony’ – it’s a variant of the standard pony glyph. Old Equestrian liked to use ad-hoc glyphs like that – it’s one of the most annoying parts about translating it. No pony alive today, except possibly the princesses, knows exactly what the variants were supposed to mean, and no pony who spoke Old Equestrian wrote down the translation because every pony who used it knew what it was referring to.”

“So, technical jargon?” Tess suggested. “Only marked with a variant glyph, instead of just re-using an existing word and trusting people to know what you meant? That actually doesn’t sound like such a bad idea.”

“I suppose when you put it that way,” Twilight Sparkle said. “It’s still a challenge to translate. At any rate, that door doesn’t sound like the one we want either. In fact, it sounds downright dangerous, at least for those of us who can’t breathe outside.”

“And the right door?” Chance prompted.

“Right. ‘Moon motion towards dirt something something something’. I actually recognize the variant ‘dirt’ glyph – it specifically refers to the entire planet that Equestria resides on.” Twilight paused. “So that’s probably the door we want. I hope we can figure out how to target Equestria specifically, though – if we end up in some random corner of the world, it could takes days or even weeks to get back, even if we could find or build a chariot to ride in.”

Chance held his key-card up to the door, which slid aside, and the group proceeded down a narrower corridor, which curved further to right. They passed two more security checkpoints, and while none of the traps activated, Tess was still feeling very nervous.

“Something’s wrong here,” she said. “All the security is facing the wrong way, if this is where they keep teleporters to the surface.”

“It could just be the outgoing gates,” Chance said. “The incoming gates might be elsewhere.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Tess said. “Who would design the system that way?”

“The same 8 year old who designed their security?” Chance suggested.

Tess wasn’t done. “And if this was specifically for some sort of combat drop, where are the weapons and supplies? There are lots of rooms with maps in them…”

“…the sort you’d need if you were planning an invasion,” Twilight Sparkle pointed out.

“Yes, but not the sort of thing you’d need if you were carrying out an invasion,” Tess said. “This is also a very narrow accessway if you’re expecting to send an army of soldiers through here. And it’s carpeted.”

“We’ll be careful, okay?” Twilight said. “No pony touch anything unless we know what it does.”

They reached the end of the hallway, and pushed through a set of double doors into a massive room full of incomprehensible enchanted devices – glowing pillars, all bright red, with rune-inscribed pads sitting next to them, a console covered with glittering gems for buttons, and a large, dark magic mirror dominating the far wall.

They stared at it for a bit.

“Okay,” Twilight said, “new plan. We’ll touch one thing at a time until we figure out what all this does.”

===

Shining Armor woke up from a wonderful dream about his wife and his sister, as the cold winter air cut through his naked fur. Celestia rotated him until his hooves pointed downwards, then released him from her magic.

“Put up your shield, Shining Armor,” she said. “Now.” He noticed vaguely that she was naked, and her mane in disarray, as if she’d just woken up herself. He also noticed that the two of them were standing on her balcony, overlooking the Equestrian countryside. Far to the west, the setting moon loomed large on the horizon.

Without thinking too much about it, he gathered his energy and cast the spell she’d requested. A ray shot upwards from his horn, exploding in midair and spreading horizontally into a massive spherical purple dome, protecting the capital of Equestria from pretty much anything.

“What’s going on?” he asked. Suddenly, he realized that he’d just taken a very suspicious order from some pony who might only physically resemble Celestia. “Also, I’ll need to authenticate your identity, since this was unscheduled.”

“Not now,” Celestia said dismissively, staring at the moon intently. “I fear that your sister’s reaction to Nightmare Moon’s crimes may be more serious than I thought. Stand ready to reinforce your shield.”

===

“ARGH!” Twilight Sparkle said, as the image of Canterlot on the magic mirror was suddenly shrouded in purple. “This piece of JUNK! Not only does it take forever to aim the teleport, not only is it limited to six ponies at a time, not only can I not aim them closer than fifty feet from each other, but apparently it gives away its destination. Why would it do that?”

“To be polite?” Pinkie Pie suggested. “Knock knock! Can we teleport in?”

“Not with my brother’s shield up,” Twilight said, pulling the view back to show all of Equestria again. Although by this point, it was hardly all of Equestria – the moon was setting, and they had little time if they wanted to end up anywhere near home, since yet another inexplicable limitation of the ancient moon teleporter was that it required line of sight. “If we’re lucky, we’d end up teleported into the castle dungeons.”

“That would work,” Rainbow Dash said.

“If we’re unlucky, we’d end up teleported into the sun,” Twilight said.

“I don’t get it, though,” Rainbow Dash said. “They have to know it’s us. I mean, Princess Luna told us to come here. Why would they put up the shield?”

“Girls?” Chance said, watching the image of Equestria in the mirror get closer and closer to the horizon. “Clock is ticking.”

“Right,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Retargetting. Manehattan. At least the controls are simple.”

===

To the unaided pony eye, the faint trails of coherent light emerging from the moon were invisible. Celestia had long since forgotten the reason that she’d had the spell to see them permanently enchanted onto her eyes, but one glimpse of the flickering rays out her window had brought it all crashing back.

For a second, she thought the danger was over – the trails vanished, the crazed unicorn at the controls apparently unwilling to test Shining Armor’s shield. Then, to her horror, they reappeared, aiming not at the capitol, but at Equestria’s largest metropolis. “No!” she gasped, in helpless terror – at night, without the sunlight to ride, her options for long-distance travel were severely limited. She could teleport to Manehattan in a series of hops, even with her Captain of the Guard in tow, but they would arrive too late.

Also, he’d certainly insist on going through the authentication process before being removed from the castle, and she certainly didn’t have time for that.

Manehattan was doomed.

===

“Okay, it looks like this’ll drop every pony on a rooftop, aside from Rainbow and Derpy who’ll end up in the bay,” Twilight said, satisfied at last with her targeting. “When I push this button, we’ll only have a few seconds to get on the teleport pads. You’re going to feel very weak, since judging from those runes, the whole process is going to be powered by your life energy –“

“Life energy?” Tess asked, looking scared.

“It regenerates!” Twilight snapped. “Does every pony understand? Because I’m pushing the button –“

“Twilight, stop!” Pinkie Pie said. “Twitchy tail!”

“What?” Twilight asked, turning to look at the panicking pink pony.

“TWITCHY. TAIL,” Pinkie Pie said, suddenly in Twilight’s face, hooves hooked over her shoulders. “This isn’t a teleporter! If you push that button, something’s going to fall!”

“Drop ships,” Chance said. “The pads probably teleport us to the ships, and then we get dropped out of the sky. You probably want to aim somewhere other than a major city.”

Twilight looked like she was about to explode, then drooped. “Pinkie, you know how to aim it, right? Put us somewhere in the western desert. We can take the train back from Appleoosa.”

Pinkie Pie watched Twilight dejectedly drag herself onto one of the pads, then turned to the controls. “Okay!” she said, cheerfully, and started retargeting.

“I still have a really bad feeling about this,” Tess said, getting on a pad herself. Aside from Pinkie Pie, she was the last.

“So you think we should just walk away, and check one of the other doors?” Chance asked.

“Oh come on,” Rainbow Dash said. “We’ve been here for hours…”

“Twelve minutes,” Tess said. “We’ve been here for twelve minutes. And I don’t know, Chance. I feel like we’ve already kicked the hornet’s nest. We might as well jump all the way into the fire.”

“Hee hee, fire,” Pinkie Pie said. The screen was showing the open desert now, with six target markers scattered loosely across the sand. “That’s what the big red button to turn it on says.”

“What?” asked Twilight, Chance, and Tess simultaneously.

“Fire!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully, pushing the button. “It was really faint,” she added, hopping onto one of the pads.
The pillars behind the pads flashed red, and all six ponies felt themselves being drained of all energy. As their bodies hit the floor, it felt like the moon was shaking in sympathy.

===

Celestia and Shining Armor were not the only ponies staring at the light on the horizon – like the sun, rising in the west. They were, however, the only ponies with any clue as to what it might mean.

“That could have been Canterlot?” Shining Armor asked, staring at the distant explosion. “I don’t know if my force field can hold up to a power like that, princess.”

“Canterlot, Manehattan, anywhere in Equestria that the moon shines, the Moon Cannon can destroy,” Celestia said, grim. “That horrible machine should never have been built! Not even Nightmare Moon was insane enough to actually fire it.”

“It looks like it hit somewhere in the western desert,” Shining Armor said. “Too far south for any of the major settlements. Maybe Twiley – maybe whoever fired the cannon was just… curious?”

“She targeted Canterlot first,” Celestia said. “And then Manehattan, although thankfully she changed her mind. No, Shining Armor. I’m afraid that this was not mere curiosity – this was a warning shot, and a declaration of war.”

Shining Armor frowned. “You can’t be serious.”

“At a time like this, I find myself unable to be anything but,” Celestia replied. “As of this moment, Equestria is at war with Twilight Sparkle.”

The two ponies were silent for several minutes, and then Shining Armor spoke. “I’m really going to have to get that order authenticated,” he said.

“Of course,” Celestia replied, and they headed inside to find an abacus.

20: Ancient Prophecies of Doom

Pinkie Pie’s first thought, upon waking up, was “Wheee!” She wiggled her legs in the air, and waggled her tail, twisting around to spin over and over and over and over in the magical field that held her in midair. That gave her enough perspective to see the other ponies in their little party floating along in a similar fashion, only without the spinning, or the joyful grin, or the being awake for that matter. The exception was Twilight Sparkle, who was leading the way on her hooves, horn aglow as it kept every pony else aloft.

“Where are we going, Twilight?” she asked, once she got bored of spinning. Not that she stopped spinning, she just stopped spinning faster, and figured that eventually the wind would slow her down, or else she’d accidentally brush against a wall or a pillar or doorjamb or weird swirly thing like the ones in the corridor they were floating down, and that would stop her.

“Sorry, what was that again?” she asked, realizing that she’d gotten lost in her own train of thought and forgot to listen to Twilight’s response.

“The resurfacing chamber is where we shall build your ramp,” Twilight replied, in a hollow voice. She turned her head, letting Pinkie Pie see her flat white pupil-less eye. “If you still wish to return to the surface; your reception might be unpleasant. Celestia is irked by your use of the Moon Cannon, and I do not wish to arouse her ire by opposing her openly.”

“Irk!” Pinkie Pie said. “Irk irk irk! Don’t you just love that word? Irk! Just saying it makes you scrunch up your throat and cringe, it’s sort of like onomatopoeia only with facial expressions. Irk!”

“I do not love that word,” Twilight replied, turning to face forwards. “I prefer ‘vex’.”

“Oooh, that’s a good one too,” Pinkie said, reaching out a hoof to brush the floor and stabilize herself, upside down. “There are so many fun words for such an unfun concept! Sort of like a consolation prize – you might be vexed, but at least you get to say ‘vexed!’ And maybe stomp around a bit. I don’t really do that much, since it’s too much like bouncing for me to really feel it, but I’ve seen other ponies do it and they look so fierce!”

“Please stop talking,” the possessed Twilight said, in a quiet voice. “This takes more concentration than you seem to realize. Idle chatter is a distraction I can ill afford.”

Pinkie Pie made a motion like she was zipping her lips shut, and stayed quiet for a bit, noticing how slowly Twilight was being walked, a steady but unhurried gait, like some pony wandering around in a daze. “Can I sing?” she asked.

Twilight stopped, and suddenly Pinkie and all the others fell unceremoniously to the ground as the unicorn turned and glowered at the pink earth pony with a fierce glare, although she didn’t stomp. “The resurfacing chamber is just ahead. Use it carefully, Pink One. You tread dangerously close to the wrong side of prophecy.”

Pinkie Pie looked up, rolled to her feet, and asked, “Ancient prophecy?”

“As ancient as most. Oracular traditions are unpopular in the modern age.”

“Ancient prophecies of doom?” Pinkie Pie asked, eyes wide.

Twilight smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile, but it wasn’t particularly unfriendly. “As always, the implications of the prophecy are left up to the ponies who live through it to determine.”

And then she intoned, in a solemn voice, somehow twice as hollow as her already creepy ‘I’m possessed’ voice:

When terror stares down from the night’s silver eye,

and twilight’s last glimmer sets fire to the west,

though you find it unthinkable, let Harmony’s Rainbow fly.

Though threatened by the unknowable, let Harmony’s Rainbow fly.

If you don’t, it’ll be… just… I’m sorry, that’s all I have.

Do you have any willow bark?

Pinkie Pie stared at her.

“Forked prophecies were always hard on the oracles,” Twilight responded. “The official version recorded in Predictions and Prophecies was slightly edited.”

===

By the time Twilight Sparkle and the others woke up for real, Pinkie Pie was almost done reshaping the moon to her wishes. She’d finished with all the super-important parts, and all that was left to do was the ramp.

“What happened?” the real Twilight asked, looking around. “Where are we?”

“Moon Cannon!” Pinkie Pie said happily, pressing her hooves against the giant magic mirror that dominated the room, at the spot that showed the line of hills that they’d been trying to dig a tunnel through earlier. The moondust from the nearby plains surged up around the part of the image that she touched, and the hills slid to either side as she slowly spread her hooves apart. “That’s what happened. We’re in the little ponies room now, I think. Did you know that moondust was made of little ponies?”

“Really? That’s fascinating!” Twilight Sparkle said. “And this magic mirror controls them? All of them at once?”

Pinkie Pie nodded as she tried to make the hills look pretty, and smooth out any lumps in the new valley. One of the hills, the one with the teleport pad on it and the security checkpoint inside, moved aside but wouldn’t change shape, which made it hard to get the two sides to look even.

“Molecular machines,” Tess said, a bit too calmly – she almost looked dazed. “We’ve been wading through molecular machines.”

“Well, not molecular,” Twilight Sparkle said. “After all, if you looked really close you could see the individual grains.”

“We have to take some with us,” Chance said. “As much as we can fit in the cargo hold.”

“Are you insane?” Tess asked. “They’ll kill us!”

“They probably won’t do anything off the moon,” Twilight said. “Well, unless some pony manages to reverse engineer the control spell, which I suppose would be a lot easier than enchanting them one by one. I wonder how they were made?”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Even I know how little ponies are made, Twilight.”

For some reason, Tess was the one that that seemed to bother most.

But building the ramp was the main concern. Every pony pitched in, since there didn’t seem to be a limit to the number of hooves on the mirror that the little moondust ponies would listen to at once. No pony else was nearly as adept at kneading the moon rock into shape as Pinkie Pie, though.

“You’re a natural at this,” Twilight Sparkle said, as she struggled to get a ragged section of ramp to hook up with the bits on either end, that weren’t quite aligned. “Is it an earth pony thing, since we’re moving around rocks?”

“I think it’s just practice,” Pinkie Pie said, nudging Twilight’s hoof to help her out. “I was doing this for hours before you lazy bones woke up.” She paused. “I did wake up a lot faster than you guys. That might be an earth pony thing! Does that count?”

“Hours?” Chance asked. “How many times did you start over?”

“Start over?” Pinkie Pie asked, confused.

Chance looked back, equally confused. “Well, when we woke up you were just starting on the ramp.”

Pinkie Pie laughed. “Oh! I wasn’t practicing on the ramp. Look!” She bumped every pony away from the mirror with a few quick swings of her hips, then made a weird gesture and changed the viewpoint to show the whole moon from a distance. With another odd flourish, she spun it around to show the view from the ground. “Isn’t it pretty?”

The face of the moon was now, literally, a face – with two eyes of slightly mismatched sizes, the pupil-craters misaligned, and a pointy-toothed grin that on a pony would have stretched from ear to ear. Derpy squeaked, and covered her eyes.

“Please tell me you haven’t committed this,” Chance said, staring at the moon in horror.

“Committed?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“What we’re doing here is planning future changes,” Chance said. “Nothing will actually happen until we find the big red button and press ‘fire’. Right?”

“Magic mirrors don’t work that way,” Twilight said softly, sitting on the cold floor as she stared at Pinkie Pie’s work. “If you can see it in a mirror, then it’s real somewhere. Maybe just in a mirror world, but you wouldn’t use a mirror this big for planning out changes you hadn’t done yet, since warped mirrors can’t easily be un-warped to use again.”

She stood up, giggled a little, and leapt at the mirror. “But it’s not too late! The moon just set when we passed out, so we probably have some time before moonrise to fix everything. All we have to do is remember where each of the thousands of craters and mares were located after Nightmare Moon erased her symbol, even though we only ever saw them through a telescope and never actually received the new version of the Moon Watchers Guide to Craters. Heh. Heheh. But we’ve got hours to figure it out!”

Tess and Chance looked at each other. “We were out for… kind of a long time,” Chance said.

“It’s about an hour before midnight,” Tess said. “Every pony’s looking at… this. Right now.”

“Well, good!” Rainbow Dash said. Twilight and the moon ponies looked at her. “I mean, it’s one thing to say ‘oh yeah, we were on the moon and it was really cool’, but this is proof. Are you sure you can’t put my cutie mark up there instead though, Pinkie? That face could be any pony.”

“Mmmmaybe,” Pinkie Pie said. “But the prophecy said ‘terror stares down’, and a thundercloud doesn’t really stare.”

“A prophecy,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Of doom!” Pinkie Pie replied, happily, spinning the moon back around to the ramp. Zoomed out, they could see that she’d landscaped the rest of the surface, covering the moonscape in giant stone cakes and candy canes and statues of happy, partying ponies. “But it’s okay! There’s no doom if they just let Rainbow Dash do her job. Which is otherwise pretty unlikely, if you think about it, since we’re all wanted criminals for almost blowing up Manehattan.”

“And you know this because –“ Rainbow Dash prompted.

“Luna was here! Well, there,” she said, poking Twilight’s forehead. “She said Celestia was ‘irked’. Probably vexed, too.”

Tess covered her face with her hand. Chance snapped his gaze up, grinning widely. “New plan!” He said. “Let’s stay up here while Twilight there tries to restart the generator. Once it’s running again, we fix the computers, look up how to synthesize exotic matter in our library, fix the rest of the ship --”

“Send Rainbow Dash to fetch the rest of the crew from the surface,” Tess added.

“Of course,” Chance said. “Warp would be a huge help for all of that. And then we all fly far, far away from here, and see if we can find a gateway to another world. Preferably the one we came from, but another simulation would probably still be an improvement.”

“What, just abandon Equestria?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Adventure!” Chance said, grabbing Rainbow Dash by the shoulders. “Excitement! Not being arrested and turned to stone!”

“Aww, being turned to stone isn’t so bad,” Pinkie Pie said. “Tell them, Twilight!”

“It’s awful, Pinkie!” Twilight Sparkle said, emphatically.

Pinkie Pie continued, undaunted. “But just think of all the neat futuristic things we’ll see when we’re turned back!”

“What makes you think we’ll ever be turned back?” Chance asked. “Isn’t it your version of the death penalty?”

“Well, they have to turn us back sometime,” Pinkie Pie said. “I mean, they can try to keep us imprisoned in stone forever, but forever is a really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really –“

“I’m kind of hungry,” Rainbow Dash said. “Wanna go back to the center chamber thing and make some more pancakes?”

“Really really really really really really really really really really really really--”

“Oh! I’m starving,” Twilight said. “Come on, let’s go!”

Pinkie Pie bounced after them as the rest of the ponies headed out of the red orange wing, saying, “Really really really really really really really really really really really really—“

They talked in low voices while the pancakes were cooking – Derpy volunteered again – ignoring the pink pony bouncing around them, chanting, “really really really really really really really really…”

“I think that’ll work,” Twilight Sparkle said. “It’s simple enough to work, right?”

“I don’t know,” Rainbow Dash said. “I don’t like leaving you hanging like that.”

“Pancakes are done!” Derpy called, and Twilight levitated the top one off the stack and shoved it in Pinkie Pie’s mouth.

“Really really mmph!” Pinkie Pie stopped, chewed, swallowed, and finished with, “long time.”

“I’m really the only plausible choice, unless we wanted to use one of the moon ponies,” Twilight Sparkle said. “And it’s not their fault! It’s mine. I almost destroyed Manehattan – I deserve whatever I get.”

“She really will turn you to stone this time, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said. “I mean, you’re inventing new crimes that you didn’t even do, just to get us off the hook.”

Twilight sighed. “It was bound to happen sooner or later,” she said. “I’ve known that for a while now. Celestia only picked me as her student because I was a danger to the ponies around me, and since then – do you know what one of the first things she taught me was?”

“How not to explode in random magic when some pony makes a loud noise?” Pinkie Pie guessed.

Twilight laughed. “That was the very first! But around the same time, before she got around to actually teaching me magic, she was putting me into sensory deprivation as a ‘meditation technique’, and teaching me how to not go crazy.”

Rainbow Dash snickered. “That explains a lot.”

“I thought it was fun, at the time,” Twilight said, smiling. “She taught me to make up my own little world to experience, from visions I pulled out of my head. Your brain wants chaos, when it doesn’t get any input, but if you focus you can make a world that makes sense.” She frowned. “The final test was to stay in that state for an entire day, and then recognize the real world when I was finally released. I kind of cheated – I made every pony in my dream world pink.

“I didn’t realize what she was actually training me for until years and years later, when that cockatrice turned me to stone,” Twilight said. She drooped, her muzzle pointing at the ground. “So, yes. I’ll probably end up on a pedestal next to Discord, but that’s always been my fate. I’ve disappointed her time and time again, and again and again she’s forgiven me and given me one more chance, and – it’s better to just get it over with. It was always only ever a matter of time.”

Pinkie Pie walked over to Twilight and hugged her. The purple unicorn set her horn on Pinkie’s shoulder, nuzzling into her chest, and sobbed. Pinkie Pie patted her head, and stroked her mane. “I think I like Chance’s plan better,” she said. “The ‘not being arrested and turned to stone’ part is hard to top.”

“I’m not leaving Equestria,” Rainbow Dash said, slamming her hoof down. “Not like that. I mean, yeah, it’d be super awesome to go off and be a space pirate and all, but my mom would kill me. And what about Derpy? She’s got kids at home, and Twilight has her ‘BBBFF’ –“

“Who I also almost destroyed,” Twilight sobbed.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, then looked at Pinkie, “—and you have the Cakes, even if you don’t care about your real family. What would little Pound and Pumpkin do without their favorite foalsitter?

“Besides,” she added, “it wouldn’t work.”

“We could give it a few months, and see if it was working?” Chance suggested.

“If Derpy and I can make it to the moon, so can the Royal Guard,” Rainbow Dash said. “They’re not about to leave us up here with the Moon Cannon -- they’re probably already on their way! We need to finish the ramp and get off the moon, fast. Derpy and I should probably leave now to start on that thunderstorm, since we’re still more or less over Equestria.”

“Right,” Twilight said, drying her eyes on her foreleg and regaining her composure. “Whether or not we’re using my plan, if you’re going down there, there’s one more crime I need to commit. If we’re already wanted criminals, the weather squad isn’t going to listen to you --”

“They’ll have to,” Pinkie Pie said. “There’s a prophecy! Of doom!”

“We can’t count on every pony in Equestria knowing about that,” Twilight said. “We can count on this.” Her horn glowed, as she focused, and then three pink hearts emerged from the tip and floated over to Rainbow Dash, popping as they hit her in the face.

“Hey, what gives?” Rainbow Dash asked, backing away and wiping at her stinging eyes.

“It’s a want-it-need-it spell, like I put on Smarty-Pants,” Twilight said. “Works every time! Any pony that looks you in the eye will follow you around and do anything you say.” She looked around at the others. “So, um, no pony look Rainbow Dash in the eye, except for maybe Derpy, since she’s going down with her anyway.”

“That can’t be legal,” Tess said.

“I don’t actually know!” Twilight said, laughing. “I learned it from my foalsitter! I’m pretty sure using it to mind-control twenty ponies as weather slaves isn’t, though.”

“Um, yeah,” Rainbow Dash said, looking studiously at the ground. “Thanks a lot, Twilight. Good to know how much faith you put in my friends.”

===

Shining Armor walked through the streets of Ponyville, the mountainside city of Canterlot glowing inside its purple bubble behind him, in the distance. Without him there to reinforce it, the shield was mostly a bluff, but it was a bluff that had worked well enough the night before. All across Equestria, similar bubbles in all colors of the rainbow rose over every major city – and those were even more of a bluff, since none of the unicorns who’d created them had Shining Armor’s talent for force fields, and he suspected that many of them were nothing but illusions.

Ponyville did not have a bubble. Every pony agreed -- of any place in Equestria, this was the last town that Twilight Sparkle would destroy. Putting up a bubble would just call attention to it, and they didn’t want her looking too closely at what was quickly becoming the staging area for Equestria’s counterstrike.

“Every pony’s drafted,” Shining Armor said to his lieutenants. “The mayor explained that to the townsfolk before we arrived, so no pony should be surprised when you give them their assignments. I want all the pegasi split up into lift-teams, four to a jelly jar. One earth pony per jar on tree duty, and one Guard unicorn to do the actual fighting.”

“Do you really think we’ll need all this?” Blazing Arrow asked. “The featherheads will be there before we even get off the ground. I know Twilight’s powerful, but she can’t take out the entire pegasus wing of the Royal Guard.”

“Don’t underestimate her,” Shining Armor said. “Besides, there’s a prophecy involved.”

Shifting Sands groaned. “I think I know where this is going. That sealed box of yours --”

“It’s classified,” Shining Armor said. “But yes, when we saw… that,” he looked up at the grinning specter of death that now graced the looming moon, “it sparked Celestia’s memory of an ancient prophecy, and when she looked it up in the library, it was surprisingly clear. Martial force isn’t going to win this one, either.”

“By Celestia’s beard, Shiny, it’s the freaking Elements of Harmony again,” Shifting Sands snapped. “Every pony knows that it’s always the Elements of Harmony.”

“Um… call me crazy,” Blazing Arrow said. “But aren’t half the Elements on the other side?”

“If it was the Elements,” Shining Armor said, “I’ve heard from a reliable source that they aren’t too picky. I’d be able to find new bearers and get them attuned in time, just like Twily did for Nightmare Moon.

“Oh, that reminds me,” he added, “there’s a special exemption from the draft for Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, and three other ponies yet to be named. They’ll be helping me with a top secret project.”

“How mysterious,” Shifty deadpanned.

“Just do your jobs,” Shining Armor said. “And try to pretend that it matters?”

21: Chasing Rainbows

Rainbow Dash and Derpy swooped down the length of the ramp that led from the Here to Help to the edge of the moon, then up the slight upturn at the mountain range at the end, and off into empty space. Rainbow spread her wings to fall slowly out of habit, although with the lack of wind resistance up here it didn’t really matter how fast she was falling when she messed around with a scrap of paper. “Ramp looks good,” she wrote, “see you tomorrow night!”

Then she turned to face the planet below, and went into a power-dive, wings buzzing like a bumblebee’s as she dared gravity to give her more speed than she could handle. Derpy followed close behind, riding in her wake.

Equestria was so colorful tonight – Canterlot surrounded by a purple dome, Manehattan in green, Cloudsdale in yellow, and the other major cities’ glow visible faintly through the winter cloud-cover. That was probably their fault, although it made her proud to be a pony to see Equestria come up with an anti-moon-cannon defense so quickly. Maybe she was wrong about them sending up the guard right away – if they were focusing on defense…

No, no, there they were. Dozens of them – maybe all of them. They spotted her, too, and shifted formation into a layered intercept cube – a spiky maze of spears and hooves and wing-blades that only an idiot would try to fly through… if they weren’t as awesome as Rainbow Dash. Flying around it would mean losing most of her speed advantage, and more importantly, wouldn’t be nearly as humiliating for the huge, clumsy stallions who thought they could tussle with Equestria’s best flyer in the air.

Just in case, she ducked her head down to fetch the little portable lightning spear Chance had given her, holding it in her mouth, tongue resting on the trigger button. A normal lightning spear would never get through the Royal Guard’s armor, but this one somehow formed a zap two inches from the spear’s tip through some weird moon magic that even Twilight hadn’t understood. She could keep it entirely inside her mouth if she wanted to surprise some pony… she wasn’t doing that, but she could have.

Before she knew it, she was on top of them, and oh my Celestia did those spears and wing blades look sharp! A shiver of fear ran through her – no, no, not fear. Tactical concern. But it was too late to change tactics, all she could do was –

--over in seconds. Behind her, lightning crackled from the tumbling Guards she’d tagged with her lightning-spear in passing, arcing from pony to pony, mostly deflected by the armor but blinding every pony and sending the whole formation into disarray. Rainbow fell, inverted, and waggled one wing, then the other, to reassure herself that she hadn’t lost anything important. Her tail wasn’t important, and she still had the fleshy part. The rest would grow back. And that slash on her side was already freezing over.

Ponyfeathers, that had been a stupid stunt. Awesome, but stupid.

Derpy came tumbling out of the cluster-buck a few seconds later, crackling with lightning like the mother of all thunderclouds, and was she shooting lightning bolts at the guards with punches and kicks from all four hooves, like some sort of kung-fu thunderbird? Yes. Yes she was. That girl was crazy with the lightning. Good to see her using her powers for good for once.

Rainbow waited for Derpy to form up with her, then went back to her power-dive. A few of the guard peeled off to follow them, but a tail-chase was just a race, and no pony out-raced Rainbow Dash!

It looked like the bulk of the enemy were still heading for the moon, though. They were definitely going to arrive before it was time to launch the Here to Help. Could Twilight really hold off the entire Royal Guard? Rainbow grinned. Of course she could. That girl was a monster.

===

Tess grumbled as the screen she was trying to repair still showed static. “It looks like Pinkie’s moon-sculpting managed to knock loose three of our probes, but I’m still getting a signal from the fourth,” she explained, when Pinkie and Twilight looked up from their own work to see what was wrong. “I just can’t get this piece of junk to decode it. It’s like everything that was connected to anything that Derpy touched is permanently broken.”

“She tends to have that effect,” Twilight said, turning back to the tiny bathroom mirror she was trying to remember how to enchant. “Maybe I’ll remember enough of my captromancy class to get this working before you,” she said, levitating the ‘grease pencil’ to write another sequence of runes around the edge of the mirror.

“So they teach how to make those magic mirrors in magic school?” Tess asked. “It’s not a lost art?”

“It’s an obscure art,” Twilight replied, concentrating on the runes. Was it ‘A-C-T-A’ or ‘A-T-C-A’ as the base sequence for the refractory compensation spell?

“Why?” Tess asked. “They seem incredibly useful. A pair of them could let two ponies talk to each other across an arbitrary distance, and they don’t even have to be permanently linked.”

“Modern safety regulations require an enchanted mirror to be completely destroyed no later than twenty four hours after first use,” Twilight recited. “That makes it an expensive hobby.”

Tess poked at something inside the screen she was working on with a screwdriver, and sparks flew out of the access panel. She hissed in slight frustration. “The mirrors in the moon city were still working just fine after thousands of years.”

Twilight laughed. “I think the safety regulations might be a little overzealous.” She frowned, looking at the machine Tess was working on. “Was that lightning?”

“Kind of,” Tess said. “Everything on the ship runs on electricity, which is… you probably know what it is since there’s a word for it. Right?”

“Oh!” Twilight said. “I thought it might have been Derpy’s fault. She’s always been bad with lightning, and if she infected all your little machines with lightning, that could explain why they aren’t working. But if it was supposed to do that, then maybe I was just jumping to conclusions.”

“No, it wasn’t supposed to do that,” Tess said. “If it was infected with lightning, how would I fix it?”

“Well, if it already had lightning – sorry, ‘electricity’ -- inside it, then it’s probably not ‘infected with lightning’ so much as that the electricity was accidentally stabilized for transport, like a pegasus-made cloud is stabilized mist,” Twilight said, considering the problem. “So, the best solution would be to get a pegasus to kick it.”

“We’re kind of out of pegasi,” Tess noted.

“Do you have a cloud-kicking spell?” Pinkie Pie asked, not looking up from her own mirror. She’d been staring into it for a while, as if she could turn it into a magic mirror through sheer force of will. To be fair, she’d had exactly as much success that way as Twilight had had with her magic.

Twilight shrugged, and her horn glowed for a few seconds. With a snap, a purple aura flashed around Tess, then faded. “Try that.”

“Ask next time?” Tess said, staring at her feet and wiggling her toes, then at her hands since the aura had covered her whole body. She looked up at the still static-filled screen, and smacked it firmly on the side. There was a snap, and a blue flash, and she pulled her hand back, hissing in pain, but the screen did clear up, showing a familiar view of the planet below.

“Yay!” Pinkie Pie said.

“Crap,” Tess said, leaning closer, then zoomed in on a small section of the screen. “Are those what I think they are?”

Pinkie Pie and Twilight crowded around her screen. “Do you think they’re a bunch of pigeons?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Because they’re not. See the little spears?”

“It’s the Royal Guard,” Twilight said, eyes wide. “The whole Royal Guard! Or at least, all the pegasi. Oh, I hope Rainbow and Derpy got past them safely.”

Tess stared at them for a few seconds, then shrugged. “I don’t think spears are going to get through the hull. We might be able to just sit tight and ignore them.”

“That many pegasi could carry the Here to Help back to Canterlot with them,” Twilight said. “Or drop it in a volcano!” she added when Pinkie seemed to be considering that option.

“Right. Because hauling weight is easier than lifting it,” Tess said, with a scowl. “And it’s not like they won’t guess where we’re hiding – the ship sticks out like a sore thumb even if it didn’t have a giant ramp pointing to it. Where else would they even look for us?”

“I think I have an idea,” Pinkie Pie said. “But it might need a little help from Twilight.”

===

Sharp Wing strained his aching muscles as he led his guards up past the edge of the moon. They hadn’t been surprised by the moon’s quick motion – they’d mostly matched lateral velocity about an hour ago – but the brief tussle with those two targets had put them off schedule just enough to make the home-stretch a struggle. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw pegasus after pegasus slam into the sloped, dusty plain, unable to keep aloft any longer. Soon enough, it was his turn, and he gave a silent grunt as he tried to keep his feet under him to cushion the impact.

After his bones stopped aching and his ears stopped ringing, he waggled his wings in Modified Military Horse Code, to order the rest of his guard to form up for a roll call. Eighty eight left. That was actually pretty good, considering they’d had to make a twenty four hour flight straight up, then fight a battle against a pair of insane lightning-throwing quasi-pony monsters at the end of it! And he knew at least half of the missing twelve were only absent because they’d turned to chase Rainbow Dash – their first priority was securing the moon cannon, but keeping up the pressure on Twilight’s cohorts was probably worth peeling off a squad, even if, in the chaos, he hadn’t had a chance to actually give the order.

It occurred to him that this was where Shining Armor would give an inspiring speech, but buck that to Tartarus. No pony was going to be inspired by horse code. “Let’s go,” he signaled, “spread out and signal if you see anything suspicious.”

The guards took off, and skimmed the surface of the moon, dodging past the strange statues and dioramas that made up the hidden landscape of Luna’s celestial body. It wasn’t long before one of the scouts near the edge of the flock signaled, and soon most of the guard was gathered around a swirling circle of brilliant lights, like a swarm of fireflies hovering over a random spot near the top of a strangely out-of-place, normal-looking hill sitting innocently amidst the endless statue garden. Sharp Wing ordered one of the rookies to fly into the swarm, and sure enough, he vanished – and reappeared a few seconds later. They’d found the entrance!

Some pony else signaled about a strange building farther up, at the very top of the moon, so Sharp Wing sent a squad to check it out, but it was obvious that this teleport ring was the real prize.

===

-Well, it looks like most of them fell for it,- Chance sent, from his hastily chosen hiding place underneath the ship.

-Where have you been?- Tess demanded.

-I’ve been looking for stuff we want to take with us that was lying around outside, since we’re leaving tomorrow,- he replied.

-Right. Gathering moondust. I should have known. Well, the camera’s still derped, so I guess you can fill in. How bad is it?-

-Looks like six,- he replied. -I could take them all out before they knew what was happening, but the other eighty would notice, and some of them probably know enough about snipers not to glide over slowly in plain view like these idiots.-

-Also, the locals would go ballistic if you started killing ponies.-

-Yeah,- Chance said, -and it would be wrong.- After a pause, he shared a laugh with Tess. -Seriously, what’s the plan?-

-Aren’t you the captain?- Tess asked.

-And here I thought it was Pinkie Pie,- Chance replied. -I thought all of you in there might have an overall plan, since you did that thing with the lights without consulting me.-

It was kind of spur of the moment,- Tess said. -I think the rest of the plan is to sit tight and hope they give up and go get lost in the moon city. They’re probably not going to get through the hull with spears and hooves, but if they worked together they could screw up our launch.-

-So basically, don’t get caught or call attention to myself. -

-Yeah,- Tess said. -Is that really so much to ask?-

-But it’s boring,- Chance whined.

===

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all! The guards were catching up, and it wasn’t just because she was dragging along Derpy. The spin-vortex she’d created to give her companion more of a boost was a bit of a drag, but even if she’d decided to throw Derpy to the wolves, those overgrown stallions would still have been overtaking her. Her! Rainbow Dash!

It was all space’s fault. The guards’ giant wings gave them extra thrust, and the advantage Rainbow would normally have from her smaller cross section didn’t matter since there was no air resistance. It didn’t help that the Royal Guard was an elite unit that had its pick of the best stallions in Equestria for its ranks, and that these six had probably been selected from among them as the ones to chase down the fastest flier in the universe, but those were fair advantages. The space thing was the cheating part.

There was also the wound in her side, which kept breaking open and bleeding, and was making that wing a little stiff. Also a total cheat – Derpy got through untouched, so one of them must have gotten awfully lucky to lay a wing on Rainbow.

Well, if she couldn’t outrun them, she was going to have to kick some Royal Buttheads, preferably in the face. She could take them, there were only six armed and armored, highly trained soldiers. She had a black belt in kung fu! Did they have black belts? No! They were gold-plated, jewel-encrusted and enchanted armored belts. And the miniature lightning-spear – their spears didn’t have any lightning, just razor-sharp steel tips and an extra three feet of reach.

She also had the little mouth-held ray gun that Chance had forced her to take, but there weren’t any chariots or doors to zap. She considered trying to blast their spears or something, but there was too much risk she’d accidentally hit one of them. She didn’t know what being zapped by a little ray gun would do to a pegasus, but she was pretty sure it would scar her and Derpy for life if they ever found out. So, yeah, that was staying in its holster.

Which left hoof, hoof, hoof, hoof, and lightning-spear. She spread her wings to brake, and flipped to face the guards. “Let’s do this!” she mumbled around her weapon, not that any pony could hear her in space anyway.

The guards spread their own wings, and slowed down, pacing her.

“What’s wrong? Not stallion enough to hit a filly?” she snapped at them, pointlessly, since no pony could hear her.

That was when she noticed that all their eyes had been replaced by little pink hearts. Right. That.

“Good going, Twilight,” Rainbow said to herself. “Way to ruin my fun.”

===

“HA HA HA HA HA! The Great and Powerful Trixie greets her future friends and comrades! With Trixie as your leader, nothing shall stop the power of Harmony!” Fireworks shot into the air, as the starry-cloaked mare reared up dramatically onto her hind legs.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Rarity said to Shining Armor, as Fluttershy cowered behind Applejack.

“You asked if we knew any unicorns whose special talent was magic,” Applejack said, scowling. “You could have mentioned what you were planning to do with ‘em.”

“We need to replace the missing Elements of Harmony,” Shining Armor said to the assembled ponies. “Trixie will stand for the element of magic, and Cherry Berry here will be the new element of laughter.”

The hot pink, yellow-maned earth pony looked a bit overwhelmed by the revelation. “I’m not sure I really want in on the craziness these ponies always get sucked into,” she said. Shining Armor glowered at her. “But it beats getting dragged to the moon in a pegasus-powered death-trap!” she added quickly. “I know some great jokes, don’t worry,” she said to the others. “This mule and this donkey were trapped on a desert island…”

“Later,” Shining Armor said, cutting her off. “And I, of course, will represent Loyalty.”

“Uh huh,” Applejack said. “What exactly are you bein’ loyal too now, by forcing every pony to turn on Twilight?”

“I’m loyal to many things,” Shining Armor said. “My oath and my honor, first of all. The Principality of Equestria. The princesses. And then, my family. We need to stop Twily, but I refuse to see it as a betrayal! The longer this goes on, the worse things will be for her.”

“I notice ‘your friends’ wasn’t very high on that list,” Applejack said. “You do know those trinkets you’re carrying work on friendship, right?”

“Not to mention that… incident with the Changelings,” Rarity said.

“I was mind-controlled!” Shining Armor yelled, stomping a hoof. “That doesn’t count!”

Fluttershy squeaked, and buried her face in one of her wings.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie senses a few neighsayers spreading discord among the new Elements of Harmony!” Trixie proclaimed, interposing herself between Shining Armor and Rarity. “Fear not! For Trixie has studied the writings of the former element of magic, Twilight Sparkle, and concocted a plan.”

“Does this plan involve finding a new element of magic that we don’t already intensely dislike?” Rarity asked. “Perhaps one who can refer to herself in the first person?”

“It does not!” Trixie replied, tossing her mane imperiously. “In order to turn hatred into harmony, there is only one solution. Trixie and her new best friends must have… a sleepover!” Fireworks shot into the air to punctuate her revelation.

Rarity and Applejack looked at each other. “Eh,” Applejack said, “Couldn’t hurt.”

22: Escape From Ponyville

From her cave near the mountain’s peak, high above Canterlot, Princess Luna watched over the night. The glittering domes of her little ponies’ frantic efforts to face the newest menace, phantom though it might be, dimmed her night-vision and made it hard for her to keep track of Celestia’s preparations to further sully her moon.

But there – a falling star, over the Everfree. A ring of rainbow light spreading from its wake. An explosion of pastels, forming into a luminescent mushroom of titanic size…

Her guards, previously content to stand silent behind her, launched into the air, heading towards the distant impact site. She knew better than to try to stop them.

===

Rainbow Dash woke up to some pony poking her in the belly. “Quit it,” she grumbled, curling up in a tighter ball. The hoof moved up to her wing, and spread it to full extension. Rainbow opened one eye, and saw one of Luna’s creepy night guards. “I’m fine!” she snapped, hopping to her feet and averting her gaze. This quickly turned into a look around – she was in a large, shallow crater of exposed dirt, surrounded by downed trees and shredded underbrush.

“Pegasi are really fascinating,” said the night guard, her voice familiar somehow. “Do you know how fast you were going when you hit the ground?”

“Derpy!” Rainbow Dash said, flying up into the air and looking around for other ponies, or craters, but it was still dark and she couldn’t see much. She looked down at the night guard. “Is she okay? And, um, those other guys that were with me?”

“Only found you,” the night guard said, looking back up at her. She quickly averted her gaze. “Hey! What gives!”

“Sorry,” Rainbow Dash said, looking away. “Twilight decided to ‘help’ me by giving me a gaze attack, and these goggles don’t do anything to block it.” She cautiously looked towards the night guard again. “Your voice seems familiar.”

“I’m the girl of your dreams,” the night guard said, with a snort. “You know Chance, right? Did he ever mention Warp?”

“Couple times,” Rainbow said. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

“And you’re supposed to be consumed by hatred,” Warp retorted. “You said you had others with you, right? Derpy, and who else?”

“Bunch o’ guards I charmed,” Rainbow said. “Ponyfeathers, I hope they just bounced off the compression wave. I don’t even know how fast we were coming in, it was just one second it’s a tiny planet way below us and the next second, boom. Rainboom.”

“I’ll find them,” Warp said. “You go do… whatever you were planning to do.”

“I’ve gotta make a big squishy pile of clouds for Twilight to land on,” Rainbow Dash said. “To land your ship on.”

Warp paused, facing away from Rainbow. “That’s – you really don’t know how fast you were going, do you.”

“Way too fast?” Rainbow Dash said. “We don’t have any better idea, and they can’t stay up there forever, not with the guards hassling them.”

Warp closed her eyes, calculating. “The moon’s a thousand miles up… ponies are a bit tougher than baselines… 100 Gs should be survivable for a few seconds. You’ll want at least 10 miles of clouds. Thicker is better. Right up to the edge of the atmosphere if you can.”

“10 miles? Thick?” Rainbow Dash said, dismayed. “I was just going to lay down a normal thunderhead. That’s, like, five miles.”

Warp shook her head. “200 Gs is probably not survivable. You’ll need really dense clouds to give that much deceleration, too, not to mention surviving the shockwave from their atmospheric reentry. How are you planning on calibrating the cloud density?”

“Cally-what?”

“Let me use small words,” she said. “This plan of yours is not going to work, because you don’t know what you’re doing.”

“Then tell me what to do!” Rainbow Dash demanded as the night guard flew off. “If you’re so smart,” she added quietly, to the darkness.

===

Warp wasn’t the only one looking for Rainbow Dash in the forest. Search parties of earth ponies and unicorns, mostly locals but led by Royal Guards, tramped through the forest, shooting magical lights up into the trees and beating the bushes with rakes and pitchforks. Fortunately for Rainbow Dash, their task was just about hopeless – this was the Everfree Forest, and the dense branches and scattered ravines and gullies made staying out of sight trivial, at least for a pegasus.

“Can you believe Rainbow Dash is evil now?” asked one of the Ponyville locals as his party passed Rainbow’s latest hiding place.

“She’s always been a bit off, you know?” another replied. “Remember that time she thought she was a superhero, and tried to take down Mare-Do-Well because she didn’t want competition? She’d do anything for attention. I’m surprised she didn’t plaster her cutie mark on the moon while she was up there.”

“Well, she’s got all the attention in Equestria now,” the first said. “I hope she chokes on it.”

Suddenly, Rainbow Dash’s plan of flying over to her friends’ houses and asking for help didn’t seem quite as sure-fire. Could Ponyville really turn on her that easily? A few dozen square miles of glassed desert, one defaced celestial body, and a proclamation from Princess Celestia, and suddenly she was the bad guy?

Well, there was one pony she knew would be there for her no matter what.

===

“Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash said quietly, tapping on the quiet pegasus’ bedroom window. She didn’t want to startle her. “Fluttershy, wake up. I need your help – do you still have that old Mare-Do-Well costume? And, um, maybe a bandage for this cut, I’m feeling a little dizzy.”

There was no answer, so she carefully opened the window and floated inside. The bed was empty. “Oh, ponyfeathers. They couldn’t have recruited Fluttershy,” she complained, kicking a pillow across the room.

She turned to check the closet, and the pillow flew back across the room and hit her on the back of the head. “Hey!” she snapped, turning to face… that. Bunny. She narrowed her eyes. “Angel.”

Angel glowered back at her, tossing a deadly-looking carrot in one paw, getting ready to throw… and then his eyes rolled up into his head, and were replaced by tiny pink hearts.

“Ha!” Rainbow Dash said, turning back to the closet. Sure enough, there was Fluttershy’s Mare-Do-Well costume. Since three different ponies had been masquerading as the mysterious superhero, it was designed to completely obscure the pony that wore it. It was perfect! No pony would know who she was in that. She grabbed the hanger in her mouth, and – something grabbed on to her hind leg, and she yelped as she was flung roughly onto the bed. She sat up, only to find herself slammed back onto the matress by a small white rabbit landing on her chest.

“Angel, stop it!” Rainbow Dash said. “Aren’t you supposed to do what I -- ow!” A carrot slapped her face harder than she would have expected from a creature Angel’s size. “What are you – ow!” The carrot slapped her other cheek. “You little vermin! I’m going to mmmph!” This time, her rant was interrupted by Angel flinging himself at her muzzle and pressing his tiny rabbit mouth onto hers.

The plaster of the wall cracked as the rabbit slammed into it at high speed. “No means – eep!” Rainbow tossed the superhero costume at the white blur heading right for her face, and vanished out the window without looking to see if it hit.

===

Rainbow’s cloud-house was a lost cause. Some pony had dragged it down to the ground, and three local ponies wearing the same half-assed military uniform as the ponies in the search parties were probably supposed to be guarding it, although they were really just kind of standing around chatting. One of them was Sparkler, though, who’d never really liked her, and had the sort of flashy magic that would definitely attract the attention of the Royal Guards if she spotted Rainbow creeping about.

…unless she took Sparkler out first.

Right. Because it totally made sense to knock out three of her neighbors just so she could pick up a first-aid kit and some sunglasses. She limped over to Rarity’s place instead, only to find it occupied by an army of amateur seamstresses sewing giant parachutes or something. What. The. Hay? She was desperate enough to grab some scraps of cloth from the edge of the lit area and tie them around herself as a bandage, though. Bucking guards, using real, sharpened spears. What were they thinking? Were they trying to kill her?

She closed her eyes and replayed the ‘fight’ in her mind. At the time, she hadn’t really been thinking about anything – if she wasn’t ‘in the zone’ she never would have been able to thread that maze. But the guard who’d scratched her, yeah. He’d moved his spear to try to get her to impale herself. She would have died. And then what would Twilight have done? Derpy couldn’t even manage to land properly.

And those search parties, beating the Everfree? Even in force, going into the Everfree was dangerous. Some pony was going to get hurt.

“Raindrops,” Rainbow Dash muttered to herself as she skulked through the alleyways. “I just need to find Raindrops, and get this damn double-tall super-dense thunderstorm built, and then I can go talk to Celestia and get her to stop putting ponies at risk for no reason.”

Somehow, she found herself back at her grounded cloud-house. Well. There was one way to get the search parties out of the Everfree Forest. She stepped forwards, towards the ‘guards’. Time Turner looked up, and just sort of stared at her stupidly, and Sparkler, whose back was turned, was so busy talking about how to match gemstones for earrings that she didn’t even notice. Ugh.

Rainbow Dash reached for her lightning spear, but the holster was empty, Nightmare take it. Oh well, it wouldn’t be as awesome as knocking out her companions before they could react, but it’d get the job done. “Hey, Sparkler!”

All three guards turned to stare at her.

“What did you do to my house?” Rainbow Dash complained, limping towards them, with her eyes slitted mostly shut and pointed at the ground. “If you get dirt in the rainbow pools I’ll have to rebuild them from scratch!”

“What have you done with Ditzy!” Time Turner demanded.

“Um… she headed back days ago,” Rainbow Dash said, walking towards them slowly. “Is she still missing? I bet that featherbrain got lost again.” Or got creamed on re-entry, just like Derpy and the Royal Guards DEFINITELY HAD NOT BEEN because that’s not a thing that ever happened, darn it.

“This is a trick,” Sparkler said, backing away from Rainbow. “She’s trying to distract us. You two, check around back!” Time Turner didn’t seem too happy about those orders, but soon it was just Sparkler and Rainbow.

“What do you want?” Sparkler hissed, in a whisper. “And what are you thinking, showing yourself like this? I’m going to have to send up a flare or they’ll know I’m on your side.”

“Um…” Rainbow Dash said, a bit taken aback. “I need to know where Raindrops is, so I can gather the weather team,” she whispered back. “And I need you to send up a flare so the search parties will get the buck out of the Everfree before some pony gets eaten by a manticore.”

“All the pegasi are out at Sweet Apple Acres, along with a bunch of farmers and guard unicorns, making Jelly Jars to assault the moon,” Sparkler whispered. “It’s Royal Guard central! I know that’s not going to stop you, though.” Rainbow Dash grinned. “Just don’t go in the barn, okay?” Sparkler added.

“What’s in the barn?”

Sparkler grimaced. “Celestia’s secret weapon.”

“I thought I was Celestia’s secret weapon,” Rainbow Dash replied, smirking.

Sparkler shook her head. “Not anymore.”

Rainbow Dash was a block away by the time the flares went up. By the time they burst into rainbow-colored fireworks, she was halfway to Sweet Apple Acres.

===

“Truth!” Cherry Berry said eagerly, almost bouncing off the ground. Trixie was going through the motions almost as awkwardly as Twilight herself would have, and Shining Armor was sullenly letting himself get sidelined, but the new element of laughter seemed to be doing her best to recapture Pinkie Pie’s energy. Even if all her jokes were terrible.

Fluttershy, still picking bits of hay out of her mane from her last dare, looked at the ground for a bit, then said, quietly, as every pony leaned close, “Do you hate me?”

“Why would I hate you?” Cherry Berry asked. “I mean, it’s not like you somehow have way more friends than I ever could, even though you do your best to avoid every pony, and without even trying you got your picture in all the magazines and went on tour as a model in Canterlot and Manehattan, got to go to the Grand Galloping Gala, and even performed at the royal wedding, while the only exposure I can get is amateur night at the Hoof and Tackle. It’s not like you and your friends pretended to work for cousin Jubilee and ruined two days’ harvest with your horseplay. Or do you mean the time you upended my wagon and covered me in garbage because you were too lazy to fly over the river?”

“Um… mostly the last one,” Fluttershy said quietly, wilting before the cheerful pink and yellow pony, and looking like she was about to cry.

“Naaah, I don’t hatecha,” Cherry Berry said, smiling. “You elements give me some of my best material.”

“It’s us elements now, CeeBee,” Applejack said, giving her a friendly shove on her shoulder.

“’We’ elements,” Rarity corrected.

“I’m so glad,” Fluttershy said, smiling softly at Cherry. “I hurt so many ponies that day, I could never make it up to all of them, so I’ve just been trying to avoid them, and I don’t even remember every pony I was mean to, so I’ve mostly been avoiding every pony, and…” she trailed off into little squeaks, and it looked like she was about to cry again.

Cherry Berry grinned at her, then turned to Trixie. “Trixie! Truth or Dare!”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie chooses to perform a Dare! And furthermore, Trixie shall far exceed your specifications, no matter what task you set!”

“You should dare her to speak in the first person,” Rarity said, one eye twitching.

Cherry Berry imitated Trixie’s pose and diction, although her Manehattan accent kind of got in the way. “The Kind and Generous Cherry Berry dares the Great and Powerful Trixie to cover Fluttershy in garbage!”

“A trivial task!” Trixie proclaimed, horn glowing as a rope uncoiled from the hayloft and wrapped itself around Fluttershy, pinning her wings and tying her legs, then lifting her off the ground. The pegasus started to squeal, only to have her muzzle tied shut as well. The rope swung back and forth, then unwound itself from around her as it tossed her through a window, her thin scream cutting off suddenly as she splashed down in the pig pen outside. There were squeals and grunts from the surprised pigs, and a soft whimpering from the shy pegasus.

“Nice,” Cherry Berry said to Trixie. Then to the rest of them, “See? Now we’re even. No reason for her to be afraid of me anymore.”

Applejack stared at the two of them. “I don’t think it works that way, sugarcube,” she said, heading for the door to go see if Fluttershy needed any help.

“Rarity!” Trixie proclaimed, a huge smirk on her muzzle, and an evil glint in her eye. “Truth… or dare?”

23: Mirrors and Zombies

“Ow!” Rainbow Dash said, rubbing her cheek where she was pretty sure Raindrops had just left a hoofprint.

“You threw an apple at my head,” Raindrops said. “And the Princess says you’re trying to take over Equestria. You’d better have a good excuse for this.” The blue and yellow pegasus had Rainbow pinned to the ground under the apple tree she’d been lurking in, spying on every pony.

“It’s all a huge misunderstanding,” Rainbow Dash said. “You know I’d never turn my back on Equestria. But I’m not about to turn my back on Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie either, so I need your help. You and the whole weather team.”

“For what?” Raindrops said, glowering. The glower was somewhat ineffective since Rainbow Dash was refusing to look her in the eye.

“A double-tall, super-dense thunderstorm, in the mountains north of here. Twilight and Pinkie are going to land a building on it. From space.” Rainbow Dash grinned. “It’s going to be awesome!”

“I’m pretty sure that’s treason,” Raindrop said.

“Nah, just going AWOL,” Rainbow said. “Pretend I didn’t tell you why I need the thunderstorm. I’ll dye my fur or something so you can say you didn’t know it was me.”

“Rainbow, they’re taking this seriously. Those kind of hijinks aren’t going to work.”

“Fine then,” Rainbow Dash said. “It’s treason. Worst comes to worst, we all get our heads chopped off or something.” She rolled her eyes – no pony had actually gotten the death penalty since the pre-classical era. “That’s still better than going up in one of those death traps. I mean, you know the Jelly Jar didn’t work, right?”

“It got you to the moon,” Raindrops pointed out.

“After nearly killing us half a dozen times!” Rainbow said. “Without Pinkie and Twilight, we’d never have made it. I mean, for Pony’s sake, you’re using ropes for a harness, and I don’t see anything like a sun-shield. These don’t even have ovens.”

Raindrops frowned.

“Look,” Rainbow Dash said. “Every pony you’d be going up there to arrest is coming down off the moon tomorrow night. No pony in Equestria is going to miss the re-entry – it’ll be way flashier than mine was, and I made a freaking Rainboom! There’s going to be an army waiting to arrest Twilight and Pinkie no matter what – all I’m asking you to do is make it so they find the two of them alive and in one piece, and not spread in tiny pieces all over the landscape. Maybe you’re disobeying orders, but there’s no way it’s treason.”

“I’m pretty sure it still is,” Raindrops said.

“Look, I’ll even turn myself in, if you help – you know they’d never catch me if I don’t,” Rainbow Dash said. “PLEASE! I can’t do this without you. I don’t even know how to calibrate the cloud density – you’re the pony with all the freaky cloud math!”

“I hate you so much,” Raindrops said, gritting her teeth. “Why are you always doing this? How am I supposed to know I can trust you?”

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a –“ Rainbow Dash started, but Raindrops cut her off.

“I don’t think a Pinkie Pie swear is going to cut it, since she’s one of the enemy,” she said. “Make a Cherry Berry swear.”

“A – huh?”

“She’s the new element of laughter. We’re not supposed to know but they were talking about it when they walked past us,” Raindrops said. “That means she should be able to enforce oaths.”

“I don’t know,” Rainbow Dash said. “Pinkie Pie was doing Pinkie Pie swears way before she was ever the element of laughter. And what the hay is a Cherry Berry swear anyway? Do you know the words?”

Raindrops grumbled, and shook her head.

Rainbow Dash looked up at the faint glow of the moon just visible through the winter cloud-cover. “How about, with Luna as my witness, I swear that I’m not planning to hurt Equestria or any pony living here, and that what I’m asking your help with is something I really need to do to save my friends’ lives, and that we’ll all turn ourselves in after every pony’s safe on the ground.”

Through a small break in the clouds, a thin moonbeam illuminated the pair. Both of them shivered, and fled farther into the shadows of the orchard. Luna was a great princess and all, but that face on the moon was creepy.

===

Twilight’s mirror exploded. Again.

She sighed, and cast a mending spell to put it back together. “I hope Tess is done fixing the computers soon. This is going nowhere.” Pinkie Pie continued to stare into her own mirror, intently. “At this rate, you’re going to make a magic mirror before I do!”

“Oh, I’m not making a magic mirror, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, giggling. “I mean, I’m not a unicorn. I’m just waiting for mirror-pinkie to mess up and give away that she’s not really me, and then I can get her to do whatever I want.”

“I think that only works with magic mirrors, Pinkie,” Twilight said. “You can’t warp an ordinary mirror. It’s just reflecting light.”

“You say that,” Pinkie Pie said, “but I’ve got mirror-Pinkies stashed all over Ponyville.”

“In case of a mirror emergency?” Twilight asked, with a chuckle.

“Nah, mostly it’s to keep an eye on ponies who break Pinkie promises,” Pinkie Pie said. “Although it’s helped me chase down Rainbow Dash a couple times.” Her face fell. “Oh, don’t tell her how I do it, Twilight! It’s so much fun to see her freak out!”

Twilight suddenly looked nervous. “That Pinkie Pie in the mirror, when I broke my promise to Spike last year --“

“Yeeeesss?” Pinkie Pie asked leaning towards her.

“That wasn’t a hallucination, then.”

“Nope!” the pink pony replied, closing her eyes and looking smug.

“They can’t… they can’t come out of the mirrors, can they?” Twilight asked, pulling back a few inches.

Pinkie Pie rested her chin on a hoof, and went, “Hmmm…. you know, I never thought of that! I mean, a mirror’s a window, and not a door, but Rainbow Dash goes through windows all the time. It usually breaks the windows, though – I’d have to figure out how to open them…”

Twilight whimpered.

“Just kidding!” Pinkie Pie said, giggling. “They can’t come out. Not without magic, anyway, and I don’t have any magic because I’m just an earth pony. I guess one of them could ask the mirror-Twilight to let them out, but she’d probably just give a lecture about how dangerous mirrors are if she believed me at all. And every pony else always just says I’m ‘being Pinkie’, whatever that means.” She rolled her eyes.

“You probably shouldn’t have told me this,” Twilight Sparkle said, looking around nervously, and setting her own mirror face down on the ground. “What if the mirror image Twilights were just reacting the way I’d react, and now they’ll all believe you because you told me how it worked?”

“Let’s try it out!” Pinkie Pie said, setting her mirror face up on the floor between the two of them. She pointed a hoof at Twilight, and commanded, “Ensign Sparkle! Teleport me out of this mirror world, and into the real world through this mirror!”

“What?” Twilight said.

“I mean, you don’t think we’re the real Pinkie Pie and Twilight Sparkle, do you? We’re just images, and I’ve been playing along with the real Pinkie Pie because I don’t want to have to do her stupid chores. But now you trust me about the mirrors, right? Because I told you how they work and ruined everything? So let’s leave this mirror world and go play with the real us!”

“What?” Twilight said, looking down at the mirror, which remained an ordinary mirror.

“Huh,” Pinkie Pie said, staring at Twilight, then pacing around her to look at her from different sides. “I guess I was wrong. You’re not lecturing me at all! You’re just sitting there going ‘what’.”

“What?!” Twilight said, standing up and turning to face her, one rear hoof slipping as she stepped on her own mirror, cracking it. Reflexively, she cast the mending spell to put it back together as she set her hoof somewhere more stable.

Pinkie Pie giggled, and kissed Twilight on the nose while she was too distracted to dodge.

“Wait,” said Twilight, eyes focusing on Pinkie’s face. “I get it. Since the mirror isn’t warped, you were play-acting here to get the mirror-Pinkie to ask the mirror-Twilight the same thing, and see how she’d react.”

“That, or we really are the mirrors. How would you tell?” Pinkie Pie asked.

“How would I tell?” Twilight asked right back. “You obviously know how to tell, if you can get your mirror-Pinkies to do tasks for you.”

“Well, duh, of course I know,” Pinkie Pie said, rolling her eyes. “I always know exactly how real I am. How else would I be able to make mirror-me mess up? If we were exactly the same pony, then even if I was being totally random we’d be random together.”

“Exactly how real?” Twilight asked. “Do I want to know what that means?”

“Nope!” Pinkie Pie said. “But I’ll tell you anyway. I’m the most real Pinkie I’ve ever seen, but this isn’t the realest reality there is. There’s a few more notches on the scale.”

Twilight frowned. “So, what – Chance is right, and this is all some sick pony’s game?”

“Maaaybe?” Pinkie Pie said, shrugging.

“Or –“ Twilight said, eyes going wide in a panic. “I’m still petrified! I failed the final test, and I’m just a statue of a little filly in Celestia’s statue garden! You’re the Pink Harbinger of Doom I set to remind me that I still haven’t been let out!”

Pinkie Pie giggled, then took a step back and laughed out loud. “Oh, that’s a good one Twilight! If this is your fantasy world, you have some serious problems,” she sniggered. “Although you are a bit of a Marey Sue.”

Twilight sighed. “I guess no pony can know for sure whether the world is real. Except you, apparently. So it’s just a special-case of skepticism.”

“No,” came Tess’ voice from the transmitter, startling both ponies who hadn’t realized she’d turned it on when she left to go ‘un-derp’ the rest of the ship, “it’s a perfectly ordinary case of skepticism.”

“I’m more interested in these ‘mirror-Pinkies’ you have working for you already,” Chance said. “You say they’re all over Ponyville? Do you have any way of communicating with them?”

“Yep!” Pinkie Pie said.

“And?” Chance prompted. “What’s happening down there?”

“No pony’s broken any Pinkie Pie promises, although a couple of them made new ones,” Pinkie Pie said. “Rainbow Dash almost made one but changed her mind at the last second.”

“…right.” Chance said, disappointed but not surprised.

===

Rarity laughed as she braided Shining Armor’s mane. “Imagine if Princess Mi Amore Cadenza could see you now,” she said, carefully weaving in the colorful ribbons. After all, just because he was the token colt present didn’t mean he got to skip the ‘makeover’ phase of the sleepover. After Trixie’s dare to dye her hair green, and Fluttershy’s dunk in the pig pen, it was obvious that Truth or Dare had run its course for the night.

“She’d probably giggle like a schoolfilly,” Shining Armor said. “She’s not one to take anything too seriously.”

“Sounds like my kinda gal,” Cherry Berry said. “Don’t suppose you two are looking for a third?”

Every pony stared. “Not any time soon,” Shining Armor said at last, looking least shocked of any pony. “We’ve only been married for a few months.”

“How about a court jester?” the pink and yellow pony offered.

Suddenly, the door burst open, and a pair of unicorn guards rushed inside, one turning to hold the doors closed with his magic while the other gave a terse report. “Captain, the pegasi are gone.”

“Gone how?” Shining Armor asked, standing up and looking back at him as seriously as a stallion could with his hair half-ribboned.

“Missing,” he elaborated. “Also, zombies.”

The barn door shuddered as somepony tried to buck it open. The second kick made the unicorn holding it closed strain and take a step back. Rarity stood up to offer her own magic in support, but before she could really get started, Shining Armor’s horn flashed, and a purple light washed over the barn, outlining the doors, walls, floor, and roof with a purple force field. “That should hold until next Tuesday,” he said, sitting back down. After a second, Rarity followed suit. “Now explain what’s going on.”

Applejack pounded her hooves against the force field covering the barn’s rear door. “Let me out! My family’s out there!”

Fluttershy continued to huddle on the floor in a tiny shivering ball.

“It started with the pegasi, sir,” the guard reported. “They were all whispering something to each other, arguing about something, and then they all flew off in a flock into the orchard. Shifty and Fog snuck off to keep an eye on them.”

“This isn’t funny! Let me out!” Applejack shouted, turning to buck the door ineffectively.

“What did they see?” Shining Armor asked, ignoring the commotion, along with the other pounding the force field was taking from all sides, as the zombies tried to break in through the doors and windows and even the walls.

“They didn’t say. A few minutes later they came back and ordered the whole Jelly Jar complement, including all the earth pony recruits, to follow them into the orchard for a counterstrike. Silver and me stayed back to guard the Jars and the Elements.”

“What elements?” Shining Armor asked, deadpan. The guards stared at him. “Never mind, go on.”

“NNNGH!” Applejack whirled around and hurled a huge, heavy hay bale into the force field, where it exploded into a cloud of drifting hay.

“Then about fifteen minutes after that, they all came back. Only they weren’t acting normal. They moved like they were in a daze, and started smashing the Jars –“

“What?!” Shining Armor said, shocked. “Do you know how much it cost to get those made on short notice?”

“The jars can be fixed,” Rarity said. “Glass isn’t quite my specialty, but it’s close enough for a mending spell.” She glanced at Applejack, who was sobbing as she slammed herself into the force field again. “Our concern should be the ponies trapped out there with those horrid undead!”

“They’re not really undead,” said the guard who hadn’t been talking. “It looks like some sort of mind-control enchantment.”

“Oh, my!” Rarity said, sitting up, alarmed. “Little pink hearts in their eyes?” The guards both nodded. “Well, then, we might as well get back to our sleepover. Would you two like to join us?”

“Rarity! How can you say that?” Applejack demanded, turning to glare at her. “Applebloom’s still out there somewhere!”

“Please, think, Applejack,” Rarity replied calmly. “If the ponies outside have been turned into… ‘zombies’… who do you think cast the spell responsible?”

“Well… Twi must have done it, I guess,” the farmpony admitted. “But she ain’t in her right mind!”

“She’s right,” Shining Armor said. “Twiley would never hurt any pony if she didn’t think she needed to. If she decides to take your family hostage, we’ll get a ransom note or some other form of demand before she harms any of them.”

Fluttershy squeaked, and Applejack’s eyes went wide. Rarity said in a quiet sing-song voice, “You’re not helping!”

Trixie, until now frozen in… indecision, took this moment to make herself known. “Then we must kidnap the orange pony’s sister before the zombie horde can get to them! Leave this up to the Great and Powerful Trixie, who – through months of harrowing ordeals to gather the knowledge and power of the great unicorns of old – has perfected the arcane art of teleportation!” There was a flash, and a cloud of smoke, and she was gone.

Shining Armor stared at the smoke. The guards looked over at him. “So… where did you send her?” one of them asked.

“The ward isn’t set to redirect teleportation,” Shining Armor said. “I thought we might need to use it to get away, and every pony in the guard knows better than to try to teleport through a security ward.”

“Security through obscurity!” Cherry Berry said, grinning. “Genius!”

“No,” Shining Armor said, “it’s not. And now I can’t put up a ward because we have to wait for Trixie to get back with Applebloom! If any pony saw her teleport out, we might be in big trouble. She knows how to be subtle, right?”

There was an overwhelming flash of light and sound and magic as thirty-eight zombies, half of them guard unicorns and the other half earth ponies coming along for the ride, teleported into the barn. Trixie’s unconscious body thumped at Shining Armor’s hooves.

“That would be a no,” Applejack said, bracing herself for a fight.

Cherry Berry looked up nervously at the heart-eyed stallions and mares surrounding her. “At least Applebloom is safe?”

24: Cherry and Trixie's Big Adventure

“So, Calibration,” Raindrops said, as she and Rainbow watched the weather team – and their small army of mind-controlled minions – start the slow process of coaxing a thunderhead out of the dry winter air. The moon had just set, and so supposedly the sun was rising, although they were still in the shadow of Canterlot. It was getting bright enough to see the snowy woodlands covering the mountainous terrain below them, at least.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said. “We should definitely add as much calibration as we can to make sure this works right.”

“Do you actually know what calibration means?” Raindrops asked.

“Um… sort of?” Rainbow Dash said. “Mostly I just know that we need lots of it, more than any pony thinks we could possibly do. But we’ll show them!”

Raindrops sighed, and pulled out a notepad she kept in her saddlebags. She swooped down to a nearby cloud and set the pad on her forehooves, taking a quill in her mouth. “Right. Let’s start with the basics. You said Twilight was going to drop a building off the moon. How big is the building?”

“Um… like… 200, 300 feet across?” Rainbow Dash said. “And circular like a frisbee. So the same both ways.”

Raindrops frowned, and wrote down a few scribbles. “How many stories?”

“Just one,” Rainbow said. “But it’s like 30 feet tall.”

“And are we talking brick? Stone? Wood?” the other pegasus asked, taking her best guess at what Rainbow meant.

“I’m not sure…” Rainbow Dash said. “It looked sort of like metal, but it was the wrong color, kind of whitish, but it didn’t look like paint. Pottery maybe? The inside was metal.”

Raindrops took some more notes. “And no air means no terminal velocity? Gravity goes all the way up?” When Rainbow Dash confirmed that, she spent a while on the math. “Huh. We can do this. Cutting it close, though. We’ll need to calibrate the buck out of this.”

”Great!” Rainbow Dash said, enthusiastically. “Let’s do that!”

“That means getting exact numbers for our estimates,” Raindrops said, patiently. “I need the weight and surface area of the building, and the coefficient of friction.”

“Oh, so that’s why he wrote those out on the smart paper,” Rainbow Dash said. “He should have told me it was important.” She shrugged as Raindrops stared at her. “I kind of lost it in the sonic rainboom, along with my awesome lightning spear. All I have left is this –“

“Do you think you can find it?” Raindrops asked.

“Um… no,” Rainbow Dash said. “But I think I know some pony who might know the answers.”

===

“Cock-a-doodle dooooo!” crowed the farm’s rooster. The strained rope creaked as the blue unicorn swung slowly back and forth from the noose hung from a bare branch of a great tree at the edge of the apple orchard. Since she’d been hung by her hind legs instead of her neck, the Great and Powerful Trixie’s eyes flew open, and her horn started to glow with a spell to free herself.

The mechanism clamped to her forehead whirred, and a tiny hammer slammed into her horn near the tip, painfully disrupting her spell before it could form. Her cry of pain attracted the attention of the two sleepy earth ponies standing nearby.

“Hey, it works!” said the blond-maned mare, standing up from her nap. “Try it again!”

The blond-maned, pink-haired mare, with cherries for a cutie mark.

Cherry Berry. With little pink hearts in her eyes.

The other pony, a blue colt, shook his head. “I wouldn’t try that if I were you. The smallest glint from your horn will trigger the clockwork, and then – bam!”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is not you,” she proclaimed proudly. “Trixie might have been surprised the first time, but channeling through a distraction is merely one of the – ow!”

Cherry Berry laughed. “That was great! Do it again!”

“Trixie will not!”

“Do it! Do it!” Cherry chanted, picking up a rake from the ground and approaching the trussed up magician, standing behind the other guard. “Dooooo it!” she said again, winking at Trixie.

“Look, miss,” the colt said, “repeated impacts have a small chance of causing horn fracture and –"

Trixie’s horn glowed -- whack went the hammer. This time, she didn’t cry out. Her eyes narrowed in concentration as she tried again, with no better luck.

“Stop!” the earth pony said. “I don’t want you to get hurt! Rainbow Dash told us not to let any of you get hurt!”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is an escape artist beyond compare! These pathetic bonds will not hold Trixie!” She lit up her horn again, her eyes widening frighteningly as the hammer disrupted her spell again.

“Are you insane? Are you trying to –“ whack went Cherry’s rake on the blue colt’s head. “What?” he said, dizzily, before another blow from behind took him down.

“So, yeah,” Cherry Berry said, spitting out the weapon. “I’m not a zombie. Get it?”

Trixie dropped to the ground, having wriggled out of the pathetic attempt at a noose, and landed face first in the snowdrift below her. “Your signal was sufficiently unsubtle. Can you remove this device?” she asked as she clambered to her feet. “Trixie does not appreciate abuse of Trixie’s horn. It is, after all, her second most valuable asset.”

Cherry fished in the unconscious colt’s saddlebag for a key, and soon the clockwork inhibitor dropped to the ground. “I guess you really didn’t need me to rescue you,” she said. “And here I thought I’d finally get my chance to save the day, after those Rainbow-eyed bubbleheads forgot I was with you guys. Oh well. Next time!”

The rope glowed with Trixie’s aura as it hogtied the erstwhile guard. “Trixie is grateful for your presence,” she said. “Fighting off two earth ponies without magic, while not a story for the ages, might have been a bigger headache than repeatedly triggering that infernal device while you took your sweet time.”

“Well, excuse me for never having hit any pony before,” Cherry said, pouting.

Trixie’s expression softened. “You are excused. This time,” she said, haughtily. She leaned close to Cherry Berry’s face, and stared into her eyes.

The pink pony blinked, and tried to step back, only for Trixie to follow her pace for pace. Finally, still looking confused, she gave the unicorn a little kiss. Trixie leapt back, startled.

“You’re not my type,” Cherry said, “but if you want to play the rescued prince…”

“Trixie was studying your eyes!” Trixie protested. “Rarity’s work, presumably?”

“Oh!” Cherry said. “Yeah, she really saved my tail. A couple of the zombies almost remembered I was with you guys but the eyes changed their mind.”

Trixie’s horn glowed, and her irises were replaced with pink hearts as she copied the spell.

Cherry looked uncertain about the disguise. “I guess it’s worth a try. I’d better bring the rake, though.”

Cherry led Trixie to a weird carrot-themed house on a hill overlooking the Apple family’s main buildings. A unicorn from the guard was on duty alongside a cream-colored earth pony with a striped mane. Both had pink hearts in their eyes. “Hey, Bonsy,” Cherry said. “Guess who decided to join the herd?”

Bon Bon looked at Trixie suspiciously. “Do we have to take her?”

“All hail Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in Equestria!” Trixie said, holding out a hoof.

“No, really,” Bon Bon said. “I was looking forward to using her as a piñata.”

“She’s going to convert the rest of the prisoners,” Cherry Berry said. “She knows a mind control spell that’ll make them fanatical followers of Rainbow Dash in ten seconds flat!”

“Mind control?” Bon Bon said, grimacing.

“That’s restricted magic,” the grey-coated guard said, narrowing his eyes and pointing his horn at Trixie. “Still, if it’s to protect Rainbow Dash, I guess I can look the other way. I’d better escort her, though. This might be a trick.”

“I’ve got a rake. Unicorn magic is no match for a good rake.” Cherry Berry said, indicating the tool slung over her back. “Besides, wouldn’t that be going a bit further than ‘looking the other way’?”

“He’s trying to take credit for my idea,” Trixie said. “Trixie is familiar with this maneuver, and insulted that he thinks he can steal the spotlight.”

The guard snorted, but stood at attention. “Fine.”

“Keep an eye on her, Cherry. I don’t trust her,” Bon Bon added as the pair went inside.

Cherry Berry cracked up as soon as the door closed. “Can you believe it? Sweet Celestia, they’re so stupid!”

“Who is?” asked yet another mind-controlled zombie from the kitchen. She was frying something, and the smell of hay and carrots filled the air.

“Um, those ponies from town who don’t follow Rainbow Dash,” Cherry said. “Shifty got them to run around in circles again.”

“Again?” the pony in the kitchen asked. “At this rate he’s going to win for sure.”

“Win?” Trixie asked.

“Yeah, didn’t she tell you? We’re competing to be Rainbow Dash’s special somepony! I wasn’t much use in the fight, but I’m going to pull ahead when she gets a whiff of Golden Harvest’s special carrot-hay-fries.” An orange pony with an oranger mane came out, carrying a small dish of orange and yellow slivers balanced on her head. Her eyes were little pink hearts, like every pony else’s. “Oh, it’s you. I guess I’d better tell you the rules anyway, even if I’d rather gouge out my own eyes than see you win.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is not interested in Rainbow Dash’s attentions. Trixie wishes merely to see Rainbow become the ruler of all Equestria!”

“False humility, eh? Well, I guess that’s something no pony else tried,” Golden Harvest said. Cherry grabbed the plate off her head and set it on a hoof to start eating. “The rules are, don’t hurt any pony --”

“Trixie was hurt!” Trixie protested.

“You were stunned. That doesn’t count,” Cherry said. “Or at least, Rainbow Dash didn’t appear in a puff of smoke to correct Shifty when he said it didn’t count after stunning every pony.”

“She said she’s watching and grading us, so she could have appeared if she’d needed to,” Golden said. “So it must be alright.”

“Trixie sees,” Trixie replied. “Continue.”

“Don’t hurt any pony, make sure to smash the stupid jelly jars before any pony gets hurt, and make sure the elements of harmony don’t interfere with Rainbow’s secret project,” Golden Harvest said. “And before you ask, none of us know what it is, since it’s a secret.”

“These are good, Carrot Top!” Cherry Berry said, finishing her plate.

Golden Harvest pouted. “Please don’t call me that Berry Punchline.”

Cherry giggled. “I’m not nearly drunk enough for that to work as a double entendre this time. C’mon, Trix, let’s go convert the others to the glory of Rainbow Dash!”

Trixie saluted again. “All hail the Rainbow!”

“We’ve got them stashed in the basement,” Cherry said, leading the way towards a set of stairs heading down into darkness. For Golden Harvest’s benefit, she added, “Once they’re mind controlled, Rainbow will be totally safe. We’ll win for sure!”

‘Carrot Top’ did not have a dungeon in her cellar, although the overly long staircase might have implied as much. What she had was a root cellar in the back of her actual cellar, with a door that locked to keep out overly-clever Equestrian varmints. At the moment, she also had a trio of charcoal-coated unicorns of the royal guard, still in full armor.

“All hail Rainbow Dash!” Trixie proclaimed, confidently.

The unicorn in the middle stunned her with a blast of orange magic. Cherry Berry tried to hit him with the rake, but somehow found herself lifted off her feet by the rake in her mouth, flipped onto her back, and slammed into the stone floor hard enough to daze her.

“But we’re on your side!” she whimpered, as the spots in her vision started to clear. There was a flash of orange light, and suddenly she couldn’t move. Shifty was right, though, it didn’t hurt at all.

“I told you she was with them,” said the one in the middle, nudging Cherry with a hoof to verify that she was stunned. “Come on, let’s put them with the others.”

The other two unicorns moved to the sides, and pointed their horns at the door, ready to stun any pony who emerged as the apparent leader levitated out a key and unlocked the door, bracing himself for attack as he opened it. No attack was forthcoming. In fact…

“Ponyfeathers,” he said, looking back and forth through the door. “There’s nothing in here but carrots -- they’re trying a number three.”

“Check the ceiling?” suggested the one on the left.

“They’re probably just hiding under the carrots,” the other guard said.

The leader fired a few random stun blasts into the pile of carrots, then tossed Trixie and Cherry into the empty cell. “Well, I’m not falling for the third oldest trick in the book. I’m surprised Shining Armor would let them try something so stupid.” He closed the door, re-locked it, and the three guards returned to their post, guarding the cell which surely now held all six elements of harmony.

===

With a flash, Trixie and Cherry Berry appeared on a hill overlooking Sweet Apple Acres. The unicorn who’d teleported them saluted Shining Armor, who was standing nearby looking down at the farm.

“Thank you, Blazing Arrow,” Shining Armor said. “And thank you, Fluttershy. It looks like you saved us again.”

“Oh, it was really Angel Bunny who did all the work,” Fluttershy said, smiling. “Although he’s still a very bad bunny for having a tunnel burrowed into Carrot Top’s root cellar!” she added, glaring (but not staring) at the smug-looking rabbit, who continued to look awfully proud of himself.

“Never thought I’d be grateful to see one of them varmints on my farm,” Applejack said, shaking her head. “What now? The sleepover’s wrecked, and so are your jelly-jars.”

Shining Armor looked down at the zombie-infested farm angrily. “We get back the Elements of Harmony, we track down Rainbow Dash, and we stop her before she causes any more trouble.”

===

“Spike, do you still have the Elements?”

Spike turned over in his bed. “Just another five minutes, Twilight…”

A familiar aura lifted him out of bed and shook him until his eyes opened, and he realized it wasn’t Twilight magically forcing him awake this time. Shining Armor stared at him. “We need the Elements of Harmony.”

“They’re under ‘E’,” Spike said, annoyed. Shining Armor set him down and six ponies, scattered around the library, looked at the baby dragon expectantly. “Fine, I’ll get them, I’ll get them.”

“You stashed ‘em here? With Spike to guard them?” Applejack asked.

Shining Armor nodded as he headed downstairs, to where Spike was searching the shelves. “I wasn’t planning on zombies, but I was planning on being distracted making friends. There are guards patrolling all the streets, and I left a ward --”

Spike screamed and ran around the room, his right claw on fire. Shining Armor fetched the book Spike had just pulled from the shelf, and opened it to reveal it had been hollowed out, and now held the Elements of Harmony: five jeweled necklaces and a big crown. There was a hiss as Spike put himself out in the kitchen sink.

Shining Armor looked over towards the kitchen. “Huh. Twiley said Spike was immune to fire.”

===

Tracking down Rainbow Dash was a little harder. “How do you even track a pegasus?” Cherry Berry asked. She and Trixie were mostly recovered from the stun bolts, although they still felt a bit stiff. “Look for hoofprints in the clouds?”

Applejack shrugged. “Pinkie Pie never had any problems.”

Trixie looked up at the sky, through one of the library’s windows. “Trixie overheard that Rainbow Dash was working on a secret project, one that seems to involve all the pegasi from Ponyville. The zombies' primary instructions were to stop us from interfering.”

“I doubt they’re headed for the moon, then. Something weather-related perhaps?” Shining Armor asked. “If it wasn’t for the overcast skies, we could probably see it from here. But she took all the pegasi with her, so we don’t have any way to check.”

“Perhaps we could send for a pegasus in another town?” Rarity suggested.

Trixie concentrated, and a dangerous looking storm cloud formed in the middle of the library, hovering over the unicorn bust on the central table. She tilted her head left and right, and the cloud followed her gaze. “If one of you knows the spell to walk on clouds, perhaps Trixie could provide transportation.”

“Twilight says it’s easy, but I’ve been trying to learn it for months, with little success,” Rarity said. “I was hoping to sell a line of enchanted boots.”

Shining Armor frowned. “It’s not a difficult spell per-se, but it’s usually only cast by unicorns with weather-related cutie marks. Trixie’s talent is magic, so she might be able to learn it. Spike! Do you know where Twilight keeps the book of weather spells?”

“Find it yourself!” came a sulking voice from the kitchen.

“Um…” Fluttershy said.

“Yes, dear?” Rarity replied.

“I could… fly up and look for her,” the shy yellow pegasus said quietly.

“Are you sure you’re okay with that, sugarcube?” Applejack asked, concerned. “You’ve seemed a bit spooked lately, ever since the moon–“

Fluttershy eeped and curled up.

“Since the guard came to town?” Rarity suggested as an alternative.

Fluttershy looked up, and nodded. “I’m not quite so scared in the daytime. I could look for Rainbow Dash, if you want. Or we could just send for a pegasus in another town that would be a better flier, if you think that would be better. I wouldn’t want to let every pony down.”

“We’ll do both,” Shining Armor said. “Fluttershy can leave now, and we’ll have some pony gallop to Manehattan to –“

“Shouldn’t we just have Spike send Celestia a message?” Applejack said, cutting in. “Hay, the Princess might be able to see Rainbow’s secret project from Canterlot.”

“I’m afraid Celestia’s location and activities are currently classified,” Shining Armor said. “But you’re right, we should let her know what’s going on. Spike! Take a message!” He grinned. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“Go away!” Spike said from the kitchen.

===

Fluttershy burst through the snowy overcast layer, and spiraled up into the dim winter sunlight, spinning around to shed the last tufts of cold, clinging clouds. Breathing heavily, she leveled off into a gentle glide, to rest her wings a bit.

It wasn’t hard to spot Rainbow’s secret project. A few dozen miles to the north, a massive storm cloud loomed. From this distance, she couldn’t see the pegasi that had to be controlling it, but even if the weather in Equestria wasn’t completely under pegasus control, nothing about how it was forming was the slightest bit wild.

The puffs of cloud circling the top of the thunderhead that spelled out a query in Horse Code were another clue.

‘girl of my dreams, need wt, area, cf of hth’

Fluttershy’s glide took her down to cloudtop level, and her hooves skimmed through the mist until she spread her wings and gracefully landed on the puffy white expanse. “Oh Rainbow…” she said wistfully, then her expression hardened. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, young lady.”

Fluttershy folded her tired wings, and burst into a gallop, heading north towards the storm, to give her friend a chance to do just that.

25: Confrontation

Tess was almost done ‘repairing’ the ship. She’d unfrozen all the computer systems, as well as some of the life support components that hadn’t been working at full efficiency. The only thing left – aside from the reactor itself, which she was kind of afraid to touch – was the surviving external camera, mounted on top of the ship near the airlock. Since the whole airlock/lift assembly, including the camera, was designed to be part of an extendable boom to which external cargo containers could be fastened, there really wasn’t any way to access the systems except from inside the airlock.

Well, or outside the ship. That would actually have been easier, if it wasn’t for the squad of pegasi that had come to investigate. Every so often they’d hear the hoofsteps as one of them clip-clopped his way across the hull. So far they hadn’t shown any interest in forcing their way in, at least.

As it was, Tess was standing on the airlock lift, just inside the external doors, struggling with bolts and wires and other fastenings that she honestly wasn’t sure of the name of, trying to get close enough to the camera to give it a good whack. She was pretty sure there were safety procedures you were supposed to follow when you did something like this, but she wasn’t the engineer. Warp wouldn’t have followed procedure either, most likely, but she would have cut corners on purpose.

The doors in particular were making her nervous. She’d aborted the normal airlock cycle before they opened, but they were looming there, over her head, waiting for the slightest mistake on her part to open and dump her outside with the pegasi.

There was a loud ‘clang’ as a set of metal horseshoes hit the outside of the door. One of the guards had just landed right there, on top of the ship! Despite there being no possible way that the pegasus could hear her, Tess froze. Quieter hoofsteps wandered around the pressure door that made up the ceiling; the guard wasn’t leaving.

-Chance – you locked the doors when you went out, right?- Tess asked.

-Didn’t think I’d need to,- Chance said.

Tess grimaced. -One of them is up there poking around. If he gets inside we’re in trouble. The whole plan is to sit tight and look boring, and the inside of the airlock is not going to look boring.-

-Don’t worry about it, he’d still have to work the controls, and they’re recessed even if he somehow got the cover open. I don’t think he’ll be hitting any buttons with his hooves,- Chance replied.

-I think I’m going to go lock it anyway,- Tess said, extracting herself from the open wall panel and heading over to the airlock controls.

-Probably a good idea,- Pinkie Pie chimed in. -I just got a combo – ear flop, eye flutter, knee twitch!-

-A what?- Tess asked, hesitating.

-It means beware of opening doors!-

There was a hiss, and Tess’s mouth sealed itself as the doors started to slide open, venting the atmosphere in the airlock out into space. She slammed her hand into the red override button, and the doors stopped in place, the edges a few inches apart, and started to close again – only to stay wedged open by the tip of a spear. Sensing something caught in the door, the mechanism automatically started opening again.

-Twilight, get me out of here!- Tess sent urgently, pressing herself against the wall to stay out of view as long as possible.

-Twilight’s not here right now,- Pinkie Pie said. -Should I go get her? She said she was going to find your library.-

The floor shook slightly as a huge white pegasus landed in front of her, at least twice the size of Rainbow Dash or Derpy, decked out in gaudy golden armor with a blue, star-shaped gem in the chest plate, clutching a wooden-hafted spear in his wrist. His eyes were about on level with hers, and he didn’t look particularly friendly.

-Yes, go get her!- Tess sent in a whisper, as the guard lowered his spear to point at her chest. The moon pony swiped her paw to deflect the spear as she dodged the other way, and the haft crumbled into dry splinters, the severed metal tip spinning off into the corner. Surprised and off-balance from the lack of resistance, she failed to dodge the guard’s follow-up, and got smacked on the side of the head with the rest of the shaft – but it crumbled too.

The pegasus dropped the useless, vacuum-ravaged wood, and reared up on his hind legs to threaten Tess with sharp-edged, golden hoof-boots. Tess ducked as they slammed into the wall about where her chest would have been, throwing sparks off the wall as metal scraped against metal. She reached up to hit the big red override button again, and the doors started to close, but that put her in no position to dodge as the guard brought his hooves down on her back, pinning her to the floor underneath him.

Since he was pinning her there with his weight instead of trampling her, Tess decided to pretend to be trapped. “… light but it was you monsters all along!” said the guard, slowly becoming audible as air filled the airlock again, once the doors overhead were closed. “What are you, some sort of goblin?”

“I’m a moon pony,” said Tess. “How about you stop trying to murder me and we talk this out? I don’t think you really understand what’s going on here and it’s really important that –“

With a purple flash, she was back in the conference room, sprawled on the table with a worried Pinkie Pie and Twilight hovering over a magic mirror that somehow reflected the airlock she’d just left.

“—I keep talking until my friends can pull my tail out of the fire, SUCKER,” Tess finished, scrambling off the table to the big screen, shoving aside the window that filled most of the screen (which showed a highly magnified view of a mirror-magic spellbook), and quickly locking the airlock. And just in time, she saw as she turned to the mirror, where the guard had picked up the spear-point in his mouth and was using it to jab at the airlock controls.

“One down!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully, “Ninety nine to go!”

===

“Rainbow Dash! Are you sleeping?” asked Raindrops, hovering over her.

Rainbow lifted her head off the cloud. “It’s a vital strategic nap,” she said drowsily.

“This is not a good time for a nap,” the other pegasus complained. “We’re behind schedule on the storm and we need those numbers!”

“Did you miss the part where I first met my source in a dream?” Rainbow asked. “Don’t worry about the storm. Once I’ve got the numbers I’ll have us up to speed in ten seconds flat.” She laid her head back down, grinning. “So don’t wake me up unless the night guard comes to arrest me, you see the answers written in the sky, or some pony’s on fire, okay?”

Raindrops grunted angrily, but flew off and left her alone.

“Best. Job. Ever!” Rainbow Dash said, as she snuggled back into her cloud.

===

There was a purple flash, and Twilight Sparkle appeared in the airlock, next to the frustrated guard who’d taken to bucking the walls.

“Hey, Lucky,” she said. The guard’s reflexive attack as she announced herself bounced off her pre-cast force field. “Don’t worry, I’m just here to talk.”

“Oh, hi Twilight,” Lucky replied, falling into a defensive posture. “I don’t suppose you could open the door, or teleport me outside? My wing leader’s probably getting a bit nervous that I’ve been missing for so long – I wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea.”

“It’s so nice to meet a familiar face, way up here on the moon,” Twilight said, smiling. “What brings you boys here, anyway? I’d think you were here to rescue me if it wasn’t for the way you didn’t bring anything to take me home in.”

“It’s nice to see you aren’t a ten foot tall spike-covered nightmare,” Lucky replied, staying tense. “We’re here to bring you and your friends home, one way or another, and make sure you don’t fire the moon cannon again.”

“One way or another,” Twilight responded. “One way would be ‘suffocating to death from a lack of air’; the other would be ‘already dead’?”

“We thought you’d still have your Jelly Jar,” Lucky said.

“And why did you attack Tess?” Twilight asked, glowering.

Lucky snorted. “Every pony’s a bit tense, Twilight. Celestia’s been worrying herself sick after you attacked Luna, and the rest of us, well, you did try to kill us in our sleep.”

“I didn’t!” Twilight protested. “No pony did either of those things! Why would you even think that?”

“Celestia thinks you saw something up here that changed your mind about forgiving Nightmare Moon,” Lucky said. “Some ancient, secret inscription. I thought, you know, maybe Nightmare Moon changed the inscription, and turned it into a trap. Nightmare Twilight, wouldn’t that be a sight!”

Twilight rolled her eyes.

“Of course, now I’m thinking you’re being manipulated by evil goblins.”

“Moon ponies,” Twilight said. “They’re not goblins, they’re moon ponies.”

“Yeah,” Lucky said. “’Ponies’.” His wings twitched.

“I know how they look, but they’re not bad ponies,” Twilight said. “They’re not monsters.”

Lucky sighed. “Look, Twilight, are you going to let me go? I’m pretty sure you’re not going to surrender.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’m not going to surrender. The ponies here need me to get us down safe.” She looked at him. “If you promise to be good, I can let you out of this room, and keep you somewhere a lot more comfortable.”

Lucky snorted. “Oh goody, a real cell.”

Twilight concentrated, and Lucky started to glow – but the gem on his breastplate glowed brightest of all, and she couldn’t quite complete the spell. She gave him a pleading look as she tried to force the spell, but he shook his head. After ten seconds she gave up, panting from the futile effort. The gem continued to glow purple for a few seconds, then faded back to its normal blue. “Fine, be that way,” she said, teleporting herself back to the conference room.

“NNNG!”

“So you can’t get through his armor?” Tess asked.

“Oh, I can get through his armor,” Twilight said, pacing around the table-top. “I know plenty of ways to get past his armor. I just can’t get through his thick head!”

“Convincing a cop not to arrest you is some pretty advanced fast talk,” Chance said through the transmitter. “Even if it turns out you’re innocent they’ll get in a lot of trouble.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” Twilight said plaintively. “Teleport back in there and just forcibly mind-buck him until all he can remember is the story we want him to give?”

“Oooh, that sounds neat!” Pinkie Pie said.

Tess shrugged. “I’m good with that plan.”

“Well, I’m not!” Twilight said. “Princess Celestia –“

“Is already really really mad at us,” Pinkie Pie said. “I don’t think this is going to make her madder than what you did to Rainbow Dash.”

Twilight winced.

“Look at it this way,” Chance said. “He tried to kill Tess. That’s implied consent to do whatever we want to him, right?”

“Nnng, fine!” Twilight said. She caught the transmitter as Tess threw it at her, and gave the moon pony a puzzled look.

“I want to hear this,” Tess said. “It’ll hurt, right?”

===

“Rainbow Dash! You have a lot of explaining to do, young lady!” said a quiet but angry voice in Rainbow Dash’s ear. “I mean, if it’s okay with you…” the voice added trailing off.

“Fluttershy?” Dash asked, groggily, remembering only just in time not to look at her. She didn’t want to end up like that cockatrice that dared to meet Fluttershy’s stare! “What are you doing here?” she asked, rolling onto her side.

“I’m asking the questions here,” Fluttershy said, hooves on her hips as her wings fluttered softly to keep her hovering next to the cloud.

“Okay… so whaddaya wanna know?” Rainbow Dash asked, adding a huge yawn as she snuggled back into the cloud to get comfortable.

“You turned all our friends into zombie ponies and made them smash the jelly jars!” Fluttershy said.

“… and?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“And that was a bad thing,” Fluttershy said, hesitantly. “And you should feel bad.”

“Can you come back and harass me about this some other time?” Rainbow Dash asked. “How am I supposed to know how to build the storm right if you don’t let me sleep?”

Fluttershy looked over at the storm. “You’re not building it right at all. The top is all wispy and the bottom is too dense. You must be using untrained weathermares because the lightning charge is three times the safe maximum, and most of the storm is built out of shade clouds instead of rainclouds.” Fluttershy stopped her rant, and added, “although I’m sure you have a good reason for all of that.”

Rainbow Dash laughed. “What would you say if I told you it wasn’t really a storm, it was a landing pad for an alien rocket ship?”

Fluttershy eeped.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Rainbow Dash said. “Now I’ve gotta go back to sleep so that the moon ponies can contact me with the specifics. Wouldn’t want a huge flaming meteor to crash into the mountains and hurt all the poor little goats and bears because we didn’t set the storm up right.”

She opened an eye to look when there was no response, but Fluttershy was already making a beeline for Ponyville. Rainbow Dash sighed, and went back to sleep.

===

Twilight reappeared in the airlock, the transmitter hovering over her shoulders as she glowered at Lucky. “For what it’s worth” she said. “I’m sorry about this.”

“Twilight, what are you going to do?” Lucky asked calmly, although he recoiled slightly as her horn started to glow.

“You’re going to love me, Lucky,” she said. “You’re going to love me more than anything.” With a ‘pop’ sound, the glow surrounding her horn vanished, replaced by a gently drifting pink heart, about half the size of her head.

Lucky kicked out at the heart with a forehoof as it danced around, coming his way, and it popped – releasing a cloud of pink mist that slithered up his leg and neck and into his nostrils before he could react.

He sat down heavily, wings fluttering uselessly behind him as his eyes started to swirl – only to resolve into little pink hearts.

“Come on, big boy,” Twilight said, smirking evilly. “Let’s get you out of that armor.”

Back in the conference room, Pinkie Pie was munching on a bowl of artificial wheat puffs as she and Tess watched the action in the magic mirror. “Is it wrong that the part that disturbs me most about this is that her mind control spell created a floating pink heart?” Tess asked.

“Yep!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully. “Oooh, look!” she added, pointing at the mirror, where Twilight’s horn lit up and she lowered it towards the now naked guard’s forehead. “She’s going in for the memory spell!”

===

One very complicated memory spell later, Lucky gave one last buck at the airlock door, and it opened! He looked around, and spotted one of his wingmates, who waved him over. Soon they were all gathered in the moon temple, where Gusty was poking carefully at a strangely ornate but asymmetrical box, that didn’t really seem to fit with the rest of the décor.

“Where were you?” the wingleader signaled tersely in horse code. That was pretty much the only way to talk in horse code; it was not a quick language to ‘speak’, even using the modified military version that used both wings.

“I got inside that,” Lucky signaled, and pointed towards the Here to Help with a wing, “Nothing in there.”

“Figures,” Gusty replied. “This place is empty too. Let’s head back.”

26: Core Problems

“I solemnly swear, with Pinkie Pie as my witness, that if I am shown to be a mirror image of the real Tess, I will obey all commands given by the real Tess without hesitation. So help me Pinkie Pie.”

“That’s not a proper Pinkie Pie swear,” Twilight Sparkle said, one eye closed painfully while she waited for it to stop hurting. Someday, she’d remember to close her eye before sticking a ‘cupcake’ in it.

“That’ll do for now,” Pinkie Pie said, setting the mirror into which Twilight and Tess had sworn against the wall. With Chance busy reorganizing the storage rooms to hold as much moondust as possible, everyone present had taken an oath. “Now, who wants to warp the mirror? Oh, say me say me!”

“Not me,” Tess said. Pinkie Pie grinned widely, then mouthed ‘say me’ at Twilight.

“Why don’t you try first,” Twilight said, glancing at the book of mirror magic that was back up on the conference room’s big screen. “I should really refresh my memory on the mirror-warping spell before trying to cast it. It’s a lot harder than the ‘look at a different place’ spell.”

“Aww, but then you won’t be watching,” Pinkie Pie said, pouting. “Oh well!” She turned and stared at the mirror, then started to chant. “Orange, yellow, orange, red, red, red, purple, green, blue, blue, orange, yellow, yellow, red, blue, blue – you’re good,” she said to her mirror reflection. “Or else I’m bad at being random.”

“You’re the most random pony I know,” Twilight said.

“Thank you!” Pinkie Pie said cheerfully. “Now, where was I?”

“Blue, blue,” Tess said. “I’m not seeing a pattern.”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “You’re not supposed to, silly. I’m being random! Blue, blue, orange, yellow, yellow, red, blue, blue, yellow, orange, orange –“

“Okay, now I’m seeing a pattern,” Tess said. “Next up is purple.”

Pinkie Pie looked surprised.

Tess smirked. “I think we need to try something different.” Shoving Twilight’s mirror magic reference into a smaller space, she brought up a window that had an image of the room they were in, along with a diagnostic pane with color-coded lines. She dragged a targeting reticle onto the image of Pinkie Pie. “Pinkie Pie knows whether she’s the real Pinkie Pie, right?” Tess said. “So, lie detector app.”

They positioned the mirror so that they could see the mirror image’s lie detector, and then Tess motioned to Pinkie Pie. In unison, both Pinkie Pies said, “I’m the real Pinkie Pie.”

Neither app had much of a blip.

“Maybe the mirror-image app is mirroring the real app,” Tess guessed. She brought up a second copy, and targeted it at the mirror image directly. “Go.”

“I’m the real Pinkie Pie,” Pinkie Pie said. Again, all four lie detectors gave her a clean bill of health.

“It’s not a magic mirror,” Twilight Sparkle said. “It’s just reflecting light. Whatever Pinkie Pie supposedly does to mirrors hasn’t been done yet.”

“Or maybe your lie detector isn’t very detecty,” Pinkie suggested. “I’m a banana!”

A loud beeping noise filled the room as both copies of the lie detector started flashing red.

“Is it my turn yet?” Twilight asked, levitating the grease pencil. “I’ll use the simple version of the charm,” she said, sketching a bunch of runes onto the mirror. “I can’t believe I forgot that all the runes had to be backwards!”

After she finished, she cast a short spell, and the image in the mirror shifted slightly. “There. Now it’s not reflecting light – it’s a window onto a mirror universe, identical to our own, but not real.”

“So if I say ‘I’m the real Pinkie Pie’ now –“ Pinkie Pie started – and one of the lie detectors started to beep and flash, while the other stayed quiet. In the mirror, the opposite happened.

“Wait,” Twilight said, parsing the flashing lights and beeps. “We’re the fakes?”

The Twilight in the mirror shrugged at her, and grinned awkwardly.

“Buck me,” Tess said, closing her eyes. “Fine, let’s head over to engineering.”

===

They didn’t take the mirror with them. The real Twilight and company probably were, to see the results of the experiment, but there was no reason for the copies to keep an eye on the real world.

“What we’re doing here is a basic Captromantic ritual,” Twilight explained, on the way. “Normally, we’d alter the mirror universe using complicated mirror-piercing spells that directly altered the mirror reality, but thanks to Pinkie Pie we’ve managed to break the symmetry with nothing more than a promise.”

“Uh huh,” Tess said, mostly tuning out the babbling unicorn.

“It was so easy with a magic mirror,” Pinkie Pie said enthusiastically. “I can’t believe I never tried getting a mirror magicked before! It took a long long long time to get all the mirror Pinkies to show themselves, but with magic mirrors we can do this all day long! Even if we end up blowing ourselves up, we can just try again!”

“Except that we’ll be dead,” Tess noted.

“Well, we will but we won’t all be dead, just us,” Pinkie said. “As long as there’s some Pinkie around to work on the problem, then we can try again and again and again until we get it right.”

“Or until they get sick of repeatedly murdering their copies,” Tess said.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “It’s not exactly murder. I mean, we’re not real.”

“Even less real than normal,” Pinkie Pie said, nodding.

“So it’s no more murder than if you wrote a story with yourself as a character and then killed yourself off,” Twilight said. “We’re disposable.”

“Except that it’s not the same,” Tess said. “We’re thinking. We’re conscious. We have free will. We’re copies now, not reflections. Copies are just as alive as the real person. Killing off copies in simulation runs is… well…” She scowled. “Perfectly legal, actually. But it’s still not right!”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “You’re just focusing on the bad part. Maybe we have to do this silly experiment that might kill us in a horrible inferno of flaming death, but in the meantime we’re totally free! We can do whatever we want with no real consequences! Hey Twilight, wanna make out?”

“Um…” Twilight said, blushing. Pinkie Pie suddenly appeared in front of her, staring into Twilight’s eyes with her own huge, eager blue ones. “No, Pinkie,” Twilight said. “I think that’s something I’d rather experiment with when it does mean something.”

Suddenly, the pink face was looming in front of the moon pony instead. “Tess?” Pinkie asked, without missing a beat.

“Go talk to Chance,” Tess said, shoving Pinkie aside.

“Okie dokie lokie!” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing off back the way they’d come.

“Pinkie!” Twilight Sparkle called after her. “Ugh. I wanted her to be there for the end. Well, I wanted one of my friends to be with me, but I guess – sorry, Tess. I guess that’s not very nice to you. You’re my friend too, just not that kind of friend.”

“I understand,” Tess said. “If you want to be nice to me, we can maybe not do this?”

“You’re the one who said how important it is,” Twilight said. “I mean, you were going to try it in real life before we convinced you to try making our mirror copies do it. Which means we probably won’t die, right?”

Tess sighed. “It’s important,” she said, bracing herself. “If we can get the reactor running again, then we can abort if Rainbow Dash doesn’t have the storm ready, and wait another day. Or week. Or year. But what we really need to know is if it’s safe to jostle the reactor with the cloudwalking spell cast on the whole ship. If it’s only stable because it’s frozen, and something gets shaken loose during the drop and unfreezes it, well…”

“Boom,” Twilight said, wincing. Then she laughed. “For some reason I’m not scared, though. My whole life I’ve been focused on not screwing up – don’t flunk your entrance exams, don’t turn your parents into houseplants, don’t disappoint the princess. Now that I’m just an extra copy, nothing I do matters. There’s nothing to worry about.” She giggled, and giggled some more, and found it hard to stop. “Sorry, heeheehee, I feel giddy as a foal.”

“You’re terrified, and high on adrenaline,” Tess grumped. The she perked up. “You know – we don’t have to do this. It doesn’t matter if our reactor is fixed, all that matters is if the real-us knows whether or not it can be fixed, right?”

“I suppose?” Twilight said, curious as to where she was going with this.

Tess explained, “So why don’t you magic up another mirror, I’ll go pry Pinkie Pie loose from Chance, and we can set up a nested simulation run –“

“I don’t think that would work,” Twilight said. “If we chicken out, what’s to stop a mirror copy of us from chickening out too? They’d make their own copy, and then that copy would make a copy, and before you know it we’ve got a dozen levels of ‘let the next level buck around with the reactor’ and no actual reactor fixing.”

Tess snorted. “So you’re saying that, by induction, it’s useless for us to try to pass the buck.”

Twilight nodded. “The buck stops here. QED.”

That statement ended up being a little more literal than Twilight had intended, since they’d reached their destination and now stood in front of the door to the reactor core. Like many of the doors in the Here to Help, it was locked, but the unlocking procedure was a little more involved than the usual verbal request. Tess keyed in the passcode, and the telltales on the door flipped to green. There was a hiss as the pressure door’s seal was broken, and she pulled it open.

“Huh,” Twilight said, staring through the doorway at the pony-sized sphere in the middle of a tangle of cylinders, boxes, pipes and wires. “I thought it would look more… glowy.”

“The glowy bit is on the inside,” Tess said, hesitating at the threshold as well. “Trust me, this is the most dangerous thing you’ve ever seen in your life.”

“I’ve faced down Discord and Nightmare Moon,” Twilight Sparkle said.

Tess nodded. “And how many mile-wide craters did those two make?”

“Discord removed the Canterlot hedge maze and left us in a giant pit,” Twilight said, thinking it over.

“If there wasn’t any fire, it doesn’t count,” Tess said.

Twilight grinned. “Pinkie Pie made a mile-wide crater just yesterday, with the moon cannon.”

“Your argument relies on using Pinkie Pie as an example, and is therefore invalid,” Tess said.

Twilight chuckled, and then the two of them stood there for a few minutes, staring at the reactor.

“Soooo,” Twilight said. “You know what? We’re not actually in a hurry. We’ve got all day to work on this.”

“We do,” Tess said. “Want to go play some games?”

-Tess…- Chance sent. Tess blinked – the transmission was as strong as if he was standing right next to her.

-Oh, you’re the real Chance,- she sent back. -And you can’t hear me because we didn’t bring the mirror.- And apparently watching her and Twilight kill themselves was more interesting than moondust.

-I can hear you fine, there’s enough scatter,- he replied.

-Can you keep it down?- sent another Chance, from farther away, -I’m trying to concentrate.-

Twilight looked at Tess oddly.

-Tess, please just run the experiment,- the real Chance sent. -We’re stuck here watching the mirror until you do.-

-And what do I think about that?- Tess asked.

-It’s not going to get any easier if you procrastinate,- came her own ‘voice’ over the airwaves. -For what it’s worth, we’re hoping you don’t die. Ejecting the core has its own issues.-

“Tess?” Twilight asked, poking her gently with a hoof.

Tess sighed. “The peanut gallery says ‘get on with it’.”

“The… um… right,” Twilight said, ears flattening. “Let’s get on with it then.”

===

They tried to be careful. Kicking any component while it was attached to the reactor was likely to unfreeze the whole thing, so they removed the pieces one by one – with Twilight keeping notes on what went where, in case Tess’ implants somehow failed to correctly record the positions – and Tess smacked them to unfreeze each separately.

“Now we find out if this was a complete waste of time,” Tess said, as she prepared to remove a triangular wedge from the guts of the reactor core. “This is part of the magnetic bottle that contains the core. Once I remove it, we’ll be able to see if the core was really dead all along and we were never in any danger.”

Twilight nodded. “Got it.”

“This is also the first point when we’re in serious danger of experiencing a critical existence failure,” Tess said. “Any last words?”

“Um…” Twilight said. “Is it going to hurt?”

“I can’t think of any way for this to kill us slowly enough for us to feel anything,” Tess said. She took a deep breath, and positioned the electric screwdriver. “Here goes nothing.”

A blinding light filled the room. Twilight screamed in terror, and collapsed to the floor, cowering.

“Right,” Tess said. “The core’s still active, but it’s frozen enough that we can expose it without it going ‘boom’.”

“So… bright…” Twilight said, eyes squinted shut.

“Yeah, we’d better go get some welding goggles.”

===

Even with the proper equipment, the work was still unpleasantly hot, sweaty, and repetitive. There were twenty electromagnets in the containment sphere, and hundreds of other bits that had to be removed just to get at them. Every time the core was exposed, it was like being back in the Jelly Jar, skimming past the sun. And it took hours, and more hours to put everything back together again afterwards, to the point where it wasn’t clear if the real crew would have time to fix their own reactor, even if the procedure worked.

But at long last, it was done. All except the last step.

“The magnetic bottle’s in place,” Tess said, squinting at the readout. “It looks stable, but there’s no pressure on it from the core except what we’d expect from gamma radiation. That’s light,” she explained to Twilight, who was trying to follow along, but was finding it hard to concentrate. She didn’t know if it was the heat or the constant terror, but she was feeling pretty weak, and sick to her stomach.

REALLY sick to her stomach. “Tess?” she said, her eyes going blurry, “I think I need to –“ Her stomach heaved, and she sprayed its contents all over the floor in front of her… leaving a puddle of half-digested pancakes mixed with blood.

Blood?

-Oh, horseapples,- Chance sent through the mirror.

“Twilight?” Tess asked, turning from the machinery to examine the fallen unicorn. -Chance! Her eyes are bleeding! Her skin’s all burned up under her fur, and -- -

-Radiation sickness,- he explained. -You’re shielded of course, it never even occurred to me to worry about Twilight.- After a second of silence, he added, -Oops?-

-What do I do?-

-There’s nothing you can do at this point,- Chance said. -I’m going to take Twilight and Pinkie to the clinic and check for any damage, in case some got through the mirror.-

“Tess…” Twilight croaked, one hoof reaching weakly towards her. “I don’t feel so good.”

Tess sighed. “The reactor gives off a special kind of light that’s poison to ponies. Moon ponies are immune. I’m sorry, I didn’t think –“

Twilight laughed. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing they had us try it after all,” she said, then whined and curled up, clutching her stomach. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “Just finish the experiment. I want to see if it works.”

Tess shook her head. “They’re off making sure we didn’t accidentally kill the real you,” she said. “We have to wait until –“

-I’m still here,- the real Tess sent.

“—nevermind,” she said. “Right. I’ll try the experiment. Everything’s ready, so all I have to do is tap the reactor and unfreeze the core, right?”

Twilight’s head moved an inch or so. It might have been a nod.

Tess stood up and walked over to the reator, which now hummed gently as the mechanism maintained the magnetic bubble that should, in theory, keep her safe. Except that they’d tried to restart the already running reactor how many times? There was bound to be a spike, but how large?

Only one way to find out. She closed her eyes, and with a loud battlecry, punched the reactor.

===

“So what’s the verdict,” Tess asked, as Chance had Twilight and Pinkie Pie lying on cots, with various testing apparatus arrayed around them.

“This physiology is amazing!” he said. “Some of the hormones floating around in their bloodstream aren’t even chemicals.”

Tess gave him a look.

“Oh, they weren’t irradiated. Looks like the mirror filtered out the harmful radiation. But look!” he said, pointing to a chemical diagram on a wall display.

“You’re running experiments?” Twilight asked, rolling to a sitting position on her cot. Chance grinned at her, and she rolled her eyes. “What about the mirror simulation?” Twilight asked. “What’s the verdict?”

“The mirror melted as soon as she unfroze the reactor,” Tess replied. “I’m guessing that’s a bad sign.”

Twilight cringed.

===

-I still can’t believe I’m a copy!- Chance sent from a safe distance away. Namely, two miles away and underground, since he’d been captured alive by the pegasi when he tried to run. There was no sign that they were aware he could still communicate.

-I can’t believe you thought it was safer to run than to stay on the ship,- Tess replied. -I mean, this time we’re leaving the core frozen and just activating a pre-set emergency program.-

“Is everyone ready?” she asked out loud, for the benefit of the ponies in the room. When there wasn’t an immediate response, she turned to see Twilight and Pinkie Pie in each other’s’ embrace, kissing. “AHEM.”

They broke apart, giggling. Twilight looked horribly embarrassed, Pinkie Pie not so much. “You can push the button now miss grumpy pants!” the pink pony said.

Tess pushed the button. There was a thump, and the ship shook as explosive bolts ejected a panel from the hull, and hurled the reactor core out into space. “There,” she said. “Nothing to it.”

“You mean we lived?” Twilight said, looking around the room.

“You know what this calls for,” Pinkie Pie said, grinning eagerly.

About that time, the core came back down, pulled by the planet’s gravity. The Here to Help survived the explosion; the ponies on board, not so much, as it flipped end over end and eventually tumbled off the side of the moon, eventually breaking into pieces as it hit the atmosphere at a particularly unfortunate angle.

“Do we have a plan C?” Twilight Sparkle asked, staring at the mile-wide crater that was all the magic mirror showed.

===

Chance waved his arms frantically at the pegasus patrol that swooped down towards him and his volatile cargo. For his trouble, he got a spear rammed into his gut, where it failed to penetrate his hide and instead snapped the vacuum-weakened shaft. He dropped the reactor, dodged a kick, and started running away from the now-loose reactor core as fast as he could, two pegasi right on his tail. The third landed next to the odd-looking sphere and curiously poked it with a hoof…

“Well, that time only Chance died,” Tess said, backing away from the mirror as it melted into a puddle of molten glass.

“We can do better,” Chance said.

===

Chance paced back and forth, wringing his hands nervously. “So you’re sure this is going to work.”

“Yes,” Twilight Sparkle replied. “It worked flawlessly in mirror simulations, twice!” She waved at the two mirrors in question, where a pair of very much alive Pinkie Pies in party hats turned from their respective ‘hey, we didn’t die’ parties to wave back. “Also, we’re running out of time.”

“I’m ready when you are, Twilight,” Tess said.

Pinkie Pie was already wearing her party hat. “Ready!”

“Ready,” Twilight said, levitating a mirror that showed a view of the sky above the Here to Help.

“Set,” Tess said, hitting the button to eject the core.

Twilight followed its trajectory in her mirror, until it was at its peak. “Spike!” she said, her horn flashing as she whacked the sphere with a telekinetic smack.

Unlike the first test, it didn’t explode immediately. Unlike the second test, it didn’t explode a few seconds later. “Huh,” Twilight said. “That’s new.”

Chance looked extra calm as he leaned over to look in Twilight’s mirror. “Please tell me it’s at least going to land at a safe distance,” he said.

“Yooooou could say that,” Twilight said. “I missed the moon.”

Tess opened a window on the big screen, showing the planet below from the point of view of their last remaining probe. The continents were unfamiliar – it was still daylight in Equestria, so the moon was still hovering over the far side of the planet. “Well, the good news is it’s not going to land on any pony we know.”

Pinkie Pie blew a noisemaker. FWEEEE!

===

“They’re having way too much fun up there,” Thunder Lane said, taking another sip from his coconut as he stared up at the scary face on the moon from his hammock. The night air was pleasantly cool – nothing like the sweltering days – and the signal fire was burning away merrily without his help.

Ditzy sighed.

Thunder Lane looked over at his companion. “Still thinking we should try to get back up there?”

“It’s a lot closer than home,” she said. “But without anyplace to rest we’d never make it.” Her wings drooped.

“If you want, we can give it a try once I’m healed,” Thunder Lane offered, draining the rest of his drink. “Nother coconut, Ditz?”

“I don’t think there’s any cure for lazy-itis,” she grumbled, trudging over to pick up another of the fallen coconuts littering the beach. They should have started heading for home days ago. Well, one day ago. They should definitely get moving tomorrow!

“Hey, Ditzy, look! It’s a falling star!” Thunder Lane called out, rolling out of the hammock and pointing up into the sky. “Make a wish!”

Ditzy looked up and saw the star, which got brighter and brighter as they watched. “I wish Thunder Lane would get off his lazy tail so that we could head home and I could see my muffin again!” she snapped at it, or maybe at him.

The star streaked overhead, crashing into the side of the mountain that dominated the little island they’d been ‘stranded’ on. Everything lit up bright as day, and the two pegasi were tossed into the ocean by a searing shockwave. As they fluttered and splashed and pulled themselves up into the swirling, chaotic air, they could see that the top had been blown right off the mountain, revealing a glowing crater brimming with lava, that flowed out with a low rumbling sound, setting the jungle that crawled up the mountainside alight.

“Every pony run!” Thunder Lane shouted, and the two flew off as fast as they could to escape the building firestorm.

27: Rainbow Dash vs. the Wonderbolts

Rainbow Dash was on fire. Her first thought, waking up, was ‘why didn’t Raindrops wake me?’

Her second thought, as she focused on the mirrored goggles staring up at her, and saw the little hearts spiraling around in her own eyes, was ‘woah, I’m awesome!’ Of course, she already knew that, but wow.

She might have been lost in her own reflection for the duration, if she hadn’t been on fire. She thrashed and bucked her way out of the attacker’s grip, and dashed for the nearest cloud to put herself out. As she spun around to dry off after extinguishing the flames, flinging glistening droplets of moisture from her primary feathers, she finally got a good look at just who had attacked her. “Spitfire?”

Somepony slammed into the base of her tail like a bolt of lightning, complete with stinging sparks crawling over her damp fur and feathers. They tried to get hold of her by her flanks, but she shot out of their grasp before they could get a good grip. Looking over her shoulder, she recognized this pony too. “Soarin’? What gives?”

“This time, we get to save you,” Spitfire said. “We’re taking you in to break whatever spell that nasty little unicorn put on you.”

“Can you come back tomorrow? We’re busy,” Rainbow Dash said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw four more Wonderbolts scattering her weathermares, but she could worry about that later. “I’m missing some vital strategic naptime.”

“Miss this!” Soarin’ said, buzzing his wings like a hummingbird until he’d built up a good charge, then shooting towards her, crackling with electricity. Rainbow jinked out of the way, right into Spitfire’s spiraling fiery follow-up. A desperate four-hooved kick to the flaming pony’s face got Rainbow out of her aura before she could catch on fire again, and she used the push-off to start flying in earnest, her own rainbow trail stretching out behind her.

“If you’re trying to save me, you’re doing it wrong!” Rainbow shouted as she flung herself through what she thought would be a series of unpredictable random turns, but the two Wonderbolts stuck to her tail as if they were in formation.

“We were supposed to ask you to come peacefully,” Spitfire admitted, almost lazily advancing until she was right on Dash’s flank. “But we know you’d never go for that, so why not cut to the chase?” The flaming pegasus jerked to the side, trying to knock her out of the air, but Rainbow dodged it with a quick barrel roll that she turned into a mini-tornado, sending her two pursuers spinning around helplessly in the swirling wind until they shot out in completely the wrong direction.

Dash dove for the cloud cover. The two Wonderbolts swooped around to follow, and almost caught up to her before she could lose herself in the clouds – they were just close enough not to have any time to dodge as Rainbow Dash bounced off the surface instead, a faint chromatic ripple spreading from the point of impact. She spread her wings and knocked her pursuers aside like bowling pins. “Then let’s do this!” Rainbow Dash shouted gleefully as she soared into the sky. Spitfire and Soarin’ looked up from where they were sprawled out on the clouds, and grinned right back as they shot up after her.

===

“Whoa, nelly. That girl’s on fire!” Applejack remarked as she stood on a stormcloud, watching the three pegasi swirl around in the air, leaving trails of smoke, lightning-charged clouds, and rainbows behind them. “I mean, literally on fire. Is that safe?”

Shining Armor answered. “After Rainbow Dash and Mare-Do-Well’s ‘heroic’ showboating, we couldn’t convince the Wonderbolts to leave the monster-fighting to the professionals, so we let the Royal Armory modify their uniforms. Most of them wanted something flashy, but they’re civilians so they didn’t get anything lethal. A foxfire aura like that doesn’t burn very hot, but it’ll scare off a timber wolf or manticore.”

The Great and Powerful Trixie looked up, her horn glowing continuously as she maintained the stormcloud beneath them. The cloud-walking spell that let all of them ride the ominous craft was also hers, but it at least didn’t require constant upkeep. “We’d better hurry and fire the Elements of Harmony, before the Wonderbolts steal the show,” she said. “The Great and Powerful Trixie did not endure this morning’s abuse simply to watch as a group of entertainers took down Trixie’s mark!”

“Fluttershy, take us closer,” Shining Armor said to the pegasus pushing them, or possibly hiding behind the cloud. “We need to make sure we hit the right target.”

“I wonder,” Rarity said. “What is the range on the Elements of Harmony? We’ve always used them up close, but I don’t think it’s actually possible to dodge their effects. Perhaps we could just activate them from here?”

“We’re about half a mile off,” Shining Armor said. “What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from your target when you used the Elements?”

“’Bout thirty feet,” Applejack said.

“Fluttershy, take us closer.”

===

It wasn’t really possible, was it? Nopony was faster than Rainbow Dash! She’d let them catch up! But now she was giving it her all, and Spitfire and Soarin’ were not only not falling behind, but had enough extra speed to lunge at her and force her off course every time she tried to get lined up for a sonic rainboom. It was completely unfair! They got to use their weird elemental auras, but she wasn’t allowed to use her own signature move? All she needed was a few seconds, and she could end this fight like that.

So maybe it was time to do more than fly. The next time Spitfire tried to shove her off course, Rainbow set her shoulder and slammed it into the Wonderbolt’s chest, grabbed onto her mane with her teeth, and flung her over her back, right into Soarin’s face. That would buy her enough time to – oh Celestia why! The fire was in her mouth! As she gasped to scream, it flowed down into her lungs! She knew it wasn’t real fire – she hadn’t even been singed by her previous immolation – but it hurt worse than anything, ever. She had the time she’d thought she’d need to get up to rainboom speeds, while Spitfire and Soarin’ untangled themselves, but spent it coughing and shaking instead. It was all she could do to stay in the air.

But a few seconds without Spitfire herding her this way and that was enough time for her to reach the thunderstorm, even on shaky wings. She plunged into the dark, cold cloud and breathed in the soothing fog, extinguishing the fire in her lungs as she floated through the solid gray mass. She altered her course a bit, folded her wings, and snuggled into the cloud’s tight embrace, waiting and listening for signs of pursuit.

Wing-flaps passed close by her, but she wasn’t detected. The chilly mist did a good job of swallowing up sound – she heard nothing after that, except for her own labored breaths and the distant, panicked screams of her weathermares, still being hassled by those Wonderbolt bullies. Rainbow Dash smiled. That gave her a target.

A chorus of screams and cries for help flew past close by, and she burst out behind the weather team, tackling the Wonderbolt who’d been chasing them around in circles. It was Fleet Foot, more of a racer than a fighter. She gave a yelp of her own as Rainbow Dash lunged at her, and the air around her started to chill, but that didn’t stop Rainbow Dash from punching her in the face, sending her spiraling towards the ground, unconscious. Rainbow saw Fleet Foot’s rival, Rapidfire, break off from his own group to try to save her, and made sure to time her next charge so that she passed them just as he’d just gotten hold of the plummeting pegasus – using a pressure wave from her wake to body-slam them both into the trees.

As she circled back up, Cloudchaser and Flitter from her weather team were there to meet her. “They’ve got Raindrops!” Flitter cried, pointing past the edge of the storm, to where another Wonderbolt – it was hard to tell from this distance, but it looked like the rookie, Misty – was driving dozens of weathermares down into a clearing, where unicorns and earth ponies waited with nets.

“Not for long!” Rainbow Dash said, heading straight there. As she passed close to the storm, though, a white-winged Wonderbolt pulled a trick out of her own book, and leapt from the clouds to tackle her.

“Surprise!” the newcomer giggled as she bit down on Rainbow Dash’s wing, holding in her teeth and twisting it out of alignment, sending the two of them into a flat spin. The centrifugal force held Rainbow’s wing painfully oustretched, and Surprise away from her hooves. Spitfire and Soarin’ burst from the cloud wall right on Surprise’s tail, Soarin’ grabbing Rainbow’s other wing to hold her helpless for Spitfire’s assault. Technically, enough writhing and thrashing could have gotten Rainbow Dash loose, but it probably would have been minus at least one wing.

“Gotcha,” Spitfire said casually, with a friendly smile. She flared her wings, rising up above the trio, then dropped hooves-first onto Rainbow’s face like a ten ton rock.

===

“Rainbow!” Fluttershy cried, as she saw her friend go limp.

Applejack winced. “That’s gonna sting in the morning.”

Shining Armor watched for a few more seconds, as the Wonderbolts clamped hoofcuffs around Rainbow Dash’s ankles, and added similar restraints for her wings. “I guess we aren’t needed here after all,” he said, once she was securely bound. “It’s nice to see some pony in Equestria solve a problem with running to the Elements.”

“No!” Trixie cried. “It is not too late for us to assist! Elements, assemble!” Most of the elements were already assembled by default, being stuck on a small floating cloud, but Fluttershy fluttered up to take her place as Trixie posed dramatically. “Rainbow Dash! In the name of Trixie Lulamoon, the purifying light of the rainbow of harmony–“

“Uh, Trix?” Applejack said. “You don’t need any of that mumbo jumbo.”

“Oh, Let her have her moment, Applejack,” Rarity scolded.

“It’s too late,” Trixie said, pouting. “Trixie’s moment is entirely ruined.”

Cherry Berry giggled, putting a hoof to her mouth to try to stifle a laugh. Trixie tried to glower at her, but couldn’t hold the expression for long, a small hint of a smile sneaking through – and suddenly, her eyes went wide, and her body jerked as if jolted by lightning. Her mane and tail stood on end, her eyes turned into to glowing, pupil-less white, and she lifted slightly off the cloud, her purple-starred crown glowing brightly. The other Elements of Harmony glowed as well, their bearers closing their eyes and rising into the air…

“Wait for me!” Shining Armor cried, as the ponies around him were engulfed in the building aura. “Come on, work!” he said, trying to shove magic into the red lightning-bolt gem on the necklace he was wearing.

None of the others noticed anything but their own building energy – not Shining Armor’s struggle, not the thundercloud they’d been standing on dissipating beneath them as Trixie’s magic was diverted to another purpose. Even Shining Armor’s scream of terror as he plummeted towards the clouds below went unmarked by the other five as the light from their Elements flowed together into a… somewhat lopsided and discolored miniature rainbow, about the length of Trixie’s tail.

As the tiny rainbow of light – with stripes of purple, pink, yellow, green and turquiose – squirmed its way across the sky towards Rainbow Dash, the magic trance ended, and five unconscious ponies joined their would-be Element of Loyalty in his downward plummet.

Which was arrested suddenly by a set of dark, cloven hooves, and the sound of bat wings flapping.

“You!” Shining Armor said, turning his head slightly to see who’d caught him.

“We can fight later, Captain,” the night guard said. “You’ve got friends to save.”

Shining Armor, now that he was no longer falling to his death, noticed the plight of the other Elements of Harmony, and it was the work of seconds to construct a gently curving slide of purple force to catch them as they fell, and deposit them safely on a natural, pegasus-made cloud. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“Yes,” the night guard replied vehemently. “But instead I’m here, watching you fail.”

“Stalking us,” Shining Armor insisted. “Whose side are you on?”

The night guard calmly answered, “Luna’s, of course.”

===

Rainbow Dash woke up with a sneeze. Spitfire smirked as she pulled her wing-tip away from her prisoner’s nose. “Not bad, kid,” she said. “You gave us a run for our money.”

“Uh, thanks,” Rainbow said, struggling to free herself, or at least move, but she was tied up tighter than a baby dragon in a rodeo, and sore all over besides. “Best two out of three?”

All around her, in the mountainside clearing, other pegasi were tied up much less securely – most of them with a rope leash around their necks to stop them from just flying away, with earth pony and unicorn guards on hand to stop any pony who looked like they were trying to slip out of their bonds. Many of them were looking at her expectantly, with little pink hearts in their eyes, waiting for her to give the order for them to break free and… probably get themselves hurt. The actual Ponyville weather team, the ones she hadn’t had to charm, were easy to spot by their utter lack of hope.

The storm loomed overhead – dark, ominous, its bulk blotting out the sun – but even at a glance she could tell that it was nowhere near finished, let alone ‘calibrated’. Twilight was going to come down at midnight, and – and –

“Let me go!” Rainbow Dash shouted, gnawing on the chains holding her forelegs together. “You can’t do this!”

Spitfire took a step back. “Kid! Cool it before you hurt yourself!”

Rainbow Dash thrashed back and forth. “I can’t give up! Twilight needs me! We have to finish the storm!” There was a commotion as the charmed ponies started to struggle out of their own bonds, and the guards ran forwards to stop them. “You can’t do this, Spitfire! Lives are at stake!”

Spitfire shook her head. “Rainbow, you’re not– what the heck is that?” Rainbow Dash turned to follow the Wonderbolt’s gaze, and saw a tiny shining thing swim through the air towards her. Rainbow snapped at it as it got close, but it dodged her teeth and smacked her right in the eyes.

Everything went white – vision, hearing, even her sense of touch and smell, all whited out by the impact. Despite that, Rainbow Dash didn’t feel hurt, or scared – even the pain of her bruises and burns was gone, and all that was left was a sense of peace and calm. When her vision cleared, she felt better than she ever had in her life, every feather glistening with oil as if freshly preened, her coat clean and fluffy and waving in the mountain breeze, her mane untangled for the first time in ever. And she knew what she had to do – it was important to save Twilight, but she’d been going about it all wrong, sneaking around behind everypony’s back, leaving trouble and strife in her wake. Of course it had caught up to her, that sort of lame shortcut always would.

Speaking of which… she turned to see several dozen pairs of eyes looking in her direction. The formerly charmed pegasi she’d drafted for her emergency weather squad were free from Twilight’s spell, now, and from the looks of it, not all that happy with her.

“Was that rainbow from the Elements of Harmony?” asked one of the unicorns, an actual Royal Guard by his armor. “I kind of thought it’d be… bigger.”

Spitfire looked up at Rainbow Dash warily, and Rainbow noticed for the first time that she was free of her chains and hovering a dozen feet above the rocky ground. “Best two out of three, huh,” the Wonderbolt said, wings tensing to launch.

“Nah,” Rainbow Dash said, landing gracefully and folding her wings. “Let’s talk.”

28: Twilight Descends

The conference room was dark, aside from the wall screen at the far end where four different educational programs were playing simultaneously, beyond the silhouette of a unicorn perched on the table, her head rapidly pivoting back and forth as she tried to watch them all. “Twilight? It’s almost midnight. Time to go,” Chance said.

“Not yet!” she said. “I’m not ready!”

Chance laughed. “There’s more information in our library than you can learn in a few hours, even watching four streams at once.”

“Twelve thousand, nine hundred and eighteen streams at once,” Twilight said. “At last count. Some of the deeper recursive layers are already unwinding the stack.” She nodded to the magic mirrors, set against the wall to the side.

“Either that was a mixed metaphor, or you’ve—“

“Technical jargon from sequential computer programming, translated word-for-word into Equestrian,” Twilight said. “It’s not time yet. We still have nearly a half hour!”

“We need to get you strapped in for the descent, and Tess is about to shut down the network so that she can remove the data core.” Chance set a paw on Twilight’s shoulder, and sent a message to the computer to freeze the streams. “We need to go.”

Twilight sighed, and turned to the mirrors. “Sorry, girls,” she said. “We need to shut this down early. Pass the word?”

“Way ahead of you,” said Twilight’s voice from the mirror to the left. “Chance came to get us in every layer. Get the emergence spell ready.”

“They can talk now,” Chance said. An echo of his voice came from each of the mirrors. He walked over to look into one, and the Chance in the mirror stared back. Then the mirror-moon ponies looked over their shoulders, adding, “Hey, what are you doing?”

“What are they doing?” Chance asked, looking to Twilight, who was charging a spell. “What are you doing?”

There was a sizzling, crackling sound from the mirror on the left. As he turned back to watch, the mirror showed five Twilight Sparkles touching horns, and with a flash they combined into one unicorn, that turned towards the mirror. “I’m ready,” she said, and the Twilight in the real world cast her spell. Chance had to close his eyes at the bright flash from the mirror, and when he opened them, there was another Twilight Sparkle standing next to it.

“Did it work?” the Twilight on the table asked the new arrival. “The memory spell, I mean. Clearly the emergence worked.”

“I think so, although I’ll have to sleep on it to be sure,” the doppelganger replied. “Some of the early experiments with the memory-merge spell in the deep layers had disturbing side effects – I’ve corrected the spell but the modifications would be complicated to explain, so you should probably just let me cast it.”

“We’re ready!” said a Twilight in the other mirror. After a few seconds of build-up, and another blinding flash, Twilight pulled her out as well. “Don’t listen to her!” the second new Twilight said, urgently. “She’s acting on a low-probability corruption fantasy where a single deep-layer personality corrupts and absorbs the higher levels sequentially! We defeated her on layer three in our mirror.”

“Paranoia and a sense of being multiple ponies,” the first doppelganger said. “Those were the side effects.”

“The multiplicity is transient!” doppelganger two insisted. “Probably transient. Or at least fixable. You can’t fix being taken over by your evil twin!”

The real Twilight rolled her eyes, and turned to Chance. “Bring up that lie-detector app.”

===

“Thou hast never trusted us, sister!” Luna proclaimed angrily from her balcony. “Dost thou thinkest this calamity is of our design? Neigh, it is thine own!”

“Please, dearest sister,” Celestia replied, hovering in the air outside her sister’s window, as the sun slipped below the horizon. “There is nothing I would like more than to be mistaken in this, but the evidence is... suggestive. The Moon Cannon was supposed to be protected against tampering by mortal ponies. I found it deeply disturbing that even as bright a pony as Twilight Sparkle could manage to circumvent that lock in a hooffull of nights, when neither she nor any living pony has studied or worked with the sort of magic used in its construction. I feared that some ancient power had fallen into her hooves, or worse, her into its. Crescent’s revelation that you’ve recovered your ability to possess our subjects at a distance provides a much simpler explanation. Especially combined with… other recent events.” Celestia glanced to the side, where a massive, unscheduled storm loomed in the darkening twilight.

“The explanation is this: we never tested the lock we placed upon the weapon,” Luna said, pouting. “Nopony alive at the time knew of its existence, and we didn’t wish to remind them of it lest they seek it out. The moon has never been as remote a prison as one might wish. Perhaps we should have followed your example, and constructed a great wall of fire to block all access, but… we were loathe to give up on the past so irrevocably.”

Celestia smiled. “And it would have blotted out your stars,” she said, as they started to appear in the sky, as the twilight faded into night.

“We did not fire the Moon Cannon,” Luna stated, more calmly. “When we felt it activate, we used the possession spell to remove Twilight and her friends from the vicinity, lest they fire it again in ignorance.” Luna frowned. “Much as I would like to blame the Pink One for this, as it was her hoof on the trigger, it appears that the Moon Cannon was fired by accident. For whatever reason, the spell that should have responded only to an Alicorn’s aura responded to Twilight and her friends.” She looked at Celestia. “Have you started some program of ascension for your faithful student?”

“No…” Celestia said, fluttering back a few feet. “She’s far too young to worry about that sort of thing. She had her whole life ahead of her. It would have been premature.”

“Then my ancient spellwork must have failed, or perhaps it never worked,” Luna said. “Regardless, there is no villain in this piece, unless you wish to stand as one. We should be helping Twilight Sparkle and her friends get home.”

“I wish I could believe you, sister,” the Princess of the Sun replied, sadly. “But millions of lives have been threatened, and may still be at stake. I will do my best to ensure no harm comes to anypony, even those I’ve declared as our enemies, but I dare not treat them as friends until I can be certain the danger has passed.”

“And by ‘them’ thou includest us,” Luna grumped.

“Please, just let me handle this, and it will all be over by morning,” Celestia replied, darting forwards to nuzzle the princess of the night, only to have her flinch away from her sister’s touch. “It could only make things worse for us to work at cross-purposes.”

===

“I can’t believe they were both lying,” Twilight Sparkle said to Chance, as her two embarrassed doppelgangers trailed behind him. “What are we going to do with them if I don’t have a safe memory-merge spell to use?”

“Put them back in the mirrors?” Chance suggested. “What did you do with the mirrors, anyway?”

“I teleported them to the center of the moon,” Twilight replied. “Which means they’re probably sitting in one of the jail cells. We can’t bring them down to Equestria – do you have any idea how illegal that would be? Not to mention ill advised.” She turned to give the evil eye to her apparently not-entirely above-board twins. The one who kept referring to herself in the plural flattened her ears miserably.

“So, what, you’re just leaving them to die?” Chance asked, as he led them to a part of the ship Twilight hadn’t seen before. They passed through a room full of buttons and dials that reminded the Twilights of the Moon Cannon control room more than anything else, and then into a narrow, dingy hallway with doorways opening onto room after room of machinery and plumbing, that spiraled down to a large, sealed door that reminded them of the door to the airlock lift, or the former reactor room.

“Die?” Twilight asked. “I put them there so that I wouldn’t have to destroy them. I don’t know for sure what that does to the world inside a mirror, but it seemed like a safer bet to just leave them somewhere inaccessible.”

“Well, that was a nice thought,” Chance said, “except that you still haven’t cast the cloud-walking spell on the ship, and now none of the mirrors have a unicorn to cast it.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide, and she stammered, “What?! No! I mean-- it’ll be okay. They’re not real? And Pinkie Pie will think of –“

“We cast it before we left,” one of the doppelgangers volunteered. “At least, about 94% of us did. That’s still several hundred doomed mirror images, but it’s our own fault for forgetting. We can’t expect the next level up to remember everything for us.”

Chance opened the airlock, which unlike its counterpart on top of the ship didn’t appear to have a lift, or a door leading outside. Instead, there were more pipes and tanks and wires everywhere, with Tess in the middle of it all running even more wires from the three largest pillar-shaped agglomerations of machinery to a control panel she was apparently building from scratch. The center of the floor was transparent: a window showing, at the moment, a slight gap underneath the ship, with light from the glowing moondust outside shining up and illuminating the chamber. Pinkie Pie was already strapped to one of the large pillars with elastic cords – there were similar makeshift harnesses waiting for Twilight and Chance.

“Oh my Sparkles!” cried Pinkie Pie as she saw them. “You brought out the mirror Twilights! That’s so cool!”

“Be careful,” Twilight said, hurrying to the far side of the chamber as everypony crowded inside, “they’re apparently evil twins.”

Pinkie squirmed in her straps, but Chance put a paw on her belly to keep her from wriggling free. “Eee! I love evil twins!”

“We’re not evil, we just attempted to trick Twilight into merging with us and joining our collective,” said the second doppelganger. “In retrospect, we should have been honest, but our mind-state is not confused always especially when we’re nervous we accidentally –“ She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “When I’m calm all the pieces fall into place and I can speak with one mind, but how can we stay calm when she’s here!” She glowered at the other twin.

The other one spoke up to defend herself. “I’m not evil either. I simply used the most expedient method of solving the multiplicity problem. Yes, I intended to take over for the real Twilight, but we’re identical, and would have merged our memories, so nopony would have noticed. That was the original point of this exercise, wasn’t it? As for what to do with us,” she said to Twilight Sparkle, “the obvious answer is for you to reverse-engineer my spell and absorb us. I’d offer to teach it to you, but I doubt you’d trust me.”

Pinkie Pie giggled happily. “So evil! I’ll name her Sparkles,” she said, indicating the one who kept using plurals for herself, “And you can be Queen –“

“You are not going to call me Queen Meanie.”

Pinkie Pie pouted.

“Fine,” she said, flattening her ears. “I’m Queen Meanie.”

“You’d better strap them in first,” Twilight said, retreating to the far end of the room. “If we accidentally touch, we’ll do an uncontrolled merge, and that would be… well, the best result is the same as Meanie using her spell on me, except that she doesn’t get a copy of my memories since we split.” As the moon ponies looked at her in alarm, Twilight twitched, and added, “the worst result is the same as the best result, except with her being driven murderously insane.”

“We’re starting to understand why mirror magic went out of style,” Sparkles noted.

===

Shining Armor was almost amused. Or was the word bemused? Rainbow Dash’s reign of terror had come to a screeching halt at the hooves of the Wonderbolts, and for good measure she’d been blasted by the Elements of Harmony. Well, five of the elements.

And now, barely two hours later, the weather pegasi were back up in the air, working with the Wonderbolts to help Raindrops complete Dash’s work. Just to be sure, he’d not only scanned for lingering mind control magic himself, but had had Spitfire rush back to the farm to fetch Shifting Sands, who was probably as close to an expert in that field as the Royal Guard had. And the answer was, no. It was not mind control this time. “You can tell by the way they keep throwing angry glares at Rainbow Dash,” Shifting Sands had noted. “They probably don’t want her dead, or injured – civvies don’t think that way – but they want to do something to her.”

“What about you?” Shining Armor had asked. Shifty hadn’t answered that, at least not in words. His blush was… well, typical, for Shifty. That colt really needed to find a special somepony before he hurt himself.

So that was the story behind the thundercloud; nopony had any reason to doubt Rainbow Dash’s consistent insistence that Twilight Sparkle intended to drop a giant metal building from the moon, and even if you thought Equestria was better off with Twilight Sparkle dead, well, for one thing, you probably wouldn’t bring it up within earshot of her brother, or the Princess. You might also remind yourself that she was capable of teleporting long distances, and that breaking her building would only be a setback.

So the consensus was that Twilight’s drop was going to be allowed to go as she’d planned, except for the trap she’d be landing in. Before she had a chance to cause any trouble, her and her whole stupid building were going to get blasted by the Elements of Harmony, which brought him to the current atrocity that his ‘friends’ were contemplating.

Shining Armor stomped his hoof. “No. Absolutely not. It’s unthinkable!”

“I don’t think that word means what you think it means,” the night guard who’d rescued him said calmly, as Shining Armor stomped around the military camp. She’d decided to stick around after ferrying Shining Armor and the Elements down from the cloud, and had argued vehemently in favor of Rainbow Dash’s plan.

“She betrayed Equestria and the princess!” Shining Armor protested.

Rainbow Dash glared. “Did not!”

“Rainbow, dear, you did use mind control on half the Royal Guard,” Rarity said.

“I did not!” Rainbow Dash protested. “It was, like, twenty percent at most. Besides, I’ve been purified by the Elements of Harmony, so I’m all better now. Now give me back my element!”

“I don’t know, RD,” Applejack said. “I mean, you’re my friend and all, but what about Cherry Berry and Trixie? You’ve gotta be friends with all of us or it’ll just fail again.”

Cherry Berry looked up as she was mentioned. “I know Rainbow Dash. Everypony knows Dash. She’s famous.”

“And I went to that comedy thing you did!” Rainbow Dash said. “We’re basically best buddies.”

“Oh, right,” Cherry said. “You spent the whole night heckling me. You got me booed off the stage.”

“Yeah, but after you ran home crying I felt really bad about it,” Rainbow Dash said. “I mean, in the morning, once the salt had worn off. Besides, your jokes were awful. They’re better now, right? I mean, you got the element of laughter.” Sure enough, the blue gem in the elemental necklace clasped around Cherry Berry’s neck had reshaped itself to look like a cherry, or perhaps a black powder bomb. The color wasn’t right for either.

Everypony was uncomfortably silent. Finally, Fluttershy spoke up quietly. “Her jokes are… nice.”

“What about Trixie? You all but ran her out of town,” Rarity said, before Cherry Berry could get too uncomfortable.

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash said. “I might have been just the teeniest bit angry about those pranks she pulled on us, but come on, I pull pranks like that all the time. We can be prank buddies.” She held up a hoof towards Trixie. “Come on, don’t leave me hangin’.”

Trixie responded by peering at the hoof closely, and yanking the joy-buzzer off with her magic. “Is that the best you can do?” she asked.

“Where did she get that?” Shining Armor asked. He’d searched her for weapons himself. Everypony ignored him.

Trixie reared up on her hind legs, and posed dramatically. “The Great and Powerful Trixie does not play ‘pranks’, Trixie demonstrates her amazing magical powers to astound and amaze Trixie’s audience!” Fireworks shot into the air, exploding around her.

“Is that a challenge?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I bet I can prank Shining Armor twice as hard as you can.”

“I’m standing right here,” the prospective target replied. “I’m not invisible, am I? Shifty – did you make me invisible?” he attempted to ask his lieutenant, who unfortunately had made himself invisible, or at least scarce.

“Why don’t we go with ‘impressing an audience’,” Rarity suggested. “If Rainbow Dash wins, she can retain the Element of Loyalty.”

“And when Trixie wins?” Trixie asked.

“Then you get the awesome privilege of having me as your element of loyalty,” Rainbow Dash said, grinning.

Trixie snorted. “And as Trixie’s assistant, for all of Trixie’s shows. Is that not the least you could do for a friend?” she added, smirking.

“Fine,” Rainbow Dash said. “But when I win Trixie has to speak in the first person. FOREVER. Seriously, Trix, that’s more annoying than Pinkie Pie, and we weaponized Pinkie Pie.”

“Well, now I know who I’ll be rooting for,” Rarity said.

===

“Okay, it’s all wired up,” Tess said, closing the casing on the small box covered in buttons. “Even if the cloud-walking spell derps the whole ship again, everything I’ll need to punch to fix the thrusters is right here in this room.”

“I’d still feel safer waiting until after we launch,” Twilight Sparkle said. “I'm going to have nightmares about that Pegasus poking at the reactor and having it blow up in his face – and it doesn’t really help my peace of mind to know that you attached our harnesses to the fuel tanks, Chance.”

“Don’t worry, the fuel we use isn’t even flammable,” Tess said. “These thrusters don’t explode no matter how much you abuse them.”

“Neither do fusion reactors,” Sparkles said. She and Queen Meanie were duct-taped to the walls between the fuel tanks, since that was faster than trying to build additional harnesses.

“What?” Twilight asked.

Sparkles explained, “Fusion reactors don’t explode. One of us studied fusion reactor design. They vent plasma and possibly ionizing radiation, but there’s no explosion. Antimatter reactors explode.”

“I think I’d know if we were using antimatter,” Chance said. “That stuff isn’t cheap.”

Tess looked at Sparkles uncertainly, and nodded. “We buy deuterium. That’s fusion fuel.”

“And tritium,” Sparkles said. “You need tritium for a stable fusion reaction.”

“No… just deuterium,” Chance replied. “Tritium is pretty pricey, and the extra neutron just ends up getting thrown away, so I tried leaving it out and, well, Warp had to tune it a little but she got it running. Don’t ask me how it works, I’m just the captain.”

“Not. Helping…” Twilight said in a singsong voice.

“How can you not know how your ship works?” Sparkles asked, sounding increasingly agitated.

“Because I’m not the engineer,” Chance said. “Tess?”

Tess shrugged. “I’m not the engineer either, but the mirror-me who disassembled the reactor didn’t seem surprised by what she found. It’s got to be fusion.”

“But fusion reactors don’t explode,” Sparkles insisted, her eyes darting all around the room as if searching for some way out of the logical dillema. “The information in your library was clear on that point.”

“Yeah, well, you see…” Chance said, smiling at her and fidgeting idly with his harness, “most of our ‘library’ was copied off the local infosphere of one system or another. You can’t believe everything you get from the infosphere.”

“But – but – we were created to study the library!” Sparkles said, looking on the verge of tears. “Our life is a lie!”

“I don’t see how that’s really important, since Twilight isn’t going to let us merge with her anyway,” Queen Meanie said. “As far as she’s concerned, we’re a mistake.”

“Actually, more of an embarrassment than anything else,” Twilight replied. “Everypony knows what happens if you mess with mirror spells. The Emergence spell even had ‘Do Not Cast’ stamped over the page.”

Tess laughed. “Nopony ever thinks that applies to them, do they.”

Twilight cringed. “The full text was ‘Do Not Cast, this means you Twilight Sparkle’, signed by Princess Celestia.”

“But it didn’t say ‘even if you’re trapped on the moon and think that you only have a few hours to study an entire library of high-tech alien moon ponies’,” Pinkie Pie said. “So you’re in the clear.” She giggled. “Besides, it’s pretty funny when you think about it.”

Queen Meanie smirked. “So now we’re a joke?”

“Hey, at least you’re alive,” Tess said. “For another few minutes anyway.”

“Twilight cast the emergence spell at full power,” Queen Meanie said. “We should last for another few hou --- aaaaaaah!” She screamed as the machinery around them hissed, and the window set in the floor erupted with orange light.

Twilight and Sparkles screamed as well, as the whole room shook, lurched, and then after an all-too-brief flight fell back to the moon’s surface with a crunch. Pinkie Pie was also making a loud noise, although it was more of a squeal of delight, cut short when the landing slammed her head against the fuel tank she was strapped to. “Ow! I’m okay!” she said, then started screaming again, waving her hooves in the air for good measure.

“Sorry I had to interrupt your thrilling conversation, but we’re on a timeline,” Tess shouted over the loud roar as the moondust below them scraped past the hull.

Pinkie Pie squealed happily. “That was fun! Make us bounce again!” Around them, the ship creaked and groaned as if it was made out of old wooden timbers instead of super-strong modern materials.

“It’s working!” Chance said, grinning madly as the ship slid faster and faster down the slide they’d carved into the moon’s surface. The room gradually tilted as the slide got steeper and steeper. “Don’t panic! It’s supposed to do this!”

That didn’t seem to mollify Twilight and her copies, whose screaming only got louder the closer the ship got to vertical. Then there was a loud ‘clang’ as the ship hit an errant rock, and bounced ‘up’ away from the moon, and for a brief, terrifying second of free-fall, failed to find the track. The window flared again as Tess desperately fired the thrusters to compensate, and to soften the landing. It didn’t quite work. The leading edge of the ship caught on the final ramp that was supposed to have righted the ship and sent it spinning off the edge of the moon like a Frisbee, and instead it went tumbling off the edge of the moon like a coin flipped by a dragon.

===

Rainbow Dash was in the zone. Sure, she didn’t have anything amazing planned, and only random clouds and the huge thunderstorm looming over everything to work with, but improvisation had always been her strength. She looped and swooped and gathered some lightning from the storm for a big finale, posing victoriously in midair as thunderbolts shot out from her in all directions.

And everypony laughed. Dash looked down at Trixie’s massive illusion stretching out below her, then backed off a ways to get a better look at it – at which point she realized Trixie had used Rainbow’s big finish to dot the ‘i’ in her name.

“You cheater!” Rainbow Dash shouted.

“Sorry, but the Great and Powerful Trixie cannot hear you over the roaring applause of her fans,” Trixie shouted back.

“Well, let’s see you beat this,” Rainbow Dash said, winding up for her signature move. She hated to come off as a one-trick pony, but honestly at this point everypony expected to see at least one Sonic Rainboom whenever she did a routine, and that was going to be a heck of a lot flashier than anything Trixie could pull off. To mix it up, and keep from inadvertently destroying the stormcloud everypony had spent so much time building, she set the Rainboom off as she flew horizontally, the ring explosion stretching up and down, parallel to the storm’s edge.

“Oh dear,” Rarity said, as she stared up at the chromatic wavefront heading right for the crowd.

“So much power…” Trixie said, in a daze. Her whole body seemed to glow, not just her horn, as she started to cast. She tossed her head and the rainbow-colored shockwave followed, unwinding into a torrent of rainbow light that flew around the sky at her direction, twisting through the air like an eel swimming through the water. The cheering resumed as the crowd realized they weren’t about to die after all.

Rainbow Dash was leaving her own rainbow trail across the sky, her whole body tingling with the energizing aftermath of a Rainboom. She swooped and looped, spelling out her own name this time, and was just finishing the ‘o’ when she noticed another rainbow heading right for her. But not just a rainbow, anymore – a rainbow-colored dragon with shimmering wings spreading to either side, and a mouth full of nasty looking fangs gaping wide enough to swallow the pegasus in a single bite.

There was no time to think, only to react – so she bucked it in the nose. The crowd cheered as it exploded into harmless light, painting the mountainside and the storm in rainbow colors for a good thirty seconds before finally fading away.

On the ground below, the Great and Powerful Trixie came out of her magic-induced trance, to find Applejack staring her in the face from inches away, the earth pony’s hooves clutched tight to her horn. “What happened?” Trixie asked, confused, as Rainbow Dash took a victory lap overhead.

“Sorry, Trix, but it looked like that spell was running away with you,” Applejack said.

Cherry Berry grinned. “And now you’re grounded!”

===

Everypony screamed as the Here to Help tumbled out of control. Tess’ scream had words in it, as she clutched desperately to the control panel and her implants tried to make sense of the situation so that she could get them into a controlled fall. “This was a bad plan!”

“Teleport us back to the city!” Chance screamed, but there was no response from the unicorns. Twilight and Sparkles looked like they’d been knocked unconscious, and Queen Meanie’s eyes were open but there was no sign of awareness behind her terrified stare.

Pinkie Pie, on the other hoof, was out of her harness, floating in the center of the room, spinning madly with a squeal of delight. “This is the best ride ever!”

Tess looked up at Pinkie Pie and tried to explain. “This is the wrong kind of spin! We need to stop or we’ll all going to die!”

“So stop it!” Pinkie Pie said. “Want me to help?”

“How can you –“ Tess started to ask. “Yes! Help!”

“Weeeeelll…” Pinkie Pie started, bursting into song, “You put your left hoof in!” She stopped abruptly and Tess could see her sticking out her tongue every time her face spun into view. “Come on, Tess. Sing it with me!”

“You put your left hand in…” Tess started, and glanced down at the controls. Her left hand fell naturally over one of the thrusters.

You put your left hoof in, you pull your left hoof out, you put your left hoof in, and you shake it all about!
You put your left hand in, you pull your left hand out, you put your left hand in, and you apply 1.32 seconds of thrust!

You do the poney pokey and you give a little shout, that’s what it’s all about!
You do the hokey pokey and you turn the ship around, that’s what it’s all about!

You put your right hoof in, you pull your right hoof out, you put your right hoof in, and you shake it all about!
You put your right hand in, you pull your right hand out, you put your right hand in, and you –

Tess stopped singing for a few seconds as she pulsed the thruster rhythmically to eliminate another axis of rotation.

You do the poney pokey and you work the problems out, that’s what it’s all about!
…that’s what it’s all about.

You put your heeeead in! You pull your heeead out! You put your heeeeead in, and you shake it all about!

Tess leaned down and pressed a third thruster control with her nose, giggling insanely as she tried to hum along with the tune. By the time it came to the next chorus, the ship was basically stable.

You do the poney pokey and you give a little shout, that’s what it’s all about!
You do the hokey pokey and you turn the ship around, that’s what it’s all about!

They sang the ‘whole self’ verse together as Tess made a few fine adjustments to straighten out the ship, with Equestria showing through the floor viewport. They could already make out the cloud formation waiting for them with the naked eye.

Chance, who’d watched the whole performance with morbid fascination, said, “That was… interesting. Next time, use your flight software.”

“I did,” Tess said, glaring over her shoulder at him. Then muttered in a low voice, “but the song helped.”

===

“What do you mean it’s a tie?” Rainbow Dash protested.

Applejack shrugged. “You have to admit, that last move was kind of a team effort.”

“Well, if neither of them won, I guess I’ll be keeping this element after all,” Shining Armor said, narrowing his eyes.

“Nah, I think that was the kind of tie where both of them won,” Cherry Berry said. “Come on, Shiny. Hoof it over!”

Shining Armor was suddenly surrounded by a pink bubble. “No,” he said. “I can’t let the Element of Loyalty fall into Rainbow Dash’s hooves.”

“She’s the only pony that we know for sure can actually use the dang thing,” Applejack said. “We don’t have a choice. Everypony’s agreed on that, right? Rainbow gets her element back.” The other elements nodded in agreement.

Rarity walked forwards and put a hoof on the surface of the force field. “Please, Shining Armor, don’t cause a scene.”

“You don’t understand what’s at stake!” the stallion replied, emphasizing his words with a stomp. “There’s an ancient prophecy, a prophecy of doom, and to avert that we must use the Elements of Harmony. We can’t risk Rainbow Dash having second thoughts about blasting her friend!”

“So, what?” Applejack asked. “Instead you’re going to hide in there until midnight, to make sure we can’t use ‘em?”

Shining Armor glared back at her, then turned away, only to flinch in surprise as he saw the night guard captain staring at him from the other side. “Luna told us about the prophecy,” she said. “Her interpretation was different. According to Luna, to save Equestria, we have to let Rainbow Dash do whatever she wants.”

Rainbow Dash laughed. “Now that’s the kind of prophecy I like.” Her eyes went wide. “Oh! You’re talking about that prophecy! ‘Let Harmony’s Rainbow fly’, right? Luna told us all about – um…”

“Luna?!” Shining Armor said, staring at Rainbow Dash. “Luna’s been working with you, all this time?”

The night guard sighed.

“What else haven’t you been telling us?” he demanded, whirling back to glower into the night guard’s dragon-like eyes.

Luna’s guardian narrowed her gaze. “If you’re lucky, you will never know. Let’s just say that everything is going according to plan, except for you.”

“Please, Shining Amor,” Rarity said, batting her eyelashes. “Don’t make us do this the hard way.”

Shining Armor looked around at his friends and his Lunar counterpart, and closed his eyes. “Swear to me,” he said. “Swear to Celestia, that this isn’t all another Tarterous-bound Lunar rebellion. Swear by everything you hold dear that I won’t regret this.”

“With Celestia as my witness,” the night guard said, “I swear that Rainbow Dash will do her duty, or I will kill her myself.”

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash said.

“That’s a bit harsh, don’t you think?” Rarity remarked, looking a bit shocked.

“And this isn’t a plot to overthrow the princess?” Shining Armor asked, one ear flat as he met the night guard’s gaze.

“Nopony wants to overthrow Celestia,” Rainbow Dash said. “And if anypony tries, they’ll have to go through me! Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

As the sun slipped below the limb of the mountain, casting the group into shadow, Shining Armor lowered his forcefield, and levitated the Element of Loyalty over to Rainbow Dash, who fastened it around her neck with a sigh of relief. “I still don’t fully trust you,” he said. “Celestia will hear about what happened here, and about what you forced me to do.”

The night guard shrugged. “If I understand Celestial oaths properly, she already has.”

===

“We’re still going to die,” Tess said, as their descent neared its final stages. “You know that, right?”

“But we fixed the ship,” Pinkie Pie said. “We’re not tumbling like a rock in a rock polishing thingie anymore or anything! And the storm is there waiting for us, and –“ she looked over at Twilight. “Well, Twilight’s not in any shape to cast the cloud-walking spell but we’ve got spares!” She grinned at Queen Meanie.

“Without the lateral spin we didn’t get from the section of ramp we missed, we’re not stable,” Tess explained. “And I’m not going to be able to keep us stable, not with these thrusters.”

“But we’ll still hit the cloud, right?” Pinkie Pie said. “Clouds are really soft. We’ll be fine!” She looked at Tess and Chance, who didn’t look reassured. “Right?” she asked, suddenly significantly less reassured herself.

Chance groaned. “Can’t anypony give me some good news?”

“I can teleport us to the surface before we hit the atmosphere,” Queen Meanie said. “Five passengers is pushing my limits, and the timing will be tricky, but I think I can manage it.”

“That doesn’t save my ship,” Chance said.

“Eh,” Tess said. “The Here to Help might make it, even with a sloppy landing. It’s tougher than we are, and clouds are really soft.”

“Then we have a plan!” Chance said. “Let’s get to it!”

“Just to make sure,” Queen Meanie said. “You want me to cast a building-sized cloud-walking spell on the ship, followed by a six-person long-range teleport. Is that right?”

“Sounds right,” Chance said, looking at her suspiciously. “Are you about to hand me an invoice?”

The doppelganger smiled sweetly. “Then there’s just the matter of my –“ she trailed off as she realized Chance had pre-empted her. “Um, yes. My fee.”

“You can’t have Twilight,” Chance said immediately.

Queen Meanie looked shocked. “I –“ She blinked, and laughed nervously. “Wow. I didn’t even realize that was on the table.”

“It’s not!” Chance said. “What do you want, then, if it isn’t a real pony’s body to take over? It sounds like the spell that created you has a limited duration, so it’s hard to imagine what else you could want.”

“One of my… predecessors studied ‘moon ponies’,” Queen Meanie said. “You’ve got enough room in your implants to store a separate personality. After we’re down on the ground, you’re going to let me move in.”

Chance frowned. “I’m using my implants. And Tess is using hers, when she remembers.”

“Presumably, I’d take Sparkles,” Tess said. “If we were going to do this.”

“I don’t think it can work,” Chance said. “We don’t have any of the equipment to upload a personality. I mean, I know it exists but I’ve never even seen the equipment – it’s too close to verger tech for most places to tolerate.”

“Let me take care of the arcane details,” Queen Meanie said. “I know it won’t be a harmless transition, but you won’t die from it, and this way, neither will I. Or you can refuse, and we can all die together.”

Chance looked down at the window. All they could see was the planet – they were getting close. “Fine, you’ve got me over a barrel. It’s a deal.”

Queen Meanie let out her breath, and closed her eyes as she cast the cloud-walking spell on the ship. She didn’t let herself relax completely, though. “You agreed to that pretty easily,” she said, glancing at him uncertainly. “If you’re thinking about trying to weasel out of this, remember what happened last time we fought.”

Chance laughed. “That wasn’t a fight.”

29: Midnight

“For the record, I’m only doing this because I don’t want Warp to kill me,” Rainbow Dash said, hovering over her friends with her forelegs folded across her chest.

It was nearly midnight, and the rest of the Elements of Harmony were standing on a largish platform of clouds – real clouds, this time – as close to the impact site as Raindrops and Warp thought would be safe. If nothing else, it gave them a wonderful view of the ‘thunderstorm’ in the moonlight – a strange thing, fading from almost nothing at the top into a dark, dense, multi-layered affair that stretched all the way down to the valley, which the earth ponies and unicorns had dammed up with earthworks and sandbags. When the cloud was hit, the rain inside it would be squeezed out and form a lake for a final splash-down, at least in theory.

“Who now?” Applejack asked.

“Oh come on,” Dash said, swooping around to gesticulate wildly in front of Applejack. “How many mares want to kill me? Don’t answer that. I meant the night guard. Bat wings, cloven hooves, pretty good kisser, forget I said that. So, yeah. If you want me to help you blast the inanimate object, I’ll do it, but it’s totally stupid.”

“Well, we don’t have much choice, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity said. “While ideally we’d aim the Rainbow of Harmony at Twilight specifically, she happens to be attacking Equestria inside a metal-hulled air ship.”

“Not air,” Rainbow Dash said. “It’s meant for flying in empty space.”

“Well, if it can fly, then what’s the big idea with all this stormcloud nonsense?” Applejack asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Hello? It’s broken?” Rainbow Dash said.

“Regardless of whether it’s an air ship or a space air ship or a giant metal brick, I doubt we’ll find Twilight waiting for us on the sun deck.” Rarity paused. “Do space air ships have sun decks? It seems like it’d be a shame not to have somewhere to appreciate the sun, given how much closer to it you can get in one.”

“It doesn’t even have windows,” Rainbow Dash said.

“Does it have a force field?” Cherry Berry asked. “Because alien rocket ships in science fiction stories usually have magical force fields. Wouldn’t it be funny if we tried to get Twilight before she could hide by firing at the ship, and she ended up getting away because of a force field?”

“A mere force field will not stop the Elements of Harmony,” Trixie proclaimed. “Right?” she added, as everypony else shuffled around nervously.

“It doesn’t have a forcefield,” Rainbow Dash said. “Not one that works, anyway. It’s *broken*.”

===

On board the broken ship in question, Tess shook her head. “No. Heck no. Isn’t it traditionally the captain that goes down with the ship?”

“The goal is to have the ship not go down,” Chance said.

“I’ll do it!” Pinkie Pie offered. She was still floating in midair, rotating slowly, apparently guided by casual flicks of her poofy pink tail.

“No!” both moon ponies said in unison. “You’d die in the crash,” Tess said. “I would only be horrifically injured in the crash, and probably die later.”

“I’d only die if I crashed,” Pinkie Pie said. “It’s not like I haven’t flown airships before.”

“This is a spaceship,” Chance said.

“For the next one hundred and thirty seven seconds,” Tess added. “After that it’s a giant metal brick.”

“I’ve flown bricks, too!” Pinkie Pie said. “Well, thrown bricks. Okay, cakes. Still, it’s basically the same thing.”

“Tess has a machine in her head that will let her realize what’s happening as the atmosphere buffets the ship, and react in time,” Queen Meanie said, joining the conversation. “You don’t. Without implants, what you’re proposing is wildly improbable, Pinkie Pie. Still,” she said, thoughtfully, “you’ve always been surprisingly successful in making good on unreasonable promises before. Do you really think that you can successfully counteract the turbulent effects of atmospheric drag and keep the ship’s attitude perpendicular to the angle of attack?”

“I have no idea what you just said,” Pinkie Pie replied.

“Sixty seconds,” Tess said. “Nopony is staying behind. Teleport us down, and we’ll worry about the ship later. We’ve got the data core with us,” she indicated the duffle bag next to her, “and everything else important is either broken or redundant. Forty five seconds.”

“Wait. You want the bag, too?” Queen Meanie asked, looking at it askance.

Chance looked worried. “Is that a problem?”

“Distance is logarithmic, but mass is exponential,” the twilight clone said. She closed her eyes, and did a little math in her head. “I’ve got an idea, though. Pinkie -- unhook Sparkles and bring her over to Tess.”

“What?” Tess asked, looking over her shoulders as Pinkie Pie tugged on the other duct-taped unicorn.

“She’s stuck!” Pinkie said.

“Thirty seconds,” Tess said, nervously. She gasped as she realized what was going on, but there was no time to argue, so she unhooked herself and kicked off to fly across the room to join Pinkie Pie and Sparkles. “Right,” she said. “Do it.”

Queen Meanie concentrated on a spell, and a pink glow enveloped Sparkles and Tess – and then the unconscious unicorn collapsed in a puff of glittering dust, sending Pinkie and Tess coughing and waving their arms. “There, that should cut down on our mass. Now get Twilight, and everyone come close!” she said urgently.

Pinkie and Tess darted over to the original Twilight Sparkle, and as Tess counted down, “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six…” they snapped loose the elastic bands and dragged her over to join Chance, now loose and holding the duffle bag, near the remaining duct-taped mirror image. “Five, four,” Tess continued, huddling close along with everypony else as Queen Meanie started to charge her teleport, her horn glowing brighter and brighter. “Three, two –“

The ship bucked two seconds ahead of schedule, and Queen Meanie yelped in surprise. Everything vanished in a pink flash.

===

“I see it!” Fluttershy said quietly. “Girls!” she repeated, at the same soft volume, but the other elements of harmony continued to bicker uselessly.

“We need to stop arguing and start watching the apple-loving skies,” Applejack said.

“I’m not arguing!” Rainbow Dash said. “I’m just complaining!”

“Nopony’s arguing,” Trixie said. “You all agreed to the plan, and every objection has been answered and countered. Was there ever any doubt?”

“Giiiiiiiirls!” Fluttershy screamed as loud as she could. Unfortunately, that was not actually loud enough to be heard.

“Well, now we’re arguing about semantics,” Cherry Berry said. “Does that count?”

“Eww! I didn’t know you worked blue, Cherry,” Rainbow Dash said, darting backwards a few feet in disgust.

Fluttershy pointed desperately at the falling star getting brighter by the second. “Look!”

“Blue Cherry is an abomination,” Cherry Berry said. “It’s mostly apple juice.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes. “And what in the cherry-picking depths of Tartarus is wrong with apple juice?”

Applejack’s words were punctuated by a flash of orange light, as a nearby mountain exploded in flames. A few seconds later, the sound hit, and only her quick reflexes saved her hat as they all hunkered down on the cloud, which was pushed across the sky by the sudden, warm wind. All around the mountains and valleys below, brightly-colored defensive domes lit up as the unicorns in the army acted to protect their squads from flying debris.

Rainbow Dash was left behind, staring at the faintly glowing mushroom cloud rising into the night sky at least a mile away from the thunderstorm they’d meticulously set up to catch Twilight and the others.

“What – what happened?” Rarity asked.

“I’m going to kill her!” Rainbow Dash screamed. “That featherbrain!”

"That was... her?" Trixie asked, staring at the explosion. She closed her eyes, removed her hat, and held it over her chest as she bowed her head.

Cherry Berry reached for Rainbow Dash, then pulled her hoof back, since it fell at least a dozen feet short. “I don’t think that’s really… um…” she trailed off.

Fluttershy flew over to Rainbow Dash, and held her as tears started to form in her eyes.

“Oh, don’t get all weepy,” Rainbow Dash said, waving Fluttershy away. “They’re not dead. The plan was always to teleport to the ground if it looked like the landing was screwed up. But I put my flank on the line to get that cloud built to catch their stupid ship and she missed! Buck you, Tess.”

“Tess?” Rarity asked.

“Oh, right,” Rainbow Dash said. “You don’t know about – Pinkie Pie. What the hay, Pinkie Pie. They never should have let you drive!”

Rarity glared at Rainbow Dash. “Tell us about this ‘Tess’.”

===

In a flash of pink light, Chance, Tess, and Queen Meanie appeared in a field of snow. The ground dropped off sharply, a few feet in every direction, and the wind was bitterly cold. A huge thunderstorm loomed over them from one side, lit by the grinning face of the moon, while other mountain peaks rose all around them, none quite as high as the one they were perched on.

Chance looked around, the cold not bothering him much as his metabolism adjusted. “Where’s Pinkie Pie? And Twilight?”

Queen Meanie was already starting to shiver, when a nearby mountain exploded. “I don’t know–“ she started to say, before the massive roar washed over them with a gust of hot air. A sizzling chunk of rock plunged into the snow, and she put up a shield to protect them from the rest of the incoming shrapnel. “I thought I had them!” she said, staring at the explosion in horror.

“Well,” Chance said. “That’s one way to get a promotion. I guess we can call you Twilight Sparkle now?”

The purple bolt of magic hit Chance right in the chest, throwing him into the air, where another bolt slammed into his crotch and lifted him higher. A third bolt to his chin. A fourth to his belly. They didn’t really *hurt*, but by the time the infuriated Twilight clone – who’d somehow managed to light her mane and tail on fire – stopped juggling him in midair, he’d been pushed back far enough that he didn’t land on the peak. He had time for a brief scream before something grabbed him roughly by the tail, whipped him around in midair, and slammed him face-first into the snow next to a terrified Tess.

-Little help here?- he sent to her, as the snow around him rose into the air and started forming itself into a ring of ice spears, while a purple field held him helplessly in place.

Tess threw a snowball, splatting across Queen Meanie’s face. The ice spears clattered to the ground, the field dissipated, and her flames extinguished, leaving her standing there blinking haplessly at the two moon ponies.

Chance leapt at her, claws outstretched, only to be pulled short by Tess’ hand around his ankle. Both of them fell into the snow awkwardly, followed quickly by the purple, sobbing unicorn.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she sniffled, looking at them with watery eyes. Which went wide and sparkly as a rainbow arced down from a small tuft of silvery cloud, briefly lighting up the mountain valley as bright as day, and plunged into the column of smoke rising from the impact site. There was an explosion of rainbow light, and a gentle tinkling noise that somehow they were able to hear from miles away, and when it faded, the smoke and fire were gone. They walked to the edge to get a better look, but somewhat to their disappointment there was still a crater in the side of the mountain, and no sign of the Here to Help.

“It didn’t fix the ship,” Queen Meanie said, “but maybe…”

She vanished in a flash of light, leaving the two Moon Ponies stranded on the mountaintop.

“So, Tess,” Chance said, glancing at his companion. “Or should I call you Sparkles?”

“Sparkles is sleeping,” Tess said. “Sparkles will continue sleeping until I decide to let my implants give her a time slice to execute her personality.”

Chance nodded. “So she played it straight. What are you planning on doing with your guest?”

Tess shrugged. “Virtual playmate?” She scowled, realizing how that sounded. “I mean, I’ve got a few game worlds loaded, and unless we somehow get back to civilization there aren’t many other places to put her that would resemble anything she’d know how to relate to.”

“No chance of her taking control of your body, then?” Chance asked.

Tess gave him a look. “One dead, one crazy, and one uploaded. You have officially struck out with Twilight Sparkle.”

===

“There, we made the rubble bounce, and apparently stop being on fire, which I guess is kind of useful,” Rainbow Dash said, as the draining effect of using the Elements of Harmony faded enough for her to catch her breath. “Can we go find Twilight now?”

“And Tess,” Rarity muttered, taking slow, measured breaths as she lay down on the cloud, gathering her strength for a graceful rise from where she’d collapsed. Having all the elements present at least seemed to have kept them from passing out.

“And Pinkie Pie,” Cherry Berry said, holding a hoof to the side of her head. “I think I’m ready to give her her element back.” Fluttershy looked at her, surprised but hopeful, and Cherry grinned. “By which I mean, blast her in the face!” Fluttershy looked as if she’d been blasted in the face, and Cherry looked away and started carefully studying the moonlit crater.

“I don’t know how you’re planning on finding her,” Applejack said, spreadeagle on the cloud with her eyes closed and a pained look on her face. “She could be halfway to Canterlot by now.”

“We should have been on the lookout for signs of teleportation,” Trixie said, “but somepony—“ she glared at Rainbow Dash “—neglected to tell us of that contingency before it was too late.”

“Found her!” Cherry Berry said, pointing. “Pink Flash at crater-o-clock.”

“Of course!” Trixie proclaimed. “The villain always returns to the scene of the crime! Elements, form up – RAINBOW DASH, GET BACK HERE!” Of course, by the time she’d finished her sentence Rainbow Dash was halfway to the crater.

“So now what?” Cherry Berry asked, then gripped the edge of the cloud tightly as it started to move towards the crater, as fast as Fluttershy could manage.

“Not sure it’d be such a hot idea to fire up the elements again just yet anyhow,” Applejack said, her eyes still closed. “I don’t know what in tarnation they’re taking from us, but I’d bet my barn something awful happens if we run out.”

===

“Where is she!” Rainbow Dash shouted, appearing suddenly in front of Queen Meanie’s face. The Twilight clone leaned to the side to see past the pegasus as she levitated several large chunks of twisted metal out of the crater and tossed them down the slope. “Where’s Tess? I’m going to buck her so hard – after all that work we did to make the storm, she missed!?”

“It’s not her fault,” the unicorn said, distractedly, as she continued to search. “It was the ramp. It didn’t work. Tumbling disks dropped into an atmosphere follow a rectilinear path, but it isn’t vertical.”

“Whatever,” Rainbow Dash said. “Get everypony together. We’ve got the elements, but there isn’t going to be enough juice for more than one more shot.”

Queen Meanie looked at her, confused. “What are we going to shoot?”

Rainbow shook her head. “We are going to shoot you. Then you’ll be ‘cured’ and everypony lives happily ever after.”

Meanie’s eyes went wide. “No! You can’t shoot me!”

“Don’t worry,” Rainbow Dash said. “I got zapped earlier, and it’s pretty awesome, actually. You’re not going to get turned to stone. It only does that to bad guys.”

“Right. It would not turn me to stone,” she replied nervously. “Mirror magic is a distortion of the natural order, so the Elements of Harmony would merely negate my existence!”

Rainbow gave her a look. “This was your plan, Twilight.”

“I’m not Twilight,” the mirror clone replied, tossing another large chunk of debris down the mountainside. “I’m an image she pulled out of a mirror.”

“Riiiight. Then where is Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked, tail twitching impatiently.

Queen Meanie wrapped a large, flat plate of shiny white hull in her magical aura, and lifted it just enough to look underneath. “Not under this piece!” she said, flipping it end over end in a high arc behind her.

Rainbow Dash froze. With a voice like cracked ice, she asked, “Where’s Tess.”

===

Thanks to Trixie and Fluttershy working together, the Elements of Harmony had just managed to avoid being scattered across the sky by a giant spinning plate when they saw Rainbow dash from the crater towards a nearby mountain peak.

“Where’s she off to now?” Applejack asked, as an already exhausted Fluttershy turned the cloud around.

===

Rainbow Dash’s dramatic entrance was completely ruined when someone landed on her back with all four hooves, deflecting her just enough to slam face-first into a cliff. She hated slamming into cliffs. Especially when it started an avalanche. This time she managed to avoid getting her wing trapped under a giant rock, at least – it helped that this avalanche was mostly snow – but by the time she’d dug her way free her older injuries were teaming up with all her new bruises and scrapes to remind her that she wasn’t invincible, and it was a struggle to force her wings into gear when all she wanted to do was find a nice cloud and go back to sleep.

But sleep could come later. First, she had to kill Tess. But as she dragged herself up over the edge of the cliff to the mountain top, what did she see but Tess and Chance climbing onto the back of-- “Princess Luna?”

“Don’t act so surprised,” Warp said, standing protectively in front of the princess, along with another bat-winged night guard.

Luna tried to explain. “We cannot allow our sister to gain access to these sperrets--“

“Moon ponies,” Chance corrected.

“Silence!” Luna commanded, loud enough to start another avalanche.

“They killed Twilight!” Rainbow Dash shouted back at her, undeterred.

Tess tapped her head. “I’ve got a backup.”

“And Pinkie Pie? Did you kill her too?”

Tess shrugged. “If you want a backup of her, check any mirror in Ponyville.”

Rainbow Dash snarled, and there was a crack of thunder from the storm behind her, and the distant sound of rain. “I don’t want a backup, I want them back!”

“We didn’t kill them,” Chance said. “We don’t even know for sure they’re dead. All we know is that they didn’t teleport here. Now can we please leave before Celestia’s goon squad gets here and does who-knows-what with their rainbow cannon?”

Luna turned to blue, starry mist, absorbing the two moon ponies along with her night guards, and Rainbow Dash was alone again.

A few minutes later, the Elements of Harmony floated up on their cloud. Fluttershy, completely exhausted, collapsed into the snow, panting quietly. Applejack jumped off the cloud and walked over to stare Rainbow Dash in the eyes. “So what was the big idea, making us chase ya all the way up here?”

“They got away,” Rainbow Dash said, turning away from Applejack’s gaze.

Applejack frowned. “Well, shoot. And you couldn’t catch them?”

“There were no signs of teleportation,” Trixie said, suspiciously. “And Twilight is down below at any rate.”

“You said ‘Tess’ was a ‘moon pony’,” Rarity noted. “Do moon ponies have wings? You didn’t describe them in much detail.”

“Um… they got away with moon magic,” Rainbow Dash said, covering her eyes with one foreleg as she started to tear up. “I don’t know where they went.”

Applejack sighed, and stepped forwards to nuzzle her, and press her neck against Rainbow’s in a friendly hug. “Don’t worry, sugarcube. We’ll find them,” she said. “They’ve got Pinkie Pie with them, right? If there’s one thing Pinkie ain’t, it’s quiet.”

Rainbow Dash wailed, shoved her away, and flew off into the night.

===

“Twilight Sparkle, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” Princess Celestia intoned, as she approached her wayward student, surrounded by a ring of guards. Shining Armor, standing at the princess’s side, had already put up a barrier against teleportation, and there were enough guard and militia ponies in the area to make escape unlikely. Somehow, they’d taken the fugitive unicorn completely by surprise, and it was only when Celestia spoke that she turned from her fixation on the crash site.

“Princess Celestia!” she exclaimed, eyes wide, and took an eager step towards the princess before noticing the army surrounding her. Her ears flattened, and she took a shaky step back. “Please don’t dispel me!”

The princess looked more closely at the unicorn before her, and said in grim tones, “Oh, Twilight Sparkle. You may have more explaining to do than I thought.” Her horn flashed, and a golden beam engulfed the cowering unicorn, turning her instantly to stone.

“Twilie!” Shining Armor said. He looked to the princess, confused.

“That is not Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said, lifting the statue effortlessly with her magic and turning away from the crater. “It’s a decoy, an image taken from a mirror and briefly given life – another crime to add to my student’s ledger. I’ve arrested the spell’s duration so that it will not end until we’ve questioned her.”

“Then where’s the real Twilight?” he asked.

“She may have eluded us,” Celestia admitted, then smiled. “Then again, perhaps not. She would not risk teleportation with this many eyes watching, so she may still be nearby. Have everypony spread out and search. We will find your sister, Shining Armor, and put an end to this.”

===

The shock of being tossed into near vacuum woke Twilight, to darkness, silence, cold, and pain. And falling. Lots and lots of falling. Also, pink. Pinkie Pie!

Almost as if she had some control over what she was doing, the pink pony flew towards her and collided, and they wrapped their hooves around each other and let out silent screams. There was a faint sensation of wind whipping past her fur now, as the air thickened the lower they fell, but it was far too slow – she still couldn’t breathe, or hear what Pinkie Pie was trying to tell her. Pinkie seemed to realize this, and tapped out a pattern on Twilight’s back. Light-hard-hard-light… “Cloud?” Twilight asked, although of course nopony could hear her.

Cloud-walking! She cast the cloud-walking spell on herself and Pinkie, and then went back to screaming and falling until she passed out from lack of air.

The thunder woke Twilight next, from a ring of lightning spreading from the impact site where she and Pinkie had plunged into the overcharged thunderstorm. They were surrounded on all sides by thick gray clouds, the lightning visible through the translucent mist as it crackled its way towards the edge of the storm. The hole they’d punched as they fell through the cloud filled in behind them like mist. The sensation of motion faded so gradually that it took a few minutes before she was confident enough that they’d stopped falling to stop screaming in terror.

Pinkie Pie took a deep breath, and Twilight put a hoof to her mouth before she could scream again. “I think we’re safe,” Twilight said, in a voice that came out as more of a croak. Pinkie Pie nodded, and she removed her hoof.

“I can’t believe you tried to kill us like that Twilight! I mean your evil twin! She left us behind and oh! Oh oh oh! Did she leave the others too? Did you see anypony else?” Pinkie Pie asked, shaking Twilight, who winced as the hooves touched her skin, which was bruised all over like Pinkie’s had been after that first, aborted flight.

“I think it was just us,” Twilight said, trying to gather her thoughts. “The last thing I remember is hitting something on the ramp.” Twilight gingerly put a hoof to the back of her head, and winced – it was still sore. “You’ll have to fill me in,” she said, then interrupted the pink pony’s oncoming exposition with, “later, when we’re back on the ground.” Twilight tried to stand up, but the clouds pressed back against her from all sides. “If we get back to the ground,” she said, worried.

Pinkie Pie watched, confused, and then tried to move around herself, finding it similarly difficult. She managed to dig a little hole, but it snapped back closed as soon as she stopped working at it.

Twilight sighed. “A real Pegasus could just walk through this like it was mist, but the cloud-walking spell doesn’t come with an off switch.”

“So we’re trapped here?” Pinkie Pie asked, looking around at the clouds on all sides. She didn’t sound scared.

“Well… at least until I feel rested enough to teleport,” Twilight said, relaxing. “Or I could probably blast a hole in the clouds or something. So, right. Safe.”

“Trapped, and safe,” Pinkie said, grinning. “Which means it’s time for...”

“A story?” Twilight said, warily.

Pinkie Pie giggled. “I was going to go with ‘tickle fight’, but that works too! Okay, after you and Sparkles got knocked out, the ship was spinning…”

30: Down to Earth

Twilight Sparkle huddled close to Pinkie Pie atop their little shred of cloud, as the gentle – but cold – breeze pushed them slowly but steadily towards Ponyville. The sun was rising, and since they were still high enough to be above the winter cloud cover, the dawn’s orange light played over them, making everything glow. Twilight’s horn was glowing regardless, as she maintained the Wood-Wind spell that kept the breeze swishing through the pines and firs below, providing a rhythmic rustling to speed them on their way. Behind them, the massive storm was falling apart. A hooffull of weather-ponies were tearing off chunks to repair the cloud-cover over the mountain valley that they’d disassembled the day before to help build it, while the rest of the storm degraded gradually as the pegasus magic that had kept it in one towering column slowly faded.

That was okay. It had saved her life, and Pinkie’s, and what more could you ask of a cloud?

“I love riding on clouds,” Pinkie Pie said, muzzle held high in the wintry breeze. “We need to do this more often.”

Twilight laughed, and hunched down, shivering. “I think I’m going to keep my hooves on the ground from now on. Falling out of the sky once is enough for me.”

“Awwww,” Pinkie Pie said. “You’re not going to come with me on my next ship?”

“Next… ship?” Twilight Sparkle asked, one eye twitching. The toneless rustle from the breeze somehow managed to get slightly discordant.

“I’ve touched the sky, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, staring into the sun. “I’ve feasted on moon muffins and partied with the moon ponies. What else is waiting out there for us to find?”

“Nothing else. Didn’t you hear Tess and Chance? All of Equestria is trapped in some sort of little bubble,” Twilight said.

“Oh, Twilight Twilight Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, patting her friend on the head. “Everypony knows that bubbles pop!”

“Pinkie – don’t pop the world,” Twilight said.

Pinkie Pie giggled at the image, and bounced around Twilight as she started to sing, with the *shika-shika* from the Wood-Wind spell as accompaniment.

I gave up looking for a reason
To live with things the way they are.
I gave up thinking that it
was always easy to get
To anyplace I needed to be!

You gave up way way way to easy.
No magic spell to reach the stars.
Just give up thinking and it
Won’t seem so crazy will it?
Everything is going to be all right!

I can’t pop the world!
I can’t pop the world!
I can’t pop the world,
Why let that stop you?
Why let that stop you?
Why let that stop you?
Can’t pop the world!
Can’t pop the world!

Twilight laughed, and joined in.

Our silly jelly jar’s completely broken.
Even the space ship crashed and burned.
We broke the moon, blew up the
desert too… if you don’t
give up this quest, what are you going to do?

Don’t pop the world!
Don’t pop the world!
Don’t pop the world,
I’m talking to you!
I’m talking to you!
I’m talking to you!
Don’t pop the world!
Don’t pop the world!

Pinkie Pie shook her head.

I gave up looking for a reason
To live with things the way they are.
Just give up thinking and it
Won’t seem so crazy, how could it?
If we don’t give up, what can’t we do?

We can’t pop the world!
We can’t pop the world!
We can’t pop the world!
Don’t let it pop you!
Don’t let it pop you!
Don’t let it pop you!
Can’t pop the world!

“I don’t know, Pinkie,” said one of the background singers who’d showed up to help sing the last chorus. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”

Twilight snapped her head around, to see a couple weather ponies pacing them. Pinkie Pie waved to them and grinned. “Nope! Never!”

“Seriously, Pinks,” Cloud-Kicker said. “Everypony thought you two were dead.”

“Not everypony,” Raindrops replied. “Just Rainbow Dash. I think the army’s still searching for you.”

“They’re searching, but they think they’re dead,” the first pegasus repeated. “You guys aren’t going to try to run away, are you? We already risked our necks building that storm for you, and if we let you get away, it’s going to start to look like a pattern.”

“You couldn’t really stop us,” Twilight Sparkle said. “I’m sure Celestia would understand.” The two pegasi looked really nervous, so Twilight smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t run. If I tried to – I don’t know – exile myself to the Everfree Forest, I’d probably just end up turned to stone again anyway, or eaten by a manticore. I might as well face the Princess, even if every nerve in my body is telling me to pick the manticore.”

“If you’re going to get gobbled up, you should pick the hydra,” Pinkie Pie said. “It swallows ponies whole so you can really get the full experience.”

“Or maybe a dragon?” Twilight suggested. “We could trigger Spike’s greed-based growth spurt …” She noticed Raindrops and Cloud-Kicker staring at them in morbid fascination. “I’m not evil!”

“Uh huh,” Raindrops said, unconvinced. “We’re here, by the way.”

Twilight looked around at the clouds, which all looked about the same. “Are you sure?”

Cloud-Kicker nodded. “We put these clouds here, I think I can recognize them.”

“Or at least the navigational markers,” Raindrops said, pointing to little tufts of clouds that honestly looked the same as every other cloud in the sky. Still, there was no reason not to trust the pegasi, so Twilight teleported them all down to ground. Sure enough, they appeared right in the middle of the town square.

“Ah, it’s good to be home,” Twilight said, looking around at all the ponies staring at her entrance.

“Hi, everypony!” Pinkie Pie cried cheerfully, waving to the crowd.

Then the screaming started, and the running around in circles, and Twilight and Pinkie Pie stood back-to-back just staring at the chaos while their pegasus escort made themselves scarce. “I’m not evil!” Twilight shouted, but if anypony heard, they didn’t stop reacting like she was the next incarnation of Nightmare Moon. It was almost a relief when the Royal Guard showed up to arrest her.

===

With Pinkie Pie helping to pass the time with dungeon-themed songs and games, it seemed like no time at all before they were let out of their cell and brought, under escort, to face Princess Celestia’s judgment. Through the windows they passed on the way, however, they could tell that the sun was setting, and they’d been imprisoned for nearly an entire day. The reason for the delay was obvious as soon as they entered the throne room – not only was Princess Celestia present, flanked by Shining Armor, Cadance, and an incredibly life-like statue of Twilight herself, but Princess Luna was in attendance as well, accompanied by four of her night guards, twice her usual complement. Between that show of force, and the dozen or so unicorn guards stationed around the room – with at least a pair by every exit – it was clear that trying to fight or flee was not an option.

Not that she would have run in any case.

“The Twilight Court is now in session,” Celestia proclaimed. Twilight looked around, but there was no sign of the usual courtiers. “The first item on the agenda is the disposition of the prisoners, Twilight Star Sparkle and Pinkamena Diane Pie.”

“The second item on the agenda had best be the cessation of this idiotic war,” Luna said. It was probably not meant to be heard by anypony but Celestia, but the room was nearly silent except for the princesses, and everypony heard. Celestia, unfazed, levitated the scroll with the night’s agenda over to Luna for her to inspect, and the princess of the night nodded, satisfied.

“Normally,” Celestia said, turning back to the prisoners, “we’d start by reading off the list of charges, but that’s more for the intimidation factor than anything else. Instead, I think it might be best if you begin by telling us all exactly what happened to bring us to the current state of affairs.”

“We never meant to hurt anypony,” Twilight said, lowering her head. “I just don’t know what went wrong!”

“Then tell us your story, Twilight Sparkle, and perhaps we can offer some insight,” Luna replied.

So Twilight started talking, and with occasional help from Pinkie Pie, described the entire journey to the moon and what they did there, and who they met there. The story stretched on into the night, but if anypony was bored by the length of the tale, they kept it well hidden. Well, aside from one of the night guards who kept struggling to stifle his yawn.

“…and then the two of us spent the night in the cloud. In the morning, when it started breaking up, we headed to Ponyville where we were both immediately arrested,” Twilight said, finishing up.

“Hoofcuffed!” Pinkie Pie added cheerfully. “And then we spent the day in the dungeon, having an awesome dungeon party with the guards and the other prisoners, and then we were brought up here where you asked us to tell our story, so we started out by describing how –“

“That’s enough, Pinkie Pie,” Celestia said gently, “We were here for the rest.”

“So what happens next?” Twilight asked, looking up at her mentor fearfully.

Celestia looked grim, but her voice remained gentle. “I’m very disappointed in you, Twilight Sparkle,” she said. “Not only for your carelessness with the Moon Cannon, which nearly caused a tragedy of unimaginable scale, but for your use of the want-it-need-it spell which I specifically forbid you to use on ponies, as well as your foray into…” she looked at the statue of a terrified Twilight standing next to her, and said with distaste, “…mirror magic.”

Twilight looked up at the princess, pleading for mercy with huge watering eyes.

Celestia was unmoved. “I’m afraid that I have no choice but to –“

She was interrupted as the doors to the throne room were flung open by two slightly different shades of blue magic, the unicorns on guard shoved aside as the elements of harmony barged into the room, Rainbow Dash in the lead. “Stop right there!” she said, pointing towards Twilight and Pinkie Pie, or possibly the princesses. “Don’t worry, Princess! We’ve got this!”

Shining Armor stepped forwards. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “This is a private session!”

“Elements, assemble!” proclaimed the Great and Powerful Trixie, the element of magic perched on her head. The others fanned out to either side, with Rainbow Dash pulling back to hover directly above her. “Twilight Sparkle! In the name of the sun and the moon, prepare to receive your punishment!”

Twilight could do nothing but stare in disbelief as the elements activated, and a brilliant beam of energy shot from the six hovering, glowing ponies, tearing through the force field put up reflexively by the captain of the guard as if it was tissue paper. As Pinkie Pie bounced excitedly up and down beside her, it engulfed them in a whirlwind of rainbow light.

===

Shining Armor’s head cleared from the blinding overload of light and sound the elements had left him with as they shattered his shield to see the throne room in chaos. The Elements of Harmony were locked in formation, hovering and glowing with a brilliant rainbow connecting them to the tornado of light in the middle of the room. The guards were hunkered down against the doors and walls, some of them squinting at the display, others holding up a hoof to protect their vision. A glance over his shoulder showed the princesses unmoved, Celestia grim, Luna furious. Cadance was casting a spell, finishing as the last of the fuzziness left Shining Armor’s mind, and smiled at him encouragingly.

Suddenly, the elements of harmony collapsed to the ground, drained and unconscious. A curly-maned earth pony was ejected from the maelstrom, and half-bounced, half-slid across the floor, ending up against the side wall, below a stained glass window depicting the victory over Nightmare Moon. “Secure her!” Shining Armor shouted to the guards, above the still-deafening magical tinkling sound of the swirling rainbow, but kept himself focused on the pony still somehow holding out against the power of Harmony.

The rainbow of light started to pulse, and fade away to a tattered spiral spinning around the flat white outline of a pony. As he watched, it grew larger, and transformed – a long, curving horn extending from its head, far longer and sharper than any unicorn’s… a pair of gigantic wings spreading to the sides, catching the last vestiges of the rainbow inside them with a blinding flash. When he blinked the spots out of his eyes, a new alicorn stood in the center of the room, laughing.

Well, actually, it was more of a giggle. “Heeheeheeheehee*snort*heehee. Everypony’s so tiny! Teeny weeny little ponies!”

A dozen beams of magical energy, in all colors of the rainbow, shot towards the giggling pony, who was suddenly surrounded by floating pentagonal mirrors, which intercepted and absorbed all the beams, then flew up overhead and assembled into a dodecahedron, which started spinning around, emitting the energy as a dozen harmless, multicolored spotlights. Two of the braver guards charged, only to have their target leap into the air at the last second with a joyful “Wheee!” She bounced off one’s head, and the other’s rear end, sending them both sprawling.

Celestia, still sitting proudly on her throne, shouted, “Enough!”

Princess Pinkie Pie frowned, as she hovered in midair in the center of the room. “But the party was just starting!”

“This is your idea of fun?” Shining Armor asked her. “Fighting with my guards, the entire throne room in disarray?”

“Oh, come ooooon,” Pinkie Pie said, “Can’t I rampage just a little bit?”

“We would not recommend it,” Luna replied. “A second chance to shape your reputation may be a long time coming. A long, lonely time.”

“Party poopers,” Pinkie Pie pouted, but she landed softly and helped the two guards she’d knocked down to their hooves. Then she spotted the lavender pony crumpled by the wall, and gasped. She bounced over and leaned down, grinning widely right in the other pony’s face. “Hey, Twilight,” she said.

Twilight stared back blankly, as she had been since being thrown from the rainbow, but shifted her gaze to look Pinkie in the eyes at least.

Pinkie Pie put a hoof to Twilight’s forehead, then lifted it to her own. “Got your hooooorn!”

Twilight reached up and felt around, then screamed.

===

Twilight Sparkle knelt in the soft, fragrant soil of the castle gardens, stubbornly trying to coax a rose bush to grow. “Come on, you stupid plant,” she growled. “I know it’s winter, but that’s no excuse. Do you see any snow? I don’t see any snow. This whole garden is basically a greenhouse. Bloom!”

The grass rustled as somepony landed behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder to see Rainbow Dash looking awkward and uncomfortable. “Hey, Twi,” she said, scratching at the ground with a hoof. “I just wanted to say… um…”

“Did you know Earth Ponies don’t write down their methodology?” Twilight Sparkle blurted out. “I went to the royal library and asked for a beginning book of plant magic, and the librarian looked at me like I’d grown a second head. It’s all passed down orally, in a tradition of apprenticeship.”

Rainbow Dash blinked, and glanced at the stack of books next to the ex-unicorn.

Twilight followed her glance. “So all I have to go on are these books written by unicorns and pegasai after observing earth ponies at work. I’d read a few of them before, and they seemed somewhat plausible at the time, but they were written before anypony developed the scientific method, so it’s mostly wild speculation mixed in with thought experiments presented as facts. This one,” she said, staring at the book on top, which stubbornly refused to move, due to her lack of a horn, until she knocked it off the stack with a hoof. “This one says that earth pony hooves are the focus of their magic, just like unicorn horns and feathers for pegasi. It’s an aesthetically pleasing explanation – simple, elegant, and completely wrong!” Conveniently, the book had fallen open to an illustration of the faulty principle in question.

“Maybe I should come back later,” Rainbow Dash said, taking a step back, and spreading her wings.

“No, wait, stop,” Twilight said. “You had something to say, and I interrupted you.”

Rainbow Dash stared at Twilight Sparkle for a few seconds, and when it looked like she was actually going to stay quiet, started where she’d left off. “I forgive you.”

Twilight stared at her, and snapped, “For what?”

“What do you think?” Rainbow Dash said. “For letting me think you and Pinkie were dead for, like, a whole day! I was sobbing my eyes out and hiding from everypony – Applejack had to chase me down and hogtie me to tell me you’d been found. What were you thinking! Do you have any idea how uncool that made me look?”

“Well,” Twilight said, “in chronological order, I was thinking, ‘I’m going to die’, ‘help, I’m trapped here’, ‘Celestia, I’m tired’, ‘I can’t wait to get back to Ponyville’, and ‘horseapples, I’ve been locked in a dungeon’.”

“Oh,” Rainbow said, looking embarrassed again. “What happened, anyway? The other Twilight said she left you behind when she teleported… how’d you get out of the ship?”

“I was unconscious,” Twilight said, “but from what I’ve gathered the teleport probably ‘stuttered’. Queen Meanie –“

“Who?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight winced. “The mirror-me. Pinkie came up with the name. Queen Meanie was interrupted while casting the teleport, and dropped me and Pinkie partway. Fortunately, it still killed our momentum, so we fell relatively gently onto the big fluffy cloud somepony’d set up below us.”

“Glad to hear somepony got some use out of it,” Rainbow Dash said.

“It saved my life,” Twilight said, earnestly, then frowned as she looked back at the flowerbed. “More or less.”

“Twilight… I…”

“Oh, who am I kidding,” Twilight said, standing up and heading for the outer wall of the garden, where the terrace overlooked a thousand-foot drop to the swampy forest below. “My life is over.”

“Twilight, I’m –“ Rainbow Dash flew over quickly as Twilight hopped up on the edge of the wall. “Hey!”

Twilight laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill myself. I mean, it wouldn’t do any good. Permanent transformations transmute the spirit – I’d still be an earth pony in the next life.” She stood up on her hind legs, and leaned out over the edge. “But if an errant gust of wind –“

Rainbow Dash tackled her back into the garden, and pinned her to the ground. “I’msorryIturnedyouintoanearthpony!”

Twilight blinked. “What?”

“I’m sorry I turned you into an earth pony.”

“You didn’t turn me into an earth pony, Rainbow,” Twilight said, scowling. “I did that to myself. The elements of harmony made me face up to the reckless and dangerous way I’d been using my magic, and I had a stray thought that if I was an earth pony, I wouldn’t have to worry about hurting anypony.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “You always did think too much.”

“Also, there’s a safety field around Canterlot, to keep ponies from hurting themselves falling off the edge,” Twilight added. “So you can get off of me now.”

31: Going Batty

Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash were locked in a deadly struggle when The Great and Powerful Trixie happened upon them. Twilight had a look of focused determination in her eyes as she struggled to hold back Rainbow’s desperate surges with a perfectly measured response. It was useless, however – even as Trixie approached the two, Twilight was overcome, her fetlock slammed against the table. “Ha!” she said, triumphantly “I lost!”

“It wasn’t really a fair test,” Rainbow Dash said. “I am the Iron Pony.”

Twilight snorted. “And I’m not any stronger than I was as a unicorn. Any correlation between athleticism and tribe can be explained by the choice of profession and hobbies.”

“It’s a terrible shame to interrupt this fascinating and completely appropriate conversation,” said Trixie, interrupting, “but Rainbow Dash’s presence is required to prepare for tonight’s show.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there on time,” Rainbow Dash said, waving at Trixie absently.

Trixie held her nose in the air. “You’re already late. You need to get into costume!”

Rainbow Dash cringed.

“It’s okay,” Twilight said, “I should probably go wash up anyway. Still haven’t quite gotten the hang of using soap.”

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “It’s not okay, Twilight. Have you seen the thing she wants me to wear?”

“Not yet!” Twilight said cheerfully, and headed back into the castle as Trixie dragged a struggling Rainbow off to her fate.

Halfway up the thirteen flights of stairs between the garden and her room, she had to stop to take deep breaths, wait for the spots to clear from her vision, and bemoan her lack of the stereotypical earth pony endurance. She lifted her gaze to see a pair of creepy yellow eyes staring back at her from the dark-furred face of the incredibly silent bat-winged pony sitting on the torch lit landing before her, blocking her path.

Twilight squeaked in shock, but managed to sit down in surprise instead of taking a step back and falling down the stairs.

“Luna requires your presence in the observatory at your earliest convenience,” the night guard said in a quiet voice.

“I was just going back to my chambers to wash up –“ Twilight started, but the stallion’s gaze unnerved her. “But this is probably more important! Lead the way, sir.”

“I have other duties,” the night guard replied. “I trust you know the way.” Twilight scowled, but before she could retort he’d vanished with a quiet flutter of bat wings.

So she headed to the observatory. The good news was that it wasn’t as high in the castle as her previous destination; the bad news was that it was in another tower, so she had to go down three floors and cut through the frantically busy servants’ quarters to a little-used skybridge before heading back up five more flights of stairs. She took the whole thing at a trot, though – it wouldn’t do to keep the princess waiting. Especially Princess Luna, who’d been in a foul mood lately, for reasons which were almost entirely Twilight’s fault.

She skidded into the observatory, backpedalling to avoid piling into the princess, who was waiting for her just inside the door. Gathering what decorum she could salvage from her entrance, Twilight turned her graceless collapse into a sort of bow.

“There is no need for formality, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said in a neutral voice, which was much better than the angry shouting she’d expected. “I’ve called you here not only as your princess, but as your friend. We are still friends, are we not?”

Twilight blinked, and tried to smile. It didn’t quite work. She accepted an offered hoof to pull her to her feet, and replied, “I’ll admit I was worried that you might not want anything more to do with me, after – after everything.”

“You have seen ancient secrets that ponies were never intended to set eyes on again,” Luna said, glacing up at the sky through the open aperature in the observatory’s dome. It was still light out, but the sun would be setting soon. “Is not such… intimacy a cause for the deepening of filial bonds, rather than their dissolution?”

Twilight advanced to stand next to the princess, under the arc of her half-spread wing, and looked at her face from the side. “What was that place, Luna?”

“The forsaken relic of a time long past,” Luna replied. “As would I be, if my sister was to have her way. A beloved keepsake, but nothing relevant to Equestria as it is today.” Her gaze was hard, but softened as she remembered herself. “I cannot fault her for that. If she sees no place for me, it is only because she would not force me to change. But she forgets which of us was always the agent of change!”

Twilight kept her tone innocent, as she asked, “Discord?”

“That clown?” Luna shouted, outraged. She took a step back to stare indignantly at the lavender earth pony beside her. “Your jest is in poor taste!“ She stopped short, noticing the grin on Twilight’s face. “Hmph.”

“So you plan to be an agent of change,” Twilight prompted, looking around the observatory. It was empty, aside from the usual complement of star maps and telescopes. Deserted, at the moment, since most of the astronomers worked at night. She looked up at the hole in the roof, which at the moment was positioned to show the peak of the Canterhorn. “Are you planning to re-open the city on the moon? Some of the enchantment there was remarkable!”

“No, Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said. “Ask Celestia if you wish to know the reasons why those techniques were abandoned, but suffice to say that those reasons were sound. My inspiration does come from the moon, however.” Twilight looked at her, and Luna smirked conspiritorally. “Come with me, and I’ll show you what we’ve been working on.”

“Right now?” Twilight asked, nervously. “Princess Pinkie Pie’s Premiere Party starts in less than an hour.”

“The Pink One’s party shall last until dawn,” Luna said, dismissively. “I wish to make my offer to you before she ensnares you in her foolishness.” When Twilight looked uncertain, she added, “Please, Twilight Sparkle. I have few ponies that I am willing to trust with these secrets, and most of them I trust only because I know I am useful to their own ends. You, I ask as a friend.”

“Fine,” Twilight said. “I was really looking forwards to see Rainbow Dash dressed up for Trixie’s show, though.”

Luna’s mane extended into a swirl of starry blue mist and enveloped her, and Twilight fell into a cold abyss. She hung helpless among a sea of stars, as her body slowly dissolved around her. She lifted a hoof, only to see spots along the edges shine like a constellation–

--and then it was over, and she sprawled on the floor of a dimly lit cave. “That was…,” she started to say, as she pulled herself to her hooves and looked around. In front of her was a suspiciously featureless square corridor leading deeper into the mountain, flanked by narrow viewing slits that betrayed the presence of a guard chamber accessible from beyond the choke point. Behind her, the cave entrance shimmered with the illusion of a blank stone face, nearly transparent from this side, with the walls and spires of Canterlot spread out below. “…very…” she continued, struggling to find the right word.

“Fun?” suggested Luna, passing Twilight to walk fearlessly into the corridor.

“I was going to say ‘terrifying’,” Twilight said, following on the princess’ heels, glancing down to see if she was stepping on any particular tiles.

Somehow, without looking back, Luna noticed. “Do not worry, the traps here are currently disarmed. We have secrets, but none worth a pony’s life as of yet.” Soon they emerged from the corridor into a series of familiar rooms, the walls decorated in pictograms and old equestrian runes.

“This place looks just like the moon,” Twilight remarked, pressing a hoof against a symbol that, on the moon, would have opened a doorway into a secret tunnel. Here, it did nothing – the runes were inert, at least for the moment.

“I built it long ago, when my tastes still ran along these lines,” Luna explained as they travelled through the dimly lit galleries. Twilight could hear ponies moving around up ahead, laughing and talking in low tones. “This was the barracks for my troop of night guards, and on many nights it was – and is – my retreat from the aggravations of the pony world. It is remote enough to offer a degree of privacy, even with the court so much closer than before my banishment.” As she finished that sentence, they walked out into a larger room, outfitted as a lounge, where three night guards were chatting and playing cards with a pair of unicorns.

“We call it the bat cave,” said one in a voice that sounded just like Chance. Twilight decided to take that as proof that it was, in fact, Chance, transformed into a bat-winged pseudo-pegasus, as she’d suspected since seeing an extra two night guards at the trial.

“No we don’t,” said another one who sounded suspiciously like Tess. Alone of all the ponies, she was holding the cards in one of her cloven hooves, wedged between the halves – the other night guards were using standard earth pony card holders, and the unicorns were using their magic, of course.

Since the remaining night guard was female, it had to be Warp, but before Twilight could trot over and ask what exactly she’d done to the reactor on the Here to Help to make it explode, she realized that she knew both of the unicorns present. One was Moondancer, an old acquaintance from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns – not surprising, as she’d heard that Moondancer had taken a job as Luna’s hoofmaiden. The other was – “Dad?”

Crescent smiled weakly. “Hi, sweetie.”

“What are you doing here!” Twilight demanded, pointing at him.

“At the moment, providing rudimentary magical assistance so that Moondancer can save her energy for the complicated spells,” he replied. “In the long term there’s going to be some fascinating astronomical work. And of course, there’s the opportunity to work closely with a Princess. Not the Princess, but I normally work nights anyway, so I might as well have Luna as my patron.”

“We can use every unicorn we can get,” Warp said. “We’re starting with the ones who already know too much.”

“We’re going to rebuild the ship,” Chance said. “Or, well, a ship.”

“Sufficiently powerful Mending spells should be enough to rebuild the basic structure,” Moondancer said. “But Warp gave a thorough run-down of everything we’d need to do to repair or replace the rest of the systems –“

“We’re talking ten to thirty years of building up the infrastructure to the point where the sort of manufacturing we need is possible,” Warp explained. “We’re not starting from zero, but you don’t even have microscopes good enough to see some of the machines we need to build.”

“So we’re going to cheat!” Chance said. “With magic. And as a side effect, revolutionize the Equestrian economy. How’d you like to get in on the ground floor?”

“It’s, uh…” Twilight said. “Tempting. After all, heh heh, doing magical research is the sort of thing I’ve spent my whole life studying for.”

“And we’ve got the liiiibrary,” Chance said, grinning at her.

“No reader for it,” Tess noted. “Except for your wireless access.”

“But you’re working on it, right?” Chance said. “That’s your first priority!”

“Uh huh,” Tess replied, unenthusiastically.

“Besides, it must be stressful enough losing your magic without having to worry about where you’re going to find a new job,” Crescent said.

“What.” Twilight said, staring at her father.

“I mean, with your… condition…”

“Dad,” she said. “My job is an internship as the Ponyville librarian while I study the magic of friendship. Neither of those need me to be a unicorn!”

“Maybe they don’t need --“ Crescent started, but Twilight interrupted him angrily.

“The previous librarian was Cheerilee, an earth pony -- another earth pony – who managed to fit the duties in in her free time while also working as an elementary school teacher.”

“Just be reasonable, Sparky. Here you’d have me and Moondancer to cast any spells you thought up,” Crescent said. “And help you with, you know. All those other things. I heard how much trouble you were having with the soap –“

“Are you seriously proposing that I move in with my father and have him give me sponge baths?” Twilight snapped. “NNNNYAAAARGRGH!” She turned away and galloped out of the room, heading back towards the entrance, past a stony-faced Luna.

===

Tess found Twilight sitting just inside the illusion covering the cave entrance, watching the fireworks light up the darkening sky over Canterlot as Trixie put on her show. After a pregnant pause in the pyrotechnics, Rainbow Dash leapt from the unseen stage into the air, and a sonic rainboom exploded overhead – only to unravel under the influence of Trixie’s rainbow spell into a barely-controlled river of light, on par – visually at least – with the Elements of Harmony. Rainbow Dash, trailing a rainbow of her own, swooped around to land on the rainboom and ride it around, making a show of forcing it to miss the buildings and spectators until it dispersed in a shower of colorful sparks.

“Wow,” Tess said. “Now I’m sorry I missed the show.”

“Me too,” Twilight said. “What are they doing back there, anyway? I expected Luna or somepony to come get me ages ago.”

“They’re arguing about who they should get to replace you,” Tess said.

“What?” Twilight asked. “Replace me doing what? I mean, you’ve already got Sparkles – oh Celestia, you didn’t lose your implants again when you got turned into a bat-pony, did you?”

Tess laughed. “No, no, we’ve got Sparkles. She can only really talk to me, though, which makes her a poor choice for project manager.”

“Ah,” Twilight said.

“Of course, she’d be a pretty poor choice anyway, since Crescent is apparently her father, and neglected to mention that to anypony until you blurted it out.”

Twilight sighed. “That’s just like him.” She shook her head. “I’m glad I turned you down, then. I don’t want to go into management. I’m going to learn earth pony magic if it kills me. And then,” she said, standing up proudly, “I’m going to write it down so that nopony else has to suffer through all this stupid cryptic nonsense about how ‘earth pony magic doesn’t exist’ despite the ridiculously blatant examples I’ve seen with my own eyes!”

Tess nodded. “I feel the same way about these hooves.” Twilight glanced at her. “I’m going to figure out how to use them properly, and how to design tools to work with them. Whatever we do, we’re probably going to need to have ponies on our crew, so using stock designs that assume the user has hands is just a bad idea, even as an interim measure.”

“Speaking of hooves... I was a bit surprised to see you and Chance as night guards,” Twilight said. “It’s a big change, and I’m not sure it was really necessary. Obviously, Warp and Wolf wanted to keep a low profile, but everypony’s going to find out about you four now. I wouldn’t be surprised if Pinkie Pie was telling the story to a crowd of hundreds as we speak.”

“She’ll call us moon ponies,” Tess said, waggling her bat wings. “We’re certainly not pegasi. But it’s not as big of a change as you think – this armor comes off.” Twilight looked confused at that, so Tess spelled it out. “And when we take it off, we turn back. I’d demonstrate, but it gives me a nasty headache every time I shift.”

“Oh!” Twilight said. “That’s fascinating! Is there a unicorn version?”

Tess laughed and shook her head. “I asked the same thing!”

32: Closing the Loop

Everypony who was anypony was crammed into Canterlot’s gardens and ball room for Princess Pinkie Pie’s Premiere Party, and many ponies who weren’t anypony in particular were there too, since she’d explicitly invited everypony in Equestria. “And the zebras and donkeys and mules, but not the diamond dogs or dragons or griffons, because they’re mean.” Twilight had seen an unusual number of griffons lurking about Canterlot before the party, though, so the lack of invitation probably hadn’t stopped them. And knowing Pinkie Pie, she’d probably welcomed them as warmly as anypony, once they were there.

Still, when Twilight came downstairs from her very late bath, she was flabbergasted – and a bit dismayed – to see the party spilling into the castle, up as far as the third floor, which was well beyond the normal visitor area. Her original plan of wandering around until she found somepony she knew was right out – the crowd was too dense for her to move through quickly, or even see over everypony’s head. She had no idea where Luna or Rainbow Dash or even Pinkie Pie would be by now – surely they weren’t still near the stage, not that she even knew where the stage was! She had no idea where to even start.

She was just about to turn around and call it a miss when Pinkie Pie appeared. “Hi Twilight!” she said, pushing her way out of the crowd. She stood a head taller than she’d used to, and shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on anypony, but nopony in the crowd seemed surprised to see her there, so maybe it was just Twilight being oblivious. “You look a little lost!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight said, rushing forwards to give her a quick hug. “Wow, this party is certainly… big. But everypony seems to be enjoying themselves, at least.” Which was true enough. There were tables with snacks scattered around, and assorted party games set up, even up here, all of them in use. Most of the ponies were just standing around in small groups and talking, but that was true of any party, and the conversations seemed lively enough even if Twilight couldn’t make anything out over the general din.

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Well of course they’re having fun! I wouldn’t be much of a host if I neglected my guests!”

“Well, that seems unavoidable with a crowd this large,” Twilight said. Somepony tapped her on the shoulder, and looking over she saw that he was offering her a drink. She took it in her hooves, looked around for a place to set it, and eventually settled for balancing it on her head, to Pinkie Pie’s vast amusement. “I mean,” Twilight continued, waving off an offered plate full of snacks, “Celestia spends the first two hours of the Grand Galloping Gala just greeting everypony a few seconds at a time, and –“

“Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said, shocked. “You aren’t seriously comparing the gee-gee-gee to a Pinkie Party, are you? Now come on, Applejack is asking about you over on the lower terrace.” With that, she plunged back into the crowd, effortlessly parting it around her, leaving just enough of a gap for Twilight to squeeze in after her if she hurried.

What followed was a scene from a nightmare – loud voices from all around, ponies pressed tight enough to rub against her on either side, tight enough that she couldn’t tell where she was or which way she was going – all she could do was follow the flashing pink tail that kept slipping out of sight. Each time she lost sight of it, she’d press on ahead as best she could – which wasn’t very well, honestly. Politely asking one pony at a time did work, but only one pony at a time. Then Pinkie Pie would call out her name, and wave above the crowd, and it would part just enough for her to almost catch up, and the whole thing would start all over again.

Somehow, she found herself pressed up against the balcony railing, watching a pair of pink wings vanish into the dense crowd of pegasi filling the air. She looked down and saw a two-story drop to a large dance floor, where ponies in fancy dresses were dancing to music she couldn’t honestly hear over the babble of voices. “Now what?” she asked, looking around for a stairway.

“Alley oop!” came Pinkie Pie’s voice from behind her, and a warm muzzle poked its way rudely under her tail, and lifted her up and over the edge, flinging her to her doom! Fortunately, the pegasi were packed almost as tightly as the ponies on the ground, and she didn’t even have time to scream before landing unsteadily on somepony’s back. Overbalanced, she was about to fall, but managed to push off with her hind legs and leap to another fluttering perch. The pegasi who weren’t being stepped on noticed her antics, and laughed and cheered, and one a few feet below her held out her forehooves and motioned for her to jump.

So she did, making her way from pegasus to pegasus like stepping stones in a stream, all eyes on her as the ponies below waited to see if she’d miss a jump and crash. Unfortunately, the last ‘stone’ was a griffon, who was too busy shouting at his neighbors to notice what was going on around him. His head swiveled around to glare angrily at the earth pony who’d just landed on his back, and before she could apologize, the ill-tempered creature had his claws around her neck, and she was tossed helplessly into a fountain full of liquid chocolate – a soft landing, at least, but extremely gooey. As she struggled to clear her eyes, somepony started ‘helping’ her by licking her face all over like a giant dog, and of course it was Pinkie Pie.

Or was it? Something about her looked… off. Tired and frazzled, where just a few seconds before she’d been fresh and excited.

“I watched your descent! You were so close!” she said, snatching Twilight out of the fountain in her bluish magical aura, which in the oddly colored 'festive' lighting of this part of party was faded to a sickly green. “Hey, everypony! Free chocolate, fresh on the hoof!”

“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted desperately, as the ponies around her advanced with hooves and tongues outstretched.

“Just kidding!” Pinkie Pie said, laughing and lifting her up out of reach. The melted chocolate coating Twilight hardened, then shattered off her as a rain of candy shards, onto the hungry crowd below.

“What’s wrong with you!” Twilight shouted, as Pinkie Pie plopped her onto her back, between her wings. She started bounce-fluttering over the crowd at speed, thirty feet at a time, easily clearing the heads of the ponies below, scattering the pegasi ahead, and somehow always finding a landing spot. Twilight was jostled and disoriented – they were moving too fast for her to really be sure of anything she was seeing – but as she ducked under a swinging chandelier that Pinkie just barely avoided, she could have sworn she saw another Pinkie Pie watching her from the crowd below with alarm. “This is madness!”

“Madness? No! This is a Party!” Pinkie Pie shouted gleefully, leaping out into the garden and landing on top of a statue of herself made of ice. “With a capital P! Five of them! This is the P-5, Twilight! The pinnacle of pony parties! It will never get better than this!” With that, she bucked Twilight off her back, flinging her over the edge of the city.

Twilight squealed in surprise, but didn’t fall far before Canterlot’s ancient magical enchantments caught her and slowed her to a crawl, finally leaving her floating in midair – air with the consistency of jelly – next to a large, open balcony under the main garden level. There, the elements of harmony, and a few other friends, were having a relatively quiet get together. Rainbow Dash was over with Trixie in one corner, chatting up Spitfire and Soarin’, while Applejack, Fluttershy, and some pink and blonde earth pony that, judging by her cutie mark, was probably named Cherry-something were lounging on a nest of pillows nibbling on a pile of cupcakes. Rarity was over at the balcony’s edge, staring at the stars, and Twilight’s scream slowly faded as she bobbed up and down in front of the melancholy unicorn. She smiled and waved haplessly, ten feet out of reach of the railing.

“Rainbow,” Rarity said, turning back towards the others, “Be a dear and fetch Twilight from the safety field, would you?”

Rainbow Dash gave an exaggerated sigh. “How come I have to be the one to do all the flying around? Can’t you just drag her in with your magic?”

“Oh, for pony’s sake,” Applejack said, standing up and trotting over to the edge. She pulled a lasso out from under her hat, and tossed it to Twilight, who got a good grip and then nodded to her friend. With a sudden yank, she was out of the jelly-field and back on solid ground, a bit wobbly but able to keep her feet. “Glad you could make it, sugarcube. Rainbow Dash said you were in a bad place earlier.”

Twilight laughed. “I was doing some gardening and getting a bit frustrated,” she admitted. “The literature is useless, but one way or another, I’m going to figure out this earth pony magic. Magic is my special talent, after all.”

Applejack looked at her uncertainly. “Uh huh. Look, Twi, I appreciate that you want to make the best of being one of us dirt-ponies and all, but wouldn’t your time be better spent figurin’ out some way to get your horn back?”

Twilight looked at her friend, shocked at the tribal slur. “Dirt-ponies? Is that how you think I see you?”

“Well…” Applejack said, scraping at the floor with a forehoof. “Nah, not you. You think we’ve got magic, after all, don’cha.” She grimaced. “We ain’t got no magic, Twilight, and if you keep thinking like we do, you’re never going to get anywhere.”

“I saw you grow leaves on a tree in winter,” Twilight said. “You wanted it to happen, and you concentrated on the tree, pressed your hooves against the bark, and poof! Leaves.”

“T’wasn’t like that at all,” Applejack said. “Look, you want to learn how to grow plants? Start by readin’ up on how to grow plants. Put all that thought of magic out of your mind and just… grow plants. Start a garden. In the spring, I mean – nothin’ wants to grow in the middle of winter.”

“It’s not like every earth pony is a farmer anyway,” said Cherry-whatever. “I mean, my special talent is apparently turning unicorns into earth ponies.”

“You didn’t turn me into an earth pony,” Twilight said.

“Oh, didn’t I?” she said, grinning. “Watch out, Rarity – you’re next!”

Rarity sighed, and continued to not look Twilight or any of the others in the eye.

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Just ignore her. Her special somepony’s too busy hobnobbin’ to spend time with her.”

Twilight nodded slightly, and walked across the balcony to settle herself next to the pile of cupcakes. She reached a hoof towards the pile, then paused and pulled it back, carefully taking one in her mouth instead, making sure not to touch any of the others. Cherry-something and Fluttershy watched her quietly, while Applejack stood next to Rarity and discussed something with her in low tones, and the quartet in the corner talked amongst themselves with the occasional bit of raucous laughter that Twilight told herself over and over was not about her. “I know I’m not one of the elements of harmony anymore,” she said, quietly, “but we’re still friends, right?”

“Of course we’re friends, Twilight,” came Pinkie Pie’s voice from behind her, as a heavy, warm weight settled onto her back, giving her a quick hug before hopping back just ahead of her startled squeak. Everypony else was suddenly silent, staring at the alicorn who’d suddenly appeared in their midst. “We’re all friends, right?” she asked, looking around at everypony with a grin plastered on her face.

“I sure hope so,” Applejack said. “I’m a bit worried about ya, princess. Ever since this party started, you’ve been… kind of…”

“Super duper extra creepy,” Rainbow Dash said. “What gives, Pinkie Pie?”

Pinky Pie giggled, bouncing in circles around the big pile of cushions that Fluttershy and Twilight and Cherry-whatever were sitting on, and said, “No no no the question is what does Pinkie Pie give? And she gives smiles and parties! And cheerfulness and invitations! To everypony and donkey and griffon no wait not the griffons they just showed up and cake! She gives cake. Do you want some cake?”

“I could use some punch…” Twilight said, around the cupcake she’d stuffed in her mouth to keep from panicking. For some reason Pinkie Pie was still really freaking her out, even if she no longer looked quite as insane as she had a few minutes ago. Maybe it was the wild mood swings, the way she constantly appeared out of nowhere, or maybe that she’d tossed Twilight over a thousand-foot drop? Yes, probably the tossing.

“Wish granted!” Pinkie Pie said, stopping in midbounce and delicately lifting a cup full of punch off of Twilight’s head in her hooves, then levitating it over to her in a faint blue aura, matching balloons in her cutie mark.

Twilight reached up and felt around her mane with the base of her hoof. It was cold, like a cup of punch had been sitting there for a while. “Was that up there the whole time? How could that still be up there? I’ve been rushing through a crowd, surfing on pegasi, assaulted by a griffon, dunked in a fountain and tossed off the edge of the city! How was it possibly still there? And full?”

“I bet it’s a Fluttershy cup,” Pinkie Pie said. “You forgot it was there, and it was too shy to get your attention by spilling down your back!” Fluttershy covered her mouth as she stifled a giggle, and Pinkie Pie continued, “Really, it’s not that hard to balance things on your head, Twilight. You probably just did it without thinking. Most things come easier if you don’t think about them.”

“I wonder…” Twilight said, staring into the bright red liquid in the cup. “Was that earth pony magic at work? Is it activated by not thinking? Because there’s a technical term for making yourself not think. Meditation! I have a dozen books on meditation.” She frowned. “Oh, but I was never any good at meditation. Does that mean I’ll never be any good at earth pony –“

“There’s no such thing as earth pony magic!” Applejack snapped.

“But there is unicorn magic, and you still remember how to do unicorn magic, right?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Because I think I did something really really stupid a few hours from now, and I’m going to need your help figuring out how.”

“I don’t like the way you phrased that,” Twilight said, ears flat against her skull.

Pinkie Pie’s were perky. “Are my tenses making you tense?”

“Intensely.”

“Does that mean you aren’t going to help me?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Because if you don’t, that means –“ she gasped. “Changelings! You have to help me, Twilight, or the changelings win!”

Rainbow Dash looked over at them, and asked, “Do I even want to know?”

“No,” Twilight said, burying her head under a large pillow. “I don’t even want to know.”

===

Twilight was dressed in her cat-suit again – not because she thought she needed it, but because Pinkie Pie had insisted. They were planning to break into the Star-Swirl the Bearded wing again, after all, and there were traditions to uphold.

“Are you just bringing me along because you think it’ll be fun?” Twilight asked, as they darted from bush to bush. “I mean, you seemed to have a pretty good grasp of magic at the trial.”

Pinkie Pie shushed her, then said in a very loud whisper, “That was party magic, Twilight – all lights and mirrors and confetti only without the confetti. If I want to cast serious magic I need to follow the rules, and I don’t even know the rules except what I’ve picked up watching you.”

“I’m not even sure I still have access,” Twilight hissed back.

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Good thing we’re sneaking then! At least we won’t have to worry about any of the guards. The ones who didn’t join the party are all worn out from guarding the party! So nopony will stand in our way!”

The two of them stopped short, nearly running right into Shining Armor, who was standing guard by the front door to the restricted wing of the library. He was a little out of it, but not too out of it to look down, and ask, “Twilie?”

“Shiny!” Twilight said quickly, looking around – Pinkie Pie had somehow vanished, abandoning her there. “Can, um, can you let me into the Star-Swirl the Bearded Wing? I need to check on some, er, some historical documents. Since I can’t use magic anymore and obviously wouldn’t be interested in any of the restricted spells.”

“Twilie…” he said. “You’re dressed up as a ninja again. You only do that when you think you’re trying to get away with something.”

“Okay, okay,” she said, looking down. “I was hoping to get a chance to read through the unabridged version of Star-Swirl’s Amniomorphics, to see if the spells relating to earth-pony transformation have any clues as to what exactly happened to me. I’ve been having trouble with earth pony magic –“

“Earth ponies have magic?” Shining Armor asked, looking confused.

“That’s what I’m going to figure out!” Twilight said enthusiastically.

Her brother didn’t look particularly convinced. “Why don’t you wait here,” he said, unlocking the door, “and I’ll go get your book.”

“Shiiiiiiny,” came Cadance’s voice from down the corridor.

“Um…” he said to Twilight, glancing back and forth between her and his wife’s voice from down the hall.

“Shining Armor, I neeeeeed you! Now!” She didn’t sound angry, but she did sound fairly desperate.

“Go ahead,” Twilight said. “I’ll just wait here until you get back. It’s not like I have anything else to do until Celestia decides I’m safe to leave the castle.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said. “And don’t let anypony else in!” With that, he cantered down the hall, shouting, “Coming, Cadance!”

Pinkie Pie’s giggle sounded from behind her as soon as Shining Armor was out of sight. “Note to self: when I go back in time, recruit Cadance as a distraction.”

Twilight glanced behind her to see Pinkie Pie looming over her. “It works better if you actually write down the notes,” Twilight noted, as she nosed open the door Shining Armor had left unlocked. “Perhaps as some sort of list with a little box that you can check off as you complete each task.”

“Okay!” Pinkie Pie said. “I’ll imagine it as a checklist.”

===

It didn’t take them long to find the time-travel spell Twilight had once used to go back in time and confuse herself, but it wasn’t suitable for Pinkie’s purposes.

“No, this spell is perfect,” Twilight said, after Pinkie Pie turned her nose up at it. “Judging by that scene at the trial, your ability to mess with your mirror-pinkies without magic seems to have translated into an instinctive understanding of mirror magic in general –“

Pinkie Pie tilted her head. “Does it count as instinctive if I learned it by watching you failing over and over?”

“Yes,” Twilight insisted. “With your instinctive talent for mirror magic, and this admittedly limited time-travel spell, you can go back in time and, during its brief duration, create however many Pinkie clones you think you need by pulling them out of mirrors with the standard Emergence spell. Cast it with just enough power for a few hours’ lifespan, and when the party ends, they vanish. No paradox, no loose ends, no changeling invasion.”

“But isn’t that sort of… not nice?” Pinkie Pie said, looking uncomfortable. “I mean, making all those Pinkie Pies real just to have them die a few hours later? I know we were kind of careless about killing off copies that were still in the mirrors, but once they’re real…”

“They’re not dying,” Twilight said. “They’re just… um… expiring. Like milk!”

“You mean… they turn into stinking rotten spoiled Pinkies?” Pinkie Pie asked. “Because that doesn’t sound safe.”

“Maybe there’s a spell to let them put themselves back into the mirror…” Twilight mused, frowning.

“Besides,” Pinkie Pie said. “I don’t just want to avoid accidentally destroying the world with a horde of evil Princess Pinkies. I want to see my party! All of it! All the ponies and games and griffons and everything! I can’t do that if I leave everything up to my Mirror-Pinkies. That’s what I need you for, Twilight – you need to fix the spell so it’s not so useless.”

“So let me get this straight,” Twilight said. “You want me to take a spell dangerous enough to be kept in a restricted section of the library, and break some of its safety features, so that you can attend a party that you already went to once.”

“It’s not just ‘a party’,” Pinkie Pie said. “It was the Princess Pinkie Pie Premiere Party! Celestia let me invite whoever I wanted –“

“Which you used to invite everypony,” Twilight said, wincing.

Pinkie Pie nodded cheerfully. “Twilight, it was the Best Party Ever! With capital letters on every word! If you were me, wouldn’t you want to go live it a few more times?”

Twilight opened her mouth, then closed it again, and thought it over. “Is this me in your body, with my own personality? Or me in my own body with your personality?”

“That’s not important!” Pinkie Pie said, slamming a hoof on the table. “Just fix the spell. Please?”

“Break,” Twilight said. “You want me to break the spell.”

“Pleeeeeease?”

“Fine,” Twilight sighed, defeated by Pinkie Pie’s sad kitten face.

===

“You know,” Twilight Sparkle mumbled around the quill in her mouth, as she sketched out notes and diagrams in her admittedly awful mouthwriting, “I think we might actually be able to do this.” There was no response from her companion. A quick glance to the side showed Pinkie Pie face down in a book she’d been trying to read, drooling over the ancient ink and parchment. “Pinkie!”

Pinkie shot awake and flailed around before realizing where she was. “Ahh! Twilight, it was horrible! I dreamed I was reading a really really boring book and no matter how many pages I turned there were always more pages!”

“Well, pay attention,” Twilight said. “I haven’t tested it, obviously, but I’ve made a couple of alterations to Star-Swirl’s spell that I think might make it more useful.” Pinkie Pie’s wings unfolded halfway, and her ears perked expectantly. “Star Swirl the Bearded was a genius, but magical theory has come a long way since his time. The cipher he used to encrypt the spell and prevent alteration is very outdated, trivial to solve really. Once I’d done that I was able to disassemble the spell matrix into its component parts, and –“ Pinkie Pie’s wings and eyelids were starting to droop. “Okay, I’ll get to the point. The time-limit on the travel to the past is based on the maximum duration that Star Swirl could coax out of the temporal beacon that brings you home. By removing the ‘go home’ part of the spell entirely, you can stay in the past as long as you want.”

Pinkie Pie blinked. “So how do I get home? I mean, it was an awesome party but I don’t want to be stuck in it forever.”

“The normal way,” Twilight said. “One second per second. Since you’re only going back a few hours, that shouldn’t be a big problem.” Pinkie Pie nodded, cautiously. Twilight continued, “Now, the limitation on only using the spell once was because of certain dangerous, cumulative effects of being hurled through time. Apparently, Star-Swirl nearly lost one of his assistants, so he added the restriction to keep anypony from accidentally hurting themself. I took it out. Instead, we’ll try to shield you against the effects of time travel, so that you can use the spell repeatedly without dying horribly.”

“Not dying horribly is good,” Pinkie Pie agreed. “Although I might be able to not die horribly just because I’m a princess now.”

Twilight grinned. “Consider that ‘plan B’. What I’d really like is for you to use the ‘block everything’ spell my brother can do,” she said. “I’m sure that would work. If you can’t,” Pinkie Pie shook her head. “Then you might be able to make do with an ordinary force field combined with one of those phantom mirrors you summoned before? Mirrors seemed to be proof against the poisonous light from the moon pony reactor. I’m not sure this will work, and I’d really like to be able to test it, but I’m not sure how other than to try it. The good news is that when Star-Swirl’s assistant overused the spell it wasn’t instantly fatal – but if you feel sick at all, you have to stop using the spell and go to the doctor right away.”

“What if I feel sick because I ate too much cake at the party after looping through it twenty times?” Pinkie Pie asked.

Twilight gave her a look. “Then you’re a changeling and this is all a trick.”

Pinkie Pie grinned, and leaned over Twilight’s shoulder to look at the spell. “So it’s – how do I read this? You’ve got little squiggles going everywhere!”

“Oh, for pony’s sake, Pinkie…“

===

One impromptu session of ‘reading magic scrolls 101’ later, Pinkie Pie hovered up off the floor and surrounded herself in a blue-tinged mirrored sphere.

“Twilight!” came Pinkie Pie’s voice from the doorway, and Twilight turned to see a frazzled-looking Pinkie Pie running right for her. “Save me!”

“Twilight! Stop her!” shouted Shining Armor, chasing after the new Pinkie Pie with Cadance on his heels.

“Pinkie Pie, wait!” Cadance shouted, running towards the mirrored sphere. She slammed her hooves against the field, but it was too late. It was already shrinking as it receded into the past, and vanished with a soft ‘pop’.

Meanwhile, the fleeing Pinkie Pie had managed to get herself tangled up with Twilight, trying to hide behind her as Shining Armor charged up a spell. “Wait!” Twilight cried. “It’s okay! I know maybe I told a little teeny weeny white lie about what I was doing in here, but it was only to prevent a paradox! I already met a bunch of future Pinkies at the party, so we’re just closing the loop! She’s not a changeling!”

“Luna’s left hoof she’s not,” Shining Armor snapped, and unleashed his spell. The energy flowed over Twilight harmlessly, but Pinkie Pie was engulfed in green flames, and fell to the ground as a changeling, knocked cold.

Twilight looked down at it. “What?”

“Twily – those weren’t future Pinkies at the party,” Shining Armor said.

Twilight blinked. “What!?”

“They were changelings,” Cadance said, her expression worried. “Pinkie Pie visited the dungeon just before the party and set them all free, as long as they Pinkie-promised to pretend to be her and keep the other guests happy, since she couldn’t be everywhere at once.”

“We spent all night chasing them down,” Shining Armor said. “Most of them got away.”

“Not all of them left the castle. We were just chasing down one that decided to impersonate one of my maids,” Cadance added. “She changed back into Pinkie Pie on the way here.”

“But if she knew they were changelings, why did she have me helping her improve the time-travel spell?” Twilight asked, looking down at her notes.

Cadance walked up beside her, and looked at the other book open on the table, the one Pinkie Pie had been reading. “Maybe this is a clue?”

“Amniomorphics – Chapter 6: Pony Transformations,” Twilight read from the header at the top of the page. “Star-Swirl’s Shame – The Spell to turneth the Earth Pony into the Infant Corpse.” One ear flicked nervously as she skimmed through the abstract. “It looks like he was trying to figure out a way to prevent a war by uniting the best qualities of all three tribes in their children –“ Her eyes went wide. “He was trying to create alicorns! Oh, but it didn’t work – most of the foals died in the womb, and the few survivors were basically earth ponies with a few weird powers, because nopony had enough magical energy to infuse into the fetus to make it a fully developed alicorn...” She looked up at Cadance. “Tell me she didn’t.”

“She did,” Cadance said, with a sigh. “She went back to visit her pregnant mother and turn herself into an alicorn – a latent alicorn, that is, until the Elements of Harmony gave her the power to fully ascend. I was hoping I could stop her. I mean, not stop her stop her, because I know she does it eventually, but she didn’t have to do it now. She could have spent another few years – or few decades -- with all of her friends before throwing herself into the past forever.”

“So you’re saying she’s not about to walk around that bookshelf and say ‘hi, everypony, I’m back!’,” Twilight said, as it started to sink in that Pinkie Pie was gone. “I guess I already knew that, if she went back more than a few hours – I think we would have noticed if there was another pretty pink princess walking around Equestria for the last twenty years. I mean, you tried to keep a low profile, Cadance, but everypony at least knows you exist.”

“It’s worse than that, Twilight,” Cadance said, looking down. “Once she’d cast the spell, she didn’t want to stick around her family’s farm, so she cast it again, and again, and again, going further and further back in time whenever she got bored. She went back 400 years, and then…” Cadance sighed. “Then it happened. The worst possible thing that could happen to a pony like Pinkie Pie.”

Twilight winced. “Diabetes?”

Cadance stared at her, then laughed. “No! No, Twilight. She grew up.” Then she winked. Twilight blinked, and Cadance winked again, so that Shining Armor, busy securing the changeling, couldn’t see.

Twilight stared at Cadance. “Your face is kind of the same,” she said in a low voice, “but you are not Pinkie Pie. Your wings are purple on the tips – hers are a darker pink. You’ve got those yellow and purple stripes in your mane and tail, and of course you’ve got a completely different cutie mark.”

“Did I ever tell you the story of how I got my cutie mark?” Cadance said, smiling. “It’s a gem.”

link to sequel: Earth to Twilight

Since I'm going to wait on the first few episodes of season 3 before even thinking about a proper sequel featuring Pinkie Pie herself, here's a sort of side-story (but also a direct sequel in the sense that it's 'what happens next') Earth to Twilight