Ponystar Celestia

Chapters

Miniseries, Night 1: The End (Act 1)
Miniseries, Night 1: The End (Act 2)
Miniseries, Night 1: The End (Act 3)
Miniseries, Night 1: The End (Act 4)
Miniseries, Night 2: The Beginning (Act 1)
Miniseries, Night 2: The Beginning (Act 2)

Miniseries, Night 1: The End (Act 1)

T minus two hours. Ponyville, outskirts.

“I don’t get it,” Sweetie Belle said. “Why are we decommissioning the Celestia?”

Twilight Sparkle and Apple Bloom shared a long-suffering look. Each of them had had to answer this question many, many times throughout the past few months. Twilight nudged Apple Bloom gently; it was the earth pony’s turn to explain.

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes at Twilight, then turned to her foalhood friend. “Okay: you’ve noticed how different gadgets have been getting smaller 'n’ smaller, right?”

“Right,” Sweetie Belle said. “Technology enchantments have been getting more refined, so it’s easier to put stronger spells in smaller objects.”

“Well, the same thing goes for military magitek, too. We’re getting better 'n’ better at making ponystars, to the point that the older ones are falling behind. Celestia costs more bits to run than she’s worth. Besides, she was never battle-ready to begin with.”

“She wasn’t?” Sweetie Belle asked dubiously.

“That’s right,” Twilight chimed in. “The Celestia was the prototype; we built her just to prove that we could. We never even installed launch ports or catapults in her starboard hangar, or half of the point-defense rigs that other ponystars have.”

Still, she added to herself, for a first attempt she’s a fine ship.

The three mares stood together at the top of a small hill, looking up at the bulk of the ponystar hanging in the air above them. In size, a standard ponystar compared to a passenger airship about the same way an airship compared to a sky chariot, or to a land-bound carriage. The Celestia was larger still; it hadn’t been built with the miniaturized systems Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had been discussing. On top of that, it had all kinds of backup systems and redundancies that were—well—redundant; up until the day the Celestia was launched they hadn’t been sure it was actually possible to make a ship that big stay airborne, so they’d thrown in far more safety backups than they needed. As proud as Twilight was of the gargantuan vehicle and all of the hard work that had gone into it, she also felt a familiar twinge of regret. If she could, she’d happily trade the professional prestige and wealth she had earned as a result of the ponystars’ creation for a world where they were not deemed necessary.

As Equestria had grown, sky chariots had become more and more unfeasible for long-distance travel. Trains and airships were the next logical step, but they would occasionally fall prey to monsters, bandits, or bored dragons. So—at the request of the Princesses—Twilight, Apple Bloom, and a handful of other ponies had created the ponystars. The dedicated battleships provided protection to caravans of civilian vehicles as they traveled to the farthest borders of Equestria. Twilight had suggested calling the new vessels “galaxy-class airships” based on their size and half-inspiring, half-intimidating sense of presence, but Apple Bloom’s suggestion had won out. Twilight didn’t mind, though… At least they hadn’t gone with Flim and Flam’s “Super Slammer Pony Hammer 40,000;” just remembering that name made her want to gag.

Twilight’s ears twitched, drawing her out of her memories. As the sound of approaching hoofsteps gradually grew louder, she turned and saw Rainbow Dash and the Apple family cresting the hill. Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had heard as well, and they trotted down to meet the new arrivals halfway. Twilight stayed where she was, simply drinking in the sight of her friends.

Applejack looked the same as ever—she even had the same ancient hat—aside from being hitched up to a small wagon filled with one annoyed blue pegasus. The pegasus in question was insisting that she was able to move under her own power, even though the only thing holding her down was a green-and-white flannel blanket. Over the years Twilight had occasionally wondered if Applejack and Rainbow were lovers, but if so they had never seen fit to announce it and Twilight didn’t feel that it was her place to ask.

Big Macintosh and Pinkie Pie—Pinkie Apple these days—were keeping pace with Rainbow’s wagon, despite Pinkie’s advanced pregnancy. She bore it well. Even though—for the foal’s sake—she no longer literally bounced from place to place, she positively glowed with even more joy than she’d possessed when she and her friends were younger. As the group approached, Twilight could make out what Pinkie was saying to the hulking red stallion: “—still think it would’ve been even more fun if you had been a Pie and I had been an Apple. Then I could’ve hyphenated my name and been Pinkie Apple-Pie!” Pinkie giggled at the thought, then spoke as if replying to something Mac had said. “Oh, but Pinkie Pie-Apple doesn’t sound as funny! Besides, then somepony might think I was Pinkie Pineapple and you know that the Pineapples haven’t liked me too much ever since I baked—oh, hi girls!”

“Howdy, Pinkie! Howdy, Mac!”

“Hi, Pinkie! Hi, Big Macintosh!”

Big Macintosh smiled and nodded at Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.

Applejack grunted. “What, no ‘howdy’s fer me?” she said in mock indignation. “And here Ah am, stuck with the biggest sourpuss this side’a the Everfree Forest!” Everyone laughed except for Rainbow, who just began a new campaign of grumbling. “Hold up now,” Applejack said. “Where’s Rarity?”

Sweetie Belle frowned. “There was a problem at the train station. Apparently there was something strange about Rarity’s ticket—somepony even accused her of forging it! You can imagine how she reacted to that…”

Everypony winced, even Big Macintosh.

“Wait a minute!” Twilight said. “If Rarity’s stuck in Canterlot, that means the Elements of Harmony are stuck there too!” A sheen of sweat broke out on the purple unicorn’s brow as an anxiety attack threatened to form. “How are we supposed to conduct the decommissioning ceremony with no Elements and only five bearers?!”

“Actually—” Sweetie Belle said.

Applejack cocked an eyebrow. “Uh, Twi? First off, we can skip the Elements; that ain’t a big deal. Second, Ah only count four’a us here.”

Pinkie’s bright blue eyes sparkled with mirth. “Gee, Twilight, you must be having an off day! Even me and Rainbow could tell Fluttershy’s not here, even though I’ve got all kinds of baby-hormones in my head and Dashie’s delirious with the feather flu!”

“Rarity will—” Sweetie Belle began.

Rainbow coughed. “Iz just a coldth!”

Twilight grimaced and put a hoof to her face. “I know Fluttershy’s not here; she told me she was going to be a couple of minutes late because she was arranging meal plans for her animals and that kind of thing with the veterinarian, so that they’re taken care of while we’re all away. And the Elements are a big deal, because Princess Celestia asked us to wear them to the decommissioning!”

“HEY!"

In varying states of alarm, everypony looked to Sweetie Belle. She cleared her throat and said: “Rarity eventually convinced them to pay for an airship ticket—on the Golden Luxury, no less—so she could catch up with us. Unfortunately it won’t set sail until later tonight, so we won’t be seeing her until the ceremony’s about to start.”

Applejack laughed. “That’s our Rarity, all right! Shame we won’t see her before the big event, but at least she’ll be around for the trip back.” Turning to Twilight, she added, “Ah still don’t see what’s with all the fuss about the Elements, though. T’ain’t like we’re s’posed to shoot the Celestia down.”

Twilight opened her mouth to reply, but froze. She’d just noticed Pinkie’s tail, which was twitching like a thing possessed. Twilight and Sweetie Belle began to look around for some sort of cover—Please let it just be a flower pot!—until Pinkie started to laugh.

“Oh girls, don’t worry!” Pinkie said. She gestured to her swollen belly. “My Pinkie Sense has been acting up ever since Mackie put this little Apple in my oven.” The pink mare shot her husband a suggestive look. “And if I’m lucky, it won’t be long after the little one’s born that it starts acting up again.”

Nopony spoke for a moment.

Twilight couldn't tell if Big Macintosh was blushing; his coat was just the wrong color. Giving up, she cleared her throat and smiled awkwardly at him. “Aaaanyway… Is it a filly or a colt?”

Big Macintosh shrugged. Pinkie grinned. Applejack rolled her eyes.

“Don’t bother, Twi. Pinkie’s dead-set on it bein’ a surprise. Wouldn’t even let Mac go to the hospital with ‘er fer the last couple of months; Ah got roped inta that.” Twilight opened her mouth, but Applejack held up a forestalling hoof. “Nope; Ah Pinkie Promised. So did the doctor… and the nurses.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at the still-grinning Pinkie. “Wow. That’s… thorough.” Pinkie only beamed harder, as though Twilight had praised her.

Sweetie Belle groaned in disappointment. “Pinkie, that’s not fair! Rarity wanted to decorate the foal’s room before it was born, and make it little outfits.”

Pinkie thrust her nose into the air, as if trying to smell the sun. “While I do appreciate her offer and am terribly sorry to inconvenience her in any way, I’m afraid she will simply have to begin her project after the delivery,” she said in a fair impression of the absent unicorn, prompting giggles from most of the group.

Sweetie Belle frowned, vexed. “But I wanted to compose a lullaby, and—”

“What’s wrong with ‘Hush Now, Quiet Now’?” a soft voice asked from directly behind Sweetie Belle. The slender white unicorn jumped as though somepony had pulled her tail. She spun on her hooves to find Fluttershy standing behind her. The yellow pegasus’ smile bore the slightest hint of mischief. “As I recall, you have quite a way with that song,” Fluttershy said. Apple Bloom literally fell over laughing, and Twilight covered her mouth with a hoof to hide her smile.

Sweetie Belle spun on the group, her pale green eyes fiery. “You all saw her sneaking up on me, didn’t you?” she accused.

“Eeeyup,” Big Macintosh deadpanned. He had to speak for the Apple family in this case; Pinkie and Applejack were holding each other up as they laughed, and even Rainbow was chuckling weakly under her blanket.

Sweetie Belle stuck her tongue out at them and said something in reply, but Twilight’s attention was on Fluttershy. Startling Sweetie Belle aside, the usually ground-bound pegasus was still the most introverted member of their little group… and still the most beautiful. Rarity had style and charm and presence—when she entered a room, all eyes went to her—but Fluttershy had an ethereal appeal like nopony else. It was a balm to the soul, like the sound of a gentle breeze blowing through the forest, or the delicate grace of a flower. In a strange way, Fluttershy reminded Twilight of Princess Celestia.

Fluttershy had grown a little more assertive over the years as well, which was gradually revealing whole new facets of her personality. Twilight hoped that she had had something to do with that, but doubted it. She herself was generally a stay-at-home sort of pony; in fact, there had been many times when she’d gone to Fluttershy’s cottage intending to take her out for some social activity only to spend the day there reading and tending to animals and having tea.

Fluttershy seemed to feel Twilight’s eyes on her. She turned to Twilight and said, “Oh, I almost forgot! I invited Owloysius to stay at my cottage while we’re all away. I know that he can handle himself, but I thought he might like to socialize with Angel and the other pets, seeing as how they’re all getting on in years. I hope that’s all right…”

Twilight smiled. “Of course; I should’ve thought of that myself. Thank you, Fluttershy.”

“Oh, you don’t need to thank me; it was nothing,” Fluttershy said, blushing slightly.

Twilight caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning, she saw Sweetie Belle leaning in to whisper something to Apple Bloom. Everypony else was talking shop about this year’s cider sales, but the younger mares were watching Twilight and Fluttershy. Twilight raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“Nothing!” said Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, with huge grins.

Oooooookay…

Twilight turned back to Fluttershy. “Do you know what’s up with them?” Twilight asked.

Fluttershy shook her head.

The former Cutie Mark Crusaders appeared to either side of them.

“So, Twilight: if you moved out of the library, would you keep being the librarian, or would you do something else?” Apple Bloom asked.

Sweetie Belle leaned in towards Fluttershy. “Have you ever considered moving into Ponyville proper?”

“What, like be a full-time enchanter? No. I got that out of my system when we built Celestia and the other first-generation ponystars.” Twilight said.

“Oh, no; I couldn’t! Who would take care of my animal friends?” Fluttershy replied.

“Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of helping out sick 'n’ injured critters,” Apple Bloom said.

“That’s a good point. You know, I’m surprised you can handle all of those little animals by yourself. Have you ever considered looking for an assistant?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“But I don’t have a degree in veterinary medicine,” Twilight replied, frowning.

“Oh, Angel helps me out quite a bit, actually!” Fluttershy said, smiling.

“Shucks, you don’t need a degree! You could just apprentice under somepony who knows how to take care of critters already,” Apple Bloom said.

“No no no. I mean, why not ask another pony to help you? Someone who’s dependable… knowledgeable… helpful…” Sweetie Belle said.

“But Applejack has her hooves full with Sweet Apple Acres,” Twilight and Fluttershy said in unison. They each started a bit at the sound of the other’s voice.

Apple Bloom looked smug about something, but Sweetie Belle had a sort of disgusted frustration on her face. Twilight shrugged at Fluttershy, who looked oddly embarrassed.

“Hey everypony! Sorry I’m late!” a familiar orange pegasus mare shouted from above. Scootaloo made a low pass over the assembled ponies—giving them a view of the underside of the extra-large sky chariot she was towing—before finally landing near everyone.

Twilight’s jaw dropped. Scootaloo. Flying. It was as alien to her as if Fluttershy had spouted tentacles from her eyes. The weirdness was heightened by the color of Scootaloo’s wings—they almost looked like they were made from polished steel.

“Aluminum,” Apple Bloom said to Twilight, as if reading her thoughts. “It’s lightweight 'n’ it channels pegasus magic better than most metals. The hardest part was getting them enchanted by a unicorn. In the end I mailed them to Sweetie Belle.”

“Rarity helped, especially with the spell to keep them from chafing Scootaloo’s real wings,” Sweetie Belle said modestly.

“Why didn’t you ask me for help?” Twilight asked.

“At the time, you were putting the finishing touches on Sugar Grape’s navigation 'n’ threat-detection enchantments. Didn’t see a reason to give you more work,” Apple Bloom said.

“You made magitek prosthetic wings as a side project?” Twilight asked incredulously.

“She sure did!” said Scootaloo, who had gotten herself out of her harness and trotted over. She swept Apple Bloom up in a huge hug and added, “This filly can do anything!” She held the hug for a moment and looked into Apple Bloom’s eyes intently. “Best. Birthday. Ever.” Scootaloo released Apple Bloom—who looked a little flustered to Twilight—and turned to Sweetie Belle. The two hoof-bumped and shared a smile. “How’s it going, music mare?”

“Just fine, flyfilly,” Sweetie Belle said.

Scootaloo grinned hugely. “Oh, it feels good to be called that when I can live up to it!”

Now it was Scootaloo’s turn to be on the receiving end of a hug. When Sweetie Belle released her, the unicorn had tears in her eyes. “I’m so glad I can finally see them in use! You’re so graceful in the air!”

“Yeh, yor doon good, kit,” Rainbow croaked, provoking a chorus of similar sentiments from the Apple family.

Scootaloo thrust her chest out with pride. “If you think I was good while I was towing that thing, you should see me when I’m on my own!” Her expression switched suddenly to one of concern. “Shoot! That’ll have to be later; we’re running behind as it is!” Rather than hitch herself back up, though, she hurried to the back of the sky chariot.

Scootaloo rooted around in the luggage area for a moment before returning with a small pouch held in her teeth. “Da Wonderbolfs shent more medishin.” She trotted over to Rainbow’s wagon and laid the pouch inside. Turning to Applejack and Fluttershy, Scootaloo said, “You’ll make sure she takes it all, right?”

“Sure will,” Applejack said; Fluttershy simply nodded.

Rainbow began to argue with the trio, but Twilight tuned them out. Turning to Apple Bloom, Twilight asked, “So when were you going to tell me that you’d revolutionized a field of medicine?”

Apple Bloom just smirked. “Oh, I’m full of surprises, Twilight. You’d best keep a close eye on me if you want to learn them all.”

Suddenly, Pinkie.

She appeared between Apple Bloom and Twilight and said, “Hey, is it just me or is it strange that the sky chariot has harnesses for four ponies but Scootaloo brought it here all by herself?”

Scootaloo reacted to hearing her name. “Yeah…” she said, turning to face Pinkie, “that’s actually part of why I’m running late. Soarin’ came up with another maneuver for the big air show at the decommissioning and Spitfire wanted everypony to start practicing right away. Everypony was either busy or exhausted when I left.”

“Eeeeeeeeeeeevrypony?” Pinkie asked, with a strange look on her face.

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. “Okay, not everypony. Derpy Hooves and Pound Cake volunteered to help me, but I’d rather not be harnessed to Derpy—she’s a good pony, but her wing-eye coordination…” Scootaloo grimaced, “…and Pound was too small for the harness.”

“I’m glad Pound volunteered anyway,” Pinkie said, smiling. “I’d hate to think he was going to sit around being a Lazy McSlothpants.”

“Nah, he’s a good kid. Good taste in role models, too; he just founded the Celestia branch of the Rainbow Dash Fan Club. Anyway, we’d better get this show on the ro—” Scootaloo did a double-take. “Wait… Sweetie Belle, where’s your sister?”

Sweetie Belle explained Rarity’s circumstances again. This time, nopony interrupted her.

Scootaloo nodded, satisfied. “Oh, okay; cool. Well, then: like I was saying, we’d better get moving. Fluttershy, could you help me pull this thing?”

“Of course, Scootaloo,” Fluttershy said.

The next minute or so was a bit of organized chaos as everypony got settled in—

“Don’t you guys have any luggage?”

“No, Spike brought it up to the Celestia yesterday.”

“Hey sis, do you mind if I squeeze in next to Twilight there?”

“Huh? Oh, sure, no problem…”

“Wow, this is one big chariot! If it was any bigger it would have a dinner service! I hope they’ll serve chocolate milk with dinner tonight! Wait—do they even have chocolate milk on the Celestia, Dashie?"

"They did the lest time I was aburd.”

—but they all got aboard in the end, even Rainbow in her little wagon. Big Macintosh was the last to board; he’d waited behind with Pinkie and had offered her a hoof in support, even though the sky chariot’s deck was only a few inches off of the grass. Twilight reached back with her magic and pulled up the safety gate; it would be a short trip, but best not to take any chances.

Scootaloo and Fluttershy flapped their wings a few times as they cantered forward in preparation for takeoff. Scootaloo’s augmented wings seemed stiff and jerky to Twilight, compared to Fluttershy’s all-natural plumage. Regardless of appearances, though, they worked just fine when the two mares finally took to the air. Twilight let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and sat down on her rump. She felt Apple Bloom’s tail brush her flank, but didn’t think much of it; the sky chariot was pretty crowded, between Rainbow’s wagon and Big Macintosh’s sheer bulk. Besides, it felt kind of nice. Twilight sighed and finally let go of her earlier stress about the decommissioning ceremony.

Everything will be all right, she thought.

* * *

T minus two hours. Canterlot, Rosedust Lane.

Shining Armor trotted down the stairs, grumbling obscenities to himself. It was the first time in months that he and Cadance had had the same day off, and they’d been working on making the most of it. He’d gotten up just before dawn as usual, but instead of performing his daily cardio routine Shining had gone down to the kitchen and whipped up a tall stack of strawberry-and-carrot pancakes. Once he’d brought them up to his wife he had gotten plenty of exercise; that had been five very pleasant hours ago.

Then there came the knocking, which they had both pretended not to hear. Unfortunately, their visitor had followed it up by ringing their bell. And ringing it again. And again. Eventually Shining Armor had forced himself to head down and see what whoever-it-was wanted; being the captain of the royal guard and married to a princess meant that anypony this urgent to see them probably had bad news. Of the national-crisis variety.

Shining didn’t bother to dress—he wore only the changeling-detecting anklet he’d received from Twily as a post-wedding present—but he did stop by the downstairs restroom to splash some water in his face and run a brush through his mane. There was no need to advertise his recent lovemaking to the guard or messenger or whoever. He reached the door as the bell rang for—seemingly—the nine millionth time, put on his Game Face, and opened the door with a gentle pulse of magic.

As it turned out, the pony ringing the doorbell of the Cadenza/Armor home was not a bloodied, battered guardsmare. Nor was he a servant dressed in the livery of the Royal Palace. He was just a young blue unicorn stallion—a colt, really—wearing a burgundy jacket and matching pillbox hat, harnessed to a wagon full of musical instruments.

The colt cleared his throat nervously before speaking in a voice cracking with puberty. “Uh, singing telegram for Princess Mi Amore Cadenza?”

Shining blinked once, slowly, feeling his Game Face slip away. “Seriously?”

“Uh, yeah?”

Shining Armor fought to keep himself from scowling. “Just a minute,” he said, more harshly than he’d meant to. A few minutes—and a quick restroom stop by Cadance—later, the couple arrived at the door together. Cadance’s purple eyes sparkled as she took in the awkward young stallion on the porch, who had used the wait to levitate a few of his instruments out of the wagon.

“Good morning!” Cadance said cheerfully. “I’m Mi Amore Cadenza—but please, call me Cadance. What’s your name, my good sir?”

The singing telegram-pony shuffled a forehoof awkwardly, clearly taken off guard. “Uh… Bobbin’ Dill.” Shining Armor raised an eyebrow and leaned to the side to see the colt’s cutie mark. Sure enough, it appeared to be a pickle floating in a bucket.

Huh. Weird.

Shining was too busy contemplating the cutie mark to object when Cadance said, “Please, come on in, Mr. Dill; I’d like to hear your song in the comfort of my living room. And I’m sure you could use a glass of water to wet your whistle.”

“Uh, thanks.” The three ponies, one wagon, and several musical instruments proceeded to the living room. Cadance fetched Bobbin’ a glass of water from the kitchen herself instead of ringing for their butler, Pennyworth. Shining couldn’t tell if Bobbin’ appreciated the graciousness behind Cadance’s gesture; the colt’s face was a mask of confusion.

Bobbin’ had just finished his water when Shining Armor’s gut began to gurgle alarmingly. Shining winced in discomfort and excused himself to the restroom, suggesting that the others not wait on him.

Darn carrots go right though me, always have, why do they have to be so tasty?

Between the distance, the door, and his digestive tract, Shining Armor wasn’t able to make out much of the singing telegram—just something about a thief, some wine, a joke, a watchtower, and a wild cat. He had just finished his business and was washing up when his anklet clenched around his left forehoof.

For a long, horrible moment, all Shining Armor could do was stare dumbly at the thin silver braid. Twily had briefed him on how it worked, of course, and assured him that she’d field-tested it herself, but Shining had never actually felt it activate. The anklet continued to expand and contract, slowly gaining speed as he stared. The pause between pulses is inversely proportional to the proximity of prohibited ponies—or in this case, changelings, Twilight’s voice echoed in his mind.

There was a changeling nearby. In his house. Posing a threat to the love of his life. Again.

Had Twilight Sparkle seen the change that came over her brother then, she would have been deeply unsettled. Shining Armor—the genial, goofy stallion with an upset stomach—ceased to be. He was replaced by the Captain of Equestria’s Royal Guard.

Shining turned the faucet in the sink all the way up and left it there. It impaired his hearing more than the enemy’s at the moment, but if he was lucky it would make them think he was still in the restroom. He wrapped a towel around one hoof and then—as quietly as possible—shattered the restroom mirror with a quick kick. Shining levitated a hoofful of shards with his magic before he eased the restroom door open.

Aside from the restroom faucet, the house was silent. He resisted the urge to rush headlong to the living room to check on Cadance, instead forcing himself to creep forward slowly and check every doorway and blind corner he passed. Their home—copied from a design by the legendary architect W. Lordly Flight—was beautiful, comfortable, and welcoming, but from a tactical perspective it was a nightmare. Moving so cautiously, it took Shining Armor a little less than four minutes to get to the doorway to the living room; from his perspective it was longer than Night Mare Moon’s banishment. Shining cursed the soft sound of his magic as he turned a shard of mirror in the air; he’d never learned to silence his magical aura the way the unicorns of Princess Luna’s Night Guard could. He quickly scanned the reflection of the living room for the jet black and sickly green of an undisguised changeling. Satisfied that the enemy wasn’t in the living room Shining took a deep breath, let it out slowly… and rounded the corner.

Blood was everywhere. He’d noticed some in the reflection, but the reality was far worse. It was on the walls, the couch, the little green-tasseled pillows that Cadance loved—there was some on the ceiling. Shining Armor had seen worse before, but that was on the battlefield; in his own home the sight was alien and horrifying. He looked to the floor. Bobbin’ Dill had apparently been garroted with what looked like one of his own guitar strings, but the enemy had used almost enough force to remove the colt’s head. Cadance lay beside Bobbin’, her eyes closed. She was breathing and at a glance Shining couldn’t see any injuries on her, but her coat and mane were soaked with blood and she wasn’t moving. Shining Armor’s first-aid training came back to him.

1) Make sure the scene is secure.

The anklet was pulsing almost as fast as his heart; the scene was definitely not secure. Cursing himself for not rushing straight to his wife’s side, Shining instead checked each of the doorways leading off of the living room. It was hard to perceive with how agitated he was, but the anklet’s contractions got slightly slower as he approached each doorway. For a moment he took that to mean that the changeling was goading him: retreating as he advanced and returning as he approached the center of the living room. The rational part of his mind—speaking in Twily’s voice—pointed out that that was extremely unlikely unless the changeling could see through walls.

Shining Armor took another look at Bobbin’ Dill’s “corpse.” The reports Shining had read suggested that changelings could only imitate normal pony appearances—but what if this one could do… “special effects?” The clock was ticking, and every second could be the one where Cadance bled out. Shining Armor ran the first experiment that occurred to him: he set the mirror shards aside with his magic, reared up on his hind legs, and crushed Bobbin’ Dill’s damaged neck under his forehooves. The young colt’s head—now completely severed—shot away across the floor like a hockey puck.

That was the end of things. Shining Armor had an instant to observe how the corpse did absolutely nothing—and to realize his error—before the mirror shards flew up from the table and shredded his throat. His scream came out as a wet gurgle and only made his agony worse. Staggering, Shining Armor turned, already knowing what he would see.

Cadance had risen to her hooves, and was smiling cruelly at him. “Hello, dear.”

Shining pressed a hoof to his throat, but the wounds were too extensive. He tried to call forth his magic and apply pressure to stop the bleeding, but Cadance—or rather, the changeling—lashed out with a forehoof. The blow to his horn broke his concentration and the spell failed. Unable to do much else, Shining croaked out an interrogative noise.

“Actually, I’m as surprised as you are!” Not-Cadance said cheerily. “After all, I spent almost a decade honestly convinced I was your loving wife!” She looked to the side and tapped a hoof to her chin. “I guess the biological differences explain why I never got pregnant…” she mused. Her tone became playful again as she continued, “Anyway, I’ve just been reminded that we have sleeper agents all over Equestria who are operating under delusions similar to mine, not to mention others who know full well what they're about.” She tilted her head and watched as Shining Armor sank to his knees, fighting to stay alive and conscious. “Apparently it’s time for the big push: time to shatter your wretched little nation of Equestria and feast on the remains. Oh, but you won’t live to see that… I guess I’m kinder than I thought.”

The monster that Shining Armor had spent two-thirds of his marriage with laughed in his face as he bled to death. Her breath smelled like strawberry-and-carrot pancakes.

Once he was dead, she trotted upstairs to take a shower.

Miniseries, Night 1: The End (Act 2)

T minus one hour. Ponystar Celestia, sickbay.

“Now you stay warm under them covers,” Applejack said. Spotting a loose corner, she gripped it in her teeth and tucked it back under Rainbow Dash. Once her mouth was free, Applejack added, “Don’t wantcha to stay sick the whole trip.”

Rainbow just glared at her sourly.

Applejack pulled her hat off with her hooves, then used her mouth to extract a battered, dog-eared, much-loved book from within. She set the copy of Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone on Rainbow’s belly, but when Rainbow made a grab for it Applejack held it down with one firm hoof.

“Well lookee here!” she said with mock surprise. “An’ here Ah could’a sworn somepony was recently tellin’ me how she was too tired to take her medicine!”

“Reading duh’int tek mush strenf!” Rainbow protested through a muzzle full of phlegm.

“Neither does swallowin’,” Applejack countered, pointing at the pill and glass of water on Rainbow’s nightstand. “Now get to it.”

Rainbow crossed her forelegs. “Dno way!”

Applejack could feel a headache coming on. “An’ why exactly not?”

“I muft be allerdic to it, or somefin. I alway feew worse when I tek it!”

Applejack groaned. At least nopony else in their group was here right now; they had let her take Rainbow straight to the Celestia’s hospital, where she had been stuck ever since in an effort to get Rainbow to take her medicine. The doctor and nurses were giving them their privacy, which was good of them. Applejack was firmly convinced that Rainbow was the most stubborn pony she’d ever met; worse than Rarity, worse than Big Macintosh when he got a notion into his head—heck, even worse than Apple Bloom when she had been little.

Thinking back, Apple Bloom’s foalhood gave Applejack an idea… “Tell you what, Rainbow: Ah’ll take one’a them pills if you do.”

Rainbow’s light cerise eyes studied Applejack suspiciously.

“Far as Ah know, you ain’t got no allergies ta speak of. The way Ah see it, if Ah can take one’a them pills an’ be right as rain—even though Ah don’t need ‘em—that’ll prove that they’re fine an’ you’re just a big fat wimp!” Applejack said. She shot Rainbow her cockiest smirk, the one she wore whenever she teased Rarity about Tom. “It’ll be a bet: if Ah win, you start takin’ your medicine without whinin’. If you win, uh…” Her idea deserted her for a moment; she had told Scootaloo she’d get Rainbow to take all of the pills, after all, and no way was she going to go back on her word. “Uh, well, then we’ll look inta other ideas.”

Rainbow looked dubious, but eventually she nodded and hwarked a fat glob of bright off-green phlegm onto a hoof. She held it out for Applejack to shake.

As soon as Rainbow had started her hwark, Applejack had done the same. Now she stood paralyzed, her spit slowly running off her own hoof. She could never be called a prissy pony—unlike a certain absent unicorn—but that… thing on Rainbow’s hoof was disgusting.

Rainbow smirked evilly, clearly enjoying her psychological warfare. She turned her hoof sideways, but the glob barely moved. Applejack stared for another long moment.

Well, what the hay, she thought. It ain’t like earth ponies can get the feather flu; I’ll just have to wash up after. She took a deep breath. Real good.

Applejack shook hooves with Rainbow, trying not to shudder at the feeling of the greenish glob on her hoof. When the deed was done she didn’t set her hoof down; it wouldn’t be neighborly of her to track that stuff all over the ship’s hospital. Instead she pointed with the blighted hoof to Rainbow’s pill and water. “You first.”

Perhaps sensing that she couldn’t push the issue farther, Rainbow leaned over and swallowed the pill off of the plate, then grabbed her glass in both hooves and washed the pill down with all of the water.

It was a challenging task with one hoof “disabled” but Applejack eventually got another pill out, which she swallowed dry. By the time she’d choked it down, Rainbow had already started on her Daring Do novel. Applejack smiled at the sight. Rainbow always liked to re-read that particular volume during her mercifully rare hospital visits, but the fact that she’d jumped right in—instead of watching Applejack take the pill—also showed Applejack how much Rainbow trusted her to follow through on her word. It would’ve been ridiculous if she hadn’t trusted Applejack, of course, but it still warmed the farmfilly’s heart to have that trust shown so clearly. Heck, there was a lot about the brash blue pegasus that warmed Applejack’s heart.

“Ah’ll check on up ya in a couple’a hours,” she said fondly.

“Hokay,” Rainbow grunted.

Applejack chuckled to herself; once Rainbow was in a book she was almost as bad as Twilight Sparkle. “See ya later, sugar cube.” She walked quietly out of the hospital—

Oh, right, they call it a sickbay here.

—and once in the passageway, she considered her options. She wasn’t sure where the others had gotten to, but she felt it was likely that somepony in her group would be at their quarters, and she was pretty sure she remembered—

“Haa-choo!”

—the directions there.

Huh. Must be all of this stale air.

She set out at a trot.

* * *

T minus one hour. Passenger airship Morning Glory, first class lounge.

“Your Highness?”

Her employer grunted, not turning from the window.

“Your Highness, you asked me to let you know when we caught up with the Celestia… we have. In fact, it’s visible from the port-side windows if you’d like to take a look.”

He turned now, glaring at her. “I’m aware that it’s visible from the port-side windows, Spoon. That’s why I’m looking out the starboard-side windows. Where there’s an actual view, rather than a tacky flying brick.”

The sheer, foalish petulance in Prince Blueblood’s voice took Silver Spoon by surprise. He was a hoofful on a good day—

And I used to think Diamond Tiara had entitlement issues—Ha!

—but in public Blueblood usually managed to maintain a façade of dignity and grace.

His blue eyes were still locked on her purple ones. “Was there something else, or did you come here solely to tell me something I already heard from a stewardess?” he sneered.

Silver Spoon allowed herself the luxury of one deep breath before replying. Something was clearly bothering Blueblood; while Silver Spoon didn’t care in the least about the prince’s feelings it was her job as his personal assistant to fix whatever was agitating the stallion, and losing her temper wouldn’t help anypony. First things first, though.

“Actually, I also came to update you on current events and work out a new schedule for your evening,” she said. She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a much-abused day planner as well as a few other items of paperwork. She set them down on the table by Blueblood—careful not to get any spittle on the forms—then used her hooves to spread them out for easy viewing.

Blueblood grimaced. “I thought that you and Lieutenant Caramel had already sorted all of that out.”

“Yes, Your Highness, we had. However, Dame Rarity won’t be aboard the Celestia tonight,” Silver Spoon said.

For a moment the prince’s face was a study in dismay, but it quickly changed to indignation. “What do you mean, ‘won’t be aboard’? This is Rarity we are speaking of! Even if she were not an Element bearer and a knight of the realm, she would never pass up an opportunity to attend an event of this magnitude!”

Magnitude, thought Silver Spoon, acutely aware of how Blueblood’s outbursts must be attracting attention. Negative attention that would have to smoothed over by a particular gray-coated earth pony. Right. That’s why you’re here instead of a Princess or two, because this is such a big deal.

Aloud she replied, “Dame Rarity was delayed at Canterlot Central Station, so she missed her sky chariot up to the Celestia. The rest of the Element bearers have arrived on time.”

“I don’t care about them,” Blueblood said with disdain. He frowned in thought for a moment, one hoof to his chin. “Send a scroll to the Palace instructing them to find an alternative transport for Dame Rarity. If need be, I hereby authorize a sky chariot pulled by at least eight pegasi of the Royal Guard.”

“That, uh, won’t be necessary, Your Highness,” Silver Spoon said. And thank Celestia; I’d never hear the end of it if I tried to push that order through! “Apparently she’s already arranged a flight on the Golden Luxury. She’ll be late, but she’ll be there.”

Blueblood chuckled quietly. “I’d hardly be surprised if she got them to pay her way, as well…”

Silver Spoon’s curiosity had been gnawing at her all day. “Your Highness, if I may ask: what is Dame Rarity to you?” she asked quietly.

“Why, she is my closest friend,” the prince replied, as though that should have been obvious.

“Huh?” Silver Spoon blurted. “I thought you were a couple until she dumped you.”

“Excuse me?” Price Blueblood asked softly, his eyes like little chunks of glacial ice.

“Uh, well, that’s how I heard it when I was a filly in Ponyville…” Silver Spoon lied. She’d actually heard the tale just a couple of weeks ago, when she started to research the Element bearers; the only ponies harder to deal with than nobles were celebrities, and the Element bearers were technically both. She’d only recently gotten past her shock at learning that two of the classmates she’d picked on as a filly were related to Element bearers. If only she’d known! She would have been nicer to them—and thus higher up in Canterlot’s social circles now.

“I see,” Blueblood replied. There was a cold pause wherein Silver Spoon could feel her job—and her actual Canterlot connections—slipping though her hooves. “It’s no business of yours, Spoon. However at the moment I’m inclined to reminisce, so I will allow your faux pas to pass this one time.”

Silver Spoon started breathing again.

“As you seem to have heard, I met Dame Rarity some years ago at the Grand Galloping Gala,” the prince began, settling himself more comfortably on his cushion. “She and her friends had not yet been knighted—Celestia was attempting to downplay the return of Night Mare Moon—so Twilight Sparkle was the only member of the group with any proper social standing. Rarity was simply a fashion designer with stars in her eyes and too many romance novels in her head.”

Silver Spoon nodded. So far the story was as she had heard, although the Palace servant she’d gotten the rumor from had described Dame Rarity in a more flattering light.

Blueblood used his magic to snag a flute of champagne from a passing steward before continuing. “When she laid eyes on me, she was convinced that I was her one true love.” He smirked, one eyebrow raised. “Which I must admit was a flattering change from the usual gold-diggers and social climbers, though I’m sure she would not have declined wealth or influence had I offered them to her. At any rate, she spent the evening trying to ingratiate herself to me. Though she was most attractive, I was a jaded soul even then.”

He paused, staring at his drink. Silver Spoon thought that it was just for dramatic effect, but when she looked more closely the prince actually seemed to be struggling for words. Finally he looked up and met her eyes.

“This may be hard to believe, Spoon, but in my youth I was rather a boor.”

Sometimes an emotional reaction will come on that’s so strong that its subject freezes up. Deer confronted by timber wolves can do this, as can a mouse when it feels an owl’s presence overhead. That’s what was happening to Silver Spoon; she was laughing inside so hard that her body didn’t move. Luckily for her Blueblood appeared to interpret this as shock.

“And so,” he said, his voice laden with gravitas, “Rather than gently decline her obvious intentions like the gentlecolt I was raised to be, I treated her horribly. I’ve treated servants better than I treated her that night." He shuddered daintily. "By the end I’d used her as an equine shield against a flying cake.”

He paused again and smiled to himself. “That was when matters took a turn for the surreal. First Rarity told me exactly what she thought of me, in front of half of Canterlot’s elite. I had had no idea, but my standing in court was rather… precarious, and Rarity’s outburst provided all the excuse needed to make me a pariah. I certainly wasn’t going to take that lying down—I am of the Blood Royal, after all! Stupid little stallion that I was, I confronted Celestia on the subject of her protégé’s impossibly uncouth friends.”

The phrase “confronted Celestia” rattled around in Silver Spoon’s head; her mind wouldn’t—couldn’t?—process the concept.

“Celestia was—as ever—the epitome of grace and reserve,” Blueblood continued. “She politely informed me that she had invited those ponies as a favor to Twilight Sparkle. She then informed me that they were the new bearers of the Elements of Harmony, and that the rumors of Night Mare Moon’s return were true.”

“That must’ve been... awkward,” Silver Spoon said recklessly.

The prince chuckled. “Oh, indeed. And I continued my streak of utter brilliance by accusing Celestia of lying to me.”

Silver Spoon was pretty sure her jaw didn’t actually hit the table, but it did drop as if it were trying to abandon her. “What did she do?”

“Why, she proved that she was telling the truth, of course—by sending me to meet Luna. I was smart enough to be concerned by that, especially since Celestia immediately had me escorted to Luna’s chambers by a pair of royal guards,” Blueblood said. “There were more guards at the door; at the time I thought they were keeping Luna inside, but I later learned that they were there to provide her with a degree of privacy.

“Celestia hadn’t told Luna that I was coming—or why—so I had to do so. She’s clever, that one: even though she appeared to be no more than a filly she phrased her questions in such a way that I quickly revealed more than I’d intended… including the part where I was an absolute beast to the bearer of Generosity.

“She took the news… poorly. Yelling was involved, as were flying objects.

“As it turned out, she felt nothing but the utmost respect and gratitude towards the Element bearers. Which makes sense of course, but at the time I hadn’t given the matter any thought. By the time I left Luna’s chambers I had gained ample motive to seek reconciliation with Rarity.”

The prince laughed to himself again.

“I remember asking Luna at the end whether there was even a chance that Rarity would forgive me. She called me a foal and said, ‘Yea, verily, for is not forgiveness an act of Generosity? Thou shouldst hasten to receive this blessing! Go to her now, colt; waste not another moment of Our night!’”

“What did you do?” Silver Spoon asked breathlessly. She had forgotten about the other passengers, about the need to update Blueblood’s schedule, about everything.

“I thanked her for her advice, left, and proceeded to drink myself comatose in my chambers.”

“What?!”

Blueblood winced at how loud Silver Spoon was, his ears folding back. “I was intimidated! Partly by my encounters with the Princesses, and partly by the prospect of seeking forgiveness. I’d hardly had to do that when I was a colt, and never as a stallion. It was almost inconceivable.

“The things Luna had said to me haunted me, though, and when Rarity appeared in Canterlot some months later—as Fancy Pants’ newest discovery, no less—I sought her out. She was less than receptive at first, but I persisted and she eventually forgave me. She even accepted my invitation to the launching of an airship. When she returned to Ponyville I began to write to her, and gradually a deep friendship blossomed between us,” the prince concluded.

Silver Spoon was still a little too caught up in the story to choose her words professionally. “So you two never dated?”

Blueblood smiled. “No. I doubt she wanted to think of me in that light, even after forgiving me for the Gala. As for me, I find it refreshing to have a mare in my life who is neither my employee nor angling to be my bride. Besides, I’m reasonably certain that I’d literally have to battle a dragon to gain Rarity’s hoof in marriage.”

Silver Spoon raised an eyebrow at that, but Prince Blueblood suddenly changed the subject: firing questions at her about his new schedule, demanding refreshers on which major players would be at the decommissioning and how he could recognize them, and generally being his normal demanding self.

Still, even in the midst of the chaos she made a mental note to find out what had been bothering him before she had mentioned Dame Rarity...

Miniseries, Night 1: The End (Act 3)

T minus thirty minutes. Ponystar Celestia, pegasus bay.

“—which then propels the pegasus forward at high speed for a much faster, combat-ready takeoff,” Lieutenant Caramel was saying to his tour group. “We’ll actually be using those for the decommissioning ceremony, to add a little pep to the performance!” He paused, as though expecting a reaction. When none arrived, Caramel pressed on. “Just to the right, you can see the launch coordinator’s booth. You may be surprised, but even though this is the pegasus bay the coordinator is usually an earth pony. Can anypony tell me why?”

An awkward silence stretched out and made itself comfortable in the bay. A tourist sneezed. Eventually one hoof went up.

“Yes, miss?” Caramel said desperately.

Sweetie Belle put her hoof down, her face betraying her confusion. “You… do know who we are, don’t you?” She gestured to each pony in turn. “I mean, Apple Bloom designed this bay, and Twilight Sparkle created the communications enchantments that the pegasi use in combat. Scootaloo's assigned to the Celestia, Fluttershy is on the Reserve Flyers list, and Big Macintosh served on the Firefly for two years. I admit that I don’t know much about how a ponystar works, myself—and your tour has been very informative—but I don’t think anypony would mind if you just let us look around on our own, or go to the kitchen—”

“Galley,” Caramel and Apple Bloom corrected reflexively.

“—galley, sorry, and get a bite to eat.”

“Uh…” Caramel began.

“Orders,” Mac grunted.

“Huh?” said Sweetie Belle.

“Oh! Oh! I get it!” Pinkie said, waving one hoof like a schoolfilly eager to impress her teacher. As always, the sound of her voice made Mac smile inside. “One of your bosses told you to take us on the tour or else, and you have to do it even though it’s silly and pointless, right?”

“Um…”

“Well, if ya gave your word—” Applejack was cut off by another sneeze, “—ya gave your word. Ah’ll play along: why is the coordinator an earth pony?”

Lieutenant Caramel was visibly relieved to be back on his script. “That’s because—in a bold departure from Equestrian tradition—jobs on a ponystar are commonly divided up by tribe. Pegasi are the only ponies who can fly, of course—”

Mac heard Twilight mutter something that sounded like “Glimmer wings.”

“—and unicorns are the only ones who can cast and maintain the various enchantments that a ponystar needs, such as the blade-wing enchantment that helps our brave pegasi in air-to-air combat, or the navigation enchantments that help guide the Celestia when we can’t see the ground or the stars. They also put their lives on the line in the point-defense rigs, casting combat spells at enemies who get too close. The earth pon—uh, yes, miss?”

Sweetie Belle had raised her hoof again. “I heard that the Celestia has never been combat-ready, so why split the jobs up on this ship?”

“Uh, yes, it’s technically true… The Celestia is under-powered compared to other ponystars, and so it’s always been listed as a Reserve vessel. As a result we mostly have a mix of ponies who are just beginning their military careers and ponies who are ending theirs. The veterans pass their skills on to the nuggets—that’s a bit of military slang, comparing the beginners to easy-to-eat chunks of carrot—and in the end the entire military benefits. It wouldn’t make sense to train the nuggets to follow different rules from every other ponystar, though, so we keep the tribes separated.” Caramel smiled, visibly pleased with his ad-libbing. “Now, then, the earth po—”

Sweetie Belle’s hoof was up again. Mac was reasonably sure she wasn’t doing it to mess with Caramel. Reasonably.

“Yes, miss?” Caramel sounded almost pained now.

“Which are you?”

Caramel blinked slowly. “What?”

“Are you a ‘nugget,’ or are you on your way out? You don’t look that old to me, but I thought Lieutenant was a pretty high rank, so…” Sweetie Belle trailed off with a shrug.

“Oh! Oh, right,” Caramel said. “Well, there are any number of reasons a pony can get posted to the Celestia. I volunteered, actually. Sure, it’s not the fast-track for promotions—that would probably be the Hurricane—but the Celestia has a sense of tradition, despite how young the Fleet is as a whole.” By now his expression was an endearing, almost embarrassed smile. Big Brother Sense a-tingling, Mac looked over to Apple Bloom, who was clearly enjoying the Lieutenant’s compliments to her work.

“One more question,” Sweetie Belle said.

Caramel lowered his head. “Yes, miss?”

“Do you have an identical twin who works as a ticket-taker at Canterlot Central Station?”

Mac was very, very good at reading ponies. It was an important skill, especially for somepony who was bad at socializing but had to do so to earn a living. Thus Mac saw Caramel freeze for a split second before chuckling and replying, “Why no, miss. Why do you ask?”

Sweetie Belle was also studying Caramel, much less subtly than Mac. “Sorry; it’s just that I could’ve sworn I saw you there, and I doubt that that’s a second job for you.”

“Oh,” Caramel said, rubbing the back of his head with one hoof. “Well, you know how it is: if you get a large enough group of ponies together you’re going to start thinking you see duplicates!” he said with an awkward laugh. Caramel’s expression of slightly vapid friendliness was back in place by now, and a quick glance told Mac that most of the girls had never noticed its absence. “So, uh, did anypony else have a question?”

Pinkie raised a hoof, her face inscrutable even to Mac’s trained eye.

Caramel looked like he wanted to tear his mane out. “Yes, Dame Pie?”

“Oh, it’s Apple these days," she corrected cheerfully. "Anyway, what do earth ponies do on the Celestia?” she asked with a huge smile.

“I’m glad you asked!” Lieutenant Caramel said almost desperately. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, most of the decks and bulkheads on the Celestia are made of wood. What you may not know is that most of them are living wood, from a single massive tree that was uprooted and enchanted to serve as the Celestia’s core.” Perhaps having a better feel for his audience now, Caramel gestured to Twilight and Apple Bloom as he asked, “Care to tell us the story there?”

“Well, Twilight did most of the work,” Apple Bloom replied.

“True, but it was your idea, Apple Bloom,” Twilight demurred.

“‘Vision without action is a daydream,’ as they said in ancient Neighon,” Apple Bloom said.

“They also said ‘Action without vision is a nightmare,’” Twilight countered. She did a double-take. “Wait! Since when are you a scholar of the Far East?” she asked.

When Apple Bloom turned to face Twilight instead of the group, Mac couldn’t see her face. Even though he couldn’t tell what kind of look Apple Bloom gave Twilight, Apple Bloom’s voice was smug—definitely smug and nothing else, yup—as she said, “Full. Of. Surprises.”

Mac fake-coughed into a forehoof, and Apple Bloom flinched as though caught with her mouth in the cookie jar.

The youngest Apple cleared her throat in turn and said to the group: “Anyway, what we mean to say is that Twilight 'n’ I used a living tree because it’d be more durable. Sure, inanimate objects hold enchantments for longer—sometimes forever—without maintenance, but you can put some really powerful spells into a living thing.”

“For instance,” Twilight said, “We were able to re-shape the tree into the framework of the ponystar while maintaining its structural integrity. That’s one of the few grand enchantments that fortunately doesn’t require refreshing, since growing is something the tree naturally ‘wants’ to do. The self-repair enchantment is similar, although that requires some resources in the form of water, sunlight, and nutrients. It also requires a touch of earth pony magic to get it started.”

“Thank you, ladies,” Lieutenant Caramel said, smiling. “As Dame Sparkle said, repairs are a part of what the earth pony crewmembers get up to here on the Celestia. We’re also responsible for administrative duties and other miscellaneous tasks. I’ll admit that our jobs aren’t glamorous, but we keep the ponystar flying so the other tribes can do their part.”

“About that,” Apple Bloom said. “I’ve noticed that most of the earth ponies I’ve seen here are wearing orange jackets, while most of the unicorns have been wearing dark blue jackets like yours. Isn’t orange the enlisted color and blue the officer color?”

“Yes, miss, that’s right,” Caramel said. “Mostly maintenance jobs are considered lower-grade work than, say, working in the CIC—that’s ‘Combat Information Center.’”

“So ranks’re based on jobs, 'n’ jobs’re based on tribes? 'N’ why is that?” Apple Bloom cut in. Between her tone and the fact that her accent was showing more than usual, Mac knew that Caramel was in trouble.

“I’m afraid that’s my fault,” Twilight said, her head and ears down. “Equestria hadn’t had a real military for millennia when we started making the ponystars. I looked up the ancient regulations and ranking systems but nothing quite applied to our situation, so I had to cobble something together very quickly. I’m sorry, Apple Bloom; I didn’t mean for the system to be biased against earth ponies.”

Apple Bloom was clearly torn; Mac could tell that the situation still bothered her, but that she didn’t want to be mad at Twilight. Finally she blushed slightly and said, “Well, as long as it was an accident. Heck, maybe we can fix it up after the decommissioning.”

Twilight looked relieved. “Thanks, Apple Bloom. And yes; I’ll write to the Princesses as soon as we’re done here.”

Lieutenant Caramel had the look of a pony who wanted to be anywhere but where he was. “So, uh, ladies… And Mr. Apple… How about we go on up to the CIC and see how the Celestia is run?”

This idea met with a round of general agreement, as well as a sneeze from Applejack.

As the group made their way through the ship’s passageways, Mac positioned himself near Applejack. “AJ. You okay?” he asked quietly.

“Huh?” she said; she looked like her mind had been wandering. “Oh, hey Mac. Naw, I’m fine; it’s just dusty in here. Stale air, y’know?” She sniffed, and it sounded like she was trying to polish off a milkshake.

Mac said nothing.

“Aw, don’t fret ‘bout me. You’ve already got Pinkie to look after.”

Mac frowned, but knew that AJ would have to come around on her own. It was strange, though; he’d always heard that only pegasi could get the feather flu.

“Hi, everypony!” came a cheerful mare’s voice.

The group turned to see Cheerilee approaching from down a branching passageway, and paused to let the schoolteacher catch up. When she had, her green eyes seemed to dance as she took in the sight of the former Cutie Mark Crusaders. For their part, the three young mares swept their former teacher up in a huge hug.

“Oh my little ponies, it’s so nice to see you all again! Ah, Scootaloo! Those must be the prosthetic wings Apple Bloom wrote me about! They look amazing!”

“Thanks!”

Mac noticed Twilight rolling her eyes for some reason.

“Speaking of! Apple Bloom, I still can’t believe that you designed this ship!” Cheerilee gushed.

“Aw, I didn’t do it all by myself, Miss Cheerilee…”

“Just ‘Cheerilee,’ Apple Bloom, I insist! You girls have certainly earned that! Oh, and Sweetie Belle! I have every one of your albums!”

“Wow, really?!”

Cheerilee nodded, adamant. “Absolutely. Your voice is amazing! I’m so glad you finally got over your stage fright! And to think, you three used to worry that you’d never get those!” She pointed to each young mare’s flank. “I hope you agree that they were worth the wait; those are some of the most amazing cutie marks I’ve ever seen!”

The trio was at a loss for words; they seemed half proud and half embarrassed by Cheerilee’s compliments.

“Oh, that reminds me! Sweetie Belle, Captain Soarin’ of the Wonderbolts would like to see you, if you have a moment.”

“Wait,” said Scootaloo. “You know Soarin’? And not that I’m not glad to see you, but what are you doing up here? Did you join the military?”

Cheerilee laughed. “Oh, no, no. I’m not in the military—no jacket, see?” Sure enough, she was as naked as most of the tour group. “I just stop by the Celestia every now and again to advise the instructors here on their teaching techniques. Commander Agrippa seems to value my experience as a schoolteacher; he also says I remind him of somepony. Anyway, that’s how I met the Wonderbolts—I’ve consulted with Major Spitfire and Captain Soarin’ both.”

“Oh…” Scootaloo said, clearly still confused.

“So what does Soarin’ want to talk to me about?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Well, he’s added another routine to the air show for the decommissioning, and he wanted you compose a song for it,” Cheerilee said.

“Another song?” Sweetie Belle complained. She stomped a hoof daintily on the deck, reminding Mac keenly of her sister. “I’ve already composed four all new pieces for this ceremony, not to mention the fact that I’ll be singing seven of my greatest hits and the national anthem!”

“Oh my!” Cheerilee said. “I had no idea they were working you so hard!” She paused for a moment, thinking. “I know! Rather than composing something, why don’t you use somepony else’s song? I bet most singers would be happy to have you cover their work, especially since you’re not making any money off of this.”

Sweetie Belle looked a bit calmer. “That might work… But which song?”

“How about ‘Eye of the Hydra?’ It’s about a pegasus anyway.” Cheerilee said.

Sweetie Belle raised an eyebrow. “I... don’t think I know that one.”

“I suppose it would be a bit before your time,” Cheerilee said, looking slightly embarrassed. “I could sing it for you, if you like… Oh, but it loses a lot without the instruments backing it up…”

“I’ve got you covered!” Pinkie said. Everypony looked to her; Pinkie was wearing a one-pony-band setup, including an enchanted guitar and most of a drum kit.

One of these days I’ll figure out how she does that, Mac promised himself with a small smile. Ah, who am I kidding? She’s Pinkie, and that’s that.

“Uh, okay…” Sweetie Belle said.

Her face a mix of nervousness and excitement, Cheerilee cleared her throat. She let Pinkie lead in with the music, then sang:

“Risin’ up, atop a roof;
Did my time, took my chances~.
Went the distance,
Now I’m back on my hooves,
Just a mare and her will to survive~.

So many times, it happens too fast;
You trade your passion for glory~.
Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past;
You must fight just to keep them alive~!

It’s the… eye of the hydra; it’s the thrill of the fight,
Rising up to the challenge of our rival!
And the last known survivor stalks her prey in the night,
And she’s watching us all with the eye~~ of the hydra!”

The song continued, but Mac was elsewhere. He hadn’t heard that song in a long, long time. It took him back to when he was just a gangly colt, doing his best in all of his classes even though he knew that most of them were useless to a farmer, pining for this filly or that, laughing with his friends.

He came back to himself as Cheerilee finished, and he stomped his applause. So did Pinkie, which caused quite the ruckus given that she was still wearing all of her instruments. The others applauded too, but Mac could tell that most of them hadn’t been as moved as he was. Cheerilee met his eye and blushed.

When the applause died down Sweetie Belle said, “Wow… That was—”

“That was awesome!” Scootaloo interrupted. She turned to Sweetie Belle. “You’ve got to sing that during the air show!”

“Really?! I—I mean, you liked it that much?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Heck yeah!”

“Well, okay then,” Sweetie Belle said. Turning to Cheerilee she added, “Thank you very much for the song, Mis—um, I mean—Cheerilee.”

Cheerilee’s ears were folded back; she’d had more time to be embarrassed, and had apparently used it well. “Oh, of course! I’m, uh, glad you all liked it!”

“Come on, Sweetie Belle! Let’s go tell Soarin’ he’s got a song!” Scootaloo said.

The two headed off down another passageway; Cheerilee also parted with the group. After a short detour to the head, Lieutenant Caramel finally led the remaining ponies to the CIC. Pinkie had shed her instruments somewhere along the way, but nopony actually saw it happen. Mac was finally interested in the tour for its own sake. Aboard the Firefly he’d only risen to Petty Officer First Class, and he’d always been curious about the ship’s nerve center.

Even with the Celestia simply moving in a mostly straight line at a low speed, the CIC was a hub of activity. Quiet, controlled activity, but activity nonetheless. Everypony here wore the dark jacket of an officer, regardless of tribe. A chocolate-brown earth pony mare was speaking into a headset, likely addressing her counterpart on another airship. In the center of the room, next to a glowing table showing a map of Ponyville, a black-maned unicorn was levitating several clipboards and speaking softly with the Celestia’s top two ponies. Both were pegasus stallions; one had a dark tan coat and a craggy face, the other was gray-on-gray and was missing a wing. The one-winged pegasus looked up from the unicorn’s clipboards and glared at the tour group.

“Over here we have Communications, then Damage Control, which can be used to open or seal parts of the ship and re-route power to different areas,” Caramel was saying. “Just past that is Resource Management, which is where we monitor the amount of food and water left aboard. Thanks to the redundancies built into her—Oh! Bless you, Dame Apple—the Celestia can theoretically stay airborne for months without stopping for supplies. On the other side there is the TUC—that’s Tactical Unicorn Coordination—then the control panel for the Rainboom Drive, then Navigation, then—”

“Lieutenant Caramel.”

Their guide turned, and jumped slightly when he saw the gray-on-gray pegasus standing right behind him, glaring.

“Y-yes, Colonel?” Caramel stammered.

“I believe I told you to take these ponies on a tour,” the Colonel said, his voice a growl.

“Yes, sir. That’s why I—”

“As in, ‘Keep them out of the CIC so we can get some work done without tripping over feathered civilians!’”

“Well, actually—”

Apple Bloom stepped up. “I’d hardly call us civilians, Colonel…?”

“Salt Tie,” he said, turning his glare and growl on her. “And just who the hay are you supposed to be?”

“Well, Colonel Tie, if you want to keep the straight course you’ve got plotted on that navigational board, you’ll want to increase output on the number four wind talisman by three percent,” Apple Bloom said, as though she were discussing the weather.

Tie glared at her for a moment. “Lieutenant Gate!” he barked.

The clipboard-holding unicorn trotted up. “Sir?”

“What’s the current output on WTs three and four?” Tie asked, not breaking eye contact with Apple Bloom.

Gate trotted over to a console that Caramel hadn’t pointed out yet and studied the screen. “Number three talisman reads sixty percent output. Number four reads… Fifty-six percent.”

“You’re off by a percent,” the Colonel sneered, leaning in towards Apple Bloom.

The yellow mare’s tone and expression were condescending now. “Don’t tell me none of y’all ever figured out that number four always reads one percent lower than it’s actually puttin’ out.”

Tie leaned back, his expression turning neutral. He turned to the unicorn. “Mr. Gate, correct the output on WT four by three percent.” Turning back, he asked Apple Bloom, “How’d you know all that? Are you a spy?”

The Colonel’s tone was serious, but Apple Bloom took his last question for the joke it was. Smiling now, she said, “I didn’t install mirrors in the corners of the ceiling so y’all could look at yourselves; they’re up there so you can keep an eye on every station from down by the tactical board.” She gestured first to the table with the map of Ponyville, and then to the console Lieutenant Gate had examined. “'N’ I stared at the wind talisman console so long trying to figure out what was going on with number four that I can read the darn thing backwards like that,” she added, snapping her tail like a whip.

The crag-faced pegasus approached and offered a forehoof to the young mare. “You must be Apple Bloom,” he said. There was the faintest trace of a smile on his face and in his tone. “I’m Commander Agrippa. It’s a pleasure to finally meet one of the masterminds behind the ponystars.” Apple Bloom hesitated a moment, but eventually took Agrippa’s hoof in two of hers and shook.

Tie shot Agrippa a look that Mac read as dubious. Agrippa said, “What, Salt? Don’t you think her cutie mark looks like the one stamped on the plating inside the Resource Management console?” Turning back to Apple Bloom he added, “We had to open it up for repairs a few months ago.”

Colonel Tie thought for a moment. “Well, I’ll be…” he said, recognition dawning on his face. “You’re right. I didn’t recognize it because it was inside of a heart, next to—”

“Ooooh, what does this button do?” Pinkie asked loudly. Everypony turned to her and froze in horror as one pink hoof descended.

*Click*

Something loud happened somewhere, and the CIC trembled slightly.

“SOMEPONY GET THESE CIVILIANS OUT OF THE CIC BEFORE I HAVE YOU ALL COURT-MARTIALED!” Tie bellowed in a fair impression of the Royal Canterlot Voice.

“Status report,” Commander Agrippa said. Mac could hear his concern and anger, but they were tightly controlled.

Caramel was still staring at Pinkie and the Damage Control console, his jaw hanging.

Lieutenant Gate galloped over to Damage Control. He looked willing to shove Pinkie out of the way, but she stepped aside just before he got there. The unicorn scanned the console carefully, then sighed in relief. “She performed an emergency jettison, Commander, but it was on Cargo Bay Seventeen,” he called down to Agrippa. “Seventeen was empty to begin with.”

Caramel snorted in fear and galloped out of the CIC, almost bowling over a young mare attempting to enter. The Colonel was not mollified; his face was still changing colors as though he’d tasted liquid rainbow. Applejack sneezed. Commander Agrippa turned to Apple Bloom, his face completely calm; Mac hoped he never ended up at a poker table with that stallion.

“Miss,” he said, “would you be so kind as to escort your…?”

“Sister-in-law,” Apple Bloom mumbled, mortified. “She’s, uh, a knight of the realm, too…”

Agrippa ignored that last part. “Would you be so kind as to escort your sister-in-law and the rest of your party to the galley—or some other part of my ship—where they can safely enjoy themselves?”

“Uh, right,” Apple Bloom said, her earlier feistiness gone. She turned to the rest of the group. “Let’s go, everypony; these folks have a job to do.”

Subdued, the party departed.

* * *

???, Aitselec Ratsynop. os ro setunim neetfif sunim T.

she was wandering which wasn’t unusual at all wandering was what she did most of the time ever since the terrible horrible evil ones did their terrible horrible evil deed and made her so alone alone lonely loneliness l one l i-ness it was really awful to be alone the only one of her kind kept away from everyone she loved love love love was such a cruel emotion it drew her to others who would then get swept away by the cold dark tides of the sea well not really the sea but life was like a hurricane here in ponyville and no wait that’s not how that goes that’s not how it was life here was boring ever since the terrible horrible evil ones did their terrible horrible evil deed and made her so alone except that she wasn’t alone not really there was her cousin or was she more of an aunt maybe a an ant several times removed ants were so small she felt so small when she was alone it was just the worst feeling in the world to be so alone and so helpless after all the world ran on magic she could see it all around and magic was friendship was magic so since she was alone she was powerless that’s why nopony liked her oh they’d pretend to for a little while say things like hi there are you okay why are you crying and then they’d get bored or turn into a pile of iguanas or take her back to their houses and keep up the lie don’t you think you should eat something and she’d say yes i’m so hungry may i have some cotton candy please very politely just like Daddy had taught her and they’d laugh at her or catch on fire or say i think you should have something healthier how about an apple and because she was a good girl like Daddy had taught her to be she’d say okay even though they never tasted right they never tasted like they used to when she was with Daddy every bite a new experience now they just tasted like fruit so bland so boring yes cotton candy always tasted the same too but it was cotton candy it was time travel a door that took her back to when Daddy was around and they would play and they would laugh oh how they’d laugh someday she was going to kill the terrible horrible evil ones kill them all rip their hearts out and make them watch and how she’d laugh no no no no no Daddy said

“Never kill, my dear; killing is—usually—permanent, and permanent is boring.”

that’s right boring boring was the worst possible thing even worse than being rude there was nothing as bad as being boring why oh why did the world have to be so boring and oh look there’s a dragon sleeping in this big wood-and-metal room she remembered the dragon his name was rainbow dash but no wait this dragon couldn’t be that dragon this dragon was big about the size of a pony or maybe bigger she had never been good with measurements like length or width or depth or heighth or weighth or timeth and he had wings she remembered rainbow dash rainbow dash was little and had no wings she’d considered making him wings but she’d been busy just playing in the muffin fields muffins were nice was this dragon mad at her oh no never mind he was just moving in his sleep she kept walking down the strange hallway how had she gotten here anyway well it wasn’t too important at least this was somewhere she’d never been before and that was a balm to her aching soul they should’ve sent a poet poets were good at describing things and they almost seemed to get her sometimes like really get her it’s like everyone is connected man you know and

there

she saw them and they didn’t see her they couldn’t see her she was behind them it was all of them no wait it was most of them not the white one but there were others a red one and a yellow one and a little one she couldn’t tell the color of inside the pink one

the pink one

the evil one

the evil one the worst of them all the race-traitor turned and looked straight at her did she see could she see no she couldn’t see her she couldn’t or else there was no way she’d make it out of here they’d turn her to stone just like Daddy just like Daddy the evil one was smiling smiling her evil smile that didn’t look evil at all it looked friendly but that was the trap that was the trap oh Daddy help me please i’m so scared

“Welcome back!”

she does see me she does this is the end i’ll never see Daddy again oh no behind me there’s the white one and wait an orange one with silver wings what in the world that’s new i like new things but the pink one the evil one oh she’s just talking to them not me she couldn’t see me after all oh oh oh my what a relief and look the white one isn’t even the white one it’s a different white one don’t they need all six to work their evil gypsy magic okay don’t stick around just keep on walking just keep walking and now they’re gone or she’s gone or at any rate she’s not where they are and what is this present tense well she did like presents and she was pretty tense so oh wait past tense now but she didn’t see any tents oh right of course she had passed tents on her way here it all made sense

* * *

T minus five minutes. Ponystar Celestia, starboard passageway #12.

Twilight surreptitiously studied Pinkie, though that was easier said than done. Even without her—ugh—Pinkie Sense, the pink earth pony was extremely observant. At a glance, nopony would ever suspect that Pinkie was constantly taking in every detail of her surroundings. In anypony else that habit would be extremely unsettling, but Pinkie almost exclusively used her superequine awareness to make other ponies’ lives better. If a mare was window-shopping and sighed at the cost of a hat at Carousel Boutique there was a good chance that the hat would be sold to a certain pastry chef within the week, only to reappear before the longing mare on her next birthday.

There was another obstacle in Twilight’s way: their friends. The party had reunited with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo a few minutes ago, and it seemed like everypony and her sister wanted Twilight’s attention for something. Twilight loved her friends of course, but at the moment her mind was locked upon the puzzle of Pinkie’s behavior.

First off, the way she was acting right now was strange. Under normal circumstances Pinkie was always in the center of a group, contributing to conversations on the few occasions she wasn’t initiating them. For the past couple of minutes, though, she’d been distracted; she would lose the threads of conversations, and kept looking around as though she were trying to find something down each hall that they passed.

Then there was what Pinkie had done in the CIC. Pinkie could be… eccentric, but she was a grown mare and had been a knight of the realm for most of her adult life; she knew the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behavior in a formal setting. Given that, why had she chosen to push a button—the function of which she could not have known—and call attention to herself in the process? Twilight considered it from several different angles, working it over and over in her mind. She was close; she could feel it. It was like the answer was staring her in the face…

“You okay, Twilight?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Huh?” Twilight blurted, stepping back, her train of thought lost. The young mare had sidled up next to Twilight while the purple unicorn was lost in thought.

“You looked like something was bothering you,” Apple Bloom elaborated.

“I did?”

The yellow earth pony nodded, her fluffy red mane bobbing as she did so. “Yep. You were doing this…” Apple Bloom slowly thrust her head forward until her neck was almost parallel to her spine. As she did she grimaced and narrowed her red-orange eyes until it looked like she was trying to find a bug on Twilight’s coat, and reached up with one hoof and tapped her chin gently. After a few seconds of this, she snapped back to a normal posture. “I call it ‘the Perplexor,’” she concluded with a smile.

I don’t really look like that when I’m thinking, do I?

“Yep, you really look like that sometimes,” Apple Bloom said. Before Twilight could respond, the younger mare smiled and added, “You just had ‘the Incredulator’ on.”

Frowning, Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“We worked side-by-side for years creating these ships, Twilight. You spend enough time with somepony, you learn to read them,” Apple Bloom said. Then her mouth scrunched up oddly and she glanced down and to the side for an instant. “Well, most folks learn.”

Twilight rested a consoling hoof on Apple Bloom’s shoulder. “Hey, don’t be upset; you’re actually really good at reading me.”

It must have been the right thing to say, because Apple Bloom laughed. When she finished, her eyes were sparkling the way Pinkie’s did when she was about to pull a prank. “Oh, Twilight,” Apple Bloom said. “What am I gonna do with you?”

“Hi, Spike!” Twilight heard Pinkie say.

Twilight turned to see Pinkie hugging a Big Macintosh-sized slab of scale and muscle. Through trial and error, Twilight and Spike had learned that gradually indulging Spike’s natural draconic greed over a long stretch of time gave him a more normal growth cycle. As far as they could tell it still wasn’t quite the same as what “wild” dragons went through, but this way he was neither growing hundreds of feet in an afternoon nor trapped forever as a baby. Twilight missed being able to trot around Ponyville with her Number One Assistant on her back, but she had to admit that his current form was a better fit for his sharp, curious mind.

“Oh, uh, hey, Pinkie,” Spike said, returning the hug as though afraid he’d break Pinkie. It was extremely odd to hear that voice—almost the same as the one he’d had when they moved to Ponyville—coming out of that body. On all fours, Spike was roughly the same size and build as Big Macintosh. Spike actually looked surprisingly equine at the moment: his jaws and neck had just started to elongate, and though his wings were about the size of a pegasus’ they were still too small to provide lift for his bulky frame. On a moonless night, a pony could almost take him for one of the Night Guard’s pegasi. Almost was an important word, though, because no pony had a tail as long or thick as Spike’s. On two legs or four, Spike’s tail was a disaster zone: it seemed to think it was part of some other dragon entirely, one bent on destroying vases, knocking books off of shelves, and tripping ponies. Twilight estimated that Spike would get used to it around the time his voice started to crack, by which time she’d have gray in her mane. She decided to halt that train of thought.

“So!” Twilight blurted, getting Spike’s attention—and by extension the attention of everypony in their group. Ooops… Ears folding back and a blush spreading on her cheeks, she pressed on. “How’s the new mattress treating you?”

Squatting, Spike yawned and scratched at his bright green spines. Out of the corner of her eye, Twilight could see Fluttershy not fainting at the sight of Spike’s newest set of fangs. Barely.

Good job, Fluttershy!

“I dunno, Twilight,” Spike said. “Don’t get me wrong—it’s very comfy—but that’s almost a bad thing. I keep waking up wishing I’d slept in longer.”

“Hmmm…” The new mattress had two hundred and forty bits stuffed in with the normal stuffing. Spike enjoyed the feel of the coins as he slept, and they’d found out that it was also important for his growth that he knew the market value of his bedding. Twilight ran some quick calculations based on past experience, and decided that the optimum number of bits for his current size was likely two hundred and twenty. “Okay,” she said, “how about we cut it back to two hundred and ten?”

Spike glared at her, flaring his spines. “Two hundred thirty!” he snarled. Somehow Fluttershy continued to not pass out.

Twilight leaned back and lowered her head, as though intimidated. “Would two hundred and twenty be okay?”

Spike settled down onto his belly and grumbled for a moment, drumming his claws on the wood of the deck. “Fine,” he eventually said. “I’ll store the extra twenty somewhere else.”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Twilight said. She noticed that Apple Bloom was staring at her, a strange expression on her face. For a moment Twilight considered explaining the delicate dance of manipulating a dragon’s instincts, and how it was sometimes necessary even when Spike would normally be cooperative. Instead she flashed the young earth pony what she hoped was a cocky smirk and said, “I’ve got secrets too.”

Twilight wasn’t sure what reaction she had been expecting, but Apple Bloom’s almost-hungry smile and half-lidded eyes weren’t it. “Touché,” said Apple Bloom.

Out of the corner of her eye Twilight saw Applejack lean over to Big Macintosh. When Twilight turned her head slightly she could see that Applejack was whispering something to Big Macintosh. He shook his head. This little performance repeated twice, with Applejack looking more and more annoyed each time. On the fourth attempt, though, she sneezed in Big Macintosh’s ear. That was apparently all that Big Macintosh would tolerate. Glaring at Applejack he said, “You want to know so bad? Fine! Yes, yes she is. Happy?”

Apple Bloom put a hoof to her forehead. “Oh feather me sideways,” she said.

Confused by the Apple family’s actions, Twilight looked to Apple Bloom in concern. “Is something wrong with Pinkie?” she whispered.

Three things happened in extremely rapid succession:

Apple Bloom looked at Twilight as though she’d grown a second head made of singing daffodils.

Applejack vomited and collapsed, caught at the last moment by Fluttershy.

A voice spoke from everywhere and nowhere, thanks to the communication enchantments woven throughout the Celestia. Twilight distantly recognized it as belonging to Lieutenant Gate. “Action stations, action stations,” he said. “Set Condition Two throughout the ship. This is not a drill. I repeat: action stations, action stations. Set Condition Two throughout the ship. This is not a drill.”

Miniseries, Night 1: The End (Act 4)

T. Ponystar Celestia, starboard passageway #12.

It felt like time slowed to a crawl as Applejack began to vomit. All of Fluttershy’s usual anxieties, neuroses, phobias, legitimate fears, and shyness boiled away as her full attention settled on her orange-coated friend. Fluttershy didn’t know how, but Applejack was showing the symptoms of an advanced case of feather flu.

Coughing. It had been the lack of coughing that had thrown Fluttershy off of the feather flu’s scent. Instead of aggravating the lungs—as in every case she’d ever heard of—the disease had gone for the mucous membranes in Applejack’s muzzle. Fluids had built up, making her sneeze and making it hard for her to breathe without sniffling. Fluttershy couldn’t tell from where she stood, but she was reasonably certain that Applejack’s ankles and lymph nodes would be swollen, too… unless that was another area where the disease had gone off-track. As the feather flu continued to build it led to nausea, vomiting, delirium, and wing cramps. That was the stage Applejack had just entered… minus the wing cramps, obviously. Of course, she shouldn’t be at this stage because A) the disease took about three weeks to advance this far and B) Applejack wasn’t a pegasus.

Applejack began to fall, and Fluttershy raced to catch her. She narrowly succeeded, bracing the sturdy farmpony with both forelegs and her own torso. Fluttershy cradled Applejack’s head gently, turning her so that any remaining vomit came out smoothly instead of collecting in the earth pony’s throat and choking her. In the process Fluttershy was splattered with the remains of Applejack’s breakfast, but she didn’t care. Applejack needed proper medical attention, the sooner the better. The next stage of the feather flu was a high fever that—if left untreated—could cause brain damage or death.

“Action stations, action stations. Set Condition Two throughout the ship. This is not a drill. I repeat: action stations, action stations. Set Condition Two throughout the ship. This is not a drill.”

Scootaloo froze in shock for a moment before flying off down a connecting passageway.

Everyone else began to move towards the two mares on the deck, but Fluttershy waved them off with one hoof. “Give her room! She needs air!” she yelled. Once the vomit had stopped flowing Fluttershy looked into Applejack’s mouth and checked her throat to make sure she could breathe freely. Satisfied, Fluttershy laid Applejack on the deck on her side. She looked to Big Macintosh. “She’s breathing, but I can’t carry her to sickbay by myself.” Big Macintosh nodded and shucked off his collar. Small cracks appeared in the living wood of the deck where it landed.

“Wait!” Twilight said. Reflexively, Fluttershy glared at the purple unicorn—Applejack’s life was on the line!

Before Fluttershy or Big Macintosh could speak, Sweetie Belle cut in: “What’s this Condition Two?”

“‘Threat probable, but not present,’” Twilight quoted from memory, her face pale. She swallowed, then continued: “The Fleet has different levels of battle-readiness, from Condition Five—for holding anchor at a friendly port in peacetime—to Condition One, which is for when a ship is actively engaging an enemy.” She turned to Spike. “Spike, you and Fluttershy take Applejack to sickbay—”

“I’ll go,” Big Macintosh interrupted. “I’m faster.” He sounded so determined that he almost seemed angry; under normal circumstances Fluttershy would’ve been alarmed, but right now she just wanted her friends to make a decision and get Applejack to a doctor.

“I’m sure that’s true when you’re unburdened, but Spike can run on two legs and still carry Applejack securely,” said Twilight. “His overall speed will be higher under the circumstances. Besides, the rest of us need to head to the CIC to see if we can help in any way, and I need you to go ahead of us and assess the situation so we can get to work faster.” Despite her concern for Applejack, Fluttershy felt a small burst of proud joy for her unicorn friend. Twilight could never admit it, but her talent for organization and her impressive intellect made her a natural-born leader.

Big Macintosh glared at Twilight and frowned. “But—”

Twilight stamped a hoof. “Do I need to pull rank on you, soldier?” she asked, sounding almost like Colonel Tie. Fluttershy was confused for a moment, until she remembered that being knights of the realm meant that she and her friends were all technically officers in the Fleet. As best Fluttershy could recall, Big Macintosh was only an enlisted pony.

Big Macintosh snorted, still glaring. “No, ma’am,” he ground out between clenched teeth.

“Then get moving,” Twilight said.

Big Macintosh vanished in a blur of red. Fluttershy froze for a moment, astonished. She had only ever seen one earth pony move that fast before, and Pinkie wasn’t exactly a normal earth pony. A quick glance confirmed that most of the group was as surprised as she was.

Pinkie gestured to Big Macintosh’s discarded collar. “It’s heavier than it looks,” she said by way of explanation. “Mackie has to take it off when we…” she glanced at Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom, then gestured with her hooves to make quotation marks, “…‘wrestle,’ or else he’d squash me flat as a pancake!”

Apple Bloom rolled her eyes, and Sweetie Belle slapped a hoof to her forehead.

Twilight shook her head as though waking up from a dream, and turned to Spike again. “Applejack! Sickbay! CIC after! Go!”

“Uh, right!” Spike said. He moved to Fluttershy’s side in three long strides, and scooped Applejack up in a powerful-yet-gentle grip. “Come on, Fluttershy!”

Fluttershy nodded and hurried off, Spike and Applejack close behind.

* * *

T plus ten minutes. Ponystar Celestia, central passageway #02.

As she galloped with the group towards the CIC, Twilight Sparkle tried to plan out where she and her friends should go and what they should do if a battle really did break out.

Scootaloo had already left, no doubt to report to Spitfire in the pegasus bay. Rainbow Dash was also an active-duty flyer, but of course she and Applejack were stuck in the sickbay. Just by virtue of being a pegasus Fluttershy should technically follow Scootaloo, but Twilight highly doubted that the gentle yellow mare would be leaving the sickbay while two of her friends were so ill.

As for the Apples… Commander Agrippa would likely order Big Macintosh to join a repair team. The huge red stallion wouldn’t like such a passive role, agitated as he was by his sister’s condition, but unless enemy troops boarded the Celestia it was the best use of his abilities. Apple Bloom had enough experience with the CIC’s consoles to serve there, but given her talents she’d be better off on a repair team as well. Heck, she could probably be a repair team. Pinkie would likely sit the battle out due to her pregnancy.

That just left Sweetie Belle, Spike, and Twilight herself. They would probably all wind up on the outer hull of the ship with most of the Celestia’s unicorns, strapped into point-defense rigs and hurling spells—or fire, in Spike’s case—at any enemy flyers that got past the pegasi. Twilight blanched a little at the thought. She knew Apple Bloom had put all of her considerable ability into making the rigs as safe as possible, but she didn’t relish the thought of testing them firsthoof. On top of that, she doubted that Sweetie Belle knew any combat spells.

Twilight rounded a corner into passageway number one, but only a few paces in she skidded to a stop. She turned around in an effort to halt Pinkie and spare her the sight, but even pregnant the pink mare was surprisingly fast. She had already rounded the corner, and like Twilight she had frozen in horror.

“Mackie?” Pinkie squeaked, her eyes huge.

As the rest of the group caught up, Twilight looked back towards the CIC. The hatch was shut, Big Macintosh lying just outside it. He was on his side, back arched and legs twisted into unnatural positions. Bloody froth lined his lips, and his eyes had rolled back in their sockets. Twilight couldn’t tell if he was breathing.

“Macintosh!”

Apple Bloom’s cry and her lunge towards her brother snapped Pinkie out of her shock. Together the two raced towards the fallen stallion. Twilight and Sweetie Belle held back; Twilight didn’t know Sweetie Belle’s reason, but she herself was recalling Fluttershy’s commands from a few minutes before.

“Mackie! Mackie!” Pinkie wailed, shaking her husband by his huge red shoulder.

“Mac! It’s Apple Bloom! Speak ta me!”

Twilight inched forward hesitantly. She’d never had medical training—not even a first aid class—but she knew that breathing was a good thing to check for. Luckily, once she was closer she could see Mac’s sides moving slowly with his weak breaths. Letting out a breath of her own, Twilight cast a spell and summoned a globe of water over Big Macintosh’s head. She quickly checked to make sure it wasn’t steaming—her spell had teleported the water from the nearest source, and for all she knew that was a water heater—before she released the water, letting it splash down on Big Macintosh’s head.

Whether from the shock of cold water or from Pinkie and Apple Bloom’s attentions, Big Macintosh finally stirred. His eyelids twitched, followed by his whole body. The twitches moved from his head to his hooves like a ripple in a pond; the overall effect deeply unsettled Twilight. Finally, Big Macintosh began to cough: loud, wet coughs that brought up more bloody foam.

Pinkie was sobbing into her husband’s coat, her forelegs wrapped about him as if to shield him from attack. Apple Bloom had crouched near her brother, her legs and tail curled under herself protectively as she nuzzled the top of Big Macintosh’s head. Dazed, the red stallion looked to both of them and croaked, “Get ‘way.”

Pinkie and Apple Bloom seemed too overwhelmed to speak, so Twilight asked, “Big Macintosh, what happened?”

“Get ‘way,” he repeated weakly. “Gas. Gotta shut th’ hatch…” he was obviously fighting to stay conscious. Twilight considered several different spells that could rejuvenate him, but without knowing exactly what was going on with his body it would be easy for her to exacerbate the damage.

Instead, Twilight turned her attention to the hatch leading to the CIC. Looking through the magically reinforced glass that made up the top third of the hatch, Twilight saw a billowing green cloud. Big Macintosh had taken advantage of his sister’s genius to protect the rest of the ship from whatever the cloud was, though he’d clearly been exposed himself.

Like most of the Celestia’s hatches, the CIC hatch could be made airtight. Apple Bloom’s plan had been that in the event of a water landing, the crew of the Celestia could seal the ship and use several wind talismans to provide a few days’ worth of breathable air. That would hopefully give them enough time for the crew to get the ship airborne again, or for outside ponies to come and save them.

Extrapolating from Big Macintosh’s condition, Twilight already knew that everypony in the CIC was dead. That cold certainty lodged in her gut like a large, sharp-edged rock, heavy and painful. Still, she had to check—just in case—and the Celestia needed its CIC. She drew her magic to herself and cast another teleportation spell. Instead of bringing water to her, though, this one teleported the vile green cloud outside of the ship. Twilight bit her lip momentarily, hoping that nopony had been where the cloud had appeared. Then she used her magic to start turning the hatch’s wheel.

Apple Bloom gasped and Big Macintosh reached one hoof up towards Twilight beseechingly. “Nooo…” he said, the word coming out as a drawn-out whimper.

“It’s okay, everypony,” Twilight said. “I’ve cleared the gas out of the room.”

The hatch wouldn’t budge. Twilight frowned for a moment before realizing that she’d probably created a vacuum in the CIC. She waited a few moments for the wind talismans—which would have automatically activated—to do their work before trying again. This time the hatch opened easily on its well-oiled hinges.

Twilight’s ears had been tilted back for a while now thanks to her stress, but the stench that emerged from the CIC made them feel like they were trying to melt into her neck. She had never smelled this scent before, but in a drunken conversation years ago her big brother had described it: the sour-sweet smell of recent death on a large scale. Apple Bloom and Pinkie also smelled it judging by the way their muzzles scrunched up, but mercifully Big Macintosh was already unconscious again. Twilight couldn’t see Sweetie Belle without turning around. She stepped inside.

The CIC was lit exactly as it had been; dimly enough that the various officers could see the screens of their consoles easily, but brightly enough that walking wasn’t a hazard. This fact offended Twilight on some level. Something in her demanded that the lights be completely extinguished, the better to hide the tableau she was witnessing.

She had been right. Everypony was dead.

She couldn’t see every corpse from her place by the door, but the ones closest to her proved the point. Lieutenant Gate lay at her feet; somehow—Seizures?—his spine and neck had both snapped in multiple places. Blood had gushed out of every orifice on his head; at his eyes it looked like red tears.

Colonel Tie and Lieutenant Caramel had died holding each other, but judging by the extensive bruising on Tie’s face and Caramel’s missing teeth the two stallions hadn’t been looking for comfort.

Twilight could see Commander Agrippa’s hindquarters poking out from behind the table—the tactical board, if she recalled correctly—in the center of the room. Next to him were a broken saucer and a half-finished mug of coffee that had somehow gotten to the floor without spilling. Absurdly, that struck her as the most poignant thing in the room.

Overcome, Twilight vomited onto Lieutenant Gate’s corpse.

Two sounds reached Twilight as she finished. One of them was new: the sound of somepony else vomiting, just behind Twilight. Twilight belatedly realized that the second sound had repeating since she’d entered the room. The magically transmitted voice of Major Spitfire was saying, “I repeat: CAG to Celestia Actual. Come in, Actual. What’s the situation? I’ve got twenty pegasi on the catapults—ready to launch—and more waiting. Are we go for launch?” After a pause of a second or two, Spitfire repeated her transmission.

Twilight turned first to the other pony who had entered. Sweetie Belle wiped her mouth with one hoof before turning her sorrowful green eyes towards Twilight. “What do we do, Twilight?” she asked, her hushed words almost lost against the sound of Spitfire’s transmissions.

Twilight swallowed once—instantly regretting it—and stepped over to the communications console. She levitated a headset off of the corpse of a chocolate-colored mare. Suppressing her revulsion, Twilight settled the headset on her own head. She searched her memory for the proper wording, then pressed the flashing button in front of her.

Trying to keep her voice steady and professional, Twilight said, “CAG, this is Celestia Comm. Hold for further orders.”

Spitfire responded immediately. “You aren’t Dual Dulcet. Who am I speaking to?”

“This is Twili—uh—Dame Sparkle.” She glanced at the dead mare’s uniform. “PO2 Dulcet is—is occupied. I’m holding her post.”

“Put me on with Commander Agrippa,” the Wonderbolts’ leader demanded.

“He’s busy right now,” Twilight said. A frightened, twitchy part of her—perhaps ancient instincts left over from when ponies were prey animals—wanted to scream Busy being dead! but she restrained it; with the ship in such a tense state it would be far too easy to cause a panic.

“Listen, Dame Sparkle…” Even as bad as Twilight was with social cues, she knew irritated condescension when she heard it. “Just put Commander Agrippa on. I need to talk to him, and I promise you won’t get into any trouble or anything.”

Her own irritation building, Twilight spat out a curt, “Negative. By order of Commander Agrippa, remain at the ready but do not launch. Celestia Comm. out.” She jabbed the same button she’d pressed before, terminating the communications link. When Spitfire called back and began demanding that she respond, Twilight muted the console. That done, she let out a shaky breath.

Modest though it was, her relief was short-lived. She became aware of Sweetie Belle, who was softly weeping as she looked from the tactical board to a slip of scroll she had levitated and back.

Twilight felt her stomach fall into her hooves; she recognized the type of scroll Sweetie was looking over. With its clipped-off corners it could only be a military correspondence scroll, used when the Fleet needed to communicate over distances farther than the vocal communication enchantments allowed. She’d been inspired by the way she and Princess Celestia had kept in touch down the years. “Sweetie Belle?” she asked, forcing the words past a lump of congealed dread. “What’s wro—” Stupid question. “I mean, what is it?”

“Rarity…” the younger mare whispered. “And—and Canterlot… and…”

Reaching out with her magic, Twilight grasped the small scroll—too easily; Sweetie Belle’s magical grip on it was worryingly unsteady—and floated it over to herself. Between the light from the consoles and the soft red-violet glow of her magic, Twilight could easily read:

CANTERLOT UNDER ATTACK – ALCHEMICAL WEAPONS DETECTED
MANEHATTAN UNDER ATTACK – ALCHEMICAL WEAPONS DETECTED
BALTIMARE UNDER ATTACK – ALCHEMICAL WEAPONS DETECTED
FILLYDELPHIA UNDER ATTACK – ALCHEMICAL WEAPONS DETECTED
LAS PEGASUS UNDER ATTACK
TROTTINGHAM UNDER ATTACK – ALCHEMICAL WEAPONS DETECTED
CLOUDSDALE UNDER ATTACK
DODGE JUNCTION UNDER ATTACK – ALCHEMICAL WEAPONS DETECTED
ENEMY UNKNOWN
ALL PONYSTARS: CONDITION 2
AWAIT FURTHER ORDERS

Twilight re-read the scroll three times, but her mind refused to process the words. She could feel the failed connection within her as a strange sense of unreality; it reminded her of the battle with Discord. She set the scroll aside and walked slowly over to the tactical board.

Tiny yellow triangles labeled ALCHEMICAL WEAPON were spreading across the map of Ponyville from a central point almost directly beneath the Celestia.

Something clicked in Twilight’s mind, trains of thought barreling straight through the emotional barricades she’d unconsciously erected. She turned to Sweetie Belle.

“Get Apple Bloom in here,” Twilight said. “We have a job to do.”

* * *

T plus sixteen minutes. Ponystar Celestia, pegasus bay.

Junior Lieutenant Scootaloo—future Best Young Flyer, future Wonderbolt, future leader of the Wonderbolts—was shaking. She wasn’t afraid—well, okay, maybe a little afraid—she was excited. She was ready. Since the day Apple Bloom had given her her glorious wings, Scootaloo had been training like a mare possessed. Heck, she’d been training before that, too, though of course back then it had been useless. Scootaloo still felt a little twinge of bitterness towards all of the doctors and flight coaches she’d consulted over the years, all of whom had failed her.

Her individual crusade had gone on long after she and her friends had gotten their cutie marks. At first she had had tons of support in her quest for flight, but down the years everypony had given up and advised her to do the same. Everypony except Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle, of course. The doctors and coaches could claim that the problem was her slightly undersized wings all they liked, but unlike seemingly everypony else the former Cutie Mark Crusaders never forgot a certain muscular white stallion.

It had taken a huge amount of willpower for Scootaloo to take Apple Bloom’s advice and venture deep into the Everfree Forest. Sure, she’d gone in with her friends a few times—and with the occasional cute colt, once puberty struck—but she’d never ventured too far into that untamed region. As brave as she was when she was zipping around on her scooter, the wild darkness of the Everfree had always been too much for her. In the end, though, she’d ponied up and gone all the way to Zecora’s hut alone. To this day Scootaloo had no idea why she’d had to go alone, but that demand—relayed by Apple Bloom—had been the first of many from the zebra.

The next two weeks had been unlike anything else in the young pegasus’ life. She had participated in bizarre foreign rituals, consumed strange concoctions, and in the end had been told to walk deeper into the Everfree until it was time to stop—and of course she hadn’t been told how she would know when that was. Scootaloo’s memories of that walk were an odd mix of almost-forgotten blurs and unnaturally crisp images.

That poor rabbit…

When she’d finally woken up in Zecora’s hut Scootaloo had her answer: she couldn’t fly because her body wouldn’t channel her natural pegasus magic properly. She could still manipulate clouds and other weather phenomena, but flight was beyond her.

Zecora couldn’t help her any further—pony magic was even more alien to her than zebra rituals were to Scootaloo—but that was where Apple Bloom had stepped in. She’d picked up all kinds of obscure magical knowledge in the process of creating the ponystars with Twilight, and jumped at the chance to help Scootaloo out. It had taken Apple Bloom six tries to create Scootaloo’s wings—incredibly few considering that she was dabbling in both pegasus and unicorn magical theory to do so.

Scootaloo gave her enhanced wings a flex. She had worn the prosthetics almost every waking minute since she’d unwrapped them and was pretty well used to them now, but it never hurt to stay limber—that was one of Major Spitfire’s Rules to Fly By. Today the prosthetic was a little stiff around her right alula; Scootaloo made a mental note to ask Apple Bloom for some maintenance. As she continued her warm-ups Scootaloo took a quick glance around the bay. To her immediate left, twenty pegasi stood in a disciplined line. They were the second wave, standing ready to place themselves in the catapults as soon as the first wave launched. The first wave was father off to her left, growing more and more uncomfortable as they huddled—wings folded and bodies crouched—in the launch tubes.

Ahead and to her right, Major Spitfire was chewing out Captain Soarin’. Scootaloo felt an odd pride for Soarin’; the light blue stallion hadn’t done anything wrong, but he was absorbing his commander’s tirade as placidly as if he were a cow. Nopony knew the details, but everypony knew that Spitfire’s conversation with the CIC had gone poorly. Like Scootaloo—heck, like every pegasus with half a brain—Soarin’ knew that Spitfire was lashing out because she was worried for the ponies stuck in the launch tubes. Spitfire was easygoing to a fault as a rule, but she hated seeing other ponies in trouble. Her concern was pretty well-founded in this case: just as unicorns had a tendency towards obsessive-compulsive behavior, pegasi were naturally inclined towards claustrophobia.

“And here we were so disappointed when we didn’t make the cut for the first wave… It’s funny how things work out,” said a young gray-coated stallion to Scootaloo’s right.

Scootaloo glared at Rumble. “I was disappointed. You looked like you couldn’t care less,” she said.

Rumble shrugged. “Hey, just because I’m not constantly jumping at the chance to get myself killed doesn’t mean I don’t have a little pride. Going out first would’ve been a nice plus-point on our records, sure, but we don’t even know what we’re supposedly going to fight.”

Scootaloo rolled her eyes at her wingpony. “Gee, I wonder. If it was a dragon they would’ve told us by now, and scrambled the Wonderbolts first. Haven’t you been paying attention to the briefings? It’s griffons. It’s always griffons.”

“That’s not how I heard it,” Rumble said, his tone even and calm as always. “I heard that some ponies have turned to banditry too, because they’re having it rough out on the border. Places like Appleoosa and Dodge Junction, you know?”

“Oh, sure,” Scootaloo said sarcastically. “And just because Las Pegasus is out over a desert they’re cannibals, right?”

Rumble sighed and said nothing.

Irritated, Scootaloo pressed on. “There’s no way that ponies are attacking other ponies. Who told you this pile of horseapples anyway?”

Rumble mumbled something.

“What was that?” Scootaloo demanded.

“Thunderlane told me,” Rumble repeated.

“Well, I guess he just doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” she said smugly.

Rumble said nothing.

The silence between the two held for far longer than Scootaloo could stand. Finally, she blurted out, “Well?!”

Rumble frowned slightly. “What?”

“I said your big brother doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Rumble was silent a moment, as though waiting. “And…?”

Scootaloo stamped her front hooves on the deck a few times out of sheer frustration. She opened her mouth, but was cut off by Commander Agrippa’s augmented voice booming from the pegasus bay’s bulkheads and ceiling.

“This is the Commander. Moments ago, this ship received word of attacks against several Equestrian cities by an unidentified enemy. We do not know the size or the disposition or the strength of the enemy’s forces, but all indications point to an all-out assault by a foreign power.

“But right now, none of that matters.

“Right now, Ponyville is under attack. The enemy has deployed an unidentified alchemical weapon and innocent ponies are in danger. Any and all unicorns with spells of defense or spells that might neutralize the alchemical weapon are to deploy to the ventral point-defense rigs. All pegasi are to engage in weather-manipulation and search-and-rescue duties.

“Set Condition One throughout the ship. We’re going to save Ponyville, and then we’re going to war.

“You’ve trained for this. You’re ready for this. Stand to your duties, trust your fellow shipmates, and we’ll all get through this. Further updates as we get them. Thank you.”

In the now-silent pegasus bay, Spitfire turned from Soarin’ and rose a few feet into the air. “You heard the stallion!” she yelled to the only earth pony in the bay. “Launch pegasi!”

* * *

T plus twenty minutes. Ponystar Celestia, ventral point-defense rig #23.

The sky was dull purple.

Well, it wasn’t actually the sky, but that’s how Petty Officer First Class Amethyst Star chose to think of it. She had never pulled duty on the ventral point-defense rigs before, but she had already worked out why most ponies considered them a punishment detail. Whoever had designed the PDRs had better be locked up in either Tartarus or a mental ward, because they were either evil or insane.

All of the rigs were infused with gravity enchantments designed to orient the user’s personal gravity towards the Celestia; in other words, for a pony in a rig the Celestia was “down.” Amethyst had hardly noticed when she’d done dorsal PDR training, since the enchantment had had nothing to compete with except the wind. It had been much more noticeable when she’d pulled a shift in a lateral PDR, but even then she could just pretend she was on a very steep hill.

No such luck here. Up was down and down was up, and even though the gravity enchantment kept Amethyst’s blood from rushing to her head and her inner ear from freaking out, it couldn't do anything for her mind. If she allowed herself to recognize the fact that she was clinging to the underside of an airship with nothing but a few straps and somepony else’s magic to keep her there NonononononononostopitstopitlookattheprettypurpleskyI’mtotallynotupsidedown

Amethyst squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t open them again until her muzzle was pointed “down” at her forehooves. She stared at her forehooves for a long moment, and concentrated on breathing deeply.

Breathe in… breathe out… in… out… in… My, what a perfectly normal day to be standing on top of the Celestia! Out… in… Hmmm, I’d better get a hooficure when I’m done. Yep, nothing wrong here that can’t be fixed with a hooficure… In…

Slowly—so as to help maintain her necessary self-delusion—she raised her eyes from her hooves to the Celestia’s iron-clad hull. She tried to ignore the cluster of civilian airships hovering “upside down” near the ponystar. Amethyst paused a moment and took in all of the other unicorns strapped in around her, who were absolutely not hurtling to their deaths on the ground/sky “above.”

That’s odd; I thought I heard that Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and Sweetie Belle were aboard. Why aren’t they out here?

Nopony else seemed to notice the missing knights and diva; all of the unicorns Amethyst could see were too busy concentrating on their respective magical efforts. Even Dinky was out here, casting spells like they were going out of style. Amethyst steeled herself further; she had to set a good example for her little sister. Even if said sister was already handling the situation better than she herself. Amethyst forced herself to look “up” again.

The alchemical weapon looked back at her.

It was a terrible, amorphous thing, too large to be real yet constantly growing larger. A sickly dull purple in color, the alchemical weapon was a hodgepodge of boggling eyes and gibbering mouths that temporarily formed and then melted back into its overall mass. The location of the eyes and mouths seemed random, and the only consistent thing was that it always had more of each than it could possibly need. It didn’t even use the mouths as far as Amethyst could tell; rather than eating anything in the traditional sense, the alchemical weapon simply flowed over everything in its path. On the other hoof, the thing made good use of its eyes… to find targets. It seemed to prefer ponies over other life and living things over inanimate ones. The longest protrusions off of the main mass were always ones that led to ponies.

Amethyst followed one of the longer limb-blobs with her eyes, and saw that it was pursuing a young mare through Ponyville’s market district. The peach-coated earth pony ducked frantically around and between the now-empty stalls and tents, gradually putting distance between herself and the thing’s tendril. Amethyst cheered for her and was about to look for somepony in more need of aid when she saw a second pseudopod moving in to cut the mare off.

Amethyst took a deep breath and drew upon her magic. Her magical talents related to jewels and gemstones, so she went with what she knew. She levitated the fifty-odd diamonds she had in her saddlebag and sent them hurtling towards the new blob-limb. They wouldn’t be enough, but as they flew they passed near a jewelry store. Once her diamonds were close enough, Amethyst surged her magic and snared almost everything in the store. A massive blob of jewelry and raw gemstones wrapped in a violet-pink aura burst through the shop’s main window and hurtled towards the fleeing pony.

The first tendril was stretched so thin that Amethyst could hardly see it; it was apparently too small even to have eyes or mouths now. She quickly scanned the area and found a good bottleneck between a pair of long, sturdy-looking stalls; delaying the second limb there—even for a few seconds—should buy the mare enough time to escape. She waited until the alchemical weapon had committed to moving between the stalls; when it was almost to the end she slammed the mass of jewelry and gems down.

Working quickly and precisely, Amethyst shaped the baubles and trinkets into a wall twice the height of a pony and leaning slightly towards the alchemical weapon. There weren’t enough objects to form a perfect wall, but the few gaps wouldn’t let enough of the slime through to threaten the peach mare. Despite being fairly new to actual combat—or whatever the hay this was—Amethyst was confident in her barrier. She had used a smaller, less-solid lattice while sparring against a muscular earth pony stallion back in Basic Training; it had stopped him cold in mid-charge.

The alchemical weapon blew through her wall like it wasn’t there, and washed over the peach-coated pony.

Amethyst screamed in vain denial. Her concentration shattered, and she lost her grip on the gems and jewelry. At this range she wouldn’t be able to pick them up again, but what did that matter if this thing could power through them anyway? Her purple eyes overflowed with tears as she watched the peach mare’s now-limp form get dragged into the thing’s tendril. Instead of returning to the main mass the two limb-blobs just flopped where they were, as if spent. Judging from what Amethyst had seen earlier, though, the chase had simply expanded the thing’s territory and these limbs would become the origin point for new ones later.

Still stunned into inaction, Amethyst took another look at the scene “above.” All throughout Ponyville she could see colorful little flares of magical auras and completed spells. Most of them were turning out to be useless or fizzling outright, especially the ones that were directed against the alchemical weapon itself. A quick scan of her comrades revealed that she wasn’t the only unicorn to notice; despair was building on every face. As she watched, an earth pony who was slowly being lifted by the combined magic of three unicorns was casually swatted out of the air by a dull purple pseudopod. Amethyst could swear that she heard the thing laugh.

The pegasi were faring better when it came to rescues; their speed mostly allowed them to zip into Ponyville and out with a passenger before the alchemical weapon could react. Mostly. Some had gone down right at the beginning when they tried to use their wings—sharpened by an enchantment worked into the launch tubes—to sever limbs from the thing. Instead of being cut, the slime had snared the pegasi as though it were flypaper. Others had been picked off by terrifyingly fast tendrils that lashed out like a frog’s tongue, usually as the pegasi in question were ascending with a frightened unicorn or earth pony in their grip. Still, they kept at it.

Nopony could accuse the civilian pegasi of Ponyville of being cowards, either; when the Celestia’s pegasus bay had opened several had been hovering outside with their ground-bound neighbors in hoof. Once they had deposited their passengers most had turned right back around and gone in for more alongside the Celestia’s flyers. Other pegasi had even left the safety of the civilian airships to chip in. Unfortunately, their heroism didn’t make them immune to the alchemical weapon; not all of the civilian pegasi would see the sun set today.

Like the unicorns, though, the pegasi weren’t having any luck slowing the thing. Amethyst saw them assault the alchemical weapon with rain and lightning, sleet and hail—early summer or no—and gale-force winds, all to no effect. They even worked together at one point to create a tornado, trying to suck the thing up into the sky. It had been lifted partway, but had lashed out and snagged half a dozen pegasi before the group could drop it. Amethyst said a brief prayer of thanks that the thing wasn’t terribly smart; if it had bided its time it could’ve killed every pony in the tornado.

The pegasi regrouped, and a small cluster including the blue-clad Wonderbolts hovered outside the alchemical weapon’s apparent reach. Amethyst was too far away to hear what they were saying—and her headset was attuned to a different spell than the one they were using—but judging from body language the discussion was heated. As the airborne ponies argued, an earth pony family emerged from a house and made a break for freedom. The alchemical weapon saw them and lurched bodily towards the family.

Two pairs of pegasi moved to intercept, apparently not waiting for orders. A buttermilk-colored colt and a gray stallion landed to either side of the family and waved them further on, towards a larger black stallion and an orange mare with strange, steely wings. Those two each grabbed a foal and took off towards the Celestia. The two pegasi who had landed began to stomp their hooves, rhythmically at first as though applauding, then wildly as though they were throwing temper tantrums. To Amethyst’s amazement, the ground ripped apart in a jagged line between the two pegasi. The fissure became deeper and wider as they continued, and more than one building began to collapse from the constant, powerful shaking.

When the leading edge of the alchemical weapon got to the fissure it tried to simply reach across, but what had been a hairline crack was now a broad pit. The thing groped down the near side as though seeking the bottom before giving up and going around. Fortunately for the earth ponies, this took long enough that the four pegasi—the orange and black ones having returned—were able to take off and ferry the parents to the Celestia. Finally, something had delayed the nightmarish slime… albeit at the cost of several buildings and a huge, ugly hole near the center of town. Amethyst began to hear cheers—both through her headset and through her uncovered ear—but a quick glance at the unicorns around her revealed that the cheers weren’t for the earth-rending pegasi.

Dame Twilight Sparkle—bearer of the Element of Magic and repeated savior of Equestria—had just arrived on the scene.

Showing no signs of Amethyst’s awkward reaction to being upside-down, Twilight immediately spoke into the PDR communications channel: “Doctor Minuette, are you out here?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Ponyville’s resident dentist called out joyfully. “Here I am!” In the crowd Amethyst could see the blue-and-white maned mare rearing up on her hind legs, straining against the bonds of her PDR. The sight made Amethyst’s stomach flip-flop unpleasantly.

“Good,” said Twilight Sparkle. “I need you to cast your time-slowing spell on the alchemical weapon.”

Oh, so that’s what her cutie mark means, Amethyst thought. Then she did a double-take. Minuette had been gifted with a talent for time magic… and she had decided to be a dentist?! I guess you don’t have to do something connected to your cutie mark, but still…

“I’ve tried that already,” Minuette replied, sounding almost ashamed. “It didn’t work.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Twilight Sparkle said. “I’m going to try to copy and amplify your spell, but I need to see you cast it so I can get a feel for how it works.”

“O—okay…” Minuette stammered.

Fascinated, Amethyst watched closely as Minuette prepared her spell. The dentist gathered her magic and her horn flared with light, but when Amethyst looked back at the alchemical weapon it was still rampaging as though nothing had happened.

“Thank you,” Twilight Sparkle said calmly. As Amethyst—and everypony else in the PDRs—watched with bated breath, Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated. Her horn glowed brighter and brighter as she poured more of her magic into the spell, gradually becoming so brilliant that Amethyst could no longer look directly at it. She suddenly realized that she could feel Twilight Sparkle’s magic washing over her in gentle waves; until then the only magic Amethyst had ever sensed in such a way had been her own. She wondered what form the spell would take whe—

For a split second, every color in the world seemed to invert.

—n Twilight Sparkle finally cast it.

Amethyst blinked rapidly, and realized that Twilight Sparkle’s horn had gone out. The famous knight was slumped in her harness, panting, her coat soaked in lather. Amethyst looked from Twilight Sparkle to the alchemical weapon—and gasped.

The gigantic purple mass looked like it had felt the wrath of the Princesses. Its surface was pocked with craters—some reaching all the way through to the bare ground—not to mention scorch marks, large patches of ice, and more exotic signs of violence. Better yet, the thing had stopped. Amethyst didn’t see any eyes or mouths, either; it was just a battered looking pond of slime. Everypony—not just the unicorns, now—let out a relieved cheer. Amethyst saw two pegasi hug each other in mid air, and could see civilians on the ground literally jumping for joy.

A single white eye large enough for five ponies to stand on opened in the middle of the alchemical weapon, and focused on the Celestia.

“Look!” Amethyst yelled, pointing towards the thing.

Before their very eyes the alchemical weapon repaired itself. Within seconds, every bit of damage was gone from the thing’s surface. More eyes had formed too, all of them staring at the ponystar high above. The alchemical weapon began to retract its various limbs, drawing them back into the ever-growing central mass. As the limbs returned the central eye rose up on a huge stalk, slowly reaching out towards the ponystar.

“It isn’t even scorched… Oh shit, what are going to do now?!” Minuette desperately cried.

A lance of green fire speared into the alchemical weapon’s eye. Hundreds of mouths instantly formed across the thing as it roared in what Amethyst hoped was pain. More blasts followed the first, and Amethyst traced them back to their source—a pony-sized purple and green dragon. It wasn’t in a PDR; it simply used its claws to cling to the underside of the Celestia like a huge reptilian spider. The titanic eyestalk backed off as the dragon breathed more of its strange green flames at the alchemical weapon, but what little damage it was taking was rapidly repaired. Worse, other gigantic limbs were forming and reaching up towards the ship, forcing the dragon to divide its attention.

Commander Agrippa’s voice came across the master communications spell. “Celestia Actual to all pegasi: return to the ship immediately. We are withdrawing from the engagement zone.”

A mare—presumably Major Spitfire—replied using the same spell, though her voice wasn’t amplified as much as the commander’s: “Actual, this is the CAG. We need a couple more minutes to get the last of the civilians aboard. Pegasi, return to your duties.” Amethyst could see several pegasi hovering, uncertain of what to do.

There was a slight pause before Agrippa replied, as though he was considering his words. “Belay that order. We’re moving out.”

“What?! We can’t just leave innocent ponies to die!” Spitfire yelled. Suiting actions to words, she and another Wonderbolt dropped off a civilian, turned, and began another run.

There was another pause. Amethyst looked to Twilight Sparkle, wondering how the famous heroine would react to the Commander’s cold-blooded order. It looked as though Twilight Sparkle was speaking into her headset, but if so she wasn’t using the master spell for some reason. Confused, Amethyst looked back to the monster-versus-monster battle. The strange, small dragon was visibly tiring as it shot flames at the half-dozen or so tentacles that had branched off of the alchemical weapon, and while the flames themselves still looked impressive they were getting less and less of a reaction from the thing each time.

"All pegasi have ninety seconds to return to the pegasus bay,” the Commander finally said. “After that we’re leaving without you.” The Celestia’s pegasi were in complete disarray now as each tried to decide which leader to listen to, and began to follow through on their choices. The civilian pegasi carried on with their rescue efforts, unaware of the conversation.

Thirty seconds later, Agrippa spoke again: “This is Commander Agrippa of the ponystar Celestia to all civilian ships in range of my voice.” The Commander rattled off a series of numbers and letters that made no sense to Amethyst. “All ships are to move away from Ponyville and meet at those coordinates on my mark.” He then repeated the transmission.

Some of the pegasi simply returned to the Celestia, but Amethyst saw others warning the various clusters of civilians. She also saw some—military and civilian alike—simply ignore Agrippa’s words and struggle to save more refugees. All the while the dragon and the relentless slime-thing continued their battle, and the dragon lost more ground. Several unicorns were pitching in too, but their spells still had no effect. Despite herself, Amethyst began to side with the Commander; those huge tentacles were getting awfully close…

Five seconds before the time limit was up—by Amethyst’s count, anyway—most of the pegasi were aboard. Spitfire herself hovered just outside the pegasus bay; Amethyst could see her urging a Wonderbolt stallion and another pegasus to fly faster, but they were slowed by their passenger, a gray-maned earth pony. About seven more pegasi were still outside though most of these were fleeing, no longer trying to save the civilians. “I’ll see you court-martialed for this, Agrippa!” Spitfire yelled desperately. “I’ll drag you to Tartarus myself! Don’t do this!”

There was one final pause. Amethyst could swear that it lasted for far more than five seconds. Before the Commander even spoke, Amethyst felt a lurch as her PDR began to retract into the Celestia. When Agrippa did speak, his voice seemed slightly distorted. “It’s done. All ships move out, wind talismans to full. Helmsmare, get us out of here—NOW!” Commander Agrippa’s voice cracked on the last word.

As the ship lurched into motion Amethyst looked “up” at Ponyville one last time, but all she could see through the closing hatch was dull purple.

Miniseries, Night 2: The Beginning (Act 1)

T plus thirty-eight minutes. Ponystar Celestia, port passageway #04.

Major Spitfire stalked through the Celestia. She wanted to gallop—heck, she wanted to fly—but she was simply too tired. She wasn’t an old mare by any means, but she was old enough for combat flying and pony-hauling to wear her out. The darn passageway ceilings were too low for flight anyway, but at least her thunderous expression and Wonderbolts uniform were getting ponies to jump out of her way. As soon as Condition Three had been announced Spitfire had delegated her post-flight duties and set out for the CIC. It was the first time she’d done so since becoming the leader of the Wonderbolts, and it added another layer of insult to her day. Right now Soarin’ was doing Spitfire’s job: congratulating the pegasi of the Celestia for their heroism and consoling them for their losses, and helping them come down from the intense emotions of the flight. She hoped he was managing okay; Soarin’ was a good pony, but he wasn’t exactly eloquent.

Most of the ponies that Spitfire passed wore the orange jackets of the enlisted ranks, but she passed a fellow officer here and there. Most of the officers looked worried, rather than outraged by their Commander’s callousness. At first this only fed into Spitfire’s anger, but she forced herself to consider the possibility that they simply didn’t know about Agrippa’s actions at Ponyville. She stopped the next officer she saw—a young, distracted-looking cream-coated mare with a frizzy red mane—and asked, “What’s the situation?”

Jolted from her thoughts, the earth pony took in Spitfire’s Wonderbolts uniform and the rank badge sewn at her throat and snapped into a parade-ground perfect salute. “Nothing to report at thith time, Major!”

Spitfire suppressed a groan. Freaking Ensigns. She took a calming breath before replying, “Ensign, I just got out of the pegasus bay and all I know is that we’re headed into the wild skies over the Everfree Forest. Have you heard anything past that?”

The redhead’s light fuchsia eyes widened; seen though the thick lenses of her glasses, they appeared impressively large. “No, ma’am! In fact, I didn’t even know where we were going!”

Spitfire raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t they teach you about coordinates at the Academy?”

The Ensign shrank in on herself a little, her ears folding back. “It—uh—wathn’t my betht clathh…”

Spitfire sighed. “So there weren’t any shipboard announcements?”

“Only the oneth over the mathter communicationth thpell,” said the Ensign.

Spitfire frowned. “Wait: you heard that?”

“Yeth, ma’am,” the young mare said sadly. “I don’t know why the Commander would broadcatht your argument…” She looked vaguely ashamed now. “It wathn’t good for morale.”

Filly, you have a gift for understatement, Spitfire thought. Aloud she said, “So you all heard the Commander leave those innocent ponies to die.”

The Ensign nodded, tears in her eyes.

“Then why does everypony look worried?” Spitfire demanded. “Sad I could see. Angry, sure—heck, I’m angry enough for everyone! But worried?”

The Ensign said, “It—it’th jutht that nopony hath been able to contact the Commander thinthe the Thelethtia thet thail.”

Spitfire had to take a moment to parse out what the Ensign was saying. “Well, if he’s not answering on the comm, I guess I’ll have to talk to him face-to-face,” she said, as though she hadn’t been planning that anyway. Spitfire hoped that the display of bravado would help lift the earth pony’s spirits—it almost always worked with pegasi. She resumed walking towards the CIC. I trusted him! she raged to herself. I was going to—I trusted him!

The Ensign walked with her, unbidden. “That won’t work,” she said. “Ma’am,” she added belatedly, upon seeing Spitfire’s glare.

“Drop the ‘ma’am’ stuff for a minute, Ensign…?”

“Twitht,” the young mare said.

“Okay, Ensign Twitht, what d—”

“Um… it’th Twitht, Major.”

Spitfire blinked, then mentally facehoofed. “Right. Sorry. So—Ensign Twist—what do you mean when you say that seeing the Commander face-to-face won’t work?”

“Nopony can get into the Thee-Eye-Thee,” Twist said. “The hatch ith clothed and thealed, and the widow’th been covered up with a cloth or thomething. Nopony’th anthwering when we knock, either. At leatht, that’th the way I heard it.”

What the flying feather is going on here? Spitfire wondered, beginning to worry despite herself. A young unicorn mare passed them, jacketless and sobbing, headed in the opposite direction. Spitfire took her for a Ponyville refugee and gave her no further thought. Spitfire said to Twist, “Well, I’m going to see for myself. I need you to try and stop the rumor mill. If anypony asks you what’s going on, let them know that I’m taking care of the situation.”

Twist didn’t reply. Spitfire turned and saw that the earth pony had stopped a few paces back; she was looking back the way they had come. Spitfire faintly heard Twist murmur, “Thweetie Belle…?”

“Ensign Twist!” Spitfire barked.

Twist jumped and hurried back to Spitfire. “Yeth ma’am! Thorry ma’am!”

“Tell anypony who asks about the situation that I’ve got it under control,” Spitfire repeated. She hadn’t resumed her journey yet, and was still facing back toward where the unicorn had gone. “And keep your head out of the clouds!”

Twist looked at her oddly. “You have it under control?”

“You’re darn right I do,” Spitfire lied. Twist looked dubious, but snapped off a salute regardless. Spitfire was about to dismiss her when the Ensign’s face contorted bizarrely. Spitfire suddenly became aware that somepony was behind her, standing unpleasantly close.

“Excuse us, please,” a coltish voice requested.

Spitfire turned and saw a dragon the size of a large earth pony stallion. By dragon standards he was tiny, but in the relatively cramped confines of the passageway he loomed threateningly. Spitfire felt her fight-or-flight instinct kick in—along with a bit of claustrophobia—but crushed both with a flex of her willpower. She’d seen the creature at the evacuation of Ponyville, and if she was right it was Twilight Sparkle’s pet. Her theory was strongly supported by the fact that the dragon was carrying the famous mare in its claws. The purple unicorn looked like she had just finished three back-to-back Runnings of the Leaves; she was barely conscious and covered in half-dried lather.

Spitfire stood her ground, not letting the creature pass; in fact she flared her wings to take up as much space as possible. “You were in the CIC before the battle,” she said to Twilight Sparkle. “What were you doing there?”

“Excuse us,” the dragon repeated. This time it came off as a demand, but in his almost-cute voice it just sounded petulant. “I’m taking Dame Sparkle to sickbay.”

“You were at the battle, too,” Spitfire said to Twilight Sparkle, doggedly ignoring the dragon. She finally had a halfway-decent target for her anger. “Why didn’t you stand up to Agrippa?” She stepped forward challengingly, eyes locked on the knight. “He murdered Celestia-knows-how-many ponies, and you didn’t say a word!” How could you let him do that to me?!

The dragon’s head darted towards Spitfire like a striking snake and the monster made a noise that was part hiss, part roar. Despite herself, Spitfire backed up a few paces. She found herself wondering whether the blade-wing enchantment was still active.

“Stop,” Twilight Sparkle said, her voice barely more than a whisper.

The dragon turned to her. “We don’t have time for this, Twilight,” he said, sounding more concerned than argumentative. “You need to rest.”

“I needed to speak to her anyway,” Twilight Sparkle said weakly. “Put me down. Please.” The dragon grimaced, but complied. Once she was on the deck she said, “Major, will you please follow me?”

Seeing Twilight Sparkle swaying on her hooves and shaking with the effort of staying upright made Spitfire feel like a bully. She forced herself to save her wrath for its real target. “Wait,” she said, holding up a hoof. She gestured at the dragon as she added, “You’re right when you say that we need to talk, but it's right too. You need some rest.” Now that Spitfire thought of it, the dragon didn’t look much better than its owner. “We all do, I think. What do you say we meet up later?”

The dragon’s green spines flared slightly. “It?”

“He?” Spitfire asked hesitantly.

The dragon nodded. “Spike,” he said.

Twilight Sparkle frowned and opened her mouth as if to protest, but yawned hugely instead. Once the yawn had passed she replied, “You know, you’re right. Our representative from the civilian ships is running behind anyway. Besides, it’s not like the Commander is going anywhere…” She giggled at nothing. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.

Spitfire raised an eyebrow. “Oookay. So what do you say we meet up in an hour-and-a-half?”

Twilight Sparkle nodded. “Very well. We’ll be meeting in Agrippa’s quarters. See you there.” She turned to walk off.

“Twilight, sickbay’s the other way,” the dragon said.

“I’m fine, Spike. I just want a nap,” Twilight Sparkle said. Looking very put-upon, Spike followed after.

Once the two had departed Spitfire dismissed Twist and headed to her own quarters. There she stripped out of her Wonderbolts uniform and threw it into her basket of dirty laundry before grabbing the wad of cloud she kept in her closet. She spread the cloud out thinly across the floor until it was spacious, yet still strong enough to hold her weight. The resulting bed was much roomier—and still a little softer—than the one built into one bulkhead of her quarters. As she contemplated the foalishness of earth pony design she got out a blanket and shaped a small lump of cloud for a pillow. She re-set her alarm clock—I suppose the decommissioning ceremony’s off—and briefly considered brushing her teeth, but flopped into bed instead.

Her alarm went off. Spitfire jerked awake, confused. It took her a moment to get her bearings, but once she did she was grateful that her sleep had been dreamless. She yawned and staggered into her private bathroom—one of the perks of being the CAG—and took a short, cold shower. Once she was toweled off Spitfire put on her dark blue Fleet jacket and checked the time. Still twenty minutes to go. She made her way to the galley.

It was between meals, so the galley was virtually empty. Spitfire made some small talk with the cooks—all earth ponies, naturally—as they poured her some coffee and made her a cucumber sandwich. She also dropped little comments designed to calm their worries and reassure them that all would be well. Subtle questions revealed that none of the cooks on duty were Ponyville natives. Must’ve taken the rest of the day off; who can blame them? She ate quickly, finishing the meal with a few candied fennel seeds to freshen her breath. By the time she arrived at the Commander’s quarters—two minutes late thanks to a roadblock of refugees—she almost felt like herself again, despite everything that had happened.

Spike the dragon was outside the hatch. He was up on his hind legs, leaning against the bulkhead and trying to look casual, but Skyfire’s daughter knew a guard when she saw one. The dragon watched her approach and blinked—an unsettling two-step process—but didn’t say anything or prevent her from entering. Spitfire likewise said nothing; in fact she tried to act like the dragon wasn’t looming there at all.

Twilight Sparkle was already there, of course, but Spitfire didn’t see Agrippa. Late to a meeting in his own quarters? With the knight were two other ponies: a white-coated unicorn stallion about Spitfire’s age and a young gray-coated earth pony mare. The stallion was primped and styled to within an inch of his life, but Spitfire had to admit that he was quite the looker despite all of that. The mare looked at Spitfire the way a shopper would size up a cantaloupe, but the stallion didn’t seem to notice her at all; he was speaking to Twilight Sparkle in a bored tone:

“—vouch for Spoon to the Commander. She’s an indispensable asset if I’m to remain on top of my various responsibilities. You did say that the Commander requested my assistance, did you not?” Before Twilight Sparkle could answer he continued. “Besides, what’s my one confidant to your collection? I’m certain you’ll be sharing this meeting with the other Element bearers, not to mention Spike.”

Twilight Sparkle glared at the stallion for a moment. “Fine. She stays,” she said. “But nopony else can know about this meeting.”

“Did I miss the deadline, or am I still invited?” Spitfire joked weakly.

Twilight Sparkle turned to her. The famous unicorn looked a little better, but she was obviously still tired. “Ah, good. Everypony’s here.” Twilight’s horn glowed briefly; Spitfire heard the hatch’s wheel behind her spin until the hatch was locked. Another pulse of red-violet caused strange little glowing runes to appear on the ceiling, bulkheads, and floor. At everyone’s questioning looks Twilight explained, “A ward against magical spying.”

The stallion sat up on his cushion, his eyes narrowing. “What exactly are we here to discuss, Dame Sparkle?”

“And where’s Commander Agrippa?” Spitfire asked.

“The Commander’s dead,” Twilight said flatly.

The room exploded into chaos as Spitfire tried to get her perfectly reasonable questions heard over the civilians’ babbling. Twilight Sparkle weathered the barrage of noise as though she were made of stone; she seemed to be very experienced at it. After a hoofful of seconds she shouted, “Quiet!”

Spitfire clammed up grudgingly, as did the other two. Twilight Sparkle took a long breath and said, “Everypony from the CIC crew is dead. I haven’t been able to examine the scene or the bodies thoroughly, but they appear to have been killed with a gaseous neurotoxin.”

“Neurotoxin?” the stallion echoed.

“Nerve poison,” the earth pony clarified. Judging from her cutie mark, she was the “Spoon” the stallion had mentioned.

“Ah.”

“Worse yet,” Twilight Sparkle continued, “the apparent source of the neurotoxin was found in the saddlebags of one of the crew, strongly suggesting surreptitious sabotage.”

“Whose saddlebags?” Spitfire asked, her gut full of dread. She’d been on friendly terms with almost half the ponies of the CIC.

“Lieutenant Caramel of Ponyville,” Twilight Sparkle said. For some reason Spoon and the stallion looked unsettled by this. Spitfire only noticed that in a vague way, though, because her stomach had started to churn furiously. She’d never really known Caramel, but the thought that Agrippa was dead thanks to him… She fought to keep her emotions and her breakfast in check, and was only dimly aware of the others speaking around her as she did so.

“If it was him, how did Caramel get his hooves on neurotoxin?” Spitfire asked, once she could. She suspected she’d interrupted someone, but didn’t care. Weaponized poisons had been illegal in Equestria for longer than mortal memory; just having some was a one-way ticket to Tartarus. They were such a non-issue that she’d only learned of their existence from a lawyer she’d dated once; his tendency to mutter about archaic laws in his sleep had been less than endearing.

“I have a theory, but I’m not sure yet. I’d rather not say until I am,” Twilight Sparkle replied.

More melodramatically than Spitfire thought possible, the stallion asked, “But if they’re all dead… who’s flying the ship?!”

“An extremely qualified mare,” Twilight said, far too calmly. She had the air of someone who’d seen all of these questions coming and prepared accordingly.

Spitfire had been inside the CIC before. “Just one pony?” she asked, not bothering to keep the doubt out of her voice.

“Extremely qualified,” Twilight Sparkle repeated. “Though I admit that she could use a hoof in there.”

“She sure got settled in quickly,” Spoon said suspiciously. “The Commander called us to the Celestia less than two hours ago, but we haven’t heard a peep about this mass murder and there hasn’t even been a minor hiccup in the ship’s operation.” She was a sharp one; Spitfire liked that.

“Spoon! Mind your place!” the stallion chided. He then repeated her observations to Twilight Sparkle, almost word-for-word. Spitfire didn’t like him half as well as she had a few seconds prior.

“You didn’t hear about it because it’s still a secret. You didn’t notice a ‘hiccup’ because the CIC crew died just over two hours ago,” Twilight Sparkle said.

Spitfire’s blood froze. “That can’t be right. That would be before the Ponyville mission.”

“Yes.”

“Then who contacted us?” the stallion asked.

“Who’s been calling the shots?” Spoon asked.

“Who killed the civilians of Ponyville?” Spitfire demanded.

“That would be me,” Twilight Sparkle said.

Spitfire felt her right forehoof hit something and suddenly Twilight Sparkle was sprawled on the deck. Before Spitfire could really make sense of this, she was being held in the air by the purple unicorn’s magic. She couldn’t move at all.

Twilight Sparkle stood up slowly, and gingerly brushed blood from her mouth with a hoof. “I thought that might happen,” she said calmly, eyes fixed on Spitfire’s. “But don’t do it again. Especially if Spike can see you.” She released her magic suddenly and Spitfire almost took an embarrassing fall, catching herself in midair at the last second.

Spitfire landed and shouted, “What in Celestia’s name is wrong with you?! There were dozens of ponies still down there! Dozens! One of my Wonderbolts was in love with the Mayor; he was still trying to save her when you made us leave them behind, you psychopath! You left them all to die!”

Twilight Sparkle turned away from Spitfire, towards a small table bearing a bottle of the late Commander’s favorite applejack. With her magic, she poured a tongue of the liquor into a rocks glass. As she did so she said, “Yes, I did. I’d do it again, too. I’m surprised you don’t understand, Major: you were out there too. The alchemical weapon was going to latch on to the Celestia and drag her down. There were other tentacles headed towards the civilian ships as well, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Twilight Sparkle was speaking in monotone, like a schoolfilly reciting a speech she’d been forced to memorize. The applejack hovered idly for a moment in the grip of her magic before she set it down and poured another. “Before you ask: no, we couldn’t have simply ascended. For one thing, trying to do so might have redirected the alchemical weapon’s attention to your flight teams.” She poured a third drink. “More importantly, the alchemical weapon was growing rapidly regardless of… how much biomass it consumed. The Celestia’s primary wind talismans are very limited when it comes to producing vertical thrust; by my best estimate the alchemical weapon would have overtaken the ship in another seventy-five seconds, killing every non-pegasus aboard.” Twilight poured one more applejack. “And yes, I said ‘estimate.’ That’s because I don’t have enough data to make a proper mathematical proof to back myself up. I had to go with my gut.”

Her back still to the room, Twilight Sparkle tossed back a tongue of fine liquor as though it were the dregs of a mug of cheap cider. She coughed and muttered, “I hate that.” It was the first time since the unicorn had started her little speech that Spitfire had heard emotion in her voice, and it was a dark and bitter thing.

Twilight Sparkle turned around. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were wet, but Spitfire couldn’t tell if it came from emotion or drink. Probably the point, she reflected. Twilight Sparkle levitated the other three glasses over to the group. Spitfire and Spoon each sat on their rumps and took their glasses in both forehooves, more out of reflex than a desire to drink. The stallion simply wrapped his own magic around his glass. Everypony was quiet for a long moment.

“Well then!” Twilight Sparkle suddenly said with a horrible forced cheerfulness. “I’d say introductions are in order, wouldn’t you? I’m Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville’s town librarian—oops, guess I’ll have to knock that off of my résumé!—mage-apprentice to Princess Celestia, bearer of the Element of Magic, and lead enchantress for the Ponystar Project.” Was it Spitfire’s imagination, or had Twilight Sparkle’s mane somehow gotten tousled in the last couple of seconds?

Twilight Sparkle’s left eye twitched slightly as she jabbed a hoof at the unicorn stallion. “To my left we have Prince Blueblood, a member of Canterlot’s social elite and distant blood relative of everypony’s favorite Princesses. He’s pen-pals with my friend Rarity, who may well be dead for all I know!” Spitfire’s wings began to itch; nopony should ever grin that way. “Next to him is his personal assistant, the hopefully-reformed primary school bully Silver Spoon!” The young mare opened her mouth to speak, but shut it rapidly and crouched back defensively when she met Twilight Sparkle’s eyes.

“Finally, to my right we have the leader of the Wonderbolts and the Celestia’s own CAG—that’s ‘Commander of the Air Group,’ Your Highness—Major Spitfire! She’s an amazing flyer and usually very calm under pressure, but apparently not so great with running algebra in her head, becau—”

Twilight Sparkle was cut off by a sharp *crack*. She yelped and clutched at her horn as Prince Blueblood’s dark blue cravat tucked itself back into place at his collar. He stared at her evenly and said, “Comport yourself, Dame Sparkle.”

“What was that?!” Twilight Sparkle groaned.

“A little trick I learned from our mutual friend,” the prince replied. “I’m rather decent at manipulating cloth and clothing thanks to her, and it seemed an appropriate way to chide you for speaking so lightly of her potentially dire situation.” His voice was even and measured, every inch in control; his drink hadn’t so much as twitched. He climbed a notch in Spitfire’s estimation. “Not to mention the fact that someone needed to snap you out of your mounting hysteria, and the Major here had already used up her free shot.”

Twilight Sparkle sat up on her rump. “I wasn’t getting hysterical,” she grumbled.

“I really like her mane,” Prince Blueblood said evenly, like he was quoting something. Spitfire had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but apparently Twilight Sparkle did because she grimaced and looked away. When she said nothing for a long moment, the stallion spoke again: “Now that the introductions are out of the way, would you be so kind as to clarify why you called us here?”

Twilight took a few deep breaths, obviously trying to settle herself emotionally. As she waited, Spitfire took a sip of her applejack and smiled sadly to herself; the taste took her back to a fine evening a couple of weeks ago. Commander Agrippa had had a full career in the Royal Guard and retired with honors shortly before the Redemption of Luna, but he had signed up like an eager colt when the Fleet was founded. He’d been hoping to serve as a CAG—“Stretch the old wings,” as he had put it—but his shining résumé had gotten him promoted straight to command. He was extremely picky with his CAGs as a result, especially CAGs who were “Overrated show-ponies.” They’d taken a while to warm up to each other, but that dinner had finally cemented their friendship. She’d spent half of the night cursing the fact that her new friend was so much older than her and the other half considering going right for the goods despite that. In the end she’d held off because she didn’t want to risk their friendship by rushing things. Yeah… Plenty of time later, she thought bitterly as she finished her drink.

“I called you here because you’re the highest-ranking civilian and military ponies I have access to right now,” Twilight Sparkle said. Spitfire blinked her stinging eyes a couple of times as Twilight Sparkle continued: “As the only vessel capable of mounting an organized defense the Celestia has to be the core of this little fleet, but right now she’s leaderless.” She turned to Prince Blueblood. “Your Highness, will you please exercise your royal prerogative to conduct field promotions in wartime, and promote Major Spitfire to the rank of Commander?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Spitfire said. “Hang on a minute here!” Everypony looked at her expectantly. Spitfire nervously set her empty glass down on Agrippa’s coffee table and tried to put her thoughts into words. “Why me?” she asked lamely.

“As I said, you’re the highest-ranking military officer aboard,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“There has to be somepony else!”

“Actually, no; I triple checked. You’re it,” Twilight Sparkle said evenly. “And even if you weren’t, I’d still pick you. Not only are you the leader of the Wonderbolts, but you’ve been offered promotions more than once based on your stellar performance.”

“And I’ve turned them down every time,” Spitfire pointed out. “I’m just a flyfilly. Agrippa told me once that being a Commander is half paperwork and half sending other ponies to risk their lives for you. The first half would bore me to tears, and the second…” With a shake of her head she said, “I couldn’t do that. Sure the Wonderbolts face some pretty dangerous situations, but at least when they do I’m right there with them. I couldn’t live with myself if I was sitting back and drinking tea or whatever while somepony else was in harm’s way.”

Twilight Sparkle raised an eyebrow. “What about the near-disaster of the Ponyville waterspout all those years ago?”

Spitfire looked away. “I couldn’t intervene that day. I was under orders,” she said, ashamed.

Twilight Sparkle nodded thoughtfully, but pressed on: “If not you, then who?”

“How about… you?” Prince Blueblood suggested.

Twilight Sparkle took a step back. “Me?”

The prince nodded, his expression serious. “While we’re sharing aphorisms, I’ll tell you one I heard from Celestia: Ruling wisely is half giving your subjects what they want, half giving them what they need, and half making hard decisions. Between what Rarity has told me in her letters and your actions today, I would say you’re fully qualified.”

Twilight Sparkle frowned. “That’s three halves.”

Prince Blueblood shrugged. “Celestia is a winged unicorn; I don’t believe the usual rules apply to her.”

“You mean she’s a horned pegasus,” Spitfire corrected reflexively.

“My mother always called her a supreme earth pony,” Silver Spoon said quietly.

“Alicorn,” said Twilight Sparkle.

“Gesundheit,” said Prince Blueblood.

“No, I mean the Princesses are alicorns,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“I thought that’s what unicorn horns were made of,” said Silver Spoon.

“Well, yes,” said Twilight Sparkle, “but you can also use it as a portmanteau of aile, or ‘wing,’ and the ‘—corn’ part of ‘unicorn,’ which refers to our horns.”

“So you’re just calling them ‘wing horns’?” asked Prince Blueblood, one perfectly-trimmed eyebrow raised.

“Hold it!” Spitfire yelled. When everypony looked to her she asked, “Why are we picking apart our choice of words?”

“Indeed,” said Prince Blueblood. “Such pettifoggery over semantics is counterproductive.”

“Stop that!” Spitfire said.

“Ah, right.”

“Sorry; it’s a defense mechanism,” said Twilight Sparkle. “I didn’t like Prince Blueblood’s suggestion.”

“Why not?” asked Spitfire.

“It’s sort of like you said: I’m just a student, with aspirations of becoming a scholar,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“But you and the other Element bearers defeated Night Mare Moon!” Spitfire said.

“Discord as well, let us not forget,” added Prince Blueblood.

“Oh, sure,” Silver Spoon sneered. “Now tell me about the time they overcame Cerberus with nothing but quick thinking and a rubber squeaky ball!” Prince Blueblood shot the young mare a glare so cold that it made Spitfire shiver. Ouch… No Hearth’s Warming Eve bonus for you, she thought.

Once Silver Spoon was properly cowed, the prince turned back to Twilight Sparkle. “At any rate,” he said, “you have faced many deadly challenges and always emerged victorious. I can think of no-one better suited to lead this fleet.”

“I only ever made it thanks to my friends,” Twilight Sparkle said quietly.

Prince Blueblood’s smile was surprisingly gentle as he put a hoof to her shoulder. “Then we are indeed fortunate that most of them are here on the Celestia. As for Rarity, well…” His smile wavered for a moment. “If one must be caught up in an alchemical weapon attack, one could do worse than to be in the same city as the Princesses.”

Twilight Sparkle looked like a drowning mare who’d just been thrown a life preserver. “The alchemical weapon! I need to research it! That’s why I can’t lead!” Her expression turned almost smug as she added, “Besides, the Right of Promotion can only be exercised on ponies who are already in the military.”

“But being a knight of the realm means that you’re automatically an honorary Ensign in the fleet,” Spitfire pointed out. Twilight Sparkle’s glare now was as hot as the prince’s had been cold, but Spitfire shrugged it off. “Well, you are.”

“I understand the need for research, and that you are the best pony for that job,” said Prince Blueblood. Twilight Sparkle’s newborn smile died as he added, “So you may step down once you find a suitable replacement. Until that time…” He leaned forward and touched his long horn to Twilight Sparkle’s shoulders as he said, “…I hereby appoint Dame Twilight Sparkle of Canterlot as a Commander of the Fleet, in command of the ponystar Celestia.”

Spitfire had read about the weight of responsibility—and had felt it before in a metaphorical sense—but right then Twilight Sparkle drooped as though the prince had placed a huge boulder on her back.

“Now, Commander,” Prince Blueblood said gently, “I have a matter that needs your attention.”

Twilight Sparkle winced. “What is it?”

The prince gestured to Silver Spoon, who pulled a notepad out of her saddlebags. Pad in mouth she nodded towards Twilight Sparkle, who reluctantly took hold of the notepad with her magic. “When you postponed this meeting by ninety minutes, we conducted a cursory survey of the civilian airships,” the earth pony said, her tone clipped and businesslike. “I’ve recorded each ship’s vital statistics—those we were able to get, anyway—and any other pertinent information.”

Twilight Sparkle was taken aback, but smiled slightly. “Thank you; this should come in handy.”

Silver Spoon didn’t acknowledge the new Commander’s thanks in any way. “If you flip to page eight you will see the data on the Charon.”

Twilight Sparkle complied, her eyes widening as she read the description. “A prison ship?!”

Prince Blueblood spoke up. “Good news first: the Charon is carrying six ponies from the Royal Guard—two from each tribe—who could be excellent additions to our defensive force.”

Spitfire nodded. Royal Guard pegasi were the next best thing to Wonderbolts; even two would be a nice catch. If the other tribes were trained to the same standard they would be extremely helpful when the Celestia took the fight to the enemy.

“Apparently the Charon stopped by Ponyville to resupply on their way to Tartarus,” Silver Spoon said.

Twilight Sparkle blanched. “You mean they have a… passenger?”

“That’s right.”

“That would be the bad news,” said Prince Blueblood. “The Guards refuse to aid the Celestia so long as they are watching over their prisoner.”

“What is it?” Spitfire asked. Tartarus rarely received new inmates; as a rule only the most appallingly powerful monsters were sent there.

“A unicorn mare by the name of Strawberry Surprise,” Silver Spoon said. “According to the Guards she’s been charged with one hundred and twelve counts of assault, fifty-seven counts of unlawful slaying of non-equine sentients, fourteen counts of murder in the second degree—three of them Guards—and one count of practicing dentistry without a license.”

Twilight Sparkle’s face was blank. “What.” It didn’t sound like a question.

“She allegedly used her magic to throw someone by their teeth,” Prince Blueblood explained.

“Clip her wings,” Spitfire suggested immediately. When the others looked at her she said, “Yeah, I know she’s not a pegasus. I’m talking about how the pegasi used to deal with criminals long ago, before Equestria. They’d clip their wings and—” she motioned as if bucking a cloud, “—problem solved.”

Twilight Sparkle and Prince Blueblood were visibly appalled. “That’s how they used to deal with murderers?!” Twilight Sparkle asked.

“No,” Spitfire said. “That’s how they used to deal with thieves. Murderers had it worse.” Into the silence she added, “Yeah, ancient pegasus justice was kind of harsh. My point is that we need those Guards over here. Not to mention the fact that we’d be eliminating a potential threat and freeing up resources.”

“Major!” the prince exclaimed. “How can you be so callous with another pony’s life?”

“Hard decisions, remember?” Spitfire said without malice. “The Commander understands.” In fact, Spitfire could almost see the wheels turning in Twilight Sparkle’s head. The purple unicorn studied Silver Spoon’s notes on the Charon again, her head slowly thrusting forward until her neck was almost parallel to her spine. As she re-read and considered the notes she grimaced and narrowed her purple eyes until it looked like she was trying to find a bug on the notepad, and tapped her chin gently with one hoof.

“It looks like they didn’t get their supplies before the attack…” she finally said. She looked at Prince Blueblood and Spitfire in turn. “I need some time to think about this.”

Spitfire nodded in understanding. Suggesting that they execute Strawberry Surprise had been hard enough for her, but Twilight Sparkle had to decide whether to actually do it. Spitfire was even more grateful that she’d dodged that promotion.

Silver Spoon nudged Prince Blueblood and whispered something in his ear. “Ah, yes,” the prince said. “Commander Sparkle: what do you intend to do about your predecessor’s untimely demise?”

Twilight Sparkle set the survey notes aside. “The bodies have been set to the side in the CIC for now; I was hoping we could arrange for a memorial service before the day is out.”

“I rather meant in regards to announcing your promotion,” the stallion said.

Twilight Sparkle grimaced. “I’m hoping to find somepony else to replace me, remember? If we announce two changes of power back-to-back it’ll just make everyone worry more than they’re already going to. I’d like to keep it quiet for now; I suppose I’ll have ‘Agrippa’ make a status announcement for now, reassuring the crew and refugees.”

“About that,” Spitfire said, her eyes narrowing. “You said that the CIC crew died before the battle. How did you impersonate Agrippa’s voice so well?”

“That’s classified, Major,” Twilight said.

“I’m going to hate working for you, aren’t I?”

Commander Sparkle smiled grimly. “Almost certainly.”

Miniseries, Night 2: The Beginning (Act 2)

T plus one hour and ten minutes.

An earth pony mare tended to her creation, wondering whether her siblings would live though the day—and if they did, whether they would ever speak to her again now that they had learned her secret.

The fastest pony alive tossed and turned in her sleep, plagued by fever-borne nightmares.

The Celestia’s CAG slept dreamlessly, blissfully ignorant of the truths she would soon learn.

A stallion’s body fought to stay alive as he dreamed sweet dreams of his wife and the foal he hoped to meet soon.

A world-famous diva walked the passageways of the Celestia, tears silently streaming down her face.

A mother-to-be held a pegasus colt and a unicorn filly close, each drawing on the others for comfort and strength as they wept for a shared loss.

A pegasus with prosthetic wings stood beside her heroine’s sickbed and gently replaced the cool, wet cloth on her forehead.

A yellow-coated mare spoke quietly with the Celestia’s doctor, and swore to herself that she would be stronger for her friends.

The bearer of Magic slept fitfully, dreaming of ponies left behind and of a cruel, snaggletoothed smile.

A pony wearing a propeller beanie looked around—was it her imagination, or had she really just heard her father’s voice?

An apple farmer woke up.

* * *

T plus two hours and forty minutes. Ponystar Celestia, sickbay.

“…and though we have lost some, through your heroism we have saved more…” Applejack tried to tune out Commander Agrippa’s gravelly voice. The stallion’s speech had been going on for about five minutes now, and the whole thing had just been a string of condolences and congratulations. It wasn’t that she had a problem with either of those. Celestia knew that there was a need for condolences, especially seeing as how a lot of the folks aboard the ship were Ponyville natives same as her. Applejack was also all for congratulating and thanking the brave pegasi who had struggled—and in some cases died—to save their neighbors and kin. The problem as Applejack saw it was that the Commander never stepped up and apologized for the deaths he had caused when he had quit the fight. She didn’t know who Agrippa thought he was tricking by avoiding the subject. While Applejack herself had been out cold during the evacuation, a conversation she’d overheard revealed that everypony else had heard the Commander’s orders and Major Spitfire’s desperate pleas.

Applejack pushed the Commander and his speech from her mind; she had two urgent needs to attend to. One was finding out what was wrong with her big brother. When Applejack had woken up she had seen Big Macintosh in the next bed over, but when she had tried to speak to him the doctor had drawn the curtain and asked her to be quiet so Mac could sleep. Before Applejack could get the chubby unicorn stallion to explain just what it was that Big Macintosh was sleeping off, Fluttershy had come in to give her some of Rainbow Dash’s medicine. Applejack couldn’t bring herself to explain why she didn’t want any—she didn’t want to throw around accusations that might be false—so Fluttershy hadn’t been willing to take “No, thanks,” for an answer.

That had not been fun. Fluttershy was normally the meekest little pony you could hope to meet, but if she thought she was doing right by you she was darn near unstoppable. She had gone from polite requests to gentle encouragement to mercifully amateurish tricks, all the way to outright trying to force a pill down Applejack’s throat. Not being able to see hadn’t helped matters; once Fluttershy really got serious Applejack had closed her eyes, afraid she would end up on the receiving end of the Stare. Fluttershy always insisted that she had never used it on another pony, but she also insisted that she couldn’t really control it. Luckily, even as hurt as she was Applejack was stronger than her pegasus friend. Doctor Snips had finally broken up their tussle, and Fluttershy had reluctantly gone off to help him with the hoofful of wounded refugees.

Not taking another pill had been the right choice, as Applejack had suspected. She still had the occasional sneeze and she’d developed an intermittent dry cough, but other than that she was fine now. Okay, and Bucky McGillicutty felt like she was on fire, for no apparent reason. And Applejack couldn’t get her right forehoof to stop shaking. But other than that she was right as rain!

She was pushing aside her covers, getting ready to escape sickbay—Hey Rainbow, I feel like Daring Do!—when she heard voices just on the other side of the curtain. Applejack quickly pulled the covers back over herself. She decided against closing her eyes and trying to fake some snores; she didn’t really know what her own snores sounded like, and she felt dirty enough already for hiding her intention to get up.

The curtain twitched to the side and Apple Bloom poked her head around it. She smiled slightly when she saw that Applejack was awake, and stepped into the little curtained space. Apple Bloom turned and gently pulled the curtains shut with her teeth; when she turned back her eyes were brimming with tears. She tried to speak, but nothing came out. A second attempt only produced a sad little squeak.

Applejack sat up. “Come here, sugar cube.”

Apple Bloom stepped forward, almost hesitantly. Once she was close enough, Applejack swept her up in a tight hug. Muscle memory made her try to lift her little sister, but of course Apple Bloom was too big. Applejack felt a touch of melancholy. Though she was proud of the mare Apple Bloom had become, there was a selfish little part of Applejack that wanted her to be a happy, innocent little filly forever. No matter how impossible that was. Holding Apple Bloom as her tears soaked into Applejack’s orange coat was certainly reminiscent of those simpler times. On the other hoof, when Apple Bloom was little her crying had always been a loud and messy thing. Now she was crying the way all Apple mares did: silently, with only family to witness. Applejack murmured reassuring nonsense into one yellow ear as her own tears made dark spots in Apple Bloom’s bright red mane.

Eventually Apple Bloom looked up at her, her eyes puffy and red. “Ponyville’s gone, Applejack,” she whispered raggedly.

“Ah know,” Applejack said quietly. She felt terrible for not being sure which pained her more: the loss of equine lives, or the loss of her family’s land.

“We don’t know who all made it out yet,” Apple Bloom said eventually, her voice hushed. “We’ve been too busy to take a census ‘n’ nopony’s organized the refugees, so they’re just wandering all over Celestia.”

Who’s “we”? Applejack wondered. Aloud she said, “What about Twilight? If anypony can get ‘em rounded up it’ll be her.”

Apple Bloom looked uncomfortable. “Twilight’s been busy—uh—helping Commander Agrippa.”

Righteous indignation swelled up in Applejack’s breast. “What the hay is that filly thinkin’, helpin’ out that no-good snake-in-the-grass?!”

Apple Bloom sat up, her expression concerned. “What are you talking about?”

“That Agrippa’s a dirty coward!” Applejack said. “Spitfire said it herself: she only needed a couple more seconds, but Agrippa just turned tail an’ ran!”

Apple Bloom suddenly glared at her. “You don’t know yer tail from a hole in the ground!” she hissed.

“Apple Bloom!”

“That was a damned hard choice, ‘n’ it tore—” Apple Bloom seemed to stumble mentally, “—him up to do that!”

Applejack knew better than to lasso a bull she couldn’t handle, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to drop the subject either. She raised a forehoof placatingly. “Whoa there! Now what exactly makes you think that that was a tough call for the Commander?” Apple Bloom looked ready to start in on a rant, but Applejack quickly added, “Ah ain’t attackin’ ya, now; Ah’m just wonderin’.”

Apple Bloom paused for a moment to collect herself. “I was there,” she said quietly. “I was in the CIC, watching that thing growing ‘n’ growing…” She smiled sadly then, as if at a private, bittersweet joke. “You could say that the order to run really came from Twilight; she’s the one who did the math and saw that we couldn’t get any more ponies out in time.”

A chill ran down Applejack’s spine. Being able to blame the deaths at Ponyville on Agrippa’s cowardice had been a comfort of sorts, and Apple Bloom had just bucked that out from under her. Twilight Sparkle was many things, but she was no coward; if she had advised the Commander to hightail it, then that was the only thing to do. The thought that there had truly been no hope for those ponies was literally painful; she hunched in on herself a little.

“Yeah,” Apple Bloom said gently, “I know that feeling.” She pulled Applejack’s thin blanket up and tucked it around her shoulders. The sisters sat in silence. Applejack found herself reviewing the day’s events and contemplating the sudden turn her life had taken. War. It was a concept she could barely comprehend; she’d only ever heard it referred to by the actors and actresses who played Commander Hurricane on Hearth’s Warming Eve. Now it was coming, as surely as zap apple season followed the howls of the timber wolves. Coming? More like it’s here already, she corrected herself. She felt a twisted sort of gratitude for the fact that Granny Smith and Winona had passed on years ago; at least they didn’t have to see this day.

Applejack was gradually pulled away from her musings as she became aware that Apple Bloom had something to get off her back. There was nothing particular that Applejack could put her hoof on, but something in the younger mare’s body language gave her away. It reminded Applejack of when Apple Bloom had been a little filly; she used to get a similar look about her when she was feeling guilty enough to confess to some kind of mischief. Now—as then—Applejack waited her out in silence. Eventually Apple Bloom said, “So… Uh… You’re looking better.”

Compared to the crying, or to being “sick”? “Feelin’ better, too,” Applejack said. She still wanted to take care of her needs but sensed that it was important to draw out whatever was bothering her little sister, so she didn’t say anything else.

Another pause. “That’s good,” Apple Bloom said, and chuckled weakly.

Applejack said nothing. She made sure to keep her expression friendly, though; she didn’t want to drive Apple Bloom away.

The silence dragged on. Applejack started counting the seconds in her head. She’d gotten to one hundred and forty-one when Apple Bloom finally spoke again.

“So, uh, I’ve got a question,” she said. Sweat had broken out on her brow.

Applejack raised one eyebrow slowly, as she had seen Rarity do.

“Right before you—uh—puked and passed out, you were asking Big Macintosh something,” Apple Bloom said.

Here we go, Applejack thought. She said nothing.

“‘N’ he—uh—answered you,” Apple Bloom said, her tone begging Applejack to take the lead in the conversation.

“So what was your question?” Applejack asked, as casual as you please. Despite that, Apple Bloom jumped a little.

Apple Bloom took a deep breath. “WellseeIwantedtoknowwhatitwasyouaskedhimabout‘n’whetheryoupukedbecauseyoudidn’tliketheanswerorjust‘causeyouweresick‘n’it’sreallyimportant‘causeIdon’twantyoutohateme‘n’notwantmetobeyoursisternomore!” she said in a rush.

Applejack took a moment to replay that in her head and make sure she understood correctly. Apple Bloom spent that moment catching her breath and looking like she wanted to turn invisible. Finally Applejack smiled. “Ah was askin’ Mac if you were in love with Twilight,” she said.

A cockatrice couldn’t have done a better job of petrifying Apple Bloom.

Applejack held her smile for a moment, but dropped it when Apple Bloom stayed frozen. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?!” Apple Bloom repeated in a bizarre half-whisper-half-shout, her eyes huge. Her ears lay back and her head dropped as she said, “You asked him that… ‘n’ he said yes… ‘n’ then you puked and passed out. That’s what’s wrong.”

Despite the gravity of the situation, Applejack laughed. “Shoot, Ah’m sorry! Ah meant to say, Ah puked an’ passed out because Ah was… feelin’ mighty ill. It didn’t have nothin’ to do with mah question.”

Apple Bloom’s face lit up with hope. “You mean you weren’t disgusted because I’m in love with Twilight?”

“Ah-ha!” Applejack said with a huge grin, making her little sister jump again. “So you are in love with her!”

Apple Bloom spluttered for a moment, then said, “But I thought Big Macintosh already told you!”

Applejack shrugged. “Yeah, but it ain’t the same as hearin’ it straight from the pony’s mouth.” Her expression turned serious. “I gotta ask, though: are you sure it’s love, an’ not just a crush?”

Apple Bloom blushed and looked away, smiling. Her ears were down again, but for a different reason this time. “Pretty sure. I mean: I’ve felt this way about her for a long time, ‘n’ it hasn’t gone away. Plus it’s not all—” she seemed to look for a word “—heady, like when I had that crush on Featherweight. It used to be like that back when we were building Celestia, but the way I feel about Twilight these days… well…” She fidgeted. “It’s a quiet thing. I just feel like a better pony when she’s around, ‘n’ I want to make her happy, if I can.”

Applejack studied her sister for a moment, then smiled. “Well, Ah ain’t Princess Cadance, but it sounds like the real thing to me. Does Twi know how you feel?”

Apple Bloom pouted. “I don’t think so, even though I haven’t exactly been subtle,” she huffed.

Applejack chuckled. “Must not have been, seein’ as how Ah was able to pick up on it. But you know how Twilight is when it comes to other ponies: if it ain’t bitin’ her on the nose she don’t see it.”

“So you don’t hate me?” Apple Bloom asked with a small, hopeful smile, her ears finally perking back up.

“Hate ya? What for?” Applejack asked. “Bein’ a filly-fooler? Or bein’ in love with one’a mah friends?” She shook her head. “Love is love, Apple Bloom; you don’t get a say in who ya feel it for, just in whatcha do about it. Now, Ah gotta admit Ah’m surprised that you’re into mares—an’ older mares at that—but you’ve definitely got good taste.” She smiled again. “‘Sides, Ah could never hate you; you’re mah sister!”

Apple Bloom lunged forward and wrapped her big sister in a hug. Applejack’s right shoulder stung a bit at the pressure, but she didn’t let it show on her face. Pain or no, this hug was a much better one than the last, and she didn’t want to spoil it. “Oh thank you, Applejack! I know it’s silly, but I was so worried!” Apple Bloom leaned back, still holding on to Applejack’s shoulders. “Oh, shoot! Do you think Big Macin—”

“Ah don’t think he’ll mind none,” Applejack interrupted, with a smile. “An’ I know Pinkie will be thrilled fit to bust.” Speaking of… “Hey. Where is Pinkie, anyway?”

Apple Bloom looked confused, and pointed off to the side. “Isn’t she visiting with Mac?”

Applejack turned her head. The lights were pretty low right now—the better to let the patients rest—but through the curtain she could see a vague, blurry silhouette standing by their brother’s bed. It was quiet in the sickbay; very few ponies had suffered non-fatal injuries in the escape from Ponyville, so the large chamber was mostly empty. The more Applejack listened to the quiet and the more she watched the still figure standing over her brother, the more unsettled Applejack became. Mrs. Pinkamena Diane Responsibility Apple was not a still, quiet pony.

Applejack put a hoof to her lips to signal Apple Bloom to be quiet, then eased her blankets off of herself. Getting out of bed stealthily wasn’t easy—especially given the lightning bolt of pain that shot through Bucky McGillicutty when Applejack put her weight down—but she managed. She silently stepped up to the curtain between her alcove and Big Macintosh’s, then glanced back at Apple Bloom. Applejack almost jumped out of her coat; Apple Bloom had silently followed her and was now gripping a wicked-looking knife in her teeth. Where the hay did she get that thing? Still, Apple Bloom’s expression was the one Applejack had hoped for: concerned, but ready. Turning back to the curtain, Applejack could see that the shadow hadn’t moved. She leaned forward as slowly as she could, carefully gripped the curtain in her teeth, and whipped it aside.

Big Macintosh lay in his bed, asleep. He was alone.

Applejack quickly scanned the little area, but there was no sign of anypony else. She took a close look, but as best she could tell the furniture and medical equipment shouldn’t have cast a pony-shaped shadow. The only thing out of the ordinary was a faint scent of chocolate milk. Apple Bloom stepped up behind her as Applejack finished her third search.

“Where’d they go, Applejack?” she asked quietly. The knife had vanished from her mouth.

“I don’t know,” Applejack said. “I didn’t see ‘em leave.” Even one of Twilight’s teleportation spells or Pinkie’s… Pinkie-ness should have rustled the curtains or left some sign. The sisters looked at each other in concern, then turned and watched their brother sleep for a time. Nothing appeared to be wrong with him; he didn’t have any visible wounds or obviously broken limbs. He wasn’t even coughing.

“So where’d that knife come from?” Applejack asked eventually.

“I got it from Celestia’s armory, ‘n’ hid it in my tail,” Apple Bloom whispered.

Now that she knew where to look, Applejack could catch a metallic glint in her sister’s red curls. You have got to be the sneakiest little pony I know. “That’s not what Ah meant.”

“I know,” Apple Bloom said.

Applejack tried the silence trick again, but Apple Bloom held her tongue. Applejack decided to change the subject. “Do you know what’s wrong with Big Macintosh?”

“Yes,” Apple Bloom said quietly.

Applejack waited for a minute or so, her patience fraying. “Well?” she demanded. She had lowered her voice to match Apple Bloom’s without thinking about it.

“I can’t tell you here,” Apple Bloom whispered.

Applejack had a brief flashback of the night she and her friends had found the Elements of Harmony. They had already had a cliff collapse out from under them and been attacked by an enraged manticore, yet they were pressing deeper into the wild reaches of the Everfree Forest, searching for ancient relics in an effort to stop a seemingly invincible foe. They entered a stretch of forest where the canopy was thick enough to block out the stars and the unusually bright moon; suddenly she was stumbling along in total darkness with five other ponies, some of whom she barely knew, one of whom she’d met only that morning. Any of the Everfree’s horrible monsters could have attacked from any direction, and they wouldn’t have known about it until they heard somepony dying. Applejack had put a brave face on it at the time for the others’ sakes, but she had been scared out of her mind; she still had nightmares about those tense moments, even all these years later.

Now, in the sickbay of the Celestia, she felt that same horrible feeling again. Ponyville was gone, and other cities might be as well for all she knew. Big Macintosh was injured, but a knife-wielding Apple Bloom didn’t think it was safe to talk about it in the sickbay of a ponystar. And if Applejack’s own suspicions were correct… Yes. This was the same exact brand of fear, and Applejack doubted that this time she and her friends would end up facing scary-looking trees.

Applejack chuckled softly.

Apple Bloom cocked an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” Applejack whispered. “Just actin’ on some old advice.” She thought for a moment. With her first need frustrated, it was time to act on her second. “Ah hate to ask this’a you, but… Could you go distract Fluttershy an’ the doctor for me?”

“Well, sure I can—but why?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Ah’ve got a suspicion about somethin’, but Ah don’t want to say until Ah’m sure,” Applejack said.

Apple Bloom smiled. “Okay, AJ. Only for you.” Then she blushed. “And maybe Twilight,” she added with a wink. Her expression turned serious as she asked, “Do you want my knife?”

Applejack shook her head.

“All right,” Apple Bloom said. “Catch you later, sis.” With that, she stepped though the curtains.

Applejack moved back to her area, and closed the curtain leading to Mac’s. She took a long look at the curtain, but there was no sign of the mysterious shadow. She tied off her mane and tail, grabbed her hat from the jacket rack by her bed, and settled it where it belonged. She waited.

And waited.

Dang, girl, she thought. I don’t have all day!

As if her thought had been a signal Applejack heard a loud *bang* and a clatter from the far end of sickbay, along with a yelp of pain from Apple Bloom. Applejack heard hooves racing towards the scene of Apple Bloom’s “accident” and saw their owners’ silhouettes as they passed. Fluttershy’s was instantly recognizable; she was the only pegasus in the sickbay and she was doing an odd little flap-and-skip to give herself more speed. Applejack waited until all of the silhouettes had passed and counted to three before poking her head out into the main area. She quickly spotted the hatch leading to the rest of the ship. So Rainbow should be—there!

Applejack sprinted to Rainbow’s area, her body screaming at her the whole way. Rainbow was alone and asleep—as Applejack had expected—but she looked worse than ever. The chart at the foot of her bed held a note from Doctor Snips; he had recently given Rainbow a double dose of the medicine from the Wonderbolts. Applejack cursed to herself and grabbed the bottle of pills off of Rainbow’s nightstand before galloping out of sickbay.

She had to find Twilight, pronto.

* * *

T plus two hours and fifty-three minutes. Ponystar Celestia, CIC.

Commander Twilight Sparkle grimaced and rubbed at her eyes with a forehoof. It was only mid-afternoon, but thanks to how hard she’d pushed herself fighting the alchemical weapon she was as tired as if she’d been up for days.

Get some sleep, her sense of self-preservation urged, this time in Spike’s voice. Twilight shook her head and smirked. She’d already ignored it when it had sounded like Fluttershy; no way was she going to back down now. In lieu of resting, she teleported another globe of water to herself. As always, she checked it for steam before letting it splash down over her face. She had lost count of how many times she had used that trick to wake herself up, but she was vaguely aware that the deck around her hooves was still wet from the last time. My mane’s most likely a mess, too…

She walked yet another circuit of the CIC, checking on each console. With the Celestia holding position above the ruins of the ancient Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, there was virtually nothing she needed to do on any of them. This was partly a mercy, seeing as she was alone. Sweetie Belle had left a few minutes ago after delivering “Commander Agrippa’s” latest speech—she preferred to avoid the CIC whenever she wasn’t strictly needed—and Apple Bloom was visiting her siblings in sickbay. Fortunately Spike was on hoof to act as a bouncer and keep the passageway outside of the CIC clear; otherwise they would each have been swarmed by the curious, nervous crew whenever they tried to enter or exit the CIC. Unfortunately that left Twilight alone, tired, and bored in a dimly-lit environment.

She felt herself start to nod off again—standing up, no less—and jabbed at her split lip with a hoof. The pain woke her again. A little. Twilight had had a hard time convincing Spike that she’d tripped and clipped her jaw on a table edge; Major Spitfire had no idea how close she had come to real danger. Spike was still getting used to his ever-stronger draconic instincts, and two things were deeply ingrained in a dragon’s being: that family members were to be counted among one’s possessions, and that one’s possessions were to be protected by any means necessary. Twilight was confident that Spike would never kill anypony, but he was powerful enough to do very serious harm if he let his instincts get out of hoof—or claw, in his case.

Speaking of killing… She looked towards the hatch and shuddered. A large canvas laundry cart was parked just inside the room, ostensibly filled with soiled uniforms. Dirty jackets were indeed part of the cart’s cargo, but beneath those were the corpses of Colonel Tie and Lieutenants Caramel and Gate. As soon as Apple Bloom came back and took over the CIC, Twilight would haul those down to the auxiliary sickbay and perform some autopsies. Of course she had never done an autopsy before, but she had studied anatomy texts and performed dissections. It would have been nice if she could involve the ship’s doctor—his file said he was a talented surgeon—but secrecy had to come first. She’d chosen Gate for his extensive damage, Tie for having fought Caramel, and Caramel for probably being the saboteur. Thinking of Caramel again jogged another part of her exhausted brain.

Twilight opened Caramel’s saddlebags—which she was now wearing—with her magic, levitated an object out, and set it before her on the tactical board. It was a more-or-less spherical hunk of hard, black material; probably bone or chitin. The thing was riddled with holes and covered in jagged, spiky protrusions, except for one part that looked almost like a handle. It had apparently been alive until recently; there were still shreds of greenish soft tissue and little things that looked almost like organs visible through some of the holes. The scientist in her scolded her for making assumptions without studying it further, but Twilight was absolutely certain that the object had come from the changelings.

Still staring at the object, she contemplated that assumption. If she was indeed correct, the next question was why? Why would the changelings stage such a huge offensive instead of sticking to their usual subterfuge? More to the point at the moment, why would Lieutenant Caramel work with the changelings? “I know that some ponies are driven by desires for wealth, fame, power, or love,” Twilight mused aloud, “but none of those motives are reasonable here. A Lieutenant’s pay grade is quite comfortable, so greed is out—”

Somepony snorted derisively.

“—and changelings have no concept of fame so far as our sociologists have been able to determine. Power seems to rest solely with their queen or queens—we still don’t know if there’s more than one—so there aren’t any opportunities for social advancement. And love is the least likely of all; changelings can’t provide it and would likely have simply consumed Caramel for his if he had approached them. There’s no logical reason for him to have turned against Equestria.”

“Of course there is.”

“No; no there isn’t,” Twilight insisted. “I just finished explaining that.”

“Oh, please.” The voice was a stallion’s: a refined tenor, dripping with arrogance. “It’s staring you right in the face.”

Twilight blinked a few times. The object sat before her. “I’ve already deduced that he was working with the changelings,” she said irritably. “But at the same time, there’s no reason any sane pony would do so.”

“So you have two options.”

Twilight frowned. “Either he wasn’t sane…”

“Oh, he was sane. Trust me: I know insanity. Or...?”

“Or… he wasn’t a pony?” Twilight asked dubiously.

“Very good, mon commandant.”

It suddenly occurred to Twilight that there shouldn’t be anypony else in the CIC. She whirled to face the intruder and found herself staring into a pair of asymmetrical red-and-yellow eyes.

“Boo!” said Discord.

Twilight shrieked and leapt backwards, clipping her flank painfully on the edge of the tactical board. She quickly got her hooves back under her and prepared her magic. Discord simply stood—or rather, hunched; she’d forgotten how tall he was—and watched her with an amused expression. Of course his relaxed air meant nothing; Twilight kept her guard up and several spells at the ready.

Discord did nothing for a long moment; he looked as if he was waiting for something. Finally he put his lion paw to his chest theatrically and pouted. “What, no ‘hello’?” he asked, his tone hurt. “And here I thought you were studying the magic of friendship! Dear Celestia will be so disappointed when she learns how you treat your long-lost friends.” The chaos god sighed and shook his head, as if providing a preview of the Princess’ reaction.

“You’re no friend of mine, Discord!” Twilight hissed, teeth bared and ears back.

Discord only smiled—mockingly, as always. “Oh? And here I thought I’d met all the criteria.” He held out his eagle claw, counting on his talons the way Spike sometimes did on his claws. “When last we met you certainly had a big adventure.” A talon went up. “I can’t speak for everypony, but I had tons of fun.” Another talon. “You can’t deny that this is beautiful—” with that, he shoved his lion paw into his own chest and pulled out a ruby larger than Twilight’s head. It pulsated, dripping with what smelled like raspberry jam.

Twilight only glared. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No. I refuse to play along. This is impossible. You’re impossible.”

Discord smirked. “I do six impossible things before breakfast every day.” The ruby was gone, and with it all of the—substance—that had splattered onto the deck.

Twilight smirked right back. “The real Discord does. But the real Discord doesn’t paraphrase classic literature; partly because he’s too busy being a statue in the Palace garden.” She let go of her magic and settled into a more relaxed posture.

“Ugh! Don’t remind me,” Discord said, grimacing. Then he smiled again. “But have it your way, my dear,” he said, leaning back until his hind legs left the deck and he was reclining in midair. “If I’m not real, then what am I?”

“You’re a stress-induced expression of my unconscious mind, playing itself out during my waking hours,” Twilight said calmly.

Discord’s serpentine tail whipped back and forth like a cat’s. “So you’re going mad? Again?” He laughed and clapped his forelimbs together, producing a sound like breaking glass. “Oh, that would be lovely under the circumstances! I almost wish I wasn’t back!”

Twilight said nothing, concentrating on keeping her face neutral and her breathing even. The sooner she relaxed, the sooner the hallucination would pass.

“Ignoring me?” Discord asked, his eyes narrowing and his smile gone. “How immature of you. And here I came with a gift: a clue as to the nature of the late Lieutenant Caramel.”

Despite herself, Twilight replied. “Your ‘clue’ is no such thing. If Caramel was some kind of shape-shifter—”

“‘Some kind’!” Discord repeated mockingly. He rolled his eyes so hard that they fell out of his head.

“—he would have changed back to his native form when he died,” Twilight concluded, sidestepping a bit to avoid an eyeball.

“Oh, of course!” Discord said, his voice thick with sarcasm. A new pair of eyes formed in his sockets, inflating like balloons. “Because the changelings couldn’t possibly have mutated or improved their tricks in the last decade or so!”

Twilight glared.

“Oh, please,” Discord said. He snapped his lion claws; there was a flash of white light. When Twilight could see again she was looking at herself. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know,” Discord said condescendingly, in Twilight’s voice.

“And do I ‘already know’ how to test this theory?” Twilight asked, her tone and face flat.

“I don’t know,” Discord-Twilight sneered, leaning forward until their horns almost touched. “Do you?”

Again despite herself, Twilight considered the idea. “I’m not too clear on how changeling magic works, but I presume it’s controlled by their brains,” she said after a moment. “If Caramel is still being affected by a spell of some kind—and if the spell is a continuous one like most shape-shifting spells—then that would be the place to look.”

“The place to look for what?” Applejack asked.

For the second time in less than five minutes, Twilight nearly jumped out of her coat. Applejack was standing just inside the CIC, clutching something with one foreleg. Twilight could see Spike through the closing hatch, and glimpsed a mercifully empty passageway beyond him. She shot a glance to where Discord had been, but he had vanished. Twilight turned back to Applejack. “Nothing,” she said. “Just talking to myself.” She put a slight emphasis on the last word, just in case Discord was listening. But to hear it he’d have to be real, and— she quashed the thought.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Uh, okay,” she said, sounding unconvinced. She crossed the distance to Twilight in an awkward three-legged shuffle, and Twilight reflected—not for the first time—that life had to be difficult for non-unicorns. “You feelin’ all right, sugar cube?”

Twilight almost glared at Applejack before she realized that the cowfilly’s tone had been one of concern, rather than suspicion. She sighed slightly and smiled. “Not really,” she said honestly. “But I’m doing about as well as anypony, considering.”

Applejack winced and looked away for a moment, her ears down. “Yeah, Ah hear ya.” Her ears rose again as she looked back at Twilight. “Listen: why don’t Ah take over here for a spell? That way you can—” she stopped abruptly and looked at the object she was carrying. “Aw, shoot,” she said.

“What is it?” Twilight asked.

Applejack passed her burden from her foreleg to her mouth and finally to the tactical board, where it sat next to Caramel’s object. She shot the spiny black thing a curious glance, but didn’t comment on it. “Ah’m afraid Ah can’t offer you a break just yet,” she said. She gestured with her now-free hoof to the item she had brought in: the bottle of medicine that the Wonderbolts had provided for Rainbow Dash. “Ah know this is gonna sound crazy, but Ah need you to test this stuff an’ see what it is.”

Twilight’s tired brain lagged a bit. “It’s medicine,” she said.

Applejack shot her a glare. “Ah know that’s what we were told, Twi, but Ah’ve never been sent to the doctor for takin’ medicine before!”

Twilight forced this through the rusty gears of her mind. “Why’d you take Rainbow’s medicine?”

Applejack stamped a hoof in frustration. “Ah had a bet goin’—but that ain’t important! What’s important is that Ah think this ‘medicine’ is poison!” She bit her lip and glared off to the side after she spoke, but Twilight was too tired to figure out why.

Twilight glanced at Caramel’s object, then at the corpse-concealing laundry cart. She wanted to be shocked by Applejack’s claim, but given the events of the day it made a sick sort of sense. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll check it out.”

Applejack didn’t seem to hear her. The orange-coated earth pony was looking warily around at the empty CIC. She turned slowly in place, taking in the entire room. “Uh, Twilight?” she asked quietly, when she’d turned all the way around. “Ah don’t suppose everypony’s on break right now?”

Twilight looked her best friend straight in the eye. “No.”

Applejack took a step back, instinctively buying herself room to either flee or buck. “This is bigger than Ponyville and poisoned medicine, ain’t it?” she asked cautiously.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t hear the announcement before the rescue attempt began? Nopony told you?”

Applejack shook her head. “Ah was still out cold at the time. Once Ah woke up the doc told the nurses to keep quiet; said he didn’t want anything to upset me.”

Twilight reached out with her magic. She found the military correspondence scroll that Sweetie Belle had discovered, and levitated it over to where Applejack could see it.

Applejack’s face paled as she read the small scroll, until her freckles were almost invisible. She swallowed, then licked her lips a couple of times. When she turned from the scroll to Twilight, her eyes were focused somewhere far away. “Twi…?” She swayed on her hooves.

Twilight swore silently and teleported in another globe of cool water, with which she doused Applejack. What are you thinking, just laying it on her like that?! she chided herself. She spent the last few hours being poisoned, you stupid cow! As Twilight continued her silent tirade of self-recrimination and casual racism, she helped Applejack to sit down gently. Then—over the course of the next twenty minutes or so—she filled Applejack in on everything that had happened since she had collapsed in the hallway. Except for the conversation with “Discord,” of course; that wasn’t important.

When Twilight had finished, Applejack looked around at the CIC’s consoles again. She shuddered, probably because she now knew that several of them concealed the corpses of ponies who had died in agony thanks to the same substance that had hospitalized Big Macintosh. At least the room no longer stank; Twilight had cast a spell that prevented the bodies from decaying further, as well as one that negated their smell. Applejack took her hat off, pressed it to her chest with one hoof, and closed her eyes.

Twilight waited patiently through her friend’s moment of silence.

Once Applejack had put her hat back on Twilight gestured to Rainbow’s medicine. “That’s why I believed you so readily about the whole poison thing,” she said. “It’s not as though you’d lie of course, but that’s why I assume you’re correct rather than mistaken.”

Applejack nodded, her expression still somewhat distant.

As bad as she was with social cues, Twilight had been studying friendship long enough to know a pony in need of a hug when she saw one. The two held each other for a long, long moment. Twilight let Applejack break the hug before she spoke again. “I’ll test that medicine, Applejack, but I’m afraid it’s not the only thing I need to do. There are the autopsies, too… and I need to learn what I can about alchemical weapons to see if there’s some way we can stop that semi-sentient ooze, so…”

Applejack gave Twilight a gentle half-smile as her strong green eyes met Twilight’s hesitant purple ones. “You want me to be the new Commander,” she said.

Twilight swallowed and looked away, her ears back. After a brief pause she said, “Yes.”

Applejack closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “You said Spitfire refused to do it, an’ that nopony else outside’a our group was qualified.”

“Yes,” Twilight said. “To the best of my knowledge that’s correct.”

“You’ve gotta do your research, Rainbow’s probably been poisoned, an’ Rarity’s… missin’,” Applejack said. As she mentioned each pony her tail twitched slightly, making Twilight think of an agitated snake. “Mac’s laid up, an’ anyway he an’ Fluttershy can’t bring themselves to ask most ponies to pass the butter. Ah don’t even know where Pinkie’s got to or what she’s doin’. That just leaves me an’ the Cutie Mark Crusaders.” Applejack opened her eyes. “An’ Ah’ll go to Tartarus before Ah’ll drop a burden like this onto one’a them fillies.”

“Then… you accept?” Twilight asked.

Applejack sighed. “Ah don’t think Ah’m the right pony for the job, but Ah reckon Ah’m the only choice we’ve got.”

Twilight didn’t know how to react. She was glad to be free of the Commander’s role, but at the same time she felt terrible for having placed Applejack in the same position. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Applejack shot her a playful glare. “No, thank you… Colonel.”

“What.” Twilight was too dumbstruck to make it a question.

“Ah’m gonna need a right-hoof mare,” Applejack said. “Ah know you’ve got a lot on your plate, but like Ah said it’s slim pickin’s right now. Even if it weren’t, though, Ah’d still pick you.” She gently poked Twilight in the chest. “You’re the smartest pony Ah’ve ever met, an’ the best-educated. You think quick on your hooves, an’ most importantly you see things from a different place than Ah do. You catch things Ah miss.” Applejack sat back on her rear. “Ah admit Rarity’s better at that last one, but she ain’t here.”

Twilight sighed. “All right,” she said. “But please: if you find somepony better for the job, let me step down.”

Applejack smiled. “Deal.” She spit on a forehoof and held it out. Twilight grimaced, but she reciprocated. Once they had shaken hooves, Applejack adjusted her hat and said, “Okay: you said there ain’t much to do here, so Ah figure Ah can hold the fort ‘til Apple Bloom comes back. Now Ah know you need to do all’a that research, but you’re no use to anypony if you’re dead on your hooves. Hit the hay, Twi.” Twilight opened her mouth to protest, but Applejack was ready for her. “That’s an order.”

Somehow—despite all the horrors of the day—Twilight laughed. “Yes, ma’am.”