The Reality Engine

In the shadow of the Ortis Mountains lay the Belt: a strip of forest stretching the whole two-thousand kilometres of the range. In it, the remaining few Illerians eked out an existence, forced from their homeland by the Equestrian Commonwealth and their great fleet of ships. The Commonwealth had come seeking the mineral wealth of Ilerria, rich in ore deposits churned up at the bottom of the ocean and deposited along the shore of the Wretched Sea. Now, they occupied Illerian towns and cities, building new colonies on the bones of the once-proud nation. And so the survivors lived, sequestered between the wall of ice and stone in the west and the colonies in the east.

In the predawn light, the warm currents above the Wretched Sea collided with the cold fronts off the glaciated mountains and mingled within the Belt. A pair of ponies walked through this gently sighing air, trekking through the stunted purple trees of the Belt.

Starbound, the leader of the pair, scanned his surroundings, searching for the unlikely signs of soldiers in amongst the purple leaves. He was a unicorn with midnight-blue fur and silky black hair, with the distinctive solid black eyes and the lithe build of an Illerian. But despite his build, he walked with snaps and crackles, somehow treading on every branch, rock, and leaf in his way.

“So, anyway, what did you think?” Sparky, the second member of the pair, asked. Her words were soft and hurried but spoken with a ringing precision. She fluttered along the ground, a tiny sky-blue pegasus with a tangled shock of blonde hair. In bulging saddlebags, she carried a score of magical beacons. She constantly looked back to them, adjusting straps and checking they were secure. They seemed to be important, but Starbound had no clue what they were for.

“Think of what?” Starbound responded, shifting a fallen branch out of his way with magic and stepping over it.

“The paper I gave—” there was a smack, then a metallic clatter “—Hey, watch it!”

Starbound turned around to find Sparky rubbing her muzzle, with all of her magic beacons scattered on the ground. Starbound raised an eyebrow. What was the point of locking her saddlebags if everything was just going to pop open anyway?

“Be more careful. I swear, one more time, Starbound, and I’m leading.” She huffed, her breath creating white clouds in the crisp morning air.

“Oh, aye? What if we run into a patrol? Ye really want to be leadin’ then?”

Sparky bit her lip. “Very well, I concede. You lead. But please try to be more careful, yes?”

Starbound grinned to himself, silently celebrating his victory. It was almost too easy: one mention of danger and Sparky wouldn’t dare to lead. It had been years since any soldiers from the colonies had ventured this far into Illerian territory.

Sparky pointed at her scattered beacons. “And pick those up.”

With his magic, Starbound scooped up the beacons—which he thought looked a lot like plain steel rods—and shoved them into Sparky’s saddlebags. Why somepony so tiny insisted on carrying them all herself baffled him.

The pair resumed their trek through the forest. The thick foliage dragged on Starbound’s mane, but did little to his new armoured duster coat, a thick piece of synthetic fibre and heat-absorbing ceramic plates built by Sparky from salvaged parts of a downed Illerian spacecraft. Sparky boasted that it could survive an uncontrolled reentry—a statement Starbound knew she would rescind had she seen even half the reentries he had. Not that he ever expected to put it to the test. Its actual purpose was to stop caster bolts and lasers, and even that seemed unlikely as the general consensus among Illerians was to gallop away if they ever saw a soldier. True, Starbound had ignored that wisdom before and had the scars to prove it, but…. Actually, the coat was probably a smart idea.

“So about that paper I gave you?” Sparky asked, shaking Starbound from his thoughts.

“Hm?” Starbound turned around. “What paper?”

“The paper… that I gave you… yesterday. Remember?”

Starbound frowned. He didn’t remember Sparky giving him a paper. In fact, he was pretty sure he hadn’t seen Sparky in days. What day was it? He tried to recall the position of the moons last night.

“About the beacons?” Sparky asked.

“Ah ha!” Starbound exclaimed. There was a yelp and a frantic burst of flapping behind him. He turned to find Sparky disentangling herself from a nearby bush.

“Don’t scare me like that!” Sparky hissed. She tugged on her unkempt mane to pull it from a clingy branch.

“Ye not blaming me fer that one.” Starbound offered a hoof to Sparky, who ignored it as she hauled herself upright. “But thinkin’ about it, I do remember a paper.”

Sparky looked at Starbound with a blank expression. Then she smiled. “Oh, right! What did you think of it?” Sparky signalled for them to start moving again.

“Oh. Well, I didn’ actually read it.”

Sparky's smile turned to a frown as she glared at Starbound.

“Ah, in my defence, it was seventy pages long.”

“Starbound, you can speed-read.”

Starbound winced. “Aye, I know. I was just… er... busy.” Biting his tongue before he dug himself deeper, he turned and started walking again, clambering over the dry husk of a log. He got stuck halfway over, legs dangling uselessly over the edge. Great, now he had no way to escape from Sparky, and he knew what came next: guilt tripping. Always the guilt tripping.

With the beacons jostling in her saddlebags, Sparky flew over the log and dragged Starbound down the other side. “Look, I just thought you might be interested. After all, you’re the one always complaining about how bored you are. Clearly, I was wrong. Not that it matters, of course. After all, it’s not like I spent weeks on it or anything.”

“I was goin’ to read it! I just hadn’ got around to it yet, see?’”

"It doesn't matter. Stars forbid I ever try to give you something interesting to do." Sparky sighed. “So, I presume you don’t know why we’re actually out here?”

“Ehhh… no?”

Sparky sighed again, this time devolving into a groan.

Starbound waited, expecting another explanation. But Sparky remained silent. Strange, she never missed an opportunity to lecture him. He turned towards her, frowning.

Starbound's heart lept: Sparky’s wings were poised, ready to leap into flight, and her eyes darted around. She must’ve heard something. Starbound settled into a guarded stance and scanned the forest, but couldn't see anything. The gully blocked sight in most directions and even if it didn't, the dense forest and dappled light would obscure anything more than a few dozen meters away.

“Somethin’ wrong?” Starbound asked, mouth suddenly dry. He tried to turn back to Sparky but couldn’t shake the feeling something might leap out at them.

“I thought I heard a noise,” she whispered.

Starbound nodded, ears swivelling. A distant bird burst into flight with frantic flapping, then forest fell into a absolute silence, to the point where Starbound heard the blood pulsing in his ears. The two ponies remained like that for a while, not daring to move, until Starbound finally spoke up. “Eh… nah, I think we’re good.”

Sparky sighed, her wings relaxing. “Sorry. I was probably just being a little paranoid.”

“Humph." Starbound stretched his neck with several loud cracks, realising he’d been clenching it.

Sparky frowned and Starbound. Starbound stared back at her for a moment, a smile spreading on his face.

"Oh, it was probably just a bird, or a lizard, or something. Better it is nothin’, right?” Starbound turned away from the still-unconvinced mare and resumed walking. As his heart calmed down, he couldn’t help but chuckle. What was there to be afraid of? No large animals lived in the Belt; even this far inland the soil was tainted by the Wretched Sea. The soldiers stuck to their colony and their mines; they didn’t want to ‘aggravate the natives’.

Starbound turned back to Sparky, who glanced sullenly at the ground and avoided his gaze. “Ye were goin’ to tell me ’bout the beacons, aye?”

“Nevermind.”

Starbound was about to insist when he heard a sound: muffled voices. Sparky’s head shot back up, and she gave Starbound a tacit look of ‘I knew I wasn’t crazy’ and ‘I told you so’.

Before Starbound could apologise, Sparky leapt forward and shoved a hoof into his mouth. “Shh,” she said, eyes burning furiously.

“Hmph?” Starbound garbled.

Sparky lowered her hoof. “What if they’re soldiers?”

Starbound rolled his eyes. They weren’t soldiers. But he listened anyway, just to humour Sparky and to prove he was right. Leaves crunched under heavy hoofsteps, a muttered conversation drifted through the air. Nothing particularly ‘soldiery’ about any of it. “Well, whoever they are, they’re headin’ our w—”

Sparky furiously shushed him again. “Just… don’t speak. Please.”

The sounds grew louder, but it remained impossible to determine who was causing them. “What if they’re refugees?” Starbound asked. “They could need our hel—”

“Shut up!” Sparky hissed. “They’re not refugees.”

Starbound glared. Why did Sparky always have to assume the worst? He puffed out his cheeks, stopping himself from arguing.

“Look, let’s just find a place to hide. If it's safe, it's safe, and if not, then you'll be thanking me. Alright?” Sparky whispered.

Furtively, Starbound motioned with his head to the top of the gully. Up there, they could watch the approaching ponies with the benefit of distance, darkness, and cover.

Sparky nodded. She took flight and wrapped her forelegs around Starbound’s trunk. Grimacing, and with a few strained grunts, she flew up and dropped him on the top of the ridge. The flight barely lasted three seconds, but Sparky puffed from the effort, letting her wings droop on the ground after she landed.

While Sparky recovered, Starbound fell onto his belly and crawled towards the ridge, spreading his grey duster coat around him. Hopefully, it would blend into the leaf litter and make him harder to spot. He watched the gully, listening to the voices as they grew louder. Half a minute later three ponies appeared around a bend. Starbound shrank back, pressing himself into the ground. Although the appearances of the new ponies were similar to Starbound and Sparky, their grey jumpsuits, black boots, and holstered casters identified them as soldiers of the Equestrian Commonwealth. In the lead was a unicorn stallion, trotting confidently along, but slowing every dozen steps to look up to his faintly glowing horn. Following him were two earth pony mares, easily sisters with a similar brown coat and silver mane. One of them stomped along behind the stallion, glazing over the trees with disinterested eyes. The other glanced about nervously, only breaking to look down at the caster strapped to her foreleg.

The leader stuck his hoof into the air, signalling the patrol to stop. He increased the magic from his horn and waved it back and forth. There was a dense cluster of roots clinging to the side of the gully, and his horn glowed brighter every time it passed them. The roots belonged to an ancient gnarled tree, standing out amongst the purple of the Belt with the small green leaves of inland trees. Sparky had found the tree several years ago on a scouting expedition, not long after the invasion. She learnt that if you squeezed past the roots, you would enter a hidden cave. Sparky and Starbound had made use of the cave as shelter or to get away from the village several times since, but the soldiers had no reason to be in there: it was completely empty, besides the mouldy orange peels that Starbound left behind on his last visit.

“Alright, this is it. Looks like she’s inside,” the leader said.

Whatever Sparky was planning with the beacons, Starbound knew the soldiers were doing something more interesting. As he watched them push their way through the tangled roots, he crawled forward, but a hoof grabbed the hem of his coat and pulled him back. He turned, frowning; behind him, Sparky was biting her lip.

“Starbound? You’re not seriously planning on following them in there, are you?” Sparky whispered, ruffling her wings.

“Well of course! Ye heard them, right? There’s a she in there. In our cave. Aren’t you in the least bit curious?”

“No, not really. Also—keep it down.”

“Oh, come on!”

Sparky shot him a glare.

“Oh, come on,” Starbound repeated in a whisper.

“Starbound, what could possibly be in there? It’s a cave, hidden behind a tree, in the middle of a continent-spanning strip of forest. We’re probably the only ponies on the whole planet who know about it!”

“Well, ye reckon a group of soldiers would be out poking their muzzles in this cave if there wasn’t something going on, do ye?”

Sparky’s flared her wings slightly. “What I think is irrelevant. Do you even hear yourself? Like you said, it’s a group of soldiers! We’re supposed to avoid them, not follow them into a tight space where we can't escape!”

“Now look who’s being loud.” Starbound huffed. “All I’m sayin’ is we sneak in after them, take a look and sneak back out again. If worse comes to worse, we’ll have the element of surprise.”

“Oh, so now you’re saying we should fight them?”

“Hey, that’s not what I said! I don’ want to fight them any more than ye do. But I’m just sayin’ if we do…”

Sparky didn’t respond.

“Fine. Suit yeself. But I’m goin’ to take a look-see.”

Starbound carefully crawled over the lip of the ridge, but couldn’t avoid sliding down into the gully. His slide turned into a tumble, and he rolled twice with garbled exclamations before landing on his back in a pile of gravel and purple leaves. He groaned and opened his eyes. Far above him, Sparky glanced nervously at the entrance to the cave, but no soldiers came thundering out.

Starbound rolled to his belly and stood, dusting off his coat. He motioned for Sparky to come down and join him, but she shook her head. Starbound motioned again with more urgency. This time, Sparky pressed her lips together before ruffling her wings and glancing behind her. For a second, Starbound worried she might actually fly off and leave. But when she finally took to the air, she flew to Starbound and landed by his side.

“You’ll do something stupid and get yourself caught without me, guaranteed,” Sparky said.

Oblivious to her insult, Starbound walked towards the green tree.

Sparky joined him and together they pushed through the tangle of roots. He had almost made it through when his mane caught. He tugged at it, wincing. With a snap of wood, it tore free, and he tumbled into the cave. Little light made it through the roots, leaving them enveloped by darkness and an oppressive, damp cold. Starbound felt Sparky grab onto his coat, and he shot a confused glare back at her, but couldn’t make out any more than the outline of her head. He lit his horn and the darkness subsided, the shapes of rocky walls and the mud-covered floor becoming clear. Sparky hit him in the shin. Starbound extinguished the light, mentally kicking himself. It hadn’t even taken a minute for Sparky to be proven right. He might as well have been jumping up and down, screaming at the soldiers to come and shoot them.

Garbled conversion echoed from further into the cave, around the corner. As they crept further into the cave, Starbound’s eyes adjusted, and he noticed a light shining on the far wall. He reached the corner, Sparky right behind him, and slowly peered around it.

The soldiers were right there.

His heart leapt, and he ducked back behind the corner. He slid on the slick muddied floor and backed right into Sparky. Starbound turned to her, and although he could barely distinguish her features, he knew she was glaring at him.

Starbound reached for his caster: a flared steel tube divided by crystal lenses attached to a rubber mouth-grip and trigger. The colonists only used them as sidearms, but they were popular amongst Illerians—easy to build, easy to maintain, and cheap to reproduce: the hallmarks of simple, practical, Illerian design. They never needed ammunition, instead drawing from a pony’s own magic, regardless of their race. The downside was that they didn’t have enough energy to be lethal, not unless you wanted to exhaust yourself after the first few shots.

Even though holding the caster in his magic illuminated their position, if this came down to a firefight, Starbound wanted to be prepared. He steadied himself with a couple of deep breaths before poking his head out again. But before he could, something landed on his back. Stifling a shriek, he snapped his head around, caster ready to fire. In the light of his magic, a surprised Sparky looked down at him, blinking.

A wave of relief washing over him, Starbound raised an eyebrow. What was Sparky thinking? He expected her to hide behind him and his armoured coat, not stand on him out in the open. Sparky answered his question when she craned her head around the corner to see the soldiers for herself. After a moment, Sparky looked down at Starbound, her own eyebrow cocked.

Starbound looked around the corner for the second time. The soldiers were all bunched up at the back wall of the cave. At least, it looked like the back wall to Starbound. The soldiers seemed to think otherwise: the two earth pony mares were running their hooves over the jagged surface, while the unicorn stallion watched the direction of the cave’s entrance with his caster drawn.

“Leave it, Ray, and come and help us,” one of the mares said, turning to address the stallion.

“I could’ve sworn I heard something,” the unicorn said. He frowned and holstered his caster. “Probably just my imagination.” He stepped up to the wall and started probing it with pale green magic.

“I don’t blame you,” the second mare said. “These natives are getting worse. First Iron Site, then Solstice’s squad?” She snarled. “Savages. I’ll be glad to get back to civilisation. Hopefully, I’ll get posted someplace cold.”

Starbound felt Sparky tense up behind him. He ground his teeth. Savages?

The stallion chuckled “You mean someplace warm? It got below freezing this morning in the colony.”

“My point exactly,” the mare responded. She took her hooves off the wall to gesture wildly. “The weather here is mad: boiling in the camp, but you go fifty klicks north to the colony and it’s winter time!”

“Ah! Found it!” the first mare exclaimed. There was a clunk, and the cave started shaking. A second later, the back wall retracted down into the ground, filling the cave with dust. Starbound felt his nose twitch. He breathed in, but Sparky stomped on his head before he sneezed and he gave a strangled croak. He froze, but none of the soldiers turned, instead disappearing into the settling dust cloud. He glared up at Sparky, fuming, but she wasn’t looking at him. Did she really think he’d be stupid enough to sneeze out loud?

Sparky hopped off Starbound’s back and fluttered down on his far side. “Look, we’ve seen what you wanted. Now let’s go before magic starts flying.”

“What?” Starbound turned around. “Ye mean not go down there? Sparky: it’s a secret passage! It’s real and everythin’!”

“Shhh! Starbound, this isn’t safe. We need to go.” Sparky gazed at the entrance. “Please?” She added.

Starbound raised an eyebrow. Sparky couldn’t seriously be scared, could she? They weren’t about to turn back now, just when things were getting interesting. The presence of soldiers in the belt was cause enough for investigation, let alone the same soldiers finding a secret passage in a hidden cave. At the very least, it was more exciting than another day in the village where the primary form of entertainment was not freezing to death.

Starbound double checked his caster was on. “I’m going inside.”

“What?!”

Starbound moved towards the tunnel through the dust, making sure that his cloak was buttoned up over his chest, then he flipped the collar up. That protected his neck at least. Why couldn’t Sparky have made him a helmet to go with the coat? Because a helmet was harder to make than a coat, obviously. He grumbled. Why did he have to be so good at answering his own questions? Why couldn’t Sparky just be wrong for once? Grumbling, he hugged against the wall and was about to peer around the corner when his dust allergies had other ideas. He hunched over as he stifled another sneeze.

When he looked up, Sparky was standing over him. She drew her caster and fastened it onto her leg with an ankle band. She adjusted the caster with a snap of elastic. “I hate you,” she mumbled.

Starbound smiled and looked around the corner as Sparky pressed herself up against his left side, so when they stepped into the secret passage, Starbound would be between her and the soldiers. Leave it to Sparky to use him as a meat-shield without so much as a moment's hesitation. He huffed and turned to look down the passage. He supposed he’d rather be shot himself than let Sparky get hit, which made it okay in the end.

Actually, no. It didn't make it ‘okay’. Sparky didn’t have a right to treat him like that. Starbound spun back around to her, his mind already forming a string of scathing comments. But he cut himself off as soon as he saw her standing there trembling, her ears swiveling about at every noise. She locked onto his gaze, her eyes wide and fearful. Starbound felt his face burning, and he turned away. He should just be thankful that Sparky came with him. After all, she was the one risking her life to satisfy his curiosity. Putting himself between her and harm's way was the least he could do in recompense.

Still unable to look at Sparky, Starbound pressed on. Looking around, the tunnel had obviously been dug out: scorch marks from drilling marred the walls, and a smooth layer of concrete covered the floor. Was the entire cave artificial? Or had somepony just added this section in? Who? And why? How old was this place? How had the soldiers known where to find it?

Starbound’s questions faded as the tunnel opened up into a square chamber with sides ten meters long. Stacks of heavy metal chests, several dozen in total, lined the walls. They were a design standard in Illerian military installations, but considering there were only so many ways to build a metal box, they could have been from anywhere. Whatever secrets they held, however, paled in comparison to the lifesize statue in the centre of the chamber.

Even in the dim light, the mare the statue depicted caught Starbound’s breath with her beauty. He guessed she was half a head taller than him, with a flowing mane and tail curled into what Starbound was sure were perfect hyperbolic spirals. Her cutie mark—three gems—wasn’t painted on, but nor was it carved into her. It just seemed to be there, somehow. Between that, her height, solid build and beauty, there was no way she was based on a real pony. Maybe some kind of mythic figure. Or maybe… she looked like a colonist. Coincidence? Or had the Equestrian Commonwealth visited Illeria in the past? As Starbound craned his head, searching for details, the air around the statue shimmered. That meant powerful magic. Or a forcefield. Or a powerful forcefield.

What was this statue?

But Starbound knew he’d spent too long exposed allready, so he backtracked a safe distance into the corridor and crouched down. His grey duster coat blended with the floor, while his blue fur and black hair melted into the shadows. In theory, if he remained still, he would be very hard to see. Unless the guards were using a night-vision spell. Could they be? Starbound groaned internally. No, of course not. If they were, they wouldn’t need a light.

“Starbound, your magic,” Sparky whispered into his ear.

Starbound lowered his caster to the ground, nodding. Sparky was right: they were too close to the soldiers now and his magic was too bright.

Sparky crept forward, sticking her head around Starbound’s in order to get a better view. So close to him, Starbound could hear her short and shallow breathing, and smell her sweat. Clumsily, he patted her on the shoulder. He wasn’t quite sure why, it just seemed like the right thing to do. She tensed, spinning to stare wide-eyed at Starbound. For a moment, she was still, then she relaxed and smiled with a brief nod. She turned back to the soldiers.

The unicorn stallion stepped up to the statue, strengthening the light from his horn. “So this is what the general is after, then? This statue? I don’t get what’s so special about it.”

One of the mares rolled her eyes. “Did you actually read the general’s briefing?”

Sparky nudged Starbound. When he turned to her, she nodded to the stallion. Starbound raised an eyebrow. Seriously? Just because he didn’t read Sparky’s report, she was going to compare him to this guy?

The stallion shook his head. “Well, kind of. The only things I was interested in were ‘cave’, ‘statue’ and ‘reward.’”

"An hour's drive; a two-hours walk and this is the first time you mentioned it?" The mare groaned.

The stallion glared at her, tapping the epaulet on his jumpsuit.

"Sorry, sir. It’s... ah... not for the general. She wants to give it to Orison as a gift for his five hundredth birthday. Probably to butter him up for a payrise or something.”

Sparky made a vague gesture, then nodded again in the direction of the stallion. Starbound frowned. What? If she wasn't trying to tell Starbound how terrible he was, then what was she trying to say?

The stallion turned back to face the mares. “Pfft. Typical.”

Sparky glared at Starbound. “What?” he mouthed.

Sparky face-hoofed. Starbound made a pleading gesture. What, was he supposed to be some kind of mind-reader? Sparky couldn’t just flap her legs about and expect him to understand. Clenching his jaw, he turned back to the soldiers.

“Well, why this one?” the second mare asked. “Why not one that’s, you know, not in the least accessible place imaginable?”

The first mare groaned again. “It’s pre-unification Equestrian, probably older than Orison himself. Which makes it rare enough on its own. But that’s not what makes it really valuable—”

“Nopony cares, Rose,” the second mare snarked.

“But you just asked—”

The unicorn coughed loudly. “So why aren’t we selling it to Orison ourselves?”

“Do you know how to get an audience with Orison? Because I don’t,” the mare called Rose said. When the unicorn glared at her, she paused. “Um, sorry, sir.”

“No, no. You’re probably right. I suppose the general will pay us enough. It’d be nice to retire. Now, let’s get the statue out of here, and we’ll get back to the camp in time for lunch.” The unicorn stepped forwards and tapped the air in front of the statue. A blue ripple spread out in a cylinder around it. “Oh, of course. A forcefield. Ideas, anypony?”

“Well, we’ll just have to break it,” the first mare said. She pulled her caster out of its holster and held it in her teeth. Aiming at the ground in front of the statue, she fired. A bolt of brilliant light flew out and burst against the force field.

Starbound heard a strangled yelp to his left and felt a flurry of movement. He turned to find Sparky cowering behind him.

“Sorry,” Sparky mouthed. She tentatively stepped out from Starbound, who rolled his eyes and returned to the soldiers. Bright flashes of light punctuated the dark and left ghostly silhouettes floating in front of his eyes. He shielded his eyes with a foreleg, not that it helped much.

“Now would be a good time to shoot them,” Sparky whispered into Starbound’s ear.

“What?” Starbound scowled. “I thought ye didn't want to start a fight?”

“Oh, I don't. But you want to know what’s down here. So I’m saying this for you. We need to shoot them. Now, while their backs are turned.” Sparky poked her head out from around Starbound, aiming her caster at the closest of the soldiers.

Starbound nodded. Right, of course. Perfect opportunity. He turned back just as the force field flickered and died.

A final blast of magic hit the concrete and sent up a scattering of fragments. The shooting ceased, and the room grew dark. Starbound searched around for his caster, reaching out with his magic but with no success in the pitch black.

The unicorn relit his horn, and the soldiers stalked towards the statue. Cautiously, the stallion reached out and touched it. When nothing happened, he turned back to the mares with a grin. Starbound caught a glint of light on the ground out of the corner of his eye. His caster? He probed out with his magic, grinning when he contacted the familiar steel surfaces. Yes, that was his caster. He grabbed onto it and raised it, training it on the back of the stallion’s head. A little moral warning light went off in the back of his mind, but he ignored it. They were just soldiers. They would kill Starbound without a moment’s hesitation.

An alarm sounded. Floodlights flared into existence, first in the room and then in the hallway, rendering Starbound and Sparky completely visible. Sparky jumped and threw herself behind Starbound, abandoning her caster without a second thought. Starbound gawked. Of course, as soon as Sparky was at risk, she went diving for cover. Starbound still had his caster pointed at the stallion. Should he take the shot? Maybe the soldiers wouldn’t see them. He started to back away slowly, a grimace etched into his face.

The soldiers jumped, spinning about, weapons at the ready. It took less than a second for one of the mares to spot Starbound in the tunnel. “Natives! They must’ve followed us in here!”

The three soldiers trained their weapons at Starbound and Sparky. Starbound dropped his caster, realising a moment later he probably should’ve held onto it. “Look, we’re not wantin’ any trouble. We were just interested in what ye were doin’, see?”

The unicorn stared blankly at Starbound, the only sound being the screech of the alarm.

“So… um, we’ll just be going then?”

Forcing a grin, Starbound continued to creep backwards, Sparky doing the same behind him. She mumbled something, unintelligible under the alarm.

“What?” Starbound asked.

“Run!” Sparky took to the air and sped off. Starbound started to run after her, but immediately stopped. The false had wall had resealed. They were trapped in with the soldiers. A caster bolt flew past him and hit the floor. Another one flew by, exploding by Sparky’s head as she stood dumbfounded by the sudden reappearance of the wall. She yelped, but Starbound didn’t have time to react before a third blast hit him square on his right flank. It tore into him with all the pain of a hot poker. His leg buckled and he sprawled onto the floor, gasping for breath while the heat died down. The tiniest stretch of his leg sent new waves of pain crashing through him. And the mere thought of standing up made his eyes water. He whimpered.

“Starbound!” Sparky screeched. She turned and flew back to Starbound, blindly firing her caster. But she reached him, a bolt hit her square in the chest. She crashed into the ground, screaming and writhing. The smell of burning hair filled the air.

Starbound snarled. Nopony hurt Sparky and got away with it. He pushed himself to his hooves and limped half a step towards Sparky before another bolt slammed into his side. He spasmed, collapsing to the ground. His torso convulsed in ways he didn’t think possible, fighting to escape the heat. He reached for his caster with flickering magic, eyes tearing. It wasn’t in its holster. Of course it wasn’t, he’d just dropped it on the floor. He rolled over to face the soldiers, only to witness one of the mares pick up his caster, while the stallion pulled out a communication stone from his webbing. The second mare continued pointing her caster at him. Overcome by dizziness, he dropped his head and resting it against the concrete, closing his eyes. There was nothing he could do, no way to get out of this. He was going to die. Sparky was going to die. And it was all his stupid fault.

“This is scout squad forty-nine,” the stallion spoke calmly into his stone. “We have apprehended two hostiles. Threat assessment minimal. Terminate, or should we retrieve them?”

There was a garbled reply that Starbound struggled to understand. He couldn’t hear it over his racing heart and frantic breathing, nor concentrate on it as his mind scrambled for a way to save him.

“Well, looks like it’s your lucky day, natives,” the stallion said.

Lucky day? Living? Starbound’s sides shook from an overwhelming urge to laugh and cry. He wasn’t going to die.

“Rose, stun them and get them tied up.”

Oh, being taken as a prisoner of war. At least it was better than being shot. Possibly. He opened his eyes, meeting the gaze of the soldier stalking towards him. She casually brought her foreleg up to her head and, with her teeth, flicked a switch on her caster. She stared at him dismissively, pointed the weapon at Starbound’s head, and fired.

Unlike the previous shots, this one didn’t burn. He barely felt it at all. It just left him numb. His limbs grew heavy and his head sunk to the floor. Darkness crept into the edge of his vision. He watched in surreal slurred time as the statue’s smooth stone cracked to reveal white fur, a striking purple mane, and finally wide blue eyes, glassy and unseeing. The last of the rocky surface crumbled away and the mare collapsed onto the floor. The bizarre occurrence left an unsavoury flavour on his tongue until that too faded and he fell unconscious.

For longer than she remembered, Rarity’s world was a grey cocoon. At times, she resented it, but at others, she accepted the serenity it brought: not fully conscious, but not entirely unaware. Now, piece after piece fell away, replacing the soothing warmth of her world with a biting cold. A void opened up, and she fell into a grating wake.

She opened her eyes to blurs of light and shadow. She blinked rapidly. Blurs resolved into the lines, cracks, and dents of stone. She was looking at a ceiling. It was only a few body lengths above her, but even such a small distance made her head spin.

Once her vertigo passed, Rarity studied the ceiling with greater clarity. It looked like concrete. Who would make a ceiling out of concrete? Nopony she would associate with, that was for sure. Absolutely garish. And then there were the rusted metal bars that poked through its crumbling surface. Simply hideous! If she had to be awake, the very least she could do is find something more interesting to look at.

Rarity closed her eyes and focused. Slowly, she felt her muzzle, her ears, her jaw, and finally her neck. She tried turning her head to the side, but it moved with the grating of a grindstone. Eventually, she could survey the room around her, beginning with the crisp bed sheets pulled up to her neck. Above her, the concrete ceiling continued into a concrete wall. The floor, at least, had the decency to cover its concreteness with grimy off-white tiles. Never before had she been in a room this ugly or devoid of character. Even the air was stilted and stuffy, despite the best efforts of several fans dotted about the place. Where in Equestria was she?

There was another pony next to Rarity. A sky blue mare, with a mess of straw blonde hair falling out of a bun. Like Rarity, she had sheets pulled up around her. A tube led from her foreleg to a slowly dripping bag of clear fluid suspended on a hook above her. She slept peacefully, or at least seemed to: whatever was in the bag could easily be keeping her unconscious. Rarity frowned. She didn't recognise the pony. Who was she? Was it possible Rarity knew her?

Rarity tried to call out, but her tongue felt like lead. Refusing to give up, she furiously forced her mouth to operate faster, running through syllables like a singing warm-up. But before she could form a whole word, she caught movement in the corner of her eye. It resolved itself into another pony; an earth pony with a peach coat and aqua mane cut short. She wore a crisp white uniform, reminiscent of a doctor’s, that contrasted with the dilapidation of the rest of the room. In her mouth, she carried a pair of tongs that held a fragment of a crystal.

Rarity watched the doctor place the crystal and tongs on a tray beside the bed of the pegasus. She pulled the bed sheet down around the unconscious mare, exposing her chest and her wings. She readjusted the tongs, picked the crystal back up and positioned it an inch above the pony’s chest. She paused briefly, then pushed it down. Its pointed tip pierced the blue pony’s fur, accompanied by the searing of flesh. At first, Rarity’s crawling mind didn’t comprehend what it was seeing, but as her nose filled with the acrid stench of burning fur the horror dawned on her.

Rarity's heart raced as panic flooded her mind, screaming at her to run, run far away and save herself. But her unresponsive body refused to move. Even lifting a foreleg to shield her nose from the burning smell proved too much. As adrenaline coursed through her, paralyzed limbs woke and her mind cleared. She pushed herself to move, digging her limbs into the firm surface of the bed.

She didn't understand; doctors were supposed to help ponies, not hurt them. At least, that's what she thought a doctor should do. She had no memories, so couldn't be sure. Why wasn't that a bigger concern to her? Where were her memories? She knew she had them, but every time she dug into her mind they came back hazy and indistinct. Had she been drugged? Brainwashed? Why, and by whom? This evil doctor? This made no sense. None of this was right. Rarity needed to get out.

The doctor wandered out of Rarity’s view. There was no time to wait and see if she would come back. Rarity needed to move. She twitched a forehoof, then a back hoof. Then a crashing wave of warmth hit her, signalling the return of her magic. The sensation of power and wholeness it gave her tumbled through the clouds that smothered her mind. It continued to fall, down through the layers of consciousness to its place on the border between conscious and subconscious, a place of familiarity and instinct. Despite herself, she breathed a sigh of relief. She hadn’t realised her magic was missing, but already she never wanted to part with it again.

A bag like the one above the blue pony hung over her, feeding a tube into her left foreleg. Like the other mare, Rarity was bound to her bed, strapped by each fetlock and around her waist. Moving as quickly as she could, she reached into her magic, undid the restraints, then pulled out the tube, which came free with a spot of blood. She sat up, only for her head to swim and threaten to force her back down again. Spots darted past her eyes. As she struggled to remain upright, she watched the doctor place another crystal into a black metal furnace on the back wall. A menagerie of tools surrounded her, some Rarity recognised as surgical implements. Others were their bastardised cousins, and others still were cruel and twisted instruments. Just thinking about their possible uses made her squirm.

With the doctor facing the other way, Rarity silently reached for one of the instruments, a thin curved blade as long as her foreleg, levitating it close to her. The doctor didn’t notice.

Rarity gave her joints a final stretch and took three sharp breaths. She threw herself off the bed and poured onto the floor in a groaning heap.

The doctor jumped and turned, shouting incoherencies. She ran forward, but Rarity produced the blade, and she stopped dead.

Rarity’s legs refused to be any more solid than jelly. But her stubbornness prevailed and she stood, albeit shakily. The doctor backtracked, hurling more gibberish. She bumped into the back wall and jumped, eyes wide with shock. Rarity paused, the scalpel wavering in her magic. She closed her eyes and sighed. This place, this doctor... Rarity didn’t know what else she could do. When she opened her eyes again, they were hardened. She’d just watched this ‘doctor’ stick a red hot gem into a pony. She didn’t deserve sympathy.

“Where—” A wave of nausea hit Rarity, but she forced herself to remain standing. She focused, trying to muster a threatening voice. “Where... am I?” she squeaked.

“Dai kilomah va hido sa tharay?”

Rarity waved the blade about, deciding to let it do the threatening for her. “Could you repeat that, please?” Maybe Rarity just misheard. The nonsense the doctor was spewing couldn’t possibly be a language.

“Yoto non velo sa erie ta redal!” The doctor gestured at Rarity’s empty bed nervously. “Nei toro fel yoru va redot.” She gestured to the door. “Sa’l tell fella.” She stomped a hoof.

Well, it never hurt to try.

Rarity turned from the mare to the door: a dented plate of rough and grimy metal, worn smooth in irregular blotches from ponies constantly pushing on it. At first, she stumbled toward it, but each step grew in confidence, and she was walking steadily by the time she reached it.

“Haya!” The pony shouted. “Sa’l tell fella!” she repeated.

Rarity figured that meant ‘stop’, or something along those lines. She didn’t really care though; she would leave regardless of what the crazy doctor wanted.

“O, dai therva. Therva mal toro.” The pony mumbled, but again Rarity ignored it and continued on to the door.

Another pony lay on the bed beside the mare. He was a unicorn, whose fur was only discernable as blue and not black by the fact that his mane was slightly darker. His features, though definitely young, were worn in a way expected for a soldier or criminal. Whether the hardships they recorded were self-inflicted or forced upon the stallion by happenstance, she didn’t know, although something about his composure implied the latter. She lingered on his face, searching for some sign of familiarity, but found none. As with the pegasus mare, she had no idea who this pony was, or why they were imprisoned together.

As she passed the two ponies, she slowed to a crawl and looked back to them. Were they important? Were they her friends? Family? Was she supposed to be looking after them? She had no idea. Despite some semblance of coherency reasserting itself, her mind was still shrouded in fog. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it, but that only caused an attack of dizziness that lurched her toward the floor. With little alternative, she shut out her thoughts. Survival first. Escape. Then she could figure out what had happened to her.

Rarity grasped the door with her magic and pulled. It rattled but didn’t open. She glanced back to the doctor, who just shrugged and gestured for Rarity to get back on the bed.

“I already said no.” Rarity turned back to the door. “Fine. I’ll just have to force the door open. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Rarity crouched down to the keyhole. Peering through it, she saw a corridor plagued by more dreary concrete. A window, halfway along, taunted her with the promise of freedom. If only she could escape this room.

At the end of the corridor, a set of double doors burst open. Two ponies galloped through, wearing the skin of some dead animal as armour, enhanced with plates of a strange material, along with a reprehensible number of belts. Their heads were protected by helmets with full-face glass visors, and both brandished smooth spear-like poles, whose lack of features somehow terrified Rarity more than if they were made of a hundred jagged blades. They barreled down the corridor toward Rarity’s door. She panicked and jumped away from the keyhole, heart pounding. There was no doubt in her mind that they were coming for her. The doctor must've alerted them, somehow. She backed away from the door. She'd expected minutes to find a way out. Now she had seconds. She scanned the walls. There were at least a hundred tools on the walls, none more useful than her scalpel.

A bash on the door made Rarity jump. A second later, the ponies outside shouted something. The doctor shouted back. Whatever she said seemed to be the confirmation the two ponies needed, because the door shuddered, an unsightly bulge forming in its middle. Rarity frantically glanced around the room again. Nowhere to hide. No other exits.

She had one idea. Neither of the guards was a unicorn, so a projectile would be hard for them to stop. She ignored the surgical tools—she doubted they would penetrate their armour—and set her eyes on the furnace the doctor had used to heat the crystal. Luckily, nopony had bothered to bolt it down to the floor. While it was the size of a coffee table, it was far heavier, and Rarity grunted under its weight. With a grimace, she hoisted it high into the air and waited for the ponies to enter, fighting her twitching reflexes to not throw it at every new bash at the door.

The doctor shouted something, pointing at Rarity. Before she finished her sentence, Rarity hurled the furnace at her. There was a crunch. Several seconds passed before Rarity opened her eyes, not realizing she’d closed them. The doctor’s unmoving body lay on the floor in front of her. She grimaced, averting her gaze. There wasn’t any blood. At least, none yet. She refused to look back, lest a red pool around the doctor’s head burn into her memory forever.

Trembling, Rarity picked up the furnace again. Her eyes never once left the door as the guards kept banging on it. The bulge in the middle grew larger, the metal groaning in protest. Finally, the lock caved and the two guards charged in. Before she had realised, Rarity was throwing the furnace at the closest pony, a desperate scream escaping her. The furnace plowed into his chest, sending him crashing to the ground. The guard behind cried out and reared up on his hind legs to avoid tripping. Rarity saw the opportunity and pulled the furnace up, slamming it against his chin. Through the connection with her magic, she felt it collide with his jaw. Bones gave way and shattered, and the stallion hit the ground screaming.

Rarity dropped the furnace with a colossal crash and stood there, shaking. She felt ill. All she could do was stare at the ponies in front of her. Frozen. The first guard stirred, making Rarity jump. Without a moment more, she leapt over the guards and bolted through the door. She forced her entire mind and body into running as fast as she could. She didn’t think about what she had just done. She refused to.

The double doors and their promise of escape were so close. The guards couldn’t stop her now. The doors flew open under Rarity’s magic, and she raced through them, continuing outside onto a dirt path. The day was ending, but the air remained warm and dry. Still, a cool breeze washed over her, promising a more amicable night as it seeped into her limbs, reviving her muscles and soul. Galloping faster than ever, she gave an almost manic laugh. Freedom. She’d made it. She’d escaped. A vast dark plain stretched out before her, running a hundred miles to a mountainous horizon whose jagged peaks were touched by the last orange of sunset.

Barely a hundred yards down the path, she dug her hooves into the gravel and slid to a stop, her giddiness crashing down. While the track had always been descending, it now turned abruptly downwards into a crater several hundred yards across, the bottom of which was dotted by floodlights illuminating gangs of ponies marching, chained together, watched over by scores of armed guards. Bizarre pieces of machinery, some larger than a house, perched along pathways, whirring and grinding away, spraying clouds of dust into the air. The clouds rose, entangling with the putrid smelling smoke shrouding the valley. A flying vehicle, far larger than any airship Rarity had seen, descended onto a platform on the far side of the valley.

But Rarity’s attention soon turned to the heavens. There, in the night sky, were two moons. The smaller one, grey and cratered, almost looked familiar. But the larger one, a smooth red disc, had walked straight out of the imagination, for Rarity could clearly make out rows and circles of lights on it that could only come from a city. She stared up at this manifestation of impossibility, captivated. A city on the moon? How?

Where in Equestria was she?

A noise pulled Rarity out of her trance. She wheeled around to find the first guard looming over her, his spear coursing with electricity. Under a cracked helmet, his eyes boiled with rage. Rarity barely had time to squeak before he brought the spear down onto her head. With a flash of lightning, the world exploded into colours. One by one they faded, reuniting Rarity with her grey cocoon.