Nighttide Star [Rewrite Draft]

Chapters

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 - Twi
Chapter 4
Chapter 5 [Alpha]
["... Stays in the Forest" Rewrite Beta]
["Unity" Rewrite Beta]
["Strength in Numbers" Rewrite Alpha]
["Echoes" Rewrite Alpha]

Prologue

Prologue - The Incident

__________

Most ponies would think at the age of eighteen, there would be nothing better than having everyone’s attention. To be in the spotlight is the dream of many these days, ponies whose value seems weighed only by how much others notice their presence. I suppose by that rule, I must have been the most popular mare around, cantering down a fluorescent-lit hall with the eyes of several locked onto me. But it wasn’t as if these ponies were my age, let alone my peers. These were officials of a corporation – older ponies dressed in black uniforms with a full moon emblazoned on their suits. And the reason their eyes were fixed on me wasn’t any I had created with my own hooves.

Rather, they had created me. In a sense, at least.

My ears flicked at the sound of hushed dialogue and whirring electronics. Several of the ponies flanking the hall dictated notes to tablets, while others stood with large metal equipment aimed along my path – no doubt to take some reading or another. The attention was something I was used to; having random pieces of shiny metal pointed at me was routine at this point. What I wasn’t used to was the sheer number of ponies gathered here at once, standing at each side as if I were walking down some red carpet of the synthetic world. It was something I could have easily buckled under only a couple of years ago when the project first began – crowds weren’t exactly my favorite thing back then. But now, it wasn’t as if I had much choice. Either I could hang my head and limp my way to fate, or I could give them something worth talking about.

So, I strode forward with my head held proud. Today was my big day, after all. Might as well enjoy it.

I glanced to my left. Behind the suits stretched a wall of glass, revealing a wet skyline. A blanket of grey hung over the city like every day before, pouring sheets of rain upon the world. Shifting my focus, I could just make out the sheen of my alloy suit, reflecting the lights above. My mane held its usual layered look: green highlights against jet black, which matched the ghostly hue that shone from the three domes along my flank. I smirked a little at the sight, just as a pony entered my field of vision – a stallion, probably just a few years my senior, whose glasses mirrored my violet eyes. I held my smirk and gave him a wink before returning my attention forward.

That’s when I noticed a brown mare standing down the hall. My smirk quickly faded.

Coming to a stop, I watched the mare stride my way between the suits, her short brunette mane flouncing with her casual gait as she gazed upon the city beside us. “You would think with all the technology we have, we could do something about this rain,” she said, her voice light. In her words I heard a sort of nuance – a touch of hope that her idle observation would break the ice between us. It didn’t.

Out of all the suits assigned to this project, she was one of the few I knew by name: Nephilim, program coordinator. The title represented something on paper I never saw lived out in real life; she, like many here, was tasked with overseeing the progress of the corporation’s experiments in cybernetics. Unlike most though, she alone held the responsibility of ensuring project members’ “contentment and satisfaction throughout the course of assigned projects.” How exactly higher-ups expected one pony alone to accomplish such a task was beyond me, but I can tell you she was the one pony whom I could do without seeing.

After a moment, Nephilim cleared her throat and met my gaze, putting on her business voice. “Nighttide. It’s time.”

I flicked my ears to the side, away from the mare. “Understood,” I spoke with a straight, professional tone – no hesitation, no emotion. “I will meet you and the others at the complex.”

She gave a nod before turning to face the glass. Standing silent, she stared out at the city with hazel eyes, contemplative as ever. She glanced my way after a bit with half-hearted smile, hoping to grab my attention. When that failed, her smile faded, and she turned to trot down the remaining length of hall.

I watched her walk a few paces before turning to look out the window. If it hadn’t been for the occasional break in the clouds once every few weeks, it would be easy to grow up believing the sky itself was the color grey, and the rain was just a part of everyday life. It was something I loathed. But as much as I hated the rain, this was one time I would have preferred to watch it than have to do what came next.

I drew a long, deep breath of recycled air and exhaled slowly. Already, I could hear some of the ponies around me clearing their throats hesitantly. That was my cue to get a move on. After all, the stage was set. Several important ponies awaited my arrival, like an audience waiting for the curtain to rise. But they weren’t waiting for an actor – not in the normal sense. They were waiting for a puppet, and they were the puppeteers.

If I could have burned the damn stage to the ground, I would have.

Dismissing my melodramatic musings with a smirk, I turned for the corridor ahead of me and strode forward, putting the rest of the world to my back.

__________

An hour later, I stood between four grey walls of solid graphite. A set of mechanical armatures sat clamped over my suit – smooth metallic rods with tethered joints that reached from various points in the walls. There were no windows, and the one door that once led into this space had already been sealed off with molten graphite, superheated to cement seconds after I entered. The only supply of oxygen now available to me came from a black hose, attached to a mask strapped over my muzzle, and a few valves along the walls, circulating the stale air.

I glanced up at the ceiling, playing with the lifeline running from my snout with a hoof. A single camera loomed overhead in a corner, pointed straight at me.

I wondered who was watching. I had met most of the staff assigned to the project, but there were few I knew by name, and fewer still I felt I could ever talk with beyond work. It made me wonder if the staff were friends with each other. Given how everyone had been shut inside this facility over the last two years, I couldn’t imagine how it would be possible to keep from befriending a colleague.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. It was actually pretty easy to imagine. For myself, at least.

A green dot blipped to life in the corner of my vision. I turned my head to follow it, only to find it stayed in the same place. Blinking a couple of times, I realized it came from my retinal vision – a piece of equipment built within me that had only recently been activated. This is one reason why I don’t understand some ponies’ fascination with cybernetics: until you know what it’s like to have colored lights randomly appear in your line of sight, you have no place to talk.

I closed my eyes, praying for the little light to disappear. Instead, it blinked three times and followed with a line of green text across the bottom of my vision: ‘LAB-1032 - Ready.’ I sighed into my mask.

Focusing my mind, I ordered the computer within me to turn on a microphone built into my muzzle. When the crackle of an analog signal sounded from somewhere within my skull, I opened my eyes and straightened my head. “This is L-A-B ten thirty-two, Nighttide Star, reporting.”

“Hey, kid,” drawled the deep voice of one pony I did know well. “How do you feel?”

I angled my head toward the camera. “I’m ready to begin testing, Colonel Rubedo.”

The Colonel exhaled loud enough for me to hear just a hint of a chuckle. “Stage One is already underway. We’ll ping your system with the jump coordinates in a sec. Try not to cause too much of a scene down there, alright?”

“Understood,” I replied flatly, returning my attention forward. I was thankful the mask hid my grin.

Colonel Rubedo was one of only a hoofful of ponies I knew from before the project. Our history’s a bit long, but suffice it to say he’s the closest thing I have to a father figure. On down time, I can hang with him without having to worry about all the formalities. But when it comes to work, the Colonel has to be shown respect – address by title and all that jazz. Doesn’t mean he has to show me any respect, of course, which he makes clear all the time. Still, I love having him around, especially in this sterile laboratory.

Over the Colonel’s mic, I heard the distant buzzing of keys pressed and orders exchanged. One particular voice carried just clearly enough for me to recognize – Nephilim’s voice. She seemed to have a habit of wiping clean any grin of mine.

But then a different mare spoke over the line. “This is Crewleader. Stage One is complete. We’re green-lit across the board. Shall we continue?”

The Colonel shuffled somewhere behind his mic. I could imagine the burly black stallion adjusting the collar around his even blacker suit, standing upright to address his crew. “Continue to Stage Two. Release all safety locks and proceed.”

Not a second later, several red lights flashed overhead as an alarm blared from a speaker unseen. Slowly, the armatures lifted off my suit, pulling their hoses taut before coming to a stop. Beneath the sound of it all, I heard the echo of a different alarm coming through the Colonel’s mic, along with the murmuring of a dozen suits. The cacophony threatened to tear through my brain, so I focused all of my attention on the slab of graphite in front of me until the next phase was ready.

Sure enough, another green dot lit in my vision above a line of green script: ‘LAB-1032 – Pylon 1 jump coord. set’

I pitched my head slightly toward my chest. “LAB-1032, coordinates received. Initiating jump presequence.”

Instead of getting an audible or visual confirmation, I received a rather strange tactile one – a tingling sensation, coursing over my flanks. With a steamy flourish, the oxygen mask over my muzzle ejected, allowing me to get a better glimpse of what was going on.

I turned my head to see a faint purplish-orange glow forming around the domes on my flank, flowing toward my chest like a growing tide. The sensation followed its travel, slithering through my barrel, almost as if half my body was falling asleep. Nopony had warned me this was supposed to happen, but then again, I was the first pony to test the device built within my suit. Plenty of tests had been done on inanimate objects over the months, but I was the first living thing to make use of the equipment. Today, I would get to fulfill the role for which I was built.

Today, I would be the first pony in history to take a warp drive for a spin.

I turned my head forward once more and closed my eyes, soaking in the prickling of the warp drive breaking down my body. While the warp drive did its thing, I ran over the event list to see what would happen next. Four bullet points of green text lit to one side of my vision: transmit to P1; rematerialization; health / safety check; transmit to P2. The only point I was a little nervous about was the second; the idea of being rebuilt atom for atom sounded both painful and dangerous. I had been assured time and again – without prompting, no less – that things should “theoretically” go swimmingly. But theory and fact are two very different things, and until the experiment was finished, words meant little.

Still, I had grown used to being a guinea pig over the past couple of years. Experiment days like these were the few times I felt like I was the one being waited on – when all the numbers and figures had been tallied together, the suits would come find me or one of the others to put their hard work into practice, and all we have to do is follow their lead. Every other day, recruits of the cybernetic division were expected to fulfill “compulsory lab functions” – which is fancy speak for going to class, cleaning up messes, and doing a bunch of exercises. I was glad that within the next couple of months, I would graduate from the program and finally get out of this facility. But of course, they still found time to run one last experiment on me.

Gradually, the alarms and noises faded from hearing. A cool wave traveled past my neck and over my muzzle, and the light beyond my eyelids faded. A dark, soundless world of nothing enveloped me, claiming both my body and my mind as I let my thoughts surrender to the emptiness surrounding me. For a moment, just as the last of my body was broken down, I felt at peace. The absence of everything – of sight, of sound, of every natural sense – it was as if I ceased to exist. Every thought, every memory, anything that had happened or could happen in my life… suddenly, none of it mattered. And for a fleeting moment, that thought was like a lifetime of healing I never even knew I needed.

But no sooner had the lights faded from my eyes, than a searing white light pierced right through them.

Chapter 1

The flash receded to a sea of black once more, but with it came the sound of raging fire. I couldn't see anything, but the sound came from all around and filled my head with its roar. Then I noticed something else – something deep inside me. It was faint at first, but within seconds the cold sensation crawled out of my heart and through my veins.

The sounds were familiar. And they frightened me.

Suddenly, the darkness wasn’t so peaceful anymore. I flailed my limbs in every direction, but it seemed hopeless. There was nothing but empty air. I went rigid – in that moment, the only thing I knew was that I needed to escape the darkness and figure out where I was. I tried to access my system, but my vision stayed blank.

I ran through what I could from memory alone. Nopony knew what warp transport would feel like, or if you could feel it at all. The only piece of useful information I had was the intended goal: I was to be transmitted to a pylon station off-site to a similar graphite room as the one I left. That was it. But unless the room was supposed to be pitch black and on fire, I was definitely not at Pylon One.

Without warning, my body collapsed onto a soft gritty surface, followed by a loud bang. It was still dark, but I could at least feel solid ground beneath me. As the terror bled away, a voice rang through my ears – just before consciousness left me.

__________

It was a strange thing, waking up from an experience like that. There’s no telling how long I lied wherever I did before I regained an inkling of thought. My mind was like a haze, warm and fuzzy in all the wrong ways – like how some ponies described a hangover. The first few thoughts were that of confusion – what just happened? Where was I? But it was all I could do just to think up the questions, let alone do anything to answer them.

Eventually though, the haze began to clear, and the first thing I noticed was a sound – constant, trilling. Rather annoying.

My ears flicked at the sound. Slowly, I was able to make out a voice. “…1032. Distress beacon. LAB-1032. Distress beacon…”

The synthesized voice of a mare resonated through my suit. I had only ever heard the thing speak during trial runs; it was a distress beacon, pre-programmed to sound in an emergency. Hearing it now, wherever the hell I was, did wonders to help wake me up.

Eventually, I rolled onto my stomach, which let me know my suit was still functioning. Once I was sitting more upright, I tried to lift my head. It was almost like I had to relearn how to use my natural muscles; everything beneath my neck felt fully functional, but just the act of looking up was short of impossible. Slowly though, I was able to pull my neck back and straighten my head.

Beyond my closed eyes shone a bright light of some sort, which felt unusually warm. It had been ages since I felt the warmth of the sun, and while I couldn't tell where the light was coming from yet, it felt the same – it felt familiar.

It took a minute just to crack open one eye. For the first time in years, I felt a pleasant sort of pain as I adjusted to the brightness of the land around me. Once I grew used to the light, I lifted myself up and prompted my computer system. For once, I was glad to see a little green dot light up in the corner of my eye.

Per protocol, I switched the beacon to a radio transmission and restarted my systems. A moment later, the same synthetic voice from before droned, “DIRE LAB-1032. Reactor online. Sensors online. Weapons online… All systems nominal,” followed by a series of beeps. I drew in a breath of cool, surprisingly fresh air, and examined my surroundings.

I stood in a small grassy clearing of some sort, my mis-jump having left a charred crater on the ground beneath me. Flowers and trees and bushes of all sizes surrounded me, while buzzing insects and birds flitted through the air. A large mountain range sat in the distant horizon, silhouetted by a clear blue sky.

I blinked. For a full minute, I stared straight up at the brilliant sky – clear and empty and seemingly boundless, save for the bright yellow orb that loomed far above. To anypony else, it probably would have just been any old clear sky. To me, it was a sight I almost forgot could exist.

Whatever the case, it was clear I had missed Pylon One by a good bit – perhaps a continent or two, if this sunny little paradise was any indication.

After running a sensory sweep of my immediate surroundings, I decided to try exploring the area. But soon as I took a step forward, my right hind-leg buckled, and from it came the screech of grinding metal. I looked back at my leg with a groan.

“LAB-1032 Diagnostics,” my suit droned. “Damage report: Rear-right gaskin, biceps femoris. Artificial tendons severed. Hydraulic leak detected. Fluid being purged to recovery tanks. Superficial damage to right flank.” I looked back to see several deep scuffs across my flank, along with some grass stains that did a peculiarly good job of matching the green lights.

This wouldn’t do. I didn’t have the proper equipment to repair the damage on-site, so I would need to find a repair site soon. I looked around again, but saw nopony and no building in sight. Only the lushest of nature made up the land around me.

Then, something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. At first, I thought the... thing was yellow, but upon turning my head, I found a small white creature with long ears hopping toward me from some nearby bushes. The creature looked familiar: a rabbit, I thought they called it? A perfectly harmless creature, if I recalled my zoology. But considering the situation – lost in an unknown land, my hind leg dying – I wasn’t about to take any chances. So, I followed protocol.

Two metal plates unlocked along each side of my barrel. I called out calmly to the animal, “White creature, identify yourself.”

The creature stopped part-way, taking a moment to fiddle with one of its ears before hopping toward me again.

I turned to face the creature, extending the plates out and away from my barrel to reveal two rotary cannons. I called out again – this time, with feeling. “White creature, identify yourself. Friend or foe?”

The animal hopped closer, undaunted by either my voice or appearance.

There was nothing I could do at this point. Spinning the cannons to life, I dug my hooves into the ground and aimed at the creature.

Just as the weapons were ready to fire, a timid voice called from the bushes behind the creature. “Angel, wait!”

The creature stopped just in time for me to halt my weapons. I stood up to face the voice from the bushes, when a yellow mare with a long pink mane scampered into the light. “Angel, you should know better than to keep running away like that!”

I blinked again. Hard. Never in my life had I seen a pony with such a vibrantly colored coat! Manes were one thing, and I was no exception to that. But for someone to dye their whole coat? And yellow?

As the mare approached us, I examined the pony more closely, keeping my position fixed and weapons trained. “Yellow and pink pony, identify yourself.”

The mare picked up the rabbit and looked up at me with teal eyes. With a nervous blink, she said, “Oh, uhm… hello. My name is Fluttershy.”

Aside from the mare’s strange appearance, she didn’t seem to be a threat. If anything, her name fit her demeanor quite well – which made me only more nervous. “Friend or foe?”

Fluttershy furrowed her brow, glancing at the cannons protruding from my sides. “Um… well, friend, I guess?”

With a hiss of steam and hydraulics, I retracted my weapons, though I kept the plates unlocked. Stepping closer to the mare, I introduced myself. “My name is Nighttide Star. I am a weapons-grade prototype of DIRE, Labyrinth model ten thirty-two. Could you assist me in determining my location and a place to undergo repairs?”

Fluttershy met my gaze again, her expression shifting from apprehension to concern. “Repairs? Do you mean you're hurt?”

I turned slightly to show off the scuff marks along my flank. “I suffered some damage during an experiment.”

With noticeable hesitation, Fluttershy took a step toward me. As she looked over the black scorch marks etched into the surface of my suit, she said, “Oh dear, this isn't good at all. Does it hurt?”

“Weapons-grade models have selective nervous systems and an exterior alloy hull,” I flatly replied. “Pain is not an issue.”

Fluttershy tilted her head. “I'm not sure what that means, but… I would be glad to help however I can.” She reached out to touch the damage on my flank, but I pulled back a little, extending my weapons slightly. “It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you,” Fluttershy assured me with a soft smile. “May I?”

I squinted at the mare. Standing this close, I realized she stood a full head shorter than me, and unless the mare was hiding a weapon or three in her ridiculously long mane, I didn’t see any way she could be of harm. So I retracted the cannons and gave her a single nod.

Fluttershy ran her hoof gently across the scuffs along my flank. Her eyes widened when she touched the alloy of my suit. Prodding the three domes along my flank, she murmured, “Oh, my – what does this cutie mark mean?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Cutie mark?”

Fluttershy looked back up at me. If this pony really was up to something, I never would have known, as the concern that shone through her eyes seemed as clear as the sun overhead. “Nighttide Star, I think you should meet one of my friends. She may be able to help out more than I can.”

That seemed like an odd proposal. A friend wasn’t exactly what I needed – unless they were a mechanic, of course. Then again, there was no telling where I was. If this were one of the more rural areas of my homeland, then it was possible the mare simply didn’t know.

Letting my gaze drift, I considered my next move. Protocol dictated that in a situation like this, DIRE units should stay on alert, keep contact with others strictly business, and wait for assistance. But I wasn’t exactly keen to the idea of sitting on my rump and waiting for some suit to whisk me back to the city. Besides, it wasn’t every day I got to go outside, let alone when the sun was out.

Although it wasn’t quite protocol to lock down weapons in a situation like this, I couldn’t help but be swayed by the mare’s words – not to mention the idea of getting to see more of this gorgeous place. Thankfully, cyborg or not, I still had free will.

“Understood,” I said, closing the plates over my cannons. “But first: can you tell me our location?”

“We're just outside of Ponyville,” Fluttershy said with a hint of a smile. When I tilted my head, it quickly faded. “In the land of Equestria. Does that help?”

My gaze drifted again while I ran a search through my database. Nothing. “Unfortunately, I have no record of such a place.”

Fluttershy furrowed her brow once more and looked off to my side, apparently deep in thought. After a moment, she gave an almost imperceptible nod and looked back up at me. “Let's go meet my friend and see how she can help. Can you walk?”

I nodded, but as I turned to take a few steps forward, steaming red liquid gushed out of my injured leg. Fluttershy went pale at the sight, which I may or may not have smirked at.

“Well, I can't walk far, I guess,” I calmly said at the sight of the leaking fluid. “May I ask for your assistance?”

Fluttershy stared a moment longer at my leg before blinking up at me. And that was when I discovered a major oversight.

Two huge yellow things suddenly sprang from out of the mare’s sides, stretching high into the sunlight. With barely a thought, I busted out the cannons and planted myself firm where I stood, spinning the barrels to firing speed. I doubt even a second passed before I realized what it was I was staring at, and for a brief moment, I forgot I had a set of live weapons about to fire upon the mare.

“Get down!” I screamed – which in hindsight was a pointless thing to do. The mare had already thrown herself to the ground, smothering the white creature beneath her chest.

“What?!” she sputtered, right before the air split with the buzz of rotary fire.

A thick line of rounds flew over the mare’s mane, tearing through a fat oak a few hooves away. I shut the guns off and slammed the brakes against the rotors, but not before a pony-sized chunk of wood was swathed out of the tree afar.

Once the brakes ground the rotors to a halt, I was left standing, smoke pouring out of my sides, staring wide-eyed at the cowering pony in front of me.

I suppose most ponies in my position would probably have leapt forward to help this pony up, shouting apologies and all sorts of stuff in the process. You want to know what I did?

I stood there. Just staring. This was the first time I had ever fired live rounds at a pony. The first time I came close to ending someone’s life. It might seem comical to a bystander, but I promise you, neither of us were laughing.

I’m really not sure how much time passed. I know it was long enough for my ears to stop ringing, and for a bird to announce its cheery presence somewhere nearby. Eventually, Fluttershy’s rabbit poked its head out from beneath her chest with what I swear was a homicidal glare. It turned after a moment and gave Fluttershy a couple taps with a paw against her muzzle.

The mare rose to her shaking hooves, hiding most of her face behind her mane with her ears folded back. She looked up at me with a single teal eye and muttered, “D-did I do something wrong?”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Closing it, I gulped and pulled the cannons back in my barrel. For once, I was glad I had prosthetics, otherwise I would’ve been shaking uncontrollably. “No… n-no. I’m sorry.” I drew a breath and collected myself as best I could. “It’s just…” Lifting a metal hoof, I pointed and said, “Are those…?”

Fluttershy blinked at me. She lifted her head and squinted at my hoof, then turned to look at her side. “You don’t mean…”

I nodded.

Whatever fear was still in her system seemed to melt away. She looked back at me and fluttered the thing from before. “My wings?”

I didn’t even answer her. Stepping forward, I squinted at the feathery yellow appendage. Stupidly, I asked, “You can fly?”

“Why, yes,” she answered, as if it were a perfectly normal thing. “I'm a pegasus.”

I looked over Fluttershy's one outstretched wing and noticed it was, in fact, a natural part of her body. And behind that wing was a tattoo on her flank of three pink butterflies.

I shook my head. “I have so many questions…” I glanced back at my injured leg. “But I guess they’ll have to wait.”

Chapter 2

Fluttershy and I cantered down a dirt path while her rabbit followed close behind. At this point, I had lost enough fluid in my leg that the hydraulics had begun to fail. And that wasn’t to mention how tired I was – whether that was due to the warp drive or slamming against the ground was up for debate. So I was thankful Fluttershy was willing to let me lean some of my weight on her. She held her farthest wing partly off her side, probably to balance our weight, and kept her closest wing wrapped around my barrel.

Trotting at a slow pace, I took in some of the sights and sounds. Birds and bugs of all kinds zoomed about from place to place, filling the air with a pleasant noise. The greenest of trees flanked the path, broken at times to reveal rolling hills and mountains in the distance. From what I could tell, it looked like we were in a valley, but there were no distinguishing landmarks by which I could determine our location.

Not that I really cared. When you’ve spent two years of your life cooped up in air conditioning and fluorescent lighting, going outside anywhere is an otherworldly experience. The crisp air, the warmth of the sun, the vibrant colors – there’s so much to take in that it almost feels surreal. And in my case, walking next to a bright yellow mare with wings, that surrealism hung at the front of my mind.

It didn’t help either that I had been awake for nearly half an hour now, but my systems had yet to pick up a radio signal. I knew there were some rural places that couldn’t receive radio waves, but they were few and far between. And given that I was supposed to be sent digitally from one place to another, it made even less sense that I would end up anywhere other than a pylon, let alone somewhere as backwoods as this.

“Nighttide,” Fluttershy said, making me flinch, “are you sure you can make it?”

I would have turned to look at her, but it was all I could do just to keep our manes from tangling. “How much farther do we have?”

Fluttershy examined the trees to our left. “We haven’t passed the farm yet, so we still have a little way.”

I glanced back at my injured leg. While the fluid wasn’t gushing so much as seeping at this point, that was mostly because I had lost so much. The recovery tanks within my suit had failed to pick up most of the leak, leaving the acrid smelling stuff to dissolve in the dirt and grass. I pinged my system: seven percent remaining showed on my retinal screen, meaning it wouldn’t be long before my leg gave out. My ears drooped at the reading.

Fluttershy must have noticed my apprehension, as next thing I knew, she gave me a light squeeze with her wing and said, “Tell you what: my house isn’t far from here. Why don’t I take you there and tend to your leg, then I can go get my friend and bring her back?”

It wasn’t as if I had much of a choice. Seven percent meant I only had a few yards to go before I became a pony-sized paperweight. And with no radio signals nearby, my distress beacon was little more than a letter in a bottle thrown into an open sea. At this point, I was at Fluttershy’s mercy – which, surprisingly, was not all that distressing. If anything, it was slightly comforting.

“Alright,” I said, turning my attention forward. Out of my periphery, I could see Fluttershy offer me a warm smile before looking down the path ahead of us. I couldn’t help but smile a little as well.

__________

The walk to Fluttershy’s was a struggle – probably more so for her than me, propping up a metal mare like myself – and by the time we arrived, I was ready to sleep the rest of the day off. But I still had enough energy to appreciate the place she called home.

A two-story cottage, constructed with wood rather than concrete or brick, stood on top of a small knoll, surrounded by a forest out back. I couldn’t tell if the cottage was simply old or if it had been built to look old, but either way, to say it was quaint would be an understatement. Vines and budding flowers traipsed up the sides to a roof covered in foliage. A variety of bird homes had been built both on and around the cottage, all of which were occupied with bright, cheery little creatures. In the sunlight, the place seemed to radiate a pleasant warmth.

When Fluttershy opened the front door, I tensed at the sight of animals—squirrels, foxes, even rats—scurrying across the floorboards, their ragged claws scratching the floorboards. Yet, Fluttershy didn’t even flinch; she just sauntered inside, her rabbit in tow. I slowly followed suit, eyeing the various creatures as I entered.

If the field I landed in was another world, the inside of Fluttershy’s house was like another dimension. The vines that covered the roof stuck in through the walls, curling around wooden planks and floorboards. Large wooden beams, pocked with moss and mushrooms, crisscrossed the ceiling. Small butterflies and hearts were carved into the wall. My internal cooling systems worked just fine, and yet I still felt the humidity.

“Here,” Fluttershy said, redirecting my attention to a sofa on the far end of the room. “You can lie down while I get something for your leg.”

“Thank you,” I said with a nod. Fluttershy walked past me and into another room while I clambered onto the sofa, being careful to keep my leaking limb off the cushion. Stretching out my forelegs, I went to rest my head when I realized just how… smelly the sofa was. Not in that way of course, but it was my first time being somewhere with a bunch of animals, and the odors were pungent to say the least. I scrunched my muzzle at the odd scents, but I got used to them quick enough and allowed myself to relax.

A moment later, Fluttershy trotted back in with a roll of cloth. I lifted my head and arched an eyebrow as she knelt down beside the sofa. “What’s that?”

“Hm?” Fluttershy looked my way, holding out the cloth. “Oh, this is what I use to bandage wounds!”

I blinked. “I, um… don’t know if this kind of wound requires a bandage.” I looked down at the joint in my prosthetic, seeping steaming hydraulic fluid onto her floor.

Fluttershy furrowed her brow and looked at my leg. For a moment, I was afraid she didn’t catch my meaning. But then she said, “Well, a boo-boo is a boo-boo either way, so until I can find you more help, we should stop the bleeding.”

I tilted my head. Surely she didn’t think this was blood? Not to mention… “Boo boo?”

“Yes,” Fluttershy said, wrapping a layer of cloth around my leg. “I would never leave somepony hurt without helping however I can.”

“No, sorry,” I said, waving a hoof. “I mean… what’s a boo boo?”

Fluttershy flinched. She looked up at me with wide eyes, like I had just said the strangest thing in the world. “You don’t know what a ‘boo boo’ is?”

I felt myself wilt, pulling back my head with ears flicked back. “Um… no, I’m afraid not.”

Fluttershy stared at me in silence, studying my expression for several seconds. I couldn’t hold my gaze with hers for longer than a few of those seconds, eventually looking down at my leg and biting the inside of my lip. After a bit, she took to wrapping my leg once more – this time at a rushed pace. “Don’t worry, everything will be okay. As soon as I finish, I’ll go get my friends and we’ll take care of you.”

Take care of me? That stole the wind from my lungs. That’s the sort of thing you hear somepony say before they snuff you out! Or, so I had learned through comics over the years. And yet… the way she said them made it clear: she was concerned, as if there was something inherently wrong with what I had just said.

I still didn’t feel threatened. I felt cared for, although I wasn’t sure why she seemed so alarmed.

Instead of questioning her, I gave a soft nod and let her finish wrapping my leg. A minute later, she grabbed a saddlebag, bade the few animals still hanging around the room a “be back soon,” and set off to fetch her friend – leaving me, a shiny metal mare with a busted leg, on a smelly sofa with a bunch of creatures staring at me from corners of a glorified treehouse.

I may have felt just a little out of place.

The dozens of animals that apparently called this place their home stared at me with beady black eyes. Winged, furred, big and small—no matter the animal, they all shared that same wide-eyed curiosity. And I did too, although my curiosity may have run a little deeper.

I scanned the animals with my suit’s sensors and ran the results against my system. Several pinged back matches, but most were registered as endangered or even extinct. How in the world could that be possible?

Now I worried I had somehow fallen captive to a crazy animal hoarder who dyed her mane and coat bright pastel colors. I probably would have bought that conclusion too, if it weren’t for the feathery appendages the mare was clearly born with.

There was more to all this than mere speculation could solve, so with all the animals scanned, I laid my head across my forelegs and sighed. Fluttershy didn’t tell me how long she would be, so there wasn’t much to do but sit and wait. And considering how exhausted I was, a nap sounded like the best thing ever.

I smirked at the thought. Rarely did I get a chance to do anything like nap back home. It was such a silly thing, but it almost felt dangerous to even consider. I could imagine the Colonel catching me snoozing on the job, only to wake me up with a shake and a shout and a couple dozen orders to fill. But there was no such stallion around to do that now, let alone anypony else from DIRE, and the warmth of the sunlight streaming inside was already threatening to lull me to sleep.

Biting my lip, I fought back a giggle and closed my eyes, shutting everything off save the passive sensors in my suit. If anything were to threaten me, my systems would automatically wake me up. But for now, I felt safe – strangely safe, in a unfamiliar place out in the middle of who knew where. And that was all I needed to make up my mind:

I’m gonna take a nap!

__________

By the time I awoke again, my suit felt like a furnace. Even with my eyes closed, I could tell the sunlight was now shining directly on me from a window behind the sofa – though that didn’t fully explain why I was so warm.

Shifting around on the cushions, I felt something coarse brush against my neck. I peeked an eye open to see a patchwork quilt lying over me. The red and brown patches of the quilt glowed with a warm hue beneath the sunlight, and little dust particles danced off the surface with each breath.

A sound across the room caught my attention. Peeking her head out from another room, Fluttershy looked over at me, then turned back inside. “Twilight,” I heard her murmur, “she’s awake.”

It didn’t quite register that she was addressing somepony else; I was still a bit groggy, and the warmth from the quilt and sunlight begged me to fall back asleep. But, curious, I sat up a little and called out. “Hey Fluttershy… when did you get back?”

Fluttershy ambled over and said, “Just a little while ago.” She stepped into the edge of the sunlight and gave me a soft smile, meeting my gaze with even softer eyes. “Did you sleep well?”

I hummed in thought – or a drowsy lack thereof. “Mmm… yeah.” Glancing at the quilt, I mumbled, “Did you do this?”

“Mhm,” she hummed with a nod. “It’s early spring, so the house can still get a little cold at times. I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable.”

That was awfully sweet of her. I wouldn’t figure most ponies would think throwing a blanket over metal would do anything, but as it stood, Fluttershy seemed as unfamiliar with my anatomy as I was with hers. I was already surprised by how kind she had been, even after I nearly hurt her. But a little gesture like this really carried the message.

That said, now that I started to wake, it began to sink in just how friendly this pony was. Up until now, the gestures had been nice, if not a little unusual. But now I had too many questions to ignore, and Fluttershy’s behavior struck me as simply unnatural – after all, who would want a stranger sleeping in their house?

Furrowing my brow, I looked up at her and said, “Thank you, but you didn’t have to do that.”

Fluttershy giggled. “It’s no problem. I hope you didn’t get too warm?”

“No, not at all,” I said with a weak smile. “But, um… really. You’ve been very kind, and we’ve only just met.” I opened my mouth to continue, but hesitated. When she returned a patient smile, my ears folded. I didn’t really want to question this mare, but it was my responsibility as a DIRE unit to assess the situation – something which, until now, I had done a poor job of. “So… maybe it’s a dumb question, but… is there any reason why—”

“Fluttershy?” somepony called out from across the room.

Fluttershy turned to look while I leaned over to get a better view. Walking up to us was yet another exotically colored pony – a purple mare with a tri-tone mane, sheared off in a straight line at the bangs beneath a…

I blinked. Sitting more upright, I squinted at the mare’s forehead. A small pointed object, much like a horn, protruded from her skull at an angle, parting through her mane. She looked at me with violet eyes, just as curious as mine must have been. We met gazes, but neither of us said a word.

Fluttershy, now standing off to the side, gestured to the pony. “Nighttide, this is my friend Twilight Sparkle. Twilight, this is Nighttide.”

Twilight and I continued to stare at each other, wide-eyed and wordless. After a moment, Fluttershy cleared her throat, jolting Twilight out of whatever train of thought she was in. “Right, sorry,” she stammered, glancing over at Fluttershy before looking at me with a rigid grin. “So, uh… Nighttide, right? It’s nice to meet you,” she said, extending a hoof.

I looked down at her hoof. Pulling out one of mine from beneath the quilt, I reached out to shake hers.

Instead, she jerked back with a gasp, staring at the metal limb in shock. I immediately pulled back and said, “It’s okay! Just, you know. Prosthetic.” When she shot me an arched eyebrow, I said, “You, um… you do know what those are, right?”

It took her a second to shake off the shock before answering. “Yes, I… I’m sorry,” she said, running a hoof through the back of her mane. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I just haven’t seen one up close before.”

I smiled a little at that. “Well, I hope you’re ready, ‘cause you’re about to see four.” Pushing myself upright, I let the quilt slide off my barrel to reveal the rest of my suit.

Twilight’s eyes somehow managed to widen even more. Stepping closer, she looked over the alloy surface of my suit, softly reflecting the sunlight. “I told you she looked a little different,” Fluttershy said from aside, grabbing her attention for a moment.

“I know,” Twilight said, looking back down at my suit. “I guess I just didn’t realize how much.” She glanced my way and said, “Is this armor of some sort?”

“Well…” I shrugged. “Not the kind you can take off.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “Wait. You mean to say this is all permanent?”

I nodded.

In the time it took Twilight to formulate a response, I let my eyes drift over the mare’s body. She too bore a set of wings, just a little larger than Fluttershy’s, and etched into her flank was an abstract symbol that resembled a star. Apparently flank tattoos were a common trait of this society.

“So…” Twilight cleared her throat. “Fluttershy said you were hurt?”

I met her gaze for a second before glancing down at my injured leg. “Right. Some damage to this one,” I said, giving the limb a little shake. “I don’t suppose you ponies know any mechanics?”

Fluttershy tilted her head, but Twilight seemed to brighten a little at the question. For a brief moment, I thought I was about to get a lead, until she said, “You mean how machines work, right?”

I pursed my lips. “Well, I meant someone who’s trained to work with machines. Like, you know… DIRE stuff.”

And just like that, I lost Twilight. “Dire stuff?” she said with a skeptical tone.

“Yeah. Daedalus equipment.” I stared at her flatly. “Usually, mechanics have a license to work on prosthetics like my own.”

Twilight returned a blank stare. “I… have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I furrowed my brow. “You mean, you haven’t heard of Daedalus?”

Twilight slowly shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”

I blinked, rearing back a little from her statement. It was one thing to live in a rural place, but it was quite another to have not heard of DIRE. “Okay… how about Tanis?”

Twilight shook her head again.

I gulped. Looking over at Fluttershy, I said, “Where did you say we were again?”

“Just outside Ponyville.”

“In the land of…?”

“Equestria,” she finished.

I looked back at Twilight, who appeared to be just as confused as I was. “Um… wh-what are the neighboring lands, if I may ask?”

“Well,” she began, letting her gaze drift in thought, “there’s Griffonstone, Yakyakistan – though we’ve been out of touch with them for a while – a little farther is Saddle Arabia—”

I narrowed my eyes. “What about Roanne?”

Twilight paused. “I can’t say that I’ve heard of it, no.”

That seemed impossible. Unless you grew up on a deserted island, there was no way somepony couldn’t have heard of Roanne. Then again, I was amongst colored ponies with wings and, apparently in this mare’s case, a horn, so a deserted island didn’t seem so far-fetched.

And with that realization in mind, what fog of sleep still lingering vanished.

Now it hit me: I was lost. Truly lost. Unless this was all just some vivid dream, I was lost amongst strangers who knew nothing of me or where I was from. Like a tidal wave, the unfamiliarity of everything hit me at once. Up to this point, the experience had been nothing short of exciting – just being away from DIRE was like a dream come true.

Now, all I wanted was to go home.

Drawing a shaky breath, I nudged the quilt to the side. Panic swallowed me, like a filly who’s just realized they’ve lost their parents in the middle of a crowd; surrounded by strangers in a strange place, I had no idea where I was or how to get home.

But I forced my nerves to steady. I had gone through years of training for emergencies just like this. Well, okay, maybe not just like this, but still – I knew that as long as I trusted in logic and reason, I would survive. At the least, it was certainly better than breaking down and crying for help.

Meeting Twilight’s gaze, I took a deep breath and mustered some strength into my voice. “Guess I have a few questions, then.”

Twilight gave a weak chuckle. “Yeah. Guess I do too.”

Chapter 3 - Twi

I remember when Fluttershy ran into the library to tell me she found an injured pony outside Ponyville. It wasn’t unusual to hear about ponies getting hurt while out on their own, especially near places like the Everfree Forest, so I wasn’t too alarmed at the news. She did mention that this pony seemed to be lost, though, and that she looked “a little strange.”

But no words could have prepared me for what I saw when she brought me to her cottage.

Sitting on Fluttershy’s couch was a grey mare with an outrageously thick mane and an even more outrageous getup – an armored suit, of all things! I had never seen anything like it; the closest thing I could compare it to was the armor that members of the Royal Guard wore nearly a thousand years ago, but even that was a stretch. This mare – Nighttide, she called herself – looked as if her entire body, from her neck down, was made purely out of metal.

But shocked as I was by her appearance, what really struck me were her eyes: violet, just like mine, but filled with both fear and awe. I tried not to stare, but as she began asking me questions, I couldn’t help but shoot her a few strange looks.

“So let me get this straight,” I said, standing off to the side of the sofa. “You’ve never even heard of Equestria?”

Nighttide shook her head. “Like I told Fluttershy earlier, this entire place is a mystery to me.”

I looked over at Fluttershy, who returned the same bewildered look I must have had. “How is that possible?”

“Maybe she hit her head?” Fluttershy offered.

“Well, how does that explain the metal suit?”

We both looked over at the pony in question, who sat beneath the afternoon sun in all her shiny glory. “What?”

“Sorry,” I said, rubbing between my eyes. “It’s just… I’ve never met someone who hasn’t heard of Equestria. Let alone someone who looks so…”

“Different?” Nighttide scoffed. “Funny enough, I was thinking the same thing about you two.”

I raised a brow. We were the different ones? What exactly about us looked different from anypony else?

At this point, I had loads of questions to ask, but I made sure to ask the most important one first: “Nighttide, would it be alright if I took some notes?”

Nighttide shrugged. “Sure, go ahead.”

I looked over beside the front door where my saddlebag lay. Bringing my horn to light, I undid the flap over one of the pouches and pulled out a pad and quill. As I floated them closer, I turned to Nighttide and said, “Could you tell me what kind of…?”

I paused. Nighttide stared at the pad and quill floating our way with wide eyes and a stunned look. I glanced over at them, then back at her. “What’s wrong?”

She blinked a couple of times and continued to stare at the objects before looking my way. She didn’t meet my eyes, though – instead, she looked at my horn, then back at the pad and quill. “How… are you…?”

It took me a second to figure out what had her so baffled, but when it clicked the two things she was looking between, I think I was more surprised than her. “You do know what magic is, right?”

Nighttide stared a moment longer before meeting my gaze. With all the innocence in the world, she said, “Magic?”

And here I thought I was the one with the questions.

__________

The afternoon ran long – far longer than I expected. As it turned out, not only was Nighttide unfamiliar with our land, she was unfamiliar with pretty much everything Equestrian. I suppose that’s to be expected from somepony not familiar with the area, but it seemed unimaginable that somepony wouldn’t even know about magic!

For the first several minutes, I filled in Nighttide on the sorts of things most would learn in kindergarten – the three pony races, their natural forms of magic, basic geographical locations, et cetera. Much to my surprise, throughout the whole lecture, you might as well call it, Nighttide couldn’t take her eyes off me. She barely even blinked. Every few moments I would stop to ask if she had heard about any of this before, but each time I was met with a simple “No.” I would have found that hard to believe, had it not been for the curiosity that filled her eyes.

By the end of the lecture, we both knew we had only scratched the surface of the differences between us. Fluttershy offered us both a cup of tea – I couldn’t help but feel relieved that Nighttide even knew what tea was – then headed out to feed the animals outside.

Nighttide sat with her back against the sofa, keeping her bandaged leg hanging over the edge. I sat across from her and to the side on a pillow, taking a moment to cool my tea with a few breaths. The silence between us felt tense, but the chirping birds outside and murmur of critters throughout the cottage kept things pleasant enough – for me, at least. Nighttide, on the other hoof, kept tilting her ears at every little sound even as she sipped her tea.

After taking a sip of my own, I switched the focus of our conversation to the one question I felt most important. “So, care to tell me how somepony who knows nothing of Equestria ended up outside Ponyville?”

Nighttide sat her own cup down beside her and sighed. “Where do I even begin?”

“Well…” I tapped a hoof to my chin. “How about we just introduce ourselves again?

Nighttide looked over at me with an arched eyebrow. “You already know my name.”

“No, I don’t mean that. Think of it like when a student starts at a new school, and they have to tell the class who they are, where they’re from. Things like that.”

Nighttide furrowed her brow for a moment, then gave a nod. “Alright,” she said with a hint of a smile, which I made sure to return. “So, as you know, my name is Nighttide Star. But I’m also known as DIRE unit LAB-1032. I’m a cybernetic model of the Daedalus Institute of Research and Exploration, built to run prototype equipment designed for the military.”

I tensed a little at that bit of information. “Military?”

Nighttide nodded. “They contract DIRE for research projects.”

That seemed odd. For starters, I had never heard of such a business, let alone one that used ponies for the purpose of research. Secondly, there were no bordering nations that were conducting military exercises. At least none that I knew of. “Where did you say you were from, again?”

“Roanne,” Nighttide said, rather rigidly. “Specifically the city of Tanis. I’m stationed there at DIRE’s Ridley facility.”

“Roanne… Tanis…” None of it rang a bell. I lifted my pad and quill and wrote down some notes. “I’ll have to do some research later to see if I can find anything about your home. But getting back to the original question: do you know how you ended up here?”

Nighttide rubbed the back of her neck and looked away. “Part of the reason I’m here is because of an experiment, but… I can’t get into all the details if everything you said is true.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“Confidentiality.” Nighttide gave me a nervous smile. “I’d get in big trouble if I said too much.”

My ears drooped. I could understand if she were affiliated with some sort of government that she might be expected to keep some secrets. But having somepony appear in Equestria with no foreknowledge of our land – especially one with a military background – raises a pretty big red flag.

From what I could tell though, Nighttide was at least being honest with me, even if she seemed a little stiff. “Well, I’m not necessarily looking for all the details – I’m just curious how you ended up so far away from home.”

Nighttide slumped her shoulders. “So am I.” She drew a breath and leaned back. “Long story short, we were running an experiment on a new form of transportation, and I ended up here.” She glanced back at the window behind her, out at the woods surrounding the cottage. “And here is definitely not where I’m supposed to be.”

“No kidding,” I said with a dry chuckle. “Can you give me a basic idea of how it works?”

“Well…” Nighttide furrowed her brow and looked away. “There’s a piece of equipment in my suit that lets me appear from one place to another.” She rubbed her neck and gave me an apologetic grin. “About as detailed as I can get.”

“I see,” I said, jotting a note down. While the thought of ‘equipment’ having something to do with transit seemed a little strange, there was one idea that came to mind. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but is it something along the lines of teleportation?”

Nighttide blinked. Leaning forward with narrow eyes, she said, “How do you know about that?”

“Well, it's a magical spell. An advanced one, mind you, but it still uses magic.”

Nighttide kept her gaze fixed with mine a little longer before sitting back. “You really know about teleportation?”

I stared at her for a moment, then stood up. “In a word…” The tip of my horn flashed white, and in less than a second, I was standing on Nighttide’s other side. When I tapped her shoulder, she jumped, then glanced back to see my cheeky grin. “…Yes.”

Nighttide stared blankly up at me for a moment with wide eyes. Once she shook the shock away, she said, “So, uh… that’s a spell, huh?”

“It is.” Stepping in front of the couch, I said, “But does your suit work similarly?”

“In appearance, I guess,” Nighttide said. “But our method doesn’t use magic.”

“I see.” I lifted my pad and quill again and jotted down some more notes.

“Listen, uh…” Nighttide bit her lip and looked down. “I know you’ve got a lot of questions, but I was wondering if I could ask you something real quick.”

I followed her eyes, down to her injured leg. “Oh. Right. I guess you’d like to get that fixed, huh?”

“Sometime soon, yeah,” Nighttide said, looking up at me with a smirk.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t an expert in the field of prosthetics, but I was at least willing to give the limb a look. Bending down to take a closer look, I noticed several segments made up the limb: a plate between the hoof and the fetlock, and a curved section that ran along the back of the leg. Her knee was wrapped in gauze, so I examined her other leg and noticed what looked like a cog that allowed the knee to bend. The top portion was made of solid metal and ran into a large grey socket along her hip, just beneath three green domes that lay across her flank.

The placement of the domes immediately reminded me of a cutie mark, but from what I gathered earlier, Nighttide knew nothing of cutie marks before she appeared here. Not to mention these were a physical protrusion rather than flush – and even in the sunlight, I could tell they glowed from within.

“Nighttide, I've never seen anatomy like this. This is absolutely incredible.” Looking up at her, I said, “I’m sorry if this sounds rude, but… are you really a pony?”

Nighttide tensed at the question. I immediately regretted asking her, but then she relaxed and drew a slow breath. “Feel my face and mane.”

I blinked. That wasn’t exactly the response I expected, but I did as she said and lifted my hooves to touch Nighttide's muzzle and mane. The fine coat hair along her muzzle did in fact feel normal, and her mane – thick as it was – felt surprisingly soft. I slid my hooves down to where a dark grey collar surrounded her neck, made of a slightly softer metal than the rest of her body.

“I’m a real pony,” Nighttide reassured me. “But I’m assuming you’re not familiar with cybernetics?”

“I’m afraid not,” I said, sitting back down in front of her.

“Figures.” Nighttide lay down with a huff and flicked her ears back. “Unless I can find someone who knows how to work on these kinds of prosthetics, I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere.”

And that was going to be a problem, I could already tell. While I wasn’t as well versed in machinery as some ponies, I was still familiar enough to know that this sort of thing was completely different from anything made in Equestria.

Thankfully, there was one area I was skilled in that could possibly help. “I might not know anypony who’s familiar with this sort of thing, but I may be able to find a spell that could help. Can you tell me if anything is missing from your leg?”

“Aside from hydraulic fluid, no,” Nighttide said. “There’s some internal damage, but all the hardware’s still there.”

“Alright then. If you can let me know where everything needs to be, I might be able to use my magic to put your leg back together. Minus the fluid.”

“Which is a problem,” Nighttide said. “Without the fluid, I can't operate my legs. I might as well be hauling around a hunk of scrap metal.”

I ran a hoof across my chin. “I think I might know someone who can help with that. She’s pretty skilled at mixing stuff together. At the very least, she may be able to help guide us in the right direction. In the meantime, can you give me a rough idea how your leg works?”

Nighttide let her gaze drift for a moment. “Actually, I can do something better than that.”

A low hum sounded from somewhere inside her suit, followed by a flap swinging open across her back. A light slowly grew to life from within, and soon, a green speckled image came into view above her. It was hard to see it clearly through the sunlight, but as I stepped closer, I realized the image was a detailed diagram of the inner workings of Nighttide’s leg.

I stared at the image, amazed at both the intricate details shown on the diagram as well as the way in which they were displayed. “I thought you said you didn’t know about magic?”

“I don’t.” Nighttide glanced back at the image. “Trust me, this is definitely not magic.”

Well, either way, this was exactly what I needed. I studied the image for a couple of minutes and took down the notes I needed, then drew a sample of the fluid Nighttide needed. Once I had everything packed, I strapped on my saddlebag and headed for the door. “Fluttershy shouldn’t be much longer. Will you be alright if I head back to look for that spell?”

“Sure,” Nighttide said with a wave of her hoof. “If anything, I’ll just catch up on that nap from before. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

I gave her a smirk. “Well, hopefully we can fix that soon.”

Opening the door, I motioned to take a step outside, when Nighttide called out behind me. “Hey, Twilight?”

I looked back at her over my shoulder. “What is it?”

“Just…” Nighttide flicked her ears back and almost looked away, but she gave me a small smile instead. “Thanks.”

I tilted my head. “For what?”

“For helping a total stranger out,” she said. “Really. It means a lot.”

I gave her a smile of my own. “Well, don’t thank me until I figure out if I can fix that leg of yours or not.”

Nighttide chuckled. “Right. Well, thanks either way. See you soon?”

“Before the end of the day.” And with that, I strode into the sunlight, down the path that led back to Ponyville.

Crossing over the bridge in front of Fluttershy’s, I pulled out the notes from my saddlebag and skimmed over them. There were several things I would need to look into once I got back to the library, the two biggest ones being a land called Roanne and a spell that could fix Nighttide’s leg. But as I looked over the unfamiliar terms – cybernetics, computers, radio waves – another thought crossed my mind.

While it wasn’t unusual for ponies and creatures to visit Equestria from other lands, Nighttide was a unique case: she wasn’t here to visit. By her account, this was an accident. Worse still, the details of her appearance were shrouded in mystery – both by circumstance and necessity, from what little I gathered.

Even logically speaking, the situation was suspicious: a soldier in a strange suit suddenly appears outside of Ponyville with no idea where she is and no reasonable way to explain how she got here. A large part of me wanted to doubt this pony, and I briefly wondered if it was safe to leave Fluttershy alone with her.

But another part of me wasn’t so sure. There were still so many questions left to ask, and had it not been for her injured leg, I probably would have made those a priority above all else. Until I got to know her better, it would be hasty to make any judgments. And I figured since Fluttershy hadn’t voiced any concerns yet, it was probably safe to assume she wasn’t a threat.

Honestly, it was odd for me to have these kinds of concerns about somepony I just met. Normally I would be open to the idea of getting to know someone new and making a friend, but Nighttide’s situation was a little more unusual than most. Unusual enough that it might be best to inform the Princess.

Nodding to myself, I tucked away my notes and lifted my head. First, to head back to the library and have Spike send a letter. Second, dig up some tomes on intricate magical manipulation. And lastly, pay a visit to a friend in the Everfree Forest.

Chapter 4

After Twilight gave me the crash course on all things Equestria, I should have been blown away. After all, Twilight spoke of pegasi, unicorns, alicorns – creatures I could barely imagine, let alone believe really existed. Yet, despite Twilight’s horn and Fluttershy’s wings, it felt more like a fairy tale than reality. It all felt so fantastical – at least until Twilight did her little magic warp thing in the cottage.

Can you blame me? Just imagine being stuck on a sofa in some stranger’s house, in a country you’ve never heard of, with two winged and one horned pony telling you tales of a magical land – provided of course you haven’t grown up with that your whole life. Surreal.

No. Surreal didn’t cut it anymore; now, everything I saw and heard came through a haze, like my life had become a bizarre play. And considering the day’s events – a failed experiment, appearing in some colorful land, exhausted out of my mind – I couldn’t exactly bring myself to buy any of it.

But as far as I could tell, Twilight was telling the truth. I mean, she had the wings and horn to prove it. Next to her, even my state-of-the-art equipment felt obsolete.

While Twilight gave me her breakdown of Equestria, I silently ran a few scans. Sure enough, Twilight’s wings and horns were completely natural. 100% organic. That just made me even dizzier. Is this seriously happening? I thought, trying not to shake. What if the warp-drive knocked me out, and this is all a dream? Or some sort of computer simulation? Ooh, I knew artificial intelligence was a bad idea…

I had no control. With a busted leg and no way to contact home, I had only my instincts to protect me. I still had some doubts about this whole thing, but I saw no point in openly rejecting the hospitality these ‘Equestrians’ had shown me so far. Twilight and Fluttershy both seemed willing to help, so the least I could do was ride things out until I regained some autonomy. At this point, all I really cared about was getting back on my hooves again and finding my way back home. I could figure the rest out later.

But that meant waiting until Twilight returned from wherever she had gone. And let me tell you: if you think my sofa-bound thoughts are boring, try living it out in real life. Especially after drinking a load of tea.

Suffice it to say, I hoped these magical ponies had bathrooms.

__________

Some time later, after being escorted upstairs to relieve myself, Fluttershy helped me limp outside to get some fresh air. The afternoon sun sat low in the sky and bathed the world in a warm light that felt absolutely wonderful on my muzzle. Being stuck inside a cottage for several hours wasn’t nearly as bad as being stuck in some frigid laboratory, but I was ready to get off that sofa and stretch my legs – much as I could, anyway.

Unfortunately, that turned out to be a mistake. As Fluttershy helped me plop down next to a fence just beyond the cottage, a red light blipped in the corner of my eye. “Crap.”

“What is it?” Fluttershy said, placing a wing over my withers to help me balance.

I looked at the mare, who stood just in the way of the sun, casting an amber glow around her long pink mane. “I think I might’ve lost the last of my fluid.”

Fluttershy furrowed her brow and tilted her head. I doubt she understood how my body worked just from the bit she overheard me tell Twilight, but she knelt down anyway to take a look at my leg. To both our surprise, the gauze was soaked. “Goodness!” she said with wide eyes. “We should rewrap the wound. I’ll be right back.”

I opened my mouth to argue the point, but she wasted no time in jumping up to gallop inside. Wrapping my leg again wouldn’t do much; no amount of gauze would replace the fluid I lost. But Fluttershy seemed determined to care for me – and much as her kindness still felt odd, it also felt genuine.

I leaned against the fence and sighed. For a moment, I just gazed upon the world – at the trees that swayed in the light breeze, at the creek that ran across the path. This late in the day, the birds sang a gentler melody, matching the lazy haze that hung across the horizon. A couple of crickets made it clear that the end of the day was drawing near. Peaceful. Like a perfect dream.

I let my eyelids droop a little as I slumped against the fence, letting my thoughts blend together like the hazy world before me. It looked like a painting. Certainly not the sort of thing you’d see anywhere near my home. Then again, it was hard to believe there was any place left like this anywhere on the planet. Not since—

“Here we are,” Fluttershy called from behind, startling me out of my thoughts. She knelt down beside me and gently moved my injured leg to the side, propping it up on a mound of dirt. I watched silently as she pulled a line of clean cloth from a spool and tore it with her teeth before unwrapping the old gauze.

Once the gauze was off, Fluttershy placed a hoof over my leg and carefully spun the new cloth around. She was surprisingly good at this, which made me wonder where she learned to do such a thing. I thought about asking her, but instead, she raised a question of her own. “So, what’s it like where you come from?”

I looked over her shoulder, out at the clear amber sky. “Well, it’s…” I paused to think of a good word to describe home. It didn’t take very long. “It’s wet.”

“Wet?”

“It rains a lot.” Nearly every day of the year. “And it’s warm.”

Fluttershy tilted her head. “Can’t the weather team do something about that?”

“Weather team?”

Fluttershy blinked. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t have pegasi where you come from?”

I nodded. “Or unicorns, or… well, I don’t think we have earth ponies. They have magic too, right?”

“Right,” Fluttershy said with a nod. “Their magic helps to grow plants and food.”

“Twilight mentioned that,” I said, shifting more upright. “Still, I don’t think ponies from my home would be considered ‘earth ponies’ since we don’t have magic.”

“No magic at all?”

“None that I’m aware of,” I said with a shrug. “I mean, who knows? There’s no telling how far I am from home, but if you ponies have magic, then maybe we do too.” Really, I was just thinking out loud; I highly doubted there was any chance our ponies could have magic without us knowing about it – not to mention the lack of unicorns, pegasi, and… “Hey, isn’t Twilight an alicorn?”

“Why yes, she is,” Fluttershy said, tying off the end of the gauze in a knot. “She was recently crowned princess as well.”

“I was just about to ask that. She mentioned there was a process to becoming an alicorn, and that it had to do with princess stuff and things she kind of glossed over.” I looked down the path, which I assumed led back to town. “So, does that make her Princess of Ponyville?”

Fluttershy giggled. “Not exactly. I think she could explain it better than I can.” Sitting down beside me, she said, “Well, besides the rain, what else is your home like? What do you do there?”

I pursed my lips. To be honest, I didn’t have much of an answer; I had no hobbies, no pastimes. Rather, I let other ponies run my life for me. When the military commissioned DIRE for something, typically they’d outfit me or one of the others with some new fangled thing for a test run. High-tech stuff. Nothing Fluttershy would understand.

“Well, I help with research,” I eventually settled on as an answer.

“Oh, Twilight likes research as well!” Fluttershy chirped. “I bet you two must have had an interesting conversation earlier.”

Interesting. Yes. Definitely the right word. “Yeah, we did. I’ll admit though, I’m surprised she didn’t ask me more about where I’m from. She seemed more interested in explaining Equestrian stuff than hearing my story.”

“Well, Twilight likes to teach others new things when she can,” Fluttershy explained with just a hint of a smirk. “But she’s probably more interested in getting you help first.”

So kindness is an inherent trait to these ponies? “I suppose.”

“By the way, was she able to help you figure out how you got here?”

“Actually, no. She said she was going to look for a spell that might help with my leg, then meet with somepony about getting some fluid.”

“Do you know if she plans to come back today?”

“I believe so.” I glanced over at the setting sun. “Though I’m not sure when.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Well, if you need a place to stay, you’re more than welcome to stay here tonight.”

I had to sigh at that. This pony had already done so much for me, the last thing I wanted was to waste anymore of her time. But more than that, much as I enjoyed her company, I needed to find a way home – or at least a way to contact DIRE. “Thank you, Fluttershy. I really appreciate all you’ve done. But hopefully when Twilight gets back, I’ll be able to—”

“Find your way home?” somepony said from nearby. “Don’t count on it.”

Fluttershy and I looked down the path to find Twilight walking our way with her saddlebag now packed to the brim. “As it turns out,” she said, “I couldn’t find anything on Roanne, Tanis, anything you mentioned.” She strode up and lifted her saddlebag off her back with her magic, dropping it between us. “But I think I found the right spell for your leg.”

Not the news I was hoping for, but it was something at least. “How about the fluid?”

Twilight looked over her shoulder. “About that…”

I arched an eyebrow and leaned over to see the shadow of somepony cantering around a grove of trees beside the path. When this somepony came into sight, my eyes shot wide.

Striding across the bridge was a rugged pony-like creature with a grey coat covered in black stripes. The creature had a coarse mane, the same color and pattern as her coat, and around her neck sat what had to be a painfully heavy set of gold bands. A similar set looped around one of her legs, and a matching pair of rings hung off each of her ears. She also had a cutie mark – a spiral sun, from what I could tell – but the tone and definition made it look more like it was painted on rather than etched like Twilight’s or Fluttershy’s.

Twilight must have caught my curious expression, because she gave me a smirk like a schoolfilly standing up for show-and-tell. “Nighttide, this is my friend Zecora,” she said, gesturing to the mare now walking up to us. “Zecora, Nighttide.”

“Hello there, friend!” Zecora greeted in an exotic voice that matched her appearance and equally exotic scent – like, wow, you could smell this mare a mile away. “Welcome to our wonderful land!”

“H-hello yourself,” I stammered, extending a limp hoof.

For a second, I worried she might reel back like Twilight did upon realizing it was metal. But she didn’t even flinch – instead, she just gave it a firm shake, firm enough I worried she might break something inside. “Some simple help I heard you need, for your wounded leg does bleed?”

“Uh, yes, actually. I lost a lot of hydraulic fluid from a busted line.” Turning to Twilight, I said, “Were you able to find any?”

“Well, sort of.” Pulling out a book from her saddlebag, she said, “Zecora was able to mix something together based off the sample you gave me.”

“What you need now I have brought,” Zecora said as she untied a flask from her barrel. “In here is the fluid you have sought.”

Hmm. System note: Striped ponies speak in rhyme. Apparently phonics vary among races. “Thanks. Could you set it down beside me? I’d grab it, but…” I lifted two limp hooves. “Kinda what I need the fluid for.”

Zecora sat the flask between me and the fence. I twisted open the cap and bent over to look inside, allowing my sensors to do a scan of the substance. A green line of text lit across the bottom of my vision a second later: 83% correlation. “Looks like it should work.”

“How can you tell?” Twilight asked, skimming through the book with her magic.

“Uh… computer magic.”

Twilight glanced over the brim of her book and shot me a smirk. “You know I still have several questions for you, right?”

“You and I both.” Slumping a little, I said, “I guess if you couldn’t find anything on Roanne, I might be around long enough for you to ask them.”

Twilight’s smile faded. “Let’s get your leg fixed, then we’ll figure out where to go from there.”

“That’s nice of you,” I said, pulling open a flap with a nozzle along my side. “But… well…”

Well, what? I had no idea where to go or what to do once I was on my hooves. As far as I knew, I could be a thousand miles away from home in any given direction.

“Well, what?” Twilight echoed.

All I could do was shrug. “I don’t know. I just…”

Twilight stared at me for a moment before placing her book on the ground. “Listen. From what I’ve gathered, it sounds like you’re pretty lost. You might as well let somepony who knows the area give you a little help.”

“Twilight’s right,” Fluttershy added from aside. “If you don’t know how to get home, we’d be more than happy to help.”

I looked between the two, trying to figure out what to say. Zecora decided for me. “You, my friend, indeed seem lost. To refuse our help could come with great cost.”

It looked like they were going to decide for me at this rate. Just like home.

I still found myself wary about accepting help from these ponies, but like I reminded myself earlier, I didn’t have much of a choice. Though I would probably make a better decision after I got some real rest. “Well, is there a hotel nearby that accepts credit?”

Twilight and Zecora raised a brow at me, though it was Fluttershy who replied. “You’re still welcome to stay here, Nighttide.” Rubbing a hoof against another, she added, “That is, if you want to.”

I had totally forgotten she invited me to stay. “I really don’t want to be anymore of a bother than I’ve already been. Are you sure there isn’t somewhere in town I could stay?”

“It’s no trouble at all,” Fluttershy insisted with a sincere smile. “I promise.”

“And besides,” Twilight said, “I don’t think Ponyville Inn takes foreign currency.”

Fair enough. “Well, thank you for the offer, Fluttershy,” I said with my own smile. “But unless Zecora’s fluid starts working soon, I doubt I can even make it back inside.”

Twilight glanced down at my injured leg. “Oh. Right.” She rubbed her neck with a sheepish grin. “Guess I better get to work then!”

__________

I had no idea how ‘spells’ worked – especially when it came to repairing armor – but I tried to keep close track of everything Twilight did, as she kept looking between my leg, a well-worn book, and the hologram now projecting from my back. “How long do you think it’ll take?” I asked.

“No more than a couple of minutes,” Twilight said, squinting at a particular line in her book. “Just need to make sure I got this last part right.”

Fluttershy and I watched as Twilight mouthed the text silently to herself. Zecora had left just minutes after filling my suit with the fluid, and the sun sat inches above the horizon, leaving us with only a couple dusty rays of light to work with.

Clapping the book shut, Twilight turned to me with a confident smile. “Alright. Ready to get back on your hooves?”

“More than you know,” I said, flipping off the hologram to rest my weight on the fence. “All this sitting around really wears a mare out.”

Twilight and Fluttershy shared a giggle. Standing over my bad leg, Twilight brought her horn close to the injury. She flicked her eyes up at me and said, “Before I start, are you able to feel anything in your legs?”

I shook my head. “All prosthetic, so no nerves to worry about.”

“Good. ‘Cause otherwise, this might um… you know—”

“Hurt like hell?” I said with a lazy smirk.

Twilight furrowed her brow and glanced at Fluttershy, who merely shrugged.

“Uh… nevermind,” I said, waving a limp hoof. “You’re good to go.”

“Okay. Here goes.” And with that, Twilight closed her eyes and brought her horn to light. As soon as the whistle of magic filled the air, I switched my systems over to record all activity in my injured limb.

At first, it seemed like nothing would happen. Twilight crouched over my leg with eyes screwed shut and horn glowing a brilliant violet, but my systems detected little in the way of movement. It wasn’t until Twilight angled her horn to the side that all manner of flashing lights and yellow text started filling the corner of my vision – detailed warnings of parts moving “autonomously” within my leg. My computer danced with panic, unable to determine what was causing the change, but I had already silenced the alarm in preparation for this.

Two minutes passed as Twilight continued to move the parts in my busted limb, clearly straining over the effort. Before long, she began to grit her teeth, and a light film of sweat formed along her brow. I glanced over at Fluttershy to gauge her expression, and she too seemed to be worried about the mare.

“Twilight?” Fluttershy asked, stepping closer. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she stammered. “Just… a little more…”

I squinted at my leg and scaled the log of text over my vision. A live diagram of the damage parts shown at the top corner, which revealed that slowly, surely, the parts were being refitted and aligned to their proper place. The log continued to fill with warning after warning, but it was clear that Twilight’s magic was working.

Finally, after heaving one last set of parts together, Twilight shut off her magic and collapsed beside my leg with a groan. “There,” she said through a pant. “Try that now.”

Switching off the text, I instructed my suit to refill the leg with fluid. It didn’t take long before I was able to move each part again, from top to bottom, with no noticeable problems.

“Twilight, I believe it worked!” I said, flexing each joint slowly as the fluid filled the hydraulics. “My systems show green for that leg!”

A little dazed and confused, Twilight spat up, “Huh. Green. I guess that's good?”

“Yes,” I said, carefully standing up. Once I was sure I could support my weight, I pranced a little in place. “Very good, in fact!”

“How wonderful, Twilight,” Fluttershy quietly cheered, “she's able to walk again!”

“Uh huh. Great.” Twilight groaned long and hard on the ground. “Can I go home now?”

I giggled a little as Fluttershy and I helped my impromptu mechanic back to her hooves. “Thank you again, Twilight. I've never had anyone go this far out of their way just for me – not in a long time, at least.”

Breathing a sigh, Twilight said, “Well, I'm just glad I was able to help.” Stretching her back, she said, “Now, as for where to go from here.”

That’s right. “You said you weren’t able to find anything about Roanne, correct?”

“Right,” Twilight said with a nod. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything yet. Equestria covers a lot of land, but there’s still many places far beyond our borders.” Fluffing her wings free of dirt, she looked over at Fluttershy and said, “I contacted Princess Celestia about Nighttide’s appearance, and she wants to have an audience with us tomorrow afternoon.”

I blinked at that. Who’s the other princess, and what exactly did Twilight say about me?

Fluttershy didn’t seem to be worried, though; in fact, she smiled at the news. “That’s wonderful! I know you’ve been wanting to visit Canterlot since the coronation. Do you think you’ll have some time to show Nighttide around?”

“Hang on a sec,” I spoke up. “Who’s this princess, exactly?”

“Princess Celestia?” Twilight said, turning to face me. “She and her sister, Princess Luna, are the rulers of Equestria.”

“Okay,” I said with a slow nod. “But what exactly does she want with me?”

“Just to meet you. Don’t worry,” she said, waving a hoof, “it’s not as big of a deal as it may sound. I told her about your situation – much as you could share, at least – and she just wants to offer whatever help she can.”

Now there’s another princess pony who wants to lend a hoof? Stepping back, I said, “Listen, that’s great and all, but why exactly would royalty want to meet with me?” Narrowing my eyes, I added, “On that note, aren’t you royalty? What exactly is your role, if not ruler of this land?”

Twilight blinked. She and Fluttershy exchanged a knowing glance, which seemed strangely somber.

“About that,” Twilight said, slumping her shoulders. “Honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what being a princess means for me. I was only recently crowned, so…”

I leaned forward a little and angled my head. “So, what, you don’t have a formal title or something?”

Twilight met my gaze for a moment, then quickly looked away, slouching back ever so slightly. “Not exactly.”

That… made absolutely no sense. But something about this clearly made Twilight uncomfortable. Relaxing my stance a little, I said, “I don’t get it. I’ve never met royalty myself, but from what I understand, aren’t princesses supposed to be given official titles?”

“In most cases, yes. But…” Twilight sighed. Lifting her head, she looked at me and said, “It would probably make more sense if you came with me to meet Celestia tomorrow. I could tell you a little more about Equestria on the way, and she could fill you in on the rest.”

I squinted at her for a moment, then looked over at Fluttershy. “Do you know this Princess Celestia?”

“Oh, yes,” Fluttershy said with an eager nod. “She’s one of the nicest ponies I know!”

I looked back at Twilight. “And you said she wants to help?”

“If I know the Princess – and I’d like to think I do, since I was her student,” Twilight said as she tucked her book back into her saddlebag, “she probably wants to get to know you and a little about where you’re from. Celestia’s been around for a lot longer than most, so if anypony knows where your home might be, it would be her.”

I hummed and nodded, letting my gaze drift while Twilight strapped on her saddlebag. “Well, it’s not like I have anywhere else to go.” Stepping off to the side, I groaned and hung my head, rubbing a hoof between my eyes. “I’m sorry. This whole day’s been a bit overwhelming. I don’t mean to come across as ungrateful, it’s just… all a little strange, I guess.”

A moment passed before Fluttershy walked up beside me. “I can’t imagine how scary it must be being somewhere you’ve never been with ponies you’ve never met. It would make sense if you were a little nervous to meet someone like a princess for the first time.”

“Hey,” Twilight said from behind, “she’s already met me!”

Fluttershy looked back at her with an arched brow. “Yes, but that’s different. You’re my friend, and I introduced you as one of my friends – not a princess.” Turning to face me, Fluttershy said, “But don’t be afraid. Princess Celestia is a sweet pony. And if Twilight thinks she can help, I do too.” Placing a hoof on my shoulder, she added, “Once you meet her, you’ll see there’s nothing to worry about.”

Fluttershy gave me a warm smile. I was still a little skeptical about all this princess nonsense, but she seemed confident that everything would be okay. “Alright then.” Glancing back at the cottage, I said, “Is it alright if I take you up on your offer, then?”

“Hm?” Fluttershy looked up the hill at her home. “Oh, yes – you’re more than welcome to stay the night! And I bet you’re probably hungry by now, too.”

Huh. Come to think of it, I hadn’t thought about food since I got here. Maybe that was my issue. “Well, maybe just a little.”

“How about you, Twilight?” Fluttershy looked over her shoulder. “Do you want to join us for dinner?”

“That’s okay,” Twilight said, turning for the path. “I’m going to do some more research tonight and see if I can find anything. I’ll come by in the morning to pick up Nighttide, if that’s okay?”

Both Fluttershy and I nodded. “And listen, Twilight,” I said. “Thank you, again. If it weren’t for you and Zecora, I have no idea how or if I’d been able to get back on my hooves again.” Running a hoof through the back of my mane, I said, “Hopefully I’ll be a little less on edge once I get some sleep.”

Twilight smiled. “It’s fine. Just get a good night’s rest, and we’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

I smiled in return. “Thanks. See you in the morning.”

As Twilight made her way down the path, Fluttershy and I walked back up to the cottage. Before stepping inside, I looked back to see Twilight rounding the bend beyond the grove of trees. Although I still didn’t get this whole Equestria business, I was thankful to have met everyone I had met since first waking up. I don’t think I could have run into a better bunch of ponies than these… well, aside from an actual mechanic, perhaps. But of course, being able to get outside the city for a bit, I wasn’t going to complain – although the whole day still felt like a hazy dream. Hopefully some food and sleep would help with that.

Nodding to myself, I turned inside and followed Fluttershy into her kitchen.

__________

After downing a sandwich and a couple of apples, Fluttershy led me to a bedroom upstairs. “Will this be alright for the night?”

“Of course.” I looked around the pleasantly decorated room, largely adorned with bird homes and plant life – just like the rest of the house. “Thank you so much for everything, Fluttershy,” I said, turning to the pegasus with a smile. “You’re really too kind.”

“It’s no problem at all,” Fluttershy said, turning back for the hallway. “If you need anything, I'll be downstairs on the couch.”

My smile broke. “Whoa, wait a sec! This isn't a guest bedroom?” Stepping into the hall, I said, “Please, don't let me—”

“Oh no, it's fine!” Fluttershy insisted, lifting a hoof to stop me. “You've had a very long day, and I want you to get the best sleep possible. You deserve it.” She gave a small, sweet, clearly tired smile before walking back downstairs.

Wondering if I should argue the point or not, I leaned back and gazed into the bedroom at the comfortable looking bed – a far cry from the sofa I had spent most of the day. Fatigue won the battle in my mind, so I decided to accept my gracious host's offer.

Enjoying the ability to move on my own again, I took a look around the small, cozy room, noticing the big butterfly-patterned comforter that lay across the bed as I walked up to one of the windows. Sure enough, the sight that lay outside was just as beautiful as the one during the day.

Crossing my forelegs on the sill, I stared out at clear night sky. Not a single light shone across the land for miles, allowing the starry canopy overhead to show in all its beauty. The logical part of me wanted to dwell on the fact there were no city lights – yet another reminder that I was far from home. But I couldn’t help but be enchanted by the twinkling stars overhead.

“It’s been a long time since I've seen this,” I muttered to myself. “My namesake. The time between dusk and dawn.”

The violet backdrop of the night sky was one I hadn’t seen in ages – if not due to clouds, then because of city lights. But it wasn’t a completely foreign sight, at least as far as I could tell. If I remembered right, I once knew of a night sky just like this one. Perhaps when I was a filly.

Resting my head on my hooves, I let my gaze drift as I tried to recall the memories.

But no sooner did I start than a headache began to form.

Sighing, I rubbed between my eyes and turned around. It had been far too long a day to spend the rest of my time trying to conjure up old memories.

Setting the thoughts aside, I pulled back the comforter and nestled in, nuzzling against the big, plush pillows that lay beneath the headboard. After today, all I could hope was that a good night’s sleep would help set me straight, and that tomorrow would prove more productive than spending a whole day on a sofa.

I sank into the mattress and allowed exhaustion to do its work.

Chapter 5 [Alpha]

/////

_____

Once everything was squared away, Twilight and I headed out and down the path leading away from Fluttershy’s.

Once again, the sky was clear, and just above the horizon loomed a sun that bathed the world in a wonderful warm light. It was still early enough that dew clung to the blades of grass and leaves of the trees around us, reflecting the light with a dreamy sort of shimmer. Fluttershy was right, too – it was easy to tell how early into spring it was, as the air had a crisp chill to it that bordered cold. Of course, just as designed, my suit worked to keep my body warm. But I was tempted to shut the system off just to soak in this sensation, the biting nip of early spring that I hadn’t felt in so many years.

Without thinking, I sighed and smiled. It really was something to see, this natural world in all its untampered beauty. Every creature big and small, from the birds flitting overhead, to the bees that hopped from flower to flower, seemed to be completely oblivious to just how fascinating a sight this was. Then again, I imagined they probably hadn’t grown up most of their life in a big city.

Lost in thought, I was startled by a bump against my shoulder. “Is everything alright?”

I turned to look at Twilight, walking beside me. “Yeah. How come?”

“You’ve just been really quiet since we left Fluttershy’s.” Looking forward, she said, “Not nervous about today, I hope?”

I shrugged. “Wouldn’t really matter if I was.” Looking out over a field to a fog-covered mountain far in the distance, I said, “But no. It’s just a really pretty day, is all.”

Twilight hummed beside me. “Hmm… I guess it is, isn’t it?”

“Guessing sunny days like these must be common here, huh?”

“Not necessarily. It depends on the time of season and what the weather committee has planned.”

Weather committee? I turned to look at Twilight with a raised brow and ears forward. “What’s a weather committee?”

Twilight glanced my way and furrowed her brow – then must have realized what she was doing, as her eyes widened. “Oh. That’s right—”

“Yeah, kinda new to this whole Equestria thing,” I said with a knowing smirk.

Twilight shook her head and sighed. “Sorry. Basically, every town has a team of pegasi who work together to craft the weather each day.”

“You mean, weather here isn’t a natural phenomenon?”

“Not in populated areas,” Twilight said, casting her gaze over the field to the left of us. “There are some places where the weather is free to do as it pleases, but that’s usually only over uninhabited regions – like the Everfree Forest,” she said, nodding where she was looking.

I looked across the field and noticed a dense forest, over which hung a few dark clouds. “I take it that’s the Everfree?”

“Yep.”

["... Stays in the Forest" Rewrite Beta]

I galloped through the Everfree as quick as I could, hooves pounding against the mud. Thickets of briars and vines fought to slow me down, but I refused to let whatever had taken Twilight get too far. While my suit protected me from most damage, I was having a hard time keeping my mane from tangling in the briars. The tragedy of looking awesome, of course.

After minutes of chasing the tracking signal, the forest began to thin. I switched on my sonar to bounce sound waves off the trees in hopes of getting a bearing on what lied ahead. Sure enough, it appeared there was a clearing just a few feet ahead.

The canopy overhead began to break, letting streams of dusty sunlight into the woods. I barreled past the beams and straight through a part in the brush. Soon, the trees gave way completely, and I found myself running through belly-high grass. Squinting through the bright daylight, I kept pushing forward – until I skidded to a halt before a far bigger clearing.

“What in the world is this?” I muttered with wide eyes. A crater, perhaps the same circumference as the castle I just left, stretched in front of me, completely surrounded by the Everfree. What shocked me most though was how strangely empty the space was. The crater was overgrown with grass and small shrubs, but no trees grew in its place. It appeared the area had been impacted by some large object in a distant past.

But something was wrong. The tracking signal had approached the center of the crater and then suddenly disappeared. I looked around the edge of the expanse to see if there was a safe way down. It was remarkable, the way the forest seemed to avoid encroaching on the crater. As such, there were no vines or ledges of any sort to make use of, so I figured I might have to fly once again.

But then I noticed something else strange. My sonar seemed to be rebounding from the space in front of me, as if there were a large mass filling the crater. I took a step forward and slowly reached a hoof out to the air in front of me—

“Whoa!” I wrenched my hoof back soon as the tip began to vanish. Stunned, I looked over my hoof and ran a diagnostics, but everything seemed to be fine.

So I tried again. The further I reached into the space, the more my hoof disappeared. It was almost like a cloaking device of some sort covered the air around the crater.

That didn’t make sense though. My sonar was picking up a solid object. So why could my hoof go through it?

Since my suit didn’t seem to be affected by whatever this way, I closed my eyes and slowly bent my head forward into the empty space. A strange kind of cold washed over my muzzle for a second. Then, when I opened my eyes—

“It is a cloak, after all.” Down in the center of the crater sat something that resembled an airship. Surrounding the ship stood a thicket of trees, growing from the ground below and through the cloak. My sensors also picked up the tracking signal once again, which emanated from the ship below.

Pulling my head back, I considered for a moment how to proceed next. I was in a foreign land – an even more foreign forest – and had managed to lose a princess of Equestria. I felt compelled to continue forward on my own, afraid of what might happen at any moment. But something told me this was not my place – that I first needed to inform the others of what was going on.

“You're getting too soft, Nighttide,” I mumbled to myself as I turned in the direction of Ponyville. “This would never have happened if you had stayed by her side.” For once, I decided to throw logic to the side and go on gut instinct:

Tell a friend.

__________

I managed to find my way back to the main trail after only a few minutes. Just before reaching the clearing toward Ponyville, I spotted Fluttershy tending to a group of animals just off the path. Panting, I cried out, “Fluttershy! We have an emergency!”

The animals around Fluttershy scurried away as I galloped up to her. “Nighttide!” Fluttershy said, clearly surprised. “What's wrong? What happened?”

I skidded to a halt in the dirt and took a moment to catch my breath. “Fluttershy… Twilight was kidnapped. Or stolen. Or something – I don't know. She was taken by some invisible floating thing from the old castle!”

Fluttershy's expression immediately turned to panic. “What? Twilight? Wh-what should we do?”

“That's why I'm here. I think I know where she is, but I wanted to let her friends know what happened.”

“Come on, we should tell the others.” Just as Fluttershy turned toward Ponyville, my sensors detected movement in the forest behind me. I spun around and squinted over the canopy of trees. A moment later, I heard Fluttershy call out. “Nighttide! What is it?”

Not a second passed before a cloud of dirt and debris spat into the air over a small portion of the forest in the distance. Using my retinal sensors, I zoomed in on the area and saw the airship-like craft rising in the air, banking away from Ponyville.

“We don't have time,” I shouted over my shoulder. “We have to go after her now.”

Fluttershy squinted into the distance, trying to figure out what the thing was, then looked at me with a horrified expression. “B-but the others—”

“Fluttershy, that thing is taking your princess – your friend – away from us, right now! We've gotta go!”

Galloping ahead, I deployed my wings and engines. Before I took off, I opened my back and shot a warning flare into the air, hoping that somepony else may notice it and see the object in the distance. Fluttershy watched dumbfounded for a few seconds as I took to the air and looped around her.

“Nighttide!” Fluttershy shouted from the ground, “I didn’t know you could fly!”

“Doesn't matter – get up here now!”

Fluttershy spread her wings and pushed herself off the ground, doing her best to catch up with me while I sped forward toward the craft in the distance. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for her to fall behind.

“Alright, too slow, not okay – you're coming with me.” Looping around, I flew over Fluttershy and grabbed her tight around the barrel. Once I had her weight hefted safely in my hooves, I locked all sensors on the airship and gunned the afterburners.

This was my first time pushing these engines to their max, and I had no idea just how loud the things could get. The air around us ripped with the deafening roar of the two turbines, sending me and Fluttershy screaming – literally – through the skies over the forest.

I doubt Fluttershy or I had ever flown this fast in all our lives. I glanced down at the mare who was doing her best to squint forward, eyes tearing up from the wind as her mane was blown back to near oblivion. I shuddered to think what this wind would do to my own mane, but there were more important things to consider at the moment – namely a kidnapped princess.

I looked forward just in time to see the the airship suddenly disappear, appearing to leave no trace of its existence, minus the crater below that was now clearly filled with trees. “Heh, like that's gonna work this time,” I shouted to the wind, keeping my course steady. Switching from sonar to radar, my sensors quickly picked up the location of the object, which was now veering off toward a mountain range in the distance.

“Fluttershy,” I shouted down, “do you know anything about aerial defense?”

“A-aerial—wha—“ Fluttershy stammered uselessly against the wind.

“Forget it, just hang on!”

My radar signaled that at any moment now, we would be entering the cloak field and into who knows what kind of danger. I held Fluttershy as tight to my sternum as I could while I brought our velocity down just enough to prepare for a potential landing.

In a few seconds, we were surrounded by the same cold sensation I experienced back at the crater, and then… well… that “airship” from a distance looked fairly normal earlier. But now that we were within the cloak and flying closer, I realized just how bizarre this thing actually was. The ship itself was shaped somewhat like a boat, with a dark blue painted hull made of wood. But most striking of all were the two giant pegasi wings protruding from each side, flapping slowly in the wind.

“That's the strangest thing I've seen here yet!” I looked over the strange craft curiously while Fluttershy stared at the thing with a lost look. Giving her a light squeeze, I shouted, “Alright lil' filly, when I say go, spread your wings as far as you can!”

I changed our approach angle toward a flat surface near the back of the airship – what appeared to be a deck of some sort. Fluttershy squirmed just a little in my grasp, so I glanced down and gave her a comforting smile in an attempt to reassure her. “You can do this, Fluttershy. I believe in you. Now, get ready!”

Jerking back the flaps along my wings, I reversed the engines and deployed my leg thrusters, then shouted, “Go!” and released Fluttershy to the air beneath her.

The pegasus spread her wings as instructed and filled her plumes with the whipping wind just enough to allow her to safely land on the deck. I then did a quick loop around the circumference of the craft, gauging its different sections before gliding back toward the deck. But just as I went to touch down, the craft swung a hard right.

“Oomph!” I rolled violently across the deck, crushing my left wing beneath my barrel before falling into a crumpled heap at the other end of the deck.

The impact left me lying on my side facing Fluttershy, who crawled toward me as fast as she could, keeping her wings tightly pressed against her sides so she wouldn't be blown off the deck by the wind. “Nighttide!” she called out with a look of panic – though she wasn’t looking straight at me. Glancing over my side, I noticed the only thing that kept me in place was a small railing which, if the ship turned just so, could allow me to fall right off.

“Ungh…” I did my best to roll over onto my stomach. My left wing hung limply out of my side, its engine spitting out smoke. I retracted her other wing and engine before squinting back at the damage that was done.

Fluttershy crawled up beside me. “Are you alright?” she shouted against the wind.

“Looks like I won't be flying for a while,” I slyly remarked, if only to keep Fluttershy calm. There was no way magic would be able to fix this damage, and I couldn’t fit the heap of junk back inside my suit. So, with a single command, I ejected the wing from its mount, sending sparks shooting out of my side. The wing fell with a loud clatter against the deck before sliding off the deck into the forest below. I retracted the damaged engine to examine later and attempted to stand against the wind.

From what I could tell, this was an observation deck of some sort. Across the deck against a short wall was a door with a single porthole-shaped window.

“Come on, Fluttershy. Let's find a way inside this thing.” I started to slink forward, but then I noticed Fluttershy locked in place behind me. “Fluttershy,” I called back, “let's go!”

The little pegasus shook in place, seemingly glued to the deck now and unable to move.

Ugh, why couldn't I have run into Rainbow Dash or something, I thought begrudgingly myself. Slinking back to her, I said, “Fluttershy, what’s wrong?”

“I just… I-I can't…” Fluttershy stared straight at me on shaky knees, tears welling in her eyes.

“Fluttershy, listen to me. Somewhere inside this thing is Twilight. I'm sorry it had to be you, but you are the one I brought along for this. We need to rescue her.” I paused for a moment and furrowed my brow. “I know this isn't the first time you've had to do something scary! I’ve heard some of the stories from Twilight. So what's wrong?”

Indeed, this was not Fluttershy's first time facing adversity for the sake of a friend. I could understand if she was a little shell-shocked from the sudden flight lesson, but to break under pressure now? Talk about bad timing.

Thankfully, Fluttershy slowly regained her composure and steadied her legs. “W-w… what should we do next?” she managed to stammer with a look of seriousness.

“That's my little pony,” I said in as reassuring a manner as I could against the wind. “Follow me.”

We crawled our way to the door at the other end. I reached up for the knob, but was pushed back when it suddenly swung open – and in the doorway stood a familiar blue unicorn stallion.

“S-Sterling Lazuli?!” I called over the rushing wind.

“I thought I heard something up here,” Sterling shouted back. “Either you can stay out here and try to survive the elements, or you can come inside.”

I peered across the side of the deck. The ship was steadily increasing altitude, and from what little I could tell beyond the front of the ship, it looked like we were headed for the top of a mountain.

With no other discernable choice, I nodded to Sterling and began to crawl inside, with Fluttershy right behind me.

__________

Fluttershy and I followed Sterling down a narrow hall, dimly lit by a set of hanging manalights that swayed with the ship. Now that we were clear of the whipping winds, I was able to free my weapons. Two plates along my sides unfastened with a soft click, and I readied my systems to take aim at a moment’s notice.

Stepping to the side to place Fluttershy behind me, I cleared my throat, causing Sterling’s ears to flick my way. “So, fancy airship. Where’d you learn to grow wings like that?”

Sterling exhaled audibly and tilted his head back. “I'm sorry ponies, but this was one adventure you were not supposed to partake in.”

Before either of us could respond, Sterling cast a magic around our sides, restricting our movement to directly forward. I could neither shift my weight side-to-side nor turn my heads, let alone deploy my weapons.

“Sterling!” I shouted. “What's the meaning of this?”

“I'm afraid it's not Sterling, actually.”

“No, it's not,” shouted a familiar voice defiantly from down the hall.

Before long, we walked into a large, hanger-like room that housed a bunch of small crates and a single cage affixed to one of the corners of the room. “You know,” the voice continued, “one cage in an alternate universe was enough for me. I'd really prefer not to have to go through this again.”

Sterling led us to a railing that ran along an overhang. Down below, Twilight stood in the cage, and she seemed far more disgruntled than worried. “Twilight!” Fluttershy called down to her.

“Hey, girls…” Twilight's ears folded back as she watched her would-be heroes being led down a flight of stairs in her direction.

“Well, Twilight,” our captor spoke, “why don't you introduce me to your friends here?”

Twilight groaned. “Girls, this here is Riptide – formerly of the Royal Guard.”

“... Riptide? Seriously?” I would have turned to glare at the stallion, but then the cage door opened, and the two of us were nudged inside.

“And you two might be?” Riptide asked as he closed the door behind the three ponies.

“M-my…” Fluttershy visibly gulped. “My name is Fluttershy.”

Grabbing hold of the bars, I introduced myself once more to the stallion. “Nighttide Star, of the Daedalus Institute of Research and Exploration. You are in direct violation of DIRE code 719—”

“Uhm, Nighttide?” Twilight put a hoof on her shoulder. “That won't be necessary…”

I glanced back at her and pouted before turning to watch Riptide pace outside of the cage. “Alright, there's a couple things I want to know,” he began with a calm tone. “First off, Nighttide, you're obviously no ordinary pony. I noticed you had been by the Princess' side here for the past couple of days, and after I saw you flying with Rainbow Dash over Ponyville, I grew curious. The patch was supposed to examine your magical abilities, but it proved useless in the end. Admittedly, it was a fluke that I ran into you last night, but it was an opportunity I couldn't pass—”

“Okay, look here Ripoff,” I barked back, “let me save you the pain of going through a stereotypical spiel. Just answer this one important question: What's going on here?”

Riptide cleared his throat and sat down in front of the cage. He took a moment to look between me and Twilight with a strangely serious expression. “As Twilight mentioned, I used to be a member of the Royal Guard – for several years, in fact. During my service, I studied many spells that could help me become a better member of the guard. As you can see…” Riptide suggested to his flank at a cutie mark of river rapids. “I'm not actually a medical specialist. My true talent lies in water-based magic.”

I glanced over at Twilight, who seemed to know what the dude was talking about. “Water magic?”

“Correct,” he continued, redirecting my attention. “My position in the Royal Guard was such that in the event of a crisis based within or around a large body of water, I would be able to provide both offensive and defensive services. I'm one of very few unicorns whose talent is with water-related magic.”

“You should tell them the important part, though,” Twilight remarked, her tone laced with venom.

“Of course.” Riptide cleared his throat and took a seat in front of me. “As I furthered my studies, I started to develop a theory. While not exactly related to water-based magic, I got many of the basic principles from how aquatics work.” Riptide paused for a moment. “Over the years, I have been developing something I call 'negative magic'.”

“Negative magic?” Fluttershy timidly asked from behind.

“It is neither dark magic nor the kind of magic us unicorns usually use. It stands alone. Where ours and dark magic 'create', negative magic 'eliminates.' Even infamous creatures like Discord use their magic to create or manipulate something out of a substance that already exists. Negative magic, on the other hand, does the opposite. It removes without the need to replace. It can isolate, encapsulate, and destroy.”

“Well, that sounds evil and junk,” I remarked with thick sarcasm.

“Magic is what you will it to be. Creative or negative magic can be used for either good or bad, but there is a specific difference worth mentioning with negative magic.”

“Go on,” Twilight implored.

“The use of pure negative magic will absolutely erase the existence of whatever it is used on. Space, an object… even a pony.”

Fluttershy cowered further behind us. My ears flicked at the tremor in her quickened breaths, which made me suddenly feel very defensive. But there was one point that had me curious.

Stepping closer to Twilight, I said, “I still don't get what's going on here. What's your motive?”

“I can help you there,” Twilight spoke up. “Riptide here explained that he’s also been observing the Princesses alicorn magic for the last couple of years – at least as much as he could from a distance. But when he heard that a pony living in Ponyville had become an alicorn, things changed. After my coronation, Riptide decided watching over me might be a more convenient solution. He then slacked off so much on his duties that the Royal Guard let him go. Since then, he's been living in the Everfree Forest by night, Ponyville by day.”

“Motive?” I whined. “What's the motive? Anypony?”

“To become the next most famous magician in history,” Twilight answered resolutely.

I… what?

I couldn't believe my ears. “Seriously? That’s it? Just how PG can you ponies get?! You guys are really able to become power-hungry?”

Riptide slumped his shoulders. “Princess Twilight, of all the ponies in Equestria, you should be the last one to so grossly simplify a point. It's not a hunger for power.”

“Then what is it?” Twilight asked with a cocked eyebrow.

Riptide sighed and looked away. I immediately wanted to scoff at the gesture, but I held my tongue. Or lungs. Whatever. “Equestria is a beautiful, peaceful land – that much, we can probably all agree on. And that is thanks in no small part to both the Princesses in Canterlot, the cooperation of billions of ponies over the centuries, and of course, the Elements of Harmony. But in the context of Equestria as a whole, there is a problem with our tactics when it comes to facing some of the more complex issues in life.”

I noticed Twilight's ears flicked forward out of my periphery.

“Thousands of years ago, long before the unity of earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi, ponies of all sorts fought wars with other ponies – and other creatures – in order to conquer the large majority of the land that now makes up Equestria. Through the unity of these ponies and the establishment of Equestria, peace was eventually established. But had it not been for those wars many years ago, this land may well have never existed.”

I looked over at Twilight. She seemed surprisingly curious about what this stallion now had to say. “I've read a lot about the history of Equestria, and I know a little about what you're describing. But we don't have a very detailed account of those times… do we?”

“Only if you know where to look.” Riptide looked away with a solemn expression. “You know how dark magic is forbidden?”

“Of course,” Twilight said with a nod.

“The same goes for Equestria's most ancient history. I discovered the works in a secret corridor within the Castle of the Two Sisters.”

Twilight blinked. “A secret passage? With works of history?”

“With detailed accounts by the ponies of those times.” Riptide stepped up to the bars between us and met Twilight’s gaze squarely. “They are very fragile collections of scrolls and tablets. Our Princesses locked up a small treasure trove of these hoof-written works by the stallions and mares of those days, works that detailed a most gruesome prelude to the eventual clash – and unity – of the three pony races. Those ponies used lethal tactics in order to conquer this land. Blood was shed, suffering was experienced on all sides. Through those means, Equestria eventually became what it is today.”

Twilight wilted a little at that. I looked between the two, very much confused, before Twilight eventually lifted her head. “I'm sorry, Riptide. That's a very well put-together story you have there, but it's pretty hard to believe. And how would you have run across this secret corridor anyway?”

“I read comics when I was a colt once,” he replied genially. “You pull on enough things hanging from the wall, something's bound to happen. Where do you think they got the inspiration for the stories?”

“Alright,” I finally spoke again, “now that the history lesson is finished… motive?!”

“To develop a form of magic that can be used in the event of a major crisis that jeopardizes the lives of those living in Equestria,” Riptide answered flatly.

Now all three of us looked at him with utter confusion.

“Y-you mean, you're trying to help Equestria?” Fluttershy asked as she stood a little closer to Twilight's side.

“Yes. The reason you are all locked up is because I'm afraid the Princesses in Canterlot would look down on my studies very critically.” Riptide stood up and gave us an empathetic look. “This is not a grab at collateral. I need to learn more about Twilight's alicorn magic in order to finish my work, but walking up to a Princess and asking for her help to develop what could potentially be the world's most dangerous form of magic wasn't exactly a viable option. Hence why I had to kidnap her – I won't even sugarcoat it.”

“And you really think I'd cooperate now?” Twilight shouted at the stallion.

“I presume not,” Riptide replied. “And it's unfortunate that you two showed up as well,” he added, suggesting to Fluttershy and I. “But there is something I want to know now that I've explained my story.”

Riptide walked up to the bars in front of me and met my gaze squarely. “What are you?”

I blinked. The question took me off guard for sure, but there was no mistaking what he meant.

Still, that didn't mean I had to reveal any information. “I don't come from a world where we believe in ‘if you tell, I'll tell.’ Just because you explained your story doesn't mean I'm going to open up.”

Riptide looked me over slowly. Most mares would probably take offense at the way this stallion covered every square inch of my body with his eyes, but it wasn’t exactly as if he was checking out my curves. “One thing is for sure: you're not a magical pony. You neither have a horn nor wings to speak of, and my patch didn't pick up any earth pony magic either.”

Well, thank goodness for predictable character revelations. “So you were trying to see if I had magic by using that patch?”

“Correct. It's a spell created by one of Star Swirl the Bearded's lesser-known students.” He frowned for a moment. “It's incredible that such a resource as the Castle of the Two Sisters has been so recklessly abandoned…”

“Much as I'd like to sympathize with you,” Twilight said beside me, “I'm afraid we're at an impasse. I don't believe any of us are going to cooperate with anything you have to suggest.”

“And I expected as much. Had it not been for your friends showing up, I wouldn't have had to lock you up the way I did.”

“So what?” Twilight shouted. “You were still using your magic to restrain me!”

Riptide scowled at Twilight. “I just kidnapped a princess of Equestria – an alicorn with incredible magical capabilities. Did you really think I'd let you just walk around my ship as you please?”

He shook his head, then relaxed his posture. “Here's how this will work, everypony. Until I am finished analyzing Twilight's magic, you are all going to have to stay locked in here. My ultimate intent is to complete the development of negative magic and stabilize it for regular use. Right now, it's still a bit tricky for a unicorn to wield – even the slightest error in its use could be cataclysmic. Once it’s complete, I will surrender to the Royal Guard, but only on the condition that the Princesses review the research I have completed and promise to store it in their files – even if it's locked away from everypony else.”

Twilight furrowed her brow and lifted a hoof, clearly dumbstruck. “Why are you so desperate to create this negative magic, Riptide?”

“Equestria is ruled with peace. But it may not always be able to be defended as peacefully. While we have the Royal Guard, it may not be sufficient to use in the event of an uprising by a collective group of ponies or other creatures.” He glanced over at the crates behind him. “It's been millennia since any formal war was fought on these grounds, and this magic could prove to be the ultimate solution in the event of an otherwise insolvable crisis.”

“How do you propose this magic be used in the event of such a crisis?” I asked.

“In whatever manner the Princesses deem fit. Unfortunately, there is only one truly effective means which I have hypothesized.” Riptide grimaced. “To use it as a weapon to erase the opposition.”

Both Fluttershy and Twilight wilted at that. But I was not as moved. Having grown up with war as the hot topic in my society, I confronted Riptide with one honest question.

“So you would have the peaceful ponies of Equestria protect their ground by killing?”

Riptide looked me straight in the eyes. With all the honesty in the world, he replied, “Yes.”

I understood exactly what the stallion meant. In my world, war was a necessary tool to use when other groups and nations threatened their well-being. But there was one thing which I had learned during my very short stay in Equestria.

“Riptide,” I began. “I believe I understand the concept of war better than either of these ponies standing here with me. And yet, I think you've missed one critical point in your venture… I'm afraid these ponies would never use such a tactic as mass murder for the sake of their own well-being.” I glanced at the two mares before continuing. “I don't know the history of Equestria like Twilight does, or all the various nuances of its government, but I do know the hearts of a hoofful of its ponies. And, heck, even the ponies I don't know all seem to radiate a sense of contentment unlike any I’ve ever seen. To think these ponies would ever stand against another with death in their hearts?” I shook my head. “I don't see that ever happening.”

Riptide snorted. “Better to be prepared than not.” And with that, he used his magic to lead Twilight out of the cage.

“Twilight!” Fluttershy and I both shouted, grabbing hold of her by the withers. It was useless though, as the magic Riptide cast prevented us from following her out of the cage.

Riptide led Twilight up the same flight of stairs from which we came, leaving Fluttershy and I to watch helplessly from our cage. Once the two made their way onto the overhang, I noticed something odd about Twilight’s expression. She didn't seem to be resisting anymore. If anything, she almost seemed to be accepting of what was taking place. Surely Twilight didn’t think was now a good idea?

Soon, the two rounded a bend into another hall. Fluttershy ambled up to my side and lifted a hoof to the bars. “Is there any way we can help her?”

“Give it a little time,” I whispered just as Twilight and Riptide walked out of sight. “I've got all sorts of ideas to bust this joint.”

["Unity" Rewrite Beta]

The scene that just took place seemed so surreal. In a way, it was kind of comical to be bound up by some villain with good intentions. It was yet another situation right out of a story book, just like everything else in Equestria.

But regardless of the absurdity of the situation which Fluttershy and I had walked into, or that our captor was a waterbending magician, the fact remained: this was all real. And Twilight could really be in trouble. It was one thing to contemplate the ridiculousness of everything that was taking place, and quite another to try to see the seriousness in it. I wasn't sure how things would play out next, but whatever happened, I would do my best to help the mare that had devoted so much of her time to make me feel welcome in an unfamiliar land.

“Nighttide?” A frail voice spoke from my left side. “Are you alright?”

I turned to Fluttershy – yet another pony who had gone out of her way to make my unintended visit to Equestria an experience I would never forget. “Yes,” I eventually managed to reply. “Sorry. Was just thinking…”

Fluttershy tilted her head. “What are you thinking about?”

“Just…” I shook my head with a smile. “It's been a crazy couple of days. Guess it's all finally starting to sink in.”

Standing up, I examined the cage surrounding us. “Well, this shouldn't be too hard.” Stepping up to the door out of which Twilight was led, I lifted a bolt latch in my hoof and ran a quick scan: simple wrought iron. Sweet. “Fluttershy, can you look away for just a sec?”

Fluttershy blinked at me. “Sure,” she said, turning around obediently to face the door through which we came. “I'm guessing it's ‘classified?’”

“Nah, just bright.” A flap in my chest opened to reveal a small rod with a beveled edge. I bent forward and touched the rod to the bolt, which immediately began to shoot sparks. “Kind of crude, but it'll work,” I remarked over the sound of the electrical fizzle.

Within seconds, the bolt was cut away, and the door swung open. I turned around, ready to coax Fluttershy into our next move. But to my surprise, she had already turned around and walked up to where I stood.

“Shall we go find Twilight now?” Fluttershy asked, neither confident nor afraid – just ready.

Smiling, I nodded and led the way to the stairs.

__________

With the exception of short-range applications, my sensors seemed to be all but useless within the airship. Considering the reflective magic which cloaked the outside of the ship, I figured it must be permeating through the walls as well. But why would a pony would want to line even the interior with such magic? Unless…

I tilted my head back. “Hey Fluttershy, I know you don't know this Riptide guy, but have you ever seen him around town before?”

“Not that I know of.” She pursed her lips in thought for a moment, then said, “Well, I do remember seeing a blue stallion talking with somepony on my way through town after dropping you off at the library, but I think he had a red cutie mark.”

I sighed again. “Seems like this guy's really been keeping tabs on Twilight. I wonder if he knows anything about me and just isn't letting on.” I hung my head and mulled the thought over. “Nah. I've scanned stuff around you guys and talked about it before, but I've never actually said anything to anypony else. I dunno… it's just weird.” I glanced back at Fluttershy, who returned a silent shrug.

After a while, my sensors finally detected some activity in a nearby room. “C'mon, something's down here.” I motioned for Fluttershy to keep her hoofsteps as quiet as possible. Sneaking forward, I stuck my head around a corner into the adjacent room.

Sure enough, Twilight and Riptide were inside with no visible defenses of any sort around them. Twilight sat on a circular pedestal while a nearby device cast a dark blue shade of magic over her body. I couldn’t tell what the magic was doing, but it didn't seem to be hurting her at least. Regardless, I noticed her expression once again. Twilight looked down at the floor in front of her with ears folded, almost as if she had given up.

Whatever her deal was I could figure out later, after we were out of this mess. I motioned for Fluttershy to step back, which she did so gladly, proceeding to hunker down and cover her eyes. I then opened another flap just above my chest and stepped quietly inside – just enough to line myself up with Riptide.

Out of my chest shot a small pellet that hit Riptide squarely in the neck. He flinched for a second, rubbing at his neck as if a flea had bit him. It wasn’t long before he realized something was wrong. A couple steps back later, and Riptide collapsed to the floor, out cold. Once my sensors confirmed the obvious, I called back to Fluttershy and ambled into the room.

“Your Highness, your mare in shining armor is here to save the day!” I bowed in a most exaggerated fashion and shot a huge grin at Twilight, who briefly gave me a look as if I had said something offensive.

“Y-you guys!” Twilight cheered after a moment. “You got out! But—“ She looked over at Riptide, then back at me with a concerned expression. “I thought you said you wouldn't—“

“And I didn't,” I interjected, lifting a hoof. “Sleep agent. Won't do him a bit of harm… so long as you guys have the same blood as us.” Which I probably should have considered beforehoof. Oh well.

“Thanks, you two. Um, could you…?” Twilight nodded in the direction of the device that was still casting magic around her. I stepped up to the thing and shifted it a little from its position, which seemed to be all that was necessary – instantly, the magic stopped with an audible pop, and Twilight was free to move again.

As Twilight walked off the pedestal, I scanned the device. Given my scant knowledge of magic, all my scan revealed was crude metals and a little bit of unknown ore-based substances.

“Well, I guess this is the part where we get the hay out of here?” Twilight suggested to the two, trying to feign a spark in her voice.

But I wasn't buying. “Twilight? Maybe I'm just jumping to conclusions here, but… something seemed off after Riptide gave his little speech downstairs. Is something wrong?”

Twilight’s ears fell limp at the ends. Whatever chance she had to pretend all was cool fell away after she sputtered uselessly for a second. “L-let's get out of here first,” she eventually managed to say. “Then we can talk.”

“Hey, wait a sec.” Placing a hoof on her shoulder, I said, “If this guy is serious about developing a magic capable of mass destruction, shouldn't we do something about him and this ship?”

“The way I see it,” Twilight said, “this thing is headed somewhere important. I don't know where or for what, but I'd rather find out what its destination is than destroy everything here – or hurt Riptide.” She looked over at the stallion lying on the ground. “Are you sure he's gonna be fine?”

I shrugged. “Pretty sure.” Motioning to the hallway, I said, “Well, this isn't my native land, so if this is the strategy you have in mind, that's fine. But wouldn't it be better for us to ride the ship and see where it goes?”

“We need to contact the Princesses so that they can alert the Royal Guard, just in case this escalates in any way.”

“Fair enough,” I said with a nod. “Lead the way, m'lady.”

The three of us walked out into the hall and made our way back to the deck. Upon opening the door, the wind threatened to suck us out into the freezing air. We hunkered down to the floor and proceeded to crawl out, one by one.

“Hey,” I shouted from the back of the line, “who's flying this thing anyway?”

“It's some sort of preset magic, I think,” Twilight shouted back. “It's been flying on its own ever since Riptide captured me.”

“Oh yeah…” I remembered something pretty important. “Ain't got no wings no more, Princess. Think you could lend a wing?”

Not filled in on the back-story, Twilight looked at me with a little confusion, but then nodded to Fluttershy to crawl back with her to either side of me. The two grabbed hold of my barrel, and as she examined the horizon, Twilight shouted, “On three, spread your wings, Fluttershy! All the way!”

“Yeah, I'm good at this!” Fluttershy shouted back. My chuckle was masked by the sound of the wind whipping around us.

With a “one, two, three!” the pegasus and alicorn spread their wings to their full span and lifted high off the deck, hefting me along with them. Even with all my unsprung weight, I didn't seem to inhibit our quickly increasing altitude.

“Twilight, how high are we anyway!?” Nighttide shouted up.

“I don’t know, you’re the one with the fancy gadgets!” Twilight shouted back. All I could do was grin back.

Looking down, I quickly realized we were thousands of feet above the ground – so high that the air was beginning to thin. The airship we travelled in had apparently worked tirelessly to reach the top peak of a mountain range just beyond us, surrounded by a canopy of snow-filled clouds.

“I think those are the Appleloosan mountains!” Twilight shouted. “How long was that thing flying?”

“For about an hour,” I shouted from below.

With Fluttershy's lack of strength and Twilight's lack of wing dexterity, the two drifted lazily in the air as they slowly began to lose altitude. A clearing in the clouds off in the horizon directed them toward Ponyville, now an almost unidentifiable plot of land in the distance. It would be a few minutes before they could even consider where to land. I just hoped that their wings could hold out for that long, as it seemed weight now began to reveal itself through the trembles in their legs.

With little to say or think about other than our current predicament, we glided forward in silence – thankfully with no incident. As the ground grew closer, we saw a colorful blur heading our way. “Twilight! Fluttershy!” a raspy voice shouted from the distance.

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight shouted with as much volume as she could under her current strain.

As Rainbow Dash closed in, she said, “What in Equestria are you guys doing up here?!”

“Oh, you know, enjoying the view,” I remarked with a careful shrug. “Care to lend a hoof?”

Rainbow Dash tilted her head. “Can't you fly?”

“Of course,” I said, nodding dramatically. “I just prefer being carried… Seriously, one of my wings is broken. Help?”

Rainbow Dash positioned herself beneath my stomach and let some of my weight rest on her back. “Dang, you really are heavy,” she shouted up.

“Well excuse me for being as thick as your skull.”

“It's no prob— hey!”

Now a group of four, we eventually made our landing in a clearing just outside of Sweet Apple Acres. Taking a moment to relish contact with the ground, Rainbow Dash continued hovering overhead. “So, again, what the hay were you guys doing way up there? I saw this weird burst of light a while back, and then a few minutes later, you guys were falling from the sky!”

“It's a long story,” Twilight said. “We should round up the others first, and I need to send a letter off to the Princess immediately. Let's all meet at the library. Rainbow Dash, can you gather the others?”

“Uh, sure.” Rainbow must have noticed the urgency in Twilight’s voice, as she wasted no time in speeding off. After we collected ourselves, Twilight, Fluttershy, and I galloped toward Ponyville, thankful to be earth-bound once again.

__________

“Spike! Spike, where are you?!” Twilight frantically called around the library as she, Fluttershy, and I stormed inside.

“Whoa, calm down Twilight, I'm right here,” the kid called down from the balcony floor, nestled comfortably between several neat piles of comic books.

“Spike, get ready to send a letter to the Princess. It's an emergency.”

Without another word, Spike bolted upright, knocking over a couple of the stacks, and bolted downstairs to grab a scroll and quill from a desk. Fluttershy took a seat while I started pacing around the room, reviewing some of the material I had scanned earlier on my retinal display.

“Ready,” Spike called from a corner of the room.

Twilight cleared her throat. “Princess Celestia. Today, while Nighttide and I were visiting the old castle, I was kidnapped by a stallion named Riptide – a former member of the Royal Guard. During my capture, I learned that he is developing what he called 'negative magic' that is capable of widespread damage… and possibly death.” Twilight hesitated only for a moment as Spike stared straight at the scroll, ready to continue. “Riptide explained that he is working on this magic to present to you and your sister as a means of defense in the event of a crisis, but considering his actions today, I believe that he may be a danger to Equestria. His last known location was above a mountain range beyond the Everfree Forest. Please respond ASAP with instructions on how to proceed.”

Just as Spike began to roll up the scroll, I remembered something important. “Hey Twilight,” I said, “let her know I placed a tracking device on his ship. If we can get to the general area where the ship was headed, I should be able to locate it pretty quick.”

Twilight nodded. “Get that, Spike?”

“Got it.” One puff of Spike's green fire, and the message was on its way. Twilight took a seat of her own next to Fluttershy while I continued pacing. “What's up, Nighttide?”

“Nothing, actually. I'm reviewing over the material I scanned, but I can’t find anything worth noting. Metals, plants, crude construction… there's nothing of significance here.”

Out of my periphery, I noticed Twilight furrow her brow. “Hey, is there any way you could use that hologram to show us what you're looking at?”

My ears perked up. “Yeah, actually.” I opened the door on my back and let the projector hum to life. “Maybe you can figure some of this stuff out.”

I walked up to where Twilight sat so she wouldn't have to stand again, her exhaustion from the flight down now evident in her labored breathing, while Fluttershy watched curiously from aside. “Can you pull up the device that Riptide was using on me just before we escaped?”

“Sure thing.” I switched to an image of the device as it appeared in real life. The actual image displayed on the left, while finer details displayed on the right, such as size, density, identified and unknown substances, etcetera.

“Can you focus on the top part of the device?” Twilight asked. “There's a pattern of some sort on it.”

I digitally zoomed in on the top portion and enhanced the image. Twilight bent forward and squinted at the image. “That pattern…I think I've seen it in a reference guide for Starswirl.”

Suddenly, the front door burst open again, and in came the rest of the crew. “Twilight, what's going on?” shouted Applejack as she galloped inside beneath Rainbow Dash, with Rarity and Pinkie Pie in close pursuit.

“Oh, thank goodness you girls are here,” Twilight sighed, motioning for me to turn off the projector. “It's a long story, so have a seat.”

Twilight took a few minutes to fill everyone in on what took place since morning. Most everyone responded with shocked expressions or, in Pinkie Pie’s case, confusion. “So you're telling us there's this pony who likes water that kidnapped you from the castle and made you float in the air and took you on his flying ship to use you to make bad magic?”

Everyone blinked at Pinkie Pie. “Y-yes, actually,” Twilight said. “All of that.”

“Well then, what are we waiting for? Let's go get ‘em!” Pinkie proceeded to spring back outside, but Applejack caught her by the tail.

“Nuffin doin',” Applejack retorted with a mouth full of pink fluff. “Gih' bach in hurr.” With a flick of her head, she tossed Pinkie back into the room, who returned a scowl.

“Girls, this is serious!” Twilight spoke over the commotion. “If what Riptide said is true, then we could all be in danger!”

“Hold on, dear,” Rarity interjected, “I'm confused about one little point. You said that Riptide was trying to make this magic to help Equestria, not hurt us.”

“I know that, but what I'm concerned about the most is the magic itself, not necessarily his intentions. If he finishes his work – if the knowledge of this magic falls into anypony's hooves – who knows what kind of damage could be done in the future?”

There was a murmur of agreement between everypony. Not wanting to get in the way of the delegations, I took a seat on the floor beside Fluttershy and watched in silence.

“Well then, what do you propose we do?” Applejack asked.

“I'll tell ya what we do,” Rainbow Dash shouted from above, raising a balled up hoof. “We go find that airship thing and kick it out of the sky! Teach that Riptide who's boss!”

“I just sent a letter off to Princess Celestia,” Twilight added, “so let's try to wait until she replies back.”

With perfect timing as usual, Spike belched up a sealed scroll and unfurled it. Clearing his throat, he read the message aloud. “Twilight, thank you for informing me about this incident. I have forwarded the information to the Royal Guard, and they are deploying a squadron of pegasi to the area surrounding the Appleloosan mountains. I will let you know as soon as I hear back from them. While I cannot suggest you use the Elements of Harmony any further, I would recommend that you work together with your friends, as well as Nighttide, to develop a solution.”

“Hey, wait a sec,” I interrupted. “What's this about the Elements?”

“Well, there's one thing we left out when visiting with the Princess,” Twilight said, turning to face me with drooping ears. “We had to return the Elements back to the Tree of Harmony when Discord's plunderseeds began to grow and spread vines all across Equestria.”

I glared at Fluttershy. “Your Discord, I take it?” Fluttershy returned a weak smile and nodded with a blush.

At Twilight’s nod, Spike continued reading the scroll. “I will speak with Luna to see how we should proceed next, but until we locate Riptide, your brother Shining Armor will be re-stationed here in Canterlot. I have sent a message to Princess Cadance asking her to send him this way now, and for her to be on the lookout for Riptide anywhere near the Crystal Empire.” Spike then rolled the message back up and placed it on the desk.

Everypony looked between each other for a few seconds in silence, not sure of what to say or do next. I wasn’t exactly sure how these ponies dealt with situations like this, but my training had already kicked in, like, an hour ago back in the skies. I didn’t want to step on anypony’s hooves, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to speak my peace at least.

“Okay, so, we've got a unicorn on the loose who is developing a dangerous form of magic. A few of us can fly, a few can't…” I stood up and faced Twilight. “Didn't you mention something about a balloon of some sort as means of transportation?”

“Yes,” she said with a nod. “In fact, we have a hot air balloon that we use for events here in Ponyville.”

“Perfect.” I started to continue, but I wasn’t sure where the boundaries were for a newcomer like myself. Biting my lip for a moment, I glanced around at everypony, all of whom seemed to be patiently waiting for me to speak. So, with a gulp, I said, “I know I'm not formally a part of the group here, but is it alright if I make a suggestion?” Everyone nodded in response, a few of them returning smiles. “Alright then… Here's my professional opinion.

“Based on my training with DIRE, the first order of business in a crisis like this would be reconnaissance – to scout out and locate the enemy, which as Princess Celestia mentioned, the Royal Guard is now attempting to do. While that's fine, there's no reason we can't pitch in as well. But we need to come up with a plan, and I think I may have a few strategies that could help out here… especially given you ponies don't have the Elements to use anymore.”

I met Twilight’s gaze to see if I was overstepping my bounds. Instead, she brightened a little and returned a smile.

I made sure to return the gesture. “As I understand it,” I continued, “you ponies don't use telecommunications here. Spike, are you able to send and receive letters from the Princess wherever you are in Equestria?” He nodded. “Then this is my suggestion: All of us ponies who can't fly should take to the hot-air balloon, provided it can carry our weight.” I glanced at Twilight, who gave an affirming nod. “We’ll take Spike with us as messenger for the Princess. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy can fly ahead of the balloon and scout out the mountain range along with the Royal Guard.” I gave a firm but sweet look to Fluttershy, who did her best to put on a confident face. “In the event anypony locates Riptide, one pony or another will meet with the other group and inform them. Twilight will fly with us in the balloon and act as our messenger, so she can stay near Spike in case she needs to correspond with the Princess.

“In the event we do locate Riptide, and provided it’s accessible, we'll set a course for the ship or its target destination and proceed with caution. We don't know what kind of magic he may use in self-defense, but he seemed very serious about completing this ‘negative magic’ stuff. The sleep agent I used on him will only last about two hours. However, the goal will be his capture, not to bring any harm to him. And…” I drew a breath. “That's it. What do you all think?”

Everypony looked between each other. After a moment, they all agreed unanimously to give it a shot.

“There's just one thing I'm concerned about,” I closed off, “and it's ironic, given Riptide's intentions… We need to be ready to defend ourselves in the event he acts out in a violent manner. If he decides to use this magic he's developing, then we could all be in serious danger.” I paused to gauge everyone's expression. “I need to know you ponies are ready to defend yourselves if it comes down to it.”

“What do you mean by ‘defend,’ exactly?” Twilight asked.

I sighed. Twilight knew full well what I was hinting at, but I guess I had to spell it out for the others. “I honestly can't say. This magic he's talking about, I don't have any idea how it works or if there's even anything we could do against it. And, for all intents and purposes, I don't have a clue how magic works – period. You ponies here are the experts. In any case, what I guess I'm trying to say is… If any one or the other of us is put in danger, we need to be ready to protect ourselves, no matter what.”

While my inflection may have not suggested the mortal point I was trying to convey, everypony let out an understanding sigh. “Don't worry, Nighttide,” Twilight spoke for the others. “This isn't the first time we've had to do something dangerous.”

“Yeah, I know.” I hoofed at the ground a little, worried I had now taken my lead a little too far. “I just don't want anything bad to happen. And, for those ponies who didn't know already…” I stuck out my in-tact right wing and engine, to Applejack and Pinkie Pie's surprise. “I was actually able to fly up until just a few hours ago. So, if something happens out there, I'm not going to be able to come to anypony's rescue.”

Applejack blinked at the sight a couple of times before shaking clear the shock. “Now Nighttide, I hope you're not thinkin' you're responsible for any of this? The way you're talkin', it's almost like you're tryin' to make up for somethin'.”

“No, it’s not that. It's just…” I took a breath and hung my head. “If this was even just a few days ago, I probably would’ve charged head-first into a situation like this with guns blazing – barely a thought given to the welfare of the enemy. It’s the way I was trained. I’ve followed DIRE's rules and regulations to a fault, and even though I’m still a pony with feelings of my own, those were made to be my last priority. To fulfill the duties assigned to me, and to act according to protocol – that's how I was raised. And those protocols don’t highlight any importance on the welfare of ponies other than our own.”

I looked up to see everypony listening intently. “There's some of you I still don't know well… Applejack. Rarity. Pinkie Pie. And there are a couple of you that I've gotten to know a little better recently, like you, Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy, of course. And,” I said with a slight smile, “your newest princess of Equestria, Twilight Sparkle. There's still a lot I have to learn in life – there's so much that I want to accomplish that I haven't thought about for years. But in just the short amount of time I've got to know you all, I've been reminded of what it means to think for yourself, to feel for yourself, and how to respond to those feelings without completely losing yourself. I don't know what it is about you girls, but you've made me feel so welcome, so loved. Like I'm important because I'm a pony, and not a project.

“And, for what it's worth,” I rambled on, “i-it's been a great experience… I don't know really where I'm going with all of this, but…” I rubbed my neck. “Suffice it to say, if it hadn't been for you all, I could have become something much worse in life. I was meant to kill. But I want to mean so much more than that.”

And with all that sap out of my system, I turned to face a window with my sternest face. “Most of all, I want to handle this crisis the way you ponies would. I believe in your ways. There has to be a way we can solve this without anypony getting hurt.”

Each of the ponies in the room gathered around me – some of them a little teary-eyed, others with warm smiles. Twilight was the first to speak. “Nighttide, I think I can speak for us all when I say that we consider you to be our friend. Yes, some of us haven't got to know you real well yet.” Twilight looked over at Applejack and Rarity, both of whom returned their warmest smiles. “But that doesn't really matter right now. As far as we’re concerned, for as we know you and all that we've got to share already, we proudly consider you a friend – and a very welcome guest to Equestria.”

I cocked my head in each pony's direction, blinking a little frantically. As I tried to formulate a response, Applejack spoke again.

“Twilight's right, Nighttide. We'd sure love to get to know ya better, and hopefully in the next few days, we can do just that! But from where we stand right now, you're a friend in our eyes.” Pinkie Pie bounced in agreement beside her with a huge grin.

It took me a while, but I finally found my voice. “It's still so funny to me, how you ponies can be so welcoming.” I looked back out the window at the overcast sky, having been created by the weather patrol just a little earlier. “Well, whatever happens next, I guess I should say… even if it is still new to me… I consider you all to be my friends as well.”

The ponies let out a round of “Awh's” befitting a bloody prep squad and engulfed me in a group hug, which all but locked me in place. Each of them gave me a nuzzle, and as the warmth and softness of each pony's embrace sank in, I couldn't help but smile the biggest smile.

So, this is friendship.

“Alright, everypony,” Twilight said in the middle of the hug. “Let's go take care of this.”

The group let out a round of cheers and broke off to head outside. Twilight and I were the last ones to step out the door. I remembered again her expression from earlier, and since nopony else was paying attention at the moment—

“Twilight,” I said. “About earlier, on Riptide's ship. Can you tell me what that was all about?”

“What, you mean— oh…” Twilight's confident expression quickly melted. “Uh… let's just say, I have a few questions I need to ask the Princesses later.”

“You mean about Equestria's history, right?”

“Yeah…” Twilight knitted her brow in thought and let her ears fall limp for a moment. Then, with a weak smile, she looked my way and said, “I'm sure it'll all be fine in the end. They always have a good reason for the choices they make.”

“I can easily see how you'd feel that way. But, speaking as an outsider without as much personal bias, I have to admit that that's a significant decision on their part – to hide history – and one that certainly merits questioning.”

“I know,” Twilight said, clearly a little flustered. “That's why I'm going to speak with them about it.”

I gave her a nod, then galloped ahead to catch up with the others.

["Strength in Numbers" Rewrite Alpha]

Pinkie’s balloons were one thing. They were small, cute, a little on the fragile end, but otherwise simple. But the balloon that now sat in Ponyville’s plaza? Yeah. Now this was a sight to behold.

“What a crazy looking contraption,” I mused aloud, walking around the mighty purple balloon of Ponyville. The balloon itself was nearly twice the size of Fluttershy’s cottage, and just a hair bigger than some of the buildings that lined the streets.

Twilight was going over her check-list nearby when she noticed me pacing around, staring up inside at the burner. “I thought you said you had balloons from your land?”

“We do, but… they don't look anything like this. They're enclosed setups and are way bigger than—”

“You mean blimps, right?” Twilight interrupted. “You were describing something like them on the train back from Canterlot. We have those as well.”

I blinked at her. “So I guess you guys do have more than I thought.”

Twilight gave me a smirk. “I'm just gonna have to fill you in on all sorts of things, won't I?”

“Guess so.” Stepping around the cheeky purple pony, I watched Applejack and Rarity climb into the balloon’s basket. Pinkie Pie stood off to the side talking with Mr. and Mrs. Cake from Sugarcube Corner. They had been gracious enough to close shop early to help with releasing the balloon for flight. Rainbow Dash stood another few feet away, making dramatic gestures with her hooves and wings to a clearly nervous Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash had managed to call off of work early as well, cashing in one of her many earned sick days. Everyone wore saddlebags filled with first-aid kits and warm clothing, and Pinkie Pie made sure to pack a snack for everypony as well.

“I don't believe we've packed this much stuff since we asked that dragon to leave,” Twilight mused aloud. “And you said your ponies would do this every time they set off on a mission?”

“Oh ho,” I scoffed, glaring back at Twilight. “You have no idea the stuff they expect us to take along. During basic training, they have most ponies carry these weighted saddle-packs filled with sand so ponies build the strength to carry equipment for a real operation.”

Twilight tapped a hoof to her chin. “I know they put the Royal Guard through some rigorous training, too. Shining Armor's told me stories kind of similar to that.” Her ears drooped. “But I guess your ponies have to prepare for more, where you come from.”

“It is what it is.” I wrapped a foreleg gently around Twilight's withers. “Thankfully, your ponies don't. Not now at least. And if we have anything to say about it, we'll make sure ol' Riptide doesn't change that fact.”

Twilight returned a soft smile, though I could see she was still uneasy.

“Twilight, seriously. It does you no good to keep worrying about it.” I gave the alicorn a knowing look, hoping she’d see fit to reason.

But instead, Twilight tilted her head away. “I'm sorry. It's just… hearing about Equestria's history? I've been through a lot these past years, and I've always considered Princess Celestia to be someone I could trust, no matter what.” Twilight paused for a moment as she looked in the direction of Canterlot. “And I still feel that way. For all I know, Riptide really could have just been making it up.”

“Maybe.” Not that I bought the idea myself, but I wasn't going to push the point any further. “We'll figure it all out in the end. Just keep your head up until then, alright Princess?”

“Please,” Twilight said, stiffening her shoulders. “Don't call me that. Not right now at least.”

I nodded gingerly and stepped aside, allowing Twilight to gather the others together.

__________

“So, umm… where exactly are we headed?” Rainbow Dash flew in closer to the balloon, with Fluttershy gliding quietly beside her. I stepped up to the side of the balloon to get a better look. Beneath us stretched Sweet Apple Acres in all its spring glory, stretching for miles across rolling hills before blending into a forest that lined more jagged terrain – beyond which lied a grey horizon.

“To the Appaloosan mountains.” Twilight pointed in the direction of the snow-capped mountains in the distance. “That's the direction Riptide was last headed.”

“Gotcha.” Rainbow glanced over at the pegasus beside her. “Ready, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy returned a quick nod and a feeble smile, about as ready as she would ever be.

“Alright then,” Rainbow said, pushing her lithe body just ahead of our balloon. “I'm gonna fly on ahead. Fluttershy, when you get to the mountains, just… swoop around or something, look for clues. I'll find you when you get there and see how you're doing.” It seemed like Rainbow was in a particularly good mood. I guess it would figure she’d be the adventuring type – something which I highly doubted was the case for her wingmare.

But, to my surprise, Fluttershy seemed to be relatively collected. “Alright, you go ahead then. I'll see you soon.”

“'Kay.” Rainbow Dash sped off for the mountain range, contorting a few clouds as she passed alongside them before splitting the sound barrier.

As Fluttershy puttered slowly ahead, Pinkie Pie leaned over the side of the basket. “Good luck, girls!” She waved the two pegasi off while Applejack and Rarity stepped up to take in the view. Over in another corner, Twilight sat talking with Spike, most likely over something to do with the Princess.

“Ah, crap…” That reminded of something important. “Twilight, you may want to tell your Princess that tracking signal I mentioned may not come in handy after all.”

Twilight looked over. “What do you mean?”

“Well, when that ship has its cloak engaged, it seems to conceal the signal. My sensors literally bounced right off of it, so it acts as a kind of containment field as well.”

Twilight rubbed a hoof across her chin. “You know, you never really did explain to me what you found on the ship. And I still need to look at that image of Riptide's magic device.”

“Right.” I did my best to fill Twilight in on what I learned during the slow flight forward. Keeping things concise was the hard part, but I eventually got to the part where we escaped. “When we flew off the deck, did you notice how the ship vanished shortly after we were airborne?”

“Sorry, no. I was too busy carrying somepony.” Twilight smirked.

“Yeah… fair enough,” I said with a sheepish grin. “Well, it did disappear, and more than likely because we passed through the cloak. We were traveling so fast though, I couldn't tell when or if we passed through it, but my report says the tracking signal was detected whenever we were on or near the ship, and that it was lost when we weren't.”

Twilight sighed as she stood up to look toward the mountain range. “Well, that's okay. Hopefully the Royal Guard or Rainbow Dash can find something.”

“Or Fluttershy!” I chirped.

Twilight laughed. “Yes, or Fluttershy… I sure hope she'll be alright out there.” We took a seat together at the end of the basket and watched as we slowly inched closer to the mountain range in the horizon.

__________

About an hour had passed before we reached the leading edge of a snowstorm that surrounded the mountains. Sensors showed we still had another few kilometers before we could get a good look at the terrain, and further still before my sensors could sweep the region for any sign of the tracking signal.

For the last few minutes, I had been listening to Pinkie Pie tell the story of how she got her cutie mark, when suddenly, a blip appeared on my sensors.

I stood up and walked over to the edge, giving my sensors a better view. “Hey Twilight, I think I found it.”

“You mean Riptide?”

“Yep. I'm trying to fine-tune the signal now… give me a second.”

I closed her eyes to get a better view of my retinal display, which showed a fairly defined blip tucked inside a crevice between two mountain peaks. Zooming in on the grid topography, I noticed a flat section of land just big enough to land something the size of Riptide's ship.

Smirking, I looked over at Spike. “Contact the Princess. The tracking signal is between those two mountains in a small clearing,” I said, pointing over the side to a large peak directly in front of us and a smaller one beside it.

“Um…” Spike looked up at Twilight. “What do you want me to say?”

Twilight waltzed up to his side and placed a hoof on his scales. “I'll trust you with it, Spike. I need to fly ahead and let the others know.”

“Oh, uh, sure! I can do that!” From what I understood, Spike had only ever been able to write personal letters to the Princess in the past when he and the others had been assigned to report on lessons in friendship. This kid looked pretty stoked to be tasked with writing an important letter like this on his own; he pulled out a scroll and quill as Twilight jumped over the side of the basket, spreading her wings to glide forward.

“Twilight!” I shouted down. “Radar's picking up one fast and one slow moving contact just around that smaller peak in front of us. Betcha it's Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy.”

“Got it!” Twilight awkwardly flapped her wings, trying to gain some speed and stability as she worked her way toward the mountain. Spike finished writing the letter to the Princess, and with a puff, the letter was on its way.

“Hey Pinkie.” I walked over to the corner where she was now standing with Applejack and Rarity. “Is there any way for us to steer this thing?”

“You bet!” Pinkie reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a small white tube, which she shook with her mouth until it opened up into a huge, brightly colored paper fan. The others looked at her, but only one of us seemed shocked at the sight.

“Seriously?” I blinked as Pinkie proceeded to start flapping the fan over the side of the basket. Indeed, it was changing our course, but not quite as fast as I wanted.

“Here, I've got a better idea.” I stepped over to one corner of the basket and asked the others to gather around. “I'm gonna try using my working engine to push us, but I'm gonna need you all to hang onto me so I don't end up flying over the side.”

“Not a problem,” Applejack said as she, Rarity, Pinkie, and Spike braced themselves in front of me. I released my right turbine, and with a little sputter, the engine slowly came to life.

It was a good thing there were the four of them to hold me in place, for even at its lowest throttle, the little engine pushed our basket so far forward that it started to tilt. Everyone shuffled a little in place as they tried to hold their grip while I kept my focus on the tracking signal, making sure we were on the right path.

Once we had enough momentum, I disengaged my engine, and Pinkie Pie walked over to adjust the balloon's burner. A few minutes later, we could see a colorful blur heading our way, with a faint yellow dot trailing slowly behind.

“Hey guys!” Rainbow Dash clambered into the basket. “So, you found the bad guy?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I said. “But where's Twilight?”

Rainbow tilted her head. “What d’ya mean?”

I suggested to the horizon where Fluttershy was laboring to make her way back to the balloon. But there was no sign of Twilight.

“Oh yeah… heheh.” Rainbow rubbed her neck and grinned. “Well, she was a little slow, y'know? What with those new wings and everything? So I just decided—“

“To leave her behind?” Applejack interjected with a frown.

“Hey, I didn't leave her behind! She flew past me to grab Fluttershy.”

On that note, Fluttershy climbed back into the basket – but she was definitely not sporting a grin. “Girls, something strange just happened,” she said with a frantic expression that matched her tone.

“What's wrong?” Rarity asked. “Where's Twilight?”

“That's just it. Right after Twilight found me, we saw this flash between those two mountains.” She pointed in the general direction of the tracking signal. “It was down in a clearing, just past the storm. We only saw it for a second – after that, all we could see was snow.”

“Alright, fine,” Rainbow said, “but where's Twilight?”

“She told me to fly back here while she checked it out. But when I looked back a few minutes later, I saw her flying toward the clouds below!”

We all scrambled over the side of the basket, tipping the basket slightly. After a few seconds of scanning around, I picked up a slow-moving blip on the radar. Just barely noticeable in the distance flew an alicorn, circling around the mountain toward the snowstorm.

“What's she doing down there?!” I shouted, pointing down at the purple dot in the distance. “Doesn't she know that's a storm?”

“I dunno,” Applejack said as she spotted Twilight herself, “but if she keeps goin' like that, she could be in big trouble!”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Rainbow barked just before diving off the side of the basket.

Several seconds passed as we watched Rainbow Dash speed toward the wayward mare, but before she could reach her, Twilight flew into the clouds. Rainbow Dash skimmed above where she disappeared, trying to find a good approach angle. But then she slowed to a hover.

“Something's wrong,” Rarity said. “Pinkie, is there any way we can get down there?”

“Leave it to me!” Pinkie Pie jumped up and turned the balloon's burner off completely, allowing us to descend a little faster.

I couldn’t think of any good reason why Twilight would want to check something out without us, let alone dive into a snowstorm on her own. But then another peculiar thought crossed my mind. “Hey Spike, you got anything back from the Princess?”

“Not yet.” Spike allowed his gaze to drift for a moment. Even he seemed to find it odd the Princess hadn’t responded yet. “Maybe she's busy with something else.”

All I could do was shrug. As our balloon continued to descend faster, I kept a lock on Twilight's pattern with my radar. She was now buried deep within the storm, her path remaining fairly straight and steady for the tracking signal. It would have been one thing if Twilight just happened to be flying in its general direction, but for several minutes now, she had maintained her course – a nearly perfect line for the signal just a couple' kilometers ahead of us.

Soon, Rainbow Dash flew back to the balloon with a panicked look. “Guys, I lost her! What the hay is she doing anyway?!”

“I don't know,” I said, “but something's odd about the direction she's headed.” I informed everyone what I noticed about her and the tracking signal.

Rainbow Dash took a moment to preen her feathers in the basket. Off to the side, Spike ran a claw across his chin, deep in thought. “Hey guys.” He turned to both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. “Did you run into any of the Royal Guard while you were out there?”

“No,” Rainbow Dash said. “It was just us until Twilight showed up. How about you, Fluttershy?”

“Sorry, no. When I got to the mountains, I didn't see anypony until you found me.”

Applejack sighed. “We never should’ve let Twilight go out there on her own…”

“Well, how else could we let Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy know to meet back here?” Pinkie suggested. The other ponies nodded in agreement, but it didn't change the desperate nature of the situation.

With a flap of her wings, Rainbow Dash flew off the side of the basket again and turned to the others. “I don't know about you ponies, but I'm not one to sit around and wait for something to happen. I'm going in after her!”

“Hang on a sec!” I shouted, throwing open my projector. On the display was a map of Twilight's trajectory, as well as the location of the tracking signal. “With where we're positioned right now, if you fly toward this blip here,” I said, pointing to the highest dot, “you'll be flying the same path as Twilight. Right now, I can't get a bearing on her elevation, but she's down there in the storm somewhere. Just fly in that direction.” I pointed off the side of the basket.

Fluttershy strode up and looked at where I was pointing as well, then turned to Rainbow Dash. Without so much as a quiver to her voice, she said, “I'm coming with you.”

Rainbow Dash blinked at her friend. “Fluttershy, I don't think—“

“Listen, Rainbow Dash,” she firmly said. “Twilight’s in trouble. This isn't like when I was trying to help gather rainwater for Cloudsdale.” She met Rainbow Dash’s gaze squarely and said, “I'm coming with you.”

Rainbow Dash seemed taken aback by Fluttershy’s sudden seriousness. She took a few seconds to examine the hologram, then looked back at her. “Are you sure?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I'm positive.”

Rainbow Dash returned her own nod, then went into a nose-dive, with Fluttershy following close behind. I was impressed at the sight, but the feeling passed silently as I continued to monitor Twilight's trajectory.

The balloon continued its descent for several minutes, slowly closing in on the clouds below them. Pinkie Pie reignited the burner to slow their fall as Nighttide worked to figure out a good landing spot, but then—

“Hey, does anypony see that?” Applejack pointed down at a distant clearing where a bright blue flash was beginning to grow. Nighttide picked it up as a solid object, much like the cloak from earlier. But something was different. It almost looked like a shockwave.

Everypony watched on, figuring in time, the flash would dissipate. But it continued to grow, heading straight for them. Their eyes widened.

“Brace for impact!”

Nighttide and the others dove to the floor of the basket as the shockwave slammed into the balloon, knocking everypony into each other and sending Spike off the side. He grabbed on to one of the leading ropes as the basket whipped wildly in the wind. “Help! Somebody help me!”

Rarity spotted Spike struggling to hang onto the rope and used her magic to pull him back inside, tucking him in between herself and the corner of the basket. Applejack and Pinkie Pie had been tossed to the other side and were now holding onto each other, while Nighttide struggled to stand to her hooves.

Their trajectory had been skewed. The balloon was now dropping at a violent rate toward the clouds below. Nighttide carefully looked up, trying not to lose her balance, and noticed the burner had been knocked onto its side. The flame still shooting out the end was now scorching the frame that held it in place.

Nighttide met eyes with the other ponies when they all realized their predicament. As the balloon increased velocity, everypony's heart sank into their stomachs.

Pinkie Pie clutched desperately to Applejack. “What are we going to do?!”

Nighttide carefully worked her way over to the edge of the basket, the ever decreasing gravity trying to knock her off balance. Off to the side, Rarity grabbed hold of Spike and held him close to her chest.

Once Nighttide crawled to the edge, she looked down and said, “No… at this rate…”

Without so much as a word, Rarity closed her eyes as her horn began to glow an intensely bright white, the familiar whistle of magic penetrating the rushing wind around them. Slowly, the balloon was wrapped in a soft white aura.

“Rarity,” Applejack called from the far corner, a stunned look on her and Pinkie Pie's faces as they held onto each other. “Can you…?”

Just as the balloon was about to dive into the clouds, everyone was wrapped in the same white glow. But Nighttide noticed something strange about the magic.

“Celestia, please let this work—” Rarity spoke through gritted teeth as she held on as tight as she could to Spike.

Then, a large flash encompassed everypony. The balloon, and all its passengers, vanished.

__________

“Damn… what the hell did that pony do?”

Nighttide crouched in a thick plot of fresh snow as she peered into the grey horizon. Not a pony could be seen, and her sensors were completely garbled. But as concerning as that was, there was something else that worried her more. Just before the crash, she had seen Rarity's horn glowing white. She figured she was about to use a teleportation spell of some sort, but then something happened right before they were separated. Her magic had turned blue.

Nighttide stood up to her full height, the weight of her suit keeping her planted fairly securely in the loose ground. It appeared she was on an embankment. The slope above was too steep to climb, but she could work her way downhill. Hopefully in time, she would run into somepony else.

As she walked toward the grey horizon, Nighttide let her systems run a diagnostic sweep. It appeared the shockwave had elements of an electromagnetic pulse. While not strong enough to disable or erase her systems, it had been enough to fry some of the internal components of her sensors.

“Weapons… check… Reactor… check… Vitals are stable…” Nighttide mumbled to herself as she pushed forward against the wind, reviewing the diagnostic report. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted an orange and pink lump half-buried in snow. “Applejack! Pinkie Pie! Is that you?”

“Yeah, we're over here!” Applejack shouted as she waved her over. Pinkie Pie was huddled together with her underneath a brightly colored blanket, trying to stay warm as the snow piled around them. They had both wrapped scarves around their necks, and it appeared Applejack's hat was missing.

“Thank goodness you two are alright… You are alright, right?” Nighttide shouted against the wind.

“Yeah, we're fine. We were gonna look for the others, but then this storm…”

“I know what you mean.” Nighttide turned her muzzle toward the wind, peering off in the distance in hope that she could spot some other colors. Nothing. “Are you two able to stand?”

“Only if we stick together,” Applejack replied. “The wind's too strong!”

Pinkie Pie shifted onto her knees, her blanket almost flying away. She reached back and pulled it off the two, then tucked it inside her saddlebag. “C'mon, Applejack. We've got some friends to go save!”

“G-g-glad to see you're s-still in high spirits, P-Pinkie,” Applejack commented as she gave a visible shiver to the sudden loss of warmth. Nighttide noticed the wind was picking up, so she worked her way between the two mares and switched her systems to purge heat, allowing her suit to radiate warmth to share with the others.

The three marched forward into the grey of the storm. After a few seconds of silence, Nighttide spoke up. “Hey, do either of you know what exactly happened?”

“We were wonderin' that ourselves.” Applejack held her head closer to Nighttide's, trying to angle against the wind. “In case ya didn't know, Twilight's the only pony we've ever known who's been able to teleport. But I think that's what Rarity was tryin' to do back on the balloon. All's I remember is bein' surrounded in this bright light, but then it got real dark all the sudden. Next thing I knew, I was lyin' in the snow, and Pinkie Pie here was at my hooves.”

Nighttide could feel Pinkie shivering against her side. It appeared she was now the cold one. “Y-y-yep, that's wh-what I remember t-too. I also heard wh-what sounded like a sc-scream in the distance when I w-woke up.”

“You know which way it came?” Nighttide asked.

Pinkie shook her head. They continued forward in silence for several minutes, hoping that they would eventually run into their friends. Occasionally, the snow on the ground would level out for a bit, and they would look in either direction to figure out which way to go. It didn't really matter if they turned or continued straight – there was no starting point from which to remember. So they picked and chose random directions as they slowly inched their way through the storm.

Finally, they heard something. A faint whimper not too far from them.

“… Ya hear that?” Applejack shouted.

“Sure it's not just the wind?” Nighttide asked.

“Pretty sure it's somepony. Come on.”

The trio turned toward the sound and bolstered their sides against the wind. As they trudged through the snow, they spotted what looked like a yellow wing sticking out of a very tall mound of snow.

“Fluttershy?!” Applejack shouted into the freezing air, but no response. She turned to Nighttide and Pinkie. “It looks awful steep.”

“I know,” Nighttide agreed. “Let me see if I can make it up. My suit should help keep me planted to the ground. You two stay here and hunker down.”

Nighttide broke free from the group as Applejack grabbed hold of Pinkie Pie, bracing themselves as close to the ground as they comfortably could.

“Fluttershy!” Nighttide called out as she slowly made her way up the loose mound of snow. With every other step, she could feel a portion of the mound giving way underneath. She looked back to the other two and saw they were backing up slowly, the snow beginning to fall in small layers in front of them. But in time, Nighttide broke even with the top of the mound and found Fluttershy lying perfectly still on her side, her left wing sticking rigidly out of her side.

Nighttide trotted carefully forward and sat next to her. She tried to run an external vitals scan on her, but even those sensors appeared to be damaged. She carefully picked up Fluttershy's muzzle and stroked her pink mane, which was now a tangled mess.

“Fluttershy! Fluttershy, can you hear me?”

No response. Fluttershy appeared to be unconscious. Nighttide carefully checked her body, being careful to not move it too much in case she had suffered any internal injuries. There didn't appear to be any major scrapes, but her wing stuck out at an odd angle. She didn't like how it jutted out without so much as giving into the force of the wind.

After a moment, Fluttershy began to mumble something. Nighttide leaned down and nuzzled against her, trying to stroke her back to waking.

“… Tw… Twili…”

Fluttershy tilted her head up ever so slightly. As she opened her eyes, she met with Nighttide's.

“Fluttershy… it's Nighttide. Are you okay?”

Fluttershy tried to sit up a little, but recoiled in pain.

“OW-AAH—Wha…” She looked over to her side and noticed her wing.

“Fluttershy, we've crash-landed somewhere in the mountains. Applejack and Pinkie Pie are just down this hill, but we haven't found the others yet.”

Fluttershy struggled to sit up as Nighttide wedged herself underneath her to act as a brace. Fluttershy's saddlebag had been ripped off at some point; only part of the strap remained looped around her.

“I… I think my wing's broken,” Fluttershy whimpered with a barely audible voice.

“Looks like it. The others still have their saddlebags, so they should have some first-aid kits on-hand.”

Fluttershy swayed a little in place as she braced herself against Nighttide. Even though she wasn't an ace flyer, she knew enough about wings that a first-aid kit would not be enough to fix the damage done. But then she thought of something. “H-have you guys found Twilight?”

“No. We haven't ran into Rarity or Spike yet, either. And last we knew, you were following Rainbow Dash into the storm." Nighttime paused as a gust of wind pushed against them. "Can you remember what happened?”

Fluttershy took a few seconds to process the question, then shook her head.

“Come on.” Nighttide helped Fluttershy to her hooves. “Let's meet up with the others down the hill. Can you walk?”

Fluttershy took a couple of short steps forward, but stumbled into Nighttide. The two almost toppled over, but Nighttide held her ground.

“Slow.” Nighttide said. “Let's go slow.”

“Alright,” Fluttershy murmured.

The two carefully made their way down the mound and back to their friends. Thankfully, the snow didn't slip too much on their way down. With the temperature around them, Nighttide figured the snow could easily be compacting into a frozen solid.

The four ponies gathered around each other as Applejack pulled a first-aid kit out of her saddlebag. Fluttershy instructed her to the best of her ability on how to wrap her wing in a makeshift cast using gauze and a splint. As Applejack wrapped the first layer of gauze around her wing, Fluttershy yelped in pain every so often. It felt as if a bone in her wing had been fractured, and what with the angle it shot out, probably in more places than one.

It took several minutes, but Applejack eventually finished the job, wrapping the wing in two thick layers. Fluttershy was now wide awake thanks to the pain, but her wooziness had not died down much. She brushed back her mane and felt a tender spot on her forehead.

“Fluttershy, let me see that.” Applejack shuffled closer toward her. “… Well, could've been worse.”

“What is it?” Fluttershy wearily asked.

Applejack gave her a small smile. “Just a bruise, sugarcube. You'll be fine.”

As Applejack brushed out some of the snow that had packed into Fluttershy's mane, Pinkie Pie looked up at the group. She was on the verge of tears. She hated to see her friend hurt so badly, but she also knew there were other friends still missing somewhere in the grey unknown. It was simply too cold, and the situation too desperate, to let her emotions get the better of her now. They still had to find the rest of their friends. But…

“Pinkie Pie? Hey, what's up?” Nighttide shifted toward the pony ever so slightly.

“N-nothing, it's alright!” She gave a weak smile and turned to Fluttershy. “Now that you're all fixed up, we should go look for the others. Don't want to keep them waiting forever, right?” She let out a nervous chuckle.

Nighttide could see the tears in her eyes, but she had a valid point. “Right. Come on, girls.”

The four braced against each other and took a path into a lighter part of the storm. The ground was solid and level, but they were still careful with each step they took.

__________

/////

“Guys! Hey guys, we're over here!” Spike shouted.

“Spike! Rarity! Oh, thank goodness.” Fluttershy trotted forward a little faster than the rest, awkwardly hurdling the cast of her wing forward with her. “Are you two alright?”

“A little worse for wear,” Rarity said as she rubbed her forehead, “but otherwise, we're just fine. I see you weren't so lucky yourself?”

“Oh, this?” Fluttershy looked back to her wing, doing her best to keep the pain from showing in her expression. “It'll be okay. I'm just glad you two are alright.”

“Hey, you guys!” Pinkie Pie bounded forward with Applejack. The group exchanged relieved greetings as Nighttide slowly made her way up to the group.

“Hey you two," Nighttide called out. "I'm guessing neither of you have seen Twilight or Rainbow Dash yet?”

“I'm afraid I haven't,” Rarity replied. “How about you, Spike?”

“I haven't seen a thing except for all this snow.”

Although the wind still fought against them, the clouds overhead began to thin, and soon, forward visibility increased. It appeared as if they were standing between two large mountains on a snowy slope. Several feet uphill from their position, the ground appeared to taper off into a clearing.

“I don't know exactly where we are,” Nighttide said, “but I wouldn't be surprised if that isn't where the tracking signal was coming from.”

The group looked uphill against the wind as a bright orange glow began to break through the horizon. Applejack glanced around at the others and sighed. “Well, I guess it's as good of a place to start as any.”

With a mutual nod, everyone slowly trekked their way up the hill toward the break in the storm.

["Echoes" Rewrite Alpha]

“Hey… phew…” Applejack panted against the icy air gnawing at her lungs. “Is that it, Nighttide?”

“It is.” Nighttide walked up beside her as she and the others knelt down to rest for a moment. Just a few feet ahead of them sat Riptide's airship, glowing in the evening sunlight. The deck and wings were already covered in snow, meaning he must have arrived not long after Nighttide and the others escaped.

Rarity had been carrying Spike on her back during the trek uphill, but as she lay down to rest, he hopped off her back and ran up to Nighttide with a worried expression.

Nighttide looked down at the baby dragon. “What's up, Spike?”

“What do you think happened to Twilight? It's not like her to do something dangerous like this.”

Nighttide looked over at Applejack. The mare shook her head, no more informed than anypony else was of the situation. “I'm sorry… I'm really not sure.”

“Hey, don't forget about Rainbow Dash,” Pinkie Pie barked from the back of the group with a tone of frustration.

“Well of course we wouldn't, Pinkie,” Rarity replied calmly as she attempted to work out some of the knots in her mane. “That should go without saying.”

“I don't know… seems kind of hard for me to tell. All we've been doing is wandering around, and we haven't even talked about going to look for them!”

“Didn't we, though?” Applejack intervened. “Wasn't it you who said we needed to look for the rest of our friends earlier?”

“Yeah, I did, but none of you seem to be worried that Rainbow Dash is still missing!”

“Of course we're worried,” Fluttershy added. “Why would you think we weren't?”

“I just told you,” Pinkie Pie continued, “We haven't talked about going to look for her!”

Applejack stood back to her hooves and faced the pink mare. “Pinkie, why are you making such a fuss over this? Of course we're looking for her – we’re looking for both our friends! What do you think we're doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Spike and Nighttide watched the group go back and forth. Spike was becoming more nervous as the tension rose, and Nighttide couldn't figure out if Pinkie Pie was trying to start a fight, or was simply shell-shocked from the experience they had.

Nighttide stepped toward Pinkie and cleared her throat. Pinkie shot her back a sharp glare, which took her a little off guard. Nevertheless, she slowly sat down in front of the pink mare and drew a deep, frosty breath.

“Alright, Pinkie. What should 'go without saying', as Rarity implied, is the fact that we're out here in the freezing cold of a mountain, and two of our friends are lost somewhere out here. Yes, we are in fact actively searching for them. Please don't think just because we haven't been talking about it this whole time that it isn't important. We just trudged through a snowstorm, and we have no idea where to go or what to do next, so we're taking things one step at a time and working with what we have. Hence why we're here – and thankfully, near Riptide's ship.” She looked back over her shoulder at the bizarre contraption. “And I wouldn't be surprised if he has something to do with all this.”

Spike walked back over to Rarity as Pinkie Pie walked up to Nighttide. “Alright then, Ms. Shiny Pants. What would you suggest we do then?”

“Take a break.” Nighttide looked over the crowd of ponies now lying in the snow. All of them were visibly exhausted to the bone. “If we're going to search for Twilight and Rainbow Dash, then we need to regain our strength.”

“And waste even more time when they could be in trouble?!” Pinkie was growing visibly frustrated, and yet it was hard for Nighttide not to smirk at her incredibly poofy mane and tail, the product of the snowstorm they had journeyed through.

“Listen, Pinkie. If we don't do this right, then we'll never get anywhere. We'll either keel over from exhaustion, or we could get into trouble ourselves.” Nighttide braved up enough to let out a small smile. “Besides, aren't you supposed to be, like, the Element of Laughter or something?”

“Um, duh,” Pinkie Pie groaned. “What else would I be?”

Nighttide had a thought. She looked back at Riptide's ship. Nothing seemed to stir either in or around it. She then turned back to Pinkie Pie. “Tell you what. Since I've got these fancy legs and stuff, I can go on ahead and peek around the ship, see if anything's going down, while you all rest up.”

“Excuse me, Nighttide,” Applejack interrupted. “No offense, but I hope you don't think you're the leader of this brigade just 'cause Twilight's missing.”

Nighttide's ears folded back at the sound of her question. “N-no… not at all. I'm sorry if I've come across that way.” She paused for a moment to look away from the group before continuing a little more firmly. “All I'm suggesting is that I make use of the resources I have while you guys rest for a moment. I don't get exhausted as quick because these legs are mechanical, so the effort I put out to walk or run doesn't wear me out nearly as much. I promise, I'm not trying to play the hero here. But…” She turned to Pinkie Pie. “I do understand the severity of the situation. And I honestly believe this would be a good way to go about things.”

Nighttide could have picked any number of other words to say in that moment, but they seemed to serve the situation well, as Pinkie Pie turned back to the group. “Okie-dokie-lokie,” Pinkie slowly recited as she walked by her. “But you better not do any crazy stunts. Those are left to me. Got it?”

Nighttide smiled again. “But of course. Think you can lift everypony's spirits while I'm away?”

Pinkie Pie returned the smile. “You can count on me.”

Nighttide nodded. Nopony else raised an argument, so with everything said and done, Nighttide turned toward the ship and galloped against the frigid air.

__________

Nighttide made her way up to the deck of Riptide's ship via a crudely built staircase that had been cast off the side. When she opened the door leading inside, she noticed the lights that had lit the halls and rooms before were off, and no light from outside could find its way in. Nighttide activated her night vision and continued slowly down the corridors.

There were only a few rooms connected to the halls, and each of them had a table set up in a corner. But there was no furniture or items of any sort otherwise. Once she found her way into the large room where her and the others were originally held, she noticed the crates stacked along the far wall were now open and empty. She walked down the flight of stairs and inspected inside of them. Her sensors still on the fritz, she couldn't scan for any materials, but she did notice an odd blue dust coated inside one of the crates. As she picked up the crate to look around, she found a hardcover book sitting underneath it.

Nighttide sat down and held the book in front of her. It was brown, had a thick binding, but only seemed to hold a few pages between the covers. The covers were held together by a strap with a swirly symbol drawn near the buckle. She tried to unlatch it, but it wouldn't budge, nor was there any other visible way of opening it.

“Must be more magic stuff,” Nighttide mumbled to herself. She then opened a metal pouch in her suit to carry the book back with her.

Her search revealed nothing else of any significance, which left her concerned. ’Where would Riptide have run off to in the middle of a mountain range?’ But the answer came to her far quicker than she expected when she stepped back out onto the deck and peered across the clearing below.

“A cave,” Nighttide whispered as she spotted a large hole in the side of the larger mountain, only now visible thanks to the storm passing. There were no tracks leading into the cave, but had there ever been, they were probably covered up by the snow left from the storm.

Nighttide galloped back down to the group. The others were warming themselves under a series of blankets, and thankfully, Pinkie Pie had packed enough food in her saddlebags to feed the whole group. Everyone was chowing down on an assortment of muffins and cupcakes while Pinkie told a funny story to Spike, although the others were listening intently as well.

“Guys,” Nighttide interrupted, “the ship's empty, but I think I know where to look next.” The others glanced over as she pointed off in the distance toward the cave.

Just as Applejack was about to speak, Pinkie Pie caught a glimpse of something flying toward them from the direction of the storm. “Rainbow Dash?!”

The cerulean pegasus glided toward them, her mane disheveled and matted with snow. As she neared the ground, her wings fell limp, and she crash-landed into the soft snow in front of them.

“Rainbow Dash!” Everyone shouted and ran toward the colorful heap lying in the snow. Rainbow Dash lifted her head up slowly toward the group and gave a small smile, then let it fall flat into the snow.

Fluttershy was the first to reach her. “Oh my gosh! Are you alright?”

“Mmfine,” came a muffled voice from the snow. Although she looked a bit worse for wear, the others could tell she was alright. Her wings were a mess, and Rarity surmised her mane would probably need a day at the spa, but there didn't appear to be any visible injuries.

After a few seconds, Rainbow Dash rolled over onto her back and looked up at everypony, muttering off each of their names. “Fluttershy… Applejack… Rarity… Pinkie Pie…” She blinked. “And no Twilight.”

“Sorry, Rainbow.” Nighttide walked up to her side and looked down. “We only barely managed to find each other.”

“Find… each other?” She furrowed her brow. “What happened?”

Nighttide's head snapped up. She looked over at Rarity. “Now that I think about it, what exactly did happen?”

Rarity hung her head as she looked around at the others with a somber expression. “Right… about that.”

As it turned out, Rarity had in fact tried to teleport the others. Twilight had all but forced her to learn how to use the spell at one point in the past. While she was never successful at the few times they tried it together, when the balloon began to free-fall, Rarity decided to give it one last shot.

“I'm sorry, everyone,” Rarity finished off. “I-I know it was a really long shot, but… I was so scared of what would happen, so I…”

Applejack walked over to her with a warm smile and wrapped a foreleg around her. “It's okay, Rarity. If you hadn't done what ya did, we might've not made it at all. The way that balloon was falling?” She shuddered at the thought. “I think you did the right thing. Thanks.” Everyone else pitched in their thanks as Rarity returned a small smile, still keeping her head low.

“Which makes me wonder,” Nighttide started. “Right before we were all separated, I noticed your magic turned from white to blue. Is that normal with teleportation?”

“It did?” Rarity blinked and tilted her head. “I've never heard of that happening before…”

“Ya think it's because of that flash we saw?” Applejack suggested.

“Oh yeah, that flash!” Rainbow Dash chimed in. “You guys saw it too?”

“That's what busted up the balloon,” Nighttide said.

“And I think that's what knocked me out of the sky,” Fluttershy added.

Rainbow Dash finally processed the fact that Fluttershy had gauze wrapped around one of her wings and shot up to attention. “Whoa, Fluttershy, what happened to you?!”

“Well, I followed you into the storm, but I lost you pretty soon after that. Then I saw this bright flash, and a gust of wind pushed me back. I couldn't tell where I was going anymore, so I kind of… ran into the side of a mountain.” She rubbed her forehead as the memories finally made their way back. “I guess I fell to the ground after that.”

Rainbow Dash sat on her haunches as she worked out some of the snow in her mane. “Well, it didn't knock me out of the sky, but it sure did mess with my flight path. Soon as that… whatever… ran into me, I didn't know which way I was going anymore. I'm just glad I finally ran into you guys.”

Without warning, Pinkie Pie dove on top of Rainbow Dash and gave her a huge hug. Apparently, she had been waiting for the right opportunity. “And we're glad to have you back!”

“Y-yeah, thanks for that.” Rainbow Dash squirmed her way out of the hug as she shook her head vigorously to clear out some of the snow, causing her mane to turn into a rainbow powder-puff. Everyone snickered a little at the sight. She looked around at the group with a confused expression. “What? What is it?”

“Oh, Rainbow.” Rarity walked over to her with a smile, then tried to flatten her friend's mane as best as she could. “It really is good to have you back.”

“Well,” Nighttide spoke up, “warm greetings and poofy manes aside, we should probably start looking for Twilight. Unless you need to rest some, Rainbow?”

“Nah, I'm good.” She motioned for Rarity to stop touching her mane. “No snowstorm's gonna keep me down!” She shot a confident grin to everyone, which made Pinkie Pie especially glow.

“Alright then. Who's ready to go spelunking!” Nighttide shouted with much enthusiasm. Perhaps a little too much, as everypony looked at her with a confused expression. “Um… who’s ready to go explore a cave?” This time, everypony cheered.

Pinkie Pie gave Rainbow Dash one of her muffins in passing, and after everyone finished gathering up their blankets, the group headed toward the cave.

__________

“Wow.” Nighttide looked around with wide eyes. “I've never been inside one of these before.”

They were now entering into the smooth opening of the mountain. The cave had steel grey walls and a ceiling taller than the Golden Oak Library tree itself. Thanks to the cold weather traipsing inside, the stalactites overhead were long and dramatic, like finely honed spears crafted from thousands of years of collected moisture. Nighttide had only ever read about caves in her geology files. Although Twilight was still missing, Nighttide couldn't help but soak in the moment a little.

As they walked through the slowly narrowing cave, Rarity took the lead and lit the way for them using her magic. But Nighttide was a little concerned. She walked up beside Rarity and lowered her head a little. She didn't want to say anything around the others just in case she was sensitive about the subject.

“I'm still not very familiar with how magic works,” Nighttide whispered over to her, “but after what happened on the balloon, do you think it's safe to do that?”

Rarity glanced at her. “I think this should at least be fine. It's a simple illumination spell.” She then smiled at her. “But if you see something strange, just let me know.”

“Of course.” Nighttide walked alongside Rarity as the rest followed silently. The further they entered the cave, the warmer it became. While Nighttide couldn't scan the cavern's walls, her oxygen sensors did pick up a small amount of hydrogen sulfide and methane.

She looked back at the rest of the group. “Do you ponies have any volcanoes here in Equestria?”

“Not anywhere nearby,” Applejack answered. “Dragons migrate to them once every several years down south, though. Why do you ask?”

“I haven't been around one myself, but if my sensors are right, the air in here has elements of volcanic activity.” She looked around at the smooth grey of the cave's walls that glistened every so often with the reflection of Rarity's light.

“I've never heard of a volcano in the Appaloosan mountains,” Applejack added. “I have some kinfolk that live near here, and they've never mentioned anythin' like that.”

“Some volcanoes operate strictly underground, though. At least from what I've read… Let's just be careful.” The rest nodded, except for Rainbow Dash, who just rolled her eyes. After a moment, they found a break in the wall. With no other direction to take, they entered inside the break.

Now they were walking down a very narrow corridor that wound in different directions every so often. The ceiling hung much lower than before and was now as smooth as the walls, lined with a faint violet sheen. Fluttershy did her best to keep a brave front as Rainbow Dash walked alongside her. Pinkie Pie kept her spirits up by bouncing every so often at the pace of the group. Spike rode on Rarity's back at the head of the group while Applejack brought up the rear. They kept this pattern for some time, silently pushing forward, hoping that they would eventually run upon something of interest. But before long, somepony grew frustrated.

“Ugh,” Rainbow Dash groaned, “do you guys really think we're gonna find Twilight in here?”

“Well, where else would ya suggest we look?” Applejack asked.

“I'm just saying, she could still be outside somewhere! Maybe I should go back and do another fly around now that the storm's passed.”

Rainbow was just about to turn around when Nighttide spoke up. “I'm not so sure. Given Twilight's weird behavior and the fact that she was headed straight for Riptide's ship, something tells me this is where we need to look.”

“I agree with Nighttide,” Rarity added. “But… at the same time, Rainbow Dash does have a point. There's no guarantee she's in here either.”

Nighttide nodded as she looked back to Rainbow Dash. “Well, I'm not the leader here. What do you want to do?”

Rainbow Dash peered off to the side with a scowl. “I don't know… just, all this walking's about to drive me nuts, and I can't fly in here because it's too cramp!”

“Whoever said rescuing a friend was supposed to be fun?” Nighttide asked her, half-seriously and half-sarcastically. Admittedly, some of the stories she had heard from Twilight actually sounded pretty fun.

“Well,” Pinkie Pie retorted, “whoever said it wasn't supposed to be fun?”

“Point taken,” Nighttide said. A few seconds later, everyone heard a muffled noise coming from in front of them.

The group picked up the pace, and soon, they found themselves inside a large cavern. Sure enough, there was a faint sound of running water coming from nearby. Rarity and Nighttide hastened ahead as the unicorn’s horn grew brighter. Once they were a few feet ahead, they spotted a shallow river running through the center of the cavern. Clear, calm, and silent, the river barely made a trickle sound against the smooth rock which it traveled. The rest of the group walked up to the water and peered down.

Rarity gasped at the sight. “Sweet Celestia…”

Embedded in the smooth rock at the bottom of the river were crystals the color of azure and amethyst. The riverbed sparkled in a most brilliant fashion with Rarity's white light, and the glassy surface of the running water only added to its radiance. Everyone looked down in awe.

Spike hopped off Rarity's back to examine the riverbed. “So… so many gems… I've never seen any like these before! They're… beautiful.” A small bit of drool began to form at the edge of his mouth.

As the others marveled at the sight, Nighttide glanced around the cavern. Across the river, she thought she saw a rock shift ever so slightly, but she couldn't hear any movement. As she continued looking ahead, she saw it again.

“Guys.” Nighttide nodded forward as the others looked across the river.

In the darkest part of the cavern's corner stood the faint silhouette of a pony, only barely illuminated by Rarity's light. Everyone's stance turned rigid as Fluttershy let out a soft gasp.

Nighttide carefully stepped into the edge of the river and called out. “Pony in the shadows, identify yourself.”

The silhouette remained still.

“Identify yourself, pony,” Nighttide called out again after a few seconds. As she went to switch over to her night vision, her systems malfunctioned, and her retinal display completely shut off, leaving her with only her natural eyesight. “Dammit, not now,” she grumbled under her breath as she tapped a wet hoof to her head.

Then, slowly, the silhouette shifted toward them. Nighttide tried to unlock her weapons, but to no avail. Everyone behind her took a step back as she remained standing partly in the water, facing toward the pony in the shadows. She tried calling out one more time. “Unidentified pony, please identify yourself, or I will be forced to take defensive action.” Nighttide knew she was grasping at straws at this point, but she was willing to try anything to prevent a crisis.

Just as she opened her mouth to shout back at the others to run, the pony stepped up to the riverbed, and Rarity's light revealed…

“Twilight?”

Everyone let out a relieved sigh as they approached the riverbank, but Nighttide remained rigid. She leaned her head forward as she squinted to look at Twilight. Something was off.

“For pony's sake, Twilight,” Applejack shouted across the river, “What're you doin' in here?”

No response.

Everyone grew silent again as they noticed something odd about her eyes. They were sunken, dulled, staring only in their general direction rather than at anypony in particular.

The river was just shallow enough to walk through, so Nighttide made to approach her. Just as she went to take a step forward, Twilight's wings flared, and her horn began to glow dark blue. It was the most unusual thing Nighttide had seen in Equestria yet; the blue of her horn seemed to radiate like a blackened light, drowning out Rarity's white light with its intensity and shrouding the room in darkness. Suddenly, Twilight thrust her head forward and aimed her horn at Rarity, who was now standing a few feet off to her side.

“Twilight, no!”

Nighttide bucked out of the water and dove in front of Rarity as Twilight's magic came straight toward them. As she dove, Nighttide caught a glimpse of the other ponies racing across the river toward the alicorn.

Then, the magic hit her square in the chest, and a strange chill surrounded her body. She collapsed in front of Rarity, unconscious.

__________

A low hum of different noises filled the air. Familiar sounds of yesteryear. Cars traveling on the interstate. The clank of a cross-bridge closing over the bay-way. A distant whistle which she could only barely remember hearing a few times in her life.

“… The freighter.”

Nighttide lifted her head up slowly as she opened her eyes to a night sky overhead, just barely dotted with stars. As she sat up to her haunches, she peered out over the orange glow of a city skyline. It appeared she was sitting on the edge of a small mountain, looking down at a large city built near the edge of an ocean.

Something felt off, or so Nighttide thought, but she couldn't place her hoof on what it was. After a second of staring out at the city, she felt an itch on her side and turned to bite it, but when she did, she stopped short and stared at her flank.

“Hm… I need a bath.”

Nighttide bit into the dull grey coat hairs of her flank to get rid of the itch, then noticed her hooves were unusually dirty. The coat around them was caked in mud, and it appeared she had a cut on one of her knees. At least her mane was still clean, as it was still too short to reach even her withers.

The little filly looked back over the skyline and took a deep breath. She still felt as if she was forgetting something, but whatever it was must have not been important, otherwise she figured she would have remembered it by now. As she stood to her hooves, Nighttide looked around and spotted the trail which she had hiked to climb up the mountain. She groaned a little under her breath, then mumbled, “Guess I should go before I get in trouble.”

The filly trotted down the trail back toward the city. The scenes around her on the walk down were too dark for her to make out, but they felt familiar. She had been here before, at least a couple of times. The feeling made her smile, and she skipped a little on her way down the mountain.

Next thing she knew, she was walking down a sidewalk that passed by one of her friend's houses. She stopped and looked at the squat duplex, sitting sandwiched between other similarly built homes. Nighttide tapped a hoof to her head and whispered, “What was her name again?” She noticed the living room window was dark, but the upstairs bedrooms were lit. Now she was worried that she had already stayed out too late, so she galloped down the sidewalk and took a right into her subdivision.

Four houses down the block, she turned into her yard and trotted up the stoop, then slowly opened the door. The entranceway was dark, even though there was a lamp lit overhead. She couldn't make out any of the things around her, but as she took a few steps forward, a grey mare walked down the stairs in front of her.

Her eyes were violet, and she had a jet black mane that shimmered in the overhead light. But as Nighttide looked at her, she could tell something was different. There was a strange symbol on her flank, what looked like a purple star with smaller white ones around it. They seemed to glisten a little in the light.

Nighttide heard the mare speak a single muffled word, then continue. “… I told you to be back by eight!”

“I know. I'm sorry.” Nighttide shifted a little in place. “It's not like I knew what time it was!”

The mare tilted her head slightly and gave the filly a stern look. She noticed the mud on her hooves. “You walked to the Ferin Sha, didn't you?”

Nighttide's ears flicked back. “W-well… I'm a big pony, after all!” She raised her head and puffed out her chest, trying to look serious. “I just wanted to go by myself for once.”

“For once?” The mare sighed and let a small smile break through her serious expression as she lowered her head until it was level with the filly's. “My little explorer. What ever am I going to do with you?” She picked her up and placed her on her back as she carefully walked up the stairs to the bathroom.

Nighttide caught faint glimpses of being in a bathtub and rolling around in a sea of bubbles. A couple of times, she could hear herself laughing as the mare scrubbed her coat vigorously, working out the mud that she collected on her adventure. But before long, she found herself tucked into bed, the mare sitting at her side with a warm smile. Then came the sound of the front door.

“Daddy!” Nighttide shouted instinctively, causing the mare to lean back a little and rub her nearest ear.

The mare walked to the door and called out into the hall. “Hey sweetie, come help me tuck her in!”

Nighttide heard heavy hoof-steps walk up the stairs, then a dark silhouette made its way into the room. She couldn't make out any distinguishing features, but she felt perfectly comfortable around him.

Then, there was darkness, and the low hum of the city around them.

__________

“… tide… Nighttide! Please, wake up!”

“Wh… wha…” Nighttide slowly opened her eyes to find Fluttershy crouched over her. Fluttershy's mane dripped cold water onto her ear, which caused her to jerk away.

“Whoa!” Nighttide quickly rolled onto her stomach and looked around. Her eyes were still bleary, but she could tell she was lying on the embankment of the cave's river, and everypony was circled around her. Including Twilight.

Nighttide stumbled to her hooves, almost losing her balance as she tried to adjust to her height. It was a strange feeling, as if she had suddenly grown, but the feeling lasted only for a second as she looked up at the alicorn.

“Nighttide.” Twilight slowly approached her and wrapped her hooves gently around her neck. “You're alright.”

Nighttide breathed hard and fast, confused by both some dream she just had and the current situation. But as she felt Twilight's warmth surround her, she closed her eyes and rested her head on her shoulder. “Looks like you're alright, too…”

As Twilight pulled out of the embrace, the others gathered around them with relieved expressions. Nighttide then asked, “So, what just happened?”

“Twilight hit you with some sort of spell,” Rarity answered. “You were out for about a minute.”

“A minute… Wait. Then, what happened to Twilight?”

Twilight ruffled her wings as she looked across the river from where they originally found her. “I'm not sure myself…”

Applejack walked up to the two and addressed Nighttide. “After Twilight shot that weird spell at y'all, we raced over to stop her. But Rainbow Dash ran into the back of us tryin' to get there first and caused us to fall on top of her.” Applejack shot a glare at Rainbow Dash, whose smug expression didn't seem to fit the story. Applejack rolled her eyes. “Of course… it was probably for the best.”

Twilight shook her head, seeming to still be a little out of wits herself, then looked over at Nighttide. “I remember seeing that flash on the ground when I was flying with Fluttershy, but then the next thing I knew, everypony except you and Rarity were lying on top of me.”

Nighttide blinked as she finally readjusted to her height again. “Do you know what spell you cast?”

“No. I have no clue.” Twilight gave Nighttide a curious look. “Do you feel different in any way? Does anything hurt?”

“Um, not really,” Nighttide said as Twilight began pacing around her. “As far as I know, it just put me to sleep.”

Twilight wasn't convinced, but there was little else she could do to figure out what happened. “Okay, but if you notice anything out of the ordinary, let us know. Alright?”

“Sure thing.” Nighttide sat on her haunches as she mulled over the situation. For a second, she thought she felt an itch on her flank and went to bite it, then caught herself in the act. She stopped and stared blankly at the metal alloy of her suit.

Twilight noticed the mare zoning out. “Nighttide? Is everything alright?”

She didn't respond at first. Twilight then put a hoof on her shoulder, and she perked back up. “Y-yeah,” she stammered. “Just trying to figure out what's going on… sorry, I'm fine. Promise.” Nighttide smiled to try to reassure her.

For the moment, it appeared to work. “Okay. Just let me know.”

__________

Everypony took a moment to dry themselves off from their race across the river. Although the cavern was warmer than outside, it was still much too cold to be walking around wet. Twilight was a little too shaken to risk using her magic to dry herself off, so she pulled out one of her fluffier blankets from her saddlebag and, with a small cringe, proceeded to wipe down her coat. As she was drying herself off, Spike filled her in on everything that happened since she disappeared. When he mentioned the lack of a reply back from the Princess, Twilight's stomach churned.

“Princess Celestia… she never takes that long to write back.” Twilight's eyes narrowed as she tried to figure out what could be the issue.

“Do you think we should head back to Ponyville?” Spike asked.

Twilight looked around at the others. “I don't know, Spike. What I do know is something, or someone, led me here for a reason.” She paused for a moment as she tried to remember something, anything, from after she saw the flash. But nothing came to mind. She then continued. “I'd rather keep going and see what's in here than turn back now. If Riptide flew to this remote place, then he must have a good reason for it.”

Spike didn't like the idea of putting themselves in anymore danger, but he also understood the severity of the situation. After their encounter with King Sombra at the Crystal Empire, both Spike and Twilight had learned the importance of doing what was necessary in order to protect others. And if Riptide had in fact been the cause of Twilight's disappearance, there was no telling what else he could be capable of doing later.

Off in another corner, Rainbow Dash tended to Fluttershy's wing. She still had her own saddlebag and had packed it with a first-aid kit designed specifically for pegasi, with equipment better suited to splinting a wing on-site. As she ripped off the now soggy gauze around the injured wing, Fluttershy let out a shrill yelp that echoed through the cavern.

“Ugh, for Pete's sake,” Rainbow Dash said as she hurriedly pulled off the last strip. “You don't want to lose a wing, do you?”

“N-n-no, of course n-not – I'm sorry,” Fluttershy whimpered as her body shivered from the pain, her eyes now welling with tears.

As brash as Rainbow Dash was, she hated to see one of her friends hurt. When she noticed Fluttershy's tears, she sighed and placed a hoof on her own. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I know how bad a broken wing feels… I'll be a little more careful. Alright?”

Fluttershy nodded and returned the smile as she wiped away the tears trying to escape. “Th-thanks. And… I'll try to be a little tougher.” She did her best to force a confident smirk onto her muzzle as her eyes met with Rainbow Dash's.

“That's the spirit,” Rainbow Dash said as she started redressing Fluttershy's wing.

Next to the river embankment, Applejack was fussing about losing her hat. Rarity did her best to brush some of the knots out of her friend's mane, but Applejack kept shifting in place as she continued to complain.

“Well, surely you have some more at home?” Rarity asked.

“Yeah, but that one was special! Big Mac gave it to me for my birthday a few years ago. And now…” Applejack hung her head as she thought about losing her brother's gift.

Rarity set down her brush and placed a hoof on Applejack's shoulder. “I'm so sorry, Applejack. Really, I feel like this whole thing is my fault. If I hadn't tried to—”

“Now don't you start that again,” Applejack cut her off. “You know that if you hadn't, we all could've been seriously hurt.”

Rarity went silent for a few seconds before speaking again. “I had no idea that hat was special.” Applejack turned her head away, trying to hide her emotions. Then, Rarity thought of an idea. “I know I can't replace your brother's gift, but how about when all of this is over, I make you another hat, just the way you want it?”

Applejack let out a snort and turned back toward Rarity. “I dunno… I need a work hat, not somethin' fancy.”

“Nothing frilly,” Rarity said, raising a hoof. “I'll make you a hat just the way you want it. A true Stetson if ever there were one!” She smiled at Applejack. “What do you say… partner?” She attempted to mimic her accent with the last word, which made Applejack chuckle a little.

“Well, I say that'd be swell.” Applejack smiled and pulled her friend into a hug. “Thanks, Rarity.”

Finally, there was Pinkie Pie and Nighttide. Pinkie heard Nighttide's belly grumble a moment ago, so she offered her a muffin. Nighttide looked the muffin over and sighed.

“You ponies sure love your muffins, huh?” she commented with a hint of exacerbation in her tone.

“Oh! You don't like muffins?” Pinkie asked.

“No, it's not that, it's just—”

Before she could finish, Pinkie pulled out a cupcake. She held it in front of Nighttide and gave her a big grin, which seemed to squeak comically with its formation. But Nighttide still wasn't enthused.

“Um… I don't suppose you have anything that's… not so sweet?” Nighttide felt guilty for asking. She knew these were the things Pinkie Pie was especially good at making. While she didn't want to hurt her feelings, all the fruits and pastries had finally gotten to her.

“Hmm… let me see here…” Pinkie dug through her saddlebag and pulled out a paper bag. After rummaging through it for a second, she pulled out a delicious looking sandwich, much to Nighttide's surprise.

“How the…?” Nighttide peered over Pinkie's side, trying to look into her saddlebag. “Did you pack a whole deli with you?”

“Of course not, silly! That'd have taken a lot longer to pack. And I would've had to carry more bags! Or maybe I would have just put everything in the balloon. Or maybe I would have had the balloon carry the food while we hiked to the mountains! Or—”

“I get it, I get it.” Nighttide stopped her with a hoof. “You got this down to a science, apparently.” She winked at Pinkie and thanked her for the sandwich.

Once everyone was dried and rested up a little, Twilight walked up to the others. “Alright, everypony. We still haven't heard from Princess Celestia yet. Either we can head back to Ponyville and figure out what to do from there, or we can keep searching through the caves.”

“Search for what, exactly?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Riptide. It's very likely that he used some sort of magic to lure me in here and make me cast that spell. We're already here, and this was what we originally came out to do anyway.” Twilight looked around at the group before continuing. “But I don't want to do anything that anypony isn't comfortable with. So, what do you girls say?”

Rarity stepped forward and addressed Twilight. “Is there any reason you could think of why the Princess wouldn't have replied by now?”

Twilight sighed. “None that I'm aware of. It also bothers me that nopony has seen the Royal Guard. Knowing them, they would search every square inch of the Appaloosan mountains. We should’ve at least seen them once when we were flying, unless we somehow beat them here.”

“Then don't you think it would be prudent to return home? Especially after what happened to you?”

Twilight looked across the cavern's river. The cave continued on through another narrow corridor on the other side. She then looked back at Rarity. “Normally, I would say yes. In fact, all logic dictates that we should go home and find out if anything's happened to the Princess. But…”

Nighttide walked over to Twilight's side as she and her looked across the river. “But you're worried if we don't act now, something worse could happen later.”

“Exactly,” Twilight said with a nod. “But this is a decision we all need to make. If anyone here is not okay with continuing on, then speak up now.”

Everyone looked at each other. After a moment, most of them nodded, although Rainbow Dash just shrugged with a groan.

“Okay then. If everypony's ready, then let's keep going.”

__________

Once again, Rarity led the pack, illuminating the path ahead of them. This time though, both Twilight and Nighttide walked at either side of her flank as the rest followed closely behind.

As they walked through the next corridor, Nighttide could feel a thumping inside her suit. She opened one of her pockets and found the book she grabbed from earlier.

“Ugh, this is what I get for having a computer memory,” Nighttide grumbled. She then turned to Twilight. “Hey Twilight, come check this out.”

Twilight left Rarity's side and walked over to her. Nighttide suggested to the book inside her pocket, which Twilight gingerly pulled out with her magic. She was still nervous to use any spells, but Rarity seemed to have fared well thus far, so she took the risk for a moment.

“I found this in Riptide's ship,” Nighttide said. “It's got the same pattern as that one book you were reading in the old castle library.”

“You're right…” Twilight flipped the book to and fro in front of her with her magic. She tried to unfasten the buckle, but she too was unable to move the latch. Then, she had a thought.

“Hang on, everypony.” Twilight motioned for the group to stop as she set the book down on a crevice of the wall beside them. She examined the pattern of the book more closely, then sighed. “I don't know if it's safe to do this, but let me try using one of Star Swirl's spells.”

Twilight closed her eyes as her horn began to spark a little at the tip. Just as she went to cast the spell, click went the latch, and the book flipped itself open, echoing as the hardcover fell onto the rock surface.

Everypony gathered around the strange book as Twilight flipped to the first page. “What's this?” Rarity asked as she walked over to better illuminate the book.

“It looks like a journal,” Twilight answered. As she skimmed over the lines written on the pages, she cleared her throat and began to read aloud.

“To whom it may concern. If you are reading this journal, then it is by no accident. Only those with knowledge or experience in Star Swirl's magic will be able to open this book and read its contents. This entry was written in case of an emergency.”

“An emergency?” Applejack asked. Twilight shrugged and continued to read the entry silently to herself.

It took her several minutes to get through the single journal entry. Riptide listed everything off from his history with the Royal Guard, his research and development of negative magic, and details about a mystery student of Star Swirl's. Rainbow Dash used the moment's reprieve to take a short nap in the corner, but the others had done their best to read along with Twilight.

“Twilight,” Rarity spoke up after a while. “I don't understand a lot of this, but… do you think this has anything to do with what happened to you?”

Twilight wasn't sure herself. As much attention to detail as Riptide had given to his journal entry, there didn't appear to be anything specific worth highlighting. 'And what would he consider to be “an emergency” anyway,' she wondered to herself as Rarity waited for a response.

“I'm not sure. Honestly, this doesn't make sense to me either.”

Nighttide walked away for a moment to think over the information. Since her systems were still out, she couldn't review the information with her computer. But after a moment, she thought of something interesting.

“Wait a sec. Didn't he mention something about having a dream?”

Twilight flipped through the thin pages of the book and found the line. “Yes. Well, sort of. It was about a year ago. He says here, 'Things were going well enough until one day, when one of my devices malfunctioned. I was inside the ship, writing some figures down from a recent experiment, when suddenly everything went dark. At first, I thought the manalights went out, but next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor staring out into the hallway of the ship. It felt as if I had a strange dream of some sort, but I couldn't recall any of the details.'“ Twilight looked over at Nighttide. “Why, what's up?”

Nighttide closed her eyes and tried to force the memory of her dream back to her conscious. It was no use. Nevertheless, she knew she had dreamt something while she was passed out earlier.

“I'm not sure what to make of this, but there might be something to that 'dream' business. After you hit me with that strange spell, I had a vivid dream of some sort… I just can't remember what it was about.” Nighttide rubbed her hoof on her forehead, still trying to conjure an image of the dream.

Twilight slammed the book close with her magic and walked up to Nighttide with a frown. “Didn't I say to tell me if anything strange happened to you earlier?”

“Y-yes, you did – jeez, sorry, mom!” Nighttide backed up a little at the sound of Twilight's authoritative tone. “It was just a dream, I didn't think it was that big of a deal.”

“Yeah, well, try telling that to Princess Luna.” Twilight groaned and rubbed between her eyes. “Anyway… do you remember anything about it? Anything at all?”

“Like I said, no. The only thing I know is when I think about it, I feel… nostalgic. It's hard to explain.” Nighttide shrugged, only adding to Twilight's frustration.

“I would try using a memory spell on you, but considering how both mine and Rarity's magic have been acting up, I don't want to take the risk.”

Nighttide nodded as she regained her composure. “Well, do whatever you feel is best.” She turned back in the direction the group was originally heading. “Should we keep going?”

Twilight had Spike hold the book for a moment as she walked up beside Nighttide. “Yes. We still need to figure out what's going on – and the sooner, the better.”

Rainbow Dash perked up as she heard the group reorganizing themselves. “Oh, good, is she done?” She looked up at Applejack, who raised an eyebrow at her.

“Have a nice nap?”

“Eh heh.” Rainbow Dash gave her a cheeky smile as she stood to her hooves. “Did I miss anything important?”

“Honestly, I didn't understand any of it either.”

“Great! Then let's get going.” Rainbow Dash galloped ahead of the others to catch up with Rarity. By this point, she was more than ready to get this whole adventure over with, now that she was forcibly grounded by the cave. Applejack just shook her head at the sight while Pinkie Pie giggled nearby.

As everyone set off down the dark corridor, Spike wobbled in place where he was last left, still holding the extra-large journal over his head. “Um, guys? A little help here?”

For those curious what else was written in Riptide's journal:

__________

… My name is Riptide, previously of the Royal Guard of Equestria. For many years, I served with the second defensive line of Canterlot and was tasked with using my skills in aquatic magic.

During my service as a Royal Guard, I had quietly struggled with the passive attitude given toward Equestria's defense. While the Royal Guard itself is consistent of more than enough members to adequately defend our land, our lack of weaponry and resources have made our position one mostly of appearances rather than practicality. It was my belief, after studying at-length the known history of Equestria and evaluating our defensive structure, that in the event we were to encounter a large-scale invasion of any sort, we could suffer heavy casualties and potentially lose claim of our land. In light of this evaluation, I decided to do some research on developing a new form of magic that could be used for large-scale defensive purposes.

For the past few years, I have been working on something I call “negative magic.” At the time of this writing, development has taken place for the past six years, although my initial research began two years before that. In the beginning, I was interested in creating a form of magic that would be able to isolate a plane of space from the rest. As a rough example, consider a pony is threatening your life, and the only option you have is to surrender or defend yourself, as any means of escape is cordoned off. Instead of having to fight, per se, this magic could be used to trap the aggressor in a magical field that resists both physical and magical intrusion from the outside and the inside. Neither pony would be able to come into contact with the other, but the pony casting the magic would be able to keep the aggressor isolated until they could seek further help. The magic would also be self-sustaining; once cast; it would last for a designated amount of time without the need for continual spell-casting.

This was only the initial concept, which was heavily invested in aquatics. The alpha spells I developed made use of atmospheric vapor. By casting a tight shell of water around the circumference of a space, whatever was contained within the shell would be prevented from interacting with the outside, although the displacement of the water molecules would still allow enough travel for oxygen to transfer, preventing anyone trapped inside from suffocating. And since magic tends to reflect off water's molecular structure, any attempt on their part to penetrate through the shell using magic would only put them at risk of harming themselves. As well, physical protrusion would be next to impossible on either end without making use of a sharp object that was dense enough to withstand the force needed to break through the shell.

The alpha spells were functional, and there was limited success with making the spells self-sustaining. While water molecules have a propensity to reflect magic, they also have the ability to contain magic for a limited amount of time. Casting a spell in free-flowing water, such as in a river, would do very little in the way of penetrating the surface or becoming absorbed by the water's molecules. However, when casting a spell that organizes the trace water vapor naturally found in air, the magic becomes temporarily infused in the molecules, and that fusion networks throughout the molecular structure as the shell is created.

One day, as I was looking up research material in the Canterlot Library, I happened upon an intriguing bit of information. One book I read through contained references to Star Swirl the Bearded's travels through the caverns of Maretania, which cited a natural phenomenon that was not far removed from the magic I was attempting to develop. At the time, Star Swirl was working on a spell that is still to-date unknown, and what progress that had ever been made on it was completely absent from all the works I looked through. What piqued my interest was the fact that unbeknownst to most, Star Swirl had traveled through Maretania with an unnamed pony. At first, I thought it might have been Clover the Clever, but the lack of reference to him or his work got me curious. And being a member of the Royal Guard, I was familiar with another library, located at the Castle of the Two Sisters.

For a few nights out of a summer about six years ago, I would travel to Ponyville on rec-leave to trek through the Everfree Forest out to the old castle. At the time, the location had long since been abandoned, and it didn't appear there had been any visitors for some time. After digging through the abandoned castle's library, I found a section in a detailed reference guide for Star Swirl's early research that mentioned his travels through Maretania. A piece of historical information referenced a stallion by the name of Spinel the Steadfast, who Star Swirl was mentoring at the same time as Clover the Clever, though there was little mention aside from his name. I continued searching through the library, but found little in the way of further details.

I had grown increasingly curious with the subtle mentions of this mysterious student of Star Swirl's, so on a whim, I decided to search through the rest of the castle. Much of the structure had decayed from weather or was overgrown with vegetation, but some of the underground corridors were still fairly intact. I didn't initially think it would do any good, but as I walked through the corridors, I tried pulling on various objects hanging from the wall – an old trick I had seen used in comic books from my foalhood. To my surprise, one of the protrusions triggered a wall to rise.

Beyond the wall was a small room, surprisingly free of any signs of decay. The walls were lined with crudely built stone shelves, and lying on them were an assortment of historical works dating back before the Pre-Classical era, far before the unity of the three pony races. Stored amongst the relics was one book that stood out among the rest – a book with a pattern strangely familiar to Star Swirl's, and yet not quite the same. Upon opening the book, I found the author's signature at the beginning: Spinel the Steadfast.

Spinel's work detailed rough drafts of spells which were based on the phenomenon he and Star Swirl had observed in the caverns of Maretania – one that echoed very strongly the properties of the magic I was already developing. While the details of the phenomenon were rough and vague even in Spinel's work, there were short journal entries scattered throughout the work which revealed a likely reason as to why his name and records had been virtually erased from known history.

As Spinel developed his initial spells, Star Swirl warned him that his work could potentially lead to creating a magic that nopony, let alone any other creature, could properly wield. It made sense why his name and records would have been missing from the Canterlot Library, but upon reflection, I was surprised that even a thousand years ago, references were still largely missing in the Castle of the Two Sister's library.

I was now more interested than ever. Why would the Princesses have chose to have these spells, as well as the historical works of pre-Equestria, be locked up in a secret room? Having known Princess Celestia for some time myself, I assumed it was to prevent leaking potentially harmful information to others. But it didn't make sense to me why after the E.U.P. was organized, such a project in magic would have not been further pursued, or why the historical facts of pre-Equestria would be worth keeping hidden from others.

Against my better judgement, I took Spinel's work with me to Canterlot and began covertly working on the spells which he had been developing. The conceptual nature of Spinel's magic shared a lot in common with the principles which I was trying to establish by using magic to condense water vapor. Spinel's spells, in theory, were capable of isolating a body from space from another, without so much as any trace elements leaking through. That said, there were both advantages and disadvantages to this magic. While the magic guaranteed total segregation from all other space, if it were used on a living creature, the space in which they were trapped within would eventually run out of oxygen. As well, even when the shell was formed at its thinnest density, any material which made contact with the shell was literally erased from existence. That means if the magic were cast as a sphere partly through the air and partly through the ground, the portion of the ground in which it made contact with would vanish, along with the air above it. When the magic was released, the sudden absence of air would cause a shockwave that varied in intensity dependent on the amount of air exhausted. As well, the ground would shift however much was erased.

Once again, against my better conscious direction, I decided to try to incorporate the principles of my water-based spells along with Spinel's theories to create something unique that I eventually titled 'negative magic'. This magic held onto the same core principles as those used in the alpha spells I first developed with aquatics, but would guarantee a shell that was completely impenetrable. Where a water vapor shell could theoretically be penetrated with a solid enough object or strongly focused magic, negative magic would have no such issues. Once cast, any other form of magic cast toward it from inside or outside would vanish, rather than being reflected. The same would go for any solid object which attempted intrusion.

But as I continued my research, I learned just how much energy was necessary to properly harness this magic. With all the practice and skills I had learned during my service with the Royal Guard, I was still not prepared enough. Eventually, I had to turn my attention to those magical ponies with greater capabilities than my own: Alicorns.

Initially, I considered consulting Princess Celestia on her alicorn magic, but considering the nature of the material I was working on – and what I had discovered in the old castle – I decided the best course of action would be to observe from a distance. Over the course of a few weeks, I attempted to observe the magic she used to raise and lower the sun. But since my position kept me more often at the castle gates than inside, there was little observation to be had. Upon Princess Luna's eventual return, I tried to do the same with her, but with no greater success.

I knew better than to continue wasting my time trying to find a way to observe the Princesses magic, so eventually, I asked my supervisor to rework my schedule so that I could begin visiting the Everfree Forest regularly. A few weeks later, the schedule was set, and once every few days, I would go out to the forest and experiment with the magic. Eventually, I got a feel for how the basic principles worked, but using the magic with my own power proved to be too volatile. Thankfully, Spinel had drawn diagrams for a few experimental devices which he had been developing to harness the magic. Over the course of that year, I worked on building a few examples of those devices, fine-tuning his original concepts and creating more stable products.

The further I delved into my research, the more I realized I needed a more private place to work. For yet another year, I spent time building an aircraft to carry and conceal the devices which I was building. The aircraft would allow me to freely move the devices around without having to take them with me one at a time, as well as to do isolated experimentation within. But I still had to figure out a way to travel without being seen. I reworked some of my original water-based spells and developed a means of casting a cloak around the ship.

Things were going well enough until one day, when one of the devices I had built malfunctioned. I was inside the ship, writing some figures down from a recent experiment, when suddenly everything went dark. I must have passed out, as the next thing I knew, I was lying on the floor staring out into the hallway of the ship. It felt as if I had a strange dream of some sort, but I couldn't recall any of the details. But that didn't matter nearly as much as what I saw when I stepped out onto the deck of the ship.

The magic had created a deep crater in the forest. But the strangest thing of all was how it had kept all the foliage in place. Not one tree or shrub seemed to be out of place, although the ground had clearly been dug out by nearly a hundred feet. Soon afterward, I properly disposed of the device, leaving me with only six remaining, and recorded the information, although I had little to record in terms of exact figures. I had no idea why the device behaved such as it did.

The more time I spent at the ship in the forest, the more I began to slack off on my duties as a Royal Guard. Eventually, I heard about the coronation of a unicorn turned alicorn by the name of Twilight Sparkle. The phenomenon itself was highly unusual, and once I learned she was living in Ponyville, I decided to make arrangements to begin covert observation from a distance. Unfortunately, that meant my time and service with the Royal Guard were even further strained. It didn't take long for my superiors to notice, but I continued with my behavior, throwing caution to the wind. I was set on finishing this magic so that I could present it to the Princesses, in hopes that they might implement it into the Royal Guard's final line of defensive tactics. It was a long-shot, and I will admit that by this point, my intentions had been heavily skewed, given what I had discovered in the hidden room of the old castle. By this point, I had committed myself to finishing the research just for research's sake, but there was still a small hope in my heart that if I could develop negative magic to be a safe and effective means of defense, and if it was segregated enough from Spinel's original work, that it could prove useful for the unicorns of the Royal Guard. But before I could complete my research, I was unceremoniously relieved of duty, and I quietly made my way out to the forest to live in the airship.

As of this writing, I have formally begun my observation of Twilight Sparkle. It is my hope that in time, I can make use of her magical prowess in finalizing negative magic. However, to do so will likely mean that I will have to take drastic action, as I don't see a Princess of Equestria voluntarily cooperating with an ex-member of the Royal Guard to develop potentially the world's most dangerous magic. The only advantage of not being a member of the Royal Guard anymore is that there are fewer eyes watching over me. One disadvantage could have been that I couldn't get as close to the Princess, but thankfully, Twilight Sparkle still retains her position in Ponyville as if she were no more important than any of the other citizens.

In the event of a crisis, one backup plan I have is to assimil

In the event of a crisis, please make use of the information provided above.

Riptide