The Reality Engine

by Lord Mackeroth

Rating: teen
Tags: Science Fiction, Main 6, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Adventure
Length: 22241

Magic has brought the stars within reach of ponykind. What was once Equestria is now an empire built on cruelty and fear. The only hope of restoring harmony is a group of six friends, lost in both space and time.

Magic has brought the stars within reach of ponykind. What was once Equestria is now an empire built on cruelty and fear. The only hope of restoring harmony is a group of six friends, lost in both space and time.

Published 2016-04-20 04:10:03 UTC
Last updated 2016-12-02 12:18:32 UTC

Chapter 2: Stories

Rarity woke up, head swimming from air so hot and thick she could taste it. She blinked, eyes focusing on the moldy cloth ceiling above her, rippling in the wind. Now where was she? Groaning, she tore off her coarse bedsheets and pushed herself upright. The room resolved itself into a beige brick-shaped tent. Gray metal bunk beds lined the walls, a dozen a side. All had the same khaki sheets that made Rarity's stomach churn. While the majority were empty, the bed opposite held a figure, covers rising and falling to the rhythm of soft breathing. At the far end of the tent, a flap opened onto a worn dirt path, glaring under harsh sunlight.

Rarity shuffled towards the ladder but stopped when a sharp pain erupted in her chest. She gasped, clutching a hoof over her heart. She recoiled when it contacted something hard. She paused, dry swallowing, before gingerly bringing her hoof back to her chest. It clacked against a glassy surface, sending another ripple of pain through her. She let her hoof fall away and sat sullenly for a long while. She thought back to the crystal the doctor had put in the mare earlier. Had that happened to her as well? No. She didn't want to think that. She wanted to forget she'd felt anything. She would just gaze at the gently undulating wall until she fell asleep from boredom. But she knew she couldn't, and instead had to force herself to see what it was.

Reaching into her magic, Rarity summoned her pocket mirror. Shakily, she levitated it in front of her, tilting it down to inspect her chest. She gasped, nearly dropping it. A crystal protruded from her chest, just like the one the doctor had embedded into the pegasus mare. Around it, her fur was singed and her skin swollen. Her heart pounded, harder and harder until she banished her mirror. She sat sullenly, taking shallow breaths against the throbbing in her chest. She might have guessed it was the crystal, but knowing what she might see was a vastly different experience to seeing it for herself. She sighed. Normally, she would be enamored by the beautiful, clear quartz gem. But inside of her, it became an enemy: a violating object ruining her appearance and crushing her pride. She reached out to touch the crystal again but stopped when she heard a noise. A groan, coming from the bed beneath her.

Bracing herself, Rarity peered over the edge. On the lower bunk, the unicorn stallion she recognized from the medical ward stirred. He drew a deep breath, eyes fluttering open. When he locked his gaze onto Rarity, he froze. Rarity made it halfway through a greeting before he screamed and scrambled away, sending bedsheets flying. The bunk rocked, and Rarity toppled forward, yelping as she landed on the floor headfirst.

"By the Stars, ye startled me half to death!" the stallion exclaimed, huddling behind the other side of the bed.

Rarity hauled herself upright, groaning and rubbing her head. Something inside her felt loose, like a wobbly tooth, dislodged by the fall. She gingerly patted her chest, holding her breath as she touched the area near the crystal, but nothing seemed out of place. She felt a clunk within her, like a bubble bursting. It made her cough.

"I... startled you?" Rarity said between wheezing breaths, glaring daggers at him.

"Well, it's not my fault if ye jump off ye bed at any old sound."

Rarity focused on her breathing, slowly returning it to normal. "Well, you didn't have to—" she wheezed "—scream like that!" Rarity paused. She took a deep breath and pushed her hair out of her face. Affecting a smile, she continued, "Anyway, I don't believe we've met." Rarity stood tall and puffed out her chest, an act she instantly regretted. "I am—" she coughed "—Rarity."

The stallion stared blankly.

"What I meant to say was—" she coughed again "—do you have a name, darling?"

"Oh. Uh, Starbound."

"Well, Starbound, it's a pleasure to meet you."

Silence.

"You, ah, can stop staring at me now," Rarity said.

Starbound shook his head. "Right, sorry. It's just, I've never seen a mare yer eh… quite like you before."

Before Rarity could ask what he meant, there was a cough from the bed opposite. "Starbound?" a mare rasped. "Starbound? Is that you?"

Starbound's ears pricked up. "Sparky?" he kicked off the remaining bedsheets and stood. His knees wobbled and, before he took a single step, collapsed. He placed a hoof on his chest, patting it around. "Oh. Heh. Aye, that figures."

"Starbound? What's wrong?" the mare asked.

"Nothin'. Just dandy." Starbound shakily rose up, only to fall again. "Hold on, I'm comin', I'm comin'."

Rarity rushed forward and helped him to his hooves. He wrapped a foreleg around her neck and together they hobbled over to the mare's bed. He was so light. Confused, Rarity studied him closely and soon realized what his comment on 'never seeing a mare like her' meant. It wasn't a clumsy compliment on her looks like she'd assumed. No, there were marked differences in his physical appearance, well outside of the norms for a pony. She stood half a head taller than him, despite his unnaturally long limbs. Small facial features highlighted his eyes: completely black, entirely lacking a visible iris.

When they reached the other side of the tent, Starbound pulled away from Rarity, teetering slightly before steadying out. He stepped up to the bed, far sturdier on his hooves than when they had started. "Sparky?" he asked.

Rarity inched around him to see the figure on the bed. Unsurprisingly, she found the occupant was the pegasus mare from before. Her eyes were closed and every few seconds, her body was wracked by shivering. Rarity hadn't noticed before, but the mare's features were small, like Starbound's. If everypony here looked like they did, it was no wonder Starbound had gawked at her. Still, it was no excuse to be rude.

"Sparky, how ye holdin' up?" Starbound asked.

Sparky—Rarity assumed that was her name—took a long, drawn-out breath. "Starbound: You. Are. An. Idiot." She opened bloodshot eyes and rolled to face the stunned Starbound. She started to say something more but broke off into a fit of coughing.

"Now, look," Sparky resumed, "I expressed my dissolutions with your plan, but I went along with it anyway. Because I trusted you. Also, because I didn't want anything to happen to you. Do you understand?"

Starbound mumbled a response, pawing at the ground.

Rarity glanced between them. They both seemed to be around the same age; she couldn't see why Sparky would berate him like a child. Maybe she was his older sister?

"Starbound, look at me."

Starbound looked everywhere but Sparky.

"Goodness, Starbound. You can't even look at me. Astonishing. Well, I just wanted you to know that you've broken my trust. Don't be expecting me to forgive you anytime soon, especially seeing as you can't even apologise."

Starbound remained silent. Rarity stepped back, occupying herself by chewing her lip, staring at the floor, and doing anything that prevented her from making a comment. She could certainly see the absurdity of the situation, but somehow, she didn't feel the other two would appreciate it. Besides, it would be presumptuous of her to intrude.

"Now look, Starbound. I don't want to be mad at you. We're probably going to die in the next few weeks, and I don't want to die while angry at my best friend. But, seeing as it's your fault I'm going to die... well…" Sparky made a vague shrug "...you're leaving me little choice."

"It wasn't my fault! We both went after the soldiers."

"I went with you to stop you doing anything stupid."

"Well, a fine mess ye made of that!"

"How's that even an argument? It was your fault for doing the stupid thing! It's not mine for not stopping you!"

Withdrawing further from the argument, Rarity thought back to her escape from the doctor. Something about it bugged her. Something on the edge of her memory. But everything from the night was jumbled and blurred. She furrowed her brow and closed her eyes. In the last moments of her escape, she had burst out of the building and then had run along the path. Then what? Something important. Something very important.

Rarity opened her eyes with a gasp. The moons! Starbound and Sparky paused their bickering to stare at her.

"Um, sorry to interrupt; but could one of you explain to me where exactly we are? I seem to recall waking up in some kind of hospital ward. Then I ran outside and, well, I know this might sound a little strange, but I could've sworn there were two moons."

"Starbound, who is she?" Sparky asked.

Before Rarity could speak, Starbound cut in. "Oh, right. Sparky, allow me to introduce to ye: Charity."

"Rarity, darling," she corrected.

"Aye, that too."

"Well, it is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Rarity. I just wish it were under better circumstances." She shot a glare at Starbound.

"As I was asking: what are our circumstances, exactly?"

"Oh, ye mean ye don' know?" Starbound asked.

"Of course she doesn't know. She was petrified," Sparky said.

"See, when I—Wait… Petrified?" Rarity cocked an eyebrow. "I'm sorry, what in Equestria are you talking about?"

"What in the what?" Starbound asked.

Rarity frowned. "Equestria?"

Starbound and Sparky stared blankly.

"It's where all us ponies live? Yes?"

The blank stares continued.

"Land of harmony and friendship? Foremost in the culture and arts?"

"Never heard of it," Starbound said.

Rarity glared at him, determining if he was serious or not. She felt her eye twitch. Calm. She needed to remain calm. Melodrama, no matter how satisfying, wouldn't solve anything. She forced a smile. "Anyway, what was this about me being petrified? Would somepony be kind enough to give me some answers?"

"I can give you some information," Sparky said. "But I don't know what you know and what you don't know." She paused. "What I'm saying is that I mightn't be very helpful."

Rarity nodded, keeping her mouth clamped shut. She was willing to take any information possible if Sparky would just get on with it.

Sparky pushed herself higher on her bed, into a sitting position, but succumbed to another coughing fit. Starbound gingerly patted her on the shoulder but received only a glare in response. He scurried away, cowering behind Rarity.

When Sparky recovered, she locked eyes with Rarity. "We're in a place called The Red Shore, on a planet called Illeria. I hear it's quite a popular tourist destination for the 'adventurous of spirit.' After all, there's the scalding heat, the blinding sun, and the vicious natives. That's us, by the way. We're the violent natives." She put a hoof over her face, making a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sob. "But apparently, it's all worth the trip because the sunsets are stunning."

"Yes, yes," Rarity interrupted with a wave of her hoof, "that's all very fascinating, but—"

"But, yes, I digress. Look, I haven't heard of this 'Equestria'. If it's your home planet, it's not one I'm familiar with. Now, as to why you were petrified—"

"Sorry, did you say 'home planet'?" Rarity's frown intensified. The two moons; the funny languages; the giant airships; the strangely proportioned—dare she say alien—physical appearances of Starbound and Sparky: she'd been sucked into one of Twilight's science fiction stories!

Rarity's impatience melted and she giggled, which rolled into full laughter.

Starbound stared at Rarity like she might spontaneously explode. "Uh, ye feelin' alright?"

Rarity wiped away a tear. "Yes, I'm quite alright, darling. I was a bit worried there for a minute, but now I understand: I'm in a story."

Starbound stepped back and stared at Rarity, head cocked to one side. "I'll take that as no, then?"

Sparky coughed. "Under extreme stress, it's not uncommon for the mind to conjure up a coping mechanism: a way to dissociate or explain what's happening."

Starbound raised an eyebrow. "Ye mean like gettin' real snippy?"

Sparky gave him a sarcastic glance.

"No, no. I mean I'm literally inside a story. An enchanted book, where the reader can play a role as the characters in it. It's happened before to my friends and me. It's the only explanation that makes any sense."

Sparky's jaw worked wordlessly. "That's… absolutely mad! How could this possibly… I don't… I don't even know how to counter you! We're here, we're about to die, and you think it's all just a story?" She buried her head in her hooves. "Perfect. I'm stuck with a fool and a madmare!"

Rarity scowled. "You've mentioned danger a couple of times; is there something I should be worried about?"

"Danger? Oh yes, I'd say we're in danger. We're in a labour camp."

Rarity blinked. "A what?"

"A labour camp," Starbound said, "ye know: for working and stuff. Gangs of ponies captured, forced to slave away in mines or factories until they keel over and die?"

Rarity paused, trying to wrap her mind around the concept of a labor camp. She understood what Starbound had said, of course, but she couldn't fathom how any pony could devise such a nefarious concept. A deep anger started bubbling inside of her, but she calmed herself with a deep breath. It was just a story, so of course this place was riddled with injustice and evil: there wouldn't be a story otherwise. And this story looked a textbook case of 'a hero unites the natives and expels the technologically superior villains'. Possibly. She didn't read much science fiction as she just couldn't get into it. Perhaps reading a more diverse range of literature would be prudent, lest she wind up in a mess like this again. Although Celestia help her if she ever landed in a math textbook. Still, so long as she was in a story, she might as well try and enjoy it. She snapped her head up. "Oh, right, terribly sorry. I think I'm beginning to understand. I suppose that means we're, slaves, yes?"

Sparky gaped at Rarity. "Ah. Ah… Yes?"

Rarity nodded. "Excellent."

"No… No, not really," Sparky said. "I'd rather fancy not being worked to death."

"Well, you're in luck then. I think I know just what we need to do. We need to free the camp!" Rarity adopted a triumphant stance, pointing her hoof in the air. Her composure fractured as pain flared again. She brought her leg down through a grimace that she forced into a triumphant grin.

She glanced up at Starbound and Sparky. Both were staring at her, Starbound was half-smiling while Sparky went through a series of expressions: frowning, then one eyebrow raised, then mouth ajar, then she pressed her lips together, then she pointed at Rarity, then she stopped and slunk down on her bed, frowning again, this time at the ceiling. She sighed.

Starbound gave a vaguely impressed 'hmph'. "Well, better than just rollin' over in any case, so ye can sign me up."

Sparky ran her hoof down her face, groaning. "Well, you do that. I, for one, will cherish these twilight hours of my life for what little they're worth. If you want to recklessly throw them away at the hooves of this madmare, then be my guest."

Starbound looked to Sparky, then to Rarity, then back again. "Oh, get off it, Sparky! Get up and quit ye mopin'."

Sparky sighed, remaining silent for a long while as she stared at the ceiling. Just as Rarity started to walk off, she spoke, words measured and slow. "We are in a prison camp. Ponies are sent here to die. How can you be so… blase about it? You're acting like we… we're just lost in the forest or something."

Starbound shrugged.

"Starbound! This is serious!"

"Aye, I'm not stupid, ye know. I just think tryin' to do somethin' about the situation rather than lyin' down and letting it trot all over ye… Well, I think ye got a better chance of survivin' that way, ye know?" He paused, waiting, but when no response came, he turned and pushed past Rarity.

He turned back around to face Rarity. "So then. What's ye plan?"

Rarity tore her gaze off Sparky. "Well, let's see." Rarity stepped into the walkway between the rows of beds and made her way to the door-flap entrance.

"Starbound, darling, the door is wide open."

"Aye?"

"What I mean is… can't we just walk out?"

Starbound peered at the apparently empty space. "Maybe? Could be a trap."

Rarity frowned. It did seem rather suspicious for a prison camp to leave doors wide open. "Go and see, would you?"

Starbound scuttled forward, stopping a few steps before the door. "Wait. Why am I doing this? It's yer plan."

Rarity flicked her hair off her face with an exaggerated sigh. "Very well. I will nobly put life and limb on the line and test the door."

She trotted up to the door-flap and inched her hoof towards it.

There was an exasperated groan from the far end of the tent. Rarity and Starbound turned simultaneously to find Sparky staring at them. Rarity could almost smell the derision dripping off her.

"There's a forcefield. You idiots. There's a forcefield."

"Oh," Rarity mustered. She dropped her leg down. "Is there any way to dispel it?"

"Sure. From the outside."

"I don't suppose we can just—"

"—cut through the wall? Good luck. It's ballistic fibre. Thick ballistic fibre. If you bothered to shut up and look around you, you'd have noticed that. The floor is too, and it's sewn right into the walls. When it comes to escaping, this tent may as well be made of solid concrete." She paused. "Oh, goodness, we're all going to die…" Sparky's icy composure cracked and burst, and she started crying.

Starbound sighed, shaking Rarity's attention from Sparky. He rolled his eyes. "Ack. Oh, she's just bein' emotional. She'll get over it, don' worry."

The intensity of Sparky's sobbing increased, suggesting to Rarity that she wasn't about to 'get over it.' Rarity's ears instinctively fell flat in a vain attempt to block out the sound. "It's not real, Rarity," she muttered to herself. "She's not real. Starbound's not real. It's all just a story. Stories are fun." She closed her eyes. Stories are fun. To read. Characters being thrown into life-altering situations is all just entertainment until you're in there with them.

Rarity vowed that once she got out of this mess, she would be more empathetic to the plights of characters in stories. The thought made her chuckle. And there it was again, the levity she had been feeling a moment ago. Such an absurd situation. How could she ever let it go to waste?

"Ah, Rarity?" Starbound prodded.

Rarity pulled her attention back to Starbound, who was staring at her with an eyebrow raised.

Rarity frowned. "That was no way to talk to your friend when she's upset. You ought to be ashamed."

Starbound scoffed. "Ye heard the way she was talkin' to me before! Treatin' me like a foal."

Rarity sighed. "Well, you're acting like one. Adults apologize when they've made a mistake." On second thought, maybe this was more trouble than it was worth. Not that she had a choice.

"Apologise? But it wasn't my fault!"

"Yes, it was!" Sparky screeched in between sobs.

Rarity raised an eyebrow at Starbound. "Well, it appears your friend differs in her opinion. I think maybe it would be best if we all find a way to make amends. Before it becomes a problem. After all, escape is our priority here! You'd hate to let a little disagreement get in the way of that, wouldn't you?"

Starbound stamped the ground. "Ack! Fine! Sparky: I'm sorry fer running after the soldiers and draggin' ye along with me."

Sparky heaved herself out of bed and dragged herself in front of Starbound. She peered at him until he shrunk back. She took a deep breath and, far faster than her physical state should have allowed, belted Starbound across the face.

Starbound rubbed his cheek. "Ow?"

Sparky sighed, which devolved into a coughing fit. "Starbound: you're an idiot. But you're also my friend. That means if you're going to do something stupid, I'll be right behind you, making sure you don't get killed. And if that drags me into the fire too, I reserve the right to complain the whole time I'm saving your sorry rump. Are we clear?"

Starbound nodded. "Aye. That we are. Hug?"

"No."

Starbound's ears flopped. "Oh, okay."

"That being said, you may need to… to carry me…" Sparky swayed, then collapsed.

Starbound rushed in and, with Rarity's assistance, draped Sparky over his back.

"Are you quite sure you're going to be alright with carrying her?" Rarity asked, glancing at his legs, as thin as twigs.

"Pegasi weigh, like five pounds. I'll be fine."

"Hm. Well, if you're sure…" Rarity tapped her chin. "Now where were we, again?"

Starbound frowned. "The door?"

"Oh yes." Rarity walked past Starbound and up to the allegedly forcefielded door flap. With bated breath, she inched a forehoof towards the opening. Just as she was sure it would pass through, the air flared a fluorescent yellow and a powerful electric shock shot through her foreleg. With a yelp, Rarity jumped away. She waved her injured hoof back and forth, resisting the urge to suck on it.

"Well, at least we know for sure," Rarity said, eyes tearing. She carefully placed her hoof back down on the floor and tested it with her weight. It hurt, but she suspected she would recover within a few minutes. It made her wonder if she could be seriously injured—or worse—in this story. Hopefully not. No, definitely not. It would drain all the adventure out of an enchanted story if it came with real risk; any reader would be too busy worrying about their own safety to have fun.

"Right. Well, any ideas?" Starbound asked. "Sparky? Yer the smart one."

Starbound and Rarity looked at Sparky. She grimaced, coughed, and returned to a grimace. "All my energy is focused on not whimpering like a sad puppy right now. But I'll let you know if I think of anything."

Rarity sat down. Surely she'd been in situations like this before? Several sprung to mind, but she'd always had her friends there beside her. Rarity smiled. This whole mess was shaping up to be quite the interesting story to share with her friends.

But first, Rarity had to get out of this 'whole mess'. Even if her friends weren't here, they could still help her. She would take a page from Twilight's books and begin by assessing the skills and tools and their disposal. She had no idea what Sparky and Starbound were good at—besides arguing. They had cutie marks, but they weren’t like any she’d seen before: Starbound's was three concentric ellipses, each with a dot along their circumference, and a line speared through the middle. Sparky's was a triangle containing a line moving into an explosion. Neither of them had any color: Starbound’s was entirely white, and Sparky’s was entirely black.

"Right, well, what do we have to work with? I'm assuming you two have special talents. Or… other skills?"

"Oh," Starbound said. "Well, I'm great for astrodynamics."

Rarity stared blankly.

"Ye know, navigating things in space. Plotting trajectories and stuff. I'm also really good at maths." He rubbed the back of his neck. "Probably should've started with that."

Rarity continued staring.

"Ah… Sparky's an engineer, but she seems to have been hit pretty hard, poor lass. By the whole crystal thing, I mean. I reckon we're better just lettin' her rest."

Sparky mumbled her agreement.

"I suppose that leaves it to me then," Rarity said. She skirted Starbound and stepped between two of the beds on the far side, stopping with her face a few inches from the wall. A seam ran down the wall, undoubtedly made from the same material as the walls—whatever Sparky had said it was—and hence impossible to cut for any normal pony. But a lifetime of sewing had taught her a few tricks, including spells that dissolved stitching. She ran a hoof along it; as Sparky had said, the fabric was extremely heavy but remained taut. She followed the seam up, tracing it to where it met another.

"I think," Rarity said, prodding the wall with a dull thud, "that I can get us through this wall."

"Great." Starbound said. "How?"

"Why, with my magic, of course. I am a seamstress and, after all, is this not a seam before me?"

Starbound tapped the crystal embedded in his chest. "Great idea. Except, the crystal blocks all ye magic. Otherwise, any unicorn could just pick a lock and walk right on out."

Rarity frowned. "Are you quite sure? I conjured up my pocket mirror not five minutes ago."

"Ye what?" Starbound frowned.

"I conjured up my pocket mirror." Rarity reached into her magic and from it, pulled her pocket mirror back into reality.

Starbound took the mirror, turning it over in his hoof. "Well, by all means then..." Starbound gestured to the wall absently. "Never seen magic like that before," he muttered, returning his attention to the mirror.

With a sharp nod, Rarity twirled to face the wall. With a modicum of effort dissolved the thread holding the wall together. She stopped once the split was large enough to walk through and pushed the separated panels of wall wide open. "After you," she said, grinning at Starbound.

Sparky stirred, raising her head to frown at Rarity. "I've studied the spells within the crystal quite extensively," she said. "They block all magic, including flight. And if you tamper with them, they explode. You should be dead."

Rarity shrugged. "It's a story, darling, and I'm the hero. I'm bound to break a few rules."

Sparky coughed. "Look, Rarity. You seem like a reasonable, at the very least sane, mare."

Rarity raised an eyebrow.

"Ignoring my earlier comments: I was trite angry. Anyway, I was willing to entertain your fantasy—albeit briefly—but now our lives depend on us working together. I won't be put in harm's way because you refuse to face reality."

Rarity frowned, studying Sparky. The pegasus' eyes drooped, but every time she closed them fully, she jolted back into an alert state. Her breath, shallow and uncertain, was labored, but not against pain. Her legs shivered with more than cold. Rarity's frown morphed into a compassionate smile. She'd been swept up in the moment and hadn't seen how terrified Sparky was. "Oh, Sparky, you poor dear." She walked up to Sparky and brushed her cheek. "Sparky, it's okay to be scared."

"I'm not scared. I just have a very strong will to live and this is a very dangerous situation."

Rarity raised an eyebrow.

"Okay. Perhaps I am scared, a little."

Starbound scoffed. "Oh, trust me, ye don't know the half of it. She's always like this. If it weren't fer me, ye'd never leave the brim of ye hat!"

"Ignore him, darling. It's quite alright to be worried. If what you say about this place is true, then you have every reason in the world to be."

Sparky stared at a patch of wall somewhere behind Rarity. "Are you scared at all, Rarity?" She closed her eyes and groaned. "Oh, great: I sound like a five-year-old."

Rarity chuckled. "Well, I'm certainly no stranger to misadventure, and I still feel there's a high chance this is all make-believe. But… Well… In a word, yes. And I'd wager Starbound is as well."

Starbound fidgeted. "Honestly, I'm more worried fer Sparky than I am fer me."

Rarity raised an eyebrow. "Do you hear that, Sparky? He's worried about you."

"No, I mean, like, specifically. She's a sittin' target on my back." Starbound arched his back, bumping Sparky.

"Ow," Sparky groaned, scrambling into a better position.

"Sorry. But ye see what I mean? I reckon she'd be safer with you."

Rarity shot him a puzzled look.

"I mean, ye probably stronger than the both of us put together."

Rarity blinked. Her: the muscle of the group? Not a situation she'd ever anticipated being in, but perhaps, in this one circumstance, understandable.

Sparky sighed. "Starbound, I'm not giving you a choice. It's your fault I'm in this state, so you get to carry me."

"Oh. Right," Starbound said, ears flopped back and eyes downcast. "Hey! What happened to ye 'strong will to live'? Ye know ye'd be safer with Rarity."

"I've weighed the options. Yes, Rarity is larger and probably stronger, but that just means if there is a fight, she can fight it without me getting in the way." Sparky coughed. "So... you carry me. If you're really not strong enough, then I'll move over to Rarity. With her permission, of course."

Rarity stifled a giggle. "Of course, darling."

"Ack! Fine. But no backseat driving."

"Well, don't do anything stupid and we won't have a problem." Sparky scrambled for purchase and rotated around so she was sitting on his back, as opposed to being draped over it. She wrapped her forelegs around his neck and, for an immature second, Rarity worried she might strangle him, but instead she only nodded for the group to leave the tent.

Rarity pushed her way through the hole in the wall and into the blinding light. She shaded her eyes with her foreleg and blinked heavily while they adjusted. She searched around for signs of movement but thankfully found none.

"You seem to know a lot more about this place than I do," Rarity said as Starbound and Sparky appeared beside her. "Any ideas of where to go?"

Sparky shook her head. "What, precisely, gave you that impression?"

Rarity circled her hoof in the air. "Well, you knew that it was a prison camp and that they make their tents out of... whatever it was you said they used, and you seem to know a lot about how these crystals work. I just assumed…"

Sparky nodded. "I can see how you might form that conclusion, but I've never actually been inside the camp before. Like I said, knowing what the tent was made from was merely a matter of looking. I learnt how the crystals worked from bodies that washed up on the shore. The camp throws dead prisoners in the sea rather than waste time burying or burning them."

"Oh." Rarity pushed that image out of her mind before it took root and made her ill.

"Oh, aye. It's right gruesome, it is," Starbound said with far too much enthusiasm.

Rarity peered at Starbound, deciding if he was serious or not until an idea hit her. "You mentioned 'the sea'? Is this camp by the seaside? Can we swim to safety?"

Sparky started winding up for another lengthy explanation, so Rarity cut in before she could begin. "I'll take that as a no, then."

Sparky gawked. "No? Do you have any idea what would happen if you tried swimming?"

Rarity shook her head.

"Well, do you have an immunity to heavy metal poisoning? Because I don't. Well, I do. But not enough." She circled her hoof about in the air, shaking her head. "Point is, it's not called the 'Red Shore' for nothing: it's full of dissolved ores. And even if the water weren't so toxic you'd die in a few mouthfuls, you might notice that the camp is built on a hill? That's the headland. It's a long drop down, with a nice soft landing of rocks and crashing waves."

Rarity shrunk back under the torrent of Sparky's bitterness. "I'm only putting out ideas." She forced a smile. "Now, rather than telling me what we can't do, why don't you tell me what you think we can do?"

Sparky's gaze returned to its former weakness. "I'm sorry. I'm just so angry about being put in this—but you get it. Nevermind. Well, here's what I think: before we even entertain the notion of escaping, we have to disable these crystals. They'll explode if we try leaving. So unless you have the ability to walk around without your head, I suggest we do something about them."

"I think I know somepony who can help us with that," Rarity said.

Starbound and Sparky both peered at Rarity. "Who?" they asked.

Rarity smirked. Finally, something she knew that Sparky didn't. "Just follow me."

Rarity led the group behind the tent and into its shade. Instantly, the temperature fell ten degrees. Stretching out from the back of the tent, several dozen yards of barren, grainy dirt ended piled up against a fence. Beyond the first fence, a second gave any escaping pony that had gotten that far the time to reconsider. The fences weren't high, but they were definitely unclimbable. Not that it mattered if Sparky was right about the purpose of the crystals. What mattered was that they were heading the wrong way. They wanted to be going into the camp, not away from it.

With an awkward clearing of her throat, Rarity turned and trotted back to the dirt path in front of the tent. Another row of smaller tents dotted the other side of the path, boasting such cheery colors as gray, beige, and faded livid. The tents continued down the road until they disappeared over the crest of a hill, and up the road until they hit yet another fence. This fence seemed more determined to keep would-be climbers at bay, boasting curls of barbed wire. Not that any pony could ever hope to reach that high. Hooves and chicken-wire didn't mix. The best a pony could hope to manage was a step ladder.

Fortunately, it appeared no climbing would be necessary: the path led straight through an open gate. Open, but not unguarded, as four ponies flanked it, two on the near side, and two on the far. Three of them carried… objects. From the way they were held, Rarity guessed they were weapons, but she saw no evident cutting edge. Not that she could be sure until she got closer.

Rarity turned back to find Starbound catching up to her. "Pardon my ignorance, but those guards… what are they carrying?" she asked.

Starbound squinted at the guards. "What do ye mean? All I see are their casters."

"Casters?" Rarity rolled the unfamiliar word around in her mouth.

Sparky rolled her eyes. "Casters. Squeeze the trigger and they fire a bolt of magic. They hurt like a bitch. Some can also stun."

"Oh, so, what's the point of them if they don't work?" She continued watching the guards, running through ideas to get around them.

"Hm? No. I didn't say that."

"Oh. Then why did you say 'they hurt like a bitch'?"

"I'm takin' ye never heard that expression before, then?"

"No. And it strikes me as rather odd, to be honest."

Sparky face-hoofed. "Well, look… If you do get shot, it probably won't kill you. But it might. So, just avoid being shot, and you'll be fine."

"I… see."

"So... ah... any ideas?" Starbound asked.

Rarity tapped her chin. "I have one, but I don't think you're going to like it."

Sparky groaned. "Let's hear it."

"Right. Well, I still have my magic, which none of the guards will suspect. All we need to do is distract them long enough for me to take their casters and overpower them."

"You didn't even know what a caster was until I explained it to you literally just now," Sparky said.

"I've practised archery. I can't imagine it'd be that different."

Sparky humphed. "And this distraction? What precisely did you have in mind?"

Rarity grinned and Sparky.

Sparky looked around as if surprised Rarity was looking at her. "Nuh-uh. Nope. I'm not going out there. I can hardly stand, remember? Send Starbound instead."

"Oh, don't worry, he's going too. Now, here's what I need you to do..."

A minute later, Rarity watched from behind a tent higher up the hill as Sparky awkwardly galloped into the middle of the road, screaming for help. She frantically flapped her wings but couldn't rise more than a few inches off the ground.

Rarity counted down the seconds until Starbound leaped out after Sparky, hurling a series of embarrassingly restrained insults. He pounced on her, throwing equally restrained punches. Sparky kicked him, and, after a brief pause, his attack became more aggressive and far louder. Rarity turned her attention to the guards, who had noticed the struggle. The three stallions cantered towards Starbound and Sparky, weapons raised.

Rarity remained crouched in the shadows, waiting until the guards were past her hiding spot and sufficiently distracted with breaking up the fight before striking. Using her magic, she grabbed onto one of the guard's casters, wrenching it from his mouth as he threatened Starbound with it. She turned the caster on him and fired. She didn’t know what to expect from the weapon, but she hadn’t expected him to hit the ground screaming. Rarity stood, dumbstruck as the guard writhed and screamed.

Rarity closed her eyes, reminding herself that this wasn’t real. The guard wasn’t real, Sparky and Starbound weren’t real, this camp wasn’t real. She ignored the niggling voice telling her otherwise, the very idea was ludicrous.

When Rarity finally looked up, she saw the other two guards spinning wildly about, casters at the ready. She slunk backward, out of their sight, and focused her attention on the guard who'd remained at the gate. Naturally, it was the mare. She had been slower to act, only just now throwing herself on the ground, tracking Starbound and Sparky with her caster.

Rarity steadied her new caster and aimed at the mare. She went to fire, but the scream of the guard burned in her mind and she couldn’t. She clenched her jaw, but the caster shook in her magic. After a moment, she gave in and lowered it, letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She scowled. This was ridiculous. The mare wasn’t any more real than the first guard, and even if she was, Rarity was just incapacitating her. Not like there was any permanent harm done. Still scowling, Rarity raised her caster and, shutting out her lingering doubt, fired repeatedly at the mare, the shots scattering over the distance until eventually one connected, and the mare slumped to the ground. There, much better. Honestly, not being able to shoot a guard at a slave camp? Rarity shook her head.

Meanwhile, several startled yelps and crashes from the direction of Sparky and Starbound told her they still needed help. She poked her head out from cover to find the two guards on the ground under a stunned Starbound and a terrified Sparky. Or, maybe, they didn't need her help. Her scowl disappeared, replaced with a half-smile. It seemed her two new friends weren’t quite as helpless as they appeared.

Rarity trotted towards the pair.

"Well, that was surprisingly easy," Rarity said. "Somehow, I expected stiffer resistance. I suppose they just must have counted on these... crystal things stopping magic entirely."

"Wow," Starbound said. "I… I can't believe we did that! See Sparky? I knew ye could do it!"

Starbound nudged Sparky, who looked close to fainting. She rubbed the side of her face. "You know, you didn't have to be quite so convincing with those punches. I think you gave me a black eye."

She turned her face to Starbound and Rarity, standing next to him, revealing a fresh cut under her right eye.

Starbound winced. He reached out a hoof as if to comfort her, but stopped and lowered it again. "Ah… I'm… I'm sorry. I thought when ye kicked me, ye meant I wasn't convincing enough. Honest, I really tried hard not to hurt ye."

"I know you tried. That's what worries me. But no, you weren't convincing enough. Still, I suppose a black eye is just a trifle compared to the guards recapturing us." She gently prodded the already swelling cut.

"Would ye… like an apology hug?"

“No.”

Starbound ignored her, wrapping her in his forelegs. She remained stunned for several seconds before patting Starbound on the back with all the emotional conviction of clockwork. She lipped something to Rarity, something that surely wasn't 'save me'; after all, who doesn't like hugs?

Starbound pulled back. "To be fair, though, you did belt me 'cross my face a minute ago."

"Firstly: I didn't give you a black eye. Secondly: I thought you'd doomed us both to a slow and painful death. I'd say that's a fair reason to hit you."

Starbound surveyed the guards on the ground. The one Rarity shot by Rarity remained conscious, curled into a ball and whimpering. The other two almost looked peacefully asleep.

Sparky picked up the nearest caster and fired it at the still-conscious guard. Rarity shrunk back. Sparky spat the weapon out, raising an eyebrow. "What?" she demanded.

"Um… Nothing." Rarity squeaked.

"He can't stay conscious, you know that. Now we need to drag them out of the way." Sparky grabbed onto the guard by the neck of his uniform and pulled. The guard didn't budge. Sparky strained, then stopped, panting. She spat his uniform out. "Well, are you going to help me?"

Together, but mostly owing to Rarity's magic, the trio pulled the guards out of sight. At the recommendation of Starbound, they put on the guards' uniforms: gray jumpsuits of light but sturdy material. They had built-in webbing, over which were worn knee and shoulder pads of a material Rarity had never seen but felt like ceramic when she tapped it. The outfit was completed by heavy boots and a face shield that none of the guards had worn, opting instead to let them dangle from their webbing. Rarity tried various poses in the uniform. The baggy affair was hardly flattering, and it smelt of sweat, but for the task of blending in, it was undoubtedly a wise choice.

Starbound trotted around in front of Rarity, an askew smile on his face. the uniform was comically large on him, swaying as he walked and threatening to slip off at the slightest provocation. And the boots… it was all Rarity could do not to laugh.

Starbound’s smile turned to a frown. "It’s not funny."

Rarity sealed her mouth shut, but not before one last giggle could escape.

"I don’ suppose there’s anything ye can do with ye magic to ah… fix this? I mean, ye said ye were a seamstress, right?"

"Certainly," Rarity said with a nod. "Just hold still."

Rarity used her magic to pull the fibers of the uniform together, effectively shrinking it. It was a trick she used to save a lot of time doing adjustments for dissatisfied customers. Never did she imagine it’d be useful outside of her store. Once she’d cast the spell on both Starbound and Sparky, who was facing a similar sizing problem, she took a step back and scrutinized her work. While she watched, Sparky tugged at a belt of webbing that had caught in the suit’s zipper. All in all, she had done a reasonable job. The boots were still too big, but there wasn’t much she could do about that. To a casual observer, nothing would seem too amiss.

The group returned to the path and walked through the gate. There were no tents on the other side, only the same red, dusty ground. It continued up the hill until the remnants of a village came into view, huddled on the top of the headland. Buildings near the fence had been demolished, leaving only foundations and loose stones half-buried in the sand. Further in, signs of life arose. A few ponies, many wearing the same gray uniform, walked between the buildings, and snippets of shouting were carried over the breeze in amongst swirls of dust and the smell of sea spray. Almost all the buildings were in disrepair, although even in its heyday the village looked to have been quite poor, consisting mostly of squat buildings with tin roofs, made of mud brick bleeding white mortar onto unpainted walls.

One guard, twenty paces away, glanced in the direction of Rarity. Automatically, Rarity nodded a polite greeting. The guard frowned and scurried away.

"So, did we make it, then?" Sparky asked. "Is this where you're planning on taking us?"

Rarity glanced in her direction. She seemed a lot healthier than before, head held high and keeping pace without complaint. Rarity suspected she might've been exaggerating her prior frailness. Just a bit. Ignoring her question for the moment, Rarity searched for the building she had run from last night. A challenge, considering she'd only seen it in the dark, and then only briefly, and then only whilst panicking. Her best guess was a building poised on the edge of the hillcrest overlooking the mine. It stood out from the rest of the village, if only because it was made from concrete and not brick.

"There," Rarity said, pointing to the building. "It's some kind of medical facility. It's where they put the crystals into us, so it's our best chance for getting them out again." She trotted off in the direction of the building.

Posted by the entrance to the medical ward were two ponies. Unlike the other guards, they wore makeshift armour that struck a chord in Rarity's memory. One of the guard's faces was bandaged. He grinned to reveal missing and broken teeth, leaving no doubt in her mind: these were the two ponies she'd fought whilst escaping last night.

Rarity stopped dead, scanning her surroundings, but no opportunity to hide presented itself as the medical facility lay on the fringes of the village, separate from the other buildings. What she did see, however, were more guards charging at them from the centre of the village. She estimated a dozen or so.

"Oh, great," Starbound said, indicating the approaching guards.

Sparky spat her caster onto the ground. "Well, that's it. Rarity: it was nice knowing you. Starbound… most of the time." She lay down on the ground and put her hooves over her head.

"Seriously?" Starbound asked. He sighed, shaking his head at Sparky. He snapped back around and fired into the center of the guards. Rarity froze, stunned by his sudden action, but quickly readied her own caster and started shooting.

Rarity barely managed two shots before a retaliative volley of magic bolts hurtled towards her. She threw herself sideways, but not fast enough: she watched a bolt sail towards her and hit her side with a blinding flash. To her surprise, it didn't hurt. In fact, she hardly felt it at all. It made sense, of course, validating her theory that the story couldn't hurt her. A scrape or a bump perhaps, but certainly not anything serious. A pony brought into the story would just have to play pretend. And at another time, a pinch of drama would appeal to her, but right now she'd run out of patience. So, not only had she dived out the way for nothing, but she'd done so right into the dirt. And even if the dirt wasn't actually real, it still felt dirty. Rarity scraped the dust off her tongue. This adventure was quickly losing its charm.

Rarity rolled onto her belly and tried to stand, but found she couldn't. Her limbs dragged, and her joints ached and groaned, trembling whenever she put weight on them. She fell back onto her side, overcome with exhaustion. Maybe the story created the effects of being injured without the actual injury? Or maybe the bolt was designed to incapacitate rather than directly hurt? Hadn't Sparky mentioned they could stun? Did that mean this could be real? Rarity sighed, leaving it as a floating 'maybe'. She looked up at the sky, far whiter than Equestria's. She wondered if her home was up there, somewhere. Equestria, that was. Again, a maybe. She might ask Sparky, later. But now, she needed to take a nap. She closed her eyes, welcoming the warmth—

"Rarity!" Sparky shouted.

Rarity snapped awake to see Sparky pointing to something behind her. Sluggishly, she rolled to her other side to find the stallion with the broken jaw looming over her. Rarity's heart leaped, but he didn't move. He just looked down at her, as if savoring a good meal before eating it. Rarity stared back at him while the rest of the guards arrived. They encircled the trio, casters ready to fire at the slightest twitch.

Rarity briefly broke eye contact with the stallion to see Sparky was still lying on the ground with her hooves over her head, muttering under her breath. Starbound had apparently been stunned while Rarity wasn't watching and now lay on his back, his leg twitching every few seconds.

Rarity let her head rest on the bare earth. Compared to the effort of keeping her head off the ground, a bit of dirt was nothing.

"Take fem twoth away," the stallion said through labored breathing. "I goth a score to sheffle with fith ’un."

Nopony moved.

"Well? Whath are you whating for?"

Somewhere behind Rarity, a mare coughed. "Ah… regulations clearly state-"

The stallion jumped up and down on the spot. "I don'th care! She broth my faith!"

"Your... faith?" the mare asked.

"My faith! My… friggin’-" he dug into his mouth and pulled out a saliva-drenched dental plate. "My face. Just look at it."

"We have rules here."

"She's one of them savages."

"Savages? You mean she's a native?" A quiver entered the mare's tone. Rarity heard approaching hoofsteps, which stopped right next to her. She rolled back over to find the mare standing over her, peering at the stallion.

"You know I can't officially condone any actions you may take. But that being said…" She looked down at Rarity, eyes growing cold. She snarled and, with a growl, brought her hoof down on Rarity's head. Rarity tried pulling back, and the hoof slammed into her muzzle, bouncing her head against the ground.

"...you go right ahead," the mare finished, addressing the stallion again. She looked back down at Rarity, disgust oozing from her. "That was for Solstice's squad, you… you… barbarians." She backed off but kept her eyes locked with Rarity's. "Let's go. Bring the other two."

The was a shuffling of hooves as the guards hoisted up Starbound and Sparky and trotted off. Rarity watched them slowly march around the hill, stretching out a foreleg in a futile attempt to drag them back. Sparky said something inaudible, and then they were gone.

Rarity rolled herself onto her other side, seeing the second stallion had joined his comrade. Rarity sniffled, wiping her nose with her sleeve. It came away bloodied. She stared at it until the exertion forced her to lower her foreleg back to the ground. This was all just a story. She couldn't be hurt in a story. Right?

The second stallion chuckled. "I wouldn't worry about ya nose if I was you. Youse goin' to have much bigger problems in a moment." He knelt down beside Rarity, befouling the air with toxic breath. Rarity squirmed and clawed at the ground, determined to drag herself away. The stallion chuckled and stood on her outstretched foreleg, pinning her to the ground.

"Now, let's see," the second stallion said. "When ya threw that bloody stove at me, ya smashed up my shoulder and broke two ribs. So, I reckon we start with that. What do you think, Tal?"

"Sounds good to me."

Rarity ignored them, working on her magic instead. It was as shaky as the rest of her, but with enough concentration she reached into the guard's holster and fumbled with his caster until it fell out.

"Are you even listening? I said I'm gonna—how the Tartarus are you doing that?" The stallion snatched his caster out of the air and shoved it back in his holster. "Right. Change of plans. Break her horn."

Heart pounding, Rarity again pushed herself to her hooves again, only to collapse onto the ground, panting. She wasn't getting away. She rolled to face her attackers. Only one option left. She swallowed her pride.

"Oh no!" Rarity exclaimed. "No! Please don't hurt me."

"You're kidding, right?"

"Please!" Given her situation, it wasn't hard for Rarity to force herself to cry. "Please! I was just scared. I didn't mean for anypony to get hurt."

"Yeah? Well... too late."

"No! Please! I'll do anything."

The first stallion sighed. "Really? Ya think I'm gonna fall for that? Oh, don't get me wrong: I like my mares. But a native?" he spat. "Damned if I know where you've been! I reckon I oughta get out my gas mask just so I don't catch my death of ya."

"But I'm not a native! I'm from a... a planet called Equestria. I don't even know how I got here!"

"Equestria? Yeah. Real inventive name. And I bet ya live a town called Ponytown."

"Ya reckon we oughta gag her?" the second stallion asked.

"Probably. Merry might be fine with us screwing around with the natives, but I reckon Rex ain't gonna be for it. Don't want her screaming, neither."

"Wait! I'm rich! I can pay you!" Rarity grabbed onto the uniform of the closest stallion, but he swatted her away.

"Oh, just shut up already," the second stallion derided. He bit into the fabric of Rarity's jumpsuit and tore a strip off it. He then wrapped his hoof around Rarity's hair and yanked it back. Rarity yelped. The first stallion took the scrap of cloth and tried to shove it into her mouth. Rarity closed her mouth and kept it firmly shut, no matter how much her scalp stung from being tugged on.

"Oh, so we're gonna play this game, huh? Well—I win." The stallion hit Rarity in her exposed neck. She spluttered, gasping for air, and before she could do anything to stop him, he shoved the gag into her mouth. He tied it around the back of her head, even as she tossed back and forth.

"Right. Now we break her horn."

Rarity arched her back, pushing herself out the second stallion's grip, but he immediately threw her back to the ground. He stood on her head, forcing it into the dirt. "Youse a real pain, ya know that, right?" He turned to his comrade, still kneeling beside Rarity as calmly is if he were meditating. "Would you like to do the honours?"

The stallion swapped his left hoof on Rarity's face for his right one and placed the left on her shoulder. Rarity squirmed, mustering what meager strength she had left. The stallion responded by pushing harder, crushing Rarity's ear against the side of her head. She grimaced, her sides heaving as each breath felt like her last.

The second stallion placed a hoof on Rarity's horn and put pressure on it. Rarity clenched her jaw, eyes already watering in dread of what would follow. She screwed her eyes shut. But no blow came. Cautiously, she cracked an eye open.

The first stallion was looking at something behind Rarity, hoof poised above her head. Rarity tried to throw the second stallion off, but this only alerted the first one. He hit Rarity in the cheek, knocking her head onto a patch of hardened earth with enough force for spots to dance at the edge of her vision. Before she recovered, his hoof slammed into her horn. Rarity heard a sickening crunch as magical sparks went flying. A breath later, the wall of pain slammed into her, sending another round of spots through her vision that threatened her with unconsciousness. She bit her tongue to avoid screaming—she wouldn't dare give these brutes the satisfaction—and her eyes streamed with tears. She tasted blood. Her sides heaved and her heart pounded in a valiant struggle to keep her head from swimming. Her forehead screamed at her to do something, anything, but her only response was a defeated whimper.

The stallions talked to each other again but their words were slurred to Rarity's ear. Even so, their laughter was unmistakable. One by one, more patches of pain ignited across her body. Her right foreleg, then her ribs, then she was rolled onto her back as wave after wave crashed down upon her face, tossing her fragile world about like a leaf. Sunlight glinted on a knife-blade. Her nose and mouth filled with the dry, powdery dust, soon accompanied by blood that ran in hot streams across her fur and pooled around her head. Even though she spluttered and spat to clear it, its metallic taint smothered everything, turning her entire world red. She retreated into the deepest recesses of her mind, her world slipping away from reality with each passing second. What snippets she later remembered were surreal scenes of clashing colors, overpowering light, and muffled sounds.

The last thing Rarity saw was the two stallions galloping away. They fled into the medical ward, dropping their knife alongside Rarity. Thundering steps approached, and a colossal shadow fell upon Rarity, haloed by the sun. Soft whirring accompanied its every movement as it peered at Rarity with insectoid eyes. Gracefully, it reached down and plucked her from her bloodied patch of dirt, lifting her high into the heavens.

Chapter 3: Dreams

Rainbow Dash stood outside Sugarcube Corner in the gentle morning light, an early spring breeze ruffling her wings with a cool touch. In the distance, the school bell chimed nine o’clock. She knocked on the gingerbread door with an impatient rap, then waited, holding her breath. There was no response. She fluttered her wings, but still nopony came. She looked up to a second-floor window, but it was covered but a shutter, meaning Pinkie was probably still asleep, the morning passing by without her.

“Pinkie!” she called. “You in there?”

No response.

With a groan, Rainbow beat her wings and shot up to the second floor. Hovering around to the window, she peered through the heart-shaped cutaway in the shutters into Pinkie Pie’s bedroom. She couldn’t see Pinkie, but she had to be in there.

Rainbow smirked. “Alright Pinkie, I gave you fair warning! Now I’m coming in!”

Rainbow coiled back, preparing, then shot forward. She burst into Pinkie’s bedroom with a shower of gingerbread-painted wood. Of course: the shutters opened outward, not inward. She shook her head, shards of sugar glass falling out of her mane. Rainbow glanced backward at the destruction her entry had caused. Yeah, that probably wasn’t her smartest move. She grimaced, turning away. Not the first time she would have to pay for damages.

The sun poured in from the broken window, casting Rainbow’s shadow on the floor, while the other windows let in thin shafts between their shutters, catching the twinkling dust. Eyes adjusting to the gloom, she side-stepped the debris and slid up to where she knew Pinkie’s bed was. She kicked her foreleg on the sideboard, grimacing as the pain hit her a split second after the sound. Rubbing her leg, she whispered for Pinkie.

The giant mound of spotted blue blankets heaped in the middle of bed rolled and shifted. A pink foreleg shot out from under them and opened a hole wide enough for Pinkie to wriggle her head out. She blinked heavily, the light from the broken window hitting her square in the face. She squinted at Rainbow. “Dashie? What time is it?”

“Nine o’clock. You said you wanted to get up early this morning, go do some flying? Remember?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Pinkie paused, then her heavy eyes widened, full of life. “Oh! Yeah!” Before Rainbow could blink, Pinkie leaped out from the covers, rolled head-over-fetlocks, and popped up in an inch in front of her. She grinned. Rainbow grinned back, then fell into a coughing fit, overwhelmed by the sweetness of Pinkie’s breath.

“You okay?” Pinkie asked, leaning around to nosey at the red-faced Rainbow.

“Fine,” Rainbow wheezed.

Pinkie backed off, then frowned as something behind Rainbow. “Hey, what happened to my window?”

“Uh...” Rainbow said as she straightened herself up. “Nevermind. Let’s go.”

Pinkie tore her frown off her shattered window and smiled as she looked back to Rainbow. “Okay.” She jumped up and down a few times before spreading her wings and taking to the air. It seemed wrong, somehow, watching her dart through the air, past Rainbow and out the window. But Rainbow couldn’t put her hoof on why it was wrong, so she buried the thought. Leaving the bedroom without so much as a second glance, Rainbow joined her.

The two pegasi started their way across Ponyville. Cool air still lingered from last night’s rain, mixing with the humid air rising up from the evaporating puddles and rivulets. Pinkie scratched at her scalp, strands of her mane and the occasional fleck of dough floating off behind her, caught in the breeze.

“So, where’d you want to go?” Rainbow asked.

“Eh… nowhere in particular.” Pinkie spun upside down and kicked her leg as if she was swimming through the air.

Rainbow absently watched Pinkie for a bit, then noticed a series of dark clouds gathering behind her, far off to the west over the Everfree Forest. There was a time when Rainbow would’ve had to have dealt with them, but not since she’d become a Wonderbolt. Her days of cloudbusting were over. But, the clouds did give her an idea. She smirked. “Hey, Pinkie, you wanna play a prank on Twilight?”

Pinkie looked at Rainbow, eyebrow raised, then followed her line of sight to the clouds in the distance. “I don’t know, Dashie. She said she was really busy with Princess stuff this week.”

“Ugh! Twilight’s no fun.” She sighed. “What about AJ?”

“Yeah, sure!”

Rainbow rubbed her hooves together. “Sweet. Right: we’re going to need those clouds.”

Pinkie grinned. “Those clouds, you say? Well, last one there has to carry them all! Threetwoone GO!”

Pinkie shot off, leaving a trail of pink in her wake. “Hey! No fair,” Rainbow yelled, even as she sped toward the pink pegasus.

Rainbow expected to overtake Pinkie in a matter of seconds—she was Equestria’s greatest living flier after all—but Pinkie kept shrinking away into the distance, her trail fading with her. Rainbow pushed forwards for nearly half a minute, then brought herself to a stop. She should’ve reached the clouds by now; they couldn’t have been more than two miles away. Rainbow could fly that far in, like, ten seconds. Twenty, at most. Yet the clouds didn’t look any closer than when she’d started. And on top of that, she’d lost sight of Pinkie completely.

She looked back to Ponyville. She was several miles away from that, at least. Maybe she’d just misjudged how far away the clouds were?

Rainbow put her head down and, with a few powerful flaps to bring her back up to speed, she set off after the clouds. She flew faster and faster, but she still didn’t get any closer. She turned back to look at Ponyville falling away into the distance. When she looked forward again, a gigantic tree had appeared in front of her. She threw out wings in a desperate attempt to stop, but couldn’t avoid hurtling through a window carved in the trunk. She hit a wooden floor, bounced, and rolled into a bookshelf on the far wall. Just as she was starting to get her bearings, an avalanche of books and scrolls poured onto her.

Rainbow looked up to see Twilight slowly approaching from the far end of the room.

“Rainbow Dash, that’s not funny.” Twilight stood over the sprawling pegasus, frowning.

“Yeah. My head agrees with you.” Rainbow hauled herself to her hooves, shaking her head to clear it. Not her most graceful landing, but usually buildings didn’t appear right in front of her. She looked around the room, lined with bookshelves grown from the trunk of the tree. Golden Oak Library. As Twilight approached, Rainbow noticed she was a head taller than her, even though Rainbow was now standing.

With a flick of Twilight’s horn, the mess of books levitated into the air, reformed neat rows, and flew back up onto the shelves. A final straggler, a thin green paperback, slotted in between two larger books.

“What are you doing here, Rainbow?” A chair slid across the room to Twilight, and she sat down. “I thought you wouldn’t show your face again after what happened with Pinkie.”

Rainbow frowned. “What do you mean? I was literally just with Pinkie.”

“Don’t pretend like you don’t remember.” Twilight poured herself a cup of tea. She pointed the delicate blue cup at Rainbow. “You know very well what you did.”

“I… I don’t.” Rainbow shrank back, her chest tightening. What had happened to Pinkie?

Twilight scoffed. She stamped her hoof twice against the floorboards and a statue sprang forward out of the shadows. The room lurched and spun, the shadows twisting around the stone-encased features of Pinkie Pie.

“You did this to her, Rainbow.”

“No…” Rainbow’s ears fell flat, as she fell onto her rump. No. She was just with Pinkie, how could this have happened?

“You didn’t protect her, Rainbow.” As the lights in the room turned to all point at the statue of Pinkie, Twilight stepped up to it, running her hoof along Pinkie’s side.

“I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“It doesn’t matter what you ‘meant’!” Growling, Twilight swung at Pinkie’s statue. The statue went flying away like it was made of cardboard. Twilight stepped into the vacant spotlight. “You’re supposed to the element of loyalty! Where were you, Rainbow?”

“I couldn’t keep up with her,” Rainbow mumbled. It was a pathetic defense, and she knew it. But what else could she say?

“You were supposed to protect her!” Twilight screeched.

“I’m sorry!” Rainbow’s felt herself start tearing up. She sniffled.

As Rainbow began to sob, Twilight walked forward, her hoofsteps echoing as if they were in a cavern the cozy library had. She placed her hoof under Rainbow’s chin and brought her head up. Rainbow looked up at her friend with tear-filled eyes.

“You’re too late,” Twilight said. “Pinkie’s gone because of you. Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy: they’re all gone. Because of you.”

Rainbow wiped her face with the back of her hoof. “No. I’d never let my friends down. You know me, Twilight, right?”

“I thought I did.” Twilight slunk back into the shadows. “I thought you were brave. Strong. Loyal. I admired you, Rainbow. We all did.”

Rainbow watched, trying to control her sobbing, as Twilight faded into the dark.

“But I was wrong. You’re a coward. You just saved yourself.” Twilight was now fully shrouded in shadow. The last thing to disappear were her eyes, which stared at Rainbow, so full of hurt and anger Rainbow had to turn away. When she forced herself to look back, Twilight had vanished entirely.

“Twilight?” Rainbow’s voice cracked. “Twilight?”

Rainbow jumped into the air. She flew to the wall and started running her hooves along it, looking for the door. “Twilight?” She felt the spines of books and the trunk of the library, but no door. “Pinkie?” One hoof outstretched, she circled the entire room. Nothing. “Anypony?” She flew up to the roof, searching for the source of the light so she could point it at the wall. But the ceiling was smooth. “Anypony?” Rainbow repeated. Rainbow shoot from spot to spot around the upper section of the wall, stopping for the barest moment to pat that section of wall. The window had to be there. She’d obviously just missed it. But the wall was as smooth as the ceiling. Even the bookshelves were gone. Rainbow pulled back from the wall and hung mid-air. She was trapped.

“Rainbow!” a voice hissed.

Rainbow. She turned back to the center where the spotlight still shone. Twilight was there. Rainbow’s heart practically leaped out her mouth, and in an instant, she rushed to her friend’s side. Twilight was lying on the floor, head in her hooves, wings flat by her side.

Rainbow gingerly propped up Twilight, wrapping forelegs around her shoulders, heaving with labored breathing. She reeked of sweat, but Rainbow didn’t care. “Twilight, I’m so sorry, I… didn’t mean for this to happen.”

Twilight didn’t respond. Her eyes were closed and she swayed slightly.

“Twilight? I’d never betray you, you know that.”

Twilight’s head flopped onto Rainbow’s chest, her horn just brushing Rainbow’s cheek. Rainbow hugged her tighter.

“Twilight?”

No response.

“Twilight?”

Her heart hammering, Rainbow pulled back from Twilight. She was still breathing. That was good, right?

“What?” Twilight asked, her limp body reasserting itself in Rainbow’s embrace. She tried looking around, even though her eyes were still closed. “Where are we?” She frowned. “No. Nevermind. I don’t have the time. Rainbow: you need to listen to me.”

“Oh, you’re okay. You had me worried.” Rainbow pulled back, letting Twilight sit of her own volition. Adopted a military posture, Rainbow puffed her chest out. “Right, I’m listening. Whatever it is, I promise I won’t let you down.”

“I know where Fluttershy is.”

“What?”

“Just pay attention. Iron Bolt Cove. Cargo transport C12 ID17754. It’ll be under an alias. Run by pirates. Two days time. You can get there.” As she spoke, she grew more and more strained. She smiled at Rainbow. “I believe in you, Rainbow.”

Rainbow gawked. “Twilight? What are you talking about.”

“You’ll understand when you wake up. Did you remember everything?”

Rainbow stared blankly. “Ah… Iron Bolt Cove. C12 ID17754. Two days.” Rainbow frowned. “Wait… how did I remember that?”

Twilight chuckled, which dissolved into coughing. Her forelegs collapsed from under her and she fell flat on the floor. “Go, now. Quickly. They’re coming. They’ll figure out where you are.”

“Who will—”

“Just go!” Twilight opened her eyes. They were blank white discs. Grimacing, her horn flickered into life. She pointed it at a patch of wall in front of Rainbow and a door appeared, twisting and unfolding to its full size as sourceless lights appeared around it.

Rainbow stood, taking a step forward but immediately stopping. “No.” She turned back to Twilight. “No, I’m not leaving you behind.” She reached down to haul Twilight up, but when she reached down, her hooves passed straight through Twilight’s trunk like she wasn’t there.

“Rainbow. You can’t help me.” Twilight grimaced, clutching her side. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

“No. I’m not leaving you.” Rainbow tried pulling Twilight off the floor again, and again she passed through Twilight like she wasn’t even there.

“Rainbow! I don’t have the strength to keep them out!” Twilight tried to push herself upright, but collapsed back down, panting heavily.

“No!” Rainbow danced around Twilight. She had no idea how she could help Twilight, but she wasn’t going to give up that easily. “I’m not leaving you again,” she said, her voice suddenly dry.

Twilight groaned. “I’m not giving you a choice, Rainbow.” She lit her horn, pointed it at Rainbow and before Rainbow could react, a bolt of lightning arced out, striking Rainbow in her chest. She flew backward but instead of hitting a solid floor, she fell. And fell. And fell.

“I’m sorry, Twilight!” Rainbow called out to the black void around her.

Rainbow spun around. She could tell she was falling, but beyond that, there was nothing but black. Except… a faint point of white light, far below her. A few seconds later, the point resolved into a line. She sped toward it, accelerating faster and faster. At first, it seemed so far, but she was gathering speed so quickly, soon she was falling headlong into it, the world disappeared in a burst of light.

Rainbow shot out of her bed so quickly she hit her head against the ceiling. Stunned, she floated back down, settling in between her strewn sheets. The Legacy. That’s where she was. She was onboard the Legacy, in her room. It was just another bad dream. She looked up at the pipes pumping all manner of toxic chemicals across her ceiling, separated from Rainbow by a pale blue forcefield. She amused herself with the forcefield's shimmering patterns while she gathered the strength to get out of bed.

Rainbow’s room was a dimly lit shoebox full of the evidence of months worth of apathy. Piles of unwashed clothes littered the floor from weeks ago before Rainbow had given up wearing clothes entirely. Her desk, once a pricey antique, was ruined by caked-on food and ink spills, hidden under dirty dinner plates and mugs, decorated with the shattered shards of plastic cutlery. A poster lay crinkled and trampled on the floor, having taken a section of the tacky love-heart-polka-dot wallpaper with it when it fell a week ago.

Rainbow rolled off her bed and landed on the thick rug on the floor. She kicked a dirty uniform under her bed, then dragged her cane chair over to the porthole, a trail of crumbs and dust popping up as it carved through her rug. She sat down with a creak and rested her chin on the porthole’s cold brass frame.

Outside, the blackness of space stretched out to infinity. To Rainbow’s right, the aft section of the Legacy curved outward into a sweeping wing, its layers of pipes, mechanics, and armored plates reminded Rainbow of a rotting tree trunk. She hated it. But it was home.

Rainbow sighed. Already, the details of her nightmare were fading. She let them. They were all the same anyway. She would be doing something fun with her friends, and then, just as it started to feel real, that she thought she might actually be back in Equestria with its clear skies, bright days, and warm smiles, she’d be reminded that her friends were long gone and it was her fault. She’d failed to protect them. She was alive, and they were dead. Dead, lost and forgotten to time.

The monumental weight of Rainbow’s failure climbed onto her. It would be there, always, strangling her when she felt joy, pushing her down when she tried to bring herself up. Rainbow slumped further down on her chair.

Eyes glazing over, numb to the vast expanse before them, Rainbow decided whether or not she could be bothered ordering breakfast. After five minutes, she decided she couldn’t. She continued staring out the porthole, preparing herself for a long day of doing nothing. But, for some reason, Twilight’s appearance at the end of her nightmare stuck in her mind. It felt out of place, and she hadn’t forgotten it like the rest of the dream.

Rainbow scrounged around for a pencil, eventually finding without a broken lead under her bed, and wrote down the information Twilight had given her in the dream. For some reason, it was easy to remember. “C12… ID17754…”

Rainbow’s head slumped onto her desk. Who was she kidding? This was pure desperation. What was the chance Fluttershy would really be aboard a pirate ship? Even if she’d somehow survived the attack, she would have died from old age centuries ago.

But at the very least, she could see if the ship existed. If it didn’t, then at least she’d held a moment of hope. And if it did, somehow, then she’d have a whole lot more hope than that.

Rainbow dragged herself over to her mirror, pulling off the towel draped over it. Her sunken and weary eyes stared back at her from her increasingly gaunt features.

“Information on class twelve freighter,” Rainbow barked at the mirror. As the spells weaved their magic, Rainbow closed her eyes. Why was she doing this to herself? She’d just find the ship didn’t exist and the entire thing was exactly what it looked like: a dream. It was just a cruel fantasy conjured by her mind to torment her with false hope. She wouldn’t find anything.

Just as Rainbow raised her hoof to cancel the command, her reflection swirled and disappeared. In its place, an encyclopedic entry appeared.

Rainbow started. The ship actually existed. It was a beginning, at least. Not that it meant anything; she’d probably just picked up the class designation somewhere in her year aboard the Legacy, overhearing a conversation or reading it without noticing.

Rainbow sighed. Would it hurt her to look? She forced herself to scan the page. Not in production... Long duration… plasma thrusters… Five thousand tonnes… Superseded a decade ago… boring stuff… more boring stuff. It wasn’t a ship a pirate would use—it was too slow—but at least it existed. Finding the exact ship would be more difficult, however. Mostly because it would require her to ask for help.

Rainbow opened her meager list of contacts, pausing with her hoof over a pony named ‘Voltra’. Rainbow swallowed. It had been nearly a week—she couldn’t remember the exact number of days—since she’d spoken to another pony, and then that was only Cadence checking up on her. Rainbow sighed. If this dream proved to be anything, she would have to apologize to Cadence. Even if the dream proved to be nothing, she should apologize anyway, she knew. She’d get around to it, eventually.

Rainbow collected what remained of her pride and, with a few steadying breaths, pressed the call button. The mirror rang. And rang. Rainbow locked her legs so she would just jump away. The mirror kept ringing. Rainbow’s heart beat faster. She mentally scolded herself for being ridiculous, but it didn’t help in the slightest.

Finally, the mirror swirled, and Voltra appeared: an aging unicorn stallion with a perpetual frown, his black mane streaked with gray, his pale green coat fading, a pair of half-moon glasses perched on the end of his muzzle. “Dear me, Ms. Dash, you’ve really been letting yourself go.”

Rainbow didn’t have the energy to argue, so she just ignored him. “Look, Voltra, I need some help.”

“I’ll say. Have you been seeing the counselor?”

Rainbow glared.

“When was the last time you ate? Or had a shower, for that matter? I can practically smell you, and I'm on the other side of the ship.”

Rainbow scoffed. Now, that warranted a comeback. She paused with her mouth ajar. Nothing came to her mind. As seconds ticked by, she puffed out her cheeks. “Can you just help me without complaining about how I look?”

Voltra sighed. “My wife and I are very worried about you, Ms. Dash. So is Princess Cadence. She said—”

“—Ugh!” Rainbow stomped her hoof. “I don’t care what Cadence thinks!”

Voltra fell silent. After what felt like a solid minute of staring at Rainbow, he sighed. “How can I help you, then, Ms. Dash?”

“Finally,” Rainbow muttered, rolling her eyes. “There’s a ship I want to find.”

“I’m assuming it’s a Commonwealth ship if you’re coming to me for it?”

“Ah. Well, kind of. It’s a pirate ship.”

Voltra’s frown deepened. “I hope you don’t expect me to track it.”

“No, no, of course not. I just need to know if it exists. It was a Commonwealth ship, so they should have records of it, right?”

“Very well. Ask away.”

“It’s, uh, registration is… uh… I wrote it down…” Rainbow scanned her desk for the slip of paper. She found it on top of a dirty dinner plate. She picked it up, brushing off some lingering pasta sauce. “Found it.” She flashed a smile. Voltra sipped from a mug of coffee he held in his magic, his expression otherwise unchanged. “But… ahh, yeah, it’s registration is ‘17754’.”

“Hm. Let me see.” Voltra pushed his glasses up and turned to a second screen.

Rainbow tapped her hoof while she waited. Rationally, she doubted Voltra would find anything. But if he did… Rainbow refused to let her hopes get out of hoof. He wouldn’t find anything. No way.

“Hm,” Voltra started, taking another sip of his coffee. He scowled at something out of view, presumably another mirror, a moment longer before returning to Rainbow. “Well, you’re in luck. There is a ship with that registration. A class twelve freighter. Or at least, there was: it looks like it was taken over by pirates a year or so ago. Do you mind if I ask why you wanted to know?”

Rainbow zoned out. She felt her heart pounding. Could this be it? Could she actually find Fluttershy? If Fluttershy was there, could it mean Twilight was alive, too? There was no way the exact ship registration would just magically pop into Rainbow’s head. No, Twilight must’ve found a way to get inside her dreams. She could do that, right? If Princess Luna could, it was at least possible Twilight had figured it out as well.

But if Twilight was alive, why had she resorted to communicating through a dream? Unless… hadn’t she said ‘you can’t help me, Rainbow’? Rainbow gasped. Twilight was in trouble! But then why did Twilight tell Rainbow where Fluttershy was and not where she was herself? To protect her? How bad a situation was Twilight in? Did she even know where was? Was that why she couldn’t tell Rainbow: because she didn’t know?

A polite cough interrupted Rainbow’s train of thought. “Ms. Dash? If you’re not going to respond, I will have to end this call. Not to be rude, but you did interrupt my family’s breakfast, you know.”

“I… Ah... Thank you. I have to go. Thank you so much. And sorry about your breakfast.” Rainbow slammed the ‘end conversation’ button and then stood completely frozen. Occasionally, a tremor shook through her leg. This was real. Fluttershy was alive, and Twilight was too. Could any of the others be as well? Were they out there, somewhere? She had to know.

Rainbow felt a smile wiggle on the edges of her lips. It tugged at her face, propelled by an internal surge of excitement, unsure of how to form after weeks of absence. But slowly, it worked its way into a full grin. Rainbow felt giddy.

“My friends are alive!” she shouted to her reflection, throwing her hoof into the air. She threw herself into a backward summersault, which ended abruptly when she crashed into her bed. Right: six-by-eight foot room. Rainbow threw her forelegs out onto her duvet, grinning like an idiot. As if a cloud was lifting, she noticed for the first time that she stunk. Her whole room did, in fact. She sat up. The place was a mess, even by her standards. But cleaning would have to wait. She had to tell Cadence about this. Right now.

Faster than she’d flown in months, faster than she thought she would ever fly again, Rainbow burst through her door and shot off down the corridor, leaving swinging lights, startled ponies, and the miasma of not showering in a week in her wake.

Her friends were alive. They were out there. And they needed her help.

Chapter 1: Awakening

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.