Destiny

by Thrro Pones

Rating: teen
Tags: Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Adventure, Gore, Crossover, Alternate Universe
Length: 32057

When the Traveler arrived in the system of Equis, everything changed. Magic is dead, and the many worlds of pony kind are consumed in darkness. Will the Guardians prevail, and retake the lost relics of the golden age?

What do we know? Not enough. We know that hundreds of years ago, Equis, and all the planets neighbouring were experiencing an age of miracles. We know that this was because of the Traveler, when it came it brought knowledge from the stars. Medicine, space travel, infrastructure... Weapons. Ponies, Minotaurs, Griffons, and even Changelings knew an era of peace.

We know that in an instant, just as fast as the Traveler had brought us miracles, something wrought chaos. Vague texts call it the Darkness, but we do not know truly what it is. Some believe it to be a force of morality, and that of physicality. Depicted as a great storm, or a sudden corruption that emerged from within our Golden Age. A heroic Titan, Martyr, argues that the Darkness was an alien juggernaut of war. Incredible, but tangible, power used exclusively to destroy us. Some scholars debate that it is a necessary antonym of the Traveler, like antimatter to matter, it must exist. They believe that when it and the Traveler meet, if they ever do, they will both be annihilated, and leave nothingness behind. Many theories more exist yet. Hive minds, fundamentally incomprehensible powers.

There is one more of note. There are those, who are more often labeled blasphemers than not, that refute that the Darkness exists. They suggest the Traveler was the cause of the Collapse, or that it lead the Darkness to us, hoping we would save it.

Finally we know that the Traveler sacrificed itself, for us. In its dying breath, it cast a shield of Light where it hung in the sky. Beside the ruins of Canterlot, and so we eventually found our way there. Now a City is born, and protected by the Guardians. Ponies appear to be the lone surviving races of the Golden Age, and now we intend to push back. We will not let the Darkness, whatever it is, stamp us out.

ART IS A MODIFIED VERSION OF "Canterlot Sunset" BY COSMIC UNICORN

Published 2014-12-09 07:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2015-03-11 01:05:44 UTC

Prologue: The End

Everything was going wrong. Absolutely terrible, and Spike had to clean it all up. He didn't mind really, because he was good at cleaning things up, but he did mind that everything was wrong in the first place. It had been the object of Twilight's fear since day one of the whole ordeal, two months ago. Even with Pinkie working double time, just about everypony had been on edge since magic everywhere started being corrupted. That meant more papers to file, more messages to write, and less time to cook dinner. On that matter, Spike was on his way to Twilight's private kitchen. He'd gotten some assistance in discarding of documents from his pet phoenix, Peeweee, resulting in excess time which was now allotted toward preparing a home cooked meal, better than anything the royal chefs could whip up.

Spike rounded the last corner in the Castle corridors before entering Harmony's Wing, and approached the tall and majestic door. While the door was tall, Spike was more suited to it than most of Canterlot's inhabitants, long legs and arms were to be his blessing for a few more years of his life before he began to 'bulk out' as the Dracobiologist had informed him. Spike pulled open the door, and called out to his life long friend.

"Twilight! I finished early, what should I make for dinner?" He shouted just loud enough that it would echo to the last corner of the wing.

No response came. Spike frowned, and began investigations, first making his way to the central pantry, where halls sprouting off in six directions besides the entry hall would lead to the personal quarters of the Elements, and where a staircase would lead to a second floor, housing the library, kitchen, dining hall, and other facilities. The Elements had all been moved to Canterlot since the first few clues something strange was happening. But those clues were years ago, and only now had the proximity to the other leaderships of the world proved helpful.

Entering the circular room, with a central fireplace and sofas surrounding it, while book shelves and desks lined the walls, Spike admired the Architecture, just as he did every evening. Perfectly polished marble was the staple of the structure, with red velvet carpets, golden trim and silver decorations covering every corner and edge in the area. What surprised Spike was not the architecture, that was starting to become normal to him, but the pony who resided on a large arm chair facing him. Flowing, ethereal mane lead back to an alabaster head and neck, cerise eyes showed concern and a down turned mouth showed sadness. Celestia looked at Spike as he entered the room.

"Spike, I wish to tell you something." She began, sounding almost mournful.

"Jeez, who died?" Spike joked, but when Celestia's expression deepened furhter he became worried. "Wait, who died!?"

"The corrupted magic has formed a conglomerate, and it appears to be evil. The Elements went off to contain it." She spoke plainly, but her voice was on the verge of tremor, betraying honest fear.

"Are they in danger? Why didn't anypony tell me?" Spike asked angrily, his voice much louder and deeper than he remembered it being. Celestia flinched at his frustration.

The god queen sighed. "Spike, you can't go to them. It's too dangerous to send anypony other than the Elements, which I'm certain are absolutely necessary. This corruption, this... Darkness, we'll say, is clearly sentient. It has already taken the lives of many, excluding the accidents caused by the recently corrupt magic of unicorns that source back to the very same evil. I need you to stay here, please."

Spike felt faint, but at the same time every muscle in his body was coursing with vigour. He sat on a nearby bench, his thick scales depriving him of it's velvet texture. Holding his head, he barely kept hyperventilation at bay. Twilight, the rest of his friends. Rarity. They were all in grave danger, and here Celestia stood, trying to convince him that helping them was a bad idea. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts, and only one remained. Unsifted by the rattling, too dense to be cast aside was one single notion. Not even a notion, it was only a word. Harmony.

Spike stood up quickly, his intentions displayed clearly enough for Celestia to stand up as well. She barked at him, while he spun on his heels and sprinted out of the room. Celestia tried to grasp his arm, but he shook her magical grip off with sheer strength and kept running. He ran down the hall, and out the door. Through the corridors, he stopped only once to ask a guard where Twilight had gone. When he gave no help, Spike lifted him by the breastplate, held him against the wall and asked again. That did the trick, Twilight was on the crest of a hill, not a kilometer from the base of Canterlot. So Spike ran again.

He put the Castle behind him, and then the city. A few times he caught guards in his peripherals trying to chase him down. Unicorns lacked their magic as long as the 'Darkness' was in power. Earth ponies were too slow to catch him, and he could barrel through pegasi like bowling pins. Once he was out of the city, and could see the hill he meant to approach, off and away in the distance, Spike felt tired. His lungs burned and his muscles roared with pain. But spike didn't care what his muscles, or his lungs said. They didn't understand what was at stake. He whipped them into action, and kept running.

He ran as fast as he could, he swore. He tore every tendon in his body, and drove his heart to the verge of collapse, he truly did. With all his might, and all his hope, speed, power and fear, he ran. He needed to at least be there. But maybe he just wasn't meant to succeed, because he didn't make it to the crest of the hill where his friends stood to face an evil power. He made it to an empty hill, with naught but grass, and the sight of a dark form in the distance, rending apart a village. He wasn't entirely alone, though, he noticed. Six glints of gold littered the very peak of this empty, void hill.

Five necklaces and a crown lay haphazardly upon the earth. The tiniest bit of smoke rose from under them, and they were tarnished with a layer of soot. He stumbled up to the trinkets and fell to his knees. They were there, but the jewels they were meant to house were shattered, and cast across the earth. What a mess they had made, and someone had to clean it all up. Spike began to cry, but not because of the mess. Spike was good at cleaning things up.

Author's Note

This is only the prologue, a dense bit of foreshadowing and symbolism. I'd like to introduce a few things to those of you who would choose to become my audience.

Primarily, what I want from you guys is criticism, correction, and opinions. If any among you is brave enough to become an editor, I would love to work alongside you, to ensure my product is not absolute folly. That said, let's remain constructive, becasue my ego has only so much ablative armour to handle your blows.

Finally, don't correct words like vigour, armour, colour, or valour. I ask you not to do this because, little one, you are wrong.

Thanks for reading to the end, and I'm working on cleaning up the first real chapter right now! I hope you stick around for my first (hopefully) not terrible story!

Eyes Up

"A princess true is quick to wake, and slow to rest.
But remember first, the nation needs you at your best."
- Her Majesty, Princess Celestia, circa 1015 Post Nightmare.

The sun was setting in the west, as it always did. But there was no mind to guide it anymore. It seemed to be the case, that the sun gave magic power, and magic in turn powered the sun, but there was no more magic to sap the sun's speed, or to push it along again. It moved uniformly, and constantly now. Dipping above and below the horizon, bringing day and night, summer and winter, life and death. Long ago it was a symbol of mystery, for to the west was the impregnable, infinite ocean. Not long after that, it became a symbol of hope and benevolence, for the sun god lived, and she was the leader of a great people. Now it looked hollow, idle and lifeless. The solar light seemed weak, and uninteresting, as wind buffeted against the feeble shrubbery on the cliff, exploring further and more freely than ponies could dare, in those days. Or in these days, for that matter. The first few flakes began to fall with the impending night, and the snow set in with a chill. The light blanket of snow was still there, as were the wind and the sun. Roads ran on for miles, and in passing view thousands of carriages still sat upon them. What had changed?

A few moments of waiting, and one would see. Rather, one would hear. What had changed was the sound. So many years ago, these roads roared like thunder itself, a testimony to the infrastructure of the world, and to the constant turmoil that was modern life. But now they were stagnant, and silent. The carriages did not speed along them, whirring with power and hunger for fuel. There were no ponies to drive them. The old home of the Minotaurs had never been more peaceful than it was after the collapse, all those years ago. No more rocket science to shake the earth with plasma exhaust, no more air raid sirens to warn of the impending doom, no more fear. Yes, the land around the Cosmodrome was silent. Save for the sounds whistling air, and that of a Ghost.

It hummed a quiet tune, and searched the wastes, with boundless interest in every crevice it encountered, trailing with light and an electric whistling sound. The brushed steel surface of the machine started to form a thin layer of frost in the sudden chill of dusk, and it sparkled a little, as though the hollow sun were painting it with light. From spot to spot, it floated. Casually it would poke its non-existent nose into a car, or under a rock. It knew it was being followed, but did not worry. As long as it found what it was looking for, the Fallen wouldn't stand a chance to harm the little robot.

Its whimsical humming turned to curious "Hmm?" as it inspected another nondescript nook. "Is that...?" the ghost trailed off. Before practically hopping in excitement "Yes! I found you!" It swirled around its own axis in joy "Now let's fix you up..." The thing popped its little extremities out, and they hovered on the surface of a sphere of light around its core. The Ghost whirred with energy and life, drawing tendrils of electricity from the ground closest to it, and after concentrating very hard for a few seconds, it erupted with a spherical, washing wave of blue light.

"Did it work?" It asked what it hoped to be alive. A few more seconds passed, and this hopeful mass of flesh and bone twitched a little. "It worked!"

The ghost pretended to take a deep breath -the poor thing had no lungs, but if felt like a kid on Hearth's Warming Eve- and it addressed the little clump of hope.

"Guardian?"

--------*--------*--------*--------

"Guardian. Eyes up here, Guardian!"

Twilight felt like death. Everything was dark and blurry, but she could tell she was lying in snow just by the slight cold that plagued her side. Something was speaking in her vicinity, but she couldn't quite make it out. A doctor, maybe? No, doctors don't leave their patients lying in the snow. Twilight was definitely not in a hospital, and she felt as though she had just awoken from a coma, which was a feeling she was unfortunately experienced with, at this point.

"It's not safe here, I need to get you somewhere else."

She understood the voice that time. Her mind wasn't fully in the game, however. Twilight couldn't muster up the will power to speak, or even comprehend what she had been told. Only the most tried and true behaviours found their way to her now. She did what her beloved brother had taught her to do when disoriented, long ago, step by step. Try to stand. At first it was a struggle, but her muscles eventually loosened from a cold, hard state and allowed motion. With a few grunts, and failed attempts she made it to her hooves. A stumbled shake threw the snow off of her, and left her in decent condition. Check for injuries. Twilight twisted her neck around, to look at her body, even as her spine popped and her tendons creaked. Wincing in pain, she pressed on, and finally was rewarded with a view of her own self.

"Are you listening to me?"

Why did that voice keep saying things in such a rushed tone? Twilight grumbled and slurred something that could have been interpreted as "Not really." After which she proceeded to observe her bodily condition. Firstly, and most obviously, she was wearing some interesting attire. A thick, quilted trench coat, coloured a deep maroon and purple, with a large ornate belt of black around her midsection covered her torso and upper forelegs, while the flowing back end of the coat shrouded her posterior in a layer of mystery. Uniquely articulated manchettes, a grey violet with golden trim, were attached to her front shins, and tall, black, rimmed boots covered her back hooves. Additionally, upon her front leg, was a purple band of cloth with the insignia of a six pointed star upon it. The collar of her coat, and a fancy looking lavender scarf tucked into its neck protected her throat from the cold. .

Soon after her attention had been drawn to her neck, it was drawn to her head. Although she couldn't really look at it, Twilight felt like she was wearing a motorcycle helmet, or similar implement. On her side of the headgear, it was padded and warm, raising a hoof to the side of her head, she felt that the other side of the equipment was incredibly hard, and smooth. While feeling around her head, she felt a familiar object. This was a nice change of pace, Twilight thought. It was her horn, something that had been with her for her whole life, and never failed to impress her with its untold power.

She stretched, trying to shake away the last of the stiff muscles and locked joints. Her legs popped, and slid along in the snow while she pushed them outward as far as they would go. Her spine creaked and cracked when she rolled and twisted it side to side, in a similar fashion to her neck, which followed suit. She swished her tail, blinked twice, and unfurled her wings. Ah, her wings. The appendages of godhood, a gift from the wisest being in the world. Though her horn was her favourite by far, the wings were always a welcome addition. She twisted back, to start preening the feathers. But her nose was met with nothing but air.

Oh no.

Twilight thought she had checked for injury, but she failed to notice her wings were missing. Stupid, stupid! She frantically felt around the place on her back where they used to be, expecting to find some horrid, scarred set of stumps. But she was surprised to find the flat, slightly soft muscle and fur that had been there long, long before. What's going on? Twilight had started to actually wake up, and was now capable of asking questions to herself. Wait, there had been a voice earlier. It could tell her what was going on! Twilight frantically looked around in search of whatever was speaking to her. She was about to tentatively call out a meagre "Hello?" When a small form leaped into her line of sight, and a few inches from her face. Twilight squealed, and reeled back, falling to a sitting position.

"Hey, seriously! Do you want to be cooked alive by Arc light?"

A little silver creature, or machine perhaps, was floating a hairs breadth from where Twilight's face was a moment ago. It had small, pyramid shaped protrusions radiating out from its center. A single eye, glowing white-blue in the shape of some unfamiliar symbol, occupied its core. The sun had almost entirely set behind the perpetrator, and its last rays of golden light refracted off of the frost on the creature's surface to form a little sort of halo. The eye flicked around Twilight's face, showing interest and intelligence. The pyramidal structures rotated and twitched slightly around its axes, and the inhuman creation somehow managed to appear annoyed.

"Wha?" Twilight was enamoured with the intelligent, annoyed, radiant, little thing. So enamoured, in fact, that she could only stutter an embarrassingly simple word.

"Okay look, we started off on the wrong foot." It apologized, in a smarmy sort of voice. "I'm Ghost. Your Ghost."

Twilight blinked twice, though she did not know that her darkened visor had shrouded the expression from her 'Ghost.'

"There's no easy way to say this, so I'll say it blatantly. You were dead a very long time."

Dead? Twilight's mind asked that as a question, but it felt more like a wondered exclamation to her. Dead... It came out how she imagined it that time. Didn't do much to ease that news to her, but it was something. Nopony had ever truly come back from the dead, never once in history. She remembered asking Celestia a question about resurrection long ago, when she was still a mere student. Celestia had explained that the magic of life was unlike any other magic known to the world, and for the same reason Cutiemarks couldn't be changed by magic, neither could life. Celestia said that was why she was so interested in Philomena, her pet phoenix. The only living species that could transcend death entirely.

"Where..." Twilight began shakily, looking at her surroundings. Shrubs poked through snow on a hilltop, where she stood now. Below her an ancient road of cement lay cracked and worn, with the rusted out shells of carriages littered across it for as far as she could see. Disturbingly enough, small glimpses of sun bleached bones could be spotted through the windows of the vehicles.

"Where are we?" The Ghost finished for Twilight. "We're in Old Minotaurnia, not far from your new home." he explained hastily, and impatiently.

"No..." Twilight slurred, she still felt groggy and confused. "My wings. Where are my wings?" The ghost lowered the bit of its form that could be called a brow.

It looked doubtful, even disappointed for a second. Then it furrowed its 'brow' even further, and hummed in thought. After a split second of glancing between spots on the ground, and the upper right side of its 'face.' it gasped quietly, seeming to realize something. Floating a little closer to Twilight, and raising its expression in wonder, it spoke.

"Are you Princess Twilight Sparkle, by any chance?" It was practically quivering with hope.

"Uh, well..." The Ghost got uncomfortably close, and if it could smile, it would be grinning maniacally and ear to ear. "Yes?"

All of a sudden, the compacted and restrained joy of the little robot was released in an explosion of dancing fits and rambling. It flourished its apparently detachable knobs in a circle and floated about very quickly. It would glance about frantically, but always return its eye to the unearthed princess.

"This is amazing! That's it; amazing. There really is no other word to describe this!" It explained fanatically. "You're Twilight Sparkle! We thought the Darkness had entirely consumed the Elements, but you're proof they still exist in some form!"

"The Elements of Harmony?" Saying those words hurt Twilight. It wasn't her twinging joints, or her splitting head ache, or even her throbbing muscles. It was a little pang of loneliness, and emptiness in her heart. She remembered all of her friends, all at once. The memories rushing to her left her breathless, and sad. Where were they? Why weren't they all together? They were always together.

"Yes! Exactly! Your Highness, you probably don't realize what this means, but it is truly incredible." The Ghost said. "It's a little heavy to explain all at once, though. We need to go, before the Fallen find us." Twilight opened her mouth to ask something, but was cut off. "I'll tell you about them later, we'll have plenty of time in the City. Right now, we need to find you a ride. Let me send in a report, just a moment."

The Ghost flashed out of existence with a blue light, and some energy particles which moved upward rapidly before fading out. Twilight looked around in worry, trying to find the eccentric being, before a voice played through her enamel coated helmet.

"Don't worry, I'm still here." It explained, before going on. "I've got reports of a Guardian deployment coming in about half a kilometer north of here, we could ask for a ride back to the City."

A white diamond shape appeared in front of twilight, clearly digital in nature. It was overlaying a simple compass at the top of her vision, and appeared just a little to the right of the clear North marker. Twilight took that as a cue to start trotting, with the diamond in the dead center of her compass. Twilight took the time of the short canter to take in the scenery. If one ignored the ancient remains of dead civilians sitting in rusted out vehicles, the land was a sight to behold. The night had now solidified its grasp over the sky, and in the soft silvery light of the moon everything held an eerie glow. Twilight looked up at the moon, and frowned to see something far more ominous than the Mare in the Moon. The celestial body looked like a titan had drawn a groove out of its surface with a set of ungodly claws, wreaking giant gorges that ran for hundreds of kilometers each. She shuddered to think what could have caused that damage.

The Sun had seemed hollow, and lonely in the sky. But the moon was worse. It looked dead. Actually, more than dead. Where it used to hang with an air of motherly watchfulness, it stood with an aura of envious greed. Like it stared at Equis with the hunger of a starving wolf, ready to attack anything if it meant a chance at survival. But at the same time as it looked threatening, and evil, it managed to look injured and pathetic. Something rent a gorge larger than a small country in its surface, and something made it seem so malicious. Twilight didn't want to know what.

Prying her eyes from the ominous sky, Twilight decided that she had enough of sight for a moment. Closing her eyes she focused on the many other beauties of nature. Inhaling deeply through her nose, she smelt snow. Snow and grass, a crisp and refreshing scent it was. Reminding her of home in Ponyville, during the winter. Nostalgia overwhelmed her, a longing for the simpler days. Twilight chuckled to herself, for considering those days simple. When she had fought some evil which threatened the existence of life itself at least once a year. Scents were always nice for bringing back memories, but as she continued to breathe, her sense of smell was putrefied, just as her sight of the night sky had been. Not noticeable without focus, she detected the faintest smell of ozone and smoke. Like a thunderstruck forest, or a flawed power plant, it sent bolts of worry through Twilight's mind. Wrinkling her snout, she shook her focus from that spoiled scent, hoping to find an unadulterated wonder.

Next on the list happened to be sound, so she listened to the world. A faint wind whistled along her ears, and she could vaguely hear the heavy, large flakes of snow land on the earth around her, adding to the layer of white which blanketed the world. Oddly enough, under the sounds of weather, she could hear no hint of animal life. Usually, even in the cold parts of the world, there were birds in the distance, or a bug buzzing around one's head. But not here. There was utter silence, accompanied by yet more silence. Twilight frowned, and furrowed her brow, straining to hear something other than frozen water and differential air pressure. She instinctively tried to flick her ears around, but found her helmet restricted that motion, an such she had to rely on paying very close attention to what she could already hear. Silence, as she expected, however she focused harder. Still quiet as ever, as she feared, and so she listened more closely. Deep in concentration, eyes closed and ears open she listened. When her focus was violently ended by a sudden voice.

"Contacts, seven o' clock. Find cover!" Twilight jumped at the voice of Ghost, and was too surprised to heed his words.

Finally a sound other than the weather could be heard, but it wasn't a pleasant one. It started as a low hum, with a burble under it. Louder and higher the whine became, until it climaxed with a sharp clang, similar to metal being struck. A fraction of a second later, a fizz was heard just around Twilight's head, followed by electric crackling. Twilight screamed, and turned around to look upon the source of the sound. In the distance, she saw what looked like the head of a creature, a large spider maybe, peeking at her from behind a rock. When she made eye contact, it shot behind the rock, and out of sight entirely.

"First thing I'll tell you about the Fallen. It never rains." The Ghost paused, waiting for something apparently.

And just as the pause seemed to be getting too long, a limb reached out from behind the rock. Then another, and yet a few more. Limbs were hanging out from behind the cover in all directions, and grasping onto the earth around it. Limbs came, and never went, until finally, they began to pull whatever they were attached to out from behind the stone. Tens of creatures, poured out and toward Twilight, shrieking and brandishing knives of crackling energy. A hoarde, an army, or perhaps the best word for these things was a swarm.

"But it always pours."

Twilight, under any other circumstances, would have appreciated that allusion, but right now her very bones were frozen in horror. This left little mindfulness to catch the reference, and instead flung her mind into an impulsive state. The impulse of this moment happened to be 'hide.' As the monsters, wearing their rusted armour, chased Twilight down, she dove behind a rock of her own, just as a dozen tear drops of malicious blue electricity whirled by her. She panted, mostly in fear rather than exhaustion, and looked around, for nothing in particular.

"What do I do?!" She asked the sky, presumably not expecting a response. Though she got one, it was not from the sky.

"Stay calm, Princess. You may not have a gun, or any experience with combat, but you're a Guardian, and Guardians don't give up. Sit tight, and deal with them as they come around your cover. We're going to get through this, understood?"

Twilight gulped in fear, and said nothing.

"Do I make myself clear, Guardian?" Ghost said much more sternly.

Twilight squeaked a meagre yes, and forced herself to stop hyperventilating. After she steadied her breath, she said "Yes." And puffed out her chest, lowering her brow in determination, and standing up in bravery. "Yes!" She shouted, sure she would not falter. However, now in particular wasn't the time for sentiments, as a 'Fallen' skidded around the side of the large boulder Twilight was sheltering behind, and screeched at her.

Now that she saw it up close it was even more disturbing. Slightly shorter than her, and a lot thinner, the creature crouched. It wore rusted metal plates over a dark jump suit, and held a knife of lightning in an apparently telekinetic grasp. It had front and back legs similar to Twilight's own, though the back ones were booted, the front ones clearly had talon-like appendages on them. The more disturbing appendages were the ones coming out of its back. She presumed they would have been wings, were they not haphazardly amputated. Bits of tattered cloth, and other apparent attempts at fashion hung from its body, and it leaped at Twilight with ravenous vigour. Twilight did her best to dodge the attack, and the blade swung past her face while it buzzed like an electric razor.

The creature landed heavily, and clumsily beside Twilight, clearly off balance while it roared. Twilight understood she was in grave danger, but didn't quite know what to do. She definitely was not a fighter, and after a moment of confusion, she kicked the beast it the ribs, knocking it down, and casting the knife away. Twilight was now very confused about what to do. The quick and easy answer that came to mind was 'Kill it!' but Twilight wasn't quite sure that was an okay thing to do. It looked malnourished, weak and battered. It lay in the snow, face down, struggling to get back up. Twilight aimed to grasp the shock blade in her psychokinetic grip, and raise it in threatening defense, but when she reached for the wells of magic in her soul, she found an empty pit with a rusted winch and a rotten bucket.

She began to panick, and looked deeper into herself, only to find that she was truly empty of power. Where had the magic gone? Why was the princess of harmony, master of the arcane arts, devoid of the slightest hint of magic? Even the dullest, most violent earth pony had magic somewhere in them. She forced her self to focus, and tried to project the same magic she had thousands upon thousands of prior times, but her horn didn't even spark. It was like starting a fire without wood. No matter how well she was acquainted with her flint and steel, she could not burn the air.

"Oh! I suppose now would be a good time to tell you. Magic is gone from our worlds, the Darkness consumed it all."

"What?! How am I supposed to stop these things then? I'm not exactly strong or fast on my own!" Twilight yelled in fear, more than anger.

As she stressed herself over the state of her abilities, the first Fallen to encounter her was just about finished getting up, when three more of his kind bolted around the homely stone, and trampled the poor beast back into the dirt. Twilight felt a pang of sympathy, and then she felt utter horror, and with a rush of adrenaline, bolted. While she was running, and doing her best to avoid the oddly slow projectiles of lightning that corkscrewed toward her, Ghost decided help out.

"I'm not formally trained to instruct you, but I know enough about the Light to give a basic lecture." He disclaimed, and began. "You're a Guardian, you have a stronger connection to the traveller than any other type of pony. You can use that connection to draw from its Light."

Twilight felt her fur curl in protest as a bolt of blue energy whizzed past her ear, arcing through her helmet and into the ground she pushed herself off of.

"Where you found your mana when you used magic is close to where the Light begins. Focus hard, and ignore the well. Go deeper, until you see a star.' Twilight balanced her focus on running and searching her soul for a savior. "The star will see you too. If you only ask for its help, it will erupt, and the power will wash forth from your core to your body. You needed to guide magic, and push it forward. But Light knows what it wants, you need to restrain it, or else it will all be gone before you can properly use it."

Twilight remembered everything Ghost said, and began looking deep into her mind. She went back to the ancient well, but paid it no heed. A well without water is just a hole. She looked up from that well, and saw the void of a night sky. Without stars or moon, it was black and bleak. But she looked deeper, and there was a spark. A little light for her to reach, it seemed to beckon her mind with a strange appeal, and a slight tug. She found it to be more than a spark when she got close, it looked like a white sun. She thought to herself. Light, will you help me? and the sun stopped spinning.

Inside the white spark of a star was something dark. Not dark, really, but empty. There was a lot of nothingness in its core, and Twilight thought it to be fruitless. But then the nothing began to unfold, and between each instance of void, was power. That power multiplied, and expanded, until the white star exploded, and forced its wrath from Twilight's mind. Twilight was scared at first, and she stopped envisioning the strange part of her soul she never had before, but when she returned her attentions to the physical world, she could still feel the spark in her gut. It moved out to every wall of her being, and pushed on it hard, searching for an escape.

"Force it to your horn, and don't let it all out, you need to keep as much Light as possible." Ghost said, seemingly aware of exactly what Twilight was experiencing.

Twilight turned around to face the swarm, and she saw the many faces of terror. Behind the first wave of Fallen similar to the one she had kicked, there was a small number of larger, and prouder looking members. They had more muscle, and were taller than twilight. They also had the privilege of holding what appeared to be guns. Most notably, their wings were not amputated.

Twilight felt almost pained by the force of the 'Light' which searched for its foe. She drew upon her focus, however, and pushed it as hard as she could. Away from her skin, away from her heart, away from her mind and her body, but toward her horn. Once it was there, practically screaming to be fed the lives of the evil creatures before her, she opened a way for it to get out, just a little at first. As a smaller Fallen leapt at her, it seemed to slow down. A dark purple pulse coming from her horn yanked it back, and held it there, but did no damage. The Light however was raging, and forced itself out. Twilight tried to regulate its force, but it was like trying to repair a dam while water was flowing through it, everything she patched up was immediately torn asunder again, and the Light charged the beasts.

Crack. Boom. Thump, thwack. No amount of onomatopoeia could quite describe what Twilight had produced. The entire swarm of twelve amputees and three prouder Fallen were cast back with the force of a tsunami. Bones were presumably shattered, and their frail forms were cast asunder by a black Light. Rolling through the snow, flying through the air, and being pounded through the dirt, the enemies of the Light faltered easily. But so did the Guardian responsible.

Twilight no longer felt the force of the light escaping her, but she felt as though her blood had been drained. Her body wouldn't listen to her anymore, it was too busy collapsing. Barely able to see the havoc she had wreaked, Twilight fell to her side, and began panting and violently grasping for enough air to keep her awake.

"Well, that was impressive. It looks like you're a natural void user, so congratulations." The Ghosts voice was interrupted by periodic ringing, and masked by a muffled buzz.

Twilight mumbled in exhaustion, and tried desperately to keep herself from lying in the snow for an eternity. She struggled to stand, and found the gravity of Equis to strong to fight. Too much work to even twitch her legs, let alone use them for something important.

"However, you do need to get up. There's at least one more Fallen coming this way, and it looks big."

Twilight's blurred and darkened sight could make out only the boldest of forms, with the greatest contrast to their environment. So when she saw an equinoid shape at least twice her height, bright white and rusting orange with blood red flowing behind it, silhouetted against the purple night sky, she was not able to pay attention to anything else. The form moved toward her and spat, or burbled something in an unknown tongue. It sounded happy though, like it was about to enjoy a reward of some kind. Twilight struggled again, she knew that if she didn't move she was a goner. Her legs barely shifted under her order, like they only understood a language she could not speak to them, unsure of how to move.

With an unreasonable amount of effort she brought her hooves beneath her body, and began to push the earth away from her. The earth was very heavy, however, and she was very weak. She growled and gasped for more air, as she fought harder than she ever thought she could to stand up, driving her vision further into shadow with every flex. The mighty being which approached her was now only a few meters away and seemed to be saying something in singsong to her, like a teasing child on a playground. Twilight was standing now, though barely staying that way.

She looked at where she thought the form's head would be if she could see it, and tried to search again for the spark. It wasn't there any more. No longer could she see the power hidden between the nothingness, but only true void. She needed it to come back, she wasn't going to make it if she couldn't use the Light. The Light was her saviour, but where was it now?

No matter, because although Twilight did not see the mighty blade being cast toward her, she heard it buzzing, burning a hole in the atmosphere, and leaving a wake of vacuum in its path. She could not leap out of the way, nor roll or duck. All she could do to move quickly was accept gravity's assistance, so she let her legs go and she fell. This did the job of moving her out of the arc of the large blade, but failed to put her in a more appropriate position, because now she was prone, and she did not have time to stop being prone. Not in her current state.

No longer expending so much of her non-existent energy to stand up, she had some to spare for vision, and things became vaguely clearer. The form was definitely a fallen. It was mightier than any pony could dream to be, at least two meters tall and probably hundreds of kilograms heavy. Two giant cutlasses, with blades edged by thunder floated around its armoured self. Though now rusted armour, and tattered cloth hung from its form. You could imagine it being a corpse of something once beautiful. If its plates were polished and the tapestry it wore were new, and it stood up straight, it would look grand. Alien, but heroic in a sense. Now it looked like a lesson in forlorn, a warning of what heroes are made to become, in time.

It did something which Twilight feared was laughing, and raised its second blade before her. Twilight was too scared to do anything, so she closed her eyes and hoped whatever befell her would be too quick to feel. But then the menacing fizz and pop of the electric blade was interrupted by a sound in the distance. A whirr, with a sinusoidal tendency in volume. It was harmonizing with two other similar whirr sounds, all fluctuating on different time scales, but all very similar. Twilight opened her eyes to look in the direction they came from, but saw only a hill. She frowned, and accepted her fate, though the Fallen giant was enraptured by the distant whirring as well. It first looked interested, but soon seemed to tremble. Just as it lowered its two mighty swords, and ran for safety, three vehicles came leaping over the crest of the hill, whirring a heroic whirr at Twilight. In a triangular formation, the head vehicle was dismounted, and it faded into nothingness, while its rider flew through the air, retaining all the momentum of his jump.

A pony, it looked like. Though he was covered head to hoof in glossy, ceramic armour. The only bit of clothing that was not armour was a sash on his waste, which displayed a blue, yellow, and red sigil. The armoured pony shouted a battle cry, it was muffled to Twilight's tired ears but it sounded like "Stand back, for the Horse of War has arrived!" Twilight speculated that he could simply have said 'war horse' which suggested the same thing, while remaining easier to understand and saving a syllable of breath. But that didn't matter much. What mattered was the spout of flame that a weapon he held was throwing, while little bits of hot, spinning metal drilled through the clouds of plasma, and traveled all the way to the giant which would have slain Twilight.

This pony looked rather impressive, it would be noted. The moon directly behind him silhouetted and back-lit his form, which shined like polished steel, as he so bravely charged down an enemy which any pony should have trembled to behold. He reminded Twilight of the romantic knights of legend, though she knew in truth knights were less heroic, and a lot more stuck up than the stories made them out to be. But no matter, for this stallion was not a knight, by all probability.

No matter, one would suppose. For the bullets flung forth form the hot barrel of this pony's weapon found their mark. The flank of the giant Fallen was struck, and its rusted armour dented and pulverized, while sparks and sounds of metal being punched were flung about the scene. Though apparently not causing grievous injury to the monster, it did stagger the thing. Which stumbled to its right, and lost balance, while its assailant soared through the night sky on wings of black flame toward him. The pony closed the gap immediately, and landed beside the Fallen, on its left. Reeling his head back, the knightly stallion slammed into the alien's side, and sent it careening off, on the verge of tripping.

Just as that happened, another of the three vehicles was dismounted, and disappeared in a manner similar to Twilight's Ghost only minutes ago. This time, the rider who dismounted wore a long coat, manchettes, and a scarf a lot like Twilight now did. Though his outfit was primarily grey camouflage, with orange accents. After leaping off of his vehicle, he pulled darkness out of the air, and made a sphere out of it, which boiled with purple vapour, and he tossed it toward the Fallen like a bowling ball. Doing so arrested his horizontal velocity, and he floated to the earth, not dissimilar to a feather. Far before he hit the ground, his orb of shadow hit the monster in the spine, and sent it face first into the snow.

Finally the third vehicle was dismounted, and disappeared just as the last two. This rider looked certain, precise. Deadly. While the first had looked brave, and probably insane. The second looked powerful, and proud. The final rider did not scream, nor summon a storm of godly energy. Her eyes glinted in the shadow of her hood, and behind the lenses of an ancient gas mask. With a single notion, she drew something from a bandoleer, as she sailed through the air, cloak trailing behind her. Nothing but a bit of metal, smaller than a rat. She went past the apex of her jump, but seemed to get a second wind before she fell, and kept going, now directly above the prone monster. With a nearly inaudible swish, and a conspicuous thwack, a piece of metal smaller than a rat was now attached to the neck of the Fallen.

The cloaked menace landed just past the newly produced corpse. Her motion stopped instantly and violently by the earth. But no sound, nor dust was thrown up. She spun around slowly, and nodded at Twilight. The knight cheered "Huzzah!" and the coated rider removed his helmet, revealing a sharp, bright looking face. Fur white, and mane blonde, he looked around with his eyes of ice, as if to study the bleak surroundings, conspicuously not making eye contact with Twilight. The final rider pulled her mask off to hang around her neck, and spoke.

"You look like absolute crap." She said, clearly speaking to Twilight. She took a few strides forward, and the Princess wanted to shy away, but she was too weak. "What, was the first thing you tried a super?" She sounded condescending, but a smirk betrayed sarcasm and a rough attempt at friendliness.

Twilight's Ghost materialized in front of her. "Actually, yes. It was." The robot defended. In the background the knightly horse was searching the corpse of the Fallen.

"Seriously, eh?" The cloaked mare sniffed with one nostril, as a gesture of something. "They're going to have fun teaching you." She yanked her head back, to gesture the party member wearing a coat to come closer, and called out to the armoured one.

"Well, Guardian. This is Sol, our team's Warlock." She gestured to the fellow in the grey coat, with the sharp face and blue eyes. His chin wrapped in a trimmed beard of grey-blonde. He nodded vaguely. Stoic as ever. "And this here is Jacks, our friendly neighbourhood Titan." She pointed to the tall, muscular stallion sheathed in ceramic and steel.

"Jumping Jacks, to be sure, my lady! It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance!" Jacks continued for his own sake, half bellowing and half chuckling.

"You can call me Crispy, the Huntress." Explained the knife wielder. "What's your name, Warlock? Or do you not remember?

And so, Light was her saviour. Though not in its rawest form, as she pleaded for when she was drained. The Light did not come back to eat away at the bodies of her foes again, with the tidal force of a god. The Light brought Twilight not one hero, but it brought three. A posh, silent scholar who wielded strength granted by a god made real. A knight, true and strong, with armour to repulse death itself. Finally, a blades mare, swift and silent, garbed in memories of a dead world. Now they seemed to want to get to know her, too.

Twilight felt shrunken by the confident, oddly named warriors who seemed to be interrogating her. So much so, that she almost actually forgot her name.

--------*--------*--------*--------

Somewhere, there was a cave. So deep that nothing had gone in or out for centuries. Hours could have been spent trying to climb to the very bottom, and years could be spent trying to pry one's self back out. Walls of black, volcanic glass ran wet with water warmed by magma, and silence poured out from the cavern's depths. The deeper, the darker the cave became. Further and further from a sky of any kind, the shadow encapsulated all. So one would assume, that in the deepest, farthest reach of this cave, that the pattern would be followed. One would be wrong.

For in the deepest, and the farthest reach of said cave, there was a light. Warm, it cast specks of orange light across the black stone. it would look like the light of a fire, had it flickered. But it was static, unchanging, and beckoning. The light was not cast, but reflected, by that which all would hunger for. The root of evil, in its most famed body, was gold. Plain and true, a hoarde of treasures sat within this room, a mountain great enough to feed a solar system.

Hidden, partially obscured by the mountain there was a form which was great enough to feed on a solar system. It had scales, it would first be seen. Dark, like the night sky of earth black, but almost purple. An oily sheen on each scale made it look like each structure were a puddle of gasoline in the sunlight, with slight hue shifts in the shapes of chaos. Every scale was rigid, strong and rimmed. No blade, bullet or brawn could ever puncture the coat of oily darkness. A coat which was still as stone.

Wings, though they were folded. Crushed down, to fit in the humble cave, they were deceptively unimposing. For unfurled, they would cast a shadow to darken a whole sky. Leather stretched tight, between the mighty bones and sinew which framed the appendages, was more purple than the scales, but not a friendly purple. Grey, bland, more like rot than lavender were those wings. Wings which held there, still as stone.

Spines. So many spines. Spears, or saw teeth protruding from the creatures back, like it had been impaled a thousand times over. They were a beige, like sun bleached bone, but with the slightest hint of green blended into their sickly age and wear. They started small, and grew larger for a while, before tapering back down, toward the rear of the creature. Leading into its tail, which curled back up the form, and under the mountain of wealth. The spine of the beast was long, and held a frame to belittle a cyclops. The spine which was still as stone.

It had eyes, as well. Oh the eyes, they were open, and burned with a fire that no other portion of this creature did. Where the scales were oil, the wings were rot, and the spines were bone, the eyes broke the pattern, and they were emerald. Sage rim, raised into a burning , vibrant green halfway to the pupil. On a small border, just around the black pits of nothingness, sat a rim of gold, a hair thick. The eyes were not so still.

Something moved them, an event for them to witness, they dragged along the room filled with treasure, until they made their stop upon a pedestal, held above all else in the room. The pedestal held something broken, or perhaps many broken things. It was hard to say for certain, but there was a purple dust, crystalline in nature atop it. The beast flexed for the first time in decades, if only to move its mighty head a meter. Lifting the black master of the black body, was its long and powerful neck. Cords of sinew rippled beneath the scaly coat, and the eyes were moved closer to the stone pedestal, to witness the purple-pink dust.

Not that this creature preferred the pinkish dust over the deep purple, or the red, orange, cyan, or light pink. But the pinkish purple -we shall say cerise- dust was doing something which the others were not. It was quivering, oh so slightly. Only the god like eyes of the oily black monster could have noticed it without proximity. What was quivering, at first, became sliding. The dust seemed to attract itself, no longer inert. It heaped itself into a pile, and began to become warm. The monster did not fear heat. What was warm, became hot, and in turn that became searing. The dust glowed, first red then orange, yellow and white. It scorched the stone it sat on, and began to claim a shape for itself.

A star. A cerise star had quenched itself out of the white hot crystal. Now it sat there, curiously. Presumably awaiting something, and the monster feared that its cerise dust would be taken away. There were preparations to make.

Author's Note

There it is, Chapter One! Alright folks, ladies and gents, friends, Romans and country men. There it is, an actual bit of literature, not just a few paragraphs stitched together to set the scene. Please share with me your criticisms, distastes, and general rabblerousery. As I said before, I'd like my work to not be folly, so help me out here.

Finally, I do not plan to make the entire story around Twilight. I will shift protagonists, hopefully roughly equally between the six. So keep watching if you're just waiting for best pone to show up!

Chapter two is not near a finished state at all, and there may be more time placed between this chapter and the next, then was placed between the prologue and this chapter.

Thanks for reading so far, and I hope I've enraptured you!

Glistering

Author's Note

WHOA HEY HOLY COW!

Been long enough, eh? Fuckin' sorry about that. I've got a hundred excuses, but I won't share any of them. I'll only share the reasons. Started out with me being absolutely at a loss of how to introduce Rarity, I felt like the resurrection scene had been overdone already, and I wasn't sure what else was available. After that I was just having a lot of difficulty relating to the character I was writing, I'm not the hugest Rarity fan myself, I feel most of my similarities are in Rainbow and Twilight, with some ties to Applejack and Pinkie as well.

Guess that's not so important. I dunno, I'm trying to link the character's positions together quickly without rushing it either. I figured its okay to use a little coincidence to keep things going. After all, it's not a coincidence at all. It's Destiny.

I'm kind of worried about the quality of this chapter, and I might revise it later, but I really felt the need to get something out, after I postponed it for so long. Real sorry to keep the audience waiting, I got distracted by mostly video games.

As usual, I'm still looking for editors and proof readers, I'm still welcoming critique, and I'm still hoping I'll have a happy audience! Keep the love, and the hate where appropriate, coming guys!

Glistering

"I don't know if you ever thought of me as comforting, but I always felt safer around you. I know Applejack would knock a mountain over to protect me, and Twilight could summon an army of guards with the stamp of her hooves, but that almost seemed scary. I know you never wanted to act violently, but that you would do anything if I needed you."
- Spike, High Advisor of Her Majesty Princess Twilight Sparkle, circa 1015 Post Nightmare

A mare stood on the balcony of a grand castle, the white, thin coat on her exposed face rustling aside to grant the chilly winds of the altitude passage to her sensitive skin, as she overlooked the landscape that rolled out more than thrice as far as it would on the ground. For the castle was built on the very side of a mountain, lone and mighty. It was an alabaster white, and a solar gold. Though long ago it had much purple, the colour had been eroded over the years, and had not been restored for it was the colour which heralded the ancient sororarchy that had collapsed so long ago. She could see spots of old villages, burnt or shattered each in their own special way, though only one of which was of interest to her. There was a tree, larger than she had thought possible, which marked its location. She knew the tree, though it was much larger now than it had ever been. The mare hadn't seen the tree, or anything else for many centuries. Though the tree was grand, to be sure, it looked more like a bud of broccoli from here, were it not for the browned bark of the stump defying the usual green stem of the vegetable. She chuckled at her own thought, and glanced fleetingly at the sun set.

Or she meant to, though was reminded of hope, and fear at once, by a sight which blocked the horizon. Reminding her why now the castle was in so much shade, even at such an altitude and with the sun, powerful even in its monotonous state, to overlook it. For her vision was overtaken by a sphere, a brushed steel in texture, reflecting the colours of the world around its form. Pinkish, mostly, for it was a sunset afterall. Though it was also in grandly in shadow. The Traveller, the mare new it to be named. Though she remembers it arriving, for nobody could forget a moment like that, she cannot remember if it ever said anything important.

It didn't look like the sort of thing that would speak. It was just an orb of metal with a few cracks in it. But it had done so much, so long ago. Apparently inside it was a greater power, at least there was, for it was the reason that Equis had ascended to the heavens. The mare had thought that Cadenza was a nice opportunity for retirement at some time, though she had been informed it was nowhere near safe anymore. She frowned at that prospect burnt up, and looked back out to the tree.

Someone quickly nodded at the mare, smiling as they said "Good evening, Huntress." The lady paid little heed to the greeting, which did not seem to provoke offense. She had thought to ask to be called by name, but she never got the chance. Everyone in the castle was in a hurry, to get somewhere she did not know. She eventually gave up, and allowed them their love of anonymity. But it made her sad that no one yet had called her by her name, not even her self-proclaimed guardian angel.

It was strange, to not only herself she presumed, that she had been awoken by a floating device with a friendly sort of voice. It had brought her to the castle which she was told to call home. Not that she minded, of course. The castle was beautiful, even more beautiful than she had remembered it being. It once was made only of stone, which no matter how finely crafted still held an air of earthly roughness. Now the ground was tiled with ceramics, and the walls were made of a perfectly formed material that seemed to bare half the properties of steel, and half those of plastic. It was beautiful, without a doubt, and she had always wanted to live in Canterlot. But she had learned long ago, that even Canterlot was no home when it did not house her friends also.

She focused on the tiny tree again -the one that was, in truth, gargantuan- for it reminded her of home. It was home. and saw something which told her that the world was not as beautiful as this castle would have one suppose. In the shadow of dusk, there were tiny flashes of light, only a few kilometers north west of the tree. One came, then another moments later. The mare new that they were the fire of guns, something which made her equally afraid and sad. She sighed, and looked away from the fight, which she would not have been able to see were it not for the assistance of her "enhanced" body.

The machine which had brought her to the City had explained that her improved senses were caused by induced hallucinations, and it was really what the machinery in her clothing was seeing or hearing. She didn't like that her clothes could change how she perceived the world, but she was a little too awestruck at the time to bother complaining. Now she did not complain either, but as we had said, she sighed. A sigh can speak a dozen sentences, with a dozen words each, and Ghost heard every one of those hundred and forty four words.

"It's sad, isn't it?" The soothing voice came from behind the Mare. The Ghost floated reassuringly, and looked concerned at the back of the mare's head. "That's why I brought you back. So that one day, maybe soon, nobody will have to see war on their doorstep."

"So you mean to end a war by sending me to wage it." The huntress said. The notion reminded her of something older than the Traveller's arrival. The War to End All Wars, it was named at the time, when all the races of the continent had risen to defend, attack, steal and guard so many plots of land. It was not accurately titled. In fact, it could be argued that it was the first taste of true war Equis had ever been exposed to.

"Would you rather the war ends by allowing it to consume us?" Ghost asked, rhetorically.

A moment of silence. "I just want to see the ponies I loved again." A gust of wind pulled on the mare's cape, and sent a shivering cold through the fur on her face yet again.

Ghost looked around, quizzically. Though only a simulated behaviour, it made him not only look alive, but feel alive as well. An idea struck him, but it was a risky one. He could inspire hope, but at the risk of shattering it later. It was a long shot, if we were to understate it's severity. No matter, it was Ghost's job to keep his Guardian not just alive, but well.

"Well, there's a chance they're Guardians too. I could check the network for their entries." The mare stopped frowning for a moment, then even smiled, which brought a sense of accomplishment to the Ghost. "I'll need names, and anything else you can remember. Lets go to the Library, and you can draw their sigils too."

The mare warmed on the inside, and began trotting at the Ghost's direction. Though her good mood was spoiled when she walked past an equinoid robot -she had been shocked to see them at first, but quickly became accustomed- which said in its droning, synthetic voice "The City owes you a great debt, Huntress." And the pony visibly winced at her title.

That was just about the last she could handle. Just as her latest acquaintance had promised her something that made her happy, another machine did something that had upset her. She was very angry, perhaps irrationally so. Now she meant to display her anger, something she did not often do, for fear of acting unfair. She knew that, often, emotional responses were irrational, and would be later regretted, but she didn't give herself time to think that over.

"I would very, very much appreciate if you could call me Rarity!" She barked at the construct, who could not signal its fear of her rage.

"I must apologize. I did not mean to upset you," It visibly paused, thinking before it said "Rarity." in an even falser sounding voice than usual. "It is only Castle policy that we call Guardians by their title."

Rarity was still angry, and not so sorry for snapping at the robot. However, Ghost had immediately began to drill through his vast knowledge of history and legend when he had heard the name Rarity. In but a few nanoseconds, he had found what he was looking for, but politely waited for the Guardian to finish her incredibly slow conversation. A bottleneck on his processes. Now that it was over, Ghost could speak.

"Rarity." The Huntress immediately perked her ears, and looked expectantly at Ghost. "I'm afraid we need to reroute, you should meet the Vanguard."

"But what about my friends?" Rarity began to look sad again, and Ghost felt very sorry.

"Twilight, Applejack, and those lot right?" Ghost confirmed his suspicions with a nod from Rarity. "I'll get on looking for them, but this is a matter of great importance. The Vanguard need to know that you, one of the Elements of Harmony, live again."

Rarity sighed, and complied to Ghost's wishes. The hall of the Vanguard was a lot closer than the Library, anyway. Of course, Ghost had already combed every Guardian's identification, and come up with nothing in relation to Rarity's friends in the instant it took him to say Twilight's name. Though he cleverly withheld that information, knowing it would only sadden Rarity. It may have been a tad dishonest, but he also believed that the information was simply outdated. The fact he had uncovered an Element after this long could not have been coincidence. They would all arrive soon enough.

So Rarity complied, and altered her trot toward a new direction given to her. Ghost had set multiple waypoints for her to follow, but Rarity had traversed the halls of Canterlot many times before she had met him. Quickly she realized the Hall of the Vanguard was the throne room of old, and she knew precisely how to get there.

--------*--------*--------*--------

"You need a weapon." Crispy, Twilight still wasn't used to that name, said from her pilot seat. "I'm sure Revenant would love to share something with you, but he'll only offer lower stock to new Guardians, to protect investments."

"Oh, uh-" Twilight stammered, just coming out of deep thought. "Thank you, for the concern I mean, but I don't think I'll be doing anything with weapons any time soon. I'm no guard." She almost sarcastically laughed at her self a little.

She had been in deep thought regarding some things she had been told, and some things she had done. She was thinking mostly about her usage of 'Light' earlier. She only just recently, after Crispy had ushered the Princess onto a ship, realised that she had killed over a dozen life forms, as intelligent as herself. She couldn't even imagine intentionally killing a house fly, or a fish. She knew that it was wrong to try to justify it, down that path she would become callous. So instead of justifying it, she followed the spiritual advice of a monk she had gone to for help long ago. She didn't think about it, she thought about her thoughts on the subject. Following her own mind, and objectively watching what it did. Crispy was making this hard.

"Has your Ghost not explained this yet?" Ghost looked at the floor innocently, "Sheesh, man." Crispy said, exasperated. "Well I hate to break it to you, princess, but a guard is exactly what you are."

Twilight jumped at being called princess. She had been told by ghost to keep her identity a secret untill she could speak to a group called the Vanguard, who seemed like some kind of authority structure. But now it looked like she had somehow blown her cover already. She saw the logic in keeping a low profile, people would either assume her to be crazy, or gossip about her, as Ghost had said. They didn't want either of those things to happen, but Twilight hadn't even shown her face yet, and this eccentric pilot had seen right through her mask!

"Oh no," Twilight whined, "Please don't tell anyone yet, Crispy."

Crispy took her eyes off the sky, which Twilight assumed was just as bad as taking your eyes off the road, just to raise an eyebrow at her.

"Tell them what, that you're a Guardian?" She asked, "Sorry, but I think the outfit pretty much gives it away."

"That was a nickname, Twilight. She was calling you prudent." Ghost radioed through Twilight's helmet, for private communication.

"I uh, just wanted to..." Twilight racked her mind desperately for anything. "Uh, tell my parents in person!"

"Nice."

Crispy looked back out the cockpit window, and resumed her main task of piloting a ship travelling roughly mach six, with a mumbled "Sure thing." She spoke a few unfamiliar commands to her Ghost after the awkward silence that followed, too much jargon being used for Twilight to understand what the Hunter was talking about. Words and phrases like "The Pied Popper" and "Duke Loves You" stood out to the incognito royalty. After much discussion, Crispy and her ghost mumbled several agreements and affirmations over each other while nodding slowly, and then stopped suddenly.

"Anyway," Crispy diverted from previous conversation with emphasis and elongation to the first syllable, "You do need a weapon. After some discussion, Ghost and I agreed you could have one of mine."

"Thank you very much, Crispy, but I really don't want one at all. I was never, and don't intend to be, a violent po--" Twilight was cut off by the wall opposite to her passenger seat in the jump ship folding aside, and a mechanized series of racks producing themselves from the crevices of the wall. The glory was not the mechanism which produced the racks, but the devices which the racks produced. Row after row of war in a condensed, and at one time hoof-held form, though telekinesis now overtook the older methods.

Guns, we mean to speak of. Or 'small arms', if you ask the Interracial Convention of War. Each row seemed to be devoted to a sort of archetype for the design of said weapons to follow. One for sidearms, though they were hefty and powerful enough to be named cannons. Another for what looked like rifles, or maybe carbines, with shortish barrels and large magazines jutting out of their undersides. The rack lower than that held another variety of rifle, which Twilight knew to be named a 'bullpup' with its magazine in the stock rather than under the barrel. The lowest rack held another form of bullpup, typically with much larger stocks, and thinner but longer barrels.

There were possibly a hundred of them, and Twilight was awed to see so many weapons in the possession of one pony. After quickly counting the rows to be twenty five across, and with four rows, Twilight smiled at her very accurate estimate. She frowned again though, at the purpose of the wall opposite to her.

"Pretty impressive, eh?" Crispy called over her shoulder while tapping a key pad blindly. "Take your pick, those are just my spares."

Twilight wanted to try her best to deny the supposed gift, but Ghost bumped into her shoulder and said "Well? Don't be rude, princess." He snickered at himself. Twilight was unnerved by how casually everyone was treating the existence of a capacity for war, not dissimilar to an entire barracks, possessed by a single individual.

She opened her mouth, and raised her hoof. But caught her own speechlessness before she gaped for long enough that someone may have noticed. She looked at Ghost, then back at Crispy's hood, before finally sighing and trotting toward the rack of weaponry in a sort of dejected defeat. The Warlock looked over the weapons, unsure of how best to pick them. She was intellectually familiar with them, but had never actually shot one in her life. She stood their and stared idly, like a child looking into a fridge full of nothing but condiments.

"What's the matter, never seen a gun before?" Crispy joked.

"Never so close." Twilight admitted sheepishly, tapping her chin.

"Well, just remember; you don't choose the gun. The gun chooses you."

Twilight took that advice deeply, and began to try to mentally listen to the devices. It's hard to explain exactly what she was doing, but it was similar to trying to sense a magical aura. She deeply concentrated, and focused on the whole wall. That continued for only half a second, before Crispy began laughing at herself, hysterically so. Twilight lowered her brow and snorted in exasperation with the Huntress. She was as hard to deal with as Rainbow, and this pony was an experienced killer on top of being difficult. Twilight was starting to dislike her.

The princess rolled her eyes, and decided to listen to her book-smarts, some might call them, because it was better than spinning a bottle. Bullpups could be much shorter, with the stock receiver making use of previously empty space in the design, allowing for easy aiming in closer quarters. The variety with the longer barrels tended to have scopes, and were clearly implements for very long range fighting. The conventionally designed rifles looked heavy, and vicious. Some of them even had serrated bayonets, like a steel beak, and Twilight resolved she didn't like them.

That left the sidearms, exclusively revolvers. Though they were massive in relation to most pistols she was aware of, they were still smaller and lighter than any other available weapon at the time. She knew that they would be easy to un-holster, and were ideal for self defense. Twilight didn't see herself being the first to draw in a fight, so perhaps it was the best she could still end up being the first to finish drawing. With a final glance over the available tools, she resolved on taking the lowest profile revolver available.

She was at first uncertain if she should try to use telekinesis, or just pick it up in her teeth. She was honestly a little afraid to use her Light to do anything after the last time. But it would be cowardly to grab it in her mouth, and she would look silly for it. Twilight took a deep breath, and quickly enough felt the empty star in her soul again. Please, tone it down this time? She thought, as the star slowed its spinning like before. She looked onto the weapon of choice, and soon enough it began to float for her, as she felt a little chill run from her gut to her horn. She thought a thank you to the orb of dark light, and returned to her seat with the weapon.

"A Maverick?" Crispy asked, as if Twilight was playing a joke on her. "You sure, kid? The cylinder's only got six pops, you're going to have to be careful with your aim."

"Well, if I'm going to be a shooter," Twilight began, while inspecting the weapon. "I'd like to be a thoughtful one."

"Fair enough." Crispy shrugged, impressed by the short prose.

And with that the ship was put into silence again. Twilight was studying and remembering the functions of her new toy in a regimental manner, and Crispy was alternating between piloting and cleaning her hooves with a knife. Nobody else was aboard, Crispy's two allies were very insistent on preforming some activity they called "Sparrow racing." After Crispy tried, and failed, to convince them to assist in the quest of initiating Twilight, she tossed a bit of obscenity their way, and mounted up to bring Twilight "home."

Twilight had been grateful for Crispy's help, but the rogue of a mare was still clearly a problematic individual. She scared Twilight, who hoped that not all of these 'Guardians,' were so casually violent. Twilight stopped herself from using the word psychopathic, because she did not have a degree in psychology, and could not assume to understand another mind. She looked up from her revolver to the pilot, and raised her eyebrow. For Crispy was practically pressing her snout up against a monitor, as if she didn't believe what it was saying. She mumbled a "What the f..." trailing off before she could upset Twilight with yet more profanity.

"Ghost, you sure this is right?" Crispy asked, and her Ghost nodded a confirmation.

It was strange to Twilight that every Guardian had a Ghost, and every Ghost was named Ghost. They all seemed to have very similar voices too. It felt dissociative in a way, like whoever built them was trying to strip them of any personality or individuality. Though that was a mystery for another time, because now Crispy managed to upset Twilight.

"Oh, fuck you, buddy." She said to no one in the ship. Sorry, princess. We're taking a detour, I just found an old..." She paused, lowering her brow. "Friend." She finished, with far too much emphasis to have been serious.

"Transmat us down, quarter click north east from the target, just behind that tree." Crispy said to her Ghost. "I hope you've got that thing figured, girly. We're going in hot, right on top of someone who deserves to be incinerated."

Just as she finished saying that, the ship shook with the force of an earth quake. The sound of an explosion was unmistakable, even through the thick hull. Suddenly, lights went out and smaller lights began flashing frantically. "Now, Ghost!" Crispy yelled over the sounds of destruction. Twilight shut her eyes in response to yet another ear shattering boom. When she opened them again, she was standing on dried out grass, with a massive tree trunk occupying her vision, she looked around in fear, to see Crispy taking cover behind a large root, and to hear the sound of gunfire coming from the other side of the tree.

"We're coming for you, Zombie!" Crispy yelled in a grunty and clearly very angry voice, and Twilight was just about to keel over in horror.

--------*--------*--------*--------

"Ah, welcome to the Castle, young Huntress." A massive unicorn stallion said warmly, his blue coat rippling as he shifted his gaze from a large map to Rarity's face. He had almost no mane to speak of, and incredibly pronounced square features which surrounded his silver eyes. He was at least as tall as Luna had been, and likely a hundred and fifty kilograms. That is, even without the chrome steel armour which covered him neck to tail, almost as thick as the gracious layer of muscle which enveloped his form.

"Rarity, if you please." She said, keeping her calm this time. "I understand that you are the Vanguard, yes?"

The throne room, or Hall of the Vanguard, was much different than Rarity remembered. The stained glass windows were now replaced with clear ones, that had contoured frames made of the same steely plastic that so many other parts of the castle were. Where the hall was once empty, now there were several steel columns holding the ceiling in place, half polished cleanly, and half painted in a hazard yellow. Behind the stallion, on the dais where the thrones had once been, was a strange statue.

It was a sculpture of a sphere, made of solid steel, that levitated kindly between three large triangular claws which jutted from the floor, and formed cleanly around the sphere. So close you would be strained to see the space between each claw and the ball, but the distance between the two surfaces remained flawlessly constant the whole way around.

"Only one of them, Lady Rarity." The stallion said, in a voice like the deep rumble of a well oiled engine, as he returned his attention to the map splayed out on the massive table in front of him. He pushed a small figurine from one spot to another, and scratched his chin. "I am Commander Häst. Kata, the Hunter Vanguard will be along shortly, if you would like to meet her."

"I do not believe the matter I wish to discuss is exclusively relevant to Hunters, Commander." Rarity said politely.

"Oh?" Häst raised an eyebrow, and his gaze, from the detailed map of Equis to look unto Rarity again. "Would you care to impart this matter to me, then?"

"Of course, Commander." Rarity approached the table at which the stallion stood a little closer, though still on opposite ends from him. "To be honest I am not certain how to say this best. No matter, I suppose." She inhaled deeply. "I am Rarity, you know, but I am the Rarity, Element of Generosity, and friend to Princess Twilight Sparkle."

Commander Häst smiled softly again. "I do not mean to be unfair, Rarity. But many Guardians suffer from severe amnesia, and unclear minds when they are first returned." He managed to say that in a manner that didn't seem condescending, which surprised Rarity. Maybe it was the soothing voice.

"If I may, Sir." Rarity's Ghost rose up. "I've checked, and checked again, and everything checks out. Speech patterns, facial ratios, vein structure. She's a dead ringer."

Häst frowned slightly. "Then this is of more import than I credited. I will alert my colleagues. I trust you are aware what an event like this implies?" He asked, waving vaguely to his Ghost.

"That the Elements of Harmony, and by extension magic, must have returned to our system." Ghost said severely. Häst nodded.

Rarity had been informed of the state that the celestial system found itself in. All the magic had been taken from the worlds by an entity ominously named The Darkness. This seemed plausible, for Rarity found herself unable to preform even simple spells, though she was once skilled in such arts. Supposedly the lack of magic had been a huge blow to pony kind, even with Light to take its place. Light was inherently erratic, agressive. While magic could hold the castle of Canterlot together, Light could only have taken it apart. This pushed ponies to use the gifts of technology which the Traveller brought as well.

But now, there was a sort of hope. That order could be restored. The Elements of Harmony were the most powerful magic ever known, and now at least one of them was alive and fairly well. So many things to be done, that had seemed so impossible to so many. The City's only defense was brute force, and the only hope of reclaiming the worlds of the past was the same. But the Elements, in their righteous grace, could do so much more. Flush evil from the system, revive the lost technologies of old, perhaps even restore the Traveller itself.

This is what Ghost had described to Rarity, and now she found herself remembering it. But her mind was snapped to reality, the reality which now stood behind her, as she sensed two more presences enter the vast hall with her and Häst. She looked back to see them, and was impressed by each in their own way.

The first was a graceful, and strong looking pegasus stallion who bore the definite robes of a Warlock. His mane was combed, short and blonde. His face clean of anything but the light grey coat that covered the rest of his form as well, and his eyes were a deep well of azure, like the colour of his clothing, though that was trimmed with a proud gold. He pitched a half-smirk to Rarity, and kicked his head back slightly, accenting his angled and sharp features. "You look just like I thought you would." He held a suspenseful question in Rarity's mind, before answering it after an agonizing wait. "Stunning."

The second was an almond coated earth pony mare, with bestial amber eyes and a dark grey mane which was mostly long, but haphazardly cut shorter in the back. She wore a pristine cloak, conspicuously cast over an otherwise shambled outfit. It looked to be put together from pieces of possibly dozens of environmental suits, dead animals, and armour. She cut a cold glare with her fiery eyes to the still smirking pegasus. "Shut it, Brannigan." She said, a little too seriously. But the Warlock chuckled none the less.

"It is good to see you have arrived on short notice." Häst said. "Kata, Ric." He nodded to each of the newcomers respectively.

"I'd never miss an opportunity to acquaint myself with a lady so well known as Rarity." Ric said, quite wistfully.

"Nice to see you too, Sasquatch."

The newcomers took a place at seemingly unspecific points around the large table, while Kata inspected her knife and Ric conspicuously flexed his wings. Rarity couldn't say she wasn't at least a little charmed by the stallion, even if he was going a tad overboard. Kata was definitely being unconditionally rude.

"So, Rarity." The experienced Huntress said. "You're an Element?"

Rarity nodded, and the group began discussing the matter to no end. Häst wanted to send out squads upon squads of Guardians to sweep the land, so that they could retrieve the others before anything bad could happen to them. Ric figured that they would make it to the City on their own, just like every other Guardian had. Kata was insistent on interrogating wilders.

It seemed the only thing they could agree on was that they needed every one of the Elements, and that they were the last hope for civilization. Rarity never got much of a chance to interject on the matter, but they hadn't dismissed her either. She was used to sitting through incredibly tedious meetings, it was a requisite of being important in old Canterlot. She was just about to start picking at her cloak to make sure it was pristine when her Ghost interrupted loudly.

"Excuse me, Vanguard!" It said, and the three silenced themselves and turned to the robot. "We just got a report of a light weapon attack on a Guardian ship due west of the City. The ship's down, and the pilot hasn't checked in again yet."

"That's upsetting, but why was this brought to our attention? Surely there are plenty of Guardians who could handle it." Ric said.

"Not finished. The pilot had a passenger. A warlock, purple robes. A six pointed star for a sigil."

Rarity gasped. "Twilight..."

"Good news, Rarity." Kata said cheerfully. "You've a got a chance to prove yourself. Go to the gunsmith, get a weapon, and prepare yourself for a fight. The princess could need your help."

"Excuse me?" Rarity was appalled. "Ric said it himself, there are plenty of Guardians that could handle this. I'm afraid I simply do not fight."

"Not sure you understand, lady." Kata spat. "None of us wanted to fight. We didn't start this war, but we're all in it til the end." After a moment of silence, and dagger staring, Kata strode up to Rarity, and stood over her as the unicorn shrank away. "This is not a choice, Huntress."

"Now, Kata." Ric took a tentative step forward. "She's very new to all this, we don't need to be so hard on her."

"You're in charge of the Warlocks, Ric. Don't tell me how to do my job."

"I don't know about you, but it took me a month to get over my first skirmish. There is no shame in taking things slowly."

"It's not about shame." Kata had, much to Rarity's relief, turned her spite toward Ric. "The princess needs her, and she's too posh to even consider helping out."

Rarity backed away from the scene, as Ric and Kata practically prepared to pounce. They circled each other like they were in a boxing ring, and spat the same argument back and forth, but with increasing tendency to obscenity. It seemed like it was about to actually escalate to physical violence, before a booming voice put everyone to rest.

"Kata, Ric. We do not have time for this." Häst did not shout. He managed to take the volume of a roar, and the tone of a demand, then put them together. "Rarity, I understand your aversion to combat. It is not a pretty thing, but I'm afraid there is no longer any other option." He said, shifting his expression from a powerful, stoic frown to a soft, knowing visage.

"I do not mean to sound..." Rarity thought for a moment. "Prudent -I suppose- but I am not a soldier. I would be very happy to assist your cause, as it is a noble one, but I am not wont to, nor very capable of, fighting."

Kata spat. "Horse sh--"

"I know your intent is not wrong." Häst interrupted, giving a quick glare to Kata. "However, you are a Guardian. It is not a profession. Not a career, nor a hobby. Being a Guardian is nothing short of a destiny."

Rarity felt uncertain, for once. She knew that Twilight needed her help, but war was something she despised in all forms. So rarely was anyone who fought a war right, almost all of them caused by the greed of superiors, and the blind complacency of the every day citizens. If she just accepted it, then she would become blind to the terrible things it caused.

"Your Ghost didn't pick you at random, Rarity." The Titan continued. "You, out of the billions of slain, had a spark that made you worthy to be a Guardian. The spark which allows you to wield light, and which drives you to do good. Only you know why you have that spark, but if ever was a time to use it, now would be the best candidate."

Rarity remembered an event, very old, even ignoring the gap in time she had spent six feet down. She, Rainbow, and Twilight were all standing at the edge of a clearing. In the center was Spike, who stood defiant against a force possibly a hundred times his mass. He stood proud and tall because he knew he was doing the right thing. But he wouldn't survive alone. Rarity had thrown off her disguise, and rushed to Spike's aid. Fighting's not really my thing, I'm more into fashion. That was how Rarity felt right now.

But I'll rip you to pieces if you touch one scale on his cute little head! Later she had laughed about that little sentence, and so had her friends. But she had really meant it. Where that Rarity was now, she wondered deeply. Why couldn't she suck up her own fear for one moment? Twilight could very well be in the middle of an actual fire fight this very moment, and here Rarity was trying to argue her way out of even investigating the scene.

She furrowed her brow, and stood a bit straighter. "I'll go." She said, forgoing her usual eloquence in speech.

Kata smiled. "There's my girl!" She walked up to Rarity, who flinched at first, but was only assailed with a one-hoofed hug. "You know I just want you to be the best you can, right?"

"Er, I suppose?"

"I didn't mean it when I called you posh."

Rarity felt incredibly uneasy, and looked to both Ric and Häst with an expression that could only mean 'Help me.'

Ric coughed loudly. "Yes, well. You'd best get going then!"

"Alright, tough girl." Kata released the Unicorn. "Go get 'em."

--------*--------*--------*--------

BANG!

Rainbow missed. Or it was more appropriate to say Zombie dodged. He was incredibly fast, considering his name. Very quickly, Rainbow's one miss was met with a barrage of fire from the two faceless Titans, wearing rough black armour much thicker than Rainbow's. They both were using fully automatic rifles, and Rainbow found herself rather suppressed. Only a few rounds actually made their way to her form, and were blasted apart by her shields. But that wouldn't last long, Rainbow figured from watching a white bar at the top of her sight shrink with each hit.

She held her rifle off to one side, and used the power of her spark to grasp the fragile form of a bleeding earth pony. She strained herself, but managed to yank Rite behind the wall of his home, where she now stood too. Rainbow quickly poked back around the corner, and fired a few shots, one of them sparking brilliantly off of a Titan's spiked shoulder piece while he trotted to cover himself. Oddly enough, Zombie stood calmly in the open.

"Well done!" He laughed loudly. "You've just committed suicide without even pointing the gun at yourself!"

Rainbow ducked back into cover, and watched as her motion tracker indicated the murderer slowly approaching her position. She looked back to Rite, who was still clutching his wound. "How bad is it?" Rainbow asked severely.

"Think the bone's shattered." He groaned through gritted teeth. The bullet had gone through his leg, just above his ankle, and it was now bleeding heavily.

"Keep an eye on your motion tracker, we lost sight of the Titans. That rifle's old, it won't do much against these guys, try and find something else." Ghost advised quickly but clearly. "I told you not to aggravate him." He finished, with a mixture of snark and admiration.

Rainbow could still hear Zombie steadily advancing. He began whistling an unfamiliar tune, and Rainbow immediately began considering escape routes. Just about the only clear way to retreat without also breaking cover was along the back wall of Rite's home, then to bolt to the forest for cover. Alternately, she could try to sprint for the giant tree in the center of the settlement, though that would put her out of cover for at least three seconds.

As she debated with herself over the options, a hail of lead gave her an answer. From the cover of the forest, the mighty silhouette of a dark Titan emerged, and unleashed a storm on Rainbow's position. Her heart pounded against her chest harder than a bullet ever could. She turned her head away from the Titan, and toward the great tree. She coiled her legs up, to prepare for a sprint, firing a blind shot toward the Titan. She released the tension in her legs, and opened her wings all at once, and she was propelled forward.

Just as the air around her began to bleed off her velocity, she threw her wings back. A shockwave, prefaced by a rush of air and then a moment of eerie silence, rung throughout the world, and a quick flash of red light shot Rainbow forward. Her three second estimate should have been made with a seventy three percent margin of error, because she was only in the open for a bit less than a second. As she bolted, she got a glance of Zombie, who -much to Rainbow's surprise- actually looked surprised.

Shocked or not, he fired a shot at the lightning mare anyway. The first bang echoed against the walls of Rainbow's ears, but in their wake she only heard a few clicking sounds. By the time Zombie noticed this, she was already behind a root the size of a Hydra's neck. Rainbow peaked over, trying to get a couple shots on Zombie. Ideally slow him down, but she was met by her own set of clicking sounds, and she through the rifle aside with a curse.

Rainbow had seen Zombie not a few meters away from her position, just finishing with a reload. Screwed. Rainbow thought to herself, before considering the possibility of another word being more appropriately weighted. She slumped against the root, and racked her mind for things to do. She wished Twilight was there, maybe skills in things like chess could transfer to actual tactics. The pegasus was at a complete loss of what to do on her own.

As if to answer her plight, albeit in a snarky and offensive manner, a Dark Titan came from round the side of the tree opposite to Zombie. Rainbow could only assume it wasn't the same one as had driven her from behind Rite's home, because she hadn't seen that one run all the way to the other side of town just to sneak up on her. The assailant hip fired a burst toward Rainbow, and every round hit. The close range was incredibly favourable for the Titan's inaccurate but quick weapon.

Rainbow didn't have enough cover to escape, and the white bar indicating the integrity of her shields was but a sliver at this point. Adrenaline coursed through every vessel in her body, and perhaps swayed the next decision she made to a much more extreme option than most would be comfortable with. She howled with exertion, and leapt forward, barreling straight into the legs of her enemy. She knocked the stallion over in surprise, but ended up rolling off balance herself.

After the quick moment of recuperation and distraction that both Titans felt, they scrambled to begin fighting again. The clear object of admiration being the auto rifle cast a a few meters away, out of range for the most basic telekinesis. Rainbow was the first to notice that the weapon was out of the question for immediate options, and threw herself on top of her enemy. She now stood over his back, while he struggled to roll over so he may have kicked her off. Rainbow acted quickly and without much thought.

She reared up, and held her front hooves high over the head of her enemy. When she brought them down again, the full weight of her body driving them, they were accompanied with the crimson lightning she had become accustomed to. With a mighty blow, she slammed the stallion's slightly raised head back into the ground, and continued to apply downward force even after that. She heard a sickening crack, as a seam in the black helmet split open. Rainbow was stricken by awe of her own strength, and stood still in shock for just a moment.

Just a moment later, a viscous red liquid began to drain out of the split in the helmet. Snakes of red electricity arced through the pool it slowly formed. Rainbow felt a shudder run down the length of her spine, and was about to recoil in revulsion when she was distracted by the sound of a familiar revolver. "Nobody kills my guys but me!" She cringed at the unmistakable voice of Zombie. A heavy caliber projectile dissipated against her shields, and she galloped over the auto rifle, grabbing it as she went, and back around the other side of the tree trunk.

She took a gander around her cover, and watched as Zombie spat at the corpse of his former associate, then began walking back the way he had come. Rainbow huffed, and let loose a short storm of bullets at him, but only a couple had made their mark, and Zombie was out of sight before she got another chance. She scanned the area ahead of her for anything noteworthy, and didn't see anyone, or anything of interest.

"What's your angle, ass hole?" Rainbow hollered, trying her best to sound hardened.

"I'm getting what I came for." Zombiie said calmly, though in a naturally gruff voice.

Rainbow knew what he meant. He was going to kill Rite, and although Rainbow didn't have much personal attachment to the earth pony, she wasn't about to let someone get executed by an outlawed maniac with a blood soaked beard. Rainbow choked down every ounce of common sense she had, as it screamed for her to run or hide. The spark in her gut helped with that, it wrestled her fears into submission and filled her with a warming encouragement.

Just as she was about to ditch cover, and storm Zombie before he could get to Rite, Rainbow heard what sounded like a fighter jet in the distant sky. It seems Zombie heard this too, because she heard him cuss under his breath. Rainbow looked up, and saw through the tree leaves the clear silhouette of an aircraft hovering there ominously.

"Get a launcher on that ship!" Zombie roared, presumably to his remaining ally.

A few seconds later, and Rainbow heard an ear shattering explosion, and she was showered with smoldering metal. The ship above her had begun to lean, and slip out of position. Another blast racked it's hull, and it began to sail downward, before its last few engines kicked in, and had it stumbling away for the hills. Rainbow grimaced, and turned her focus back to Zombie. She threw herself over cover, and hip fired a barrage in a general forward cone, while charging toward where she last saw Rite.

"We're coming for you, Zombie!" She heard an unfamiliar voice spit in a hateful tone.

Rainbow was about to break down, crying in joy at the prospect of not being alone against this menace. But she shook the thought out of her mind, and continued to suppress Zombie, and charge his position at the same time. But long before she reached the wall he was hiding behind, her clip ran dry.

"Well don't just stand there, princess!" She heard the same voice that threatened Zombie again.

"What in Tartarus do you want me to do?" She heard another voice yell in exasperation. A familiar voice.

"Wait a second..." Rainbow skidded to a halt, and perked her ears. Looking at the north side of the tree. She definitely knew that voice. "Twilight?" Rainbow called out to the pony on the other side of the tree.

While she was distracted, she was yanked back to her situation by something hefty colliding with her chest. Following the staggering collision, she heard a repeated beeping sound that slowly rose in pitch. She looked down and saw a small metallic device embedded into her chest armour. She heard her Ghost speak over her helmet.

"Uh oh."

--------*--------*--------*--------

Twilight had heard someone call her name, there was no question about that. She had also heard the sounds of gunfire, and ponies cursing. She was very curious as to who had called for her, but she didn't want to expose herself to the rigours of combat either. Somepony knew her though, by voice as well! That meant it had to be someone she was familiar with, and she would give anything to see even the most shallow acquaintance from her past life.

She took a deep breath, and looked over the massive tree root on the south side of the tree, where she had been signaled to go. Peeking over she saw the unmistakable form of a pony, probably a mare, covered head to tail in silver-blue armour. What stood out more was her tail, and her wings. Both exposed, the latter was a piercing cyan, and the former a gradient of six definite hues, from red to purple. There was only one pony Twilight knew with hair like that.

Twilight was about to call out to the mare from behind, though she seemed oddly focused on her own chest at the time. She flinched just a bit, and then something horrifying happened. She was thrown to the ground, and cast sliding a few meters more, while a blast of smoke and a flash of light erupted from where she stood not moments ago. Twilight was hit with a blast wave, and staggered, her ears ringing. She called out a "No!" But it was muffled even to herself.

The rainbow tailed mare lay on the ground, clearly in immense pain. She slowly dragged her hooves along the ground, like she was trying to get up. Slowly little pinpricks in her armour and clothing began to soak to a dark red colouration. Twilight watched in horror, as a tall, lanky earth pony with a long grey mane and a rough beard, both filthy and unkempt, threw himself from behind a wall, toward the blast victim. He strode up quickly, and with purpose. A revolver levitating beside him the whole way.

Twilight was frozen. She wanted to do something. Yell for Crispy to stop the stallion, or to call upon her Light to do something herself. But she was truly frozen. The only part of her that would move were her eyes, which intently followed the barrel of the menacing revolver. The stallion stopped over the mare's body, and leveled the revolver with her head. The mare was far too injured to move.

BANG!

A massive, sickening dent appeared in the side of the mare's helmet, and her body jolted. Twilight was finally shaken, and about to yell something.

BANG! BANG!

Another round ricocheted off of the helmet, throwing up dust on the earth near the mare. The final shot put a dark hole into the helmet, with spider web cracks radiating off the point of impact. The pools of red soaking the pinpricks in the mare's armour had saturated their positions, and began to leak onto the earth, though not as quickly as the pool forming around her head.

Twilight whimpered. "Rainbow..."

IV

"Oh, you make plenty of sense. It's a selfish line of thought that causes others to assume it's your fault that they don't understand you."
- ███████████████, circa 1015 Post Nightmare.

Pinkie yawned. She reached her front legs high to the sky, eliciting a pop from her shoulders, then she brought herself low into the sort of stretch cats are so fond of. She snuffled the air in wonderment, and blew a strand of hair out of her face. She smiled, like she usually did, as there were a great many reasons for one to smile. She had just successfully napped longer than she had thought possible, three hundred and forty three years, and eight minutes, to be precise. Furthermore, she was gleefully looking down at the rolling view of a snowy tundra, from her vantage point high in the mountains.

She fluffed her hair out to cover more of her face and neck, because it was fairly chilly. Pinkie was happy, there was no doubt. But she was also excited. A whole new world! Well, it was the same shape and size as her old one, and a lot of things were in the same places as before, but a lot had changed too. So much to explore, and to adventure for. It was like Twilight cast a spell to bring one of her custom settings for Dungeons and Dragons to reality, and now gross monsters and beautiful treasure lurked around every corner.

"So, Pete!" Pinkie said dutifully. "What's the adventure hook this time?"

"My name is not Pete."

"Sure thing, Dinkle." Pinkie waved her hoof in a non-committal manner. "But we really need to get this show on the road."

Ghost sighed. He knew that the bond a Guardian and a Ghost shared was life long. And for this reason he was considering shortening his life. Literally thousands of Guardians, and probably thousands more potential Guardians lying in the ancient dirt. Yet Ghost had managed to unearth a what appeared to be a runaway patient from some mental ward. The incredibly slim odds upset him.

"Usually this starts out with us heading for the City." He said dejectedly.

Pinkie stood up to her full height, and puffed her chest out. She was ready. Ready to become a hero, and brand her legend into the supple flesh of history! But first, she needed to get off this mountain. Pinkie was standing just about on the edge of a heighty cliff, and though she felt it made for a beautiful scene, the clouds close enough to touch, as she stood proudly on the precipice of danger, hair whisping rapidly in the gusts of wind as the invisible orchestra, which had been her companion for over 360 years now, accented the scene, she couldn't easily make out any way to get down safely. She briefly wondered how she had even gotten there, but then decided it wasn't important. Pinkie scratched her chin, and puffed on her pipe.

"So whaddya think, Watson?" Pinkie asked, and Ghost looked in confusion at the old-timey smoke pipe which had found its way to his Guardian. "How do we get our heads out of the clouds?" She elaborated.

"Uhh." Somehow, the machine was at a loss for words.

"Perhaps I have some unknown power?" Pinkie asked. "Perhaps something which would allow me to glide to safety...?" She elbowed Ghost lightly.

Ghost stammered out of his stupour. "Oh, yes! You are what we call a Guardian!" Pinkie looked non-surprised. "Guardians are a select group of ponies who have a special connection to the Traveler, and that connection can make them very powerful."

Pinkie yawned lightly. She allowed Ghost to finish his lecture on the Light, by the end of it Pinkie was well versed in the knowledge of theoretical applied Light studies. Of course, this knowledge was not exclusively known post-lecture. So she leapt with great gusto, and turned her view inward. Away from the four hundred meter drop which gaped at her like a beast waiting for her to fall down its maw, and toward her inner workings. She waved politely at a friendly crackling star, she'd name it 'Sparky,' and it waved back at her.

They silently came to an agreement, and Pinkie let herself fall at breakneck speeds toward the rough, rocky earth below. Not long before she would ordinarily have hit it, just as the hateful mistress gravity demanded, she slowed to a near halt, and slid gracefully along the air. She was pleased to discover her angle of descent was actually less extreme than the slope of the mountain which still stood, even after the cliff she had already traversed, and so she was able to gleefully float along to sea level without further impediment.

In her idleness, she was allowed a portion of time to think. This is when her common sense kicked in, rather than her Pinkie sense, and it spoke to her in a violent, raging voice. You fool! This sweet, friendly half-man has instructed you in the ways of Light, and been generally polite, yet you offer him no introduction?

Hey! I was getting to it, I swear! Pinkie spat back at her sense.

Then do it! The notion roared at her.

"Hey, Finch!" Pinkie said joyfully.

Ghost sighed. "Yes, Warlock?"

"My name's Pinkie Pie, and it's real swell to meet you!"

"You're six minutes late on that, but I'm glad to hear it." Ghost said, to start his self off. "On another note; Pinkamena Diane..." He paused in apparent disbelief for a moment. "...Responsibility Pie?"

"Hi!" Pinkie smiled gleefully.

"Oh boy." Few tales were known of the Elements of Harmony. The records that survived the collapse were sparse, and relied on other knowledge, making them hard to understand out of context. But they were known to be powerful. Accounts of them saving the entirety of the earth from certain demise appeared several times. But the tales of the Elements were nothing compared to the tales of Pinkie specifically.

Ghost knew he was in for a wild ride, and the part of him considering the 'shorter life' option grew. It was still in the slight minority, however, and Ghost sighed. He mentally braced himself for the road ahead, and began to make plans. Plans to reunite the Elements, for they could be the last hope for the Traveler. For Equinity.

Ghost felt a pang of utter horror at the idea of this thing holding the fate of the world on her shoulders. Whatever the case, the two floating beings were nearing the base of the mountain. Pinkie relinquished her glide, and dropped bouncily to the earth, then began bouncing bouncily further along. Ghost was almost used to this by now, but not quite. He shook his head -that being his entire physical form- and groaned, before catching up to the oblivious pony.

"Okay, Pinkie." Ghost said. "We're pretty far north, the Crystal Ruins are just a little to the west, and that means walking to the City isn't an option."

"What about bouncing?"

"I don't think that's much better. We should focus efforts on find--"

"Prancing?" Pinkie interrupted.

"What? No!"

"Skipping, hopping?"

"Pinkie!"

"Galumphing!" She shouted with enthusiasm.

Ghost had lost his cool, something he was designed to be able to keep in any situation. "Pinkie! This is serious, and you need to stop babbling like a foal, and start focusing!"

Pinkie stopped in her tracks. She stared blankly at Ghost. He thought Uh oh. to himself, fearing what would happen next. But what came was no bout of anger, or defense. It was a quiver of disappointment. The Warlock's eyes watered for but a moment, before she squinted them clear and hung her head low. She ceased her bouncing and began dragging herself through trenches she cut through the soil with each step.

Ghost felt bad. That was a mistake. A sympathetic verse of sadness came over him, and he approached the Guardian slowly. "Pinkie, I'm--"

"It's okay." She said, but her voice was practically trembling.

"No, really. I'm just worried for you."

"No, really. It's--" She made a quiet choking sound, as her lower lip shook. "Okay..."

This happened a lot. Well, it had been on hiatus for over three centuries, but it happened a lot back then. Pinkie wanted everyone to love her, and she wanted to love everyone. It seemed like a perfect plan to her, and that's why she was always so brave about it. But only a few ponies could handle her consistently. Most of the time it bought her plenty of acquaintances, but few ponies ever really wanted to be her friend.

Life of the party. Good attitude. Charitable. Chummy. Everypony liked her around, but not for extended periods of time. She just got so excited to be around friends that she overdid it, and she overdid it again. She felt angry at herself for making the same mistake, every single time. It wasn't Hung's fault that he got angry, it was Pinkie's. She knew that.

It was okay.

"Pinkie, please cheer up." Ghost pleaded. "I lost my temper, that's all that happened."

Pinkie nearly cursed herself. She had already made a mistake by being irritating, and now she was being a bummer too. Before she got sadder, as that would only worsen the case, she sucked her drizzle of mucus back up her snout, and blinked so hard the tears squirted from her eyes like jets. She put on her best smile, and prepared herself to do whatever was necessary to keep Dinkledroid happy.

"It's okay, I forgive you!" Pinkie said cheerfully, though she felt there was nothing to forgive. "I promise I won't interrupt you when you're trying to be serious again."

Ghost imagined himself giving a warm smile, and said "Thank you." But more was at stake. Ghost perked his expression, and Pinkie perked her ears while furrowing her brow. After a moment of silence, the ears twitched and the Ghost flicked. They both spoke in unison.

“We’re being followed.” Though Ghost’s voice was distinctly more grave, and Pinkie’s more curious.

Ghost complimented her. “Impressive. Can you get a lock on position?”

“Yeah, no big dee.” Pinkie waved her hoof nonchalantly. She was about to say something, when she got a surprised look on her face, and began furiously scratching behind her ear.

“Huh, that one’s new.” She explained. Ghost didn't understand the explanation, but it was more of an out loud thought than a detailed account of Pinkie’s intrinsic abilities. Just as the scratching became more vigorous than ever, a bang rung out across the foothills. Suddenly, Pinkie was cast with mighty force through the air, and into the dirt. She grunted something through the snow and soil her face was buried in along the lines of “Holy moon wizard, that hurt!”

Ghost was quick to spot the large patch of red exposing itself through a smoldering hole in the ribs of Pinkie and her coat. He overclocked, and kicked everything into combat gear. “Light shields active, recovery systems charging, contacts north!” He shouted swiftly.

Pinkie rolled over, a dull look on her face. She was in shock, and had probably never been in shock before. Experienced Guardians learned to take a hit, and could keep fighting on the brink of collapse, but Pinkie was down until she got help. Lucky for the duo, Warlocks are quick to help themselves.

After only a short moment of eerie calm, something that would have been described as magical a few centuries ago began happening. The singed flesh stopped smoldering, and became a flush pink. Sparks of blue began to appear in exponentially rapid succession within the wound, and every time a spark faded there was more flesh in its place. The robe that had been damaged quickly was washed over with a wave of blue light, and in the wake there wasn't a single sign of injury or damage.

Slowly, as adrenaline, opiates, and nanotechnology was injected into Pinkie's blood stream, emotion returned to the mare’s face. “Wh...whaa?"

Ghost looked worriedly at the prone mare, then to the shaded cover of pine trees in the foothills of the mountain, and saw the distinctive glare of a wire rifle charging for another shot. Ghost shouted a warning "Pinkie, move!" as he threw his vision back to her position. Or rather, her former position. Ghost heard a voice calling from somewhere to the north east.

"On it!" The distinct, high pitched voice shouted enthusiastically. As ghost turned to the source, he saw Pinkie waving happily from about twenty meters away.

"Did you just Blink?!" Ghost asked, even though their was a conspicuous absence of the distinctive contrail made from snap-quarks.

"Nope!" Pinkie said, before frowning slightly. "Oh, wait." A moment longer, and her eyelids fell then bounced back up. "Now I did!"

With that dumbfounding display, Pinkie scratched her ear slightly, before a look of sudden surprise invaded her face, as she made a very important connection, and she leapt behind a snow bank, just as the ground where she had been erupted with steam and burnt soil. The peace of the earth meeting a crackling demise, as it was torn asunder.

Pinkie began frantically clawing at the snow under her, and in a matter of seconds was completely buried by her own will. Ghost began to wonder what she was doing, before he put the thought away. Either she was some sort of embodiment of entropy itself, and he intrinsically could not know what she was doing, or else he didn't have enough information to form an accurate model. Either way, any power devoted to the thought was wasted. It needed to be used for something much more important.

For Ghost felt the presence of a servitor. He began reinforcing the security on Pinkie's systems, and assaulting the security on the Fallen's. It was sort of like a dance, or maybe a board game. Everything the Ghost did was followed by an action of the servitor. Always in perfect time, every tick something would change in favour of the either side, and it was Ghost's job to look ahead so many ticks, and make his actions count in both the long, and the short term. It would be upsetting to relay the whole battle through speech, as if it were a board game, it took many trillions of turns before it was over, and the whole ordeal was really just the Ghost and the Servitor constantly stalemating each other.

That was how battles worked, in both the cybernetic and the physical world. Computers can't rely on the other guy making a mistake, so they just have to hold out as long as possible. It's up to the organics to make the mistakes, and to exploit them. Ghost really hoped Pinkie knew how to exploit mistakes, because otherwise she wouldn't last long. He looked up north, with his remaining mindfulness, and began spotting for Pinkie, hoping she would take a break from behaving like an ostrich at some point. Three vandals, one with a shock rifle, two with wire rifles. Tagged. Four dregs, each with a pistol and a blade. Tagged. Servitor, clustering near the dregs. Tagged. Captain, unknown.

Just as Ghost began extrapolating, and predicting the presence of a captain, A pink form erupted from behind a bush very close to the fallen who had last fired at her. Ghost forced himself not to frantically glance between the Warlock, and the hole she had dug herself into. He was learning, and fairly quickly, he thought. But he still looked slightly dismayed at Pinkie's latest location.

"Hola!" Pinkie shouted happily. "Me llamo es Pay de Rosa!" She ducked under a violently swung arc blade, and slid aside of a powerful few bolts from a shock pistol.

"Rude." She said blankly, and slowly. Sort of like a computer's error notification sound, or a buzzer for a trivia game. She followed it up with something Ghost honestly would not have guessed possible. She headbutted a vandal hard enough to send it crashing to the earth, with a mangled top left arm.

That was bad. Guardians weren't supposed to behave like that, not yet. Maybe some of the most veteran Titans would have done such a thing, but a freshly woken Warlock? No. All guardians, but Warlocks especially, were meant to retain their personality from their older life. The only kind of pony who would have done that now, is the kind who would have done it then.

A vandal was charging a shot for Pinkie. She noticed, and stepped behind a tree trunk, but only in a way that made her invisible to Ghost, the Vandal should still have been able to see her. It looked shocked, for a moment, when Ghost saw a familiar pink form creeping from behind another tree, this one behind the vandal. Again, she was only hidden from Ghost's view, not that of any of the Fallen.

Earlier Ghost had observed the vandal looking shocked. Now Ghost heard a horrific CRACK followed by a rumble, while Pinkie and the vandal were silhouetted, by blue light. When it faded, an instant before Ghost had heard the sound, the Vandal was crumbling and jerking about, while Pinkie apparently smoldered. As the vandal shakily turned its head back around to look at the Warlock, she spoke.

"What's the matter?" She asked, with a slow pause. "Shocked to see me?" With that, Ghost looked impressed and disappointed all at once.

Firstly, that was the first recorded instance of a Warlock using Arc Light in a very long time. Second, Pinkie was dropping fallen almost as quickly as a seasoned Guardian. Third, both of these things scared Ghost. The Servitor seemed disinterested with the pink pony's behaviours, as it launched a blast of void at her hooves. Pinkie leapt above the point of impact, just as it detonated, and was sent flying high into the branches of the tree above her.

All the remaining Fallen moved to inspect the tree, circling it like they were trying to catch a squirrel. You can't catch a squirrel. Pinkie swooped out of another tree, and straight onto the back of the servitor, and she began pummeling it's exterior. This gave Ghost a sudden edge in the battle of minds, and began working on diminishing the repair systems the servitor was employing on the fallen Fallen. Heh. They'd stay down a lot longer now.

Within a few strikes, each one accented by a beautiful, blue eruption, Pinkie had made a serious dent in the hull of the purple machine. She then grabbed one of the exposed edges in her jaw, and began speaking through gritted teeth.

"I am Ripper!" She shouted, and she tugged. "Tearer!" She yanked harder, Ghost shuddered. "Slasher" The other fallen fell away from their servitor, as it's plating was torn clean off. "Gouger." Pinkie thrust her hooves deep into its inner workings. "I am teeth in the Darkness!" She sounded like she was amusing herself, rather than like she actually believed her descriptions. She tore something that looked important out, and threw it far away.

"For mine is strength!" She screamed with glee, as she she dismounted the dying machine, and approached the last of the vandals. "And lust!" She picked up a shock pistol in her telekinesis, and fired a few shots into the retreating Dregs, which fell by her command. She strode closer still to the last vandal, who had sadly tripped over a root. "And laughter." She finished with a much lighter tone.

"I am Pink Happy!" She screamed joyfully, and slammed a blast of force from her mind into the Fallen, easily snapping its frail being.

Ghost wanted to warn her, but he had only realized when it was too late to speak his warning in time. He had located the Captain, just as its cloak had begun to fizzle for a swift strike. And what a strike it was. The arc blade sailed, cleanly and unabashed, through air and flesh alike. Pinkie collapsed, clearly in severe pain, as a gash from her shoulder to her haunch opened up, revealing severed ribs, and damaged organs. She was on the very verge of death.

The Captain lifted her up in a powerful telekinetic embrace, and held a sword to her gut with a claw, her massive form threatening to cease Pinkie's existence just by relative importance. It uttered something in its broken, once-beautiful language and pulled the blade back for a fatal plunge. Pinkie just barely gasped something to the Captain.

"Behind..." She slipped on her own words, and coughed blood. But she felt the blue sparks starting to appear again. "... You."

The mighty captain looked behind her, Ghost did not think that anything could fall for a trick like that, and that perhaps the Fallen were less intelligent than typically credited. Not to the captain's surprise, there was nothing behind her, and she looked back to her prize for a second. A second before she realized it had been replaced with the corpse of one of her former servants, with a crudely drawn note pinned to it's chest.

Get outplayed, scrub. The note said, and the captain shot her eyes back behind herself yet again.

Just in time to have a couple arc daggers plunged through the weak points of her helmet, blinding her, and sending her to the earth, in shock and in the imminence of death. That death was swift, to say the least. It was all the captain could have asked for. And so, victoriously, Pinkie cantered back south a couple dozen meters to her robot companion, smiling happily.

"That was fun!" Pinkie said, ushering in a grave worry to Ghost's mind.

That was impressive, but it shouldn't be fun. As evil as the Fallen were, as arrogant and as ruthless, they were living beings. Pinkie had not only made short work of them, but she had enjoyed it. She enjoyed not only the act of killing them, but deceiving and scaring them while she did so. That was unhealthy, and a flag for far too many mental divergences. Ghost felt the need to confront her about it, maybe it really wasn't as terrifying as it looked, and the Warlock could dismiss all his fears.

But Ghost felt oppressed by an instinct -or more correctly, a sub-routine-, of self-preservation. He didn't want to wake whatever it was that Pinkie was driven by, not when he was the only feasible target. So he calmly packed his worries away, and focused on the mission at hand. But perhaps something in his demeanour hinted at his fears.

"Something the matter, Gutt?" Pinkie asked, frowning worriedly. Ghost looked to her visage, remnant ether still whisping off of her from the broken warriors she left behind.

Ghost almost trembled. No. That was fear. and machines did not feel fear. They were quite proud of it, and Ghost was risking the integrity of his own pride. He lowered the brow above his single eye, and held Pinkie's gaze a moment longer. She looked genuinely distraught at his apparent disapproval, and she shrunk away from him. At least Ghost knew she wouldn't hurt him.

"Pinkie..." He trailed off, pretending to think about his next words. "What you did back there," Pinkie rose her eyebrows in expectation. "It was wrong." Her expression fell again, upset by Ghost's disapproval.

"I'm sorry..." She said earnestly. Pinkie didn't want to make her newest friend angry, she just wanted to protect him. What was the point of a world infested by evil if defeating said evil was bad? She wondered. But maybe there was more to Ghost's worries, she waited for him to elaborate.

"You know why it was wrong?" Pinkie shook her head. "Because it was fun." Ghost began leading Pinkie further on their journey as he spoke. "We don't fight the Fallen because we want to kill them, we fight them because they want to kill us. It's what's meant to separate Guardians from the Darkness, a sense of right that drives us. Not blood lust."

Pinkie thought carefully about her next words. She didn't really enjoy killing, but she hadn't really killed. She knew all the answers, but when she explained them to ponies, their eyes would glaze over and they would ignore everything she said like it didn't make sense. Maybe robots weren't like ponies though, maybe her new friend Bolivar would understand the simple things that nopony ever could. She would try to explain it.

"I only did it because the atmosphere changed." She said, still sorry sounding. Ghost seemed confused, so she continued. "I wouldn't have done something like that before today, back then everypony was happy and nopony got hurt." Her expression shifted to anger. "But then that big, dark, meanie came and hurt my friends!"

Pinkie remembered in excruciating detail the demise of Harmony. She remembered how all of her friends had died, except Rainbow. Rainbow was still fighting, when everpony else was breaking or crying. That was what she remembered the most. She hadn't done anything, she got scared and upset and then she died. She couldn't let that happen again, she had to stay happy and focused. She had never died when she was happy.

She continued her explanation. "That's when the motif changed, now those baddies are all over the place, and we need to do violent things. In the name of peace, even if that sounds silly. Otherwise all the important ponies would die, and there wouldn't be anything to talk about anymore." Pinkie's explanation started to become clearer, but also vaguer in a less important aspect, and Ghost's expression softened into revelation, over anger. He saw where she was going. "I know that ponies are supposed to take a long time to change, but if I hadn't changed quickly we could both be... Gone."

That made sense. Ghost thought, and his systems prided themselves. They had made sense of something the pink one had said or done. That was a first, and a great triumph for Ghost. He began noting things down in a language much more efficient than any that an organic could speak. Pinkie was a strange mix of consequential and categorical. She was clearly very focused on the outcome of an action, but she used fundamentals and subjective connections to achieve those outcomes. That was a sign of extreme intelligence, that she used all knowledge equally, as it suited her, to make plans. She saw that the most powerful tool was to be happy and excited about things, and she used it to save her own life.

Ghost had no doubt she would use it to save others.

"Pinkie." Pinkie looked scared of her own name. "That was the first thing you've said that made perfect sense." Pinkie smiled. "I know why you did all that now, but not everyone will understand. For your own social standing, you really should ease yourself into combat. You're clearly very capable, if not well-trained, but most Guardians take months to become comfortable with killing. Don't alienate yourself from your peers."

Pinkie understood that. It made sense. She was good at making friends, and she knew nopony wanted to be friends with someone who was scary. She wouldn't be scary. "Okay, Trumpkin! Writing that one down on the brain-fridge!" She said, tapping her head, and Ghost thought he saw her give a thumbs up. What?

--------*--------*--------*--------

"You desire protection." The voice boomed, and growled across the crystalline world. Water had not seen liquid form since the collapse, at least not here. Even in the castle, no fires burned. But it's master did not wish for warmth, he had forgone the need long ago. He prided himself not on strength, but tenacity. He had fallen many times, and every time he had returned. His last fall was 358 years ago.

A gargantuan, scaled head nodded in affirmation. But it scowled, as though it despised the master it was speaking to. Said master's green eyes drifted to a pouch within the monster's possession, and noticed that it had been burnt, and sewn back together. He wondered what was in it. As he began to form ideas, he feared what was in it.

"Why, I wonder." Battered armour, made from the remnants of Guardian equipment, and frosted together cracked as it was lifted from a throne for the first time in decades. "You have lived as long as I have without protection, and I doubt that anything short of the Vex could kill you." The beast worried that the master knew about his jewels.

"You don't need protection. Something you own does." The master looked again at the pouch, his eyes smoking. "It does not already have security, or else you could not bring yourself to me. So you are its sole protector." He grinned at the monster's dismay, as he pieced everything together. A chance to display his gift of cunning. "You would not leave it alone. You would carry it with you, perhaps in a pouch. What is it?"

The monster snorted. It could speak, but did not enjoy doing so. Especially to old enemies.

"Show me. Lest I throw you out, and leave you to defend it alone."

The toothy grimace of the dark form closed. Its tense muscles loosened, and its weight hung lower. The oily scales it had carried across the frozen moon started to look dry, or frozen. The creature gently grasped the pouch, in its deathly talons of black sky and blighted bone, with the slightest twitch, the knot came undone, and a few specs of gemstone were released into the dark palm of the towering being.

They looked whimsical. They were all brightly coloured, even in the frozen dark of the icy castle. A star, a lightning bolt, a diamond, a balloon, an apple, and a butterfly. They were childish symbols, that all reminded one of adventure or joy. They could bring nothing but a sense of happiness to any right-minded being.

The king looked mortified. He shared a knowing, hateful glance with the subject of his mercy. He could voice his anger, but that would do nothing productive. He needed only to destroy, or steal those jewels again. He knew what they meant. He would cast the monster from his home, and hope that the darkness of its cave would swallow it, and the gems, forever.

But that hadn't done it before. No, that was an instinctive reaction. He feared the gems, but to simply ignore them would not do him well. He would not fall again. Perhaps there was something to be done, a plan. A trick, even. But it would not be obvious, he needed to appear like he was afraid of them still, or the monster would know. It was wise.

"Why do you bring the relics of my death before me?" The monster looked neutral. "Do you think that you can intimidate me?"

The monster stayed silent, and let the king speak. That was bad, he needed the beast to believe it had the upper hand.

"You are an idiot. Go." The king paused a moment. "Now!" He shouted angrily. "Or I will strike you down myself!" The tiny, four legged form brazenly assailed the colossus of bone and scale and wing.

It shrunk for just a second, before it glanced away, apparently looking into itself. It found some inner strength, a force of will. That was exactly what the king wanted. It inhaled, and its chest expanded like a blimp. Full of flammable gases, and ready to assault an entire kingdom. Some of the air was released onto the frozen king, hot enough to melt the ice he bore as a device. His throne sunk into the earth slightly, and the monster bellowed.

"You will not." The king's voice had been deep, and guttural. This voice was so low a pony could barely register its existence, were it not for the vibration it caused in the king's chest. If the kings heart beat, it would have stopped right then. Shards of ice fell from the hundred foot high ceiling of the throne room, and broke off of the monster's muscular back. The king heard some of his subjects collapse from across the hall.

"You will help me. If you do not, I will be your demise, not the crystals." The king allowed his glare to falter, a facade of terror being built across his face. He took a step back, and allowed the monster to shift forward and close the gap he had just made. The king pretended to shake the fear from his face, and he resumed his hatred. His grimace twitched, before he spoke.

"Fine." The monster allowed itself to look pleased. "Though I fail to see what a few hundred corpses--"

"A thousand." The monster interrupted.

"--What a thousand corpses could achieve, that an Ahamkara could not." The legend did not speak again. "They will be on their way within a month, with a leader among them. They will do as you say, unless I command them not to. You see this as reasonable?"

The Ahamkara nodded, and the king did as well. For he now had two thousand eyes to watch the only thing he feared.

--------*--------*--------*--------

"Guardian down!" a voice chimed through a Warlock's helmet. It sounded excited, but not worried.

The Warlock was dismayed. She couldn't see anything, except the deep black ichor that leaked from a broken and punched helmet. The wings attached to the form fell limp suddenly, and the many colours of the tail seemed to dim. No, that was wrong. Twilight was sure that didn't happen. She was dreaming, she must have been. That sounded cliche to her, but it only seemed logical.

"Princess!" That was Crispy, yet another short-lived character in Twilight's mind.

Someone she had subconsciously willed into existence called Zombie looked at her, and raised a weapon menacingly. Twilight could see straight down the barrel, to the round that had been materialized in its chamber from smart matter. That didn't exist either, of course this was a dream. Twilight decided not to be afraid, and just kept looking at Zombie. Luna had taught her that in a dream, the only thing more powerful than you is fear. Twilight felt powerful, alright.

Zombie was about to pull the trigger, when a mass knocked Twilight to the Earth. It was Crispy, and the murderer's bullet ate through the Hunter's cloak, as it missed her by centimeters. What an odd thing. That Twilight's notion of space was defined by how big a certain drop of water is. Crispy seemed suddenly aware of her attire's damage, and cursed loudly. She grabbed an odd mechanism off of her belt, and tossed it over the root she and Twilight were hiding behind.

"This guy's serious. One of his goons is still up, you go for him while I occupy Zombie." Twilight vaguely nodded, beginning to contemplate what she would do with Zombie, now that she realized her total power over everything around her. The mechanism Crispy had thrown exploded, and Zombie coughed. "You hear me? This guy will kill you. For real. Now let's go!" Crispy leapt over the root, and began hailing rounds from an auto rifle at Zombie. Twilight thought some more.

She looked at her hand cannon. It was weak. She willed herself over the root, and the earth fell away from her, then rolled just enough that she was hovering a few meters away from Zombie and Crispy, who were about to engage in a knife fight. Twilight pulled the earth back to her hooves. Zombie glanced at her, and Crispy took advantage of the distraction. She threw her blade into Zombie, and it burrowed deep into his chest. He reeled in pain.

A dark Titan appeared on the roof of a building, and launched a searing projectile toward Twilight. She knew it was meant to explode. What an odd thing. That ponies, of all creatures, had used the knowledge gifted to them to develop a device that erased life with a simple, uncontrolled burst of heat. When it reached her, it stopped flying for a moment, before it burst into ash, inert. The Titan looked afraid, and she looked at him, unimpressed. Twilight plucked loose the thread that he was made of, and he stopped existing.

Crispy was now dumbfounded, and Zombie was shaking. Twilight wondered why she was willing the characters in her dream to be afraid. She moved Crispy a little farther away, and she looked earnestly at Zombie.

"I wonder how I thought of someone as evil as you." Twilight said out loud. She was about to make him go away, or maybe she would wake herself up, when she heard a familiar voice come from behind her, and to the left.

"Twilight?" It was a little raspy, but also cautious. As soon as Twilight flinched at the mention of her name, it spoke again. "What are you doing?"

Twilight turned around, and saw an armoured mass, with wings and a spectral tail. It was in perfect shape, not a dent or hole to be seen. But it looked afraid. Afraid of Twilight.

"I'm making this dream better, Rainbow." It wasn't the real Rainbow, but Twilight still was happy to see a memory of her, and did not want to upset that memory. What an odd thing. That she was worried about shifting the balance of chemicals in an imaginary representation of something she called 'life.'

Zombie was no longer a part of the dream.

"Twilight, what's happening to you?" Rainbow asked, her voice trembling, as she glanced away from where Zombie had stood.

Twilight was confused, then she looked down. Her clothing, and flesh alike wasn't solid. It was made of trillions of little particles, that were dancing around her bones like a wind was blowing them away. Sometimes parts of her fell away, dust and ash, and she had to ask them to stay. She furrowed her brow, and tried to make the disintegration stop, it was her dream after all. It wasn't working, though. She felt her thread becoming thin, and strained.

"Princess, you need to stop." Crispy said. Twilight looked at her, with a fearful expression. "I've never seen a Warlock do this before, I don't think you can handle it."

The words were starting to lose meaning. What an odd thing. That air, hissing through a bit of meat, could have ever meant something. Twilight could only hear the thin vibration of the thread that was existence. It bounced back and forth, like a guitar string, but she didn't know what chord it was playing.

"What's happening to me?" Twilight asked, echoing Rainbow's fears.

"Twilight, find the Light." That was Ghost. He sounded far away, but he was very intense as well. She needed to find the Light.

Everything had stopped being solid, and became swirling particles. They were all farther away from each other, like the spec of a planet orbiting a massive star. Then they had stopped being particles, and became an ocean of waves crashing against each other. But if you followed the waves, you'd see that they never started or ended, but tangled into each other. As the waves straightened out, they started to look like a string. There was no light, all Tiwlight could see was a string. Suddenly a stinging pain shocked her mind, and the string became tangled for just a moment, reminding her that it was the world. Some parts of the string, now tangled, glowed a little bit. Some of it looked like a bright fire, some of it had the eerie glow of faded purple. Everywhere along the string were sparks of blue-white light.

Part of that string was her, and that part was a beautiful mix of all three colours. She tried to grab it, and it felt strong, but incredibly tense. She used all her might to pull the thread around it together, and loosen the strain on it. It worked. As the string loosened, it naturally tangled back into itself, and as it did that, the waves became visible again. Then they waves became specs, dancing in the cosmic wind. Finally, to Twilight's relief, the specs stopped dancing, and clung together to build a world. She was part of that world.

She felt like she had been taken apart, and put back together haphazardly, and that was not a pleasant feeling. Her stomach lurched, and Ghost immaterialized the helmet covering her face just as she released the contents of her stomach onto the ground. She stumbled slightly, and heard a sort of buzzy whooshing sound in front of her, then the sound of a ship flying away above her. She looked up, bile still leaking slightly from her mouth, and saw a glistering, alabaster Hunter, with beautiful blue eyes, and curled purple hair looking worriedly at her.

"Hey, Rarity." Twilight said, the saliva in her mouth making her words a little sloppy, before she fell unconscious. Rainbow, Rarity, and Crispy all agreed not to tell her she had fallen in her own vomit.

Author's Note

OH GOD.

That's another chapter, ladies, gents and whatever else has managed to uncover my story. Too tired to write much here, just know that I value all your feedback, and I love every single one of you, who choose to be my audience. If you'd like to point out any errors, or ask any questions, I read every comment and message I get. I also respond to a lot of them.

Good evening, morning, night and day. Where ever you are, I'm sure it's good.

Subsonic

"You aren't a goddess, but that's why you're so inspiring! It's because you're normal, but you make the best of it, and yourself."
- Wonderbolt recruitment Officer, Scootaloo, circa 1015 Post Nightmare.

Rainbow dash was a little grumpy, and very confused. Just hours ago, she had woken up, half sunken into a swamp, and feeling more hurt than any crash had bestowed upon her. That was saying a lot, considering the events of her second Wonder Bolt performance. She had to do literal weeks of community service cleaning that whole scenario up. Furthermore, the only thing she could claim to have learned was that you can actually stain marble with enough blood. No fun at all.

Her current scenario should have been slightly less annoying, but the lack of information provided to her was irritating. She wasn't being intentionally deprived of information, though. Oh no, no, 'Ghost' had been rambling about the state of the universe, and her alleged importance for hours. Just as many hours as she had been awake. The issue was that Ghost seemed to expect that she understood what things like 'Beckenstein limit' and 'Planck temperature' meant. She tried asking the robot what they were, but it just brought up more words that she didn't understand like 'entropy per space ratio and 'reduced Planck constant', and soon enough she figured it would just be better to ignore the babbling machine.

One of the things she could actually extrapolate was that she was something called a 'Guardian' now, which seemed to be a kind of military group made up of strangers found lying dead in the mud. Supposedly Guardians were specialized in designations known as Warlocks, Hunters, and Titans. Warlocks were a lot like wizards from fantasy books, Hunters were kind of like Daring Do and Hoof Solo combined, while Titans were something like a futuristic knight. Now immediately upon deciding these similarities, Rainbow liked the sound of Hunters. Daring Do was cool, but she could definitely do with a revolver.

But for whatever reason the Ghost had decided that Rainbow should be a Titan. This was why she was a little grumpy. She was now trudging through a marsh, in annoyingly bulky apparel, listening to something less intelligible than Twilight's lectures. Rainbow felt a little sting in her gut. That was the first she had thought of her friends, and it was a negative. Was she insensitive for that? Rainbow realized something very important. She wasn't with her friends, and that meant they could be in trouble. She couldn't risk their safety for anything, not even her own.

"... In turn, the Cabal opened fire. But fortunately, Na'er had invented a non-baryonic micro-fusion resistor, the first of its kind, to be embedded into his shielding systems, and the flaming power of the solar rounds was mitigated entirely, buying him time to find cover. What I'm trying to tell you is that being a Titan isn't so bad, especially considering your tendency to brashness, some excess entropic repulsor systems couldn't hurt." The Ghost rambled, as he had been absolutely without end.

"Yeah, neat. Look, Ghost, I know you want to get me to this 'city' or whatever, but I have other duties." Rainbow said, trying to not sound confrontational, and failing. "My friends might need me. If the world is as crazy as you're telling me, they could be in a lot of danger."

"Well, Titan. You're certainly very loyal, but I'm sorry to say it's unlikely your friends are alive. You've been gone for centuries." He sounded apologetic.

"You don't know that!" Rainbow barked, unwilling to accept probability. "My friends are just as worthy as me to be resurrected by a ball god in the name of good and light. I'm only returning to help that city, if you help me first." A witty proposal formed in Rainbow's mind.

The Ghost sighed. "Very well." The Ghost had a strong sense his Guardian was not the compromising type. "What do you want help with?"

"Help me find Twilight Sparkle." The Ghost stopped in its tracks. "If anyone knows where the rest of my friends are, it will be her."

"Twilight Sparkle?" The Ghost asked, and got a firm nod in response. "Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Element of Magic?" A firmer nod.

The Ghost moved directly into Rainbow's path, stopping her. It looked into her visor, and was silent for a little too long. Rainbow felt uneasy at the stare, and was about to break the silence when the Ghost asked one more question, after what seemed like a lot of thought.

"What's your name?" A simple question, with a simple answer. But it was a very important answer none the less.

"The one and only..." Rainbow prefixed, and Ghost held his pretend breath. "The fastest, the bravest..." Rainbow drew it out more for effect. "The mighty, and fearless Rainbow Dash!" She stood proud and tall at the sound of her own name.

"Oh." The Ghost looked dumbfounded, Rainbow frowned. She was looking for 'impressed.'

"Well that was unexpected." The robot continued. "I should be excited about this, but I just feel silly for not asking sooner."

"Maybe if you hadn't spent the last three hours talking about nothing." Rainbow suggested, sounding very disappointed.

"My apologies. Now, may I suggest that if one Element has been brought back, that the other five are likely to do the same?" The Ghost asked, not waiting for an answer. "Twilight, assuming you aren't delusional, will almost certainly be heading to the City herself. You can try to meet up with her there, and work from that."

"You're sure Twilight would go to that city you like so much?"

"It has a library."

"Fair enough. How do we get back? Don't answer with more walking." Rainbow demanded.

"We fly." The Ghost seemed proud of the idea.

With a whispered "Oh yeah!" Rainbow leapt out of the mud, and flapped her wings. But they passed through the air effortlessly, and failed to produce lift. When Rainbow stopped moving upward, and began moving down again, she thought Uh oh. And clumsily plunged head first into algae and leeches. She was very happy to have been wearing an air tight helmet.

After pulling her face out of the muck, she panicked. "Why can't I fly?! How heavy is this armour?"

"Whoops, my bad. I meant with a ship." The Ghost clarified his plan, albeit a little late.

"That doesn't answer my question! I need to fly, it's all I got!" Rainbow began to imagine how useless she'd feel without her wings, and the story her mind made up wasn't a good one.

"Well, the reason pegasi could fly in the first place was magic. The Darkness consumed all of that, leaving you high and dry." Rainbow was still having a meltdown, she began to move to a foetal position. "No, calm down. You can still learn to fly again. You're a Guardian, and Guardians are blessed with a natural talent to wield Light."

That didn't clarify anything to Rainbow, but she didn't look catatonic any more, so the Ghost derived some amount of satisfaction, before moving on.

"Light is a lot like magic, but instead of coming from nature, it comes from the Traveler. You just need to practice."

"I have to learn to fly all over again? Man, that sucked when I was a kid!" Rainbow explained. "I had to go to the hospital like eight times!"

"I doubt it will take that long to relearn. You only need to will yourself to fly, whereas before the power was passive. Just feel around in your mind for a spark, and ask that spark to lift you."

"What?" Rainbow was absolutely taken aback by this cult-tier explanation. "You are speaking some serious mumbo, Ghost."

"Just do it." He ordered.

So Rainbow shrugged, and gave it a try. She remembered Twilight talking about how monk ponies who lived in the mountains could learn to use magic without a horn, through meditation, which sounded kind of like what Ghost was describing. Rainbow closed her eyes, and tried to see a spark. But it was just blackness, after closing her eyelids tighter, and holding her breath, she got angry.

"Ugh!" She groaned. "It's not working!" She yelled as she through her legs up in exasperation.

"Don't force it, Rainbow. The Light is there, but it's hidden. It will only come out when you're calm." Ghost left out the stories of some Guardians who learned to wield Light with rage, because that was a very rare ability, and it would just give Rainbow ideas about skipping the effort it takes to master Light.

Rainbow grumbled, and tried again. She looked first at the inside of her eyelids, black and meaningless. But then she started to look at her thoughts, which were alive with colours and sounds. What was strange was that she couldn't see a lot of memories. Early childhood, and the more exciting bits of her adult life were there, but she couldn't remember anything recent. Whenever she tried, all she saw was Darkness. Imagining a spark, she accidentally imagined a six pointed star. Twilight's sigil. That brought something back. A memory, that seemed eager to be remembered. It started with an emotion.

Anger, it felt like. She is angry at something because... Because it hurt Twilight! In fact, it hurt all her friends. What was it? She needed to hate it, and more importantly to wreak vengeance upon it. But again all she could see was Darkness. She kept remembering, and saw Twilight.

It looks like she is casting a spell, not an odd sight. But the purple glow of her horn disappeared, and in place a blackness sprouts forth. Rainbow looks to where the lifeless shadow is projected, and sees in front of her nothing but Darkness.

No, not nothing. in her peripherals the landscape outside of Canterlot is visible. But her entire frontal view is engulfed in a black wall of inky shadow. She glances back to twilight, to see the shadow has gripped her horn, and begun dragging her toward the wall. She shouts "Twilight!" But is surprised to hear a yelp of fear coming from the other direction. To her right lies Fluttershy on her stomach. Her back hoof grabbed by a similar tendril. Rainbow grits her teeth, and assesses what she can do. Apple Jack is holding Twilight back. Rarity is backing up herself, and Pinkie's hair is going flat as her lips quiver.

Nopony is doing anything. Rainbow needs to fix that. She yells something she cannot remember and begins trampling the tendril which is dragging Fluttershy. Nopony hurts Fluttershy. It seems to have little effect, and Rainbow notices a tendril coming from her peripheral, reaching for her throat. She dodges under it at the last moment, and grabs it in her teeth. She yanks as hard as she can, and it yanks back. Now engaged in a tug of war, Rainbow uses her wings. She pulls hard, and drags the Darkness out further, her mouth going limp and cold as she continues to touch it.

Fluttershy is engulfed. Rainbow screams in anger through her gritted teeth. She pulls harder, and severs the connection between the arm and the wall of shadow. The tentacle writhes in pain for a moment, before evaporating. Rainbow stares for just a moment at the spot where Fluttershy's face was last seen. She inhales, and exhales slowly but strongly. She knows what to do.

With a dive, and a fearless visage, she willingly goes into the shadow. Her eyes feel dry, her skin cold. She can sense every muscle in her body shrinking and becoming limp. Through sheer determination she continues onward, until she sees a form in the Darkness. It looks like Fluttershy, but wrong. It's thin, almost mummified. Grey and still as stone. Rainbow circles it, to look at the face. She immediately regrets it. A sight no mare would wish to behold meets her. The face of her friend is now a skull, with dry hide pulled tight across it. No more eyes, and no expression remained on the dead pony.

Rainbow feels herself meeting the same fate. She tries to breathe, but nothing moves in or out of her lungs. She knows she should be afraid, but she only feels anger. Further in the shadow, she witnesses four more forms making their final movements, before they collapse, and dry to a husk. Rainbow failed. She couldn't save them any more, it was too late. It wasn't too late to spit a last testimony to them though. With all her might, and every ounce of will she still clings to, she demands to have breath again, and for a moment is granted her wish.

She does not know what to do with the breath. She can only speak with it, but what does she say? She hated the engulfing evil around her, even though hating is not something she has done before. She wishes death on the Darkness, and for a moment feels guilty. How could she wish death on something? Clearly, because it was wishing death on not just her, but the ponies she loves. Rainbow no longer feels guilty, she relishes the one breath she is given, tasting every last bit of its stale, lifeless form.

She uses it to roar. "I will kill you!" She promises, volume faltering toward the end of the statement, but it does not care. Her last life is drawn from her, and she hears a whisper.

"Why?"

A deafening howl spilled forth from the helmet of the newly chosen Titan, and she flared her wings. Raising them high behind her, Ghost watched as the sun shafts through the muddy swamp trees parted around the feathery silhouettes, casting him into shadow. The silvery steel faceplate of Rainbow's helmet masked her grinding teeth, and sweating brow, but anyone who beheld her would feel the visage of hatred behind the impregnable armour, as her eyes opened from a trance of memory.

Rainbow felt her breath run dry, as she reached the last bar of her scream, but where air no longer occupied her lungs, she felt fire. It did not burn her, however, the flames were nourishing, encouraging. They grew as she exhaled, reveling in the power of their host. Within those flames, at the base of her sternum, Rainbow felt something she had forgotten to care about, as well. A spark, small, but eager. It felt like it was arcing through her muscles into the earth, and she felt like if it had an appearance, it would glow with a menacing red.

Rainbow's wings fell, much faster than the planet demanded they should. But where a feeble swoosh had been heard last time Rainbow had meant to fly, now their was a deafening crack, followed by a high pitched ring, and finally a rolling rumble. The spark had taken Rainbow's wing swipe as a queue, and it had made it's way to the downy appendages. It ejected its endless wrath in servitude of Rainbow's hopes, and propelled her forth and upward, toward the sky. Leaving eels of red lightning to crawl through the earth where she stood only moments before, and it followed her through the sky. Plasma crackling and spitting behind her.

After wobbling backward in shock, luckily not literally, at the sudden display of Light, Ghost realized he should follow Rainbow. Kicking in every last ounce of propulsion he could, Ghost tried to keep up with the Titan who cast exhaust from her wings like a missile. He could have trans-matted into her systems, to speak with her while not exerting physical effort, but Ghost was logical. He knew ponies were visual animals, and she would be more likely to respond to him in her clearly distressed state if she had something to lock onto. Struggling hard, Ghost made it to her side, and attempted to contact her.

"Rainbow! Can you hear me?" Ghost knew they were not travelling above mach 1 yet, so sound travel wasn't a problem. He was worried about her mental state.

"Where are they?!" Rainbow almost screeched, her naturally raspy voice on scraping against Ghost harder with the increased volume.

"Who, the Elements?"

The next word scared Ghost. "Darkness!" Rainbow yelled blandly, obviously stating what she was looking for.

Ghost mumbled "So you were listening to me." To himself, more than anything, before continuing. "Rainbow, find yourself. You can't keep this up any longer, you'll keel over in no time." It wasn't a lie, Rainbow was expelling incredible energy, and her Light would run out soon enough.

Rainbow heard no words. She did not comprehend an utterance of what she was told, she had a target to rage against, and she would do just that. No, She did not hear a word at all, however she did feel a slight cold. Her muscles were beginning to fail, and soften. Her mouth felt dry, and she only kept propelling herself through her mental tenacity. But now even the spark which gifted her flight, in seeming adoration of her emotional vigour, began to sputter. It was tired, even though it wanted to keep going. Rainbow managed to hear the spark's exhaustion, where the voice of her Ghost was muffled.

Rainbow grasped the ridiculous nature of her outburst. She was angry at whatever that wall of evil which took her friend was, but it was not here. Her current behaviour was akin to wrestling a tree, because she couldn't find a wrestling ring. Her growled breaths began to shallow, and her rapidly stroked wings began to slow. So too did she, Ghost lagged behind her sudden deceleration a little, gaining distance before he made it up by slowing down himself.The arcs of red light driveled out of existence behind her, and Rainbow began to sink.

She let her head fall limp, and no longer resisted the planet's pull, watching the ground at least forty meters down, be drawn toward her. What was funny, was though she knew she was not in control any more, it didn't feel any different from when she was flapping her wings with all her might. It reminded her of what her father had said when she was first learning to fly. 'There's no difference between flying and falling. The difference is between landing, and crashing.' He had meant it to help her understand how to control a dive, but now Rainbow felt there was a philosophical angle to it.

She heard Ghost's voice high above her. "I wanted you to slow down, not stop entirely!" She smirked and let a wry titter out.

The ground was very close now, Rainbow would have cared a fraction of a second ago, but she had lost her spark. No ominous mass of evil and darkness to wreak vengeance on, no reason to move forward at all. Even if she did changer her mind, it was too late to slow the descent now, not without help. Rainbow decided not to change her mind, she didn't want her last thought to be a regret. She didn't close her eyes either. She was tired, but not scared.

Something flashed across the muddy earth Rainbow was about to make friends with, and soon the flash left the earth. It was moving toward Rainbow, and in only an instant, the Titan was reminded how unpleasant hoof ball was, due to the tackling. The flash collided with her side, and underbelly, and pushed against her descent. Rainbow was first put off by this, but found herself quickly understanding that the flash was a lot smarter than she had been acting. Rainbow mustered her own last bits of will, and called the spark back for one last bit of help, to push the ground away from her.

Alone Rainbow could not have saved herself. Alone the flash could not have saved Rainbow. I guess I never realized how lucky I am to work with a team I totally trust. Rainbow remembered something she wrote a long time ago, while she was slowed to a halt. I've gotten into a mess of scrapes, and without my friends those scrapes would have gotten a whole lot messier. She landed with enough force to pain her joints, but not enough to cause injury. After getting her footing, and raising to her full stance, she looked to her saviour, the flash.

The pony stood away from her already, wings tucked under a cloak, and a face hidden by a hood which was turned away from Rainbow, in part. Never underestimate the power of friends who always got your back. Rainbow swore she saw a tuft of multi-toned grey hair shooting out of the hood, and she squinted at her saviour. Rainbow still felt defeated, and useless. She wasn't really sad, but she could feel tears welling up anyway. But she choked them back, and put on her coolest face, to speak with.

"Hey, thanks and all, but why did you help me?" Rainbow received no answer. "Who even are you?" The slightest tremble in her voice betrayed her distress.

Ghost whispered to Rainbow. "Careful. She has no Light of her own, she could be anything."

"Nopony you ought'a know, kid." The stranger said with a slight nod, before the air folded around her, and she disappeared from sight.

A moment of silence held in the air, while Rainbow tried to understand what was told to her, while there was little to understand, and Ghost considered ways to ask if Rainbow was suicidal without sounding harsh or insensitive. Both of these quests were very difficult, and left the duo dumbfounded, until Rainbow started with an innocent question.

"Earlier, you said something about Light basically being new magic, right?" Ghost nodded. "Well if she didn't have any light, how come she could fly, and not me?"

"I said she didn't have her own Light. She was wearing something that powered her, it was small, probably an amulet." Ghost said calmly, before he fell into a disdainful tone "It's not rare. Random wilders will find a shard of the Traveler in some forsaken hole, and then abuse its gift to live out their lives, without ever giving back."

Rainbow couldn't suppress the feeling that the stranger had a heroic air about her, almost inspiring, really. Rainbow was immediately enthralled by the pony, and began to form theories and plans about her. She didn't like that Ghost seemed condescending to the pony who had saved her life, but she didn't bring it up. Rainbow shook off her emotional exhaustion, and pushed her worries to the back of her head. She didn't want to discuss it, so she began with the practical.

"So, how do you plan on getting a ship?" Rainbow asked, in reference to Ghost's earlier plan.

"We're in old Equestria." The Ghost said, feeling worried about Rainbow's blatant ignorance of her previous behaviour. "Not the first, but the most advanced space faring nation of the Golden Age. We're bound to find a ship somewhere, though it might be in enemy hands. I'll check some data banks, one moment." The Ghost narrated his every thought.

After only a moment, he started up again. "We are miraculously close to a road, which leads to an old launch site. Head north west, then we can follow the path."

Rainbow just shrugged, then nodded in response, and followed her holographic compass north west. They traveled for a while, through very bleak and swampy surroundings, which is hard to make interesting in a story. I will not further expand on this portion of their journey. Just know that they made it to a road, cobbled and ancient, then followed it north. All the while Rainbow struggled to to wrestle her feelings, and Ghost planned to speak about it.

Roughly an hour after they had begun on the road, the journey had so far been in contemplative silence, Ghost decided he should follow up on said plans. he lowered his expression, and glanced between the road beneath them, and Rainbow's obfuscated face, which looked ever-onward. The little robot made a sound like a deep breath, and spoke reassuringly to the Titan.

"Rainbow, I wanted to talk about earlier." His simulated expression went earnest, and troubled.

"I don't." Rainbow said calmly. Though she felt her heart race in anxiety.

"Too bad. You need to know that you did something amazing, just remembering the love you shared with your friends was enough to wield light as powerfully as a Vanguard. That's why I made you a Titan, Rainbow." Ghost said in an uplifting tone. "You are physically powerful, no doubt, but your real strength comes from your heart. Warlocks are too busy doing calculations to bother with emotions, and Hunters think it isn't 'cool' to feel strongly." Ghost stopped for a moment.

Rainbow heard what he said, and thought about it. She never was one for calculating, and she learned a long time ago that emotions are important. Even if you don't feel the need to cry, or laugh, or yell. You still need to feel, its the only thing that keeps you attached to the world. The world which Rainbow had loved.

"Titans, though. Titans are special. They don't ignore, or repress what their heart tells them. They use it to fuel the fire upon which they burn their enemies. Titans are grounded in their beliefs and wants, and they always fight for them." Ghost had begun to sound like he was making a speech. "Titan's don't give up, and fall, Rainbow."

Rainbow felt a pang of guilt. Why in Tartarus would she just give up like that? She had felt useless, and weak, but there's nothing more useless or weak than a broken corpse. Rainbow licked her lips, and clenched her jaw, unsure of what to do. She felt sorry, and wanted to apologize, but she didn't know who to apologize to. She had failed herself, it was true, but apologizing to one's self seemed silly in her mind. She had failed her friends, who would need her in times to come, she was sure. But her friends weren't there, making apologies difficult. It was just her and her Ghost.

"I'm sorry!" Rainbow started with a shout, and then sobbed a little. She sat on the road in self decided defeat, and her feelings sprouted forth, like grass growing through the cracks in her concrete demeanour. She cried, which as a younger pony she would have felt ashamed of. Ghost didn't laugh, like a schoolyard colt, he floated closer to Rainbow. He used his little form to push Rainbow's hung head upward, and he trans-matted the helmet off of her head, revealing her weary face.

She was thin, too thin. Resurrection tends to leave one looking undernourished, and Rainbow hadn't had anything to eat, or any time to rebuild her energy reserves. Cheek gaunt and sagging eyes made her look like an old, wiser pony. Tears and a tightly furrowed brow made her look like a young, confused filly. Ghost wasn't a therapist, but every one of his kind had prepared to be the one companion a Guardian could always trust, and feel strong around.

"Hey, it's going to be just fine." He said. "Your friends are all probably just getting adjusted to the world, like you, right now."

"I almost gave up on them." Rainbow murmured.

"But you didn't, and you won't. I made you a Titan because you are indomitable, determined and strong." Ghost complimented, bringing a slight smile to the mare's face. "I doubt that fall would have killed you anyway." It was said with an air of humour, but Ghost truly did believe it. Titans were incredibly resilient, Ghost recalled one of his favourite excerpts about a Titan. 'The Cabal Centurion opened up on her at point blank, and we heard the most fearsome sound.'

Rainbow let out a strange, stuttered breath. 'She was laughing.' The Ghost's mind finished, drawing an unnerving parallel. As rainbow chuckled, she wiped her face dry, and eventually let out a sigh. She stood up, and looked onward, down the road, before speaking.

"I feel better now." It was a quiet thing she said, but a good one as well.

"I do too. Shall we go?" Ghost asked, moving aside for Rainbow's gait.

From then on, Ghost did not ramble. But neither him nor Rainbow were silent. He no longer lectured the Titan on advanced optical dynamics, but he told her stories of other Titans and their heroism. Rainbow no longer rolled her eyes and ignored him, but eagerly awaited the climaxes of each story, and reveled in the conclusions. Stories of Guardians more loyal than any other, who would spend their whole life to watch a single door, because they knew only they were willing. Stories of powerful fighters, who feared no enemy, but at the end of each battle would sheathe their blades and apologize to their victims.

Rainbow no longer regretted that she was not a Hunter. She liked being quick, and clever. However, she liked being heroic and virtuous more. And, for many hours, that was the last of what changed.

--------*--------*--------*--------

Do you remember the cave? The dark one, so deep that only an inky abomination could find itself to be within. Do you remember how it only got darker, and colder, until you reached an uncanny valley? Where gold and fire warmed the deepest chamber, where the very mass of scales and spines which was an inky abomination guarded with greed, or maybe out of delusion. No matter, for there was only one object of note within the chamber. More of note than the hulking monstrosity which watched it.

There was a cerise crystal star, as you should recall. It was dust, but had become something more, the monster did not know why. Now the star's shattered companions lay there, nothing but powder, dead and forgotten. Red, blue, orange, pink, and purple remained, meticulously swept into piles of beautiful, sparkling sand. Just as the monster had wrenched its attention from the new born star, it was surprised to see the mountain of red crystal do something it was now familiar with.

First it trembled, then it collected itself. Soon it glowed with sun-like heat, and unfroze to become a molten liquid. Soon it found a shape, a body to call its own. A jagged spike, the symbol of lightning, cooled and sat on the stone, to be admired by the shadowy monster. Blood red, it aired a sense of power, and the slightest tint of anger. The stone pedestal it sat on was scorched yet again, and the monster was beginning to worry something was afoot.

It had meant to prepare, not moments ago, but now it thought to contemplate. To theorize, with its ancient knowledge, of what to do exactly. It took time to think, and kept drawing back to the notion that somehow a greedy self would become aware of its new gems, and hunt for them. He most of all feared a guardian would arrive. Guardians were not evil, but they were blunt. They had slain all of this monster's family, not that it felt much remorse at that, but it knew a Guardian would wish to slay this one as well. The monster knew what it meant to do.

With a farewell to most of its treasures, all magical weapons and trinkets. It cleaned the remaining piles of dust into vessels it would be able to carry, and put the lightning and the star into a pouch. The monster needed help, it needed guardians of its own, though they would not be Guardians. Scraping its sickly bone spines against the ceiling of the caverns, the beast had grown since it had come down here so long ago, and sending sparks across the darkened tunnels, it meant to leave for once in centuries. It knew who, or it should say 'what' to ask assistance from.

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Night was just beginning to fall on Rainbow and Ghost. They had been travelling for very long now, but Ghost reassured the pegasus they were nearing their goal. Which was, of course, any where they might find a ship. The road had remained cobbled and old all the way, but the land around them had changed quite drastically. Where once was swamp and marsh, which Ghost had told her was once part of the Everfree forest, now lay dried and dead grass. The surroundings looked something like the Zebrican plains, oddly dry for the region.

Now just vaguely over the horizon, Rainbow could see the Traveler. Hundreds of kilometers away, it was still strong and visible, hanging low beside the mountain Canterlot was once built on. Rainbow remembered little of the past, but the Traveler was always doing something. Zipping around the sun, helping to build on worlds thought too hostile to house any form of life. Bringing miracles, and teaching the world of the universe. Now it was stock still, like it had been petrified. Bits of it were shattered, gone entirely. It looked sad, like a pony gravely injured. It knew it was dying, but didn't want to go.

Rainbow almost felt bad for it, even though it was effectively inanimate. As the duo traveled along the road, enthralled by the sphere of steel, a new sight came over the horizon. A small outcropping of houses, and other structures surrounded a massive tree, which had torn the road up with its grown roots. At first glance the buildings looked ruined, dead and collapsing. But Rainbow was quick to see corrugated iron sheets, and other bits of scrap holding up shambles, and sealing holes. Something, or someone, wanted these structures in tact, at least partially.

This was all interesting, but the tree which grew in the center of the collection of structures demanded attention with its godly stature. It was a good thirty meters tall, and the trunk was at least six thick. Scars and bulbous masses grew on its bark, showing that it had once been damaged, or carved. But over hundreds of years the holes had healed, leaving excess tissue. Branches grew up, ad arched over a massive area around its center, bringing most of the structures into full shade. It looked glorious, and powerful. Like trees from legends, which would have been home to a powerful spirit of the forest, like a mother of nature.

But this tree was alone, in the Sahara-like land. It stood as a single vigilante over the many buildings, and looked more like an ancient soldier than a mother. Moss hung from its limbs, and its roots were gnarled into walls of wood which arced out of, and back into the earth. Rainbow stood still in awe, to take a true look at the tree without any other action to distract her. Ghost followed suit, and for a moment they only stood to bask in the tree's appearance.

Soon Ghost dashed the moment. "Be advised, there's movement in most of the structures up ahead. It picked up when we got close."

"Are they going to be a problem?"

"Well, there's rarely Fallen activity this close to the City. It's probably just local fauna, but be on your guard. We should search the structures for any clues that might lead to a ship."

"A'ight. I'll start with the closest one, I guess." Rainbow shrugged, and made her way to the nearest building.

It had two stories, but the upper one was damaged beyond repair. The lower was held together with junk, and a crude door was held in place by a latch made from a coat hanger. Rainbow approached it at a calm pace, and kept her ears up for any sudden actions. The motion tracker on her visor was cold, but it hadn't been a few moments ago and a few meters back. So Rainbow knew to be on her guard for something. She reached out, to flick the make shift latch on the door upward, but was interrupted.

The door swung outward with violent speed, and Rainbow only just reeled her head back in time. Of course, even her very basic head gear was still a Titan's helmet, and the door would have suffered a worse fate than her face. Behind the door was a sight no mare ought to see. The bad end of a rifle barrel, pointed straight at her face, with another face just behind the weapon, squinting straight into Rainbow's visor.

Instantly, Rainbow kicked herself backward and up, a split second before the weapon could be fired. When the trigger was pulled, it was still aimed at Rainbow, but sought to hit her chest rather than her head. In mid air, she was struck with the force of ten solid kicks all in one. The wind was knocked out of her chest, and she was sent skittering backward across the earth. After she came to a rest, she glanced at her chest, to see a smoking lump of brass and lead pressed into her. It fell away, and clanked against a stone on the ground, showing naught but a dimple in her armour.

"I told you we ain't paying your damned protection fees no more!" A heavily accented voice, a lot like Apple Jack's spoke. It was that of a stallion however.

Rainbow lifted her head, causing a spike of pain to punch through her sternum. She winced, but still looked at her attacker. He was broad, and tall. Wearing bits of ruined clothing that covered his brown-maroon coat. Grey eyes, and an apparently knife-cut mane of bronze hair adorned his head and face. Finally a little bit of scruff formed on his chin in the colour of his hair. He was an earth pony, but he was wielding the rifle without touching it, like it was being levitated. Given what Ghost had told her before, she presumed he had some source of Light which allowed him to do that.

Rainbow meant to say 'What?' but she began coughing in pain before she could form any of the requisite phonemes. She writhed a little, trying to get up.

"Hold on. That helmet..." The colt who looked to be in his mid-teens trailed off in thought. "Ah, shit! You a Guardian?"

"Y--" More painful coughing wracked her chest. "Ye-s." She growled in either pain or anger.

"Damn it! Damn it, damn it!" The colt had a colourful speech pattern. "Listen, Miss Titan. I didn't mean no harm to your kind."

Rainbow was too busy struggling to her feet to grunt angrily in response.

"You aren't gonna kill me, are ye?" The Colt asked, more inquisitive than scared.

"What?" Rainbow spat. "No, idiot. Now stop pointing that thing--" She coughed again, and a bit of blood got on the inside of her visor. "--at me."

The colt chuckled, and lowered the rifle. It had only simple iron sights, and was composed of plain steel and wood. It was a hunting tool, not a weapon of war. Likely of ancient griffon make. Ponies don't hunt. The assaulter swept his mane back, and and rubbed his neck in embarrassment. He grinned with half of his face, and let the other half droop, in an awkward expression of mixed apology and ridicule.

"Well, uh, the name's Rite. Pleasure to meet you, Miss Titan!" He held his hoof out, expecting a reciprocation.

Rainbow raised her obscured eyebrow, and denied the gesture. Behind the colt, a much smaller face appeared, looking scared and helpless. The little filly was hidden in partial shadow, and frowned at Rainbow.

"Rite, who's that?" She asked her wall of a friend.

"Don't be rude, sis." Rite said. "Ask her yourself." The filly only shrunk, and Rainbow suddenly felt a little less bitter.

"The name's Rai--" She was cut off by Ghost butting her shoulder, and whispering to her.

"Don't toss your name around just yet. People will either think you're delusional, or start spreading rumours. We don't need that."

"Uh, Rae. I'm Rae." Rainbow stumbled clumsily.

"Just Rae?" Rite asked, clearly suspicious.

"Just." Rainbow assured.

This seemed to satisfy the scared little filly, and she came forth from the darkness to look up at Rainbow's armoured form. She seemed awed by her height and poise, so Rainbow thought to make herself more Equine. She asked Ghost to take her helmet off, and Ghost obliged. With a face now clearly visible, she smiled, and kneeled down to the filly's height, wrestling back the urge to wince at her chest pain.

"And what's your name, kid?"

"I'm Rivet, ma'am!" She said proudly. Ghost mumbled something about 'The R club' and Rainbow ignored him.

"That's one mighty mane you got, Rae. It's natural?" Rite asked, in reference to the stroked colours of every hue, which were Rainbow's namesake.

"You bet your ass it is." Rainbow said loudly, before remembering Rivet. "Er, your flank, I mean."

Rivet giggled, and Rite spoke. "Don't worry. She's said worse herself. Listen, I'm a might sorry about that round to the chest, is there anything I can do ya for?"

Just about now, Rainbow took notice of possibly tens of other ponies starting to poke out of structures around her, to see what had transpired. They all looked rough, and lacked the pastel colours that most of the ponies Rainbow had ever known bore. They were all suited to camouflage into the glorified scrapyards they lived in. She was the object of the whole town's curiosity, and it made her uncomfortable.

Rainbow considered the offer, and settled on something. "Can I come in? Feeling a bit exposed out here, if you catch me."

Rite got halfway through a knowing nod, but then stopped to look at something in the direction Rainbow had come from. Rite gritted his teeth, and pushed his little sister back inside, while she squeaked in protest. Furrowing his brow, and raising his rifle, he trotted toward his focus. Rainbow looked to the same direction, and saw three ponies. The two who stood in the back of the triangle formation were wearing armour a lot like Rainbow's, but spray painted black, and battered to hell. The one in the front was more interesting, he opted not to wear a helmet. This revealed a dirty mess of grey-brown mane, much too long for any practical purpose, and a menacing beard strapped across his face. His eyes were sunken into his skull, and his face was wrinkled.

The menacing stallion spoke. "So, how are you paying me this time, Rite?" Rite aimed his rifle. "I must remind you we do not accept lead as a form of currency." He growled, and threw aside his cloak, revealing a large revolver.

"We ain't puttin' up with you any longer, Zombie!" Rite pulled the trigger, and fired a round straight and true.

'Zombie' stepped aside, and one of his lackeys took the bullet instead. The lead ball lost it's speed on a plate of armour, and did no noticeable damage. Rainbow expected the menacing trio to draw and fire on Rite where he stood, but they seemed to be in a good mood today. Zombie laughed, revealing yellowed teeth.

"I like your spirit." He said. Rainbow blinked, and when she opened her eyes, thunder was rolling, a revolver floated in front of zombie, and blood was pouring out of Rite's leg. "I'll have to ask the Hive how to steal it."

Now Rainbow felt it was a good time to settle into her new role as a Guardian. What did Guardians do other than guard? Rite certainly could do with some guarding right about now, so Rainbow stepped up, and shouted at Zombie, her voice faltering only a little.

"Who in Tartarus are you supposed to be?" She narrowed her eyes, and stomped for emphasis. She glanced at Rite, who lay on the ground, clenching his teeth in pain.

"Ooh, a Guardian." Zombie started. "I used to know a lot of you guys! Didn't I?" He asked to one of his guards, who did not respond. "Yeah, they died."

Rainbow was unnerved, to say the least. Ghost put her helmet back on and warped out of existence. He spoke through her headset to her, so no one else could hear.

"This guy is a registered Guardian. Six counts of first degree murder, and a lot more second degree. All his victims were also Guardians, don't aggravate him."

Rainbow bit her lower lip, before walking over to where Rite lay, bleeding slowly. She felt scared by Zombie, but more importantly felt angry at him. Almost as if it were a magic word, at the thought of anger, Rainbow's little spark reminded her of itself. It was reaching for the rifle, it wanted to fight. Rainbow glanced between the gun and the murderer. She gave it a moment of thought, before she let her feelings take over. With a growl, she let the spark loose, and it lifted the gun. Zombie immediately fired three shots at Rainbow. One missed, and two punched into her with incredible force, leaving bruises and cracked ribs underneath her armour.

Rainbow Lifted the rifle up, and let it fire. She laughed at the pain in her side and chest, and Rite wasn't sure whether to feel relieved, or more horrified.

Author's Note

CHAPTER 3 PARTY! YAHOO!

Same stuff as always friends, critiques, comments, and corrections appreciated. Thanks for reading, and I'm still looking for a proof reader/editor. If you want to help me out, I'd be very grateful!

Who do you guys want to see introduced next, of the remaining Mane Six, that is?