Viral

by AnchorsAway

Rating: teen
Tags: Bat Pony, Science Fiction, Violence, Princess Celestia, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Death, Alternate Universe, Nurse Redheart, Other, Princess Luna, Thriller
Length: 70234

Two hours was all it took for Canterlot to fall. Two hours for a new nation to emerge from the ashes: a nation quarantined. Nothing remains but a dark continent of monsters and those left behind that flee the terrors in the night.

Two hours was all it took for Canterlot to fall.
Two hours and one bloody night for a new nation to emerge from the ashes of Equestria.
A nation quarantined so that the outside world might survive and contain what was created, nothing remains but a dark continent of monsters and those left behind that flee the terrors in the night.

A massive thanks to all the people who have helped with this project since it was first envisioned five years ago. I could not have done it without the gracious assistance of the many talented prereaders, editors, consultants, and readers like you. It has been a long journey, but one that was worth it.

Thank you once again to the artist who commissioned the cover, Hex Floog - Deviant Art - Tumblr.

Thanks is also in order for my editor for a major portion of this project who poured over every word and who always had amazing constructive suggestions for this tale, The Dreaming Writer.

Published 2019-06-28 15:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2020-04-07 19:46:53 UTC

Chapter 1: Did You Get My Message?

Data Files Recovered from the Royal Canterlot University of Science Ruins.

Presented at the Third Global Conference on the Equestria Quarantine Period.

— New Canterlot, Equestria Republic, April 12-16, 1021 A.V.

To: professorlakeshore@RCUS.com, ‘Professor Lakeshore’
From: harvestnight@RCUS.com, ‘Dr. Harvest Night’
Subject: Hello from Caballo!

¡Hola Profesor!

Hello from sunny Caballo. Just wanted to let you know Orange Blossom and I made the trip safely. The airship ride was a little bumpy, but we touched down this morning in the capital, right at the edge of the Tenochtitlan jungle basin. I can already see the overgrowth in the distance. The trees look so thick against the hills of the capital. It’s hot and dusty, and Orange Blossom is complaining about the heat as usual. Anyway, I thought I would check in with you one last time while I still have mobile service. Plus, I was hoping to see if you knew a good Common to Caballan language dictionary. I should have researched Equestria's southern neighbor a bit more if you should know the truth. I don't quite have the tongue for some of their pronunciations.

On another note, we’re meeting our Equestrian Defense Coalition contact, Fourbit, this afternoon at the market. The stallion is a little pompous if you ask me, insisting he and his colleagues from the DC tag along on the research expedition. But at least he got us the funding we needed. Can't argue with bits now, can I? Fourbit already arranged for some overlanders to get us to the jungle basin when we meet up. Then, we should rendezvous our guide and trek it the rest of the way through the basin on hoof. The ruins are only a few days hike judging from the coordinates. So exciting! I really hope I brought enough survey equipment.

I know you have your reservations about the Defense Coalition's interest in my research, but if they keep the bits coming, I say more power to them. Even if it means putting up with Fourbit. Either way, he already got us this far, and I'm sure the satellite scan of the basin wasn't cheap. We could have been scouring the Tenochtitlan basin for decades without it, trying to pinpoint the temple. I just know this is going to be our big break if the legends are true.

Orange Blossom is hailing a taxi, so I'm going to cut this short. I'll message you again when we make camp for the night.
— Lots of love,
Harvest Night

~sent from my iPear~

To: professorlakeshore@RCUS.com, ‘Professor Lakeshore'
From: harvestnight@RCUS.com, ‘Dr. Harvest Night'
Subject: Made Camp

Well, I had a hay of a time, but I think I finally got the relay dish set up correctly. The jungle canopy is so thick here. I was hunched over the blasted thing with a flashlight in my teeth for almost two hours trying to get it to track accurately. You can never trust unicorn engineering.

Just wanted to fill you in with an update. Thanks again for the Caballan dictionary recommendation. Picked up a copy at the market before we left the capital.

We met our guides when we left the vehicles at the edge of the jungle basin, two huge stallions with machetes, Talmai (Hilltop) and Paavo (Tiny, who is anything but). They’re not Caballan, but part of the indigenous Tenochtitlan tribes. Their numbers are so few I was surprised to even meet two face to face. They don't quite seem to be the talkative type, just focusing on clearing a path with their machetes. But it's probably because of the Defense Coalition lackeys Fourbit brought with him.

I swear to Celestia, the DC ponies came dressed like somepony out of a Daring Do novel, decked out in ridiculous and impractical jungle gear. Orange Blossom doesn't believe any of these ponies have even been hiking before, but Fourbit insists they are crucial to the expedition. They're eggheads from what I can tell, labbies without field experience. No offense to you, of course, Professor. The lecture hall is your domain.

Even with our slow pace, we are still making solid ground. The Tenochtitlan Jungle is almost impenetrable, but Talmai and Paavo seem to know what they are doing. The stallions expertly cut a path through the overgrown and set us in this clearing for the night.

You should see the sky right now, it's a spotlight of stars through the hole in the tree canopy. I'll send you a picture later if I can figure out how to use this relay unit properly.

Still have a long hike ahead of us the next few days, so I'm going to leave you here. I need to get some sleep for tomorrow.
— Your faithful (if former) student,
Harvest

~sent from EquiSat Service Satellite Relay~

To: professorlakeshore@RCUS.com, ‘Professor Lakeshore'
From: harvestnight@RCUS.com, ‘Dr. Harvest Night'
Subject: We Have Company

It is probably nothing serious, but I think I should let you know we received some unexpected visitors today. An airship met us at another clearing around mid-day, dropping lines for ponies to rappel down. Fourbit has arranged for almost a dozen armed mercenaries to accompany us to the temple burial site.

Fourbit says he only requested them as added security. Evidently, the cartels of Caballo have been pillaging ancient indigenous ruins, selling the relics on the black market. The thought just makes my blood boil, priceless artifacts, some probably arcanic, sold as trinkets to the rich and wealthy. I just wish he would have consulted with myself and Orange Blossom before calling in hired guns filly-nilly.

Whoever these ponies are, they're taking orders from Fourbit. I swear that cocky little stallion is starting to ride on my nerves. This is supposed to be my expedition, not his. It would have been nice for him to tell me before recruiting a bunch of hotshots with guns. But I have to play nice, he is the one shelling out the bits after all.

Either way, it looks like we're stuck with the mercs for now. At least they came better prepared than the Defense Coalition ponies. But the weapons seem a little extreme: auto-crossbows, MAG rifles, night vision. Most of the ponies are probably ex-royal military judging from their demeanor. I've only heard stories of the Caballan cartels, but could they be so bold as to attack Equestrian researchers? Either Fourbit knows something we don't, and isn't sharing it, or the cartels must be desperate for bits.

Much akin to Talmai and Paavo, the security team doesn't talk much. They like to huddle in their own little group around the campfire at night. Talmai and Paavo are keeping an eye on them, but the DC ponies don't pay them any attention.

Orange Blossom was able, however, to strike up a conversation with one of the mercs, a stallion named Romulus. I think it was only because she has a thing for cute bat ponies (not that you heard it from me of course).

After a little persuasion, and maybe some of Orange's cider stash, we finally got Romulus to open up a bit. Turns out he to used to be part of the Night Watch, one of Princess Luna's royal guard. Orange Blossom was dying to hear if he had any personal stories or secrets about the Princess, but he clammed up as soon as the subject came about. Seems he left the Night Watch unexpectedly. Doesn't look like anypony wants to talk tonight. I'm not sure why, but everypony is a little on edge. Even Fourbit.

I need to get some sleep. Didn't catch a wink last night.
— Harvest

~sent from EquiSat Service Satellite Relay~

To: professorlakeshore@RCUS.com, ‘Professor Lakeshore'
From: harvestnight@RCUS.com, ‘Dr. Harvest Night'
Subject: Statues
Attachments: image1.JPEG, image2.JPEG, image3.JPEG

We found these statues late this afternoon, and I had to convince Fourbit to stop. I was able to take some photos and sketches (he wasn't happy, but obliged). Tenochtitlan tribal history isn’t my main forte, but I sent copies to a colleague or two inside the history department who would be interested in them. Though you might like to take a peek at them as well. You should have seen Orange Blossom nearly jumped out of her skin when she stumbled on the first one. Definitely gave her quite a fright. So many teeth. They definitely match the legend's description of the basin.

Less exciting news. Talmai and Paavo left the expedition and are turning back.

"Xibalba! Xibalba!" they kept shouting to us when they saw the ancient statues. "Xibalba" isn't Caballan, but part of the indigenous Tenochtitlan tribal language. It is an almost dead language, spoken by only a hooful of their descendants.

Paavo translated, said it means "Place of Fear." He practically begged us not to go further, that we were trespassing on dangerous ground before turning back. Sounds to be more of the superstitious legend to me.

The mercs got quite a laugh at Talmai and Paavo taking off through the brush, all except Romulus. That bat pony kinda creeps me out to be honest, always watching everypony with his bright, orange eyes. I'm not sure what has his head on a swivel. He's still his usual quiet self.

Fourbit thankfully has the coordinates for the ruins mapped. He's lucky our hunch on the location paid off. He says we shouldn't encounter any more problems making it the rest of the way without Talmai and Pavvo. I hope he's right and doesn't get us lost. This is the last place I want to be wandering about without a map. The canopy is so thick we need lanterns half the time just to keep from tripping over each other. Probably why I keep getting these chills, too. I can't wait to get to the ruins and collect my samples. I want to get out of this dark jungle.

Hope to hear what you make of the statues when we pitch camp tomorrow night. Things don't seem to be going exactly to plan, but I still have high hopes we can make it to the ruins. We're so close.
— Harvest

~sent from EquiSat Service Satellite Relay~

To: professorlakeshore@RCUS.com, ‘Professor Lakeshore'
From: harvestnight@RCUS.com, ‘Dr. Harvest Night'
Subject: Orange Blossom is dead

I tried to save her.

Came out the trees in the middle of the night, hundreds, maybe thousands of bats. Vampire bats, big as diamond dogs.

We were all asleep when it happened. Orange and I crawled out our tent at the sound of the commotion. I should have held her back.

The mercs were shooting everywhere. There was nothing I could do. The bats swarmed us both, but they pulled her into the air. I swung at them, trying to pull them off of her, but it was no use. I would be dead, too, if it had not been for Romulus.

He shot into the mass of bats carrying Orange higher into the trees, dragging me toward the campfire. She was nothing but a torso by the time they dropped her. The bats would not get close to the fire and left before dawn.

I buried what was left of Orange Blossom. She didn't deserve this. I should never have let her come.

One of Fourbit's mares are dead, too, as well as five of the mercenaries. Two others sustained bites, Bitter Root and Persimmon. They're sick. Both running fevers over a hundred degrees and I have a feeling Bitter Root is slipping into shock. I can't tell what it is, not out here. We need to get them to a real doctor.

I told Fourbit to call off the excavation of the temple, that we needed to abandon the expedition. He made a mobile call. They are going to have an airship create a clearing due south of the ruins with artillery. It is faster to head for the evac point than to go back the way we came.

I should never have agreed to this. Damn the grant money.

I'm coming home.

~sent from EquiSat Service Satellite Relay~

To: professorlakeshore@RCUS.com, ‘Professor Lakeshore'
From: harvestnight@RCUS.com, ‘Dr. Harvest Night'
Subject: None

They came again despite the bonfire. The bats are huge. Fourbit is dead. So are three of the DC stallions and another mare.

The mare screamed the entire time they ate her.

More than half of the mercenaries were carried off. The bats shrugged off the cross bolts as if they were only twigs. Only the arcane blasts from the MAG rifles could kill them.

Persimmon, the bit merc, is dead. She wouldn't stop thrashing. It was the fever.

Bitter Root has disappeared. The others assume he stumbled off and died from the fever. Nopony can find him. I can’t fix this.

The fastest way to the evac point is through the ruins. Another DC mare has stepped in Fourbit's place. She insists on excavating the burial site.

They lied to us.

They came here for something.

I do not want to do this anymore, Professor. I'm scared. They are forcing me to help the recovery team.

I want to come home.

~sent from EquiSat Service Satellite Relay~

To: professorlakeshore@RCUS.com, 'Professor Lakeshore'
From: EquiSat Relay Services, LLC
Subject: Automated Emergency Message

``` This is an automated message. An Equisat relay user has activated their unit's distress function. This message has been transmitted to every emergency contact address listed at the user's request.

Begin User Message: ```

It wasn't a legend. I don't have long. We should have never come here. I was wrong I was wrong I was wrong. The burial site. They pulled it out. It wasn't pon##**#*#%**#*:

Unit Error - LOS. Loss of Signal. End Message.

They had offered him bits, of course, but he knew exactly what it was, as did they. It was hush money.

"We're very sorry for what happened to Dr. Harvest Night," the two ponies had told him, standing before his desk piled high with term papers. "We know you two were close. The Equestrian Defense Coalition director would like to personally donate a fund in her name to your department, Professor Lakeshore. Her research was quite valuable to the organization," they assured him, their words cold as if reading from a script, which Lakeshore had assumed they actually were. The Defense Coalition was not known for its compassion.

"I'm sure the Royal Canterlot University of Science could make great use of the donation: as could the Arcanic Science Department, Professor. Such a tragedy, but everypony on the expedition knew the risks of digging around a cartel hotbed," the well-dressed ponies revealed. "We can assure you that our members in the Royal Government are exploring every avenue of justice with the assistance of the Caballan embassy. We'll find the ponies responsible and make them pay for their crimes."

But it was nothing but lies, and Lakeshore would not take a single bit. He couldn't. Not for Harvest. Not for the fabrications about what had happened to the expedition — how they died. Lakeshore knew there hadn't been a cartel attack. He hadn't shown the DC ponies the proof: seven emails filed away on his computer terminal.

Now, eighteen long months of searching for the truth had only yielded multiple dead ends, false leads, and ignorance on the part of the Defence Coalition.

All except the sole mercenary, the former Night Watch. But even that, as it turned out, was useless when Lakeshore finally tracked the reclusive bat pony down.

All the proof the aging Professor now had left was sitting on his computer screen, seven emails from who he considered his brightest student, somepony he had treated like a daughter. Seven emails he had combed through, again and again, looking for something, anything that could tell him what happened to Harvest deep in the jungles of Caballo. But there was nothing. No clue, no secret, no revelation contained in those messages. He had to accept she was really and truly gone.

Lakeshore ran a hoof over his study desk, locked away in the back halls of the university. Dusty piles of neglected papers, tests, and exams were a stark and constant reminder of the time he had spent chasing her ghost, all for nothing. The soft glow of the computer monitor washed his tired face with its sickly beige light, the shadows of wrinkles like painted lines on the Professor brow. Maybe it was time to move on, he wondered, scratching at his silver-streaked beard.

Lakeshore's bloodshot eyes wandered over the last e-mail one last time, a cry for help he had not been able to answer, a plea frozen in time.

With a final click, the image evaporated, the monitor humming itself softly to sleep, and the room returned to the dark of night once more. And from the stacks of paper around him, Professor Lakeshore levitated the semester's term projects down one by one. He wasn't giving up. Not by a long shot, he reminded himself, grading papers by the light of his horn. Lakeshore knew the past always had a way of revealing her secrets. He just had to be patient. For Harvest.

Chapter 2: Contact Unknown

Canterlot had always been the “City of Order.”

Her alabaster towers glowed with the rising sun; their golden spires shone like wildfire. The new dawn’s ray stretched across the capital that clung to the side of the Great Canterlot Mountain, welcoming her residents to a fresh, new day. From their opulent residences and decorated homes, her citizen’s emerged.

They were Equestria’s bankers and lawyers, well-educated engineers, professors, and fashion makers: only ponies everypony should know. There were the members of the Royal Government – civil servants who served to help the Royal Sisters carry the load and maintain the ever-growing nation. Canterlot Castle beckoned them inside its flawless marbled walls, ushering them to their bureaucratic posts in the Ministeries.

But they were also mothers and fathers, colts and fillies guided by guardians toward Canterlot's prestigious centers of education. Along the carefully laid out streets and boulevards, her citizens congregated, grabbing coffee or the morning press as the city awoke from its slumber.

The scent of morning dew wafting from the world-renowned Canterlot Gardens mixed with the exhaust of overlanders, the arcana-powered wagons and their drivers hurrying to and fro with a purr from their engines.

Yet despite Canterlot’s calm, her serenity and order, the city contained a far more fervent core. For deep in the Royal Canterlot Bunker, hidden from the public beneath depths of dense rock, the only word that came to mind this morning was “chaos.”

“We’ve got a hit!” somepony called out frantically.

The call had come in less than a minute ago, and it was spreading like fire. It lept around the dim control center, the shouts bouncing from terminal to terminal as the rows of ponies in uniform furiously tapped away at their screens.

“Surveillance satellites are picking up a massive energy signature over Ponyville; possible explosion reported in the township,” a mare spoke into her headset, clacking away at the keys of her terminal. “All stations be advised, we have an unconfirmed strike," she warned. "Air defenses have been breached.”

“Can anypony confirm tracking telemetry? Did we pick up a launch?” another voice echoed over the headsets. Things were moving quickly now. They would not have long to respond.

“No confirmation from the radar stations,” another stallion called out an update.

“Where are you recon?” somepony demanded, his words coated with concern. “We need that silo report. Who is this?”

"Latest reconnaissance pass over Maretonia came in. No silo activity,” they answered. “Whatever this is, this isn’t Maretonian.”

“Yakoslavia is clear. No silo activity,” called another station.

“Saddle Arabia, clear.”

“Nothing coming out of the Griffish Isles. Military hangers are quiet.”

One after the other the calls came in, each a small relief for those listening – relief that was short lived. For the mares and stallions of the Royal Forces entrusted with Equestria arsenal knew that something was still amiss. Something had entered Equestria’s airspace, somehow bypassing her extensive monitoring system. Something had slipped past, and the list of potential suspects was quickly shrinking.

“All launch teams prep coordination with silo leaders.” The facility commander relayed the order over the telephone sitting reverently on his spotless desk. The desk was devoid of effects, personal or otherwise, save for the nameplate. “Commander Brass Buckle” it read in gold filigree –the pony in charge. “Tell the silo officers them to have the birds on standby until we know what this thing is. We might be looking at preliminary strike measures.”

Brass’s office was spartan, three walls of reinforced concrete laced with rebar, not a wall hanging to interrupt the faceless, grey planes. A stretching window behind him overlooked the blinking banks of servers and rows of ponies behind computers, the heart of Canterlot's defenses and the center point of coordination for all of her assets at home and afar. The operation ran day and night, the electronics cooled by the waters that flowed from the mountain rock and powered by the arcana reactor buried even deeper within the stalwart facility. Each troop movement, each plane, each ship and missile, defensive and offensive countermeasures: all were tracked and coordinated from the installation by the best of the Equestrian Royal Forces. And all was conducted under Brass's watchful eye.

“I’m calling in the Wonderbolts,” the drab grey stallion told the pony on the other end of the cherry-red phone. “Tell them to get the Rapid Response Wing in the air and jetting toward Ponyville, now! And have security teams get the royalty below decks immediately," he commanded before slamming the phone back onto its receiver.

Brass Buckle swiveled in his chair, eyes cold and distantly gazing at the radar feeds covering the projected map in the operations center. He bit his lip, nervously running a hoof through his thinning, yet close cut mane. In his line of work, he only dealt with absolutes. And without a clear picture, he had absolutely no idea who or what was descending upon them. One by one, he heavily weighed his options, none of them ideal. “I want to know what this thing is,” Brass Buckle whispered to himself, his eyes never leaving the radar feed. “So much for a quiet morning.”

“Stand by for donning!”

The flight director screamed to be heard over the symphonic rattle of pneumatic wrenches, his goggles sprayed with his own spittle. “Get those JUMPsuits on! We have green light for Rapid Response! Hop to it, Major!”

The wrenches echoed and reverberated throughout the dim, rocky cavern, the distant spotlights above the flight director dancing over the black tarmac.

Major Whiplash stood perfectly still in his flight cradle, the technicians – ponies in grease-stained coveralls – carefully lowering the sections of his flightsuit over him. Donning had to be precise, calculated. He knew there was no room for error, as did the techs. Wonderbolts could never accept error.

First came the flightsuit’s torso, the lightweight aluminum airframe contouring to his strong back and wrapping around his chest as it was placed. The sections sucked tight around him with a burst from the techs' wrenches. The bolts squeal as they were driven, sealing the mechanical airframe around the pegasus. Next, the wings lowered from the overhead rail system.

Whiplash slid his own wings into the airfoil as it snapped into place. The avionics lifted and rose as he flexed his feathers inside, the motors and sensors reading and copying the slightest movement down to the individual plumage. Everything was coming together now.

The engines had arrived, the centerpiece of every JUMPsuit – a mechanical heart of fire and metal. Like twin dragons, they could spew flame from their exhaust that would melt less refined alloys. The jet turbines slid under each wing with a heavy click followed by even more bolts. Exceptional powerplants were needed to achieve flight speed, and the Defense Coalition had not spared a single bit in development. The Major just wished they were a bit lighter, his knees bending to accept the added heft he had grown accustomed to.

Whiplash bore everything with his sturdy legs, keeping them planted tightly as he had been trained since the beginning of the JUMPsuit program. The engines might be heavy, but he would not have to carry their weight for long. Besides, he was far more concerned with the steel carts being wheeled under his wings.

Warning! Volatile! The letters were stenciled in bright red letters on the carts. Mechanical Arcana Generators.

“So what do you think would happen if you dropped one of those?” Whiplash yelled over the din of wrenches.

The technician looked up from the cart, the weighty device inside cradled in his hooves like a newborn foal. “You tell me what you think would happen,” the burly tech snapped back, carefully installing the device in a wing port while his counterpart did the same on the other side. “Just keep them pointed away from me,” the tech warned, closing the wing section and standing well and clear of the twin barrels now protruding from the airframe. “Alright, your armed. Wouldn’t even have enough left of me to bury anyway,” the tech added with a mutter.

“I’d be careful then.” The smooth voice butted in behind Whiplash, eliciting a preemptive groan from the already weary pegasus. It had been an early morning. “The Major is starting to show his years you know. You never know when his trigger might just slip,” the younger stallion behind Whiplash bemused.

“If I’m showing my years, then you’re showing your stupidity, rookie,” Whiplash sighed.

Clipper dropped from his flight cradle, the young apricot pegasus shaking and wiggling his flightsuit like a dog shedding water. It was snug, tight, the aircraft molded to him as if a second skin. When the DC built something, they built it right, not a bit held back.

“Sweet Celestia, Whiplash, are you going to take all day?” Clipper prodded his counterpart in the flank, eliciting a twitch and an unamused glare. “Hurry up, Feldwing and Thundercell are almost ready,” Clipper cajoled his older and more experienced leadpony. The young buck nodded towards the mare and stallion suiting up similarly behind him. “One of these days you’re going to get left behind,” he sighed impatiently.

“And let you fly solo?” Whiplash let out a sharp laugh, detaching from his own cradle and snatching up his flight helmet. “Not likely. I wouldn’t sooner trust you picking up my dry cleaning than flying solo.”

“One time.” Clipper held up a hoof, his quirky smile molded into a stern frown. “I only lost it one time. I told you somepony must have snatched it out my saddlebags,” he insisted.

"Your head is in the clouds more than it's on the ground, Clip" the mare with a full white mane behind him added. "I wonder how much the sun has cooked that great big empty noggin of yours, rookie."

"Not funny, Thundercell," Clipper grumbled. "I wish you guys would stop calling me rookie."

"Oh, we will," Thundercell nodded, turning to her partner. "Right, Feldwing?"

"Yeah, we'll stop calling you rookie, Clipper," the ashy, lean stallion said, stepping onto the tarmac in his JUMPsuit. "When you stop acting like one." Feldwing looked over to Whiplash. "Should I tell him Major, or do you want the honor this time?"

"Tell me?" Clip wondered, forming up with the rest of the team. "Tell me what?" he asked, confused.

"The one thing you forgot of course," sighed Whiplash, trying to massage his neck beneath the airframe. Thundercell and Feldwing couldn't help but snicker behind him.

“Huh?” Clipper looked down at his suit, checking the connections yet finding nothing out of place. “Wha’d I miss?”

Whiplash shook the flight helmet in his own hoof for effect. "Do I have to beat you over the head with it to get you to realize, Clip?"

Clipper’s eyes grew wide, his face red. “Oh! Helmet! Forgot my flight helmet. Right,” Clipper gulped sheepishly, dashing back to his station to retrieve the forgotten equipment.

“And that right there is why I’m still leadpony, Clip. You'd lose your head if it weren’t attached to your thick neck,” Whiplash huffed, half joking.

Clipper still had a long way to go, but Whiplash knew with a little training (and a bit more belittling) he could make a lead pony out of him yet. He would need somepony to move up when he stepped down, a day that was fast approaching. Maybe another year or two, that would give Whiplash the time he needed to train him into a leadpony, and he could get a cushy Wonderbolt desk job. He might not be as old as the brass, but the rigors of flying flightsuits had sown many aches in him.

But Whiplash did not have the time to stand about and dream of days when he could sleep in his own bed every night or relax behind a quiet office assignment. They weren’t the Rapid Response Wing if they were not quick. Time was always their essence.

Whiplash slid his helmet on, the visor lighting up with the glow of the field display from within. Radar, flight systems, fuel levels, weapon targeting, blinked to life, everything he needed overlaying his peripherals. Cool air circulated through small vents, a low hiss against the muted commotion of the earthy hangar.

“Contact!” the voice of the goggled flight coordinator buzzed in his radio earpiece. They had the green light.

“Clipper, Feldwing, Thundercell, engines,” Whiplash ordered his team.

Slowly at first, the JUMPsuits came alive, like great metal beasts awoken from their slumber. Auxiliary batteries spun the hardened turbines of their engines to startup speeds.

Woosh!

Ignition – the four pegasi braced themselves on the tarmac against the explosive gases spitting from the jets’ exhaust, their tails whipping wildly just out of the reach of the scorching flames.

Each pilot faced the massive hangar door at the far end of the runway in turn, the flight director offset beside the runway. Their JUMPsuit engines were pumping, holding back, waiting for the explosive gush of fuel from the throttles. The cavern lights thrashed with the torrent filling the hanger.

The hanger door lowered with a heavy thud, a broad, golden beam of sunlight racing across the gloomy cavern to reveal the morning day outside: a ginger sky with hardly a cloud in sight. A perfect day for flying.

Whiplash was ready, his muscles tense, the gentle rumble of his engines the pulsing heartbeat of the flightsuit. A beating heart of jet fuel and metal melded with pegasus. It told him to run.

Whiplash took off down the runway at a gallop, the whine of his engines increasing with every step. Twenty yards, thirty yards. He could feel the suit getting lighter with each step.

Along the blacktop, the two pairs of Wonderbolts raced, Whiplash with Clipper, Tundercell with Feldwing. Hooves thumped, and turbines buzzed angrily as solid ground quickly ran out before them. They were at the edge.

With great bounds, the Wonderbolts leaped into the empty air, their exhaust a thunder that rattled the rocky mountain face.

Plunging down toward the ground, his engines roared as Whiplash applied even more throttle, a grin etched on his face as he clenched against the acceleration. This was what he had always lived for: the speed, the G’s, the howl of the engines. It made the aches and pains getting out of bed every morning worth it.

They were falling, plummeting down the side of Canterlot Mountain, the palace’s majestic white and gold-tipped spires peeking just over the ridgeline behind the hangar, the great metal door fortified into the mountain itself. The rush of the mountain's winds battered and bucked, but Whiplash held firm.

The altimeter continued its wild descent, the numbers flashing across his visor as his airspeed continued to climb. They were terminal in no time, the valley rising quickly to greet them. It was time to pull up.

Major Whiplash tilted his wings, pulling his flightsuit out of its nosedive until he was skimming over the treetops of the valley floor. The canopy rippled and shook as the four jet-propelled pegasi shot past. Adjusting their trajectories, the Major and the team trailed a course toward their objective — Ponyville. The mission handed down from Command was straightforward: reconnaissance.

“Your Highnesses, this way. The Wonderbolts are going to be in position any minute,” recounted Brass Buckle, waiting to escort the two heads of state from the bunker main entrance. The monstrous door slid closed with barely a squeak, the locks and seals dropping with a low and final thump. If Brass had expected a grand entrance from the Princesses, he had been mistaken.

Princess Celestia stepped from the entrance platform with her younger sister, her golden shod hooves clattering heavily on the concrete. “Show me,” the pearly alicorn commanded, every word dripping with exhaustion as she squinted against the bright fluorescents. The alicorn was drained, as if her energy reserves had been tapped, run dry. Bags hung under her eyes, her mane a thin, tangled flurry that floated behind her, trailing like a used mop. Her coat was coarse, rough, a sickly grey undertoning its once pearl-white undercoat. Celestia, the pony who had kept control of the nation for over a thousand years before, laid both Sun and Moon across the heavens each day and night, was but a mere shadow of her former self. And her sister had taken notice.

“What doth we know so far?” Luna questioned Brass in her usual peculiar colloquial.

Luna could find no comfort within the thick, confining walls of the bunker. She could feel the cold concrete and rebar that sweat with humid condensation closing in around her, clawing its way across her lapis coat and burrowing into her skull. The alicorn tucked her wings in tight, fending off the frigid, recycled air. What was supposed to be a place of refuge, of safety, felt more akin to a tomb. No sunlight, no sky, only the hum of sterile fluorescent lighting against concrete and whitewash. It was enough to make anypony’s skin crawl. How Brass could stand being locked up down here most of the time, she could not fathom.

The grey-coated stallion who seemed to blend into the walls he was so grey lead the two sisters further into the maze-like facility. Luna knew its corridors could snake and double back on themselves only to come to a dead end at the slightest detour. But she could tell Brass knew the way like the bottom of his hoof. He rarely left the bunker from what she had seen, choosing to remain most of the time with the rest of the Royal Forces stationed inside. Brass was not the pony to be on edge, normally relinquishing himself to quiet observation in tense situations. But something serious must have been gnawing at him from his quick pace. She would see the case soon enough.

“At twenty minutes past six this morning, satellites picked up a massive energy disturbance above Ponyville,” Brass relayed to them, sliding around two officers galloping in the opposite direction. “We’re not sure who or what it might be. This thing slipped past everything we had watching, only picked it up when it was practically on top of us. It’s anypony’s guess right now who is behind it.”

Luna rattled off a list of the usual suspects. "Rogue Griffish nationalists, the Maretonian socialists, Zebra nation zealots, or whoever is holding onto Saddle Arabia’s stockpile since the coup. It could be any number of them.” There was no short supply of those who might wish harm upon Equestria, those who saw the expanding nation as more foe than friend, a standard in the modern day geopolitical reality. Not at all like the rattling of swords and contained skirmishes of old Luna had known before her banishment to the moon.

“Tracking stations say no missiles were picked up on radar, but we definitely took some sort of hit. Not sure if it was a bomb or something arcane based yet. Couldn't have been a bird, we would have picked up a launch from satellites.” Brass continued. “I already gave the order to send in a recon team to investigate. They should arrive shortly. In the meantime, I have the rest of the Wonderbolts on hot-standby, ready to swoop in.”

"Let's hope we won't need those," Celestia grumbled, trudging behind them. Luna worried her sister was only half paying attention, Celestia barely able to muster the focus to plod in a straight line.

“And what be of Ponyville?” Luna inquired. “I assume thou has tried to establish some line of communication with them, get a grasp on the situation.” She paused, graciously accepted a large steaming cup of coffee from a passing servant. Two creams and plenty of sugar, just how she liked it. The simple gift was a comforting gesture amidst the turmoil, and she drank deeply from the mug.

"We've been trying to get in touch with some authority in town since we first got the call,” Brass recounted. “Town hall, the police station, Ponyville Hospital, even the Castle. Something seems to be interfering with our equipment, even the landlines.”

Together they trotted into the busy command center, a video feed greeting them as they arrived. It filled the large central display with what could be called grainy resolution at best.

The stations were still in a controlled state of turmoil, comms officers and launch operators shouting and barking into headsets while ensigns galloped to and fro. Static crackled over loudspeakers, making Luna’s ears tingle and ring. Celestia hardly noticed, absentmindedly looking around the chaos with little interest.

“Command, this is Wonderbolt Rapid Response. We’re coming into position. Approaching Ponyville,” the phantom voice of a stallion reverberated through the speakers.

Brass Buckle excused himself to one of the terminals, slipping a headset over his ears, baggy grey eyes fixated on the video feed. He hunched over the terminal, sliding in beside the comms officer.

“Give me the clearest channel you’ve got, tune out the interference best you can,” he instructed the seated pony. "This is Canterlot Command," Brass answered. His words were cool, his demeanor steadfast. “You're clear to proceed, Major Whiplash.”

Luna took up the spot beside him, charily watching the video feed. Celestia grabbed a chair instead, curling up inside it and resting her head.

“Be advised Command, entering restricted visibility. We’re flying by instruments here.”

A large cloud of dust engulfed the video feed, everything reduced to a swirling mass of brown and grey. Everypony could hear the Wonderbolt breathing heavily inside the helmet, his camera feed vibrating with the increased turbulence.

"Good copy," Brass advised. "Priority is recon, but weapons are authorized in the event of hostile interaction. Keep a sharp eye.”

“Authorized weapons?” Luna glanced at Brass.

“Merely a precaution, your Highness,” he assured her. “So there is no confusion on directives if they run into something.”

“Any idea what that something might be?”

"I'm sure we'll know soon enough,” he entertained. “The Rapid Response Wing is good at this. They trained to know the risks and weight them accordingly.”

“I sure hope so,” Celestia sighed.

“Engines running under performance. Heavy particulate material in the air,” the Wonderbolt advised, the pegasus struggling to maintain flight in the heavy air current.“I can’t see anything. We should be over the town now. Anypony got eyes?”

But all Luna saw on the monitor was more dust, the dense cloud blanketing every inch of airspace. It was dark, the sun, which she had seen Celestia herself struggle set on its morning path less than an hour ago, was obscured behind the darkness.

Flashes of light flickered on the screen like distant lightning, the video feed buzzing with faint static that arrived in pulsing waves.

“Are we getting more interference?” Luna asked Brass, the alicorn noting the artifacting on the feed.

“Downlink is mostly clear your highness. Interference should be tuned out,” Brass told her with a shake of his head, surveying the terminal. “See if you can clean it up any more,” he instructed the technician.

“Conditions degrading. We have some sort of electrical activity up here,” the Wonderbolt on the other end warned.“Everypony watch your instrument error.”

The helmet feed was vibrating, shaking up and down as the flashes of light grew brighter and more frequent. It was an eerie, otherworldly display; Luna had never seen anything like it before. It was mesmerizing, the flashing a rhythmic array of deep purples and dark hues.

“Heavy downdrafts,”the Wonderbolt seethed, trying to keep his trajectory steady.“Thrust continuing to fall. We may have to pull out here soon, Command.”

Suddenly the pegasi broke through the dust, a hoof shooting up in front of the camera to block the intense light that erupted from the sky. Not the sun, Luna realized, her eyes growing, but something much more foreign than she could fathom.

Overhead, high above Ponyville, the atmosphere bubbled and roiled like a pot, a blanket of purple sparks arching through the air from the mysterious source. It was black, an empty void hovering over the town, a giant gaping mouth that pulsed with blinding light erupting from its lightless core: a singularity.

“What in Tartarus be that?” Luna breathed. Everypony in the center gasped, transfixed on the display.

Specks barely visible on the ground were frozen where they had stopped, pointing upward. Others were running.

“Wait, something is happening…”

The disturbance was shrinking, the torn fabric of the sky slowly stitching itself seamlessly back together against the strobing luminance. It was closing, the eye of the etherial storm collapsing until it was merely a speck against the storm surrounding it. Then, in a flash, it was gone, the disturbance disappeared in entirety. The tear vanished, exploding in a ball of sparks and lightning. If Luna had blinked, she would have missed it.

Boom!

“Pressure wave inbound. Everypony brace!”

The shockwave hit the Wonderbolts, the lead pegasus supplying the video feed pitching and bucking like a tidal wave.

“Recovery positions!”somepony shouted over the comms.

“Energy readings are off the charts. I’m getting a flight system warning!” another Wonderbolts yelled through her headset. The mare words were coming in quickly now. “Flight radar is offline. Instruments are in critical condition.”

The display crackled with interference, the picture and sound breaking in rapid bursts.

“I’ve got decreased thrust in my number two engine. Having to pull her back,” called out another. “Whiplash,what was that thing?”

“I don’t know. Everypony keep your eyes open. We have a confirmed detonation, Command,” the camera operator rattled off before training the camera down over Ponyville. “There is damage below. Sweet stars—”

Ponyville had sustained the full force of the pressure wave, roofs were blown off their buildings, their shingles torn away like the peel of an orange from the detonation. Other structures were nothing more than piles of wood and brick. Trees lay felled in the streets, windows on cars and homes shattered from the event for miles. Luna watched with frozen eyes.

"Sister, what do we do?" she breathed, hardly able to form the words.

Celestia’s mouth worked, but only one word came forth. “No,” she whispered, barely audible. “No.”

Luna turned instead to Brass. Her sister would be in no condition to help now. “Brass?”

“Already on it. Major Whiplash, set up a recon sweep,” Brass Buckle relayed to the Wonderbolts, watching the events unfold before him, the wave still propagating outward, tearing up everything in its path. “Fall back and take up recon—”

“Two contacts!” interrupted a shaken stallion over the radio. “Coming – hot. Tracki–twoair ta––ets o–rada–––”

The transmission skipped and chattered. With a final ear-splitting pop, the connection broke, everypony covering their ears in pain from the electronic screeching.

Luna pulled her hooves from her ears once it had finally stopped, cracking open a wary eye. The video was gone, the feed replaced with a blinking error message.

Connection Lost.

Everything else was dark, the power and lights vanishing in a pop of sparks, leaving them surrounded by uncomfortable, encroaching darkness. Darkness that even the Princess of the Night was no friend to.

They were gone.

Chapter 3: Whiplash

Recovered Flightsuit Recorder Transcript.

Presented at the Third Global Conference on the Equestria Quarantine Period.

— New Canterlot, Equestria Republic, April 12-16, 1021 A.V.

``` Whiplash: Two contacts! Two contacts closing in fast!

Clipper: Bank right. They’re right on top of us!

Thundercell: High-band comms are down! Does anypony have Command on their radio?

Feldwing: I've got nothing. Significant interference across all channels. Everything is fried.

Whiplash: Worry about that later. Who just buzzed us? Was it our own?

Feldwing: None of our assets are reported to be in the area.

Thundercell: Whiplash, it’s not one of our—

[Thud]

Clipper: What in Tartarus was that?

Feldwing: Thundercell? Thundercell! Something hit Thundercell. My wingpony is gone!

Whiplash: Come about and assume fire positions! Where is she, Feldwing? Where’s Thundercell? Do you see her?

Feldwing: I–I see her! There.

Whiplash: Keep an eye on her, Thundercell. Don’t let her out of your sights. Where are these things, Clip?

Feldwing: She's spinning. Oh, oh, stars. I think she's unconscious.

Whiplash: Go after her, Feldwing. Now! Push her suit into a glide. We'll engage. Clipper, stagger on my port. Give me bearings to contacts.

Clipper: What hit Thundercell? Did you see it?

Whiplash: Bearing, Clip! Focus. Give us an intercept course to contacts, just like the drills.

Clipper: R–Right. Two targets on forward radar bearing zero-eight-one degrees, altitude one thousand feet. Come about to course three-five-two for intercept point at a quarter mile range.

Whiplash: Banking left. Did you get a positive ID on those contacts?

Clipper: Negative from flight computers. No know flightsuit matches —unidentified.

Whiplash: Roger, arm MAG cannons. Wait for authorization to fire.

Clipper: I don't think this is anything jet-powered, Whip. It’s quiet; ID systems are having a hard enough time hearing these things.

Whiplash: Sweet Celestia, these things are fast. Increasing throttle.

Clipper: Coming up on half a mile to targets. They’re holding close formation bearing zero-three-five relative. Do we have visual?

[silence]

Whip? Talk to me bud.

Whiplash: That’s no flightsuit.

Clipper: Repeat your last. Speak up, I can barely hear you. We are almost to the fire point. Do you have visual ID on the targets?

Whiplash: Those things aren’t… pony. Clip, we need that communication line open NOW!

Clipper: What in Tartarus are those — seven hundred feet and closing fast! I need an order, Major! Do I fire?

[silence]

Major!

Whiplash: Do it. FIRE!

[MAG discharge]

Clipper: Direct hit! One contact neutralized.

Whiplash: Where is the second contac—

[Bang]

Whiplash: Ahh! Get it off! Get it off! It’s on my suit!

Clipper: Pull up, you’re falling too fast!

Whiplash: Get it off me, Clipper! It’s got a latch on my suit!

[Hiss, a struggle]

Whiplash: Ah! Wh–where did it go? My engine, it ripped open my engine! Port plant disabled. Losing velocity!

Clipper: It’s getting away! What do I do? I–I don't know what to do, Major.

Whiplash: Can’t keep her level. I’m going to have to ease her out and try to put my suit down softly. Do not engage. I repeat, do not engage solo. Find Feldwing and Thundercell.

Clipper: But, sir—

Whiplash: Go, you feathered idiot! Find the others!

[long pause]

Canterlot Command, this is Major Whiplash. Do you read, over?

[static]

Command, Command, this is Major Whiplash in the blind. I have engine failure, and I'm losing altitude, over. I am preparing to attempt an eject from my JUMPsuit over Ponyville.

[static]

Ejecting!

[static]

What the – release unit is damaged! I cannot bail out, Command, I cannot eject! Mayday. Mayday. Mayday. This is Major Whiplash of the Wonderbolts Rapid Response Wing in the blind, I have engine failure and cannot eject. I am attempting an emergency landing outside Ponyville. Does anybody read me, over?

[static]

Clip?

[static]

Shit! I’m going down too fast! Mayday! Mayday! Mayd— ```

End of recording.

—File sealed by order of Director Hemthorn, Equestrian Defence Coalition

The emergency lights blinked on, the royal bunker pulling power from the arcana reactor buried deep within the mountain.

“Your Highnesses, we've lost contact with Major Whiplash and the rest of his team. Externals are offline." Brass wiped the sweat from his brow. The ventilation had shut down with the power surge, and it was quickly getting hot, sweat beading on his coat. “We’ve got teams investigating the surge, but it looks like it's coming from up top. Airwaves are scrambled with interference. Were reduced to physical messages until then.”

Luna put on a brave face, trying to retain her calm demeanor. Her sister only held her head in her hooves, her eyes boring into the concrete floor. Luna wasn’t sure how much more Celestia could take.

Luna massaged her temples and adjusted herself. She had to stay vigilant, focused. As it always was, lives were on the line. Lives that were now in their hooves.

“Keep trying, Brass. Send a messenger to Wonderbolt hanger and get the first wing airborne.” She looked to her sister, studying her. “You doth seen that thing, too, before the video cut out? What was that?"

“I’m not sure what I saw,” Celestia answered, her eyes closing tightly, her voice hardly a whisper.

“And if this be a preemptive strike by an enemy?”

“Then we have some of our best Wonderbolts investigating; Wonderbolts that are well versed in what constitutes retaliation.”

“And if they be already dead?” The reality was bleak, but the fact that she would possibly have to face.

“Then there will be memorials and wreaths,” Celestia sighed. “As there always is.”

“Mechanical Arcana Generator integrity at forty-five percent. External damage to containment vessel confirmed.”

Whiplash’s eyes cracked open, the pegasus pulled from the bottomless depths of unconsciousness. The voice was tinny, buzzing in his ear like a metal insect. He gasped, his lungs coughing and sputtering on the dust caught in his throat. A deep groan escaped his lips, slipping between his cracked lips. His head felt like it had split open, his vision a blanket of bright white light that throbbed in tune with his pounding head. His ears, though they were ringing badly, could hear the voice again, cold and robotic.

“MAG cannon integrity at thirty-five percent.”

His vision was clearing, objects slowly coming into focus, as did the pain. Spikes of hot stitches crept up his left foreleg. He cried out, the scream echoing and muffled by his battered flight helmet. It was cramped, the helmet slowly suffocating him with his hot breath. He had to get out his sloshed brain screamed at him.

He ripped the helmet off with his uninjured foreleg, huffing and blinking against the dust circling him. The rich smell of hydraulic fluid and jet fuel muddled with smoke filled his nostrils. The fumes burned and stung his eyes and sinuses further.

He could hear somewhat now, everything: the sirens, ponies crying, those trapped under the collapsed buildings calling out to those desperately trying to dig them out.

Something was falling from the sky, slowly floating down like soft, grey snowflakes. Whiplash reached out, the particles settling softly on his fur. It was ash.

“MAG cannon integrity at twenty-five percent. Arcana energy leak detected.”

It was his flight computer; or what was left of it, the Major finally gathering his bearings.

He had landed smack dab in the center of Ponyville, right in the heart of the chaos. But how he had arrived was still fuzzy, his brain still spinning in his skull.

He had touched down — crashed — in a vacant lot, a deep rut strewn with avionics and debris cutting through a path of singed grass. His flightsuit’s port wing must have caught first, the wing ripped from his aircraft, leaving only a jagged hole in its place. Whiplash could see the sharp wing embedded in the ground at the other end of the lot, leaning against a welcome sign for a motel.

He had been lucky, or as fortunate as he could have been in his situation. A few more feet to the left, and he would have impacted asphalt. A few more to the right, they would have been pulling him out the crumbling walls of the cheap motel. The overgrown and abandoned lot had cushioned his fall and saved his life. Not that he could remember the crash, only desperately trying to keep his JUMPsuit in a stable glide.

And something hitting him? Another pegasus? Or something else with wings? The more he tried to clear his head, the dizzier he became.

Jet Utilized Main Propulsion suit, he scoffed to himself. More like, Just Use More Pegasi. The solution seemed better at the moment than encasing oneself in a quarter ton of avionics with high octane fuel. He was going to be sick.

“MAG cannon integrity at fifteen percent. Containment failing. Proceed to safe distance.”

The remaining wing of his suit was glowing hot, the metal radiating orange and smoldering from the foot-long gash in the thin fuselage. Straining his neck, Whiplash could see the arcana energy cannon, damaged inside. It didn’t take long to realize the arcana generator’s coolant system was punctured, the vessel slowly leaking the crucial vapor that kept the volatile magical energy in its stable state. And at this rate, it was going to blow.

The thought of being reduced to nothing but a crater quickly galvanized a reaction, Whiplash struggled against his wretched suit, fruitlessly trying to heave what remained of the aircraft upright.

“Come on,” he grunted, fighting through the pain shooting up his foreleg to no prevail. But it was no use; everything was all dead weight, a sarcophagus bolted around him.

Whiplash clawed at his chest plate, blindly groping for the panel he was searching for.

“Where is it, where is it!” he hissed, teeth clenched tight.

“MAG cannon integrity at ten percent. Arcana leak detected.

Whiplash could spot the mesmeric purple energy fizzling in the air out the corner of his eye. With ten times the energy potential of a unicorn's spell, arcana was a reactive as dynamite in a furnace. It only made him struggle harder.

Suddenly his hoof found purchase, grasping the port stenciled ‘MANUAL RELEASE’ in black, blocky letters. His hoof wrapped around it tightly, gripping the stubby red toggle lever. He squeezed his eyes tight and with a small gasp, he wrenched down on it hard.

Nothing. It didn’t budge.

He was sweating profusely, bullets of perspiration dripping down his face. The heat was quickly spreading from his damaged MAG, cooking him from the inside.

“Release, you stupid hunk of junk,” he seethed through gritted teeth, molars about to explode from the pressure.

“MAG cannon integrity at five percent. Warning! Arcana containment breach!”

“I heard you the first time!” Whiplash screamed at the computer, ripping down on the handle.

Bang!

The explosive bolts holding the sections of the JUMPsuit together shot into the sky like rockets. Whiplash shed the ruined suit in an instant. He was free, but far from safe.

Whiplash ran, ran as hard as he could. Behind him, he could hear his suit’s MAG cannon buzzing and popping, molten metal dripping from the wing. The agony in his broken foreleg was unbearable, hot tears squeezing from his bloodshot eyes, their thin capillaries bursting like balloons. He knew he only had another second before he was toast. He saw his one option and lept for it.

Whiplash dove for the roadside ditch, the critically damaged weapon erupting in a rolling flash of brilliant iridescent colors. Shockwaves of magical energy lifted the pegasus, hurling him into the muddy ditchwater. The pressure wave collapsed in an instant, the air sucked from his lungs as he covered himself from the debris that shot overhead in the backblast. Suit and smoke were blown in all directions, a piece of metal bounding off the blacktop inches above his head.

For several tense moments, he did not move, the Wonderbolt indistinguishable from the rubbish cast into the foul ditch. The rolling thunder of the explosion slowly subsided, replaced again with the emergency sirens and the calls for help among the wreckage of Ponyville.

Like a monster rising from a bog, Whiplash lifted himself from the mud. It dripped off his body in thick globs, slithering back down into the muck sucking at his hooves.

He held his broken leg against his chest, his left wing bent backward against his lacerated back. Whiplash couldn’t feel the pain, not yet. Adrenaline was still pumping through him like an overflowing river. He could only surmount he had hurt it in the crash and was only now fully realizing it. The pain to remind him would come soon enough.

What would have been a small hop out of foul ditch festered before him into several agonizing minutes. The Wonderbolt slowly pulled his way out of the trench hoof by hoof, collapsing onto the littered pavement with a wet slap.

He gasped for breath, hauling himself onto three very shaky hooves. Swiping at his face, he wiped away the unholy amalgamation of mud and algae covering his eyes. And what he saw wasn’t good.

Everything around him for blocks was blasted. Buildings leaned on broken foundations, waiting to give way at any moment. Fires raged across the township as Whiplash stumbled through the smoke that wafted over the deserted road. Glass, thousands of tiny diamonds, tinkled under his hooves; not a single window for miles around had been spared.

Dust filled the air, mingling with the smoke to blot out the sun. It hung above him, a pale, white orb struggling to pierce the dirty blanket covering Ponyville. Whatever dark portal his comrades had encountered in the sky was gone, and Whiplash wondered if it had all been real. The sight of the unearthly lighting and the black, bubbling barrier had seemed so real. And then there had been the contacts.

Something had knocked the veteran flyer out the sky. Whiplash had flashes, perhaps a short glimpse of… something. His head was still reeling as he staggered down the ruined streets of Ponyville, images not of a flightsuit with burning engines, but something else. The strange recollections danced across his sluggish synapses. Something with a coat like black glass. And the two eyes, twin bright orbs glowing a sickly cerulean blue. Something hostile, tearing through his engine like paper mache.

Whiplash shivered involuntarily, his skin crawling at the intense, if muddied, memory. If that thing was still out there, were these ponies in danger, he asked himself. And what of the rest of his team, Clipper, Feldwing? Thundercell, did she make it?

Whiplash faltered, nearly falling to the pavement. His strength was almost gone, and he wavered aimlessly past the motel. His flightsuit’s wing still leaned against the dilapidated welcome sign despite his aircraft’s fiery finish.

A few ponies galloped past him, unaware of his disheveled presence as if he weren’t even there. Some ponies were crying. Others were pulling the injured from the devastation. But most just ambling mindlessly, as he did.

He knew he had to help, to do something. But there was so much chaos. So many were injured, strewn along the sidewalk like leaves in fall, some never to get up. Whiplash had no idea where to start.

The Wonderbolt jumped and stumbled, falling on his broken foreleg with a cry as one of the walls of the motel collapsed behind him, a low thumpof falling brick and mortar and a wash of plaster dust. And a shrill scream, that of a little filly, reached his ringing ears through the commotion. Scratch that, he knew exactly where to start.

As Whiplash limped to the motel, he got a real sense of just how bad of a state the structure was in. It probably hadn’t been in the best of care before, but now it was breaking into pieces. It’s weathered brick walls were cracked, long fractures snaking from the lopsided foundation to the second floor. Multiple portions of the second level had broken and had fallen into the parking lot. Whiplash could see the ashen sky through many of the busted second story windows, the ceilings crumbling into the individual rooms. But what about the kid? He was sure he had heard her.

His answer came again, and he pinpointed it, the little cry. It was coming from the second story.

A quick survey revealed most of the stairwells had fallen, the railings and steps disintegrating into piles of rust. Those that were still intact were severely weak, and Whiplash knew he was in no shape to fly up there, not with a broken wing.

His saw his only other option was one the fallen walkways creating a sharp-sloped ramp to the upper level. It was the only way up.

Step by step Whiplash tested its weight, limping his way up the rough concrete. It seemed stable enough, but he knew how damaged the rest of the structure was. It could fall without warning, as could the rest of the motel.

“Hello!” he yelled over the din of the city in torment. “Is anypony up here?” No response, just more sirens in the distant.

He reached the top, pressing his flank against the wall of the hotel, away from the rusted, crumbling railing.

“Hello!” he called again to no answer. Room by room he searched, knocking open several of the paint-stripped doors with his good shoulder. They gave way like cardboard, the wood having rotted until it was more termites than lumber. Each room he checked was empty, the occupants having fled, leaving behind suitcases and saddlebags, clothes and toiletries. Whiplash knew he had heard somepony, a filly. But where was she?

Crack!

Another door caved in, dusting Whiplash with the bits of crumbling particle board. He blinked, clearing his eyes to find the small tea-colored filly; an earth pony with a copper mane, hardly old enough to have her cutie mark, was trapped beneath wooden beams on the room’s single bed.

“Sweet Celestia,” Whiplash muttered. This was not good.

The ceiling had crumbled directly over the bed, but the little filly had somehow been spared the crushing concrete. He could see her eyes were red from crying and the mortar dust, and she shook horribly.

How long had she been like this, he asked himself. An hour? How long had he been out after the crash?.

Whiplash was immediately by her side, though she didn’t speak, didn’t cry or beg. She just shivered.

“Hold on,” he assured the filly. “I’m going to get you out.”

She whimpered softly and nodded, having run out of tears to cry.

A quick inspection revealed several wooden beams fallen across the bed, compressing the springs of the ruined mattress. The bed would have absorbed some of the force, hopefully sparing the filly from serious injury, but he would have to get her out to confirm.

However, he quickly discovered one of the beams was still upright, running up to the hole in the roof. It was directly over two of the fallen beams, jamming them and pressing them down. Whiplash pushed and pulled as much as his battered body would allow, trying to dislodge the big timber pinning the debris on top of the filly.

“No, no,” he nearly cried.

He spun around in a flash, delivering a sharp buck to the timber. The only result was a pair of bruised hooves.

“Just stay calm, kid,” the Wonderbolt tried to reassure her, biting through the pain. “Let me try to find some help.”

Whiplash stuck his body out the door jamb of the musty, dark motel room.

“Help!” he called over the leaning balcony. “Somepony give me a hoof here. There’s a filly trapped.”

But nopony would answer, his pleas drowned out by the wails and howls of countless others buried and injured. He was on his own.

"Where're your parents?" he turned to ask the girl, her wide eyes, staring at him pitifully. “Do you know where your mom or dad is? Did they go for help?”

She didn’t answer him, didn’t stop trembling, but she did try to turn her neck. She craned her head, wanting to look over her shoulder to the other side of the bed. Something on the other side?

Whiplash leaned over her, sifting through the rubble and bent rebar. He wished he hadn’t.

The mare was buried, crushed face down under the debris on the bed next to the filly. Her auburn mane spilled over her back, coated with plaster dust. She was the reason the kid was still alive. The mare’s body had taken most of the weight, sheltering the little one probably sleeping right beside her when it happened. Her mother?

Suddenly, the floor of the motel rumbled, the filly letting out another scream while Whiplash instinctively covered her from the small bits of concrete that rained down from the ruined ceiling. The floor shifted beneath him, the entire room dipping slightly toward the lot outside.

He had to get the filly out fast. The building was coming down on top of them. He just needed something with more kick to knock the beam pinning the girl lose.

Something was coming together — a plan if he could even call it that. It was risky, but he was on borrowed time. He had to get the filly out before they were both buried.

“Listen.” He knelt beside her, trying to calm her. “I have to go get something. I will be right back. I’m not going to leave you, but you can’t move,” he explained. “Understand?”

She nodded, heaving, and whiffling as she held back the fresh flood of tears.

“Good girl,” affirmed the pegasus, sliding gently out the room and back down onto the pavement.

Whiplash hobbled around the corner of the motel, narrowly dodging an ambulance screaming by. It was a close call, the vehicle barely brushing him. But he didn’t stop. If he did, the filly might as well be lost.

At the motel entrance, he pushed the surviving wing of his JUMPsuit over, the airfoil sliding off the sun-damaged welcome sign. “Free Continental Breakfast”it advertised in bleached letters. He was straddling the wing before it even hit the ground, yanking an access panel off and casting it aside.

“Thank the Princesses,” he panted, catching another lucky break. He hoped those kept coming.

Inside the panel, the second MAG remained untouched and undamaged in the crash. The cannon was a jumble of wires and connections tirled around the arcane containment. He quickly got to work.

“Disconnect the power coupler,” he muttered to himself in deep concentration, ripping out the wire leads and twisting the ends together. “Reroute the arcanic field distributor and…”

The device gave a faint beep and was gently humming. So far, so good.

Whiplash wrapped a flight cord around the burdensome aircraft cannon in a makeshift sling and hauling it out of the wing. It was heavy and dangerous, but it just might do the trick he reasoned, steadying the short barrel protruding from the arcana containment vessel.

Back in the motel room, the filly had not moved, though she was relieved to see him limp back through the door.

Whiplash unslung the heavy MAG, pressing its wide, stubby barrel against the jammed timber. The whole floor gave another jarring lurch as he did, a deep crack splitting the floor down the middle of the room. They were out of time: there was no other option.

“Close your eyes,” he told the filly, his words firm. “And this may be loud. Hang tight.”

He propped up the cannon with a hind leg, dialing in the power best he could with the jury-rig, fumbling with the mess of tangled wires and hoof-twisted connections. He was a flyer, not an engineer, and this wasn’t as simple as a MAG rifle. Too much power and he risked taking the rest of the motel out on top of them both. Too little and the shot wouldn’t cut the timber, risking enveloping them in the backfire of hot arcanic plasma.

“Please, let this work,” he pleaded, wishing for one last lucky break.

KA–BOOM!

Arcana material exploded from the barrel of the MAG, severing the timber in a white-hot flash of splinters. The rest of the heavy wooden beam crashed to the floor, nearly missing the pegasus. Whiplash barely had time to dodge, still blinking away the afterimage of the shot burned into his retinas from the flash. The timber fell hard, widening the crack in the floor even more until it was a foot-wide gap. But the filly was freed.

Whiplash quickly pulled her from the bed, throwing her over his mud-streaked back.

“Hold on tight,” he instructed, sidestepping over the widening crack splitting the room. “I’ll get us out. Just hold onto me.” Everything was still holding for now, but the floor was ready to give at any second. The pain quivering across his battered body was a distant thought now. The filly was his only concern.

They turned for the door, toward safety, only to be blocked by a dark shadowy figure. Two glowing cerulean eyes were locked on them, eyes that were hungry.

“You—”

The figure skulked into the room, responding with a low hiss, several guttural clicks rolling out of its mouth, a mouth of nightmares, brimming with teeth. This was no good Equestrian coming to help; this was a monster and a familiar one. Whiplash stopped dead, the fog of his memory burning away.

Whiplash retreated, backing against the far wall, his hooves recoiling from the intruder as if by their own will. His flank bumped against a chipped dresser, a foal’s saddlebag embossed with figures of masked ponies in heroic poses sliding to the floor with a thump.

He remembered now. It had only been a second, but he had caught a single glimpse of a flash of black, the image staining his mind. He remembered grasping hooves wrapping around his suit, teeth sharper than a manticore's tearing into the fuselage of his flightsuit's engine.

“You,” he gasped, rage bubbling to the surface inside him. “It was you. You tried to kill Thundercell and me."

The creature answered with an ear-splitting screech, bristling as it slowly circled toward them. It ran a forked tongue over a set of four prominent fangs protruding far past the rest. They dripped with thick globules of saliva.

“What–what are you?”

The creature’s skin was hairless, black with a dull shine like the shell of a beetle. A mane, if Whiplash could call it that, was little more than patches of hair, most having fallen out. A horn, sharp as a spear, protruded from its skull, shorter and sharper than any unicorn’s. It curved to a wicked point.

Wings, leathery and thin, almost transparent, buzzed like an angry buzzsaw. This was no pony. Some sickness worse than horror flowed forth like a bursting dam. Whiplash felt what was about to happen before he saw it. This thing was about to try to kill him. For it had already tried.

Without warning, the creature lunged at him, jumping with the explosive force of a cannonball. There was no time to react; it was too fast. The attacker smashed into Whiplash, sending both him and the filly flying across the room. He reached as he went airborne, but it was no use. The filly flew from his grasp with a cry.

Whiplash landed in a shower of broken mirror, sliding into the soapscum-stained bathroom sink. His head swam with a kaleidoscope of colored light, and he fought to stay awake.

The filly. Where is the kid? Whiplash lifted his head, a thin stream of blood flowing from his lacerated temple. It took no time to see she had landed below him, rolling to a stop against the faded and stain-ridden cabinet. She was pressed into a tight ball, pushing herself into the corner.

Across the room, Whiplash watched as the creature stalked them, slinking back and forth as it bid its time in the dark of the motel, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. It prowled toward them, glowing blue eyes falling upon the dazed filly. It let out several throaty clicks, hissing menacingly. Its forked tongue flicked excitedly. Whiplash had only seen such a look on a manticore at a zoo. It was, hungry!

Whiplash unfurled himself from the sink, dropping down onto the floor, shielding the shivering foal.

"Get back," he ordered, fighting nausea rising up his throat. “Get away from her. I mean it.”

The creature gave an angry squeal, taking a step back and pulling up its lips to present rows of sharp incisors. It was not going to back down.

Whiplash eyed his MAG leaning where it had come to rest against the bathroom door. He carefully slid his hoof towards the makeshift weapon, not daring to pull his gaze from the creature.

But the little movement didn't escape it. The creature clicked fiercely, the noise from its throat feral and animal, its back pulled into a fiendish arch. Whiplash knew he would only get one shot. He couldn’t miss.

Whiplash was in tune with his surrounding. He could see the faint particles of dust hovering in the air, hear the drum of his rapid heartbeat fluttering in his bruised chest, feel the hot, scared breath of the filly cringing behind him. He sensed the creature readying to pounce again before he saw it. He could almost feel the muscles of the beast tensing like a field of static electricity tingling up his spine. He had to move now.

All at once, Whiplash flung himself toward the cannon madly, the demon already hurtling toward them. He fumbled, finally scooping up the weapon, twisting onto his side.

He fired before he could even see it, and he would never forget the sight of staring down the creature’s open mouth. He would always remember the teeth.

“Come on, come on, where are you, Thundercell?”

Feldwing frantically scanned what was left of Ponyville from high above the dust and smoke. She couldn’t have traveled far. Even with the operator unconscious, the JUMPsuits were built to glide naturally, he recalled. But to survive such a landing—Feldwing quickly push the thought from his rattled mind. The flight suits were still very heavy, not to mention the gallons of volatile fuel and dangerous munitions carried aboard.

“Talk to me Thundercell, I know you're out there.”

He should have seen her transponder beacon by now. He had to find his wingpony.

Feldwing was lining up for his third pass when he heard her, the wash of his engines nearly masking the mare’s weak rattle over the radio.

“f–f–Feld–win–g–g,” she whispered in his earpiece, hurt, but alive. It was faint, barely audible over the muffled thunder of the pegasus’s twin jet engines outside his helmet.

Feldwing lost several feet of altitude at hearing the strained mare, increasing throttle and diving down further into the chaos. The sensors on his heads-up display flashed erratically. He was pushing the suit hard, the engines’ cowlings scalding hot.

“I hear you Thundercell, I hear you,” he cried out, trying to comfort her over his radio. “Can you get your transponder activated? Tell me where you are, Thundercell. What do you see around you?”

“n–No.” He could hear Thundercell gasping in deep pain.

“Come on, Thundercell, stay with me. What do you see around you? I can’t find you.” He was frantic now, searching for any little sign of the crashed mare among the throngs of ponies panicking in the streets.

“No!” Thundercell shrieked in pain, choking for breath. “Sweet stars,” she cursed. “It bit me, bit right on the neck.” The sound of her breath in his earpiece was ragged. “I can hear it, Feldwing, hear it in my head. Can you hear it?”

“What bit you? Stay with me, Thundercell.”

“That thing,” she gulped. “Why can’t you hear it, Feldwing? Don’t you hear that? It'sin my head. She’sin my head!” she sobbed, crying in utter torment. “Get her out of my head! Get her out! Get her out! Get her out!”

She screamed in agony.

Feldwing screamed in reply, the sound of her name echoing through the broken streets. He shot back up into the sky, his eyes desperately scanning for a trail of fresh smoke, her fuselage, a fleeting glimpse of white mane. Each time his heart soared, only to be plunged farther down. His pleading turned to begging, a collection of unintelligible words strung together by the fear of losing something dear. Words drowned out by the river of crying pain emanating from his earpiece.

He screamed with her, two voices joined in a cacophony of loss and terror. A discordant melody that only they could hear, two songs in a crescendo of anguish.

And then, caesura, the sudden stop. The grand pause.

The abrupt end to one of the songs, silencing the other, the weight of realization drowning away the sound for a brief interlude.

Then the finale, fine, a single note: a cry of raw pain. A broken stallion left defeated and weary from the performance. A cry so loud as to be heard below him over the roar of the afterburners.

She was nearly gone by the time he landed next to her, soot and dust from the burning town billowing away in his exhaust. Alive, but gone. Whatever was before him was not Thundercell, not any longer. And with the last piece of her, she begged him, her wingpony, for one simple request.

“Shoot me.”

Chapter 4: Familiar Faces and Foreign Relations

“Signal Loss.”

The glow from the display illuminated Princess Luna’s bleak and weary face, blinking the same message it had steadily announced for the past twelve hours. The princess yawned and stretched, propping her hooves in the empty terminal seat beside her. Chilly air swam around her, and she wrapped her jacket tight, admiring the soft, downy fabric. Somepony had gone to a lot of trouble to make the fleecy garment, and she noticed the crescent moon embroidered on the puffy collar’s tip: a nice touch. The jacket was warm and fended off the cold, recycled air of the bunker.

Whatever had happened topside had left them were in the dark in terms of communication. The atmospheric disturbance captured on the Wonderbolt’s video feed had scrambled everything, from the radios to the hardlines, every reception from the surface overflowing with static and interference. The electricity, too, had been affected, and it had taken hours to get the lights back on. Technicians had reported several fried transformers to be the culprit as had those who ventured to the surface. Canterlot was safe, but without power as well. It had only been the start of a long night.

As for Ponyville, the Wonderbolt wing had returned with reports of extensive damage. It wouldn't be until first light that emergency crews could make a full assessment though, and dawn was still hours away.

The moon would be high over the Canterlot mountain by now Luna thought, barreling through space not far from its intended trail without her guiding touch. It was a small comfort, the heavenly paths above stable for another three or four days at most without her or her sister’s delicate touch. It gave them time. It still might be a few days before they could venture topside, and though all indications pointed to Canterlot being unharmed, her and Celestia's absence would only fuel the unease.

Celestia had retired for the night long ago, retreating to her room and leaving Luna to hold watch with the odd technician or two. Several of the bunker’s inhabitants were still up, diligently burning the midnight oil to restore critical systems and communications, though many would be dreaming of their beds. As the long night had worn on, even Luna longed for her bed, the thought of a dreamless sleep calling her. And not for whatever passed for a bedroom this far below the mountain.

Luna admitted their rooms were more furnished than the bunker’s general living quarters, but there was little you could do with furnishing and amenities to draw away from the fact they were in a concrete box buried within the Canterlot mountain. You couldn’t pick out a colorful set of drapes if your room didn’t have windows. Maybe she should look into some paint, something bright; it would undoubtedly improve the gray that saturated every corner of the place.

From the back of the command center, the princess watched the technicians and electricians poke and prod inside the terminals with their overflowing wires and their shiny, black screens. Even Brass was curled inside a panel, a flashlight clenched in his mouth. But the display still steadily blinked. “Signal Lost.”

Luna did not understand much of the world today, a fact she chose not to hide. It would be a long time before she could grasp such new concepts as electricity, computers, or much of the modern reality she found herself in.

It was common knowledge to most ponies that she was from a time detached, thrust back into a life she could scarcely recognize from the Old Times. Her thousand-year absence, it seemed, had been glossed over till even she had become a legend. Luna distinctly remembered how hard those first days were, trying to readjust to the Equestria she had missed dearly. But she was always thankful for her aides’ patience, or how they never commented or poked fun at her outdated vernacular, remnants of an antiquated tongue.

Luna smiled — there was somepony who had always found her peculiar dialect delightful (in his own words). She could still remember it all: the sand dunes, the ocean, the hot breeze blowing through the palm trees onto the veranda. She could see it now as she huddled in the chilly, damp air and the imposing darkness.

Luna could practically picture herself standing there again, looking over the balcony of the palace. Across the sands, the tall dunes rising over the endless desert, she could smell the salt of the shell-strewn seashore. And she recalled that same pony.

"It is beautiful, is it not, Princess?”

Luna spun around, startled by the heavy accent.

"I'm sorry," the older stallion apologized, bowing deeply before her, his white robes brushing the sand-speckled terracotta. He was shorter than she would have imagined but stout, almost as wide as he was tall. "Forgive me, your Highness, I couldn’t help but notice you admiring the view.”

Luna adjusted the sunhat atop her head, dark sunglasses shielding her from the blinding sun. Her sister’s heavily body was absolutely overwhelming in this part of the world, and she would much rather be under the soft glow of her moon. But this was an important affair, Celestia had said so herself.

It will be good for you. You should be involved in Equestria's foreign relations. The world needs to know the real you. It is so good to have you back…

“There be no need to apologize, your Excellency,” Luna professed, extending a hoof in greeting to the Sultan. She wouldn’t admit it right now, but she was kicking herself for not remembering his name. It was a long one, with lots of vowels.

"I trust your trip was a pleasant one? Did my envoy find you and your security well?” the Sultan asked, stroking his dark beard manicured to a sharp point, all under the watchful eye of Luna’s bodyguard.

The regular formalities of armor and tradition had been predisposed for this meeting, the bat pony of the Night Watch carefully observing all interactions with the Princess from the corner of the veranda. Only a similar pair of dark sunglasses adorned him, protecting his eyes from the unaccustomed harshness of the daylight. Luna was not the only one ill adept to daytime relations.

“Most well,” Luna lied, already imagining the long airship journey home once their meeting concluded.

The Sultan chuckled, his great belly beneath him shaking. "A thousand apologies," he raised a hoof, "but your vernacular, it is old, yes?”

Luna's mood quickly soured at the observation, failing to find any humor in the Sultan's comment. "Thou might call it outdated," she grumbled, adjusting her sunglasses against the blinding sun. "Tis’ been difficult adjusting after a thousand cold years imprisoned on the moon.”

“Well, have no fear your Highness,” the Sultan, scooping a hoof around her foreleg and pulling her to the edge of the balcony. “Saddle Arabia is nice and warm all year round!” he exclaimed, waving a hoof over the blistering sands that seemed to go on for miles. The bat pony shifted but didn't move. Contact with the Princess was always limited. But he let the good-natured gesture slide — for now.

“So we have noticed,” Luna muttered, wiping the sweat on her forehead with a hoofkerchief. “My sister said we have much to discuss, our two nations.”

“You are in much luck, Princess,” he told her, spinning around and heading back inside. Luna followed the squat, sun-wrinkled stallion inside the palace and out of the crushing heat. “Your visit has come at an exciting time for Saddle Arabia, and I have much to show you.”

Luna was led along a winding path through the ornately decorated desert palace, passing finely woven tapestries that adorned the sandstone walls and towering whitewashed facades. It was quite beautiful, but what she wanted most of all was some sleep, though Luna wondered if she could accomplish such a simple task in such overbearing heat. Daytime was a foreign realm to her, but she had promised Celestia that she could handle her first international summit by herself. Luna wasn’t about to prove herself wrong.

One the ground floor of the palace the Sultan hurried her and the guard into a garage, beaconing them inside. “Come, come,” the Sultan encouraged, gesturing to the strange carriage parked before them. “Your guardpony is welcome, too. Such a quiet one, yes? Let us go for a drive; we will take my overlander.”

“Your…overlander?” Luna gulped, her legs unnaturally weak all of a sudden.

It was the one thing she had found most surprising, yet terrifying since her return, the automobiles. She distinctly remembered several close encounters with the mechanical wagons after unknowingly wandering onto the Canterlot streets. Celestia had insisted on the bodyguard after that.

“Yes, yes,” the Sultan insisted, hopping into the offroad vehicle. To observe the short ruler, barely able to see over the steering wheel, struggling to reach the pedals did little to assure her.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to fly along?” Luna gave her wingtips a little flap. "I don't want to impose."

"Impose?" the Sultan scoffed. "No, no. Much room." He patted the empty passenger seat beside him.

Luna glanced to the silent Night Watch beside her, the bat pony only giving a small shrug.

“I suppose it can’t be that bad,” she admitted, sliding anxiously into the open-topped vehicle.

Five terrifying hoof-clenching minutes later, Luna knew it had been a mistake to get into the overlander. The alicorn gripped the dash bar with her powerful hooves as the vehicle raced across the hard pavement. Hot desert winds assaulted her from the open top, and she had lost her hat several miles back. The vehicle’s narrow tires bit at the sand blown across the road, throwing up twin tails in their wake.

“Are thou sure this thing is safe?!” Luna yelled to be heard over the roar of the engine, her eyes glued to the ground rushing below her, no door to hold her in. Her guard, equally terrified, was putting up a valiant effort to hold himself down in the backseat. His teeth were clenched so tight, his fangs made tiny cuts on his lip

“No worries, Princess,” the Sultan chuckled, adjusting the wide gold-rimmed sunglasses that protected his face. “I am a very safe driver,” he assured her.

“Watch it!” the guard barked, the Sultan swerving around a herd of goats milling in the middle of the road. It was all Luna could do to hold herself in her seat, her sunglasses rattling on the floorboards.

“I have many servants in my palace,” the Sultan explained, “but I like to drive myself. There is nothing else like it. Such freedom, the speed.”

“Clearly you enjoy the activity very much so” Luna shouted, ducking as a bewildered seabird sailed over the windshield, nearly clipping her head.

“You have never driven in an overlander before, have you, yes?”

Luna’s teeth rattled as the tires slipped on the gravel-strewn shoulder of the road before finding purchase again. "No, we have not. Tis not an activity I imagined to find myself in soon.”

The wheels of the overlander bucked beneath them, the pavement giving way to shimmering sand. Waves lapped at the shoreline, the shadows of palm trees shooting overhead as the vehicle cut a hard left along the beach.

Luna hadn't seen a beach in more than a millennium, and it was hard for her to contain her delight. It was more beautiful than Luna could have remembered, the water like liquid sapphire. It lapped at the shoreline, washing the multi-colored shells and pebbles to shine beneath the sun. From here, she could see farther out into the salty sea and to platforms of metal that rose from the ocean surface.

“Those,” she said, pointing a hoof to the structures. “What are they?” she asked the Sultan.

“Ah, a good question, Princess. That is part of what I wanted to show you,” he said, his beard whipping in the wind as the overlander bounded across the seashore. “Those are arcana rigs.”

Arcana. Celestia had told her about that; a foul-smelling substance pulled from the depths of the earth.

“Saddle Arabia hath arcana reserves?” she asked. She had seen the arcana fields of Equestria, but from the number of waterborne structures she spotted off the coast, it must be a massive deposit.

The Sultan released a deep chuckle, his big belly bouncing up and down in his seat. “Forgive me, your Grace. I mean no offense,” he apologized, wiping away a stray tear beneath his golden shades. “Your Highness,” he explained politely, “Saddle Arabia has the largest arcana deposits in the world. More than even your Appalousa.”

"And it be valuable?"

“More than liquid gold,” he said with a crooked grin.

Luna had to admit, it was hard to imagine such a nasty substance had any value at all. But she had been told the Appalousa arcana boom had been quite the economic revolution, growing the frontier town from a tiny backwater apple producer to the largest economy in all the Equestrian commonwealths. Her ports and waterways to the Gulf of Caballo had just finished a dredging operation to accommodate the ships ferrying the liquid overseas, bringing even more bits to the commonwealth.

“You have returned at an exciting time, Princess,” the Sultan continued. “Let me show you.”

The overlander raced at its breakneck speed down the beach, Luna lingering on the Saddle Arabian sea lapping just out of reach. Every now and then the metal rigs would belch, sending a plume of iridescent arcana from their flare booms. The magical substance would crackle and pop, evaporating with a flood of colors overtop the installations.

The Sultan swerved, Luna once again gripping the dash-bar in desperation to keep from being tossed around. They had arrived at a facility, a conglomeration of steel stacks and towers that hugged the beach, several massive pipelines like snakes slithering their way out of the water and up the beachhead.

"What is this place?" she wondered, the overlander screeching to a halt on a patch of pavement. The Night Guard breathed a grateful sigh of relief from the back as the ruler turned the engine off and vaulted from the vehicle.

“A refinery,” he answered, waddling beside the two as they made their way inside the barb topped fencing. “An experimental one. Most others are much larger than this, refining enough arcana to power our cities and fuel our overlanders,” he gestured to the parking lot.

“Is this what you wanted to show me?”

“It is indeed, Princess.” His words were dripping with contained excitement.

The Sultan stopped beneath one of the refinery towers, several robed workers giving courtesy bows to their beloved ruler. Only fitting for the pony who had transformed what had once been a dustbowl of goat herders into the most prosperous country in the world, supplying dozens of nations with their precious energy extract.

“We were one of the first to begin researching the potential of arcana,” he told his guest, grabbing a clear flask from a nearby cabinet. He placed it beneath one of the hundreds of pipes protruding from the tower, a thin stream of iridescent liquid filling the container with the turn of a spigot. "What was once a foul-smelling fluid hardly suitable for lamp oil, was transformed into a condensed energy source.” With the stroke of a match, the liquid erupted into a meter tall cone of flame. Luna and her guard shielded themselves from the intense heat and light.

The Sultan quickly set the flask down before he burned his hooves, his bushy eyebrows singed on the edges. "Highly combustible magical condensate, a perfect fuel source. With years of research, we have perfected the refining process, all of it public of course. I’m sure Appalousa appreciated it.”

The flame had exhausted its energy supply, dying into a smoldering residue coating the empty flask. "Equestria doth owe it to your generosity," Luna peppered him, allowing him his moment of fame. “But I am very eager to see what thou has called us halfway around the world for." She hadn't meant to sound rude or snotty. But the heat was unbearable. And her nerves were short from lack of sleep.

“All in good time,” he chuckled, beckoning them along.

“Overlanders and arcana generated electricity are well and good,” he spoke, “but they only created a technological boom. We are looking toward something greater.”

Finally, they ventured into one of the enclosed buildings, a cool air-conditioned breeze greeting them as the Sultan opened the steel doors. Luna could hardly contain her relief, sighing deeply as she basked in the frigid air. Her bodyguard gratefully removed his sunglasses, his orange eyes adjusting to the fluorescent lighting.

Behind lab tables, beakers and bunsen ponies in lab coats and traditional robes worked diligently on their projects. The Sultan waved off their esteemed welcome, instead, producing a small metal cylinder from one of the work stations. "This is what I wanted to show you," he said proudly, holding up the little bottle. Half of it was partially transparent, exposing a deep purple substance behind its thick exterior despite its small size.

"What is it?" Luna asked quizzically.

“Arcana,” he said. “Refined to the point it is condensed to a state that we admit we still do not fully understand.”

"So it's just more?" she said skeptically.

"If you mean ‘more,' I don't think you understand the density we are speaking of here," he told them. "What we were working with before does not even compare. We are talking of a substance that is pure magic.”

"But that's just silly," she scoffed incredulously, gazing up and down at the tiny cylinder in his hoof. "No unicorn has ever come close to synthesizing magic into a material form before. The implications of such a thing would be—“

"Inconceivable," he breathed, looking into the minute amount swirling inside the canister.

“What does he mean?” Luna’s bodyguard asked, grabbing a closer peek.

“It turns everything we know about magic on its head,” she told him. “A state of matter only unicorns have barely understood.”

“Now harnassed in quantities no unicorn could ever cast in their lifetime.”

“That’s a lot, right?” the bat pony glanced between the two.

“Yes,” the Sultan chortled. "That is a lot. Magic, condensed into a source of energy that rivals the output of twenty standard arcana power facilities.

With the delicacy of a surgeon, he twisted the top of the cylinder, a tiny bead, hardly larger than a grain of sand materializing. It fizzled and popped in the open air. "Why one drop is enough to—“

Zapp!

The droplet vaporized in an instant, knocking them and most of the occupants to the floor. Windows shattered, glass vaporized and paper flew. Sunlight pierced through the meters-wide hole in the roof, the harsh rays poking through the dust. Sprinklers activated, and ponies rubbed furiously at their eardrums as they pulled themselves off the floor. Luna rolled her bodyguards groaning figure off of her, wobbling on all four of her hooves in a daze. Through her swimming vision and charred mane, the Sultan was still standing. His beard, once a voluptuous sea of beautiful black was gone, revealing a dimpled chin. He coughed and sputtered, removing the barren gold frames from his blasted face.

“We still are figuring out the exact science,” he sputtered, choking on the smoke wafting from his singed coat. “Clearly a little volatile to open air. But in the right hooves, just think of all that can be accomplished…”

“Coffee, your Highness?” The mare levitated a delicate china cup before her.

Luna shook away the vision, the hot beach replaced with the frosty bunker air. Coffee? She wasn’t quite thirsty, but she accepted the saucer anyway. The night wasn’t getting any shorter.

“Thank you, Raven. Couldn’t sleep, I presume.”

The mare gave a short nod, adjusting the slender spectacles perched on her nose.

“Thou had another rough day then? How is she doing?” Luna wondered, pushing a seat toward her. Raven had been in her sister's employment since her return, acting as both a secretary and a liaison to ease the burden of running Equestria as her own. But as of late, she was more caregiver.

“She has her good days and her bad days,” Raven said. She put on a thin smile, folding her glasses and hanging them around her neck. She perched herself on the edge of, the seat loosening the choker she always wore around her neck.

“And today?”

“One of the not so good ones,” Raven admitted, folding her legs as she watched the technicians continue their diagnostics.

“Is she improving though?” Luna didn’t like to ask about her sister behind her back. It felt terrible, even, as if she could not trust her kin. Even after all that Luna had put her through already; a thousand years must weight the moon itself upon Celestia’s heart.

Raven returned a small shrug, removing the imposing hairpin and unfurling her mane. She gave it a few fluffs, the black, glossy strands washing over her petite neck. “Hard to tell. Sometimes, when I think she is improving, she’ll go into her reclusive phase, locking herself in her bedchambers. She usually won’t see anypony when she is like that. Sometimes she won’t even see me.”

“I’m sure this day has not helped her either,” Luna sighed, stirring her coffee. "I doth believe there is little we can do to help her now but ease some of her burdens. Schedule some of her commitments to me, would you.”

“You’re already bearing nearly most of her responsibilities. Any more at this point and you may as well be raising the sun,” Raven cautiously reminded her.

“I know,” Luna told her, already feeling a fresh headache rearing its ugly head. “It be the only thing I can do for her. She has already done the same for me, a thousand years even.”

“It wasn’t always this way?” Raven asked her. “Things used to be —a hoof rubbed her horn as if it ached —simpler, right? Or was the day to day always like this?” Raven wondered. “Before your banishment.”

"No. No, things used to be much simpler." Luna barely remembered the Old Times, but this much she was sure of. Days where the only trouble was a rogue dragon or an encroaching hydra threatening the castle of the Two Sisters were gone. The Equestria she had left, a small fledgling realm, had ballooned into a great beast, a nation stretching from shore to shore across the North Equestrian continent. Countries had come and gone, armies destined to rise and fall. Borders had been disputed, moved or even disappeared. But Equestria, though it was hard to tell if she still recognized it, had remained.

Gone was the old ruling class, replaced with representatives and directors, chairponies and governors of the Commonwealths: the involved inner-workings Royal Government. All constructed to bear the burden of power that used to rest on her and Celestia’s shoulders solely. Yet, still, it had been of small relief to Celestia. It was always so much responsibility, and it had taken its toll.

And then there was the problem of those East, across the endless ocean. They went by many names: Maretonia, YakoslaviasteadySaddle Arabia; those among they had once called friends now squabbling like blathering foals. First, it was territory disputes, but then it was about the arcana.

The Sultan had been right; the arcana indeed had changed the world, only not in the way he virtuously had envisioned. What was supposed to deliver them into a golden age was a poison, a weapon in the minds of those with less noble intentions. The arcana concentrates became guns, warheads, bombs: anything to unleash its devastation. Even her hooves weren't clean in this regard, Luna had to admit. For how else were they to survive in such a world with such destructive powers at large. She should have seen it coming: right from the coup in Saddle Arabia. She had seen that enough on the news when their forces were called back from the violent outbreak.

“What is it like over there, soldier?” they would ask, the reporters shoving their microphones in some poor private’s face as he was wheeled off a troopship.

“It’s gone, all of it,” he would say, leaning into the microphone. "Saddle Arabia is gone. The Sultan’s General threw him from the balcony, turned their troops on us. And you can bet your bits Yakoslavia and Martonia had some hoof in this. Why are we even doing this? Ask the Princesses why they are throwing soldiers lives away in some backwater dust bowl country on the other side of the world. Ask Celestia why I don’t have forelegs. Ask her why I can't walk or hug my foal anymore. That is what it's like over there."

Luna quickly pushed such recollections away. Such things were in the past, forever etched in stone. She could only hope to work toward a more peaceful tomorrow. Even if it meant keeping the Birds fueled and on standby, ready to launch should anypony moved against them. She had seen the first hoof the destructive force of a single drop of concentrated arcana.

“No, things had been much simpler,” Luna said again.

“I think we got it!” shouted a technician, his voice echoing inside the computer cabinet. “Interference is down across all channels. Communications links should be restored.”

Several icons on the main screen blinked green. Luna jumped up as they light up one by one: radio frequencies, ground forces, ship convoys, silo operations, satellite telemetry. Equestria was back in operation.

“Get me a status on Ponyville and the Wonderbolts,” Luna ordered. “Ponyville is priority number one. I want a full assessment from the emergency crews.”

“Princess Luna, we’re getting an emergency communiqué,” informed another technician across the dark control center. “It’s a message. It’s downlinking over a military channel now,” he said, swiveling in his chair. “I think it’s from a flightsuit.”

“Put it on screen,” she commanded.

“I’m getting incoming reports from the emergency crews,” he continued. “Casualties are confirmed.”

“We shall deploy additional aid as soon as we know what we’re dealing with here,” the Princess assured him. “Let us see the message first.”

The data attachments came in slow at first, loading onto the main screen. They were pictures, though it took a minute for Luna to tell they were captured from one of the Wonderbolt’s helmets.

“What is that?” Luna cocked her head, struggling to determine what she was looking at. "Is that—”

Luna’s eyes shrunk inward like they were going to roll back into her head, and the involuntary urge to be sick assaulted her stomach. “Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, oh, oh…”

“Wha–what happened to her?” Raven gulped before turning away from the display.

The comms officer looked to Luna, his face painted sickly white. He looked like he had just seen a ghost, but the reality was far worse. “What do I do, your Highness. Who do I call?” he asked, the phone hanging in his hoof. “Who do I call about this?”

“I don’t know,” she shook her head, still struck by the images. “I doth not know who to call," she gasped, her voice quivering as a chill crept over her. She couldn’t get the images out of her head.

“Call the CED,” somepony answered behind her.

Princess Celestia stood at the door, a bright yellow robe wrapped around her frail visage. Her eyes were dim marbles that slowly slid across the screen, and she clutched onto the railing for support. Her knees were weak, but her composure was steady.

Raven was immediately by her side, trying to coax the alicorn along. “Your Grace, you shouldn’t be up. You need to sleep, you need your strength.

“No.” She wouldn’t budge, clutching the railing with an iron grip. “You need to call the Center for Equestrian Diseases,” she told Luna, her hard stare anchored upon her. “Right now.”

Chapter 5: Biorealm

Lieutenant Feldwing Debrief Report

Presented at the Third Global Conference on the Equestria Quarantine Period.

— New Canterlot, Equestria Republic, April 12-16, 1021 A.V

Captain Winterhoof:

Let the record show that under accordance with Wonderbolt regulation Twenty-three Alpha that this debriefing is being recorded and will be reviewed before a special Wonderbolt council. Present are Captain Winterhoof of the Wonderbolt Fifth, and Lieutenant Feldwing of the Rapid Response Wing. Anything spoken or divulged in this proceeding can be admissible as evidence for future court-martialing. Lieutenant Feldwing, do you understand?
[pause]
Lieutenant Feldwing, I need you to verbally confirm that you understand.

Lieutenant Feldwing:

Y–yes. Yes, I understand, sir.

Captain Winterhoof:

Alright, let’s try to run through his one more time, shall we. We’ll start again from the top. What happened during the recon mission, Lieutenant?

Lieutenant Feldwing:

The mission?

Winterhoof:

Yes, the deployment over Ponyville. Are you feeling alright, Lieutenant?

Feldwing:

Oh, right. No, I’m ok. The Major, Whiplash, he was leading the reconnaissance sweep. A disturbance or something picked up by Canterlot.

Winterhoof:

And you encountered deteriorating conditions upon arrival, is that correct, Lieutenant?

Feldwing:

Yeah —was touch and go for a hot minute. Instruments in error, crosswinds popping up all over the place. We saw it once we broke through the turbulence.

Winterhoof:

Can you describe it? What was its form?

Feldwing:

Form? No, this was emptiness, black as night. It was like a hole in the sky. Hardly had time to get a good look at it before it closed with this tremendous bang. It’s like that annoying little pop you hear when a unicorn teleports only a hundred times worse.

Winterhoof:

Are you saying it was a spell, Lieutenant? How big was it?

Feldwing:

I don’t know. Big. Like, really big. Almost covered the town. Listen, can’t we take a break. My stomach is rolling harder than a pig in fresh mud.

Winterhoof:

We’ll take a break shortly. Now, this is when you reported air contacts before losing communications with Canterlot.

Feldwing:

Two of them, identity undiscernable, right after the shockwave. Thundercell was trying to get comms back online when they popped up out of nowhere on radar, but the airwaves were clogged by the interference. Where is Thundercell, sir?

Winterhoof:

We’ll get back to that later, Lieutenant. Now tell us about the two contacts you encountered. That was when Major Whiplash and Ensign Clipper broke formation, correct?

Feldwing:

Two contacts?

Winterhoof:

Yes, the two hostiles the team encountered. Who were they? Did you get a good look at any marking, identifiers?

Feldwing:

I don’t know. I can’t really remember. I want to see Thundercell, sir.

Winterhoof:

Lieutenant, we need you to focus, right now. What kind of flightsuits did you encounter over Ponyville? Were they Maretonian?

Feldwing:

I-I don’t know. I couldn’t see. Where is Thundercell? She was supposed to fly with me to Rainbow Falls today. We were supposed to have personal leave.

Winterhoof:

Do you remember what happened, Lieutenant Feldwing? You were found at the scene, everypony testified to how they found you.

Feldwing:

Thundercell always says I’m a little scatterbrained. She always joked all the G-forces scrambled my brain. I’m not sure why she was assigned as wingpony. Thunder always was the better flyer.

Winterhoof:

Lieutenant Feldwing —look, you’re not making this easier —tell us what happened to Second Lieutenant Thundercell, what happened to your wingpony? Clipper said he heard the shot, we have his report.
[pause]
Lt. Feldwing, did you shoot the Second Lieutenant?

Feldwing:

Where is Thundercell? This isn’t like her to be late. We’re supposed to go flying, just her and I, like we always do. She loves visiting Rainbow Falls on leave days. Said she wanted to get a house there one day. I was going to help her pick it out.

Winterhoof:

Feldwing, did you willingly shoot the Second Lieutenant? The shot was close range and matches your suit’s energy signature. We have your flight recorder, it shows there was a weapon discharge.

Feldwing:

Where is Thundercell? I want to see Thundercell. Why can’t I see her?

Winterhoof:

Thundercell is dead, Lieutenant. I’ll ask again, why did you shoot her? If it was an accident, you have to come clean. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me the truth.

Feldwing:

She is going to show me how to perform an inverted roll today when we get to the falls. Thundercell is a really great flier. Will she be here soon, sir? I’m sure she could help answer your questions.

Winterhoof:

Do you even understand what I’m saying? She’s dead, Lieutenant. Pull yourself together, now! Ponyville is halfway leveled, and a bunch of ponies are dead. Who breached our airspace? Who attacked the squad? Why did you do to Thundercell?
[pause]
Lieutenant Feldwing!

Feldwing:

I…I shot her. Oh, stars, I didn’t want to.

Winterhoof:

Lt. Feldwing are you admitting to killing your wingpony? Let me remind you that this recording can be used as evidence in a royal court of law.

Feldwing:

It was h-horrible. Like she was shedding everything. Everything was melting away until she became that thing!

Winterhoof:

But why did you shoot her?

Feldwing:

Because s-she told me to. I only wanted to stop her pain, I swear. But s-s-she wouldn’t stop screaming at me to shoot her.

It was such a strange sensation: dying. Dr. Solar Haze had never experienced such a feeling before; all the previous episodes had only left her short of breath. But there was no denying it now: Solar was dying.

Just breathe.

The mare was suffocating, and everything she wanted in all of Equestria was to breathe, just one little taste of air.

She bent over the sink in her office bathroom, the polished marble reflecting a distorted visage of her pain-twisted face, like a mirror in a funhouse. Dim emergency lighting overhead barely illuminated the small bathroom. Hot sweat poured off her forehead and down her cheeks, dripping into the cold marble basin. Her throat was tight, clamped shut from some invisible force. It felt as if a gryphon had its claws around her windpipe, ready to crush it.

The unicorn reached desperately for the medicine cabinet above the sink, her ashen mane falling over her pin-neat blazer. But try as she might, her foreleg refused to respond.

Come on, she pushed herself. She tried again, this time her hoof sluggishly reaching for the mirror. Her vision was reduced to a narrow field of blackness, the edges creeping in from the corners of her eyes until she was sure she would pass out. Her brain screamed for air; her body heaved for relief. Just a little bit more.

She batted open the medical cabinet, the door swinging open to several syringes waiting patiently. Her horn was all but useless now, each puff of magic evaporating in a flurry of disappointing sparks. She would have to use her hooves. Too bad there were as heavy as concrete. A new symptom perhaps? She would have found it more perplexing than heartstopping if she wasn’t about to suffocate.

With a weak grasp, she clutched a syringe, the pink safety cap of the needle quivering under her lips that were already a grave shade of blue. Chattering teeth managed to pull the tip off, Solar spitting the plastic safety cap onto the floor where it rolled under the towel cabinet. With her last seconds of consciousness, her shaking hoof plunged the needle into her shoulder. The plunger depressed with a sharp, uncoordinated slap, the homemade serum instantly shooting deep inside the muscle. And blackness turned to light.

Relief.

She wheezed, gasping deeply. Solar filled her lungs as if it were the last mouthful she would ever receive, her chest burning with the sweet taste of the atmosphere. Waves of shivers traveled up and down her persimmon-colored back as the mare caught herself on the sink, slowly reassuming function of her body. First one hoof, then the others. It felt so good to have control again.

Solar could only compare the sensation to waking up from nightmares as a foal. The ones where she was stuck, frozen, unable to move or shout or run away from whatever monster of the dark or terror of night was stalking her sleeping realm. The only difference now was no Princess was watching over her, waiting to save her from this nightmare. She was all alone.

They’re getting worse.

She had accepted such a grim conclusion months ago. The problem was time. Time was what she needed, the precious commodity so many others took for granted. Time: just a little more time, yet in short supply. Her research was too close to a solution to quit now.

Solar Haze stared into the mirror, brushing mane from her eyes. They quivered, releasing hot defeat that fell down her ginger cheeks. She had never hated salty water so much, cursing every drop.

She collapsed with her back against the opulently tiled wall, tucking her hindlegs against her heaving chest.

How much longer before the treatments were not enough, she wondered? Before the serum was no longer enough to keep the attacks at bay? She sat quietly in the dark under the dim emergency lights, letting the tears fall onto the spotless clean floor. She hated them, so it was time to let them all out; she couldn’t hold onto them any longer.

“Dr. Haze?” came the knock, outside the door. “Dr. Haze, the recovery team is arriving from Ponyville. They said you’re probably going to want a look at this for yourself.” He seemed half a world away from her private sanctuary.

“I’ll be out in a minute, Trotter,” Solar sniffed, shamefully picking herself up from the cold floor. She dabbed at her red, puffy eyes with a damp cloth, trying her best to cover the evidence. She couldn’t let anypony to know —nopony would look at her the same.

With some freshly applied confidence (and a touchup of eyeliner) Dr. Solar Haze stepped back into her office, mustering herself one last time. Her head was still faint from the oxygen deprivation, but that usually fade with a few minutes. There was no time to stop now. Time was precious; she reminded herself for the hundredth.

Her office, cluttered with overflowing file cabinets, charts and manilla folders strewn about the dusty room, was lit by the dim glare of the back-up lights and she had to feel her way for the door carefully. That was yet another problem of the morning on an ever-growing list —the power. And it seemed all of Canterlot was without it as well.

Solar strode into the outside corridor, her lab coat fluttering as she trotted down the bright hallway. The door to the office clicked behind her, the title “Director,” etched into the frosted glass.

The lankey brown earth pony quickly caught up with her, pen with a heavily chewed cap tucked behind his ear.

“Good, I finally found you,” he gasped, out of breath, his words deep despite his thin build. “Honestly, your bathroom was the last place I hadn’t looked for you.”

“Sorry,” she coughed. “Needed to clean up a bit, Trotter. Didn’t get much sleep the night before.”

“And some ponies though you would slow down for once when you accepted the CED Director position,” Trotter muttered as he hurried to keep up. “I think you’ve slept on your desk more than your actual bed.”

“Don’t remind me,” she grumbled, stretch the permanent crick in her neck. “Just lay it out for me.” She didn’t have time for formal banter.

“Power is still mostly out across the center.”

“Obviously.”

“The techs think the batteries will last until Power and Water replace the blown transformer in the lower basement.”

“And what about sample containment,” the unicorn asked, the two of them passing a crowded break room. Ponies in lab coats and coveralls congregated around the television, their attention transfixed on the images of ruined houses and destroyed townscape. “Breaking: Ponyville” the banner flashed. It seemed more like a waste of battery power.

“Sample containment from levels One through Four is still within nominal temperatures,” Trotter puffed, trying his best to keep up with the unicorn’s fast pace. “We have enough liquid nitrogen stocked to feed the system for almost a week. We should be ok.”

“Good,” Solar sighed in relief. It was the first positive news she had received all morning. She could always count on Trotter. “Now onto the recovery team.”

Trotter pulled the folder from a thin, sleek saddlebag over his back, his long mane whipping as they hurried along the corridor. “Report was forwarded from the Royal Sisters themselves early last night. Top priority,” he whistled, reading the markup. “Long story short, some Wonderbolts deployed over the Ponyville incident were intercepted by hostiles. They sustained a casualty.”

“Tell me again why they are sending us a military casualty?” The exasperation slid off her words. “Isn’t that a Wonderbolt problem, why involve us? Nopony has even told us what is going on down there or what is up with the power.”

“That’s where our part to play comes in. The Wonderbolt, a Second Lieutenant Thundercell,” Trotter read off, “she didn’t die from her flightsuit crash. She was shot —by her leadpony in fact.”

“Her leadpony?” Solar asked, trying to piece together why the case was being dumped on them, but still coming up short. “Why? Was he suffering from Terminal Freakout.”

It was a reach, but they were seeing more and more cases in Wonderbolts per year, suspected consequences of reduced blood to the brain due to g-forces coupled with the stress induced from piloting flightsuits. It wasn’t widespread, only a hooful of cases ever confirmed. But even the strongest fliers could snap in a short span, sometimes with little warning. Most times they would lock up in flight, crash, make stupid rookie mistakes that got themselves or others hurt. Lesser times, they just went insane or killed themselves.

“Still no diagnosis on her leadpony. Wonderbolt Command is holding him for now, but they forwarded us the preliminaries. From what little they were able they get out of him, it sounds she was exposed to something before he shot her,” Trotter replied around the pen clamped in his teeth, scribbling several notes in the report. “He claims she suffered a bite from an unknown assailant they encountered.”

They were coming to the end of the corridor, a steel-plated gate guarding the end of the passage. Trotter was already punching in the code on the keypad.

“Stars, you hear something new every day. Either way, we’ll find out soon enough,” Solar assured him.

Cold mountain air assaulted the two scientists as the gate lifted away, Solar squinting against the bright sunlight and biting wind that flooded in. Shielding her eyes, she stepped outside.

Sparse and rugged mountain grass, still ripe with morning dew, folded under Solar’s hoofsteps as she ventured onto the mountain ledge. A CED airship, its silvery skin glistening under the clear sky, was mooring itself the pier protruding from the isolated face of Canterlot Mountain.

The grating creaked beneath her and Solar had to avoid the sight of the distant ground that peeked through the rust-coated deck. The height was dizzying enough for even a gryphon.

With a clatter, hatch to the airship slid aside; two ponies in garb resembling spacesuits wheeled an acrylic-domed gurney onto the dock.

“Where do you want the body, Director?” one of them asked, his voice crackling through his protective suit.

Solar had seen many sights, almost all unpleasant, in her service for the CED: disease and plague, sickness and death. But the pony on the gurney was the first to stop her cold.

“Sweet Celestia,” she choked, instinctively grabbing the dock rail. Her head was still light, and her vision swam. “Where is the rest of her?

“That’s what I was going to add,” Trotter muttered, his face sour at sight. “Her partner shot her with his flightsuit’s cannon. It was an arcana generator, meant to take out enemy airships and flightsuits.”

“Well, that would explain the missing half.” Solar shuddered, her skin quivering beneath her coat. She couldn’t tell if it was the result of the injection or whatever had afflicted the pony before being nearly vaporized. “And the rest of her. What caused that? She hardly looks to be ponyanymore.”

Trotter tucked the pen back behind his ear, taking deep breaths and bracing himself against the weathered pier railing, rust dusting his hooves. “I believe that is what the Princesses want us to figure out,” he chuckled dryly, “with almost nothing to go on. Wonderbolt Command won’t release any further evidence until they conduct their proceedings with her leadpony,” he said, motioning to the body with his chewed pen. “Any idea what we could be looking at here? They said she was symptomatic when he shot her. I need something to go for the Princesses’ report.”

“I have no idea,” Solar admitted, a fact she was not so accustomed to. She peered through the dome, studying the remains, blackened and twisted. “We could be looking at several causations. Biological, chemical, virological radiological, magical — we can’t know until we run an autopsy.”

“Are we assuming this was something natural?”

Solar shook her head, her slate mane wavering in the mountain wind. “I don’t know anything that does that to somepony.”

“So a weapon then?”

“We might have the start of something global here,” she breathed. “If Ponyville was the center of something hostile, we may be looking at a weaponized agent. I want you to take your new colleague; Stardust is her name? She spent some time in the Royal Medic Corp. See if she has seen anything like this during her time overseas.”

Trotter moved aside as the ponies wheeled the gurney inside. “I’ll also give the Defence Coalition a heads-up. If anypony could give us intel on a weapon that could do this to our Wonderbolt here, it’s probably them..”

“Her name?” Solar turned to the earth pony. “What’s her name, again?” The simple thought had already slipped her mind. Hopefully not another side effect.

“Her name?” Trotter furrowed his brow, leafing through the file in his hooves. “Thundercell.” He closed up the file and returned it to his saddlebag. “Her name is Thundercell.”

“Put Thundercell in the level three biolab. I want you to head up the autopsy with Stardust,” she instructed him, turning to head back inside as the airship fired up again, the prop wash flowing over them. “I’ll work on getting that report from her commanders. There may be something we can use to figure out what she was exposed to. Run everything in the meantime, a full workup.I’m betting Maretonia, or some other sick individual finally cooked something up.”

“And what should I tell Canterlot Castle?” Trotter called back over the buzz of the airship as it cast her lines, pulling away from the installation. “Ponies will be asking what happened. I need to give the Princesses an answer.”

“Just worry about your report,” Solar Haze reinforced, leaving her friend outside and disappearing back into the gloomy, power-stricken facility. “Just make sure you use full containment protocols,” she reminded. She couldn’t wait around for the results; she had a project of her own to attend to. There was little time.

“Your tea, Highness.”

The servant placed the steaming teapot down, returning to his post by the balcony door.

Celestia gave the pot a tentative glance before pushing it away with a shaky hoof.

“Aren’t thou going to try some, Sister?” Luna pushed the kettle back across the table, hoping she would at least pour some into her cup.

The new morning rays bathed the balcony perched high above the capital, their view, an uninterrupted audience over the city and the luscious green hills skirting the cliffs above. Before them, a table overflowing with assortments of scones, fruits, and other brunch cuisine sat untouched — everything a princess could desire.

Luna watched Celestia look down at the silver kettle, forlornly studying herself in the polished metal. Her hair, bedraggled and tangled, clung to the back of her neck, the strand ends split and torn. A face once bright and full of life, hung limp, eyes drooping like foggy marbles staring lifelessly from the other side of the teapot.

“I’m not really in the mood for tea,” she uttered, sliding back the brew with a dry, cracked hoof.

“Thou really must try to eat something at least then.” But Luna persuasion got her nowhere. “Please, it’s going to be a long day. You need your strength.”

“I’m not hungry,” Celestia reiterated, pushing away her empty plate as well.

“Well, we cannot force you.” Luna bit into a pastry, the gooey filling bursting through the crisp crust and running down her chin. Unlike her sister, she was famished from her long night. She was just glad to be above ground again. “You should get some more rest,” she said around the sweet tartlet. “I shall see to the public address.”

“And what do you expect to tell them?” Celestia scoffed, eyes staring listlessly over the waking city. “For all we know, somepony just started a war.”

“We need to assure them we are doing everything in our power to investigate the incident. We must retain order and find those accountable.”

“Order.” Celestia gave a sharp laugh, catching her off guard. It was the most energy she had shown in weeks. “What do we know of order anymore, Luna? We do not keep order,” she told her, waving a hoof across the castle. “No, we only are here to tell everypony that everything will be alright.” She shook her head, solemnly. “Even when we know everything will not be alright.”

Luna set her breakfast down, quickly running a napkin over her mouth. “Then what do thou propose we do then?” Her words were sharp. She was in no mood for her sister’s sullen attitude, and her patience was quickly receding. “The body count in Ponyville is quickly rising, and we doth not even know if we have been attacked. The media is waiting on a statement from us, sister.”

“And what of the rest of the Royal Government? Why isn’t the Ministry of Intelligence or the Defense Coalition handling this?” Celestia massaged her temples with her hoofguards, the metal pocket-marked from the rough cobblestone that paved the capitol streets. “What good are they if ponies keep coming to us for answers? How do they expect us to rule over everything?”

“Equestria doth still needs our guidance,” Luna reminded her, tapping the polished tabletop with a heavy hoof. “No matter how big this country gets, we are still ultimately responsible. You know this, sister.”

“Stars dammit, I know!” Celestia cursed, bolting up in a wave of cutlery and scones. She quickly leaned over the edge of the balcony as if about to be sick, her still-powerful hooves gripping the polished marble tight. Though her strength had faded, Luna knew her sister could break it in an instant.

The servant standing by quickly swooped in, replacing the dropped utensils with a fresh pair and sweeping the scones from the ground before retreating without a word into the castle.

Luna was beside her sister as he left. Maybe she had been a little quick to temper. “I know things were hard while I was banished. And I know things have not improved since my return,” she said apologetically, the same guilt, the pain, resurfacing once again for the grief she had caused in her past ways. “I’m sorry I was not there for you before. All that responsibility was not thine to bear.”

Celestia leaned her tired head against her, Luna gently comforting her, stroking her faded and coarse coat with her hoof.

She held her as they watched the airships hovering in the distance over Ponyville, the silvery beasts arriving to begin the long and painful process of picking up the pieces. Luna knew they would be bringing the sick and injured to Canterlot, Ponyville General badly damaged by the explosion.

“Tis a different time, Tia. Equestria has grown much bigger than us.”

“When did everything change? Do you remember?”

“What doth thou mean?”

“When did everything become so much bigger? It was never like this before. Equestria could face down anything, a draconequus, Tirek, even you, Nightmare Moon, all with the power inside oneself,” Celestia lamented. “When did it all change?”

“The world be a different place now, Tia,” Luna softly spoke. “You mustn’t overwork yourself so, sister. Equestria has grown much too big for just us. We must do what we can; tis’ all we can hope for.”

“Any word on the Wonderbolt?” she wondered quietly, changing the subject away from the constant worry of work and if she was getting enough sleep or if she was eating at all. Luna knew she was good at steering the conversation away from herself, but still, she worried for her.

“Not yet,” Luna answered, sitting Celestia gently back in her chair. “Let the Center for Equestrian Diseases work. As you said, they doth know what they are doing,” Luna assured her. “I believe you made the right call.”

Luna moved her chair beside Celestia, grabbing a scone and placing it on her sister’s plate. “Now eat. I will handle the press conference, but we still must find out what happened. You saw the same phenomenon as I did on that video. Have thou seen anything like that before?”

“No.” Celestia’s eyes narrowed, grabbing the scone and taking a tentative bite. “But there may be somepony I know.” She combed her mane with a hoof, straightening the tangles in a vain attempt to make herself more presentable. “He’s a teacher,” Celestia explained. “A professor at the University.”

Chapter 6: What Lies in the Mountain

Solar had to forgo the elevator.

The backup batteries only powered the bare essentials and containment systems, which unfortunately meant the stairs were her only other option. Flight after flight, she slowly made her way down into the heart of the mountain. Her hooves rapped on the rough cement, her lab coat bouncing up and down.

Here the walls were solid, bare rock, and a thin film of dust coated the stairwell. Solar lit her horn with a quick spell, warding off the darkness that consumed the meager emergency lighting. She definitely didn't want to trip and stumble here; it was a long way down.

When she finally reached the bottom of the shaft, her hooves contacted something wet. She looked down to see her reflection in the water pooling on the floor.

Condensation. They needed the power back soon, the warm autumn air outside was filtering down, condensing on the cold rock and dripping without the protection of the air systems. Just something else to add to the list, Solar sighed, sloshing through the water.

Level Four was the deepest portion of the Center for Equestrian Diseases and thus the most secure. The multiple layers of rock and granite were a natural barrier to the outside while more modern measures made sure nopony wandered where they shouldn’t. The inhabitants of Level Four were particularly dangerous and equally.

Producing her identification card from her coat, Solar waving it in front of the scanner.

Click. Hissss.

The heavy door opened with a puff of air, forcing the water back. Solar stepped through, the door slowly swinging shut behind her. Her ears popped with the change in pressure; at least the seals were still intact. Without a whisper, the lock engaged behind her, sealing the Director behind its stalwart barrier from the rest of the facility.

Polished linoleum echoed beneath her hooves, and Solar's nose wrinkled at the harsh, sterile air. The wing was completely vacant, the labs dark and quiet behind the reinforced glass windows. Everypony would be too caught up with watching the news and waiting for the power to return anyway. Disease waited for nopony. She had found that out the hard way.

Solar peered behind the dark glass of the labs as she passed, inspecting the rows of steel canisters. Frosted pipes protruded from them, keeping them fed with a continuous supply of liquid nitrogen. Everything appeared to be in order; the inmates were still contained.

They went by many names: Swamp Fever, Ponypox, Draconis Lapis Conundrum, Polo. And their crimes ranged from the petty to the deadly, their symptoms a rapport of varying degrees. And Solar was the warden.

With a generous supply of coolant, they could store the vital disease samples near indefinitely. If they lost sample containment, however, it would signal the loss of years of research and vaccine and treatment trials. Scarier still was the possibility (albeit low) chance something got out. Any single contagion on Level Four could have the potential for a massive outbreak — it housed those most dangerous to the public. Hence why she had insisted on the increased barrier security. She didn’t want anypony tracking plague out on the bottom of their hoof.

Solar came to the end of the immaculate hallway, another door blocking her path. She had picked this one out herself: an expertly crafted dark oak cut from the Everfree and varnished with transparent resin, giving it a deep shine. It would only open for her, and nopony else. Perks that came with being Director.

Solar leaned her rump against the door once inside, letting out a breath she did not realize that she had been holding.

“I don’t need this,” she whispered to herself, eyes squeezed tight as she breathed the sterile, cold-filtered air deeply. It hit her lungs, soothing the burning still raging inside her from the latest episode in the bathroom. “I really don’t need this right now.”

Solar peeled herself from the locked chamber door, setting her satchel on the marless countertop, its surface cluttered with scratched notes and scrawled observations. Gleaming equipment waited patiently for her, ready to resume her work. Solar powered on her computer terminal, the screen flickering to life as she surveyed the rest of her personal lab making sure everything was still in order. Her glowing horn revealed the glass barrier to the inner work lab, where all the samples were handled. There was one thing she had to be sure of.

The keypad beeped somberly, clear doors sliding back to the airlock entrance. First, Solar scrubbed her hooves vigorously in the basin before donning her gloves. The disinfectant burned.

Then came the biosuit, Solar slipping the mylar fabric back and stepping inside. The slick fabric crinkled around her like a bag of chips. She poked her head through the headpiece and quickly sealed herself in.

The airlock whooshed closed behind her, and she levitated an air hose from the lab ceiling. The heavy fabric made her spell clumsy at times, but she had adapted to it. She plugged herself in, the biosuit inflating with a hiss until she resembled and orange marshmallow.

Polished stainless steel glimmered under faint blue lighting, casting dark shadows around the inner lab. Slipping on a thick insulating glove, Solar approached the containment vessel in the corner. Thick rubber hoses protruded from the device, wafting sub-zero condensation and thin wisps of ice crystals that flittered in the air like glitter.

She lifted the lid gently with rehearsed care. Beneath the shimmering layer of liquid nitrogen throwing out a constant plume of fog, her four vials slept undisturbed. The temperature was still in the green she read. The samples were still safe from the blackout.

Solar breathed a sigh of relief. If her work had been lost, she would be starting at ground zero again. And she knew she did not have that long. She had to crack this one, and soon.

Her contact at the Defense Coalition had been very specific on their private agreement. She would only get this one chance. That was the deal in their arrangement when that gave her the samples.

Keep it hidden, keep it safe, keep it secret.

Nopony must know. She couldn’t lose this one chance. If she could deliver the altered sample results to her contact, she might utilize the same sample as a treatment for herself. It was up to her to save herself, nopony else could do it for her.

Solar gently closed the cooler, flinging the mitt off her hoof and retrieving a recorder from her equipment. It was time to get back to work.

She clicked the recorder on. “Beginning viral incorporation trial number twenty-one.”

Trotter gently dabbed at his brow, wiping his forehead the best he could with the face shield.

“Ready, Stardust?” he asked his counterpart, a notepad and pen levitating patiently beside her.

"Ready," the young, unicorn gulped, eyeing the disfigured cadaver before them on the examination table. The air conditioning was still offline, and it was beginning to warm up under the intense operating lamps suspended overhead.

“You were a Royal Forces medic, correct?” Trotter wondered as he straightened his instruments. “Have you ever assisted an autopsy before?”

“No, sir,” she replied, donning her mask and slipping the strings behind her ears. “But I have treated my fair share of combat wounds.”

“Was it tough, trying to help?”

Stardust shrugged. “Sometimes you might get a casualty that would put up a fight. But it was usually due to the pain. Somepony would have to hold them down while we worked.”

"Well, this should be a walk in the park. I don’t think our guest here is going to be putting up much resistance. We’ll keep it simple,” he assured her. “Basic examination and sample collection until we clear the subject for contagions.”

“Do you think you will find something?” she wondered. She stepped aside while Trotter slid around the table.

“It would be a rather boring day if we didn't."

Trotter cleared his throat and cracked his hooves. “Ok, here we go. Beginning initial examination,” he noted, Stardust’s pen transcribing everything onto her pad. “Subject is female, mid-thirties, pegasus. Recorded on record as Second Lieutenant Thundercell, Wonderbolt Rapid Response Wing.”

He moved down what remained of the body, his gloved hooves carefully palpating and searching. “Subject is missing most of her left symmetrical hemisphere,” he sighed, unaccustomed to such a sight.

“Division is charred, exhibiting scorching consistent with MAG based arcanic burns. An unconfirmed transcription of events puts her wingpony as the shooter. Subject has undergone some sort of” – he withdrew his hooves uneasily – “disfiguration. Advanced rapid necrosis set in just before the time of death. Fur and mane, what wasn’t torched, has fallen out in patches and the underlying dermis had hardened into a black mass. Does not appear to be related to the cause of death.”

Standing on his hind legs, Trotter examined her face under the lamps, pulling back the lid on the remaining eye. “Eyeball exhibits pressure damage, most likely from the hot gases of the arcana. Strange,” he noted, “It’s faintly blue, the whites of her eye. The iris is bleeding out. Her entire eye is light blue.”

“A result of the MAG?” Stardust wondered, her bio-mask fluttering with each word.

“Arcana can be unpredictable in a condensed state," Trotter offered. "But I think there have been enough casualties from them to know they don't cause allof this,” he waved over remains. “No, this was something else. Her wingpony claimed something bit her.”

“A bite? Do you believe that?” she asked skeptically.

“Ponies can lie, misremember, stretch the truth. But the dead can’t lie, Stardust,” Trotter told her.

He moved on, gingerly shifting the body’s head over. “Subject has some sort of bone spur protruding from her forehead, or broken skull fragments that have shifted under the skin. The knob is approximately three centimeters in height, ten centimeters above the browline, about the spot a unicorn’s horn is, along the intracranial plate.”

“Moving further down.” Trotter grabbed a pair of forceps, leaning closer and using the instrument to open the mouth. “Subject appears to have knocked several molars ou— sweet Celestia!” Trotter threw down the forceps, jumping back from the examination table and knocking over his tray of instruments. Stardust sidestepped the spooked stallion, her spell breaking, pen and pad skittering across the floor.

“What?!” she yelled. “What is it?”

Even more sweat was streaming down his splash visor. Trotter looked around, finally spotting the dropped forceps and scooping them up. That was no trick of the light, what he saw.

“Get that light,” he ordered Stardust, pointing the confused unicorn to the flashlight nearby. “Point it here.”

Stardust levitated it toward him, holding it steady for Trotter. His hooves trembled as he pulled Thundercell’s limp jaw back open.

Several of the Wonderbolt’s teeth were missing, a few lodged at the back of her slack throat. Trotter knew he had made a mistake; the teeth had not been knocked loose, but replaced. Incisors, sharper than speartips, had sprouted from the bare gums, her jaw bursting from their overcrowded invasion.

“Are those, teeth?” Stardust took a step back. “What does that to a pony?” Stardust wondered, shining her light over them, the razor-sharp teeth glistening like icicles.

Trotter surveyed the wicked fangs. “You were in the Royal Forces, weren’t you Stardust?”

“Fourth medic corp,” she replied, unable to tear her eyes away from the Wonderbolt’s mouth. “Deployed to Saddle Arabia during the coup.”

“Tell me, did you ever encounter anything in the forces that could do this?

"Well there was rumor Maretonia was working with nerve agents, but this is not even close."

“A spell then?”

“I don’t know of any spell that can do this to a pony.”

“Then what could?”

“Maybe her wingpony was telling the truth. Maybe something that bit her caused this.”

Trotter quickly rolled the Wonderbolt’s head, careful to avoid the sharp teeth. A clear line of puncture marks revealed themselves.

“I’ll be — something did take a snack on her,” Stardust whistled behind her mask.

“And with some serious force, too,” Trotted breathed. “Subject exhibits multiple puncture wounds to the jugular area approximately eight centimeters deep. Four are significantly deeper and pierced the victim’s windpipe.”

"She would have probably died anyway. Why the only thing I know with chompers like that are timberwolves."

Trotter tossed the forceps back on the examination table, taking a cautious step back. “Not unless a timber wolf suddenly decided to sprout wings. We are not prepared for this,” he seethed, ripping the gloves off his hooves and dousing them with a strong disinfectant. “I want the body moved to Level Four immediately. Tell Solar.”

The phone, buried beneath the mountain of ungraded term papers and research reports, gave a shrill ring. The red-checked stallion asleep in the chair awoke in a flurry of parchment.

“What? Phone? Stars, wherein Tartarus is it?” the greying pony cursed pushing the piles aside. "Why I swear I just saw it the other day.”

The office was in varying states of disaster, musty folders and empty plastic sandwich containers strewn about like a dragon’s horde. Dust-caked bamboo blinds hung from the equally grimy window, letting in a thin sheen of afternoon sunlight. The university still had power for the time being despite the power surge, but it had been touch and go for the morning, the lights flickering as the repair crews adjusted the power grid.

“Where is it, where is it?” the unicorn muttered as he levitated another disorganized of papers and unceremoniously dumped them on the frayed carpet. “I knew I should have requested a teachers assistant.”

The professor wore the many years of his life, his bushy but well-trimmed white beard sprouting from his face and trailing up his jawline, still sharp and defined despite his encroaching age. His tweedy, work cardigan hung from his husky frame, round crystal-lensed glasses bobbing on the end of his nose as he rummaged.

His searching hoof brushed against the receiver, triumphantly extracting the phone from the papers covering his desk. “Professor Lakeshore, Royal Canterlot University of Science,” he announced breathlessly, running a hoof through his salt and pepper mane. “How can I help?”

“Hello, Professor.” He had not heard that sweet yet tired voice in a long time.

“Your Highness,” he replied. “ I’ve been try— it’s been a while since I've had the honor," he quickly reserved a reverent tone.

"I know. I'm sorry," the voice apologized quietly. "I should have kept in touch."

Lakeshore plopped into his armchair, the vinyl material cracking with age and wear. He levitated the phone's cradle out of the term papers he had still yet to grade. "No need to apologize, my dear," he said, his fatherly voice calm and assuring. "Your hooves have been full. I understand.”

“I need a favor, an academic one. I need somepony who knows Arcanic Theory, somepony I can trust.”

"I can name several on the Royal Science Board off the top of my head. I could write a recommendation if you desire.”

“I’m not looking for a recommendation. I was hoping for you, Professor.”

“Me?” he chuckled. “I’m not sure you would want me, Princess. I’ve grown a little greyer since the last time you saw me.”

His jovial, well-rounded face sank slowly as he listened.

“A what? I...I had wondered what had happened.” This was the first concrete news he was hearing. “Are you sure? Have you told anypony else? The news has been waiting for an official word from Canterlot Castle all day.”

Lakeshore stood from his chair, it swiveling behind his desk. With the receiver clutched to his ear, he peered out the dirty window of his office. Far in the distance, at the other end of the sprawling capital, Canterlot Castle loomed just over the horizon. Her white spires stood like silent guardians.

“Of course, I’ll be there first thing in the morning,” he told the other end of the line, hurriedly scrawling several notes on a scrap piece of paper and throwing several folders into an attache saddlebag. “Just let see what I can find out here. First light, I’ll be there, Celestia. I promise.”

Chapter 7: Transmission

Trotter had never wanted to kill something so badly.

It sat there, waiting, taunting him.

He wanted to let it die — slowly.

“Come on you stupid piece of junk.”

Trotter reached out and gave the offending computer screen a healthy thwack, his hoof smacking the side of the unit. His lanky face was awash with the display’s sickly glow, his eyes blinking against the bright backlight amidst his dark surroundings. The main power was still out.

“Stars, what good is new tech if it doesn’t even work? Just print the bloody analysis,” he groaned, longing to rip the offending terminal from the desk so he could throw it down the side of the mountain.

The computer had been uncooperative all afternoon, and Trotter was at his whit’s end. He needed to step out the lab, to get some fresh air and caffeine, and to decompress for a while on the surface. But he had to get the sample analysis printed now. He had to show Dr. Haze. She would want to see this.

With the Wonderbolt's body moved to Level Four, he had quickly begun a more in-depth examination. He had been sweating in a biosuit for the better part of twelve hours.

Trotter hated them, large puffy garments pressurized and sealed against contaminants. They were bulky, and the air feeds made walking about the equipment a chore to manage. Trotter was thankful the hard part was over, the suit’s hanging in the airlock and the sample from the Wonderbolt sitting inside the analyzer. Now if he could only get the report to print.

No network printer detected.

“What do you mean no printer detected!” he finally burst, shaking the screen. “It’s plugged in right beside you, you stupid mangle of copper and silica!”

Trotter’s hooves darted across the keyboard, punching the keys harder and harder with each keystroke. He was having enough problems as it were: a dead Wonderbolt, an undetermined infection, no power, no AC, and now a useless computer.

Trotter checked, then rechecked the printer, following the data cord to the computer port, finding nothing out of place.

“Forget it,” he said, his hooves up in defeat. “I’ll just send the file to my office terminal.”

The mouse slid across the desk, Trotter’s eyes following it as he clicked through the various network links connecting the entire facility. The pathway to his office was here somewhere.

“Let’s see, Bio-lab 2, storage bay, Bio-lab 8, break room, public service office, Stardust’s terminal…” He rattled off the network paths as he scrolled down the list.

Unmapped Server

“Unmapped Server? I don’t remember you being here.” Trotter clicked on the unfamiliar pathway. “Network must have reset security with the power outage,” he gandered. “Maybe my terminal got mixed up,” he told himself with a scratch of his hair-speckled chin.

He clicked on the server, finding only a single file contained within.

Tenochtitlan Basin Sample.

“Tenochtitlan Sample, I don’t remember the CED every working out of Caballo?” The little backwater country skirting Equestria’s southern border was more jungle than civilization. And the Tenochtitlan Basin took up almost seventy-percent of Caballo, a near-impenetrable barrier of overgrowth.

He opened the hidden folder, the digital list expanding across his screen.

“Woah,” Trotter whistled, scrolling through the terabytes of data files. “Somepony has been busy. There must be years of trials here.”

Who could have been running so many trials? Certainly nopony he knew. It would have been a massive operation.

He selected a file at random. “An audio recording? Maybe a log?” He was too far invested now to turn back. He opened the data file.

“Starting viral incorporation trial number seven,” the voice on the recording played. “Trial seven will be using the new incorporation serum to reprogram the Tenochtitlan sample. See addendum on the Equestrian Defense Coalition Caballo Expedition.”

“Solar?” Trotter could recognize the mare’s bristly voice anywhere. “What is this? What have you been working on?” he asked himself, clicking through the rest of the files. The mare had never been one for secrets. Yet, why had this been hidden away?

“Progress has been hampered by several undeterminable effects of the virus. As described in my last log, the viral lifecycle is still far too fast to reprogram the cell receptors properly. I’m hoping the trial seven inhibitors can get ahead of the virus to prevent cell death while still allowing viral incorporation into the genome. I wish I had more time to test the incorporation agent, but the Defense Coalition insists I move forward. Can’t say I didn’t tell them it wouldn’t work. They're not going to get results they’re asking for if they keep rushing this.”

“The DC. What do they have to do with any of this?”

Trotter clicked on another file.

Tenochtitlan Basin Sample Report.

The biologist scanned the data, his eyes running down every data column.

“I…I’ve seen this before.”

Suddenly his hooves were flying across the keys. “I just had it. Where is it, where is it?” he hissed through gritted teeth. He had to be sure.

“Wait. Got it!” he breathed as he pulled his file onscreen.

Wonderbolt Contagion Sample – Second Lieutenant Thundercell.

Line by line, he scoured the two reports placed next to each other. And as the more he read, the more he realized why the “Basin Sample” was so familiar. It was identical to his report.

Now he knew why the server had been hidden.

And why nopony was meant to find it.

Whiplash knew he wasn't dead; the pain alone told him that.

It was an orchestra of sensation, resonating and echoing within him, overwhelming him. He desperately tried to claw his way from the black, murky depths — a faceless, empty void, save for the tendrils of agony extending their grasping feelers from the ether.

He was getting flashes, glimpses of the place outside this infinite empty: a demon lunging at him, a bright flash, pain, walls crumbling around him, a filly’s scream, hooves yanking him from rubble. He wanted to wake up, for the lurching darkness to stop. He had to climb higher, out of the bottomless void.

But the higher he rose, the worse the pain became. Each inch closer to the blinding light of the waking world was an eternity of suffering.

But he endured, fleeing the enveloping darkness — darkness filled with the roar of jets and the gnashing of teeth. He would find no peace down here; it was time to wake up.

“Ohhh–” Whiplash groaned weakly, stirring the sheets that covered him. The pounding in his head was unbearable, and he wanted to vomit, which he proceeded to do, somehow finding the strength to throw himself over the bedside railing and heave the contents of his stomach onto the floor.

Bile spilled over the polished linoleum, splattering against the apricot hooves of the pony lounging by his bedside. The young stallion jumped in his seat, pulling up his soiled hooves as Whiplash let forth another burning wave.

“Sweet Celestia, Whip, what in Tartarus?!” Clipper cursed, holding Whiplash up as he heaved a final time and collapsed back into the hospital bed. The IV stand rattled noisily beside him, his unbound foreleg tugging at the clear plastic tubing that snaked to a vein. It was burning under his skin.

“Hold still, you’re going to rip out your IV,” Clipper warned. But the pain was the last thing on Whiplash’s mind.

“The filly,” Whiplash croaked weakly, grasping the railing with a hoof encased in plaster and wiping his mouth with the other. Eyes, red as cherries, rolled wildly in his sockets. “Where’s the filly, Clip?”

“Take it easy, Boss.” Clip presented a glass of water.

Whiplash snatched it out his hooves, gulping it down greedily, letting it drip down his chin.

“You’re going to be ok; you’re safe. We’re in Canterlot Hospital.”

“No,” Whiplash waved Clipper off, breathing heavily as the drained glass rolled in his lap. “There was a filly. What happened? Where’s Thundercell and Feldwing?” The questions were flowing forth like a river overrunning its dam. “The thing?”

Whiplash’s head spun like the fan overhead. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten there. His ears were buzzing worse than a hive of bees, and all around him, ponies were in a state of frenzy, much akin to the little yellow bugs.

Nurses in pastel-colored scrubs galloped through overcrowded wards while the cries of the sick, injured, and the dying filtered in pitifully. They were everywhere, crammed into every room and corridor, the hospital overrun, and past capacity.

Outside his room, past the bleary, grey eyes of Clipper and the chaos, Whiplash watched a stallion clutching his small colt in his hooves, both sitting against a pillar. He could tell they were both crying, though he could not hear them over the awful commotion, each clutching the other tightly while a baggy-eyed doctor collapsed beside them. The pony curled up his hind legs, holding his face in his hooves as his eyes searched the stained linoleum. His once alabaster lab coat was stained deep crimson.

“She’s dead.”

“What?” Whiplash snapped back to Clipper, his weak voice reaching him through the clamor. The stallion, young enough to have been his own, was drained of color, like the hue had been washed from his coat, leaving behind a bleak and faded presence. Gone was the cocky young flyer; only a shell-shocked colt remained.

“Thundercell is dead, Whip,” Clipper repeated. He wearily sat back down in his bedside chair, careful to step over the vomit. He rubbed his hooves together as if to stay warm despite the tepid room, his eyes glued to the floor tiles. “I’m not sure what they’re going to do with Feldwing. I found him holding what was left of her.”

Thundercell, dead?

He was still trying to understand the words. Whiplash shut his eyes, almost wishing to return to the void he had so desperately wanted to escape. He just wanted to sleep, to pretend it had all been a nightmare. But reality held on desperately, blissful sleep miles away and unattainable.

Whiplash’s eyes burned as if sand was poured in them, and he quickly blinked the tears away. He wouldn’t let Clipper see them. Whiplash wiped them, spotting a slash of copper mane peaking several beds down.

That was when he saw her, the filly from the motel. She was two beds away, passed out, but mostly unharmed from what he could tell. Her forehead was scraped and bandaged, her matted copper mane spilling out the gauze and over the pillow propped under her head. Whiplash was jealous of her slumber.

“I got there right as it happened,” Clipper finally continued, his eyes, raw from lost sleep and burning tears, now drained. “I still can’t believe Feldwing could have done it.” He choked on the words.

“Feldwing?” Whiplash croaked, the name slipping through his lacerated lips. “What happened to Feldwing, Clip?” He reached out with his good hoof, grabbing his comrade. Quick tremors rose and fell from Clipper, and Whiplash could feel that he was crying, too. “Tell me what happened.”

“He shot her,” Clipper sniffled, wiping his reddened face with a wing. “Feldwing shot her right there. They were screaming, both of them.” He struggled to find the right words, his lips wavering. “Something had happened to her. It was like she was changing.”

“Changing? How?”

“I don’t know,” the young stallion wept, pulling at his cropped mane, tugging on the short strands. “I just kept trying to contact Command. Some ponies with an airship and biohazard gear finally showed up, but they took her body.”

Whiplash could barely understand him now. He was little more than a blubbering mess.

“The Brass showed up and took Feldwing someplace else. They just kept grilling me for hours. And nopony is telling me anything. I think he is in trouble, Whip,” Clipper broke down, letting it all out. “When they let me go, they told me you had been brought here. I thought you were dead. It wasn’t until after they hauled Feldwing did they tell me some ponies had found you, pulled you from some ruined motel rubble and airshipped you here. What happened out there? What hit us?”

“It’s still pretty fuzzy,” Whiplash quickly lied, though images of the black creature assaulted him. He wasn't sure why. But there was something about the creature he felt he better not reveal.

“Crashed somewhere in the center of town. Heard a filly trapped beneath some rubble in a motel and figured I had to do something,” Whiplash told him, looking toward the filly’s bed. He massaged a very tender bump on his head, wincing. “Must have come down around us just as I pulled her out.” There was no mention of the creature, though Whiplash almost wondered if it had all been a hallucination, phantoms of shock from the crash. He had flashes of the beast, vaporized by the shot, torn apart by the arcanic energy of his MAG, struggling for the door with the filly clutched in his hooves as everything fell.

Clipper stood up and began to pace, trotting between Whiplash’s bed and his neighbor, a pony heavily bandaged and cast. “I’m telling you, Whip, something isn’t right. I think Command knows it, too. Nopony knows what is happening around here,” he scoffed, his tears dry and his temper burning. “Nopony will tell me anything, and they won’t let me talk to Feldwing.”

“Where is he?” Whiplash asked, propping himself up in his bed.

“I don’t know,” Clipper admitted as he continued to pace. “But the DC grilled me for hours. I was only just cleared to leave, came straight here.”

Had he been out that long? I would have been a whole day.

“What did the Defence Coalition want from you?”

“Everything. It was these two weird ponies in suits. Cotton-something and a mare called some sort of tree; I can’t remember.” Clipper was spinning in circles now, his words short and quick. “Kept asking what we saw. What did I see? What attacked us? Did I get a good look at them? Did we have physical contact with the bogeys? Was Feldwing acting weird before hoof? Why would he shoot his wingpony?”

“Why would he shoot her?” Whiplash breathed.

Clipper clutched the edge of the bed, his hooves holding on tight as if he might float off if he let go. “He was so calm when they lead him off, Whip. Said he had only tried to help Thundercell, to keep her safe from whatever happened to her. He kept murmuring something bit her, was changing her,” he spewed. “We shouldn’t have been there. I think we stumbled into something we shouldn’t have, Whip, and the Defense Coalition knows it.”

Clipper was staring at him, his bloodshot eyes wide and tired. Whiplash knew at least part of what his wingpony had said was true. He had know the instant the creature attacked him. This was no unfortunate incident; his team had been thrust into a situation nopony had any interest being in. And he and the filly had come face to face with something they should not have even seen.

“Go home.”

“What?” asked Clipper in disbelief. “I sit by your bed over a day, and you wake up and tell me to go home. How hard did you hit your head?”

Whiplash shook his head. “Go home and rest, Clip. Things will get worse before they get better. We’re going to be taking things one day at a time till everything gets sorted out, and you need to sleep.”

Clipper lifted his hooves from the bed railing and took a step back, shuffling his hooves. “I swear to Celestia, your worse than my old dad sometimes.”

“Well just don’t expect me to tuck you in and read you a bedtime story,” Whiplash grunted as he shifted his bruised body. “Rest. I have a feeling those DC ponies you met will be back, probably to me next. We need to watch what we tell these ponies.”

“And what do we tell them?” Clip wondered, his voice low.

“Only the facts.”

“But we don’t have any of those,” Clipper hissed.

“Exactly. We saw some weird light in the sky before something knocked out Thundercell. The electrical activity fried my suit. Nothing more; we didn’t see anything else.”

Clip’s eyes bored into him, probing him. “But did we see something? That thing tore your engine like a hot knife through butter. Don’t you think we should at least let somepony know?”

“We only risk getting caught up further in whatever is happening. Trust me, this thing is way out of our hooves as it is. It was the same deal during my time in Saddle Arabia.”

Whiplash had learned all too fast the Defense Coalition was not to be trifled with. Their will to keep Equestria secure and safe knew no cost. They had little oversight, a practically unlimited budget, and operated outside the normal confines of the Royal Government.

There had been many a blind eye turned to clandestine operations during the Saddle Arabia offensive. Controversy always popped up every few years to their secretive nature and lack of oversight, but it was usually quickly buried in the papers and even within the Ministries.

“Listen carefully, we need to stay out of this, Clipper. We don’t want to be caught up in this.”

Clipper worked his jaw, mulling over what he heard. He looked over at the filly, still sleeping soundly in her bed. Whiplash wondered if his wingpony could trust him after all of this.

“Ok,” he finally said. “If you say we need to keep everything low, then that's the story. We saw some strange lights, that was it.”

“Thank you,” Whiplash said. His promise meant a lot. “Now go home, and don’t tell anypony anything else. Got it?”

“Got it," he sighed. "I sure hope you’re right about this,” Clipper spoke sternly, reaching down and picking up his coat. “I think I’m going to go pass out in my bed like you said. I need some beauty rest.”

“I don’t think all the sleep in the world can help your ugly mug.”

“Your one to talk, old goat.” The young stallion cracked a weak smile. “I’ll swing by first light tomorrow.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Whiplash replied, holding up his broken foreleg and wiggling his casted wing splayed across his back.

Then he was gone, Clipper disappearing into the throngs of ponies.

The chaos returned, the cries of the injured and the loud calls of the doctors and nurses treating the wounded rebounding. Whiplash eased himself back into his bed, wincing at the pain in his wing.

He didn’t want to wonder that it might be a miracle if he ever flew again. Nothing could prepare him for what he might have to decide between if one of the doctors ever got around to him. He might just have to choose between carrying around a crippled wing for the rest of his life or cutting the loss. Wing breaks were a terrible roll of the dice, the delicate bones always a significant undertaking to repair, even with spells.

Whiplash rolled gently onto his side to allow his wing some room, clutching his broken hoof to his chest. His eyelids were tired, and it felt like lead weight hung from them, slowly pulling them closed. Whiplash didn’t want to return to whatever nightmarish sleep he had awoken from. But he was suddenly so tired.

“Does it hurt?”

The little voice was barely a squeak.

Whiplash slid open an eye.

The filly was awake, sitting up in her bed and clutching her blanket tight. Her wide eyes peered over the bandaged pony between them, looking at Whiplash’s wing.

“Not really,” he grumbled tiredly. Probably because of whatever else was in his IV bag had deadened the pain.

“It looks pretty bad,” she said, voice soft and innocent.

“That’s cause it is.” Whiplash rolled back over. Despite pulling the helpless filly from the rubble and destroying whatever demon had tried to end them both, Whiplash was in no mood for needless banter. And if he was candid with himself, he had no care for kids.

That wasn’t saying he faulted the little one. Stars, she had it worse than he could have, remembering the mare in the motel, face down beneath the rubble.

But in his years, Whiplash had never been comfortable around foals. There was some disconnect he had come to find between such carefree creatures and himself. Probably because he had never wished for one of his own, every relationship he had nothing more than a passing fling.

The nasty little spawn were also a constant nightmare at every Wonderbolt rally, always trying to touch the JUMPsuits or hang off them with their dirty filth-ridden hooves.

“Thank you for stopping the monster,” the filly told him.

“There was no monster kid,” he tried to persuade her. “It was all just a bad dream. Just go back to sleep,” he sighed, his body deflating. “I’m really tired, kid. Could you leave me alone for a while, please?”

“That wasn’t a dream,” she insisted, matter a factly. “It was real. I saw it fall from the sky.”

Whiplash cracked his eyes back open. What did she just say?

He rolled back over, propping himself up with a hoof. “You saw it fall from the sky? When?”

“I heard this sound like thunder, like when the pegasi bring the rain. Did you know that pegasi control the weather?” she said, her eyes mirroring her astonishment of the fact.

Whiplash wasn’t about to feign amusement. “I know they do, kid, I’m a pegasus. What about the monster? What did you see?” he said, adding a little abrasion to the question.

The kid recoiled at his harsh words, creeping back under her blanket. She gave a small whimper, covering her face in her blanket.

“Wait, no,” Whiplash groaned and rubbed a hoof across his face. “I didn’t mean that. I just really have to know what...”

But he could see that it was no use, the filly throwing her head beneath her pillow.

Why was this hard, Whiplash wondered? Were all kids like this?

“Hey,” he said softly, his words tender. “What’s your name? Do you know your name? Of course she knows her name you featherbrain.

The filly gave no indication of coming out, though he knew she could hear him.

“My name is Whiplash,” he offered, painfully pulling himself to sit up.

A wary eye peaked out beneath the pillow but made no move to come out.

Whiplash looked around, surveying their surrounding, their ward alone holding nearly a dozen tightly cramped beds. The only window was at the end, a portal of waning sunlight settling over Canterlot.

“You know,” Whiplash offered. “It can be kind of scary for me in the hospital. I bet if I had a friend it wouldn’t be so scary.”

The pillow finally moved, the filly rubbing a hoof absently. “I’m Rose Point,” she said softly. “But my mother called me Rose.”

“It sounds like she chose a really cool name, Rose.”

“She said it would always help me find my way if I was ever lost.” Her words carried a weight even Whiplash, who had no experience with kids, could sympathize with. “I don’t like this place either,” she whimpered.

“Maybe we can watch over each other,” he offered. “I could tell you all about the weather ponies. I used to be one, you know, before becoming a Wonderbolt. How does that sound?”

She shrugged. “Ok, I guess.” He had to admit it did little to cheer her up. Not that he could blame her.

“Can I tell you a secret?” she suddenly asked, whispering.

Whiplash nodded.

“I ran back into bed when I saw that monster fall from the sky. I don’t think I should have seen that.”

“Why?” he asked precariously. “Where did it come from?” He was on the edge of his rail now, holding it tight and leaning closer. What did she mean from the sky?

She clutched her blanket tight, a spasm of shivers traveling down her spine. “It came out the sky,” she said. “From the hole in the stars.”

Chapter 8: Terrifying Tunnels

Trotter was sweating through his thin button-down.

His cuffs were damp, and his shirt was stained around his collar, a line of sweat encircling his thin shoulders. Beneath him, the subway car rocked and bucked again, jostling the small company of weary passengers heading home for the night. The tram suddenly rounded another bend, the train car tilting on it new, unworn shocks, causing him to catch himself quickly. He nearly flew out his seat.

“Stars,” he gasped, pressing himself back into his seat. His chest hurt from the relentless pounding inside, and his hoof desperately clutched his seat. The harsh vapor lamps outside the subway car threw the odd beam of light every other moment, illuminating the dreary interior with their sickly yellow glow. The air was stifling and dusty, coating the shiny new skin of the tram with a thin layer of dark grey, mulling its mirrored metal.

As they rocketed around another teeth-chattering bend, a great behemoth rumbled and roared in a side tunnel, it's growl reverberating through the darkness. It was lit with a fire of lights, ponies in orange vests, hardhats, and dust masks climbing over its twisting and complex surface. The monster growled, chewing through the formidable rock of Canterlot mountain with an insatiable appetite, its sharp teeth tearing at solid stone till it was little more than gravel.

Trotter had watched the tunneler slowly advance each trip, advanced day and night to finish the freshly commissioned line. The tunneler faded in the gloom, disappearing beyond the thick dust until only the clatter of the steel wheels on the tracks echoed within the sweltering subway car. The heat, however, was only half the reason for his uncontrollable perspiration.

Trotter warily glanced around the cab, eyeing the paltry few passengers. They were mostly coworkers from the CED: physicians, lab techs, pathologists, evening cleaning staff, and janitors. Canterlot was always expanding, a massive temple to their progress stretching around half the mountain. And all those ponies needed to travel about the city.

But the subway project was massive, and still years away from completion, only connecting a small hoofful of station reserved for royal government workers, the CED included. Trotter studied these unassuming ponies, watching them. His head was light and could barely breathe the dust-tinged air. He was sure he would be discovered at any moment. Did any of these ponies know what he carried in his saddlebag? Would they come for him? He had passed Solar as he left the CED, briefly mentioned he was off to deliver his report. Would she have seen it in his eyes, his deception? How could a pony he thought he had known so long be deceiving him, and everypony else for that matter?

He coughed, eyes tearing up as he covered his mouth with a trembling hoof, the heat and dust almost unbearable until he wanted to force the door open. He was sure he was going to suffocate from the intense tightness in his chest.

I can’t do this,he told himself. You’re way over your head here, Trotter.

His breaths were shallow, his eyes quivering in their sockets as he closed his eyes.

But no matter how tight he squeezed them, it wouldn’t stop, the anxiety rendering him a shaking mess. He couldn’t lose it now; he had to show them.

Reign it in,he told himself tuning out the clatter of the tracks. Just like she showed you.

He remembered vividly being so small, hardly a colt, whimpering in his tiny bed adorned with crescents painted with a pitted lunar surface. Then sompony above him, warm and calming, a tender hoof stroking his damp head that had tossed and turned on his pillow in the dark of the night.

Shh. Shh, his mother’s dewy voice shushed him, the chestnut mare kneeling beside him and clicking on a lamp. It was just a nightmare. You remember what mommy told you to do, right, when you’re afraid?

He remembered. Trotter would never forget.

Close your eyes and count with me.

He squeezed his eyes tight, so tight that dark and fuzzy strings of light danced behind his shut eyelids.

One, two¾the dreams can’t hurt you¾three, four, five¾you’re halfway there sweetheart ¾six, seven, eight¾just push the fear way¾nine, ten.

Ding!

“Canterlot Castle,” the recording mare announced overhead.

Trotters eyes cracked open, the stallion slightly more placid. The voice continued, only one or two other passengers hauling themselves out their lustrous seats that cracked and crinkled with fresh vinyl.“This is a secure station. Please have appropriate security credentials ready at debarkation.”

Trotter shuffled out onto the platform, the slick tile chilling under his hooves and wet with condensation. He was quickly scanned with a security spell by a royal guard, the giant pony dressed in kinetic armor rather than the traditional plated steel. The titular spear, too, was replaced by the MAG rifle slung at his side, its long flared barrel and bulky housing containing a buzzing storm of arcanic energy. Trotter’s CED badge, clipped to his breast, was given a cursory glance.

The security spell passed over Trotter, down his thin, elongate neck and over his scruffy back, revealing everything to the guard. A wallet, tuck in his button-down pocket, some keys clipped to the inside of the slim saddlebag buckled over his flank, containing only papers. The guard waved him through.

One of the castle staff was waiting for him like he had been told, a unicorn in a tarnished brass monocle sporting a red tweed accouterment. He was old, face wrinkled and gnarled with many years, a thick mustache white as fresh parchment covering his rough features. No words were exchanged, no greetings, just a gesture with a liver-spotted hoof to proceed with him.

They continued out of the station, passing more armed guards and revealing spells, entering through a nondescript steel door into an orange-lit corridor.

Gone were the white fluorescent, the stark deep blue they emitted. Sleek tile floors reverted to polished marble, dense carpeting separating their hooves from the chilly stone. Gas lights, remnants of a past era, ordained plastered walls, the flames flickering behind their glasses, illuminating the hoof-carved, embellished trim. A condensed beam of moonlight, thick as syrup, filtered through the stained glass stretching skyward to the enormous castle rafters. Banners of suns and moons strung from poles, motionless against the blackened ceiling, hung overhead.

This was not Trotter’s first time in Canterlot Castle, but he had never seen it at night. It was so quiet, almost empty, save for himself and his elderly escort. There was no hustle or bustle, no din of ponies chattering as they hurried to and fro to their meetings and delegations or royal duties. It was unearthly, and a shiver ran up his spine.

The olden pony stopped beside a massive door, the wood adorned with carvings of a sun and a crescent. He wordlessly beckoned Trotter to enter, stepping aside as the stallion gave the door a tentative push. It swung inward without even a creak, sliding effortlessly on its meticulously greased hinges.

The dining hall stretched before him, the massive chamber dominated by the table of expertly cut and glistening crystal. A fire burned in the enormous brick hearth, staving off the crisp autumn night with winter biting at its heels. And at the far side of the room, three ponies hunched over the head of the banquet table, conversely talking as they had not heard Trotter enter.

“Look at the lensing effect the video picked up at the edge of the anomaly,” the white-bearded pony told the two alicorns listening intently beside him. He was peering over the rim of his glasses perched delicately on his well-rounded snout, pointing Princess Celestia and Luna to the table surface with a hoof. “And here, the atmospheric boundary with the charged ionization. It’s like the end gate of a teleportation field, just like I assumed.”

“So thou is saying what happened to Ponyville was the result of a spell?” Princess Luna spoke, tapping an elegantly shodden hoof on the printout.

“This was cast?” Celestia leaned further in her seat, clutching the bright yellow shawl draped over herself, despite the intense heat of the hearth.

The older bearded stallion stood up, one hoof stroking his trimmed beard while the other mindlessly scratched at the woolen sweater vest covering his barrel of a chest. “It might be,” he reiterated with an unknowing wave of his hoof. “But the arcanic field had to have been enormous. We’re talking enough energy to collapse a vacuum. That’s the best explanation for the shockwaves that nearly leveled the Ponyville.”

“All that energy, too,” the blue alicorn added, “`twould be enough to disrupt the electrical grid, right Professor?”

“Definitely, but that still doesn’t explain whoor whatcould cast such a powerful-”

The stallion’s head popped up, finally noticing Trotter standing aimlessly a short distance away, where he had been listening intently as well. “And another guest? Were you expecting company, your Highnesses?”

Trotter froze, hot embarrassment flooding his face as he stammered. “Me – oh, I – the gentlepony at the door–” Not the best way to present oneself to the heads of the royal government he admitted.

“No, no,” Princess Luna quipped, hurrying around the table to greet vicariously. “Thou must be Trotter? From the CED, yes?” She extended a lapis shod hoof to shake his vigorously, his molars feeling like they would be shaken out. “Dr. Haze told us you to expect your arrival. You bring with you a report on the befoulment of the Wonderbolt.”

Trotter found the term “befoulment” less than appropriate, given what the Wonderbolt’s final moments must have been like. He hated to think about such morbid things. The autopsy had been enough.

Princess Celestia beckoned her sister and Trotter to the table. “Good, we’ve been waiting to hear your findings,” she sighed with relief, brushing an errant strand of mane swirling weightlessly in her vision. “Dr. Trotter, this is Professor Lakeshore, a former teacher at my school for gifted unicorns and a longtime friend. He has been consulting us with additional matters related to the incident if you don’t mind.”

“No, its fine,” Trotter cleared his throat after a cautious pause. If the Princesses could trust him, maybe he could be of help to him as well. “What is your area of study Professor, if you don’t mind me asking,” he added, carefully retrieving a folder from his saddlebag and setting it gently on the crystal surface of the table.

“Well,” the rosy-cheeked unicorn began, wiping his horn-rimmed glasses on his vest. “I taught arcane history at Celestia’s school before focusing my department to the Royal Canterlot University of Science were I expanded on arcane theory. The science behind the magic.” He slipped the glasses over his muzzle, delicately pushing them to the bridge of his nose with the tip of a hoof.

“The University?” Trotters eyes brightened. “Yes, Professor Lakeshore, now I recall the name. I believed I remember seeing you around the campus, some of my colleagues, I believe, even studied under you,” he said, a smile blooming behind his anticipation. “I major in pathology, just across from the arcane science wing,” he said.

“Right, with Professor Birchbark, the crazy mare with the long mane,” Lakeshore returned the hoofshake. “So many faces, perhaps I bumped into you at some point.” He pulled Trotter closer to the table, sitting beside the two Princesses. “Please, continue, I’m sure we're all eager to hear your findings. Don’t let my failing memories distract you.”

Trotter took a deep breath, removing several papers from the manilla folder. He placed the printouts across the table for his audience to see. The orange radiance of the hearth fire highlighted the lab reports: the numbers, the molecular reconstruction pulled from the samples, reduced to dull points on a paper.

“I ran the lab test gathered from the autopsy through the night,” he began. “It was very fortunate you called for our assistance with the matter as soon as you did. Initial results point to the Wonderbolt, Second Lieutenant Thundercell, being exposed to something viral in nature.”

“Have you identified it?” Celestia asked, levitating the printout to her face. Trotter wasn't sure how much the numbers meant to her.

“No, it’s not like any that we’ve identified before,” Trotter explained. “But less than twenty years ago we still barely understood basic virology, how they function, reproduce,” he said, running a hoof across the polished table surface. “It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this was something we haven’t come across yet. There are estimates from higher-level virologists that we only have cataloged or identified two percent of everything out there.”

“So what thou is saying is that we have hardly anything to go on,” signed Luna, passing over the printout. Trotter knew it did little to solve their mystery of the occurrence over Ponyville.

“I wouldn’t say we don’t have anything to go on, Princess,” Professor Lakeshore assured her, plopping down in a slippery crystal chair. “This is some good data, Dr. Trotter,” he nodded, lab printout in hoof. “Tightly bundled RNA strands, enlarged capsid head, numerous protein receptors,” he mulled over the data, eyes darting over the rims of his glasses by the firelight. He looked up. “I’m guessing from what I see that the symptoms were aggressive.”

Trotter involuntarily shivered, images of the Wonderbolt’s mouth, horribly crowded with knife-like teeth. “You are versed in virology somewhat, Professor?” he told him. “Tell me what kind of onset you believe would occur if somepony was exposed to this pathogen.”

Lakeshore scratched his chin, flipping through the rest of the analysis. “It looks…aggressive.”

“The symptomatic factor is a measurement we use at the CED to represent how soon after a contagions contractions that the infected present symptoms of the disease. Diseases like swamp fever and ponypox had a short symptomatic factor, typically a day or two,” Trotter explained. “Blue flu and the ruts have a longer period before the infected show symptoms, sometimes a month.”

“And this one?” Celestia asked.

Trotter turned through the data, though he had reviewed it so many times already. “Minutes,” he spoke. “I’m afraid aggressive is an understatement, Professor.”

“And the symptoms themselves?” Lakeshore wondered.

“It’s very early to make a complete assumption, but here is what we observed on the Wonderbolt,” he said, producing his report and passing it around. He wasn’t sure if he should have pulled out the pictures first.

“The victim experienced almost total loss of hair and mane, necrosis of the underlying skin turning it into a hard black surface, like a shell. Her skeletal and muscular structure nearly exploded from swelling. And then there are the teeth…” Trotter watched the pictures slide out.

“Sweet stars,” Celestia muttered, sliding the pictured back inside and closing the folder. She didn’t want to see anymore. “Now, the harder question, Trotter. Could the public have been exposed?”

“Not likely,” he shook his head. “It’s rapid onset symptoms would have been seen by now,” he cleared his throat. “A virus like this would have a substantial R0factor, a measurement of how infectious a contagion is. From the evidence before me, I don’t even think this thing registers on our normal scales. A disease like this could infect a small population group in days, possibly even hours.”

“I guess that answers our next question,” Lakeshore ventured. “Could this potentially be a weapon.” Lakeshore slid him the picture he had been showing the Princesses when he walked in. Trotter picked it up, studying it. It was a picture, captured from far above the ground. The image was blurry, static threatening to make it unviewable. But it was saturated in purple light, tendrils of lightning encircling a deep blackness centered by the lens.

“What is this?” he asked.

“T’was captured above Ponyville yesterday morning by the same team of Wonderbolts as your victim,” Luna said, tapping her hooves together softly. “The Professor hath deduced it was a teleportation field, one so large it knocked out the electrical grid and caused widespread devastation.”

“But why?” Trotter exclaimed throwing the picture back on the table. “Who would do this?”

“That’s the question we are all trying to answer,” Celestia croaked, pulling her shawl tight. “So many possibilities. But I can tell you if what you say is true, then I fear somepony out there intended for this disease to spread within our borders.”

“It would be war,” Lakeshore gathered, his words hard upon his lips.

“No,” Celestia shook her head. “War is messy and carries an enormous undertaking. If they launch missiles, we can intercept them. Airships, we have air defenses. Our ports and shorelines are secure, nopony could launch an assault on our shores. But think about a biological agent,” Celestia asked of them. “One that could cripple the nation without a single shot being fired. And we haven’t got the foggiest idea about who is even capable of this.”

Trotter couldn’t wait any longer. He had to show them. “There was one other thing.”

"There be something else?" Luna asked perplexed.

"I'm not sure, to be honest," Trotter cleared his throat. "To be clear, I'm not sure if what I did was even right."

"If you have anything to add to this discussion," Celestia said sternly, her tired gaze fixated upon the lanky virologist, "I suggest you bring it forward.

"You need not worry," Luna quickly added to her sister's harsh words. "We can assure thee we only want to see to the safety of everypony. What do thou have, Dr.?"

Trotter gulped, hoping her words were true and pulled the file out his saddlebag. He delivered it to Celestia with clammy hooves. “When the power went out at the CED, the computer server system was affected," he began. No turning back now.

"The security protocols were inadvertently reset across our file network from what I can tell.” He pointed to the printout in Celestia’s hooves. “I found this when I was printing the viral report this morning. It came off a hidden file network that was revealed when the security defaulted.”

Celestia studies the reports, her sister Luna peering curiously over her shoulder. The report contained another analysis, data that was familiar. Very similar, Trotter knew.

Celestia’s brow furrowed, scanning up and down the meaningless strings of data points. She picked up the viral analysis of the Wonderbolt, holding it up next to the new one. But Trotter was already aware of the revelation. The result we’re practically the same.

“Where did these originate,” Celestia asked in a low voice.

“I still know very little, but I believe it was created by the director of the CED, Dr. Solar Haze.”

“What is it,” Luna wondered. Trotter could see she was missing something.

“I can’t be certain,” Trotter warned cautiously, “but I think it is an analysis of the same virus from the Wonderbolt.”

“So why was it on a hidden network,” Lakeshore asked, boosting himself out of his chair, sweater vest stretched tight over his protruding pot belly.

“Because,” Celestia offered, “of this.” She held out the report, hoof pointing to the header. The date the test was ordered originated over a year and a half ago.

“You said you have never seen this virus before? Why is an identical sample labeled nearly two years ago on the CED file network? And why hidden on the Director’s server?” Lakeshore asked, bewildered.

“But it seems Dr. Haze hasseen this virus,” Trotter emphasized, his face like stone. “There were over a dozen of these reports, all with webnet receipts to an electronic address at the Equestrian Defence Coalition. She was trying to hide all of her data from us.”

Lakeshore’s face was burning red with fury at even the mention of the government agency. “Why would the DC be getting these reports in secret?”

“I think they are working with Solar to study it. I found other files mentioning an expedition force that was lost down in the jungles of Cabello. I think that is where they got the original sample.”

The red hot anger instantly melted from Professor Lakeshore’s face, the blood washing from the vessels until his rosy cheeks were white as clean cotton. “Caballo?” He looked faint, the orange of the parlor fireplace a dizzying spotlight in his rolling eyes. The aging stallion grabbed the edge of the table, hooves slipping on the crystal until Celestia grabbed him firmly to keep him from falling.

“Lakeshore, what is it? What’s wrong?” the sun princess gasped, holding the weak stallion up, his breath rapid and shallow.

Trotter quickly leaped in, steadying the graying stallion

Lakeshore steadied himself against him, sweat coating his brow and running down his flushed face. “I know. The expedition–” he gulped.

The Professor looked to the two alicorns. "I– I should have come to you sooner. I know sompony that might have the answers.”

Chapter 9: Witness

Archived Broadcast Fragment Recovered From Equestrian News Network

Presented at the ‘Third Global Conference on the Equestria Quarantine Period.’

— New Canterlot, Equestria Republic, April 12-16, 1021 A.V.

Death Toll Rises to Thirty-Four in Ponyville

Equestria Mourns Those Lost in Worst Industrial Accident To Date

Equestrians across the nation came together today to participate in a moment of silence for the citizens of Ponyville, marking three days since the terrible tragedy. Members of the Ministry of Airship Authority, as well as key figures of the Royal Government, appeared with Princess Luna to deliver the address, the mood somber as the Princess met the press for the first time.
“What has occurred this week is nothing short of tragedy,” she spoke. “After reviewing tracking stations at the edge of the Everfree as well as internal information from the Ministry of Airship Authority, I can confirm at this time what occurred over the skies of Ponyville was not the result of foul play,” she told reporters, quelling fears of terrorism or aggression by a foreign state.
“At approximately eight-o’clock that morning, the Airship Authority confirms that the Equestrian tanker airship ‘Iron Shod’ was en route to Somambula with a full cargo of liquified arcana. Although the Royal Government maintains that Equestrian airships follow stringent regulation and safe practices, the initial evidence points to an accident occurring aboard, resulting in a fire within her cargo hold. While a distress call was picked up, no response was ever answered by the captain. Less than a minute after the initial call, we believe the fire was uncontainable, igniting her tank reservoirs and exploding with the force to produce a devastating shockwave and magical bombardment.”
The Ministry of Airship Authority would later go on record to confirm the search for the ‘Iron Shod’s’ black box was underway, and they assured the public, as well as the rest of the Royal Government, that proactive measures were already being discussed to ensure such an accident could never occur again.
When asked about the safety and security of Equestrian airships, such as the ‘Iron Shod,’ Princess Luna declined to comment, stating that all inquiries fell under the Ministry of Airship Authority. As for Princess Celestia, this publication has not received an official statement from her at this time.
This publication will continue to update this evolving story as new details develop, and as this nation continues to recover from such devastation.

“An airship? Really?”

Professor Lakeshore folded the newsprint, the unicorn eyeing Luna with a mix of disgust and confusion. “That was quite an act you put on for the press ponies — do you think everypony will buy it?”

“T’was the best I could come up a full such short time,” the Princess reiterated, adjusting herself in her window seat. The buzz of the airships blades was a hum, reverberating from outside the aircraft. The soft vibrations soothed her tired nerves.

The quick and agile airship cut through the skies, Luna glancing out a porthole, watching their shadow glide gently over the dense woodland below. Her sleek white hull was in pristine condition, the gas envelopes holding her aloft tucked within the magically hardened fabric.

“Everything be covered,” Luna insisted about the lie, the terrible lie. “I delivered the constructed tracking information to the Airship Authority Chairpony myself. The ‘Iron Shod’ was already en route to being decommissioned. In a few more hours, she’ll be nothing more than scrap.”

“Still,” Lakeshore claimed, cleaning his spectacles. “It doesn’t seem right, lying to everypony. What if somepony discovered the coverup?" But the professor would not get his answer.

Two Wonderbolts in JUMPsuits blew past the royal airship, rattling the portholes and causing Professor Lakeshore to wince. The sonic boom that collapsed behind the supersonic pegasi was the third one in the past hour, and the unicorn cupped his ears.

“Is it really necessary for them to do that?” he wondered, rubbing his ears vigorously. “I’m sure anypony on the ground with burst eardrums or shattered windows wouldn’t think so.”

“They be standard precaution.” Luna sipped her coffee without looking up from the briefing in her hooves. She had grown accustomed to the everpresent pegasi that follower her and her sister's movements. “Phoenix Onedoth not travel without security.”

Lakeshore cocked a busy eyebrow. “Phoenix One? I’m guessing Celestia got to pick the name.”

Luna cracked a grin, her first hint of emotion since the two of them departed Canterlot, leaving Celestia to her bedchamber while they followed up on the Professor's lead. “She may have gotten to name it, but I got to furnish the interior.” She looked around, admiring the decor. “Do you like it. I wanted something more – modern.” The words came out hesitantly, unfamiliar upon her tongue.

The inside of the cabin, tucked beneath the belly of the airship, was just as refined as the outside: streamlined. Past the flight deck and the communication and data center was the conference lounge. Chairs, graciously overstuffed, lined the bulkhead beside arrays of recessed, terminals, phones, and carved mahogany end tables: further aft, the royal bedrooms, decorated with lavish furnishings and beds, fit for princesses. With the additional sleeping quarters near the stern for crew and members of the royal government, the entirety of Equestria could be ruled from the safety of the skies.

Lakeshore ran his hoof over the slick vinyl of the chair. “It’s all wonderful,” he commented. “You have an eye for it.”

“More like hours of research,” she scoffed. “A lot of styles come and go in a thousand years, and I am still catching up.”

“Your sister did confine with me in my early days at her school how great it was to have you home,” he smiled. “I may have later gone my separate way, but it's good to get to know the sibling she always talked about. Even if it is during less than optimal times such as these.”

Luna set the cup of coffee beside her, resting the file in her lap. “You knew my sister very well before my return, yes?" she wondered. Her sister had never mentioned the learned Professor before. "Can I ask you,” her eyes probed the lush carpet, “what was she like back then?”

“Celestia?” Lakeshore seemed to ponder the question a moment, a hoof absently scratching at his trimmed beard. “She was quieter,” he finally sighed. “Much quieter than she even is now. Perhaps more reserved, too.”

Luna made a sour face, mockingly sticking out her tongue and pretending to gag. “Reserved, she never was. Stars, I doth know personally. She used to practically smothers me in the morning, shoving hot flapjacks in mine face when I just wanted some coffee.”

“But she did come to confide in me after a while. Would even call me her friend, though I never told anypony.” Lakeshore nodded, the skin under his neck just beginning to sag with age bobbing up and down. “She talked about you a lot, you know. She missed you, dearly.”

The mocking gesture evaporated from the princess’s face. They had never talked about the before, the time during which she was banished. Hearing the Professor mention it made her feel good, even if the guilt of her actions, what she had done, came with it. There was no way to regain the lost time, she knew, to turn back the clock. But to know that the one she most cared about, the one she had hurt most, had been thinking of her was enough.

Another sudden boom from the flying escorts shook Luna, startling the blue alicorn. The pages from the briefing report littered the floor in a shower of paper as she left from her seat, tripping over her hooves and landing with a heavy thump. Not very regal of herself, she would later admit.

“Bloody fires of Tartarus!” Her chest was heaving, Lakeshore helping her up from her tumble. “Maybe thou was right about the pegasi being a little loud.”

Like a great white cloud descending from the sky, the airship touched down to Earth, lush meadow grass billowing waves beneath the wash of the blades. The two Wonderbolts were close behind, carving a circling patrol, disappearing behind the thick treeline of the forest encircling the clearing. Professor Lakeshore descended the aluminum boarding ramp, head bent low. The blast from the propellers whipped his mane, the unicorn covering his glasses from the dust peppering his face. It was an absolute torrent.

Princess Luna was close behind him, staring toward the far treeline, past a derelict shed to a small wooden cabin tucked between two high towing spruces. It was heavily weathered but well maintained, the sun-bleached boards of the home clean and trimmed, not a gap or crack to be found.

Lakeshore could tell, even from a distance, the curtains were drawn tight over the windows.

“No way he could not have heard us coming!” Lakeshore yelled over the whine of the airship's engines, the blades slowly winding down. “Best let me try to talk to him first! He’s not too fond of visitors from what I remember!”

“I know,” Luna told him, the words hardly audible above the engines.

Lakeshore left her at the ramp, the old but spry stallion trotting up the dirt path toward the cabin. All around him hoof-tended flowers sprung from the fertile ground, blossoming in a wave of color and perfume. Petunias, tulips, sunflowers and orchids – they blanketed the verdant grounds around the cabin – rows, flower beds, hanging planters, clusters of pots. The owner kept himself busy.

With a light rap on the door, Lakeshore waited patiently on the shaded porch, the swept floorboards creaking under his hooves.

"Here goes nothing," he breathed through clenched teeth.

With a squeak, the door cracked open barely an inch, revealing an orange eye with a slit pupil peering from inside. “Yes?” a deep voice like low rumbling thunder asked.

“Romulus?” the Professor said, poking his head further out. “It’s Lakeshore. From the Royal Canterlot University.”

“I know. I remember” the voice retorted without emotion. “What do you want? I already told you I don’t remember what happened to your colleague.”

Quite the same brooding bat pony he remembered.

“It’s about the expedition–”

The voice did not wait for Lakeshores reply, already closing the door on his unexpected and unwelcome guest. But the Professor was quick, sliding the edge of his hoof between the wooden door frame, holding it open.

“Wait! Wait,” he pleaded with exasperation. “I know. But I’m not here about Dr. Harvest Night. Something else has happened. We need your help.”

A pause, then the pressure from the door eased off the Professors hoof. It opened revealing the slate-colored bat pony, a sweeping blue mane rolling off his broad neck. He stood almost two hooves taller than the unicorn, nearly as tall as Princess Celestia. The eyes orange eyes that Lakeshore could swear glowed in the dim light studied him. Romulus bit his lip with a sharp canine.

“My help?” he asked with a deep grumble. “What do you need my help for?”

“Something has come up. Something potentially tied to the basin expedition,” Lakeshore reiterated. “Did you hear about Ponyville?” he wondered.

“About as much as everypony else,” Romulus told him. “It’s all over the news,” he added. “Bound to happen eventually, I always guessed.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You know something I don’t?”

“Hard to tell actually,” he ventured cautiously. “Let's just say the truth is much worse."

"Really? How much worse could it be?" Romulus scoffed.

"A Wonderbolt was exposed to something over Ponyville. Possibly something infectious.”

“I’m guessing there was no airship,” the big bat pony sighed. “You can’t not know. I’ve already been through the hush-hush situations. There was no airship, right?”

Lakeshore was taken aback at the quick notion. Had Romulus heard something he didn't know, something that would give away the coverup?

"Don't look so surprised," the pony said, blinking in the bright sun that bathed the porch. "Remember I've dealt with the government types before. The story is never truly the story."

“That’s why we're here,” Lakeshore explained. “It’s still hard to tell, but a colleague may have accidentally discovered a connection between the DC and whatever happened down in Caballo. Something they are hiding.”

“The Defense Coalition?" Now there was a name that got the bat's attention. "You mean the Caballo expedition?” Romulus shifted from hoof to hoof.

Lakeshore could see the stallion was uncomfortably hot despite the cool autumn breeze wafting through the open door carrying the smell of flowers and their sweet perfume. But he couldn't see the images haunting the bat pony. His head was swimming with flashes of scenes of dense jungle and sweltering humidity. And dark figures, figures as big as dogs with leathery wings strikingly similar to his own.

Bats. Bats by the hundreds, thousands, descending from the treetops over him. Bats that filled the air.

They were everywhere: a swarming leathery mass that engulfed the camp and plunged the jungle basin into blood. And weapon fire too, the metallic twangs of auto-crosses and the whiz of MAG rifles rung out. The smell of the MAGs hot arcane blasts melting and burning through flesh filled his nostrils. He was caught in the middle. His head swung wildly about, the screams of the other mercenaries and ponies ringing in his ears, but Romulus was trapped in the swirl of bats.

Then, a mare. He was dragging a mare away from her tent. Romulus always remember her most of all.

The mare was bucking and screaming, reaching her hooves out, grasping fiercely for an orange mare being carried up by the bats. Romulus would only catch one glimpse of her face through the mass of creatures each time the scene played over and over in his head — a face of terror. The face of a pony being eaten alive, bite by little bite.

The bats made short work of the other mare, then they would be on him. It would be over in an instant, a single moment of agony, being lifted into the air, then nothing.

“Romulus,” a soft feminine voice reached out to him through the visions. Reality seeped back into focus, the jungle melting away. The cried of the mercenaries and wails of the mare faded until they were nothing more than a faint whisper in the back of his head where they stayed. The wave of bats parted, a tide of black split to reveal a blue alicorn standing before him just behind Lakeshore.

Romulus quickly blinked the horrors away, returned to the world once more until the next time. How long had she been there; was he out long? “Hello, Romulus,” she said gently, watching him for a reaction.

His face was flushed, and he could feel his cheeks burning intensely. “It's been a long time, your Highness,” he said, turning his eyes away from Luna. Not here; not like this.

“It has. I wondered where you were hiding out after you left the Watch,” Luna remarked sentimentally. “I never thought it would be here.”

“I like the woods,” Romulus nodded to the dense and towering pines. “Privacy is a luxury these days.”

“Look,” the Professor said, wiping his forehead with a hoofkerchief. “I know it may sound crass, but time is of the essence here.”

“Then what exactly more do you want from me?” Romulus smoldered, his attitude souring from the Professor’s quips. He didn't know when to quit, did he? Even after he divulged everything he knew of the fateful expedition, of Harvest Night.

The aging Professor pulled him, conversing on the other end of the porch just within Luna’s earshot. “What was it you remember before the final leg of the expedition? Before you made it to the ruins.”

Romulus took a deep breath, looking out across the meadow as he let out a tired and exhausted sigh. “It was just like I told you before,” he groaned. He had been over it almost a dozen times with the pony, before he had shunned him altogether. “I don’t remember what happened. One minute we were hightailing it three or four clicks away from the evac point and next thing I remember was snapping to on the airship. We were already halfway back to the Defense Coalition headquarters at the Crystal Empire.”

“And the other mercenaries?”

The bat pony looked down on the quiet stallion beside him.

The Professor could read the answer plain on his face.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think Princess Luna can help.”

“I don’t need her help,” Romulus winced. “My days of the Watch are over. I don’t serve the Royalty anymore.”

“Look, we need to know what the DC is up to. They are connected to all of this somehow, Ponyville included. We’re not going to get anything out of them easily.”

“What did you expect? They have virtually little to no oversight from the royal government and an undisclosed budget," he recounted. He had seen first hoof the lengths they would go to to keep a secret, whatever that secret might be. The only reason they had left him alone this long was that he kept his head down. The last thing he wanted to do was go charging right back in.

“That's why we need you, Romulus. The Princess, Luna, she thinks she can help you uncover those memories. Find out what they were up to in Caballo.” Lakeshore glanced back to the alicorn waiting patiently on the other end of the porch. “She good with things like that. Dreams and memories and their connections and such.”

Romulus drew his attention away from the Professor to his flower beds. They were overflowing under the radiant sun rays, not a weed or thistle insight. The budding stalks and stems danced in the breeze, patiently waiting for the brewing storm front way on the distant horizon to bring quenching rain their way.

“I don’t like this. Don’t like this at all,” Romulus shook his head, avoiding Lakeshore’s expectant gaze.

Lakeshore had been waiting for this, he realized, the same answer he had given many times before.

The graying unicorn deflated where he stood. He let out a long sigh, absently brushing the dust from his hooves.

“I can understand. Can’t say it was worth a–”

Romulus held up a silencing hoof, stopping the Professor short. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you,” he clarified, already regretting the decision he was making. “I’ll let the Princess try to dig whatever she can out my head. I just said I was not keen on her poking around my dreams.”

Lakeshore’s grin rebounded faster than Romulus would have hoped. He was regretting his decision already.

Romulus looked to Luna, back turned to the two stallions, but peering out the corner of her eye conspicuously toward them.

Lakeshore then turned his attention to the airship, waiting patiently nearby, its protectors flying circles overhead high above the clouds.

The Professor nodded toward the waiting airship. “When was the last time you visited Canterlot?”

They came for him in the morning, just like Clipper had warned him. A stallion and a mare, two ponies dressed in business attire, simple button-downs and cheap blazers, like the kind that you would get at Barnyard Bargains. They even looked as dull and as drab as the clothes they had purchased that morning before meeting with him. The mare had forgotten to remove the price tag on the tie she sported around her neck, an awful fabric with a headache-inducing splash of orange.

The Equestrian Defence Coalition investigators strolled into the recovery ward, their saddlebags containing only a few pens and a notepad which they would occasionally jot in.

Even from the beginning, everything had seemed wrong about them to Whiplash. Something was just off, from the newly bought clothes, to the sparse travel arrangement, even to their names. Tundra Cotton and Willow. Like something, they had come up with in the hospital parking lot.

Everything started with the simple pleasantries, the false introductions, the forced commendation for his actions and duty, and the fanciful assurance that the DC was doing everything they could to find out who or what was responsible for what had happened to his team. They even noticed the filly, Rose Point, still in the next bed over while they made room in a separate ward just for the children.

“Hello there,” the stallion, a hulking grey coated unicorn with a crooked snout wheezed. “We heard that this Wonderbolt here pulled you out of a collapsing building in Ponyville. Must have been pretty frightening,” he said in a rehearsed tone.

The little filly was trying to bury her head beneath the sheets, not even wanting to acknowledge either of the DC investigators. But they were persistent.

“Can you tell us how it happened sweetheart,” the one named Willow wondered, a skinny mare with a taut, bony face. “Do you remember anything from Ponyville. Maybe anything that looked strange to you.”

“I don’t see why this is necessary,” Whiplash tried to interject, wiping his brow, trying to hide the fact that he had begun to sweat. “She’s just a kid who lost her mom. I don’t think this is the right time."

It had already been circulating the news, the story of the exploding airship. A coverup, Whiplash knew from the start. There had been no airship.

But whenever the truth may be, he wanted no part of it. He only risked getting further embroiled in whatever conspiracies abounded. The same went for the filly as well; she didn't need to go through his dilemma.

The DC Ponies quickly shushed him, focusing their entire attention on the filly, looking for something, anything that they could get out of her. Had she seen anything, heard anything, did she remember escaping the motel (oh yes they knew about that), was Mister Whiplash acting weird, were any other pegasi with them at the motel. But she would budge. Not an inch. Her mouth was sealed tighter than a tomb.

When they couldn’t get anything out of Rose, they turned their full attention to him, not that he couldn’t take it. The inquisition was approaching its third hour before they finally “bought” his testimony. Two ghosts appearing on their radars that quickly disappeared. Engine failure from heavy particulates in the air caused him to get separated from the team and crash. He had heard the filly cry for help and pulled her from the motel before it collapsed. Nothing more.

That wasn’t to say that they knew what had probably happened. That he had encountered something he shouldn’t have. They didn’t have any evidence, any flight data or radio calls. Not yet, anyway. This bought him some time to figure his next move. Not that he was sure what he was moving towards.

“That should be all, for now, Major,” they finally relented, quickly packing their things. “But we’ll be in contact soon,” Tundra Cotton reminded him. “We still have a few questions for Rose,” he wheezed through his crooked snout.

When they were finally gone, Rose looked over to Whiplash, the pegasus finally releasing the breath he had been holding as the two investigators sauntered out the door.

“Why did you do that?” she asked him plainly, pulling the blanket down from her chin.

“Do what?”

“Lie to them,” she told him, the Wonderbolt taking a second to search himself for the right answer.

“Because I’m not sure if I trust them,” he sighed, laying back into his sweat-soaked sheets, ignoring the pain that was telling him he was putting too much pressure on his broken wing.

“Mom said that it was wrong to lie,” Rose said, as if scolding Whiplash.

“Did she also tell you not to talk to strangers?” he asked her.

She nodded. She was a smart filly, he admitted. She knew that those ponies were not to be trusted.

"He saw something, didn't he. And the filly, too."

Tundra Cotten (the name they had agreed upon before entering the hospital) lit his cigarette and took a heavy drag. The alley they had stepped in was filthy, the ground beneath their hooves littered with trash and pooling puddles of stars knows what. It was a vile setting, though the two ponies hardly seemed out of place in their surroundings.

Willow was already dialing the secure line back to headquarters, her thin lips clenched between her crooked teeth. "Well if he did, we have bigger problems the Director will want to follow up on. I'm sure he already saw the news story on the Iron Shod."

"Funny thing, that," Tundra said, spitting a wad of mucus behind a dumpster and waving his cigarette. The smoke mixed with the smell of the alley, partly masking the smell while adding to the horridness as well. "Why would the royal brats be spinning a story of a fateful airship to the press."

"Because they know something is up, you stupid git," Willow seethed under her breath as she pressed the mobile to her ear. "How much they actually know is another story. You just worry about the Wonderbolt, Feldwing. I'll worry about this little whistleblower at the CED," she hissed as the line rang. "I'll see to it he doesn't jeopardize Dr. Haze's research. He'll regret running to the Princesses."

Her eyes locked as the mobile connected. "It's us," she spoke to the other end, looking to Tundra. "We have a problem. Quite a few to be exact."

Chapter 10: The Mare in the Bath

Canterlot Castle was quiet, all of her inhabitants asleep, safe in their beds for the passing night.

Save of course for the Night Guard hiding in the shadows.

Such was normal, for while the Day Guard was a show of force - a visible deterrent to any ne'er-do-wells - the Night Guard was a much different affair. They kept to the shadows with their dark armor, waiting out of view. Nothing would disturb the denizens of the castle tonight under their guard.

But while the rest of the castle was asleep, lost in their timeless dreams, two ponies conversed in low voices and whispers in the dim banquet hall, lit only by the glowing and smoldering embers in the fireplace.

“He’s hiding something,” Luna said, leaning over in the chair pulled close to the hearth. “I can see it now.” Her eyes gazed into the hearth, twin orbs that glowed as she stared deeply into the orange coals that crackled and popped.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Lakeshore added, rubbing his temples. The flight back to Canterlot had passed uneventfully, Romulus quickly excusing himself to his guest chambers in the waning twilight. Their night, however, was just getting started.

“He’s agreed to let you try and recover his memories first thing tomorrow morning. Why would he be trying to hide something?” Lakeshore wondered.

Luna levitated a fire poker, shifting the coals, tiny sparks dancing across the smoldering shards. “I never said he t'was trying to, or that even he was aware of it. The mind is a compelling force, good Professor," she mused. "It can stop even the strongest of wills. That much I can see in him. A fear he is hiding. Strange," she paused, "not like him at all from what I remember.”

“Then what are our options? Because if you have any ideas, I’m eager to hear them.” Lakeshore threw his hooves up. “We’re in your field of expertise here, Princess.”

Luna shook her head, standing up and putting away the fire poker. “The way I doth see it, we have two options on recovering whatever memories Romulus has of the expedition. One, we can try the easy way. Much like a trance, this option. I would be able to retrieve whatever he thinks of through a little suggestion."

"And you think that will work?" If it sounded too easy, it was.

"Not likely," she admitted. "In his current state, I doubt it t'would work. A distressed mind is a fickle creature, Professor. The harder we dig, the more his subconscious shall only block us out.”

Luna sat up and trotted around the table, standing in the frame of the high windows overlooking the mountainside.

A new moon hung in the sky hidden behind a veil of darkness. “No, we need to make a surprise entrance — no chance for him to build his mental fortifications. I remember Romulus well from his time in the Guard. He is not a pony to be caught off guard, even in his dreams.”

She knew Lakeshore could already tell what she was going to do. She wouldn't like it either, but both knew it had to be done.

“Will he remember when he wakes?" Lakeshore asked, gravely. "Can you do it without him noticing? It just feels..." He paused for the right word. "Violating: infiltrating his dreams without his permission."

“He shouldn’t have even the slightest recollection," she humored him, watching her heavenly body crawl across the sky. "I shall be quick, in and out before his subconscious even knows I’m there. I'll find what has him so afraid, what he refuses to remember. ”

The Night Guard, watching diligently from the shadows in the guest quarters, stood motionless. They made no sound, did not move; their glowing orange eyes knew of everypony and everything that moved within the castle. There was not a pony or other that could get past them without the Night Watch knowing about it.

Everything was dead silent out of Professor's room, which they knew because he was still awake in the dining hall. And out of the other guest room, one of their own kind resided, the thralls of light snoring filling the rotunda with a melody of soundful sleep.

As the moonlight grew, the guards' minds began to drift unannounced, an unseen force causing all three guards struggling to remain awake. They fought desperately, shaking whatever phantom was dragging them down toward the richly carpeted floor in a deep slumber.

But it was powerful. Soon they were all piled across the rotunda, their more traditional muffled armor making hardly a sound as they fell one by one, each in turn submerged in dreamless, overpowering sleep.

The blue alicorn gingerly stepped over the sleeping guards, treading carefully so as not to knock against their armor. She approached one of the doors of the rotunda, the light from the solitary lantern casting a hazy shadow over the door. Her horn lit with a muted glow, the lock on the door sliding back inside with barely a clack.

Tiptoeing, she silently entered the chamber, her waving hair swirling about her, twinkling as if filled by stars.

Luna stepped inside the bedroom, a figure beneath bedsheets snoring much louder than it seemed to be outside. In such a sense, the bat pony had changed very little from what she remembered in that regard.

Romulus’s head rested lightly on the pillows of the bed, his mouth agape with the occasional fit of snoring. Princess Luna approached his bedside and closed her eyes, focusing her magic within her, willing herself to focus. Silvery tendrils of light sprouted from her horn and snaked down onto the bat pony’s resting head. She had to be quick she reminded herself. In and out before he could awake.

Tall stalks of corn, neatly arranged in seemingly never-ending rows, swayed gently to and fro in the light breeze that wisped through the air. Dirt beneath Luna’s hooves smelled of earth and was moist with the rich scent of topsoil. Her delicate yet equally powerful hooves pressed indentions in the ground as she strode through the corn, each step releasing fresh smells of organic decay and fertilizer. On and on the corn stretched, a maze that seemed to grow without end. The stalks shifting in the breeze sang around her, their gentle rustling a whisper that spoke to her in the way all dreams did. Something is here they said.

As if she was being steered toward where she was meant to go, the corn parted ahead, revealing a brightly lit plot of land between gently cresting hills covered in grass that swirled in the breeze. Luna could feel it in her hooves, like small vibrations that traveled up from the ground and danced along her skin. This dream was alive, extending far beyond what she could already see. All she had to do now was track down the source.

A short distance away sat a simple farmhouse, complete with a wooden porch and screen door. It was shaded by the boughs of apple trees planted around the humble homestead, their branches heavy and overburdened with the swollen, red fruit.

The alicorn strolled across the dirt path bisecting the valley. Small puffs of dirt gathered from her steps, mixing with the tepid air that hung over the farmland like a leaden blanket. The front gate opened with a welcoming squeak, beckoning her forward,

She approached the house and trotted onto the porch, the boards beneath creaking ever so slightly as she mounted them. If anypony was home, it wasn't readily apparent. But he couldn't be far, she knew.

Perking her ears, Luna heard something coming from around the corner of the house.

It sounded like someone humming.

Luna hopped off the porch and passed around the corner. Open windows set between weathered red shutters looked over the fields of grass and corn. Curtains of sea-blue inside danced with the wind that filtered through the fragrant fruit trees, carrying their pleasing scent with it.

The humming was coming from one of the windows. A mare from the sound of it: a mare with a voice like honey that hummed ever so softly and sweetly.

Luna couldn't help but stop and listen, transfixed by the heavenly sound that was not word or song, but a simple hum. Water from what must be a bath sloshed inside the farmhouse, the curtains rustling with the wind and bathwater to add to the chorus. Luna could smell perfume like something sweeter than the apple trees blooming all around the farmstead. She would have liked to stay and listen for a moment, enthralled by the melody of the unseen mare, but Luna was on a mission. He had to be close.

Turning the next corner, Luna came unexpectedly upon a figure in kneeling on the ground. A hat with a wide brim of straw was atop the figure’s head, shielding him from the radiating rays overhead.

He was poised over tilled soil, a bed of flowers at attention in the fresh earth. He was humming his own tune as he worked with trowel in hoof, transfering the aromatic blooms with the tender care of a surgon. His melody was different from the mare's, deeper and throatier, but with more vigor.

She approached the bat pony and sat on the soft grass beside him.

He looked over at his visitor. He didn’t speak but only gave a smile to the Princess before resuming his humming, looking back down at the bulbs he was planting.

Luna watched the stallion quietly tend to his garden, remaining silent and wondering how this could be the same pony that had once been her own guard. A pony who could strike fear or terror into the fresh recruits with only a look. Yet here he was in his own world of serenity, a dream of overflowing gardens and a simple farmhouse.

“You have a lovely place here,” Luna said, breaking the silence. The bat pony turned to her again and set down his trowel, resting his hooves.

“Thank you,” he said appreciatively. “I always have tried to keep the place up. Been in my family for generations.” He wiped the earth from his hooves onto a rag and stood up. “Where are my manners? Would you like something to drink?” he said oblivious to the fact his visitor was an alicorn, one anypony in Equestria should recognize anywhere. “I just made a cool pitcher of sweet tea. Would you like to sit and have a glass with me?” he wondered, suddenly pleased to have the company of what he must have taken to be a stranger.

“That would be most pleasant, good sir,” answered Luna, following him toward the back of the house.

Romulus couldn't have been aware that he was dreaming, nor did he recognize her, even though they had both arrived back in Canterlot less than three hours ago. The sleeping mind was an isolated dimension, one where the subconscious has little to no control, entirely at the whim of deeper, unseen depths of consciousness.

Romulus entered the house, the screen door clattering against the wood of the jamb. He returned a moment later, a sweating pitcher of iced tea expertly gripped with a leathery wing, two clear crystal glasses in the other. “Come and sit a spell with me if you like,” he said, motioning toward a pair of rocking chairs. “The sun sure is fierce this summer.”

Luna took up a seat as Romulus poured her tea, the ice clinking against the glass. She accepted the beverage, taking a tentative sip.

“This is delicious," she beamed, the sugary, syrupy liquid making her nerves tingle with delight. "I do not think I have ever tasted tea prepared in such a way before.”

“You’ve never had sweet tea?” He was taken aback. “I feel a little sorry for you, my friend. This is how mom always made it. With ice-cold well water, plenty of sugar, and just a sprig of mint.”

Luna began steering the subject away from the pleasantries. She had a job to do after all.

“You sure seem to have an affection for gardening. The flowers are especially wonderful,” she remarked, admiring the rows of corn, the blooming orchard and the beds of flowers surrounding the homestead.

He shrugged setting the glass of tea in his lap. “It keeps me busy. Plus it can be relaxing too, working with the soil, to bring life forth from the earth.” He let out a chuckle. “Makes you think I would have been more suited as an Earth pony.

Good, Luna told herself. You have him engaged. Make the transition.

“Now I might not have as strong as an appreciation for flowers like you, but have thou ever heard of a spotted marigold?”

The bat pony cocked his head, swirling the ice cubes in his glass. “A spotted marigold? Can’t say I recognize that one.”

“Oh yes,” said Luna setting her glass on the wicker table next to her. “It’s an amazing species. Very rare. Supposably can only be found in the jungles of Caballo.” She picked up her glass again, taking a faint sip of the overpoweringly sweet liquid.

He cocked his head, his brow bunching on his glistening sweat-smeared forehead. "Is that so," he mentioned, as if he didn't fully comprehend what she was saying. "Isn't that something."

“Have you ever been south of the border, Romulus? Caballo is such a culturally rich country, wouldn’t you say?” She would have to strike him, to force the dream to steer toward what she really wanted. She wanted to see what had happened on the doomed expedition. "Such vibrant jungles they have, you know."

Romulus was twisting the glass in his hooves, the condensation dampening his hooves. He looked confused, casting a wary eye around him. “I–I can’t say I have,” he stammered, caught off guard. He looked the alicorn up and down. “Sorry –it's just–” He shook his head, his body hit by a sudden spasm. He suddenly wasn't looking so well, as if the color had drained from his coat. “Oh, stars.” Out of the blue, Romulus leaned over and retched, a sticky mess of bile and sugary tea spilling over the porch.

Luna instinctively recoiled. Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

A blanket of black clouds was rising over the horizon, the first indication besides the sudden affliction. It was spreading over the picturesque valley, the sun vanishing above its reach.

Luna quickly shot up out of her chair as something ran over her hooves. She inadvertently spilled her tea, the glass clattering on the ground before rolling off the porch.

It was water. Warm, clear water was flowing out of the back door in a tiny stream, spilling out of the farmhouse and mixing with the dust on the ground.

“She stopped humming, didn’t she?” Romulus asked Luna, the stallion slipping back into his chair as if nothing had happened. His words had taken a graver tone, his languishing drawl disappearing. “She always stops around this time. It's always when the water starts.”

Whatever was happening, he was right. The humming inside the farmstead had ceased.

The black clouds now covered the valley peaks, the sunlight dancing behind the shimmering surface that rippled in the atmosphere. Luna could see now what was happening. She had witnessed the signs before. The dream was collapsing.

“Romulus!” she told him, gripping him by his broad shoulders in his chair. He didn’t blink an eye, hardly registering that she was present at all. “Romulus. Wake up! Tis just a dream.”

The dream was morphing into something awful; she could feel it like an electric current in the air. Suddenly there came a loud pop from beside her.

Luna turned to see the pitcher of tea beside them had shattered, the caramel-colored liquid spilling over the wooden boards amongst ice and broken glass. Broken glass skittered in the wind on the porch, the tea mixing with the water gently seeping from the house.

Pop!

Another, one of the windows on the porch bursting into a multitude of tiny shards. Drawn curtains inside were whipped by the gale that blew across the property. It had grown in intensity, a tremendous downdraft that bombarded the farmstead.

Windows along the house burst in turn, each erupting in a brilliant explosion of glass. The cup, still clutched in Romulus’s hooves shattered on its own, the tea spilling over his lap and through the chair’s wooden slats. He did not take notice, hooves still wrapped around the now absent glass, gazing out over the yard with blank expression, staring into nothingness.

“Romulus. You have to take heed,” she warned him urgently. Everything was quickly unraveling “You can’t let whatever is haunting you control you. You must bring your fears under control. End this nightmare,” instructed Luna, alarmed at how fast the dream was transforming. Luna was on her hooves now planted in front of the expressionless stallion, his eyes like lifeless marbles.

Then she heard it. Something carried on the wind. It pulsed like the beat of a heart, resonating in her ears and creeping over the tiny hairs of her neck. The dark clouds were closer, swirling over the valley and spilling over the ground. Her blood froze, cold as ice.

Those were not clouds.

Those were bats!

Thousands, hundreds of thousands of bats! Bats as big as dogs, so thick they blocked out the sun.

“Romulus! Stop this nightmare, lest it consumes thee!” she shouted, but to no avail. Romulus was stiff as a statue.

Then, in the distance, a low rumble, a brilliant ball of light reflecting in his eyes. Luna turned around.

From afar, a massive cloud of fire and smoke mushroomed into the darkened skies, the ground trembling beneath her hooves as if ready to open and swallow the land whole. The rumble grew in magnitude until the very foundation of the house shook, the ball of fire erupting hight into the atmosphere like a tombstone of flame.

A wave of destruction crested the hills of the valley, tearing up everything in its path under its persuasive force. The horde of bats was torn asunder by the shockwave, wiping everything from the earth in a tidal wave of fiery heat.

Winds howled beyond immeasurable proportions, lifting the trees and the roots that bound them to the earth. The blast was now upon them, about to hit at any second.

Luna dove off the porch, covering her head with her hooves in a futile attempt to escape the holocaust upon them. She had no control over the runaway terror, a sickening feeling she had never experience before.

“It’s all gone,” Romulus muttered, gazing into the face of destruction ready to greet them. “It’s all going to fall,” wept with silent tears, eyes staring into the heart of darkness, before the blast consumed them both.

"I knew it then as I know it now."

One of the Night Watch outside the rotunda was suddenly awoken by the sound of a feral scream. It was coming from the guestroom.

A sleepy-eyed Lakeshore, shot down the hall, drawn by the commotion.

“What in bloody Tartarus is going on!? Get her out of there!” he shouted over the screaming. “Get the Princess out!”

“Huh-wha.” The guard shook the sleep off of him. His comrades were passed out beside him, still out cold as the night itself.

“Hey. Hey! Wake up. Something’s up.” He shook one and knocked a hoof against the other’s helm, eliciting a resonating thunk that stirred the occupant. They came about slowly, noticing the commotion that was coming from Romulus’s room.

Guards, flanked by the Professor burst inside, the door banging against its stops.

"Princess! Are you alright," the lead guard barked breathlessly.

Inside, Romulus laid against the floor. He was splayed on his back, wings flapping ferociously but uncoordinated. He was grasping at the neck of Princess Luna, who was squashing a hind leg into his bare chest, just out of his reach. Romulus screamed and howled as if he were a wild beast as he continued fruitlessly to wrap his hooves around the windpipe of the alicorn.

This caused her to only press harder into his ribcage. She looked up, taking notice for the first time the guards and slack-jawed Professor. She stared, not know at first what to say, having been caught in the peculiar predicament.

“Um...nothing to worry,” she finally spoke, pointing down at Romulus, who was now gasping for air, her hoof not relenting its pressure. “Just a bad dream is all.”

It was only when Romulus had regained his bearing did his shouts turn into sobs, and the muscled mass of pony shriveled into a weeping ball that curled up at their hooves.

Chapter 11: The Zebra

Zahara’s hooves echoed on the rough cobblestone of the Canterlot Orphanage as she trotted through the dewy morning air. The sweet scent of the new dawn alighted on her nose, the smells and sounds of Canterlot awakening all around her. Her cotton headpiece draped over her silk-like mane, covered in the glow of the rising rays. Birds chirped and sang in the courtyard garden, and the gentle rustle of pigeons stirring could be heard in the tall stone archways overhead.

Such a beautiful morning, she though. It filled Zahara's heart with joy at the beauty of the world and its intricate and complex design, from the towering oak at the center of the courtyard, down to the smallest stalks of grass sprouting through the cracked stonework. She would have liked to sit and admire it all and watch the daybreak, but today was a busy day.

Zahara had received the file from Foal Services two days ago, nearly a week after the tragedy in Ponyville. Every orphaned foal she took in had some sad beginning, an everyday reality in her line of work. But this one, for whatever reason, struck a chord within the zebra’s heart. Little Rose Point: only six years old and not a soul in the world to call the filly their own. Her mother, the only connection to Rose, had died in Ponyville in the accident.

For Zahara could only do what she could to ease the hardship for each little pony who entered through the orphanage's doors. It was hard to fathom what the filly must be going through, nopony to claim her as their own. Such was the time the Zahara would be called to step up to the task. The Canterlot Ophanage's doors were always open to those little ones forgotten. Zahara had learned it for herself years ago.

Even now, with the buzz of the bustling capital all round her overwhelming the senses, Zahara could still picture her home. Her real home, set against the high mountain of her homeland far away. She remembered it all so clearly: her fate that had lead her to this strange land of Equestria in her adolescent.

The fires had rained down from the sky in the early hours of the morning all those many years ago. She was asleep in her bed when it happened. Even now, separated by the years and distance, she could still recall the warmth of the straw beneath her in the family’s hut on the edge of the tribal village. Memories too - the ragdoll Father had made from scraps at the textile mill clutched under her hooves.

Little Zahara had heard the voice just before the sun rose over the distant mountains, sleepily stumbling out the adobe hut and into the muted light.

“Wake up. Wake up little Zahara,” the voice had told her, pulling her from the depths of her slumber.

She had looked about her, searching for the voice, but all she found were the fields of grain that were her family's. She couldn’t see who or where the sound was coming from. To her, it almost had seemed to be coming from all around her, carried on the breeze that weaved through the fields of grain.

“Lay down little one. Lay down and cover your head,” it would come again.

And though she did not know who the voice was, or why she could not see where it was coming from, she did what it said. Zahara had calmly laid down in the dust and dirt and covered her head.

And the rumble came as if from within the heart of the world itself, a great boom, the ground trembling and rolling like the waves of the endless oceans. She looked up just in time to see the top of the mountain behind their hut shoot into the heavens, a world-rending explosion of fire and ash flying down the slopes toward her.

“Stay down Zahara. Stay down and don’t look. Don't look now”

The wave of ash was already upon her and she did just like the voice said. She stayed down and did not look. She did not look when the flow hit their hut. She did not look when the walls collapsed, her parents and dog (poor Clebber) still inside.

She did not look as her world was covered in a flood of ash and darkness, never to return.

When she finally saw sunlight again, she was not sure how long it had been gone, but she had not been afraid. The voice had been with her the entire time, that stranger that had grown so familiar, as if an old friend.

The first thing Zahara saw as she was pulled from the ash and debris that fateful day, was the face of a mare, head and mane covered in a grey stained cowl. The mare was sweaty and tired, but the look on her face when she pulled the little zebra foal from the rubble, black and white stripes hidden beneath the gray ash, it was the happiest face Zahara had ever seen.

"Sisters! Sisters, I found somepony!" the mare called in ecstatic joy.

From that day, the "Sisters" had taken in her in. Not sisters like those she had grown up with, though Zahara could hardly remember their faces.

Sister Sprig had explained to her later that the half-dozen mares were not really sisters. No, these were sisters of a different order Zahara had come to learn. Sisters in spirit servicing those in need, those who could not help themselves. The sick, the poor, the wretched, the orphaned, all were worthy of help in their eyes. Which was how she had come to be with the sisters, and as she too would one day become a sister herself.

In the relief camp, she would later ask that same mare that had pulled her from the rubble, Sister Rosary, about the voice, the voice she had heard. The voice that had called her that day the mountain erupted.

“Why little Zahara, you surprise me,” the Sister had said with a smile, leaning down close until their faces almost touched. She was an older mare, her face a circle of soft wrinkles encircled by her head robe which all the Sisters sported. Sister Rosary's voice was like the most delicate of flowers, a warm blanket that calmed even the most scared filly with its natural warmth. “Can’t you hear it now, little one?” the mare asked, cocking a floppy ear. "It's there if you listen close."

And as Zahara stopped and listened, she could. She could hear that voice on the wind still choked with the ash that would rain on the continent for years after her departure. It sang on the swaying leaves of the palm trees, and bubbled in the stream nearby, whispering its secrets. Zahara could hear the voice all around her this entire time.

“What is it,” she asked the mare in the cowl in amazement. All this time, it had been there, like a secret friend only she could hear.

“Little Zahara,” Sister Rosary had leaned down and whispered close. “Why that is the voice of the Earth, of the universe herself.”

Zahara would later follow that voice with the Rosary and the other Sisters to Equestria, a place she had only heard but had never dreamed she would visit. It might not be her homeland, but for Zahara, it was her home.

The Sisters had raised that little orphaned zebra as their own, giving her her own room at the orphanage, taking her to tend to the needy in the streets, and cultivating the garden together. For a zebra, the sad reality that there was little interest in adopting a little striped black and white filly, was quickly quelched by the Sisters. For through all her time at the orphanage, it would be the Sisters who had adopted her, taking her in as one of their own and teaching her of their ways. A lifetime of fellowship with sisters not of blood, but of spirit: Sister Hemlock's own words.

So it would be that Zahara had spent afternoons of her early years with Sister Sprig in her herb garden, baked loaves of hot bread on rainy twilights in the kitchens with Sister Tart, and meditated on life’s wonder every morning in the courtyard with Sister Rosary.

She would never tell another Sister, but Rosary was her favorite. Sister Rosary had been the one who taught her to listen to the voice, to follow it.

As the years had passed the voice had faded, but it had never left her. It was only quieter. Maybe a little harder to hear, but never far away. That is what Sister Rosary reminded her as the old mare was breathing her last, tucked warm and comfortable in her bed at the far end of the orphanage dormitories.

She had been weak, but the fire still burned strong within. Zahara could never forget the look on Rosary’s face, present even as the old mare lay at the gates of the After. A type a blissful peace.

The Sister’s uncovered mane had spilled over the pillows like streams of gold and blonde, undressed of their orders cowl. Zahara had only seen Rosary once before without her headdress. While still a foal, shortly after arriving in this foreign place, there had been a ferocious thunderstorm, the thunder booming through the stone passages of the orphanage like cannon fire. But Sister Rosary had been there for her as she trembled outside her door. Sister Rosary had been in a nightgown, and her long golden mane hung over her neck. Rosary had held her, gently shushing her crying as she held on tight, quelling the visions of the angry mountain rending itself upon the land.

“Come, child. There is nothing to be afraid of. It’s just the rain,” she cooed, brushing her floppy striped mane back. “But you can sleep here tonight if you want.”

That same bed Zahara had shared so many moons ago as a foal had been before her, the pony she had considered a second mother, the one who had pulled her from the rubble as a foal, tucked beneath a warm blanket to make her final days comfortable.

“Never lose your strength, Zahara,” Rosary had said, clutching the zebra’s foreleg with her wrinkled hooves. She tucked her ever-present string of rosaries between her striped hooves, a necklace of wooden beads that had never left her side until now. Her thinking beads, she had called them. “As long as you have your strength, you are never alone. Even if you are down, there will always be someone to pick you from the rubble.”

Things around the orphanage had quickly changed after Rosary. Saddle Arabia had fallen to Maretonia, and Equestria’s forces had been caught in the crossfire trying to defend her allies. Many were lost, many more injured. And not just the physical wounds, but those injuries that we’re inside, the pains that ran deep. Pains that woke you in the dead of night in a cold sweat.

And the toll in the lands home as well: children, foals whose mothers of fathers never returned from overseas. Many of the other Sisters would leave Canterlot to seek the weak and weary across the nation in overflowing orphanages of places like Phillydelphia, San Anponio, Applewood. Now it was only Zahara.

She had thought about leaving many nights while alone in the kitchen, baking bread for the food pantry as she had always done with Sister Tart, who was now at the Baltimare orphanage. Canterlot, with its money and affluent citizens, had not experienced what other small towns had. The orphanage, though it provided for the less fortunate in Canterlot, had not had a foal in over three months.

Zahara had never considered herself stoic like Rosary, or even the other Sisters - a title she had seen as reserved for only the most selfless. But with the Sisters gone, and the orphanage without a guiding hoof, Zahara had come to realize her purpose in this strange land. A way to honor Sister Rosary’s memory, or whatever After the mare resided in.

Or maybe it had been the voice guiding her along all this time. Either way, she had come to realize that her place was here at the orphanage, ready to take in those with nopony else, much like she had once been. Much like this new filly from Foal Services.

So as the dawn finally broke, Zahara stood up from her morning meditation and reflection in the courtyard. Exited the wrought iron gates of the Canterlot Orphanage, she stepped briskly along the sidewalk toward Canterlot General Hospital. The file on the filly was tucked neatly in her modest saddlebag, Zahara’s headdress pulled tight over her head, the loose end fluttering in the spring breeze around her neck. Wearing a happy face, the zebra said her good mornings and how do you do's to the passersby going about their day.

No, she couldn’t leave Canterlot. There we’re still ponies that needed her. That was what the familiar voice was telling her.

“She is a special filly, Zahara. Take care of her. Protect her, this little one I am sending you.”

Dr. Solar Haze worked quickly in the level four biolab of the CED.

The lab was bone cold, and even with a sweater on under her protective suit, Solar's hooves shook, whether due to the temperature or her anticipation. She knew Trotter would be back soon, but she needed to use the analyzer in the central lab. The lanky brown stallion had been acting strange over the past few days. She had found him poking and prodding around the various labs, always seeming to bump into her throughout the day as if he was following her.

And he had been quiet too, even for Trotter. Could he have found out about her side project?

No, she told herself piping a light blue and viscous formula into a glass vial. She worked as fast as she could under the protective suit, air lines leading to the ceiling whipping feverishly as she moved. Trotter couldn’t have known. She had read his report herself, seen the similarities between the contagion recovered off the Wonderbolt and the Caballo sample. She had forwarded her information via an encrypted channel to her contact at the Defense Coalition. From there, they would handle the rest.

Situation is under control. Team is being sent to recover Ponyville sample. Continue trials.

That was the only word she had received from her contact. They were going to handle the situation. Trotter might get more suspicious of her strange activities: the comings and goings, the late nights at work, the quick excuses to call off lunch or a meeting when she had another attack. But Trotter would never find out the whole truth Solar told herself. The DC was good at keeping things under tight wraps.

Setting down her latest sample, the unicorn capped it off before placing it in an analyzer and closing the lid. The analyzer clicked on, the device chirping and beeping. Dr. Haze pulled a stool up to a nearby computer, the terminal analyzing the sample and calculating several thousand data theories. A moment later, a screen flashed across the computer monitor.

Dr. Haze leaned forward in eager anticipation as she read down the list of statistics and data points. Further, as she read, the more the eagerness evaporated, replaced with an unsettling warmth that bubbled to the surface.

“Damn it all to Tartarus!” she suddenly snapped, flinging a tray of test tubes across the lab. They cracked against the bulkhead, showering the lab floor with thousands of tiny shards. Enraged, the scientist jumped off of her stool and kicked it as hard as she could, it crashing into a cabinet before clattering on the ground. Solar stood over the screen hyperventilating, staring at the final result at the bottom of the report.

Viral Trial 21 Result: Incorporation Unsuccessful - MISMATCH

She read the report over and over, the result burning into her head. She had failed. Again. What was she missing? Why wouldn’t the virus accept the new gene?

Her breaths grew deeper and deeper. She was sucking deep gulps of air, her nostrils flaring with her latest result. But this was quickly replaced. Solar grabbed at her throat through the suit, gasping for air. Instinctively checking her airlines, she found nothing wrong. She realized the problem was not her air supply.

Medication - she had to get to her satchel, and fast. She was already in the thick of another attack.

The unicorn bounded to the lab's airlock, struggling to breathe with each step. She popped off her air hoses as moved, the door to the airlock opening as she approached, leaving the lines whipping in her wake. Behind her, the door closed with a hydraulic hiss and heavy thunk of seals engaging.

Solar shed the suit from her body as fast as her trembling limbs would allow. Her legs felt weak and they shook as she stepped from her suit. Stumbling toward the exit, she fumbled for the release panel.

It took several tries to activate the door, her limbs failing to respond to the most straightforward command. A foggy mist washed over her from nozzles, stinging her eyes and nose before the door finally opened. Droplets of the strong disinfectant clung to her coat, glistening under the bright fluorescent lighting and making her constricting airway burn even more.

The mare collapsed onto the floor, her face blue from lack of oxygen, mouth agape, gulping for air. If only anypony could see her now, she would resemble more fish out of water than pony.

Solar tried to stand, but her legs could not support her, her nerve ending firing wildly in short spasms. She slumped onto the ground her vision going cloudy and blackness creeping in from the corners of her eyes. Using all her strength and willpower, she pushed herself across the floor of the lab toward her desk. Her limbs were almost nonresponsive and they reacted like thick syrup.

Satchel. She had to get to her satchel.

Solar’s horn bumped the canvas bag laying against the side of her desk just before she no longer had the power even to crawl. She knocked it open with her hoof, spilling the contents across the linoleum floor. A syringe of clear liquid skittered in front of her, just within her reach.

Solar scrabbled to get the syringe, her magic useless, finally gripping the tube in her teeth and flicking the cover off the needle. She rolled onto her back, her sight all but gone, her thoughts fuzzy and muddled.

Well, this might be it. It was quite a ride. Nice knowing you, world, but I think I'll just die now

Unconsciousness was washing over the unicorn, asphyxiation bringing a sweet burning that seeped to lull her oxygen-deprived brain toward a final sleep. She plunged the needle into her neck, depressing the plunger with the last of her will. So close.

She gasped and choked. Atmosphere flooded her lungs, the syringe still hanging from her neck. Slowly her vision cleared and she gasped in huge gulps of air.

The attacks were growing in frequency and intensity, Solar could tell, as she propped her back against her desk and sat there wondering how much longer she had. The ashen-maned mare sat and waited, wondering how her life had taken such a turn. Did fate have something against her? Her family torn asunder, husband unable to bear their shared sorrow, disappearing into the night without saying goodbye.

Solar remembered in the weeks after the funeral her finally working up the courage to test herself and her husband. “A simple test,” she had assured him with tears still in her eyes. “It had to be genetic. This is the only way to find out who–,” but she didn’t need to explain

They had discovered when the results came back that she, Solar, had been the one to pass the genetic abnormality to Ember. A reality that had driven his father to disappear, merely walking out the front door as she cried at the table. And now it had finally manifested to claim her, a cruel twist that she now bore. Too cruel a fate that she had witnessed what it would do and its final outcome. All the while, helpless to stop it. The worst feeling a mother could have.

Solar lay against the cold metal of the desk and softly cried. She did not want to die alone, but here she was, alone, her family and life fading into oblivion.

She did not want it all to have been for nothing. That would be a bigger loss now, for it all to be for nothing.

She had to keep on trying. Her crying stopped, and she wiped the tears away with her hoof before finally regaining the strength to stand.

I have to keep trying; for Ember. My little Ember...

“Got any eights?”

Whiplash looked over the cards in his hooves, a sly grin creeping across his face. “Go fish.”

“Drat,” the little filly sitting in the chair by his bedside huffed. Rose Point reach for the deck on the table pulled between them, drawing another card to add to her growing fan.

It had only been five days, but Whiplash was already about to lose it. The pack of cards he had picked up from the hospital convenience and care store had been one of the few saving graces. He would have called up Clipper to swing by his townhouse in the Canterlot garden district, maybe grab a few movies or even some books. But he figured the stallion was probably laying low on base. Which meant it was cards, for now, stuck with the kid.

Not that he actually minded. It was an excellent way to pass the time. She had been moved to the children’s ward now that the hospital was catching up with the mass influx of patients. The nurses were stretched thin, always trotting back and forth, but they didn’t seem to mind Rose visiting him for a game of cards or just to watch some television.

Rose would sit by his bedside while they picked out something to watch; she always picked. He would quickly flick through the news stations, avoiding all the rampant speculation and the images of Ponyville plastered on the screen with the newsponies drawing out every horrible little detail as they distributed their latest hot product. And everypony gobbled up, the airship story and all.

No, he didn’t want her to see any of that. She was just a filly. A kid shouldn’t have to worry about all the harsh realities befaced by the older generations. And at the moment, he didn’t want to see any of it either. So he lied there content with watching the nature channel, or cartoons, or that animation Rose really like with the bright colors and suspense and action, the ponies with superpowers. That one was her favorite, always sitting on the edge of her seat, caught up in the fight against that week’s villainous menace the powerful ponies faced.

“Any two’s,” Rose ventured, continuing their third round that morning. Whiplash forked them over to the filly who triumphant added the cards to what he admitted was a growing pile. She was a fast learner and fiercely competitive. Another game or two, and she might even win. But he wouldn’t concede defeat just yet.

He was about to ask for any seven’s, which he knew based on his own hooful of cards, she did not have, when they were interrupted by a soft tapping on the open door.

“Helllooo, knock-knock” a chippery mare in a tight fit blazer chortled, standing in the doorway with a cup of what looked like coffee. Sunbucks.

“Starberry Dew, Foal Services. Anypony know where I can find little Miss Rose Point,” the pony asked looking around the hospital room of ponies in various levels of discomfort, the eyes of a stallion in a neckbrace down on the end practically rolling back into his head at the thought of having such an energetically cheery pony even close to him in his condition.

“Um, are you looking for Rose,” Whiplash offered to the uncomfortably high-spirited mare, nodding to the only pony in the room probably under forty.

Starberry’s face practically lit up at the sight of her sitting by his bedside with a hooful of cards, Rose’s eyes darting quickly back and forth between him and this mare from Foal Services.

“Well, there she is! Isn’t she just a darling like I said in her file. Come on in, Zahara. Gosh, you are just about as shy as she is,” Starberry rattled ecstatically, trotting up to the filly with somepony else in tow hanging quietly back.

It was a Zebra, and a mare at that, too. Not a usual sight in Canterlot.

But this one was young, her vibrant stripes both deep black and silvery white like polished marble. Her face was soft, round, a peaceful smile displaying a warm, welcoming greeting contrary to the caffeinated jitteriness of Starberry Dew

“Rose Point, this is Zahara the head of the Canterlot Orphanage,” Starberry said, sliding the stiff filly toward the zebra with a gentle push. Rose Point was still as a rock looking up at the big zebra with wide eyes. “You're going to be staying with her while Foal Services finds you a new home. Doesn’t that sound lovely?” she asked exuberantly, oblivious to the withdrawn expression radiating from the girl.

Rose made no indication of returning her excitement.

“Well I’ll let you and her get acquainted and packed while I go get these discharge forms filed,” Starberry winked, trotting out the room to relieved sighs from the other patients wanting only peace.

Rose fiddled with the playing cards still clutched in her hoof, avoiding eye contact with the zebra as if she were a two-headed orthros. The filly that had just found her voice again around the Wonderbolt, had sealed her lips.

Zahara looked about the patients, her heart going out to all of those in pain or sick. Why would a shy young filly be keeping company with these ponies in such grief she wondered. Zahara noticed the card game, Rose returning to her chair by the pegasus, stepping around the zebra without a word. She hopped up on the chair, continuing to play with the cards in her hoof absently.

“Hello there, Rose. Can I call you that? Rose?” Zahara asked the shy filly, receiving cold silence in response. Not that she could blame the child, one who had lost everything and was caught in a stranger's world.

She instead turned her attention to the pegasus Rose was sitting by. He was sporting several plastered stitches and a casted wing wrapped in heavy dressings but otherwise looked in healthy spirits despite the gloomy atmosphere. A friend of the girl’s perhaps?

“Hello,” she offered, shaking the pony’s hoof. “How nice of you to keep the girl company.”

“Whiplash,” he told her, accepting her hoof with a smile and a nod. “But I think she has been the one keeping me from bouncing off the walls. Isn’t that right, kid,” he asked, looking over at the filly. She didn’t reply, didn’t even let her eyes venture from the cards.

“She’s a little shy,” he explained with a forced grin. “But she’s good company,” he sighed. “She’s been through a lot.” His eyes were locked on Zahara’s, the motherly mare reading them like a book. She saw it inside him, that he had been throught his own ordeals, faced demons of his own. His words she could tell were true, and that a bond had been formed with the filly - a pony of comfort in her darkest time.

“The Orphanage is just across the district,” Zahara noted. “Perhaps if you would like, Rose, Mr. Whiplash could visit you when he gets better? Would you like that, Rose?”

For once, the girl looked up, wide blue eyes looking at her. She gave a sharp nod, the filly copper mane bobbing up and down.

“That is, if Mr. Whiplash would be interested.” Zahara looked to the battered pegasus, a bright smile stretching across his split lips.

“I’d like that very much,” he told her. "You hear that kid? I won't be far. Why not go with Miss Zahara here - she'll watch over you in the meantime. Be good now, and do what Miss Zahara says."

With a quick huff that was her only retorn, the two of them left, the zebra leading the filly by a hoof out the door and back down the bustling corridor. A short while they returned, Rose’s few belongings bundled into the Zebra’s saddlebags.

The little filly unexpectedly threw her arms around him, Whiplash tensing involuntarily.

"Promise me you will see me again, Mr. Whiplash? Please?" she spoke, her words barely above a whisper that held back fresh tears that welled in her averting eyes.

"Woah, hey kid, watch the wing," he blurted before quickly finding the right words. "I mean - yeah - sure. I'll swing by sometime when I get out. Just be good for Miss Zahara. Deal?"

It was without question. "Deal."

Whiplash watched as they headed for the sliding doors of the ward, a familiar-looking backpack slung over the filly’s back. And clutched in one foreleg, something white and worn. A stuffed animal?

Whiplash knew as they left, Rose and Zahara, that the filly would be quiet but would keep up a strong appearance. He could tell she was strong, much more than other foals her age. And he almost hated to admit it, though he had never had kids of his own or had ever wanted them.

He would miss having that kid around.

Chapter 12: Dark Dreams

It started like it had every night, with the tossing and turning before slipping into the deep abyss of sleep.

But this time was different. Somepony else was watching.

Romulus couldn’t see her, but he could hear her. And feel her too, an overbearing presence weighing down upon him. She was an itch living inside him that he just couldn't scratch.

I don’t like this. It feels like you’re poking me in the head with an icepick.

Try to relax, the soothing voice said. You won’t even notice I’m here before long. Why don’t we start from the beginning?

The beginning?

From wherever it usually starts. I'm just along for the ride.

There was no backing out of this now. It always starts that night in the bar.

The darkness was shifting changing. Things were beginning to materialize out the nothingness. A radio blaring some loud rendition of what sounded like cats fighting on a tin roof, bled through the fog, growing in volume.

Romulus could smell the rank stench of cigarette smoke, which he had loathed about the place, but it was the only place to get a drink this far out in the sticks. His forelegs were resting on the stained bartop, a half-empty bottle of cider clenched tight in one hoof. He was in his usual spot at the end, by the busted jukebox.

It was like he was there again, both living the memory and experiencing it from afar.

This is him, the scrawny stallion in the suit with the patchy beard.

The new arrival was turning some of the regular’s heads. He was definitely out of place in this neck of White Tail Woods. No, everything about this pony screamed government worker, down to the khaki-colored tie.

He was young, much younger than he expected, hardly a hind of stubble beneath the pony's soft features. This was who they sent?

“Romulus,” the stallion said, spotting the bat pony at the end of the bar. He threaded his way through the wary stares, extending a hoof. “Great to finally meet you.”

“Remind me again?” Romulus asked, his lips moving on there own as if controlled by somepony else. It was strange to hear himself talk without having any control. But he could feel the slur in his words, the cider washing over him and making his nerves buzz with a faint numbness - an everpresent sensation during that particular period of his past.

“Fourbit,” the stallion cleared his throat, looking apprehensively about the bar. “From the Equestrian Defense Coalition. I must admit," he grumbled, "this isn’t what I had in mind when you agreed to meet me.”

Romulus shrugged his shouldered, hammering back another swig from his bottle. “You said pick a place I felt comfortable.” He waved his hooves about the room. “So here I am.”

“Right,” Fourbit winced, sliding beside him on a scratched barstool. “Well your file looks good,” Fourbit said after clearing his throat, the young buck retrieving a folder from his saddlebags. He leafed through several pages, the expensive watch on his hoof swaying heavily as he did. “Graduate of Baltimare Military Academy. Served as one of the head Lieutenants of Princess Luna’s Night Watch for seven years with a possible promotion to Captain in the works. You applied for three months off which was granted, but then you resigned the Watch shortly before you were to start again.” Fourbit was looking at him over the top of the file, his styled mane flipping from side to side of his skinny neck. “That's really the only clarification I need at the moment. No official reason was documented with the Guard for your sudden departure. Care to explain?” he wondered.

“Personal reasons,” Romulus hiccupped. “Which actually means none of your business.”

“Fair enough,” Fourbit conceded without argument. Romulus hadn't been expecting that. Not that he really cared; he was only entertaining the pony's strange offer.

“It doesn’t show a dishonorable discharge, which is good enough in my bosses books.” Fourbit continued through the stack of papers. “You then worked two years as a hired gun for Black Raven before turning to freelance.”

Fourbit set the file down, pressing his hooves together and studying the bat pony at the bar table in the dim fluorescent lighting. “Look, do just want to get straight to the point here, or do want the normal schpeel I give everypony else?"

"I'd prefer the short version if you don't mind," Romulus grunted. "It's a long walk back home, and my sloshed ass is bound to end up blacked out in a ditch between here and there. So you might as well get to it."

Fourbit was unfazed by his crass indignation, the stallion pulling his barstool closer to detach himself from the overlapping conversations bouncing around the smoky bar. "Here's where I'm at right now, Romulus. You meet all the qualifications for the planned operation. Experienced in the field with a high potential security clearance. I think," he flexed his hooves, "at the price you are asking for your services that you would make a great addition to the team. So what do you say Romulus? Can we count you in.”

“You haven’t even told me what the job is,” Romulus scoffed, swirling the remaining cider in the bottom of his bottle before polishing it off and motioning to the mare behind the counter. "Can't do my job if I don't have the foggiest what it is you want me to do."

“Tell me, Romulus, have you ever heard the ancient Zebran legend of the Koballa?” he wondered, eyeing him like a fox observing an unattended hen house.

“No,” he told Fourbit, the bar mare setting a fresh bottle of cider in front of each stallion. “But I guess you're going to tell me. I thought you said this was the short schpeel?”

Fourbit pushed his own cider to the side, leaning closer. "Trust me, it is," he assured. "Just hear me out."

"You have until I finish this cider," he quipped, taking along draw from the bottle. "So...Koballa?"

"The ultimate warrior," Fourbit translated. "Zebran culture tells of how these demons from the underworld entered the body, turning the host into an unstoppable warrior. Those possessed could kill even the fiercest champion, and that those the Koballa controlled attacked friend and foe alike. The legend went that Ziballa, the Zebra Chieftan's most trusted shaman warned that left unchecked, the Koballa would overrun the Overworld, closing an end to days. It was only Ziballa called on their sun god, ruler of light, that the demons were wiped from the overworld.

“An interesting story,” Romulus remarked, more interested in his cider. “But history and culture really aren’t my forte. What use is folklore to me?”

“History tells us this was tribal mythology tied to their shamanistic religions,” Fourbit admitted, “But it’s an interesting story.”

Fourbit then tapped a hooftip to his lips. “But then something funny happened," he pondered. "This mare from the Royal Canterlot University with a degree I can’t even pronounce, something to do with like, really old viruses, wondered if there was more than just mythology. A Dr. Harvest Night, bright mare, but did she have some ideas that were out there,” he chuckled, brushing his mane to the other side. “She starts to see connections with other old and forgotten tales. The skinwalkers of Maretonia, the red death of gryphon high culture, vampires of old ponish, the Temple of the Ghost Tribe of the Tenochtitlan in modern-day Caballo."

He pulled another folder from his saddlebag.

“That's where we hit paydirt, at least in the Tenochtitlan Basin. Dr. Harvest cross-referenced the descriptions of the Caballan temple location with DC satellite scans, and as Celestia herself as my witness, I couldn’t believe it when we received the photographs."

Fourbit slid the photo across the pitted and scarred bartop. The picture was blurry at best, a smudge of brown and tan enshrined in patterns of green.

"There it was, poking through the treetops," Fourbit pointed. "An ancient temple untouched for thousands of years.”

“I bet there's a story behind this one too,” Romulus groaned. The bottle was nearly empty, and he was eyeing the door, already fishing out some bits.

“Supposedly, it was the tomb to their king, a pony who was blessed by the gods with power and strength, longevity rivaling an alicorn's. That is what this whole operation is all about Romulus.” He was obviously getting excited by his own story.

Fourbit looked into his eyes, the skinny stallion transfixed on him. “Each old legend from completely disconnected ethnic regions correlated the same thing. Speed, incredible strength, increased healing, decreased aging all buried within folklore and legend. And then this mare, this stupidly brilliant mare, come to us with the insane notion that what if there were truths behind these tales. Can you imagine it, Romulus, if the average Equestrian soldier had that? Do you know what that would do?”

He shook his head drunkenly, setting the bottle of cider down and pushing it away. Honestly, the pony's feverish rambling was beginning to make him uncomfortable.

“It means,” Fourbit explained, “we have the key to making sure Maretonia never stands a fighting chance against us, or anypony for that matter. The key to keeping Equestria the sole superpower and leader of the free world. Can’t you imagine it? No more dead soldiers, No more field hospitals or veteran halls full of damaged and broken ponies. An end to the pain of not just war, but disease, affliction, and every other ravage of the body. Haven’t you ever wanted to live forever, Romulus?”

Suddenly the memory was fading, the scene dematerializing around him like paper in a fire.

It was night, and it was enveloping him. Surrounding him. And Romulus was scared.

I don’t like this, Princess.

Just try to keep calm, the voice in his head said. Remember its only a dream. Nothing can hurt you here.

Fires surrounded the expedition camp, wood piled high atop bonfires creating a ring of light. The sun was setting, the towering trees casting strings of shadow across the jungle basin. They would be coming soon.

"The jungle. I was here."

He was gripping his rifle tight in his hooves. Romulus checked the clip of machined steel bolts for the fifth time, adjusting the gas propellent cartridge to its highest setting. They had been caught off guard the last night. Not tonight.

“Where’s Bitter Root?” he heard one of the other mercenaries ask from across the camp.

“What do you mean?” another asked, running up.

“I mean he’s gone. His cot is empty.”

“How? He was running a fever of a hundred and six. How could he have walked off?”

“Hey!” shouted another voice, a mare. “Give me a hoof. Persimmon is seizing! Where’s the medkit!”

Romulus would only catch a glance of the afflicted mare flailing on her bedroll, white foam frothing from her blistered lips, somepony trying to hold her down, when the yell rang across the encampment.

“Sweet Celestia. There here! Open fire!”

Romulus looked up to see the swarm descend over the camp.

They came by the hundreds, bats, black as the night sky itself. He raised his rifle up and pulled the trigger, unleashing a torrent of gas propelled bolts.

Thwap! Thwap! Thwap! his auto-cross spat, but there were too many. Everything flew to black as they dove down, as if they had swallowed the camp whole.

And to the black void, he was thrust.

I-...I don't feel so well.

You're ok, it's just your emotions of that night running free, unhindered. What happened next, the voice in his head asked him, reaching out across the endless black void.

I’m not sure. I usually wake up right about now,Romulus answered the call.

But this time was different, he realized. Something was pulling him down further. He was falling, descending further and further into the bottomless pit. There was something here. Something he thought he had forgotten.

Wait. Something is here.

The hot jungle air pressed down on Romulus, causing sweat to pour from his body in thick rivulets, soaking his gear and stinging in his eyes. He was out of breath and gasping for air, the humid sludge of atmosphere, causing him to gasp with every breath. But they couldn’t stop. They would be dead if they stopped, especially after last night.

Nightfall was an hour away, and those surviving of the expedition were still a mile from the evac site.

They were passing the ruins now, their target bypassed, the stone temples and monuments peeking through the jungle trees in the fading light, covered in growth and vine.

The previous night had been a slaughter. The fires had helped, but there had just been too many. Now they were only a small hooful left. They had searched in the morning, but they had never found Bitter Root. Most of the others figured he had stumbled into the jungle, delirious from the fever cooking his brain to death. Now they were missing half a dozen more.

“Where is the bloody airship,” one of the other mercenaries cursed, slinging his auto-cross and quickening his trot through the overgrowth.

“Casing,” Romulus thought he remembered the stallion’s name. He was dead for sure, but Romulus still remember the merc. It had been a while since he had seen Casing’s sweaty and scared face.

“Just keep moving,” one of the Defence Coalition mares whose name slipped his mind barked. “The ship will be there if you can hightail your behinds to the evac point. Get moving!” She unclipped a radio from her saddlebag. “Recovery team, give me an update.”

The radio crackled with static, a voice struggling to be heard. “We breached the sarcophagus. We’re preparing to retrieve the sample specimen now.”

“How much longer should it take?” the DC mare pressed. She had taken over the expedition after Fourbit got his flank killed, and she was much more vocal than the late leader.

“Another fifteen. Dr. Harvest is hurrying as fast as she can, but she says we need to stabilize the samples for transport.”

“You have five to make it to the evac point,” the mare with the radio warned.

“But Dr. Harvest say–”

“I don’t care what in Tartarus she says!” the mare swore into the radio. “Get those samples to the evac point now, or I’ll have the hired guns pry them out your hooves and leave you behind.”

Romulus watched from several ponies back as the mare flicked through the radio channels, raising the communicator to her mouth again.

“Where are you, Transport One. We’re literally running out of daylight here!”

“Coming up on station now,” another voice answered. “Standby for shells.”

The DC mare slung the radio and waved a hoof across the ragged expedition. “Get you flanks down! Now!”

Several low thumps echoed over the jungle basin, a high pitched screech following a second later.

Boom!

The treeline ahead of them exploded in a shower of fire and smoke, a wave of hot air nearly knocking Romulus off his hooves. He held a leathery wing in front of his face as leaves and branches peppered the expedition survivors, the bat pony ducking as a limb as big as his torso shot over his head.

He felt it graze his mane, the experience still as vivid in his mind as the day it had happened.

Stars!

When the debris stopped raining from the sky, and the ringing in his ears was little more than a faint buzz, they stepped out into the newly formed clearing. All that was left of a once vibrant patch of jungle was nothing more than a few smoldering stumps and scarred earth.

An airship hovered into place over the clearing, descending like a great silver bird over the survivors. “Landing zone secure, team leader.”

“Everypony on the airship. Let’s go!” the DC mare prodded, sliding open the bay door and yelling over the prop wash.

One by one they wearily filed inside, gripping the hoof rails tight, some even closing their eyes in prayer.

He and Casing were at the back of the line when they heard it. He could never forget it.

Auto-cross fire. Then the screams. A sudden, incomprehensible burst of shouts and jumbled curses of terror from the radio followed by the sound of something wet tearing.

They were coming from the ruins.

Everypony was beginning to push now, an air of uncertain tension, causing them to scramble into the airship. The sun had just sunk behind the distant mountains, plunging the jungle basin into muted twilight. More shots could be heard now, but the screams were quickly fading. It was madness.

“On the airship!” the DC mare yelled. “Everypony get on NOW! Recovery, where are you?”

As if to answer, sompony burst through the treeline, two insulated black saddlebags slung across his back. The poor pony's rifle was hanging by its strap, jostling across his chest as the stallion sprinted toward them.

It was the other merc, Sureshot. He had been with Harvest and the recovery team.

“Wait!” he cried, blood seeping from a bite in his neck. “Don’t leave me!”

Blood. Romulus could see the signs now. They had all seen the signs with Persimmon and Bitter Root: fever, nausea, vomiting, seizures. There was something in the blood.

Casing unholstered his pistol from his chest rig, charging the gas cylinder and aiming a steel bolt at the stallion. “Stop! Don’t come any closer!”

But Sureshot didn’t stop. He kept running, his neck spurting crimson red ribbons.

“I mean it, Shot! I’ll shoot! Get back!”

Bang!

Everypony instinctively ducked their heads, screaming more as they forced their way onto the airship.

Sureshot was hit in the right foreleg, the bolt protruding from the skin. But still, he didn't stop.

He was still limping toward them when the first figure launched itself from the treeline.

It was big, and fast too. It flew through the air, propelled by its leap, sailing across the clearing like a something out of Tartarus.

It landed on Sureshot, pulling the stallion down with it. The creature, which was the only way Romulus could now remember it, because that's what it was (a creature) tore into Sureshot in a violent eruption of red. So much red.

Everything was a blur now. Casing was shooting, emptying the clip in the pistol levitated before him. The DC mare had scooped up the insulated saddlebags Sureshot had dropped and was shutting the hatch to the airship.

Sureshot was basically gone, nothing remaining but a bloody puddle that mixed with the torn earth. The creature had turned its attention to him, the unholy black monster with wild blue eyes and a mouthful of horrifying teeth looking at him with a bottomless hunger, it's appetite unsated. Dog tags hung around its neck, suspended on a short chain and what remained of the wholly torn remnants of camouflage fatigues.

It was Bitter Root, there was no doubt about it.

The monster was Bitter, or what had once been. Romulus could still his face, his boney cheeks, and crooked nose, now twisted into some demon out the night.

Casing had reloaded, firing a bolt at Bitter Root, the sharpened steel bouncing off his hardened black skin like a useless pebble.

Bitter fell on Casing in an instant before Romulus had even closed the hatch to the airship, the aircraft clawing its way higher over the jungle. Everypony was freaking out, the DC mare was shouting to “launch the bird” into her radio stuffing the insulated saddlebags into a cooler, and his head was spinning faster than the propellers.

The “bird” came rocketing over the mountain tops of the jungle basin a minute later, a cone of fire. The missile erupted over the ruins in a blinding ball of light, the shock wave flattening trees and brush for miles around.

“Hold on!” somepony screamed as the shockwave lifted the tail end of the airship, throwing Romulus off his hooves. His head struck metal, and everything exploded into thousands of tiny, whispering lights.

He was on the porch of the homestead, the steel of the airship cabin and the smell of sweat and terror and the copper-infused scent of blood replaced with the rich aroma of earth and soil.

Romulus was back on the porch with the pitcher of iced tea and the stalks of corn billowing in the wind and the flower beds he had planted with his own two hooves.

No.

The soft, gentle humming from the mare inside the wood-paneled house had already stopped, like it always had. It always played out the same way.

First, the humming would stop, then the water would come. Such was the inner clockworks of this place.

Luna, wake me up. I’m ready to wake up.

But nopony answered.

He was trapped, forced to relive everything yet another time. The trickle of water had just started to flow out of the house and across the porch. He was already standing up from his rocking chair, setting his dirt-stained gloves and sun hat on the hook by the door.

He wanted to stop, to walk off the porch and lose himself in the endless rows of corn. But he was not in control here. Romulus was merely along for the ride.

The screen door shut behind him with a clatter, his hooves squelching in the water covering the floorboards. Motes of dust danced across the sun rays streaming in through the curtains, swirling around his body as he advanced step by agonizing step.

Wake me up, Luna. I don’t want to be here. Please, wake me up. Don’t make me see her.

He passed through the kitchen, a pile of fresh carrots and cucumbers picked just that morning piled on the countertop. Then through the living room, two overstuffed chairs situated side by side in the reading nook beneath the big lamp they had picked at the garage sale in Ponyville last spring.

The water was seeping from out the closed door at the end of the hallway, bubbling up like a spring underhoof. His hoof was already clutching the tarnished brass knob, the mechanism clicking with a sharp twist.

Wake me up. Wake me up! Wake me up! His mind was screaming, but nopony could hear.

The bathtub was overflowing, the tips of the curtains billowing in the breeze skimming the flat surface of the water.

She was there beneath the water, like she always was each time, mane wavering like waves on a beach. She had always looked peaceful each time he saw this, eyes closed as if she were merely sleeping. And her belly too, big and round, shimmering beneath the surface.

I just want to wake up.

“Romulus. Romulus!”

“Nooo!” he screamed, launching himself from the plush couch he was laying on.

The bat pony tripped, rolling across the fire lit foyer before landing in a heap on the rug. The polished hardwood floor boomed loudly as he fell, echoing through the castle like a clap of thunder. It was late in the night, and the castle was asleep, but nopony roused from their chambers nor peeked a curious head out of their door.

“Hey, hey. Take it easy,” Princess Luna soothed him, pulling him up. "You're here," she assured him, looking dead into his wild eyes. "It was my fault; I t'was separated beneath the memories."

He was sweating hard, and his chest rose and fell with each heavy breath. His hooves were shaky, Romulus wrapping a leathery wing over the alicorns shoulder as she walked him back to the couch and sat him down gently.

“Here. Drink,” she told him, thrusting a tall glass of water in his hooves. He tipped his head back, drinking greedily until water was dribbling down his chin and down his underside.

“I’m sorry,” Luna said, standing over him, the glow from the fireplace casting an orange halo around the Princess.

“For what?” he asked, leaning back on the couch, squeezing his eyes tight until he saw flashes of light.

“For the other night.” She sat down in her high backed chair she had started the night in across from the stallion. She rubbed her foreleg uncomfortably, shame radiating from her face. “For eavesdropping on your dreams before. It wasn’t right.”

He didn’t reply, just drank until the glass was empty and dry. He had watched the same scene, that same memory, play out night after night: the porch, the water, the mare with the round belly in the bath. But this had been the only time anypony else had seen her too.

“Radiant,” he heaved, as if releasing the name from some prison he held within himself - a secret, treasured place. “Her name was Radiant.” It had been so long since he had heard the name spoken that it felt strange on his ears, like it was some long-forgotten foreign language he did not understand.

“She was the reason you requested three months leave those years ago,” Luna said softly, her voice flowing like a tranquil breeze. “Wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” he gulped, his chest tight. “Yes, she was. It was an aneurysm the doctors said. By the time I found her and pulled her out the water–” The stinging tears rolled down his face, Romulus holding a hoof over them so she could not see. There were too many to hide, the tears falling in fat drops. And a cry, a puttering breath, slipped between his fangs.

“We-... we were going to call him Thoromide.”

Chapter 13: Pancakes

Celestia could feel her sanity crumbling through her hooves. The floodgates had opened, the waters released. It was all coming down, like a tower of bricks built upon sand.

She stood on the foyer steps, her morning robe wrapped around her tired body, sun just set on its morningly path, and stared down at the pony.

“What do you mean gone?” she asked dangerously, her words dripping with warning.

“I mean it's all gone!” Trotter exclaimed, the excitement and fear and anger mixing into a ball of emotions that bleed from his every word. He paced the castle foyer, the morning sun only halfway visible over the horizon. His face glowed as bright as the dawn, a brilliant cherry. “All of it. My sample analysis, the data, the body. The DC swooped in early this morning and confiscated everything. Even my computer and half of the lab equipment.”

Trotter stopped, the tiny pony puffed to almost twice his size with his exhilaration. "They can’t do this!” he yelled. “That was my research. That was all the evidence we had on them, and they stole it. They had to have known.”

“Let's just calm down,” Celestia assured him, trying to regain her composure. “What do you know? Who signed off on this?”

“Solar,” he hissed. “It had to have been Dr. Haze.” His words were vehement, stoked by his personal ties to the CED Director. “She was my friend. I trusted her since we were in university together. How could she do this?”

The sound of hooves clattering on the marble stair interrupted them. Luna hopped down the final flight, a baggy-eyed Romulus flapping wearily behind. The night had taken its toll on both.

“What is it, sister? What be wrong?”

No sense in delaying at this point, Celestia reminded herself. “We have a situation, Luna. It appears that they know we are on to them.”

“The Defense Coalition?”

“They raided my research. Took everything,” Trotter explained. “Dr. Haze must have tipped them off.”

“It seems we have put too much trust in the Defense Coalition,” Celestia finally admitted. “We have to act quickly.”

“And what of your efforts?” Luna asked. "Does the DC not answer to the highest office of the land?"

She had tried normal channels, of course, navigating the bureaucratic mazes they themselves had organized. An ever-expanding leviathan of ministries and government offices meant to shoulder the burden of maintaining a nation.

Yet, such foundries had proved to be an insurmountable offensive, even to a princess. Her repeated requests for a meeting with the director of the Defense Coalition had been met with the same ancillary answer from his secretary, a pretty sounding mare who had taken all of her calls. I'm sorry, Princess, but Director Blackthorn isn't in at the moment. I know it is urgent, but would you like to set up an appointment.

She would, of course, set up an appointment had there not irrevocably and conveniently always been an issue with the Director's schedule. I really do apologize, Princess, but Director Blackthorn was called out on important business today. Would it be too much trouble to reschedule?

“I’m having the Captain of the Royal Guard put together a response team, immediately," Celestia revealed to them all, descending to the foyer. "I want whatever Dr. Haze is working on at the Center for Equestrian Diseases confiscated. It may be the only thing connecting what happened in Ponyville to the Defense Coalition.”

“Wait, sister," Luna interjected. "If you do this," she turned to look at Romulus, "you need to hear what we have uncovered. Tell her," she said to the bat pony.

All eyes were now on Romulus, the exhausted stallion melting under Celestia's equally worn gaze. "Tell us what?" the alicorn wondered.

"What the DC found in Caballo," he warned. "What they are working on in the Equestrian Disease Center's facility."

"What do they have?" The room had seemingly grown cold despite the still warm autumnal morning, lazy bands of heat rising up the mountain.

"Something that was meant to remain buried."

Pancakes make every morning a good one.

That's what Zahara had learned in her years caring for the little ones of Equestria. The fluffy round saucers slid out the pan and onto the plate, a smiling face of fresh blueberries from the garden cooked into the creamy batter. How such a simple concoction, usually downed in sweet syrup, could always elicit a smile from the foals, would remain a mystery to Zahara. What she did know was that little Rose was in need of something to brighten her day.

Zahara set the plate in front of Rose Point, the little filly still sleepy-eyed, her mane hanging in tangles. It was apparent to the Sister that she was still not getting the restful sleep that the filly deserved. Dark bags hung under the young one's eyes, her face blank as she stared discontentedly into space.

There was always a transition period for those under her care. But this was different. The filly had hardly uttered a word the few days she had resided in the orphanage, always sitting quietly in her room or playing with the doll set Zahara had picked up the day after collecting Rose from the hospital.

She had found the playset when she had taken the filly to the mall to pick up some essentials. The filly had practically nothing to her name; her backpack contained only a toothbrush and her stuffed animal. The polar bear, a ratty thing, dirty and worn, rarely left her presence.

But the playset was something she could have all to herself. Just for you Zahara had told Rose.

The sounds of Canterlot waking up to another bright, sunny day filtered in through the open kitchen window, the zebra clearing away the batter and bowls from the large counter where she baked bread.

Rose was drenching the pancakes in thick syrup, the caramel liquid soaking them till they could absorb no more. She took a huge bite, the sticky syrup covering the corners of her mouth. Her eyes seemed to light up as she took another bite, and then another. Rose glanced up at the Zahara, a small grin curling on her tired face.

“They’re really good,” she told her, wiping away the syrup from her mouth with the back of a hoof.

“I’m glad you like them, child. I enjoy pancakes too,” Zahara chuckled, wiping the excess syrup from the filly's mouth. “We did not have them in my country, but I wish I had them as a child.”

“You aren’t from Equestria?” the little filly asked, befuddled.

“Oh, no, child,” Zahara said, thinking back to her home on the mountainside of the grasslands. “No, home is here, in Canterlot, but I grew up a long way away from here, far across the sea. But you just worry about finishing your breakfast, little one. That is a story for later.”

Rose polished off her second pancake and was digging into the final layer. She stopped as if remembering something she had forgotten, a bite dripping with syrup poised in front of her.

"What is it, child? Is something wrong?" Zahara wondered.

"No," she quickly answered. "It's just-" The filly looked down at the maple soaked breakfast, eyes wandering again, the smile receding away as quickly as it had appeared. “Mom always made pancakes on special days.”

Of course. It would take more than just pancakes to mend such a wound.

"Hey. Why don’t we do something fun today, Rose,” Zahara suggested, setting her fork down and touching her hoof tenderly. She thought they could both use some fun. "Have you ever been to a carnival?"

She herself had been only once before, after arriving in Canterlot - the sounds of exuberant children eagerly goading their parent to move faster, the delighted squeals of ponies clinging to the hoofrails of the rollercoaster cars as it rocketed on its shaking steel tracks. The gorgeous view of Canterlot in all its magnificence from the top of the ferris wheel, Sister Rosary pointing to the castle in the distance, a palace of marble that glistened as if it were wet. And that is where the Princesses live, Zahara. And there, the Royal Gardens, so pretty this time of year.

It had been too long since Zahara had experienced such a rush of filly-like excitement. Luck would only have it that one such carnival had returned at such an opportune time, as if the stars had aligned just for the two of them.

It had come on the backs of big trucks, chugging through the streets of Canterlot and setting up in the plaza square, a cacophony of bells and lights and sounds, ready to beckon the old and young to an afternoon of wonder and the promise of sugary treats.

"What do you say, Rose?"

And like magic, the remarkable twinkle returned to the little filly’s big eyes.

It was a short walk through the garden district to the square, Rose with her stuffed bear in tow and Zahara with her bonnet to keep the autumn breeze from muddling her mane.

Even from a block away, the roar of the rollercoaster could be discerned above the traffic that ever-presently clogged the Canterlot streets. The ferris wheel would, of course, be what Zahara looked forward to; it jutted above the blocky townhouses of the garden district. As they rounded the final corner, a smile finally spread across the filly face, and she picked up her pace.

“Woah, child. Wait up,” called Zahara trotting after Rose. The zebra forked over a few bits from her coin pouch to the cashier behind the entrance booth.

The attendant had a dour look on her face, casually handing over their tickets before sighing and directing them inside. Zahara clutched the excited filly’s hoof, lest she slip away. Rose was all but too eager to get inside.

Once past the wrought iron gates, it was all Zahara could do to keep up with the energetic filly. “Ohmygosh! Look at the ferris wheel. Look at how high it goes! Do you think can we ride the ferris wheel, Sister? Please, oh please," she practically begged, her little filly eyes filled with wonder.

Zahara gave a small chuckle, quickly remembering how Sister Rosary must have felt, taking her here her first time. "Of course, child, of course. We have all day."

“Captain, you're clear to proceed with the operation.”

The Princess's voice filtered in through the stallion's earpiece calm, authoritative.

“Roger that, your Highness,” he replied with a quick grunt through the headset, heaving his MAG rife up by its sling. The weapon was charged, thrumming with arcanic energy as it waited eagerly to be unleashed upon any unlucky foes.

“Ok team, remember the object!” the Captain shouted over the heads of ponies behind him. His voice echoed down the carved subway tunnel, the beam of his headlight shining over the waiting faces covered in gear. The entrance to the Center for Equestrian Diseases was just ahead around the bend, two white paneled doors waiting at the end of a half-constructed station.

“Objective priority one. Secure Dr. Haze and whatever evidence of collusion with the Defense Coalition you can find. I know this is rushed," he admitted, his beam washing over the Royal Guards, a team of ponies he had hoof-picked, "But the Princesses are counting on us. All eyes in there. Watch each other's backs."

“Just be careful what you touch,” Trotter coughed beside the square-jawed Captain whose chin could cut rock.

Several icy stares, including the Captain, bore down upon the lankey brown pony. “I just mean–” he fumbled. “There are a lot of dangerous substances stored here. Just a word of warning you.”

“Erm, right. You heard the egghead, don’t get your hooves caught in the cookie jar,” the Captain said, scratching the back of his head. “Alright, that's probably enough chitchat. Let’s get the job done ponies.”

The doors of the station were thrown open, the dust and moist air of the subway tunnels of Canterlot sweeping in with the horde of armored guards. And the facility was filled with the trampling of hooves and shouts of guards

“Royal Security Forces! Everypony down!” the Captain shouted, leveling his MAG rifle. His saddle rig, a mesh of pockets and magic-resistant kinetic plates, was strapped to his back, curling down his sides and sliding over his breastbone. RSF the patch declared in bright, yellow letters.

“Down! Down! On your forelegs! Don’t even think about touching that equipment!” they shouted, sweeping through the upper levels of the CED. Ponies in lab coats dropped papers, clipboards, cups of coffee - whatever they had in their hooves. The teams were forcing them down at gunpoint, the fear of the scientists reflecting in the glow from the barrels.

Trotter stepped over the debris left behind in their wake, trying not to look at his colleagues pressed against the corridor walls being cuffed.

“Trotter!” called a familiar voice. It was Stardust.

The mare was struggling and kicking as two stallions in saddle rigs lifted her clear off the waxed floor and slammed her against the wall, leaving a faint smear of red from where her lips touched them.

“Woah, Woah!” he yelled, running up to the butting and butting in between them. “She's OK. She’s a friend. Stardust is with me.”

The two ponies exchanged skeptical looks from behind their visors.

“Stardust helped uncover the evidence against Dr. Haze,” Trotter explained.

Surprisingly they relented, releasing Stardust, who collapsed in a heap on the floor.

“Are you alright,” Trotter wondered, stooping down and helping the mare to her hooves.

“Your new friends are a little rough,” she groaned, running a hooftip along her busted lip and giving the two security ponies a nasty glare.

“Sorry,” he apologized sheepishly. “I didn’t have time to warn ahead. The Princesses threw all this together the moment after I told them about the evidence seizure. Any luck while I was gone?”

She shook her head in disappointment. “I checked all the servers. Somepony must have gained access and erased all the outgoing message connection history. Somepony was trying to cover their tracks.”

“So we don’t have anything pinning Solar to the Defense Coalition?”

“At least not on the main servers. We're too late.”

Before they could continue the Captain strolled up, flanked by two others. He didn’t look happy. Trotter wasn't sure if the Captain had ever been happy in his life.

“Alright egghead, she ain’t here. Dr. Haze’s office is empty, and she isn't on this level. Any idea where she could be?”

“Yes,” he huffed, a sour twist in his words. “And don’t call me egghead. There are four levels between this level and the bottom of the facility. I can get us into any with my keycard. Dr. Haze, however, has a private lab down on level four, but it has an electronic lock that my card doesn't work on. My guess would be there, but I don't see how you'll be able to get inside.”

The Captain gave an amused snort. “We’ve got out tech pony here,” he said, nodding to the short mare on his right. “She can open it like sesame.”

Trotter was already leading the Captain and his two cohorts to the elevator when he turned back to Starburst, who was still massaging her aching head. “Check Solar’s office,” he called back. “See if she has a private server. We might can pull her connection logs off of there if she has one.”

“I’ll give it a try,” she waved groggily before somepony else could pin her to the wall, stumbling off toward the Director’s office. "So much for a quiet Monday," she grumbled.

Chapter 14: A Queen is Made

Beep

The computer chimed, stirring Dr. Haze, her head rolling in her forelegs on the cold lab table.

Beep it insisted. You will want to see this.

In the sealed containment lab behind her isolated workstation, the latest sample quietly spun to a stop in the analyzer. Dr. Haze raised her head sleepily, dredged from the depths of her (thankfully) dreamless sleep. Last night had dragged late into the morning, and she had gotten very little rest in the previous weeks. Solar patted down her messy hair and looked up at the clock. It was almost ten in the morning.

Begrudgingly, she would have to wrap up soon; Trotter would probably be cooking up a storm upstairs by now. She had thought the Defense Coalition confiscating all of his research would draw too much attention, but she had no say in this matter. Nopony had any say against the DC.

Honestly, Trotter, I have no idea why, she had expertly lied. She had gotten good at that. I'm sure it's for a good reason. Just let it go.

Solar rubbed her eyes and placed a pair of glasses on her snout, turning on her stool to the computer monitor. Propping up her head up with a hoof, she scrolled monotonously down the list of data points and results. She had gotten all too used to her previous failing; this one should be no different.

Trial 22 Result: Incorporation Successful - Genetic Matchup Complete

Solar froze in her chair. Incorporation Successful. She reread the report, and then once more, over and over checking the result again and again.

Success.

Words gloriously coursed through her brain, filling her blood with adrenaline. She said the beautiful words, chanting them.

Success. Success. Success.

She let the word flow through her, silent tears welling from her eyes. Solar hopped off her stool, her lab coat fluttering in the filtered air as she pressed her face against the glass of the empty lab. She had done it. For once, she had accomplished what nopony ever would - or should.

“What are you doing, Solar?” came the voice from behind. Solar spun around to face the intruder, startled. Trotter stood in the doorway looking at her, his face solemn.

“Trotter? What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

“I had some help from some friend of the Princesses. There outside right now if you want to talk to them,” he motioned with his hoof.

“What is the meaning of this?” she fumed. “This is my private lab, Trotter. You have no right to be here.”

“And you have no right messing with whatever is in there,” he told her bluntly, point a hoof to the sealed laboratory behind her. “The only reason you're even talking to me is that I convinced the Royal Guards outside that I could convince you to cooperate with us. We know the Defence Coalition put you up to this, Solar,” he said, the pain hanging on every word.

Solar remained silent, a knot forming in her throat. There was nothing she could say to squeeze her way out of this - that much was clear. The gig was up. She knew she had finally been caught.

“I’m doing this because I know - deep down - that we’re still friends, Solar,” Trotter continued, anxiously running a hoof through his hazelnut mane. “Do you remember that? Being friends?" he wondered. "Because I do. Just like back in university with the others. Help me get you out of this,” he pleaded through clasped hooves. “Tell them why you did this. Tell the Princesses why the Defense Coalition put you up to this?”

"Oh." It wasn't an exclamation of surprise or defeat. It was a statement that they were finally going to have the conversation that they had been holding off for so long.

Solar remained staring down at the floor. "You already know why, Trotter. At least you should know why I did it,” she said softly.

The confusion of the lankey stallion’s face dawned in realization. “Oh. Oh, no.” He could see it now, the reasons and motives clear as the day outside the mountain facility. “You have it, don’t you? Just like Ember.”

Solar still did not respond, but silently nodded her head, unable to look Trotter in the face. How could she, after the betrayals and the lies that she had kept.

She backed up against her desk, holding her head in her hooves as she collapsed back in a chair. Her words cut through the tears forming behind her hooves. “After the funeral, I wanted to put it off for so long," she began. "Every day, as I sat inside that empty little room, I wanted to do it. ‘Tomorrow,’ I would tell myself. ‘I’ll run the test on myself and his dad tomorrow.’ I waited months, Trotter. Months.”

Tears were rolling out her hooves as she continued, Solar lifting her tear-stained and puffy face. “But then the day that would have been Ember’s birthday, I finally did. And did you know what I found Trotter?”

It wasn't meant to be a question he could answer. How could Trotter have known after all?

“It was me,” Solar told him, the anger rising in her voice. “I was the parent who passed along the genetic abnormality to Ember. It was my genes that was the cause of his suffering.”

“Solar, stop,” Trotter pleaded. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened to him.”

“You didn’t have to watch him waste away!” she screamed, the veins popping in her face in an explosion of primal rage. “You didn’t have to care for a sick foal while his father chickened out and disappeared in the dead of night! You have never had to bury a son!”

“And you thought this was the best way to fix it?” he asked, unbelievingly shaking his head.

“What choice did I have, Trotter?” croaked Solar, her voice cracking.

“What choice?”

“Do you remember what took him, Trotter?” asked Solar. “You examined him yourself, just after the onset of the symptoms. You saw the same husk of a foal I did as it progressed, and still, nothing we did could help him.”

“It was his thymus,” he said uncomfortably.

Solar still had the medical scan buried in a desk back home, the chest of a young foal with a bright glowing splotch, right between the breast bones of the chest a few inches below the neck.

“But we couldn't have suspected it was genetic," Trotter interjected. "But if it were, that would mean–”

“I have it too,” she revealed, a worrisome grin on her face. “Just like he did. And at this rate, it will kill me just as fast.”

“That’s why you're doing this." Now he would finally understand. "They promised you something, didn’t they, the Defense Coalition. These ponies aren’t to be trusted, Solar,” he warned anxiously.

She wiped the tears from her face, standing out the chair and turning to face the lab. “I’m not sure what they found down there in the jungle, what they found in those ruins, but it was old. But you should see it, Trotter," she cooed, almost seductively. "You would appreciate its complexities. Deep down, its design is perfect, almost as if it can be programmed, repurposed." There was no use keeping her secrets now; it was much too late for that. “They DC had their theories, had told me the stories and the legends. Told me to help them unlock its secrets.”

“Its secrets?" Trotter asked, taking a tentative step toward the mare. "What you are talking about, Solar - its a cure? That's what you think this thing is?”

“At the genetic level,” she answered, "yes. Gene therapy, unobtainable until now. Think about it, Trotter. A new age of medicine, free of disease, ailments, sickness.” Solar pointed to the lab behind the glass. "This thing, its the key to everything. It's like it was designed for this, infinitely mutatable, equally capable, waiting for us to discover it and dig it up."

“No,” Trotter interjected. “This is wrong,” he said. “This is wrong, and you know it. You nor the Defense Coalition is qualified to play with something as powerful as this. You’re playing with fire," he told her, his words hot and sharp. "Didn't you think about why such a contagion was buried. Did you not hear what happened to the ponies that recovered this?"

"I know you don't understand this, Trotter, but I-" She wouldn't get to finish.

"It was Harvest." Trotters words severed the air like a searing knife.

"What did you just say?"

"It was Harvest who went looking for this thing in Caballo. And she is dead because of this thing. Don't you see that no good can come of this, Solar?"

Harvest? It had been so many years since she had heard that name. No. It can't be.

"Which is why I can't let you do this, Solar," Trotter continued. "I’m sorry, but I think it's time I let the guards in.”

And with that, he turned for the door, leaving her by her desk, repeating the same name over and over in her head.

Harvest. Harvest. Not Harvest. It can't be. She can't be dead. And it was only then, did Solar know what she had to do.

Thunk!

Trotter sank to the floor, his lab coat splayed over his back. Solar stood over his unconscious body, the heavy paperweight in her hooves splattered with flecks of red. She didn’t have much time. They would be coming for her soon enough.

She swung the paperweight at the door handle to her lab, the heavy metal fixture bending and jamming under the strike. Immediately, hooves pounded on the steel outside, but Solar paid them no attention.

Dr. Haze hurried into the airlock between the out office and the sealed lab. She didn’t even bother putting on a contamination suit; there was no time for it now, not for what she was about to do.

Solar stepped in and entered the combination, the second door opening with a hiss. For good measure, she turned and smashed the keypad with the paperweight. Sparks erupted from the electronic panel.

The lid of the analyzer slowly unfolded, revealing the vial of altered virus, a light blue substance swirling inside. The unicorn snatched it up greedily. Knowing what she needed next, Solar opened a drawer and fished out a syringe sealed in serialized plastic.

One prick and it's done. One prick and it will all be over. I will not die, not here, not today. Not ever.

It was the banging that dragged him from his world of pain and darkness.

Bang! Bang! Bang! "Dr. Trotter? Dr. Trotter, is everything alright in there? Open the door!" Bang! Bang! Bang!

It was only when he was able to pull himself onto his shaky hooves, did his vision nearly vanish behind a veil of red. It was blood, streaming down his face from the deep laceration across his head. His skull felt like it was about to split open, but it was a distant numbness compared to what he saw Solar about to do.

Thump! He slammed against the window of the lab, the stallion struggling to hold himself up. One hoof was clutching the top of his head, blood seeping around his hoof and smearing over the glass. He could see her working quickly inside.

“Solar, don’t do this,” he begged, his voice muffled by the protective glass barrier.

Solar only hurried faster, ripping open a plastic package and extracting a syringe.

Trotter tried keypad to the airlock, rivulets of blood from his head staining his coat and vest. The keypad did not respond, the power fried. He flicked on the intercom system.

“Don’t do this Solar. We can fix this. We can fix you. But this isn’t the way.”

Solar jabbed the syringe into the vial in her telekinetic grasp, holding it up to the light as she drew out an amount of the viscous fluid.

“That’s where you’re wrong Trotter,” she said, eyeing him from behind the glass.

The door to the lab entrance was shaking on its hinges now, being practically battered from the outside.

“It’s the only way. I don’t have a choice.” Solar placed the vial of engineered virus back into the analyzer, gently closing the lid as if tucking a child into sleep.

“There is always another choice, Solar. But this isn’t it,” Trotter tried to convince her, bloody hooves pressed against the barrier. He swayed on unsteady legs, his vision blurry and out of focus, though his mind was still greatly aware of his colleague's grave intentions. “This won’t bring back your son. You couldn’t save Ember. You have to face reality.”

“Reality?” Solar asked, bemused. “You think I can’t face reality?” She pressed her face against the barrier, veins bulging angrily from her forehead. “My reality is a living hell, each and every day!” she cried, specks of saliva spraying the glass in front of Trotter. “I watched him die, slowly,” she seared through clenched teeth, “and I was helpless the whole time.

“I am sorry for Ember, but is this what he would want you doing?” Trotter asked her, slipping to his knee.

Solar scoffed. “And have you witness the same thing as I did Ember. Not a chance.” She finally could look Trotter in the eye, no shame no longer. “So do you still want to stop me, or will you help me?” she demanded.

Trotter pulled himself back up, his bloody hooves smearing the glass with another crimson splash. “So help me, Celestia, you daft mare. If stopping you from making this mistake isn’t helping you, then I don’t know what is.” He grabbed a lab stool and raised it back over his shoulder, swinging it at the glass barrier.

Thwack!

It bounced harmlessly off the reinforced window.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

"Open the bloody door, Solar!"

Again and again, he swung the metal stool to no apparent effect, not even a scratch.

Solar backed away from the barrier, Trotter unsuccessfully to force his way in. “I knew you would never listen. But this is the only way.” She raised the needle.

“No!” cried Trotter helplessly. "It's the Wonderbolt, Solar! The virus, it's what took the Wonderbolt! Think of what happened to the Wonderbolt!" But he was too late.

Solar stabbed the needle into her neck, flinching painfully as she depressed the syringe. The light blue serum disappeared into her veins.

What have you done?

Solar let the syringe drop to the floor, a single drop of blue serum dripping from the tip of the needle. She lightly placed her hooves on the edge of the table and took a deep breath. She waited, eyes closed, fifteen seconds, thirty, one minute. She exhaled slowly. Energy seemed to be flowing through her, her muscles visibly tightening beautifully under her coat.

“You see Trotter,” she said, stepping toward the glass. “This is the future of medici–”

Crack!

Solar stumbled and fell hard onto the cold linoleum floor. She slowly raised her head as a thin trickle of blood seeped from her nose where she hit the ground.

“Solar, are you alright?” Trotter asked from behind the glass, hoof clutching the back of his head, the flow of blood ebbing.

“Yea, yea. I’m just feeling a little lightheaded.” She reached up and grabbed the edge of the table, pulling herself up.

Crack!

The unicorn’s foreleg hung limp, the bone in her upper leg haven broken in half under her weight.

“T-T-Trotter!” she cried. “S-Something’s wrong,” she called to him holding her broken foreleg. If it hurt, she didn't show it. She looked more confused than in pain.

“Sweet Celestia,” he uttered under his breath. “Just hold on Solar, I’m going to get you help. I’ll get the guards.”

Crack! Pop! Snap! Crack!

Solar screamed a guttural cry as she collapsed onto the floor, her entire skeletal structure unable to hold its own weight. Ribs broke, and legs snapped. She was changing.

Trotter watched the event unfold with horror as he stood helplessly from behind the glass. Orange hair that covered the unicorn began to fall to the floor in patches revealing shiny dark skin beneath. The mare’s usually glossy, ashen, grey mane unraveled, covering the linoleum tiles beneath her, leaving only bits and strands remaining. Her horn cracked and twisted, growing longer and warping until it was a jagged and wavy mass.

Solar looked up, eyes full of uncertain, overpowering terror as teeth, sharp as razors and as long as knives sprouted from her mouth, her teeth clattering like dice on the ground. Tears flowed from her eyes as the pupils transformed from soft black circles into slits that shone green in the bright light from the lab. Across the mare’s back, wings, thin and crinkled like a bug’s, sprouted. The transformation was nearly complete.

What had once been Dr. Solar Haze, Director of the Center of Equestrian Diseases, writhed, letting out a howl that froze Trotters blood. It raised itself from the remains of the husk it had once been and stood tall as an alicorn on legs black as night. Slowly opening its mouth, it revealed teeth terrifyingly long and sharp. It ran a long tongue over them, saliva dripping onto the floor of the lab. Mane and tail hung in patches, having morphed a shade of dark aquamarine. Dark green eyes of the thing that used to be Solar glowed with an unnatural light from behind the narrow slits that were pupils. It looked down at Trotter from behind the glass, cocking its head in curiosity.

Trotter's audience to the shocking metamorphosis having been unable to move. Those eyes. Solar. He backed up toward the door, not daring to take his eyes off the abomination that had once been his friend.

“Solar?” he spoke, barely above a whisper. "Solar, is that you?"

Trotter, came a voice that seemed to resonate inside his head. Come to me, Trotter.

“Solar? Is that you?” The creature's mouth had not moved, but he was sure he had heard the words, the voice burrowing into the back of his head like a bad itch. He wanted to vomit.

The creature followed the pony with its staring eyes. Come to me, Trotter, so that you may feel what I feel. Come to me, Trotter, the voice called out again.

The bright fluorescent lights in the inner lab suddenly flickered, the bulbs strobing in brilliant flashes. And with a burst of intensity, then went out, the creature disappearing into the gloom that enveloped the room. Trotter stopped. Where did she go?

Whatever the virus had done to Solar had the same horrifying consequences he had seen in the dead Wonderbolt. If he let it, or Solar get out, the risk of infection or contamination was a terrifying possibility to Trotter. He had witnessed first hoof what it could do to a pony.

Trotter weighed his options. He had to seal lab, that much was clear. Outside, he knew exactly where he could find the biological countermeasures, a failsafe if a lab were beyond containment. If he could activate it, he could seal off the ducts and throw the entire facility into lockdown awaiting decontamination. It was his only bet.

Trotter backed slowly toward the door, the lights behind the barrier to the biolab still dark. The room was deathly silent, and he could not see Solar in the shadows.

Abruptly bumping the counter behind him, a clipboard slipped off the edge and clattering loudly to the ground. He looked up, dreadfully aware of his fatal error.

The glass barrier, which had warded off his measly attack with the stool, detonated. The creature leaped forth from the blackness and sunk its teeth into Trotter’s deliciously exposed neck. He let out a blood-curdling cry as all that was left of Solar bit into the flesh, blood pouring forth as if a pipe had burst.

Let me save you, Trotter. Come to me, Trotter, so that you may feel eternity in your hooves.

Chapter 15: Containment Lost

“Talk to me, Captain,” Celestia commanded into her headset. She paced the castle’s communication center, the afternoon well underway. With only a few hours to put together the operation, she was beginning to wonder if it had been wise to raid the CED so soon. There were too many variables, so many things they hadn't planned on. “What is happening?” she asked, hoping for more details.

“I don’t know,” the Captain’s voice could be heard grunting over the speakers. The mountain rock was too thick for a video feed, but low band audio could still make it to the castle's communication center, a small roof full of monitors and feeds tucked away in a remote corridor. “We sent your informant in, but then something struck the door from inside. It’s jammed.”

“This isn’t good,” Professor Lakeshore told the worried alicorn. “Dr. Trotter is key to exposing the Defense Coalition. If anything happened to him in there…” He didn’t bother to continue.

“T'was was a mistake, sending him in alone,” Luna told Celestia. “We must get him out of there.”

"I know," she admitted. "I was hoping Director Haze would cooperate." Celestia looked around the center, the ponies at her disposal waiting for her to make her decision. They always were (but that was nothing new). She locked eyes on Brass Buckle, the stallion on one of his few excursions out of the royal bunker. He gave the Princess a small but firm nod of his head.

“Break it down,” she instructed into the headset. “Get Dr. Trotter out of there and secure that lab. I want Director Haze and whatever is in there recovered at all cost.”

Shuffling could be heard on the other end. “Torchwood! Clementine! Get the ram! Break her down.”

Wham!

The sound of steel clashing against steel reverberated over the radio, ringing like a great bell.

“Put your flanks into it!”

Wham!

Celestia was pacing again. “This isn’t good. We need eyes in there now,” she muttered.

Wham!

“Do you think Dr. Haze would try anything stupid?” she heard Romulus whispered into her sister's ear. The tension in the air could be cut with a sword.

“She hath made it this far. I’m not sure what she would do if she has the Defense Coalition on her side,” Luna answered in a restless tone.

Wham!

“She’s about to go!” the Captain could be heard.

“Whatever the outcome,” Celestia closed her eyes and asked quietly, “please let it be over quick.” Words she would very soon regret.

Wham! Thump!

“We’re in!” the Captain yelled through this radio. “Royal Guard, get down on the– fucking stars!”

Suddenly the sound of screams and weapon fire assaulted the communication center, ebbing from the speakers, a concert of epic proportions.

“Weapons free! Shoot! Shoot it!”

Then more gunfire and screaming. They mixed like instruments of an orchestra, rising and falling and moving as one, a ballad of terror, and horror, and agony. Sounds of something being torn, wet and dripping, followed loud slurping. And then it stopped - everything all together. No screams. No firing. Nothing.

Celestia slowly pulled the headset off her head, turning to the terminal beside her, eyes wide and out of focus. “No,” she crowed.

Connection lost, the screen flashed.

“No, no, no.” She covered her face, letting the headset fall out of her hooves and clatter across the floor. “Not again,” Celestia gasped. “Not his again.” It was a cruel trick, a masterful deception concocted by the powers of the universe that be that wished to torment her. It was like Ponyville all over again. The comms link was gone.

Stardust exited the elevator to biocontainment level four, the doors silently sliding shut behind her. Everything was silent save for the buzzing of the lights overhead, casting their thin shadows over the featureless corridor.

“Trotter!” she called to no reply. She strolled down the corridor peering in the empty labs, the lights inside off. “I found it, just like you said, a private server. I found everything, Defense Coalition official orders and all,” she called again, to which she received no reply. “Trotter?”

It was only then she stumbled upon the door lying in the hall, it's hinges shorn. Most of the lights inside were destroyed or flickering sporadically, leaving the room in a transition of darkness. But what she saw was enough.

“Oh, sweet Celestia!” she cried, jumping back.

Trotter lay on the floor of the outer lab, his coat and vest completely soaked from a pool of blood that painted the ground. There were other puddles of red, too. The barrier to the containment lab was shattered, equipment littering the ground around the room. Lights beyond it were off, the broken window a portal of blackness. Three streaks from the other crimson stains led to the darkness of the inner lab.

Stardust knelt over Trotter, the sticky hemoglobin covering her hooves as she rolled him over, his body limp as a ragdoll. “No, no, no, no,” she cried in revulsion. A large chunk of Trotter’s neck was missing, bubbles of blood frothing at the hole, a glimmer of life still remaining in his eyes. His lips moved slowly and silently as if he was trying to speak. Stardust leaned closer, cocking an ear. She could just barely make out words.

“Still…here,” he gurgled softly, air rasping from his exposed windpipe.

“I've got you. Don’t try to talk, Trotter. Just hold on,” whimpered Stardust, cradling his head, her lab coat stained a bright red. “I’m here, Trotter. Stay with me. What happened?”

“SHE...is...still...here.”

From the dark inner lab came a low growl, Stardust looking up from where she held Trotter. It sounded like something was moving around inside.

“Just hold on, Trotter,” she begged, gently eased his head down. “I’ll get the guards. I’m going to call for help.”

The unicorn scrambled for the telephone on the bulkhead next to the shattered barrier, the phone swinging from its cord.

“No…” wheezed Trotter, reaching out a hoof in desperation as Stardust tried the phone. She held the phone to her ear, whipping the cradle to try and get a tone, receiving nothing.

“Stardust,” the phone crackled in her hooves.

The mare screamed, dropping the phone. Two glowing green eyes were peering at her from the ceiling beyond the dark lab.

Come to me, Stardust. I hunger.

In an instant, a dark figure reached out and pulled the unsuspecting Stardust through the shattered window, upwards. The pony let out a horrified scream, trying desperately to keep a grip on the wall. Futilely she clung to the frame, struggling to pull herself free from the embrace of the creature. Broken shards of glass still lodged in the frame cut deep into her hooves, causing blood to seep from the wounds. She only pulled harder driven by an animalistic fear, screaming desperately for help, though no one except the quickly fading Trotter could hear her.

Just before Trotter’s vision faded completely to black and his senses departed him, the shadowy figure heaved the screaming Stardust upward into the darkness with a beastly strength. From the gloom came a wet, tearing noise as the pony’s terrifying shrieks finally ceased, leaving only the sound of slurping.

Trotter, there is much to do. We will need more, many more within our ranks. A Queen needs her subjects.

Deep in the Canterlot tunnels, the engineers and laborers were busily working on completing the new tram line.

Dust filled the air while dim bulbs overhead cast thin halos of light that struggled to pierce the gloom. The giant tunneling machine never ceased its rumbling, carving rock both day and night while workers maintained its various parts and functions.

A burly unicorn in an orange reflective vest made his way away from the noisy tunneler and back down the freshly carved tunnel. Clipped to his hard hat, a lamp cast a beam through the dust while a mask covering his muzzle filtered the dust.

The unicorn stopped at a junction and removed his mask and goggles while he leaned against the wall of rock. He beat the particles from his mask and vest, retrieving a pack of cigarettes from a pocket. Sliding one behind his ear, he hung another in the corner of his mouth. With a simple spell, the tip of the cigarette ignited casting a dim orange glow through the dust. He inhaled deeply before placing the pack back. He could only spare a minute or two before he needed to be back, and he was savoring every second. He exhaled, twin jets of smoke ebbing from his nostrils that mixed with the dust.

About to turn back and head down toward the tunneler, the lights of the main tunnel unexpectedly went out.

“Dammit,” he muttered under his breath, stopping and pulling out a portable radio. He looked to see the tunneler still chugging along. “Hey Corona, something tripped the lights down the main junction again,” he said, depressing the transmit button.

He paused, waiting for a reply. There came no response. “Corona, it's Jack Hammer, you reading me. Something tripped the main tunnel lights.” All that he received was static. “Great,” he sighed, banging the radio for good measure.

“Hey, boss,” he called on the radio again. “It’s Jack on the digger crew, come in.” A voice crackled in return this time.

“Yea. What is it?”

“Something tripped the lights in the main tunnel again, and I can't get ahold of Corona in electrical.”

“Probably the rock blocking the signal. Go try and see what it is will ya. We’re kinda backed up over here, and I’m not sure I can spare a hoof. Think you can find the main wire junction?”

“Yea,” sighed Jack Hammer. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, mate. I owe you. And if you see Corona tell her to switch out her radio for a fresh one.”

Slipped the radio back into his vest, the stallion extinguished his cigarette stub against the rock. He yanked the one behind his ear and stuck it in his mouth before clicking on his headlamp. "Darn right you owe me," he huffed and entered the dark tunnel.

The bright light cut a clear path down the new rails. Jack made his way through the black, pulverized rock hardly larger than peas crunching beneath his hooves. Lighting the cigarette in his mouth with his magic, he took a long drag, stopping after some distance at a small alcove cut into the side of the tunnel.

A red bulb shone from a metal box bolted to the rock, wires trailing from its side. “Corona? Hello?” he called, his voice echoing down the emptiness of the tunnel, the light from his helmet illuminating the alcove. Jack Hammer stepped onto the ledge and examined the metal junction box. He pulled the main power switch first. There was a loud click, but nothing happened. He pulled it several times to no avail.

“I don’t get paid enough for this,” he murmured. “Where is Corona?”

Jack Hammer pulled his portable radio out once more. “Hey boss, come in.” There came nothing but static. “Boss, you reading me?” Still nothing.

“Damn,” he said, setting the radio down on the ground. “Come on,” he growled, hitting the side of the junction box. He tried the lights again to the same result.

Atop his hard hat, the lantern blinked several times, then went out, leaving him standing in the glow of red light coming from the junction box. “Stars, you’ve got to be kidding me,” he cussed, pulling off his hard hat and checking his lamp.

He tried but could not get it back on. Before he could throw the hard hat in frustration, a sound caught his ear. He could hear something. It sounded like someone coming down the tunnel.

Hammer hopped off the ledge and looked down the tunnel, the only light coming from the red bulb on the junction box and the glow from his cigarette. He saw no other light coming down the shaft. “Hello?” he called.

He was pretty sure he had heard someone walking toward him, the sound of their hooves crunching on the ground. Turning around, he faced the other direction. The sound, it was coming from the opposite direction, from the way to the CED. Nopony should have been down there; the work crews had finished months ago.

“Corona, is that you?” Nopony replied though the hoofsteps continued. “You guys had better not be screwing with me,” he warned. “This isn’t funny. Who's there?”

A deep and low growl answered.

Jack Hammer backed up against the junction box. Two glowing green eyes shone from the roof of the tunnel, bathed in darkness. His legs trembled, his back to the corner. The color drained from his dirty face.

“Sweet Celestia,” he exclaimed, his cigarette falling from his mouth and rolling down his vest. Two other pairs of glowing eyes materialized out the dark, a light blue. A voice seemed to fill his head.

Take the bounty of this world that is now yours, my subjects. Be baptized in red splendor and claim what is ours.

Jack Hammer's fallen lamp flickered to life, exposing the creatures in all their wonderful horror. He managed a short shriek as the green-eyed creature lunged from where it clung to the rock, his neck exposed.

It was the perfect target. The treasure they sought lay just below the skin, a river of sticky, sweet life.

They would drain him of every drop.

Chapter 16: Keep Her Safe

The sun had passed its zenith over Canterlot, the bright ball of light dipping behind the mountain as dusk settled over the capitol. Zahara and Rose disembarked the ferris wheel for the fifth time, the filly's exuberance still as strong as when she had first ridden the massive wheel. She was absolutely giddy.

"Did you see the castle from the top?" Rose asked the patient zebra mare, bouncing up and down as they took the stairs down from the loading platform. The two exited the ride, passing the shaggy ferris wheel attendant as he started the contraption once more, its tired gears whining like bugs in the background. "And the Royal Gardens; I saw them. So many colors," the filly uttered with newfound wonder at the things she had seen.

Zahara chuckled, smoothing over the filly's wind-blown mane. "That is wonderful, child. So very observant," she exclaimed with a stroke of Rose's chin. "Maybe we shall go and see the castle one day, little one. Would you like that?"

Rose's eyes lit like fireworks. "Really?" she wondered. "We can visit the castle?"

"If you would like, child. We could go take pictures outside," Zahara answered, the two strolling through the alleys of carnival games and food carts, the smell of caramel apples and greasy, fried food mixing in a sickly sweet aroma. "It was so long ago when I was able to see the castle. I wasn't much older than you are now."

Dazzling lights twinkled in constellations of stars from the carnival tents, their dim shadows painting the cobblestone path beneath their hooves. Carnival-goers screamed thrilling cries from rides, while wild colts and filly tugged at the hooves of weary parents. The air was electrified with fun and excitement.

"I would really like that," Rose said, a smile alighting her face. A thin sheen of sweat from the autumn afternoon faintly covered her rosy, tea-colored cheeks. "Do you think we'll see the Princesses?" she asked. "I've never seen a Princess before, but mom has told me all of their stories."

"I don't know about that, dear child," Zahara admitted. "But you never know," she said. "The Princesses are such busy ponies, young one. Perhaps we can catch a glimpse of their comings and goings."

Rose reached up, a tender hoof clutching the Zebra's foreleg. The evening sun shone brightly in her eyes, the orbs filled with the firey light.

"Is something bothering you, Rose?" Zahara ran a hoof over her forehead, brushing the wild mane from her eyes. "Are you feeling well?"

The filly shook her head, her mane rustling around your shoulders. "I'm just–" A weak smile returned to her face. "I just really happy to be with you," she said softly, holding her tight. "Thank you for taking me on the ferris wheel."

"And I had lots of fun today, too," Zahara grinned. "How's about one more ride before we go home. I'll make us some hot chocolate when we return."

Rose never had to stop and wonder, for they had arrived before the most grandiouse display of lights and colors the filly had probably ever seen.

"What about...that?" She pointed.

Zahara turned before them, the tinkling of some fairy-like melody playing from the ride. Even she could not help but feel some hint of childish excitement. "You mean the merry-go-round?"

She nodded fiercely. "Yes!"

Several minutes later, as they came to the front of the line, Zahara helped Rose up onto the merry-go-round.

"Now, here is the fun part," she told the filly. "You need to choose which beast to ride. Which shall you pick?"

There were many creatures to choose from – some you could find in a zoo, and other more fantastical. There were great bears and foal-sized breezies, birds with outstretched wings and dragons with plaster fire coming from their mouths, fearsome windigos and playfully posed porpuses.

Rose strolled through the still creatures on poles, marveling at how real they looked, as if they might come to life with a touch. She stopped beneath one, a figure of a dog with two-heads rearing up in a pounce. "This one," she breathed, attention fully absorbed by the creature.

"The orthros?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed, petting the massive dog figure as if it were a puppy. "Good boy," she cooed.

Zahara had the filly atop the orthros and buckled in as the ride started. Slowly at first, they crawled, the merry-go-round spinning and the creatures rising up and down. The tiny tinkling music reverberated around the brightly colored fabric that covered the top of the ride.

Zahara held onto the filly, Rose gripping the pole in the center tightly. The big dog rose and fell with the music, the mechanical gears and rods hidden beneath their hooves animating the figure so that it lept forward as if it was bounding along with the filly.

Rose let out several excited shrieks, the other little ones, and some parents around them, parroting the cries of enjoyment. Round and round, they flew with the merry-go-round, the ride picking up speed. Lights flashed, and bells chimed, the carnival flying by them as they spun. Off in the distance, the sun dipped below the horizon, the last stream of light washing over the riders in a final farewell.

Zahara released a deep laugh, caught in the commotion of lights and sound, the cries of the young foals, the screams of the parents, the yells of...something else?

She turned around, Zahara trying to trace the strange sound she heard mixed with the music of the merry-go-round. Where was it coming from? Something about it struck a nerve in her, and she searched around them for the source.

The carnival grounds were flying by around them, little Rose oblivious to whatever was drawing the zebra's attention.

Zahara spotted something in the crowd, but it was quickly lost as they passed it. She had to wait until they made another round for Zahara to spot the congregation of ponies surrounding something. She could feel it. Something wasn't right. A sour sickness was rising from her stomach, though she knew not why.

Like an infection, whatever unnerve Zahara had initially sensed was spreading through the ponies. Slowly, the commotion of the merry-go-round riders subsided as if they were dying fires, extinguishing themselves one by one. Even Rose could feel it. Her guardian's grip tightened around her.

Over only the sound of the merry-go-rounds melody, they could hear the isolated screams of the ponies nearby.

It was on the fifth trip time around that Zahara finally saw the figure lying on the ground.

And it was only when the ride attendant hit the emergency stop, and the park managers quickly ushered the carnival-goers to the exits, did she see the pool of blood surrounding the pony on the ground.

“Come on,” Celestia bristled. “Somepony, anypony, give me something. Are you telling me we don’t have a single open line to the Captain and his team?”

Nopony answered, furiously clacking away at their terminals.

It was on when Brass Buckle stepped in, did Celestia finally settle down. “Start checking other frequencies, civilian too,” he told the communications technician. “The mountain might be distorting the signal and causing it to bleed over to other frequencies. And scan over the capitol’s security feeds while you're at it.”

“This can’t be happening,” Celestia groaned, massaging her pounding temples. “Why are we always clueless to what's happening?”

“T’will be OK,” Luna assured her sister, pulling her close and wrapping a comforting hoof around her, gently stroking the mane that rippled and flowed.

“You said the same thing about Ponyville,” she grumbled, burying her head in her sister.

Nearby, Professor Lakeshore and Romulus sat waiting for news from the raid team. The connection had left an uncomfortable hush over the room. Everypony was whispering. Why were they were whispering, wondered Lakeshore?

“I never did get to thank you,” Lakeshore leaned closer to Romulus, the baggy-eyed bat pony returning a confused look.

“Thank me?” he asked. “For what?” His tired eyes searched the Professor.

“For your help. Trying to remember what happened in the jungle. It couldn’t have been easy, resurfacing all those memories.”

“I owed you as much at least." Romulus rolled a shoulder, massaging the muscle. "I know you want your answers, I just wish I had them for you."

The Professor rubbed the tips of his hooves together nervously. “Did you–” he gulped, his sagging jawline trembling. “Did you see her while you were in there? While you were in your memories? Harvest?”

Romulus slowly shook his head, a somber silhouette passing over his long sleepy face.

“Probably for the best,” the Professor admitted. "So this thing, this virus, you saw it? What it does?"

The bat pony gave a single sharp nod.

"And if it were inadvertently exposed to somepony? How bad are we talking about?"

"I'm sure the Princesses and their guards will make sure that doesn't happen."

"But if it did..."

“I...I think I have something.” a technician interrupted, the screen of his terminal reflecting in his glasses. “I’m not sure, to be honest; it might be nothing.”

“What have you got?” Brass stepped over. "Speak your piece."

“Is it the Captain?” Celestia wondered, peeling herself off of Luna and trotting over.

“No, it's something on the phone network," the tech replied. "Emergency dispatch is picking up a high volume of calls in Old Town by the subway station. Some sort of disturbance."

Zahara and Rose walked quickly down the sidewalk as a line of police cruisers sped by, lights and sirens on. The shrill wail of an ambulance following close behind echoed through the district. The zebra held onto Rose tighter, the two moving with the hushed crowd away from the carnival and into the surrounding blocks.

She picked up her pace, pulling Rose along. It had all happened so quick, the ride stopping abruptly, the smaller foals crying, the worried prattling of the parents, the security ponies directing everypony out of the park. And the pony lying in the pool of blood.

Zahara had tried to keep Rose from seeing the gruesome sight as she led them to the exits, but from the filly's shivering, Zahara knew she hadn't been fast enough.

"What happened to that pony?" she finally spoke as they trotted toward the orphanage. Her voice cracked, her words confused. "Zahara, what was wrong with him?"

Another line of police and emergency vehicles flew by, Zahara weaving through the ponies clogging the sidewalk. The uneasy feeling was no longer a small gnaw on her nerves, but a barely contained panic. "I do not know, little one. Let us hurry along now," she chided, pulling Rose closer. "Whoever is up there," she whispered, "I ask you watch over us." She wasn't sure why, but something was telling her to run.

The two came to an intersection, the crosswalk light warning them to stop. Next to them, others were following. Whatever had Zahara worried, everypony else could feel it, too. They stopped at the crosswalk, waiting patiently for the signal as they stepped from hoof to hoof, a low murmur of whispered words passing between each other.

Above them, the signal changed, and Zahara cautiously led Rose across the empty intersection, the other ponies filtering by. "I'm sure it is nothing, Rose," she assured the filly. "Everything will be alright."

Out of nowhere, a green truck came flying over the hill, barely missing a parked car. Its motor screamed with a roar as it flew down the asphalt, tires screeching like bats.

Zahara barely had time to pull Rose out of the crosswalk on the other side before the truck barreled blindly through the intersection and crashed into a brick wall of somepony's back yard. The vehicle came to an abrupt stop in a shower of dust and flying mortar, the horn blaring continuously from the wreckage of the truck.

“By the Sun and Moon,” uttered Zahara. She pushed Rose against a shop, the filly wide-eyed at the truck that had brushed her coat it had passed so close.

“Stay here and don’t move,” Zahara instructed her. “I’ll be right back.” She turned and galloped over to the wrecked truck.

Already, several bystanders were standing about, unsure of what to do.

Zahara hurried past them and up to the driver seat. The door to the cab was severely damaged with the window broken out. Glass and pulverized brick littered the ground that crunched under her hooves. Inside the cab, a pony lay slumped against the wheel, his weight pressing down the horn.

She pried the crushed door open, it falling with a clatter on the concrete. Reaching inside, she pulled the stallion back, propping him up in his seat. She could feel something warm on his hooves. The zebra probed the far side of the injured stallion’s neck and immediately recoiled.

Warm, red blood covered her hoof.

Gasping, the driver jerked awake in his seat.

“It’s OK. Be still,” Zahara tried to calm him down, holding him still. “You were in a wreck. Let me help you. You're bleeding.”

“No.” gasped the driver with ragged breath, weakly shaking her off. “They're coming.” His eyes were wild, and he gasped for breath. The driver of the wreck twitched and shifted in his seat, exposing the serrated laceration on his neck. Already his shoulder and right side were covered crimson from the wound.

Zahara pulled the bonnet from her mane with a flourish, pressing it on the driver’s neck, staunching the flow. “Just relax. Help is coming,” said Zahara, trying to calm the frightened driver. She turned to the ponies who had surrounded the scene. “Has anyone called 911 yet?” she called out. "He is losing a lot of blood."

“I’ve been trying,” replied a mare on a mobile device. “I keep getting some automated message saying all lines are busy.”

"Same here," called another. "I can't reach my sister, either."

“Keep trying,” instructed Zahara. She looked to see if Rose was alright, seeing the filly had moved to the edge of the crowd. “Stay there, child. Do not come any closer.” She didn’t want her to see how badly the driver was hurt.

Zahara refocused her attention back to the driver. The pony began to grunt and squirm in his seat. “You don’t understand,” he croaked, gulping for breath. “You have to leave.”

“Try to relax,” she repeated, coaxing him to remain still with a firm hoof. “I’ll stay with you till emergency services come. We have to keep you from bleeding out,” she explained.

“Get away!” growled the stallion, pulling Zahara’s hoof from his neck.

He pushed her from the cab, knocking her into the street, gathering several gasps from the bystanders. “They're coming!” he hissed at the crowd through gritted teeth as he hung halfway out the cab of the truck. The wound on the side of the driver’s neck had stopped bleeding, the skin around it a pastel grey. He was hyperventilating, and his eyes were bloodshot, the tiny capillaries bursting and turning the whites red.

The crowd flinched, taken a step back at the sudden outburst. Zahara had regained her footing, standing between the herd and the stallion. “You are not making sense,” she told him. “Please, let me help you. You are badly hurt and are not thinking clearly. What is coming?”

“The ones who did this.” He pointed to the wound on his neck. "They came from the subway." He eased himself out the cab of the wrecked truck and took a step toward Zahara. There came a sickening crunch, and he collapsed onto the hard asphalt. A pony from the crowd took a step forward to help the driver.

“Get back!” he cried out. “Don’t come any closer. I’ve seen what happens to those who have been bitten.” The driver cried in agony, the hair falling from his body. The crowd took another collective step back.

“What’s coming?” repeated Zahara, this time more forcefully. Rose was once again glued to her side.

“I don’t know,” cried the driver in an anguish guttural groan. His hair was almost completely gone, the skin underneath a shiny black. He spotted the little filly by her side with his bloodied eyes. “You’re that mare? From the orphanage down in the Garden District?” he asked between gasps of breath. Zahara did not respond, standing between him and Rose. “If you care about her, and you want to keep her safe, you’ll get out of the city. All of you!”

“And go where?" Zahara was backing away from the driver, Rose in tow.

“As far away from Canterlot as possible.” The injured driver was hit with a spasm that coursed through his entire body. "And don't look back."

With a cry from the crowd, a small black horn sprouted from the driver's head as he let out an agonizing scream, his teeth clattering to the pavement to reveal rows of razor-sharp fangs. Two leathery wings, like that of a bat, erupted from his back as ponies turned to run. Zahara was petrified, Rose still by her side as they witnessed the gruesome transformation.

The creature that had once been the driver looked up, bright, solid-blue eyes fixed on a mare from the crowd, who was one of the last to flee. The creature lunged, his target locked, striking the pony and sinking its teeth into her neck with a bestial roar. They rolled on the ground, the driver tearing out the mare’s windpipe, showering the bystanders.

"Zahara!" Rose erupted.

Everything dissolved into a pandemonium stampede. Zahara scooped Rose onto her back and took off down the street, her bloody bonnet left in the street.

Rose screamed and cried profusely, but Zahara could still hear the agonizing howls from the mare through the hole in her neck. Ponies shoved and pushed their way away from the intersection, trampling those unfortunate enough to fall under their hooves.

From out the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of black from a neighboring rooftop.

Another black creature tackled a fleeing pony, pulling him to the ground. Zahara continued on, trying to block out his cries begging for help before worse cries replaced them. Anguished cried. She could only focus on the sidewalk in front of them, exerting herself and breathing heavily to run faster. Rose clutched her neck, her tears staining the zebra's coat. They rushed past others, all running away from the direction of the wreck.

They ran by another mare in the middle of the street. The mare was calling to the fleeing passers-by for help as she knelt in a growing pool of blood over a stallion. She wept and tried to stop the blood flow from a wound on his neck.

The voice from so long ago that Zahara had known was calling to her from deep within. What had once been a quiet whisper, barely calling from afar, was a raging wildfire burning within her. The voice that had instructed her to leave her hut before the mountain erupted as a filly, ultimately saving her life, had returned with a new command.

Run, the voice told her. Run, Zahara. Run all the way home and don’t stop for anypony. You can’t help them. The filly must be kept safe.

She ran through the next intersection, narrowly missing being hit by a speeding car. The car showed no sign of slowing down, charging blindly through the terrified stampede and running over those unable to get out the way. Cries of the wounded were met with deaf ears as the crowd charged on in a panic. Fires and smoke erupted from several buildings, an explosion from the other block pelting the ponies with grit.

Keep the filly safe. You must keep her safe, Zahara, as I kept you safe. She is a special girl.

Zahara tried her best to push out all the screams and the pleas and the cries for help as she listened to the voice humming inside her. They were still several blocks away from the orphanage, and the stampede was only growing, ponies falling underhoof, or worse, ambushed by the twisted creatures that became more numerous with each minute.

Do not fret, Zahara. Just focus on keeping the girl safe. I am with you. I am sending help.

Chapter 17: Promise

They started coming in around twilight.

Whiplash wasn’t sure where they were all coming from, but he knew that something serious must have happened. From his hospital room, he watched the ambulances lining up outside the emergency room doors. The first one had come in almost thirty minutes ago. Now, they were coming by the minute.

The first one had been an older mare, probably mid-sixties. Paramedics rushed her into one of the trauma centers across the corridor, one of them holding a blood bag high over the elderly mare.

“Restaurant staff found her in the back alley,” Whiplash heard the hulking paramedics tell the doctor with his score of nurses crowding around the mare. They were poking and prodding her with their instruments.

“She’s got a diabetic alert bracelet. Says her name’s Maple Tree, home address here in Canterlot," the paramedic rattled off as the attending doctor assessed the patient. "Patient was unconscious and unresponsive when we found her, trauma to the jugular area of the neck,” the medic pointed out the wet bandage.

“How was her blood sugar level,” the doctor ask the paramedic, taking record.

“Blood sugar was normal. No sign of a diabetic attack. She lost a lot of blood, though, from the neck wound. We started a transfusion as soon as we got her on board the truck. Nasty wound that is.”

“Let's see the neck,” the doctor motioned, jabbing a pen at the bandage. A nurse gently unwound the wrappings.

When she had pulled the bandage away, Whiplash could hear the disbelief in the attending from across the hall.

“Bloody Tartarus. You're telling me she hasn’t already bled out with a wound like that! Sweet Celestia, it must be three inches deep at the least. Did your medics find anything else wrong with her?”

“Nothing. Just the neck wound," the medic relayed. "Besides that, her vitals are practically normal except for elevated heart rhythm. Confirm them yourself," he suggested. "No idea what would cause a wound like that, though. A mugging, maybe? Somepony with a knife?”

“Mugging? No way a knife can make a wound like that," the doctor breathed, probing the deep laceration. "Look at how ragged the wound is. It's torn. It almost looks like something bit her. I'm not sure how she isn't dead. Nurse, can you stabilize her?” he wondered. "They're calling me in room three."

And then they were gone, the paramedics galloping back to their ambulance as another call came in through the radio with a crack of static, and the doctor rushing to another patient.

It wasn’t long, though, before the next one came in, a long-maned teenager with piercings in his ear.

“I’m telling you,” he cried, gritting through the pain as he clutched his hind leg, a large, wet bandage snaking down it. “Something tackled me out the hedge. I didn’t see what bit me.”

Then another five minutes later, a stallion stumbling through the doors of the ER, clutching the side of his neck. Even from his tiny room, Whiplash could see the unmistakable smear of red dripping down his foreleg. The stallion collapsed at the admittance station, several nurses immediately running to his side and hauling him off to another room.

“Where did he come from?” one of the nurses asked, throwing a hoof around the delirious stallion.

“I think he just came in off the streets. Somepony call the relief crew, we’re getting backed up here tonight,” the other by her side ordered.

Whiplash was watching the ambulances outside pull up one by one, the medics practically wheeling each new casualty through the sliding door before running back out to speed off to another call. The staff was absolutely swamped, nurses and doctors arriving by the dozen from the upper floors to lend a hoof with the massive influx. Even a few of the janitors in grey coveralls were helping out however they could, running to grab saline bags, or more towels to soak up the blood that smeared across the slick emergency room floors.

"Where are they coming from?" a nurse wondered.

"I hear there is a riot downtown," offered another.

"What kind of rioters bite ponies?"

Through the chaos, Whiplash could hear a deep, low groan emanating from they were stabilizing the old mare that had come in first.

“Mrs. Maple?” one of the nurses tapped the pony’s boney shoulders before shining a small penlight across her eyes. “Mrs. Maple, can you hear me? You’re in Canterlot General.”

Mrs. Maple responded with another deep moan that rose from the depths of her chest, climbing higher and higher. She let loose a blood-curdling and unannounced scream that rattled across the ER. It was not like the screams Whiplash had heard in Ponyville. Not a cry of pain, or fright, or agony but a scream more akin to the howl of an animal, or a wild beast. Her back arched, her jaw opened wide, blood-stained eyes shaking in their sockets.

“Stars! I need a sedative in here!” the nurse ordered over Maple’s cry. “I think she is having some sort of seizure! I need a hoof here!”

Several other nurses were by her side, hooves trying to hold the bucking mare down, while the first tried fruitlessly to insert the needle of a syringe into Maple’s foreleg.

“Hold her still! I can’t find the vein!”

But they were helpless against her thrashing. The old pony who would have had a hard time carrying an empty saddlebag was shaking the medical staff off of her like leaves in a gale.

Nopony could have anticipated when the old mare reached out grabbed one of the nurses in her hooves.

And nopony would believe when Maple bit down on medical pony’s neck with a wet crunch, and it was at that moment, Whiplash knew that he had to leave the hospital.

The nurse bucked and kicked and howled, but could not shake Mrs. Maple. The old mare only clenched her jaw harder, her eyes locked on the pony caught in her grasp with a wild fixation. She shook her prey like a hound with a rag doll.

What happened after, Whiplash would only recall later as a rebirth, a demon being born into the world with screams, and blood, and teeth. What was once a frail, old mare had shed her aging and failing body to become something new, something sickeningly familiar.

Whiplash was tumbling from the skies above Ponyville all over again. He could smell the smoke, feel the floor of the motel crumbling beneath his hooves, remember the monster he had obliterated, now born again before him.

Thundercell.

Her name was burned in his head as he witnesses the transformation.

"Feldwing shot her." — Clipper's words. Whiplash suddenly knew why Feldwing would shoot Thundercell. There was a reason the Equestrian Defense Coalition was so interested in what he saw in Ponyville.

He had not killed a creature in the motel, but a pony, or something that had once been a pony. And they had been sent to contain it.

Only something had gone horribly wrong.

Whiplash was already out of his bed when the creature that had been little, old Maple lunged across the ER, tearing into a fresh victim. The nurse at her hooves little more than a shriveled husk of skin.

Everypony was scream: doctors, nurses, patients, himself.

Those who could manage to move ran. Those who could not, cast in immobile plaster and braces, cried and struggled.

Whiplash tripped on the clear tubes in his foreleg as he lept from his hospital bed, falling on his back and ripping out the IV with a healthy snap. The cast on his wing struck the floor hard but held, tears of burning pain squeezing from his eyes.

He got up, hobbling on his sprained hoof. Everypony was pushing and shoving. More of the black creatures, those turned, were tearing through the wards in an orchestra of screams.

Everypony scrambled for the exits, some holding colts, others carrying elders. Whiplash was washed away with the mob, the stampede a roiling river of fear and death. If he stopped, he would be trampled.

Somehow, miraculously, with a push of sweaty bodies and shouting, he was outside. Yet, he found no sanctuary from the ravenous infected as he stumbled into the hospital parking lot.

Everything was chaos. Ponies were running with no direction through the burning streets.

An ambulance hopped the curb, another turned pony clutching the roof of the vehicle. The driver tried to swear and weave around the crowd, barely missing the Wonderbolt and crashing into the side of the hospital in a shower of brick and metal. A swarm of the infected were tearing through the busted windshield before the paramedic could even unbuckle himself.

They were everywhere. Some were in the trees lining the boulevard in front of the hospital, their glowing, blue eyes watching for the next pony to stumble beneath them to pull them up into the branches in a shower of red. Others were lining atop the high rises swooping down on the fleeing crowd to grab their next victim. The night before them awaited with terror and teeth and blood.

Whiplash knew that there would be no containing them, no stopping them, not with their strength and ferocity.

He had to find Clipper.

They had to get out of the city, if it were even possible.

Bong!

The toll of the bell rang out across the capital through the pandemonium.

Bong! Bong! Bong!

Whiplash saw the tower in the distance, a white belfry that called the hungry, the needy, the orphaned.

Bong, the bell of the orphanage called.

Bong!

“Rose,” he gasped and took off against the crowd.

He couldn’t leave her, the little filly with nopony to call her own. He couldn't leave her behind.

“Hold on Rose. I’m coming.”

The Canterlot Castle communication center was as quiet as a tomb.

They watched the carnage unfold across the security cameras dotted around the capitol. The infected were bounding from building to building, snatching and taking up those fleeing the advancing horde that swept across Canterlot from the East.

Some cried — others shook — but nopony could look away.

“We’re too late,” Professor Lakeshore breathed. “Whatever happened to the Captain, they lost control of containment.”

"That's them." Romulus took several shaky steps away from the carnage on the monitor. "Them."

Lakeshore tried to calm the thestral. "Them?" But he already knew what Romulus spoke of. "The expedition?"

Romulus nodded, beads of worrisome sweat sliding down his flared nostrils. "Yes," he grunted. "Them."

“Whatever contagion they pulled from those ruins,” Luna interjected tactfully, “it’s spreading fast. We must stop it before we lose the city,” she warned. "Sister?"

“Lose the city?” Celestia stuttered.

The loss of life was already going to be high. If they went out in force, both knew that number would only rise.

“We must call in our forces, Sister,” Luna pleaded.

Celestia was frozen.

“I need both of your consent, your Highnesses,” Brass Buckle reminded urgently.

Still, Celestia did not budge or take her eyes from the security feed.

"I—" Celestia's mouth worked wordlessly.

“Sister!”

“I — just —Luna —something—I'm sorry."

"We don't have time for this Princess," Brass seethed behind clenched teeth.

Do it,” the pearly alicorn gulped. “Send them all.”

Brass had his answer.

“Get our Wonderbolts in the air and divert all available ground resources!" he barked to his subordinates. "Instruct all forces to neutralize those infected with signs of contagion at all cost. I want our ground forces to push from the East and clear the city block by block,” he ordered. “And somepony get our gunships airborne!”

Inside the Wonderbolt hanger was abuzz with activity. The sound of pneumatic wrenches echoed in the chamber louder than the marching hooves as crews fitted squad after squad with their flightsuits.

Clipper stepped up to the fitting area as the engineers went to work assembling his suit. He couldn't help but feel alone with three empty spots beside him

"Hey, Lugnut!" he yelled to his technician over the clatter. "What's going on out there? Are we under attack?" Nearly everypony on the base had been mobilized, and the runway was filling up fast.

"You're the one with the orders," the grease-stained buck iterated. "You tell me. I'm just here to make sure you make it off the runway in one piece. Everything after that is your game, my friend." Lugnut wrestled his massive pneumatic wrench to the airframe connections, guiding the tool from bolt to bolt on its cables. "But I hear they've deployed the EUP Guard onto the streets. Something about a riot."

"Riot?" Clipper told himself. "Why would they need Wonderbolts to contain a riot?" The incidents at Ponyville weighed heavily on his mind. Could they be connected, he wondered?

Clip stepped out of the assembly area, falling in line with the rest of his temporarily assignment. Sliding on his helmet, whispers on the radios trickled into his ears.

"Is this a terrorist attack?" he heard somepony ask. "I heard something about insurgents."

"What do these orders on my directive mean? Neutralize afflicted?"

"Keep the chatter down," a squad leader was warning. "Keep the lines clear. We'll know as soon as we're airborne."

"You mean to tell me even you knuckleheads don't know what we're flying into? I hope I'm not in your squad," somepony else tried to chuckle.

All system checks came back green across Clipper's visor as the hanger door lowered with a rumble. Outside, the sky was heavily overcast, the sun having set below the horizon, leaving an afterglow across the clouds. The air burned purple and orange against the blackness that beckoned them.

The base was filled with a rising orchestra of angry hornets, the Wonderbolts' JUMPsuit engines humming with energy. Somewhere further up the runway, the order had been given. Clipper could feel the tremors in his hooves, smell their hot exhaust inside his helmet.

Suddenly, it was their turn, row after row taking off so as to space themselves. Clip's heads-up display gave the order, the Wonderbolt chasing after those before him.

He reached the edge of the tarmac, his engines screaming for more throttle.

Then he was in the air, the mountainside lit with multitudes of afterburners. Clipper adjusted his wings, battling the wash of JUMPsuits and riding the air currents higher up the mountain. They pulled left and up, following the curve of the mountain.

Granite walls flew by as they increased speed and gained altitude. Up and up they climbed until they crested the lower mountain ridge and came over the city of Canterlot, the roar of their engines a trumpet for their arrival.

“Stars,” Clip gasped. Even from a distance, he could see smoke and flames rising from the buildings ahead of them.

“Look out!” called a voice over the radio.

Clip barely had time to turn his head and dodge the giant, grey leviathan rising over the formation. Two airships glided slowly over the Wonderbolts, clawing their way along with their large propellers.

“Gunships?” remarked Clip. "Is this it? Are we at war?" From overhead came the low clap of thunder, Clipper wondering about rain when he heard the first callout.

“Contact!”

Chapter 18: I'm Not Well

The grey cement wall stared at Lieutenant Feldwing.

He returned the gaze, seated in the room's only chair, a pitiful, worn piece of wood that creaked as he shifted his weight.

There was a cot where he could sleep nearby and a shaky table where he ate his meals, but besides the spartan furnishings, the concrete box's only other features were the four faceless planes of grey.

It was day ten by his tally. He scratched the little marks into the door, etching the heavy steel with the fork brought with his meals.

There wasn't any hope of getting through that door; it was too heavy and stayed locked except for when he was brought food or when the guard emptied the stinking bucket in the corner.

Ten days.

He could have miscounted because of his increasingly erratic sleep cycle. Sometimes Feldwing lay on the musty cot and tried to count the minutes, each second ticking by one after the other in an endless stream of meaningless time.

Ten days since Ponyville, ten days since sunlight, ten days since a proper shower, ten days since he had been locked within these four walls with a roof and floor. He hadn't seen anypony since then except for the pony who brought him his meals each day. It was always the same hulking stallion with trunks for forelegs and the thinning mane.

Feldwing wanted to ask him what time it was, or where he was, or ask why he was locked up, or who the two ponies were that sometimes could be heard talking outside his door. Somepony named Willow Tree and Tundra Cotton? Royal government? He couldn't be sure, but they sounded like faceless bureaucrats. He wanted to ask his guard who they were.

Each day, Feldwing would start the morning (or was it night?) like the one before.

First, he would make his cot, tucking the corners of the sheets under just like the instructors had ingrained into him as a cadet in the flight academy. It was a simple task, but it was all he had to cling to.

Next, he would go through his exercise routine: thirty minutes of push-ups followed by another half hour of wing-ups, then finish it off with ten minutes of flutter kicks. After the exercise routine, he would usually sit at the bare table in the corner of the room and stare at the wall, or inscribe the same thing he always wrote in the wood with his fork. He had nearly covered the entire surface with his mantra.

The words and numbers were always the same.

Her name was Second Lieutenant Thundercell, Wonderbolt I.D. #2140, and I shot her because she told me to. I am not well.

It was not an admission of guilt, but a reminder, in case he forgot. He didn't want to forget.

It was becoming so hard to remember with the little voice in the corner of his brain. And with each passing day (or night?), it was getting stronger. Confiding with him. Promising him. Telling him to make his bed and bide his time.

But today, Feldwing did not make his bed. Nor did he exercise, or write on the table the things he mustn't forget, like how the voice in his head was now a symphony. What was little more than a whisper on his second day was a torrent when he awoke from his non-sleep. It told him that the day had finally come. Because today was going to be different. Nopony else had told him this, but he just knew. He could feel them coming. It was time for judgment.

The lock on the door clicked. It swung open, the bright corridor lights outside making Feldwing squint after being confined to the dimly lit room so long. This time, it was not the lumbering stallion bringing him his normal breakfast of watery oatmeal with a slice or two of toast, or an apple on a good day, but two ponies he did not recognize. They stepped inside, hovering by the doorway.

“Lieutenant Feldwing? Equestrian Defense Coalition,” the new stallion said, gesturing to the mare with him standing on the other side of the doorway. “If you’ll come with us, please.”

It was them. Feldwing could recognize their voices, the ones that would whisper and confide outside his door.

Feldwing quietly stood up from his cot. “I know who you are,” he answered, standing before them. “Where are you taking me?” he wondered, as if inquiring about the weather.

“There really isn’t time for that now,” the mare responded, her steely eyes shooting daggers at him disapprovingly, like a teacher scolding a troublesome student. “This will be much easier if you just come with us.”

Feldwing knew that if he followed these ponies, that he would be dead in a ditch in the backwaters of Equestria with a slit throat before the next morning. He had seen something he shouldn’t have in Ponyville, and they were here to tie up loose ends.

Feldwing’s eyes wandered to the fork sitting on the table behind him. It wasn’t a gun or even a knife, but it was all he had. If he was quick enough, he could sink it into the stallion before getting a good buck into the liver-spotted mare.

But the DC stallion’s eyes followed his gaze. He saw what he was thinking.

“That would be a very poor choice, Lieutenant,” Cotton Tundra remarked, lifting the corner of his saddlebag. A pistol, probably MAG based, was tucked inside the holster underneath.

Feldwing knew that if he even flinched, he would have a hoofball-sized hole melted through him.

He didn’t have a choice in this matter. He had known that before the duo had even stepped inside. He knew from the moment he had woken up to the voice whispering to him through the thick concrete wall, calling him, that his fate was already decided. They were coming. It had already begun. They had found him worthy.

“Fine by me,” Feldwing shrugged. “Let's get this over with.”

They led him out of the room and down the forebodingly thick corridor that pressed down on them with the weight of the mountain. Feldwing could feel it all around him, closing in on him. They were somewhere between the Wonderbolt hanger and Canterlot, deep in the service tunnels of the moutain. Nopony would have looked for him here.

Willow Tree led the way down the damp service passage, Tundra guarding the rear.

“We’re making our way topside,” the mare spoke into her earpiece. “Get the airship ready to head back to the Empire.”

Willow suddenly faltered, missing a hoofstep. She paused, pressing her earpiece tighter.

“I think we’re going to miss our departure,” Feldwing said plainly. “I hope you weren't looking forward to any delays.”

“Be quiet,” Willow hissed. “Tundra,” she called. "We have a situation. We need to move."

"What is it?" the stallion wheezed through his crooked snout, giving Feldwing a push along.

"The CED – somepony called in a raid. They were after our asset. Stars," Willow cursed. "Dammit."

"And Dr. Haze? The samples?"

Willow listened in to her earpiece again, eyes lifting to her accomplice. "We need to get out of Canterlot," she breathed. "Fast."

Feldwing was struck from behind with a meaty hoove, his eyes swirling in their sockets. "You hear the lady?" Tundra sneered. "Move it."

"She played your little game, didn't she?" Feldwing let out a dry chuckle. "And now she is coming to erase all of your mistakes. Everything leading up to this very moment."

"Shut it!" Willow interjected, trotting faster.

“I don’t think I have to be quiet. It’s already too late now. I’m sure they can hear us already.”

“She said, be quiet!” Tundra growled, pushing him forward with a stiff shove. “What are you blabbering about? Lose a wire in there birdbrain?”

“I’m talking about your little science project,” he answered. “You just couldn’t not play with the fire, could you? Can't you hear her – hear her all around you? Isn't it wonderful!”

“I mean it,” Tundra warned, drawing his pistol. The weapon buzzed with arcanic energy. “Move it, or I’ll wipe that stupid grin off your face. I'll leave you a pile of ash if you keep it up.”

“She keeps promising me an ocean of time,” Feldwing kept rambling. “Not just as one of her subjects, but something more.”

Something shuffle above them in the vents. The metal ducts whispered and chittered.

Tundra waved his pistol over his head, searching for the source. "What in Tartarus?"

Willow was talking feverishly into her earpiece, calling for backup and for the airship to be ready. "We are almost topside," she relayed into her radio. "Do you copy? What's going on up there?"

“She says I’m going to be one of her disciples,” Feldwing told them, hot tears of joy caressing his cheeks.

Overhead, the lights flickered as a rumble echoed down the corridor. “And that I’ll never have the bad dreams again. That is what Thundercell was really trying to show me," Feldwing choked. "She wanted to show me something so, so, beautiful! To never have to be afraid again. And the Queen will show us the way.”

It was only when the lights went out, that Feldwing felt – no – tasted his captors fear. And that he knew he would never be afraid again.

"I understand, now, Thundercell," he whispered.

The infected burst from the vents, descending upon them like locust devouring the crops in the field.

Feldwing felt the multitudes of fangs sink into his neck and a sweet smile upon his face.

Chapter 19: Gunship

The skies rumbled above Canterlot, distant thunder tolling like war drums for the coming storm. Clouds sloshed over the lonely mountain, blotting out the first stars as darkness plunged over the chaos that filled the streets.

Fires reflected in the Captain's eyes as he peered down from the bridge of the airship, the smoke whisked away on the winds that patterned against the skin of the ship.

“Status?” he ordered, straitening his crisp whites, adjusting the starched collar tucked beneath his groomed beard.

“We’re coming to position now, Captain,” his second replied.

“Helm?”

“Steady as she goes, Captain,” the helmspony barked from his console.

“Engineering?”

“All systems operational,” a unicorn mare in flight fatigues informed.

“Weapons?”

“Primed and standing by, Captain.”

“Comms,” the Captain spoke, a widened eye glancing at the officer with headphones. “Any other orders from the castle?” The weathered commander ground his teeth, his jaw flexing as it worked. “Do our orders still stand?”

The radio stallion shook his head. “Nothing from the Princesses, Sir. Orders still stand.”

“In all my years—” the Captain murmured, watching the destruction below spreading from street to street. Whatever was happening, it was moving fast. Even from high above in the gunship, he could see it — the fear, the thrashing, blood.

“Open up a communications channel,” he instructed, clearing his throat.

“Lines are open, Sir."

“All teams this is the Captain of the gunship Phoenix," the Captain began. "I know you are all wondering about what this is: who might have done this to us, our land."

The Captain turned to survey his bridge crew, the ponies standing at their stations. "Many of you are scared. Most call Canterlot their home," he laid out. "But our home will not survive if this thing continues to spread. Some among you all may wonder if these ponies, those infected, can be saved."

"I've never lied to those under my command. The truth is, —more will die is we stand by and do nothing," he admitted. "The infection must be quelled. Follow your squad leaders," he addressed the Wonderbolts. "Gunships Phoenix and Tiberius will help to clear the way. Protect our castle," he instructed to all listening. "Protect the Princesses. Protect our home."

The Captain waved a hoof, the transmission cutting out. “Weapons?” he called from his station.

“Yes, Captain?” replied the officer.

“Bring all the cannons online. I want to stop these things dead in their tracks. At this rate, the infected will reach the castle within the hour. We cannot allow them to breach the perimeter line.”

“Aye, Captain,” replied the weapons officer, pulling up the systems on his terminal. "Standing by for orders, Sir."

“Stars watch over us," the grizzled Captain prayed softly. Gray eyes peered down one last time, searching the streets of smoke, and ash, and crimson. "Execute."

Clip banked hard, diving into position with the squads of Wonderbolts. They arrived with the sub-sonic screams of jet engines, tearing across the darkened skies of Canterlot.

Waves of jet-propelled pegasi swooped low and fast over the highlands, spreading out before they could reach the edge of the city. Clip looked to the south, both airships now broadside in the early night sky, light glowing from her portholes.

There came several bright flashes from the side of the gunships. A moment later, a concussive blast like thunder followed. In front of the formation, shells screamed overhead, landing and detonating in the streets, throwing cobblestone and dust into the air.

“All squads split up and move in,” called a voice over the radio. “Push east through the city. We will meet up with the ground troops pushing an offensive from the perimeter line. All safeties off.”

Clip ground his teeth, checking the readings from his MAG cannons for the fifth time. Both of them came back green, charged, and ready to blast any target he designated. "I hope you're not down there, Whiplash," he whispered into his helmet, watching the geysers of debris rain from the artillery strikes. "Get out," he pleaded silently. "Get out of the city."

“Does anybody know what this thing is,” called a new voice over the radio.

“I don’t know dude. All I’ve heard is somethings turning ponies crazy,” replied somebody else.

“I heard it’s a chemical attack. Something from Maretonia or Yakoslavia.”

“This is insane," another seethed. "Flyers, they send us to kill the sick. I never signed up for downing civilians.”

“Keep this channel clear!” barked somepony. “Stop the chatter and shoot any hostile you encounter.”

Above the city, the gunships let loose another volley of shells ahead of the formation. The formation was in the suburbs, a wall of smoke from the artillery billowing before them. Within seconds visibility was reduced to almost zero.

Clipper struggled to peer through his helmet’s visor, having to rely on his instruments to fly through the murk.

“Anypony see anything?” called someone.

“Negative, I have no visuals. I’m practically flying blin-” The voice was suddenly cut off with an ear-rending crackle.

“What was that?!” yelled a wild mare.

“Report!” called another. “What is going on?”

“My wing pony. She’s gone!”

“What?”

“I mean she’s gone! Lightning Burst, do you copy?”

Nopony responded over the radio. A flash of orange through the grey indicated another strike was inbound in front of them.

There came a shrill scream over the radio, causing Clip to wince. A target on his radar display showed a team member's signal flash red.

“Flyers! Something got Duke! Contact!” sompony managed to shout before everypony was screaming.

Clip scanned wildly around the smoke and dust but couldn’t see anything. All the voices shouted into the radio as one.

“Contact!”

“What in Tartarus was that!”

“Something is up here! They’re in the smoke!”

Flashes of purple and iridescent light flew through the air, buzzing as the air around them was superheated by arcanic plasma. The blasts from the Mechanical Arcane Generators flew in all directions as ponies shouted into their radios, Clipper having to pull hard right to avoid being hit by friendly fire. One by one, the team icons on his helmet display turned from green to red, the screams on the radio causing the hairs on his back to stand up.

“Everyone, pull up!” he ordered. “Get out of the dust!”

Clip tilted his wings and pushed the internal throttles to their stops. Engines whined and spat blue flames from their afterburners.

The aerodynamic forces pounded his body like a freight train, his chest burning beneath his suit as he broke through the dust and into clearer skies. Tearing winds battered his helmet before he finally leveled off.

Others, heeding his call through the chaos, followed suit, flying out the clouds in trails of billowing greys and blacks. Clip had but a moment to regain his bearings before a warning light flashed on his HUD.

“Contacts! Dead ahead!” he called out to those who had formed up behind him.

In front of them, a swarm of infected flew at the Wonderbolts, the sound of their wings buzzing like wasps.

"What spawn of Tartarus—"

“Here they come! Spread out and fire!” Clipper yelled into his helmet.

Those at the edge of the formation pulled off, firing several blasts at the swarm as they did. Those at the center came from below, attacking from underneath. The barrage struck several of the creatures, detonating anything they hit in a shower of gore.

Several dozen infected fell toward the ground, but the remaining swarm charged even faster.

They broke through the Wonderbolts, Clip twisting to avoid hitting them head-on. The infected threw themselves on the pegasi, latching themselves onto the JUMPsuits and throwing the occupants off on uncontrollable trajectories.

Infected tore at the suits, ripping avionics and sheets of metal like paper, the pegasi inside helpless to control their flight. Some lucky enough to eject found themselves hopelessly exposed in a cloud of the monsters, who immediately tore into them, unprotected.

Clip continued to fight through the oncoming swarm, dodging and firing with expert maneuvering. He wiped the splatter from his visor, struggling to see where he was going.

The wing of his suit caught one of the creatures in the midsection, cleaving it in two. Clip was thrown into a downward spiral, his engines still on full as he tried to recover. He yanked the throttle back, pulled his wings up as far as the avionics would allow.

"Stop. Stop! STOP!"

The ground was barreling toward him, impact mere seconds away. The Wonderbolt leveled out, his belly scraping inches from the pavement as he jetted down the cobblestone street.

A pair of headlights ahead forced him to pull up, the Wonderbolt evading the erratic truck that was speeding down the road.

He leveled his wings, Clip finally let out the breath he had been holding and looked back. The swarm had engulfed the remaining Wonderbolts, preventing them from any escape. Both gunships continued to pound away at the streets below, and the infected that filled them.

Clipper gritted his teeth and returned the throttles forward, angling back to the swarm that was tearing into his comrades.

He allowed himself a valuable few seconds to check his fuel and made sure his cannons were charged. He would only get a few shots between passes.

However, before he could line up his strafe, a group of infected broke away from the swarm. The group of infected flew upward at an astonishing speed. Clip was too slow to realize their plan. The airships, Phoenix and Tiberius, sat unprotected in the open sky.

The Captain of the Phoenix gripped the hoofrails of the bridge as another volley of artillery erupted from the side of the airship. Shells exploded below them in the streets, culling infected and those unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. Civilians, looking to escape the carnage, dropped everything and ran away in all directions. Most would never make it out of the city as they faced both artillery and the infected.

An officer behind the radar console leaned into his screen, studying the blob of color coming toward them. “Captain,” he called. “We have contacts bearing broad on our port bow.”

“What?" the Captain exclaimed, leaning to the glass. "Sweet Celestia, can they all fly?” he swore, spinning on his hooves. “Activate defensive measures!” he barked, galloping from the windows.

“Armed and ready, Captain,” called the officer.

“Fire away!" he ordered, spittle flying from his lips. "Tear them to shreds!”

With a sound like a buzzsaw, of steel flechettes, dart-like steel projectiles tore through the air beneath the belly of the Pheonix. The razor-sharp flechettes split into the swarm, but for each one that fell, another was right behind it.

“Helm! Give us hard starboard rudder! Turn us away!” the Captain ordered.

The stallion at the helm swung the wheel, causing the airship to turn and dip to the right. Ponies reached out and grabbed onto whatever they could hold on as the bridge dropped precariously on its side. All the while, the minigun continued to chew into the swarm.

Infected rammed the gigantic airship, ripping into the engines on her port side. The massive propellers seized and exploded into shrapnel, the metal shards tearing into the skin of the gunship. Inside, they struck stored munitions, an explosion of fire and air tearing the ship at her seams.

On the bridge, crewmembers were thrown across the stations as the bridge tilted even further to starboard. Alarms shrieked at terminals, and sparks flew from the electronics. The power surged and was lost, emergency lights illuminating the chaos as the airship tilted at ninety degrees while a chorus of screams rose and fell in unison.

The communications mare gripped onto the port railing, suspended as the airship fell sideways toward the ground far below, the wind whistling over the bridge. She held on with all her strength to the railing, glancing at the Captain hanging on for dear life beside her.

But it wasn’t enough. The mare's hoof slipped, and she flew across the bridge, striking the large portholes with a sickening crack.

The unfortunate unicorn slowly propped herself up on a knee, her leg twisted and mangled beneath her. The mare looked up at those still crying and hanging on when she heard the cracking sound continue beneath her. Gazing down with a ghastly complexion painted on her bruised cheeks, she watched cracks like silver spider webs spread across the glass she was so precariously positioned on.

With a powerful detonation, the bridge window exploded in a shower of glass as the unicorn fell. She might have hit the ground, had she not been immediately set upon by the swarm of infected.

Her screams were drowned in the chittering of the infected, a wave of blackness and voracious teeth that flooded the bridge.

Chapter 20: When We Meet Fate

Like a wounded bird, the airship was falling gracefully out of the sky. Her nose dipped further down, the skin of the gunship erupting in flames as explosions tore through its body. The skin peeled back, the fire blossoming throughout the ribs of the dead beast as it gave one final groan and withered and burned atop the city block.

Celestia turned to look away from the destruction on the monitor. Professor Lakeshore sank down in a chair, his strength leaving him. Princess Luna glanced nervously over at Brass Buckle.

"The Wonderbolts…" was all she asked.

Brass, his face lit deep auburn by the flames on the control center monitor, checked his panel. "It — looks — appears less than fifteen percent are left, your Highness."

"Tell the Tiberius and those remaining to pull back. Any longer, and we may not have any survivors." She wasn't prepared to lose any more.

Nodding, he picked up a headset. "Gunship Tiberius and all remaining Wonderbolts fall back. I repeat, fall back to base." Brass watched for a response on the video feed. But instead, the Tiberius turned south, the airship moving away from the city.

"What in Tartarus," he snarled, snatching up the headset once more. "Gunship Tiberius divert course. I repeat, divert course and return back to base." There came no reply from the radio. "No."

"What is it? What's going on?" questioned Romulus, worried.

"He's deserting!" Brass howled in a rage, several staff jumping away from the outburst. "Gunship Tiberius, this is the Commander Brass Buckle of the Equestrian Armed Forces! You are to divert back to base immediately!" he shouted again. Still, there came no reply, and no sign the airship was altering course. "Stars!" Brass hurled the headset across the comms room. "Bloody coward."

"Now is not the time, Brass," chastised Celestia. "We shall deal with this later. For now, we need to focus our attention on evacuating the city. What is the status of the ground forces?"

Brass sighed and regained his composure, adjusting his mane, though it was too short to be out of place. "They are holding a line just to the west, but they have suffered serious blows from the infected. Once the infected break through, and I mean when they shortly break through," he reiterated, "the castle is directly in their path."

"Then we haven't much time," Celestia warned them, taking the reins in an uncommon display. "We have the ground forces to buy the citizens some time to get out the city," she addressed the room and staff. "In the meantime, I want all of our assets recalled from overseas, I want our fleets to return to their home ports, and I want all reserves mobilized, in that order. We're going to lose Canterlot."

A hush swept over the room. "Lose the city?" asked Luna, looking to her sister, genuine fear painted in her wet eyes.

"I fear we may indeed. But in the meantime, we have a duty to save as many as we can," explained Celestia.

"Your Highness!" interrupted Brass, an alert arriving across his panel. "News from the ground troops. The infected have broken through," he called out. "Defensive lines are broken!"

"Alright, listen up," shouted Celestia over the din that erupted. "Brass, I want everyone here on the next airship out. Head to the Crystal Empire. We will coordinate the counteroffensive with you from the Canterlot Bunker. We'll be able to take control over the remaining defensive assets from there."

"Your Highness, to remain behind, are you sure," Brass ventured uneasily. "We have to think of protocol."

"The bunker is stocked for long periods. We can work best from here and activate additional resources as we see appropriate," Celestia assured him, Brass uncomfortably working his jaw.

The Princess turned to the Professor and Romulus. "Let's go. You should both come with us. Most of the staff and Royal Court should already be down there."

Brass was able to catch Romulus as he followed the Princesses and Lakeshore out the control center. "Here," he offered, passing the bat pony a vest. "You're going to want a saddle rig."

Romulus inspected the armored utility vest before slipping it on, his hoof immediately finding the pistol holstered on its side. The MAG energy weapon was slightly warm to the touch, a soft vibration emanating from its chamber. It was loaded.

"Keep them safe," he whispered, the rest of his ensigns donning their own saddle rigs.

Romulus returned Brass a sharp nod, tightening the straps on the vest before rejoining the Princesses.

"Don't stay behind too long, Brass," remarked Celestia as they exited the comms center.

"Of course, your Highness," he promised before addressing the remaining staff. "Alright, everypony ready? Geared up? Then we're going to proceed to the castle's front courtyard. Grab anypony still wandering the castle. Transport is on its way, so let's hightail it out of here!"

The oaken doors of the orphanage lay on the ground, their wrought hinges of iron bent like paperclips, and the wood cracked and splintered.

"No," Whiplash gasped, slowing to a trot. Debris and what was left of the doors littered the front steps, the weathered stonework stained with a sticky carpet of blood. A nearby police wagon lay in tatters, its lights still silently spinning, casting red and blue silhouettes on the old walls. It looked like he was too late.

Whiplash cautiously tiptoed up to the entrance. Glass crunched underhoof, and he threaded his way around a deepening pool of blood. Its owner was nowhere to be seen.

Reaching down, he spotted a glint in the darkness, his hoof wrapping around an abandoned auto-cross. He charged the gas cylinder on the pistol and checked the clip. Only two shots had been fired. Its owner had not been able to get any more than two shots off.

Behind him, the city was fighting back, the pop of distant gunfire echoing over the sirens and the cries. Whiplash stepped through the dark portal and into the besieged orphanage, his auto-cross leveled before him. Somewhere overhead, he heard the unmistakable scream of JUMPsuits. His eyes followed the commotion, looking up and over the high vaulted ceiling of timbers.

The lights hanging from the entryway flickered ominously. Whiplash turned his head to see the streetlights and the city fall dark behind him, plunging Canterlot with it into blackness.

"Rose?" he called out, hoping to hear an answer. The glow of the set sun still burned behind the horizon. Whiplash clicked on the flashlight tucked under the cross, its thin beam illuminating the cavernous stone arched hallway with a sickly yellow wash. Nopony answered from the darkened halls of the orphanage.

What sounded like thunder boomed in the distance, a great ball of fire and light rising into the air. Then another shortly after, a hot blanket of smoke and dust rising up to further cover them in deathly night.

The fires that rose in the distance bathed the corridor with its brilliance, and for a moment, Whiplash spotted something lying on the floor. He crept closer, eyes never leaving the sight posts of the cross.

He slowly bent down, turning the object over. It was just a foal's toy, some sort of white animal. A bear?

A sudden scream ahead jerked Whiplash's head up. Rose was cowering in the doorway, clutching it as if she were about to fall.

"Rose!" he cried. But the filly was not looking at him, but up.

His eyes instinctively followed, followed them to the pair of glowing, light blue eyes watching him intently from the darkened rafters.

The light of his cross crept across the infected pony. It let out a snarling hiss, cringing in the light, its sharp teeth reflecting in the beam. They were faintly red, and saliva dripped from them in thick globules.

"Run!" he managed to yell to Rose before the creature launched at them like a rocket. Whiplashed raised the cross, the weapon kicking in his hooves with a burst of compressed CO2.

However, the dark figure was faster. It slammed into Whiplash from above like a sack of bricks, almost impaling the pegasus with its viciously sharp horn. The two were thrown into a tumble. Whiplash was thrown against the far wall, his head cracking back, vision fading in and out. The creature moved toward Whiplash, running a red, forked tongue over its teeth, chittering. It moved closer, stepping into the beam of light from the auto-cross.

Immediately reacting, the creature jumped back and howled in pain, recoiling from the light. It snarled angrily, turning its attention to Rose instead. The filly was still frozen in the doorway, and she wouldn't budge.

Whiplash anticipated the creature's lunge and rammed it as they flew through the air once more, the Wonderbolt pulling it down with him. They rolled, the beast coming to a rest on top of him, pinning him with hard chitinous hooves.

Whiplash jabbed his hind legs under the creature and tried to push it off his chest. The creature writhed and snapped it's razor-sharp teeth at him, thick saliva dripping onto his face. Whiplash let loose a roar and heaved the infected pony off of him, slamming it against the stonework wall. He lunged for his weapon, grabbing the auto-cross and rolling onto his back.

The creature flew from out the dark as Whiplash depressed the trigger. Shadow blended with shadow.

Pop! Thwack! Pop! Thwack!

Steel bolts flew from the cross, striking the creature. Several buried themselves in the creature's neck while others pierced its forelegs. But it showed no signs of stopping. If anything, it was more enraged.

It let out an animal-like cry and howled. The creature pounced on Whiplash, as he let loose another volley. With a heavy thud, it fell atop the stallion and moved no more.

Slowly, Whiplash pushed the body off of him, a single bolt protruding from the creature's breastbone. He rolled it aside, the unnatural glow gradually fading from its eyes. Its mouth hung limp, revealing its terrifying teeth that looked straight out a nightmare.

Whiplash was quickly back on his hooves, pulling Rose away from it. Its skin blistered and smoked under the beam of his flashlight.

"She told me she would send help," a voice with a thick accent said behind the pegasus.

Whiplash jumped around, already squeezing the trigger with the tip of his hoof. The zebra behind him blinked in the light of the cross. Whiplash let out the breath he had been holding, lowering the pistol.

"Zahara," he breathed in relief. "I was running from the hospital. I heard the bell," he managed, catching his strength. His body was bruised, and his plaster wing still burned.

"She told me to ring them, that you would come for the girl," Zahara said.

"Who?" Whiplash asked. "Who told you I was coming."

Zahara turned her eyes up, her black and white mane falling over her back, and pointed with a hoof. "You know who I speak of, Whiplash. The one who foretold of this great sadness, our own undoing."

"I don't understand," he complained. "What are you talking about?"

"All will be shown to you in time," Zahara calmly assured him, taking him and the girl by the hoof and leading them further into the darkened covenant. "She has a special plan for the girl. She will show the child the way. But you must protect her until then."

They were passing through a kitchen, the ovens still warm and dirty dishes still waiting in the sink for someone to wash them. Rose clutched the zebra matriarch's hoof tight, the white stuffed bear clutched beside her.

"This is all part of the plan," Zahara relayed to him, opening a door out of the kitchen and into a dark space. It smelled of oil and mothballs, and Whiplash's whole body tensed as they three plunged into the darkness. "We all have a part to play, Major. Yours is to watch and protect the girl," she chanted.

"And what is your part in all this?" Whiplash wondered, steeling his teeth as he searched the darkness before him with his hooves.

A light flicked on, revealing them to be in a garage. A truck, old and showing patches of rust around her sagging wheel wells, waited for them.

"My part was to get her to you," Zahara said, leading the filly to the cab, a single bench seat. "Get buckled in, Rose," she instructed the filly.

"Now that I have done my part, I will follow you as far as I can. I sense there is still another plan in store for me." Zahara tossed him a set of keys on a ring before lifting the garage door with a rattle. The city was burning outside the orphanage.

Whiplash didn't have time to wait and try and decipher the zebra's cryptic message. He vaulted into the driver's seat of the truck, Zahara in the passenger seat, Rose safely between them. She was holding onto her bear for dear life, the little one's eyes saucers as little whimpers escaped her throat.

"Can you feel it?" the zebra asked, slamming the passenger door and buckling herself in. "The one they call queen. The one behind such travesty. Can you feel her sorrow?"

Whiplash responded by twisting the key, the engine roaring to life. Headlights clicked on, and he mashed the accelerator, the truck bursting from the garage. In seconds, they were flying down the boulevard. He weaved through the cars overturned or on fire or simply left behind. There was hardly anypony on the streets now. Only ash and stains of crimson remained.

"We need a way out of the city," he said, turning the truck out of the garden district and onto the freeway. "The Wonderbolts are trying to burn out the infection. We're already in the crossfire, which means we're in the thick of it," he said.

Zahara's hooves gently shooshed Rose. "Shh, it's alright, little one. We're going to be ok," she promised. "Whiplash is here, just like I promised you," she said with a genuine smile, wiping away a tear on the filly. "Here," she sat up. "Turn off here."

They rounded the block, the truck's tires screeching on the cobblestone as Whiplash jumped on the brakes. "Stars!" he screamed, swerving the wheel. A line of soldiers spanned the street, rifles at the ready.

"Canterlot Guard! Stop the vehicle!"

"What are you doing," Zahara asked incredulously. "We cannot stop!"

"I'm not getting shot!" Whiplash shouted, holding up a hoof as the soldiers shined a spotlight at the truck. A stallion approached from the passenger side, barrel pointed into the cab. "Remain in the vehicle!" he ordered.

"Turn around!" a megaphone boomed. “Turn around immediately and proceed to– thump!” The megaphone in the soldier's hoof fell to the pavement in a burst of feedback.

"They're above us!" one of the guards shouted, unleashing a blast from his rifle. Suddenly they were all firing at the infected that dove at them from above, lighting the sky up with bursts of arcane fire. It was a flurry of madness, the guard outside the truck yanked violently upward in a curdling scream and a spray of red that showered the windshield.

Zahara threw the door of the truck open. "More are coming!" she shouted. "Get the girl out of the city!"

"Zahara, wait!" he called after her, but she had already picked up the rifle dropped outside.

"Get her to safety!" she waved him off through the open door. "This is why I was brought with you!" she screamed over the sound of arcane shots. "This is why she brought me here. Trust her!" she pleaded. "For the girl!"

Then she was gone, running into the fray, firing the rifle at the dark figures that lept from the rooftops as she bounded for cover.

"Dammit," Whiplash cursed, jamming the shifter into gear and whipping the truck around, the door slamming shut with its momentum. He mashed the accelerator, the flash of rifles behind him urging him onward, away from the zebra and few remaining soldiers. She had bought their escape.

Important Acknowledgements and Foreword

Before you begin this story, a foreword.

First, this is not the Equestria you or I know. Some things may seem familiar, other things will not. A quick note would be that changelings (either form), as depicted in FiM, are not outright present in this world. As such, it can be assumed that the royal wedding between Princess Cadence and Shining Armor went off without a hitch. Anything that happened after is left to the discretion of the reader as to what remained canonical, though it bears no effect on the story.

Second, I need to give major credit to the source material that inspired this tale, "The Passage" trilogy by Justin Cronin. It is an amazing read for anybody interested, delving into vampire mythology and the fictional tale of how such legends were founded. A few themes in this world are inspired by "The Passage" and are adapted from plot events of the source material.

In closing, a small warning about story contents. This story contains violence and death, though more mature details are spared to keep with the teen rating. However, this does include depictions of blood.

Now let's get to the fun stuff.

-AnchorsAway