Author's Note

WELL

Guess who's NOT dead. Nope, I was just in the process of a complete mental/emotional breakdown over the course of late Spring and through a good it of Summer. But, that's over, mostly.

So here's finally the next chapter of this little MAS adventure we're all going on together!
In case anyone was wondering, I've planned it out as a eleven-part series, so this is chapter 6, technically the midpoint of the whole thing. Many secrets have effectively been revealed at this point, and so now it's just story progression from here on in.

Also! I'm have an art piece commissioned for a scene from this story! It should hopefully be epic when it is finally completed! It's being done by the astounding CelebiYoshi over on DeviantArt, so please, PLEASE go check her stuff out, she's one of my favorites ~ Celebi-Yoshi, aka Dawnu!

I'm so so sorry for my lack of content since Springtime.

I have other states of existence where you can also stalk me, and potentially hound me about slacking off if I have another episode again.

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What the Crap!

The knocking wouldn’t stop. Not knocking on any door, mind you, but rather the knocking that came from Spike rapidly kicking Twilight’s bedpost. “Aye!” He resorted to shouting. “Cuddle-slugs! Mind getting up would’ya?”

It was a pair of soot-grey ears that twitched first, followed by Meteor Streak lifting his head and blinking reflexively in the rays of the gentle morning sun. Only after carefully retracting his hoof from around Twilight did he slip out of bed. He’d spent the night with them again, as he did basically every other night now. It had been about three months since the first time, and it was that frequent of an occurrence now, especially given how much it had ended up reducing Twilight’s nightmares over time.

“What is it?” Meteor asked quietly, coming around the corner of the bed.

“Nye, sorry Tension Tamer,” Spike stopped him, and repeated what he’d assigned Meteor’s nickname to be given his effect on Twilight, “but Aye need the angry purple horse.” He explained.

“Ugh!” Twilight hit her pillow and forced herself up, revealing herself to have been awaken the entire time. “Come on Spike! What the crap? Seriously, we’re tired.”

“Yeah, that kind of tinds to happen when you stay up into the wee hours of the mornin doing Luna knows what.” The little dragon shot off a retort.

“We were stargazing, Spike. You know, watching the start of that whole planetary alignment thing? Seriously, you were there.” She went about thinking she actually had to remind him.

“Yeah, Aye was,” Spike did acknowledge the fact, “but in case you don’t recall, Aye fell asleep sometime BEFORE three in the mornin. You know, like a normal person?”

“Eat a dick, Spike.” Twilight fired away, still hoping to just dismiss whatever Spike was trying to raise her up for.

“Nye.” He responded, expectantly. “Don’t swing that way.”

“Spike, what . . . is it, exactly?” A much calmer, more restrained voice than either of theirs finally interjected, coming from the growing concern of a grey stallion.

“Yeah, what exactly is so urgent that you need to rouse me out of my nice, peaceful, nightmare-less sleep for?” Twilight echoed her boyfriend’s question, only with clear hostility.

Meteor had to turn his attention from Spike to her. What may have begun as concern and a suspicion a few moments ago had made itself a certainty just now: something wasn’t right. Twilight had only ever been growing more mellow, and “”more kind”” to Spike specifically, as much as she tried to pretend that in particular wasn’t really a thing that was happening. She snapped on occasion still, as that was ultimately just an inherent part of her, but something was off now. She seemed so particularly agitated . . . like . . . that was it, or it had to be. It was just like the few times Meteor had seen her act when she was really paranoid about something was going to happen. Like when she was terrified Celestia was going to come to town for her birthday. No doubt whatsoever, there was something deeply troubling her.

“It’s Applejack.” Spike went about explaining things. “She came up poundin on the door askin if you had any kind of brain-washin spells. Aye guess she wants you to use one on her granny or somethin? Guess she finally went off her rocker.”

“She wants me to brainwash her grandmother?” Apparently Twilight’s perplexity at the absurd request was enough to overtake her agitation for the moment. Sure enough, she actually did slide herself out of bed with a groan. “Agh, fine. I’ll go see whatever this B.S. is about.” She said just as she began trotting down the library stairs.

There was a short silence between Meteor and Spike after Twilight left, but the stallion felt he had to break it while the chance was there.

“Something’s wrong.” He said, just to raise the point.

“Yah, Aye know that.” Spike agreed with him readily. “You know you’ve got more of a chance of her tellin you than me, right?” The dragon added on after another few seconds of silence.

“W—are you sure?” Meteor had to ask. It was a natural reaction triggered by the suggestion that Twilight trusted him more than someone she’d known for her entire life.

“Eh, in reality we’re pretty even with her,” Spike admitted his actual view of it, “but I’d only get it out of her by pressing at it until the stress got too much’n she exploded form it. Being around you keeps her calm most of the time, so you’re a lot more likely to just git her to tell you without havin an episode.”

Meteor took in Spike’s words in the quiet that followed, whilst Twilight reached the bottom of the stairs and dragged her hooves over to the door.

The pounding Spike had described continued even as Twilight approached the wooden frame. She opened the top half of the door and immediately restrained the raised hoof of the farm pony on the other side.

“Alright! Enough! I’m here already; what do you want?” Twilight demanded.

Applejack tried to shake her hoof free for a couple seconds, struggling for nothing until Twilight finally released her magic grip on it. “Well,” AJ finally began to answer, now with a little additional frustration on top of what had already been there, “like Ah told Spike, Ah came by really hoping ya’ll have some kinda mind-washing sp—“

“You mean brainwashing.” Positive life changes or not, nothing would ever lessen the purple bookhorse’s instinct to correct others, no matter how important of a statement she was interrupting.

“Look—whatever!” Applejack all but snapped, though still not phasing the unicorn in front of her, “Just . . . Ah need yuh ta do somethin ta make Granny act at least SOMEWHAT normal! She’s gone off it Ah’m telling yuh, like completely gone off it!”

“Ok,” Twilight brought some of her inherent authority into her voice, “let’s get a grip and some kind of actual explanation here. WHY do you want me to brainwash your grandmother? And, I mean, what with? Like you can’t just say you want me to brainwash somepony; that’s literally as vague as just telling somepony to draw a picture. You have to have an actual idea or something you’re trying to get me to force into her head.”

Applejack stopped herself, only just long to take single deep breath in and out. “I need ya’ll ta make her think that Braeburn and all the family out in Appleoosa’s ok. Cause . . . since we got that letter from the government saying they’re all dead and they can’t let us have the bodies for funerals because they’re all contaminated with somethin, Granny’s just completely lost it. She’s been trashing things around the farm, ranting all around the house about how she’s gonna overthrow the government, and a few times already she’s actually started headin down the road with a wheat-scythe. Lucky nough for me she can’t much travel any faster than a mile a day so Ah’ve been able to drag her back inta the house every time, but, Twi this gettin really old already and it’s only been like three days.”

Twilight certainly felt a greater desire to hear what information AJ had now. Her friend snapping at her practically meant nothing, but the few things AJ had just mentioned about Appleoosa . . . that stood out clearly as something out-of-place . . . and Twilight had already just recently become aware of quite a few other things that were so as well.

“Wait,” she stopped Applejack, “everypony in Appleoosa’s dead?”

“Yeah, that’s what Ah said,” AJ answered, “every single one of’em, even the buffalo apparently, cept nopony’s tryin ta get their bodies.”

“So what, like, did some of the gold mine’s processing waste contaminate the ground water supply or something?” Twilight tried to get something more specific. “Cause heavy metals are a toxin you have to ingest; they’re not like a contagion—“

“Ah don’t rightly know!” AJ snapped again, bringing what might have been a lecture to a halt. “We just got a letter from the government sayin all of our relatives in appleoosa had passed away due to sudden illness, and that they can’t release the bodies to us because of the possible threat of contamination.”

“Wait,” the whole premise struck Twilight as off once again, heavy metal poisoning was almost always a delayed process, unless somepony literally just drank a vile of Mercury. Sudden illness didn’t fit any of this at all. “When you got your last letter from Braeburn did he mention anything about anypony in the town feeling sick in any way? Or was it like, everything was normal up until the last second?” She went on to ask.

“No!” AJ’s frustration was passing beyond containable limits. “There wasn’t nothin about feelin sick, or anypony else feelin anything! Seriously Twilight, can you please just make my Granny stop or not?”

“What? Agh, yeah, whatever, just . . . give me all the letters Braeburn sent you since the gold mine opened.” Twilight agreed to it, finally opening the lower half of the door as she put forth her condition.

“What?” AJ finally came off as just confused without simmering with stress and frustration. “Whatta ya’ll want with them?” She asked as Twilight shut the library door and they both headed off toward the farm.

“Well, nothing you’ve said fits anything that a gold mine could cause.” Twilight explained. “Plus I only just remembered some geology textbooks I read a while back, and I’m almost positive I recall them saying that the minerology of the Appleoosa area wasn’t indicative of any rare-metal deposits. So this whole thing’s starting to not really fit together.”

“. . . well,” AJ didn’t exactly seem to know how to take whatever the implications of what Twilight said might be, “just . . . make sure ya’ll don’t actually go sayin none of that around Granny. She thinks enough strange things already, so hearin that there might actually be some kinda real conspiracy involvin her own kin might just send her the rest of the way, if yuh catch my drift.”

“Well that kind of depends on what you consider a conspiracy,” Twilight responded, “cause I don’t know if you’re exactly all that familiar with how a government typically works, but governments lying about things is kind of just standard operating procedure.” She almost went on, almost, but this time Twilight actually stopped herself of her own accord and instead went back on topic. “But anyways, this isn’t going to be some end-all-to-be-all spell. I hope you know that. It’ll usually work for several hours, maybe a day on average ponies. Since your grandmother’s old and senile it should probably last a few days in her case, but I can’t guarantee anything.”

Applejack sighed. “That’s fine, just as long as you CAN make her stop. No matter how long for, it’ll be a decent enough break for me.”

***

Some time later Twilight was walking away from the Apples’ house slowly, a collection of letters floating by magic in front of her. Granny’s brainwashing had proved successful enough. After just a minute of her head being zapped by Twilight’s purple-smart beam Granny had immediately dropped the entire Braeburn subject and started demanding to know where Big Mac was and why hadn’t gotten over his “”gay phase”” and married a nice mare yet. It was effectively just shifting the old earth pony’s eccentric attention back onto Big Mac as opposed to Applejack and “”The Government””. But Twilight didn’t really take any time to concern herself over that. There was something going on that she had to get to the bottom of . . .

“Hey, Twilight,” Applejack suddenly called out from behind, not necessarily yelling as Twilight hadn’t really gotten far from the Apples’ house yet, “uh, ya’ll mind promising ta keep some’a the more . . . personal stuff in those a secret?”

Twilight turned around almost in surprise. She literally couldn’t care less about any personal details the letters might contain, let alone gossiping about it. But for whatever reason AJ looked legitimately worried, and Twilight . . . found herself easily killing her own urge to make a snide retort . . . much more easily suppressing it than she used to. “Uh, sure. I guess, I mean I probably kind of owe you anyway for kicking Rarity in the face last week.”

That, that visibly made the orange pony’s face lighten a bit, a far cry from what it had been most of the morning. “Well if ya’ll wanna view it like that Ah guess ya’ll go ahead,” she replied to what her friend had said, “though Ah did that as much for my own personal gratification as Ah did ta make her shut up about you n yer boyfriend.”

“She’d been asking me for a straight half hour how many times me and Meteor have had sex,” Twilight reminded her, “if you hadn’t happened to show up and smash her teeth, I might have actually ended up magically ripping her in two pieces like you wanted me to do at that stupid slumber part thing we had way back.”

“Oh, well then,” AJ thought about it in a half-serious manner, “Ah guess it’s unfortunate Ah showed up then. The world would’ve been a better place if Ah’d been late.”

“Maybe next time.” Twilight said, finally turning about to resume her path back home, and resuming her scanning of the letters in front of her for hints and details.

***

Ponies in labcoats escorted by royal guards . . . poking rocks and cliffs with what Twilight had to assume were Geiger Counters . . . Buffalo kicked off their land . . . heavy mining equipment brought in . . . huge buildings thrown up and filled with rows of cylinders . . . some ponies heading out to build a tower way out in the desert . . . and . . . now the last letter.

Twilight read. She read, though she should have known from everything beforehand what she would find. But it would seem even she could be susceptible to cognitive dissidence, for however short a time it might be. That state of mind ended when she found the words though . . . “really bright light over the horizon.”

The front door of the library only came open all the way because she’d already given it enough momentum, but her magic grip had released it abruptly upon finding what she had.

. . . radiation sickness . . .

. . . that had been obvious from the first appearance of the Geiger Counters . . .

. . . but . . . the bright flash?

. . . really? But . . . they . . . no, there were royal guards, and the scientists had government insignias on their labcoats . . .

. . . a bright flash seen from miles away! It really was, it was exactly what she thought . . . what else would Celestia ever want with plutonium? The question was rhetorical from the very beginning.

Celestia had nukes.

***

Lack of complete focus kept Twilight from stabilizing her nervous muttering at a whisper. “It’s—it’s ok, it’s all okaaaay, Twilight,” she went on to herself, not loud enough for the words themselves to reach Spike and Meteor’s ears upstairs, but enough so for them to tell she was talking to herself, “it’s all fine! Nothing to worry about! The most evil, terrifying pony who’s ever lived is now in possession of the most powerful feasibly-cheap weapons known to plausible science . . . ha-ha, nooooo worries whatsoever. I mean, Celestia’s such a kindhearted dictator, ha-ha-ha, ha, ha, I’m sure she would never USE them!”

Somehow, subconsciously, she did stop herself when she reached the top of the stairs. She was met of course, by Meteor and Spike both waiting for her, nearly in the exact same positions they’d been standing in when she left to brainwash Granny Smith. Both of them were staring at her, although after a couple seconds of silence Spike glanced sideways at the pegasus next to him and actually went to jab him into action. Only he found at the last second he didn’t have to.

“Something’s wrong.” Meteor just flat-out stated.

Spike had no idea whether that was intentional or not, but if so it might have been a clever tactic. Asking the typical question that would have come as always left the door open for denial. Being affirmative in way boarded that escape hatch shut. But . . . there could still . . .

“Aahh—ah I’m really uh . . .” Twilight went for the option that Spike knew was still there, substituting another plausible reason when one was available, “still really tired. Uh—I kind of just want to . . . go back to bed.” Regardless of the fact that neither of them believed her, her attempt at suppression still failed. She ended up pouring in way too much emphasis on those last words.

“Twilight . . .” Meteor started with his normal, calm and quiet voice, but then did something quite rare: by conscious effort or subconscious emotional override, he actually increased his volume, and actually filled his voice with solidity. “I know, I am just a horsefly, but you really know I’m not stupid, and neither is he.” He pointed to the dragon beside him. His voice went back to what it almost always was when he spoke again, and that was almost certainly a conscious decision. “Both of us know that . . . all three of us know that something’s not right.”

Spike had to look from one of them to the other after that, granted only for the first few seconds after. Twilight’s eyes were of course flickering from one of them to the other, all while her nervously clenching teeth were more than plainly visible. The grey pegasus kept his eyes straight in her direction though, and . . . it was the fact that they were afraid, his eyes, in a completely different way than she was. Meteor’s expression was as flat and placid as ever, but in his eyes he was afraid. Just . . . his kind of afraid was sad.

It was ultimately that that finally made her let go.

“Eh-ha heheh, heh, ah—there’s,” she started up, anxiety forming cracks in the clarity of her explanation as she went, “. . . there’s a few things wrong.” Meteor went to step toward her, but before he really moved she went straight past them both, in the clear beginning of what was likely to be a pacing session. “I mean, I can’t . . . some of them really might just be paranoia. Or I thought they could, but, I . . . you know how Celestia basically hasn’t even communicated with me in any way in the slightest for almost a year? Yeah. Well, at first I kind of thought I had an explanation for that, but now the explanation I thought I had is kind of falling apart. I mean, really I shouldn’t care, because she’s finally not throwing me at every national crisis for her own amusement, but she also hasn’t actually taken on a new student like she usually does whenever one outgrows being fun for her to play mind games with. And if she’s not doing that then that means that she’s breaking her routine, the same routine of ruining ponies’ lives she’s been keeping with for over a thousand years! And Celestia just stopping her routines and suddenly not caring to show up for public events anymore, which by the way, she’s also just so suddenly done recently, means that she’s probably decided to start planning on something big and new, or she’s already doing something big and new.”

Spike went to interject, but Twilight was nowhere near done.

“Then!” She went on. “And then, we have that alignment last night! A complete planetary alignment! You know I actually would’ve been a lot more excited for something like that if it was actually supposed to happen. But it wasn’t! That alignment wasn’t supposed to happen for another thirty-five years! Do you know the kind of combinations of orbital speed and directional velocity changes that would have had to have happened for something that significant to be re-timed? I mean, whatever happened to conservation of momentum? Conservation of momentum!” She suddenly grabbed Meteor and basically shook him as she spoke. “Conservation of momentum!” She rattled his body back and forth. “It’s a thing! It’s a real thing!”

“Twilight.” All the stallion she had ahold of did was say her name, and press a single hoof against her chest. It was enough though, enough to make her ranting abruptly cease, leaving nothing but rapid breathing in its place.

Twilight looked right back into Meteor’s eyes, hers now only a foot from his.

He did the same for what was practically a serene moment compared to the last couple minutes. Only after that moment passed, he reached back with a wing and pulled out his bottle of Lorazepam. “Twilight.” All he said was her name again as he clearly offered her the bottle.

“What? No, you can’t mix that with—“ She started to protest, until she was cut off.

“When was the last time you took Xanax?” He asked, managing to stay solid about it, though still not in any way used to having to correct her.

“. . . three days ago.” She answered him, some clarity returning.

“Then you know nothing will happen.” He both assured and reminded her, as it had been her he’d learned as much from orginally.

“But I could just take my—“ Again, she started . . . but he still managed enough solidarity to cut her off again.

“You know Xanax isn’t situational.” He said.

She continued taking her deep breaths for something of a frozen moment. And then she finally unscrewed the cap with her magic all but teleported a Lorazepam tablet into her mouth and swallowed.

Meteor had the faintest smile as he put the bottle back away. “I would’ve gotten you some water.”

“No, no,” Twilight resumed speaking again, consistently, and without pacing, “no it’s fine. It’s alright. But there’s . . . there’s . . . worse things, more things.”

“She’s right you know.” Spike suddenly interrupted, his voice now coming from across the room where he stood by Twilight’s desk with an open book.

“What?” Meteor asked.

“Aye checked her Astronomical Almanac while you were toning her down,” the dragon explained, “Aye went to the future events section and it’s all plain and laid out: the whole alignment timing and everything. She’s right, not supposed to happen fur another thirty-five years.”

“But that’s not it,” Twilight insisted on going on with what she’d been about to, “I mean, that’s not only it.” She found her mouth open . . . but her mind halted her words where they were. For a second she seemed at a loss, but that appearance ended abruptly when she suddenly threw herself into intense focus, and her horn glowed for a count of five before a pink burst of magic blasted out from her. It damaged nothing. In fact, it didn’t even move anything, but it did feel unnervingly strange as it passed through Meteor and Spike.

“Alright,” Twilight said in the immediate aftermath, “she’s not listening, or scrying.”

“Twilight, what’s—“ Now it was Meteor’s turn to get cut off, though it only made things feel more normal to him.

“Celestia has nukes.” Twilight just stated it outright, only realizing over the next few seconds that neither her pet-slave-brother nor her boyfriend knew what she was saying. “Big . . . really big bombs.” She hoped that much would clarify.

“Um—“ The only bit of response Meteor could put out, apart a slight head twisting made clear to Twilight just how vague she was still being.

“Aye thought her super-sunblast she could do with her horn-laser spell could already vaporize buildings?” Spike asked, in reality offering up a comparison.

“Worse,” Twilight’s response was instant, “a hundred times worse, minimum. Like, city-destroying, with mile-wide craters and . . .” She couldn’t really find anything else to say.

Spike was left with lifted eyebrows and slight nod, more so finding the supposed things impressive than anything else.

Meteor however, a second after hearing the brief description of power, had a look come across his face as if something had clicked in his head. And in the proceeding moments, his face almost seemed to adapt the graveness to match Twilight’s panic.

And then he asked an odd question . . . “Metal bombs?”

Twilight still wasn’t in a clear enough mental state to get exactly what he meant. “What?”

“Metal bombs.” He said again, and tried to go further. “Exploding metal. Metal bricks inside the bombs.”

“Wha—bricks? No,” she corrected, “cylinders or spheres, depending on what . . . wait . . .” She had to stop when she came to a realization of her own about him.

Before he could be asked anything though, Meteor stepped over next to the bed and reached into the satchel he carried all of his writings in. What he pulled out of it was something else, however. What emerged in his wing was a folded letter, a letter which he passed to Twilight with a hazy explanation. “One of my fans is some kind of professor . . . I guess physics. He sent me this one of the times I was open for fanmail. Bottom paragraph . . .”

Twilight took a moment to leave his eyes again. She didn’t want to. But she still looked down at the paper in front of her.

The final paragraph began with: “If you want to write the story with something REALLY scary . . .”

And then it proceeded right on with a thoroughly accurate description of a nuclear weapon. Upon reaching the end of it, she eagerly passed it back in his direction.

“That’s really real?” He asked. Some of his own graveness and fear had apparently left, as he at least sounded halfway back to normal.

Twilight only nodded, before echoing a set of words from a long time ago. “I don’t know what it means . . .”

“You’ll still always know more than I will.” Meteor said a moment later, trying to smile.

Maybe it was her panic that removed her normal hesitancy, but one way or another, Meteor suddenly found Twilight awkwardly hugging him. An embrace he more than willingly returned, at least until Twilight said something that really did catch him by surprise. The remark he’d made must have reminded her of earlier . . . and of her old self.

“I’m sorry . . . for like, all the racist shit I ever said around you—or I mean . . . ever said, or . . .” What she meant was plain enough, even though she felt she was failing to really say it. Regardless, she stopped when Meteor took a small step back . . . just enough to look her in the face again.

Twilight . . .” hesitancy came to his soft voice, even if the coming words had been said before, “. . . I love you.”

And well, that definitely was more than enough to bring an instant stop to her momentary self-hating episode, and at least for a moment, to freeze her anxiety. It took her face a few seconds to let go of the situation, just enough to allow for a nervous smile . . . her nervous smile that might as well have glowed in Meteor’s eyes.

Spike rolled his own eyes at the half-romantic sweet moment, and turned away to make a gagging motion when the kiss came. He wasn’t turned away for long though, as a few seconds after the kiss was over, his name was called.

“Spike!” Twilight shouted over to him, to both his surprise and Meteor’s as well. “Get over here, I’m giving you a hug.” She ordered him, in what was the closest thing to her former bossy voice he’d heard in a while.

“What now?” Spike was . . . a little too taken sideways with the command itself to actually even consider complying. “Have you gone off it now?”

An aura formed around both Twilight’s horn and Spike’s body, and the dragon found himself pulled across the room.

“Aye! What the—“ Spike tried to protest while he was still being dragged, but then also found himself being hugged against his will . . . and within no more than a second of it he could hear Meteor laughing at him. “You’ll pay fur this you know!” The little dragon tried to make a threat, but even he knew neither of them took him seriously. But even worse than the one hug and the laughing, Meteor even joined in on the hug as well.

And so, Spike, who’d grown up and lived the majority of his life under oppression and growing accustomed to receiving nothing but negative emotions from Twilight until just recently, found himself surrounded by sickening affection and caring. So he was left with no choice but to just grit his pointed teeth until the family hug was over.

Surely enough, Meteor stayed there again that night. With what was evidently going on, and the way it was clearly effecting Twilight, there was no way he leaving now.

***

Far away to the north, a train was arriving at the fringe of the Crystal Empire. It’s prominent passenger on this return trip was Shining Armour, finally being given leave time after heading security out at the Trottenheimer experiment for the several months it took.

Although, it wouldn’t exactly be like he was returning to a serene and peaceful life. The Crystal Empire may lack crime, but it had its own problems. Ever since it had reappeared and Celestia had sent him and Cadance to rule over it, effectively annexing it, the crystal ponies weren’t exactly content with their new state of being. They accepted his and Cadance’s rule because of Cadance’s own crystal heritage . . . but they utterly refused Celestia’s. They refused to pay Equestrian taxes, they refused to stop growing their own food and become dependent on Equestrian imports, and they most certainly refused to disband their own Crystal Guard and re-enlist their soldiers, however few, into Celestia’s military. Protesting and legal complaints were something he and Cadance had to manage on a daily basis, and at the moment he wasn’t all that eager to just jump right back into it.

Regardless, he was left with no choice as the train came to a halt.

Shining, and everypony else on board disembarked one by one from their respective passenger cars, hopping out onto the soft dirt road at the Crystal Empire gates. Shining went to wait for the luggage handlers to unload his duffle bag from underneath the traincar, and whilst he stood by he let his eyes drift up toward the clear blue high above. It was boundless, and empty . . . or, actually it wasn’t entirely empty. There was something flying way, way up above.

Squinting his eyes almost wasn’t enough. In fact it actually wasn’t enough to see clearly, but it was enough define vague shapes, enough to pick out four pegasi, royal guards . . . carrying something . . .

. . . the shape in the middle . . . his recent memories from the desert . . .

. . . it was!

But they were . . .

Shining swung his head in their flight path’s direction . . . and it really was. They were about to fly right over the empire!

Never having frozen. Never one to freeze. He ran. He ran for the empire with all that his legs could give him. That was all he had. He wasn’t Twily, he couldn’t teleport.

But . . . there was no way.

. . .

The pegasi far up above let go, and that dark, metal thing began to fall.

Shining’s legs abandoned the commands he’d given them. It was a mile to the outskirts, two to the palace . . . he’d never make it.

That little dot fell and fell, dropping below where the higher clouds would be if there were any.

Shining had stopped. The urge to protect was pulsating . . . but equally, the cold evaluations he’d been drilled through just as well were overwhelming.

It just kept falling, probably barely two miles up.

But wait! No, Shining realized there was something, something he could do. He turned back toward the train station, toward the dozens of ponies gathering their belongings, all oblivious to what was coming.

Falling falling falling.

“Everypony stop!” He shouted as he skidded to a halt in front of the tiny assembly of ponies. “Get around me!” He commanded them all. A sure silence followed the seemingly random order. Some recognized him as prince of the empire, and others recognized his guard commander uniform, and thus, about a third or so began to cautiously do as he said. “Do as I say!” He yelled furiously to the rest of them . . . and it seemed some ominous foreboding managed to come out with his voice, and the rest of them finally obeyed.

Everypony gathered around him, about thirty or so, and once they were all there he spun back around to face the oncoming hand of death. “Look away! And shut your eyes!” He ordered them all, and though he doubted it would help much, “And cover your ears!”

Shining’s eyes and the tiny little falling dot met. It was less than a mile up. He had no time to watch. He shut his own eyes fiercely . . . and poured all but his soul into his shielding spell. A pink barrier quickly surrounded the small group, growing thicker and thicker with all that Shining poured into it. It was meant to be a moderate shield for a small city . . . but maybe if he condensed it this small . . . maybe the compiled strength would be enough.

“I’m sorry Cadance . . .”

“. . . I’m sorry Cadance . . .”

“. . . . . . . I love you!”

And then through his shut eyes, something well beyond daylight shined through. It was sunlight, in fact, in a sense, far closer than it was ever meant to be.

In a few seconds the light was gone . . . and for all there was, so was the Crystal Empire.