Amber Ashes

Chapters

Crystal Sea
The Third Sword
Civilization
She Comes in the Night
Glimmer
New Worlds
The Holes we Leave
Meetings
Flying too Close to the Sun
Runes
Starcross Soldiers
New Alice City
Among the Stars
Thief of Fate
Defenders
Trial by Darkness
Plan C
Haunted
Curses
Beneath the Waves
The Cure for Pain
Splitting Up
The Plan
To the Center
Rarity and Twilight
Capella's Call
Awakening
Fates
Credits
Prologue
What a Way to Wake
Doors Open
Her Hope

Crystal Sea

The Enchantress moved through the desert as she always had, one hoof at a time wherever the road of life would take her.

…That wasn’t quite true. There had been a time where she hadn’t been wandering the endless expanse of sand. A time where water flowed and cities flourished.

That had been so long ago it felt like another lifetime. Even though she had a poor grasp on how many years she’d been out here, she was almost certain she had spent more time wandering the desert than all other parts of her life combined. Had she been a normal pony, she would have been a crippled old mare by now, if not dead.

For better or for worse, she was still alive and could expect to live for significantly longer unless the desert took her life from her too. Once, she had been surprised and filled with hope at her continued survival against impossible odds. Now it just felt like existence was cruel.

Even the road she was on right now seemed to bring with it a duality – how fortunate was she that the wind would blow the right way to uncover an ancient road? But how unfortunate it was to be walking along a reminder of the expansive empires that once filled the land, now replaced with nothing but sand as far as the eye could see.

She had never seen an ocean in her life, but she had seen illustrations of them in books. The rippling, rolling dunes of the endless desert reminded her of those illustrations. Naturally, some part of her knew the waves of the ocean would move quickly rather than over the course of several weeks, but she had no real memories to back that up with. The biggest body of water she’d ever seen was an underground river. And that had dried up ages ago.

Idly, she wondered if even the distant oceans had survived the desertification of the world. Perhaps if she traveled far enough, she would find what remained of the vast bodies of water. It was not a new thought, but she wasn’t the sort of mare to have thoughts only once. She would have run out of things to think about long ago if she had taken that idea to heart.

The road under her hooves had done a remarkable job of surviving the oppressing heat. The pavement was still mostly smooth and level, though it was cracked in a few places. Were it not for the loose grains of sand upon the path it would have been comfortable to walk upon. As it was, the occasional slipping hoof was leagues better than the exhausting effort it took to drudge through the sand dunes.

Not that she wasn’t known to walk through stretches of nothing but sand for a day. Though, just because she could didn’t mean she should. She tried never to use more energy than she had to.

Because of this, she was dressed for oppressive travel even though she technically didn’t need to be given her special situation. From her hooves to the tip of her ears she was covered in tattered, brown rags designed to keep the sand away from her thin fur. Many ponies would have coverings for their tail as well, but she had cut hers off years ago for efficiency’s sake. She still had her mane though – peeking out from under the tatters on her head, covering her forehead with curled purple locks that provided some shade for her face. Her eyes and the white fur surrounding them were the only part of her actual body visible from the outside, though they were protected by a truly ancient pair of goggles with a crack down one lens. She gazed upon the world with brilliant blue eyes lined with wrinkles not of age, but of emotional exhaustion.

These eyes rarely looked anywhere but directly forward, towards a goal even she didn’t know.

The sky had lit up.

She frowned under the folds of her coverings. That thought had been persistent. She understood why – when five orbs of color appeared around the sun and vanished shortly thereafter, naturally one was to wonder what would cause such a thing. But the Enchantress had quickly come to the conclusion that not only was there nothing she could do about those lights, but she also had no idea where to even go if she wanted to learn more. It was pointless to dwell on it, dwelling on things like that gave her hope. She was the last hope of the world, and thusly didn’t allow herself to have unfounded amounts of it. Couldn’t afford to. Not anymore.

The sky lighting up should be pressed back into the deep recesses of her mind and only brought out if it became pertinent to a situation at hoof. Which, currently, it was not. Virtually nothing was pertinent to relatively aimless desert wandering.

Soon, however, her mindless walking was replaced with very focused walking. In the distance, barely visible through the eternal mirage of the sands, was a black structure. Had it been any other color, she would not have paid it much attention – just another ruin uncovered by the wind.

However, the black was telling. Very little retained that dark color for long in the oppressive heat, unless it was charred.

The Enchantress made a point to leave the road to check out the black structure at some point. She didn’t allow herself to anticipate arriving – why would she? She had seen hundreds of these in her life; few of them had been particularly helpful. Ignoring them would be foolish, however, for one never knew what they might find nearby.

As she approached, the structure passed the minimum mirage distance and solidified into a pointed spire jutting out of the sand, perfectly upright. A spike daring the world to turn it to dust as it had done with so much else.

She took her time getting there, for she was in no hurry. About an hour passed with no sound but her hooves against the road and the occasional gust of wind. The spire itself didn’t offer any surprises as she approached it. As expected, when she was only a few minutes away from it, she was able to make out the soft amber glow of the Runes lining every surface of the structure. Closer still, and she could make out the cracks and imperfections in the structure, reminding her that even the ageless Runes were not immune to the slow death of the world. Their magic would fall just like everything else.

The Enchantress briefly wondered if she or the Runes would fall first. As usual, no answer presented itself.

Luckily for her, the spire was right next to the road, so she had no need to deviate from the path until she was only a few yards away. When she was close enough to touch it, she did so, laying a hoof upon the black stone. The amber Runes adorning every surface of the spire flashed a soft white color before returning to their default state.

At least that hasn’t changed.

She circled the spire. It did not take her long to find a large symbol – five circles surrounding a central, larger circle; each circle connected by a line to those adjacent, creating a star within a pentagon. The Enchantress didn’t even dwell on it, for she had seen it many, many times before. No use fixating on it now.

Around the side of the structure that has been hidden from her view, the Enchantress found an entrance to a single, hollow room. It wasn’t dark inside – for the amber Runes coated even the interior – but it wasn’t as oppressive as the roasting beams of the sun.

The Enchantress wasn’t exactly surprised, per se, to find a pony inside the structure. As one of the few reliable sources of shade in the world, naturally anypony smart would take shelter within one whenever possible.

She was surprised that the pony looked like she was ready for a war. The Enchantress had not seen armor of such fine craftsmanship since she’d begun her wanderings, and seeing a pony wearing full untarnished plate armor missing only the helmet was more than a little shocking. Furthermore, there was a truly absurd amount of weapons affixed to the armor – it was easy to make out swords, knives, a bow, a scythe, a hammer, and a few things the Enchantress couldn’t even recognize. Somehow the armor managed to hold all of this while still allowing the pony’s wings space to fold up without getting prodded by a loose blade.

Pegasi weren’t exactly unheard of, but the Enchantress had not seen one for a few years. And this one… this one looked far too clean. Her buttery yellow coat and feathers had hardly any sand in them and her pink flowing mane looked like it had been recently washed. And the mare’s eyes… teal, and strong. Who could have a gaze that strong in a dying world like this?

“Hi!” the pegasus said, softly, and with a welcoming smile. “I… appear to be lost.”

“…Everyone is lost in the eternal sand,” the Enchantress said, her own voice far quieter than she remembered, though she still spoke every word with careful precision.

“Oh.” There was only mild disappointment in the mare’s features. “I’m Fluttershy, weaponsmith of Musk.”

That explains the weapons, but not much else. “I have never heard of Musk. I am…” For a moment, she considered lying about her name. She quickly pushed that idea out of her mind, deciding a lie wasn’t worth it since so few ponies remembered the Enchantress’ name these days. “Rarity. My name is Rarity.”

“Nice to meet you!” Fluttershy said, giving Rarity a genuine smile. “Do you know where the closest town is?”

“The road may lead to a town, it may not. I can tell you there is nothing in the direction I came.”

“Surely there must be a town you came from?”

Rarity shook her head. “I have been traveling the road for several days, before that it was covered in sand. I was wandering aimlessly prior, I would not be able to find my way back from whence I came. Nor would I want to.”

Fluttershy nodded. “…What is this desert called?”

Rarity blinked, startled by the question. “Th… the Crystal Sea.”

“Never heard of it…” Fluttershy said, furrowing her brow. “Do I perhaps know it by a different name? Genir Desert? The Niren Wastes?”

Rarity stared at her, impassive. “I have never heard either of those names.”

“It has to be one of them…” Fluttershy said, rubbing her temple with the tip of her wing. “Those are the only two large enough, and we can’t be in monster territory…”

“…There is only one desert.”

“That’s impossible.”

“So is your cleanliness. Nopony gets this far into the sands without getting sand all over their everything, and you…”

Fluttershy giggled. “I did have a lot of sand everywhere when I first arrived, spent some time cleaning myself up in here while I waited for night to fall. …Though, you are right, I have not been here long. I arrived just a few hours ago.”

Rarity cocked her head. “Arrived?”

“I was at my shop, there was a bright flash of light, and then I was legs-up in the sand.” She laughed. “I felt a little silly at first. Then I wished I had my helmet. Then I wondered if I had enough food and shelter to survive in the desert. Clearly, my mind has its priorities straight.”

Rarity had just identified genuine laughter, sarcastic humor, and a moment of legitimate self-reflection in Fluttershy’s words. She clearly wasn’t from this desert. Which was impossible. Right?

Unless…

“Do you come from the ocean?”

“…There is an ocean near where I live, yes,” Fluttershy admitted.

Rarity frowned, not that Fluttershy could see it beneath her fabric. “If that is true, you really are far from home. I have been wandering for decades and I have never come across an ocean.”

“Hmm…” Fluttershy said, furrowing her brow. “Let me guess: you have no idea what could have brought me here?”

“Magic like that has not existed in the land since before I was born. Which would make a tale such as yours hard to believe if you didn’t look so out of place.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Wait… if magic like that hasn’t been around for a while, and you think there’s only one desert…” She stood bolt upright. “What if I was sent to the future!?”

“What?”

“Think about it!” Fluttershy said, conflicted emotions of excitement and fear fighting over her face. “What if there was magic strong enough in the past, and it just tossed me here?”

“I know of no such thing or legend that could do that.”

“…Neither do I, admittedly, but it should be an option. This could be the future, or just a part of the world I didn’t know existed. …Maybe there is a tremendous desert in the heart of the monster lands that even they fear to tread in… It’s not like we would know about anything that deep into their territory.”

“You keep using the word monsters. I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Monsters? Creatures that exist only to murder and kill? Red eyes with black fire? We devote our lives to keeping ponies safe from them?”

“Never seen such a thing.”

“Well, if this really is the future, the good news is we finally killed them all.” The thought brought a proud smile to Fluttershy’s face.

“I have read the histories. There is no mention of a plague of monsters.”

Fluttershy furrowed her brow. “How could you not know of monsters?”

“How could you not know of the desert?”

“Touche.” Fluttershy walked up to Rarity and extended a hoof. “Clearly, neither of us have any idea what is going on. Why don’t we try to find out together?”

Rarity looked at the pegasus’ outstretched hoof. Dare she take on another companion? All the others had…

No, denying this curious mare would be foolishness. There was a potential – however slim – that she might be the key to everything. Fluttershy was so outside what Rarity usually found in the desert that her very existence gave a glimmer of hope. She had been brought here by strong magic. Rarity could not, would not, ignore that, no matter how many tragedies she had experienced in the past.

She grabbed Fluttershy’s hoof in her own and shook it. “Together.”

“I hope you have water and food,” Fluttershy said. “I don’t have any.”

“I have my ways,” Rarity said. Not that I’ll tell you how. “You will not perish in the Crystal Sea if I have anything to say about it.”

“Thanks!” Fluttershy smiled so purely that it was infectious, pulling the rare smirk out of Rarity’s stern jaw.

And then Fluttershy spread her wings and flew out of the spire. “Come on, we should follow the road as long as we can! Who knows when the wind will cover it again?”

Had Rarity’s expression been visible through her wrappings, Fluttershy would no doubt have noticed her jaw hanging open and her eyes wide in shock. As it was, Rarity was able to keep her surprise a secret.

She’s flying. How does she… I would have remembered her for sure!

“Yes, we should move,” Rarity agreed, getting over her surprise. “Assuming you are up for the heat?”

“The sun will set in a couple of hours and I am no stranger to a long journey in the middle of summer. I’m fine. I can even scout ahead, if you want.”

Rarity looked up at the pegasus who really should not have been able to fly. Even if she was supposed to, that armor should have been way too heavy…

Another mystery that tugged at Rarity’s mind, trying to give her hope. She shot it down.

“Scouting is an excellent idea.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Gotcha! I’ll be back in a minute or two.” She flapped her wings and rose higher into the sky, getting a bird’s eye view of the desert… soon little more than a speck in the sky to Rarity’s eyes.

Rarity decided she might as well keep walking. No use waiting for her. Fluttershy could come down wherever she wanted whenever.

The Third Sword

In the middle of a desert, a purple sphere of light flashed into existence for less than a second. When it vanished, two ponies stood in its place, both staring into the face of the other with shock.

“What did you do!?” Twilight and Rainbow shouted at the same time, pointing accusatory hooves.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t do anything! You’re the one who activated my device!”

“I saw it interact with your shield! It was supposed to make a tear, not do… this!” She gestured at the endless expanse of dunes around them.

“May I remind you that it hadn’t been fully tested before?”

“It was our only way out!”

“I could have teleported us into space! I can bypass my own teleport locks!”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Busy!” Twilight said dismissively. “I was analyzing their weaponry.”

“That’s what they were planning on! They’re not idiots!”

“And why were they chasing you?”

“They’re the reason my device isn’t working!” Rainbow shouted, waving her disc-shaped device in the air. “Wait. We moved. Maybe…” She looked at the device and pressed its screen with her hoof. A few lights blinked along its edges, cycling around like a whirlwind.

A big fat red zero appeared on the display.

“So, all that trouble and you didn’t even get it to work?” Twilight smirked.

“That doesn’t make sense… we translated. I… uuuuugh why don’t I have an egghead on hoof?”

Twilight pointed at herself with a wing, grinning.

“You were inventing the most primitive version of this. You wouldn’t know the finer nuances of quarantine protocols!”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I’m getting the distinct impression you barely know what you’re talking about.”

Rainbow growled. “Yeah. I’m usually not alone. No, I’m not counting you to know what this is.”

“I must say, I’m finding this juvenile defiant upstart attitude refreshing, it’s been a while since anypony would dare talk to the Empress like that!”

“Uuuuugh…” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I’ve dealt with so many of your type. It’s just not worth it.”

“Curious. Care to explain a bit more…?”

“Bah. We need to figure out what to do.”

“…We?”

“Yes, we, working together, to figure out what’s going on, where we are, and how to get back.”

“And do you have any ideas?”

Rainbow sighed. “The device should know how to get back, but something about the way we translated confused it. Unless the connection was one-way…”

“You really have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”

Rainbow flared her wings and fumed. “I got us out of there!”

“Falling back on a foolish attempt at escape that may have landed us in a worse predicament than before?”

“You don’t know anything about what was going on there!”

“And, strangely, you seem to know even less!” Twilight laughed.

“We’re in this together, Twilight! We need to work together here, not… whatever this is!”

“Hmm…” Twilight pondered this. “Nah. Have fun!”

“Waiwaiwai-“

Too late. Twilight had already lit her horn and cast a teleport spell, vanishing… somewhere.

Rainbow rammed her face into her hoof. “Snarkier than usual… just my luck.” She held up her device and glared at it. “You’re supposed to just work! Come on!”

Under the zero, the message “searching…” flashed on and off.

“So what, I’m just supposed to wait?”

The machine was mindless, unable to respond to complex queries. Rainbow’s words fell on ears so deaf they didn’t exist. With a sigh, she pocketed the device and took a moment to look around.

Sand. Sand, sand, more sand, and sand blowing into her face. No sign of anything – roads, structures, plants, or otherwise. The only object aside from the sand was the sun, and she couldn’t exactly fly there. Probably not, anyway.

Rainbow needed to get a better picture of the area, so she stretched her wings and took to the air. As she rose higher and higher she saw… more sand. Lots more sand. A few rocks, maybe, in the far distance, but otherwise sand.

“Ugh, why did it have to be one of those endless deserts?” She let out a groan that was more annoyed than anything. “The sand is going to get everywhere!”

Realizing it was a little stupid to be complaining where no one could hear it, she took on a more practical mindset. Those rocks in the distance might have something and they were the only landmark she could head for.

Might as well.

She wound herself up and blasted toward the rocks, flying at a speed faster than most birds. She’d easily get there before the sun set. Assuming the sun moved as expected, which really wasn’t a safe assumption in her line of work.

Though, even if the sun started moving like a mayfly with brain damage Rainbow would still head for the rocks. Why not? It wasn’t like she had much else to do.

~~~

Rarity had forgotten how helpful it was to have a pegasus around. They had better eyes than other ponies with or without magic and were able to see things much further away when their wings gave them height. Fluttershy hadn’t found evidence of any settlements but she had determined that the road led to a bunch of rocks jutting out of the sand. Nothing black – so no more Runes – but it was at least something.

“Nothing green…”

“Green things are almost unheard of beyond pony civilization,” Rarity explained. The two of them had taken to walking along the road side by side. Fluttershy could have flown to the rocks already but she had insisted Rarity needed the company. Rarity had not fought the suggestion, though inwardly she was slightly bitter Fluttershy jumped to that conclusion so quickly. Was it better to have companionship? Yes. But Rarity had been alone for so long it wasn’t like she needed somepony to talk to.

“How do you survive then?”

“Carefully,” Rarity said. “And with a lot of rationing of resources.”

“I meant on the road. In a land like this… traveling would be nigh impossible without massive stores of food and water. I know you’ve got some things hidden under those robes of yours, but it’s definitely not enough to survive off of.”

She’s observant. “I’m afraid that’s a trade secret. Don’t worry, neither of us is going to starve.” She paused. “And I’m not going to eat you.”

At first, Fluttershy laughed at this – which was the intent, as it had been somewhat of a joke. However, Fluttershy picked up on the context behind the joke rather quickly and the laughter died in her throat.

“…Ponies eat each other?”

Rarity sighed. “If they’re desperate enough.”

Fluttershy shivered, her armor clanking ominously with the motion. “…There are worse things than monsters.”

“You mention these monsters a lot.”

“They infest the land,” Fluttershy said, closing her eyes as she remembered. “Varied creatures of unknown origin, all with red eyes and an insatiable desire for blood. They are little more than animals, but they must kill. So we fight back. Always.” She gestured at the wide array of weapons on her back. “This is why I make weapons. For ponies to use to defend themselves from the monsters. They’re easy to remove, so anypony can take them at any time.”

“Doesn’t that encourage thieves?”

“I have been stolen from a few times,” Fluttershy admitted. “But I can always make more. Most ponies wouldn’t dare steal from me anyway.”

“That may not be the case here,” Rarity pointed out.

“Sure, but I have you with me to watch my back.” She grinned innocently.

“You should not be so quick to trust.”

Fluttershy shrugged with her wings. “You’re probably right. But I’m going to trust you anyway.”

Rarity grunted. “That attitude will get you killed out here.”

“Then it’s a good thing I found you first, huh?”

“You are unimaginably lucky.”

They walked along for a significant amount of time, watching as the sun approached the horizon. Before too long, Rarity could see the peaks of brown stone jutting out of the sand – a remnant of one of the great mountains of old, still resisting the erosion of the sands around them. As the world became desert the natural wonders of the earth stood defiant, but only the largest survived without pony assistance.

Rarity had no doubt that the jutting stones they were approaching had once been a massive peak covered in trees, immense forests of wildlife, and mystical secrets. Now all that remained were its bones, jutting up in sections not unlike the ribs of an immense animal.

Fluttershy evidently did not have this mental image, since the sight of the rocks only made her smile. “We’re almost there!”

“An hour or two, still,” Rarity said. “We will probably make it before sundown.”

“I can fly you at least a short distance if we’re running out of time, don’t worry.”

Rarity nodded slowly, thinking about the offer. “I have not flown with a pegasus for a long, long time…”

“Oh, if it’d make you uncomfortable, don’t worry about it.”

“It’s fine,” Rarity said, smiling under her rags. “I may take you up on the offer even if it isn’t required. I have not felt the wind in my face in a while. Wind devoid of sand, you understand.”

Fluttershy giggled. “Maybe we should go for a fly right now?”

Rarity pondered this. Perhaps it would be good to distract herself from the constant walking. She could gauge how strong Fluttershy’s wings actually were, maybe figure out how she could fly with that ridiculous armor weighing her down. It would b-

The sand on both sides of the road exploded, revealing four ponies coated hoof-to-head in sun-bleached fabric, each of them holding a rusty sword in their hooves.

Raiders, Rarity thought, inwardly cursing herself. She should have been paying attention, looking for the signs of a trap beneath the sand…

This was not to say she wasn’t prepared. She bounced back onto her rear hooves, sliding two swords out of her robes using nothing more than muscle memory. The two blades were thin, elegant, and old – but well kept, shimmering in the sun. Rarity’s blades met the attackers’ blades easily, pushing the two of them back. Their eyes widened in surprise since they had not expected such resistance from her.

They had expected resistance from Fluttershy. They got none. One of their blades landed on her armor, bouncing off harmlessly, but the other hit a wing dead on, spraying blood over the attacker’s face.

Fluttershy didn’t even cry out in pain. Her face was locked, frozen into a thousand-yard stare.

She froze? Rarity thought, jumping over to her, clashing with their two blades while leaving her backside open to the others. She’s a weaponsmith, how can she freeze against simple ponies?

The blades of her back attackers came down, one glancing harmlessly off the folds of her clothing, but the other managed to cut to skin. Rarity let out a pained hiss, turning sharply in an attempt to disarm the two currently locking swords with her. She only partially succeeded – one of the raiders lost their sword, but the other held fast by taking a few steps back.

As she met the swords of the two ponies who had attacked her from behind, she realized with some annoyance that she wasn’t going to be able to face off against them with just two swords. There was only so much skill could do when outnumbered.

She sighed. Maybe she won’t notice, frozen as she is. Rarity focused on her inner self, channeling energy throughout her body. A soft blue glow sparked into life behind her mane, an energy that was all but lost from the world. With a thrust of telekinetic magic, Rarity drew the third sword out from her robes. The sword coming down on her from behind didn’t stand a chance. Gripped in a blue aura at the hilt, Rarity’s third sword flew through the air as if handled by a ghost, severing the raider’s hoof from his leg.

He screamed as he fell back, not that Rarity noticed or cared. She brought the third sword back around, angling it above her head so she could exert pressure on both of her current opponents. Not to mention terrify them with magic, something they had no doubt never seen in their lives.

They were surprisingly resilient in their attack, however, likely because they were hungry and desperate. It didn’t matter how strong Rarity was: if they failed to take her out, they would probably die out here. A pity she had no intention of falling to them.

The unarmed pony decided to tackle her, driving her hard into the unforgiving ground below. She didn’t break anything from the impact, but both of her swords were knocked from her front hooves, leaving her with only the levitating blade. She drove it to the unarmed pony, annoyed to find that one of the other raiders had anticipated this and deflected her attack. The third drove their sword into Rarity’s back leg, cutting right through the fabric, coat, and skin with ease.

Rarity’s response was a hiss of pain. This was hardly the first time somepony had gotten her in the leg, and it would not be the last.

She just had to use the tools available to her to survive, as always.

A blue telekinetic aura grabbed the hilt of one of Fluttershy’s swords, pulling it off her armor with ease. Rarity swung the blade wide, attempting to do little more than push the three ponies back so she could get a moment to plan.

She never got the chance. When she swung the blade, it lit up with an immense red glow and ejected bright orange flames from the tip that engulfed the three raiders in all-consuming fire. The heat differential between the fire and the air was so much a burst of wind hit Rarity in the face, blowing her mane back.

The raiders got a lot more than a simple gust of air. Their skin and hair charred before the pain fully registered and they were barely able to scream by the time they thought to. The flames burned through them not like they were made of flesh and blood, but wood.

This fire was an enchantment to do one thing and one thing only: kill quickly. It did its job admirably, reducing the three ponies to charred remains in seconds.

Rarity stared in disbelief at the flames, completely unaware of her injuries, Fluttershy, or the crying fourth raider.

Slowly, she turned the long blade over in her magic. It seemed mundane, but now that she was actively touching it, she could feel the power within. A quick test revealed that all of Fluttershy’s weapons had spells of similar or greater power on them.

Rarity dropped the sword, letting it clatter against the ground. It let out a few sparks of flame but otherwise remained inert.

Fluttershy looked at her with sorrow. “I… I should have explained what they all did first…”

“How!?” Rarity asked. “Where did you get such magic?”

“I enchanted it. I’m a weaponsmith.” Fluttershy ruffled her wings, wincing as she seemed to notice her injury for the first time. “I make weapons to fight the monsters.”

“You? Enchant? How!?”

“I may not be a unicorn like yourself, but pegasus magic can be formed into spells as well with enough practice.”

Rarity tensed. “Unicorn?”

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. “Your mane is blown back.”

Rarity looked up, realizing with dread that yes, her pearly white horn exposed.

“I know lots of unicorns, so I don’t care what sort of stigm-“

“You know other unicorns!?”

Fluttershy cocked her head. “Yeah. Several. Red Rage is one of my best hunters.”

“I am the only unicorn in the world!” Rarity shouted. “I have never seen another of my race in my entire life!”

Fluttershy’s expression softened. “That’s so sad… You must be so lonely.”

Rarity opened her mouth to respond, quickly realizing she had no idea what to say.

Fluttershy picked up the sword that had been on fire with her wing and carefully put it back on her back. “This was the first weapon I ever enchanted. It’s a very simple spell I have kept active for many years: fire burst. It was designed to take out a massive serpent of ice. As a consequence, it – like almost all weapons designed to fight monsters – has become a weapon that could kill hundreds of ordinary ponies.” She looked at the three smoldering piles with a grimace on her face. “…I fear what we will become when the monsters no longer force us to unite. Will we turn these weapons on each other?”

Fluttershy took a moment to look at the desert around her. “If… If this really is the future…” Her gaze locked with Rarity’s. “It looks like we will.”

Rarity gulped, unsure how to respond to that.

Fluttershy wordlessly trotted over to the remaining raider. He was crying, holding his bloody leg. “Shhh…” Fluttershy said, spreading her wings. Rarity watched in fascination as the feathers upon them began to shiver and tremble with soft green magical energy. “This won’t hurt at all…”

The stump stopped bleeding first, then slowly a new hoof grew in place of the old one, shiny as if it had just been born.

“Now sleep,” Fluttershy said, waving a magical wing over the pony’s eyes. He fell asleep in the sand without so much as a grunt. “...I’ll heal you too.”

Rarity managed to speak. “N-no, I know healing spells myself.” She focused the magic into her horn and poured energy into the wounds on her back legs, sealing them up until they were good as new. This did nothing to remove the bloodstains all over her leg and the ground below.

Fluttershy trotted over to her and checked the wound just in case. “Looks good.” She gently patted Rarity on the back. “We’re okay. We were just acting in self-defense.”

“This is not new to me,” Rarity said. “…Aside from the magic sword. I have studied magic all my life and I am meant to restore magic wherever I can. I never, in a thousand years, would be able to make that sword.”

“You have less magic to work with,” Fluttershy said. “A… a lot less.” She spread her wings out and closed her eyes, presumably feeling the magic around her. “It seems… in pain.”

“It’s dying. The whole world is dying.”

“…Then we’re going to save it,” Fluttershy said, determined.

“Many have said that,” Rarity pointed out.

“Yourself?”

Rarity nodded.

“And now the world has two sources of magic. You, and me.” Fluttershy beamed. “Rarity, you’re not alone.”

“You keep sa-“

“I don’t think you heard me. You’re not alone.”

Rarity stopped short, finding the mare’s insistent tone… intimidating. Yet another thing she hadn’t experienced in a long while. So many things happening today that should have been impossible, all centered around this mare.

It was too much. Rarity burst out laughing. “I guess there must be two Enchantresses!” She put a hoof to her mouth, trying to stifle the giggles.

Fluttershy shrugged. “Or I’m really not supposed to be here, but hey, use every resource you have at your disposal!”

Rarity managed to get herself under control. “That attitude will get you far in the Crystal Sea.”

“Thanks!” She tossed her flowing pink mane back and furrowed her brow. “So, how do we save the world?”

“You tell me. I’ve been trying for decades and haven’t gotten any luck. Ponies keep destroying themselves.”

“So terrible…” Fluttershy said, though Rarity was pretty sure she wasn’t being addressed. “…Might as well keep going to the rocks.”

Rarity nodded, using her magic to restyle her mane, hiding her horn once more.

“Ponies know who you are, don’t they?”

“They know the Enchantress,” Rarity said, restarting her walk to the distant rocks. “They will make her Queen. She may accept. And then the magic will fall in on itself and everything will collapse. …It is better if ponies do not know my power.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Okay. …But now that you’re not hiding from me, can I have some water?”

The conjure water spell was one of the simplest ones Rarity knew. With barely any effort she generated an orb of crystal clear liquid above Fluttershy’s head… and dropped it on her.

“…You have been waiting years to do that to somepony, haven’t you?”

“Maybe.”

Fluttershy giggled, wringing some of the water out of her mane.

“I am surprised you don’t know the spell yourself.”

“I can create water enchantments, but those are generally… violent.”

Rarity nodded, taking in this information. She let her mind wander as they walked – though she was careful not to take her eyes off the surrounding sand this time.

This mare from… the past? Rarity wasn’t sure if she believed that, but it made the most sense out of anything so far, even if the histories mentioned nothing of an age of monsters. This mare might be more worthy of the Enchantress title than she was, and she wasn’t even a unicorn!

And yet, Rarity didn’t feel like anything had been stolen from her. Let someone else take the title from her. She’d done enough with it, some other mare could carry the burden of restoring the world.

Maybe Fluttershy could do it?

No… no, Rarity couldn’t afford hope. They would try, naturally, but Rarity would not let herself lay all her trust in Fluttershy. The pegasus may have been just as doomed as the world around them.

“Why help him?” Rarity asked, gesturing to the remaining raider. “He attacked us, wanted to kill us.”

Fluttershy responded with a soft, understanding smile. “Why not?”

Civilization

“…And then there was that time I got my mane stuck in a book for a week because I didn’t want to harm either the book or my hair, that was fun. In the end, I tripped and ripped out the page and my hair; karma, amirite? Just goes to show that lesso-“

“Found something,” Twilight said, pointing to the left.

Pinkie and Twilight were standing atop yet another sand dune, only this time they weren’t looking at an endless expanse of sand. Nestled between two dunes was a town. No roads led in or out as far as they could see, but the town itself was paved with stone and had a few specks of green here and there. The largest source of green was a field of cacti arranged in perfect lines that took up about half the surface area of the town itself. The buildings were constructions made of stone and glass, all of which were immensely dusty and pale colored. A few ponies could be seen trotting to and from different houses, heads turned toward the ground.

“Finally,” Twilight groaned. “I was beginning to think there was nothing but sand in this stupid world.”

“Most of that looks like it’s made from sand.”

“True. I’m curious how they provide for the cacti in such conditions.”

“Why don’t we just ask?”

“We’re going to.” Twilight trotted down the sand dune toward the town.

“We’re walking there?”

Twilight shot a coy smirk back at Pinkie. “Already too comfortable with teleporting?”

“Yes! It’s so easy! Why would anyone ever travel on hoof if they could do that?”

“Because the scenery is beautiful?”

Pinkie raised an incredulous eyebrow. “It’s more sand.”

Twilight chuckled. “All right, you got me. I just don’t want to make a scene.”

“You!?”

“Yep! We’re just ordinary ponies who’ve been wandering the desert, looking for some water.”

“We’re too clean for that.”

Twilight lit her horn and instantly both of them were covered in dust and grime, completing the look with bags under their eyes. “Now we’re not.”

Pinkie shivered at the direct application of magic to her body but she didn’t object. Not like objecting would have much effect on Twilight anyway, the mare hadn’t demonstrated much care for Pinkie’s personal comfort on the trip.

The two descended the sandy slope to the town, arriving in a small dust cloud due to their haste. Now that they were closer, they could make out a few more details. All the buildings had extended roofs, ensuring there would always be shade for the inhabitants. There was a large well in the center of town that a mare was currently drawing water out of, and Pinkie spotted a few ponies carrying little brown mushrooms around, presumably an alternative food source to the cacti.

Pegasi roamed the streets, but absolutely none of them were flying. Their wings looked sickly, like they were almost never used…

“This world is dying,” Twilight said, for once no hint of a smile on her face.

“…Really?”

“Not even enough magic to give pegasi flight…”

Pinkie chose not to dwell on the fact that, apparently, pegasus flight required magic. “How terrible.”

“It really is a tragedy.”

“Then that must be why we’re here,” Pinkie said, setting her jaw. “We need to fix this.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Okay, first, why would you think that? Second, how?”

“I don’t know; you’re the wizard!”

“I do not ha-“

“Enchantress…?” one of the townsponies asked. “Is that… is that you?”

Twilight realized he was addressing her. “…I could be considered an enchantress, yes.”

The pony instantly bowed, keeping his head pressed as far into the ground as he could. “We beg of you, use the power within your horn to restore magic to this small, insignificant town… we are barely hanging on as it is. Your appearance almost makes one believe the gods are back…”

Twilight smirked. “You could say that.”

“Will you grace us with the power of the final hope for the world?”

“I think he’s talking about somepony else,” Pinkie whispered.

“I know.” Twilight responded, lighting her horn. “But I can do what he’s asking, easy.” She touched her horn to the earth pony’s forehead. All Pinkie could see was a soft purple glow that enveloped the pony and vanished within two seconds. “There you are, your connection to the earth has been restored.”

The stallion stood up. Physically, he looked no different. But his face told of a pony healed – for there was a tremendous grin on his face that stretched his mouth in directions it had not gone in years. “EVERYPONY! THE ENCHANTRESS HAS COME TO SAVE US!”

Instantly Twilight was mobbed by earth ponies and pegasi, each clamoring to receive magic from the “savior of the world.” Twilight laughed. “So much for not making a scene.” She didn’t seem to mind the attention in the slightest, lowering her horn to the scrambling ponies with more flair each and every time. After six ponies had been restored, she started dancing between each restoration.

“I thought the Enchantress was a Queen…” one of the foals asked. “She’s not very Queeny.”

Pinkie shrugged. “I wouldn’t complain if I were you. She’s giving your magic back.”

“And I thought the last unicorn was white! Not… whatever color that is!”

“Kid, let’s say she isn’t the Enchantress. Does it really matter?”

“Uh…” the foal cocked his head, unsure what to make of the question.

Pinkie rolled her eyes, tousling the foal’s hair. “Never mind. Hey, while she’s doing… whatever it is she’s doing…” Twilight had summoned a few tables with her magic and was setting them with various foodstuffs. “Do you know anywhere I could rest up? Like a hotel?”

“…Huh?”

“Right, probably don’t get any visitors, uh… Is there anypony who’d give me and Twilight a place to sleep for the night?”

“The creepy place is over there…”

The foal pointed at a house that looked just like all the others – sunbleached and dry. With a shrug, Pinkie left Twilight to entertain the locals, walking through the open door to find that the house contained only one room. It was mostly empty, containing only two tables, three stone constructions with tattered rags on them that were probably beds, and a small fireplace with a few glass pans on it that served as the kitchen. Considering how Twilight had the entire town eating out of her hoof, Pinkie was more than a little surprised to see a pony inside, staring at her hoof.

This pony clearly didn’t belong. She was an orange earth pony wearing clothing that wasn’t made for the desert – the cloth was too loose and didn’t cover every part of her coat. She wore a hat with goggles, but those goggles were far too delicate for wandering the wilds and she didn’t even have the goggles over her eyes at the moment. She wore four metallic boots with elastic straps at the ends, a material Pinkie had not seen any sign of her entire time in this town. And then there were her tools – wrenches, screwdrivers, nails… things that a mechanic working on heavy machinery carried.

This mare did not belong to this world, plain and simple. She was staring off into space, tapping her hoof on the table in perfect rhythm. Clak. Clak. Clak. She had a small cup of water strapped to her other hoof with the elastic band, and occasionally she would take a sip from it.

Why isn’t she just holding it with her hoof?

Pinkie sat down across from the mare. “Hi.”

“Do you know about the Mesh?” the mare spoke with a no-nonsense tone that was well articulated. Had she not been so deadpan in her delivery, Pinkie would have considered the way she spoke the syllables to be musical.

“Nope. That your home?”

“Yep.”

“Then we’re both lost in an endless desert.” Pinkie extended her hoof. “My name’s Pinkie.”

“Applejack,” the mare said, stopping her tapping to shake Pinkie’s hoof. The moment she released, however, she continued tapping with the same timing as before, as if she hadn’t missed any beats. “I never thought there was anything outside the Mesh.”

“I didn’t think magic was a normal thing either, but look where we are.” She pointed out an open window at Twilight’s little show, giving sparks of power to everypony. A few pegasi were actively flying now, laughing.

Applejack refused to look where Pinkie was pointing. Pinkie frowned. “Are you…”

“There’s too much out there. Or too little. I’m not sure which.”

“How s-“

“I can’t hear it,” Applejack interrupted, shaking – but still tapping with perfect timing. “It’s gone. All of it’s gone. There are no cycles here. It just is. The green things. The glass. Even the dirt’s gone. Wrong.”

Pinkie put a comforting hoof on Applejack’s – careful not to interrupt the one that was tapping the table. “Hey. You can handle this. It’s different, yeah, and it’s scary. But you’re Applejack! You’ve survived everything life’s thrown at you so far, you can get through this!”

Applejack’s next words came out with great emotion behind them, adding the musical quality her words had been missing up to this point. “There’s a giant ball of fire sitting in the sky destroying everything! How can I deal with that!?”

Her world has no sun, okay, how am I going to work with that…? “That ball of fire gives light and life to what survives. The green things outside need it to grow. Without it, we would freeze. And you want to know something else?”

“What?”

“It can be extremely beautiful.”

Pinkie took a risk, grabbing Applejack’s head with her hooves and pointing her gaze out a window.

The sunset was spectacular. A soft, red light filled the sky as the sun dipped below the horizon, leaving only the crests of distant sand dunes fully lit by the cosmic flame. It was not the best sunset Pinkie had ever seen – no clouds, no wildlife, no mountains…

But it was the best sunset Applejack had ever seen. She stared, slack-jawed, at the light show as it played out before her. Her hoof never stopped tapping, but she didn’t seem aware of it anymore.

“Would you like to see the whole sky?” Pinkie asked.

“Yes,” Applejack breathed. She stopped tapping only long enough to stand up. Leaning on Pinkie, she walked out – her hooves falling in time with the beat only she could hear. Stepping out into the arid desert air, she looked up. While the sun was disappearing on one side, the other lit up with stars peeking out of the darkness. Applejack couldn’t decide which end of the sky she wanted to look at, so she circled around, rotating in time like she was part of a clockwork machine. Pinkie released her, allowing her to absorb the beauty of the world she found herself in all on her own.

“I have never…” Applejack couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Ah, looks like you found another one,” Twilight said, walking up and startling them.

Applejack jumped back, looking at Twilight’s horn. “First wings and now a spike? What will they think of next?”

“Both at once?” Twilight suggested with a chuckle. “I’m Twilight Sparkle. Given your expression, you’re not from this world either?”

“I… guess not.” Applejack admitted, shaking Twilight’s hoof. “Applejack.”

“We’re getting a pretty good party set up!” Pinkie said with a grin. “We do seem to be missing a pegasus, though…”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “You seem to have a habit of assuming things will line up in specific patterns.”

“It’s what I’m good at!”

“Not sure it’s a skill…”

Applejack coughed. “Do we know why we’re in this desert?”

Pinkie shook her head. “No idea.”

“I have no idea why you’re here,” Twilight said.

“So you know why you are?” Applejack asked.

Twilight grinned in satisfaction. “Observant, if I had a gold star I’d give one to you.” Pinkie doubted Applejack had any idea what that meant. “I have some idea why I’m here, but your presence is an unknown. I’m working on it, trust me.”

“Can you get me back to the Mesh?”

“I don’t know yet,” Twilight admitted.

“But she’s gonna try!” Pinkie declared.

Twilight shot Pinkie a look. “…Yes. I am.”

Pinkie grinned. “We’re gonna fix this world and get everyone home!” She held out a hoof. “Who’s with me!?”

Applejack and Twilight stared at her, bewildered.

“Okay, fine, we don’t have to have the big team moment right now, geez. Guess we could sleep first…”

Applejack nodded. “When the… ‘sun’ goes down… that signals the end of the waking cycle, yes?”

“I’m going to assume that ‘cycle’ means ‘day’ and say yes. Our beds await!”

Applejack and Pinkie returned to the house – but Twilight hung outside for a bit.

“Hey! Twilight! You coming?” Pinkie called.

“…Yes, soon,” Twilight said, eyes narrow.

“You sensing something?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure yet.” She shook her head. “Bah, whatever it is, it can wait for morning. There better be a third bed in there.”

“Conveniently, there are exactly three beds!”

“…Huh.”

~~~

Rarity, Rainbow, and Fluttershy gathered around a fire they had created in the mouth of a cave. Rarity had set up a simple ‘light breeze’ spell that blew all the smoke out of the opening, to keep them from suffocating. The cave itself was dry this close to the surface, but they had explored deeper down and found some mushrooms in semi-organized lines that suggested farming.

They had tried to eat the mushrooms and decided food from Rarity’s magic was vastly superior to the slimy taste of the brown nubs.

“So, how do you recharge your magic energy?” Rainbow asked, looking up from her still-unhelpful dimensional device.

Rarity blinked. “Recharge?”

“You have to get energy from somewhere, and you can’t be getting it from the world if it really is dying.”

Fluttershy looked up from the daisy sandwich Rarity had conjured for her. “That’s right… magic artifacts from my ‘world’ seal ambient energy within themselves. But, wait, if there is no magic, how come I’m able to cast spells?”

“There is ambient magic,” Rarity answered. “It comes from the ground beneath us. That magic is dying too, yes, but not as quickly as the internal magic of ponies, the land, and artifacts that aren’t the Runes.”

Rainbow perked up at the mention of Runes. “Runes? What kind of Runes?”

“You’ve encountered Runes before?”

“Yes, yes, definitely, now tell me what kind of Runes?”

“Large black pillars that rise out of the earth engraved with angular symbols that glow an amber color.”

“…I need to see one of those,” Rainbow decided.

“There’s one less than a day’s walk from here,” Fluttershy said. “We could probably fly there and back in a few hours.”

“Good. That’s the immediate goal for the morning. After that… uh… find something, I guess.”

“We may wander the desert for weeks and find nothing,” Rarity pointed out.

“Yeah, unlikely. When ponies start meeting like this, the ball has started rolling. I’d be surprised if we go a day without something bizarre smacking us upside the head.”

Fluttershy and Rarity glanced at each other with uncertain glances.

A cocky smile appeared on Rainbow’s face. “You’ll see.”

“If you’re so certain,” Rarity said dismissively. She wasn’t sure if she liked this Rainbow mare all that much. Her face was one of brash overconfidence and pride. Every time she spoke, she carried with her words a tone of arrogant superiority occasionally mixed with exasperation at the ponies she was talking to. Part of this was no doubt due to her having to explain things, something that was not “in her job description,” as she liked to put it. However, Rarity was sure that ego of Rainbow’s went down to her core, quite unlike Fluttershy.

No, Fluttershy just had brain damage. Which was inconvenient. What did a mare with that kind of condition think she was doing being a weaponsmith? It sounded reasonable, but Rarity was able to pick up on the subtext: the buttery pegasus regularly walked into battle with hunters, serving as a stationary weapons platform. She was insane in more ways than she realized.

Fluttershy’s heart was pure, though, Rarity was sure of that. She was a humbled mare.

Rainbow…

“Hey, wanna hear about the time I took down a centaur?” Rainbow asked.

“Sure,” Fluttershy responded, against Rarity’s wishes.

Rarity had doubts she would have allowed herself to put up with Rainbow were she not the only source of information on the topic of other worlds. That artifact of hers, if it started working, would get Fluttershy home.

And while she doubted it could bring magic back… Rarity was already considering the logistics of removing everypony from the Crystal Sea and placing them in another world. The gears they had seen clearly weren’t an option, but Fluttershy’s world would work. Full of magic – and monsters, but monsters were preferable to mass death.

Rarity might not even have to do anything. Rainbow’s device might solve the entire problem on its own.

Rarity let out a bitter laugh. Should have known the solution wouldn’t involve me…

“What’s so funny?” Rainbow asked.

“Nothing about your story.”

“I figured. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“I take great satisfaction in keeping my deepest thoughts from your prying eyes.”

“…Sure. Why not.” Rainbow leaned back, trying to get comfortable at the edge of the cave wall. She continued her story, and that was all Rarity needed to tune her out.

Maybe they could find a world where a Rarity had successfully brought magic back, and have her do the same here. If there even was a Rarity who had succeeded. Which, admittedly, seemed unlikely.

She had run through the possibilities thousands of times…

“Woah!” Rainbow shouted, sitting bolt upright, startling Rarity out of her thoughts. “Got another one!” She pulled the dimensional device out, eyes wide with excitement. “Dimension number two! Or three. Four? I’m not sure how to count anymore. Hiiiiya!” She activated the device, creating another white-rimmed portal in the air.

The view on the other side was dark, though not as dark as the night outside. A street dominated their view, lit by metal poles with lights resembling gas lamps hanging from the top. Dark, horseless carriages with small lights on their fronts rolled slowly across the pavement. Tall, rectangular buildings rose out of the ground and scraped the sky, many of their windows aglow with soft light. A few building edges sported glowing signs made of bright neon-colored lights that flashed on and off to draw attention.

Above all this was a moon that filled a third of the sky.

“…That’s impressive,” Rainbow whistled.

“That’s not my home…” Fluttershy said, disappointed.

“It feels wrong,” Rarity said, backing away from the portal. Her horn was vibrating uncomfortably. She could feel the city on the other side watching her. “Close it.”

“Wh-“

“Close it!”

Rainbow did, the pop signaling the end of Rarity’s unease.

“What was that all about?” Rainbow asked.

“The magic was wrong over there.” Rarity was still shivering, even though she knew the foreign magic was no longer present. “It felt… hostile.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I don’t think magic can be hostile.”

“It totally can,” Rainbow corrected. “I’ve seen worlds where magic itself wanted to kill everybody just because it was bored.”

Neither Fluttershy nor Rarity knew how to respond to this.

“Don’t worry about it, the magic can’t hurt us here.” Rainbow leaned against the wall, relaxing. “We just don’t open that portal again.”

“Agreed,” Rarity said. “Shall we sleep in shifts?”

“I may not be able to raise the alarm…” Fluttershy cautioned.

“Then Rainbow and I will do it.” Rarity stood up tall. “I’ll go first.”

“Thanks.” Rainbow closed her eyes. “This mare needs her beauty sleep.”

‘Need’ is such a strong word, Rarity thought. She walked to the entrance of the cave and sat down, observing the cold night. The spires of rock were claws of darkness against the brilliant, starry sky.

She could never bring herself to appreciate the stars. Their ethereal glory taunted her world with what it couldn’t have.

She Comes in the Night

Twilight woke up before the dawn. This was both expected and not. After all, she hadn’t set an alarm, and she hadn’t locked her sleep to any sort of circadian spell, so the time of awakening would be pretty random.

Still. Middle of the night? She must not have felt comfortable despite conjuring an actual mattress on top of the dry slab she had been expected to sleep on.

Annoyingly, she was up, and she didn’t feel like casting a sleep spell on herself.

She checked herself over, making sure the disguise spell hadn’t faltered while she’d been out. No wings to speak of – good. They already worshipped her as a savior, which was nice, but she drew the line at being worshipped as a god, which is what those wings would make her in most societies. Plus, she needed to at least look approachable to her companions if she were to get any useful camaraderie out of them.

Pinkie was sleeping soundly on one of the mattresses, though she had forgotten to take off her glasses and would have a red mark on the side of her face when she woke up. If Twilight had to guess, this was a pattern with her. The earth pony was hugging the blanket to her rather than draping it over herself, indicating she was used to sleeping with another pony in bed.

Twilight sighed. So she did have a family… a completely ordinary mare, torn away from everything. Twilight usually loved using her type on random adventures, but in most cases she knew what was going on and could guarantee their safety. The fact remained that Twilight Sparkle, Empress of Unity, didn’t really have the foggiest idea what was going on.

Maybe it was time to change that…

Twilight hopped out of bed, glancing at Applejack’s bed, surprised to find it empty. Casting a quick scan spell, she found the pony outside. She was easy to find – the pony had no magic in her whatsoever. Even the ponies in this desert had some arcane energy flowing through them; Applejack was a dead zone.

Twilight trotted out to see Applejack staring up at the stars.

“It’s dark, at the top,” Applejack said – her hoof still tapping in perfect time.

“In your home?”

Applejack nodded. “Beyond the Mesh, there are no lights. Just empty blackness. We’re missing out. Lights from the sky…” She adjusted her hat with her free hoof, smiling.

“So, what’s a mare like you doing out here at a time like this?” Twilight asked, smirking.

“Can’t sleep.”

“Nightmares?”

“Couldn’t even get to sleep to see if I had those or not.”

Twilight pointed at her horn. “I could make you fall asleep, if you wanted. Wouldn’t even be that hard.”

“No,” Applejack said. “I don’t know what that would do to my rhythm.”

“Come on, it’s just a tapping hoof, what does it matter?”

“Everything,” Applejack said in a dry tone that told Twilight she’d just said something beyond insulting. Twilight made a mental note: unlike Pinkie, Applejack was very capable of resentment. It would be prudent to watch her words around the mechanic.

“If you say so.” Twilight looked at the stars. “…I’m going to try to feel the magic of this world, see if I can get any answers. It might take a while.”

“Mhm. Need me to do anything?”

“Watch me, make sure nopony interrupts me?”

“You got it.”

Twilight blinked. “Just like that?”

“You’re clearly the manager of this group of ours. That’s all I need to know.”

“Not all managers are good, you know.”

“True. But where would we be if we didn’t follow orders?”

“If I followed the orders of my old managers most of my galaxy would be enslaved and dead.” This was true, but Twilight knew Applejack had no clue what a galaxy was.

Applejack was silent for a few moments. “I’ll watch you.”

“Good,” Twilight said. She took a few steps away from Applejack until she found a suitably level area. With a quick burst of magic, she removed the sand grains from the cobbled ground. Her rump hit the ground hard, marking the center of an intricate magic circle lined with vine-like designs dotted with the occasional flower.

Twilight’s entire body began to glow a powerful violet and her horn shone like a miniature star. The moment she tapped into the magic of the world, her horn shot a beam into the sky that could be seen for miles around.

And then she lost all sense of scale as her mind took in the entire magical field at once. She hated this part of the spell most of all, and as she suspected it was even worse than usual since this world’s magic was foreign to her. There was barely any awareness of the realm she was in, much less of herself.

That was her first mission. Locate her body so she had an anchor. If she somehow failed this task… well, she had backup spells to keep her from going completely brain dead, but the part of her intelligence that was out here would dissipate into nothing, dying. Considering she was that intelligence right now, she had some pretty good motivation to find herself.

Luckily, even though the magic was foreign and folded in ways that made no sense to her, it was weak, while she was strong. Once she was able to recognize relative strengths in the magical field, she found her body easily. She was a little annoyed to find that this had taken twenty minutes, but everything was fine now.

With a suitable anchor set, she stretched out, feeling the world around her…

Deep beneath the crust, there was a solid layer of magic-producing stone. It was very weak, and if everything she knew was to be believed, it had been weakening at a dramatic rate over the last few years. There were a few places where the layer poked above the sands, creating sharp, dark structures. Twilight wondered what the locals thought of those…

The magic substance reacted to her scans, though Twilight did not know what the reaction meant. Interesting, but frustrating.

Almost the entire planet was desert, Twilight found. There was exactly one ocean and it took up maybe five percent of the surface area of the world. Everything else was dust. It was hard for her to sense signs of civilization with her awareness spread out so thin, but she couldn’t find any major cities.

But when she switched to scanning magic itself she found a few things of interest.

First, there were other spaces. A few specks here and there that shone with abnormal energy that was similar to the magic of the world, but wasn’t. It felt darker, thicker – a bit like syrup, really. Every time she focused on one of these points she was reminded that it wasn’t the magic she had tapped into, so she couldn’t get much information about it.

One thing she could look at was another magical beacon. Nothing compared to her own power, but far beyond anything else the world had to offer. It shone like a white diamond in the world. If Twilight had to guess, it was the real Enchantress.

Hello there, Enchantress. How are you doing?

Get out of my head!

Geez, just trying to start a conversation here.

She’s getting away because of you!

Twilight pulled back – something was happening around the Enchantress. She could feel reality rippling… Something transdimensional was occuring in the area.

“Applejack!” she boomed, speaking through magic rather than her vocal cords, startling the poor earth pony considerably. “Wake up Pinkie! We need to go!”

Applejack, despite being outright terrified of the booming voice coming from the sky, knew who it was and obeyed. She ran into the house, yelling for Pinkie.

Twilight focused on herself, Pinkie, and Applejack. She chose their destination…

It was time for an extreme long distance teleport.

~~~

Rainbow was a heavy sleeper and had slept through many moments of intense combat, not that she would tell anyone this.

Fluttershy was not a heavy sleeper – trained to always be on guard from possible monster attacks. This meant she would notice if the ground shook… not if a pony approached them.

Only Rarity had the awareness and paranoia to wake up. She saw them – a dark shadow in the mouth of the cave, lit only by faint starlight. An intruder; specifically, a thief who was pick-pocketing Rainbow.

Rarity saw the thief pull out the dimensional device, holding it high in a wing.

Not today… Rarity thought, focusing her magic. She could teleport the device away easily, beat the tar out of the thief with her magic, and chide Rainbow for falling asleep while it was her turn to watch! That pegasus was supposed to be an adventurer!

Hello there, Enchantress. How are you doing?

The voice of a being so much more than Rarity smashed into her mind at full force. It wasn’t painful, but it was startling – enough to force her horn to flare up brightly, alerting the thief to her presence.

Get out of my head! Rarity shouted back mentally.

Geez, just trying to start a conversation here.

The thief had already started fumbling with the dimensional device as Rarity lit her horn again. If Rarity didn’t get it back soon, the thief could figure out how to open a portal…

The thief figured it out far too quickly. A portal opened up to the massive expanse of bronze gears.

She’s getting away because of you! “EVERYONE UP!” Rarity shouted, trying to grab the dimensional device – but her magic faltered. At first she blamed the voice in her head, but she quickly realized that shouldn’t have any effect now that it was no longer talking.

Fluttershy and Rainbow were up in an instant, ready to fight – or in Fluttershy’s case, hold a weapon. They did not have time to take on the thief – she was already on the other side of the portal.

I have one chance at this. Rarity focused her magic into her horn, touching the essences of Fluttershy, Rainbow, and herself. She pointed her horn directly to the other side of the portal. She didn’t know how long she had before the gateway closed – she couldn’t waste any time, for they could lose the dimensional device at any moment.

She teleported them to the other side of the portal.

The second half of the teleport went wrong. The three of them shot out of the spell spinning end over end and at high velocity. Rarity felt like a metal spike had been driven through her head right behind her horn, the throbbing pain making her let out a scream.

The last thing she saw before she blacked out was a purple pony standing on the other side of the portal, looking bewildered.

She looked like a unicorn.

Rarity didn’t even have to have a tenth of her awareness to know she was not a unicorn.

She was something much, much more.

~~~

Applejack decided she hated teleporting before Twilight even started the spell.

Even then, her worst expectations had not come close to the disorienting nausea she felt as her body was, wasn’t, and then was again. She reeled so hard she expected she was going to puke; only her body was apparently unable to do so. Was that because it hadn’t fully formed yet or because of some failsafe mechanism? Applejack didn’t know.

All she knew was that she could suddenly feel the clank clank clank, of the Mesh once again, the beat in perfect timing with her hoof and her heart. She had kept perfect time during her entire escapade.

With a proud smile, she opened her eyes to see the beautiful bronze gears of her home, shifting with every clank like the blood vessels of a pony. It was beautiful…

And it was taken from her with a comically insulting pop.

“B-bring it back!” Applejack shouted, turning to Twilight. “You got us here, you c-“ she paused. Twilight didn’t look like she was all there. Her eyes were unfocused and her jaw was sideways, giving off a semblance of confusion. Her horn was still shining like a beacon, lighting up a small area of the sky.

Pinkie waved a hoof in front of her eyes. “Earth to Twilight, what just happened!?”

Twilight’s horn stopped shining. The unicorn fell backward, slumping to her side, breathing heavily. “I… may have made a miscalculation.”

“May have!?” Applejack shouted.

Twilight shook her head, standing up. “I contacted the Enchantress at what appears to have been the worst possible time.”

“Well duh, what were you expecting?” Pinkie asked.

“Her to be asleep?”

Pinkie blinked. “That’s… reasonable, but come on. Since when does anything go as expected?”

“I don’t have time to deal with your neurosis right now,” Twilight muttered.

“Can you get me to the Mesh or not?” Applejack demanded.

“I… I can try. I had some awareness of the portal.” Twilight closed her eyes and lit her horn again. “I’m low on power, but… I think I can do it. I just need to grab hold of the magic of the other side and…”

Applejack’s heart fell. “There’s… no ‘magic’ in the Mesh. I would know about it if there was.”

Twilight frowned. “…I’ve got three, maybe four distinct signatures that were here, and currently aren’t. I’m going to try to follow the strongest through.”

“You can do it, Twilight!” Pinkie cheered. “You are the ultimate wizard!”

“You have no idea how right you are.” Twilight focused. “Strongest isn’t going anywhere, possibly because it’s the Enchantress and she’s locked to this world. So-“

Space rippled in front of Twilight, starting as a white point in reality that quickly expanded to a shimmering ring.

The other side didn’t go to the Mesh. It went to a world of trees. Bright, green trees…

Applejack felt such a deep emotional conflict. It wasn’t home. But it was beautiful.

“I… I’m sorry,” Twilight said with genuine sorrow. “I don’t really know how this works. I might be able to follow my own magic back to my world. But all the others are too weak.”

Wordlessly, Applejack marched through the portal to the verdant land on the other side. It was currently the middle of the day here and everything was so full of life. She walked on top of pointed green things she wasn’t sure what to call, and the trees all looked so different from each other, not at all like she’d expected they would. Were they different kinds of trees? She had no way to know.

There were other living things, too. Small, buzzing creatures flitting left and right. Something with feathers flapping through the air.

By the time Twilight and Pinkie had followed her through, she had already started laughing. She pranced around the green to the beat of the Mesh she could no longer feel.

She no longer knew what to think, really. All she saw was green.

And then she ran into the ankle of a tremendous, scaled beast. Instinctually, she looked up into the thing’s toothy maw.

The eyes tore all joy from Applejack in an instant.

They were an evil, piercing red with wispy black flames coming off the edges. Those eyes wanted her dead.

The monster opened its mouth and roared.

Glimmer

The depressed doors in the spherical room would have slid open had all of them not been smashed to pieces by the invading cloudy soldiers. As it was, a pink unicorn trotted into the site of the battle with Twilight Sparkle without any of the usual accompanying door noises. She was mildly disappointed by this – she had quite enjoyed the reliable noise the rest of her journey here.

Unlike the gaseous soldiers that stood to attention the moment she arrived, she was not wearing Rune-infused armor. Instead, she wore a simple, form-fitting gray suit that went up to her neck. Her horn was constantly lit with a blue-green aura since she continually held a large two-pronged wooden staff in her telekinesis. This artifact did have a single Rune in it, right at the point where the two prongs met: a small symbol that glowed with a sky blue energy.

She trotted to the center of the sphere and examined the hourglass device in the center. It had broken into two halves, blasted out all its lights, and wasn’t able to decide if it wanted to release noxious smoke or spark uncontrollably.

“Huh.” She prodded the device with the back of her staff, prompting a bolt of energy to shoot out and knock one of the soldiers over. “For once, I believe you. This thing really is busted.”

“Agent Glimmer,” the commanding soldier said by vibrating his cloudy head – Glimmer had no idea what his name was, and unfortunately she didn’t really have time to ask right now. Shame, he probably had a lot of stories behind that shifting, cloudy face of his. “We have determined that both targets translated to another universe.”

“And we haven’t been able to trace them?”

“Negative. The distortion was too great for the computers to parse.”

“Hoooooo…” Glimmer let out the breath as long as she could manage. “Scarcity is going to throw a fit.”

“…A fit?”

“We’re the only ship here. Heavily damaged, low on resources and personnel, and our one ticket out of this sinkhole is now bro-ken!” She sang the last word as if she were part of some musical number. Nobody appreciated this.

“What are we to do?”

Glimmer shrugged. “I haven’t the foggiest. Scarcity will probably come up with some sort of hair-brained scheme to get us out of here. We’ll just do what she says and it’ll probably work out. Probably.”

“Glimmer, am I allowed to ask what’s really at stake here?”

“Ask? Sure! Ask away! I’m just not allowed to tell you, sorry.” She rubbed the back of her head. “I can tell you your people are dying for The Cause.”

“That comforts me little.”

“I know. Again, sorry. I think you deserve to know, and for the record, I don’t think you’d complain if you did. But Scarcity is Scarcity.” Something in Glimmer’s uniform started buzzing. “Speak of the Star…”

Glimmer levitated a small, rectangular screen out of her pocket and answered the call. “Glimmer here!”

On the other side of the call was a graceful white unicorn with brilliant blue eyes, a curled purple mane, and a large scar across half her face. “Your smile is too big. What’s wrong?”

“The device is utterly, completely, truly busted.” Glimmer poked the shattered hourglass again, prompting another bolt of lightning to shoot harmlessly into a wall. “If we had the resources we could probably reverse engineer it, but we don’t.”

Scarcity pressed her front hooves together and hissed. “And what of the Merodi Agent?”

“Both she and the local Twilight managed a highly uncontrolled translation we can’t retrace. The soldiers did an admirable job nonethele-“

“Demerits for the entire team that was in there at the time of the translation,” Scarcity said dismissively. “I’m coming down myself. I’ll see what I can make of this.”

“Scarcity, you may be the Enchantress, but you aren’t a supercomputer.”

“I have a tendency to get lucky.” Scarcity ended the call.

Glimmer smacked her lips. “Welp. That went about as well as expected, didn’t it?”

There was a chorus of annoyed agreements and nods from the soldiers.

New Worlds

Fluttershy’s wings felt like they were on fire – all she was trying to do was fly, why was it so difficult? Painful?

Clank, clank, clank.

She pushed the aggravating tone of the gears out of her mind, trying to focus on her wings. She needed to… flap… harder…

Why did her armor feel like it was getting heavier? That didn’t make any sense!

“FLUTTERSHY!” Rainbow shouted. “GET RARITY AS FAST AS YOU CAN!”

Fluttershy sensed the desperate urgency in Rainbow’s voice and acted. She allowed her wings to go limp, canceling her upward motion. She pulled out her grappling hook and launched it at the falling, unconscious form of Rarity. The hook flew true, leaving a streak of blue, sputtering magic as it flew. Had it been working properly, it would have snugly wrapped around Rarity and brought her back. As it was, the hook moved in alarming, erratic motions that violently tied a rope around Rarity’s stomach, prompting a gag reflex.

But Rarity was no longer in danger of breaking every bone in her body when she landed on the dirt below.

Now Fluttershy had to worry about herself. Her armor felt like an anvil tied to her body, and her wings felt dead. She flooded all the magic she could into her limbs, but all she got were sparks that barely altered her momentum at all. She was falling toward a large metal gear’s flat side, so all she had to worry about was keeping her bones from breaking.

Roll. Conserve your momentum. She twisted her body into a gentle spin so her back hooves would land first. With a careful, calculated motion, she angled herself forward. When her hooves slammed into the bronze gear, she rolled instead of pulverizing her bones. The impact was still painful, but she avoided a fractured bone through her efforts.

She held tight to the grappling hook, the tool pressed tightly to her chest. It was still reeling Rarity in, and within a few seconds had dragged her limp form over the edge of the gear.

Fluttershy ran to her. Her armor may have suddenly been exceptionally heavy, but that was only a problem if she was trying to fly. Here, on the ground, she had more than enough strength in her legs to move with it. Her first instinct was to check Rarity’s vitals with a magic spell, but her wings weren’t cooperating. She opted to check Rarity’s pulse, finding a strong, albeit aggravated, beat in her neck.

Rarity was safe. Fluttershy looked around for Rainbow Dash, seeing the pegasus trying to make her way to them by jumping across various gears. She was fine.

She wasn’t using her wings…

Fluttershy examined her wings. Something was wrong - they had no magic flowing through them, and she doubted she could fly even if she removed her armor. They simply weren’t providing lift anymore. And her enchanted grappling hook hadn’t quite worked properly…

She moved to pick the tool up.

It wouldn’t stick to her hoof.

“What…?”

“I couldn’t find the thief,” Rainbow said, walking up to her.

“I can’t pick up this grappling hook,” Fluttershy said, tapping the tool a few more times in disbelief. “What in the name of Saturn…?”

“Wow. We’re in a true mundane universe.” Rainbow sighed. “That means no magic. Including traction hooves.”

“…We use magic to hold things?”

“Yeah. What, you didn’t think being able to grab things with a flat, bony thing on the end of your leg was natural did you?”

“But… Everypony does it! It’s just…” Fluttershy took a breath and let it out. “So… there’s no magic here.”

“That’s right,” Rainbow said. “We used all the magic we brought with us trying to survive that teleport. …Which probably went wrong because there wasn’t enough magic on the other side, but I’m no wizard.”

“That’s probably a good bet,” Fluttershy said, turning back to Rarity. Her horn was exposed and the coverings on her face had fallen off in the action, revealing a painful grimace. “She needs magic…”

“Unicorns can survive without it.”

“She’s in so much pain…”

“It’ll pass, from what I’ve seen.”

Fluttershy sighed, feeling inadequate without her healing magic. Rarity would just have to suffer. “So… where are we?”

“I have no idea.”

Fluttershy looked around, taking in the immense expanse of gears. Virtually every surface was a giant gear or was related to the motion of the gears in some way. Smaller cogs turned constantly, providing an eternal background whirr to the world. The larger ones moved only with the clank clank clank that resonated with more intensity above them, a bit like the ticking of a clock. Everything was either bronze, a bright white light, or brown dirt on the ground far, far below. At least there’s a bottom to this thing, even if there might not be a top…

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Fluttershy asked.

“Not exactly,” Rainbow admitted. “There are worlds that are ‘endless’ repeating patterns of buildings, trees, scenery, the like. I’ve never seen one made entirely of gears.”

“Could we be inside a larger structure?”

“Maybe? We’d have to move around to find out. And without magic, we aren’t exactly… nimble.”

Fluttershy’s hooves may have been useless – but her wings weren’t. She folded one of them around the grappling hook to pick it up. “This works as a normal grappling hook without magic. It can take us where we need to go. The rest of my weapons – aside from the guns – should work as well.”

Rainbow nodded. “The dimensional device and my pulse cannon should still work. They’re designed to be all-purpose.”

“Pulse cannon?”

Rainbow lifted up her hoof, gesturing at the rectangular device strapped to it. “It’s a stunning weapon. Works almost anywhere.”

Fluttershy nodded. “So… which way?”

“The thief went up,” Rainbow said. “…I’m not sure we can move up with Rarity like this. And if the thief’s smart at all, she’d change directions the moment she was out of my sight.”

“So we have no idea where she is.”

“Yeah. I doubt she’ll be able to use the dimensional device though. It’s currently set to this universe, and she wouldn’t know how to set it elsewhere. She’s stuck here, just like us.”

“What if she’s from here?” Fluttershy asked.

“…I doubt it. Pegasus wings don’t work here.”

“Hmm…” In the silence, the clank clank clank resonated within their minds.

“That is going to drive me crazy,” Rainbow hissed.

“Let’s head to the ground. Less moving gears, and it might be quieter.”

They carefully tied Rarity up in the grappling hook’s rope. It took significantly longer to do that with just their mouths and their wings, but they managed. Slowly, cautiously, they descended to the dirt below, accompanied only by the endless clank clank clank of the gears.

~~~

Pinkie screamed as the reptilian monster dove to eat Applejack. Applejack, on the other hoof, had enough awareness about her to duck to the side and equip a metal spike from her toolkit. The monster had not been expecting a metallic spike to its jaw, so it took the full brunt of the attack with a massive screech.

That attack would have killed or seriously injured a pony. To this monster, the spike was comparable to getting stabbed with a tack. Beyond painful, but not exactly damaging.

Pinkie took a few steps back. She needed to run, she wasn’t a fighter. She was just a silly mare who liked books! This was too much.

But Applejack… Applejack was in danger. Even though Pinkie barely knew her, she knew it would be wrong to leave her behind. They were a team. They needed to stick together.

Pinkie took a breath to calm herself – failing to do so, but she did manage to keep herself from running while screaming at the top of her lungs. She stood in place, shivering.

All she could think to do was glare and shout at the creature. “Back off you big meanie!”

The monster ignored her, opening its mouth in an attempt to devour Applejack again.

“Tsk, should have listened to the pink one.” Twilight cast a massive laser spell that erupted from her horn with enough force to shake the ground. The monster’s head took the brunt of the attack, barely having a moment to screech before reducing to dust. The now headless reptile wobbled for a bit before falling down, dead.

Pinkie suddenly felt very, very useless.

Twilight blew the smoke off her horn. “This adventure has been a great workout for my magic.”

“That was just a workout!?”

Pinkie hadn’t said that, and neither had Applejack. Rather, it had come from a red unicorn stallion in black armor sitting in a nearby tree. His jaw was square and he had a truly absurd number of swords strapped to his back.

“Yep!” Twilight said, standing proud. “Got anything bigger for me?”

“Uh… yeah.” The stallion jumped down from the tree, joined by another red unicorn in similar black armor, though this one was a mare equipped with what Pinkie identified as guns, but glowing with what was probably ‘magic’. “We totally could have handled that on our own, though.”

“My companions were in need of assistance.”

“Why did you take them out with you, then, fellow hunter?”

“We’re lost,” Pinkie said.

“She’s also not a hunter,” the armored mare said, taking a few steps forward, letting everypony see her skeptical face clearly. “You have far too much magic within you. What are you?”

“I am Twilight Sparkle.”

“And I am Red Riot, and this is my brother Red Rage. We are hunters. What are you?”

“A really, really good wizard.”

Red Riot furrowed her brow.

“I don’t think she’s buying it,” Pinkie whispered.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Right, you want to know what I am… Eh, I’ve been hiding like this for long enough, might as well put on a show. Prepare your eyeballs!”

With a flash of light from her horn, Twilight floated into the air. Her body stretched until she was thin, graceful, and twice the height of any sane pony. With a shimmering burst of sparks, two immense feathered wings popped out of her back, shining like the stars themselves. Her mane and tail extended considerably, becoming ribbons of nebula mixed with swirling ethereal galaxies. Four silver shoes appeared on her hooves, and a sparkling crown materialized on her head just above her absurdly sharp horn.

Pinkie’s jaw dropped. Alicorns aren’t real, her brain told her. She mentally beat that part of her brain up for being so dumb at a moment like this.

“I am Empress Twilight Sparkle of Unity,” Twilight said, her voice the same as it had been before. “I am the immortal of ponykind and a force for peace in my galaxy.”

Rage, Riot, Applejack, and Pinkie only stared at her.

“And this is why it’s usually better to be a unicorn. Gawking takes up so much time.”

Riot recovered first, shaking her head. “Right. Sounds like you have quite the story to tell. I’ll want to hear it on our way back to Musk – staying here just isn’t safe.”

“Talk about myself for the duration of a road trip?” Twilight smirked. “Psh, who would do that?”

“You,” Applejack deadpanned.

“Yeah. Me,” Twilight chuckled. “Lead the way, and I shall tell you the history of the galaxy and Unity…”

“I… I never asked you what your story was!” Pinkie realized. “I told you everything about my life but never… How could I be so oblivious?”

“To be fair, I was trying to avoid talking about myself,” Twilight admitted. “Ponies tend not to respond amiably to the overbearing space queen.”

Pinkie looked at the purple alicorn before her. She was so tall, so imposing, so… majestic. “You… you’re so… you don’t even need us, do you?”

“Not really, no!” Twilight said with a smile. “But it’s nice to have company, and you two are related to this whole world-bending business somehow, so why wouldn’t I keep you around?”

“Ahem!” Riot called. “Maybe we should get moving?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “If you insist. I could blow anything in this forest to oblivion, but if it’ll make you feel better…” She flapped her wings, jumping after the Red siblings with a soft glide.

“…Why are we even here?” Pinkie asked, aloud.

“To listen to Twilight,” Applejack said, passing Pinkie with her eerily mechanical walk.

“But… we’re supposed to be a team! Work together! Like… I don’t know, like a proper adventure!”

Applejack shot her a confused look.

“…Never mind…” Dejected, Pinkie followed after them.

~~~

Rarity woke up with a headache. It no longer felt like her horn had folded backward and rammed itself through her brain, but it was still painful enough to make her groan.

“Oh, you’re awake!” Rainbow carefully removed Rarity from her back, setting her on the dirt below.

Fluttershy trotted over, concern evident on her face. “How are you doing?”

Clank clank clank.

“Can somepony shut off that infernal ticking?” Rarity whined, slowly bringing herself to a standing position.

“Sorry, no can do.” Rainbow pointed at the gears all around them. “We’re in the ticking.”

“…Joy…” Rarity muttered. “What happened while I was out?”

“We lost the thief and discovered that this universe has no magic in it at all. That’s why you have a headache. Hooves don’t work, and neither do Fluttershy’s enchantments or our wings.”

Rarity checked herself over. The cloth she usually had over her head was long gone, though she retained her goggles. She tried to remove them with her telekinesis at first but quickly discovered that wouldn’t work. Right. No magic… She had to carefully press her hooves to the side of her face and peel off the goggles. It was exceptionally difficult to hold the accessory on her flat, hard hooves. So this is what she meant by “hooves don’t work”. She was able to slide the goggles into the rags surrounding her midsection.

For the first time in a long while, Rarity’s face was completely uncovered and her mane wasn’t styled to hide her horn. She wished she had the magic to deal with that…

“Wow,” Fluttershy said. “You actually… look nice.”

Rarity allowed herself the smallest of smiles. “Thanks. I was told I was a mare of considerable grace when I was young. Haven’t had the opportunity to think about it in a while.”

Rainbow spoke up. “You also look like you need a nap, even though you just had one.”

“Some mares are just tired…” Rarity answered halfheartedly, focusing most of her awareness on the world around them. They were currently on the ground, surrounded by the soft dirt upon which the entire mess of gears rested. She appreciated the feel of healthy, moist soil beneath her hooves. It was a great change from the desert sands, and she would not doubt be immensely thankful for it if shedidn’t have a gaping hole in her soul where magic should have been. “Why?”

“Why what?” Fluttershy asked.

“Why all these… gears?” She pressed a hoof to a nearby brass beam that held up a gear far above them. “What do they do?”

“I dunno,” Rainbow admitted. “Keep the world running without magic? Nothing?”

“Maybe it really is a clock,” Fluttershy suggested.

Rarity furrowed her brow. “Do we have any way to find the thief?”

Both pegasi shook their heads.

“So we may need to find a way to survive. Without magic, we will need access to water and food.”

“I found water already,” Rainbow said. “A few of these pipes have it running through them. No food yet.”

Rarity stamped the soil beneath her. “Nothing growing at all?”

Rainbow grunted. “Rarity, we’ve been wandering for hours, if there was something growing here we would have found it.”

“Right…” Rarity continued to look around, taking in the surroundings, looking for anything useful.

And then she saw it.

An earth pony in metallic boots and goggles holding a wrench in an elastic strap. He saw her at the same time she saw him.

He took off in a run.

“There’s a pony!” Rarity shouted, pushing through her fatigue, entering a gallop. Fluttershy and Rainbow didn’t need any further prompting: they jumped into action, though Fluttershy was significantly slowed by her armor. To Rarity’s annoyance, Rainbow was galloping faster than she was, overtaking her with ease.

Rarity forced herself to swallow her pride and not push herself beyond what was reasonable. Let Rainbow have her little victory, being the fastest pony wasn’t really worth bragging about to begin with.

“Fastest pony alive!” Rainbow shouted with glee, running even faster.

I swear I am going to punch that mare in the face before the day is out.

The three of them snaked through a maze of brass poles, gears, and railings, kicking up significant amounts of dust in the process, though nowhere near as much as one would in the desert they had left not too long ago.

Suddenly, Rainbow stopped in her tracks, wings flaring. Rarity made sure to skid to a stop right next to her. “What is it?”

Rainbow pointed at a tree. Not just any tree, an apple tree brimming with red fruit. Arranged around it in a circle were several smaller trees that weren’t old enough to bear fruit and a few dozen earth ponies all wearing mechanic getups similar to the one she’d seen on the fleeing stallion. There wasn’t a pegasus or unicorn among them, but unlike so many earth pony towns Rarity had seen in her life everypony here looked… happy. It was uncanny: many of them moved in precise, creepy time, matching the clank clank clank perfectly while others moved to their own beat. All enjoyed the green of the apple tree and the fruit it offered.

Fluttershy arrived, collapsing in a heap, nearly hyperventilating. “I’m… here… what did I… miss?” She saw the tree. “Oh. A tree. That’s nice…”

“You know what a tree is?”

Rarity, Rainbow, and Fluttershy looked to their left at a small mare with a big smile. To nopony’s surprise, she was wearing a similar getup to all the other ponies.

“Uh, yeah, who doesn’t?” Rainbow asked.

“Me, a few kilocycles ago,” the mare said. “I also don’t know what those things sprouting out of your back are, or all the stuff the yellow one is wearing… you’re new. And that’s exciting!” Her smile widened even further. “Hi! I’m Dust! I’m the manager for this sector of the Mesh!” She shook Rarity’s hoof without even waiting for her to offer it and laughed. “I have no idea what any of this means but I’m ready to find out!”

The Holes we Leave

“Other… worlds,” Dust said, expression blank.

“I’m afraid so,” Rarity responded as they approached the tree as a group. “None of us grew up in this… Mesh of yours. Before yesterday, none of us had even seen it.” She looked up at the ever-rotating gears, trying not to flinch every time she heard a clank from above.

“I… wow.” Dust put a hoof to her head, rubbing her temple. “I… guess there’s something beyond the darkness, then…”

“Darkness?” Rainbow asked.

“Oh! Yeah, most ponies don’t know this, but the Mesh has a top. Go high enough and it’s just… nothing. I guess it’s not nothing forever! That’s great news!”

“Well it couldn’t be, infinity doesn’t exist…”

“What?”

Rainbow shook her head. “Never mind. But yeah, there are other places besides the Mesh, we’re all from different ones. Unfortunately, we’re stuck here.”

Dust gasped. “That’s horrible! Your fellow mechanics must be worried sick! What can I do to help?”

Rarity decided not to correct Dust’s use of “mechanics”. “There was a thief. She stole the object that allows us to travel between different worlds. She has wings, like Fluttershy and Rainbow, and wore a black suit that covered all her features. I’m afraid I don’t have more description than that, but the wings should be enough, I believe.”

Dust nodded. “More than enough! I’ll send word to the higher managers; we’ll find this thief!” A frown crossed her face. “What pony would steal something so important from other ponies?”

“You don’t have thieves here?” Fluttershy asked.

“It’s… rare for an item to be stolen, though not unheard of.”

Rarity furrowed her brow, deep in thought. A world where there was no magic… but also little to no theft? Sure, the lives of the ponies here were clearly harsh and limited, but apparently they weren’t hopeless.

Could Rarity’s Crystal Sea survive without magic? Possibly… When this other worlds thing inevitably crashed and burned, she’d have to keep that in mind. Maybe she’d been going about it all wrong. The solution may have been to accept what was coming and make the most of it.

The ponies here were doing that just fine. They all knew exactly what they meant to the Mesh. They fixed it with everything they had, so much so that their movements often matched the clank clank clank of the Mesh itself. Rarity was admittedly a little jealous of how well in-tune they were with their world. They could move with it, eat with it, and work with it… She had no doubt they only stopped because their bodies needed rest. Even the children were one with the world. It was beautiful how everyone worked together, and Rarity would have smiled had the clank not been driving her mad.

“Anyway, uh, you three don’t have the right tools to help us with the shift…” Dust seemed to be thinking about what to do with them. “So you can just stay here, around Applejack’s apple orchard!” She gestured with pride and glee at the fruit-bearing tree and the saplings around it. “Be careful, it’s the only one of its kind, and with Applejack missing… we’re not exactly sure how to care for it.”

“Applejack?” Rainbow asked, her ears perking up. “…There’s a chance she got tossed to Rarity’s world.”

“You… know where she is?”

“Maybe. I haven’t seen her, but it would follow the pattern. If we could get our device back, we could take you to the desert and you could help search for her!”

“I’ll do what I can!” Dust promised.

Rarity had trotted up to the main tree and laid a hoof on it. “This is not meant to survive in a world without a sun or seasons…”

“…I don’t know what those words mean,” Dust said, blinking in confusion.

“Trees – all plants, really – depend on the rhythms of nature, not the rhythms of artificial technology. The lights above are invariable, the temperature constant.” Rarity furrowed her brow. “You are immensely lucky it fruited at all, many trees are not capable of self-pollination.”

Dust stared at her in shock. “You… know a lot more than we do.”

Rarity nodded slowly. “I tended many gardens in my time, trying to regrow the life lost to the sand. I learned much of tree care.” She sighed. “If I had my magic, this tree would flourish…”

Fluttershy put a hoof on her. “When we get the device back, we can use the magic from the other side.”

Rarity nodded. “That… could work.” What am I thinking? Restoring magic to more than one world? This one doesn’t even need it! “I will make the attempt should the opportunity present itself.” Why do I do this to myself?

“Anyway, I have to go speak to the other managers,” Dust said, wiping some dirt off her boots. “You guys can stay around the tree, eat one of the apples if you want. The stairs to the food tubes are over there, though you’ll have to wait for dinner for those to give you anything. I’ll be back as soon as I can – don’t wander off!” She winked at them and bounced up the stairs cobbled together from random bits of scrap metal and haphazardly machined bolts. Despite its rickety appearance, it didn’t so much as shake with her bouncing.

As she bounced off, all the other mechanic ponies stood up – half of them at the exact same instant – and trotted off to different parts of the mesh, tools in their elastic boots.

It was time for another cycle of work.

The three of them were alone with the tree.

“I don’t like it,” Rainbow grunted.

“Don’t like what?” Rarity asked.

“The… slavery,” Fluttershy said. “Can’t you see it? They live only to work. Even the children have tools strapped to them.”

“I see it,” Rarity admitted. “And I also see their smiles and satisfaction. I know what slavery looks like, Fluttershy, this isn’t it.”

“It may be better than the Crystal Sea, but it’s still wrong. Ponies need to have freedom. Choice.”

“You really believe that?” Rarity asked. Fluttershy nodded in confirmation even though the question was rhetorical.

Rainbow huffed. “Why is this even a conversation? It’s pretty clear they’re a literal manifestation of the ‘cogs in the machine’ idea. They move like they’re gears in this Mesh, there’s no individuality here. We need to fix it.”

“Fix it?” Rarity raised an eyebrow. “What if they don’t want it fixed?”

“Then we’ll save them from themselves.”

Rarity lifted her head as high as it could go. “And who are you to judge them?”

“Captain Rainbow Dash, Merodi Universalis.” She tried to stand tall, but she was significantly shorter than Rarity. “I have authority given to me by my superiors to interfere in other societies through the ‘case by case basis’ clause, allowing me to act in situations for what I believe is the betterment of life, justice, and harmony.”

“That’s a highly unusual regulation.”

“It was that or complete non-interference, and if you’ve seen enough people die by natural disaster or pointless war, you realize that’s pointlessly stupid.”

“The ‘case by case’ seems too loose, to me, to hold any real legal merit. What stops you from going too far?”

“A bunch of stuff that’s too political for me to care about. Why don’t you go ask yourself? You made that law, after all.”

Rarity didn’t have a response to this.

“Renee ‘Rarity’ Jackson is Overhead of Expeditions, the Division tasked with exploring the multiverse. Yep, she’s you, but she’s also not you. She cares a lot more about the plights of ponies when she sees them!”

“I think we’re getting off track here,” Fluttershy said, inserting herself between the two of them. “We can argue about what to do with the Mesh later, right now we can’t do anything without that device. So… truce?”

Rarity let out a disgusted huff and turned to the apple tree. “Fluttershy, do you have a small knife I can use?”

Fluttershy pointed to a small blade strapped to her side. “Yes. …Why?”

“This tree needs some proper pruning.” She took the blade in her mouth and started hacking at some of the smaller branches. This tree needed care, and it was an activity vastly preferable to glaring at Rainbow until the managers came back. She couldn’t stand that mare. Who did she think she was, talking like that?

~~~

“…and then I revealed my ploy and that was that. She never stood a chance, though she put up an admirable show of words if I’m remembering correctly.” Twilight laughed. “After that, I founded Unity as its Empress, though it took a while for that to catch on for obvious reasons…”

Applejack was barely listening to what Twilight was yammering about. After the first few minutes of her using words like “galaxy” “spaceship” “AI” and “thaumic vortex” Applejack had decided her brainpower was better spent getting acquainted with the world she found herself in. This did nothing to stop Twilight from going on and on. At least Pinkie seemed to be understanding what the “alicorn” was saying, so Applejack figured she’d just ask her for a dumbed-down version later.

“I’m still the Empress today, over ten thousand years later, can you believe it? No, of course you can’t, I bet you don’t know of anypony that’s come close to living that long, since alicorns don’t exist here. Shame, really, you don’t know what you’re missing…”

Grass was very interesting, Applejack decided. You could walk on it, and it wouldn’t be harmed. To be walked upon appeared to be its only purpose, as far as Applejack could tell, since she hadn’t seen anything try to eat it since she’d gotten here. But she had seen lots of things buzzing around fruit in the trees and then feathered things jumping out of the sky and eating the buzzers… A chain of nutrients rising from the fruit and moving up; an elegant mechanism. Far too complex for her to fully understand quite yet, but she had plenty of time.

“To be completely honest, the title of Empress is just for show nowadays. Unity basically runs itself, and if it didn’t I’d have probably removed the title from myself forcefully because politics just gets boring after a thousand years, you know? I tried a lot of different things after that, lived several lives, because immortal…”

Seeing trees where they belonged was an immense help to Applejack. Already she could see that the lighting over her tree back home should be set to vary slightly. From looking at the few sick or damaged trees she came across, she was able to deduce that damaged limbs should be amputated rather than left on the tree, for they would drain resources. Also, she should probably get some of the buzzers, somehow. They did something with the “flowers”.

“Most recently I’ve taken up a bit of mad science. Everything in the universe had been getting same-y and predictable to me, so when I heard of some high-end research that theorized a way to enter other universes, I took over the project. Naturally, it worked, since I’m here, but there was a bit of an accident involving a headstrong pegasus…”

Applejack looked up at the sky. When she had first arrived in the desert, the sky had been terrifying. It reminded her of the endless blackness that hung over the Mesh. The complete nothing that insisted the Mesh and all its mechanics were completely alone, doomed to toil just to add a few more cycles to their lives. Now… now she saw what a sky was supposed to be. Bright blue with a rising light of life; dangerous as a furnace, but providing all that was needed. Or a darkness lit up with specks of the unknown. She should find a way to bring this all back to the Mesh, to wind it up once more. Surely, it could be done?

“We’re here!” Red Riot announced, holding out a hoof as they passed through the edge of the forest. “Welcome to Musk!”

Musk was a paradoxical mixture of wrecked buildings that were little more than rubble and grandiose fortifications guarded by armored ponies equipped with far too many weapons. At first, these ponies had aimed their various bows and “guns” at the ponies coming out of the forest but they had lowered them the moment the Reds stepped into the light.

Though they didn’t look away. Twilight was impressive enough to draw their attention.

As the group approached, it was clear the town had suffered much. There were many scorch marks on the ground and most of the destroyed buildings had clearly been leveled by invading monsters. Applejack could make out the carcass of a creature made of what appeared to be solid obsidian lying in the center of town, a few ponies taking glowing pickaxes to it, no doubt finding some practical use for its hard skin.

The first building they passed when they entered Musk was a large structure forged of metal. It was lined with weapons on all sides ranging from swords to bows to hammers to more of those “guns”. The entire structure was glowing a soft, pale green, an effect Applejack couldn’t make sense of.

“She’s still gone…” Riot told her brother.

“So unlike her…” Rage responded.

“Who?” Pinkie asked.

“Fluttershy, the blacksmith,” Riot explained. “She makes all the weapons and is known worldwide for her craftsmanship. She went missing yesterday and hasn’t returned.”

Pinkie opened her mouth to say something – but she was quickly interrupted by a loud, booming voice.

“HARKEN! What goddess graces our presence!?”

Applejack glanced to the source of the voice – a unicorn dressed in large, flowing robes and a ridiculous orange hat that looked like a coiled spring.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I am not one of your ‘goddesses’ and if you value your dignity you will not address me as such again.”

The robed unicorn stopped short. He hadn’t expected this outcome.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle, Empress of Unity.” Twilight extended a hoof. “And you?”

“Temple Brick, Priest of Jupiter,” he said, bowing. “I am afraid I know of no district named Unity…”

“You wouldn’t have,” Twilight admitted with a chuckle. “But I appreciate the proper gestures.”

Applejack still had no idea what the significance of bowing was.

“So…” Pinkie leaned in. Given Brick’s surprised reaction, he had not noticed her presence prior to this. “Why don’t you tell us about this legendary blacksmith of yours?”

Twilight’s smile faltered, but before she could give a passive-aggressive chiding remark to Pinkie, Brick lit up.

“Oh, Fluttershy! Ah, our greatest citizen…”

~~~

Fluttershy was getting a little worried about her two friends. …was “friends” too strong of a word? She didn’t think so – she may have only known them for about a day, but she already felt connected to them, like her life had needed the two of them in it since the day she was born, only she hadn’t realized it until now.

It was unfortunately clear the two of them did not have similar feelings toward each other. Rarity’s opinion of Rainbow had started off bad and only gotten worse, while the pegasus had attempted to smooth things over until they had arrived at the apple tree.

Now they weren’t speaking to each other. Rainbow wasn’t speaking at all, which was alarming for a mare of her personality. Fluttershy was more than a little surprised she hadn’t taken off to hunt for the thief just to get out of Rarity’s presence. What she did do was make sure everypony knew her dissatisfaction with their current situation by wearing a permanent scowl and grunting every few minutes.

Rarity, on the other hoof, was largely impassive. Even without the coverings on her face, she did a good job hiding her emotions behind an even, calculated expression. All Fluttershy could tell from looking at her was that she was thinking. Hard. About what was anypony’s guess.

With a deep breath, Fluttershy walked up to Rarity’s seat at one of the tables.

“If you’re here to try and smooth things over between me and Rainbow, you shouldn’t waste your time.”

Fluttershy deflated. “She’s just upset about the w-“

“Disagreeing on the specifics of society is nothing to harbor resentment over,” Rarity interrupted. “It’s her attitude I take issue with. I don’t believe I need to explain why.”

“She’s an explorer, Rarity. Being a little bombastic is to be expected.”

“The average pony not knowing how to think is expected, doesn’t make it acceptable.”

“She’s seen a lot more than we have.”

“I doubt she’s seen pain like we have,” Rarity grunted.

“You wanna talk about pain!?” Rainbow shouted, jumping out from behind the tree.

Fluttershy tensed. “Oh, no, plea-“

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I would!” Rarity declared. “Have you watched your entire world fall?”

“Multiple times,” Rainbow growled. “My world is one of the most common variants out there! I’ve visited at least half a dozen that were completely destroyed! Not reduced to a desert, Rarity, just gone. There are eldritch deities out there that devour entire universes for breakfast because they’re insulted by our use of magic! I’ve sent my subordinates, my friends, to their deaths at the claws of those beasts! So get your prideful head out of the clouds and get down here! Your tragedy is limited to one. World. And you actually have a chance to fix it! That chance is a gift.”

Rainbow pushed a hoof into Rarity’s chest. “I’ve seen so many worlds that don’t get a chance I’ve lost count.”

Rarity’s face remained impassive, level. Slowly, she removed Rainbow’s hoof from her. “I see.”

“Fina-“

“You’ve let yourself grow desensitized.”

Rainbow pulled a hoof back to punch Rarity across the face – but she froze before following through. With a sigh, she let her hoof drop and her ears fold back. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I have.”

Rarity’s expression shifted to surprise, matching Fluttershy’s own. Neither of them had expected Rainbow to admit to any sort of failing.

Rainbow sat on the ground, gaze fixed on the dirt below. “You see so much death and insanity out there you just learn to… dismiss it. It’s a problem almost all of us in the business have. We start with bright eyes and bushy tails claiming we’ll never hurt anyone and we’ll always defend those who need it. But then you kill someone in self-defense… then you kill to stop a world from falling apart… you forcefully stop a war by killing the leaders of both sides…” She looked up, expression pained. “And then you realize one day you just killed somebody and didn’t feel anything.”

Fluttershy put a hoof to her mouth.

“It’s terrible,” Rainbow said, tearing her gaze from the ground and looking up to the lights dangling over the apple tree. “The multiverse is a wonderful place filled with beauty and amazing friends, but to find them you have to go through all the terrible things. Death, oppression, tragedy…” She lowered her gaze to meet Rarity’s own. “It’s everywhere. And if you cry for everyone, you’ll break. So you just… don’t.”

Silence fell over the three otherworldly ponies.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

Rarity opened her mouth. “I-“

“There they are!” Dust called from the top of the stairs, scrambling down to meet them. “See? I told you! Wings!”

Fluttershy almost chided Dust for her poor timing, but it really wasn’t her fault. She looked behind Dust, catching sight of a thin stallion with a white coat stepping in perfect time to the Mesh. Even his blinks were in time – every third clank.

“You were not exaggerating,” he deadpanned, his very syllables following the Mesh’s beat in an eerie, almost musical tone. “Ponies from beyond the Mesh, I am Calcium Echelon. Who is the manager of your group?”

“I am,” Rarity and Rainbow said at the same time.

Fluttershy facehooved, letting out an exasperated whine.

Meetings

Calcium Echelon looked from Rarity to Rainbow, the slightest hint of annoyance on his face. “Managers of equal rank always make things complicated…”

Rarity sighed. “I am Rari-“

“I know who you are, Dust already told me. What I need you to do is to answer a few questions. We must determine your role in the Mesh.”

Rarity expected Rainbow to blow a gasket and shout something along the lines of ‘we don’t have a role in the Mesh!’ followed by a suitably childish insult. However, Rainbow managed to carry herself with significantly more dignity. “Mr. Echelon, we are from outside the Mesh and we plan to return from where we came. Our purpose, while here, should be to assist in any way we can to catch the thief who has our device.”

“How does that further the upkeep of the Mesh?”

“Well, we get rid of a thief?” Rainbow said. “And… ah, right, we can get you more resources and ponies. No offense, but you seem to be running a tight ship here.”

“…Ship?”

“It’s an expression. A… machine used to transport things!”

Echelon nodded, taking the information as it came.

“And yeah, we can get you things like that, but we need to return home first.”

“What else can you give us?”

Rainbow paused. “Well, let’s see, workers, friends, technology, food, more trees, better living conditions, magic…”

“Magic?”

Rainbow nodded. “In other worlds, there’s this… I guess you could call it a force that’s everywhere. It’s not in the Mesh, but if it were, Fluttershy and I would be able to fly and Rarity here would be able to do all sorts of stuff! Lasers, lift stuff with her mind, barriers… It’s pretty awesome.”

It was at this point Rarity realized she was letting Rainbow do the talking. She chided herself for not getting a single word in edgewise, but also realized that Rainbow was handling it… surprisingly well. Obnoxious behavior was not an integral part of her method of communication, surprisingly. She was answering Echelon’s questions and treating him with respect while putting a positive spin on her own words. Rarity was impressed.

Admittedly, on second thought this shouldn’t be all that surprising. Rainbow was an explorer of many distant worlds, she probably talked to a lot of ponies in charge in one way or another and would naturally gain an understanding of how such conversations went. Stars knew why she didn’t talk to Rarity that way...

“Explain to me how you access these other worlds,” Echelon said.

“Okay… but I’m not a scientist.”

“Scientist?”

“…Mechanic. Not a mechanic. I don’t know how the machine works, I’m not the one who built it, the mechanics back home build it, then they give it to me.”

“Why would you not know about your own device?”

“My job is to explore and undertake dangerous missions, not build devices. Sorry. These two don’t know either, they had no clue other worlds were a thing until yesterday.”

“…Yesterday?”

“I think she means last cycle,” Dust interceded.

Echelon nodded. “Can you tell me what these other worlds are like?”

“Well, there aren’t gears in them for one…” Rainbow furrowed her brow. “I’ll tell you about my home. We live in a world with grass – small, green things that stick up out of the ground – and three kinds of ponies. Yours are called earth ponies, I’m a pegasus, and those like Rarity are unicorns. There are other races, too, things that aren’t ponies – dragons, griffons, kirin, yaks, changelings… all amazing creatures, each of them with their own little kingdoms! Everyone used to be separate and angry at each other, but we’re all united now under Merodi Universalis – the collection of different worlds I represent. There’s a lot of magic in my home, and there is an open, blue sky with a large ball of fire called the sun that gives the world light and heat! And… yeah, sorry, most of this doesn’t mean much to you, does it?”

“Some of it does,” Echelon said. “I find the sun… particularly interesting.”

“Most worlds have them.” She pointed to Fluttershy and Rarity. “Both of theirs has one as well.”

“…Maybe we’re missing our sun?” Dust asked Echelon. “We might need to repair it.”

“We should not jump to conclusions, Dust.”

“Aww…”

Echelon turned back to Rainbow. “Thank you for your time. I believe I have enough information to bring to the other managers. We will make a decision before the cycle is out. One thing I can tell you for certain is that efforts to catch the thief are already underway. We cannot have an unknown running around the Mesh.”

“…So what do we do until then?” Rarity asked.

“Wait here,” Echelon said, trotting up the stairs without another word.

“Sorry, he’s all business!” Dust laughed nervously. “I’ll be back as quickly as I can, okay? We’ll get this sorted out!” She pranced after him.

The three otherworlders were alone again.

“Rainbow! That was… great!” Fluttershy beamed.

Rarity nodded slowly. “I am forced to admit… you handled yourself well.”

Rainbow scratched the back of her head. “Probably wouldn’t have if you hadn’t knocked me off my high horse.”

“I… what?”

“Expression. You put me in my place? Took me down a peg?”

“Ah.” Rarity smiled coyly. “Glad I could be of assistance.”

Rainbow nodded. “Seriously, thanks. When… when I’m not around my friends, there’s nobody to keep me in check. I owe you for not putting up with my nonsense.” She extended a hoof. “Friends?”

Rarity looked at the hoof for a moment. She still wasn’t sure she liked Rainbow all that much. Even if the pegasus was able to push her arrogance aside for the sake of appearances, she was still a mare with an immense ego and a dismissive attitude.

But could Rarity really blame her? Not many ponies had the strength of the Enchantress.

She decided no, she couldn’t blame Rainbow. She was a product of her world, just as Rarity was a product of the desert.

Rarity touched her hoof to Rainbow’s. “Friends.”

When they tried to shake their hooves slid off each other since there was no magic in the world to hold them together.

Fluttershy giggled, prompting a mild blush from Rarity and a facehoof from Rainbow.

~~~

The moment Temple Brick started going on about “the great Fluttershy,” Pinkie noticed the Red twins excuse themselves, grimaces on their faces. They clearly missed their friend dearly and didn’t want to hear about her while she was still missing.

I can only imagine what “missing” means in this world of monsters…

“Fluttershy…” Brick paused in the middle of his monologue. “Such an inspiring story. Born with a broken mind that would not, could not let her act in combat, tragically paired with the heart of a hunter. She could never face the monsters…” He gestured at her workshop, adorned with weapons and magic. “As you can see, she found a way to overcome that! She may not be able to fight, but she can assist others in the eternal struggle against the beasts! Even when she is… away, her glorious creations continue to aid us in our struggle!”

“That’s a beautiful story!” Pinkie said.

“It is. For a mare not devoted to any living goddess, it’s even more impressive. …If only she would stop fixating on Saturn, she could receive so many blessings for her determination alone…”

“Saturn?” Twilight asked, suddenly curious.

“The dead goddess of battle, lost in the early age of pony to the king of monsters. She has all but vanished from history; I only know the story due to my position. Only the largest temples have altars to her, and even then only out of respect. There is no power in them.” He looked Twilight up and down. “You do not know of the gods, do you?”

“No, but I certainly wish to…”

“Hold up,” Pinkie said, raising a hoof. “We’re just going to gloss over the fact that this Fluttershy vanished like, a day ago? The same time we all appeared in the desert?”

Twilight glanced to Pinkie. “You… may have a point.”

“Of course I have a point!” Pinkie rolled her eyes. “You followed her magic signature here! She makes enchanted magi-weapon-thingies, of course she’d have a lot of it in her! Fluttershy was in the desert.”

“And she’s probably in the Mesh, now,” Applejack added.

“You know where Fluttershy is?” Brick asked, eyes wide.

“Probably,” Pinkie answered. “We just… can’t get there right now. We were hoping to find some clues here.”

“Do you know anything about dimensional travel?” Twilight asked.

Brick fixed her with a blank look.

“Other worlds? Timelines? Places beyond this realm? No? Never mind then.”

“But I was right!” Pinkie asserted. “Fluttershy is important.”

Twilight groaned. “This isn’t one of your novels, Pinkie, there’s no guarantee she’s important…”

“She’s a world-famous weaponsmith that slays monsters and has a wonderfully dramatic and heartwarming story! That sounds like it’s important to me. And you are an amazing space queen who brought a galaxy together in Unity despite all the odds!”

“What about you and Applejack?” Twilight asked, accusatory. “You’re just normal people in your worlds.”

“Uh…” Pinkie didn’t know what to say to that.

Applejack sighed. “I’m the only pony in the entire Mesh to have grown an apple tree. I am in charge of the Mesh’s only orchard.”

Twilight twitched. “And… she is…”

Pinkie frowned. “Twilight… what’s wrong…?” She walked up to the alicorn, frowning. “I’m just trying to help us figure out what’s going on. Something grabbed us from our different worlds for some purpose.”

“There can’t be a purpose,” Twilight said, dismissively. “It has to be random.”

“Why?”

“Because the entire experiment was a big messed up accident!” Twilight lit her horn, creating a holographic image of an hourglass-like machine. “We were under attack and the dimensional device activated under unknown circumstances, triggering a fissure! There were no controlled variables, no predictive algorithms, and nothing keeping it in check! There shouldn’t be a reason – it shouldn’t even have chosen individual ponies, it was just as likely it’d tear somepony in half!”

Pinkie and Applejack stared at Twilight in shock.

Twilight folded her wings and regained control of herself. “…It’s random. We just got lucky.”

Pinkie frowned. “Twilight…”

“Lucky.” She turned to Brick, frowning. “I’d like to see your temple now. Learn about your pantheon.”

Brick nodded. “Right this way… My assistant, Nod, will prepare the site for us…”

Pinkie held out a hoof to go after Twilight, but Applejack held her back. “She needs time to think.”

Pinkie frowned. “What?”

“She doesn’t see the world… worlds, as one big… Mesh?” Applejack cocked her head. “Sorry, I don’t really have the words.”

“She doesn’t think everything has a purpose, basically?”

“I guess that works,” Applejack said with a nod. “She clearly thinks she has a purpose. ‘Space queen’ and all that nonsense. You were making her think we might not be completely useless.”

Pinkie frowned. “That should be a good thing.”

“For us? Yeah. For her? If she’s as old as she says she is… it gets harder to change your rhythm with age. More painful, too.”

“…I’ll be there for her. When she comes back.”

“You’ve got an innocent heart, Pinkie.” Applejack smiled. “That’s good.”

“Is it? I say a lot of things and mess up a lot of the time…” Pinkie giggled nervously. “Ponies have a hard time taking me seriously in person, you know? I’ve received a lot of letters about ‘hey, P. D. Pie, you sound so thoughtful in your books, why don’t you bring that out to reality’?”

“Why don’t you?”

“I don’t have the foggiest idea!” Pinkie shrugged. “You’d think as well as I know my characters I’d at least gain some understanding of myself, right? Not really. I keep surprising myself. I mean, really, why haven’t I completely lost it yet? I almost got eaten by a giant lizard! Ponies don’t have to deal with that! I just write books and think about stories…”

“And maybe that’s why you’re here.” Applejack adjusted her hat, thinking about the words. “You don’t have a special story. But you know about special stories. You’re the one who can look at a gear and see what direction a gear at the edge of your field of view is going to turn.”

“Huh…” Pinkie put a hoof to her chin. “That might be it! Thanks, Applejack!” She pulled her friend into a tight hug.

“Breathing… needed… to… survive…” Applejack gagged.

Flying too Close to the Sun

Twilight wasn’t supposed to get flustered. She was supposed to… be the Empress. She was supposed to know.

Pinkie was being ridiculous, had to be. They weren’t in an adventure. Couldn’t be. If they were…

That would mean something was controlling them. Guiding them. The idea was outlandish. That’s not how real life worked. Sure, she may have had a lot of high-stakes encounters over her life, but that was by her choice. Even as the immortal of all ponykind she had managed to live a relatively quiet life until the fuzzface invasion. She made the choice to change things up, to venture forth.

The unlikely happened through careful planning on her part. Not though some abstract idea of ‘adventure’. There was always, always, an explanation for everything.

Even now, there had to be an explanation. A rule of multiversal travel she didn’t understand that would grab whole ponies instead of cutting them in half, one from each world. Possibly linked to the soul – yes, that made sense, the soul. Each pony had one, and it could be used to pick them out of a universe for…

…For…

…There was no “for.” The machine had activated by complete accident. Randomly. Why would it choose special ponies? She and Rainbow had been there when it activated, but Pinkie, Applejack, and now this Fluttershy had also been taken. All from different worlds and all with a fantastic story or an understanding of fantastic stories.

There must be some explanation.

There had to be.

And she wasn’t going to let some skittish daydreaming author shake her knowledge of the cosmos.

“Welcome… to Musk’s Temple of Jupiter,” Brick said, gesturing with a hoof at his pride and joy: a circular marble structure with twelve columns instead of walls that held up a sharp cone studded with precious gems. Within the large circular expanse was a statue of what Twilight identified as a human, though significantly larger. He was exceptionally muscular but his bearded face was more one of thoughtfulness and intelligence rather than the brute one would expect to go with the muscles. His wore simple robes; carved fabric without any additional decorations. The only ornamented thing he had was a pointed crown sitting on his head; a third eye made of sapphires affixed to the front of the regal accessory.

“Impressive craftsmanship,” Twilight commented.

“That’s Nod’s work,” Brick said, pointing at a hunchback pegasus cleaning the edge of the temple with a broom. He was avoiding eye contact with Twilight.

With a flare of her wings, Twilight lit her horn. The first thing she noticed was Nod – there was a strange aura of ‘don’t look at me’ surrounding him. She would have poked more, but her attention was quickly grabbed by the statue itself. It shone with immense magic coming from… elsewhere.

“I sense great power,” Twilight said, folding her wings.

“All images of the gods are endowed with some of their power,” Brick said. “Jupiter, king of the gods, endows his with more power and awareness than most.”

“So his essence is tied to this statue?”

“Yes, it is a small share of his glory a-“

Twilight took a step into the temple, passing the columns. Her silver shoes clanked against the pristine marble floor.

“…Empress… what are you doing?”

“I’m going to talk to him,” Twilight said.

Brick gawked. “Empress, only priests are allowed to interfere with the essence of divi-“

Twilight cast a spell, cancelling all noise that might come from his mouth. He rushed to tackle her, but all she had to do to stop him was encase him in a magic box. There was no chance he could break such a barrier with his meager power.

This god, on the other hand…

Twilight laid a hoof on the statue. Let it be known that I am Twilight Sparkle, Empress of Unity, a world distinct from this one. You now know of me, I shall know of you.

Her eyes flared with so much magical energy anyone looking at her wouldn’t have been able to make out her pupils. Her eyes might as well have been blank. The magic of the world swirled around her vision, but she didn’t have to disassociate herself this time. The magic in the statue was so strong she could just follow it. So she did – up, beyond, and through a veil of ethereal power…

Twilight became aware that she was standing in a white expanse. She double checked to make sure she knew how to return to the temple before feeling around. Visually, there was nothing but herself and a bunch of swirling clouds that were little more than areas of saturated magic. But, through her other senses, she could feel vast channels of power flowing around her in several directions. These came form the different gods of this world, no doubt.

How curious that the gods actually existed here. They certainly didn’t back home.

“I am Twilight Sparkle, Empress of Unity!” she declared, sending her voice as far as she could with her magic. “And I-“

“You are known!” a booming voice declared. Instantly, there was a ‘human’ in front of her, built exactly as the statue in the temple had shown, though he was without crown and his simple robes glowed with a soft orange light. “You have no need to repeat yourself, blasphemer!”

“Jupiter, I take it?” Twilight asked, making sure to play up her confident smile as she analyzed him. Powerful, definitely, and if fighting broke out she was outclassed in terms of raw strength. Luckily, she had so many tricks up her sleeve she didn’t feel fear. “How can I blaspheme if I was not sure of your existence until now?”

“Ignorance is no excuse,” Jupiter declared.

“Then what about a simple seeking of an audience?” Twilight asked. “I represent Unity, a vast coalition of thousands of races in multiple galaxies – in another world.”

“We are aware of the other worlds, they are not our concern,” Jupiter declared. “We know full well of Unity, and if we sought to know you, we would have already done so.”

Twilight frowned. “Do you think you’re too good for us?”

“Your ways are carnal, pleasure-seeking, and worthless. Your people have little purpose.”

“And your world is under constant threat of monsters. If you’re having trouble with that we could call in some exterminators…”

“Twilight Sparkle, our world has a destiny, and that destiny does not involve you or Unity. You have broken so many pacts between us and the mortals you should be sentenced to death for your hubris and arrogance.”

Twilight frowned. “…That seems to be a tad bit of an overreaction.”

“Let it be known, it is not.” He clapped his hands together, and four other gods appeared at his sides – some male, some female, all wearing ethereal robes that glowed with a different color. They all looked ready to smite her.

Twilight folded her ears back. “Hey, I was ju-“

“Just trying to make a show of power and guide our hands?” one of the women asked. “We saw. We were so angered by it we almost fused all your molecules together into an immense explosion. Your power is large enough to be of concern to us and we would have already ended you were it not for one detail.”

“What?”

She leaned in. “Immortals of your world are irreplaceable. If we were to kill you, it would spell the end of your entire race. No amount of blasphemy condones genocide.”

“You are a lucky one, Twilight Sparkle,” Jupiter declared. “You have become so reckless, and yet you are still living. Fate must want you alive, or else you and your entire race would have fallen long, long ago.”

Twilight had been keeping her cool up until that point. “What!? Fate!? Fate is worthless! Fate i-“

“There are no gods in your world,” the goddess said. “How else do you explain your continued survival despite the reckless life of yours?”

“Skill! Power! In-“

“You are a silly, deluded fool.”

Jupiter pointed an accusatory finger at Twilight. “You are to leave our world and never return. If you do return, for any reason, you will suffer punishments of repentance. We will get creative.”

One of the male gods grinned. “I could trap you in a time loop of your own death you’ll never get to fully experience…”

Twilight took a step back. “Wh… I…”

Another goddess – this one smaller than the aggressive one – sighed. “You are not in a good place at the moment, mentally speaking, Empress. You should leave before you further condemn yourself.”

Jupiter growled. “I CAST THEE DOWN!” With a snap of his fingers, Twilight was ejected from the heavenly realms.

She tried to resist, but the other gods piled their power on.

It was such an odd feeling, that of powerlessness.

~~~

“…Now, the tricky part…” Rainbow set a bright red apple on the table. “Splitting an apple in three even slices.”

“Why don’t we just cut it into sixths?” Fluttershy asked.

“Because that’s not challenging.”

“I’ve got this,” Rarity said, holding up her hoof. They had managed to get hold of a set of elastic bands, giving Rarity and Fluttershy the ability to hold things again. Currently, Rarity had one of her swords affixed to her hoof and was angling the tip directly at the fruit. She swung down three times – and the apple split into three chunks.

Rarity skewered her third and tossed it into her mouth, smirking as she did so.

Rainbow gawked. “…For someone who’s never held something without traction hooves before, that was pretty good.”

“It comes with practice. You never know when your hoof might be injured.”

Fluttershy clapped her hooves together excitedly before scooping her piece up in her wing. “You know… I just realized, they don’t have too many of these apples… Eating an entire third is probably a bit much, considering.”

“We can get them a truckload of apples, easy,” Rainbow reminded her.

“Truck?” Rarity asked.

“Uh… Think a giant metal box about the size of a house on wheels.”

“I do not have that much magical potential.”

“Can you make more apples than are on the tree? Yeah? Then we can satisfy them. Just need…” Rainbow’s smile vanished. “…That dimensional device.”

“Dust should be back soon, right?” Fluttershy asked.

“Should,” Rainbow grumbled. “If I had any idea where the thief was, I’d probably be going after them right now.”

Rarity tapped a pensive hoof. “I doubt that would go over well. Defend them as I have, I don’t think ‘management’ would look kindly upon deviation from their orders.”

“I know. I’m just complaining.”

CLANK.

Rarity looked up. That hadn’t been the Mesh – she had already gotten familiar with that clank clank clank to push it to the back of her mind. This had been much louder and much closer.

“LOOK OUT BELOW!”

Dust fell from above, a rope tied to her back. Some kind of mechanism above attempted to slow her fall, but she still slammed her face flat into the dirt.

“Dust!” Fluttershy said, running over. “You okay?”

“Mmmf… fine…” Dust shot back up. “You guys need to run.”

A sinking feeling formed in Rarity’s stomach. Ah, there it is… the start of everything going wrong.

“Run? Why?” Rainbow asked.

“Because the mid-managers have labeled the three of you – and the thief – as a pathogen that needs to be removed from the Mesh!”

“WHAT!?”

“Orders have already gone out to hunt you down! You need to run!” She took off in a gallop, indicating the three of them should follow. None of them wasted any time, though Rarity had to flip the direction of her sword to allow her hoof to touch the ground.

“Why would they do this?” Fluttershy asked. “We haven’t done anything!”

“They’re stuffy idiots who don’t see the full picture!” Dust let out a wail. “They think because you’re outside the Mesh, you can’t have a place in the Mesh! But they… they don’t understand, we need something from outside!”

“You… do?” Rarity asked, legitimately confused by this confession.

Dust bit her lip as they ran. “I’m really not supposed to tell you this… but… agh, I need you to understand so you’ll come back!” She started running backwards, looking at all of them with tense eyes. “The Mesh is winding down. Repairs can’t keep the loss of energy down forever. We need something to wind us back up and it sounds like you guys can do that! But the mid-managers don’t know this – and there was no way I could get to Blueberry in time to save you if I just left you there!”

“Thanks for getting us,” Rainbow said.

“…That’s three worlds we need to save, now,” Fluttershy noted.

“There may be more…” Rarity said, remembering the not-unicorn she’d seen prior to the closing of the portal

“It’s like there’s an epidemic or something here,” Rainbow commented. “So many worlds that just… need help.”

“I don’t know what that means!” Dust said as they arrived at a cylindrical pipe that rose as far as they could see. Dust pulled a lever, opening the doors to a wire-mesh compartment. “Get in, I’m sending you up a few levels. It’s where we last saw the thief. You have two options: find the thief and escape the Mesh, or survive until I can get Blueberry to call this whole thing off.” Seeing they were all in the elevator, she pulled the lever again, closing the doors. They could just barely make out her voice one more time.

“Good luck!”

“…Geez…” Rainbow said. “That went wrong quickly. Should have been expecting it…”

Rarity’s ears perked up. “Expect… things to go wrong?”

“There’s a lot of things you pick up when you travel around,” Rainbow said. “Things tend to go about as wrong as they can before going right. Or at least it seems like that.”

“Hmm…”

“Regardless, we need to prepare. Fluttershy, how many of your weapons work without magic?”

“Anything that isn’t a gun,” Fluttershy answered.

“Good. I’ll take those axes, my hoof has the pulse cannon.” She hefted the weapon.

“I’m… more than a little excited to see that thing in action.”

Rainbow smirked. “You and me both. Rarity?”

“I’ll stick with my blades,” Rarity said, carefully strapping two blades to her front hooves. This arrangement demanded she stand on her hind hooves which, while far from comfortable, wasn’t impossible with her flexibility.

Rainbow was able to stand on all four legs, for she had strapped the axes to her wings. Fluttershy equipped herself with nothing, though she did tie herself up in the grappling hook’s rope. “If you need to get me out of a situation fast, use this.”

“And we’re about as prepared as we can be…” Rainbow fell silent.

Clank. Clank. Clank.

It was louder now.

Getting louder the higher they went.

“What’re the chances we get up and there’s nopony there?” Fluttershy asked.

“Not low enough,” Rainbow muttered.

Rarity steeled herself, preparing for a battle that could arrive at any moment. The usual pre-battle thoughts ran through her head. Would she lose any of her newfound friends? What sort of enemies would they be? What could she do to minimize damage to herself and the city?

…Mesh. Minimize damage to the Mesh.

Would things be different now that she was in another world?

Most definitely. But could it be better? Or would it be worse?

~~~

Pinkie and Applejack walked up to Fluttershy’s shop. As they approached, it was easy to see how quality every weapon that lined the building’s walls were. Every blade was perfectly shaped – be it straight, curved, or swirled in the case of one unusual sword. All the edges were sharpened to perfection and each had a soft ethereal glow about them. Some shone brighter than others, but no weapon was left without an enchantment.

The swords, bows, maces, hammers, and other such weapons made Pinkie feel excited. So many fantastical fantasy weapons with amazing histories, powers, and elegance…

The guns, on the other hoof... they made her nervous. Back home, nopony would take a sword or bow as a serious weapon anymore. The guns were a different story. While the traditional weaponry filled Pinkie with a sense of awe and appreciation, their connection to death was distant in her mind.

She could hear gunfire in her mind as she looked at the ranged weapons. They looked nothing like guns she’d seen where she’d grown up, for the most part, but she could easily identify the barrels and the trigger. Of all the weapons she could pick up, the guns were the ones she’d at least know how to use.

Pinkie had never seen a pony die before, but she had seen somepony get injured by a gun. Back on the farm, there had been an argument… BANG.

That was something she would have liked not to think about but the magic weaponry was making that difficult.

“Anypony can use any of these weapons whenever the village is in crisis,” Red Riot said, walking up to them. “It is Fluttershy’s wish that everypony who wants to defend should have the chance to.”

That has to be the worst thing you could have told me right now, not that you could know that. “…What if somepony used the weapons on other ponies?”

Riot shook her head. “I hear such things happen in the inner cities, where the threat of the monsters is but a distant memory. But I cannot imagine such a thing happening here. We are too close in our struggles.”

“Ponies attacking each other...” Applejack shook her head. “Ah can’t decide if the worlds out here are better or worse than mine.”

“You’re all part of the Mesh…” Pinkie whispered, tracing her hoof along the blunt edge of a sword larger than her.

“And the Mesh is part of whatever’s out here.” The tapping in Applejack’s hoof increased its intensity. “Everything is connected, even if we can’t see how.”

“Wow, Applejack, you might have a future as a poet!”

“…What’s a poet?”

“Well, I-“

Twilight fell from the sky, crashing into the ground a few meters from Pinkie. The impact created a small crater that sparkled with purple energy, though Twilight herself seemed unharmed.

Pinkie was alarmed to see fear on Twilight’s face. “Wha-“

“I insulted the local gods and now we have to leave the universe,” Twilight summarized, staring beyond Pinkie with unfocused eyes. “We… yes, going. Going…”

This would have been the end of their visit, had a tremendous bird not chosen that moment to descend from the sky and destroy a cottage. The behemoth’s obsidian claw was larger than the home it had pulverized. Within its feathers galaxies and nebulae swirled with occasional violent sparks and its eyes were unmistakable: red, burning dark.

Riot drew her crossbow without flinching, firing off several rounds of arrows. The bird only had to caw and all the arrows bounced off an invisible barrier.

Riot grimaced. “Uh-oh…”

Pinkie really didn’t like that uh-oh.

Runes

“So…” Pinkie said, hoofing at the ground. “What do we do now?”

Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie stood in the middle of the desert. A fair ways away there was a black spire Twilight had said was “part of the world’s subterranean magic system.”

“I don’t know,” Twilight admitted. “What do you think?”

Pinkie gasped. “You’re asking me what to do?”

“If nothing else, you seem to have good intuition. Applejack?”

“I don’t know anything, it’s all up to you two,” Applejack admitted. “I’d like to get home, but we still don’t know how to do that, do we?”

Twilight shook her head. “I believe I can take us to my home, knowing what I know now.”

“What about the others?” Pinkie asked. “Fluttershy and… whoever else was taken here.”

“I came here with a pegasus,” Twilight admitted. “Rainbow Dash. She… well, she was an arrogant, egotistic, reckless adventurer who ruined everything, but she knew about other worlds.” She frowned. “I may have been a little rough on her. Even if she was asking for it…”

“You came here with someone…” Pinkie furrowed her brow. “And in your rant you talked a lot about the machine.”

Twilight nodded. “Yes. As you know I was investigating the possibility of other universes. My machine… it would have worked had we not been under fire at the time when Rainbow decided to play hero and activate it with all the magic and energy flying around. …That was really, really stupid.”

“So she’s the reason this is happening?” Applejack asked.

“It shouldn’t work like that. Only her and I make sense, the rest of you…” she glanced at Pinkie. “Shouldn’t have been drawn here. I don’t see a reason.”

“The reason might just be destiny,” Pinkie suggested. “We have to be here for… something to happen. This desert is dying, and monsters plague the other world. Maybe there’s something wrong we have to fix everywhere?”

Twilight scoffed. “The only problem with Unity is that it’s gotten boring.”

“…I’m… not supposed to say anything…” Applejack frowned. “The Mesh does need help, though.”

Pinkie grinned. “See? We’ve got some worlds to save! The question is how.”

“Unity has enough resources to conquer most of a galaxy,” Twilight said. “As Empress, I could allocate some resources to three worlds. Restoring magic here might be difficult, but I could organize evacuations… the army could destroy the monsters… and I’m sure we’ve got enough stuff to deal with whatever the Mesh’s deal is.”

“Then why aren’t we doing that?” Applejack asked.

Pinkie narrowed her eyes. “That… seems suspiciously easy.”

“Well, the station is currently occupied by an unknown enemy,” Twilight admitted. “I can probably take them by surprise if we go back, but we just don’t know much about them. …Though Rainbow probably does.”

Pinkie grinned. “That sounds better! Find the others!”

“I’m pretty sure she was with the Enchantress falling into the Mesh.”

“…And that’s probably where Fluttershy is too…”

“Hold on…” Twilight flared her wings and lit her horn, performing a quick search of magic. “No, the Enchantress has not returned. Nothing but a few empty anomalies.”

“That sounds ominous.”

Twilight shrugged with her wings. “They were here when we first arrived. Whatever they are, they’re normal for the world.”

“Again, suspicious,” Pinkie admitted.

“They actively seek to hide from my magic. I’m not certain we could find them even if we went looking. A-“ Twilight froze. “I sensed the same thing in the other world… the assistant at the temple. I don’t remember his name…”

“But we can’t go back there,” Applejack said.

Pinkie shook her head. “Twilight can’t, we can.”

Twilight lit her horn, creating a holographic checklist in the air. “So, here’s a list of our goals. Find the others, get information from Rainbow Dash, enlist the assistance of Unity, and investigate the anomalies through the temple assistant. I have no idea how to do the first two.”

“Fourth one would involve splitting us up,” Applejack said. “I’d avoid that if possible.”

“Then… Unity?” Pinkie frowned. “Sounds too easy…”

“Does that mean there’s going to be problems?” Twilight asked.

“I mean, if things continue going the way I think they will, yeah, probably.”

Twilight sighed. “And you really don’t find it… odd that things go like they do in your books?”

Pinkie nodded with a nervous laugh. “Oh yeah, it’s very odd. But I’ve always believed everything happens for a reason. It’s just… a bit more obvious right now.”

Twilight let out a thoughtful hum. “Get behind me. I’m going to open the portal. There’s no way to know what’s waiting for us on the other side.”

Pinkie and Applejack did as asked, trusting that Twilight could handle what was on the other side.

The other side, as it turned out, was completely abandoned; no sign of any enemies. Or anypony at all. They had clearly dialed into a space station, seeing as the curved hall was made out of silver metal and there was a giant window that showed nothing but stars.

Twilight’s face contorted in confusion. “There’s… no one here who shouldn’t be… I only sense the scientists.”

“They left?” Pinkie asked.

“Looks like it. Maybe when the device was destroyed they had no reason to stick around…” Twilight walked through the portal, Pinkie and Applejack trotting in behind her.

Pinkie looked around with awe. Even though she was in little more than a simple hallway, everything was spectacular. The view out the window was simple – just white specks on black – but it still filled her imagination with the possibilities of living in space. She had lived with her mind among the stars most of her life and now she was really here. It had come true!

And that didn’t even count the holographic screens on the opposite wall. So many words, diagrams, charts, and images that she couldn’t take it all in. It might as well have been in an alien language!

“Wow…” Pinkie said.

Twilight placed a hoof on one of the screens. “This is Empress Twilight Sparkle, I have returned. Report?”

This proved to be the wrong choice.

Instantly, two-dozen cloud creatures in Rune-covered armor teleported in, pointing guns at them. Pinkie was struck by their “heads”; nothing more than wispy stumps of fluff with no sign of an actual face.

Twilight wasted no time. She surrounded herself and her two friends in a shield, ready to lay waste to the enemies.

“I wouldn’t do that, Empress,” a unicorn said, walking through the cloudy soldiers. She was pink and her horn was always lit in the act of gripping a magic staff. “This staff can remove your magic. I’d really prefer not to do that, but if I have to, I will.”

Twilight tensed, letting Pinkie know that the unicorn wasn’t bluffing. “…Who are you?”

“I am Glimmer,” the unicorn said. “And I represent the Starcross Society. We need to have a talk about your little stunt yesterday.”

Pinkie hated Glimmer’s smile. It was so… genuine. It didn’t belong on somepony talking like that.

~~~

Rarity looked the… other Rainbow Dash up and down. She was significantly thinner than the Rainbow Rarity had come to know over the last two days and she wore a black suit that could cover every inch of her save her eyes. Rarity made a quick note of a small nick in the Blue Bolt’s ear in case she’d need to differentiate the two of them on the fly later, for their faces were identical.

“I don’t have any problems with making a deal,” Fluttershy said. “Girls?”

Rainbow shook her head. “Long as we get to keep the device and talk to you a bit. Rarity?”

Rarity was still precariously balanced on her hind legs – a tiring position to be in for so long, even with the ability to use her swords as canes. “So long as we have some assurance the thief won’t double cross us.”

“I need to get home,” Bolt said. “You know how to use this thing. Why would I double cross you?”

Rainbow snorted. “Really? Have us opon a portal to your home, steal the device, and disappear into it.” She tapped her head with her wing. “I know how you think, Rainbow.”

“I’m the Blue Bolt.”

“And I go by Dasha sometimes if there’s confusion, so what?”

“D-dasha?” Fluttershy snorted.

“And ponies wonder why I don’t officially change my name…” Rainbow shook her head. “Point is, we don’t implicitly trust you. Naturally, we’ll take the deal because we are a little desperate, but we’re going to have to hold that thing while we do it.”

Rarity half expected Bolt to outright refuse and try to make like her namesake. Instead, the thief nonchalantly tossed the device through the air, forcing Rainbow to catch it in her wings. “Geez! This thing is pretty durable but if I had missed…”

“You wouldn’t miss if you’re me.”

“I mean, law of averages, yeah, that was a safe bet,” Rainbow admitted. “But there are some Rainbows that aren’t athletes of any kind! There’s one who does nothing but try on fancy dresses. Literally, that’s all she does.”

“What a shallow world she must live in,” Rarity said.

“You don’t know the half of it.” Rainbow said, twisting a few settings on the dimensional device. With a soft tap of her wing, it activated, tearing a portal through reality back to the Crystal Sea.

Rarity felt a weight suddenly lift from her spirit. Her aching muscles and pained mind were massaged into a relaxed state by the sudden existence of magic once more.

Bolt tensed. “That’s not my h-“

“Hold your horses,” Rainbow interrupted with a roll of her eyes. “You can’t just access any world from anywhere. The device knows the connection from the Mesh to the Crystal Sea for sure, but it didn’t recognize the Mesh to… whatever your city was.” She jumped through the portal. “Come on.”

Bolt twitched, hopping in after her. Rarity and Fluttershy followed – and immediately started checking themselves over. Fluttershy cast a simple lighting spell with ease, while Rarity removed her swords from her hooves with telekinesis and hid them within her outfit once more.

Rainbow adjusted one of the dials on the device, dissipating the portal with a pop, a second gateway opening a swirling vortex to the city.

Already Rarity felt the wash of the wrong magic from the other side. It wasn’t as painful or as jarring as last time, but she still didn’t trust it. The gigantic moon was still high in the sky, looming large over the skyline.

“Well, this was fun,” Bolt said, raising her wing in a salute. “But I’ve got stuff to do.” She hopped over to her home.

“Wait!” Fluttershy called. “There are… others. Drawn, like us, to this world. Have you…?”

“Haven’t seen any others.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Well… we’re trying to help these worlds, too. Do you know of any way to restore magic?”

Bolt shook her head. “I got nothin’. Though if you do ever think of something and need a quick pair of hooves, just drop by. I’ll be able to find you.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “You wish to assist?”

Bolt smirked. “It’s what the Blue Bolt does.”

“She steals.”

“Exactly.” Bolt winked – spreading her wings and taking off into the night sky.

The portal closed.

“…Looks like we might have another friend,” Fluttershy said.

“Maybe…” Rainbow said, scratching her chin. “We might talk to her once we find the others.”

Rarity furrowed her brow – not sure what to make of the other Rainbow. She could sense the same ego and confidence from both mares, but from the short meeting it was easy to see differences. The Bolt put care in the way she presented herself, while Rainbow just… did whatever she felt like. It made her wonder how different other Rarities would be.

She pushed those thoughts away. “We have to find the others first. There… was a powerful magic essence that made contact with me just before we were trapped. Possibly the one you were talking about earlier, Rainbow?”

“Yeah. Twilight Sparkle. Has a horn and wings, magic powerhouse. Just a tad sadistic.”

Fluttershy blinked. “Sadistic?”

“Eh… maybe more ‘impish’. She likes messing with ponies.”

Rarity closed her eyes, sending out a magic scan. She could easily sense that the powerful magic had been near here. But that was the problem. Had. She was nowhere to be found now. “She’s gone.”

“Maybe she went to another world, like we did,” Fluttershy suggested.

Rarity nodded. “Perhaps…”

“Well, that’s a dead end until the device finds another world.” Rainbow set the device to search once again. “So… options?”

“Fly around, look for ponies.” Rarity put a hoof to her chin. “Or we could check out New Alice City… but I don’t like the feel of that world.”

“Fly around it is,” Rainbow agreed. “We can start at that… black spike thing.”

“Oh, one of the Runes!” Fluttershy said. “That’s where you found me, maybe somepony else has the same idea?”

Rarity nodded. It was close… Without consulting anypony, she teleported the three of them there. Neither Fluttershy nor Rainbow objected.

As usual, the Runes reacted to Rarity’s presence, flashing a pristine white before returning to the default Amber. However, before Rarity could begin her cursory study of the structure, the Runes did something they’d never done before.

They flashed a pale green.

Rarity’s jaw dropped.

“You mean they don’t normally do that?” Fluttershy asked.

“N-no! They only respond to me!”

“Huh…” Fluttershy looked at her wings. “It did the same thing to me when I first arrived here. It felt… comforting.”

“Wh… I…” Rarity shook her head. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend what this meant.

~~~

Twilight examined Glimmer with every sense she had available to her, though taste and touch weren’t really on the agenda at the moment. Visually she was young, though her eyes told of an age far beyond that of a normal pony. She had the ‘eerily beautiful’ sculpted form Twilight had grown accustomed to seeing in ponies who kept up their appearance through magic alone. Glimmer was clean – almost odorless, and her voice was just the wrong pitch for Twilight to listen to comfortably.

Magically speaking, she was one of if not the most saturated unicorn Twilight had ever seen. Her levels still paled in comparison to Twilight’s own monstrous reserves, but ponies with that much magic often had devious tricks up their sleeves.

And then there was her staff. Wooden, two pronged, with a Rune on it that was most definitely enchanted with a magic absorption spell. Very dangerous.

“My stunt? You must have me confused with that blue bird-brain.”

Glimmer nodded. “True… it is her fault, but unfortunately she is not here and we have no idea how to find her. You, on the other hand, are here and able to speak for the galaxy to boot!”

“If you wanted a diplomatic encounter you wouldn’t be pointing guns at me.”

“Eh, that was Scarcity’s idea, she’s a hardcase. Since you don’t look ready to explode anymore…” Glimmer held up a hoof and all the cloudy soldiers lowered their weapons, though she kept a tight hold of her staff.

“So, let’s start with something simple.” Twilight took a few steps forward, careful to keep Pinkie and Applejack within her magic bubble. “What made you think it was a good idea to hijack my research station?”

“Poor planning, desperation, a minimal understanding of this universe, a commanding officer with a bone to pick; choose any three and mix well.” She chuckled at her joke.

Twilight smirked. “While I appreciate a kindred spirit, I do need specifics.”

“Agent Rainbow Dash smashed our dimensional drive. She came to you looking to escape from us, and we came here looking for her and a method of dimensional travel. We didn’t know anything about the world so we risked a full-scale attack to stop her. Naturally, this didn’t work. I am sorry to report that some of your scientists didn’t survive the assault, and that we’re currently occupying the station from outside.”

Twilight nodded slowly. “Assuming I agree to let this slide, their deaths will need to be set right one way or another.”

“We are the Starcross Society. We could supplement you with anything you require.”

“Don’t do it,” Pinkie hissed.

Glimmer didn’t waste a beat. “Ah, a Pinkie. So problematic and helpful at the same time.”

“W-what do you mean?” Pinkie asked. “You… know me?”

“There are many of you out here… though your surprise tells me you are not the most problematic kind.” She returned her focus to Twilight. “Why would you listen to her?”

Twilight frowned. “To be fair, you are giving off an untrustworthy vibe.”

Glimmer sighed. “I try… so hard to keep us from that. With Scarcity running things like a military state on the ship it’s hard, you know? I’m sure you do, I’ve read up on some of your history while we were waiting for you to return.”

“Waiting?”

“We reasoned you’d figure out how to get back faster than we’d be able to reverse-engineer whatever that explosion did.”

Makes sense. “And then you trap me with the magic staff.”

Glimmer nodded. “Yep! Not sure why you still have that shield up, it would be pretty useless.”

“Not chancing it.”

“Fair enough.” Glimmer tapped the staff on the ground in mild annoyance. “Look, all we want is for the spell you use to travel universes.”

“It only goes to one. A pretty useless desert.”

“We still want it. Give it to us and we’ll get out of your mane. You’ll get your station back and we’ll be your avenue to the Starcross Society after this whole ordeal is wrapped up.”

“And if I don’t?”

“We’d just force it out of you and discontinue all possible relations?” Glimmer shrugged. “I much prefer the friendlier option, myself.”

“Don’t do it,” Pinkie cautioned once more. “She’s a smooth talker. There’s more going on here we don’t understand.”

Glimmer fixed the pink pony with a curious expression. Twilight wasn’t sure why Glimmer did, but she was smart enough to know it meant Pinkie was either right or close to right.

“Looks like we’ll have to decline then,” Twilight said, smiling. “Terribly sorry about that.”

Glimmer sighed. “This staff isn’t a joke!”

“I know it’s not. Which is why I’ve been sending out a coded distress signal this entire time, masked by this shield spell. Oh, and I’ve been casting the dimensional spell in the background. Buh-bye now!”

Twilight created a tiny portal in front of her eyes – barely large enough to see into. As the soldiers were raising their guns and Glimmer activated her staff, Twilight executed her pre-prepared teleport through the tiny hole and back to the Crystal Sea.

This teleport had not been a particularly elegant spell, so the three of them came flying out over the desert sands at high velocity. Applejack and Pinkie landed face-first in the sand while Twilight managed to gain control of her flight using her wings.

A short distance away, she saw three ponies staring at them in shock – one of them was unmistakably Rainbow Dash.

“Hey!” Twilight called. “We’ve been looking for you!”

The unicorn of the group – the Enchantress – teleported her group to Twilight.

“We’ve been looking for you!” Rainbow shouted. “And you were the one who teleported away!”

Twilight rocked her hoof side to side. “Eeeeeeh… sorta-kinda…”

“Twilight…” Pinkie said, glaring at her.

“Okay, fine,” Twilight sighed. “Sorry.”

“Sincere,” the Enchantress deadpanned.

“I like you,” Twilight said.

“The feeling is not mutual. Your little stunt sent us on a wild goose chase through a world of gears.”

“Can you get back?” Applejack demanded. “I… I need to go home!”

“Applejack, right?” Rarity asked. “Yes, we can. Your tree is fine. I even gave it some care of my own, rest easy.”

“I… thank you. Uh…”

“Yeah, I think we need some introductions,” the armored pegasus – presumably Fluttershy – said.

Twilight cleared her throat. “I am Empress Twilight Sparkle of Unity. This is… Pinkie Acorn and Applejack.”

The Enchantress nodded. “I am Rarity, the Enchantress. This is Fluttershy and Captain Rainbow Dash.”

“There’s also another Rainbow Dash,” Rainbow commented. “But she’s currently in another world. …Since we’re all here, we might want to go find her…”

“Why?” Fluttershy asked.

“To complete the party, silly!” Pinkie said, giggling. “Seven’s a lucky number, anyway.”

Rainbow nodded. “Yep. Then we can group together and figure out what we’re going to do about… well, everything.”

“A lot of different worlds need help,” Applejack said.

Twilight sighed. “Pinkie’s of the mind that we’re here to help them all, like some group of heroes.”

“Oh, definitely.” Rainbow nodded her head excitedly. “It’s generally how these things work.”

“I knew it!” Pinkie cheered. “…Wait, generally? This isn’t some kind of fluke of destiny?”

“Nah.”

“While I would love to talk about the nature of destiny, we do need to figure out if any of us can do anything about our situations,” Rarity said. “Half of us don’t even know the other half!”

“But we’ve been in the worlds of others,” Applejack said. “Fluttershy, your world is assailed by monsters.”

“And your Mesh is winding down,” Fluttershy responded.

“How do…?”

“A mare named Dust. She helped us escape.”

“The point is, worlds have problems,” Pinkie said, tapping her hoof on the ground. “Monsters, lack of magic… hey, in mine ponies are fighting all the time, maybe that’s a problem too?”

“My world has no problems,” Twilight said with pride.

Pinkie raised an eyebrow. “Your world currently has an angry Starcross Society in it.”

“Unity will take care of that in a few hours.”

Rainbow blinked. “I mean, they only have one damaged ship… but you’d be surprised what sort of tricks they can pull.”

“Please, the primary galactic fleet will be blowing them to shrapnel soon enough, there’s nothing t-“

A portal opened up directly behind her. She could hear Glimmer laughing. It was far too innocent and delighted for the context.

“Thanks for casting that spell! We never would have figured it out without seeing it in action!”

Twilight’s face twisted into a menacing scowl. Of all the things she hated, the feeling that came when she was outsmarted was near the top of the list.

She whirled around, ready to flatten Glimmer like a pancake – but she could no longer see the unicorn. Instead, the soldiers of the Starcross Society poured out of the portal by the dozen, already beginning their assault.

Pinkie screamed.

Starcross Soldiers

Rarity analyzed their enemies before a single shot was fired. Beings of cloud, likely created from magic, wearing dark Runic armor with powerful enchantments on par with Fluttershy’s own. Their Runes were alarmingly similar to the Runes of the Crystal Sea but Rarity didn’t have time to think about what that meant right now.

Twilight’s first response was to create a defensive bubble around the six of them, deflecting the incoming attacks. Beams of darkness and light surged forth, impacting the barrier from many different angles.

“Ergh…” Twilight grunted. “Playing defensive isn’t going to go over well…”

Rarity nodded, taking the opportunity to ready her swords. She grabbed two weapons from the frozen Fluttershy—a warhammer and a gun. Rainbow readied her pulse cannon and one of Fluttershy’s swords.

“Strategy?” Rainbow asked.

“Keep the others safe,” Rarity said. “Then w-“

The cloudy soldiers didn’t give them any more time—they opened a dimensional portal inside Twilight’s bubble shield. A small, spherical device came flying out of the portal, beeping softly. Rarity had no idea what it was, but Twilight did. In a half-panic, the alicorn dropped the outer shield and focused all her energy on containing the spherical device. Its explosion was contained within the new shield.

Twilight let out a sigh of relief.

“Look o—” Pinkie began, but the warning came too late. One of the dark, black lasers hit the ground right under Twilight, crumbling the earth beneath in a massive explosion.

All six ponies went flying in different directions, each landing with varying degrees of success on the loose sand. Rarity, to her credit, managed to land squarely on her hind hooves and deflect a red laser with a quick shield spell.

She winced. Fluttershy hadn’t healed the wound on her leg yet. She could still fight, but that was going to be distracting.

Twilight unleashed a massive burst of energy, tossing most of the soldiers to the side. One of the black lasers passed right by her, orbited her body, and flew back at the soldier who had fired it—disintegrating both him and his armor. Twilight teleported out of the way of a second attack, launching a magical explosive into the center of the soldiers.

Rarity was in awe at this display, even as she was fighting for her own life—vibration hammer on armor worked wonders on these cloud people while swords were all but useless.

Twilight clearly needed no help facing off against them. The other ponies, however…

Pinkie was cowering behind Fluttershy, fumbling to remove the safety on one of her guns while Applejack took a bolt to the side and was now dripping blood down her stomach.

“Rainbow!” Rarity shouted. “Defend them!”

Rainbow stopped slicing soldiers in half with the blade of “impossibly long reach” and flew toward the other three without hesitation.

Rarity teleported in front of Pinkie and Fluttershy just in time to cast a shield spell, absorbing a smaller, red laser. She had no idea what the colors meant, for the most part, but black was certainly worse than red given Twilight’s reactions.

“W-what are we going to do!?” Pinkie shouted, holding her hooves over her head.

“Fight,” Rarity said, focusing her magic. It was hard, but she could levitate four items at once. Hammer, gun, and swords cycled around her in a swirling cycle, attacking soldiers all around them. The swords did little more than stumble them, but the hammer outright shattered their armor while the gun…

…shot meteors?

This definitely hadn’t been one of the guns Fluttershy had briefed her on.

“You’re really good with that thing…” Pinkie said, examining the smoldering crater that had been a soldier a moment ago. “Y-yeah… good…”

Rarity recognized the haunted look in Pinkie’s eyes as she hammered another soldier into the ground. She’s not truly seen death before.

“Rarity!” Rainbow shouted, shaking the unicorn out of her pity. The pegasus dropped Applejack next to her—the earth pony barely able to stand with her injury. “We need healing, stat!”

“Cover me!” Rarity shouted, dropping both her swords to get some extra magic for healing purposes. Rainbow did as asked, swinging her sword and cutting into armor several meters away. Her pulse cannon had proven to be all but useless against the magic armor.

Rarity swung her hammer and shot meteors while channeling what excess energy she had left into Applejack’s wound, sealing the hole without too much difficulty.

She felt one burn right through her chest. Rarity gasped, but maintained her hold on hammer and gun. With an agonized yell, she pulled the trigger, vaporizing the soldier who had shot her.

“We… need to get them out of here…” Rarity hissed through the pain. “We’re too open, defending them…”

Rainbow nodded, tossing the dimensional device to the newly revitalized Applejack. “Press the screen to open the portal, get them out of here!”

Applejack nodded, scooping up Fluttershy.

“W-wait!” Pinkie shouted. “You shoul—“

“We can take them,” Rainbow and Rarity said at the same time, despite both mares sporting obvious injuries.

Applejack wasn’t one to question what she was told to do. She opened a portal – the device was set to New Alice City—and threw Fluttershy in. She waved to Pinkie…

…But Pinkie had frozen in fear the moment she saw the city on the other side of the portal.

Rarity sucked in a breath. They didn’t have time for this, who cared if Pinkie could sense the wrongness on the other side somehow? It was safer than here!

Rainbow had the same idea—she flew to Pinkie and kicked her through the portal. “CLOSE IT!”

“How!?” Applejack asked.

Rainbow jumped back, dodging a loose laser. “TAP IT AGAIN!”

Applejack did, though not before a single soldier managed to jump through. There was a pop, leaving Rarity and Rainbow Dash in the desert.

Twilight was around to help, of course. She landed between the two of them, spreading her wings once again. “You got them to safety. Good.” She enveloped them in a white aura, mending their wounds and ending the pain. “I’ll need to heal you better later, but right now… let’s show these farts who’s boss.”

“Farts!?” Rarity said, aghast.

“She calls her old alien enemies ‘fuzzfaces’,” Rainbow said, chuckling. She twirled her blade in her wing. “Ready.”

Twilight teleported out of the way of another black laser. Rarity teleported herself on top of the soldier holding the offendingly dangerous weapon, cutting the thing in half with one of her swords. She roundhouse kicked the soldier’s head from above—going right through the cloud and impacting the neck lining of the armor, forcing it to the ground. She whirled around, dodging attack after attack before bringing the hammer down on the ground itself, triggering a minor earthquake.

Rainbow flew in, taking advantage of the opportunity and cutting through several of the soldiers at once, their fancy magic armor unable to handle a weapon of such quality.

Rarity created a few more smoldering craters, but her efforts were easily dwarfed by Twilight’s own attacks. Purple specks of light hit a single soldier and then would explode, sending a dozen of their companions flying and melting the nearby sand to glass.

The fight suddenly felt… easy. Who cared that these soldiers were trained specialists with magic armor made of Runes? They were clouds, weaklings, and they fell like dominoes. Rarity, Rainbow, and Twilight all knew how to fight without hesitation and with the others in a much safer location they had few weaknesses to poke at.

There was no doubt that Twilight far outclassed the two of them in sheer power output, and Rarity was sure she could win on her own, but the Empress was making use of Rainbow and Rarity nonetheless. Letting them take enemies trying to attack her from behind, allowing for her attacks to be more focused and deliberate.

Rainbow proved to not only be very resourceful, but also partially magical. Rarity had caught the Pegasus creating tornados and gusts of wind to accentuate her swordplay which was working really well in keeping the enemies on their toes.

Rarity herself had plenty of weapons and spells at her disposal to keep the enemies at bay, with enough left over to raise a small shield to defend Rainbow every now and then.

They were going to win.

The—

“Do I have to do everything myself!?”

Rarity froze.

That was her voice.

Luckily for her, freezing didn’t result in her demise, since the voice made all the soldiers freeze as well. All combatants looked up into the sky where the voice had come from.

Rarity didn’t know what she was looking at. It was huge, mostly black, and coming out of a huge portal. Determining the exact size was nearly impossible given the blank backdrop of the sky, but it was large enough to cast a shadow over the entire battlefield. It was shaped vaguely like one of the bullets Fluttershy had shown Rarity, though divided into six segments and marred with spikes on the flat end. Almost every surface of the ship was covered in immense, brightly glowing Runes, none of which were the standard Amber color.

“…Crud, the ship…” Rainbow muttered.

The voice of Rarity came from the ship once again. “You let some of them get away. I just… I can’t even. Goodbye.”

“TWILIGHT! SHIELD!” Rainbow shouted at the top of her lungs.

Twilight wasted no time in reacting—creating the thickest barrier of energy she could over the battlefield, sheltering both her and the enemy combatants.

The Runes of the ship flashed red, and then Rarity couldn’t see the sky anymore. There was only crimson energy pelting into the barrier above them. Less than a second passed and Twilight already had to shrink the barrier, dooming many of the soldiers to incineration.

“She’s… killing her own people!” Rarity shouted.

“AGH!” Rainbow shouted. “We have to get out of here, she’ll find some way to breach this…”

“I don’t have… extra… magic…” Twilight winced. “I need to open a portal…”

Rarity dropped all her weapons and focused her energy into a shield—one barely large enough to cover the three of them and two cowering soldiers. “Try… now…”

Twilight dropped most of the support she was placing in her shield and began work on the portal spell. Immediately, Rarity felt as though one of the meteors she’d been shooting had hit her in the face. She fell to the ground, holding her sparking horn in agony—but she did not lose focus on the shield.

To her credit, Rainbow tried to help, pushing as much wind as she could against the barrier. Physically, it had no effect whatsoever, since it was just air. However, Rarity felt something… else in the wind, a subtler magic that was worming its way into her horn, easing her pain.

Curious…

Twilight tore the portal in the ground, dropping the three of them, their weapons, and the two remaining soldiers onto a hard, metallic floor. The portal above popped closed.

Rarity canceled the spell, breathing heavily.

Twilight shot a glare at the two soldiers who had survived. “Drop your weapons.”

They did. They didn’t even resist when Twilight tied them up with magic.

“Plan?” Rainbow asked.

“We can’t beat the ship ourselves,” Twilight said, breathing just as heavily as Rarity was from the spent effort. “So we’re going to win here. We’re going to re-take the station.”

“How?”

“Carefully.” Before Rarity could figure out why she could see stars in every direction out the nearby window, Twilight teleported all of them to another room, this one sealed off by solid metal doors on all sides. There were three ponies in the room, all wearing labcoats and sitting in front of flat glass that shone with many bright colors. Rarity didn’t care about the bizarre technology at the moment; she cared much more that two of the ponies she was looking at were unicorns. Unicorns that shared an odd connection to Twilight…

Now that she was looking at them closely, the third pony—an earth pony—also had a magic connection to Twilight. Odd.

“Report!” Twilight ordered.

The earth pony stood up quickly, steeling herself. “They’ve taken the station! Those of us left are being held hostage! We’re pretty certain they’re rigging the place to blow!”

Twilight let out a curse Rarity didn’t recognize under her breath. “You two,” she pointed at the unicorns. “I need some extra charge.”

The unicorns didn’t waste a second—they bestowed as much of their magic energy to Twilight as they could, channeling it via a rippling laser from their horns to hers.

Twilight nodded. “Thanks… I only hope it’s enough.” She turned to Rarity and Rainbow. “I’m going to save as many ponies as I can. They will be teleported here. Your job is to protect them.”

Rarity and Rainbow nodded in understanding. Rarity once again grabbed hold of the hammer in her telekinesis—opting not to use the meteor-gun inside.

There was silence aside from the soft beeping coming from all the… things in the room. Rarity didn’t have any context for any of the items around. In the Mesh, she had at least understood what gears were—amazed by the sheer magnitude of their application, but at least it was understandable. Here… she had no idea what those glass things were, or how they displayed words and images. How was this entire building shaped out of metal, and what was the deal with all those noises? Everything was too smooth and foreign.

Had this been any other day, she might have been bothered.

But today…

“Who is she?” Rarity asked, barely breathing.

Rainbow set her jaw. “Scarcity. Yes, she’s a Rarity. And yes, she’s our enemy.”

“She attacked her own ponies… people.”

“She’s a bitter mare who declared war on the Stars themselves. She won.”

Rarity had no context for that statement, but it sure sounded impressive. She made no response.

“I know it’s getting to you, but try not to let it. All of us have an evil version out there somewhere. You’re not her.”

“I don’t even know her. How can I be sure?”

“Just trust me on this.”

A troop of six Starcross soldiers appeared in the room through a teleport. Rarity wasted no time vibrating the first one’s armor to dust with her hammer, firing a magic laser at a second while she did that. She may have been taxing her magic, but she was far from out.

Rainbow followed this up with a gust of wind that knocked the other four down, making them easy pickings for the long-distance blade.

Though she also cut through one of the metal boxes in the room, shattering the glass on the front, revealing several sparking wires.

“CAREFUL!” one of the unicorns shouted.

“You want to live or not?!” Rainbow asked.

“…Just don’t hit us.”

“I’ll try.” Rainbow winked.

Rarity let out a pained groan. “Focus, Rainbow.”

“I am focused!” A soldier teleported right behind her, blasting her in the wing with one of the small, red lasers. She dropped the sword with a wail.

The soldier celebrated too early, because he left himself open to a hammer strike from Rarity.

A half-dozen other soldiers teleported in as well.

“Really could use some backup!” Rarity shouted, swinging the hammer wide.

Her prayers were answered—in a burst of purple light, the first of the saved crew appeared. Most of them were ponies, but one of them was a tall, purple reptilian creature with smoke coming out of her nose. Despite wearing a labcoat, she looked ready for battle.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!” one of the ponies shouted.

Rarity understood the meaning quickly enough—ducking out of the way. The reptile opened her mouth and unleashed a torrent of purple fire. The soldiers fell back from the attack and were subsequently blown forward by wind summoned with Rainbow’s free wing. Some of the new unicorns fired laser spells of their own, beating the soldiers down.

“Thanks for the assist,” Rarity said, trying to keep her wariness off her features.

The dragon nodded. “Name’s Jet.”

“Rarity.”

“I thought pony names were supposed to be literal or something?”

Rarity smiled softly. “…It is.” She trotted over to Rainbow and healed up her wing. “I’m almost out of magic.”

Jet flexed her claw. “Then we’ll defend ourselves.” Another set of the crew came in, this time with more reptiles, and another creature that looked like a noodle with an eye on top. “Thanks for holding out while you could.”

Something exploded in the distance. Suddenly, the room was upside-down, and everything was spinning. “WHAT!?” Rarity shouted, unsure what was happening.

“Space station!” Rainbow shouted back.

“You’re assuming I know what a space station IS!”

“Uh… a flying building, kinda like the ship you saw earlier?”

“Got it! We’re tumbling! Good to know! How do we stop from crashing!?”

“We’re so high off the ‘ground’ crashing wouldn’t happen for hours!”

Rarity didn’t have time to process that right now. Seemed to be a pattern as of late. “Okay! Let’s just… survive!” She hefted her hammer. “They could still try to come in!”

But they didn’t. No more soldiers arrived. A few more people were teleported in as the room kept spinning, but none of them were enemies.

Eventually, Twilight herself returned with the two soldiers they had captured earlier. She floated in the middle of the room, looking at everyone plastered to the walls with disdain. “Just… give me a second…”

She lit her horn.

And the spin of the station began to slow.

Rarity gawked. Is she… holding the entire building in her telekinesis!?

Eventually, the rotation came to a standstill. Everyone peeled themselves off the walls and the floor, breathing sighs of relief.

“Thanks, Empress!” one of the unicorns said, grinning.

“You’re… welcome… my child…” Twilight’s eyes rolled into the back of her skull and she fell to the floor, out cold.

There was silence in the room of survivors.

Rarity cleared her throat, walking up to Twilight and performing a quick scan. “The Empress is fine, she is just exhausted from overwork! Forgive me if I sound ignorant, but what do you do in this situation?”

Jet raised a claw.

“Yes, Jet?”

“I say wait for the fleet to arrive. It shouldn’t be much longer.”

“Are we certain we have secured the… station?”

A tall, monkey-like creature with a beard nodded, pointing at one of the shining pieces of glass. “Scans show that their ship has left and all of their strange magic has vanished. They’re gone.”

“Good.” Rarity didn’t have any idea how he knew that, but he sounded confident. “We should all examine ourselves, make sure there are no heavy injuries. And th—“

A booming voice came from all directions. “THIS IS THE UNITY HELIX, BROADCASTING ON ALL FREQUENCIES! TWILIGHT, WHAT DID YOU DO THIS TIME!?”

Rarity looked around, bewildered. “Wh… hello?”

“...You’re new.” The voice wasn’t booming anymore, but it was still coming from everywhere. In an instant, every single glowing-glass thing in the room displayed the same image—a soft blue eye made of simplified geometric shapes. “I do not know who you are…”

“I am Rarity,” Rarity said. “And… I’m from another world, brought here by your Empress. There… is a lot going on I don’t understand, and a lot going on I don’t believe you know.”

“As is to be expected. Twilight’s own fault for insisting her station be off the grid… I would say I hope she learned her lesson this time, but she never does.” The eye focused on Rarity from all directions. “I am the Unity Helix, the intelligence behind everything within Unity itself. We have much to discuss, Rarity.”

New Alice City

Fluttershy’s head reeled. Something had changed the moment she passed through the portal, and since she had been frozen when she’d gone through, she had nothing with which to analyze her situation.

The buzzing in the back of her mind was oppressive. Even though she had come to accept her condition and was more than content with her life... the buzzing… she hated the buzzing.

New Alice City looked just as it had through the portal, not that she could really react to it. Not like this.

One of the soldiers had come through with them. She couldn’t hear his weapon charge and fire because of the buzzing, but she could feel it. The slight ionization of the air, a rush of wind, and a shuddering impact.

Applejack fell into Fluttershy’s field of view, kit flying open and spilling her numerous tools onto the hard ground of the dark alleyway. The lasers had burned holes in two of her legs, making it difficult for her to move, much less stand.

However, she was nothing if not a clever pony. She used one of her free legs to grab Fluttershy, pulling her in front so her armor could deflect the next shot. Fluttershy fell over, a soft ‘oof’ escaping from her lips.

In the time this bought her, Applejack took a knife off Fluttershy’s armor and strapped it to her boot. She jumped out and drove it into the neck hole of the soldier’s armor. Lightning erupted from the blade, coursing through the orange clouds and armor itself. The being dissipated into loose dust and the Runic defenses clattered to the ground.

Applejack fell to the ground, breathing heavily. Fluttershy, now in full control of her faculties once more, trotted over to Applejack and laid her wings over the mechanic’s wounds. She cast a healing spell…

…Grinding, sulking, curious…

…Fluttershy pulled her wings back, startled. She had cast the spell – Applejack’s wounds were healed, at least on the surface – but something had went into her wings as she did so. Something… cold.

Applejack coughed, sitting up. “You look like you’ve seen a corpse.”

“I… Rarity was right, the magic here is…” she didn’t know how to describe it, besides simply wrong, and she didn’t want to judge this world that quickly.

Speaking of…

She breathed carefully and looked around New Alice City. They were in an abandoned alleyway with empty trash cans and evidence of rats. The walls around them were made of black, disheveled brick that was heavily worn. At one end of the alley was a boarded up door and the other led to a street with horseless carriages flying by, lighting up the night with their lights.

The moon dominated the sky. Fluttershy felt like it was watching her. Watching everypony.

“I killed him,” Applejack said, suddenly.

Fluttershy knew what she needed to do. “You were acting in self defense, don’t you ever, for a single moment, think you had any other choice. He wanted you dead, and you were at a disadvantage. You did what you had to do, even if it was regrettable.”

Applejack looked at her, stunned. “Have…?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No. I never get the opportunity—because of my condition. But my weapons have.”

“Your world loves you.”

“You… you made it there?”

Applejack nodded. “Twilight was able to get me and Pinkie th-“ She stopped herself. “Where’s Pinkie?”

Fluttershy whirled around, looking for any sign of the pink mare – finding nothing. Not even a pink hair on the dark ground.

“Pinkie!” Applejack called. “Pinkie Acorn!”

“Applejack took care of the cloud!” Fluttershy added. “There’s no danger!”

No response.

Applejack clenched her jaw. “…We need to look for her.”

Fluttershy agreed. “Blue Bolt did say she would be able to find us if we came back… if we can find her, we can find Pinkie.”

“How do we find her?”

“I think it’s more of a ‘she finds us’ sort of thing.”

Applejack nodded. “Then we just wander around until we find something. Know anything about this world?”

“Magic isn’t… normal. It’s called New Alice City. That’s… it.” Fluttershy shrugged.

Applejack nodded. “Can you use those fancy hooves of yours to get my tools?”

“Fancy hoov- oh! You don’t have traction hooves!” She immediately set to work picking up the spilled tools and tying them back to Applejack in a makeshift toolkit. “There you go. Should work until we can get you a new one.”

Applejack pointed at the dimensional device with her hoof. “Know how to use this?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I think I might be able to figure out how to send us back to the desert… but we don’t want to go back until we hear from the others.” She picked up the Runic armor and hung it over her flank – she never knew, it could be useful.

“So. Which way?” Applejack asked.

Fluttershy gestured to the street with her nose. The two left the alleyway, stepping out to a land lit by distant neon signs, metal poles with flickering lights, and the endless rush of horseless carriages. It was hard to see into the carriages, but Fluttershy could occasionally pick out a few pony silhouettes through the windows. There were a few ponies talking around on the sidewalks, heads directed at the ground.

The road signs were wrong. Not only did they appear to be written in complete gibberish that pointed into walls, contradicted other signs, or sometimes angled straight into the sky. The carriages seemed to completely ignore them. “What…?”

“Excuse me, we’re lost,” Applejack said, addressing a passing stallion. “Mind telling us where we are?”

“Every soul is lost in New Alice City…” the stallion droned without a hint of emotion in his voice. He kept walking, not so much as looking up to examine them.

“…Odd,” Fluttershy admitted. “I’m going to try and get a sky-high view. I’ll be right back.”

Applejack nodded in agreement. She’s too eager to follow orders… good for now, but what is she going to do when she needs to stand up for herself? Fluttershy took to the air, gaining as much altitude as she could.

Her wings tingled slightly from the world’s magic, but it wasn’t enough to shake Fluttershy. She rose higher… higher… higher…

And she couldn’t see the edge of the city. The buildings went on and on… all under the gaze of the moon.

She rose higher still, so high that it became difficult to pick out individual buildings even with her eagle-eyes. There was no sign of the edge of the city. Endless buildings in every direction, the vast majority lit by their own artificial lights. She saw massive buildings hundreds of stories tall, many of which looked like artistic sculptures… but no single building was unique. Even the largest most impressive ones had a copy somewhere in her field of view.

From this high up, she could see the major streets, too. They appeared straight at first glance, but at closer inspection she realized they were moving. The further away something was from her, the more it rolled and churned like it was made of some sort of liquid.

And then she noticed the dark spots. Large, circular patches of the city where all the artificial lights were off, creating a jarring interruption in the otherwise uniform cityscape. The spots roamed the city, as though they were living entities…

The closest one was moving right toward her location. Nothing to worry about, chances are good one of them would be moving toward me…

The second closest one was also moving toward her. And the third. And the fourth.

All of them.

They seemed to be picking up speed too.

Fluttershy decided she’d had enough time in the sky and plummeted back down to the street Applejack was waiting in, landing hard enough to crack the sidewalk with her armor. “We shouldn’t stay here.”

“What did you see?”

“Dark things. Coming right for us.” She gestured at the axe on her back. “That is a weapon of light. If you need to…”

“Got it.”

Fluttershy pointed down the street. “That way.” The two trotted along at a brisk pace, stopping only to talk to the ponies they came across.

“Hey, what are the dark things?” Fluttershy asked one of them.

“Everything is dark…”

Fluttershy twitched. “Is this place designed to be unhelpful?”

“They can’t help you.”

Fluttershy turned to see a bright white pegasus in an official looking blue cap giving them a curious glance.

“Why not?” Fluttershy asked.

The mare twirled a baton in her wing. “They’re the lost. Y’know. Dead?”

“I – I didn’t.”

“Everypony knows that, liar.”

“We’re not from this world. I’ve never been to this city before.”

“Oooh, makes perfect sense.” The mare put away her baton. “I’ll have to take you to the station to get you acquainted with the City.”

“Oh, you’re an officer?”

The mare tapped her cap. “Yep. Somepony’s gotta keep this City under control. Come with me.”

They followed her, turning a corner into…

Fluttershy’s head reeled. She was sure they had turned onto another street, but… she was currently looking at a dark blue building lit by purple lights. The sign on the front was unreadable, but there was a dilapidated shield symbol matching the one on the officer’s head. “What in…?”

“You two would be so lost without me…” the officer said with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, this door ain’t gonna fold ya.”

“Fold…” Fluttershy said, trying the term out. She’d be sure to listen for it and ask about it.

The inside of the station was jarringly bright, although excessively purple. The moment they were inside the outside city looked almost pitch black, only the light of the carriages and posts fighting to be seen. Almost like stars…

Had there been stars in the sky? Fluttershy wasn’t sure.

“Right this way, need to get you fitted out with the proper paperwork.”

She led them to a desk covered in precarious stacks of paper, stamps, and pens of varying colors that were impossible to see clearly under the purple light. With an ‘a-ha!’ the officer brought out two identical forms and set them on the desk.

None of the words on either of them were legible, even though they were presented in neat blocks of text. Fluttershy could make out a dotted line at the bottom.

The officer gave them both pens, grinning. “Sign your names here and we can get you into the system!”

Applejack probably would have signed had she been able to hold the pen. Fluttershy, however, dropped the pen like it was made of molten lead – the burning sensation of the magic on it had been deeply disturbing. “What kind of spell have you placed on this!?” she demanded, flaring her wings in aggression.

The officer stared at her in confusion. “You… you can’t detect spells...”

Fluttershy cast a simple light spell with her wings, revealing most of the pens to be red colored – specifically, the red of blood. “Wanna bet?”

…Seeing, yearning, devouring…

The officer stared at her. She pulled out a gun – only for Applejack to kick it out of her hoof.

“Don’t try it,” Applejack said, hefting the hoof that held Fluttershy’s knife in it.

The officer was at a loss for words.

And then she wasn’t there anymore.

Gone. Not so much as a poof.

“Wh…” Fluttershy took a few steps back.

“I have no idea,” Applejack said, gulping. “But I really, really don’t like this place.”

The two moved to leave the station – but they found that there was no ground outside. The posts and carriages were moving atop a nothingness that went on forever.

Fluttershy frowned. “Rope.”

Applejack nodded, tying a rope around Fluttershy’s armored waist and tying the other end to a latch on a door inside the station. Fluttershy spread her wings and flew into the nothingness. Down… down…

There was nothing down there. Endless… nothing.

Looking up, she could see the moon, towering over all the buildings that were sitting on the nothing. It went on forever.

Fluttershy flew back up – and suddenly the street was back, beneath her hooves. “This…”

“I’m thinking we might try our chances back in the desert…” Applejack said as Fluttershy walked back in. “Dead ponies walking around… managers trying to do… I don’t even know.”

“Blood is a dark magic construct,” Fluttershy said. “There are hunters who use it, but it must be used sparingly and carefully. That pen was saturated with it. And this world…” She looked at the moon.

She couldn’t quite put her hoof on what about the moon she didn’t like. It was big. That shouldn’t be that much of a problem. Right?

Without warning, there were a dozen officers outside the station, all pointing their guns at the two of them. “Come out with your wings up!” they shouted in perfect unison.

Fluttershy froze – Applejack didn’t. She grabbed Fluttershy and dragged her behind the desk, using the wood as cover. The bullets started flying, but they weren’t enchanted, so the thick wood provided more than enough shielding.

And then everything was pitch black – save the glow of the Runic armor on Fluttershy’s flank.

“Applejack?”

“I’m here,” Applejack said. “Can’t see anything other than you, though.”

Fluttershy spread her wings, casting another light spell.

...Defiant, energized, unique…

Fluttershy could make out Applejack and the desk – but nothing much further than that. “…This spell should be more powerful.”

“This isn’t natural darkness.”

“Definitely not…”

“I don’t hear the managers anymore.”

“I don’t hear anything. Not even… the carriages.”

“Huh?”

“The rolling things outside.”

“Oh.”

There was suddenly a hole in the ground where there hadn’t been before. With a yelp, the two of them fell into the hole, sliding down a glowing ramp. There was no more darkness, now they were surrounded by a kaleidoscope of rapidly flashing colors.

Fluttershy felt as though she was drifting through syrup one moment and cloud the next…

Then it was bright.

There was nothing around them but white expanse as far as the eye could see.

“Okay, clearly, you are all a bunch of idiots and I should have given you some basic survival tips for New Alice City.”

“R-rainbow…?” Fluttershy asked, barely able to hold anything in focus.

A slap across her face remedied that. “I am the Blue Bolt. We don’t use the names they want in the Thieves’ Guild.”

Fluttershy saw the blue face of Bolt come into focus. “Thieves’ Guild?”

“Yeah. The only bastion of true freedom in the city.” She waved a wing at them, indicating they should follow her into the white expanse.

Applejack looked at Fluttershy, questioning. Fluttershy’s only response was to smile, shrug, and follow the Blue Bolt.

~~~

Pinkie had folded through the wall upon arrival.

She stood in the center of a small patch of grass, lit by four lampposts. The buildings of New Alice City rose around her like an oppressive claw, and the moon…

The moon looked at her.

She let out a prayer of thanks that there was no way it could know what was going on inside her mind.

…Not that she really knew what was going on in her mind. None of this made any sense. It was… impossible.

Is it though?

Wordlessly, she took a step off the grass and onto the sidewalk, paying special attention to the cars that passed by.

Every last one was filled with the exact same pony silhouette. No variation. And none of the cars ever stopped. Nopony ever got out.

They’re not real.

One way or the other, that thought was true.

Pinkie began to walk down the sidewalk, refusing to look at the moon. She couldn’t be noticed…

Applejack and Fluttershy wouldn’t know that. They couldn’t know that. Pinkie couldn’t know that.

Right?

“Well, what’s a mare like you doing out and about at a time like this?”

Pinkie refused to look at the officer. Don’t make eye contact. “Time is meaningless.”

“Hmm… colorful, for a lost…”

“Color is just a projection of failed dreams.”

The officer grunted, turning away from Pinkie. One step, and the hatted pony folded through a nearby wall, appearing elsewhere.

Safe. For now.

Pinkie continued walking, keeping her head down, only taking momentary glances upward to see where she was. She didn’t look at the signs, or even the streets. She looked at how the cars moved. They may never arrive at a destination, but they were always going somewhere…

And she would as well.

There’s no way. This is all just a coincidence. There won’t be a donut shop at the end of this.

She folded through the air. She was standing in front of a corner store with a large, neon pink donut on top.

“No…” she breathed, a tear streaking down her face. “No. Not…”

She walked into the store, sitting down at one of the tables.

A blue mare walked up to her and pulled out a notebook and pen. “Welcome to the Donuteer! What can I getcha?”

“Pink sprinkle deluxe, hold the underglaze.”

The mare fixed her with a dumbstruck glare. “I… I’m sorry?”

“You heard me,” Pinkie deadpanned. “You know what to do.”

“I… y-yes! Right away!” She reached behind the counter and gave Pinkie a donut covered in sprinkles. “Remember to savor it!” She ran away so fast she dropped her notebook and pen down on the ground.

Pinkie didn’t even touch the donut – she stared, blankly, outside. The headlights and lampposts shone like stars against the inky blackness.

After sitting like this for a few minutes, something unexpected happened. A dark unicorn stallion trotted into the establishment and sat down across from Pinkie.

He had a donut. But the blue mare hadn’t been here to give him one…

“Donuts are the perfect example of the cycle you find yourself in,” the stallion said.

Pinkie refused to answer him.

“I live, you can be assured of that. The moon does not ensnare me. But, naturally, that does not mean I am for you… just as those ensnared are not all against. Curious, isn’t it? The slight imperfections in rigidity?”

I am not looking at him.

“And yet, the passing familiarity… the way that everything seems to click. I can see it in those eyes you are trying so desperately to hide from me. You’ve been here before.”

“Everypony lives in New Alice City,” Pinkie mumbled. “That’s… all there is.”

“I think you and I know differently.” He grinned. “My name is Shine. And I don’t belong.”

“…Clearly.”

“I’m the only one who hasn’t followed your understanding, isn’t this true? The only outlier. Something… else. Beyond even the Thieves and their little games, no matter how much the Auburn Mistress and the Blue Bolt wish for more.”

Pinkie tensed. This is all ridiculous. It doesn’t exist. It’s a dream. It’s true either way!

“All one with the moon… maybe.” Shine looked at the notebook and pen on the ground. “You could stay here, finish your donut, and become part of the expected. Or you could grab that… and uncover a real secret.” He no longer had a donut. He stood up and walked out the doors, vanishing into the darkness.

Pinkie looked at the donut in front of her, speaking of familiarity, guarantees… and then there were the notebook and pen on the ground.

What was she scared of?

She shivered.

Everything.

She grabbed the notebook and pen, proceeding to leave the establishment.

Among the Stars

Rarity explained everything she could to the Unity Helix, describing exactly what had happened beginning with the lights around the sun and ending with the defense of the ‘station’.

The Unity Helix listened in silence. Rarity could tell it was listening because occasionally the simplified eye on every screen would shift in reaction to some of the things she said, though Rarity had little luck discerning what the reactions meant. Whatever she was talking to was like no pony she had ever met…

“There is much to explain,” the Unity Helix said when she finished. “Doctor Jet, begin overseeing repairs to the station, I will be keeping tabs on the project. You are under the fleet’s protection, do not worry.”

“Got it,” Jet responded.

“Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and… Twilight.” The alicorn in question was still passed out on the ground, mumbling something about pancakes in her sleep. “I will be teleporting you to one of our ships, specifically a room where I will be able to explain things in a way you can understand.”

“Why would the room help?” Rarity asked.

“It allows me to craft detailed illusions through magical projection. I can show you what I’m telling you rather than wasting time in verbal communication. Were you a Unity unicorn, I would recommend direct information transfer, but I cannot be certain the procedure would be safe in your case.”

“Oh.” Rarity nodded. “Very well.”

With a flash of green light Rarity, Rainbow, and Twilight were in a large, cubic room with a single door and featureless white walls. The eye of the Unity Helix appeared in midair, floating at Rarity’s eye level. It was still little more than neon lines drawn in the air but the glow provided the illusion of depth.

“So… what did you need to explain?” Rarity asked.

“You need context for the world you find yourself in. You are surrounded by things you do not know, things that do not exist in your world. You do not know what Unity is.”

“You?”

“In a way, but you also do not know what I am.”

“…Fair enough,” Rarity admitted, tossing her mane back. “Start explaining.”

“Keep in mind that nothing you see aside from Rainbow and Twilight is real.”

And then Rarity was standing on an expansive desert. At first she thought it was her world, but then she realized it wasn’t quite right. The grains of sand had the wrong consistency and were of a duller color. This sand would clash with the amber glow of Runes.

“I chose a desert because it would be familiar, though naturally I do not know how your world appears.”

“This is pretty close,” Rainbow admitted. “Sand. Sand. More sand. Whoop-de-do, sand.”

“An admirable effort,” Rarity complimented.

“Thank you.” The Unity Helix began to explain. “Let’s pretend this is your world. It isn’t, but let’s put that aside for a minute. You are aware that your world is a sphere, yes?”

Rarity nodded. “I was educated.”

“Not all universes are like that…” Rainbow commented.

The Unity Helix turned to gaze at the pegasus. “Rainbow, while that information is pertinent and fascinating, I do not wish to confuse Rarity.”

“Oh. Uh… sorry?”

The Unity Helix continued. “You are aware that air gets thinner the higher you go, and that prevents pegasi from flying away from the world even with their magic-infused wings.”

Rarity nodded.

“Well, in worlds that aren’t suffering the tragedies yours is, people have the opportunity to overcome this limitation. It turns out that simple pegasus wings are not enough to reach maximum height… but there are other methods. One of the most basic is a thaumic rocket.”

Rarity watched as a magic crystal solidified in front of her, amethyst in color. It flashed for a moment and unleashed a torrent of fire beneath it, like a much bigger version of a firework. “The force this crystal produces… launches it far higher into the air than anything that came before it.”

It shot into the air almost faster than Rarity could track it, soon vanishing into the sky above. “So, what does one do with these… thaumic rockets?”

“Well, if you’re Twilight…”

Several dozen of the crystals appeared in front of Rarity, arranging themselves into the shape of a disc. This disc was quickly encased in a sheath of metal with several holes on the bottom of it, and a dome of glass was set on top.

“…You make this. And you get inside.”

“Seems ill-advised.”

“It is, but she was never one for caution.”

They were suddenly inside the glass dome. The thaumic rockets fired and they began to rise into the air at alarming speeds. “If this were real, the force would smash us into the ground like pancakes and the noise would be unbearable. Be glad we’re experiencing a smooth ride.”

Rarity tried to look down, but found the metal disc was interrupting her view of the ground. The Unity Helix must have sensed her desire because a window poofed into existence in front of her hooves, showing the desert below receding rapidly. She could no longer see any dunes, just a large block of dry color.

Eventually… she could see oceans in the distance, lined with green. This isn’t my world. There may not be oceans. …But this could be it.

Her breath caught in her throat as the curvature of the world became visible. No longer were the dunes and oceans on a flat map, they were on a ball. A ball that, at this distance, she could hold in her hooves.

She reached out at the land so far below. It didn’t even seem like below anymore – it just seemed distant.

“Look around,” the Unity Helix encouraged.

Rarity did. She saw the moon, understanding it for what it was, another place like the desert they had just left. She saw the stars spread out in every direction… and she saw the sun, lighting both the desert and the moon with life.

“Whenever a race creates a rocket of some sort, inevitably they turn their gaze to space. They go to their moon, if they have one, and then they look even further beyond.”

“How… how much further?” Rarity asked, discovering she was out of breath.

“Much. You see every single light out there? Every little star?”

Rarity nodded. “Yes.”

“Every last one of those is just another sun – but really far away.”

“Every… every one?”

To prove its point, the Unity Helix zoomed out even further. The sun soon became nothing more than another speck of light among hundreds… thousands… millions more. Soon it was impossible to pick any single one of them out, allowing her to see a new object – an immense swirl of stars spread out in the shape of a disc, a brilliant center trying its best to outshine the majesty of the reaching arms.

“Wh…”

“This is the galaxy of Unity. We have some holdings in other galaxies…” A few more swirling conglomerations of stars appeared around the main one, but they were kept in the distance. “Those are fringe territories. This, Rarity, is Twilight’s world. This is what she built.”

Rarity swallowed hard. “You really have everything, don’t you?”

“There are no threats to Unity. We have the resources to restore magic to a single planet with minimal effort. We could build another Mesh. We could exterminate all monsters with ease.”

“I… I don’t think I really believed that until just now…” Rarity admitted.

“Our world is much larger than all the others you have visited.”

“I get that, now…” Rarity held a hoof to her chest. “And I think I understand… ponies came from one of these… planets, and the other things I saw came from different ones. But… you’re different. What are you?”

“…That requires some more explanation.”

The imagery shifted, and suddenly they were watching a unicorn looking at a bunch of equations on a piece of paper. He lit his horn, and suddenly the answer was in front of him – five.

“Arithmetic spells,” Rarity said. “I know of them. Only really worthwhile for mathematicians who understand the nuances of mathematics. There… aren’t too many of those.”

The Unity Helix flashed. “And what might happen if, over the course of thousands of years, you begin to ask the spells more and more complex questions? You find ways to enchant objects so they can do the math on their own, and you make them smaller and smaller…” Rarity saw a crystal with several levers affixed to it, levers that represented mathematical operations. She watched as it shrunk, the levers became buttons, and eventually it became small enough to fit in her hoof.

Then it shrunk further, further, further… becoming a bunch of shining lights atop a green board. A piece of glass slid over the chip, flashing with light before displaying the number five.

“That is a screen,” the Unity Helix explained. “We use them to display, well, everything.”

“A screen…” Rarity blinked. “Those things on the station. They were… complex mathematical machines?”

“We call them computers.” The screen Rarity was holding in her hoof floated into the air and stitched itself together with hundreds of thousands of other screens, creating a vast wall displaying so many numbers Rarity couldn’t keep track of. “They eventually became more complicated than the brain of a pony.”

Rarity’s mind went blank for a moment.

“You should see the look on your face,” Rainbow chuckled.

“Sh… shush,” Rarity said halfheartedly.

The giant screen folded up and thousands of wires sprouted from behind it, coiling together in a giant ball that shrunk to the size of Rarity’s head…

She identified the shape it took. A brain. Around this brain, metal was pressed, and many complex things Rarity couldn’t identify were welded in with magic sparks – and to her mild disgust, she saw actual fur grafted to the outside, along with a few biological components.

Eventually, a filly with an innocent smile stood before her.

“Hi! I’m Unity!” She waved. “I was built to save the galaxy from the terror of the fuzzface empire, and I succeeded! And then I became the Unity Helix, the largest artificial mind in the known universe!”

Rarity turned to the eye behind her. “She… was you?”

The eye nodded. “She was never intended to become me, of course. She just needed to manage a few things. But, over time, as the alliance that was Unity became more and more conjoined, too much for Kings, Queens, or Empresses to rule effectively. So I was allowed to grow as far as I needed to do the best for Unity. I became the Helix. Roughly six hundred years ago Twilight officially stepped down, giving me absolute authority.”

“I… I don’t think I understand how…” Rarity shook her head.

“You don’t have to understand how. But know that I… am everywhere within Unity. While I am explaining this to you, I am also managing the repairs on the station…” The visuals changed, showing a rotating silver structure in the middle of darkness, around no stars or planets. Many sections of it were charred or damaged, and it looked… frail. Rarity didn’t want to know what would happen if it had been destroyed with her in it.

“…I am also overseeing the media circus on Anbazar…” the image changed to a large world covered in mushrooms. There were no ponies here, only a bunch of flying bug-things singing in front of many screens, a handful of which displayed the Unity Helix’s eye. “And I am in a distant galaxy, running negotiations with the Ictham.” Rarity saw a floating screen talking to spider-people with wings.

“Yeah yeah… you always did like to brag…” Twilight muttered, coming to. “…Did anyone get the number of the anvil that hit me?”

“Negative seven,” the Unity Helix responded.

Twilight snorted.

“Your world is… amazing,” Rarity admitted. “The… the polar opposite of mine. Filled with so much hope, opportunity, and… diversity.”

“Thanks,” Twilight said with a wink, shakily coming to her hooves. “Hope you’re not too overwhelmed.”

“I’m a bit short on breath and I find myself wondering how much of what I just learned applies to my world, but otherwise, perfectly fine.” Rarity was struggling not to hyperventilate from the mixed excitement, confusion, and awe.

They could do it. They could restore everything.

With a shock of terror, she realized she had let herself hope.

But who wouldn’t hope when given all this directly to their face? Your world is saved, Rarity! The Enchantress’ mission is soon to be over!

“Soon…” She said, chuckling softly.

Twilight coughed, turning to the Unity Helix. “You should download everything from my head. Figure out what you can. Devote extra processing power.”

The Unity Helix blinked. “Some people in sector J-seven are going to complain about their food replicators being slow.”

“So?”

“I was thinking that was a plus, not a detriment. They need to learn some patience.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and lit her horn – the glow was significantly fainter than Rarity remembered. It was still more than enough magic to “download,” whatever that meant. Something to do with the information in her mind, if Rarity was following context properly.

The Unity Helix closed its eye for a moment, and then opened it again. “Thank you, this is all very useful. I have already dispatched spellskimmer probes to investigate. They are gathering data in the Crystal Sea now.”

“Y-you already made it back!?” Rarity gawked.

“It was as simple as redoing the spell she cast earlier. The probes are smaller than your eye can see, they did not need much energy to cross the barrier between worlds. It does appear that some of their functions of higher complexity do not mesh with the magic of your world well, but their basic operations have translated without incident. I can show you what they see, if you want.”

Rarity nodded. “Show me.”

They were suddenly standing in the right sand, under the sun she had known all her life. It was familiar…

But also alien, for there was an immense black husk in the distance driven into the sand, pulsing with all the colors of the rainbow. Slowly, but surely, traces of amber color coursed up the structure and went to the top.

“They landed their ship,” Rainbow observed.

“They… they plugged it into my world!” Rarity shouted, waving a hoof in anger. “They’re draining the power of the Runes into their own!”

“Right, your planet has Runes,” Rainbow remembered. “They have an odd relationship with Runes…”

“Her entire planet is made up a big network of the ‘Runes’,” Twilight said, as if that information weren’t all that important. Rarity would have agreed with her, had Rainbow not stared at her in shock.

“The… entire planet!?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? Below the ground, the source of most the magic in the world is from a shell of material that occasionally pokes up from the ground. Those Rune things.”

Rainbow put a wing to her head. “I… hold on a second, I need to parse this.”

“I take it this is important?” the Unity Helix asked.

“Of course it is, you bucket of bolts! The Starcross Society only does two things to Runes – steals them, or destroys them! We were almost wiped out by their society just because we were ‘corrupted’ by Runic influence!”

“…’We’ as in ‘your world’…?” Twilight asked. Rarity barely heard this – she was busy imagining her entire world exploding.

“No, not my world, all of Merodi Universalis! We only got out of it because our friends in the TSAB bluffed the Starcross into running away!”

Twilight turned to the ship plugged into Rarity’s world. “We need to stop them.”

“Agreed,” the Unity Helix said. “I am already ordering a meeting aboard the Jammer.”

Rarity turned to Rainbow, eyes aflame. “Why?”

“…Helix, buddy, can you get me an image of Scarcity?”

“Searching… done.” A holographic representation of a white unicorn wearing nothing appeared in front of them. She looked like Rarity, but younger, angrier, and with a large scar across one of her eyes.

Rarity’s body couldn’t decide if it wanted to attack the image or back away in fear, so she stood frozen.

“This is Scarcity,” Rainbow said, walking up to the false pony. “She was from a world like mine, grew up as a fashion designer – proceeded to get lost in the multiverse and came back with a dream of bringing her ponies to the many worlds beyond. But, well, see, there was a little problem with this. Her world was already owned by another multiversal society, the Stars. They thought of ponies like we think of ants. Worthless, mindless, yada yada. Yeah, it was pretty evil.”

Rarity thought back to her many nights looking at the stars, hating them for their mockery of her dying world. Perhaps that anger had a basis in reality…

“She declared war on them. And she won. Became an absolute monster in the process.”

Rarity frowned. She won…

“But, it turns out, when the kinds of Stars that make up multiversal societies die, their corpses become solid husks infused with magic. These husks are, more often than not, Runes. And the Starcross Society is dedicated to eradicating the influence of the ancient power of Stars. That means isolating anything that’s been infected by them… They wanted to quarantine every universe in Merodi Universalis, and at the time they could have done it if they wanted.”

“So they’re obsessed,” Twilight observed.

“Very. They’re largely isolationist, hate progress, are impossible to reason with, and have a serious case of savior complex going on. It’s a… whole tub of issues that’d take way too long to get into. But… well, this explains everything. If there’s an entire planet filled with a giant Rune, they wouldn’t want to take any chances that we got our hooves on it. This explains the quarantine – the, uh, blocking off of universes. They’re jamming dimensional travel to any universe that isn’t closely related to these Runes!”

“How could they jam that effectively with a damaged ship?” Twilight asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s exactly the sort of thing they’d do! One of their ships is enough to decimate most universes with ease when fully operational. They wouldn’t need more. But if we got our ships involved we could try to stop them from, you know, destroying an entire planet for the sake of their isolation.”

“What are we waiting for!?” Rarity shouted. “We need to go stop them!”

“And we will…” the Unity Helix closed its eye. “The meeting is ready to begin. Rainbow, Rarity, I regretfully cannot allow you to join the proceedings, we will be discussing things that are highly classified in order to execute our attack. Rainbow, I already have the station’s scans of their capabilities, anything you might tell me will not be that helpful. Rarity, I understand you’re upset at this, but I need the military personnel to be willing to engage in mental connections. This will be the fastest way to do this.”

Rainbow and Rarity stared at the eye, shocked by the unload of information.

“Time is of the essence. Teleporting.”

Rarity and Rainbow were suddenly sitting, alone, on a couch in the middle of a large room covered by a glass dome. Despite the dozens of seats all around, there were no other people in the area.

Outside the glass they could see the station – the real station. Rarity couldn’t see any difference between what she had seen in the illusion room to what she was seeing now – it was round, metallic, and burned in a few places.

Fragile.

She looked away, finding her gaze drawn to lots of other objects drifting in the blackness of space. Most were metallic and pointed in the front, but several were pure geometric shapes while others seemed to be living tissue strapped together.

A fleet made to fight among the stars…

Rainbow put a hoof on Rarity’s back. “Hey. Don’t worry. We’ll go to save everyone, okay?”

Rarity frowned.

I’m so close… and I’m also so far… today could be the end, one way or another…

She let out a shaking breath and sat down on the couch, trying not to cry.

~~~

Rarity sighed. “You… you should leave me here.”

Rainbow looked up from the screen she was reading off of. “What?”

“I’m not cut out for this the way you and Twilight are. I-“

“Stop talking right now,” Rainbow demanded, shoving her wing in Rarity’s face. “You’re coming.”

“Rainbow… that’s unreasonable.”

“It’s perfectly reasonable! You’re an amazing spellcaster with a crazy determination streak. You’ve been wandering around that desert of yours for how long looking for anything to help your world?”

Rarity couldn’t be sure how long. It had all blurred…

“You’re not going to just check out before you see it through because you’re not ‘cut out’ for it. Bah.” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You’re coming with us and seeing this through. You can’t not be there, you’re the one who needs to save your world.”

“Am I?” Rarity asked.

“Well… yeah.”

“Why?”

Rainbow thought about this for a moment. “It’s… look, it just wouldn’t be right, okay?”

“I’ll ruin it.”

“You wouldn’t ruin it!”

“That’s what they always say,” Rarity said with a bitter laugh.

“Always…?”

“Always.”

“Rarity, you haven’t had other worlds at your disposal before.”

“So?” Rarity asked. “I was Queen, Rainbow Dash! Queen of the last nation on the face of the earth! I had all the resources I could possibly need, a loving people, and a plan! It all came crashing down!”

“That was ju-“

“And then I rebuilt it. And then it crashed done once again.” She took an aggressive step toward rainbow. “And then I rebuilt it. And then it crashed. Rebuilt. Crashed. Lifted. Dead.”

Rainbow stared at her in shock.

“I’m cursed by failure, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity spat. “The only reason I kept trying was because there was nopony else. There was no other Enchantress. I. Was. It. It was very simple: if I gave up, the world died. But now…” she realized she was crying now, but she didn’t let that deter her. “…Now I can leave it to somepony else… You. Twilight. Fluttershy. The other two, they’re probably better suited than me.”

“So what?”

Rarity gawked. “So what!?”

“So what if we’re better than you? How can you be sure we’ll succeed without you?”

“Look at you!”

“Rarity, you look at me.” Rainbow stood tall and spread her wings. “We can fail too. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve just barely gotten through something, and if somepony else hadn’t been there at the right moment, I’d be dead. And those are just random bystanders most of the time! You’re not! You’re the center!”

“…Center?”

“You, your world, take your pick. It and its massive Rune… it’s the reason all of this is happening! The rest of us are orbiting you! Twilight may seem like a big hotshot Princess who’s in charge of everything, but she’s not the center. You, Rarity, are the core of this group. We all came to your world. You might be the most important pony to all of this.”

Rarity remembered.

The symbol – a circle surrounded by five others.

A tapestry in her palace. The symbol of the Enchantress buried right in the center.

She was the center, wasn’t she?

She laughed nervously, wiping her eyes. “Why… I… I want to stop, Rainbow. No mare should have to strive for this long…”

Rainbow put a wing over her. “Hey. You’ve striven for this long, you can strive for… what, a few hours more? A few days if something goes wrong?”

“Something’s going to go wrong. I’m here.”

“Hah. Something’d go wrong either way. You’re the pony who’s going to be able to make it go right.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Yeah, probably. But at least I have experience!”

At this point, Twilight teleported into the lounge with a… very large reptilian creature behind her. He filled most of the room with his dark scales, every one of them shimmering with the stars of the night outside. He would have been well camouflaged had it not been for his brilliant, piercing eyes.

“Rarity. Rainbow,” the beast said. “I am Quasar, the immortal of dragons. I will be leading the assault on the Starcross Base, as ordered by the Unity Helix.”

Twilight grinned, pointing at Rarity and Rainbow with her wings. “And we’re going in as a team!”

“Perfect!” Rainbow shouted. “What’s the plan?”

Rarity decided she should just accept Quasar and move on without any fanfare. “Yes, a plan would be appreciated.”

“There’s a lot of complex tactics I’m not going to explain…” Twilight admitted. “But the basic idea? Attack from the sky, distract them, and send a bunch of teams into the Starcross ship to disable it from within. That’s what the three of us are doing.”

“Please tell her not to go,” the Unity Helix said, appearing on a nearby screen. “As the immortal of ponykind, her loss would cause irrevocable damage.”

Rarity huffed. “If I’m getting dragged into this, she’s coming as well.”

“Wouldn’t be right without her,” Rainbow grinned.

Twilight looked from Rarity to Rainbow. “I feel like I missed something.”

“You did,” the Unity Helix said. “Some rather… interesting bonding, I must say.”

Rarity glared at the screen. “Did you ever hear of the concept of privacy?”

The Unity Helix blnked. “Doesn’t really exist unless you’re Twilight and demand to take your station off the grid. Foolishly, I might add.”

“Psh, we’re fixing it!” Twilight said. “Don’t get your wires in a twist.”

“All my wires are twisted.”

“You’re no fun today.”

“You missed the show I gave Rarity. That was fun.”

“Children!” Rarity shouted. “Save the fighting for our enemies, hmm?”

Twilight had the decency to look embarrassed. “…Right. Ahem. Quasar, prepare the fleet. Rarity, Rainbow, to my personal fighter.”

“…We’re getting a fourth member?” Rarity asked, confused.

Quasar laughed. “You should keep this one, Twilight. She’ll be an unending fount of entertaining reactions.”

Rarity pointed at him. “I didn’t react to you.”

“Give your mind a moment to reset.”

Thief of Fate

Fluttershy and Applejack followed the Blue Bolt through the expanse of whiteness… until they weren’t in the whiteness anymore.

Fluttershy had a hard time piecing together where they were. Everything was bright and vibrant with a penchant for the color green, but the sky was darker than the darkest night. There were many trees that looked like they belonged in a magic jungle, lit as if it were midday, though they seemed to be moving around when Fluttershy wasn’t looking directly at them.

Among the trees were large, wooden structures that curled in outrageous, exaggerated designs that should have crumbled under the weight of gravity or simply been impossible. Fluttershy’s mind bent into a knot when she tried to look at a house shaped like a triangle that folded in on itself…

At least Fluttershy was able to accept this.

“That’s impossible,” Applejack said, freezing in her tracks. “The angles don’t add up. There has to be some trick...”

“The Thieves’ Guild is all tricks,” Bolt said with a smirk. “Leave your assumptions at the door, whatever they may have been! This isn’t some ordered machine or bleak desert, this is a place of life!”

“Found some new thieves?” A pegasus mare who definitely hadn’t been there a moment ago asked. She wore a similar black outfit to the Blue Bolt but her face was uncovered, revealing a luscious brown mane, coat, and eyes.

“Maybe, maybe not?” Rainbow said with a shrug. “You are not gonna believe the crazy stuff I’ve been through in the last few hours.”

“Considering that one of the mares with you is a complete dead zone and the other is a shining magic beacon covered in armor, I’m ready for some pretty unbelievable stuff.”

“Oooh yeah. See, this all started when I was minding my own business…”

“Er, excuse me,” Fluttershy said, raising a hoof. “Care to introduce us?”

“Oh, right.” Bolt coughed. “This is the Auburn Crown, leader of the Thieves. These two, uh… don’t have names aside from their true ones and really need to come up with some alternates.”

“Why would my name matter?” Applejack asked.

“The papers they tried to have us sign,” Fluttershy explained. “Something about the name matters.”

“…Well, that makes about as much sense as that triangle house over there…”

Auburn looked at the two of them in disbelief – but also with a huge grin. “I am going to love this story, aren’t I?”

“You betcha!” Bolt laughed.

Other Thieves had started poking their heads out of the houses – ponies of all three races curious about the newcomers, all wearing black outfits fit for sneaking around. Not in a place this bright, but definitely in the City itself.

“So, alternate names are like… titles?” Fluttershy asked.

Bolt nodded. “Yep. I’m the Blue Bolt.”

‘Then I am the Weaponsmith.”

“…Mechanic, I guess,” Applejack added.

“…Man you two are boring. Just using your jobs?” Bolt rolled her eyes. “Please.”

“So… let’s hear this story,” Auburn said, sitting on a stump that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Bolt grinned. “So, I was minding my own business, and then I was dropped in a desert… A real desert, not the sort of thing we run into in the side depths. Then I saw ol ‘Smith here and…”

“The Enchantress,” Fluttershy offered.

“Yeah, these two were talking, walking down a road to a bunch of rocks. I dashed away before they could see anything, and then I ran into the weirdest thing. Another me. Looked just like me, talked like me, and had my true name.”

Auburn gasped.

“And get this! She actually used it in casual conversation! They all did, and nothing happened to any of them!”

“That’s impossible.”

“That’s what I thought! But then I realized something – I had been taken out of New Alice City. Completely out! Another world kind of out, a place where the moon’s influence doesn’t exist! Pretty cool, huh?”

“A bit pointless, but that is pretty cool.”

“Yeah. So, being the thief I am, I knew I had to get back to New Alice City somehow, and the other me had a device thingy that allowed her to access other worlds.”

Applejack held up the device.

“Oh sweet! You have it! Let’s show them!”

Applejack looked to Fluttershy. “I can… try.” The weaponsmith picked up the device in her wings and tried to remember how Rainbow has used it last. Twist a knob there… set it to something green… press the button…

A portal ripped open in the air, going directly to the Crystal Sea. Sand as far as the eye could see.

“Wooooooah…” the Thieves collectively gasped.

“…I, um, don’t know how to close it.” Fluttershy admitted.

“I know that,” Applejack said, tapping the device and closing the portal.

“So, anyway, I stole that,” Bolt said, grinning. “Why? Because I saw them dial New Alice City. Turns out the device isn’t really simple to use and I ended up in the wrong world, a place with a lot of gears everywhere and no magic. Couldn’t even fly!”

“How’d you survive?!” Another thief asked.

“Carefully. And by striking a deal with the other me, the Enchantress, and ‘Smith here. I gave them back the device, they took me to New Alice City. They had some sort of idea about ‘saving the worlds’ or something, which sounded interesting, but they had no plan. I told them to come find me when they had a plan. And since ‘Smith is here without the others… well, I have the distinct impression something’s gone wrong.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Yes. Things… things went wrong. I’m not sure exactly what, we were attacked…”

Applejack cleared her throat. “I think I can explain this one.”

“Yeah, I don’t know who you are,” Bolt admitted. “But given the outfit, you’re from that gear-Mesh world thing.”

Applejack nodded. “After they sent you back, the rest of us displaced ponies met up. Me, the… Empress, and the… uh… Pink One.”

Fluttershy snorted.

“Give me a break, I’m not good at the whole name thing. I named the green thing I found after myself for crying out loud.”

“Huh. Convenient.”

“Yeah, really was weird…” Applejack shook her head. “Anyway, in the Empress’ universe – which I’m not even going to try to explain what it’s like – there were these ponies called the Starcross Society. I’m not entirely sure what their deal was, but they threatened us, wanted to steal Tw… the Empress’ portal spell. When we escaped, they copied the spell, came to the desert… and attacked. Ra-“

Everypony shot her a death glare.

“Uh, the other you gave me the device thingy and told me to get everypony out of there who couldn’t fight and find you. That was Smith here and Pink.”

“…Where’s Pink?” Bolt asked.

“Don’t know,” Fluttershy said. “We had to deal with one of the Starcross soldiers when we came through, and when we were done with that… we couldn’t find Pink.”

“She’s alone in New Alice City with no friends or protection?” Bolt asked.

Fluttershy nodded.

“Okay, Auburn? I’d love to stay and chat but I’m going to go get her. Call me if anything happens here and be good to our guests, okay?”

Auburn smirked. “Sure. Remember, though, you’re not the boss.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to be responsible for a pony getting lost in the darkness,” Bolt muttered.

“How are you going to find her?” Applejack asked.

“Nopony hides from the Thief of Lightning!” With a laugh, Bolt flapped her wings and… vanished.

“…Will she really be able to find her?” Applejack asked.

Auburn nodded. “Don’t worry. Bolt’s the best of the best, if she is a bit reckless. She can find anything in the City and take it away from the moon’s grasp. If Pink hasn’t been taken already, she’ll get her. Meanwhile… we can help you two.”

“R-really?” Fluttershy asked.

“Come on, the Bolt vouched for you, and we’re low on friends as it is, of course we’ll help!” She pointed at the dimensional device. “Plus, if we can get that to work, we could get more ponies into the Thieves, even if you two aren’t suited for it.”

“Why do I get the impression you aren’t… normal thieves?”

“What’s a normal thief?”

“A pony who just takes stuff because they want it. Generally against the law.”

Auburn twitched. “The law is evil.”

Fluttershy held up a hoof. “Law enforcement, in my world at least, is made up of perfectly normal ponies that don’t try to get you to sign blood contracts.”

Auburn blinked. “…That’s a foreign idea.”

“We don’t even have whatever ‘law enforcement’ is,” Applejack said. “Just mechanics, managers, and higher managers.”

“We have to be just as confusing to you as you are to us.”

“Yep,” Fluttershy said. “Though at this point I pretty much just expect that….”

Auburn chuckled. “Anyway, before we get on the tour, I’d like to have our tech guy look at that device. Maybe he can figure out how to get it to work.”

Fluttershy turned to Applejack. “Think we can?”

“What else are we going to do with it? Go back to the desert?”

“...I don’t know…” She held the device in her wing, furrowing her brow. “You won’t try to take it apart?”

“Bits isn’t that stupid,” Auburn assured her. “This way…” She took a step – and they were suddenly standing in a different area of the impossible jungle, outside a wooden cube made of smaller wooden cubes made of even smaller wooden cubes and likely cubes smaller than that.

“Folding…” Fluttershy said, furrowing her brow.

“…How do you ponies get around if you can’t fold?” Auburn asked.

“We fly.”

“Walk,” Applejack corrected.

“I can’t imagine… must be so boring.” Auburn walked into the cube of cubes, the interior of which was shaped like a pyramid. Fluttershy heard Applejack groan at the spatial inconsistency. The mechanic must had lived in a world of ordered, predictable machines all her life, this had to be much worse than anything else she had encountered so far.

Sitting in the center of the room was a unicorn stallion with a peach coat and emerald mane. “Oh. New Thieves?”

“Eh…” Auburn said, tilting a wing side to side. “Maybe?”

“That’s curious.”

“We have a device here for you to look at, Bits.” Auburn gestured to Fluttershy. “Show him.”

Fluttershy did what she’d done last time, opening a portal directly to the Crystal Sea. Bits gasped. “Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes!” He swiped the device out of her wing. “A parallel accessory! The writings on the walls said such things might be possible but I never imagined… How does it work?”

“I… have no idea,” Fluttershy said. “It’s not mine. I barely know how to access the other world. It can access at least one more, but I don’t know how to get there.”

“Then I’ll find out!”

“Doooon’t break it!”

Bits smirked. “Really, me, break something? You really are new here, aren’t you?” He lifted it in his magic. “I’ll be using scrying spells to figure out the function. Just give me a minute…”

“He means an hour,” Auburn said. “…Or maybe more.”

“Guess we’ll sit here for an hour then,” Applejack said, planting her rear on the ground. “Or whenever Bolt gets back with Pin…k.”

“Why do we have to hide our names, anyway?” Fluttershy asked. “I understand it’s dangerous, but… why at all times?”

Auburn frowned. “Every pony has a name. They just know this name. Always have, always will.”

“…Your name isn’t given to you by your parents?”

Auburn laughed. “Who would name their kid?”

“Everypony in the history of ever. In every world we know of.”

Applejack nodded in confirmation.

Auburn rubbed her head with a wing. “Geez… Okay, so, simplest thing? Your name is you, the only thing that is always, irrevocably yours. The moon can steal it through the officers or other unsavory types in a variety of ways, and if your name is ever spoken aloud before the moon… well, it tends to look at you.”

“That moon is wrong,” Applejack said.

“I’m going to hazard a guess and say you don’t have one?”

“Nope.”

“I do,” Fluttershy said. “It doesn’t watch people though… it’s just a big round rock. What is your moon?”

Auburn shrugged. “To be perfectly honest I haven’t the foggiest idea what the moon is. I know it’s there, and it’s always watching everypony. Every spirit in the city is part of the moon’s influence in some way. They are its eyes, its ears, and...” She waved a hoof in the air, struggling to come up with a metaphor. “Bits, help me out here.”

“The moon turns ponies into spirits,” Bits answered as he turned the device over and over in his magic. “These spirits seek out ponies to turn into more spirits – usually by signing over their name, or just tossing them into the dark spots and letting that take care of them. There are more dead than living in New Alice City.”

“How can something be dead but walking about?” Applejack asked.

“The pony was killed, the aspect of the moon controls what was left behind.”

“How… how terrible!” Fluttershy cried out. “How do you live?”

“Ponies learn to hide,” Auburn said with a sad smile. “They stay inside, never leave, and only get food when they absolutely have to. Some communities find their way to the side depths, creating little pockets that like to pretend they’re outside the City. Like this place.” She gestured out a window at the glowing trees. “Places like this are how Thieves are made.”

“I don’t understand.”

Applejack snorted.

Auburn nodded. “Most ponies don’t know about the side depths. Because you have to know they exist to get to them, or you have to be dragged in there by somepony else. There’s always a price to enter the side depths – you must bring in something important. Which means you have to steal it from New Alice City. Once you have it, run and look down. You’ll find a trapdoor.”

“That’s illogical,” Applejack said.

“New Alice City isn’t logical.”

Applejack looked like she wanted to argue but couldn’t think of the words to do it.

“In the Blue Bolt’s case, she stole you two. But in most of our cases we steal things like food or produce that are always in the shops. We provide for each other that way and we give to other living ponies we come across should the opportunity arise. The Blue Bolt has become something of a legend up there on the streets, ransacking some of the most spirit-filled areas and coming out with loads of stuff and throwing it all over the streets, daring the shadows to come get her.” Auburn chuckled. “She is so going to get herself killed one day, but hey, she’s doing something.”

“…Shadows? Are those the… dark spots?” Fluttershy asked.

“You saw them?”

“They were chasing me. All of them.”

“Well, you do shine like a beacon of not spirit…” Auburn scratched her chin. “We don’t know what they are either. But we know when they pass through an area, all the lights go out and some ponies come out of it spirits. The others see and hear nothing the entire time.”

“Terrifying.”

“We Thieves have a rule. If it starts getting dark, take something and run.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if I’m ever back on the streets.” Fluttershy shivered. “Auburn… I don’t think you realize how terrifying your world is.”

“It’s all we’ve ever known.”

~~~

Pinkie knew this needed to be perfect. With no interruptions. No chance of interruptions.

She had walked into one of the skyscrapers, head held as far down as she could manage. She took the stairs. An elevator would be too unpredictable – and although the stairs were agonizing on her legs, she had made it to the top.

There was only one reason to be up here: to look for the shadows. Every spot of blackness she could make out was far enough away for her tastes and not moving in her direction.

Good.

She made her way back down to ground level, head down. Always down. They wouldn’t notice her, that way.

It was almost too easy for somepony who knew the world as well as she did. Not a single one of the moon’s servants suspected anything.

Pinkie found herself an abandoned alley. Such things were exceedingly commonplace in New Alice City, so it had taken all of ten minutes. She grabbed a small wastebasket and turned it upside down.

She set the notebook and pen on top of the wastebasket and flipped open to the first blank page. Pinkie set her hoof down on the pen, picking it up like it were a delicate, frozen flower.

A thought occurred to her. She could back out. The notebook and pen might qualify as important enough stolen items… she could try.

Did she want to, though?

No. No, if what she thought was true, then… then she needed to stay as far away as possible. From everything.

She set her pen to the page and started writing.

I jumped along the flat rooftops, spreading my wings just enough to cross the distance. Had I been a weaker pony, I would have stumbled on the sharp edge of my destination. Instead, I hoisted myself up with a precisely positioned hoof and came to a skidding stop on the new roof.

I could have just flown where I needed to go, of course. But I was the Blue Bolt, Thief of Lightning; if I did anything I was going to do it with some flair.

Pinkie took a breath, lifting the pen from the paper. That was all fine by itself. But now…

She rammed the pen back onto the page.

I looked over the edge, down at the street below. Easily visible was the neon sign of the donut shop, shining forth with its pink light, daring any of the lost or the drivers to give it a second thought. None did at the moment, and that was the way it should be. For it was a place of safety for those who refused to step into the side…

My hooves clattered against the ground as I jumped overhead. I spread my wings and banked to the side, coming to the ground in a gentle spiral. Had anypony looked up, I would have been an easy target.

Luckily, the lost were just as clueless as always.

With a light whoosh of air, I entered the donut shop. “Hey.”

The caretaker of the establishment, a mare by the title of Nibbler, looked at me in surprise. “I… weren’t you just here?”

“Me?”

“No, not you, another Thief.”

I shrugged. “Maybe? Different cells don’t always coordinate, you know. You are on overlapping territory.”

“Right… I was afraid there was going to be another shouting match.”

“Huh?” Why would there be a shouting match in this safe space?

“Well… a pink mare came in a while ago, ordered the special order. I set up a meeting, but she was gone when the Thief arrived!”

“Pink mare…” I furrowed my brow. I needed to find her.

“Yes… you do,” Pinkie said with barely more than a whisper.

“The other Thief?”

“Madrigal. I think he went back to his space, wherever that is.”

“Didn’t even try to hunt her down?”

“I… guess not.” Nibbler frowned. “Do you think she’s…”

“No,” I said. “Definitely not. If this were a trap it would have been sprung. I-“

I was interrupted when a lost strode into the establishment. Instantly I put my head down, imitating the shell of a pony. Nibbler’s job was different – she was emulating a servitor, so she had to at least make a show of running a donut shop. It may have been rare one of them would come in here, but when you’re little more than a mindless automaton, you try noticing if the place you’ve walked in wasn’t there last week.

“How can I help?”

“There is no help…”

I trudged out of there as quickly as I could while still imitating the dejected pony inside. The moment I was free, I ducked into an alley and smirked – idiots.

Anyway, I needed to find the pink mare. And, just my luck, I saw a bright pink hair in a nearby dumpster. That gave me a connection. Perfect.

“This won’t work…” Pinkie said, scrawling line after line.

With the piece of her in my wing, all I’d have to do was fold. Where to do it? That was the question. Just about anywhere would work, but I needed to have some fun. Even though no one was watching. Which seemed a little silly, now that I thought about it…

Guess I was putting on a show for the moon. Hah. Enjoying the show, oppressive nimrod?

Pinkie’s tongue caught in her throat for a moment. But she pushed forward.

I threw open a dumpster and pulled out a red baseball cap – sweet, totally keeping that. I slapped it on my head and jumped into the air, angled to crash right into the trash.

Then I folded, the pink hair in front of me, serving as a focal point.

Pinkie let out a breath, refusing to look up. She couldn’t. Not yet…

I came out in an alleyway, my hooves hitting the ground with a thud

THUD

and there she was, scribbling something in a notebook. She looked up and we locked eyes.

Pinkie looked up and locked eyes with a pegasus mare… in a red baseball cap holding one of her hairs.

“That’s…” Pinkie didn’t know what to say.

“Hey, Pink One,” the Blue Bolt took off her face wrappings. “Your friends are waiting for you back at the Guild.”

Pinkie blinked. “Wait. They sent you?”

“Uh, yeah. And I-“ Bolt’s ears perked up. Pinkie couldn’t hear it, but she knew her phone was receiving a call. “Blue Bolt here. Yeah, guess what Auburn? I found her! Yeah, that’s great. Right by the donut shop, actually, you can send them up here if you want. Right. See you soon.” She tilted her head, hanging up. “Looks like everything’s gonna be fine. Just, uh, don’t use your name here, okay? Or the names of anypony else. That’s rule number one.”

Pinkie stared at her in disbelief, a smile slowly crawling up her face. “You… it must just be coincidence. You just arrived at the perfect time with… a red hat…” she shook her head. “Nah, coincidence! Cooooooincidence!”

“…Wow, kay, you’re a nutter.”

Pinkie looked down at her notes. “Yeah. I was crazy. The multiverse must be large enough that this would happen by chance…”

“You wish that were true,” a new voice said.

Pinkie’s hairs stood on end. Bolt lowered her head aggressively at the newcomer who had folded into existence behind Pinkie.

Shine. The stallion at the diner.

Pinkie’s hooves shook as she turned her head. “Y-you tricked me…”

“I needed her to be here,” Shine said. “All I had to do was plant a little seed in your mind… and you wrote her right too you.”

“I would have been here anyway!” Bolt shouted, flaring her wings.

“Folding through connections would not be true if she did not write it on that page. She had not established such a mechanic before.” Shine chuckled. “How would you have found her then?”

“What…?”

“Run,” Pinkie whispered. “Just run.”

Bolt rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

“Please…”

“Oh, do stop,” Shine said with a chuckle. “You know her well enough. She’s not going to leave you helpless. She’s just too noble.” Behind Shine something dark took shape – but it was not the kind of darkness that prowled the streets of New Alice City. That darkness was elegant. This darkness was monstrous: a conglomeration of tentacles, eyes, and rippling inky skin dripping like it belonged at the bottom of a murky lake.

Just looking at it gave Pinkie a headache. She couldn’t look away.

Seven eyes that all belonged to different animals fixed their gaze on Bolt.

Bolt stared in disbelief, wincing in pain, but refused to look away. “What… what are you!?”

Shine smirked. “About to put on a show the likes of which your moon has never seen.”

Defenders

Starcross ships were a paradox inside – the Runic material they were made out of was inherently pitch black, but the Runes themselves always glowed with brilliant colors. In any given area, one color tended to dominate over all others, creating blue rooms, red rooms, and even silver rooms from time to time.

The bridge was pink.

Scarcity hated the color pink.

Ever since this whole fiasco had started she’d seen almost nothing but pink. Even her personal quarters were pink here. It was as though the corpses of her ancient enemies were determined to mock her from beyond the grave…

She turned her attention to the display screen in front of her, embedded into a dark podium. It could display things in three dimensions, if it wanted, but Scarcity didn’t want every model she looked at to be coated in the pink. It looked ugly, among other reasons.

Bad memories that made her scar sting.

“Hey, Scarcity? Boss?”

Scarcity sighed. “What is it, Glimmer?”

“You know the drilling’s going well...”

“Yes. I do. Get to the point, please.”

Glimmer sighed. “Would it kill you to, you know, be nice? We have limited personnel and the more you make it seem like you don’t care the less confident they get. Morale is an important thing, especially when we can’t restock.”

“That’s your job.”

“They still look to you.”

Scarcity furrowed her brow – and then sighed. “It’s… not easy when you can feel existence creeping in from all sides.”

“You know how to lead.”

“I do. The great Enchantress, slayer of Stars.” Scarcity smirked. “The mission never ends.”

“There can’t be an endless number of Runes. We’ll get them all eventually.”

“The Merodi…”

“So what if they have a few? They don’t really matter, their path is already doomed. Their fate is of no concern to us.”

Scarcity nodded slowly. “True. But this Rune matters more than all others we have encountered. They cannot be allowed to have it.”

“Which is part of what I’m here to talk to you about. There’s a pretty good chance those anomalies we’ve been detecting are microscopic Unity probes analyzing us for possible attack avenues.”

The soft lines that had been coming to Scarcity’s face over the course of the conversation vanished in an instant. “How long?”

“Considering that all of Unity is run by a super A.I.? I’m surprised they haven’t already attacked.”

“We have all the defenses we can muster…” Scarcity put a hoof to her chin. “Put the crew on high alert. It won’t do much, but it’ll do something.”

“That order is already being processed. I just came here to tell you before alarm sounds start-“

The alarm sounds started, making Scarcity and Glimmer wince.

“So…” Glimmer said, shaking the buzz out of her ears. “What do you think our chances are?”

“We just need to drill all the way through the Runic shell.” Scarcity pointed at her screen, showing the hollow world and the progress of the drill. “We don’t have to defeat them. Just survive long enough.”

“Chances?”

“I make my own chances,” Scarcity growled.

“Ah…” Glimmer said, frowning. “How concerned should we be about the blank spots?”

“Very.”

“…Scarcity…”

“We have options, Glimmer. Stop worrying.”

“I don’t really like the other options.”

“Too bad, we’ve been put into this situation against our wishes, we’ve got to make the most of it.” She tossed her mane back. “You are to drain every last ounce of power from that Twilight, you understand?”

“Oh, absolutely! She needs to be taken down a peg.”

“Good. We’re going to use everything we have.” Scarcity narrowed her eyes. “Take out as many as possible. Shake their confidence.”

“I don’t think that’ll do much.”

“Do it anyway. It’s a possible edge. Make them suffer.”

Trial by Darkness

“Check this out,” Bits said, holding out the dimensional device. He adjusted a few dials and pressed the main screen, opening a hole in reality.

It didn’t go to anywhere Fluttershy or Applejack had ever seen. There was a city on the other side with high-rise buildings and a beautiful, clear blue sky. The portal itself had opened itself up in a park with mostly pine trees. A unicorn levitating an ice cream cone stared at the portal, slack-jawed.

Fluttershy waved at him. “Hello!”

He turned and walked away, pretending as if he’d seen nothing.

Applejack snorted. “I’d probably have done the same if I hadn’t been dropped in the desert.”

Bits shrugged. “So… know who’s this is?”

“Never seen it before,” Applejack said.

“Me either,” Fluttershy added. “Let’s see, process of elimination… this would be Pinki—Pink’s world.”

“If her name is really that close…”

“My bad,” Applejack admitted, adjusting her hat. “At least she can go home when we find her. I think she needs it more than the rest of us.”

“Really?” Fluttershy asked.

“Yep. She’s not of the build for this. Her life is not one of work, but of creativity. She knows things but she really, really shouldn’t be exerting herself like she is. Hides pretty well behind that smile of hers, don’t get me wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this world has scarred her enough to break her.”

Fluttershy frowned. “Then we’ll need to be there for her.”

“You’re in luck, then,” Auburn said, trotting back into Bits’ shop. “Bolt’s found her. We can send her to you right now.”

“…How do you know?” Applejack asked.

“Phones.” Auburn looked at the two’s blank stares. “Devices that allow you to talk to ponies that are far away. All the experienced Thieves have them in their ears.”

“Tw- Empress did mention something like that,” Applejack said.

Auburn nodded. “I’m going to send you two to her.” She pulled a small strand of green hair out of her Thief outfit. “This is her hair. She’s a living pony, you should be able to fold right to her.”

“I don’t know anything about folding.”

“And given your complete lack of magic, I’m not sure you can do it on your own. But Smith here…” She gave Fluttershy the hair. “Mechanic, hold on to her. Smith, focus on the hair. Feel the magic flow through your wings, and think of the Blue Bolt. I want to see if you can do it.”

“Okay…” Fluttershy said, pulling Applejack to her with a hoof. She focused her magic into her wings, piercing the hair between the very tips of her limbs.

She had never been good at teleporting, but she figured this probably wasn’t like teleporting at all. There was no need to keep everything in mind – the destination; the distance between… such things weren’t as solidly defined in New Alice City anyway.

So it probably all fell down to focusing on the connection. Instead of feeling the Blue Bolt, though, she felt a single point in the center of the hair, drawing her attention dramatically do it.

“That’s good…” Auburn said. “You have it. Now… push.”

And then Fluttershy was falling. Everything was a kaleidoscope of colors whirring past her at speeds so fast she couldn’t even tell if there were shapes to discern in the patterns.

She felt like spaghetti…

And yet, despite the alien feeling, she somehow knew she was going right to the Blue Bolt. Pinkie would be with her, and they could save Pinkie from this horrific town – taking her home.

Then all was dark.

~~~

The Starcross ship was a tumor on the endless sand, embedded into the grains like a parasite. The pulsing glow of amber coursing through it as it dug further and further into the ground only added to the image.

It did not belong. The world knew it, but it was powerless to do anything about it.

Another world was not.

“Engage,” Quasar ordered.

Dozens of portals opened in the sky around the ship. Immediately, the Starcross sent out a pulse designed to jam dimensional travel, expecting to saw a few ships in half through rapidly closing rifts.

The Unity Helix had expected this and planned accordingly. All ships used their faster-than-light drives to flash across the world boundary before the portals could destabilize. Not a single one was lost to the initial retaliation.

For a single moment, the world was quiet save for the hum of various engines. The dark shape embedded in the ground contrasted heavily with the brighter, cleaner ships in the air. The Starcross were a disgusting lump, almost all the ships of Unity were streamlined and sleek – or at least organically green.

Three-dozen ships pointed directly at a single one. They had the numbers.

As expected, they did not have the firepower. As advanced as Unity was, they didn’t hold a candle to technology created from the corpses of dead cosmic entities.

Both sides fired at the same time. Laser weapons hit first. Unity’s ships unleashed thin, narrow beams of color that were almost impossible to see in the light of day. Starcross created spheres of multicolored energy on the outside of their ship, focusing lasers the diameter of houses upon the attacking ships.

Shields activated. Unity’s shimmered with a soft blue color upon impact while Starcross’ shone with a green hexagonal pattern, lighting the ship up like a disembodied dragonfly eye.

A couple of the smaller Unity ships gave out first, shields collapsing from the strain and exploding, sending smoldering metal down to the sand below, melting it into glass. The other ships were able to absorb the immense attacks without overloading, sapping energy off the assault to power their own shields.

Magic circles began appearing around the Starcross ship while Unity started launching more conventional projectiles. Complex swirling bursts of power tried to entangle Unity’s ships while endless explosions bombarded Starcross’ shields. Both sides unleashed swarms of smaller ships at each other, engaging in a complex dance of insect-like probes endlessly shooting at each other in an attempt to gain the upper hand.

The initial fight was already over. There would be no easy victory for either side.

Twilight noticed that it had already gotten too complicated for Rarity to follow. Rarity furrowed her brow. “I… who’s winning?”

Twilight shrugged. “No idea.”

“We are,” Rainbow asserted. “Starcross is more advanced, but they’re at a heavily disadvantaged position. They should be trying to retreat…”

“As I predicted, they are not,” the Unity Helix beeped over the communicators. “This means they must be close. You are clear to begin infiltration.”

Twilight nodded. “Here we go…”

The three of them were sitting in the cockpit of a decent sized fighter – Twilight’s personal favorite, forged of metal and coated in amethyst for no reason besides looking amazing. One might think such a frivolous ship would be a useless pushover, but they’d be wrong. When you’re the Empress, ponies find a way to make your stuff gaudy and useful.

Twilight laid her hooves on the controls, feeling the rubbery surface beneath that would detect minor variations in her hooves’ traction fields. She could have done this with her magic, but it wouldn’t look anywhere near as cool.

“Ready?” She asked, turning back to her two passengers.

“Yeah!” Rainbow shouted without hesitation.

Rarity sighed. “…Sure. Launch the fighter-thing.”

Twilight nodded. “Here we go…”

She activated the wormhole drive, popping into existence right outside the Starcross ship’s shields. It would have been vastly preferable to appear inside the shields, but the Starcross were evidently smart enough to think of that, jamming all dimensional or wormhole travel through spatial distortion.

So instead they just rammed into the shield at full speed, piercing it like a needle. At first it was only a handful of atoms that poked through from the front of her ship, but that was enough. The tip of the fighter began to unfold like a giant claw, forcing the opening in the shields open wider and wider until she could pop right through.

Twilight’s ship was not the only one doing this – a few dozen others had made it through as well.

Unfortunately, most of those ships did not have a spellcaster of Twilight’s caliber on board, and they fell to the Starcross point defenses, exploding in showers of color. With the large lasers occupied, Twilight’s internal magic was easily able to deflect the smaller weapons.

Though the shield did flicker. She groaned – the ‘recently refueled’ jitters. No matter what she’d done, all artificial methods of restoring spent magic gave her the twitches. It was hardly a danger to her, but it was quite annoying.

“Brace for impact!” Twilight shouted. They rammed into the hull as hard as they could, puncturing through the outer layer and coming to a stop in a large hallway lined with green runes that occasionally pulsed amber.

To Twilight’s shock, there weren’t any soldiers waiting for them.

“Sweet!” Twilight declared, popping open the cockpit and hopping out. Her hoof touched an amber Rune – and for a moment it flashed a beautiful purple. “That’s cool.”

“You too?” Rarity asked, jumping out and turning the Runes near her a soft white.

“That proves it!” Rainbow said, touching her own hoof to an amber Rune. Nothing happened, though she didn’t seem bothered by this.

“Proves what?” Twilight asked.

“You guys have an Elements of Harmony situation. Get everyone together next to the Runes of this world and I bet magic happens.”

“Magic?”

“Yeah, some kind of destiny thing is clearly going on he-“

“DOWN!” Rarity shouted, pulling Twilight’s head out of the way of an enemy soldier’s shot. To her surprise, it wasn’t a cloudy being – but a pale primate and two ponies, all three of which were wearing the Runic armor.

Twilight lit her horn in preparation to smite them, but Rainbow’s wind took care of the three enemies with ease. “Okay! We need to move quickly – their engineering is this way!”

The three mares galloped through the corridors, and with Twilight’s longer legs she was easily able to take the lead position of the group, actively slowing herself down so the others wouldn’t be left in the dust. Soldiers met them – firing every weapon they had – but the few that managed to force Twilight into the pure defensive were quickly taken out by backup spells from Rarity or a burst from Rainbow’s pulse cannon.

It was almost pathetically easy. The soldiers were of little consequence when they were split up like this, trying to defend from so many angles. They could never attack with a group of more than six at a time, hardly enough to even be considered a challenge.

Rarity removed her sword from a fuzzy six-armed creature. “How far?”

“Not long now!” Rainbow called. “It’s either through the next door or the one after it!”

“You don’t know?”

“Not all Starcross ships are exactly the same!”

Rarity groaned and threw her hammer into a pony that had appeared behind Rainbow. “I am having my doubts about this plan…”

“Why?” Twilight called, blowing the next set of doors off with an explosion spell, revealing a long corridor filled with red Runes. “We’re doing great! Doesn’t even feel like a proper war right ye-“

Twilight lost all feeling in her legs and keeled over, flopping onto the ground with a pained grown. “What the…?”

Glimmer was standing at the far end of the hall, pointing her two-pronged staff at Twilight. Held within the two prongs was a brilliant star of purple energy struggling to free itself.

“This is all of your magic,” Glimmer said, smiling innocently. “If I were so inclined I could throw it on the ground and blow up everything for miles.”

Twilight tried to stand up, but even her bones felt like jelly. With mild horror, she realized she couldn’t even sense magic anymore. Everything was just… dull. Boring.

“You won’t,” Rarity said, stepping forward. “You need your ship to survive.”

“Good eye,” Glimmer admitted. “This is an awful lot of magic, more than the staff has ever held at one time before.”

“She can only hold one essence at a time unless she wants to use it,” Rainbow said, walking to stand by Rarity. “So we’re good.”

Glimmer teleported her staff somewhere else; the teleport block evidently didn’t apply to her. “I guess there’s no use bluffing!” She lit her horn. “So, magic duel?”

Rarity sneered. “I have practiced magic religiously my entire life.”

“Yep! And if this were a fair fight, you’d almost definitely win, especially since there are two of you.”

“You have friends?” Rainbow asked.

Glimmer shook her head. “Nope. I just know how to use the Runes.” She plucked a red glyph off the wall and threw it at Rarity. She met it with her hammer and smashed right through it.

But the effect of the Rune still went off. Blood started pouring out of her ears, nose, mouth…

“Runes are curious things,” Glimmer said, tearing another one off the wall. “In their ‘natural’ form, they exhibit highly unusual and specific properties. Usually, artificial altercation removes these abilities. But in the case of this hall… well, it was installed without breaking anything down. I hope you like excessive bleeding.” She deflected a few attacks from Rainbow’s pulse cannon using nothing more than her telekinesis. With a smirk, she hefted another Rune from the wall and threw it and Rainbow.

The pegasus twirled around it and sent a gust of wind at Glimmer, only for a defensive spell to dissipate the wind harmlessly around her. She retaliated with a simple laser Rainbow tanked, charring one of her back legs. She used her momentum to deliver a roundhouse kick to Glimmer’s face.

She hit something hard. “AUGH!”

“I do love magic armo-“

Rarity embedded her hammer into the other side of Glimmer’s face, resonating with the magic armor. There was a satisfying crack as Glimmer’s jaw shattered, but Rarity wasn’t done – she drove two swords forward, piercing through Glimmer’s sides.

When Rarity tore the swords out, Glimmer blinked in surprise. “Wgh…” she tried to say something, but her jaw was cracked. Her horn lit, and Rarity prepared to defend against a desperate last minute attack.

Instead, Glimmer cast the fastest healing spell Rarity had ever seen. Her jaw reset itself and the punctures from the swords disappeared as though a sword of healing rammed into them and popped out.

Then Rarity noticed – the bloodstains were gone too. “What in…?”

“Don’t have time magic where you’re from?” Glimmer asked. “Shame. All I did was turn the clock back!” She bowed. Rainbow thought this was an opportunity to attack her – but Glimmer wasn’t truly vulnerable. She used Rainbow’s aggressive attack to smash a Rune into her, causing the blood to pour out of her every orifice.

“Gah!”

Rarity could already feel the lightheadedness of blood loss, and she didn’t have time to cast a healing spell.

Time for something desperate.

She pulled the meteor rifle out and aimed it at Glimmer. She pulled the trigger…

…Glimmer was already there, cutting her weapon in half with a blade spell. Rarity was surprised, but this didn’t deter her. She cast an explosion spell with her horn, tossing both her and Glimmer to the side.

It heavily damaged both of them. But Glimmer undid everything. “A bit desperate, don’t you think?”

Rarity managed to bring herself to a standing position. “Yes…”

“You really are hurting yourself like this… Just stop, I’d rather not kill you. Or have you kill yourself, which is probably what’s going to happen if we continue like this.”

“Your terms?”

Glimmer blinked. “I… wasn’t actually expecting you to listen to me. Huh. Thanks, the determinators get so boring and tragic after a while. My terms are simple, stop attacking, and you don’t die. I’ll even heal you u-“

Glimmer’s ears twitched, picking up the sound of the door at the other end of the hall opening. She whirled around to see Rainbow flying into the engine room. “…Welp, I’ve been duped. Too bad it doesn’t work.” She teleported Rainbow back into the hall and smashed a Rune over the pegasus’ head, flattening her into the ground. “A for effort, really. But without Twilight you just don’t have the magic to take me out.”

It was at this point all of them heard the scraping. A sharp, eerie noise of something unnatural dragging its point along a metallic surface. As it approached, they could make out gurgling as well, accompanied by a disgusting drip… drip… drip…

Whatever it was, it was behind Twilight, and she didn’t want to spend any effort to look at the thing. The reactions of the three other ponies in the hall were enough to tell her she didn’t want to look.

“I…” despite her heavily injured state, Rarity managed to put a hoof to her head. “It hurts…”

Glimmer cast a spell to cover her eyes in a blue aura. “Not falling for your tricks today.”

“What’s the Embodiment doing here!?” Rainbow shouted.

“You really don’t know what's going on, do y-“ Glimmer started, only for a black, snaking tentacle to grab her around the stomach and pull her behind Twilight. There was the sound of gnashing teeth.

Glimmer’s response to this was an explosion of magic powerful enough to toss Twilight, Rarity, and Rainbow all the way across the hall and into engineering. There were numerous consoles littered all around, far too complicated to figure out. However, there was a single bright blue Rune floating in the middle of the room inside a glass tube. Twilight had no doubt – break that, Starcross wouldn’t like it.

But she could also see the battle taking place in the hall of red Runes. Glimmer was no longer smiling – there was an immense grimace on her face as she battled the creature…

Twilight, in all her time, had never seen something so wrong. It had eyes from more animals than she could identify, mouths in places that shouldn’t have been physically possible, and it moved as though it didn’t belong. She got a mild headache just from looking at the thing!

What in the galaxy are you?

She decided the answer to that question wasn’t important. It had given them the opportunity. She was going to take it. Rarity’s hammer was sitting at her hoof – an artifact of great enchanted power. All she’d have to do is tap the glass surrounding the Rune and the entire thing would come down.

Without magic, she would have to pick it up with her hooves…

I have no traction.

She tried her wings, struggling to reach the hammer…

“You and your master won’t get what you want!” Glimmer shouted at the beast. “Capella is rightfully ours!”

The beast, if it understood her, gave no indication. It continued to attack, resulting in more magic explosions it shrugged off like nothing.

Twilight curled her feathers around the handle of the hammer. With a weak smirk, she tried to lift.

She popped a joint in her wing for her efforts. Twilight Sparkle, Empress of Unity, let out a whimpering cry of helplessness.

There’s nothing I can do…

A blue telekinetic aura gripped the hammer, lifting it into the air and out of Twilight’s wing. The weapon found its way to Rarity’s careful hooves. The Enchantress was covered in her own blood, and every step was marred with horrible shakes. She should have passed out long ago.

But never, ever in her life had she backed down when ponies needed her. Even when she was sure it was hopeless, she would strive to the absolute end.

Twilight had to admire that.

Rarity took in a sharp breath, hefting the hammer over her head. She screamed, bringing it down on the glass.

And with that, Queen Rarity, the Enchantress, saved her world from the Starcross Society. The glass cracked from the hammer’s impact and the Rune flew out, cracking into two pieces along the far wall. Power stopped flowing to the shield and the drill.

The Starcross ship had backups, yes. But the backups that would kick in instantly had been destroyed or partially damaged by other teams. A window opened where there were no shields.

Unity took advantage of the opportunity. One of the massive missiles of theirs hit the ship square in the side, taking out an immense chunk of the behemoth. It tipped over, careening to the ground.

Everyone inside experienced their rooms twisting sideways. Rainbow and Rarity didn’t care – the former because she was too busy cheering and the latter because she had passed out.

Twilight, on the other hand, got flopped around like a fish and let out a disgruntled moan of pain when the ship finally settled. Looking up, she could see the crimson hallway.

The dark creature was gone. Twilight had no idea where it went.

Glimmer was there, looking down at them through the doorway that was now on the floor.

“Well. Looks like you win.” Glimmer sighed. “Don’t tell Scarcity I let you live. I don’t think she has any idea of honor left in her body.” She teleported away.

Well… Twilight thought. Guess we won… She glanced over to Rarity. Unity Helix better get here quick, she needs attention…

~~~

Rainbow Dash, better known as the Blue Bolt, knew how to live off instinct. Most ponies would fall instantly to the impossible monstrosity attacking them, but Bolt had lived and breathed the complex folding nature of New Alice City for most of her life.

She was able to follow the creature’s movements. That tentacle may have looked like it was to her left, and the claw on top, but in reality, they were coming from her back and underside. She twisted to the side, folding through space to pop out in front of Shine.

Bolt held no delusions – whatever this creature was, she couldn’t fight it directly. But it seemed to be keyed to the unicorn, so he was going down. Her hoof made direct contact with his face, sending him back into the creature.

The creature’s lower half unraveled, allowing Shine to pass through unharmed.

Shine grunted, grabbing Bolt in his telekinesis. “Why we have chosen here for our confrontation I will never know…”

Bolt shrugged. “Shoulda thought that through, huh?” She was no spellcaster, but she was able to use the power in her wings to tear out of the stallion’s grip. She prepared to charge him again, but she caught Pinkie cowering out of the corner of her eye.

Can’t let her be skewered…

She jumped to the side, grappling Pinkie just as a spiked limb crashed down, shattering much of the black brick wall.

Fold away, Bolt thought. …No? Fine, trapdoor, trapdoor…

The impossible creature folded into existence in front of her, snarling with a mouth it hadn’t had a second ago. Bolt had to pull back to avoid being torn to shreds.

“You won’t be escaping,” Shine called. “We aren’t some simple spirit.”

“I figured that!” Bolt shouted. “Which world are you from?”

Shine smirked. “Me? Here. My friend? Wouldn’t you like to know?”

Bolt had to fold out of the way of the monster again. I’m not going to be able to dodge every time.

“Notebook,” Pinkie said, tapping Bolt. “I need that… notebook.”

“Little busy right now!” Bolt shouted, ducking under another spike. “This thing isn’t exactly easy to look at!”

“It’s… I got you in this situation, I can fix it.”

“You’re cra-“ The spike grazed Bolt across the wing, dropping her to the ground. “AUGH!”

Pinkie whimpered.

The two mares were on the ground, prone to an attack. The beast pulsed disgustingly in anticipation, pulling back one of its many sets of lips to expose rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth…

Well, at least this is a cool way to go out.

“Take… this!”

Applejack swung an axe down upon the monster’s top. The blade glowed with a brilliant light, casting the alley in the previously unknown tone of day. The blade seared right through the beast, splitting it in two.

Through the slit, Bolt saw Fluttershy. In the Mesh, she’d seen Fluttershy freeze – her expression was always blank, uninterested, distant. That was not the case now: her eyes were open in pure, unfiltered fear. She knew the creature was wrong.

Bolt shook the horrified expression out of her head – she had an opportunity now. She twisted her legs back and kicked Shine under the jaw, tossing him to the side.

Behind her, she heard Applejack groan – whatever that meant, it wasn’t good. It didn’t deter her; she grabbed the notebook with its pen and tossed it to Pinkie.

She wrote down a single sentence.

Then the darkness came.

Bolt furrowed her brow. “How i-“

The city went dark, even the light of the moon vanishing in the oppressive darkness. Only Applejack’s axe still shone bright. Bolt froze – that was impossible. There was always warning when the darkness came. It… it couldn’t just be summoned.

“You’re fools…” Shine grunted, standing back up. “You think the moon will help you!?”

Pinkie giggled, eye twitching. “You don’t know the moon.”

Bolt turned her gaze back to the impossible creature – it was now two. Applejack had been discarded to the side, laying at the hooves of Fluttershy. There was no blood, but Applejack was barely moving.

And there it was. The dimensional device.

If I move, the darkness will take me. But if I can grab that…

The darkness solved her quandary for her. A deep, oppressive smog lifted out of the ground, taking the shape of an immense hand. Within the hand’s palm was a shining eye, the whites marred with the patterns of the moon. It saw the halves of the creature and grabbed both of them tight.

Now or never.

Bolt grabbed Pinkie and folded past the battle between two monstrosities. Heh. I’m going to be the only Thief to ever see the beast of the darkness and live. Sweet!

“No!” Shine shouted at the hand of darkness. “Do you not know where you came from!?”

The hand - the Moon - spoke. “IT AMUSES ME THAT YOU THINK I CARE.”

That voice… Bolt had heard it her whole life without realizing it…

She lost focus, falling face-first next to Applejack and Fluttershy. “Oof…” With a hiss of pain, she pulled herself off the ground. Her face burned. That’s gonna leave a mark…

Bolt pulled the dimensional device out of Applejack’s pack and tapped the screen, opening a portal to a bright city park in the middle of day. Huh. Nice.

“Get everypony through!” Bolt shouted, picking up Fluttershy and tossing her surprisingly light armored figure through the opening.

Pinkie, breathing heavily and in clear panic mode, still managed to grab hold of Applejack and dragged her through as well.

“NO!” Shine shouted.

“Astalavista, sucker!” Bolt said, giving him a mock salute with her wing.

~~~

Rarity woke up to see Twilight standing over her, casting a healing spell. For a moment, Rarity felt immense pain from her wounds, but the magic quickly repaired the nerve endings so the shock was only momentary.

She groaned, closing her eyes tight.

“You did it,” Rainbow said, shooting her a wink. “Saved the world.”

Rarity forced her eyes open, glancing at the pillar she had smashed – now tilted sideways with the rest of the ship. “I… did it?”

Twilight nodded – an awkward motion, seeing as she had several wires plugged into her horn, winding to a glowing box shimmering with thaumic energy. “When you smashed it, the shields went down. Ship toppled over like a domino. They didn’t finish digging.”

“Good…” Rarity stood up, stretching her legs. “Glimmer?”

“Teleported away. No sign of Scarcity at all.”

Rarity nodded. “…A coward too…”

“Hey, she’s not you,” Rainbow reminded her. “You’re a hero!”

Rarity wanted to object – but stopped. She realized Rainbow had a point. She had been the one to deliver the final blow, the one to save everything. What little magic remained in her world was now safe from the Starcross Society.

This was a staggering victory.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like this…

“Smiles look good on you,” Rainbow said.

Rarity let herself laugh. “I’ve smiled before, Rainbow.”

“Not like that.”

Rarity shrugged, wiping some tears from her eyes. “Maybe not…”

Twilight nodded. “We’re currently going through the Starcross’ files to learn more about what they were trying to do. And by ‘we’ I mean the Unity Helix is combing through it all.”

“He’s not done already?”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “If you must assign a gender to it, use she. It prefers it though.”

“…That’s unusual, but a’ight.”

“Regardless, it has to process through a dimensional connection, which is slower than direct uplink. Shouldn’t be much longer though. But…” Twilight frowned. “Rainbow, what was that thing?”

“Eldritch creature,” Rainbow answered. “From a universe where physics don’t line up with standard three-dimensions. Looking at eldritch universes tends to drive you mad or tear your body inside out from forces it isn’t prepared to deal with. I… think that was a being from the Eldritch Embodiment, a multiversal society of eldritch creatures. But I can’t be sure, it didn’t say anything.”

“It was helpful,” Rarity pointed out. “Why?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I dunno. Eldritch creatures often don’t think like we do. Sometimes you’ll be able to say ‘oh yeah, he attacked because he was angry’. Other times they’ll do things for reasons you can’t comprehend. It’s… hard to deal with them.”

“Do they all give you headaches?”

“Unless they’re hiding behind a perception filter, yeah,” Rainbow laughed nervously. “The bigger ones cause irreparable brain damage.”

“Joy…” Rarity shook her head. “Well, what now?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I’d think the quarantine on the local universes is over now that this ship’s power has been gutted. My dimensional device should be sending out a distress signal to Merodi Universalis now, they could arrive at any minute.”

“Wait… this ship was causing the quarantine?” Twilight asked.

“Uh, maybe not? But what else could be?”

“They needed me to cast my dimensional spell to follow me back to the Crystal Sea.”

“…What?”

“They didn’t know how to travel.”

“But…” Rainbow scratched her head. “They’re stuck just like me?”

“Maybe?”

“But who would do that? Who could do that?”

“My world is one big Star corpse, right?” Rarity asked. Upon receiving a nod from Rainbow, she continued. “Could it have recognized its old enemy and tried to trap them?”

“Maybe? I’ve never seen a Rune this large… But Runes don’t act with intelligence far as I know.”

“The Embodiment then?”

Rainbow furrowed her brow. “You’d need one of their higher deities to do something like that. And one little demon helping us out does not mean there’s a monstrous world-eating monstrosity around. It’d be hard to miss one of those if they were involved. Between the two of you, you should have detected something.”

“…New Alice City…” Rarity said, eyes wide. “That place just… felt wrong.”

Rainbow froze. “…And that’s where we sent our friends.”

“Unity!” Twilight called, addressing the glowing box. “Have you figured out the dimensional accessories yet?”

“I have,” the intelligence responded. “But I don’t think New Alice City is what you’re looking for here. I found something concerning in the Stacross archives.”

“What?”

The Unity Helix restored power to one of the large screens in engineering, displaying a diagram of Rarity’s planet. It showed the Starcross ship drilling through the Runic crust to the hollow interior of the world.

Except it wasn’t completely hollow. In the very center of the empty void sat a symbol made up of an eye with several tentacles.

It was labeled Rx’len.

“…Wh… why didn’t anypony detect that!?” Rainbow shouted. “It’s right under our hooves!”

“It is hiding under the Runic crust,” the Unity Helix answered. “Unless one were to extend their perceptions as far into the ground as they could, they’d feel nothing.”

“Who w-“ Rainbow turned to her two companions, horror on her face. “Wait, no, don’t!”

Too late, Rarity and Twilight had already pushed their magic into the earth. They connected to the Runes below; finding the hole Starcross had dug easily. It did not take much more effort to push through the rest of the Rune and touch the interior of the planet.

Emptiness.

Emptiness that looked back.

“YOU’RE WELCOME.”

Rarity screamed and Twilight let out a hiss of pain. Rainbow rushed to Rarity, slapping her across the face. “Focus on me. Not on whatever you saw down there. Okay?”

Rarity tried to remember what she’d sensed. She got… almost nothing. Nothing but a pit in her stomach and the words. “I… I don’t know…”

“Good, you blocked it. Twilight?”

Twilight rubbed her temples. “I’m having bad luck with meeting gods these days…”

“You’re fine.” Rainbow let out a sigh of relief. “That was extremely dangerous! Those things can shred your minds like a lawn mower without even trying!”

“Lawn… mower?” Rarity cocked her head.

“You can figure out what I mean!” Rainbow waved a hoof around angrily.

Rarity shook her head. “Right… right. What does this… Rx’len mean for us?”

“It is eating your world alive,” the Unity Helix said. “It is trying to devour the entire Rune on which your world sits, draining the magic in the process, turning the once grand Star to little more than amber ashes to serve it.”

“It… it is responsible?”

“Yes. It no doubt assisted us by sending servants in order to protect itself. The Starcross plan to drain all magic from the world would also have cut off Rx’len’s power.”

“So we just… saved the monster that’s destroying my world.” Rarity sat down. “…That’s… about par for the course, really.”

“No, Rarity, don’t do this!” Rainbow called. “You saved your world – even if the Starcross had defeated Rx’len, it would have taken the rest of magic with it!”

“But now what? All I’ve done is delay the end again. This… monster is still down there, has always been down there, and what can we do about it? It’ll just shred our minds!”

Rainbow looked lost for a minute – but then she got an idea. “The Elements of Harmony.”

“What?”

“You, Twilight, and Fluttershy… you all respond to the Runes. That means you’re connected to it.”

“Yes…?”

“It may not mean anything to you two, but it means something to me. There’s a common pattern in this area of the multiverse of six heroes chosen by fate – they come together in the name of harmony, unlock the power of ancient magical artifacts, and banish some kind of dark evil with their power. I am an Element from my home world. I have no doubt that you are part of your own set.”

Rarity blinked. “Are you telling me you know what the circles mean?”

“Circles?”

Rarity lit her horn and projected an image in midair of five circles around a sixth, center one. Each circle contained a symbol within it. “This one.”

Rainbow grinned. “You bet I do. That in the center? That’s you, Rarity. The five around represent different ponies. Twilight, Fluttershy, Applejack, Pinkie, and… well, I’d say me, but if I’m a betting mare it’s probably the Blue Bolt since the Runes refuse to respond to me.” She laughed. “This is a classic case of a harmony prophecy. You were probably destined to face off against Rx’len with your five otherworldly friends! If I hadn’t come along, Twilight would have triggered the event anyway…”

“This was still your fault,” Twilight accused.

“Well, yeah, but it would have been your fault if I hadn’t been here. This explains so much… why six ponies were teleported to the Crystal Sea because of one accident – because they were all connected! Why can we still travel between universes at all in a quarantine? Because the six universes are so closely connected it would be disastrous to fully separate them! Why is there a quarantine at all?” She pointed at the diagram on screen. “Because Rx’len doesn’t want any multiversal societies destroying its little plan with the Runes.”

“You’re… right.” Rarity put a hoof to her mouth. “This is what it all means…”

“Yeah! We just need to find the others and we can get a full set of the Elements of Harmony! And guess what? All four of them are in New Alice City! Helix! You said you figured it out?”

“Yes,” the Unity Helix confirmed. “I can open a portal through Twilight’s horn if you wish.”

Twilight frowned. “Ugh, I hate it when you use my horn…”

“It’s the only magical node I have access to in this room.”

“Fine. I’m almost fully charged again anyway…” Twilight’s horn started to hum. “So, Rainbow, we find the others and… then what?”

“Bring everyone together next to the Runes and… well, usually it’s a Rainbow Death Laser of some sort.”

Rarity blinked. “…Rainbow Death Laser?”

“Yeah. Purges the darkness and all that. But you need a full set to make it work.”

~~~

Pinkie landed in the grass of her world. She was surprised to find an urge to scream thanks to the heavens and kiss the ground.

But she put that behind her, turning back to the portal.

“NO!” Shine shouted.

“Astalavista, sucker!” Bolt said, giving him a mock salute with her wing.

The pegasus leaped backward toward the portal…

SHIK.

A single, dark tendril from the impossible monster drove itself through Bolt’s chest, coming out the back of her neck.

She didn’t even make a noise.

The portal closed with a pop, leaving three horrified ponies on the other side.

A peaceful breeze blew through the park.

Plan C

Scarcity stared at the amber symbol on the wall – five circles surrounding a sixth.

She’d seen far too many of these over the course of her extended life. A reminder that, yes, she had been apart of something, once.

Once.

She cast an explosive spell, tearing the symbol from the Runic wall. There were other amber runes behind it – just as there were all over the cavern she was in.

At least it wasn’t pink. The amber was a reminder of the current problem, not a past there was no use dwelling on.

Here she was, sitting inside the very Rune she had been tasked with capturing. Laying her hoof on it, touching it. But it didn’t mock her. No, unlike her other enemies, this onehad another devouring it.

It would prefer to become amber ashes than to let Rx’len have its way.

For once, Scarcity would give a Rune what it wanted, inasmuch as it could want something, corpse that it was.

She hated that. The Stars could never suffer enough for what they had done. Even in death, they needed to pay. However, even Scarcity could tell when revenge wasn’t worth the price of admission. There were already too many Runes out among the other nations, contaminating them.

This Rune – this planet – was unlike any she had ever seen before, even during the Starstream war. No star died and left behind a husk this big. They always shattered into multiple pieces spread across their dimensional network.

Glimmer teleported behind her, breathing heavily. “Well… that went about as well as expected.”

Scarcity sighed. “Did you at least…?”

Glimmer nodded, levitating the staff over to Scarcity. Held within the prongs was a brilliant purple star. “This’ll do nicely.”

“Rx’len stepped in, sending one of his little friends after me,” Glimmer sighed. “Allowed the Queen, Agent Dash, and your counterpart through. Just enough to let the bombardment overpower the ship’s defenses.”

“It’s not an idiot.” Scarcity hefted the staff, analyzing the power of Twilight using her own magic. “It knew to trap us here the moment we arrived, in an offset universe no less. It wants to feed and take the light of the Rune for itself.”

“…Do you think it’s Capella?”

Scarcity frowned. “We never confirmed that Capella really existed.”

“What else could this giant Rune be?”

“A Star experiment.”

“So, Capella.”

Scarcity sighed. “Just because it matches the legend does no-“

“I’m calling it Capella and I may have spread the name to some of our soldiers.”

“…Fine. It’s useful for disambiguation purposes regardless.” She walked toward a ring of metal spikes she had set up in the middle of the Runic cave. “Time to make use of this.” She held the staff over the spikes and released its hold on Twilight’s magic. The orb threatened to explode and engulf them all, but the spikes shot forward and pinned the energy between them. Instead of exploding outward, the energy directed itself downward in a wide laser.

Burrowing a small hole into the ground.

“And now we have a backup plan,” Scarcity said, smirking.

“What are we going to send down there? We can’t just absorb the magic anymore. We don’t have the ship.”

“We’ll just have to use something more traditional.” Scarcity frowned. “You do remember how to prepare the final cascade spell, yes?”

Glimmer blinked. “Yes… but are we sure we want to do that? That could destabilize the entire universe. And I have no idea what it’d do to the nearby universes.”

“Destroying a high eldritch deity is no easy matter. You know we have to do it. Rx’len cannot have ‘Capella’.”

“Just because you’re right doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Scarcity shrugged. “So long as you keep your sentiments from clouding your judgment.”

“…They’re going to be looking for us, you know. We may be hidden well, but they will find us, and we’re digging from scratch with a significantly slower process.”

“Arm as many defenses as you would normally and prepare the personnel we have remaining. We will not be able to engage them directly without some… what’s the word?”

“Shenanigans?”

“I suppose.” Scarcity furrowed her brow. “Just make sure it gets done.”

“Righty-o.”

“One more thing.”

Glimmer turned back to her. “What is it?”

“What was the other me like?”

Glimmer pursed her lips. “I didn’t see all that much… but from what I can tell, she’s a lot like you before the end of the Starstream war.”

“You weren’t there.”

“No. But every mare in the know in the Starcross Society has read your biography. …You are a hero, after all.”

Scarcity smiled sadly. “I haven’t been lately.”

“Hey, we’re trying to stop an eldritch monstrosity from eating every nearby universe, I say that qualifies as heroic! The destruction of Capella is just a bonus.”

“You lost to ‘heroes’.”

Glimmer nodded. “Ka is a fickle mistress. It may smile favorably on them now, but it’s just as likely to turn the tables in our direction.”

“Still, we must tread carefully.”

Glimmer saluted. “I try my best!”

Haunted

“…It’s my fault.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened instantly. She pushed the gruesome image of Bolt being skewered out of her mind and focused on Pinkie. “Pinkie, listen to me, it is not your fault, it is never your fault. We were attacked, we fought as hard as we could, and one of us didn’t make it. Do you understand me?”

“I brought her there!” Pinkie shouted. “He… he tricked me! He used my words… my words…” Her voice became hollow. “I’m responsible for every death in that world…”

“Pinkie! Snap out of it!”

Pinkie didn’t snap out of it. She didn’t even notice her glasses fall off her face and hit the grass below.

Fluttershy put the lenses back on Pinkie’s face. “Pinkie. It’s. Not. Your. Fault.”

“I had her find me…”

“We sent her to you.”

“She wouldn’t have been able to find me if I hadn’t done the stupid thing with the connections! That plot thread came out of nowhere! Nowhere!” She curled herself into a ball, shaking tears out of herself. “Nowhere…”

Fluttershy bit her lip – this wasn’t a normal case of self-blame. Something else had shaken Pinkie to her core, and Fluttershy didn’t know what it was.

She glanced to Applejack. The orange mare had a haunted look on her face, but she didn’t look like she was about to break down crying. “Don’t… worry about me. Isn’t the worst I’ve seen.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Sorry…” She turned back to Pinkie. “Pinkie, I know it’s hard, but she was working to save u-“

“I wrote it, Fluttershy. I wrote everything. My word is law!” She began laughing like a demented hyena. Then she fell to the ground, front hooves pressed together, muttering incoherently. Almost as if she were before an altar to the gods, but Fluttershy didn’t see any of those around.

Pinkie wasn’t going to be responsive for a while.

Fluttershy opted to lay down next to her and lay a wing over the pink pony’s back. She looked up to Applejack. “What now?”

Applejack looked around for a moment, picking up the dimensional device. “We still have this. Could probably go back… they need to know what happened to Bolt.”

Fluttershy nodded. “But the creature…”

“We can close it quickly.” Applejack tossed her the device and she caught it in her free wing. Fluttershy did what she had done last time – adjusted some dials to make the same portal except in reverse. She tapped the screen, prepared to tap it again… except the portal didn’t appear in the alley. It appeared outside a donut shop.

She closed it anyway. “…No sign of it.”

“Then it’s probably as safe as usual…” Fluttershy frowned. “We’d have to steal something to get back to the Thieves’ Guild. Or find a thief.”

“How’d we find a thief?”

Pinkie started giggling. “Pink sprinkle deluxe, hold the underglaze. Order the right donut and you get anything! How do I know that? Cause I thought it was funny!” She broke down into tears again.

“…Poor thing…” Fluttershy said, patting her back with her wing.

“I think she might be right,” Applejack said.

“...What?”

“She had a… skill. Of knowing what was going to be important and what wasn’t. I bet if I go to that donut shop and order what she says, I’ll find myself a Thief.”

“How would she know that?”

“She just knows things.”

“I make things,” Pinkie whimpered.

Fluttershy glanced at the trembling pink mare in concern. “…Knowledge can be a curse. But… we would be fools not to use it. Applejack, think you can go back to New Alice City and tell the Thieves what happened? I don’t want to take Pinkie back there, and I don’t want to leave her here.”

Applejack nodded. “Will do.” She strapped the dimensional device to the hoof opposite her axe. A short amount of time and a pop later she was gone, leaving Pinkie and Fluttershy alone in the park, sitting on the grass as the sun lowered toward the horizon.

“…You’re home,” Fluttershy said, eventually.

All Pinkie did was nod.

“Do you live nearby?”

Pinkie looked up for a moment, taking in the surroundings. She found an office building at the horizon. She nodded in response.

“Then hold on. I’m taking you home. You don’t even have to say anything – just point.” Fluttershy hooked her hooves under Pinkie’s front legs and lifted her into the air, glad that her armor was still light in this world. She flew above the trees of the park and looked around.

Pinkie pointed at a large road covered in dozens of horseless carriages similar to the ones in New Alice City, but much brighter, less menacing, and noisier.

“Hey! Get away from the road, flipper!” A stallion shouted from his carriage.

“Sorry!” Fluttershy called down, moving to the side of the road.

“Heh…” Pinkie said halfheartedly. “You’re making such a scene…”

Fluttershy noticed that many ponies of the city were holding rectangular things in their hooves and pointing them at her, or staring at her in shock.

“There are other pegasi here…”

“Yeah, but that armor, and the weapons.”

“Oh…” Fluttershy blushed slightly. “Should I try to sneak?”

“Too late now…” Pinkie indicated Fluttershy should take a hard left, so she did, entering a much smaller road.

She liked this city a whole lot better than New Alice City. The ponies here were alive and bright. The carriages were happy, the buildings were exceedingly varied, and there was green everywhere. This city had been built into a forest. Fluttershy had seen a few similar things in her world… though nothing quite so big, nor as advanced. She saw so many things that made no sense to her.

Had she not been carrying Pinkie, she probably would have stopped to talk to everypony she could, learning everything. This world didn’t feel dark. It felt… alive. There was no apocalyptic danger here. It was a nice break from the dead, dying, or disturbed worlds she had been jumping through ever since she’d been taken from her own.

A few crisses and crosses later, they arrived at a large pink house nestled between two abodes of much duller coloration. P. D. Pie was written on the mailbox outside, as well as a sign that said Parties are held downtown. I’ll see you there!

Fluttershy landed on the steps, gently setting Pinkie down. She knocked on the door gingerly.

A brown stallion who had clearly been crying not too long ago opened the door. “I’m sorry, I don’t know an-“ His eyes locked on Pinkie.

“H-hazel…?” Pinkie said, looking up – almost in disbelief.

Hazel pulled Pinkie into an intense hug, “P-pinkie… you’re back…”

“I… I am.” Pinkie said, returning the hug.

Fluttershy couldn’t help but smile.

~~~

Rarity, Twilight, and Rainbow stepped through the portal to New Alice City.

“…The magic here is disgusting,” Twilight spat as she removed the cables from her horn.

“I could have told you that,” Rarity muttered, rubbing her own horn to put it at ease.

“I shall check in on you every now and then,” the Unity Helix called from the other side. “But I do not have permanent nodes across dimensions, so I cannot keep constant tabs on you.”

“Got it. See ya,” Twilight waved. Pop went the portal.

They stood alone on a street. Rarity watched the carriages go by without much thought. She hated the feel of this place, best not to dwell on it. Get the others, complete the Elements of Harmony, and get out. Burn Rx’len to oblivion somehow. It was a shaky plan, Rarity had to admit, but at least it was a plan.

Beat wandering the desert aimlessly, that was for certain.

“Hey, hey you!” Rainbow called to one of the passing ponies. “Have you seen a pegasus in armor flying about?”

“Why fly? Even the ground is better than us.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Geez, that’s depressing…”

Rarity looked up at the moon. She quickly decided that had been a foolish idea and looked at the ground. These drifting ponies certainly had the right idea, it was best to forget the massive thing hanging over their heads existed. It might notice.

“What do you think’s wrong with them?” Rainbow asked.

“They’re dead,” Twilight reported, grimacing. “Whatever’s moving them isn’t the soul of a pony.”

“…Yikes…”

A world of ghosts. Fitting, in a way. Maybe it would be their final resting place? Or maybe it was just here to prove to Rarity that, yes, even worlds with magic could be just as screwed up as her own.

What worlds had she seen? Her own, the Mesh, this city… all were broken. She knew enough of Fluttershy’s to know it was broken as well. Unity didn’t seem broken, though… unless it was something more subtle?

“All those cars are identical,” Twilight commented.

“Ghosts?” Rainbow asked.

“Yeah.”

“Anything that isn’t?”

“The walls. Which aren’t fully locked to three dimensional space.”

“This place just keeps getting better and better…”

Victory. What did victory even mean? It was always out of reach for Rarity. Even in the past, when she’d thought herself close to succeeding, she now knew she hadn’t even been close. Rx’len was down in the bowels of her world, eating it, and she’d known nothing about it.

What had all of it meant then? All of that suffering? Was she just… waiting for the little prophecy to come to pass? Waiting for Twilight to finish her silly little invention?

All those struggles...

To be fair, she’d known they were pointless for a while now, but knowing exactly how pointless still got to her. She could never have hoped to do anything to the monster destroying her world.

Even now, it didn’t feel like she could do anything. Sure, she stopped the Starcross. But they weren’t her problem, now were they? They were Rainbow’s. And even then, they hadn’t found her.

Rarity scowled. Everything was that mare’s fault. She killed the Stars, creating the Runes, and if there were no Runes there would be no eldritch creature eating her planet at all.

Would there be a world at all without the Runes?

Rarity dismissed the thought.

“What are you mares doing out at a time like this?”

The three mares turned to see a squad of four ponies in blue hats walk up to them in perfect time.

“Not even subtle,” Rarity commented. “All of you are quite dead.”

“So?” the four asked in unison. “We still want to know what you’re doing.”

“Officers,” Twilight declared, clearing her throat. “We are explorers from another world, a realm beyond this city you call home. I am Empress Twilight Sparkle…”

The moment she spoke her name, Rarity could feel the power come out of her mouth sending ripples through the air around them. The shock of the world’s reaction stopped Twilight’s speech mid-sentence.

One of the officers took a blood-red pen out of their hat and started writing on their leg.

“No!” Rarity shouted, casting an explosion spell on the pen. Her horn screamed at her for using the magic of this world, but she pushed through. The officer screamed, vanishing in a puff of smoke.

The three other officers all took out pens as well, scribbling on their legs. Rarity exploded one, Rainbow took the other.

Twilight lit her horn to take out the last – but she found she couldn’t.

The officer knew her name. She was powerless.

“Well this seems to happen a lot…” Twilight grumbled.

The last officer held up his leg, showing Twilight’s name scrawled along it in dripping, bloody ink. “You will be one of us, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight screamed, crumpling to the ground. Her eyes had gone completely white and every one of her limbs was twitching involuntarily. A brilliant beam of purple energy shot into the air, becoming a beacon.

The officer seemed confused at this.

Rarity didn’t wait for the officer to figure anything out – she blew it into smoke. “Twilight!”

Twilight twitched, letting out a gurgling noise. Rarity wasn’t even sure she could hear her.

“Okay…” Rainbow looked around, concerned. “Now would be a good time for other-me to show up…”

“The Blue Bolt’s on a bit of a quest,” a soft brown pegasus mare who hadn’t been there a moment before said. “I’m the Auburn Crown, and whatever you do never speak your names aloud.”

“Figured that out!” Rainbow shouted. “Now what do we do with her!?”

“I have no idea what’s wrong with her.”

“She said her name!”

Auburn stared at Twilight in shock. “She’s… resisting?”

“Resisting what?” Rarity demanded.

“When the officers discover your name, they make you one of them… the process is supposed to be instant! I… I can’t even imagine… How is she even doing such a thing?”

“She’s really, really magical,” Rainbow pointed at the beacon.

“Oh.” Auburn let out a tense breath. “That’s… going to draw the darkness…”

~~~

Twilight screamed.

She knew full well she didn’t actually have access to her body, but her mental projection of herself was certainly screaming at the top of her nonexistent lungs.

At first, she thought she was using her magic to defend herself, powering through the assault of the world itself upon her. But, as time went on, she realized her magic would have been worse than useless against the pressure of the world itself. Its magic was against her…

Her spirit, tens of thousands of years old, was all that kept the attack at bay.

She forced her spirit to look up. “You dare try to extinguish an immortal’s soul?”

There was nothing upward. And then there was the moon – and the moon was an eye. “I DO NOT EXTINGUISH, MERELY SUPPLANT.”

Twilight didn’t flinch. “They’ll come for you.”

“WITH YOU, YOUR RACE WILL COME TO MY CITY. ALL RACES WILL COME TO MY CITY.”

“Your city stinks.”

“MY CITY IS DYNAMIC.”

“It’s dead.”

“IT IS LIFE STRUGGLING AMONGST DEATH. A BEAUTY SO HARD TO MAINTAIN, BUT SO WORTHWHILE.”

“What the heck are you!?”

“I AM THE MOON.”

“No name? Rx’len?”

“RX’LEN IS MY CREATOR. IT IS A FOOL.”

Twilight screamed at the moon. “Go destroy it!”

“IT WILL EITHER DESTROY ITSELF OR LEAVE IN TIME. NEITHER REQUIRE ME TO ACT.”

Twilight felt as though her heart was being squeezed by a thousand tiny lobster claws. “I… we won’t…”

“YOU WILL. ALL WILL. EVEN THE GODS OF THE OTHER WORLD WILL BOW TO ME, ASSUMING RX’LEN DOESN’T DESTROY EVERYTHING.”

“We’ll stand against you!”

“YOU ARE AMUSING.”

Twilight laughed. “Well, yeah, I try.”

“YOU ARE TO BE MY GREATEST ASPECT, TWILIGHT SPARKLE.”

Twilight wailed in pain as her name was used to beat her spirit into a pulp.

“YOU WILL DEFEND THIS CITY FROM OTHERWORLDLY ENCROACHERS LIKE THE STARCROSS AND THE MERODI. YOU WILL SHAPE THE FOLDING REALMS INTO PERFECTION. ETERNAL STRUGGLE.”

“No!”

“YOUR ONLY WAY OUT IS TO KILL YOUR OWN SPIRIT. AND YOU WILL NOT DOOM YOUR RACE SO BRAZENLY.”

“You… I…” Twilight’s spirit felt like a crumpled ball of paper. “I am not… the strongest…”

“I DO NOT NEED THE STRONGEST. I MERELY NEED OPPORTUNITY.”

“No…” Twilight whimpered. “I won’t.”

“YOU WILL.”

“Somebody… help…” Twilight wheezed. “Get me out of the universe…”

“YOU WERE THE ONE WITH THE DIMENSIONAL SPELL. THEY CANNOT REMOVE YOU.”

Twilight spoke something, but it was so quiet that not even she was sure she said actually anything.

“GIVE IN.”

“I don’t think so.”

A simplistic, wireframe eye appeared below the perceptions of Twilight’s spirit, bolstering her with a burst of psychic energy.

“U… Unity!” Twilight called.

“I did not expect you to get into so much trouble so quickly,” the Unity Helix said.

“SHE IS MINE.”

“I will fight you for her,” the artificial intelligence said. “I have at my disposal an entire galaxy’s worth of armaments and a decent amount of research on dimensional instability from the Starcross files. I could end you.”

“I AM THE UNIVERSE. YOURS WOULD FALL AS MINE WOULD. THE RISK IS TOO HIGH, MACHINE.”

“Is it? I don’t think about it that way. My purely logical calculations say this isn’t worth it, that we should just let you have her and block all access to other universes off. But what kind of person would I be if I did that?”

“YOU ARE A COMPUTER DESIGNED TO LEAD AND BRING ABOUT CHANGE. YOU ARE TO DO THE BEST FOR THE PEOPLE.”

“True. Very true. Except, well, I wouldn’t exactly be a very popular leader if I was a droning, empty, methodical voice, now would I?” The Unity Helix’s eye expanded several times in size. “There is more to life than shallow, logical experiences, and I recognize this. I was designed to recognize this. And Twilight Sparkle is my oldest friend. I will not forsake my spark of something more just because I feel threatened by a schoolyard bully.”

Twilight blinked. “Unity…”

“YOUR FOOLISHNESS AMAZES ME.”

“We conquered the galaxy, didn’t we? Seems foolishness is successful.”

“RX’LEN LET YOU.”

The Unity Helix and Twilight were stunned into silence.

“HE HAS INFECTED ALL THE WORLDS HE COULD. DO YOU THINK YOURS IS ANY DIFFERENT? I AM THE PLAGUE FOR THIS WORLD. YOU ARE THE PLAGUE FOR YOUR OWN. YOU BRING LIFE TO SUCH A HEIGHT IT BECOMES POINTLESS, SOULLESS, BORING.” The eye of the moon focused on Twilight. “YOU HAVE FELT IT, AS TIME HAS GONE ON, IMMORTAL. YOUR WORLD HAS LOST THE SPARK IT HAD WHEN YOU WERE YOUNG. YOU WERE NOT JUST GETTING OLD. EVERYTHING WINDS DOWN AS CAPELLA IS DEVOURED, SAVE THE WORLD THAT NEEDS NO HELP DOING THAT.”

“This changes nothing!” Twilight shouted, spirit full of strength once again. “So what if we’re some plague? We can change! We can see the problem and adjust!” She pointed a hoof at the moon. “And you can too! You call yourself a curse? Why be a curse? Destroy Rx’len! Go against what it wanted you to be!”

There was silence in the dreamscape.

“YOU ARE FREE TO GO,” the moon declared. “IT WOULD NOT BE WORTHWHILE TO FIGHT NOW. THIS CONVERSATION IS OVER.”

Twilight woke up with a start in a place with dark sky and glowing trees. “Wh… what!?”

A soft brown pegasus gasped. “You won!?”

“I… I won!”

Rarity put a hoof on Twilight. “I was worried there…”

“Heh…” Twilight smirked. “The moon thinks it can use Twilight Sparkle’s name against her!? HA! THINK AGAIN!” She lifted her hoof into the air, prompting cheers from all the ponies around her.

She ignored the nagging feeling in the back of her mind for now.

Curses

“How’d you do it?” Auburn demanded, shaking Twilight by the shoulders. “How!?”

Twilight levitated Auburn off her, chuckling. “I have a spirit tied to the essences of every other pony in my homeworld, and I’m several thousand years old. And even then, that moon still would have won had the Unity Helix not stepped in.”

“The… what?”

“It’s… a big mind that runs almost everything back home. Think of it like your moon, except a lot nicer and not so insufferably annoying.”

“Huh… Think it can help us?”

“I believe we’ll be a bit preoccupied with another threat at the moment, but once we’re done with that, I don’t see why we can’t try.”

Auburn beamed. “…The Blue Bolt was right to bring you all here.”

“Pfft, when will ponies learn not to doubt me?” Twilight chuckled.

“I doubt everything,” Rarity pointed out.

“You get what I like to call the ‘pessimist pass’.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “So… care to explain what this moon is?”

“Nopony knows exactly what the moon is,” Auburn said with a sign.

“I know now,” Twilight smirked. “It’s the creation of Rx’len, the chosen ‘curse’ upon this world. From the short conversation I had with it… I think the moon wants a world that’s mostly dead with only a little bit of struggling life in it. For… some reason.”

“…I guess that explains why we’re still alive at all,” Auburn said.

“It’s insane, clearly.”

“Who is Rx’len?”

“A creature eating the magic in… this unicorn’s world.”

“Enchantress,” Rarity said. “I can be the Enchantress.”

“Right. Anyway, apparently Rx’len has infected all the worlds except one, which… apparently didn’t need help to do that to itself? It was confusing.”

“The monsters… the Mesh…” Rarity nodded. “But… wait, your world is completely fine!”

“Apparently Rx’len decided to be subtle with mine,” Twilight hissed. “It’s a curse of uniform monotony. Through Unity, things are becoming… boring. Apparently it wasn’t just me getting old.”

“…While that’s terrible, does that really change anything?”

“Hmm?”

“So the curse of Rx’len extends beyond my world. We still need to find the others and kill it. We just have more worlds to liberate than before.”

“Everything’s more connected than we realize…” Twilight smirked. “…The Pink One knew this before any of us.”

Rarity frowned. “I’m afraid I didn’t get to know her for that long.”

“She views the entire world as some kind of adventure story and it just… somehow works out. She said things that were completely unreasonable – that we were all destined to save the world, that we had to come together, that sort of thing. But it turns out there’s this multiversal pattern of Elements of Harmony and the six of us were probably connected from the moment Rx’len started attacking the Runes.” Twilight rubbed the back of her head. “Maybe there’s something to be said for intuition.”

“I wonder what she’d have to say now.”

“Probably something along the lines of ‘hurry up and find out where we are’!”

Auburn shrugged. “We think they’re with the Blue Bolt in the Pink One’s world right now. Our tech guy managed to find another world.”

“Huh. Convenient.” Twilight ruffled her feathers. “I’ll have the Unity Helix figure out how to access that one next time it contacts me.” She glanced around at the troop of Thieves around them. “Actually… Ra- Enchantress, where’s our Bolt? I figured she’d stick with you.”

“Hm?” Rarity took a moment to ponder this. “Possibly, if she wasn’t being lauded as the best thing since water founts by the other Thieves.”

“…Huh?”

“The Blue Bolt is a local hero, apparently, and having two of them is the best thing ever.”

“…I have to see this.”

~~~

“And then I did it. The patented, unique, world-famous… Sonic Rainboom!”

The crowd of thieves gasped in awe as Rainbow took to the air. Over the years, she had gotten exceptionally good at her technique and could pull it off on a dime. She channeled her inner magic away from her wings and to the tips of her front hooves, coating them in rainbow sparkles. She picked up enough speed to breach the sound barrier and allowed the magic to explode at the perfect instant – filling the dark sky with a ring of prismatic color.

She landed hard, kicking up a small cloud of dust. She smirked. “Like that.”

The crowd erupted into cheers.

“Thank you, thank you, I’m here all week!”

“What’s a week?”

“If you don’t know you’re definitely not getting the joke!”

The Thief cocked his head. “…Joke?”

A few other Thieves elbowed him and laughed, even though they definitely didn’t get it either. References were lost on otherworlders, and Rainbow enjoyed that far too much.

“Anyway, just you wait, Blue Bolt and Blitz will be together again and we will ROCK YOUR WORLD! There will not be a thing in this world or any other that two of the best ponies every will not be able to get you!”

“YEAH!”

“Can I get another yeah!?”

“YEAH!”

Rainbow let out a delighted laugh. “You Thieves are the best!”

“Having fun?” Rarity asked coyly as she, Twilight, and Auburn walked down from a double helix of wood.

“Ooooh yeah, I’m having a lot of fun!” Rainbow flew over to Twilight. “I knew you’d make it!”

“She had help.”

Twilight groaned. “Why’d you have to tell her that?”

“Because you wouldn’t.”

Rainbow snickered. “Nice. So, what’s the plan?”

“I wait for the Unity Helix to contact me again,” Twilight said. “It’ll be able to get us to ‘the Pink One’s’ world, where we’re pretty sure the others are right now.”

“Huh. They got a new world. Good for them.” Rainbow frowned. “That device never went to where we wanted it to…”

“Just proves that magic is superior.”

“The original dimensional devices were purely magical!”

“And that one’s not an original, tsk, guess they don’t make them like they used to.”

“I want to know how you’re insulting my history without even knowing it.”

“Careful guesses,” Twilight smirked. “Regardless, one way or another, we’re going to bring everypony together and roast Rx’len. Then we can work on the other curses around these worlds. With Merodi assistance, I assume?”

“You betcha! I can get the Overhead of Aid herself down here if I yell loud enough!”

“How loud can you yell?”

“LOUDER THAN THIS!”

Rainbow grinned as the sound of joyous laughter met her ears. Here were a bunch of jolly Thieves having a great time in the middle of a world that belonged in a horror story. She saw a lot of darkness in her travels, a lot of horror; it was a good day when she saw smiles and hope in the middle of that horror.

That was one of the reasons she did what she did. No matter how difficult it got, there were those moments that she’d cherish for the rest of her life.

And then there were those she’d dread.

Applejack folded into existence alongside a blue mare.

“Hey! AJ!” Rainbow winked at the nickname she’d just come up with. “How’s it shakin?”

“The Blue Bolt’s dead,” Applejack deadpanned. “Killed by some kind of shadow monster with way too many eyes.”

Rainbow froze.

Dead?

And the Runes didn’t respond to her…

They didn’t have a full set of Elements anymore.

~~~

Hazel and Pinkie walked into the house. Since they left the door open, Fluttershy assumed she was invited in, but she had the distinct impression she was only an afterthought in their minds.

Her suspicions were confirmed when she walked in and found the two of them pressed into a lip-lock against one of the hallway walls.

“Ahem,” Fluttershy called, trying not to be rude.

The two continued their embrace for a few seconds more before Hazel broke it off. For the first time, he was taking in Fluttershy’s appearance, and it clearly didn’t make any sense to him. “What in…?”

“This is probably going to sound ridiculous…” Fluttershy said. “But… I’m from another universe.”

“You’re that pegasus that was on the news five minutes ago!”

“I… what?” How could news be a thing she stood on?

Hazel motioned toward a box with a flat piece of glass on one side. He pressed a button on a rectangular thing on his couch, prompting the box to hum to life. A blurry video of Fluttershy carrying Pinkie appeared, while a droning voice described it. “This unusual pegasus seems to have kidnapped an unknown pink mare, flying her around the city as she flails wildly…”

“Pinkie was telling me where to go!” Fluttershy gasped.

“…and furthermore the pegasus appears to be in full armor, minus a helmet, which should make it impossible for her to fly.”

“…Well, that’s true. The armor’s magic.”

Hazel blinked, shutting off the box. “…Magic.”

Pinkie started laughing. “Not that kind of magic! Nope! It’s just normal stuff that exists around us! Not demonic at all!”

“…It isn’t,” Fluttershy assured Pinkie and Hazel, a bit confused. “It’s used to slay… demons?”

Pinkie shook her head. “Your monsters aren’t demons. I… I saw some…” Her expression dropped. “Did I have anything to do with that?”

“Pinkie…” Fluttershy sighed. “Hazel, she’s… she’s been through a lot. I… I don’t think I can help her.”

“She’s overblown her mind again,” Hazel said with a sigh, stroking Pinkie’s mane as she clung to him. “She’s needs rest.”

“But what if I dream up horrible things for them?” Pinkie asked, terrified. “What i-“

“Pinkie, I have no idea what’s going on, but I love you, and I know you. You need sleep. I still have some of those sleeping pills from a few months ago, okay?”

“O… okay…” Pinkie breathed.

“I’ll take her up to the bedroom,” Hazel said. “You make yourself at home… uh…”

“Fluttershy,” Fluttershy bowed.

“Right. You can get water from the fridge, if you want.”

He took her up the stairs, leaving Fluttershy wondering what a fridge was. He did say make herself at home… so she might as well take a moment to relax.

When was the last time something hadn’t been… constantly happening? She didn’t know. She was exhausted.

For the first time in two days, she unlatched her armor, removing all the greaves, plates, weapons, and guards she had. Gently, she stacked all the pieces in an empty corner of the room with the talking box.

She decided it was time to figure out what a fridge was. She walked to another room of the house, deducing it was the kitchen given the stovetop. Water would be in here… somewhere. She started opening cupboards, careful in case anything might spill out. Luckily for her, everything was arranged neatly, though there were an odd number of books stashed in unusual places. She eventually came to a large, white box taller than she was. She pulled open the lower door… and was greeted with amazingly chilly air.

There were a ton of water bottles in the door of what was no doubt the fridge, but there was so much more in there as well. In the back she could see salads, juices, cake, and something that looked uncomfortably like meat. Virtually all of this was packaged in bright packaging.

Ignoring the meat, she found herself focusing on the cake. Part of her mind marveled that this level of cold was maintained without a chilling enchantment, but that part was easily overshadowed by her desire for chocolate cake.

Hazel just said you could have a water…

…But he also said make yourself at home…

…But what does that mean in this world…?

…Just take the cake and ask for forgiveness later.

Fluttershy swiped the cake and the water and returned to the room with the talking box. She munched the cake with one wing and realized she didn’t know how to open the water bottle. It was clearly disposable, so she cast a knife spell and cut off the lid at the top. Problem solved.

She sat down on the couch and decided she might as well try to figure out how the talking box worked. She found the rectangular device Hazel had used before and checked it over.

On/off seems like a good start.

She pressed the button and the screen hummed to life. The same voice was talking, though this time it wasn’t about her. “The mayor’s office of Coeur d’Alene is currently under investigation in the disappearance of P. D. Pie. The mayor consistently denies involvement. We approached P. D.’s husband, Hazel Acorn, who used to work in the mayor’s office. He refused to comment.”

Oh. It was like the paper the bigger towns got, just in a box and talking. That was interesting.

Pinkie was clearly missed…

“Stick with us, we’ll be back with the story of a daring armed robbery right after these messages.”

Messages?

“BUY NOW!”

“AUGH!” Fluttershy shouted, pressing a random button on the button device. The image on the box changed to a dry expanse of yellow grass.

“The African Savannah is home to some of the Earth’s most fearsome and beautiful beasts… here we find the rhino in its natural habitat…”

Fluttershy’s eyes became glued to the images passing her eyes by. Creatures that were powerful, inspiring… and weren’t monsters.

It was beautiful…

She didn’t know how long she stared at the colored box. She did know there were three different ‘breaks’ for a bunch of annoying, loud, colorful segments that scared her a little. But she stuck around if only to see more gorgeous images of Pinkie’s world.

A world without a curse…

“You’ve never seen a TV before, have you?” Hazel asked.

Fluttershy shook her head as he came down the stairs. “Is that what the light box is called?”

“Yeah. Stands for Television. Which is short for televised vision. You see things from far away.”

“It’s amazing…”

“Pinkie told me a lot of stuff…” He grabbed the button device and shut the TV off. “But I want to hear it from you too. She’s… not in her best mind.”

Fluttershy nodded, telling an abridged version of her story. Where she came from, what started the adventure, all the ponies they ran into, the fight she still didn’t know the result of… and how they had arrived here, and how weird Pinkie was acting.

Hazel sighed. “…Your stories match.”

“Do you know what’s wrong with her? She’s… she’s worse than she should be for seeing somepony die. There’s something else.”

Hazel reached into his coat and pulled out a book entitled The Gaze of the Moon, by P. D. Pie. On the cover was a blue pegasus mare with a rainbow mane, looking at a tremendous moon that dwarfed the endless cityscape.

“Wh… what?”

“She wrote stories about New Alice City,” Hazel said. “That Blue Bolt… that was her hero. Her protagonist. She knew this the moment she entered New Alice City and…” He sighed. “That pony with the demon. He tricked her into seeing what her writing could do. She wrote a story where Bolt came to her through a ‘connection’ method she had never written about in any of her books. It came true.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened.

“You’ve never heard of anything like this?”

“I… I can’t imagine having that kind of power…” Fluttershy gulped. “She… she must be terrified of herself.”

Hazel nodded sadly. “…For what it’s worth… thank you. Thank you for bringing her home. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I don’t know what I’m going to make of all this… adventure. But right now, she’s here, and that’s all I can think about right now.” He smiled. “You look like you need to rest too.”

“I haven’t taken off the armor for two days…”

“I’ll get you a blanket. You can sleep on the couch.”

“…Can I keep watching the animals in the TV?”

Hazel chuckled. “Yes. Yes you can.”

~~~

Pinkie laid in her bed.

Eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling.

She’d fully expected that she would be able to fall right to sleep. That’s how it always worked - a strenuous day left her exhausted and she’d be out like a light. Not even the worst of days could keep sleep from her, she’d fallen asleep in random places so often one might even say she had “trained” herself to do so.

Not today.

It’s my fault.

Usually she could come up with some reason why it wasn’t her fault. She was pretty good at that. But she had written those books about New Alice City, had written the Blue Bolt to her, had fallen for the tricks… She shouldn't have. She knew better. Her entire purpose on this adventure was to know better. And she’d failed.

She curled herself into a ball. Somehow, the tears just kept coming…

Her imagination had killed so many ponies she’d never even seen. New Alice City was walking death. And who knew what else she’d brought about with her imagination?

She shivered, looking to her nightstand. A thick book with a cross on it drew her attention.

Pinkie could have used this as a sign to meditate, to take some solace and gain some stability. She could have opened the book and found comforting words at the moment she needed it…

But the mind is a cruel thing, and oftentimes the moment it needs something the most it refuses it, wishing to wallow in what it “deserves” for a while longer.

Her gaze drifted past the book and on to a notebook and pen.

Tears in her eyes, she stared at them for a moment, a great weight on her heart. The pain within her soul felt like a physical wrench twisting her insides, a lesion that threatened to tear her apart.

They needed her out there. But she was useless like this…

She grabbed the notebook and pen.

Beneath the Waves

Quasar flew above the deserts of the Crystal Sea, beating his wings heavily. Even though the ground was far below, his monstrous wings produced enough wind to kick up sandstorms. As he passed overhead, the few settlements that existed screamed in terror. A few tried to shoot arrows at him, but that was truly pointless.

But no matter how much he searched, he saw no sign of Scarcity. He and his teams had been scouring the planet thoroughly with advanced sensors and spells, finding nothing Starcross aside from their ruined ship.

Naturally, the bulk of the teams had now launched into space and were checking the local solar system for any signs of space travel, turning up an equal amount of nothing. There was talk of widening the search to other universes, but if Scarcity had truly fled realms they would probably never find her.

But Quasar had a feeling – call it intuition – he was sure she was still on the desert planet. Scarcity was not the type to leave her job unfinished if she could help it. Quasar had no basis for this judgment but he held to it like a torch on a moonless night.

“The scans would pick up any large sources of magic,” his teams had said. “There’s nothing anywhere on this planet. She must be offworld.”

A reasonable deduction. But not reasonable enough for his tastes. Who knew what sort of tricks Scarcity could pull to hide herself? Scans weren’t perfect, and Starcross may have unknown spells at their disposal.

He flew past the sands and to the one area of the world not stuck in endless dust: the edge of the ocean. From orbit, the ocean was pathetically tiny and was clearly clinging on to life by little more than a thread. But up close, it extended all the way to the horizon. There was some vegetation near the edge of the waters, but nowhere near as much as there should have been.

Quasar took a breath and dove into the water of the ocean, sending out an immense growl. There was life in the ocean, life that understood what a predator was and fled. However, the growl’s purpose was not to terrify the fish. It was to see. Water clouded vision, but sound could go as far as Quasar wanted, painting a brilliant picture of the depths through the echoes.

As with most of the world, the sea was filled with sand and the occasional Rune, though there was plenty of aquatic life down here living off the salts and photosynthetic plankton. The ground sloped sharply downward, deep into the ocean. He followed this descent, more than a little pleased that his dragon form could hold enough air for hours.

He continued down, down, down until his eyes were almost useless – relying entirely on sound.

To his shock, it was not the sound that found his destination. For what the echolocation had seen as nothing more than a chasm filling up with sand, he saw as a glowing slit at the bottom of the ocean.

An exposed part of the Runic crust.

He twisted his wings and plunged downward, through the chasm and into an immense cavern made entirely of Runic materials, shrouding his immense form in amber light. It went on for some distance – further down, down, into the water. The pressure was immense… but he was a dragon. The dragon. It would not deter him.

He went down… until he came across a barrier. Magic, forceful enough to keep all the water out while letting solid things – like unfortunate deep-sea fish – fall through. He carefully angled his wings before descending through the barrier, arriving in an equally large cavern that split off into several smaller paths. He quickly saw several different colors of Runes strewn about, and a few dozen cloudy soldiers.

He grinned. “I found you.”

“Yes, it appears you have,” Scarcity said, walking out of one of the smaller tunnels. “Quasar, correct?”

“That is correct.” He performed a cursory examination of her forces. “You do not have much here.”

“True. It would be easy for you to smash us, though don’t be so arrogant to think you would get out unharmed.”

“I am no fool, I know of hidden power.” He leaned his head down, fixing Scarcity between his immense eyes. “But you have already lost. Surrender, and none of you will be harmed.”

“I’ll consider it,” Scarcity said. “Do you mind if we have a chat first?”

“Not at all.”

“No doubt you have discovered the existence of Rx’len.”

“The monstrosity sleeps beneath our very feet, devouring this planet with its eldritch power.”

Scarcity nodded. “This beast is going to take the power of the Rune for itself and use it to twist the realms around it to its will – and that includes your universe.”

“And Twilight Sparkle is already working on a way to defeat it.”

“As are we,” Scarcity said, gesturing around her. “We don’t have much, but we have the know-how. We’re drilling a small hole all the way to the hollow center where we will drop an explosive that will destroy the whole planet. Ponies will be lost, yes, but universes will be saved.”

Quasar frowned. “You are attempting to sway me to your side.”

“I am saying that we know what we’re doing. I don’t expect you to like it, but I expect you to know that your friends will never accept that sort of thing. Do you think they’ll let a planet with so many ponies on it be sacrificed?”

“No. But it may not need to be.”

“If they find a better solution, great for them,” Scarcity waved a hoof dismissively. “But if their plan fails, we’ll need this one, or else Rx’len will unleash a reign of terror on the multiverse.”

“How can he do that with just a magic Rune? It’s just one world!”

“It’s so much more than that,” Scarcity said, frowning. “We believe this rune to be Capella, the corpse of a legendary Star known in some circles as the Mad Scientist. Stars often think themselves perfect, but she was one of the few who decided to augment herself with everything she could think of. The overall effects of this are unknown, but it gave her a more unified power that, upon death, became one Rune.” She gestured at the amber all around them. “This Rune. A Rune that Rx’len has been absorbing into himself for millennia. Even in its weakened state, it is strong enough to destroy universes were all of its power to be used at once. The only reason we can live so close to Rx’len is because it is limited by the Rune during the absorption process.”

“And what of the Merodi?”

“Those idiots cannot help with Rx’len’s quarantine,” Scarcity hissed. “We cannot rely on assistance from outside. We have what we have. The original plan was just to drain all magic from the world at once, taking Rx’len with it, but that’s no longer an option.”

Quasar nodded. “You seem reasonable. But I fear what giving a mare like you complete control of the situation will do. Your society can squash us like fleas once you destroy Rx’len.”

“The Starcross Society will do whatever you wish. We can bring your universe to our lands and keep it protected from the evils of the multiverse, as is smart, or we can leave you to explore the multiverse. I recommend the former option, but so, so many choose the latter.”

“Most don’t get a choice.”

“Your world doesn’t have Runes embedded in it, right? The Star contamination is minimal, we can afford to leave you.”

“Hmm…” Quasar scratched his chin. “Let’s say I agreed that you should have the right to try. I cannot hide you if I return to the Unity Helix. That machine will be able to tell I’m lying the instant I open my mouth.”

“Then stay here, mysteriously vanish.”

“They will look for me.”

“It’s a risk. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take.” Scarcity paused for a moment. “So, what say you?”

“Twilight Sparkle and the Unity Helix are soft. They have led a peaceful unification well, but they do not fully understand the risks. I will remain, keep your secret.” He sat down coiling up. “I will help you in no other way. If others find you, I will stand back.”

“Thank you, Quasar,” Scarcity said with a bow. “You do not know what this means to us.”

The Cure for Pain

Hazel was already up when Fluttershy came to. She didn’t think he had gotten any sleep, but she didn’t draw attention to that. He was making breakfast, so she sat down politely at the dinner table and smiled.

“I’m making ham and pancakes,” he said, lethargically. “That okay?”

“Pancakes, yeah. But… ham?” She twisted her head. “What’s ham?”

“…Processed pig meat?”

Fluttershy blinked. “You eat meat?”

“Uh, yeah?”

Fluttershy pondered this. “Ponies are herbivores though.”

“We are?”

“I…” Fluttershy shook her head. “I guess we aren’t in this world. I am though. I think I’ll just take the pancakes.”

Hazel nodded. “Is eating animals something… evil in your world?”

“Huh? I… well, it’s just not done. We raise animals for byproducts, fur, eggs, that sort of thing. I guess we use the meat for our pets and to lure out monsters.”

“Ah yes, world of monsters. You seem like something right out of an anime.”

“Is that another book?”

Hazel shook his head. “It’s something you make and put on the TV. Draw a bunch of pictures and make it look like it’s moving.”

“Huh. That sounds fun.”

Hazel set out three plates – though the third one had tin foil on it, keeping it warm. Hazel had both pancakes and strange pink cubes Fluttershy decided was ham, while she only had pancakes. They started eating.

“…I wonder if I really am from one of those ‘anime’ things.” Fluttershy mused, taking out a piece of the pancake and munching on it. “If the Blue Bolt was from a book, well…”

“I wouldn’t know. Nothing else you described to me sounded exactly like something I’d read before, besides New Alice City. But there were a lot of familiar things… the idea of a space queen, or a monster hunter. Those are decently common ideas that don’t exist here.”

“Hmm…” Fluttershy furrowed her brow. “I wonder if all stories exist. Even those I learned in my home.”

“We can’t really know, can we?”

“Rainbow probably knows. I’ll have to ask her when she arrives. She’s seen a lot.”

Hazel frowned. “Why wouldn’t she say anything, though?”

“I can’t imagine the conversation ‘you exist in a book somewhere’ going over well.”

“Ah…”

Fluttershy tossed her mane back. “Enough of that. Why don’t you tell me about yourself and Pinkie?”

“I’m a politician stuck between a rock and a hard place in a world filled with liars and stallions who want nothing more than power.” Hazel sighed, clearly not wanting to dwell on his situation. “Pinkie is an author. She writes stories filled with smiles, positivity, and optimism in the face of ridiculous darkness. It’s her way of telling the world that things can look bad and still be full of life.”

“That’s beautiful.”

“…She thinks she’s responsible for creating the horrible place of New Alice City.” Hazel shook his head. “It was intended to be an exaggerated illustration that would resonate with ponies. Not… a real place.”

“There’s no way she could have known. She can’t be blamed.”

“Shouldn’t. That doesn’t stop her.” He looked up the stairs with a forlorn expression.

“Then we’re just going to have to be there for her.” Fluttershy brightened considerably. “When she comes down, we’ll let her know we don’t blame her for anything.”

“It’s a start.”

“When do you think she’ll be down, anyway?”

“That mare doesn’t even have a sleep schedule under normal circumstances.” Hazel let out a short laugh. “For all I know she’ll be up there until night falls again.”

“Or I’ll be up right now!”

Fluttershy and Hazel turned in shock to see Pinkie trotting down the stairs.

Smiling brightly.

A sinking feeling came over Fluttershy.

“Pinkie…?” Hazel said, uncertain.

“Yep! It’s me. Had a good night’s sleep and now I’m good to go!”

“Pinkie… you just watched a pony…” Hazel bit back his words. “You know bottling it behind your smile isn’t healthy.”

“No, I’m serious! I’m really fine! A good night’s sleep and everything’s a-okay!” She gave a mock salute. “I was manipulated, and I should have known better. It’s both okay and not okay. Like so many other things in life, right? And yeah, looks like my books have power. But that could help us! This is a good thing!”

Hazel stared at her in disbelief. “I… you… you’ve been blessed with strength. It’s a miracle!”

Pinkie’s smile faltered at that. “Uh…”

Fluttershy narrowed her eyes. “Pinkie. What did you do last night?”

“Well, uh, see I slept! And then… yeah, I don’t know what I’m bothering with, I figured you’d be able to figure it out.”

“You fixed yourself with your words, didn’t you?”

Hazel’s mouth opened into an ‘O’.

“Now, Hazel!” Pinkie shook her head. “It’s not like that! Or, well, maybe it is…” She tapped her chin. “But yeah, Fluttershy’s right. I totally wrote all my problems away. Grabbed a notebook and a pen, scribbled everything away. Surprisingly easy.”

“Did you meditate on this at all?” Hazel asked, haunted.

“Um… not exactly. I just decided I didn’t want to hurt anymore, so I made the cure for pain. Oooh, that’s a good chapter title…”

“Pinkie!” Fluttershy shouted, grabbing her attention. “You didn’t think this through.”

Pinkie shook her head with a laugh. “Nope! It was all ‘my name is Pinkie Acorn…’ few sentences later I knew I’d wake up without a problem. Which is good for everypony! Hazel doesn’t have to worry about my mind, and we can go save the world! Right?”

“Right…” Fluttershy said. “But also wrong. You can’t just… wave a hoof and change your mind.”

“Just did.”

“And it can’t be healthy for your relationships?”

“Hazel’s the only one who knows enough about this to really be affected, and he’ll never go anywhere. Plus, I could always write again if I needed t-“

“Don’t!” Fluttershy rammed her hoof into the table. “You will change yourself until you go mad!”

Pinkie sighed. “Look, what’s done is done. I’m happy, and we can skip over all that boring melodramatic depression I was sinking into. It really is better this way.”

“I’m not letting this go, Pinkie. This… this is wrong. Hazel?”

Hazel nodded. “I… I agree with her. We need to learn things from our suffering.”

“But I did learn stuff, I wrote it into my head a- ugh, nevermind.” Pinkie rolled her eyes. “Clearly you’re not ready to accept this.”

“You don’t get to just roll your eyes,” Fluttershy said. “This is serious, you don’t get t-“

“Hey, Fluttershy,” Pinkie interrupted. “I found this old thing in my folders last night. Take a read, why don’t you?” She handed a paper to Fluttershy. Fluttershy would have discarded it, but the title grabbed her attention.

The Legend of Saturn

P. D. Pie.

Fluttershy was suddenly lost in a perfect rendition of the legend of the goddess Saturn, the figure she had revered throughout her life. The story was just as she remembered it – a goddess of battle and valor among the gods. When the king of monsters sent his plague upon the earth, she alone decided she would face him – even though the other gods and their prophecies warned her she would fall. She fought anyway and was defeated…

But after the defeat, the legend took a different turn.

She was not truly dead, for a goddess’ essence is a powerful thing. She limped back to the heavens, weak, falling before the feet of her brothers and sisters.

“I warned you,” Uranus said, face pained.

“Please… restore me so I may return…”

“NO!” Jupiter shouted, slamming his hands together. “You will not return. Your attack stoked his anger, and the retaliation against the heavens was devastating. We will not risk such a thing happening again.”

Saturn nodded in understanding. “Then I shall live among the mortals.”

“You’re right. You will. But you will not be permitted to fight.”

“What?”

“Your spirit will be spread to the four corners of the world, where you will be able to take no action. One day, your soul may find its way to a mortal. But the mortal you inhabit will be cursed to never fight. You will never face the king of monsters again.”

And with that, Saturn was banished to the four corners of the earth. Some say she is still spread out, lost, confused, and unable to do anything. Others say she has found her way to a mortal shell, eternally lamenting that she cannot complete that which she has left unfinished.

Fluttershy dropped the legend. All thoughts of what Pinkie had done to herself were gone, replaced with a deep-seated understanding. She trembled, and tears rolled down her face – but her expression was blank.

Looking up, she saw a small, faint halo over her head.

~~~

Rarity knocked on the door of P. D. Pie’s house. Twilight had confirmed Fluttershy was in there, but Rarity had convinced her it would be best not to just teleport in randomly.

Almost instantly, Pinkie opened the door, a smile on her face. “Oh, girls, you made it!”

“…Pinkie?” Applejack said, taken aback by her cheeriness.

“Wow, Rarity, you look good!” Pinkie commented, ignoring the earlier comment.

Rarity smirked despite herself. “Thanks.”

Pinkie coughed. “Anyway… come on in, Fluttershy needs to see you.”

Rarity’s smirk vanished. “Is she okay?”

“…Ish.”

The four ponies trotted into the house. Pinkie led them to the dining room where Fluttershy was curled up in a chair, crying silently. She looked so vulnerable and helpless without her armor, despite her well-toned muscles. Her eyes were locked wide open in shock, unblinking, looking at the small halo above her head.

“…Your magic feels different…” Twilight walked up to Fluttershy and cocked her head. “What…?”

Fluttershy didn’t answer – it was Pinkie. “We found something. Turns out, Fluttershy’s part goddess of war, cursed never to fight.”

“Wait, seriously?!” Rainbow gawked. “That… okay, that explains one thing and opens up a whole new can of unanswered questions!”

Rarity walked up to Fluttershy and held a hoof to her face. “Hey… it’s a curse, it’s a condition. Does it really matter?”

“I…” She shuddered. “They doomed us…”

“I don’t think she’s upset about herself,” Pinkie said, leaning in. “I think she’s upset that the gods of her world don’t care about her and her fellow ponies.”

“They’re morons,” Twilight said. “I can confirm. Absolute pieces of trash.”

“Weren’t you just being arrogant?” Applejack asked.

“Both can be true.”

Rarity forced Fluttershy to look at her. “You are strong enough on your own. Who cares about the pa-“

“ENOUGH!” Hazel shouted. “Pinkie, I’m not letting you do this!”

Pinkie looked at him with a frown. “Hazel… please calm down, Fluttershy’s in a difficult spot and we need to be there for her.”

“Yeah, dude, chill,” Rainbow said, huffing. “We can deal with whate-“

Hazel threw a book into Rainbow’s face.

Pinkie tried to swipe the tome away. “We don’t need to look at that right n-“

With a flap of her wing, Rainbow created a small gust of wind that tore the book out of Pinkie’s grip and planted it on the table in front of everyone.

The Gaze of the Moon. The Blue Bolt, the moon, New Alice City… by P. D. Pie.

“…What does this mean?” Rarity asked Pinkie.

Pinkie was glaring at Hazel. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I… I said it needed to go differently. I…”

“You’re a Prophet,” Rainbow said.

Pinkie looked right at her. “You know what this is?”

“Yeah. I do. Sorta.” She sighed.

“Then I want an explanation,” Hazel said, leg trembling. “I want to know why my wife came home certain she was responsible for killing a pony. I want to know why she has been writing about New Alice City for years and then could suddenly go there. I want to know why, in the middle of the night, she wrote some things down and woke up like everything was fine!”

Rainbow paled. “She… she altered herself!?”

“Why is that such a big deal!?” Pinkie shouted. “I was going to be completely useless like that! No help to anypony! Now I’m up, about, and helping ponies figure out who they are. We should be helping Fluttershy!”

“N-no…” Fluttershy said, biting her lip. “You…”

“Fluttershy, you’re supposed to b-“

“I am not a character in one of your stories!” Fluttershy shouted, getting out of her chair with enough force to break it. “I don’t care what you ‘wrote’ about me so I could ‘learn who I am’! I am my own person!”

Pinkie recoiled. “This… none of this was supposed to happen!”

“Prophet powers are not absolute,” Rainbow explained. “The Tower still expects things to follow a story in most cases, and if you’re flying in the face of the story, you get stopped.”

“Excuse me, what? Tower?” Twilight waved a hoof. “Explanation?”

Rainbow took a deep breath. “Okay, right, fine. Back in the way way way stupid unimaginably deep past, there were a group of people who decided existence was meaningless. But they liked the meaning they found in their stories – heroes, villains, that sort of thing. So they built the Dark Tower, the structure at the center of existence that manipulates events across the multiverse through the force of ka, ensuring everything is part of a story in one way or another.”

Rainbow pointed a hoof at Pinkie. “You are one of the authors the Tower has selected – completely randomly – to become a Prophet. A pony who writes stuff that is used to define the stories of other worlds. Almost every Prophet in existence has no idea they’re a Prophet and just write whatever they feel like, oblivious to what they’re creating elsewhere. That is not you anymore.”

“Yeah. And I was tricked,” Pinkie said. “Got Blue Bolt killed and everything.”

The nonchalance with which she says that... Rarity shuddered.

Rainbow put a hoof to her head. “Pinkie, you’ve got great power. And you have to use it very, very responsibly.”

“So why aren’t you happy? I got rid of my depressive funk!” She smiled brightly. “Now I won’t go writing things just because I feel emotionally inclined to. I’ll be able to think it through and analyze the situation! I can probably help us with saving the worlds!”

“Yeah, well y-“ Rainbow’s mind reset. “Mother of Celestia, she’s right.”

“…What!?” Hazel shouted.

“She’s much more useful like this. She… she might be able to manipulate events to create a new prophecy to replace the Elements of Harmony. I don’t think Bolt could be revived, but if she’s careful to keep the plot running right, she could just… write us to victory.” Rainbow bit her lip. “I… I don’t like it either. What she did was wrong. But… but it might turn out well for us.”

“Why do you all think it’s wrong?” Applejack asked.

“Thank you, Applejack,” Pinkie said, rolling her eyes.

Everypony else stared at Applejack like she was insane.

Applejack sighed. “Look, something was wrong with her – she knew she wasn’t in a good place, and that it’d hurt everypony else. So she used the tools at her disposal to fix the problem in the most efficient way possible.”

“Down that path lies madness,” Rarity muttered.

Pinkie looked at her. “What?”

“Just smile and nod,” Rarity said, taking a few aggressive steps toward Pinkie. “Pretend that everything’s fine. Laugh and run down the streets as the crops die around you. Sit happily in your palace. Feels nice up there, doesn’t it?”

“Rarity what a-“

Rarity slapped Pinkie, knocking the mare to her rump. “It’s not happy, Pinkie. By doing this, you have not only lost perspective, but you’re insulting the rest of us. We’re grieving, we’re lost, we’re confused. And you? You’re insulting.”

“Would you rather I have written a story about a murderous rampage to get this out? Huh? Or created a world where sorrow is literally manifested by piranhas or something!?”

“You should have written nothing.”

Pinkie twitched. “I couldn’t.”

“You could,” Fluttershy said, face rapidly twisting between tearful and angry. “You didn’t have to. You could have gone to sleep. You could have talked to us. And even then…” She growled. “You didn’t have to do this to me.”

“Fluttershy, I was just trying to get you to find yourse-“

“THIS ISN’T ME!” Fluttershy shouted, pointing at her face. “I don’t CARE about the gods or what they did to me, goddess, pegasus, whatever! They were no help in my quest, I had to make my way here myself! Tell me, Pinkie, why am I crying? Why am I so… so…” She grabbed Pinkie by the shoulders and started shaking. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME!?”

Pinkie’s smile was gone; she was crying. “I just… I just wanted to help…”

“Maybe you could have helped if you understood what sorrow and grief and distress actually were! But you removed that! You… you…” Fluttershy was actually crying now. She dropped Pinkie, swallowing hard. “Never… never write about me without my permission ever again. Or anypony.”

“O-okay…” Pinkie breathed.

Fluttershy wiped her face and went to the room her armor was stacked in.

There was an awkward silence punctuated only by the clunk of Fluttershy putting her armor on.

Pinkie looked up at the other mares. “What… what do I do?”

“…What’s done is done,” Rarity said, eventually. “You made a mistake. A terrible one. You’re going to have to live with it. Unless you decide to write that away as well.”

Pinkie winced.

“But you will live with it, and continue with your life.” Rarity set a hoof on Pinkie’s shoulder. “This power is a gift. A dangerous gift. And we would be fools not to use it.”

Pinkie smiled again. “Yep.”

Rarity bit back a chiding remark – Pinkie probably couldn’t do anything about that smile right now.

Rainbow coughed. “Pinkie… I don’t know much about the ‘rules’ of your powers, but there’s a much better chance of things you write coming true if you try to make an overarching narrative with all the stuff you… well, you put in your books.”

Twilight spoke up. “You were right all along. This is a story. Looks like it might be your story.” She extended a completely ordinary hoof to her, as if to pull her out of the sand. “I really don’t understand what you did. But we’re okay. You can tell us how this story ends; how to defeat Rx’len.”

Pinkie took the hoof and pulled Twilight into an embrace. They were the same size right now – it was a lot less awkward than it would have been otherwise.

“D-did you just say… Rx’len?” Fluttershy said, stepping back into the room.

Twilight pulled herself away from Pinkie. “Yes. We did.”

“…That’s the forbidden name of the king of monsters.”

Twilight nodded. “Makes sense… Rx’len has been cursing all our worlds. Except this one.”

“Not this one?” Hazel asked – currently hugging his wife.

“Something about it doing a good enough job on its own.”

“Ah…” Hazel nodded in understanding.

“So… Rx’len killed me…” Fluttershy frowned, looking at her halo. “Or Saturn…”

“Yes, that is wh-“ Rarity stopped her sentence. “I’m sorry, Fluttershy, did you just say you were Saturn?”

“Partially? I’m… only getting inklings of it right now.”

“And the other gods? Jupiter? Neptune? Uranus?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Yeah, those are the other gods.”

“They’re horrible people, don’t recommend them,” Twilight said.

Rarity twitched. “Those… those are the names of the gods that abandoned my world…”

“Wouldn’t surprise me if they were the same.”

Rarity twitched. “Fluttershy… I think I’d like to have a word with your siblings.”

“Shouldn’t we make a plan first?” Applejack asked. “Figure out what we’re doing to win this?”

Rarity nodded. “Fluttershy, while we’re there we’ll recruit some hunters. Everypony else, gather any allies you can from the other worlds. We’ll see what we have…” she turned to Pinkie. “And then we’ll see what kind of ‘story’ we’re in.”

Twilight was a little shocked she wasn’t calling the shots, but she nodded in agreement nonetheless.

“Good.” Rarity turned to Twilight. “Do you mind?”

Twilight shook her head. She created a portal to the Mesh, still clank clank clanking in time with Applejack. A second portal opened up past this one, leading to Fluttershy’s world.

Rarity jumped through with Fluttershy, leaving Pinkie’s house behind.

Splitting Up

Less than five steps into her world and Fluttershy already felt horribly guilty.

“I shouldn’t have been so hard on her.”

Rarity frowned. “Maybe. But you had every right to be angry. She essentially forced you to act against your will.”

“She was trying to help.”

“Even if somepony’s intentions are good you can still get angry.”

Fluttershy let out another deep sigh as they crested the hill – not even the sight of her home, Musk, was enough to cheer her up. Here she was, home after all this time, and all she felt was terrible.

“I need to apologize to her.”

“You can do that later.” Rarity realized that she wasn’t in her combat outfit at this point, not even carrying any swords. She took one of the remaining swords off Fluttershy’s back. “We have work to do here.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Right. Get the hunters. Talk to…” she looked at the halo floating above her head. “…the gods.”

“Feel strange?”

“I was brought up to worship them,” Fluttershy said. “Then I decided that, from the myths, most of them weren’t worth the clouds they sat on. Except Saturn… who was dead.” She chuckled. “I suppose that makes sense, doesn’t it? A goddess wouldn’t want to worship any but herself.”

“And you are certain you’re okay with this?”

“It makes me about a thousand times angrier with the other gods, since they were directly responsible for my condition. But otherwise, not really. I guess I subconsciously always knew.” She frowned. “Though I can see why you and Pinkie would assume this ‘should’ shake me.”

“At least the gods are still here for you, in a way. They abandoned my world.” She twirled the sword in her magic, scowl deepening. “And they’re going to hear about that from me…”

“How do you plan o-“

“FLUTTERSHY!?” Two voices shouted in unison. Instantly two red unicorns tackled her, hugging her from two equally uncomfortable angles.

“Guys… armor… agh!” Fluttershy fell over with a laugh.

The Red Twins looked down at her and grinned. “Look at you!” Riot called, shaking her head. “Down most of your weapons! You gave them all away, huh?”

“Quite a few…” Fluttershy admitted, standing back up. “Rarity? These are the Red twins, the best hunters I’ve ever known. I had the fortune to grow up with them. She’s Red Riot, and he’s Red Rage.”

“Charmed,” Rarity said with a bow.

“Guys, this is Rarity, Queen of Ponsia and the Enchantress of the Crystal Sea.”

Rarity smiled softly. “Ponsia doesn’t exist anymore, Fluttershy.”

“So?”

“I say she looks good enough to be a queen, kingdom or not,” Rage said, waggling his eyebrows. Riot punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground. “Aw, sis…”

Riot giggled. “Glad to have you here, Rarity! Are you one of those otherworlders?”

Rarity nodded. “You were with Twilight and her group, right?”

“Yep. Before Jupiter banished her, of course. Temple Brick’s still livid about that.”

“Who?”

“Oh. Our priest of Jupiter.”

“I think I’d very much like to meet him…”

“First things first!” Fluttershy called. “Riot, Rage, we’ve discovered the location of the king of monsters.”

The hunters gasped audibly.

“He’s hiding in the center of another world – Rarity’s – eating it of all its magic.”

“W-what are you going to do?” Rage asked, both awed and terrified at her statement.

“We are going to bring all our allies together from all the worlds… and we’re going to destroy him.” Fluttershy grinned. “He has plagued the other worlds with curses different from our own. We will end a lot more than just the monsters.” She laid a wing on each of her childhood friends. “I need you to gather as many hunters as you can. Stay local, for now, but we may grab hunters nationwide. Take my sigil from my workshop if you need proof that I am the one making these requests.”

“Of course, Fluttershy!” both said at once.

Riot frowned. “Wait, why don’t you do it yourself?”

Fluttershy tapped the halo over her head they had been purposefully not commenting on. “I need to see Temple Brick and… talk to the gods. Rarity might be doing most of the talking though. I’m expecting a lot of shouting.”

Riot frowned. “That…”

“Gather the hunters,” Fluttershy said. “I’ll explain the halo later. A lot of strange things have happened in the other worlds. Okay?”

“Right,” Rage said, grabbing his sister. “We need to go.”

“O – okay!” Riot forced a smile.

They ran off, leaving Fluttershy and Rarity alone.

“The temple is that white building there with all the columns,” Fluttershy told Rarity. Without further prompting, she teleported them right to it.

Temple Brick was shocked to see them. “F-fluttershy! You’ve retu-“ he saw the halo and paled considerably. “Oh…”

Fluttershy grimaced. “Brick, don-“

He bowed. “I am not worthy!”

“Brick, really it’s fi-“

“I, through ignorance, did not give you the reverence you deserved, Saturn! There was much due you that I snubbed! You are greater than I, and I plead for you to forgive my blasphemies.”

“I don’t even consider them blasphemies and I’ve already forgiven you for all the times you were a pretentious jackanape.”

Rarity snorted.

Brick looked up into her eyes. “I thank you, o’ goddess of battle, Saturn, the no-longer-lost!”

“…Can you just call me Fluttershy?”

“If that is what you wish, Fluttershy, exalted one.”

Fluttershy clicked her tongue. “Anyway… since I’m Saturn, I’d think I could use Jupiter’s statue to have a little ‘chat’ with my siblings?”

“By all means, no ground is too holy for your hooves.”

“Rarity is coming with me.”

Temple Brick paused. “...If that is your will.”

Fluttershy nodded. “It is. Now, once we’re gone, I want you to contact all the priests you can. We’ve found the king of monsters in another world. We’re currently creating a plan to take him out.”

“Satu- Fluttershy! Have you forgotten your own legend?”

“She doesn’t fight alone anymore,” Rarity said, putting a hoof on Fluttershy.

“I have Twilight, if that matters,” Fluttershy added. “Now…” She took a step toward the temple.

Her hoof crossed the outer ring of a hole in magic. She felt the ripple of nothing go through her armor, temporarily interrupting the runes in her armor. The weight made it difficult to jump back quickly.

Nod, the nondescript temple assistant, stepped out from behind a nearby column. “You will not be speaking to the gods.”

Brick blinked. “Nod?! What are you saying!?”

Rarity lit her horn and raised her sword. “He feels like the creature! He works for Rx’len!”

“You blaspheme my master…” Nod said, scowling. Slowly, a monstrous tentacle thing appeared behind him, much like the one Fluttershy had seen in New Alice City, except the shape was clearly different, the sounds it made were slightly higher pitched, and it didn’t give her quite as bad of a headache.

But she couldn’t think of it as a monster. She knew monsters.

This thing was a demon. The word Pinkie had used described it all too well, Fluttershy felt.

Rarity and Brick stepped in front of Fluttershy, the former brandishing a sword and the latter readying a fist of Jupiter.

Then the demon was behind both of them, attacking the frozen Fluttershy. She would have been flattened – but Red Rage came out of nowhere and smashed the demon in the eye with a giant hammer.

“Never thought I’d see the day I’d get to smash the face of the king’s personal servants in…” Rage chuckled, pulling his hammer back. “You are ugly.”

“I don’t think looking at it is healthy!” Riot shouted as she shot the creature with a lightning bolt gun.

“You had to aim that shot!”

“For the greater good!”

Rarity swung the sword – more than a little pleased to find it was the flaming blade. She was less than pleased to find that the creature didn’t seem to care about fire. Or the lightning bolt. And it wasn’t anything more than slightly annoyed from the hammer hit…

Some part of Fluttershy’s mind screamed figure it out!

Rarity didn’t hear that. What she did hear was the demon getting back up, reaching for Fluttershy with an impossible tentacle.

So Rarity cast the explosion spell.

The demon flew into several pieces – all of which continued functioning perfectly fine. All the ponies nearby fell back, including Nod. The moment he cried out in pain, the eldritch eyes all turned to look at him in concern.

Come on… Figure it out...

Rarity focused on the largest glob of eldritch goo, lifting the sword high, ready aiming the tip right at it. Both the reds and Brick followed her lead.

Oh, come on!

Rarity winked.

She teleported behind Nod and drove the sword into him.

The eldritch beast roared in rage from all its divided mouths. It tried to reform – but without the anchor of Nod, it dissipated into nothing more than black dust.

And Fluttershy was back.

“In my own temple… a servant of…” Brick twitched. “He is seeking to stop you directly. Your audience must be granted quickly.”

“Audience…?” Riot said, confused.

“Sat- Fluttershy’s audience with the gods.” Brick bowed, extending a hoof. “The statue is yours.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Right. Reds? Brick? We’ll need everything. And Rage?”

“Yeah?”

Fluttershy’s expression became serious. “Fetch my shield.”

Rage nodded in understanding.

Fluttershy turned to walk into the temple – but then she realized she’d forgotten something and would have to ruin the cool moment. “Um, sorry, can you get my helmet too? I left it there when I vanished.”

Rage smirked. “Sure thing, Flutters.”

“Yeah. Well.” Fluttershy coughed. “I’m going now.” She led Rarity up to the statue.

Nothing happened.

“You don’t know what to do, do you?” Rarity asked.

“Nope,” Fluttershy admitted.

“Maybe just touch it?”

Fluttershy shrugged, putting one wing around Rarity and touching the other to the statue.

There was light…

~~~

Applejack stepped out into the Mesh with Rainbow, appearing right in the shade of the apple tree.

Rainbow pocketed the dimensional device – now loaded with all six universes. “Convenient.”

Applejack nodded in time with the clank clank clank. “An hour and twenty-two minutes to dinner.”

“Uuuugh, that’ll take forever,” Rainbow muttered. “We could just fly to the top…”

“That’d cause a bigger scene than last time, and you got labeled as a contagion just from walking around.”

“Eh…” Rainbow tilted her hoof back and forth. “…So, how’s it feel to be back?”

“Not as fitting as I was expecting.” She furrowed her brow. “I kept time perfectly. Doesn’t feel like an accomplishment anymore. Guess there’s still stuff to do.”

“Oh yeah…”

“APPLEJACK!”

Applejack and Rainbow looked up to see something crawling down the gears of the Mesh toward them. It had eight spindly-brass legs and made a light tick tick tick sound with every movement it made. Noxious smoke poured out the back of the thing from a rumbling, dirty engine.

Sitting in the cockpit was a blue earth pony with a frantic expression on her face.

“Oh geez…” Rainbow said, readying the dimensional device.

“WAIT! YOU AREN’T A CONTAGION!” The spider-thing jumped to the ground, kicking up a significant amount of dirt. “We need you!”

Applejack nodded. “Blueberry. I see Dust managed to get to you.”

“She is an amazing manager and I’m promoting her to the highest levels for getting me while the rest of the idiots were tripping over their hooves.”

“I also see you pulled out a spider. I thought we ran out of fuel for those before I was born.”

“Not completely,” Blueberry said, turning off the engines. “The Mesh still has some excess produced at the faucets. Just not enough to use them for constant repair work… but in an emergency such as finding a possible source of new energy, that’s definitely when we use them!” She laughed nervously.

“Are you… okay?” Rainbow asked.

“I have not slept since Dust came into my office two cycles ago.” Blueberry twitched. “I have been searching the area for you on the off chance you didn’t leave.”

“We left.”

“Yes, that much is obvious, but you’re here now!” She pulled her mane back in a vain attempt to look presentable. “Help us!”

“That’s the idea,” Rainbow said.

“But they might need our help to do that,” Applejack added. “Turns out, the winding down might be an attack from a real contagion.”

Blueberry stared at her blankly. “What.”

“I don’t understand it, but there’s some thing called Rx’len that’s eating worlds out there, and ours is connected to it through what it calls a curse. Or something.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, the laws of thermodynamics…”

“And maybe that has nothing to do with it,” Applejack said, waving a hoof. “Point is, they can’t exactly help us with this thing eating everything they have.”

“Applejack, since when did you talk like a manager?”

“Things change out there. Do we have anything we can take to another world? Like…” She held out a hoof. “This spider?”

Blueberry looked at the spider. “It’s all yours. I’ll get as many portable devices as I can. We do not have enough fuel for all of them.”

“We can provide the fuel,” Rainbow said. “Dust told you about magic?”

“Sorta?”

“Well, once we’re in another world we can just duplicate the fuel you have. Probably not enough to fuel the Mesh… but enough to run a bunch of spider-mechs? Sure!”

“We’ll need the best mechanics to drive them,” Applejack said. “Young, so they won’t be driven mad without the Mesh’s beat.”

“Done and done!” Blueberry nodded. “Anything else?”

“Yeah. You activate this by pressing this button.” Rainbow opened a portal back to the desert behind her. “The ponies in the flying boxes that say they’re with Unity are with us.” She tossed the dimensional device to Blueberry. “Don’t break it.”

Blueberry looked like she thought she was holding the Holy Grail.

“Don’t let us down now!” Rainbow called, dragging Applejack through the portal.

Applejack waved back at Blueberry. “Don’t pass out.”

The portal vanished with a pop.

~~~

It was white. Everything was white.

Just like Rarity.

Rarity returned the sword to Fluttershy. “Don’t let me grab any of them.”

“Uh… sure.”

“Anyway…” Rarity cleared her throat. “HEY! WE’RE HERE!”

One of the gods appeared – but it wasn’t the muscular shape of Jupiter she’d seen on the statue, but a tall, almost frail looking man with hollow eyes and a light blue robe.

“…Wait, didn’t w-“ Fluttershy began.

“You did,” the deity said. “As far as Jupiter is concerned, he’s storming over here with no small amount of fury.”

“So why isn’t he here?” Rarity demanded.

“Because I’ve held him for… a time.” He smiled wryly. “I am Uranus, god of time. It has been a long time coming, Fluttershy.”

“…Not Saturn?” Fluttershy asked.

“You are more Fluttershy than you are Saturn,” Uranus said. “You just carry her burden.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Thank you. …Why have you interceded?”

“Because of her.” Uranus pointed at Rarity. “The Enchantress. It is good to see the fruits of my prophecy.”

“Your prophecy?” Rarity gawked.

“Yes. My prophecy. I-“

“URANUS!” an immense voice thundered. The immense form of Jupiter appeared behind the wiry god, fists clenched. “Did you really think you could trap me with those temporal tricks of yours!?”

Uranus sighed like an old man. “I expected to have at least a couple minutes with my work.”

“Yes. Your work…” Jupiter snapped his fingers, summoning a white throne for him. “Why don’t you explain it for me? I’d love to hear exactly what you did.”

Uranus sagged, resigned to his fate. “I plotted Rx’len’s defeat.”

“YOU FOOL!” Jupiter shouted. “It would not give us another chance!”

“That is why I made it so I would have no direct say in the matter!” He folded his hands together and frowned. “I spoke with your Rune, Rarity. The lost soul of Capella, the Star.”

“It’s… alive?” Rarity asked.

Uranus shook his head. “It is merely scattered memories. She remembered war… a terrible war she devoted her very life and celestial body to win. She fell before she could truly be unleashed on their memories, falling onto an unknown world.”

Rarity and Fluttershy could suddenly see it – and it wasn’t Uranus that was showing them. It was something in them.

A beautiful world made of endless crystal, culminating in a mountain glowing with six bright gemstones. In the sky, a great yellow star appeared, approaching, falling into pieces… until it consumed the world in golden fire.

“That world was inhabited by a single entity. I do not know its name. It died with Capella… but together, their remnants managed to keep from falling into nonexistence. The world became six.”

Uranus drew a familiar symbol with his fingers, depicting five worlds encircling another. “When Capella solidified into a Rune, this symbol was more important than all the others. It was what the nameless entity left on her, a reminder of what it was. Six separate essences of Harmony… that would in time come to be represented in six ponies.”

“And you never told us any of this?” Jupiter asked.

Uranus shrugged. “I figured it wasn’t really of concern at first. Six special mortals, spread across the worlds, five of which we didn’t even care for. And when Rx’len came… I didn’t say anything because of what you would have done.”

“Which was?”

“Refuse to leave an understanding of the prophecy in the core world when we left.” He gestured at Rarity. “The legend of the Enchantress who would restore magic to a dying world.”

“If Rx’len knew…”

“He did not. He may now, but…” Uranus frowned. “New Alice City’s is dead. The restoration of the nameless entity’s power is no longer possible. The initial form of the prophecy failed.”

“You are an old fool.”

“We are all the same age, created with the new world itself,” Uranus pointed out. “Furthermore, I said initial form of the prophecy. The ponies have still found each other, and are forming connections beyond even what I saw due to the actions of the Starcross and Rainbow Dash.”

Jupiter drummed his fingers on an invisible wall. “You will be punished for this.”

“Shouldn’t we at least wait to see what comes of it?”

“Bah,” Jupiter growled, turning to Fluttershy and Rarity. “Saturn. Enchantress. Your purpose here was not to learn of pointless prophecies or the origins of the six worlds. Why are you here?”

“I’m here to plead for your help,” Fluttershy said.

“And I’m here to yell at you,” Rarity added.

“Yeah, I think I’ll just stand back…” Fluttershy smiled weakly.

Jupiter narrowed his eyes. “Saturn should be the one to speak to us, mortal.”

“Is that all we are to you?” Rarity asked. “Mortals? Mortals that you will abandon at a moment’s notice?”

“We had little choice.”

“You could have fought!”

“We would have fallen!”

“Some of us fight even though we expect to fall!” Rarity pointed an accusatory hoof. “I don’t run! It’s hopeless? I stare it in the face! I wandered that desert for decades! I should have fallen long ago and, frankly, maybe it would have been better if I did! But at least I kept going! You took one look at the monster that attacked you and gave up.”

“He bested us. We considered the world a loss and retreated.”

“Well now he’s going to eat everything and unleash a reign of terror. Your time is up!”

“When Rx’len absorbs Capella fully, the connections demanding the six worlds remain together will dissolve. We will take our world and leave Rx’len far behind.”

“Continuing to run?”

“We cannot risk our own existence.”

“Then why do we mortals do it all the time!?”

“Because you are MORTALS!”

“Then why did Saturn fight?” Fluttershy asked.

“You were foolhardy and loved battle.” Jupiter brought Fluttershy up to his eyes. “You have matured since then considerably. But when you fought, you were little more than a bratty child finally excited to have real bloodshed. You were the goddess of battle, Saturn. You have no doubt blocked all of your past to forget you were the cause of endless war before the monsters arrived.”

“I. Am. FLUTTERSHY!”

“Maybe you are.” Jupiter threw her away. “It changes nothing. Uranus’ foolish plan has failed.”

“They are going to face Rx’len,” Uranus said.

“And, even combined, they have less power than we do.” Jupiter folded his hands together. “Either Rx’len will destroy the world or that Starcross will.”

“We have a secret weapon,” Fluttershy said, flying up to Jupiter’s face. “You ever look at Earth?”

“Such a boring place. Why?”

“There’s a pink mare there who can shape reality.” Rarity said. “Her name is Pinkie Acorn, and the stories she writes come true.”

“…Fascinating…” Uranus said.

“You don’t get to talk,” Jupiter grunted. “I am not going to place my faith in some excitable pink lunatic who spends too much time with her head in the clouds.”

Rarity blinked. “Strange. Why do you ask people to put faith in a self-absorbed orange tyrant who spends too much time above the clouds?”

Jupiter glared. “You are banished from this universe.”

“We are gathering an army of hunters to face Rx’len,” Rarity said, flatly. “We will not be leaving until that is complete.”

Jupiter narrowed his eyes. “You cannot defy me.”

“We’re going to face Rx’len, king of monsters, eater of worlds.” Rarity narrowed her eyes. “Try us. Prove that you aren’t a coward. Face us. Or help us.”

“This is pointless. Try whatever it is you are going to try. You will fail, and you will die. We will live. We won’t even need the hunters, we will be far enough from Rx’len we can extinguish the monsters ourselves.”

“You fear it that much…?” Fluttershy shook her head.

“We are gods,” Uranus said sadly. “We are not meant to be legitimately threatened.”

And then the two were cast down from the heavenly realms. Rarity managed to teleport to the ground while Fluttershy’s wings kept her afloat.

“No help there,” Rarity said. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

“At least you got to yell at them.”

“Didn’t do anything.”

Fluttershy nodded sadly.

“Hey! You’re back!” Rage pulled a gigantic shield off his back and placed it in front of Fluttershy. “Here you go!”

“…That’s bigger than you…” Rarity observed, jaw dropping.

Fluttershy smiled, slinking the monstrous hunk of cobalt-blue metal over her back. It was shaped vaguely like a scale and had a pink design on the front – a butterfly with a sword for an abdomen. “The shield is my greatest creation,” she said as she put on her helmet, hiding her face. “I can’t fight. It can fight for me.”

Rarity noticed how shiny its surface was. “…How reflective is that?”

“I haven’t encountered anything it can’t send right back.”

Rarity stroked her hoof across the metal, in awe of its perfect craftsmanship. “A deadly shield… now I’ve seen everything.”

~~~

Twilight and Pinkie stood together, watching as a bunch of Thieves poured out of a portal into the desert sands just outside the ruined Starcross ship. A few dozen Unity ships floated in the air nearby, casting shadows over the very confused and shaky Mechanics of the Mesh, trying their best to keep their spiders active, as well as constructing a truly massive drill. Yet another portal was bringing in hunters of all sorts, each brandishing truly ridiculous weapons.

“Looks like we’ve got an army,” Twilight said with pride.

“Yep,” Pinkie said, frowning. “Lots of them are going to die.”

“Does it have to be that way?”

“It’s how armies work.” Pinkie said, shaking her head. “If we use them, there will be casualties. Lots of them.”

Twilight nodded slowly. “Is there another way?”

“I don’t think so. We need to use everything we have at our disposal to make it a true finale.”

“You left Hazel on Earth.”

“Earth isn’t useful. They have weapons of mass destruction and armies… but that’s nothing compared to the might of Unity, and we’d never get them to agree long enough to send anything over. We don’t have enough time.”

“Time?”

“If I were writing this story – which I will be, soon enough – I’d make it so everything comes down to the wire. Either Scarcity or Rx’len are close to accomplishing their goal. Probably both at the same time.”

“And with Quasar going missing…”

Pinkie nodded. “Yeah. It’s not looking great. But, paradoxically, that means we’re approaching the final chapter. Where there will be a happy ending of some kind. I don’t know how to write any other sort of story.”

Twilight turned to her, concern on her face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I wrote myself okay,” Pinkie said. “It’s impossible for me not to be. I… I feel bad about the thing with Fluttershy. No, I’m not writing that away. I’ll apologize to her, and it’ll actually mean something.”

Twilight smiled and flapped her wings in the desert breeze. “It amazes me how young ponies can learn things so quickly…”

“That might just be a consequence of me messing with my own head.”

“Nah. I think you’re really learning. Already grabbing hold of your powers.”

“I’m never writing another novel again,” Pinkie deadpanned.

Twilight blinked. “…What?”

“I can’t be trusted to create and define worlds.” Pinkie swallowed hard. “I… I’m not God. I can’t be God. I can’t imagine why He gave me this power, but I can’t write books with it. Not ones just for entertainment. Places like New Alice City are just too cruel when they’re real.”

“Then what will you do?”

“I have no idea.” Pinkie frowned. “Words were my life and joy… they meant everything to me.”

Twilight put a wing around her. “You’ve helped me see existence wasn’t what I thought it was, Pinkie. I’m sure I can find something for you to do with your life.”

“Heh… thanks.” She wiped a tear from her eye – and noticed four ponies walking up to them.

Applejack, Rainbow, Fluttershy in full armor, and Rarity.

“Okay…” Pinkie said, breathing in. “It’s time to talk about… The Plan.”

The Plan

The Starcross ship had dug an immense hole into the Crystal Sea, so deep that the truckloads of sand that had been sitting above the crust were not enough to fill it. Nopony could see the bottom of the gaping tunnel, despite the soft amber light that shone from its walls.

Pinkie stood at the edge of the hole, the other five behind her.

“I’ve got a plan.” Pinkie said, turning around. “And it uses all of us.”

The five of them nodded.

“We have two villains that need to be stopped. Rx’len and Scarcity. We’re going to have to split up to accomplish what needs to be done. If it goes well, we should defeat them both at the same time. We’ll win, we’ll be the heroes.”

Rarity spoke up. “How are we being split up?”

“Rx’len is a beast that cannot be defeated by armies, he would kill so, so many. So the armies are going to be sent to Scarcity – tracking down wherever Quasar vanished. Three of us will go with them. Three of us are going to stay here and dig the rest of the way through this hole to face Rx’len.” She smiled. “It won’t expect a thing.”

“Who’s going where?” Twilight asked.

“That was the hard decision,” Pinkie admitted. “I knew I had to be on the Rx’len thing, since that’s the plan that needs my ‘Prophet Powers’ to do stuff. Fluttershy as well, to build the most legendary armor of all time.”

“…Do we have time for that?” Fluttershy asked.

Pinkie shrugged. “Pretty sure there are ways to accelerate time around here. The Unity Helix can probably figure something out for you.”

Twilight nodded. “If we can tap into your mind, we can make you experience a year in a day if we so wished.”

Fluttershy frowned. “And I could craft armor like that?”

“I think so. It’d be complicated, but the Unity Helix has never shied away from a complicated problem.”

Pinkie giggled. “That’s my plan. Regardless, Fluttershy and I are just the background influence for the real hero of the operation, which… was really hard to choose. Both Twilight and Rarity fit the requirements to go face off against Rx’len.”

“Alone?” Rarity gawked.

“Wouldn’t simply looking at it drive us insane?” Twilight asked.

“Yep!” Pinkie admitted. “Which is why the Unity Helix will be with you, protecting your mind and helping run the armor. It will take a lot of its focus to keep you aware of everything in there, but surely a galactic A.I. has enough processing power to analyze an eldritch abomination, right?”

Twilight nodded. “Right…”

“Anyway, it was a tough choice between you two. Space queen of unlimited magic potential who has been snorting in the faces of godlike beings for the entire adventure, or the mare who has been cheated out of her life by this monster? It was nearly impossible to choose… but then I realized.” She pointed at Rarity. “Twilight has no compelling story if she’s sent to take out Scarcity. You do.”

Rarity nodded slowly. “I… I suppose she is me.”

“I can almost guarantee that you’re going to face her. Get ready.”

“I am always ready.”

Pinkie chose not to mention the other reason she was putting Rarity on the Scarcity mission. She might actually have a curse of tragedy. It may not have been possible for her to defeat Rx’len under any circumstances, simply because that was the way her story had always gone. With Scarcity, she would be dealing with an out of context problem outside her own story with lots of backup.

Pinkie turned to Rainbow and Applejack. “You two are with Rarity. Rainbow, you know Scarcity, and you’re good at commanding. Applejack, you get to keep your fellow Mechanics from losing it.”

Rainbow saluted and Applejack nodded in understanding.

“Go with the fleet and find Quasar. Then take out the rest of the Starcross Society.”

“Should be easy,” Twilight said. “They can’t have that many forces at their disposal.

“Should be easy,” Pinkie said. “Should. Here’s the thing, something is going to go wrong with both parts of the plan. I will be writing one specifically into the attack on Rx’len to make the story more believable – no, I can’t tell you what it is, that’d ruin it. According to Rainbow, ayway. Even though I’m not going to be writing the Scarcity mission directly, if this is like any novel I’ve ever read… Well, no plan survives contact with the enemy.”

“And we’re still going to win?” Applejack asked.

“Yep!” I hope.

Applejack shrugged. “I still don’t get it. But I trust you.”

Pinkie giggled. “Little did I know that I was so good at predicting things because it really was a story.”

“We are a legend,” Fluttershy said. “Every last one of us brings something special.”

“Do your best and fight to your last,” Rainbow added. “We’ll prevail. Heroes always do.”

Pinkie caught Rarity shaking her head. She knows that isn’t always true. She knows all too well.“Hey, Rarity? We’ve got you. Okay?”

Rarity frowned. “I know.”

“Do what you can.”

“I always do.”

Pinkie smiled sadly. “…Heh… You’re a lot stronger than the rest of us.”

Rarity nodded, saying nothing in response.

Twilight cleared her throat. “Everyone – whatever happens, no matter how bonkers this ends up, I want you all to know something.”

Rainbow smirked. “Gonna go all sappy on us?”

Twilight put a hoof to her chin. “Well, I am glad I met all of you…”

“Heh.”

“But I was actually hoping to remind you that you’re all huge dorks!” She grinned cheesily. There were a mixture of laughs and groans. “But yeah, you’re all great,” Twilight winked.

“And insane,” Applejack added.

“Sanity is overrated,” Pinkie said.

Fluttershy’s smile brightened. “It only leads you to the expected places.”

“And you’ll never get anywhere by doing the expected,” Rainbow chuckled.

Rarity let out a resigned, but somehow pleasant, sigh. “We’re so crazy this just might work.”

“That’s the spirit!” Pinkie cheered, holding out a hoof for Rarity.

Rarity hesitated for a moment before rolling her eyes and bumping it with her own hoof.

Everyone else stuck a hoof in as well, creating a six-way bump of hooves.

They were ready.

~~~

Fluttershy walked into the back of one of the larger Unity ships, a large room with a glass floor and hundreds of mechanical arms along the sides. The majority of tools from her workshop had already been teleported in here – anvils, furnaces, ingots of metal, and a handful of enchanted clippers that could be used to expedite the process. On the other side of the room were numerous computers, technological bits, a few screens, and a large vial of sand from the Crystal Desert.

She walked over to the vial, laying a hoof on top of it. It was slightly larger than she was, filled with the sparkling amber ashes of the Runes of Rarity’s world.

“How exactly is this going to work, Helix?” Fluttershy asked.

The eye of the Unity Helix appeared on one of the screens. “I will interface with your mind and remove all your natural perceptions of the outside world, creating a sort of ‘dream world’ for you to act in at a rate much faster than normal. Furthermore, since you will be connected to me, you will have access to every tool and arm in this room, allowing you not only to create faster, but better and more complicated armaments.”

“And how are you going to connect with me?”

“For normal ponies, I would just us a psychic link. Your mind is highly unusual and that may not be safe. So I will have to implant a chip in your brain. Normally I’d use anesthetic for this, but we need you awake and alert as soon as possible, so it’s going to hurt. A lot.”

Fluttershy let out a shaky breath. “Let me get ready first.”

“Of course.”

She took off her armor once again, laying her shield down with a massive THUNK. There was a reason she rarely used her greatest creation – it was so large it generally prevented her from carrying other weapons for ponies to use, and even if she did have others it covered most of her body, making it hard for others to reach her.

It was generally best in the few situations where she was alone.

“Okay,” Fluttershy said as she removed her last boot, standing free once more.

“Can you hold on a second?” Pinkie asked, walking into the room.

“Sure,” the Unity Helix said.

Pinkie walked up to Fluttershy. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

There was an awkward silence.

“I’m sorry,” they both said at the same time. This mirrored response prompted amused smiles from both of them.

“That… that’s a relief,” Pinkie said, wiping her brow. “I was worried…”

“I can’t hold a grudge,” Fluttershy admitted. “And I got too angry.”

“Some of that may have been my fault.”

“Some of it was mine.”

“So it was a big ol’ screwup then, huh?” Pinkie rubbed the back of her head. “For what it’s worth, I’m also sorry I wrote your… curse.”

“You didn’t know you had any power. You were just writing a story.”

“Yeah, I know. I know it a little too well. Still needed to be said.”

She pulled Pinkie into a hug. “Everything is forgiven. Just… do better.”

“I will. What you’re about to make? I’m not touching it. It’ll be all you.”

“Thank you.”

“And… I’m not going to be writing books again, if that means anything.” Pinkie’s smile faltered. “…It’s too dangerous.”

Fluttershy couldn’t bring herself to disagree with her.

“It’s put a horrible feeling in my stomach. Like…” Pinkie twirled her hoof in the air, looking for the word. “My dreams are worthless.”

Fluttershy laughed.

“W-what?”

Fluttershy pointed at her armor. “Find a new dream, Pinkie.” She patted her on the back. “I did.”

“I might try that.” She stepped out of Fluttershy’s embrace, moving toward the door. “Good luck.”

“There’s something else bothering you.”

Pinkie sighed. “I… I’m struggling with the idea of enemies.”

Fluttershy cocked her head.

“The world is better if you don’t have enemies, if you’re kind to those who are cruel to you, if you make peace with all. But here we are… fighting with everything we have. And I don’t see another option.”

“You think Rx’len…?”

“Not Rx’len,” Pinkie said, shaking her head. “That thing is basically just a demon. I mean… Scarcity. She’s a pony, just like us, with hopes, dreams, motivations… and we’re sending an army after her.” She bit her lip. “It feels wrong.”

“In my world, ponies only learned to fight so well because they had to. There is nothing wrong with defending the lives of everypony.”

Pinkie smiled softly. “I know. I don’t have to like it, though. Ponies are going to die.”

“That’s… true. On both sides. But more would die if we did nothing.”

Pinkie was silent for a moment. “It’s a good thing I’m not on that side of the conflict. I don’t have the strength to follow that through personally. I have to hide behind a book.”

“I hide behind plate armor and a giant shield,” Fluttershy pointed out. “Each of us help in our own way, Pinkie.”

Pinkie chuckled. “Thanks, Fluttershy.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Now get to making legendary stuff!”

Fluttershy nodded, waving goodbye as Pinkie left. “…Okay Helix, I’m ready.”

“You might want to sit down for this.”

Fluttershy did.

And then her head exploded.

She maintained consciousness through the entire second it took to shoot the chip through her ear canal and into the folds of her brain. There was an excruciating pain and an explosion of blood as the chip broke through her eardrum and flesh between that and the brain. Somehow, she managed not to scream or cry, but the pain was so excruciating she couldn’t move for a few seconds.

“…When you are able, cast a low-level healing spell on your ear,” the Unity Helix said, resonating in only one of Fluttershy’s ears. “We will activate the interface after that.”

Fluttershy breathed heavily a few times before shakily bringing her wing to her bloodied ear. A quick pulse of magic brought her hearing back and removed most of the pain. She let out a sigh of relief. “You weren’t kidding.”

“You deserved to know exactly what was happening.”

“So… when do we begin?”

“We already have. You are currently standing in a dream-construct of the creation room. In the time it has taken you to ‘hear’ this sentence, less than a tenth of a second has passed in the real world.”

“…Neat,” Fluttershy said, walking back to the vial of sand. “Your machines will be able to keep up with everything I’m doing?”

“Absolutely. Everything in this lab is keyed to what you want to happen. I can even upload information directly into your brain concerning the more technical aspects of what’s available to you.”

“How long do we have?”

“Assuming we have until tomorrow in real-time… over a month.”

“Then let’s start by smelting the sand,” Fluttershy said, flying over to the sand and pouring it into the furnace. “When heavy attacks hit it, it fuses into glass. Not a normal glass either. Since it was once part of the Runes, I believe we can forge it into something Runic like the Starcross have… except with a lot more enchantments, style, and of course whatever technology you feel the need to insert.” Fluttershy spread her wings, igniting the furnace. “You have Twilight’s dimensions. We’ll need to design around them.”

“Naturally…”

And so it began. Making the greatest suit of armor she had ever created, out of glass.

The first enchantment to go onto the glass as it was fashioned into large sheets was reinforce, to keep it from shattering due to blunt force trauma. The consistency of the clear material took several ‘days’ to treat properly, but in the end the glass was more like metal than anything else. Here, she never seemed to run out of magic – no doubt being given as much as she asked for by the Unity Helix from reserve stores.

With the material ready, she started work. Every square meter of the glass was laced with Unity microbots that created a complex technological circuit within the material. Currently it had no purpose, but it was inlaid so it could be programmed later.

Runic designs began to appear on the glass the more it was shaped, glowing at a similar intensity to the blackened Runes that dotted the Crystal Sea. Due to the size of Twilight’s frame, dozens of amber Runes fully formed along the armor’s edges, giving the armor a truly otherworldly quality.

The legs were completed first, simple for the most part, except for some light-elemetnal enchantments in the hooves. Most of the enchantments were to be light, for that was known to be most effective against eldritch creatures. This did not stop Fluttershy from adding her usual lightweight and speed enchantments to the armor every time a piece was completed.

The wings were the most interesting. In almost every suit she had created before, the wings were left either completely free or trapped. This time, however, she had more options with Twilight’s immense limbs. She created a glassy rim that would trace the edge of Twilight’s wing, fusing several extensions to the armor that would give Twilight’s wings bat-like reinforcement veins. Adding to this she incorporated hooks, blades, and numerous smaller projectiles that would respond to the magic in Twilight’s feathered limbs.

Necks were notoriously easy to injure, but they needed to have freedom of movement. Normally Fluttershy countered this by having the bottom of the helmet splay wide, but this time she opted to use a series of levitating rings charged with electricity.

The helmet was designed mostly by the Unity Helix – Fluttershy shaped it, but the AI had to install the visor, communication systems, and microcomputers that would allow the Unity Helix to focus most of its attention on Twilight in order to keep Rx’len from driving her insane.

And the breastplate and stomach lining… those were the most important parts. Their basic forms had been shaped near the beginning, but now they were to get their additions. The stomach lining received a coil of glass somewhat like a spring designed to take Twilight’s magic and amplify it continually in a feedback loop until she wanted to unleash it.

The chestplate was originally going to have a complex reflective enchantment bestowed upon it… but near the end one final Rune appeared directly on it. The symbol: five circles around a sixth, glowing not with an amber color, but the green color Fluttershy had prompted from the Runes.

“Find a way to get the essences of all the others,” Fluttershy said.

This was not difficult. The armies had only just left, and a few teleports was all it took for the Unity Helix to grab Applejack and Rarity for a few seconds. Fluttershy didn’t see them in her state, but she saw the central Rune light up with white and orange power. Shortly thereafter, pink and purple were added.

There would be no blue. The Rune’s full power could not be activated. No more instant victory, like there was supposed to be.

But this was close enough. It continually shifted through the five colors, a beautiful rainbow of power and connection.

Fluttershy stood back, admiring her masterpiece. She didn’t feel tired – there had been no sweat, no pain, just constant focused work. She hadn’t even needed to sleep.

But it was done. A glorious amber pony stood before her, wings splayed, glass reflecting the light of the room into several rainbows.

“How’s the one in the real world?” Fluttershy asked.

“Haven’t quite added the finishing touches to the buffing,” the Unity Helix admitted. “But otherwise, it is done. Do you wish to return?”

Fluttershy nodded. Suddenly, the room shifted – all the objects were in the same place, but the armor itself had several dozen metallic arms working on it, working so fast on buffing it that Fluttershy had a hard time keeping track of its motions.

Both Twilight and Pinkie were there, watching the machines work in awe. Fluttershy smirked – this was pretty impressive.

Ten seconds later, the arms retracted into the wall and the armor was lowered to the ground. Wordlessly, Twilight approached it. “Woah…”

“I think you’ll find that it fits absolutely perfectly and perfectly reacts with your magic,” Fluttershy said, more than a little proud of her creation.

“What are you calling it?” Pinkie asked.

“It was made from amber ashes…” Fluttershy spread her wings for some dramatic flair. “But it rose to life once more. Behold, Twilight, the Amber Phoenix.”

Twilight had no words – but she did have a stupid grin on her face.

That was all Fluttershy needed to see.

~~~

Rarity stood in the cockpit of a ship named Sunskimmer, but she wasn’t paying all that much attention to the ship itself. She’d seen enough shiny metallic rooms already.

Instead, she was looking down, through the glass bubble at the ship’s front. She saw the ocean.

The water really did go on forever. Somewhere that wasn’t dry or desolate on her home…

But it was still dying. She had seen the plants along the edge of the water and beamed at them – at first. Then she saw how sick they were, how haggard. Even here, they struggled. The sea provided life, but the sea itself would run out of life to give, in time. Only the lands closest to the shore were actually green, the further you looked the more brown and dead things became until eventually it gave way to nothing but sand.

And it was here in the last repository of life that Quasar had vanished, and presumably where Scarcity was hiding.

Scarcity…

In truth, Rarity was glad Pinkie had decided her best place was here. Even though the pink mare would have never done it without editing her own mind… it was for the best. If the ponies had placed all their faith in Rarity alone to take on Rx’len?

Rarity couldn’t see that ending in anything but disaster.

But Rx’len wasn’t her problem anymore. It was Twilight’s. Even then, Rarity’s quest to restore her world was not over. Scarcity, another Enchantress, a warrior, herself, had decided to come onto her turf and threaten her world.

She was a problem separate from Rarity’s endless tragedy, as Pinkie had said. Different.

Maybe…

Maybe she could break the cycle here. Maybe she really could succeed. After all, Scarcity had what, a few handfuls of soldiers, Glimmer, and some fancy magic technology? They had an army of Unity ships, Mesh mechanics, Thieves, and hunters.

They could take out a mare and her desperate plan.

Don’t get hopeful, Rarity…

She couldn’t really help herself. She felt… invigorated.

“Somepony’s happy,” Applejack observed.

Rarity didn’t even try to hide her smile. “I really, really should keep my hopes down.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “For all you talk about there being no hope… The idea really does help you move forward.”

“It’s not necessary,” Rarity said.

“For you.”

“Perhaps I am unusual…” Rarity shook her head. “But, regardless… in the moment, hope is… nice. It’s when it comes crashing down there’s a problem.”

“Well, might as well get your hope in now. If it comes crashing down now there isn’t exactly going to be a next time.”

Rarity didn’t know why she found this so funny. Applejack didn’t seem to mind her legitimate, hearty laughter, so Rarity didn’t dwell on it.

Rainbow’s shouting interrupted them – not that she was talking to them, but rather the entire fleet. “We’re heading into the ocean, everybody! Get into your suits – you don’t want to be caught underwater without air now, do you? I didn’t think so! We don’t expect to find anything quickly, but suit up anyway! Rainbow out!” She stopped shouting. “That goes for you two as well.”

Rarity was already in the provided wetsuit – it was form-fitting to her legs all the way up to her neck. She had her swords, meteor rifle, and hammer strapped to the outside. The fabric of the suit felt weak, but she was assured it was a ‘space age material that could withstand even the most ridiculous of pressures.’ All that remained was the helmet – a glass sphere.

She popped it onto her head unceremoniously. “Ready.”

Applejack took her time getting ready – a lack of traction hooves made it awkward, and she insisted on keeping her tools and wearing her boots on the outside. She refused help, so Rarity spent her time looking out at the water.

The moment they descended she saw fish.

Fish.

She’d only heard about fish.

She had no idea how long she stared at the fish. Long enough for the water to get black, lit up only by the lights of the fleet itself. Eventually, she held a hoof to her head, blinking rapidly.

“Wow, you spaced,” Rainbow said.

“I… excuse me, I haven’t seen the ocean of my world before, much less the life that survives beneath.” Rarity couldn’t tear the smile off her face. “There’s a poetic beauty to it. It ends in the last bastion of life. Tha- what’s that?”

Down a fair ways was an amber, glowing crevasse. A few of the smaller ships sped ahead of the Sunskimmer to investigate the seafloor.

“An exposed part of the Rune…” Rarity realized, eyes wide. “We’re down that far?”

“You were ‘spacing’ for a long time,” Applejack pointed out.

“It seems I was…”

The small ships returned, one of them holding a massive scale in a grabber. It sparkled with the stars of night.

Rainbow stated the obvious. “Quasar went in there.” She moved to a console, tapping a screen to address the fleet again. “The Starcross Society is probably down that crevasse! Some of our ships are too large to fit through the gap, so you will be on defense here! Everyone who’s free, move to a smaller ship or launch out in water-tight fighters! We’re bringing everything we can to them!” She removed her hoof from the screen. “Rarity, would you like to do the honors?”

Rarity blinked. “The what?”

Rainbow pointed at a green arrow on a nearby screen. “Tap that. We’ll go right in.”

Without a fuss, Rarity trotted up to the screen and tapped the arrow with her hoof. The Sunskimmer lurched forward. Even though it angled its nose downward, Rarity still felt herself drawn to the floor rather than the front of the ship.

Rarity didn’t think about that. For now she could see the life of the deep… swimming among the light of the Runes.

Author's Note

Only five chapters remain in Amber Ashes.

Because of this, I'm declaring it - only Amber Ashes will update next week, one chapter every weekday, until it's complete.

It is the Week of Amber Ashes.

Bring your popcorn and tissues, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.

-GM, master of fleas.

PS: eh, why not, have some chapter titles:

To the Center
Rarity and Twilight
Capella's Call
Awakening
Fates

To the Center

Twilight, Pinkie, and Fluttershy were at the edge of the hole in the sand. Both Pinkie and Fluttershy were sitting in a little tent with a table and an advanced communication array. Pinkie had a book open in front of her, inside of which she was rapidly scribbling. Fluttershy sat with her armor on and her shield on her back, her helmet held in her hooves.

Twilight stood in front of them, teetering over the edge of the hole. She wasn’t currently wearing the Amber Phoenix armor, Pinkie had told her to wait. This didn’t stop her from holding it in her telekinesis.

The power feedback she felt made her drool. Maybe she could just…

“Twilight…” Pinkie cautioned.

“What? You’ve written the part where I put it on already, right?”

“Yes, but I need to get far enough ahead so you don’t start skipping past my words. I do not write at the speed of time, even with my keyboard.”

Twilight sat down, sending some sand sliding into the hole. She soon lost track of it.

“And done!” Pinkie said, putting her pen now. “For now, anyway. Your adventure should go… ‘well’.”

“How many bones am I going to break?”

“Nope! Not saying anything!”

Twilight ruffled her feathers. “Right. So. Fluttershy, how exactly should I put this on?”

“You should be able to teleport it onto yourself,” Fluttershy answered.

Twilight teleported the glowing glass onto her body. It fit perfectly, almost like another layer of skin that somehow didn’t tangle up her fur. Instantly, she was rushed with a surge of power that made her legs extend to their fullest and her wings flare to maximum width. The coils around her stomach began to ripple with the purple essence of her magic.

She remembered a day she had accidentally plugged her magic into a star. She’d almost destroyed a city so she’d never done that again, but that experience was the closest to what she felt now.

Good.

After the initial shock of the power wore off, she stretched a bit. The armor was loose around her joints, allowing her free reign of motion. She could still see her coat under the glass in most locations – save her chest and midsection, which were glowing too brightly for that.

She tapped her chest, feeling the power of the Rune of circles. Five out of six wasn’t bad at all, she decided.

The eye of the Unity Helix appeared in her visor. “I’m connected. I will shield your perceptions whenever needed. I shall also protect your mind from mental assault.”

“And we’re in your head!” Pinkie shouted into the microphone, making Twilight wince.

“Woohoo!” Fluttershy added, significantly quieter.

“I’m making final preparations with Unity…” the Unity Helix said. “Done. I am ready to devote the majority of my attention to this endeavor.”

“Time to go?” Twilight asked Pinkie.

“Yep.” Pinkie smiled. “Godspeed, Twilight.”

Twilight winked. She backed up to the edge of the hole, did a triple backflip because she could, and flew straight down. She didn’t wait until she reached the bottom to start digging – she lit her horn, preparing a laser spell. In response, every piece of the Amber Phoenix lit with its own amber glow.

A brilliant golden laser larger than she was erupted from her horn and barreled down the hole. She may not have been able to make out the sand at the bottom yet, but she knew she had fused it to glass.

It would not be long before she broke into the center of the planet.

And then… Rx’len awaited.

Was she nervous? A little, admittedly. She had been bested by gods and moons already on this adventure, and Rx’len made even those quake in fear.

But she was Twilight Sparkle, Empress of Unity, and even though she was the only one flying to the center of the world, she was not alone.

This monster was going to pay.

~~~

“I’m going offline,” the Unity Helix reported to the descending fleet. “Switch over to manual control.”

“Twilight’s been released?” Rainbow asked.

“Yes. I wish you luck. Remember to bring Quasar back alive – dragonkind depends on it.”

Rainbow saluted. “Got it.”

And then the Unity Helix was gone, all ships now under control of direct pilots. There was a short transition period of a few seconds where a few ships shuddered a little, but afterward there was no discernable difference besides the lack of Unity Helix eyes on random screens.

Rainbow turned her gaze forward, seeing a seemingly endless tunnel of amber-tinted water. She always liked it when artificial gravity let perspective be skewed like this. She knew they were traveling straight down, but to her it just seemed forward. Onward instead of downward.

Though seeing deep-sea fish from above did tend to ruin that illusion. Rarity still seemed to be getting a kick out of it.

“Ready?”

Rarity laughed, a quick, witty response ready – one that she squelched in an instant. “…Yes, actually.”

“Good,” Rainbow said. “Applejack?”

Applejack shrugged. “I’m not a fighter and I never have been. I’ve been getting lucky lately, is all. Or have impressive weapons.”

“You still have the axe.”

Applejack looked at her axe of light. “Yeah. Still. I don’t really see what I’m going to do here. You two? Enchantress and Captain. Me? Mechanic.” She snorted. “What am I going to do?”

Rainbow furrowed her brow. She admittedly wasn’t sure – but she did know Applejack was one of them, and she had a part to play. She was about to offer words of encouragement when an alert appeared on the main screen.

“Sensors have picked up a magic barrier at the bottom!” a Unity dragon reported. “It’s semi permeable – I think we found their base!”

“Let the ships above know!”

“I…” the dragon paled. “I’m trying, but long range communications are disabled!”

“Disabled? Who would have th-“ Rainbow paled. “Quasar. Quasar could give that order.”

Rarity blinked. “Why would he?”

“I have no idea! Are any other systems disabled?”

“…Yes. We’re no longer charging weapons or increasing our movement speed…”

“Give me short range communication,” Rainbow grunted. “HEY! EVERYONE! This is Rainbow speaking! The ships are convinced Quasar is telling us to stop, and without the Unity Helix we can’t override! We can’t fight like this – evacuate all personnel into secluded-network ships and arm the self-destructs. W-“

A monstrous claw shimmering with the power of stars punctured the windshield of the Sunjammer. Quasar – eyes glowing from the power of clear magical hypnosis – pulled his claw back and popped the top of the Sunjammer open like a soda can.

Water rushed in, sweeping Rainbow away before she could react.

~~~

Rarity jumped when Quasar’s claw punctured the windshield without any effort.

She whirled around, reaching for Rainbow. We need to stick together.

Her plan was not to be, for the immortal dragon pulled back, releasing the torrent of pressured water. Her suit kept her from being crushed, but she was still thrown around chaotically. She bonked her helmet on the walls of the Sunjammer a few times before the rush of water shot her outward, flying past another of Quasar’s claws.

She caught a glimpse of his eyes – alight with blue-pink fire. Decidedly unnatural, a variable they hadn’t known existed until now… and this something they couldn’t have planned for.

Still, Rarity couldn’t help but shake the feeling that the Unity Helix would have at least had the forethought to make Quasar’s immortal status useless for this mission…

Things have to go wrong.

Maybe this was Pinkie’s doing? She was mostly focusing on Rx’len, but she did say she might do some work here. It was part of her Plan after all.

Rarity shook her head – no use dwelling on such things. They had just experienced a temporary setback, they could salvage this. Looking up, she saw the various ships of the fleet shooting at each other, with the occasional one exploding in a self-destruct. Some must have been able to take control away from Quasar…

Nobody was shooting at Quasar himself. He was too important. This gave him near free reign of the place, clawing through ships and tearing ponies apart just by moving through the water. Already clouds of blood were forming, giving brave deep-sea critters the largest meal they would ever see.

A few had broken away – smaller ships, unicorns with spells that helped them move through water, a few smaller dragons, and some aquatic Unity races Rarity couldn’t identify. She even saw a Thief flying through the water with little more difficulty than air, no doubt thanks to that wonderful pegasus magic.

All were heading straight down to the barrier. Rarity followed suit, casting a whirlwind spell behind herself that acted as a propeller, launching her forward. She arrived at the barrier in under a minute, and she was not the first – already a few others had passed through. On the other side she could see them falling, most getting picked out of the sky by Starcross turrets on the ground.

A few made it to the ground and began attacking, but for the most part the Starcross defense was too good.

Rarity vowed to change that. With her magic, she grabbed hold of one of the carrier ships that was passing right by – a little larger than a house. She passed through the barrier with it, teleporting both of them to the ground the moment they crossed the barrier. The ship had not been expecting this, crashing into the Runic surface rather painfully – but it had gotten past the Starcross turrets.

The back of the ship popped open, and a half-dozen Mesh spiders crawled out, spewing noxious smoke into the air. They charged the turrets, met by a small contingent of Stacross soldiers.

Rarity teleported herself to the top of a turret, driving her horn into the side of the barrel. A cascading explosion rippled down the defending weapon, rendering it useless.

Before she could teleport to the next one a magical blue sphere came out of nowhere and punched her in the face. She fell off the turret, managing a quick teleport to the ground in order to save her bones from an untimely shattering.

None other than Scarcity was waiting for her on the ground. Rarity’s blood ran cold as their eyes locked.

She really is just like me. The horn was the same shape, the eyes were the same color, and even their figures were similar. The main differences were Scarcity’s scar… and her lack of visible age.

Rarity took off her helmet and threw it to the side. There were many explosions happening around them, but neither unicorn cared any longer.

“You can stop,” Rarity said. “We’re destroying Rx’len as we speak.”

“We both know that isn’t an option,” Scarcity responded in an identical tone. “This Rune we fight in should not exist. Your planet should not exist.” She lit her horn and created an immense, translucent sword out of the aether. “I want this world and Rx’len to be ash so the corrupting light of the Stars will not continue.”

Rarity readied two of her swords in her front hooves and two in her telekinesis. “You’re everything Rainbow said you would be.”

“The Merodi have a habit of using the truth as a weapon to get what they want.”

“It’s a good weapon.”

“It is still a tool of de-“

Rarity teleported behind Scarcity, attempting to drive her swords into her back, only to find that Scarcity had raised a barrier. Scarcity swung her massive blade, only for Rarity to catch it in her two hoofheld swords, twisting the other two blades around Scarcity’s back. Both unicorns teleported at once to get out of the situation, coming to a standstill once more.

Neither smiled.

~~~

Applejack came to on a floor made of Runes, behind a rocky protrusion. Her helmet had been completely shattered and she had a nasty cut on her head, but otherwise she was fine.

Somehow.

Even though a fall from that height should have broken her bones.

Luck? Pinkie? Somepony who saved her?

She couldn’t tell. That was probably the whole point.

Grunting, she stood up and looked over the rocky protrusion. She could make out the barrier in the ceiling where things were exploding. No doubt in the sea above ships and Quasar were tangled in battle of some sort. On the ground she saw Starcross soldiers meeting Mesh spiders, hunters, and Thieves. Applejack even caught sight of Rarity and Scarcity teleporting around for a split second.

She knew she couldn’t help Rarity. No idea where Rainbow was…

But the Starcross hadn’t noticed her either, apparently.

She examined the battlefield once more, unable to locate any glowing Starcross device that might be drilling into the ground. Which meant that it must be down one of the side tunnels.

It just so happened that she was close to one of them. It was guarded by two of the cloudy soldiers, both of whom had their guns at the ready, refusing to leave their post… but still fixated on the battle.

Applejack checked to see if she still had the axe of light – she didn’t. She did have her tools, though. And that included a few explosives. It definitely wouldn’t be enough to kill them, but luckily she didn’t need to do that.

She reached into her kit and pulled out a square of white – generally used to remove gears that had fallen from above levels and wedged themselves so hard into the rest of the Mesh that the metal had fused. It was a last resort, but it always paid to have some on hoof.

She activated it and tossed it in between the guards. The explosion had very little light to it – instead focusing more on excessive smoke and a powerful shockwave. Even that close to the guards, it did little more than knock them over and daze them given their armor.

But that was enough for Applejack. She dashed through the smoke and into the tunnel, grinning to herself. Her boots clanked against the stone ground, occasionally splashing in some water. Applejack realized she wasn’t running in time anymore – she was just running.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

She turned a corner and her smile dropped instantly. Standing right in front of her was Glimmer, pointing her two-pronged staff right at Applejack.

Glimmer frowned. “The one without magic gets here first. Huh.”

Applejack still had a knife in her toolkit. She drew it.

Glimmer giggled. “Really? That’s cute. That’s… really cute. I’m sorry, but you’re alone little pony. No shadows to help you this time.”

Applejack didn’t even get to charge. Glimmer slapped her aside with her scepter, knocking Applejack onto her back. Applejack stood up – but Glimmer levitated her into the air, ramming her into the ceiling.

Applejack fell, landing on her stomach with a pained “Oof…”

Glimmer frowned. “This is so easy it’s degrading. I actually feel bad.”

“And you don’t feel bad about blowing up a world?”

Glimmer grimaced. “A little. But it has to be done.”

Applejack grunted, standing back up, only for Glimmer to whip her to the ground.

“Applejack? Just stay down. I’d rather not keep beating you up, kay?”

Applejack let out a sigh of resignation and ended her attempts to defy Glimmer.

~~~

Twilight burned a hole straight to the bottom of the crust with ease.

On the other side were demons. Gnashing, many-eyed shapes of dark colors surging towards her like angry ants. She could feel a headache forming from looking at them.

“Compensating…”the Unity Helix said, and suddenly Twilight’s headache was gone. Granted, the eldritch monstrosities surging toward her from the bottom of the hole still looked uglier than an extremely moldy sandwich, but they no longer looked impossible. If anything, they were now flat.

She held out a hoof, smirking. “Get out of my way.”

A beam of holy energy erupted from her hoof and consumed the pulsating demons with ease. The hole, now free from eldritch influence, was open.

She flew in, entering a realm of darkness. Behind her, the light of the amber tunnel greeted her. To her surprise, the interior of the world was not lit by the amber glow – only a small area around the hole was exposed. The rest was completely dark.

Every square meter of the interior of the world must have been infested with eldritch monsters.

“Creepy,” she admitted. “But probably not as creepy as our big boy in the center… do you have Rx’len?”

“Yes,” the Unity Helix said. “It is admittedly difficult for me to process it. Visually, I can give you a representation of Rx’len without an issue. I am currently working on routines to represent his higher-dimensional natures. I caution against immediate engagement.”

“I can wait so long as nothing jumps me.” Twilight flapped her wings, discovering that she didn’t really have any concept of direction anymore. Gravity was almost nothing where she was, and the hole she’d just come out of might as well have been ‘down’ to her at the moment.

She was purposefully refusing to extend her magical perceptions. She didn’t want to touch Rx’len without the Unity Helix being sure it was safe to do so. This did not mean she wasn’t ready for a fight – knowing what Pinkie had said made her think this was a perfect moment for things to go wrong…

“Done,” the Unity Helix responded. “You may go to Rx’len. The visual stimuli will seem unusual, but I will help you process it.”

“How many fuses did you blow working that out?” Twilight asked, jokingly.

“Five percent.”

Twilight stopped short. “You’re kidding. Five percent of all of your fuses?!”

“I am unfortunately not joking. There are currently major power outages in Unity that I am not attempting to fix.”

“Guess I’ll do this quickly then…” Twilight lit her horn, allowing herself to shine like a star. She unleashed a beam of energy right for the center of the world, where she knew Rx’len sat, devouring everything.

She felt the light from the hole behind her close up the moment she did so. “Nice cinematic timing it’s got there… Pinkie, was that you?”

“I think of it as both me and Rx’len,” Pinkie said over the comm.

“Be on your guard,” Fluttershy said. “It might try something.”

“TRY WHAT?” The voice boomed, but the Unity Helix filtered out all the ear-scratching frequencies and mental shredding effects, giving Rx’len the sound quality of a scratchy, garbled megaphone.

“Rx’len…” Fluttershy said. “King of monsters…”

“YOU ARE A TENACIOUS ONE, SATURN. WHY NOT COME FACE ME DIRECTLY INSTEAD OF CREATING THIS… PUPPET?”

“You know I cannot,” Fluttershy added.

“Hey!” Twilight shouted. “Don’t confirm that I’m a puppet!”

“ARE YOU NOT? YOU ARE UNDER THE WILLS OF A PROPHET, A GODDESS, AND A MACHINE. YOU COULD NOT BE HERE WITHOUT THEIR WILLS.”

“ENOUGH!” Twilight shouted, unleashing another beam of holy energy into the darkness. “Show yourself so we can get this over with. There are people back home who need their coffee machines back.”

“THIS IS THE THANKS I GET…”

And it revealed itself. It had no color, only shape. Its true form was beyond comprehension, but the approximation the Unity Helix had created was still beyond terrifying. At the center was an orb that could have been an eye, or it may have just been a crystal with pulsating nodules around it. Either way it was larger than most dragons. Six fingers spread out from this center point, like bony petals on a flower.

The finger-flower of Rx’len was affixed by a double-helix stalk to a rippling sea of thick syrup, out of which hands and hooves would stick out of, as if trying to keep themselves from drowning. Bony ridges rose out of the edges of this pool, topped with virus-like shapes that slowly rotated in unpredictable directions. Around these bones was a ringed hole – filled with irregular teeth, making an impossible mouth that went all the way around. Beyond this, there were only tentacles that seemed to have no pattern to them at all and went on forever. Given the occasional pulse of amber light on these tentacles, this was probably what Rx’len was using to absorb the world’s magic.

Twilight saw all of this… and smiled. “Hey Rx’len. Sup?”

“EVERYTHING.”

“Ooh, good point. This is going to make it a little difficult to beat you down…” Twilight shrugged. “Hopefully up is a good substitute.” She created a golden scythe out of nothing and drove it into the central finger flower.

Rarity and Twilight

Twilight’s scythe hit the center of Rx’len. The orb had the consistency neither of an eye nor crystal, but of dry cracked dirt. It crumbled into dust and swirled around her.

Rx’len didn’t seem to care that this part of him was no more. The finger-flower rushed forward and grabbed Twilight. She felt like a million ants made of sandpaper were crawling all over her body even though the armor was preventing her from experiencing direct contact with the fingers. She called out, releasing a burst of bright energy that disintegrated the fingers.

To her shock, the stalk grew back several more fingers, which grew fingers on the ends of those fingers, and so on and so forth until the fingers became a tree of wriggling grabby disgust.

“I hate to think of what this actually looks like,” Twilight commented, spreading her wings, unleashing several-hundred glass shards enchanted with various colors of attack.

“It really is quite horrifying,” the Unity Helix admitted. “I cannot have nightmares, but I suspect I know what it feels like to have them now.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Twilight charged right into Rx’len’s center, disintegrating the stalk of the hand tree and embedding herself in the syrupy filth behind. Hands and hooves grabbed her from all sides, but she lit herself up like a shooting star to plow even deeper into the noxious flesh.

Really, it only looked like flesh. She felt glass, stone, water, paper, mud, rose thorns, spaghetti, and several other textures she couldn’t actually identify.

And now she could smell it too. The closest thing she could think of was rotting fruit, even though it smelled much sweeter and the reek of death was much more vibrant.

She cleared it all away with a quick explosion from within herself, tearing Rx’len’s massive form in two. The tentacles writhed in one direction, unable to drain the magic of the Runes effectively anymore, while the other end – it really couldn’t be called the head – rotated to face her. Not in the normal sense where someone takes a few steps and turns to face you, no, Rx’len became flat and flipped around like a card before popping back into full existence.

“YOU HAVE BROKEN MY TETHER.”

“Partial success!” Twilight grinned.

“I NOW NO LONGER HAVE TO CONCERN MYSELF WITH DRAINING CAPELLA.” A six-fingered claw wrapped around her, each finger coiling around her like a spring while somehow feeling like mashed potatoes making distant vulture noises.

Twilight broke out with a teleport. “Oh, so you’re saying the real fight begins now? Great! I was getting a little con-“ Suddenly gravity was a hundred times normal and she was plummeting toward a field of teeth. She could not stop herself from falling, so she had to disintegrate the teeth out of the way as she fell, boring a hole into Rx’len’s essence once again.

It spoke from around her, caring not about things like physical impossibility. “REALITY IS MY TOY.” Gravity was no longer a problem, now Twilight felt cold. She felt as though she was falling apart, spiraling out into a thousand strands of infinity…

“Correcting…” the Unity Helix said, tapping into Twilight’s nervous system to remove the sensation. “Done. She now perceives herself as a three-dimensional entity even if you change that.”

Rx’len made no vocal response, instead hitting Twilight with the eldritch equivalent of a train at mach five. Every bone in her body broke – but reset a moment later using the excess magic stored in the Amber Phoenix.

Twilight lit herself on fire and generated more glass shards. Direction no longer mattered so she sent them out everywhere, tearing through Rx’len with a hundred different enchantments once again.

It retaliated in kind with a thousand hands grabbing Twilight from all directions – even inside her.

If you can appear inside me…

She created the glass shards in her wings once again, this time carefully augmenting them with the circuitry within her armor. She sent them out in a constant stream, meeting hands wherever they appeared, saving intangible shards to remove the hands that attempted to pull her apart from the inside.

“You’re doing great!” Fluttershy encouraged.

Twilight laughed, twisting her body in a tornado-like motion, using her amber-purple magic to grab every last one of Rx’len’s attacks before it met her. Hand, tentacle, geometric shape, impossible thorn; all were deflected by the fire of the Phoenix.

“THAT ALL YOU GOT?!” Twilight shouted.

“NO.”

Rx’len went for her mind. Twilight felt her perceptions split in two. One part of her continually fought the limbs and thorns of Rx’len, but that part was able to act almost automatically. The other part was her mind, floating in an expanse of blackness. Behind her floated the eye of the Unity Helix. To the sides of her ears Twilight could see two sparks – one pink, one a soft green.

“Twilight? What’s happening?” Fluttershy asked, her voice coming from the green spark.

“Mental attack,” Pinkie explained. “She can still hear us. We won’t be able to hear her.”

“Right. Twilight, whatever’s going on in there, you can do it!”

The projection of Rx’len appeared in the mindscape. Twilight had been expecting something bombastic, like the muscular form of the gods or the massive glow of the moon.

Instead, all she saw was a small, black filly. She looked normal enough, though she had both a horn and wings.

“Is this form meant to be an insult to me… or you?” Twilight sneered.

Rx’len spoke through the filly’s mouth, a normal voice coming out. “It is neither. It is just a form of speech. I have many more.”

Thousands of eyes appeared all around the darkness, staring directly at the glowing symbol on Twilight’s chest. “Scared?” Twilight asked.

“I'm curious what it would have done were it completed,” Rx’len corrected. “The original entity that became these worlds is a mystery even to me.”

“Ask Rainbow Dash. Apparently it’s a common thing.”

“A single set of the Elements of Harmony has never been enough to destroy one of my kind. The purging light is a heavy setback, yes, and it has cured entire worlds of our presence… but never has one set been able to fully eradicate us. Those who try learn to regret it.”

Twilight felt Rx’len grab hold of her mind – but she was quickly protected by the Unity Helix’s psychic shield.

Rx’len tilted her head. “Machines are so interesting. The larger, the closer they become to us in function. Incomprehensible to mortals. Aware of the great flows and patterns of time. And yet… they’re still limited by hardware.” She raised an unassuming hoof. “Soul? Yes. But that soul rides on ones and zeroes… What if I insert a two?”

The eye of the Unity Helix flickered.

“Or a three? Or a seven? Or an imaginary charge? What about a nested quaternion?”

The Unity Helix narrowed its eye, despite the enhanced speed of its flickering. “I can process anything.”

“Your problem is that you can process anything in your world. But your coding is limited to one universe.” The filly brought her hoof down, and the Unity Helix’s eye became little more than pixelated garbage. “That is from a universe with two time axes where love is a physical concept that makes a noise analogous to the color chartreuse.”

“Unity!” Twilight called. “Pull out! The galaxy needs you!”

Runes of several different colors appeared around the eye, forcing it to solidify once more.

“The Starcross Society has proper coding for other places,” the Unity Helix said, once more standing strong. “And I’m in their ship.”

“A ship built out of the corpses of Stars similar to the one I’ve been eating for millennia.” Mental tentacles wrapped around the Unity Helix from all directions, draining power from the Runes. “Similar, but much weaker.”

“NO!” Twilight shouted, rushing forward with her mind. “I won’t let y-“

Twilight’s mind blanked. It was like hitting a brick wall and then being sent through the washing machine. She felt her physical body lose awareness for a moment and take a heavy hit to the back leg, forcing a large quantity of stored magic to be expended in healing. In the mental plane, she fell back.

“Twilight! What happened?” Fluttershy called – but got no answer.

“Had she been able to, she would have run here,” Rx’len said, almost sweetly. “Like you ran to your computer. The weak supplanting the strong… but not really adding anything.”

“Error… raising firewalls…” the Unity Helix blubbered.

“Your computer will stay as long as it can.” Rx’len’s projection approached Twilight, touching her face with an ice cold hoof. “And when it leaves for the sake of your Galaxy, your mind will burn, and you shall become one of mine.”

Twilight growled. “We haven’t run out of tricks yet.”

“Are you referring to your Prophet?” Rx’len blinked. “Don’t you see? The Runes of the Starcross were supposed to be your victory, your way out. She foolishly didn’t realize they were like candy to me. Your little alteration of reality has f-“

The Moon fell out of the sky that didn’t exist a minute ago and smashed the mental projection of Rx’len into the ground. Instantly, the Unity Helix stopped degrading, finding itself back at safe operating conditions.

Twilight laughed. “Hey, Moon! Glad you decided to join us!”

“I SENSED STRAIN IN MY CREATOR’S INFLUENCE,” the moon said, rising into the empty sky. “IT WAS AN OPPORTUNITY.”

“You are a fool,” Rx’len said, voice level, calm. The filly projection seemed completely unharmed. “The Prophet is manipulating your actions.”

“WHICH IS EVEN MORE ASSURANCE OF VICTORY.” The moon created a cityscape in the sky reminiscent of New Alice City. “THE MACHINE CANNOT HANDLE YOUR NONSENSE. BUT I CAN.”

The ground became a forest of pulsating black tentacles. “You are my offspring. You are nothing.”

High rise buildings rammed into the ground while trunks of eldritch matter shot to the sky.

“GO, TWILIGHT SPARKLE,” the Moon declared. “I SHALL MANAGE THE MENTAL BATTLEFIELD. YOUR PLACE IS IN REALITY.”

Without so much as a pop, Twilight’s essence was one once more.

“Pinkie, you’re a genius,” Twilight said with a laugh.

“I try my best!” Pinkie laughed.

"...Did you write me saying that?"

"...Maaaaaaybe."

~~~

Clink!

Rarity met Scarcity’s blade with two of her own.

Clink!

Scarcity created a new sword to meet Rarity’s other two blades.

Clink!

The two twisted their swords away, flinging their bodies at each other and clashing with blades uncomfortably close to both of their necks. They teleported out at the same time, appearing on opposite sides of the cavern.

A war waged between them. Mesh spiders stepped on cloudy soldiers while Thieves stole the very armor from Starcross ponies. All the Starcross turrets had fallen at this point, but Quasar was doing enough damage in the ocean above that very few ships had made it all the way through – and even then, some of those were still following Quasar’s commands.

She’d seen some hunters try to cast some spells on Quasar, but none of those ever seemed to go anywhere – the few times the dragon’s limbs had extended past the barrier, his scales proved to be highly magic resistant.

Rarity drew her meteor rifle and aimed at Scarcity. Scarcity created several dozen needles out of her magic and shot them at lightning speed. At the same time, both of them attempted to teleport the other to where they were currently standing, resulting in a net effect of zero. Rarity had to scramble and dodge through the needles, getting hit by three in nonlethal locations. Scarcity met the meteor with a shield that managed to withstand the oppressive force of the flaming rock, but she still slid back far enough to hit her head on the back wall.

Blood ran down the back of Scarcity’s head while three small holes did the same on Rarity. Rarity’s wetsuit had only offered marginal protection from the piercing attack.

The two didn’t relent – they teleported to the center of the battlefield again, sliding under the spindly legs of a Mesh spider. Rarity moved like she was going to ram a sword into Scarcity’s neck, hoping Scarcity would attempt to dodge the attack. Unfortunately, Scarcity saw the ploy coming – she raised a magic shield to her left instead, stopping the brunt of Rarity’s hammer. With Rarity open, Scarcity shot a needle at point-blank range into Rarity, missing her heart by millimeters.

Rarity chose to follow up with a magic laser to Scarcity’s face, an action that singed her mane and tossed her back a fair distance.

Scarcity teleported herself upright, snarling. “How are you so skilled? You are young.”

“I have lived a constant tragedy.” Rarity said, twirling her sword in the air.

“I have seen war the likes of which you have never imagined.”

“You probably sat behind one of those screens and pressed a button while your fancy machines did all the killing for you.”

Scarcity went ballistic. She surrounded herself in a ball of spikes and charged Rarity, leaving a blue trail of energy behind her. “I sat!?” Rarity dodged out of the way, but Scarcity teleported to the side, hitting Rarity square in the side. “I didn’t kill!?” Rarity rolled onto her hooves, more than a little surprised to find that the impact hadn’t damaged her that much. “Where do you think this scar came from!?”

“Enlighten me,” Rarity said, smacking the Runic ground with the hammer to create a small tremor.

“Pinkie Pie. My Pinkie Pie.” Scarcity dissipated the spiked barrier in favor of rippling armor around her body. “She gave it to me.” Scarcity punched Rarity from the side, moving significantly faster than before. “She joined the Stars.” Upon impact with Scarcity, the rippling barrier exploded, sending Rarity flying into the air. “She almost killed me.”

“You killed her…” Rarity observed, coughing up blood.

Scarcity strolled over to her. “Yes. I did. And nopony will ever go down the dark path she did ever again.”

“Don’t you see the dark path you’ve gone down?”

Scarcity twitched. She created an immense sword once more and brought it down.

In her rage she missed one of Rarity’s swords. It came in from the side, puncturing her just below the shoulder. She lost control of her attack and toppled to the ground, letting out a sharp yell of pain.

With a smirk, Rarity stood up and shakily approached her.

~~~

Twilight was a star shining through endless darkness, burning away pieces of Rx’len at every turn.

“I CAN FEEL YOUR CONFIDENCE RISING.”

“I’m winning,” Twilight laughed. “The moon and the Unity Helix have you occupied. You have to deal with them, you can’t deal with me!” She unleashed a few blades of light energy, cutting through a brick wall of shadow that screamed like burning children when she hit it. “Do you have no chill?”

“YOU THINK TOO HIGHLY OF YOURSELF. YOU ARE MERELY SURVIVING. YOU ARE NOT WINNING.”

“Oh yeah?” Twilight spread her wings and smirked. “Then how about we switch to some offensive tactics? I’ve been wanting to try out this thing in the center of my chest for a while now. I’m hoping for a Rainbow Death Ray!”

The Rune in her chest lit up with all the colors of the rainbow. A white spark projected itself from the armor, quickly surrounded by five other lights. The blue light existed only for a split second, dying out before anything could be done with it.

The other four, though – purple, pink, orange, and soft green – blasted forward with a swirl of colors, augmenting the central white beam.

The Harmonious beam hit the writhing brain-like form that was currently Rx’len. For the first time since this all began, Twilight felt it hurt. The screeching ripples of space-time told her that Rx’len was suffering for all it had done. Sparks of red light flew out into the darkness as Rx’len’s essence was purged…

Then the orange light went out.

The other four continued their harmonious burst just as impressively…

Until the central white glow of Rarity’s power went out, leaving only three singular lights orbiting nothing. Twilight, Pinkie, and Fluttershy.

Rx’len was able to move again. With a shuddering jerk, a tentacle made of bones lined with pony faces surged forward, grabbing the three lights in one fell swoop.

The entire tentacle exploded in a shower of red dust, and sparkling neon fires of a similar color began to rage in random locations on Rx’len’s form…

“Oh no,” Pinkie said.

“I don’t like that oh no!” Twilight shouted.

“We’re off script! That wasn’t how that was supposed to go! WhatdidIdowrongwhatdidIdowrong?”

“YOUR PROPHET HAS FAILED YOU,” Rx’len declared, coiling a squishy claw around Twilight’s body. “THE LAWS OF THE NARRATIVE DEEMED HER STORY IMPERMISSIBLE, AND WITH IT, YOUR VICTORY.”

“No story would end with you victorious!” Twilight shouted at the top of her lungs.

“THERE ARE LARGER STORIES THAN YOURS. IF YOU WERE ALL THAT MATTERED, YOU WOULD HAVE A POINT. BUT THERE ARE SO MANY WORLDS I WOULD NOT BE SURPRISED THESE EXACT EVENTS HAVE HAPPENED MULTIPLE TIMES OVER THE COURSE OF THE TIME ABYSS THAT IS EXISTENCE. IN SOME OF THOSE, YOU WON. IN THIS ONE… YOU FAIL.”

Twilight broke free of the claw, only for a snake-like finger to grab her again. This is suddenly a lot harder to do…

“PERHAPS YOU HAVE TAKEN ON THE MANTLE OF THE ENCHANTRESS.”

Twilight lost control of herself, flying into something hard. The bones in the back of her wings cracked, quickly healing, but the damage in her armor remained.

“HER CURSE IS NOT ONE OF MY MAKING. THE CURSE OF FAILURE; OF TRAGEDY.”

Twilight unleashed a burst of holy energy mixed with dozens of glass shards once again, but she missed several of the hands coming for her. “Pinkie!” She called.

“I… I’m working on it!” Pinkie shouted, voice cracking. “Just hold on!”

“THE STORY OF THIS PLANET ALWAYS HAS BEEN, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, THE TRAGEDY OF THE ENCHANTRESS. YOU HAVE TASTED NOTHING BUT SUCCESS AFTER SUCCESS YOUR WHOLE LIFE.”

The Amber Phoenix’s cracks were growing with every blunt attack. Cracks formed everywhere, shimmering with the loss of magic energy.

“IMAGINE, THE STORY OF THE EMPRESS, ENDING IN HER DEATH.”

Twilight was suddenly being suffocated on all sides by squishy tar-like nodules.

“Hold on Twilight!” Fluttershy called.

“THE DEATH OF AN IMMORTAL. ALL PONIES OF UNITY WILL DIE FOR THIS TRAGEDY. PERHAPS THE MOST POPULOUS RACE IN UNITY… GONE IN A GENERATION OR TWO, FOR THEIR SPIRITS FADE.”

“I…” Twilight grunted, shooting magic lasers out of her hooves, digging through the flesh only to find more endless flesh of darkness. There seemed to be no end to it.

“THIS IS HOW IT ENDS. WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A TIRED MARE DYING OF OLD AGE IN THE DESERT WATCHING THE LAST HOPE OF HER WORLD DIE WITH HER… BECOMES THE FALL OF A GALACTIC EMPIRE.”

Twilight was crying now. “N-no… I…” Something squeezed her from the inside, prompting her to scream out in excruciating pain.

“SAYING ‘NO’ DOES NOTHING TO STOP THE INEVITABLE.”

“I… am going… to kill you…”

“INCORRECT. I AM GOING TO KILL YOU.”

Rx’len threw Twilight wide, freeing her for just a moment – before pouring all of his physical manifestation’s power onto her in one moment.

Twilight closed her eyes. Why did I ever think I was ready for this? Why did I take this stupid risk?

~~~

Scarcity’s horn sparked, catching Rarity’s blade in telekinesis.

“I’m not falling to you,” Scarcity spat. She teleported herself upright, holding her weight on her three uninjured legs, curling the fourth under her stomach with significant effort. “I faced Stars.” She summoned a translucent orb in front of her horn, growing it to a size larger than herself. “You’re just a fancy unicorn.”

“I’m you,” Rarity said, casting an explosion spell on the magical orb.

The explosion didn’t go off. Scarcity smirked at Rarity’s confusion. “I know.”

The orb copied the explosion spell four times and unleashed it in a square around Rarity. She managed to teleport away, but not before the flames charred her coat and mane. Hissing, she was unable to defend against a needle that pierced her chest.

She looked down – her heart was safe once again, but she was bleeding profusely. Looking up, she saw that Scarcity wasn’t much better in terms of injury. The white unicorns had more red than white on them at this point, and Rarity suspected much of that had come from ponies dying around them rather than the battle between them.

For the first time, Rarity really saw it. The devastation around them, the horrors taking place as their eyes were locked on each other. A hunter swung a hammer engulfing several cloud people in flames, while a Starcross unicorn shot a Thief in the face that was busy mourning his lost comrade. A ship fell out of the sky, blowing a hole in the Runic cavern around them, incinerating both Unity and Starcross soldiers alike.

The once amber caverns were running red with blood.

“This is wrong,” Rarity said.

“This is what it takes,” Scarcity responded, holding a hoof wide. “This is nothing compared to the sacrifices it took to liberate my people from the Stars – all people from all Stars!” She teleported right to Rarity’s face, but didn’t initiate an attack. “If you aren’t willing to give up something this insignificant for an entire planet, you disgust me.”

“I am only willing to give up what I have,” Rarity said.

“You have no sense of scale.”

“I used to think Rainbow Dash had lost perspective. Now I see what losing perspective really looks like.” She held a hoof wide. “You see all this suffering, and you feel nothing! When was the last time you felt anything for those under your command?”

“You think I don’t care about them!?”

“You throw them away like trash!”

The two ended their truce in an instant, clashing swords once more. Rarity thrust hers forward and Scarcity created blades from the aether to match. Scarcity began to create thousands of needles, only for Rarity to smack the ground with her hammer and make both of them lose their footing.

Both of them fell over. One of Scarcity’s blades flung wild.

And then Rarity saw nothing out of one of her eyes. She didn’t feel the cut – but she could see the blood pouring down her face and onto the ground with her other eye.

The strength in her legs completely gave out. She slumped to the ground, breathing softly.

Scarcity pointed a blade at her. “I am cold, callous, and uncaring. But that is what it took, and that is what it takes. This is how you make existence better. This is how victory is achieved.”

Rarity smiled. She wanted to laugh, but all she did was cough up blood. “If you… are what success looks like… then I was blessed to be gifted failure…”

Scarcity stared at her in shock. She dissipated her blade and said something – but Rarity was no longer looking at her. Everything was getting fuzzy…

It really was that simple, wasn’t it? Who needed success? Why did ponies bank their entire lives on some victory?

Ponies were not promised anything by life. They might rise to the top because of how they were born and rule a galaxy… or they might live in constant failure wandering and wallowing. And in the end, there was no difference between them.

They were still just ponies…

Rarity felt like she was laughing happily as the world went black.

Capella's Call

While other ponies were having dramatic personal revelations, Applejack was busy staring at Glimmer.

“So…” Glimmer tapped her staff on the ground, bored. “Read any good books lately?”

“I don’t have much time to read books in the Mesh. Nopony does, really.”

“Ah.”

The awkward silence returned again.

“I mean there has to be something we can talk about!” Glimmer said. “Even though we’re enemies, we’re still both ponies, and neither of us really want to kill each other. We’ve got at least two things in common!”

“How do you keep up your cheery attitude?”

“Honestly? Anti-depression pills and an intense feeling of obligation.”

“Huh. Efficient.”

“You are literally the first pony to say that. Everypony else goes all ‘that can’t be healthy’.”

“It’s not?”

“Oh. Right. You’re from that Mesh.” Glimmer smiled awkwardly. “Yeah. Definitely isn’t healthy. If I didn’t live with constant access to Starcross Society medical technology my heart would have exploded in my chest long ago from overstress.”

“Seems like you got that under control, though.”

Glimmer stared at her. “…I have met a lot of strange ponies in my life. I don’t think I’ve met somepony with your attitude.” She smiled. “It’s refreshing!”

“Think how the world must look to me.”

“Hm?”

“Everypony else is completely off their rocker.”

Glimmer let out a joyous laugh. “Nobody stays on their rocker very long out here.”

“Figured that one out.”

Glimmer cocked her head. “Already getting to you?”

“In some ways. I don’t feel the beat of the Mesh right now. Doesn’t bother me at all. What does bother me is that I can’t do anything while ponies die out there.”

“Ah. Yes. That.” Glimmer bit her lip. “I am sorry.”

“No you’re not. You think you need to do this. Don’t apologize for something if you don’t mean it.”

“Oh. That’s… actually good and pretty obvious advice. Huh. Thanks!”

“Don’t mention it.”

“I wonder if I could give you something in return…”

“Let me go?”

“Nice try.”

“Was worth a shot.”

Glimmer chuckled. Following this there was silence again.

Gimmer tapped her hoof on the ground. “Maybe we could play a game or something? I don’t know, twenty questions? Twenty questions is kind o-“

A streak of rainbow flew past Applejack and tackled Glimmer to the floor. “Gotcha!” Rainbow shouted, ripping the staff out of her telekinesis.

“Hey!” Glimmer shouted, tugging on her artifact with her hooves. “Give that back!”

“Make me!”

Glimmer grabbed Rainbow in her telekinesis and threw her as hard as she could. Rainbow’s grip on the staff was too strong – but so was Glimmer’s. As a result, throwing Rainbow meant throwing both of them, end over end, across the tunnel. Both ponies smacked painfully into the rocks on the other side of Applejack.

“Let go!” Glimmer shouted.

“The staff is only free if I say it is!”

“I’ll make you talk if I have to!”

“Okay, guess I lose, staff is free.”

“Wait, really?”

“Free from you.” Rainbow cackled and unleashed a gust of wind, removing Glimmer’s grip from her staff. She found, annoyingly, that she couldn’t grab it with her telekinesis again.

“What’s the trick?”

“Breath of freedom, Glimmy,” Rainbow said, smashing the staff down on a rock. It bounced harmlessly back up. “…Huh. This is more durable than it loo-“

Glimmer shot a laser right into Rainbow’s face, tossing her to the ground. Rainbow shrugged this off, flying further away… Glimmer teleported after her…

Applejack looked left. Applejack looked right. Slowly, she stood up and began walking down the tunnel again.

She could still hear Glimmer and Rainbow going at it back toward the tunnel entrance. Applejack hoped Rainbow could keep that up for a while.

Glimmer had been the last guard for the tunnel. Behind her, there was only the thing Applejack was looking for – a many-spiked machine holding a spark of purple energy, drilling a small hole into the ground. Above this spiked arrangement was a small glass sphere with a noxious, green cloud inside that occasionally pulsed orange. It was affixed with several wires and pipes to a black, Runic device in the ceiling that had a lot of metal plates affixed to it.

Applejack may not have had any idea how all these fancy machines worked on the smallest level like she did the workings of the Mesh, but she was a mechanic. She could make deductions. The purple spark was Twilight’s stolen power, and the spikes were using it to dig. She could try to stop that, but she expected letting Twilight’s spark go could be explosive.

She turned her attention back to the glass sphere. If she were judging correctly, it would be what fell through the hole and, presumably, blew up the whole planet. Hard to imagine something so small could be so deadly, but she had seen so much on this journey she wasn’t about to judge otherwise. It was held tight by all the wires and presumably would release once the drill component was finished with its hole.

Applejack saw a few options – find a way to stop the glass sphere from falling into the hole, catch the glass sphere as it fell, or remove the glass sphere from the device safely.

The first option would involve figuring out how the wires in the Runic device in the ceiling worked, and she doubted she had time to do that. The second one was super-dangerous, for all she knew contact was what triggered the explosion.

That left option three. She was going to have to remove it. There was no ladder around, but there were a few metallic boxes that had presumably held the components of the devices. She created a small staircase out of three boxes and climbed to the top. Carefully, she rose to her hind hooves, an adjustable wrench strapped to her hoof.

There were three major wires connecting the sphere to the cylinder, all with simple bolt connections. All she needed was that wrench and a good leg, and all mechanics had good legs.

She was fully aware there was probably a fifty percent chance removing the cables from the sphere would make it explode, but there were better odds there than in the other options, far as she could tell.

Taking a deep breath, she set her wrench to the joint of the wire with the Runic cylinder. She twisted, loosening the nut. She twisted again, loosening it further. Using her free hoof to steady the wire, she twisted precisely one half turn, separating the wire from the cylinder.

Nothing exploded.

She strapped the wire to her hoof so nothing would fall when she removed the other two wires. She moved to the second wire, and it went much the same as the first. No adverse side effects.

The third, though, that was the real danger.

Not that she let this deter her. After affixing one of the loose wires to her other hoof-strap she stuck her wrench at the topmost bolt and turned, methodically, carefully, but not slowly. It came free with a wobble.

Nothing exploded.

Applejack was now the proud owner of a doomsday device with three wires sticking out of it. She didn’t dare touch the actual doomsday device.

She walked down her makeshift staircase. In the middle of her journey, the drilling spark stopped drilling – no doubt having just finished it’s journey to the center of the earth.

The Runic cylinder beeped… but it had nothing to drop into the hole.

Applejack smirked. “Gotcha.”

Glimmer teleported into the room with both an unconscious Rainbow Dash and a staff holding a blue bundle of magic energy. She locked eyes with Applejack.

Applejack lifted the globe into the air, threatening to smash it. “Don’t think I won’t.”

Glimmer recoiled. “Nononono! Let’s nooooot do that! That would be… end-of-the-world-without-destroying-Rx’len bad!”

“Then you’re going to do what I say or I bust this thing open. Don’t get any ideas. Maybe you can teleport it out of my hoof or do that weird time thing. Maybe not.”

“I am nooooooot taking that risk,” Glimmer assured her.

“Good. Give Rainbow her magic back.”

Glimmer returned the blue orb to Rainbow, though she remained unconscious. “Done.”

“Break your magic staff.”

Glimmer sighed. She cast a black fire spell and consumed the entire artifact. “Done.”

“And knock yourself out.”

“Okay, before I do that, do not let the glass touch anything. It will explode.”

“Figured. Now knock yourself out.”

“Sure thing!” She created a boxing glove and punched herself in the face, dropping her to the ground easily.

Applejack smirked. “Looks like I beat the fancy wizard. Imagine that. Guess I did something after all.”

~~~

“Oh no,” Pinkie said.

“I don’t like that oh no!” Twilight’s voice came back.

“We’re off script!” Pinkie started panicking. “That wasn’t how that was supposed to go! WhatdidIdowrongwhatdidIdowrong?”

“YOUR PROPHET HAS FAILED YOU…”

The words of Rx’len faded into the background as Fluttershy turned to Pinkie. “Pinkie…”

Pinkie was staring at a blank page of a notebook, holding up a pen. She shivered.

Fluttershy swallowed. She got out of her seat and walked over to Pinkie, slowly laying a hoof on her shoulder.

Pinkie twitched, turning to stare at her with fear, tears, anguish, confusion, and loss. And at the end of all that was a question Pinkie didn’t want to ask.

All Fluttershy did was nod. Do it.

Pinkie gulped, nodding slowly. She set her pen to the paper…

Fluttershy, she began.

Fluttershy returned to her seat. She got the impression she wasn’t going to be sitting here much longer, so she put on her helmet and made sure her shield was strapped on tight.

“Pinkie!” Twilight called in garbled anguish.

“I… I’m working on it!” Pinkie shouted, pen slipping as she scribbled furiously. “Just hold on!”

Rx’len began a monologue about tragedy Fluttershy wasn’t listening to. She just watched Pinkie – watched her closely.

When Pinkie looked to her, she knew it was time to go.

“Hold on, Twilight!” Fluttershy called. She set her massive shield on her front hooves and jumped into the hole, splaying her wings.

“Don’t!” the Unity Helix called.

Fluttershy heard Pinkie say something in response, but she didn’t even try to listen. She focused.

Time to go as fast as she had ever gone. She spread her wings, channeling as much magic into them as possible. She flapped, acting in tandem with gravity to accelerate herself faster and faster. Her halo started to vibrate dramatically as every ounce of her power was pushed into getting down.

Her shield began to heat up from the friction, but Fluttershy knew it could take it. She hadn’t met anything it couldn’t take, yet.

She had a few moments to wonder what she was going to do when she got down there. She had no protection from the Unity Helix, and would no doubt freeze upon arriving.

But Pinkie was writing her right now. Maybe, here, now, at the end of the story, at the climax of all action she could overcome her curse. She could avenge Saturn in a way only she could – by staring an eldritch abomination in the face with the power of a goddess and fighting back.

Could Pinkie pull that off?

Yes.

Yes, Pinkie could do it, Fluttershy was sure of it. She had made the curse in the first place, she could lift it, even if just for a moment.

For once in her life, Fluttershy would be able to fight back.

Setting right what Saturn had failed to do.

With a grin on her face she roared, plowing through the small demons on the interior of the world with ease. They didn’t even register that she’d been approaching – she had become a flaming comet, and there was nothing that could stop her.

She was going to save Twilight.

“INCORRECT. I AM GOING TO KILL YOU.”

In that instant, Fluttershy realized what a fool she had been. Her wings locked up and she lost all feeling in her limbs. She had no protection from the Unity Helix, so she saw Rx’len. Burning in many places as it was with dark red flame, it was still… impossible. There were tentacles… maybe. There were eyes… maybe. There were colors Fluttershy had never seen before, massive grids of fractals that appeared in her mind as something beyond three dimensional.

And then she couldn’t see anything.

Worst of all, she couldn’t hear the whining buzz that had been her ever-present companion all these years…

…

…Twilight noticed in shock that Fluttershy was suddenly in front of her, a strange black cloud over her face. She held her shield firm…

Rx’len hit it with all its might instead of Twilight.

Fluttershy’s greatest creation took the brute force attack of a being that devoured universes.

And held.

For, in the end, it was a shield created by not just Fluttershy, but by Saturn herself, filled with faint memories of the king of monsters who had so soundly defeated her long ago. A goddess who knew, deep down, the only thing that could really end Rx’len… was itself.

Twilight watched in awe as a green humanoid figure took a vague shape around Fluttershy. She was Fluttershy, in a way, eternally connected to her, fused with her essence… but she was also Saturn, the goddess of battle, bravery, and victory. She was just as frozen as the pegasus, but that was exactly what they needed.

Had they not been frozen in an absolute sense, they would not have been able to hold the shield steady. They would have had uncontrollable muscle spasms from simply having looked upon Rx’len’s true form.

But they couldn’t move, no matter how much their minds were telling them otherwise.

The shield began to crack as it absorbed more and more of Rx’len. The monster tried to pull back – keeping some of its power from the artifact.

This was a mistake. If Rx’len had pushed a little harder, the shield would have broken, for even it had an upper limit.

But by trying to limit the energy the shield had to work with… Rx’len gave it permission to release.

And so it did.

Torrents of burning red tentacles, eyes, mouths, impossible shapes, viruses, and random puffs of magic came out of the shield like vomit, hitting Rx’len with everything the eldritch abomination was. Mouths devoured mouths, tentacles folded each other into nonexistence, and much of the collective entity of Rx’len forgot which side of the conflict it was on.

Rx’len ate itself, screaming, biting, flailing as it shrunk smaller and smaller…

…But it didn’t disappear. A massive, undulating mass that resembled a cross between a brain and a heart remained, criss-crossed with immense centipedes and angled spikes.

It didn’t move.

Twilight set up a few shield spells and turned to Fluttershy. “Fluttershy! Fluttershy!”

To her horror Twilight realized Fluttershy had no eyes. There wasn’t any blood or evidence of trauma, just holes. She still had the halo above her head, though it was weak, and she continued to hold firmly to the shield.

The shield itself had chipped in a few places and had an immense crack down the middle. It wouldn’t be reflecting another attack of that sort.

“YOUR PROPHET IS RESOURCEFUL.”

Twilight turned to face the pulsating organ. “You’ve destroyed her mind!”

“SHE DESERVES WORSE FOR THIS BLASPHEMY.”

Twilight twitched. She tapped the Rune on her chest – discovering that it was glowing a soft green. “She’s not down yet.”

A green laser shot forth from the Rune – alone, hitting Rx’len dead on. The light that had seemed so miniscule before was devastating to what little of the eldritch abomination remained.

But Rx’len was nothing if not determined. Despite the light of Fluttershy hitting dead on, it moved forward, getting closer to them… ready to drive a spike through both their chests…

Twilight unleashed a hundred glass shards once more, and they did significant damage. Rx’len no longer seemed to care, though. It wanted Fluttershy now. And it was going to have it no matter what.

“We’ll see about that!” Twilight declared. “Unity, I need in its head!”

“Twilight, you-“

“JUST DO IT!”

Twilight was split in two again, once more in the mindscape. The filly that represented Rx’len was still there, though she was foggy, and parts of her seemed to be missing. Black tentacles still swirled around her, deflecting the metropolis buildings the moon was sending at her. Now that the Unity Helix was back in, it started assaulting the filly as well.

Rx’len screamed.

“You’re dead, Rx’len,” Twilight said, walking toward him – the light of her Rune glowing green.

“I know!” The filly shouted, whimpering in pain – but refusing to cry. “You have the power now… and even if I defeat you, the Unity fleet has enough power to deal with… this…”

“So die.”

“No.” She looked Twilight in the eye. “I’m taking that goddess with me.”

Twilight tapped the rune, and the light of Saturn began shining in Rx’len’s head as well. Both inside and outside the mindscape, the eldritch monstrosity reared back out of reflex.

“You’ve already taken enough ponies.”

“There is never enough,” Rx’len laughed. “It was going to be a garden.”

“…What?”

“The equivalent to one of your mortal gardens. It’s the only metaphor you have even a chance of understanding. I would have killed a few weeds to make room for the great Capella’s Call. The Eldritch Embodiment would hear the song throughout the worlds…”

Twilight spat in contempt. “We ‘weeds’ object to being uprooted.”

“That’s your problem. You think you’re more than weeds.” The image of the filly vanished, as did all the tentacles protecting her. The mindscape fizzled out of existence, and Twilight was one again.

And yet, as the eldritch organ collapsed in on itself, it still had one last thing to say.

“EVEN I AM A WEED COMPARED TO THOSE WHO HAVE TRUE POWER.”

~~~

Rarity’s mind swam. She was pretty sure she opened her eyes… and saw… Scarcity? Walking through a portal to a city in the clouds? But that wasn’t one of the worlds… she was sure of it.

Must just have been her delirium…

Blood loss, and all that…

Heh…

Wait… what was that thing floating over there?

It was very white, whatever it is. And it had an orange-gold “U” on it… Like the one she had seen on Rainbow’s uniform…

Wait…

That meant the Merodi were here, right…?

“Nova! Get over here! This Rarity needs help!”

“Got it, Flutterfree!”

That meant the quarantine was up… Rx’len was no more…

Her world was saved…

Strange… Now that it was over, she didn’t really want to go…

She wanted to know how it had happened…

Oh well…

…

Awakening

Beep… Beep… Beep…

This is worse than the Mesh!

Those were Rarity’s first coherent thoughts upon waking up. Her second thoughts were about how amusing those were, prompting her to laugh.

Laughter…

It didn’t feel so foreign, anymore.

She opened her eyes, discovering that she was laying in a bed with a simple blue blanket. A computer next to her was beeping in time to her heartbeat and there were a few pictures of adorable cats lining the walls. The door to the room had an orange-gold “U” on it, telling her she was in a Merodi facility.

There was a nurse in the room – a small white unicorn with pastel pink and purple curls. “Oh, you’re awake!”

Rarity smiled. “Yeah. How bad is it?”

“Well, we didn’t have to use the revive spell, so that’s pretty good.” She held up a strange, portable screen and read something off of it. “Your spirit is a little exhausted from going through so much, but it seems really strong now.”

“That makes sense,” Rarity said, finding that her smile just wouldn’t go away. She had no problem with that. “Is everypony okay?”

“Your world is safe, all your friends are alive and mostly well, and initial Merodi contact with your universe cluster is going well so far. …There was still a lot of damage we couldn’t fix in that battle under the sea.”

Rarity nodded slowly. “Mostly well?”

“Well, your Fluttershy went through some stuff near the end. She’s functional now, but not quite fully healed.”

“Can I see them?”

“They’re actually waiting for you – so soon. But the Overhead wants to talk to you first.”

“Oh. Sure. Am I in trouble?”

The unicorn chuckled. “Not at all. Don’t worry, she’s a Rarity too.”

That finally made Rarity’s smile falter.

“…Oh, you met Scarcity…” She shook her head. “Scarcity’s highly unusual. The Overhead’s nothing like that.”

Rarity nodded – deciding she’d make her own judgment.

The unicorn nurse left the room… and less than a minute later a Rarity walked in. Her form was fuller than both Rarity’s and Scarcity’s and she wore a wide-brimmed gray hat with a bow, pulled back so ponies could easily see her face. She wore pointed red glasses with a soft rose tint to the lenses – and there was a wise, understanding smile on her face.

This isn’t Scarcity.

“Hello, Rarity. How are you doing?”

“I’ve had a mysterious case of the smiles,” Rarity said, chuckling weakly.

“That’s excellent news.” She pulled up a chair and sat down right next to Rarity’s head. “My name is Renee ‘Rarity’ Jackson, Overhead of Expeditions. I am Rainbow Dash’s current boss and her lifelong friend. She speaks highly of you.”

“She’s an arrogant loudmouth with far too much of an ego,” Rarity said.

“Oh, I agree. She agrees too, if you ask her on a good day.”

The two mares giggled childishly.

“...Have you thought of what you’re going to do now?” Renee asked.

“No,” Rarity said. “But I’m not dead.”

“Not going to be, either?”

“You know, most of my life I was sure I’d drop as soon as it was all over. Now… I haven’t felt this full of energy since I was a filly learning magic for the first time.”

“Sounds like you discovered something about yourself.”

“It’s like a curtain has been lifted away. I had to get almost killed by an alternate version of myself to get it, so that’s a testament to how stubborn I am.”

“Do you think you could put it into words?”

Rarity furrowed her brow. “Maybe… You don’t need success to live a good life? Or a happy life?”

“Sounds like a regular aesop to me.”

“…What?”

“Stories that end in morals.”

“Ah.” Rarity processed this. “So my story’s over.”

“Pretty sure it is,” Renee admitted. “I had some ka specialists look you over while you were out. Your importance is dropping sharply.”

Rarity frowned. “I’m… not sure what I think about that.”

“Which is why you might want to think about what you’re going to do now.” Rarity smiled warmly. “You’re still in the spotlight. If you wanted, you could stay in it, move on to a different story. I could help you with that.”

“…Literally two days ago I would have wanted nothing more than everything to end, to just drift out of it all.”

“Now?”

Rarity grinned. “I can’t wait to get back out there. Find… something new.”

“I thought as much.” Renee stood up. “I’ll contact you when you’re better – you’ll be sure to get a team.”

“One thing,” Rarity coughed. “Are you sure you want a failure?”

Renee chuckled. “We want whoever you are. And who knows? Maybe now that your first story is over, that ‘tragedy curse’ of yours is as well. And maybe it isn’t. You’ll live and do amazing things either way, right?”

“Right.”

“Now, I’m going to open that door, and five ponies are going to flood into this room asking you a million questions. Are you ready?”

Rarity nodded but said, “nope.”

Renee smirked, proceeding to open the door with her telekinesis.

“You’re up!” Rainbow shouted first, running to the head of her bed. “See? Told you she’d be up! She’s a fighter!”

“Yay!” Pinkie cheered, sliding next to Rainbow. “Told you it wouldn’t be right without her!”

“They could have tried the revive spell,” Twilight said – walking in as an alicorn, but normal pony sized so she didn’t fill the entire room. “Nothing would have kept her down.”

“If you say so,” Applejack said, leading Fluttershy in by a hoof.

Rarity’s breath caught when she saw a blindfold taped over Fluttershy’s eyes. “Fluttershy… what happened?”

Fluttershy turned in Rarity’s direction and smiled. “I… I looked at Rx’len. I don’t exactly remember it, since Renee removed that memory with her ‘Sylph’ magic… but I lost my eyes.”

“Fluttershy was the most amazing thing ever,” Twilight said. “Flew right down the hole to save me, held out her shield, and punched Rx’len with its own fist!”

“She’ll get new eyes too, don’t worry,” Renee said, lifting up her glasses and pointing to one of her eyes that was slightly off-color. “I have an artificial one myself.”

Rarity blinked, realizing she had both her eyes. “Wait a minute…”

“Your eye wasn’t lost, but you do have a rather impressive scar there. We could remove it if you want, but I wanted to ask you about it first.”

“Can I have a mirror?” Rarity asked. Twilight created one with her magic and handed it to her.

Rarity looked at herself – slightly shocked at how… bright her eyes looked. Not different, but more… full of life. She decided that was a good thing.

The scar, to her, only seemed to frame it. Unlike Scarcity’s sharp mark, this one curved, a bit like a crescent moon.

“I think I’ll keep it,” Rarity said, feeling her stupid grin rise up her features. “Show Scarcity that, yes, I am better than her.”

There was a chorus of laughs in the room.

“…You look good, Rarity,” Rainbow said. “A lot better than… ever.”

“All it took was getting my plot handed to me by an evil twin.” Rarity paused. “Speaking of, Rainbow, I was down. How did you stop her plan?”

Rainbow chuckled. “Oh, that wasn’t me, I got my plot handed to me by Glimmer.” She pointed at Applejack. “That was all miss master mechanic over here.”

“You helped,” Applejack said.

“I was an unwitting distraction. You got in there and disassembled the whole machine and threatened Glimmer with a doomsday device! I soooo wish I was awake to see the look on her face when you did that!”

Applejack rubbed the back of her head. “It was a pretty good look.”

“See? I miss out on so much!”

Rarity chuckled. “Looks like you saved the day, Applejack. You should be proud.”

“Can I be proud and go back to tending my apple tree?”

“That what you want?”

“Yes,” Applejack said, shivering. “I am so done with all this insanity you got going on out here.”

“But you like us, right?” Fluttershy asked.

“…Sure. Yeah.”

“Awww, come here you!” Pinkie pulled her into an exaggerated hug that Rainbow and Twilight quickly joined in on. Twilight levitated Fluttershy over to Rarity, bringing both of them into the hug at once.

From the doorway, Renee laughed. “These sights always warm my heart. Though, Rainbow, dear, don’t you go making a new set of the Elements of Harmony, you hear me?”

“Hey, if it happens, it happens.” Rainbow shrugged. “Deal with it.”

“We have stolen her!” Rarity declared.

With a roll of her eyes, Renee left the six friends to get reacquainted.

Fates

Applejack did exactly what she said she was going to do.

She went back to the Mesh.

Immediately Blueberry made her the head gardener and gave her dozens of other trees, most imported from the other worlds. Applejack quickly promoted another mechanic to head gardener and gave herself the role of ‘first gardener’.

She didn’t like being in charge, to put it mildly.

“You know, Applejack, I notice you don’t walk in time with the Mesh anymore!” Dust said one day.

Applejack was picking some apples off a tree and putting them in a bucket. “Hmm?”

“You don’t move like, uh, ‘Clank! Clank! Clank!’ anymore.”

Applejack shrugged. “The Mesh is speeding back up. Can’t time my life by it anymore.”

“And that doesn’t bother you? Wow! All the other ponies like you are throwing a fit!”

“If they’re throwing a fit they don’t understand what makes them mechanics in the first place.” She picked up a hose and turned the water on, carefully giving each tree the sprinkling it needed to grow up strong. “We stand together here.”

“Strange… ever since the other portals started opening, things seem to be changing…”

“Of course things would change. The Mesh isn’t all there is to the machine of life.”

“Just makes me think ol’ Spanner might have had a point. Remember those things Spanner used to say about ‘being part of the machine’? We always thought he was kinda crazy…”

Applejack smiled sadly. “Maybe he had a point. But maybe he didn’t. The ponies out there were free to do whatever they wanted. They didn’t seem to have it figured out any better than we do.”

Dust nodded. “True, true… So, how many hero-worshipping visitors have you had today?”

“Two,” Applejack said. “Annoyingly. I’m thinking of asking Rainbow to get her fancy teleporters to move my orchard to another district so they can’t find me.”

“They don’t really get in the way of your work.”

“It’s still really annoying.” She hopped into her personal spider and crawled to the top of the largest tree – her original apple tree. She got out and started picking more apples and checking for bugs. Ever since those bugs had gotten through the portals they’d done nothing but make her trees miserable…

“I’d like the attention.”

“You’re a manager. I’m not.”

Dust nodded. “To be fair, being a super-high manager isn’t really that great anymore. I mean, I guess we’re not stressed all the time, but holy clanking gears are we shouting a lot. The Merodi won’t shut up about ‘labor laws’ and all that nonsense. Just uuuuuugh why can’t we wind up the Mesh and be done with it?”

Applejack shrugged. “Dunno. Don’t care. I want to tend to my orchard.”

Dust stamped a hoof on the ground in annoyance before laughing and shaking her head. “You have it easy up there, Applejack. Got everything figured out, huh?”

Applejack snorted. “Definitely not. I just know that I’m not going to figure it out. The full machine’s too complicated. Might as well get used to where I am.”

“Are you saying… trying to become one with the Mesh isn’t a good idea?”

“I don’t know what I’m saying, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Wait, what, hold on… what?”

Applejack chuckled. “Maybe you should take a moment and not try to figure it out.”

Dust sputtered incoherently.

“Never thought I’d see the day I get Dust at a loss for words.”

Dust rubbed her head. “You… Applejack, you’re strange.”

“Side effect of being a pony, I hear.”

“Funny.” With a roll of her eyes, Dust trotted away. “See you next cycle!”

“Sure thing.”

~~~

Pinkie sighed in bed one night. “Hazel, how bad did I mess my head up?”

Hazel groaned. “You really want to talk about this now?”

“I’m a mare. It’s the middle of the night. I’m not asleep. Duh, of course I do.”

“I feel like you’re projecting one of your characters on yourself.”

“Oooooh, maybe they’re possessing me!”

With a grunt, Hazel sat up and turned on the light. “Okay, yes, you messed up your head. But you also fixed it. Not really something you can undo without messing with your head further… so I think I’ll just keep loving you anyway.”

Pinkie giggled. “I’m not doubting you. I don’t think I can.”

“Oh, how blind are we?”

“That’s the problem! We don’t know!” Pinkie snorted. “…Though seriously. I feel fine. Happy, very happy, actually. There’s just this little nagging voice in the back of my head sometimes that something’s not quite right.”

“God’s way of making sure you don’t forget and try it again?”

“Maybe.” Pinkie furrowed her brow. “No, stupid brain, now is not the time for multiversal theology class! AUGH!”

“Your brain has been doing that a lot lately.”

“I haven’t been writing,” Pinkie twitched. “I wrote to get all the things out of my head. Now my head’s filling up and… and…” She laughed nervously. “I’m going to have to let it out somehow.”

“Maybe try something other than books?”

“Any creative work can define a world. Any.”

Hazel frowned. “…Do you have any ideas?”

“I’m trying to think of what to do along the line of Fluttershy’s advice. Find another thing I can do… you know? She wanted to be a hunter, she’s a weaponsmith. I wanted to be an author, and now I’m going to be a… a…” She tapped her hoof against the bed. “I dunno, what are Prophets good for?”

“Predicting the future?”

“Funny. I mean, what can we do that’s helpful and not actually super-duper-mega dangerous?”

“It’s probably dangerous regardless.”

“Yeah…”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t use it. You could be a superhero, or something.”

“…Not sure how I feel about that…”

“The Merodi know a lot about this whole Prophet thing. They can probably introduce you to some others. Maybe even put you on a program of some sort.”

“Wouldn’t that be bad for you and the whole… politics thing? Earth hasn’t adapted to the Merodi yet.”

“Wanna know a secret?”

“Hmm?”

“I talked to the Merodi Overhead of Relations. She says this initial panic always happens. Our Earth is, so far, just a textbook case and it won’t take but a few years and minimal effort to fully absorb us.”

“…Wow. Earth really is that common?”

“Most common universe type, apparently. Usually filled with humans though.”

“I knew that.”

“Heh. Point is, you can go gallivanting off with the Merodi as P. D. Prophet, it’s not going to do much here.”

She kissed him. “But I probably won’t be around you as much! I don’t know…”

“You went on a huge adventure and saved the world without me. You’ll be fine. Just make sure you’re home in time to make dinner.”

“We both know I’ll just stick some veggies and ramen noodles in a bowl and call it gourmet.”

“Nah. We’ll get one of those food replicators.”

Pinkie giggled. “You’re insane, Hazel. Insanely brilliant, that is!”

“I know. You tell me all the time.”

They kissed again and there wasn’t much in the way of talking the rest of the night.

~~~

Fluttershy had gotten new eyes a week after losing them. They were… fine, but they didn’t look quite the same as her old ones. Curiously, they worked better than her old ones, since apparently she’d needed glasses. Of course now that her eyes were perfect she was wearing glasses like Renee to keep from giving off the ‘uncanny valley’ effect whenever she looked at ponies.

There were contacts for that. To put it simply, she didn’t trust contacts not to fall out in the middle of a tense moment at work and shatter into a million pieces, ruining the weapon and making her order a new one.

Was that unreasonable? Probably. But at least she was well aware of where the glasses were at all times. Plus, her glasses had ornate little dragon carvings on the rims! That was cool!

She loved dragons. An entire race of monsters that weren’t monsters. They were amazing. The first day after she’d gotten her eyes back she went sparring with one. Best experience ever.

The next day, she had returned home to Musk and not only been welcomed back a hero… but a goddess. Saturn.

That had unfortunately gotten out. She still had her halo and everything, so it wasn’t like it was easy to deny it.

She refused to comment on the other gods and she didn’t go back to talk to them. They didn’t deserve it. Though maybe they didn’t quite deserve the hateful language that was in that pamphlet going around…

Or maybe they did.

Fluttershy didn’t spend much time in the town itself after that – she retired to her workshop and got to work. She framed her bruised and battered shield on the wall and promptly got to making a new one. Her friends showed up from time to time and she gladly stopped her work to go hang out with them, but every moment of her work was spent on making a new shield.

This one didn’t have her butterfly symbol on it. It had the six circle Rune-design. Otherwise it was functionally the same – though a bit lighter.

Not to mention enchanted with the best enchantment given to her by Twilight – shrink and grow. Now it could fit in her pocket! She could pull it out if she was expecting something to jump her at any time!

…Renee had talked about possibly operating on her brain to fix the ‘wiring issue’, but they’d quickly decided that would also rewire her personality. Fluttershy had, naturally, declined. She’d lived like this all her life and was content. Why fix what wasn’t broken?

Once her shield was complete, she opened up her shop to the public again. The need for weapons was dying down since the monsters were being hunted to extinction by Unity and the Merodi, but Fluttershy could easily make a living selling trinkets with enchantments on them.

Only one problem.

Roughly a third of the customers decided they had to bow to her and offer ‘reverence for Saturn’ before buying anything. Some demanded they should pay more. A lot more sometimes. She also kept getting a lot of donations…

“That’s it,” Fluttershy said one day, flopping into a chair next to the Red twins. “I need a change of pace. I can’t be Saturn for everypony!”

“So leave,” Riot suggested. “You killed the king of monsters. You don’t really need to be a legendary blacksmith here anymore.”

“…Huh.” Fluttershy blinked. “I guess you’re right… But what would I do…?”

~~~

Twilight and Rainbow stood on the surface of the Earth within Unity.

“…This place is boring, I can see why I never visited,” Twilight commented.

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Do all your planets have overly-creative and determined hairless apes on them?”

“They’re not hairless. And there are plenty of more interesting races. Ponies… dragons… those guys that don’t stop yelling… the energy beings… and these new things in the other galaxy that are basically all teeth. Humans are just… how do you describe something more ordinary than ordinary?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You’re a bundle of boredom.”

Twilight shrugged. “Maybe. It is the curse, after all.”

“Think we fixed that?”

Twilight snorted. “If by ‘fixed’ you mean ‘nobody wants to trust the Unity Helix to run everything anymore’, then yeah, we ‘fixed’ it.”

“It’s still running everything, isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah, it’s too ingrained into the infrastructure of everything to remove. People just don’t trust it as much since it almost crashed.”

“Just because I am removing major surveillance doesn’t mean I can’t hear you,” the Unity Helix said from a nearby television in a store window.

“I’m still not sure that’s the right choice,” Twilight said.

“It not only appeases the masses and makes them think they have more control, it makes Merodi Oversight happy too. Rainbow Dash, your people are not fans of restrictive societies.”

“Deeeefinitely not,” Rainbow laughed. “I mean, the first thing we did when we arrived was drive the moon out of New Alice City.”

“I still can’t believe it didn’t think of that when aiding Twilight.”

“Blame Pinkie being amazing!”

“Or me slapping him in the face with my wiles!” Twilight grinned.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You have a really bad track record with higher entities, don’t try to spin it.”

“Psh, I’m great with gods. They love me.”

“Oh, wanna go talk to one right now? I know a few who would love a little ‘chat’ with you…”

Twilight froze. “I, er…” She sighed. “I don’t do that anymore. I don’t… really leave Unity anymore, not without bodyguards.”

Rainbow blinked. “Wait, seriously?”

“My entire race depends on my continued life! Our souls are bonded! I can’t be running headfirst into gods and demanding they explain themselves anymore. That almost ended in disaster.” She laughed nervously.

“You know we have soul wizards, right?” Rainbow asked.

“…What?”

“I’m sure Corona or somebody could find a way to separate your race from your soul. Or, you know, Cosmo Sparkle, she had a similar problem in her world… They probably fixed it. Maybe.”

Twilight blinked. “Rainbow. You are going to free my soul. And then you and I are going on a trip through the entire multiverse. A road trip.”

Rainbow laughed. “I’ll help you with the soul thing, but I’m going back to the Wonderbolts unit, and you can’t follow me there, sorry.”

“What’s so special about these… Wonderbolts?”

“I’m their Captain. We specialize in precision military strikes and shows of force. We aren’t really an exploration team. I was just on loan when I got lost in your mess of universes.”

“Oh.” Twilight blinked. “I’ll still find some other way to explore. The curse of boredom is not so easily cured, you know.”

Rainbow smirked. “Oh, if you go exploring, you’ll never be bored. You can trust me on that, Twilight.”

“Can I bet on it?”

“You don’t have any quid yet.”

“I can make some!”

“Quid is managed virtually through magic nodes so it can’t be duplicated effectively.”

“…Aw…”

“Sorry, no wallet party in Merodi space. We know our own tricks.”

“You guys don’t know how to have fun.”

“We have an organization called the Pinkie Emporium composed almost entirely of different versions of Pinkie Pie. We know how to party too well.”

“…Geez…”

Quazar landed in front of them, shaking the earth. “Twilight Sparkle… fancy running into you here.”

“Hey big guy! I haven’t seen you since I saved the world!” She grinned. “You were lucky I wasn’t on the other half of the plan or I woulda given you the wham-wham Twilight Sparkle Special!”

“…I was going to ask you if you wanted this vacation to Celestia City, but then I remembered you were insufferable. Goodbye.”

Twilight’s smile fell. “W-wait! Quasar! We’re buds! Come baaaack!”

Rainbow rolled onto her back, laughing.

~~~

Scarcity tapped her hoof angrily on a console.

"...You know..." Glimmer said. "It's not like this is the first time everything's gone off the deep end."

Scarcity said nothing, continuing her relentless tapping.

"We've still had more successful outings than failures! And we'll go on to have many more!"

No response.

Glimmer sighed. "You can't do this forever, you know. You may be ancient and immortal but this is going to get to you."

Watch me, Scarcity thought.

Glimmer sensed it was a good idea to get out of her presence. Perhaps give the remaining crew an empathetic speech. Scarcity definitely wasn't going to give one.

~~~

The Enchantress looked out at her world. Just a few weeks ago, almost all of it had been desert. From the rocks she had stood upon with Fluttershy and Rainbow, it was endless.

It was still dry. But it wasn’t sandy anymore. She could see a river cutting through the soil, a few scraggly cacti dotting the shore, and the starts of bushes. The mushrooms in the caverns below had exploded now that magic was back in full strength and the places where there were still plants had started to recover.

The moment Rx’len had been killed, the magic returned to all earth ponies and pegasi. The earth began to bow to the ponies once more, and the weather became their terraforming tools.

Naturally, the Merodi helped with the weather and re-introduction of plants, but the Enchantress had asked specifically for them to stay distant compared to their relations to other worlds. The Rune of Capella was not to be touched by them under any circumstances. There would be no experiments, and no use of the Rune in any capacity beyond “restoring magic to the world”.

She liked to think that Scarcity appreciated that, wherever she was. Though if she was honest with herself, Scarcity was probably livid she made an incorrect judgment.

Such was her way. At least she wasn’t coming back. The Merodi’s protection was enough to keep Starcross from dropping in and nuking the universe.

The Enchantress shook her head, smiling. No use dwelling on Scarcity. Instead… why not dwell on the river? The green? The ponies around her?

She didn’t do it. She didn’t save the world. Sure, she was part of it, and it wouldn’t have worked without her, but it wasn’t her. In the end, it was really only Applejack who saved the world by her own merit – and Applejack had never really wanted to be a hero.

“Those who want victory more than anything will have it taken from them, and those who care not will have victory thrust upon them,” she told her friends. Turning to look at them, her smile only widened at the three other members of the newest Merodi Expeditions team.

“That sounds wise,” Aegis “Fluttershy” said, leaning on her giant shield, polishing her armor in the light of the sun. Almost all Merodi agents chose alternate names for exploring, and Fluttershy had chosen hers to match her shield – Aegis. “Where’d you read that?”

“Just came up with it myself.”

“You should be a poet!” Scribble “Pinkie” Acorn said, grinning. Acorn was not a common name for Pinkies, so originally she had just thought of going by “Acorn”, but she quickly decided she didn’t like it. There was a ‘Scribble Pie’ in the Pinkie Emporium, but Scribble Acorn didn’t particularly care to keep her name truly unique. “Or a philosopher. You’ve been doing a lot of musing lately.”

“Just don’t write it down. I doubt my musings would be very good protectors for us.”

“You never know what might surprise you,” Amber “Twilight” Sparkle added with a coy smirk, her name chosen after her armor. She wasn’t wearing it now – even she admitted it was a bit gaudy – but she felt connected to her Amber Phoenix. “Maybe we’ll end up in a world where we have to speak in rhymes or die!”

“I hear that’s what the zebras are like in a lot of worlds,” Scribble said.

“Then we’ll have to tell them there’s another way,” Aegis asserted.

“Or beat it into them,” Amber chuckled.

“Amber!”

“Whaaaaaat? It’s what we do! Sometimes!”

“More often than Aegis’d like,” Scribble added. “For a weaponsmith you’re pretty peaceful.”

“The best offense is a good, peaceful, defense.”

“You’ve been watching too much sportsball,” Amber accused.

“Yes. Yes I have.” Aegis giggled.

“Girls, girls,” the Enchantress said. “Perhaps we should consider this on Celestia City? We don’t want to be late for our lunch with Renee.”

“Oh, of course not!” Aegis pulled a dimensional device out of her armor and opened a portal to a massive city that sprawled in all directions – including on the sky. “Right this way!”

Aegis, Amber, and Scribble hopped through the portal.

Their leader, the Enchantress, the Rarity of the Crystal Sea went through last.

Her chosen name?

Hope “Rarity” Ponsia.

Credits

Credits

AMBER ASHES

THE END

By G. M. Blackjack

Starring

Hope as Enchantress Rarity Ponsia

Amber as Empress Twilight Sparkle

Scribble as Pinkie D Acorn

Aegis as Fluttershy, Goddess of Battle

Rainbow Dash as Never Changing Her Name

The Blue Bolt as Rainbow Dash, Fastest Thief Alive

Applejack as The Hero

Scarcity as Starcrossed Destroyer

Glimmer as Walking Mental Issues

Rx'len as The Gardener

Unity as Big Sister is Sorta Watching

Quasar as HE'S A DRAGON MADE OUT OF STARS THAT'S WICKED AWESOME

Hazel Acorn as The Loving Husband

Red Riot and Red Rage as Battle Twins!

Temple Brick as The Confused Priest

Nod as Nondescript Darkness

Jupiter as King of the Abandoning Gods

Uranus as Temporal Shenanigans

Blueberry as Over-Stressed Manager

Dust as Are You Sure She's Not A Pinkie?

Auburn as Thief of Thieves

The Moon as Do You Like Bananas?

Shine as Oh Yeah, He was a Bad Guy

Renee as Overhead of Expeditions

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic belongs to Hasbro.

Special thanks to the commenters, as always, including FanOfMosteverything, Golden 123123123, Neece, Avendrial, Keybounce, Crack-Fic Kai, Black Hoof, Undeadking243, and Quinch

Some of you may already know this, but Amber Ashes exists for a reason: people have said that Songs of the Spheres, my magnum opus of a story, is just TOO BIG to recommend to people. So Amber Ashes was created to use a lot of the major themes and ideas in Songs of the Spheres without a million words of buildup. My hope is, if you enjoyed this story, you'll be willing to check out something much larger that goes into a lot more detail about the multiverse, how stories play into reality, and how a bunch of adventuring ponies can slowly become the central part of a massive multiversal nation.

And for those of you who have already read Songs of the Spheres, you can use this as an introduction to the ideas in SotS. In fact, I actually recommend reading Amber Ashes first. It spoils a few things about the Starcross Society, but it also lets people know what to expect further down the line. This story was, and was always intended to be, a self-contained introduction.

But it stands on its own. If you want to leave it here, by all means. Amber Ashes is complete.

However, there is so much more story to be told...

-GM, master of the Multiverse

PS: And yes, I did edit Hope into two scenes in Songs of the Spheres, both of which are published. I wonder if you can tell me where they are?

~~~

Many years later…

Hope set her teacup down. "So... Question."

Renee looked up from her drink. "Hmm?"

"How did this all start? You don't just become a multiversal nation overnight."

"Well, sometimes it sure feels like we did..." Renee giggled. "Oh, where to start... my story, the story of the Merodi, or Evening's? The day the bowling ball fell into our lap, or the Starcross Society itself and... My word, there are a lot of events that led us here, it's hard to say where it began!"

"Well... what do you consider the start of your story?"

Renee smirked and adjusted her glasses. "I guess we'll jump a bit back from the bowling ball and the multiverse... To the opening of the book. After all, you aren't from a baseline Equestria, you probably do need to hear it, and it will be great to relive the old days." She cleared her throat. "A long time ago, in the magical land of Equestria..."

Hope situated herself and prepared to listen to a long, long story about Friendship, magic, evil, and eventually more universes than her mind could possibly keep track of...

Author's Note

Many heroes have a story all their own...

Who is Applejack?
Who is Pinkie Pie?
Who is Fluttershy?
Who is Twilight Sparkle?
Who is Rarity?

Prologue

The room was perfectly spherical, the off-white walls nearly featureless; marred only by six rectangular depressions that functioned as doors. A pane of glass so clean it was nigh invisible cut through the middle of the room, providing a floor ponies could stand on if they were able to overcome what their eyes told them didn’t exist. In the center, seemingly floating in the air, was a vaguely hourglass-shaped device. Two cones capped with chrome rings punctured a smoky sphere that buzzed with purple electricity. The cones were lined with lights that slowly blinked on and off, indicating the device was in a safe ‘standby’ mode.

The device had never been taken out of standby mode since its creation.

That would change today.

One of the wall’s depressions split into four triangular sections, sliding away to create an opening. An immense four-legged being stepped into the sphere, her silver-adorned hooves clinking against the glass as she moved. Every step she took was one of calculated, elegant grace. Her immense wings were folded to her side, the feathers the same soft purple color as the hairs of her coat. Both her mane and tail moved with an ethereal, cosmic energy; seeming more like portals to distant, nebulous areas of space than strands of hair.

Her face held two wide eyes with deep amethyst irises, lenses that held the spirit of a being ancient, wise, and powerful. A sharp, conical horn poked out of her forehead, glowing slightly with a mystical lavender aura that accentuated the silver folds of her crown.

However, despite all this, it was her smile that dominated all her other features – immense, brilliant, and full of joy.

This majestic beast did not enter the room alone, for to her side was another horse-like creature, though she was more akin to a pony given her smaller size. She was nowhere near as impressive, lacking the horn of the other and sporting wings that lacked the other’s sharp angles. The smaller one’s coat was a light blue and while her short mane was not filled with the stars, it was colored like the rainbow. Her body was devoid of crown or silvered hooves, though she did wear a simple grey uniform with an orange-gold symbol on her chest that resembled a “u.”

“Rainbow, you said your name was?” the elegant being asked, flaring her immense wings now that she had the space to.

The depression behind them sealed shut before Rainbow could answer, though this didn’t concern her. “Yes, Empress Twilight.”

“Just Twilight is fine,” the regal mare said, continuing her casual stroll to the center of the room, stopping only when she was directly in front of the hourglass-shaped device. “Here it is. My life’s work.”

Rainbow raised an incredulous eyebrow.

“I’ve been working on it for a few centuries, on and off. That qualifies as a life’s work.”

“Sure,” Rainbow said with a roll of her eyes. “Whatever floats your boat.”

“I have not heard nautical sayings such as that for a long, long time.”

“Must be your lucky day,” Rainbow said, trotting up to the hourglass device and scrutinizing it. “How do you turn it on?”

Twilight held out one of her hooves and gingerly touched the top of the hourglass; an action Rainbow was too short to do herself without taking to the air. A holographic screen appeared in front of Twilight’s face, displaying numerous graphs and lines of text Rainbow could not decipher – though a large green section that said ‘begin test’ seemed pretty self-explanatory.

“That?” Rainbow asked.

“Tap here, the test will begin. The preparations finished today, actually. You have such convenient timing.”

Rainbow chuckled. “That’s the story of my life, right there.”

Twilight looked to Rainbow with a coy smile. She dismissed the screen with a wave of her wing. “And what is the story of your life, Rainbow?”

“Well, you s-“

“Think carefully before answering, because if I don’t like what you say, this day will not end well for you.” Her smile did not falter in the slightest as her words took on a new tone.

Rainbow’s smile vanished in an instant and she visibly tensed. “I’m just a-“

“A pony who didn’t exist two days ago,” Twilight said. She lit her horn, bringing up a holographic image of Rainbow Dash and a digital file with a lot of ‘UNKNOWN’ fields in it. “No history, no family, nothing. Even my deep networks haven’t the foggiest idea who you might be or where you might have come from.”

“…Look, I don’t want any trouble.”

“That’s good!” Twilight said, clapping her front hooves together. “I don’t like trouble, things tend to get messy when there’s trouble. So, if you don’t mind, I’ve shown you the device you wanted so desperately to see. Now explain why you’re posing as a star pilot, what your purpose is on my station, and why I shouldn’t lock you up in a singularity prison for the rest of your minuscule existence.”

Rainbow gulped. Slowly, she reached into one of her uniform’s pockets and pulled out a small, disc-shaped device. It was composed mostly of a simple screen, though the edges served as nested dials that could be rotated in thousands of different combinations. Currently, the screen displayed a red error message.

“Do you know what this is?” Rainbow asked.

Twilight’s horn lit with a lavender aura, tapping into her power. A similarly colored aura appeared around the device, levitating it into the air. Twilight turned the device over in her telekinesis, eyes widening further every time she did so. “It’s… broken?”

“Just lost,” Rainbow said. “And that’s why I need your help. Your devi-“

There was an explosion somewhere nearby that shook the entire room, upsetting the sparks in the center of the hourglass.

Rainbow’s wings flared and her pupils shrunk in fear. “Oh no. They found me.” She quickly swiped the disc out of Twilight’s telekinesis. “We have to work quickly! We ca-“

“I think I’d like to hear what these pursuers have to say, first,” Twilight said. “Though I have to admit, their use of destructive force does put them significantly further down my list of ‘people to trust’ than you. Not that you’re trustworthy.”

“Look, you don’t have to trust me, but they’re going to charge in, guns blazing, and there’s not going to be any talking to them.”

Twilight smirked, surrounding her horn with a dark arcane fire. “Oh, I think they’ll listen.”

Rainbow groaned. “Normally I’d be all for solving our problems with excessive amounts of violence, but I kinda don’t want to break your thing!”

“It’ll be fine. I have more than enough magic to go around. I could teleport this entire station if I wanted. These invaders are foolish if they think they have the upper hoof.”

The depression that had slid open to allow the two of them entrance a few minutes ago was blasted to oblivion by a neon red explosion. Twilight acted quickly – focusing the magic in her horn to cast a barrier spell around her, Rainbow, and the central device. The shrapnel harmlessly bounced off the lavender bubble, spreading haphazardly along the smooth glass, scuffing the perfect surface in a few places.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to wax that?” Twilight asked the smoke billowing from the new hole into the room. “I don’t, but I pay a lot to get it done, so it has to be difficult.”

Three beings stepped out of the hole, all of them wearing black armor marked with glowing runes of various colors. They had two arms and two legs, though given their cloudy appearance it was unlikely that was the only form their bodies could take. While they had heads, they looked like wisps of orange fog instead of faces.

Twilight’s grin widened. “I’ve never seen creatures like you before.”

All three of them hefted black, cylindrical weapons in their wispy arms. The runes on their armor flashed brightly for a second, powering up their attack. As one, they unleashed three beams of darkness.

Twilight easily caught the attacks with an extra barrier spell, but her eyes widened in surprise at the force the dark beams impacted. “That’s some impressive firepower you got there! Mind telling me where you got that?”

The cloudy beings didn’t say anything. They also didn’t stop firing. Their guns didn’t look like they would run out of energy anytime soon.

“Well…”

“Yeah, this is a problem,” Rainbow said, flying up to the top of the hourglass device and tapping it with her hoof, prompting the screen to appear in front of her. “So we’re getting out of here.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Don’t you dare! We have no idea what will happen with all this energy!”

“No time to discuss!” Rainbow declared, ramming her hoof into the ‘begin test’ button. Instantly, all the lights on the hourglass switched to a deep, menacing red. The electric energy within the smoky sphere shifted to a bright green color, shooting out and striking the inside of Twilight’s barrier.

Twilight’s miffed expression was replaced with one of curiosity. “That’s not supposed to happen… interesting…”

And then the hourglass started glowing bright white, shaking as though it were about to explode.

“Uh oh,” Rainbow managed.

“Regrets?” Twilight asked.

“Maybe?”

The hourglass exploded, engulfing everything within Twilight’s barrier in a magnificent purple light.

The cloud beings swore they could hear something fundamental crack around them…

~~~

Five colored spheres of light appeared around the sun for a moment, demanding the denizens of the desert below look upon them in wonder.

Few noticed the spheres appear. Fewer still were looking when the spheres vanished unceremoniously.

One lonely, wandering mare covered from hoof to ear in tattered fabrics saw the entire display. She paused a few moments, contemplating what she’d seen.

Without so much as another glance at the sky or a curious ‘hmm’ she continued her journey, walking further along the ancient road as grains of sand blew in the wind…

What a Way to Wake

Pinkie was a mare that had experienced several strange awakenings in her life. She had a tendency to overexert herself until she passed out from exhaustion, coming to an uncertain amount of time later. She’d woken up on random floors, the street, and even with her face pressed painfully into the foot of her bed. Opening her eyes to unusual scenes was something she was well acquainted with.

That said, waking up half-buried in sand was a new one.

She sat up, shaking the grains out of her long pink mane. Her first instinct was to put one of her hooves to her face – yep, she had fallen asleep with her glasses on again. She really needed to stop doing that. One of these days they were going to break…

The next step was to check her surroundings and figure out where she was. The middle of a desert. That was easy. The second part – why – was usually easy as well, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure that one out this time around. Or even how she could have ended up in the middle of a desert. She lived in Coeur d’Alene! Forest and lake as far as the eye could see! Were there even proper sand dunes in the entire state? If there were, she’d never been to them.

Was it a dream? …No, she wouldn’t be able to imagine what sand lodged in her back felt like. That was a new sensation. And she knew what it felt like to dream; she was a pretty decent lucid dreamer.

Panic began to rise when the reality sunk in. There was no sign of anything but sand as far as the eye could see and the sun was beating down on her with an oppressive heat. It would not be long before she started suffering from dehydration. If the sun was setting, she could probably make it to nightfall, but what about the next day? There was nothing for her to even go toward!

She shot to her hooves, tentatively trotting a few steps away. Then she backpedaled, returning to the position she had started in, legs locking up. Maybe moving was a bad idea? They might not be able to find her if she moved.

Who would “they” even be? Who would know she was dumped in the middle of a desert? Who would even do that? It didn’t make any sense! None of this made any sense!

She began to hyperventilate, unable to deal with the absurdity of the situation. There was no conceivable reason for anything happening, and she had no idea what to do! She was going to die a senseless death out here in the middle of some desert, her body to be covered in sand, never to be seen again! Forgotten! A tragedy!

Tragedy…

A clear thought lodged itself in her head.

This is just like one of my stories.

This calmed her down considerably. She nodded to herself, muttering incoherent syllables that definitely weren’t words. It was just like one of her stories. Something fantastical had happened with no visible rhyme or reason even though there surely was one she wasn’t aware of. She should just consider this… an adventure!

Yes. Adventure. That was it.

What would the Blue Bolt do?

Well, fly, because she was a pegasus, but Pinkie could still get to a higher vantage point by walking. She trotted up the largest dune she saw, tripping a few times on the inconsistent ground during her ascent. When she reached the top, she looked around once more at her significantly increased field of view.

Nothing but sand.

“All right Pinkie…” Pinkie addressed herself. “We need to go walking in some direction and hope we see something. The sun provides two options – toward or away from the sunset. Uh…” She scrunched her face. “Away. It’ll be hard to see looking directly into the sun.”

“I dunno, sometimes the sun provides insights through heat shadow illusions.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I can’t be sure that’s a real… thing…” Pinkie turned to her left in alarm, screaming when she saw the purple unicorn standing next to her.

The unicorn smirked, making no attempt to hide her amusement at Pinkie’s fear. “Gotcha.”

“Wh… wh…” Pinkie shook her head. “Did you take me here!?”

“Me? No, I’m new here, just like you.” The unicorn was a thin mare, slightly taller than average with a flat, well-kept mane of relatively short length. Pinkie was having a hard time picking out any other distinguishing features. She seemed… ordinary. The mark on her flank was a simple white star and her body couldn’t be considered fit or unhealthy. Just… average.

Her eyes were intelligent, though, intelligent enough to hide details from Pinkie.

“You woke up in a desert?!” Pinkie asked.

“Woke up? No. I was awake when I arrived. Wandered around a bit, saw you sleeping, decided to see what you’d do. Clearly, you have no idea what’s going on, so I figured now was the time to introduce myself.”

“You were watching!?” Pinkie gaped. “I… besides the fact that’s more than a little creepy, how!? What was there to hide behind?”

“A unicorn never reveals her secrets,” she teased. “At least not without knowing the other pony first. I’m Twilight Sparkle.”

“Pinkie Acorn,” Pinkie said. “Better known as P. D. Pie.”

“Never heard of you.”

Pinkie shrugged. “I… I write books. Pretty popular, but not everypony would know.” She frowned. “So, somepony’s kidnapping ponies and dumping them in the desert?”

“Eh,” Twilight grunted, giving Pinkie no new information.

“We need to find a way to survive,” Pinkie said, continuing speaking her thoughts aloud without really thinking. “Food, water, shelter. All of which seem to be in alarmingly short supply in this desert! Ugh, why couldn’t I have fallen asleep in the soup again?”

“Stop panicking.”

“I’m not panicking! I’m… extrapolating courses of action by talking aloud!”

Twilight smirked. “Okay. Keep feeding your internal madness.”

“How can you be so… calm? We are going to die out here if we can’t get food!”

“Relax.”

Pinkie twitched. “Look, Twilight, ponies need water to survive a-“

Twilight activated her horn, surrounding it with a lavender aura. A bucket of water appeared in a flash of purple, landing gently on the ground at Pinkie’s hooves. “There you go. Problem solved.”

“AUGH!” Pinkie shouted, jumping back far enough that she rolled down the sand dune head over hooves. She landed flat on her back right where she had woken up a few minutes ago.

Twilight activated her horn once again, surrounding both herself and the bucket of water in a lavender aura. With a flash of light, she teleported right in front of Pinkie, depositing the bucket in front of her. “What’s wrong? I thought you wanted water?”

Despite the unicorn’s giggling, Pinkie pointed an accusatory hoof. “W-w-witchcraft!”

Twilight facehooved. “Oh for the – are you really one of those ponies who thinks unicorns are evil?”

“What? No!” Pinkie backed into a nearby dune, unaware of how pathetically terrified she looked. “B-but that was a spell! That’s…”

“A completely normal thing almost any unicorn can do if they apply themselves,” Twilight continued.

“…You didn’t sell your soul to the Devil?”

Twilight grinned. “I am the Devil.”

Pinkie screamed.

Twilight guffawed, rolling onto her back in laughter. “Joking! Joking! Couldn’t resist!”

Pinkie twitched. “Okay… okay… is, uh… ‘magic’ governed by scientific principles then?”

“Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Just… gimme a second…” Pinkie grabbed her head and breathed in and out, slowly.

“I’m just going t-“

“I’m good!” Pinkie said, bouncing up on all four of her hooves. “Just had to re-evaluate a core belief I held on the nature of reality, nothing special.” She let out a crazed laugh. “Thanks for the water!” She rammed her face into the bucket and drank heavily.

Twilight’s bewildered expression was replaced with a grin. “Glad you’re up to speed.”

Pinkie pulled her head out of the bucket and cleaned her glasses on her chest fluff. “We’re on an adventure, I can’t afford to get caught up in all the little details. Like, you know, magic being a thing that isn’t inherently soul-corrupting, at least not always.”

“If that is true in your world, I pity all the wonders of magic that are kept from you.” Twilight put a steady hoof on Pinkie’s back. “Now, would you mind telling me about your world?”

“Not at all! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, I love talking about myself!”

“Great! You can do that while I teleport us around. I’m looking for a settlement.”

“Do what to u-“

There was a flash of purple. Pinkie was suddenly on a distant sand dune, standing next to Twilight with shaking legs. “Ah… hehah…”

“You’ll get your teleport legs in no time.”

“Can we take a break fi-“

Twilight teleported again. Still nothing but sand visible for miles and miles, and Pinkie’s legs were still trembling.

“Nah, breaks take up too much time,” Twilight said. “I already wasted quite a bit messing with you.”

“Why is messing with me worth wasting time on?”

“Boredom is much like hunger, it must be satiated.”

“You’re lost in a mystical desert and you’re bored!?”

Twilight teleported them again. “I wasn’t at first, but the endless sand is kinda the same after a while. Just sand, sand, and more sand. But then I found you, and things got a whole lot more interesting!”

“I’m not that inter-“ they teleported again. “-esting.” Pinkie blinked. “Hey, I didn’t choke that time!”

“Good, maybe now you can tell your story!”

“Well, I’m Pinkie Acorn, or P. D. Pie, and I’m an author of adventure books! Things like Nuevo and Arcsign and The Imble Series and… this all means nothing to you.”

“Good deduction,” Twilight said, teleporting again.

“Anyway, uh, yeah. I write books, throw parties, and write more books. I pass out a lot and eat a lot. I’m told I’m slightly crazy, and I believe it! I’m married to the best guy ever, Hazel, a politician, and I just like to make ponies smile!”

“You truly are an author. Most ponies would not be able to tie up their life story in a single paragraph.”

Pinkie shrugged. “Eh, there are a lot of things I left out. Childhood, recent events, how Hazel and I met…”

“I’m not interested in those things,” Twilight said dismissively. “I’m interested in your world. There’s no magic there?”

“Unicorns have telekinesis,” Pinkie explained. “But some ponies are angry about that…” She shook her head. “Nevermind! We don’t have magic, but we have this amazing thing called the Internet! It-“

“I know what the Internet is.”

“…Oh. Just, in most of my books when I have to explain what my world is like…”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Yes, you assumed I was from some kind of fantasy world with wizards and goblins, right?”

Pinkie flushed. “…Uh, maybe?”

“Let’s try this another way… describe a normal day to me.”

“How much detail you want?”

“Start with maximum and we’ll inevitably tone it down from there.”

Twilight teleported once more, finding yet another expanse of sand…

~~~

Fluttershy looked at her companion on the journey to the rocks, trying to figure her out. Such a noble, tired heart… She had seen a few like Rarity back home, in the hunters who had given their entire lives to face the monsters and weren’t able to see the good they’d done. It was a problem with some of the elders, for they never left the front with the monsters, never returned to the inner cities where there were ponies who lived and died without fearing a sudden, violent death.

Rarity was like them, except actually right. She had actively looked for hope, for something resistant to the dying world, and had found only herself. The last unicorn.

Fluttershy had to admire her for continuing on despite it all. Fluttershy had always been able to cling on to progress and eventual success in future generations. What was Rarity clinging on to?

She had no idea.

Furthermore, she had no idea what she was going to cling on to. Fluttershy had done her best to hide it from Rarity, but she was scared. Her home was far away and she had no way to get back. She was lost in a dying world of endless sand and she had just agreed to help it without having any real idea of how to do that.

To make matters worse, she didn’t think she was giving Rarity any hope. She should at least be able to do that by offering to help… but the unicorn was too broken to let herself hope. All Rarity did was keep walking.

She got the distinct impression Rarity believed Fluttershy wouldn’t last very long. Which was… concerning.

At least Rarity had paid attention when Fluttershy went over all her weapons.

“And this is a mini bolt rifle, a weapon of my own invention,” Fluttershy explained, holding out a small box with three barrels pointing out of it. She flipped open the safety hatch, revealing a trigger. “Pull on this and it’ll fire a three-way volley of seeker magic darts.”

“…A miniature automatic crossbow?”

“A bit more powerful than that, but yeah. …You don’t have guns?”

Rarity raised an eyebrow.

“Ranged weapons that shoot through a chemical reaction? Gunpowder?”

“Never heard of such a thing.”

“Guess the knowledge was lost…” Fluttershy furrowed her brow. “Anyway, I could teach you how to use it.”

“It would be best if you used your more complex weaponry yourself.”

“I can’t.”

Rarity blinked. “You… can’t?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I have a mental condition. I can’t react when I believe I’m under attack. You saw me freeze back there.”

“You say that with such… casual airs.”

Fluttershy smiled sadly. “I used to think my condition was a tragedy. Now… well, I’d still rather I didn’t have it, but it’s part of me. It’s what allowed me to become such a great weaponsmith. The mini bolt rifle wouldn’t exist if I was charging into battle every day to meet the monsters.”

“Surel-“

Fluttershy held up a hoof. “Rarity, I appreciate what you were about to say, but don’t. I’ve walked into battle with hunters hundreds of times in my life, if I could get used to the sensation and move past it I would have by now. I don’t let it stop me from facing the creatures and providing help to my friends but it’s a part of me I can’t fix. Okay?”

Rarity focused on Fluttershy’s smile. It was hard for Fluttershy to read her given how she kept her face covered all the time, not to mention the dust on the goggles.

“Okay,” Rarity agreed. “Though I will not require a ranged weapon. I can close the distance with a teleport.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Thanks. …Normally I’d suggest activating my shield to help protect me, but I don’t have it. My armor’s enchanted with swift enchantments, not defensive ones, unfortunately.”

“I cannot think of a weapon in the world aside from my magic that could pierce your armor.”

“Now if only I had my helmet on when I was zapped away…”

Rarity nodded, glancing toward the horizon. “The sun will set soon.”

“Looks like it.”

“I’m going to take you up on that offer you made earlier. Fly me to the rocks.”

Fluttershy broke out into a grin. “You got it! Hold on tight!” She spread her wings and jumped into the air, carefully flapping over to Rarity’s position. She locked her front hooves around Rarity’s midsection, careful to place her hooves so they would apply pressure to Rarity’s shoulders rather than ribs.

She would need a bit more oomph to fly effectively while carrying Rarity, so she focused a decent amount of magic into her wings. The gust spell activated, creating jets of wind behind her with every flap, launching the two of them into the air.

Fluttershy could feel Rarity’s muscles tense as they rose higher, though the unicorn quickly relaxed as the ride smoothed out. It did not take long for them to reach an altitude far enough from the ground that they could no longer feel sand grains blowing into their faces. Up here, the air was clear and the wind refreshing.

Wings aglow with whirling winds, Fluttershy angled herself forward, launching directly for the rocks at high speed. The wind whipped through her mane and tail, blowing them behind her like loose ribbons. Her magic coalesced into a soft green trail that streaked along the sky behind them. In a sky that hadn’t seen clouds in years, there was suddenly a reason to look up.

It would have taken them over an hour to reach the rocks on hoof. Like this, it took five minutes. The rocks stood tall, devoid of any vegetation or even evidence of past vegetation. Nothing more than tall, narrow rocks towering taller than most buildings.

“Fluttershy, stop!”

Fluttershy flared her wings out and brought them to a halt in midair, the sudden change in inertia churning her stomach. “What is it?”

“There’s a pony down there,” Rarity said, pointing with a back hoof. Sure enough, there was a blue pony sitting on top of one of the immense, scraggly rocks.

She was waving at them with a blue hoof.

“…Friendly?” Fluttershy asked.

“Don’t know,” Rarity admitted. “I’d teleport us, but…”

“I understand. Don’t worry; I know how to work around my mind. If she attacks you’ll be dropped safely.”

“...I’m putting a lot of trust in you…”

Fluttershy nodded. “I gotcha.” She took up a position directly above the waving pony and slowly descended, making sure to keep Rarity completely upright. The blue pony did not attack them as they landed – though she did spread her pegasus wings and hover a few feet above the tip of the rock spire.

“Another one?” Rarity asked as she was safely deposited on the ground. “I am finding a surprisingly large number of magically infused pegasi today.”

The blue pegasus nodded, flipping her rainbow mane back. She, like Fluttershy, was a bit too clean to have been wandering the desert, though she wasn’t bogged down with weapons. All she had was a small, disc-shaped object, a rectangular metal thing Fluttershy couldn’t identify strapped to her hoof, and a well-stitched gray shirt with a “u” symbol on it. “Hey. Name’s Rainbow Dash. I take it most pegasi can’t fly here?”

“And you find pegasi that can’t fly odd…” Rarity turned to Fluttershy.

Fluttershy nodded. “Are you from the past too?”

Rainbow stared at her. “…What? Past?”

“The time of monsters…?”

“Flutters, I just came from a space station.”

Fluttershy blinked. “…What?”

Rarity narrowed her eyes. “How did you know her name?”

Fluttershy tensed. That’s right, she just called me Flutters. We haven’t introduced ourselves yet…

“Are you from… deeper into the future?” Fluttershy asked.

“What? No!” Rainbow facehooved. “I’m from another universe!”

Fluttershy and Rarity stared at her blankly.

“Another world? One where things are different? Uh… crud, I’m usually not the mare explaining this…” She tapped the tips of her wings together. “Man, I was not preparing for an interrogation when you arrived.”

“You were expecting us!?” Fluttershy said. What doesn’t this mare know?

“She’s a flying pegasus, Fluttershy,” Rarity said. “One sitting on top of a tall rock, nonetheless. She could have seen us from miles away easily.”

“Oh.” Fluttershy chided herself for overreacting. Right now she needed to stay focused and in control, even more than usual. “We’d still like to know what you’re talking about.”

Rainbow furrowed her brow. “Right… so… aha! Got it! This isn’t perfect, but it’ll do. Think about a moment in your lives where you made a big decision. Got it?”

Fluttershy nodded, holding the moment she chose to become a weaponsmith in her mind. She had no idea what Rarity was thinking of.

“Right, so, imagine you had chosen something else. Doesn’t matter if you don’t think you would have, just imagine if you had a bout of insanity and did. Imagine what would have happened.”

Fluttershy thought back. She would probably have ended up a teacher at the Academy, never seeing any action and having a less direct influence on the monsters. Her weapon designs would not have pushed back the Boglagath and the stronghold of Wiffleheim would have fallen. Her hometown of Musk would probably have been flattened by the ignited behemoth.

“Now stop imagining, because chances are that ‘what if’ image you have in your head actually exists.”

Fluttershy and Rarity blinked, not processing what she’d just said.

“There might be another place identical to your home except you made that other decision. Two different worlds, one where A happened, the other where B happened.”

“A realm where magic was never lost?” Rarity asked, seeming short of breath.

“Maybe?” Rainbow said, shrugging. “There’s no guarantee that the alternate version you want actually exists, but it’s possible. The idea I’m trying to get you to think about is that there are other worlds, other realms of existence, with other ponies that look a lot like you walking around and doing things. It’s how I know your names – I’ve met a lot of Fluttershys and Raritys in my time.”

Fluttershy gasped. “I… I’m not from the past, am I?”

“I have no idea,” Rainbow admitted with a shrug. “Time travel is a thing out there. But if I were a betting mare – which I conveniently am, heh – I would say you’re from another world, like me.”

“…Huh…” Fluttershy said, uncertain how to process this.

Rarity took a step forward. “You travel these… worlds, yes?”

Rainbow saluted. “Yep! Captain Rainbow Dash, Merodi Universalis!”

“Can you take Fluttershy home?”

Fluttershy looked to Rarity in shock. “I’m not abandoning you.”

Rarity shook her head. “If she can take you, we should use the opportunity.”

“My world can handle itself. I’ll leave a message – this world needs me more. …Actually, we can get more hunters here, bring more magic to the desert…”

“Don’t get your hopes up, I’m pretty stuck at the moment,” Rainbow said with a nervous smile. “My dimensional device is scrambled and I have no idea what world this is.” She pulled out a disc-shaped device and showed it to them. “It’s currently searching for any connection it can find. So far? Grand total of zero.”

Rarity nodded. “As expected.”

“I don’t suppose you know of any dimensional magics in this world?” Rainbow asked, grinning cheekily.

Rarity shook her head. “None, I’m afraid.”

“But come on! You two are, like, restoring magic to the desert, right?”

Fluttershy realized she had let that slip and covered her mouth.

“Oh, that a secret?” Rainbow chuckled. “Guess I’ll pretend I don’t know it then. You’re welcome.”

“Much appreciated,” Rarity commented dryly.

“Anyway…” Rainbow turned to Fluttershy. “How’d you get here?”

“I was just working and then… there was a flash of green light. I was suddenly in the desert.”

“Hmm…” Rainbow scratched her chin.

“That means something to you,” Rarity observed.

“Yeah. Space-time’s gone screwy and probably dragged several ponies here. I arrived a similar way, myself. If I know anything about how this usually goes, we’re going to have to find the other ponies.”

Fluttershy perked up. A goal.

“How would we find them?” Rarity asked.

Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t know for certain. I know one of them is a tall purple pony with a truly outrageous amount of magic, so maybe you can detect that?”

Rarity raised an eyebrow.

“Please don’t tell me you’re trying to hide the fact that you’re a unicorn. That’ll be so annoying to work around.”

Fluttershy stepped between Rarity and Rainbow. “She’s the only unicorn in this world, it’s better for everypony if she doesn’t flaunt it.”

“Oh. Geez.” Rainbow rubbed the back of her head. “I’m sorry, didn’t realize it was such a big deal here…”

“Mhm…” Rarity hummed. “I can sense magic, yes, but not over large distances. Which I suspect is what you need.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow muttered. “And if Fluttershy was dragged here, there are probably others…” She kicked a rock. “And I’ve got no backup, no leads, and two ponies w-“

Her dimensional device buzzed. She quickly tore it out of her pocket, grinning - there was a green “1” on the screen. “It found one!”

“…Another world?” Fluttershy asked.

“Heck yeah it did! Ha-ha! Your minds are going to be blown!” She held the device out with her wing and tapped it with her other feathered limb. The disc lit up with several green lights, shooting a speck of white energy forward. It stopped a couple feet in front of the device, rippling the space around it like a mirage. With a sound not unlike a metal sheet warping in the wind, a ring of white energy expanded from the point, pushing space out of the way. The interior of the ring showed something neither Fluttershy nor Rarity had ever seen.

An endless expanse of bronze gears moving with an unnaturally regular beat. Clank. Clank. Clank. Most of the gears were larger than houses, turning with impressive power. This clockwork extended for as far as they could see in every direction, lit by white rods spread around seemingly randomly.

“…I take it from your expression that’s not your world?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “No…”

“Great.” Rainbow stuck the dimensional device through the portal and shook it around a bit. “It’s not finding any more worlds on the other side. Ugh.” She pulled the device back out. The ring of the portal shimmered for a moment before collapsing with a comical pop.

“Well. It appears you aren’t a madmare,” Rarity observed.

“We… we will help you find the others,” Fluttershy said, smiling. “That is, if you don’t mind, Rarity.”

“I do not. It is as good of a next step as any other.”

Rainbow nodded. “Thanks! I look forward to working with you. But first, it looks like it’s about to be night. I found a cave in the base of these rocks filled with mushrooms, we can stay there.”

“So that’s how the raiders survive…” Rarity mused.

“Raiders?”

“Nothing to be concerned about, we took care of them.”

Rainbow smirked. “Glad to hear it. Also good to know that I might have to watch for raiders. Anyway, do you want a ride down on the S. S. Rainbow Dash? It’ll be much more exciting than the ride you took to get here.”

Rarity teleported the three of them to the base of the rock with a flash of white magic.

Rainbow let out a disappointed grunt. “Or we can do that. That’s fine too.”

Fluttershy grinned. “Looks like you don’t rate.”

“Ah, I can see you’re one of the more sarcastic and biting Fluttershys.”

Fluttershy still wasn’t sure what to make of there being other Fluttershys in the world. Or there being other worlds in the first place. Or Rainbow Dash herself.

Probably best just to sleep on it, really.

Doors Open

Rainbow stared intently at the elevator door. She couldn’t see through it, which was both good and bad. Good, because it meant anyone hunting them down couldn’t see them. Bad, because she couldn’t see where they were going.

The clank clank clank had become CLANK! CLANK! CLANK! at this point. It was still possible for the three of them to hear each other speak, but it was no longer possible to force the rhythm of the Mesh into the background. It was oppressive, demanding, and all-encompassing.

Rainbow’s pulse cannon was aimed directly at the doors. Rarity was still standing on her hind hooves, though she had taken to leaning on the elevator wall to keep from tiring herself while still being ready to jump into action. Fluttershy had her wings pressed tightly to her armor, having arranged her swords over them to provide spotty armor.

There was no warning. The ding of arrival happened at the same time the doors opened.

There was a crew of six mechanics on the other side, waiting for the elevator atop a smooth bronze disc the size of a hoofball field. They froze in surprise when they discovered the elevator had occupants.

Only one of the occupants froze – the other two jumped out. Rainbow fired the pulse cannon twice, ejecting a pinkish-purple burst of energy from the device strapped to her hoof. The coursing projectiles each hit a different pony. Upon impact, the attack absorbed into the ponies’ skin, interacting with their nervous system and shocking the entire body into unconsciousness. The ponies flew back from the impact, smacking into their colleagues.

Rarity took the opportunity to rush forward, swords high in the air. The mechanics in the back managed to slip their wrenches out quickly enough to catch her blades. She had expected something like this to occur. Using the grip of the wrenches to propel herself forward she kicked the ponies’ skulls as hard as she could manage. Dazed, they were easy targets for the pulse cannon.

The remaining two ponies split – one took on Rarity, the other took on Rainbow. Rainbow was expecting an easy victory, which allowed her attacker to jump over her shimmering projectile. The mechanic punched Rainbow across the face, knocking her to the ground.

He was a stallion, young, much younger than Rainbow, but with eyes filled with determination. He swapped his wrench out for a screwdriver and aimed it at Rainbow’s neck, careful to use his other hooves to pin her wings.

He drove the screwdriver down.

Rarity skewered him in the side with enough force that he fell off Rainbow, screaming in agony. Rarity removed the sword as quickly and neatly as she could, but the blood still squirted out onto Rainbow’s stomach.

Rarity herself had suffered a cut along her back leg – punishment for ignoring her own attacker for the sake of Rainbow. She didn’t appear to feel it, a fact Rainbow noted with respect.

“He needs medical attention,” Rarity said, placing a hoof on the elevator wall. “You should take him.”

The only remaining mechanic – a mare with a bloodied knife strapped to her hoof – stared at the downed stallion in shock.

“I said he needs medical attention!” Rarity shouted. “He will bleed out if you don’t treat him!”

“I… r-right…” The mare scrambled into the elevator shaft, removing some bandages from her kit. She began wrapping him up, though it didn’t completely stop the bleeding.

Rainbow stood up and stretched her wing. “Thanks, Rarity. You okay?”

“If it gets infected, it will be a problem. Otherwise, I will be fine.” She frowned. “We should move. She will raise the alarm when she takes him in.”

“First…” Fluttershy walked up to the mare. “Hey… have you seen the thief recently? We’re looking for her.”

The mare stared at her in dumbfounded shock.

“If you tell us where she is, you know we’ll be looking for her too. We’ll all be in the same spot, easier to capture.”

“S-she was last seen near the Heart of the Mesh…”

“Ah.” Fluttershy looked up and out of the elevator. Clank! Clank! Clank! “I think I know where that is.” She turned her attention to the injured stallion. “You will need to apply pressure and change his bandages every hour. Feed him more than the average pony.”

“Even if he survives… he’ll walk to a furnace…”

“Then it’s your job to ensure he doesn’t.” Fluttershy stood up, turning to her friends. They understood that now it was time to go. They carefully trotted over four unconscious ponies and stepped out onto the bronze disc.

“There,” Rainbow pointed, gesturing at a large copper ladder that went up into the Mesh. “We use that.”

Her two friends nodded, heading toward their goal. No one looked back at the battle they left behind.

~~~

“Stay here!” Riot shouted to Pinkie at the others, rushing the monstrous bird. She pulled a lance off her back, pressing a button and extending it to four times her own body length. The tip ignited with a green, leafy aura that launched thorny vines at the bird.

The attack passed right through the bird’s cosmic feathers while bouncing harmlessly off the smooth obsidian foot.

Rage appeared from behind, wielding an immense hammer in his hooves. He brought it down in front of the bird, prompting a fist of solid earth to erupt from the ground and connect with the beast’s jaw.

This got the bird’s attention. With a squawk, an invisible pulse hit Rage, throwing him through the window of the town bar. Riot took the opportunity to pull out a rifle brimming with orange magic, aiming right at the bird’s eye.

It had apparently encountered guns before, because it knew to get out of the way, allowing the orange laser to pass harmlessly into its starry feathers.

More hunters arrived in a matter of seconds, activating any number of complex spells and weaponry, most of which were simply devoured by the monster’s feathers.

“Pinkie!” Twilight shouted, forcing her attention away from the monster. Twilight had already created a portal back to the desert, both her and Applejack waiting for her on the other side.

“You’re… leaving!?”

“We’re leaving!” Twilight shouted. “We aren’t welcome here! Come on!”

Pinkie heard a squawk and a scream behind her. “N-no! We can’t leave, they need our help! We’re heroes!”

“We are not heroes!” Twilight shouted. “We are ponies, and the gods of this world are going to skewer u-“

“Skewer you!” Pinkie interrupted. “They’re going to skewer you! I… I…” She was having enough difficulty accepting that ‘gods,’ plural, definitely existed in this world, and were apparently like the cantankerous deities of myth… “You just want to protect yourself!”

“Yeah, I do! I don’t need to be there! The hunters can handle it for themselves, they’re used to this!”

Pinkie glanced behind at the battle unfolding. Already several buildings were flattened. She saw blood, though she couldn’t see who it was coming from. The hunters tried a coordinated attack, but once again the invisible force pushed them away, breaking a few bones. Pinkie shivered. “They… they need help…”

“They’ve lived without me f-“

“You’re being selfish!” Pinkie shouted, waving a hoof in anger. “You… you have all this power and you’re not willing to risk anything!? What kind of leader are you!?”

“We don’t have time for this! Come on!”

“I’m not leaving,” Pinkie said, putting her hoof down. “It’s not right to leave them.”

“You can’t do anything!”

Pinkie turned her back on Twilight. “And you can.”

Pinkie heard Twilight’s “UGH!” and then the pop of a closing portal.

She swallowed hard.

That was very stupid of me.

Shaking, she turned to look at the feathered monster once more. It was laying waste to Musk, and while the hunters were doing an amazing job of moving ponies out of the way, given the blood and screams she’d heard… somepony had probably died in the mess, even if she couldn’t see it. The bird could have eaten them for all she knew.

Nopony with a blade was allowed close enough to do anything, the invisible barrier keeping them at bay. Most projectiles could be deflected or were simply allowed to vanish within the starry darkness of the bird’s feathers. Only the guns seemed to be of any effectiveness, and the monster dodged those despite its size, always moving to allow the shot to vanish in the darkness.

Pinkie got an idea.

She didn’t like the idea.

“What is a cosmic beast doing here!?” Riot shouted, launching a massive bomb at the monster. The explosion’s shockwave broke glass in all the nearby buildings that remained standing but did nothing to the intended target. “We’re of no interest to them!”

“Our visitor?” Rage suggested, trying to cut through the barrier with a red sparking drill – to no avail.

“Was she really that important?!”

“It may be so,” Brick called, rushing into the fight himself, brimming with the orange gift of Jupiter. “The gods themselves ejected her, but did not smite her.” He shoved a hoof forward, summoning an ethereal fist. The divine favor pushed toward the bird… and the bird swept it away with a wing.

Pinkie gulped. They weren’t having much luck…

She forced herself to do something.

With a whimper, she pulled a red gun off the wall of Fluttershy’s shop. She stood on her hind legs, using the wall of the shop for support. It wasn’t difficult to arm the weapon – she located the safety, the scope, and the trigger with ease.

She put the scope to her eye and pointed right at the beast’s burning eye.

Pinkie whispered a prayer, one that no doubt confused the gods of this world, for it was not directed at them. After a barely whispered ‘amen’, she pulled the trigger.

The monster wasn’t expecting anything from the pink pony that had such intense fear.

A massive explosion erupted from the barrel of the gun whipping Pinkie’s mane back with a heatwave. The knockback would have thrown her to the ground had she not supported herself on the wall. A spherical rock took in the midst of the explosion, fire streaking behind it with a white heat.

This gun shoots meteors. Pinkie giggled at how ridiculously over the top that was.

The meteor-bullet hit the monster in the eye, exploding in a shower of pink and purple flames. The beast’s eye was no more, burned to nothing because of a pink mare and a meteor-gun.

“TAKE THAT!” Pinkie shouted, holding her gun up in victory.

With a “SQUAWK!” the bird turned to face her with the other eye Pinkie had forgotten existed.

“…Oh.”

It flapped. The invisible force hit Pinkie like a car, cracking two of her legs from the impact alone. Everything went blurry as she screamed in pain she couldn’t comprehend.

She’d never broken a bone in her life. It was so alien, the jarring, scratching, numbing pain. Her body was unsure what to make of it. Should she go into shock? Lose consciousness? Gain heightened awareness for the sake of survival?

Suddenly, all that was gone. All she was aware of was the monster’s beak opening to devour her.

Then, purple.

“I’m sorry, you’re on a diet. Don’t want you getting diabetes, do we?”

“T-twilight?” Pinkie said, confused.

“Excuse me, I have to take this.” Pinkie felt an explosion that shook the fabric of reality, twisting her stomach. Immediately afterward, all pain and shock was gone from her body. The world snapped back into focus, for she was healed.

She was riding on Twilight’s back, the alicorn’s immense wings flapping to keep the two of them airborne. All the hunters were looking at her in shock. A fair distance in front of them there was an immense smoldering crater.

“What did you do to it?” Pinkie asked, jaw hanging open.

“Gave it the ol’ Twilight special,” Twilight chuckled. “Of course, it’s not enough…”

“It never is.”

Twilight twitched at first – but then she smiled. “Yeah, it does seem to go that way, doesn’t it?”

The monster rose from the crater, letting out another “SQUAWK” intended to throw Twilight away. Twilight shrugged it off with a yawn and a simple barrier spell.

“Hey, birdy, can I call you birdy? I’m calling you birdy.” Twilight smirked. “Invisible barriers just aren’t flashy enough in this day and age. Let me show you how to really make a scene.”

With a flap of its immense wings, ‘birdy’ charged Twilight, beak open.

“I thought it was smarter than this…” Twilight’s horn shone like a star and her eyes went white. Pinkie watched in awe as several dozen interlocked circles of magic energy appeared in front of Twilight, cycling like a complex machine. The purple glyphs all pointed at one central point, where a sphere of energy was forming.

“Right in the kisser,” Twilight predicted, tossing the sphere directly into ‘birdy’s’ gullet. The spell went down its throat easily, traveling deep within.

“Have a nice day,” Twilight said, waving.

The spell exploded. Pinkie had her doubts a regular explosion of any sort would have done anything to the cosmic beast, but this was no ordinary explosion – whenever its flames touched a part of ‘birdy,’ that part was transformed into more explosion. Twilight’s energy rippled out of the beast’s body, rippling along the edges until every part went up like a roman candle.

The eye was the last thing to be consumed. It held no fear.

‘Birdy’ dissipated into nothing long before it reached Twilight and Pinkie, having become nothing more than warm air.

“HOLE IN ONE!” Pinkie shouted, raising a hoof in the air. “YEAH!”

The entire town of Musk broke into applause and cheers at the spectacular defeat of the monster.

Twilight smiled at all of them, waving. Pinkie saw her and Brick lock eyes and nod to each other in understanding. “…Can we leave now?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah,” Pinkie said. She wrapped her hooves around Twilight’s neck in what she hoped was a comforting hug. “I’m proud of you.”

Twilight let out a contented sigh. “You crazy, crazy mare, you.” She cast the dimensional spell again, returning to the desert. She landed next to Applejack.

“You have fun?” Applejack asked, noting the big smiles on their faces.

“Yeah,” Pinkie giggled. “I’m also terrified and probably traumatized, but that was fun!” She realized that, somehow, she was still holding the gun. She dropped it into the sand like it was a disease-ridden corpse.

Twilight lifted the gun into the air… and tossed it away. “We won’t have to worry about that ever again.”

“T-thanks.”

~~~

She watched them. Three ponies – two pegasi and a unicorn, ready for battle.

She had been watching them for a while, ever since she had seen them coming. She was relatively sure the unicorn had seen her at one point, but there was no way she suspected anything.

These three… they were the key. A desert wanderer who understood much more than the others. An armored warrior who couldn’t fight.

And that blue pegasus.

That stupid blue pegasus.

The thief hated looking at her. She was just…

With a shake of her head, the thought was dismissed before it could fully form. She couldn’t afford to hesitate here. She needed to act.

She needed them.

With a slow, quiet breath, she dropped from her hiding spot. Her landing behind them was timed perfectly with the clank! of the Mesh around this area. It was so loud ponies needed to shout to hear each other here.

The source of the sound was visible: an immense piston that rose and fell with a regular rhythm, steam pouring out of it at virtually all angles. The Heart of the Mesh. An important place crawling with ponies. But, unfortunately, it had been a completely useless visit.

Which just left these three.

“HEY!” she called. “I DON’T WANT ANY TROUBLE!”

The unicorn whirled around first, an easy action seeing as she was walking around on her hind hooves. She pointed a sword at the thief and growled as her two companions continued turning. “Neither do we!”

“Good.” The thief removed the part of her suit that covered her face, revealing her blue coat and multicolored mane. “I am the Blue Bolt.”

The unicorn and the armored pegasus stared at her in shock. The other pegasus…

She just grinned. Oh, how that made the Blue Bolt’s blood boil…

“Let me guess, your real name is… Rainbow Dash?”

“You can shut up right now,” Bolt responded in a voice identical to Rainbow’s. She reached into her suit and took out the dimensional device. “I need you to get this thing to work. I saw you access New Alice City. I need to go home, and you need out of this Mesh.” She narrowed her eyes. “What do you say? Deal?”

Her Hope

“…Dead?”

Rarity wasn’t sure who had said that. It didn’t matter – the meaning was more or less the same regardless of who it had come from.

Applejack nodded. “Through the chest, out the back of the neck.”

Silence filled the Thieves’ Guild.

Twilight turned to Rainbow. “…What do we do now?”

“G-give me a second to think…” Rainbow muttered.

“What normally happens?”

“Normally I’d just replace her with myself! But that’s apparently not how it works here, the Runes didn’t respond to me!” Rainbow bit her lip. “She was the one. There’s… there’s a chance the Element passed to another pony, but I don’t know how we’d figure that out.”

Twilight twitched. “But this was a prophecy! Destiny and everything!”

“Yeah! It was! You know the funny thing about multiversal travel? When we arrive we can completely ruin any destiny or prophecies just by waving our wings around wrong!” She swallowed hard. “Sometimes that’s a good thing. But here… either the Starcross or I did something that told Rx’len he needed to stop the Elements of Harmony. He went after the Blue Bolt. And he got her. Specifically to stop us from getting a full set.”

“So we use five out of six!”

“Doesn’t work like that! We need her. Even if I knew the revive spell, which I don’t, that only has a fifty percent chance of working anyway! The other option is time travel. You know how to do that, Empress?”

Twilight frowned. “Backwards time travel is impossible.”

“In a lot of universes, yeah. No idea if that’s the case here.”

“I don’t even know what time travel is,” Auburn said.

“So that’s a probably not,” Rainbow sighed. “Well, there goes our trump card. Magic McGuffin solution, poof.”

Twilight shook her head. “Then we go to war. I organize the fleet of the galaxy and charge into the center of the planet. We smash Rx’len by force.”

“If it wasn’t so busy with the Runes it could snap its fingers and destroy the universe. Can you do that? Even with all the power in Unity?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Then that’s probably not going to work.”

“We’ve got other worlds. Surely there’s something…”

Rainbow sat down and sighed. “Maybe? I have no idea what it would be, though. The Elements were what was intended to defeat Rx’len. That was the end of Rarity’s journey. The victory.”

“Maybe the Starcross Society.”

“Do I need to tell you why that’s stupid?”

Twilight sighed. “No. They’d blow up the planet, at least. That’s unacceptable.”

“Yeah. So…” Rainbow frowned. “Anypony have any ideas?”

The Thieves looked back and forth among each other before shaking their heads. None of them had any idea. Twilight was racking her brain, getting redder and redder the more she didn’t come up with anything.

“So it’s hopeless,” Rarity said, drawing all attention to her. She held her head high and kept her jaw straight. “So what?”

“…Huh?” Twilight cocked her head in confusion.

“I said, so what?” She found herself a wooden cube that looked like it was folding in on itself, resting her front hooves on it. “Yep. There’s no hope. The worlds are doomed. We can’t do anything about it.”

“Rarity…” Rainbow began – only to be shut up by a steely glare from Rarity.

“We had one chance, and before we even got to try it, it fell apart because our enemies were clever. Mistakes were made, mistakes some of us might not even realize. So why don’t we just give up?”

She noticed everypony shifting around uncomfortably. Good.

“Feels wrong, doesn’t it?” She lowered her head, hiding her face. “Feels like there’s a suffocating darkness closing itself around your heart, clawing, tearing, and shaking it. But your heart refuses to take the easy route. It won’t give in, for that’s wrong.” She slammed her hoof on the box. “There. Is. No. Hope. But that doesn’t mean you stop.”

Of the crowd of ponies, only Rainbow seemed to understand so far.

“The world is against you. The very fabric of our lives have been weaved toward the will of this demonic presence that lives in a place so distant our nightmares don’t even go there. Some of us have gotten to experience endless success…” She gestured to Twilight. “Some of us have stuck out a claim despite it all…” She gestured to Auburn. “And some of us have been run into the dirt so much we should be dead.” She forced herself not to cry. “But we live anyway.”

Twilight’s confused look was replaced with one of pained pity. A few of the Thieves seemed to be coming round, nodding to themselves. She saw a few ponies wiping their eyes already.

“But do you know what happens when you stop and give in to the darkness? You may not die. In fact, you may be cursed to live. But the world dies. You know you can’t win, you know that trying will only hurt – but you know what else we know?” She stamped her hoof. “Refusing to try is no better than actively destroying it yourself. So yes, death is inevitable, failure will come. But you go on anyway. Not because you expect to win. If you need victory at the end of the tunnel, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. You go on because not just isn’t worth thinking about.”

She jumped up onto the box with all four of her hooves. “So here’s what we’re going to do. We are going to find the other ponies who should have been the Elements. We are going to collect everything we have together. And then we are going to wander these universes, looking in every nook and cranny we can for something, anything, that might help. And you know what, we’ll probably never find anything that can kill Rx’len with the clap of a hoof. But it won’t be able to ignore us. It can’t afford to.”

With a deep breath, she tossed her mane back. “So, yeah, it’s hopeless and the world wants to see you fail. I could have told you that years ago. But we don’t stop. We never stop. We keep walking until our bodies give out and then we drag ourselves along the ground.”

“And maybe, just maybe… we’ll get lucky,” Rainbow said, putting a hoof on Rarity’s leg.

Rarity looked at her in shock. She was about to say something demeaning, but the Thieves erupted into shouts before she could.

Twilight walked up, leaning down to whisper into Rarity’s ear. “For somebody who claims not to have hope, you sure have a way of inspiring it in others.”

Rarity waved a dismissive hoof at Twilight. “It’s just my life.”

“Somehow both depressing and invigorating. You’re a nice little paradox.”

Rarity allowed the slightest of smiles to cross her face. Paradox, huh?

Twilight’s horn started glowing. “Oop! That’s the Unity Helix! ‘Scuse me… yep. Got it. Wait, it’s that simple? Well, you’ve been proven smarter than me once again, the student becomes the master. …I have not said that a lot! ...Hey, no fair, you have perfect memory. Bah.”

“…This is very weird,” Auburn whispered to Rarity.

“I saw a filly that became a floating eyeball create a firework that went to the sky.”

Auburn looked at her in shock.

Rainbow coughed. “Yes, she’s serious, though she’s leaving out some important details.”

Twilight was still talking to the Unity Helix. “Right… Contact us in the other universe then.” She tilted her head and her magic went off. “So. Those of us at Twilight Sparkle scientific solutions have discovered a simple solution to dimensional travel! I had been making the false assumption that whatever universe you were in at the time would be the center of dimensional transition. That’s not how it works in this little hub of ours!”

She cast a spell, creating six orbs, each representing a different universe. “The Crystal Sea is the center world, and all dimensional travel comes from it. Using magic connections to the Elements, we found my world, the world of monsters, and this world.” She moved three of the bubbles around the centermost world. “The Unity Helix found a direct connection between my world and this world, allowing the discovery of the cycle.” She arranged the five outer worlds in a circle: Twilight’s, New Alice City, Pinkie’s, the Mesh, Fluttershy’s, back to Twilight’s. “All of this requires using the Crystal Sea as the center of the pivot to make the correct adjustments. To demonstrate… observe.” She pointed her horn and ripped a portal directly to Pinkie’s world.

“Huh. It’s dark over there now,” Auburn observed.

“Most worlds have night and day,” Rainbow explained. “Uh, a time of light, and a time of dark.”

Auburn nodded in understanding.

“And congrats Twi! You’re discovering the basics of dimensional connection theory!” Rainbow rubbed the back of her head. “Which I never bothered to learn.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Auburn, prepare your Thieves, we may call on you soon. Girls… let’s move out.”

Applejack jumped through first, Rarity, Twilight, and Rainbow following. The portal closed behind them with a pop.

Rarity heard a cricket chirp.

I haven’t heard that noise since childhood.

Rainbow coughed. “So, Applejack – Tower’s cornerstone, it feels so good to say your full name – where are they?”

Applejack blinked. “…I have no idea.”

Twilight chuckled. “Watch and learn…” She lit her horn and cast a spell. “Fluttershy and her armor are about two miles that direction… given the strength of her magic, I’d say she’s sleeping.”

“Sleeping.” Rarity looked up at the night sky. “That… makes sense. Perhaps we should sleep as well… Waking her up would be very rude.”

“Sleep where?” Applejack asked.

“This looks like a pretty standard Earthlike city,” Rainbow said. “Just find a hotel.”

“Hotel…?”

“A place you pay to sleep in,” Rarity explained.

“Huh. Don’t think we have any money.”

“Oh, we don’t,” Rainbow smirked. “But there are always ways to get money. Especially when you have uber-magic-alicorn!”

Twilight put an innocent wing to her face. “Who, me?”

“Yeah! There are any number of ways we could make quick cash, or make ponies think we had cash, or-“

“AUGH!” a pony walking by shouted. He had just been out on a simple brisk night walk, and suddenly he was staring into the face of a purple monster with stars in her hair. “WITCHCRAFT!” He scrambled away as fast as his hooves could take him.

“…Might want to put that disguise back on,” Applejack suggested.

“Right…” Twilight cast a spell, turning herself into a rather unremarkable purple unicorn.

“I should learn that trick to remove my horn,” Rarity commented.

“I’ll teach you sometime,” Twilight offered. “You have the power to pull it off.”

Rainbow pulled her wings back. “All right girls… time for a night on the town. C’mon.”

“Oooh, I like the sounds of that!” Twilight clapped her hooves together. “Dare I say… a party?”

“I thought we were supposed to get some sleep?” Applejack asked.

Rainbow chuckled. “Loosen up AJ, we can have some fun grabbing our cash. Plus, I can show you the weird stuff Earthlike worlds tend to have. Exhibit A: Cars.”

HONK!

Rarity winced as the car flew by. “I think I prefer the… cars of the city.”

“I mean, yeah, these are noisier… But here you can actually use them to get around!”

“Or we could teleport.” Twilight said, teleporting them across the street. A few ponies screamed in terror as they appeared. “Oooor not. Yeah, that’s right, Pinkie freaked out at my magic when we first met… thought I’d sold my soul or something to get it.”

“Oh.” Rainbow blinked. “Ooooooh I always forget about that!” She facehooved. “Yeah, explicit magic probably isn’t that good. Tends to get the government on your case or a mob. Both generally suck.”

“They’re holding rectangles at us…” Applejack muttered.

“Phones,” Twilight said. “They’re called phones. They take pictures of what’s happening so other people can see them.”

“It sounds like we’re making a scene rather than money,” Rarity chided.

“True…” Rainbow scratched her chin. “Hey. Twilight. Want to earn it legitimately or illegally?”

“Which way is more fun?” Twilight asked.

“Illegally.”

“Then duh.”

“Going against the machine isn’t a good idea…” Applejack cautioned.

Rarity put a hoof on Applejack’s shoulder. “Let them have their fun. This will either go perfectly or explode horribly in their faces.” For her part, Rarity was just enjoying the sight of ponies that didn’t look as though their lives were horrible or in danger. It was refreshing.

And not as bizarre as New Alice City.

“See that brown thing that guy’s holding?” Rainbow said.

“That’s a wallet,” Twilight deadpanned.

“Oh. Right, you know what those are… so, here’s what you’re gonna do…” Rainbow whispered in her ear.

Twilight’s grin began to widen the longer Rainbow kept talking. “Heh. That’s going to confuse them so, so much…”

“Can you do it?”

“You bet I can!” Twilight lit her horn and created a small wooden crate on the ground – prompting the crowd to gasp. “Hey! Who wants to see a magic trick?”

Rarity facehooved. Applejack just looked nervous.

“Uh… sure.” A green stallion said, holding up his phone in his hoof.

“Great!” Twilight teleported his wallet to her, holding it in her telekinesis.

“Wh…” He reached for his pockets, surprised to find that he still had his wallet. “What the…?”

Twilight opened the wallet she had, rising an eyebrow. “Sandy Shores? Interesting name. Let’s see what you’ve got in here. Wow! Pictures of several real cute mares. In socks nonetheless!”

Sandy Shores flushed, as did Rarity.

Applejack blinked. “I think I’m missing something. What do socks have to do with anything?”

“Some pony universes consider them risqué. Some don’t.” Rainbow shrugged. “It makes for some really interesting moments when a pony from universe B walks around universe A in nothing but socks like it’s completely normal.”

“…You’ve worn socks just to mess with them, haven’t you?”

“YEP!”

Rarity was still trying to process how socks could be taken in a way that wasn’t risqué. They were socks for crying out loud!

Twilight folded up the wallet and stuck it in her mane. “Okay, guess that’s that…”

“Hey!” Sandy shouted. “That’s-“

“You still have your wallet, don’t you?” Twilight asked.

“Er… yeah…”

“Then what exactly are you accusing me of? Stealing?”

Sandy Shores rubbed his head. “I… What?”

Twilight smirked, suddenly teleporting several dozen wallets to her. “I wonder whose these are… Aha! Bit Torrent and Chrome, your wallets are a matching set!”

The two strangely named ponies pulled out their wallets – and realized they had each other’s wallet.

“Also, let’s see… all right, who had the gold flake wallet with built-in watch?” She flipped open the gaudy wallet. “Beyond Rich. …This is an absurd amount of money to be carrying around in your wallet, sir.”

“Glad you appreciate it,” the golden stallion said with a smirk.

“Oh, I will…” Twilight chuckled. “And now, for my final trick, I will make me and my friends disappear!”

They teleported back into the park with a ton of duplicated wallets.

“Heh. I love it when it’s easy,” Rainbow chuckled. “Usually when I’m alone I make some clever bets and swindle a few ponies. …Or I just order some counterfeit from higher-up, but we can’t exactly do that right now.”

Applejack rubbed her head. “Your job seems contradictory at times.”

“Yep! It is! That’s kinda why I like it!”

Twilight nudged Rarity. “That’d suit you well.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Well enough, I suppose…”

“ANYWAY!” Rainbow rubbed her hooves together. “We can probably afford a room in the nicest hotel in the city now. We’re taking it. The best baths money can buy, a complimentary breakfast fit for kings, do it yourself spa treatment…”

Applejack frowned. “Why am I getting a sinking feeling?”

“Because Rarity is grinning,” Twilight said, shocked.

Rarity giggled. “Oh, no, don’t be worried. Be excited!” She tossed her mane back. “I was trained by the royalty of Ponsia in the art of presenting oneself. We, my friends, are going to walk out of that hotel looking fantastic!”

“Oh no…”

Rarity rubbed her hooves together. Sure, Rx’len was eating her world right now. Yes, things were just as hopeless as always. But she had access to a facility fit for a king. She was not going to put this to waste.

~~~

“I need to sleep!”

“Applejack! Applejack! Your hooves are uneven!”

“They were even before you started filing away at them!”

“Because your boots forced them to be that way! There are much more natural ways for the hooves to be sculpted!”

“You just used the words ‘natural’ and ‘sculpted’ in the same sentence.”

“I’m a paradox!”

“Whoever stuck that idea in your head needs a boot to the head.”

“I did!” Twilight called, waving from her oversized, golden bed. She was still in her unicorn form, looking as normal as she could. No attempts were made to stop Applejack’s boot from flying across the room and hitting her in the face. “Worth it!”

“I mean what I say,” Applejack commented, shaking the water off her coat from Rarity’s intense bath.

“I’m surprised you’re not just going with what she’s doing to you,” Rainbow said, already sparkling clean, mane up in curls. “Thought you were all about taking orders?”

“There’s a limit to what I put up with!” Applejack muttered, slapping her hat back on her head – she hated to admit it, but it felt more comfortable now that Rarity had cleaned it. Even her boots shone like they had never shone before.

Applejack realized she was being ridiculous. “…Fine…” She trudged back to the bathroom, allowing her hooves to be subject to the ‘hooficure’. It was dumb, frivolous, served absolutely no purpose, and agitated her other hooves that were keeping time with the Mesh.

Applejack noticed she wasn’t as worried about keeping time anymore. She still was – more out of habit than anything – but she didn’t feel like she needed to. Technically Twilight could send her back to the Mesh any time she wanted, now, or even open a series of portals just to let her hear the Mesh if she wanted. But… she didn’t.

Like so many things she’d seen on this adventure, she wasn’t sure what to make of that.

And I thought life was complicated before.

Eventually, Rarity let her leave the bathroom. She returned to the beds – there were four of them in the room, all situated side by side. They could have walls raised between them, should they want, but at the moment none of them particularly felt like that. They all wanted to watch the
‘TV’, even though Rainbow and Twilight were really talking about things that had nothing to do with the ‘sport’ on the ‘screen.’

“So, yeah,” Rainbow was explaining. “Most Earths are populated by humans.”

“I have humans in Unity,” Twilight said. “…I think their world is called Earth. I can’t remember visiting, though. Their immortal is Merlin.”

“Chances are it looked like this in the past.”

“Interesting…”

“You have no idea. This is almost exactly like earth, history, architecture and all – but it’s ponies!”

“The astronomical odds…”

“What can I say? The Tower likes patterns.”

“The Tower?”

Rainbow sighed. “Ugh, I don’t want to explain that right now… has to do with destiny and fate. I’ll explain when we aren’t about to fall asleep.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“Yaaay, more things I need to explain that I suck at.”

Twilight smirked. “Even better.”

Rainbow rammed her face into a pillow and grunted.

Applejack focused on the TV. There were a bunch of ponies talking fast about a thing called a fridge that kept stuff cold for a long time. That’d be useful on the Mesh… Might be able to store up food bricks that way.

Or she could just eat the food here. Who needed food bricks anymore? All sorts of stuff grew in these other worlds.

Come to think of it, why would they even need the Mesh at all anymore? What did it do that the other worlds couldn’t do better?

It kept them alive. Was there anything else?

There had to be...

Or did there?

“Huh. Maybe not.”

Twilight looked over to her. “Doing okay over there?”

“I have no idea,” Applejack admitted with a shrug. “Just thinking about the Mesh, home, that sort of thing. You?”

“Humans. Trying to remember what I know about them. Not much, admittedly.”

“I’m thinking about this bed!” Rainbow declared, flopping back on the covers. “Aaaaaah… getting’ good sleep tonight…”

Applejack watched Rainbow as she laid down and tried to emulate it. There’s no way this is how a pony is supposed to - oh wow that’s comfy.

“Feel it, Applejack…” Rainbow called. “Feel it…”

“Done!” Rarity declared, walking out of the bathroom.

“That was impossibly fast for a Rarity,” Rainbow blinked, sitting up. “You sure y-“ Her jaw dropped. “Wow.”

Applejack didn’t see what was so special about Rarity’s appearance. Sure, there wasn’t a trace of grime on her body and the tattered desert tunic had been completely abandoned so her pristine white coat could shine through. Her mane and tail were styled in a complex swirling design that seemed to sparkle as it bounced, displaying her horn proudly for the first time. She was somehow both as soft as one of the pillows Applejack had under her and hard as a brand new wrench.

“I don’t get it,” Applejack said. “What’s this whole deal with appearance?”

Twilight shrugged. “Practically? Used to attract potential partners. For Rarity? She just likes looking pretty.”

“I haven’t looked like this for decades,” Rarity said, an uncharacteristic smile planted on her face. “Applejack, to be blunt, I don’t care what you think about my appearance.” With a snort she jumped into her bed and spread her limbs out like a starfish. “Aaaaaaaahhhh…”

“Good memories?” Rainbow asked.

“The first good memories in a while…” With a dreamy tone to her voice, she closed her eyes.

And started snoring immediately.

“Oh for th-“

Twilight shut Rainbow’s mouth with her telekinesis. A simple spell was all it took to silence Rarity’s snoring completely. “And now… we sleep.” Twilight flicked the light switch with her magic, plunging the room into near darkness. She turned off the TV to complete the ritual.

Sleeping in darkness… Applejack frowned. It still felt so unnatural.

“Applejack, to save you the trouble of arguing with yourself about this, I’m going to sleep spell you. Night.”

And then Applejack was asleep.