Brittle

Chapters

Your Karma's Coming Back Here to Find You
This Could Get a Little Violent
Bringing Down the Giant

Your Karma's Coming Back Here to Find You

It’d been three weeks since Rainbow Dash had escaped Sombra’s clutches and prevented a massive ambush of the EUP.

In those three weeks, they’d accomplished more than they had in the past three years.

The battle in the valley hadn’t been some colossal, hitherto-unheard-of success. A success, yes, but perhaps not as big of one as they’d liked; Sombra’s new helmet designs had proved… troublesome. So, no, not a huge success. That was, until they kept advancing. Towns that still had free-willed ponies threw open their gates for them. Any resistance they met was small and unorganized. Their supply lines weren’t even touched. Eventually, speculation trickled down through the ranks from the top brass: Sombra supposedly hadn’t even considered the possibility of failure for his surprise attack.

All his subsequent plans had depended on the EUP getting thoroughly smashed and nearly annihilated, not still united and strong. He’d assumed his attack would go flawlessly, and all his subsequent deployments were based on that. His forces were spread thin, waiting for reinforcements that would never come. He’d withdrawn his ponies from areas of vital importance, leaving them wide open for an army that wasn’t supposed to be there. His generals were scattered haphazardly around the battlefront, trying to give orders to armies a fraction the size of what they’d been expecting. His army as a whole was flat-out brittle: it might put up a good resistance, but a good, solid hit, and it’d shatter.

Sombra was many things. Evidently, a tactical genius was not one of them.

With little resistance, they had advanced. And advanced. And advanced. And advanced. And now they were camped out not too far from the Crystal Empire itself; Dash could see the Crystal Palace poking its way above some distant hills behind Sombra’s shield. With the ease of their advance, some soldiers had been taken from this army and shuttled behind Sombra’s line, cutting off his supply on other fronts, weakening him all the more. By now, the question was no longer if Sombra would be defeated, but when. No estimate put it at more than a month. The smart money was on a week.

Celestia wasn’t just bullrushing the Empire, though. She was being methodical, working on completely surrounding it. Sombra may have had a special place in the space where his heart should have been for the Empire, but if he had a chance, he’d flee, and they’d need to chase him down all over again. Celestia was making sure that wasn’t an option for him.

So Dash and the Wonderbolts were assisting in closing the last gap: a snowbound town several miles southeast-east of the Empire, Warmblood. Well, “town” might be stretching it; “re-education camp” was the official term, while “brainwashing facility” was the one bandied about by the rank and file. And some officers, too, for that matter. There really wasn’t any whitewashing it: the place had been set up a week or so after Sombra’s return to be a place where ponies were turned into Sombra’s soldiers en masse. Dash could still feel the sick, clammy residue of the magic crawling through the stones, trying to work its way into her head. But it was too weak to influence even the drunkest pony, much less one who was alert and had thrown off a more focused attempt at brainwashing three weeks ago.

This close to the end of the war, morale was high. So the Wonderbolts and the landbound ponies they were assisting, a small contingent of the Rock Corp, had decided to have a little contest: whichever side freed the most ponies from Sombra’s helmets won first dibs at dinner that night. It was fair; they had the same numbers, and the Wonderbolts were faster, baseline, but the Rock Corp were strong enough to buck through walls without injury and make shortcuts, something the Wonderbolts couldn’t do, while the mess of interiors limited the Wonderbolts’ flying. Any death on either side was inexcusable; given size of Warmblood, there were too few ponies in too large a space to dogpile anyone, as long as they stuck to at least pairs.

Dash wasn’t sure what the Wonderbolts’ overall score was. But she and Thunderlane were sitting comfortably at five, and were currently stalking number six.

Number six was a unicorn, which meant she had ranged capabilities. She was holed up in a warehouse, its windows still intact somehow. Dash and Thunderlane weren’t sure where, exactly, she was, but she had good aim and made them keep their heads down. They’d leapfrogged their way to within ten feet of the entrance, but there was a shield blocking entry that neither of them liked the look of. Poking it wouldn’t be the best idea, even if they could get that close. They were hunked down in the snow behind some rubble that had probably once been another building, but had since been flattened. Whenever one of them stuck a hair outside their cover, the unicorn would sling a barrage of magic at them, and they’d duck, and they wouldn’t be able to figure out where she was. They’d been here a while, and they weren’t planning on retreating anytime soon.

Thunderlane pulled a small mirror from the collar of his uniform. He’d added them on so he wouldn’t have to turn his head all the way around to look behind him. Dash had thought it’d been a stupid idea — did it really take that long to turn around? No, it did not — but now, she was grateful for them. His back against the wall, Thunderlane tilted the mirror so he could get a good view of the warehouse front without either of them getting themselves shot at. He turned it back and forth, hmming and hahing to himself. After several moments, he passed the mirror to Dash. “Right corner, upper floor. You see it?”

Dash tilted the mirror and saw it. One of the windows was open, just enough for a pony to sneak in. She couldn’t see the unicorn, though. “What about it?”

“That’s our way in,” said Thunderlane, retrieving the mirror and putting it back. “See, I’m thinking that she-” He nodded towards the door. “-isn’t the only one in there, and that’s why she’s defending it so much. And if there’re others inside, a breaking window will alert them. I distract the uni, you get in through the open window, sneak attack anypony else in there, take out the unicorn, boom, problem solved.”

“Why me?”

“‘Cause you’re the fastest thing alive. You’ve got a better chance of making it than me.”

Dash was almost convinced. Almost. She raised an eyebrow skeptically.

Thunderlane swallowed. “And if we beat the Rockies, I’ll fight for you to go first among the Wonderbolts at dinner tonight?”

The “almost” was gone. Dash flashed a devil-may-care grin. “Deal. Just say when.” She began flapping her wings, warming them up for a quick hop.

“Right.” Thunderlane picked a large rock from the rubble. He bounced it a few times on his hoof, nodded, then flattened himself against the wall. “Aaaaand… when.” He tossed the rock over the wall, straight towards the door, and stuck his head out the left side.

The magic came again, but it was far more spread out; the unicorn was acting reflexively, firing at anything that moved instead of aiming. Half a second after the bolts came flying, right when the unicorn was most distracted, Dash sprinted toward the right corner, flapping her wings for extra speed, kicking up miniature flurries in her wake.

Her metal wing was doing fine. Better than fine. Ever since she’d escaped Sombra’s grasp, it hadn’t itched in the slightest, and felt about as natural as a metal wing could feel. It even worked better; it didn’t groan, it wasn’t stiff, she could feel the wind with it… It was almost like she’d never lost a wing, except this one didn’t tire as easily. If she was a bit crazier, she’d saw her other one off and get that one replaced, too. But she wasn’t crazy, so she knew that was a stupid, stupid idea.

She made the run easily. No magic came flying her way; evidently, the unicorn hadn’t noticed her. She glanced back at the wall, at Thunderlane, but he was sitting up (although keeping his head down) and grinning. He passed his foreleg in front of his face twice: I’m okay. Dash smiled and returned the gesture, then looked up. The window above was open plenty wide. A few good flaps took her up to peek in; no one nearby. She hoisted herself through.

The dark magic was stronger inside the warehouse, sticky sweet and cloying, and Dash fought against her gag reflex, even though it was still too low to affect her. Machinery in various states of disrepair was scattered around the floor; from the looks of things, helmets had been made here. Most of it was dusty, some of it was not. Dash was on a catwalk that ran around the second floor of the warehouse, not much more than an observation point except for where it connected to the main office. Helmeted ponies sat on the warehouse floor, staring at the door where the unicorn was defending it. There were three of them.

Plus another one patrolling the catwalk. He walked slowly, with a mechanical, far-too-rhythmic pace that made Dash’s skin crawl. His back was to her; he’d passed the window shortly before Dash had peeked in. His helmet was one of the easier ones; it could’ve been one exceptionally hard nut to crack, but a few bracers shaped awkwardly to let the head in meant you could just squeeze the helmet in just the right way, and it’d pop. She’d mastered this design in two practice runs. Easy peasy.

Dash caught up with the stallion and, before he could react, squeezed. The helmet crumpled like a tin can, pulling apart at the seams. The stallion froze mid-stride. Dash quickly clamped a hoof over his mouth. “Listen,” she whispered, “stay quiet. Don’t let them hear you.” She pointed at the ponies below.

The stallion nodded and made the “my lips are sealed” gesture. Dash nodded back and released him. Belly to the floor, she crawled along the catwalk to a better position. The ponies never noticed her; they were too focused on the door. A massive downside of mind control: those you controlled tended to filter out things “unimportant” to following your orders. Once she was behind them, Dash silently dropped to the floor and went to work.

These ponies had the same kind of helmet as the first one; it was almost too easy. Squeeze, pop, “Quiet!”, next. There was no effort, no risk. Dash simply went from one to another, and nopony looked twice. By the time she reached the unicorn, Dash was practically bored.

As the unicorn stammered her thanks, Dash yelled out to Thunderlane, “Clear!”

Thunderlane popped up from behind the debris. “Clear? Shnazziness! What’s our score?”

“Score? Oh! Um…” One on the catwalk, three below, one unicorn, I entered with five… “Ten!”

“Ten?!”

“Ten! One zero!”

“Ten!” Thunderlane laughed and headed for the warehouse. “Double shnazziness!”

At the same time he reached the front entrance, the rear door was kicked down. “All right, bucketheads,” yelled Spitfire, “why don’t-” She stopped and looked around at the distinct lack of bucketheads and the mass of no-longer-bucketheads. “Welp! That was easy!” she said. “And of course it’d be you who’d do something like this, Dash.”

Dash puffed herself up, but just a little. “Thunderlane helped. But it was mostly me.”

Thunderlane opened his mouth to protest, then muttered, “Yeah, it was.”

“We’ve got way more points than the Rockies,” said Spitfire. “The town’s all but cleared out, so Clementine’s conceded. We’re heading back to camp and the Rockies’re doing mop-up. No casualties, either side.”

“We won already?” said Thunderlane. “But you haven’t even counted Dash’s and my points yet! We got ten!”

Flitter, Spitfire’s partner, smirked. “Spitfire and I got nineteen.”

“…You’re good.”

“I’ll stay back a bit,” said Dash. She looked up at the office. “There’s one last thing I want to check out. Just in case.”

“Alright. See you back at camp. Everypony else, follow me.”

As Spitfire led everyone out, Dash flapped onto the catwalk, just outside the door. Compared to the rest of the warehouse, it wasn’t that bad of a position to hold. Relatively small, few entrances, limited visibility from the floor while having lots of visibility to the floor… It’d be the perfect place for someone to hide. Someone to hide, though; there wasn’t enough space for a lot of other ponies.

Dash tried the door. Locked. Yeah, someone was probably hiding in there. The door had no windows, so she did a little aerial recon near the observation windows. Nothing was piled up inside the door; she’d be fine. A quick buck knocked the door down. Dash started coughing; dust filled the air, and it got everywhere.

Once she’d almost cleared her system, Dash said, “Hey. I know you’re in here. Your friends have been defeated. Come on out, and I won’t hurt you.” She wouldn’t hurt them either way, but then the buckethead wouldn’t come out, either. Dash wasn’t talking because she expected a response; she was talking because she wanted the pony inside here to act. It was an easy trick, talking to make a buckethead do something stupid. The unicorns said it was something about stimulus that made them react due to a magical compulsion to do something in response to something else. But whatever. Talking would make the pony react.

Dash listened hard. She heard it behind her and a little to the left: a quiet, hoof-on-tile clip-clopping. But it was too quiet; a pony would make more noise than that. Maybe it was a unicorn trying to muffle themselves. Not a very good job, but you couldn’t expect one while a pony was brainwashed.

Dash kept talking, pretended she hadn’t heard anything. “Last chance.” She went a little slack, ready to roll with any attack that came. “Come out or I’ll-”

It came from the side, and it hit a lot softer than an attack had any right to; Dash was barely staggered. She turned to face her attacker and was confronted with a filly.

A helmeted filly.

The use of foals in his army was one of Sombra’s more darkly brilliant moves. On the one hoof, it’d cause all sorts of agitation in Equestria. He was using foals? The son of a gelding! He needs to be stopped! But on the other, the moment you encountered one on the battlefield, you’d be in trouble; the foal was attacking you, but you couldn’t attack it, because, well, it was a foal. What kind of pony could attack a foal, even in that situation? It was the worst kind of conundrum, one you had to solve quickly before you were dead. Anytime Sombra wanted to damage morale, he’d send out the foals.

But it’d proved a double-edged sword. The big problem was that foals simply weren’t as strong as adult ponies. You could stick the helmet on an adult and get more fight for the same amount of effort. If you put a helmet on a foal anyway, some ponies would just grab the foal and drag them back to camp to be de-helmeted without any risk of dying. Dash had heard stories of ponies who would march onto the battlefield, march back to camp with all the foals they could carry, then going back and doing it all over again. Those sorts of things recovered lost morale and then some.

The filly jumped to her feet and attacked again, laying down a blistering flurry of blows on Dash’s face. Well, she tried to be blistering. Dash didn’t react at all. She’d had a wing amputated. She’d nearly lost an eye. She’d broken both back legs from bucking an enemy too hard. She’d gotten a chunk of flesh ripped from one of her ears. A single filly slapping her a lot wouldn’t do much.

She planted a hoof on the filly’s head and pushed her away. The filly kept swinging with her front hooves, but they were far too short to hit her. “Hold still,” grunted Dash. “I’m trying to help you.” It wouldn’t do much good, not with the helmet on. But she said it anyway. Maybe, deep down, some free part of the filly’s brain would make her slow down. And if it didn’t, oh well. This was hardly a life-threatening situation.

Dash squinted at the helmet. It looked haphazardly knocked together, cobbled from scrap in a hurry. Sombra’s designs had once been sleek and smooth and menacing. This one was blocky and uneven and actually kind of pitiful, if she was being honest with herself. The old helmets were horrendous monstrosities in function, true, but at least they had style in their looks. This one… didn’t. It looked like a schoolfilly’s papier-mâché project, only with less imagination and skill.

Unfortunately, this also meant that Dash didn’t know how to hit it to make it come off. It’d be trivial to take the filly back to camp and have the smiths remove it, but she wanted one more de-helmeting in this competition, even if it didn’t mean anything by now. She wanted to do it herself. With the filly still flailing helplessly, Dash looked around at the helmet, trying to see any weak points. She wasn’t anything resembling a smith, but this thing was so crude, she might see something.

To her inexperienced eyes, it looked less like the helmet had a weak point and more like it was made of weak points. Might as well try it. She tentatively poked at one outwardly-sticking piece of metal. It budged a little. Dash pushed harder, and it snapped off completely. She poked at another piece. It budged. She pushed. It snapped. Poke, budge, push, snap. Poke, budge, push, snap. Lather, rinse, repeat. She wasn’t breaking the helmet, she was flat-out dismantling it, piece by piece. The construction was shoddy enough that it wasn’t even screwed together properly. The entire helmet was brittle, through and through.

As Dash worked, the filly’s flails slowed, and soon stopped completely. Dash let her put her front hooves back on the ground. “H-hello?” she asked from inside the helmet. “W-what’s going on?” Her voice was timid, small, quavering. Dash could barely hear her through the metal.

“Calm down,” said Dash. “And hold still. I’m getting you out.” Another piece of metal snapped off. “You’re gonna be all right.”

“W-where’s my mom?” The filly was on the verge of crying. “I w-want my m-mom. My head h-hurts.”

“Don’t worry,” said Dash. Snap. “We’ll find her.” A month ago, it would’ve been a pipedream. There was too much going on, Sombra’s forces and the EUP spread too wide. Now, though, Dash actually thought they had a chance. The last few towns had been taken with next to no casualties on either side; the chance that they could find this filly’s mother was actually quite high.

“I’m s-scared.” The filly was talking for the sake of talking. It kept her mind off what was going on. Dash hadn’t been a filly in ages, but she could almost imagine what was going through her head. Stuck here with her mom (What about her dad? Dash didn’t want to think about that.), right next to Sombra’s domain, possibly seeing her friends marched off, brainwashed herself, and now she had a helmet encasing her head like a trap, with a stranger being the only one to get it off. It was amazing the kid was holding up as well as she was. Of course, she was also lucky bucketheads didn’t remember their time as bucketheads. If she remembered what she did, she’d be inconsolable. And she wouldn’t be the only one. Not by a long shot.

“I’m scared too, kiddo.” Not entirely true, but it’d make the kid feel better. Snap snap. “But we’ll be fine.” That was true. “What’s your name?”

“B-beryllia.”

“Beryllia? I like it.” Dash really did. It rolled off the tongue. Snap. “You can call me Dash.”

“What’s g-going on, Dash?” Beryllia’s voice was just a little bit steadier. Dash could hear it. She was turning into quite the trooper.

“Sombra did some bad things to you.” Snap. “You know who Sombra is, right?”

“A very b-bad pony. Mom said.”

“Yes. Very bad. One of the worst.” Snap snap. “Well, I’m fixing what he did to you.” Snap. One of Beryllia’s eyes was uncovered. Dash crouched down, looked her in the eye. Her eye was watery, but she still wasn’t crying. “I’m almost done. You’re gonna be okay.”

Beryllia blinked and nodded a little. “O-okay.”

“You’re doing great,” said Dash with a smile. “Keep it together just a little longer.” She stood back up. Snap.

Beryllia sniffed. But she didn’t cry.

Snap. And that did it; the helmet fell apart, fully exposing Beryllia. She was a Crystal Pony, a bit lanky, and very, very grimy. She was thin; Dash couldn’t quite see her ribs, but it didn’t take much imagination to do so. Her mane was unkempt, greasy, uneven. It looked like, rather than getting neatly cut with scissors, any excess had been hacked off with a blunt knife. She had a short, scraggly ponytail, still with a formerly-sparkly ribbon tied in it.

“Hey there,” Dash said. “You okay?”

Beryllia blinked a few tears from her eyes. “N-no.” She wrapped her legs around one of Dash’s and began bawling. “I’m s-scared, I’m hungry, I’m t-tired, I’m cold, and my head hurts. I want my mom, I want some food-”

“Do you want a balloon?”

With Beryllia clinging to her, it was all Dash could do to keep from jumping. Pinkamena had this really annoying habit of popping up when you least expected her. And when in the camp, she always seemed to zero in on particularly unhappy ponies like she had some kind of radar. How it was working in the middle of a battlefield was anypony’s guess. Anyway, Pinkamena was suddenly standing right next to Dash and Beryllia, a goofy smile on her face, and holding a long uninflated balloon. Even the layers of dirt she was coated with and a profusely-bleeding cut on her cheek couldn’t suppress her pep.

Beryllia sniffed and looked up at Pinkamena. “What?”

“Balloons! Everypony likes balloons! And don’t you try to deny it, Dashie, I’ve seen the way you look at them. Look!” In a matter of seconds, Pinkamena had inflated the balloon and tied it up into a shape. “It’s Celestia!”

Considering the material she had to work with, Pinkamena’s balloon-Celestia was crazy good. Most of the shape was pretty basic, but a few tugs in the right places had inflated them in ways that could only be Celestia’s tail and mane. Pinkamena handed the balloon to Beryllia. “You can keep it, if you want.”

“Th-thanks.” Beryllia unwrapped herself from Dash’s leg and looked at the balloon. “It’s nice.” She hugged it. “But I still want my mom.”

“Of course you do,” said Pinkamena, rubbing Beryllia’s mane. “As much as I’d like to think otherwise, balloons aren’t the answer to all of life’s problems. So we’re gonna get back to camp. We’re gonna find your mom. We’re gonna get some good food in that tummy of yours. We’re gonna get you cleaned up. And I’m gonna bake you cupcakes to celebrate! You like cupcakes, don’t you? Of course you do! Even more ponies like cupcakes than like balloons!”

Dash cleared her throat. “Doesn’t everypony like balloons?”

“Yes! And even more ponies like cupcakes! It’s the miracle of cupcakes, Dash, don’t question it.”

Well, they were cupcakes. Dash didn’t question it.

Beryllia squeezed the balloon a little more. “C-cupcakes sound nice,” she said.

Pinkamena grinned, plucked Beryllia from the floor, and dropped her on her back. “Then let’s go get you back to camp!” she said as she left the warehouse. “My cupcakes aren’t just nice, they’re the bestest cupcakes around! And not just because they’re the only cupcakes around. What kind do you like?”

“Chocolate.”

“Okie-dokie! One dozen chocolate cupcakes coming up! …Eventually.”

“Promise?”

“Pinkie Promise! Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!”

Dash had once seen Pinkamena smash a helmet with a thrown rock at a distance of a hundred yards. She’d seen her punch through walls, carve her way through fortifications with nothing but her bare hooves. She’d kicked ponies’ ribcages in, crushed them beneath avalanches, collapsed buildings on top of them.

“Hey! Is there a pony here named Chalcedona missing a filly named Beryllia? Because she’s so cute, I got second dibs!”

Dash wasn’t sure war-Pinkamena and peace-Pinkamena weren’t two different ponies in one body.

They were at the refugee… It’d been a pen, once, but its capacity had quickly overflowed. There were hundreds of them here already, all recovered from Sombra’s forces, and the number grew daily. There was a scattering of unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, but ninety-five percent of them were Crystal Ponies. Some of them tried to join the EUP, and while Dash appreciated the sentiment, there just wasn’t enough time left in the war for them to get anything out of it.

Most of them were getting shuttled away from the front lines. Sombra hadn’t thought to destroy the railroads, so they could move a lot of ponies quickly with trains. But even that took time; once trains left, they had to come back, and that took a day or two. The refugees were left with nothing to do; some of them took up support positions in the camp, cooking and cleaning and laundering and what have you, but there were only so many of those positions available.

So Dash and Pinkamena had spent the better part of two hours wandering the camp, trying to find Beryllia’s mom, Chalcedona. Thus far, they hadn’t had any luck, but the camp was a big place. They could’ve missed her, or they could’ve not been in the place where she was, or (incredibly unlikely) she could’ve already gotten on a train and left. But even without finding her mom, Beryllia was a lot calmer, even if she was hugging her balloon Celestia a lot. The camp was busy and noisy, but at least it wasn’t scary.

“I repeat!” Pinkamena bellowed above the din. “Is there anypony here named Chalcedona? I’ve got a filly named-”

“Beryllia!”

A Crystal Pony forced her way out of the crowd and practically dive-tackled Pinkamena. “Mom!” Beryllia yelled. She jumped off of Pinkamena’s back and hugged the mare — Chalcedona — tightly. She was crying again, but they were happy tears.

“Oh, sweetie,” whispered Chalcedona, hugging back, “I missed you so much, I was so worried when they took you from me, I… are you okay?”

“I am now,” said Beryllia. “Dash saved me and brought me to you.”

“Dash…” For the first time, Chalcedona truly looked at Pinkamena and Dash. She gave a nod of thanks to Pinkamena, but when she saw Dash, her eyes went wide.

News of Dash’s escape had spread like wildfire among the EUP, and in two days, a propagandist had asked for permission to tell Dash’s story to the rest of Equestria. One of the biggest issue with Sombra, she’d said, was that he seemed unstoppable. His war machine just kept rolling, and once he got that helmet on you, you were a part of it. Period. Then along came Dash, who got helmeted, only to shake it off and escape. And if she could do it, why couldn’t anypony else? With that, Sombra’s advance was no longer a certainty. It’d give a glimmer of hope to all the ponies at home.

Dash had agreed. She’d told her story, talked about how she’d escaped, and by the next week, she was a household name all across Equestria. Not just because of her throwing off the brainwashing, but also because of her escape. Nopony had heard of speed like that, not even from Celestia. (The Princess herself declined to comment.) It was like something from an ancient legend, where it took the enemy many mares to bring her down, she shook off their control attempts like it was nothing, and flew like the wind to help her friends.

Aside from Celestia and Sombra, Dash was arguably the most famous pony in Equestria.

She’d started getting salutes from other soldiers, even ones who weren’t in the Wonderbolts or who outranked her. When she went to the mess to get her meals, her servings seemed to be a little bit larger than the norm. Crowds parted slightly to let her wiggle through. It was subtle, but noticeable, and it made her feel good. Technically, the only thing Dash had gotten from up top was a Medal of Valor and a pat on the back. But she’d gotten a pat on the back from everyone up top. It wasn’t a promotion, but it felt a lot better than one.

“You… you’re Rainbow Dash,” Chalcedona said quietly.

“The one and only,” Dash said with a grin.

“Thank you,” Chalcedona whispered. “Thank you. I, I don’t know how can repay y-”

Rainbow Dash held up a hoof. “Ma’am, I’m just doing my job. You don’t need to repay me for anything.”

“B-but I- Thank you.” Chalcedona turned to Pinkamena. “And I’m sorry, but who are you? It’s just that, well, she's Rainbow Dash.” She jerked her head at Dash.

“Call me Pinkie Pie,” said Pinkamena. “And that’s no problemo, Dashie is one of the bestest ponies in the EUP!” She pulled Dash close and noogied her.

Grinning slightly, Dash wiggled quarterheartedly. “Please stop, Pinkamena.”

“Even if she’s too uptight to call me Pinkie.” Pinkamena released Dash and turned to Beryllia, her face ultra-serious. “No, don’t let me forget those cupcakes, alright? I Pinkie Promised. That’s serious business.” She nodded sagely.

Beryllia nodded vigorously. “Okay,” she said.

“Cupcakes?” asked Chalcedona. She looked down at Beryllia and frowned. “Beryllia, did you-”

“She seemed scared, so I promised to make her cupcakes,” said Pinkamena. “Cupcakes always cheer me up.”

Chalcedona chewed her lip for a moment. “I suppose that’s okay,” she said eventually, “as long we have some actual dinner first. Are you hungry, Beryllia?”

Beryllia nodded again. “Yeah. And my head hurts.”

“Alright, honey,” said Chalcedona, stroking Beryllia’s mane. “Come on. Let’s get you some food. Good food, not cupcakes. Yet. And once you’ve eaten, we’ll find a doctor.” She said “Thank you.” to Dash and Pinkamena one last time and began pushing back into the crowd.

“See you!” Pinkamena yelled. “Don’t forget the cupcakes!”

Once the mother and daughter had vanished, Dash said, “Speaking of, you and I should get dinner, too.”

“You go on,” said Pinkamena, waving her away. “I’ve got cupcakes to bake! If I can take back control of one of the ovens from Sliced Bread, at least. Don’t worry, I’ll make you one, too.” She began bouncing away.

“Wait!” said Dash. “One more thing. Back in Warmblood, where’d you get the balloon?”

Pinkamena smiled and pulled back a flap on her uniform. Several rows of balloons of multiple types and colors were tied in, just waiting to be inflated, along with a bunch of strings. “I always keep balloons stashed in my uniform,” she said, replacing the flap. “In case of battlefield balloon emergency.”

“Battlefield balloon emergency,” Dash said flatly. “And when do you think we’d run into one?”

“Uh, just now?” Pinkamena said, pointing at Beryllia. “Duh.”

“…You’re crazy, Pinkamena,” Dash said with a smile.

“No. Wrong ponies are crazy, Dashie. I’m eccentric! And for like the bazillionth time, it’s Pinkie.”

“Whatever you say, Pinkamena.”

“You said I’d go first among the Wonderbolts.”

“I said I’d argue for it! I never said it’d actually happen! Besides, I didn’t know how far ahead we were.”

“You said I’d go first.”

“Oh, come on, Dash, don’t be like this,” groaned Thunderlane.

Dash decided to stop teasing Thunderlane. “Fine. But I’m going before you.”

“If it’ll get you quiet.”

Dinner that night was soup. Cheese and parsley. Simple, but this far north, it was soup-eating weather (even with pegasi keeping the snow away as best they could), it was just the right temperature, and it tasted divine. Dash couldn’t get enough of it, and neither could Thunderlane. None of the Wonderbolts could. None of the Rock Corp could. Nopony could. There was enough for everypony to have seconds, and then a little bit more, but after that, it was first-come, first-served.

Dash and Thunderlane were lucky enough to each get a third helping, albeit small ones. They ate these bowls a lot more slowly, finally feeling like they were getting full and just enjoying the taste.

Dash swallowed her soup. “Nice job today. Lucky you had those mirrors.”

“Lucky?” Thunderlane mumbled through a full mouth. “That’s their point. So I can see things without looking directly at them.”

“They still look stupid.”

“If it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid. And those mirrors work.”

Dash slurped up a little more soup. “I still don’t see what the big deal is with turning your head. It doesn’t take that long.”

“Time has nothing to do with it,” said Thunderlane, jabbing a hoof at her. “It’s the difference between getting a blow to the face and getting one to the back of the head. Besides, you’re one to talk, with that mane.” He reached over the table and give it a flick. “It’s so long, it’s practically blinding, and how do you fit it all in your uniform?”

“Skillfully.”

“Bah-dum. Tish.”

“Laugh it up, why don’t you.” Dash licked the last few dregs from her bowl. “Seriously, though, good job today. That tornado, that was good.”

“Got the idea from you, actually. Back when we had to do the rainwater thing at Ponyville years ago. I figured, why not try a tornado here?” Thunderlane shrugged. “And really, you’re the one who did good. Five ponies in one warehouse, all by yourself?”

“That was easy. They barely paid attention to me. Mind-control tunnel vision, you know?”

“Pfft. Sure. You’re better at stealth than you think. I don’t think I could do something like that.”

“Sure you could.”

“Do you also have a bridge to sell me? Manehattan, cheap?”

Dash leaned over the table a little. “No, really, you could. Bucketheads don’t have any peripheral vision. The mind control doesn’t let them, even if the helmets allow it. It’s great for armies, but that kind of generalized mind control just gets you all sorts of trouble in individuals.”

Thunderlane thought on that for a while, staring into his empty soup bowl and flicking his tail. Eventually, he looked up and asked, “So is that a yes or no on the bridge?”

“That’s a no, but just for you.” Dash glanced away from the camp, over towards the Crystal Palace. A dark gray shield, Sombra’s last defense, pulsed over it. She couldn’t see its base, but she knew the shield extended over the whole of the Crystal Empire. Most unicorns didn’t want to get near it; they complained of headaches and an unnatural chill in their bones. It was strong, withstanding most assaults, but it wouldn’t last forever. Sometimes, when the unicorns hit especially hard, it’d collapse. But it always went back up in a few seconds. Sombra was a persistent bastard. “So. How long ‘til you think we’re in there?” She nodded at the Palace. “I’m guessing week and a half, max.”

“Really? More than a week?” asked Thunderlane. “I’m saying five or six days. Sombra’s gonna collapse eventually.”

“He can swap off with his generals. After all, they’re all in there, and he’s still got, what, four left? Five?”

“Five or six, I think,” said Thunderlane. He tapped his hooves on the table to count. “But you think he’ll withstand our siege that long? Seriously, Celestia herself is coming to help us tomorrow. You know, the alicorn who moves the sun and moon on her own.”

“Sombra’s not going to go down easy. He’ll probably do his best to keep it up just to spite us.”

“What makes you say that?”

Dash shrugged. “It’s what I’d do.”

“Yeah, but you’re Rainbow Dash. He’s Sombra. Or are you saying there’s no difference between him and you?”

“There might not be…” Dash said with a grin.

Thunderlane placed a hoof in front of his mouth and muffled his voice. “*khhkt* Over. Code red. We have a code red. Rainbow Dash is actually Sombra. Also, changelings are zombie Luna’s foals, applesauce comes from sauce made of liquefied Apple family members, Blueblood is an earth pony wearing an ice cream cone for a hat, and Captain Armor isn’t an extremely sexy stallion. *khhkt* Over.”

Dash chuckled. “You should meet Pinkamena Pie sometime. You’d get along great.”

“Who’s she?”

“The pink one in the hospital tent all the time? Crazy upbeat? Tells jokes so bad you can’t help but laugh at them? Baker?”

“Right,” said Thunderlane with a nod. “That one. Yeah, I can see that. You know her?”

“Yeah. A few months ago, she-”

Somepony tapped her on the shoulder. Dash swiveled around. A pegasus decked in the uniform of a courier was standing behind her, looking nervous. “Excuse me,” the courier said. “Rainbow Dash?”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

“There’s an envoy here from Sombra. A general. They specifically asked for you.”

This Could Get a Little Violent

Talking with Sombra or his “diplomats” always had a… certain risk. Yes, you were supposed to meet envoys from the other side with peace if they came bearing a flag of truce. How else were two warring sides going to talk? It was a way to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. One of the only ways. You take that away, and two armies would just kill each other over and over and over, even if they could come to an agreement.

But it all depended on the honor system, and honor was a finicky thing. It only took one or two instances of misapplication for it to fall apart completely. A single exploitation of honor could mean the collapse of the whole system. If they weren’t going to honor our agreement this one time, they’d surely do it again some other time, and then why should I honor it? If you wanted to break the system, you’d better be damn sure that you were doing it at a time where it was worth it. Afterwards, your enemy would be pissed, and they’d never agree to your demands again. Not without you bending over backward.

Celestia had never broken the system. Sombra, on the other hoof, had once tried to meet with General Stormwalker to discuss a possible surrender. One dark magic spell to the brain later, and Stormwalker had forgotten how to breathe. By the time anypony knew what was going on, it was too late. The rage it incurred from the EUP… it hadn’t been worth it. Not by a long shot.

So Dash went to talk with the general flanked by no less than five guards. Two unicorns each emitting their own null-magic field around the group, and one of each pony type in case things still got out of hand. This wasn’t just because of who Dash was; if the general had wanted to talk with the janitor, they’d still get the same protection. The EUP was taking no chances whatsoever.

Dash felt the general before she saw them. The damp, crawling miasma of dark magic. The magic clung to her like dried mud clung to her coat, leaving a feeling that alternated between numbness, extreme cold, and aching. It was worst in her metal wing; it started twitching uncontrollably. Dash wasn’t the only one to feel it, either; the unicorn guards on either side of her were cringing, just a little. The same was probably true for the guards behind her, but she didn’t turn and look. This general was strong.

She was waiting a good distance from the camp, the white flag perched on a saddle in the middle of her back. She was deep in dark magic, drenched in it, and so far gone that she probably could’ve been mistaken for Sombra at a distance. Her coat was in the middle of growing darker, but was doing so unevenly and looked stained; wisps and whorls still showed, still had their original navy-blue tone. Her fangs looked like they had once been sharp, but one had been dulled to a nub and the other had had half of it snapped off at some point. Her sanguine eyes stared at Dash with a hungry look.

Two unicorns stood on either side of her. Not bucketheads, they couldn’t be trusted with someone this important. These were part of the cadre of bodyguards for Sombra’s generals, the Shades. They’d once been feared, the mere sight of their armor enough to send less brave ponies running. Now, their once-shining steel was dull, grungy, chipped. Ever since Dash had killed a general right under their muzzles in her escape, the last few weeks had thrown them through the ringer, and surprisingly-plausible rumors were floating about that said Sombra had killed half of them in a rage for their failure. Whatever the case, they weren’t intimidating. Not anymore.

Dash and her guards stopped ten feet from the general. “Yo,” said Dash.

The general chuckled a little. “Rain-bow Dash,” she said slowly. Her voice was raspy and sounded like she’d devolve into a coughing fit at any moment. She looked from side to side at Dash’s guards. “Come, now, I came under a flag of truce. Are those really necessary?”

“Knowing Sombra? Yes.”

The general placed a foreleg over her heart. “You wound me, assumin-”

Dash interrupted her with a sigh. “That’s a load of road apples and you know it. Cut the crap. Who are you and what do you want?”

“If you’re going to act that way, I guess I’ll be on my way.” The general tossed her mane and made like she was going to walk away. Dash knew she wouldn’t. She’d come out this far, called for her specifically. Trying to look aloof, like nothing mattered to you, didn’t work when you obviously went to such lengths to get into a certain situation.

“Alright then,” said Dash. “G’bye.” She waved, turned around, and began actually walking away.

The general grunted in frustration. “Wait! Don’t go, you stupid…”

Dash stopped walking and waited for the general’s voice to trail off before she turned around again. “You’re not very good at this, are you? Who are you and what do you want?”

“General Nocturna. I ca-”

“Creative.”

“What?”

“It’s all the same with you guys. Sombra, Nocturna, Shades, Night Fliers, Penumbra, Silhouettes, Black Sky, whatever.” Dash waved a hoof. “We get it, you’ve got a darkness thing going on. Can’t you try to mix it up a little? Call one of your spec ops groups Eigengrau, at least.”

“What’s… what’s Eigengrau?”

“Oh, wow. Wow,” snorted Dash. “You know what, forget it. So what do you want?”

Nocturna glared at Dash, then cleared her throat. Not that it made her voice all that clearer. “Give yourself over to Sombra, and you’ll save the EUP from a great deal of pain tomorrow.”

Dash waited, but Nocturna didn’t continue. “How?” Dash asked.

“You really think I’ll just tell you?” Nocturna said, smirking. “No, it’s going to be a surprise.”

“Uh-huh,” said Dash skeptically. “And how do I know you won’t just do it anyway? It’s not like you’ve given us much of a reason to trust you.”

Nocturna smiled, but it was hollow, brittle. “I guess you’ll just have to trust us this time.”

“Sure.” Dash wouldn’t do it. Not in a million years. The EUP was too strong by now for the bucketheads to do much, even in a surprise attack, and whatever Sombra was planning, Dash was still sure he’d just go ahead and do it either way. It was the way he worked. She raked her mind for what could make Nocturna so confident, but she couldn’t come up with anything. And there was another thing. “What do you want me for?”

“Isn’t it obvious? By now, you’re the… hero-” Nocturna spat out the word as if it tasted rancid. “-of Equestria. Draw your own conclusions.”

Probably torture, then. Spite. Something like that. Ah, well. “There’s no chance I can sleep on it and make you come back tomorrow, right?”

Noctura glanced to the west, at the setting sun, then turned back to Dash. “Not really, no.”

“Then no. I’m not going to just give myself over on vague promises and half-baked threats.”

Nocturna’s eyes flashed. Physically flashed. It was a dark magic thing. “You’re making a mistake,” she hissed. “If you-”

“Read my lips,” said Dash. “Bug off.”

Nocturna stared at Dash. “Fine, then. See you tomorrow.” Darkness bubbled up from the ground, completely enveloping Nocturna and her shades. When it vanished, they were gone.

Dash sighed. “Well, that was a waste of time,” she muttered. She turned around and marched back to camp with her guards.

Thunderlane was still sitting where she’d left him, one of the last two ponies in the mess. Somehow, he’d managed to grab a fourth bowl of soup.

“Veeeery last bowl,” he explained. “Got lucky. Want some?”

“Nah, I’m full,” Dash said as she took her old seat across from him.

“Suit yourself.” Thunderlane stuck his whole muzzle in the bowl and took a long slurp. When he pulled back out, he asked, “So what’d they want?”

“She said the EUP would ‘be in a great deal of pain tomorrow’ if I didn’t turn myself in.”

“She didn’t even describe the pain?”

“Nope. She said she wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Trying for the ominous route, I’m guessing,” Thunderlane snorted. “So which general was it?”

“Nocturna,” said Dash. “I’ve never heard of her.”

“I have. She’s supposed to be nasty.”

“She definitely didn’t look it,” Dash said with a shrug. “More worn than anything. Oh, and get this: she didn’t know what eigengrau was.”

Thunderlane froze. He stared at Dash for several moments, jaw hanging open. Eventually, his brain rebooted and he spluttered, “Th… Their leader is named Sombra! His title is the King of Shadows! All their names are based around darkness and shadows and stuff! Everything about them is darkness-themed! Just… just how do you do all that and not know what eigengrau is?”

“Hey, that was pretty much my reaction.”

“Wow. Wow,” mumbled Thunderlane. “You’d do a better job of being a general of darkness than they’re doing.”

“I couldn’t lead. I’d blow it. You heard Spitfire, I’m too… What was it?”

“Brazen, brash, and bumptious.”

“Yeah. That.” Dash chuckled. “And she’s got a point. But where do you think she picked up ‘bumptious’?”

“I dunno. Word-a-day calendar, maybe. I had one of those once. My favorite was ‘mesonoxian’.”

“Oh? What’s that mean?”

“It’s-”

“Hey! You two!”

Dash and Thunderlane turned towards the entrance of the mess. Framed against the last rays of the setting sun was a unicorn. It took Dash a second to realize she was the one who’d had the two of them pinned down outside the warehouse. She seemed self-conscious, trying to look at them without actually looking at them and constantly shifting her weight from one side to another.

“Yeah?” Thunderlane called.

The unicorn coughed and walked towards the two of them, on Thunderlane’s side. “I, uh,” she said, “I just wanted to, um…” She swallowed. “…to thank you for saving me. And, um, I’m sorry I tried kill you earlier.”

“You’re apologizing for that?” said Thunderlane. “You were being mind-controlled. That wasn’t your fault.”

“I know,” said the unicorn, “but I-” She stopped and placed a hoof to her forehead, groaning.

“Something wrong?” Dash asked.

“It’s nothing,” muttered the unicorn. “I just have a bad headache. Anyway, I, I don’t know, I feel like I need to apologize for what I did. Don’t tell me it’s mind control, I know that, but I, I still feel guilty about it. So, um…” She swallowed again. “Sorry.”

Thunderlane chuckled. “Apology accepted. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had someone apologize for something that they know isn’t their fault.”

“I know,” the unicorn mumbled, rubbing her neck, “it’s just-”

Outside, the sun disappeared below the horizon.

The unicorn doubled over, clutching her head in her hooves, and started screaming.

“Whoa, hey,” Thunderlane said. He slid off his seat and tentatively approached the unicorn. “What’s-”

The unicorn jumped forward. Her horn speared Thunderlane in the throat, all the way down to the base. His eyes widened and he started gurgling. The unicorn pulled back and turned on Dash with a snarl as Thunderlane toppled to the ground. Her sclerae had turned green, her irises red.

Dash was over the table in an instant and socked the unicorn in the face, trying to snap her out of it. It didn’t work. The moment she recovered, the unicorn lunged at Dash, gnashing her teeth. Dash reared back, narrowly avoiding getting her nose ripped off. “Hey!” she yelled to the other pony in the mess. “I need some help!”

The unicorn’s horn started glowing as she prepared some magic. Dash smacked it, and the glow vanished as the unicorn’s focus was disrupted. It was a trivial method to nullify magic, but only if you could get close enough to use it. And if you were that close, you risked physical assault. The unicorn dove for Dash’s leg, tried to bite it. She was tackled by an earth pony from behind.

The earth pony wrestled the unicorn into a full nelson. The unicorn struggled against it, snapping at the earth pony’s legs, but it was no use. She couldn’t reach anything. “What- the hay-” grunted the earth pony, “-is going- on- wi-”

The unicorn’s horn sparked again. Before Dash could tap it, Thunderlane’s bowl on the table shattered. Encased in a magic haze, one of the shards jumped off the table and flew towards the unicorn and the earth pony. Running on instinct, the earth pony released the unicorn and ducked.

The unicorn wasn’t aiming for her.

With the shard, the unicorn sliced open her own throat, digging deep to cut through the arteries. Blood spurted out freely as she collapsed to the ground; soon, she was lying in a pool of her own blood and wheezing from the gash in her neck. She blinked a few times, and the green glow faded from her eyes. Her enraged expression changed to one of confusion. She tried to push herself up, but she was too weak. She’d lost too much blood too fast. She collapsed back down and coughed. “Wha’?” she slurred.

She coughed again and her breathing stopped.

Dash and the earth pony stood frozen in horror, panting, staring at the unicorn’s body. Then a wet hacking pulled them both back to their senses.

Dash stumbled over to Thunderlane and turned him over onto his back. It was worse than she’d feared; the unicorn’s horn had gone clean through his neck and out the other side. Blood gushed freely down into his throat. His breaths alternated between death rattles and pained, blood-filled coughs.

“No,” Dash mumbled as she vainly tried to stem the blood flow. “No, Thunderlane, don’t, don’t do this to me.”

Thunderlane turned his head weakly towards her, tried to reach up, tried to say something. His lips moved. But no words came.

“Please, Thunder,” said Dash. Her vision was clouding. “Just, just hold on.”

Thunderlane’s leg went limp and his head fell to the ground.

“J-just a little longer,” whispered Dash. “P-please.”

The world seemed to slow, time seemed to freeze in a glacier. Tears dripped down Dash’s face. Every breath was an effort. Her heart was pounding in her ears. She couldn’t feel the earth beneath her hooves, the wind rustling her wings. Dash wanted nothing more than to lie down, curl into a ball, and forget it all.

Then it all stopped as the soldier kicked in. She pushed herself to her hooves. “Get them onto a table,” she said emotionlessly to the earth pony. “We need to take them to the hospital tent.”

The earth pony blinked and coughed. “Right. Yeah.”

The two of them piled the bodies onto one of the tables and awkwardly lifted it up across their backs as an improvised stretcher. They slowly headed through camp. Ponies started staring. Dash barely noticed them. She just wanted to get the bodies to the hospital tent.

But even when they were some distance away, Dash could tell something was wrong. There were too many ponies heading there. A lot of them had similarly improvised stretchers. They all had either wounded or dead. Mostly wounded.

“Dash!” Spitfire called from the crowd. She shoved her way to Dash. “Did-?” She saw the table. One look at Thunderlane was enough. “No!” she yelled. “Dammit dammit DAMMIT!” She kicked viciously at a rock and screamed. “Of all the cowardly…”

Dash and the earth pony lowered the table to the ground. “What’s going on?” she asked. “The unicorn was suddenly taken over by dark magic, and then she-” The words caught in her throat. “S-she…”

“Not just her,” Spitfire said darkly. “A whole mess of ponies. All across camp. The sun set, and something went off inside them. They went berserk, tried to attack everypony around them for several moments, then tried to kill themselves.”

“Sweet Celestia,” Dash whispered. “Do we know why?”

“I can’t be sure,” said Spitfire. She looked over her shoulder as a pony with a copiously-bleeding leg was carried into the tent. “But from what I’ve seen? Warmblood was a setup. All the ponies that lost it, I’m sure I saw them as bucketheads in Warmblood. I’m guessing Sombra put something in the helmets that’d stay there even when they were removed. We rescue them, take them in, fill our camp with ready-made sleeper agents. That son of a gelding.”

Dash’s mind slowed down. Every pony in Warmblood? There’d been fifty or sixty of them. And they’d all gone crazy? Even if that wouldn’t do much to stop the EUP, they’d still be able to do some damage. And there could be more out there, unknowingly waiting, the dark magic in their heads an unsprung tr-

Wait. Every pony in Warmblood…

Oh no.

Beryllia.

Dash bolted, heading towards the refugee pen. Spitfire yelled something, but Dash couldn’t make it out. She didn’t know where Beryllia and Chalcedona were. But she would find out. She knew where she’d found Chalcedona. She’d find them again.

For once, luck was on her side. It wasn’t long before she found a group of refugees who pointed her the right direction. They were in an old camping tent someone had given up. Dash reached the tent with a searing pain in her side and no breath in her lungs.

Before she could do anything, Chalcedona pushed the tent flap aside. She was yawning and rubbing her eyes. “Huh,” she mumbled, smiling a little, “thought I’d heard someone, but I didn’t think it’d be-”

“Are you- alright?” Dash wheezed between breaths.

“Yes, I, I was just going to sleep.” Chalcedona looked Dash up and down and recognized Dash’s tired state. “Dash, what-”

“Beryllia!” gasped Dash. “Where’s Beryllia?”

“S-she’s sleeping right back here.” Chalcedona stepped one side. Beryllia was curled up on a makeshift mattress, making small whimpering noises to herself in her sleep. Her body rose and fell steadily as she breathed. “Why? Is something wrong?”

Dash’s mind was racing. Why was Beryllia still okay? She’d mentioned headaches in both Warmblood and when they got to camp, so- Wait. She remembered something. Something Chalcedona had said right before they parted ways. “Did you take her to see a doctor?”

“Dash, w-wha-”

“Did you take her to see a doctor?”

Chalcedona cringed back and shrank down. “Y-yes,” she whispered. “She was complaining of a headache, and the doctor s-said there might be some residual magic from th-the helmet, and once she removed that, Beryllia was fine and went right to sleep.”

That was it. Dumb luck. Beryllia had escaped through pure dumb luck. If Chalcedona had waited just a little longer…

“Dash, what are you talking about? What’s going on?”

“You… Your daughter wasn’t the only pony we saved today,” Dash said dully. “There were others. I don’t know how many. Something like fifty. They were in this town, and… That dark magic in her head, I don’t think that was residual. I think it was planted. In every pony we rescued. When the sun went down, it went off. And they were made to attack everypony near them.”

“Oh, no,” said Chalcedona, putting a hoof to her mouth in horror. “That’s-”

“And right before it wore off, they tried to commit suicide. Some… succeeded.”

“Oh, sweet Celestia,” whispered Chalcedona. “I can’t-”

The full implications hit her and she whirled to Beryllia’s sleeping form, completely horrorstruck. Her mouth worked soundlessly. Her whole body shook. Tears streamed from her eyes as her legs gave out beneath her. “No,” she mumbled, “no, no, no, no… I… I-I… She… They w-wouldn’t…”

Dash sat down next to her and wrapped a foreleg around her. “Listen. It’ll be okay. She’s not going to get hurt again. You said so yourself, the dark magic’s gone.”

“I h-had her again,” blubbered Chalcedona. “I thought I’d l-lost her, but then I had her a-again. And I almost… Sh-she… Oh, Celestia and Luna and Amore…” Words failed her. She buried her face in her hooves and sobbed.

Dash squeezed. It was all she could do. “I’m sorry.”

Casualties were low. But so was morale.

There hadn’t been enough ponies in Warmblood to make much of a dent in the EUP’s forces, and most of them were the easily-restrainable Crystal Ponies. But most of them had been among the defenseless refugees. They were refugees themselves, that was where they would naturally go. The killing rate varied. Some were lucky enough to be restrained, their suicides prevented. Some hadn’t. Some had whisked through the masses like a whirlwind through a wheat field. Some had gotten knocked out the moment their eyes turned green. The killing rate varied. But it was always too high.

Paranoia swept through the camp, eating away at ponies’ minds like a swarm of locusts. Dark magic could wait. It could bide its time, waiting for the right moment to pounce like a predator. Anypony who’d once been under Sombra’s control was at risk. Doctors were soon overwhelmed with ponies trying to find out if they’d snap. It was an easy test, something they could do blindfolded. But the patients kept on piling up. Even ponies who supposedly had never been part of Sombra’s army were waiting. If Sombra could control your mind, what’s to say he couldn’t alter your memories to make it seem like you’d never worked for him? No one could confirm or deny it. Dash almost went in herself. Almost.

Reports were coming in from other camps. Wherever an town had been liberated and its ponies freed in the past day, those rescued ponies had gone mad in the same way. Their situation was much the same. The sleeper agents had done some damage, but not enough ponies had been taken out of the action to hinder the EUP.

But those were just the statistics, the numbers. Dash didn’t like those sorts of numbers. They were a smokescreen between you and the truth, something you threw up to try and take the edge off, a brittle shield that disintegrated the moment you actually looked at it. There was a difference between saying she’d only lost a single ally and saying she’d lost Thunderlane, seen him die right before her eyes. It was like the old saying went: one death was a tragedy, a million was a statistic. Here, most ponies were lucky to only see the one million. Dash had to see the million ones.

She kept going through the situation in her head, over and over and over and over and over. She sent the freed ponies to get any dark magic scrubbed from their brains, just in case. Beryllia asked her to come to the doctor, where she asked the doctor what the residual dark magic was like. She jumped over the table as soon as the unicorn started screaming. She sat on the same side of the table as Thunderlane, rather than the opposite. She told Thunderlane to be careful once he got up from his seat. Rather than flying to camp once her helmet had been destroyed all those weeks ago, she went straight to the Crystal Empire, found Sombra, and punched his face in again and again and again and again and again until her hooves cracked and her ankles ached and her legs burned and she was coated with blood and there wasn’t enough left of the miserable bastard to fill a thimble.

It didn’t help. Thunderlane was still dead.

Try as she might that night, Dash couldn’t sleep. This is all your fault, her mind said. You didn’t jump on the unicorn fast enough. You didn’t hand yourself over to Nocturna. After all, this was what she meant about ‘a great deal of pain’, right? What else could she mean? If you’d just swallowed your pride and given yourself over, he’d still be alive. You failed him.

Dash protested. I had no way of knowing what the unicorn would do. Nocturna wouldn’t keep her word and stop this. None of Sombra’s generals would. If I’d let myself be taken prisoner, all this would still have happened.

You failed him.

There was nothing I could do. I didn’t know.

You failed him.

I did not!

YOU FAILED HIM.

It was four in the morning and Dash had had enough.

As a Wonderbolt, Dash didn’t carry much into battle aside from her uniform. She relied on her hooves and her speed. Especially her speed. She had a lot of that. Once she suited up, she was essentially done. She slipped out of her tent, careful not to make a sound. She couldn’t let anypony stop her. Not here. Not n-

“Dash!”

Of course. “Hey, Pinkamena.”

“Pinkie! Dash, what’re you doing?” Pinkamena didn’t look particularly angry or upset. Mostly curious.

Dash smiled thinly. “I’m gonna go to the Crystal Empire and I’m gonna make them all pay for this. For Thunderlane. For everypony else.”

“Okay,” said Pinkamena. She yanked Dash close and turned her head towards the Empire. Sombra’s shield was still up. “And just how’re you gonna do that with that shield still there? Or did you get the power to walk through walls since we last met? ‘Cause if you did, where can I get some of that?”

Dash roughly brushed Pinkamena off. “It’s dark magic. Dark magic doesn’t play nice with my rainbows. I’ll shatter it.”

“You only did that once! Correct me if I’m wrong, ‘cause I might be, but didn’t you try to do it several times again and fail miserably each time?”

“I didn’t have a reason before,” said Dash. She flared her wings. “Now I do. And I didn’t fail miserably.”

She lifted off and climbed into the night sky. Below her, Pinkamena didn’t say anything. Maybe she saw what Dash was trying to do. Maybe she just didn’t have a good response. Whatever the case, Dash left the camp with minimal resistance. She flew a short distance away; if she wanted to go fast, she’d need some distance for acceleration.

She landed to psych herself up. Miles away, the Crystal Palace was framed in moonlight, tall, dark, and ugly. Crystals jutted out of its surface like it was broken. Dash had seen pictures of the palace before Sombra took over. A bit too shiny for her tastes, but much nicer than this grotesque… thing. That was her destination, right beyond the shield. It was where Sombra would be. It was where his generals would be. It was wh-

“Dashie, listen to me!”

Dash jumped in surprise and fell to the ground. Pinkamena was right behind her, looking at her with big, worried eyes. She hadn’t been suited up in the camp, but she was now. Dash rubbed her head to get some of the dirt out of her mane. “How-” she growled, “how did you get here so fast?”

“I can’t let one of my friends just do something silly like this!”

“That doesn’t answer my-”

“Dash. Think about what you’re doing,” said Pinkamena. “You’re gonna jump straight into the Crystal Empire and dance the cancan for them. That’s not exactly high on my list of smart things to do. See?” Pinkamena whipped a scroll out from… somewhere: My List of Smart Things to Do. She pointed up and down the top entries, which were mostly things like “cover your buddy so she can cover you”, “remember that ‘full-body armor’ is a myth”, “don’t burn the marzipan, for the love of Celestia”, and “hope for the best but prepare for the worst”. “Nowhere there.”

“I’m doing it for-”

“I heard that,” Pinkamena said as she tucked the list away somewhere. “That doesn’t make it not stupid. I want to do something about it, too, but flying headfirst into a shield at Mach 1 and hoping to break through it is, well, stupid.”

Dash sighed. “Pinkamena, the scientists explained this to me. The natural magic in the rainbow overwhelms dark magic. That shield-” She pointed towards the Empire. “-is dark magic. My rainbow can break it. Simple.”

“Well… well, okay,” said Pinkamena. She chewed her lip for a second. “But once you’re in there, there’s, you know, an awful lot of evil ponies that’ll want your head.”

“They’ll have to catch me first,” Dash said with a smirk. “Think they can do that? I’m the fastest pony in Equestria. Besides, I want their heads.”

Pinkamena stared deeply at Dash. “You reeeeaaaally wanna do this, don’t you?”

“Of course.” Dash began hovering over the ground. “You’re not going to stop me, are you?”

“Not if you insist on being so boneheaded. If you’re going to do it, then I’m coming with you.”

“Only if you can keep up. I’m not waiting.” Dash climbed into the night.

She was some distance above the ground when she stopped. Might as well get gravity to help her. And there below her was the Empire. It ought to be sparkling. But it wasn’t, not with Sombra in power. It seemed to drink in the light rather than reflect it, darkening the land around it. Over it all was the shield. Her goal.

Dash took a deep breath and lowered her goggles. “For you, Thunderlane,” she whispered.

And then she flew.

Three weeks ago, when the scientists were talking with her about her escape, they said she’d broken the sound barrier. The whole thing with rainbows had devolved into a pile of impenetrable jargon and arcane terms, but she got the sound barrier bit: she’d flown fast. Faster than anypony had flown before. Faster than most pegasi could ever hope to reach. She lived up to her name in every possible way, and she was proud of it.

But there was a catch. Because of course there was. It was, to put it simply, quite hard to go that fast. Whenever she tried, she couldn’t go fast enough and eventually slammed into a solid wall of air. It annoyed her; she’d gone that fast once, why couldn’t she do it again? Spitfire said something about adrenaline. Escaping the shield had been a high-tension, life-or-death situation, so her body was working in overdrive. It was the same kind of loosened limit that let mothers lift trees off their children. Perhaps she’d never be able to go that fast again.

Dash didn’t think so. Flying that fast had felt right for her. That thing she’d been missing without knowing it. That thing she’d been meant to do. Maybe the first time had been a bit of a fluke amped up by her adrenaline, sure, but she was sure she good do it again. She just needed the right motivation.

Now she had it.

The air whipped around Dash, tugging at her uniform. Bits of dust pinged loudly off her goggles. The ground blurred beneath her as the Empire rapidly approached. She got closer to the shield, and her fur started to stand on end. Beneath her front hooves, the air began to harden.

She could do this.

Dash pushed herself. When she’d tried this earlier, it was for her. Now it wasn’t. And that made a lot more difference than she would’ve thought. If she let herself down, oh, well. She’d try again later. But she couldn’t let someone else down. Especially not Thunderlane. It drove her, made her beat her wings harder than she imagined. She went faster and faster, and the world began to bleed into itself.

Dash flew. The air pushed. She pushed back. The air snapped.

A shudder ran down her spine as the rainbow bloomed once again. Her nerves felt electrified and her wings were tireless. This was it. This was her thing. This was her domain and hers alone, that one thing that nopony else could do. In spite of her mission, Dash smiled to herself. She felt good. How could you not, flying at this speed?

Of course, there was still the matter of the shield coming at her face at around seven hundred miles per hour. She’d told Pinkamena all about how she’d be fine, but Dash cringed a little. She closed her eyes and turned her head away. If she was wrong, this was gonna hurt.

It didn’t. The shield shattered like so much brittle glass as she hit it, the rainbow’s natural magic slamming into it like a freight train crashing through a tent. Dash felt the rebound and nearly vomited. But she kept her head together and braked, hovering over the Crystal Empire.

It was worse than she’d heard. She’d heard all the story about the corruption of the place, seen pictures. She’d seen similarly corrupted towns when Sombra was on the warpath. That was bad, but not especially terrible. What she hadn’t heard of was how the place felt. Her metal wing ached and throbbed in ways she hadn’t felt in over a year. Pins and needles erupted down all her back. She kept wanting to avert her eyes from everything for no real reason. The air felt both too sticky for her to move her wings through and too slick for her to push enough down to stay aloft. A low sourceless moan rang in her ears just on the edge of hearing. Even breaths seemed an effort. It felt wrong on a fundamental level that nothing else she’d encountered had. This was a bad place.

The streets were empty, the windows of the houses dark. All the bucketheads were at the borders, trying to keep the EUP out in time for the shield to come back up. It bloomed again quickly, but Dash noted it was slower than previous collapses. Whoever was keeping the shield up, the EUP was wearing them down.

Dash turned towards the tower in the center of the Empire, the Crystal Palace. A large balcony was overlooking the central square. Two unicorns were on it; one was slouched over the railing, the other was nudging them. Pointy horns. Generals. Targets one and two.

Dash bolted from her place in the air, charging for the balcony. The unicorn not slouched over, a stallion, looked up and saw her coming a second too late. Dash smashed into him hard, and the whiplash alone broke his neck.

Carried by Dash’s inertia, the two of them skidded through the balcony’s doorway and into a foyer. It looked much like the outside of the Palace: all dark and hard, with the occasional unnecessary spike. Doors ran out in every direction, including up and down; some of them had staircases. It was empty.

Breathing heavily, Dash pushed herself up from the general’s body. She looked back outside; the other unicorn was still hanging over the railing. A mare, she didn’t seem to be moving. Dash walked up to her, nudged her. No response. Dash pulled her over enough to put a hoof on her carotid. No pulse. Dead as a doornail, all right. Hard to say what did her in, though. She took a closer look.

Then she saw the horn. Or rather, lack thereof. The mare’s horn had flat-out shattered, leaving only a small sliver sticking out of her forehead. Dash looked around the balcony. For the first time, she noticed tiny bits and pieces of… something scattered around on the floor. Horn. Ew. Still, Dash smirked to herself. Magic overload. This was what you got when you put up a shield against Rainbow Dash.

Satisfied, Dash walked back into the foyer and realized she didn’t know where to go. The Crystal Palace was a big place, one she didn’t know the layout of. Sombra and his generals could be anywhere in here, and it’d be easy for her to get lost. After a moment’s thought, Dash picked a door at random. Hopefully, it’d lead t-

“Dash!” Pinkamena bolted up one of the staircases and slid up next to Dash. A sling was strapped to one of her front hooves, already loaded. “I’m here, Dash. Ready to help!”

Dash blinked. “How- how did you get here? You’re not even panting!”

“C’mon, Dash,” said Pinkamena, throwing a hoof over Dash’s shoulders. “I can’t just let one of my friends charge behind enemy lines with zero backup.”

Which, again, didn’t answer Dash’s question in the slightest, but Dash decided to just drop it. Pinkamena was Pinkamena. “Fine. But, please, try to stay out of m-”

The door Dash had been planning to go through was pushed open, and two Shades walked through, chatting with each other. They both froze when they saw Dash and Pinkamena, then went for their pikes. “Hey!”

Dash charged for the one on the left. Before he’d fully gotten his hooves into the handles, she’d wrapped her forelegs around the pike and wrenched it away from him. As he struggled to regain his balance, she quickly pushed her own hooves into handles and lunged forward, spearing him right in the chest. He fell without a sound.

Yanking the pike free, Dash whirled on the other Shade, but Pinkamena had already gotten him. He was lying on the floor, twitching, a hoof-sized rock lodged an inch in his skull. Pinkamena was still twirling her now-empty sling. She smirked at Dash. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s what I thought,” Pinkamena said as she fished another rock from her pouch and loaded it. She fell in behind Dash.

Bad guys coming from a door was a good sign when you were looking for bad guys, so Dash went through the door the Shades had come out of. No one there, but the Palace was a big place. It could probably hide a whole army comfortably. Dash and Pinkamena headed down the hallway.

But as they kept moving, the emptiness of the Palace began to wear on Dash. They’d encounter the occasional guard (always a Shade), sure, but rarely, and never in groups of more than two. Dash didn’t like the idea of something so large being so utterly vacant. The whole design of the Palace wasn’t helping things, either. The dark crystals were illuminated by torches that burned an eerie green-and-purple fire, casting strangely-colored shadows on the walls. The sounds of their hoofsteps reverberated weirdly, seeming darker and disjointed when they echoed back. Dash wasn’t sure she and Pinkamena weren’t getting turned around and doubling back on themselves. The floors felt like they were tilting slightly when she was walking, but once she stopped to get a better handle on it, they felt perfectly straight. The whole place felt borderline malevolent.

At least she had Pinkamena. She provided an antidote to the loneliness simply by her presence, and every now and then, she’d tell jokes (in a very hushed voice) to keep Dash’s spirits up. And Dash’s earlier worries about Pinkamena slowing her down proved to be not just utterly unfounded, but actually kind of silly. She was in the EUP, after all. After mostly seeing Pinkamena in the camp in the past week, and not on the battlefield, Dash had forgotten just how competent a soldier Pinkamena was. That changed when they were ambushed by a Shade and Pinkamena bashed his skull in with repeated blows from a loaded sling.

But as time wore on and they still didn’t encounter anything more significant than another pair of Shades, Dash began to wonder if she’d made a mistake. If Sombra and his generals weren’t here… well, then she’d come out all this way for nothing, hadn’t she? Great. Just great.

Then she heard something coming from a staircase. Voices. Muffled by distance, but voices nonetheless. She gestured for Pinkamena to follow, then stepped into the stairwell. The voices seemed to be coming from further up. A few steps confirmed this; they became slightly clearer. She continued upward, and they gradually sharpened into coherent words. There were maybe four or five different voices; Dash recognized Sombra’s and Nocturna’s, but that was it. Of course, considering how little contact she’d had with Sombra’s generals, that was all she could expect. She put up a hoof, directing Pinkamena to stop. Dash crept up a few more steps, trying to hear better.

“-ug in deeply in the north quarter, and we’re-” Dash didn’t recognize this voice. It was a stallion’s, somehow gravelly without being deep.

“How did the EUP get in once the shield fell? Who’s responsible for maintaining the soldiers there?” Sombra’s. Definitely Sombra’s. Too deep to be anypony else’s.

“Sir, we’re-”

“Whose division is that?”

“Nightfall’s, sir. He was with Noctis, ready to take control of the shield from her if it got too much.”

“So what happened with him? Why’d the shield fall the second time?”

“We don’t know, sir. We-”

Something smashed against something else. When Sombra’s voice came again, it was a borderline roar. “You DON’T KNOW? Why haven’t you sent someone to FIND OUT?”

The stallion’s voice was muffled, strained. Someone was choking him. Dash had a good idea who. “I h-haff, sir. They haffn’t reported bag.”

“Then you get out there and find out.” Sombra’s voice had dropped back to its normal levels. “If your Shades — your Shades — are too incompetent to investigate, surely you can do it.”

“S-sir?” The stallion sounded clearer. And scared. “B-but if someone else has g-gotten in-”

“I taught you dark magic for a reason. Use it, you imbecilic waste of air.”

“Y-yes, sir. R-right away, sir.” Frenzied clopping. And it was getting louder.

Dash scooched back down the steps and, when she reached Pinkamena, pointed to the door leading off the nearest landing, where they’d just come in. “We’ll ambush him when he gets there.”

Pinkamena nodded and quickly detached one end of her sling from her hoof, wrapping it tightly around the other. She and Dash ducked behind either side of the doorframe just as the general rounded the corner on the stairs leading up. His trotting slowed and he snorted. “Don’t see what the big deal is,” he mumbled to himself, “it’s not li-”

He stepped through the door. Pinkamena quickly slipped her sling over his head and squeezed tight, garrotting him. Before he could anything than the first reflexive struggle, Dash jumped in front of him and lightly poked his chest with her pike. “Listen,” she said quietly, “you try to escape, struggle, call for help, or don’t answer my questions, you die slowly. Capiche?”

The general tried to say something, but Pinkamena’s sling was too tight. Eventually, he just nodded.

Pinkamena loosened the sling just enough for the general to breathe a little. Dash nodded up the staircase. “What’s up there? A command center?”

“Map of the Crystal Empire,” gasped the general. “Magic. Shows what’s going on in here.”

“Uh-huh. And who’s up there? We heard Sombra, but who else?”

The general’s eyes narrowed. “Listen, you little birdbrain, why do-”

Dash was about to jab him again when Pinkamena tightened the sling. The general’s voice was cut off to a collection of strained gasps. “You’re not very smaaaaart,” Pinkamena said in a singsong voice. “Seriously, don’t insult my friend when you’re like this.” She loosened the sling a little.

“Alright!” wheezed the general. “Three other generals. All that’s left, besides me, Nightfall, and Noctis. Several Shades, too, just in case somepony broke in. That’s it.”

It was like someone lit a fire in Dash’s soul. All that’s left. Every single one of Sombra’s generals was up there. Plus Sombra himself. This… this was great. Unbelievable. All the leaders of the Crystal Empire, just sitting there, nice and cozy in one spot, waiting for her to come and get them.

She could end this all. And she could do it tonight. She would do it tonight. For Thunderlane. For Beryllia. For everyone else.

The general coughed, interrupting Dash’s thoughts. “You… you said…” he gasped, “you said you’d let me go if I answered your questions.”

“Actually, I said you’d die slowly if you didn’t.” Dash thrust with the pike, and the general died much faster than he ever expected.

Pinkamena unwrapped her sling from around the general’s neck and reattached the free end to her hoof. “You sure you want to do this, Dashie? That’s a lot of baddies up there.”

“Positive. I-” Dash swallowed and dropped her voice. “Pinkamena, I… I need to make it up to Thunderlane. I was there when he died, and I couldn’t do anything to save him. This wasn’t even a battle, where there was too much going on for me to keep track of. He… he was right there, just talking to me. I…” She adjusted her hooves in the pike’s handles. “I need to do this for him. I know it won’t bring him back, but I… I need to do something. Something personal. A-and this is all I can think of.”

Pinkamena reached up with a hoof, then paused. She looked up at Dash, down at the floor, up, down. There were several moments when it looked like she was going to say something, but she never did. After a while, she laid the hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “If… if that’s how you feel,” she said quietly. “Can’t really fault you for it; I’ve felt nearly the same way at times. I’d never do something like this, but you’re Rainbow Dash, and I’m Pinkie Pie. So let’s go do it.” She began twirling her sling.

Dash nodded and began advancing up the stairs. This was it. One way or another, it all ended here. She and Pinkamena would burst through the door. They would kill every last son of a gelding in there. They would end the war. And they would avenge Thunderlane.

Of course, they could also die. At least they’d go out in a blaze of glory.

She heard the voices again. “-breaking up. Was he really that incompetent?” Sombra’s voice.

“Sir, there is another possibility.” Nocturna’s voice. Dash clenched her teeth slightly. “After the shield fell-”

“I know what you said,” replied Sombra, “and I still say it’s unlikely.”

Dash and Pinkamena reached the landing the voices seemed to be coming from. Dash peered down the hall: nopony. She motioned for Pinkamena to follow her, then crept in.

Sombra continued. “Yes, it’s likely that Rainbow Dash broke through our shield somehow. But do you really think she would immediately come straight here? Even if she knows how thin our forces are, waltzing into your opponent’s base like that is beyond moronic.”

Pinkamena smirked and nudged Dash. Dash responded by flicking her tail in Pinkamena’s face.

They reached the door the voices were coming from behind and took up positions on either side of the door. “And let’s just say she is here,” Sombra went on. “Given how quickly Eclipse’s division fell apart, if she killed him, she’d have to be deep inside here. Almost right outside that very door.”

A manic grin jumped onto Pinkamena’s face and she stared at Dash with wide eyes. Dash knew what she wanted and nodded. Pinkamena stepped in front of the door, braced her hooves, and bucked the door clear off its hinges.

Dash was in before the door hit the opposite wall, screaming like a madmare and swinging her pike at the first pony she saw. Luckily enough, he was a general. Before he could react, the blade caught him in the throat and embedded itself in the wall behind him. Behind her, Pinkamena jumped in as well, hurling a stone at someone and also screaming her head off.

Wrenching her pike out of the wall, Dash locked eyes with Nocturna on the other side of the room. Whatever Nocturna saw, it must’ve scared her; her eyes grew huge and she backed up. Dash raised her pike and flared her wings, lea-

“StOp.”

She felt it again. Sombra’s voice clawing its way into her brain. She felt that it was a supremely good idea to just stop fighting and stay right where she was. But she knew it was false. And she could break out of it, the same way she had last time.

Count to four.

Inhale.

Count-

Count to…

Dash blinked. Why was she counting again? Something about ideas. It was stupid, probably. She should just stop fighting and stay right here. Yeah. Yeah, that was a good idea. Might as well lower the pike, too.

As she continued with the wonderful idea of holding still, Dash took in the room. Most of it was taken up by a big, circular map of the Crystal Empire, magic collecting crude details of what was going on outside and showing it in miniature on the map. Besides Pinkamena and herself, there were eight other ponies in the room: three generals (one missing his head), four Shades (one lying motionless on the floor with a rock embedded deeply in his eye socket, courtesy of Pinkamena), and Sombra.

Dash had never seen Sombra in the flesh before. But she, like everypony else, knew what looked like. Big, imposing, intimidating. With his fangs and pointy horn, borderline predatory, like he’d hunt you down and kill you just because. He wore a red cape rumored to be lined with the skins of dead ponies. The crown on his head wasn’t even gold or silver or anything like that; it was cold, hard steel. It sent the same message Sombra himself did: you’re going to do what I say, and I don’t care what I need to do to make it that way.

But that’d been three weeks ago.

Now, he looked gaunt and haggard, worn and weary. His crown was chipped and dented, while his cape had several tears in it, even a burn and some stains. His cheeks and his eyes were sunken, the eyes possessing visible bags, and his fangs, far from being menacing, just gave him a severe overbite. He was battered, bruised, sporting a scar down one side of his chest. He looked borderline defeated.

Except for the eyes. Those eyes were as alert as ever. He glared at Dash with an intensity she’d never seen before. It was almost a physical thing, the pure, raw hatred he was sending her way. If staying still hadn’t been such a fantastic idea, Dash would’ve taken a step back. He was murderous, almost enough to rip her throat out with his teeth.

But it never happened. “You still came,” he said flatly. It was surprising, how devoid of emotion his voice was.

Dash would’ve responded, would’ve told him why she came. But staying quiet was suddenly a superb idea.

“And you got this far in,” Sombra said. He sighed. “I guess I severely underestimated you.” He turned to Pinkamena. “You even brought a friend.” He returned his gaze to the map. “Grayscale, take control of Eclipse’s forces and move them to the northern quarter.”

The general who wasn’t Nocturna twitched and looked between Dash and Sombra. “Sir, don’t you think we sh-”

“Move them NOW, dammit!” bellowed Sombra, banging his hoof on the table. “I didn’t promote you to second-guess me, you idiotic excuse for a pony!”

“Yessir. Right away, sir.” Grayscale closed his eyes and his horn started glowing. On the map, dots, probably representing bucketheads, began shifting.

Sombra snorted and walked up to Dash. He looked her up and down. “You don’t look like much, considering this is all your fault,” he said.

Dash wanted to shoot back. But staying quiet was still an amazing idea.

“It would’ve been just a few more months,” Sombra muttered. “A few more months, and you would’ve been gone. Then… you…” He sighed and shook his head. “There isn’t even enough time left to find where I went wrong. If I just had that… I don’t know. I’ll have to settle for taking you with me.” He resumed his position at the map. “Nocturna, take them to the dungeons, and have them guarded. I’ll get to them in a few hours.”

“To… to the dungeons, sir?” asked Nocturna.

“Yes,” hissed Sombra. He was sounding closer and closer to his wit’s end. “The dungeons. As I said. You did hear me, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

Nocturna took a nervous step forward. “Sir, we should ki-”

“Listen to me.” Sombra was growling, but it sounded tired, like he’d explained this repeatedly before. “It will not make a difference whether or not we kill them now. We’re all going to be dead in a week, no matter what. I want to make the EUP hurt, and simply killing her won’t do much. Come sunrise, I’ll personally hang them by their entrails from the balcony. But right now…”

He leaned in close to Nocturna and bared his fangs. When he spoke, the weariness was gone. For a second, Dash could see the old Sombra. “…I’m busy making sure we’re still alive by then. Do as I say and leave me be.” He turned back to the map.

“Yes, sir,” Nocturna said with a nod. She pointed at the Shades. “You three, come with me.” Her horn glowed, and chains appeared around Dash’s and Pinkamena’s hooves. They prickled, like they were coated with dozens of miniscule needles. With two Shades to Dash and one to Pinkamena, Nocturna led the group out of the room.

The moment they left the room, the haze left Dash’s mind and staying put was no longer a stupendous idea. But though she could’ve fought back, Dash just walked in silence and hung her head. It was over for her. Everypony she was after had been in one place, and she hadn’t gotten them. Sombra was still alive. Nocturna was still alive. The war was still going. She’d killed some generals, but she’d accomplished nothing of consequence. Nothing that mattered. And now she was being led to await her execution in just a few hours. She’d come out here for nothing.

She’d failed.

Bringing Down the Giant

“…proving once again that ewes, and only ewes, can prevent chorus criers!”

Dash couldn’t hold back a chuckle. That one wasn’t half bad.

“For the love of Sombra,” said the guard, “will you shut up already?”

They’d been in the dungeon for… something like an hour, probably. Maybe several. There were no windows, no way to tell time. Just the flickering light of the torches. There were lots of cells, but only Dash and Pinkamena were prisoners, each with their own cell right next to each other. Dash guessed the rest of the prisoners had been drafted. It was the typical dungeon: cold, hard, drafty, all that jazz. Only one guard. Probably all they could spare; he was a Shade, they shouldn’t be relegated to such lower-tier duty as this. Were they even running low on bucketheads? Wow.

If Dash had had her way, she would’ve stewed. Pinkamena was right. This was stupid. What was she thinking? She was charging straight into the enemy’s home base, with nothing but a fast rainbow and a burning desire to revenge; it was amazing she’d lasted long enough to kill a few generals. She’d failed. She’d gotten herself captured, and she’d failed, plain and simple.

But Pinkamena was here, so Dash didn’t have her way. The moment her door was locked, Pinkamena started telling jokes and hadn’t stopped for a moment, running her mouth like a waterfall. It took Dash’s mind off of her failure. The jokes were kind of hit-and-miss. Mostly hit, surprisingly enough. Dash didn’t mind. The guard did, though.

Pinkamena paid him no mind. “Ooo! Here’s one! How many Shades does it take to light a candle?”

“Complete that,” snapped the guard, “and I’ll come in there and-”

“I dunno, Pinkamena,” said Dash loudly, “how many does it take?”

“Twenty! Somepony else lights the candle, and Sombra executes them for letting it get lit.”

After a second, Dash wiggled her hoof halfheartedly. “Eh. Real eh. You’ve got something there, but the punchline takes too long. Not punchy enough.”

Pinkamena considered that. “Yeah, you’ve got a point. But don’t worry, there’s plenty more where that came from!”

“Shut up, you stupid pink chatterbox!”

“Anyway, so,” said Pinkamena. “There was this colt from Detrot. His special talent was singing. And he could sing really really well. So at a young age, he went to a street corner and started serenading all the passing ponies with perfectly peppy pieces of perfection for pennies.”

“You used ‘perfect’ twice in that,” said Dash.

“Hey, that’s something I ain’t,” said Pinkamena with a shrug. “So at one point, some other foals heard him singing. And they also had musical cutie marks, so they were like, ‘We should form a band!’ And they did. They actually did alright, thanks to their collective talents. They called themselves the Sha Na Nas, ‘cause, you know… foals.”

“Do you ever stop?” moaned the guard. “At all?”

“Nope! Eventually, they grew up and drifted apart. But the colt, now stallion, he wanted to keep going. He started writing songs, selling albums, making money… He got into the big time. He tweaked the name of his band a teensy bit to get his stage name. Called himself the Shan.” She rhymed it with “pan”.

“Spent all afternoon on that, did he?” asked Dash.

“Probably. Now, he was doing great for a while. Got all the carts, the mares, everything he wanted. But it went to his head, as big success is wont to do. He-”

“Wait. ‘Wont’? You just used the word ‘wont’?”

“Hey!” protested Pinkamena. “I’m joking here! I’m joking here! Cool it with the interruptions!” She cleared her throat. “…is wont to do. The Shan started thinking he could do whatever he wanted, and he fell into drugs. You know, stuff like powdered sugar and hard grape juice.”

The guard didn’t say anything; considering his earlier objections, he seemed to be unusually invested in the story.

“And he fell into a downward spiral, as you’re wont to do in that sort of situation.” Pinkamena made falling motions with her hooves. “Now, most ponies would’ve been wont to just crash and burn — SHEEEEEOOOOOOoooooo-BOOM! But not the Shan. He was wont to-”

“You’re doing that on purpose, aren’t you?” Dash said.

“Whaaaaaaat?” Pinkamena said with an innocent smile.

“All that wonting.”

“Don’t interrupt me next time! So the Shan didn’t want to crash and burn. He went into rehab, got real clean, and set about making his comeback. It took him months and months and months and months of writing, but when he was done, he had it. His masterwork. His magnum opus. His cream of the crop. His red velvet cake. He called it… The Hit.”

Pinkamena paused for dramatic effect. Both Dash and the guard were silent.

“The Hit was a concept album,” continued Pinkamena. “You know, one of those kinds that tells a story? And it was based on the Shan’s own experiences, but it was about this fictional singer. He struggles to make it big before he has this one big hit — that’s where the title comes from — that catapults him to superduperstardom overnight. And he’s not ready for that, so his ego gets huuuuuuuge with his success. But that comes back and bites him in the rump, as that kind of thing is wont to do-” She smirked at Dash, who glared and flicked her tail. “-and it’s not long before it all falls apart around him. And before you know it, he’s back where he started. He decides to try again, but this time with knowledge of what he did wrong. He’ll climb his way back up, but once he gets up, he’ll have the humility he didn’t have before.”

Pinkamena took a deep breath. “It did great. It did really really great. Everyone loved it. This reviewer praised it for its melodic tunes. That one for its rich soundscape. Those ones for its sophisticated lyrics. But everypony, no matter what they liked, agreed on one thing in particular: The Hit held much more resonance when compared with the Shan’s life. Now that he saw what he did wrong, it was heartbreaking to listen to those songs and realize the kind of self-loathing he was going through, or uplifting to listen to them and know how he was trying to change himself for the better. And it only had that when compared with him directly. In other words, everypony agreed that…”

Pinkamena grinned the biggest grin Dash had ever seen her grin, which was saying something. She paused.

The guard leaned forward. “…that…?” he asked.

Pinkamena giggled. “…The Hit fit the Shan!”

It took Dash several moments, but once she got it, she doubled over laughing. It was so terrible, so completely and utterly awful, that it was actually kind of magnificent in its gloriously supreme horribleness. She laughed until her sides ached.

The guard didn’t share the same sentiment. All traces of interest vanished and he glared at Pinkamena. “Think you’re funny, do you?”

“She’s laughing. I must be doing something right.”

“Uh-huh. Listen, you stupid pink mare, you tell one more joke, I’ll come over there and beat the living daylights out of you.”

Something flashed in Pinkamena’s eyes. She turned to Dash, who was still laughing. “Hey Dashie! What do you call a Shade with half a brain?”

“Hehe… I dunno, Pinkamena,” giggled Dash. “What?”

“Gifted!”

“THAT’S IT!” bellowed the guard. He strapped a lightning wand to his front hooves and stomped over to Pinkamena’s cell. “You think you can just run your mouth off like that in here?!” He aimed the wand between the bars. “Let me tell you, you got ano-”

Pinkamena lunged forward, stuck her forelegs between the bars and behind the guard’s neck in an instant. Bracing herself with her rear legs, she yanked hard, pressing his throat against one of the bars hard enough to cut off his airway. He struggled and tried to get a grip on something, get some leverage. But Dash knew it wouldn’t do him any good; Pinkamena was a member of the Rock Corp, some of the strongest ponies in the EUP. He could push all day and he wouldn’t be able to get out.

Pinkamena smirked at the guard as she pulled. “What’s the matter? Under pressure?”

The guard couldn’t even gasp out a response.

After what felt like an eternity, his struggles died down, vanished. Releasing his body to let it drop to the floor, Pinkamena turned to Dash with an exaggerated sad face. “Aw. So sad. He was doing so well, then he went and choked.” She tsked and turned to one of the rock walls. “And now, part B of my cunning plan to escape!”

Dash was still frozen in shock. She knew Pinkamena could be fast, but not that fast. She could barely see her. And- “Part B?”

Pinkamena was tapping one of the walls. “Yep! Step 1 was to get the guard over here and take him out. I went the annoyance route. He had a thicker skin than I thought, but I showed him! Part B: tunnel through this wall without him bothering us. This shouldn’t take too long.”

Dash sat up. “Wait. Tunnel through it? Seriously?”

Pinkamena shook her head back and forth and tsked again. “Dashie. Dashie, Dashie, Dashie. What leg of the EUP am I in again?”

“The Rock Corp.”

“And what do I do in the Rock Corp?”

“Demolition and controlled use of rocks, boulders, stones, and earth as weapons, as well as defense against such.”

“And what are these walls made of?”

“Rocks. But Pinkamena, there’ll be enchantments in the walls, and you don’t have any protection for your hooves.”

Pinkamena smirked. “Somepony doesn’t know much about the Rock Corp.” She raised her bare hooves, dug them into a crack, wiggled them around a bit, dislodged a small rock, nodded to herself. “Old. Barely any mortar. Enchantments are totally weak. Bet they haven’t bothered with upkeep since the war began. We weren’t supposed to get this far, after all. If I’m right, this’ll be easy as Pinkie Pie.”

“You have no idea how dirty that sounds.”

“Quiet. I’m busy.” Pinkamena hummed a little tune to herself, then attacked the wall with her bare hooves like a jackhammer.

It’d always shocked Dash just how fast the Rock Corp could work. Dust and rubble was flying every which way, and she had to put up a hoof to shield her face. Pinkamena had a decent-sized dent in the wall in seconds, and it kept growing wider, deeper. Pinkamena’s humming turned into a full-blown song she was singing quietly to herself: “We say if you can’t dig then you won’t know how to win big when you’re breaking out of jail…”

Pinkamena completely vanished through the hole in the wall. A moment later, the wall in Dash’s cell began vibrating violently. Dash quickly shuffled to the opposite side. The wall collapsed, showering her in dirt and pebbles, and in its place was Pinkamena, coated in dirt, grinning broadly, and still singing. “Because if you get caught then you will show you trained for naught because you went and failed… oh, no…”

Before Dash could say anything, Pinkamena went to work lengthening the tunnel. Dash could see the walls in other cells shaking and dislodging pebbles, but none of them collapsed like Dash’s had. Pinkamena’s voice echoed down the tunnel. “Feel… the… groOoOound… Rocks… are… all aroOoOound…”

Dash brushed herself and followed Pinkamena into the tunnel. It was cramped and crude, but considering it’d been dug in less than a minute, it was pretty spectacular. Dust filled the air, and Dash started coughing as she followed Pinkamena’s voice. “Move your hooves, dig through the rubble, feel the groove, break all the rocks to dust! To dust!”

The worst part about it was that the interior of the tunnel was completely lightless. Dash liked light. You needed light to fly. Even moonlight and starlight was sufficient. Here, she had nothing. All she could do was simply blunder forward, bumping into the walls like she was a ball rolling down a chute. She kept on feeling like she’d step in a pothole or get her leg sliced off by a trap. Irrational? Totally. But that was how she felt. It didn’t help that rubble left from Pinkamena’s excavations littered the floor of the tunnel, making footing treacherous. It’d be all too easy to misstep and twist an ankle.

Pinkamena didn’t seem particularly upset by the dark. If anything, her voice was more upbeat than before. “You should move to stay out of trouble; it’d behoove you to break out or bust! Or bust!”

Then Dash saw something ahead. A little sliver of light. In it, she could see that Pinkamena had changed directions and was now attacking the wall again. Light was coming in between the stones. Pinkamena kept right on singing as she dug. “The wall rumbles and crumbles and tumbles when you hit it.” She braced her back against one wall and bucked out with her rear hooves, yelling, “Dig it!”

The wall tumbled over, exposing a gap large enough for a pony to crawl through. Pinkamena enlarged it a bit and tumbled through. Dash followed and promptly stretched her wings. It was much too narrow in there; it’d been impossible for her to spread her wings more than a few inches. As wings were meant to spread, Dash loathed the feeling.

Pinkamena was still singing as she strode to the exit. “Digging’s underrated; when you ne-”

Dash lightly smacked her on the back of the head. “Don’t sing. We’re in their base. Singing’s bad.”

“But Dashie, the song wasn’t even half done!”

“Don’t. Sing,” Dash growled through clenched teeth. “You’ll alert them. What was that song, anyway?”

“The Rock Corp Breakout Anthem.”

“…the Breakout Anthem?”

“Uh-huh! I wrote it myself. Sometimes, Sombra doesn’t have enough helmets, so he tries to keep his prisoners secured. But when you’re a prime member of the Rock Corp-” Pinkamena puffed herself up. “-the ground’s really just another weapon. I wrote the song for motivation when escaping.”

“That happen a lot, does it?”

“Well, no. Not really. But it’s a good song to have when it does happen!”

“Like a battlefield balloon emergency, I suppose.”

“Yes! Exactly like that!”

Dash sighed and shook her head, but couldn’t help but grin.

Pinkamena broke open a chest near the entrance, shattering it as if the wood itself was brittle, and tossed Dash her pike back. “So that’s, what, four down, two to go?”

“Huh? Oh, um… yeah.” Dash nodded as she slipped her hooves into the handles. “You still wanna do this?”

“Duh. We’re almost done. If we can get it done now, I don’t see why I wouldn’t wanna do this. I get to be part of the party that ended the war!”

“Alright. Follow me, then.” Dash crept up the stairs out of the dungeon.

She felt… strange. Grateful that Pinkamena had broken her out, sure, but now, some part of her kept screaming at her: just what was she doing? Was she doing this for Thunderlane, herself, the EUP, what? Dash wasn’t sure. She wanted to say Thunderlane, but that seemed weird and hollow. Like she hadn’t been thinking straight when she set out and was only just now seeing how stupid she’d been. If she tried to say herself, she asked herself why she didn’t just book it out of here. From the sounds of things, when a general died, they lost control over their bucketheads, and with only two of them plus Sombra left, they wouldn’t have much control over their army anymore. She could just break out of the shield again, and she’d be okay. And if she tried to say the EUP, she asked herself why she didn’t just book it out of here and come back with a better-equipped strike force or something. She knew her rainbows could break the shield, now; why not just take other ponies in, too?

Dash wasn’t sure of herself. But just running away, even if it was to come back, wouldn’t fit with her. She’d stay here. And she’d take them down.

The staircase took them to ground level, then further up, into the Crystal Palace. When Dash poked her head out to get a look at the time, it was still early morning; the sky was turning orange, but the sun wasn’t up just yet. So she and Pinkamena had been down there for several hours, at least. It felt shorter than that. Must’ve been Pinkamena’s jokes.

As Dash and Pinkamena continued up the stairs, into the Palace proper, they heard voices. Agitated ones. Nocturna and that other general, Grayscale.

“I’m telling you,” Grayscale said, “you should’ve sent another guard.”

Nocturna snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. They won’t escape.”

“They weren’t supposed to get this far in, either. We found the bodies of nine Shades. Nine. Just from those two ponies.”

“They’re in the dungeon. You think they’ll get out out of that?”

Dash and Pinkamena kept moving up. The voices got louder.

“They might. They broke through the shield, didn’t they? And that blue one, Dash, she’s driven. I saw the way she looked at you. What did you do?”

“I just met with her, warned her that the EUP would regret it if she didn’t turn herself over to us.”

“She blames you for that sleeper agent thing, then.”

“She doesn’t know that it was my idea!”

Every muscle in Dash’s body tensed. As if she needed another reason to hate Nocturna. Of course it’d be her idea. That was probably why she was the one delivering the message: for such a wonderfully twisted idea, she got to be the one to take in the great Rainbow Dash. That would be the worst mistake she made.

“That’s irrelevant,” continued Grayscale. “You sent the message, you’re the one she blames, you’re the one whose head is going on that pike. Ten bits says she lost someone when it all went down, and that’s why she’s here. She’ll break out and she’ll take her time with you. She won’t settle for anything less.”

“For the last time, they are not getting out!”

What was it with these guys and entrance cues?

Dash and Pinkamena had reached the right level. The first level they got to, actually. Dash was out in an instant, pike held high. No yelling this time; she didn’t want to alert them.

But Grayscale was fast. No sooner was Dash out of the doorway than he’d shoved Nocturna out of the way and raised a shield around the two of them. Dash slammed into his shield and bounced off with a cracking sound and numbness wherever she’d touched it. In the background, she heard Pinkamena’s slung stone ricochet off. Undeterred, Dash charged again, this time going at the shield solely with her pike. Sparks flew and Grayscale cringed down as he struggle to keep the shield up.

“Told you so!” Grayscale bellowed at Nocturna as they backed up.

“Shut up!”

“Told you so!” Grayscale’s horn glowed and a crystalline wall erupted between the two pairs, almost reaching to the ceiling.

But crystal was brittle, riddled with shatterpoints. Pinkamena charged forward, swung around, and bucked it. A thousand fractures ran up the wall, and several good-sized shards fell from the top. She bucked again. A large chunk of the wall shattered, exposing Nocturna.

Nocturna tried to put up a shield, but it was weak and flickering. Dash charged and brought the pike down on the shield, as hard as she could. It bounced off, but the stress was enough for the shield to drop. Dash lunged again, swinging wildly. Nocturna backpedaled; it was enough to avoid taking a pike to the face, but it cut a deep gash across her cheek.

Nocturna yelped and clapped a hoof to her wound. “You… little-” she snarled at Dash. A blast of magic threw Dash across the room and into a wall. Her head ringing, she struggled to her feet, only for a speeding hunk of crystal to smash into her ankle. Bones crunched and she fell to the floor with a groan.

Nocturna rolled her neck and took a few steps forward. She was grinning. “Did you…” she muttered, “really th-”

A shard of crystal cannoned into her ribs, shattering and scoring dozens of tiny cuts across her stomach. Pinkamena was up, twirling her sling. “Stay away from my friend!” she yelled. She loosed another stone.

Nocturna bolted, and the stone missed her. Blood flying from her cut, she ducked into a stairwell and scrambled up them.

“Coward!” Grayscale yelled after her. He levitated a crystal in front of him. It shattered, breaking into dozens of inch-long spikes that rocketed towards Pinkamena. She turned to one side and threw up a foreleg to protect her face.

Time froze for Dash in the instant before impact.

This was her fault. Just what was she doing? What was she thinking? Did she honestly imagine she could fly into here and avenge Thunderlane? Really? No. She’d been blinded by grief. She’d been stupid. She should’ve listened to Pinkamena. She should’ve brought in somepony else. She should’ve waited until morning and outlined her plan to someone high in the EUP for a more coordinated offensive. But, no, she just had to do this herself.

And now Pinkamena might die. All because she couldn’t let down somepony who was already dead.

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.

Adrenaline kicked in. Dash stood up. Time sped up again.

Most of the crystals ricocheted off Pinkamena’s armor, but several of them still penetrated her body. Her foreleg took the worst of it; needing to be flexible, it was almost completely unarmored. And some spines slipped around the leg to hit the face. As Pinkamena recoiled from the barrage, Dash could see one spine sticking out of her eye.

And Dash knew it was her fault.

Grayscale was still looking at Pinkamena. Dash charged.

She reached him at the same time he turned to her. As his eyes widened, she brought the pike down on his head and pushed with all her might. Her broken hoof screamed in pain. But she deserved it. The pike went clean through Grayscale’s head and embedded itself in the floor below.

Five down. One to go. But Pinkamena might be dying. What did that matter?

Dash abandoned her pike and hastily limped over to Pinkamena. Blood was already pooling around her, but it looked better than Dash had feared. As Dash neared her, Pinkamena easily pushed herself over and turned to Dash. She recoiled; Pinkamena’s left leg was riddled with spikes, each one bleeding slightly, and more spikes dotted her left side. She was pressing a hoof to her eye, and more blood was seeping out around it.

“Did you get him?” Pinkamena asked. Her voice was strong, only slightly pained.

“Yeah,” Dash said dully. “Pinkamena, we need to-”

“No,” said Pinkamena. “You need to finish what we came here for and get up those stairs and get that last general.”

“Don’t… Doesn’t it hurt?”

Pinkamena shrugged. “Not yet. My blood’s still running high, so pain is kinda secondary at the moment. Listen, I’ve seen these wounds before. They’re not nearly as bad as they look. Leave the crystals in, they’ll slow the bleeding a lot. I’ll be fine.”

Yeesh. That sounded painful, but Pinkamena had a point. “But your eye?”

Pinkamena rolled her remaining eye. “The eye’s hardly a vital artery. It’s gone, yeah, but I’m not in any danger from it. I’ll be fine, Dashie.”

Dash swallowed. Pinkamena was talking with the assured voice that could only come from the 110% confident. It still looked bad, but Dash decided she’d have to trust her. “Listen, Pinkamena, I- I’m sorry I dragged yo-”

“No, you didn’t. I dragged myself along.”

“No, I- I should’ve stayed at camp. This was stupid, Pinkamena, I don’t know what ca-”

Pinkamena lightly smacked Dash across the face. “First of all, Pinkie. Second of all, you came here because you wanted to avenge a friend. And you’re Rainbow Dash, so you wanted to avenge them real bad, in your own special way. It is stupid, but I can understand that — why do you think I’m here? — and I’m not the only one. You know why you and I are the only ones here? Because you’re the only one who could break the shield at will.”

A weight lifted slightly from Dash’s shoulders. Slightly. Pinkamena, at least, understood. And if she was talking this much, chances were she’d be fine. “Then, then while I’m gone, please don’t up and die on me, okay?”

“Cut it out, Dash! For the umptillionth time, I’ll be okie-dokie.”

“Alright. Promise?”

Pinkamena nodded. “Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye!”

“How can you make jokes like that now?” Dash said with a shudder.

“By keeping an eye out for the right opportunity!”

Yeah, Pinkamena would definitely be alright. “You’re crazy, Pinkamena.”

“We’ve been over this. I’m not crazy, I’m eccentric. Now, for the last time, get up there and go get her!”

Dash nodded and, with the help of her wings to compensate for her bashed hoof, headed up the staircase as fast as she could.

Nocturna’s wounds were still bleeding. Dash followed the splatters. Nocturna might’ve been faking it with magic, but given the way she’d fled the moment she’d been wounded, Dash didn’t think she was thinking straight enough to try something like that. She just followed the splatters and kept going up and up and up.

Five down, one to go. It was a weird feeling. Five down, one to go. Had there really been six generals in here at sunset? They sure went down quickly when you took them by surprise. Maybe the EUP should’ve tried behind-enemy-lines covert-ops assassination missions. But that might be too risky; if they got captured, they’d be drafted into Sombra’s army. Dash herself had gotten extremely lucky that one time. Oh, well. Too late now.

It was only fitting that the one most responsible for Thunderlane’s death would be the last one standing. It wouldn’t do for the last general to be some random schmuck Dash had never heard of. This was just between the two of them. Nocturna may have had magic, but seeing the way she used it, Dash wasn’t particularly worried. Someone like Grayscale, maybe. But not Nocturna.

…Damn, this was a long staircase. It felt like it climbed past the moon. But Dash kept following the splatters. Finally, she made it to the top, to a sort of observation deck, wh-

“Stop.”

Nocturna’s voice hit Dash’s brain, and she unwillingly skidded to a halt. It wasn’t as persistent as Sombra’s, but there was no way of telling how effective it was. Not until she tried fighting it.

Count to four.

Inhale.

And that was it. Nocturna’s control was gone. Dash hadn’t even gotten halfway through the cycle. Skilled at this, she wasn’t. Even the helmets had put up more of a fight than her. Dash held still. The element of surprise had worked wonders last time, she was sure it’d do the same now.

She was on the top floor of the Palace, beneath an open-air cupola. Nocturna was standing to one side, out of sight from the staircase. She chuckled dryly and wiped some blood away from the still-bleeding cut on her face. “Well, well, well,” she said. “I guess it’s just you and me.”

Which doesn’t bode well for you, Dash thought. You talk too much. She wanted so much to say that, but she wanted Nocturna to get close to her first.

“Even after you’re jailed, you screw us over. I’m going to do what my King should’ve done.” Her horn sparked. “Now, tell me what you’re going to do.”

An idea flitted its way through Dash’s mind. She ignored it, but said what it wanted her to say as she walked to the edge. “I’m going to throw myself from the top of this tower.”

…Wait, what? That was how she’d kill Dash? It’d take like twenty seconds for her to reach the ground. The moment Nocturna’s mind control was gone — which, given the amount of control she had, wouldn’t take long — Dash would just flare her wings and fly away. She was a pegasus, for Celestia’s sake!

Well, if that was what she wanted…

Nocturna smiled. “Good girl.”

Dash snapped her gaze to meet Nocturna’s. “And I’m taking you with me.”

All expression vanished from Nocturna’s face. “Huh?”

Before she could react any more, Dash had grabbed her and jumped from the Palace.

Dash pivoted in the air, angling her wings to keep close to the building, and slammed Nocturna’s body against the wall as they fell. Nocturna screamed as friction ripped away her skin and flesh, leaving a bloody smear the whole length of their fall. Whenever they bounced away, a flap of Dash’s wings would push them back.

Below them, the balcony was coming up fast. A few flaps from Dash slowed their descent. When Nocturna hit the floor, it wouldn’t be enough to kill. It would be enough to hurt.

Dash flared her wings at the last second and landed like a feather. Nocturna fell like a stone, and several ribs audibly snapped as she impacted the balcony. She barely moved, but she still whimpered, clutching at the bloody remains of her face.

It wasn’t enough for Dash. She bent down and grabbed Nocturna’s tail in her teeth. She dragged her over to the railing of the balcony. A quick wrench of the neck flipped Nocturna over and down. She hit the ground even harder. But if she listened, Dash could still hear her whimpering. Just barely.

Dash vaulted over the railing and landed next to Nocturna. Her body was pathetic, broken. Her entire left side had had its skin stripped away and she could barely muster the strength to breathe. Some other pony might’ve felt pity.

Not Dash. Not after Nocturna had planted the sleeper agents. She raised her good hoof and brought it down on Nocturna’s head. Something cracked. Not Dash’s hoof. She raised it up and brought it down, raised it up and brought it down, over and over and over. Each time, it went a little deeper, got a little wetter, got a little redder.

After a while, all she was doing was punching wet chunks of bone into the cobblestones. So she stopped.

Dash stood over the corpse, panting, blood dripping from her hooves. After a moment, she just dropped the ground and rolled onto her back. It was done. She’d taken care of all the generals. The only one left was Sombra and, well, someone else could get him. She’d avenged Thunderlane.

So why didn’t she feel any different?

War or no war, Thunderlane was dead, and nothing would change that. She’d done good things, right? All of Sombra’s generals were dead. There was no way he could control his army alone. He’d probably be defeated before evening. But she still felt terrible. She still felt like she could’ve saved him. She’d done all she could for him, and it wasn’t enough. It never would be. Not unless she could turn back time.

She was jarred from her thoughts by pain slowly seeping into her leg as the adrenaline wore off. It was dull, but it burned and it throbbed. She groaned and pushed herself to her good legs. She’d have to go get Pinkamena. She’d be okay, she’d promised she’d be, but that was still a lot of crystals in her.

Something rumbled. A black cloud rushed down from the balcony and coalesced into Sombra. He looked even angrier than before, his eyes boring into Dash’s skull. His teeth were clenched and his breathing was loud and labored. He held his head low, his ears back, and he pawed at the ground. “You,” he snarled. “This is all your fault. You couldn’t just sit and wait, could you?” He glanced briefly at Nocturna’s broken remains. “You… you ruined everything.”

“‘Course,” Dash mumbled. She was too tired to speak any louder. “Don’t you know my nickname? Rainbow Crash. I tend to ruin stuff.”

“You’re dead,” he whispered. “I don’t care anymore. You’re dead.” The air started crackling as his horn blackened, and the dark magic he was gathering was palpable in its intensity. The world teetered; Dash felt like she was hanging upside down. Her bones froze as her blood burned.

But Dash didn’t care anymore, either. She’d done enough. She was tired.

“YOU’RE DEAD!” Sombra screamed. The air screeched as he loosed the killing blow.

The sun crested the horizon and Sombra’s magic stopped dead in its tracks.

“SOMBRA.”

The earth shook with the intensity of the word. It didn’t blot out other sounds; they simply fell silent. It lacked bass, but you felt it more than you heard it. It drilled through Dash’s head, made sure she heard it. It was a force of nature, bearing more resemblance to an avalanche or a tidal wave than anything so mundane as sound.

In the east, Celestia was hovering at the border of the Crystal Empire, flanked by four pegasus Royal Guards. The Princess of the Sun had come at last.

Sombra whirled on her, tried to say something. But the words wouldn’t come, and all he could do was roar in shock and frustration.

“YOUR TIME HAS COME,” Celestia said. She didn’t roar. She didn’t need to. When Celestia loosed her own magic, compared to Sombra’s, there was no contest. Her magic bore down on him like a freight train. It was so bright Dash had to avert her eyes, so hot she swore she felt her coat crisping, so physical she was peppered by pebbles from the wind.

Celestia ended the onslaught, and Sombra was no more.

Dash stared at the spot where he’d been, now nothing more than a blackened crater. It was over. All of Sombra’s generals were dead. Sombra himself was dead. The only ones left were bucketheads and those who lacked the skill to control bucketheads. The war was won.

Dash collapsed again. She was tired.

A yellow spark, Celestia herself appeared next to her. “Rainbow Dash? Are you okay?” Celestia’s voice had changed. She wasn’t the least bit intimidating any more. She was quiet. She was soothing. She was motherly. She was worried. And she was worried for Rainbow Dash, not for Wonderbolt Airmare #15.

That was why Dash had joined the EUP.

Dash pushed herself to her hooves. “‘M fine, Your Highness,” she grunted. “Just tired and got a broken leg.”

“You should rest. Come, let’s get you back to camp.” Celestia reached around Dash with a wing and lightly nudged her forward.

“Wait,” mumbled Dash. “There’s a pony in the Palace. First room. Pinkamena Pie. She-” Dash coughed. “She’s bad, she needs help more than me. I’m not moving until I see her.”

Celestia looked up at the Palace above them, then back down at Dash. “Very well.” Her horn glowed and she was gone.

Dash flopped back to the ground, breathing deeply, but easily. Part of her said that Pinkamena was dead already. But it was a small part. Pinkamena was too… indomitable. You just couldn’t keep her down. Dash could hear her already: You didn’t think a dozen crystalline bullets to the face would do me in, did you?

The pegasus guards landed around her. One of them squinted down at her. “Hmm,” he said. “So it was you that broke through the shield last night.”

“Eeyup,” said Dash.

“Her Highness saw the shield collapse again just a few minutes ago and rushed over, hoping to save whoever was in here,” the guard said. “And, obviously, we arrived just in time.”

“Eeyup.”

After a few moments, Celestia returned, Pinkamena draped over her back. She was still bleeding, but it looked a lot better than Dash had feared, and the wounds (still with the crystals in them; Dash cringed) were already coagulating. Pinkamena herself was grinning and holding a hoof to her wounded eye.

“Hey, Dash,” she said. “Did we win?”

Dash nodded. “Yeah.” It was all she could say. She could hardly believe it herself.

“Yesssssss,” said Pinkamena, pumping her free hoof in spite of the crystals sticking out of it. “This calls for a party! My cannon’s gonna be busy tonight.”

“You don’t need a party,” Celestia said, “you need rest.” She spread her wings and smoothly lifted into the sky.

“There’s always a need for a party!” yelled Pinkamena. “You can’t keep the party down! You can’t keep the party down!”

To Dash, however, rest sounded like an excellent idea. She spread her own wings and, slightly supported by the guards, followed after them.

Celestia was giving a speech in the Crystal Empire. Dash wasn’t there in person, but she still heard it. Magic carried Celestia’s voice for miles with no loss of volume.

“…and the road back will be hard. But we shall travel it to the end, and we shall travel it together. We shall not be broken, for we have friendship.”

She’d been going at it for a while. Celestia was a great princess, but Dash always thought her speeches ran on too long. She’d started at, what, 3:00? And now it was something like 4:20. Just say what you need to say and get it over with.

“Friendship holds us together. It is stronger than you or I or any one of us could imagine. It is what kept us going in the darkest of times. It did not fail us then, it shall not fail us now.”

Sometimes Dash wondered how much Celestia hurt from the war. A lot? Probably. If so, she was good at hiding it. She’d had millennia to practice, after all. And she’d been on the front lines. Seen her ponies die. It wasn’t like she sat on her throne and threw her soldiers away to die like so many broken toys. Celestia probably hurt quite a bit. It was reassuring to Dash, the thought that even Celestia felt the pain of the war and it wasn’t just her.

“With the magic of friendship, we shall overcome this calamity. We shall welcome the Crystal Ponies back into the fold of Equestria. And, over the years, we shall rebuild. Thank you.”

Dash could hear the roar of approval from the Crystal Empire even though she was well outside it. Must’ve been a good speech. She hadn’t been paying much attention. She had her own things to look after.

There was an improvised faux-cemetery outside the camp, with lots of crude gravestone substitutes. Nopony was buried there; their bodies had been taken away, to wherever their families wished them to be buried. This was just a way for ponies in the field to pay their respects until they got home and could visit the actual grave. Some markers already had items on them. Dash wasn’t the only one there, either. Here was a father and daughter holding each other next to the mother’s marker. There was somepony talking to the marker of a friend. And so on and so forth.

Dash stood over Thunderlane’s marker, a cast over her broken leg and a paper flower in her mouth. She couldn’t find any actual flowers, not this far north. Some ponies were making these paper substitutes and giving them away, free of charge. It was the principle of the offering, not the actual flower. She leaned down and delicately placed the flower on the snow. A few simple enchantments in the paper kept it from blowing away in the wind.

“Mesonoxian,” Dash said dully, “means ‘of or relating to midnight’. Sorry I had to hear that from somepony else, buddy.” She blinked a few tears out of her eyes and turned away, limping out of the cemetery.

She’d won the war. But she still felt empty. Thunderlane had still died because she wasn’t fast enough, and nothing would change that. It’d nag at her for the rest of her life, sucking at her like a leech. She’d failed him. She’d repaid the favor, but she’d still failed him. It was almost an insult, the way the war had ended because of her reactions in response to that. He died, so the war was done. But if he’d lived, it’d still be going. Dash admitted that this was probably the better option, broadly speaking. It definitely didn’t feel like it.

Someone yelled out. “Hey! Rainbow Dash!”

It was Chalcedona. She was standing at the edges of the cemetery, waving, and trotted up to Dash. “Hey.” She looked at the graves and muttered, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” lied Dash. “What… what’re you doing out here?”

“Chasing Beryllia,” said Chalcedona. She glanced around. “She and I were going to visit your friend, whatshername, Pinkie. I wanted to thank her again. I’d heard she was wounded, but she wasn’t in the hospital tent. We went looking at other places, but Beryllia got into a snowball fight with some other foals along the way, and I chased her to here.”

She focused on Dash again. “But it’s good that I ran into you. I wanted to thank you again for saving Beryllia.”

“I’m just doing my job. You don’t need to thank me.”

Chalcedona sighed. “You don’t get how much you’ve done for me, do you? Dash, Beryllia was… is the light of my life. She’s one of the best things that ever happened to me. And I was missing her for months.” She wiped her eyes. “Do, do you know what it’s like, to not know what’s going with someone close to you? I-” She sniffed. “This sounds terrible, but I-I almost would’ve preferred her d-dead. At least then, I would’ve h-had closure. And as more and m-more towns were freed, I k-kept hearing n-nothing, and I… I…” She stopped and took a few deep breaths to steady her speech.

“Then, just when I’m ready to give up, you come along, with Beryllia safe and sound. I couldn’t believe it. It… It really was a miracle to me, Dash. An honest-to-Celestia miracle. I could spend a year thanking you for it, and it still wouldn’t be enough.” Chalcedona looked Dash straight in the eyes. “It meant everything to me. Please don’t write it off as ‘just doing your job’. It might be to you, but it isn’t to me.”

Dash was stunned. She’d never thought about it that way, never thought it’d run that deep. The idea of raising a family had never been that appealing to her, not even before the war, so she’d never given it much thought. She knew her parents loved her when she was a filly, but she’d always thought some of talk of just how much they’d loved her was exaggeration. She’d never imagined they’d be serious.

If she’d really lifted Chalcedona’s spirits up that much-

“Beryllia!” called out Chalcedona. “Come on, come here!”

Beryllia poked her head over a snowdrift. Her mane had been cleaned and trimmed to look more even, and her ribbon was sparkling again. The side of her head was plastered with snow from where a snowball had hit her. “Aw, come on, Mom! Three more minutes!”

“You wanted to see Pinkie, right? When that’s done, you can come back here and stay out as long as you want! As long as you’re back for dinner!”

“Okay! Be back in a sec, guys!” Beryllia stumbled over the drift towards them.

Chalcedona glanced at Dash. “But, like I said, she wasn’t in the hospital tent. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you?”

“Actually, I have a pretty good idea.”

Pinkamena’s voice was ringing out clearly as the group approached the “kitchens”. She was singing. It was a bright tune, bouncy and mellow, perfectly suited to her bubbly voice. “…and you fill me with good cheer!”

Pinkamena was the only one around, and she was staring intently at one of the field ovens, completely ignoring the bandages down her side. Just as Dash was about to talk to her, the timer dinged. Pinkamena promptly stuffed her good front leg in an oven mitt, threw the oven open, and pulled out a dozen chocolate cupcakes. She was still singing as she placed the tin on a table, right next to an already-baked-and-decorated dozen. “It’s true some days are dark and lonely…”

She began shuffling through a pile of… random stuff nearby. “And maybe you feel sad…” She found a container of frosting and zipped back to the cupcakes.“But Pinkie will be there to show you that it isn’t that bad!” She began spreading the frosting liberally across the cupcakes.

Dash cleared her throat. “Hey. Pinkamena.”

Pinkamena looked up and grinned. She already had an eyepatch; it was holding down a bandage over her socket. “Hiya, Dashie! Hiya, Chalcedona! Hiya, Beryllia!”

Chalcedona flinched back a little when she saw Pinkamena’s eyepatch. Not Beryllia. “Cool!” She zoomed up right next to Pinkamena. “You look like a pirate! How’d you get it?” She reached out to touch it.

Pinkamena lightly nudged Beryllia’s hoof away. “I can’t tell you now. Maybe when you’re older.”

“But I’m old!”

“Not too old for cupcakes, I hope!” Pinkamena lifted Beryllia up and put her on the table. “These decorated ones? Those’re yours. Don’t touch these ones, they’re still hot, you’ll burn yourself and we don’t want that.”

Beryllia turned to Chalcedona. “Can I, Mom? Please please pleeeaaase?”

“I… I suppose so,” Chalcedona said hesitantly. “One.” She turned to Pinkamena. “I just wanted to thank you again for returning my daughter to me. It’s… I don’t know what to say.”

“‘Thank you’ is enough,” said Pinkamena, wiping crumbs off her face as Beryllia devoured her cupcake. “Actually, it’s more than enough. The smile on your face when you saw her again was enough.”

“Still, thank you again. I said one, Beryllia!”

“But Moooom,” said Beryllia, reluctantly withdrawing her hoof, “that was the best cupcake ever! I can’t have just one!”

“You’ll spoil your appetite!”

“But-”

Pinkamena cleared her throat. “Actually…” She pulled out a bag and tipped the remaining cupcakes in. “I made these all for you. I Pinkie Promised a dozen cupcakes.” She laid the bag on the table, but before Beryllia could reach out, Pinkamena pulled it out of her reach. “On one condition. You listen to your mom, okay? She knows what’s best for you, so if she says no cupcakes until tomorrow, no cupcakes until tomorrow. Promise?”

“Promise!” Beryllia was nodding so hard it looked like her head was going to come off.

“Then happy cupcaking!” Pinkamena pushed the bag to Beryllia. Beryllia looked about to reach in before Chalcedona glared at her and yanked the bag away.

“Come on, Beryllia, we’d better get back to the tent,” Chalcedona said. She picked the straps up in her teeth. “Fank yew, Inkie. Fank yew, Daff.” She left the tent, Beryllia close behind.

Pinkamena sat down on her haunches, smiling happily. “And that’s another Pinkie Promise taken care of. What about you, Dash? Want some cupcakes?”

“Sure.” Dash reached out for a cupcake.

Pinkamena slapped Dash’s hoof away. “Not now, silly, they’re still hot! Give them a minute to cool. You don’t want to burn your tongue, do you?”

“I guess not,” Dash said, rubbing her hoof. When Pinkamena got protective of her treats, she got protective. “Broke out of the hospital tent?”

“Yep! Otherwise, I’d never get any baking time.” Pinkamena placed her eyes (well, eye) level with the tin, scanning some aspect of the frosting Dash couldn’t see. “I made a Pinkie Promise to make cupcakes but the doctors wanted me to stay put and not make cupcakes so I had to give them the slip so I could make cupcakes and just as I was making cupcakes you and Chalcedona and Beryllia showed up so it all turned out super amazing!” She frowned and skimmed a miniscule bit of frosting from one of the cupcakes. “And then I thought, why should Beryllia get all the fun? I’m here, so I might as well make some for my tentmates. And since I’m making them for injured ponies, these ones gotta be extra special perfect.”

“They look fine to me.”

Pinkamena huffed. “Yeah, but you’re not a cupcake connoisseur, like moi. They’re really really really really good, but I’m not so sure they’re perfectly perfect in their perfect perfection.”

“Hmm.”

After a few more moments of staring at the cupcakes, Pinkamena said, “Anyway, thanks for stopping by. It’s always nice to see a friend.”

“Mostly, I was just helping Chalcedona and Beryllia find you,” Dash said. “I wasn’t worried, I knew you’d be doing okay.”

“Of course I’m doing okay!” Pinkamena said with a grin. “Why wouldn’t I be doing okay? You’re still here, we won the war, I’ve got a sweet new scar, and I’m about to enjoy some delicious cupcakes!” She touched one, then yanked her hoof back, shaking it. “Once they cool off.” She stuffed her burned hoof in her mouth and sucked.

“It’s just… you’re taking this really well. I mean, you lost an eye, and your response is, ‘Cool scar!’?” Dash sighed. “I wish I had your enthusiasm.”

Pinkamena pulled her hoof out of her mouth. “You just gotta look on the bright side,” she said as she began cleaning up. “You can’t be Downer Dash all the time, and I can’t be Party Pooper Pinkie all the time. Start looking at the world with a frown on your face, and that’s all you’ll see, grumpy pants.”

Dash blinked, stared. “Pinkamena, one of my best friends died in front of my eyes thanks to a unicorn — someone I personally saved, no less — getting taken over by dark magic and killing him. And you want me to look at the bright side?”

Pinkamena sighed, and when she talked, her voice was unusually serious. “Look. Dash. I’m not saying that the world’s totally okie-dokie, ‘cause it isn’t. But already I can tell that you’re saying the world is totally anti-okie-dokie.”

“I’m not-”

“You are.” Pinkamena laid a hoof on Dash’s shoulder. “Dash, I lost a sister in this war. I know how you feel. But you can’t let it grow super huge and take over your life. If Thunderdude came back as a ghost and started haunting you, would you want him raving about how you’re still moping over his death? Don’t forget about him, that’s silly, just remember that there are other things in life besides your friends kicking the bucket. I mean, the war’s over. That’s good, right?”

“I guess so.”

“See? And that’s just the start!” Pinkamena lightly jabbed Dash in the ribs. “There’s a bright side and a dark side to everything in life. I stay happy by looking at the bright side.” She worked a cupcake out of the tin. “After all, the bright side has cupcakes.” She held it out to Dash.

Dash stared at it for a second. Thunderlane was dead, but… the war was over. It was still sinking in for her. No more deaths. No more fighting. Equestria would go back to the way it was, minus some destroyed towns and cities. Thunderlane may not have been able to see it. But she could. Pinkamena could. Chalcedona and Beryllia could. That was worth something.

Also, cupcakes.

Dash took the offered cupcake. It was a bit hot, but it tasted spectacular, as all of Pinkamena’s baked goods did.

Pinkamena broke out in a grin. “You like it?”

Dash nodded. She didn’t say anything, as her mouth was full.

“Super! Hate to run, but I gotta get these over to the hospital while they’re still warm. Bye!” Pinkamena shot out the door with the cupcake tin.

Dash stood in silence, slowly eating her cupcake. Life wasn’t that great at the moment. But it wasn’t that bad. She didn’t have to worry daily about dying anymore. She didn’t have to fight. She didn’t have to eat field rations. She didn’t have to spend every free nanosecond training her tail off. It could’ve been better, but it was good enough.

Then Pinkamena leaned back in. “Oh, and Dash, since you kept your Pinkie Promise about staying alive and the war’s over, I was wondering if you wanted to have Hearth’s Warming with me when it comes around. It’ll be great! You can meet all the family! I even met this new cousin that I think you’ll get along super great with, and she’s coming over, too!”

Dash frowned. “A new cousin? How do you miss a cousin? As far as extended families go, they’re pretty close.”

“Well, she’s actually a fifth cousin twice removed by a fourth cousin. But that’s totally like real cousins!”

“If you say so.”

“So whaddya think? You gonna come?” Pinkamena made a big eye, going for the puppy-dog route. Somehow, it worked even with the patch. “Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaase? It’ll be the most super amazing thing ever!”

Dash smiled. “You know what, Pinkie? I think I’d like that.”