The Best and The Worst

Chapters

Prologue
1: First Impressions
2: Ghost Town
3: High Ground
4: Closing In
5: Control Room
6: The Truth
7: To Save the World

Prologue

It was the start of May when Celestia first took Twilight to Equios, the nation that served as the Equestrian outpost on the human world of Earth.

Founded over 500 years earlier as a European microstate bordering both Switzerland and the only slightly-larger nation of Liechtenstein, it had served Celestia well over the centuries, allowing both a primary point of transit and a base of operations for her agents to observe Earth from afar and—at times—give Celestia herself an escape from the pressures of ruling Equestria alone, allowing her to vacation on Earth under the guise of alternately Queen Alva or Princess Celeste, the hereditary rulers of Equios.

Though neutral in the affairs of humanity—a luxury afforded by its small size and isolated location high in the Austrian Alps—the nation of Equios had some notoriety in certain circles; it had become known over time as a magical and musical mecca—the latter for an autumn wine-and-music festival that was its main source of yearly income, and the former for a series of hot springs said by the ailing and afflicted to have uncommon curative powers.

Not without reason, given a confluence of magically conductive ley lines in the area that allowed for easy transit from Equestria and eased use of spellcasting on the normally magic-poor human world.

Affording both privacy and sufficient power to Celestia’s agents to magically maintain human form, as well as an easy ingress and egress route to and from Equestria should the need arise, it had been present for five centuries of human history, escaping most continental conflicts unscathed.

Two days into their stay, Celestia had introduced her student to her human and Equestrian agents alike, and even took her on a foray to Geneva to show her their banking arrangements, meeting some officials and human royals she knew along the way.

Though initially nervous over the unfamiliar environs, so different from the society and semi-arid climate she had previously experienced in Los Angeles, Twilight slowly got more comfortable in her human skin and surroundings. She enjoyed the unique food and cultures, to say nothing of human technology; more than once Celestia had to pull her away from the ‘internet’ that gave her access to all the information on humans she could ever want or need.

Her visit was going well to that point, having been very meticulously planned and scheduled. Until, that was, Celestia rousted her with a shake of her shoulder one morning before dawn, bearing with her an early breakfast. “Forgive me for springing this on you, my student. And I apologize for the early hour. But I have checked, and as the weather there is good, there is a place I wish you to accompany me.”

“Uh… sure, but why?” Twilight asked her mentor through bleary eyes, levitating a sheet of human paper with their daily schedule, the glowing outline of her otherwise invisible unicorn horn becoming apparent as she cast the levitation spell. “Weren’t we supposed to visit the Bank of Equios today as part of my education on the human financial system?”

Celestia bowed her human head, her voice solemn but expression unreadable. “Indeed we were, but it can wait for another day. In the meantime, I wish to take you somewhere, strictly off the books, my student,” she explained as she presented a light breakfast of fruit and pastries. “I have cleared today’s schedule for this purpose. I apologize for being so coy about our destination, and the odd arrangements. But for where I intend to take us, we simply must be ponies. And that means we cannot travel by human means.”

Twilight blinked as she began to eat, her fork freezing halfway to her mouth. “You want us to go out there as ponies?” All her pre-travel briefings had emphasized in the most emphatic terms that they were to remain in human form at all times while present on Earth, lest they be photographed by the increasingly ubiquitous, ever-present, and—to Twilight—ever so annoying human surveillance equipment, which even Equestrian magic had progressively more trouble countering as human technology got more advanced.

“Yes,” Celestia confirmed as she poured them both some tea. “I know it seems odd, but for where we are going, we will need our full power available, including the ability to cast shields, shrouds, and—if necessary—teleport, which as you know, is difficult to do as humans. Our destination lies nearly a thousand miles away, my student. And it is likely we will spend the better part of a day there, at least.”

“A thousand miles?” Twilight echoed before she bit into a fruit. “But not even you can teleport that far, Princess! How will we get there in a day if not by human air carriage?” she asked, though she was secretly relieved, not relishing the idea of flying on the large human ‘airliners’ they’d seen taking off from various airfields during her time in Aresia—Europe, she corrected her own thought for what seemed like the hundredth time already, wondering if she might not even get it correct in her head before she left in a week.

“A valid concern. But one with a simple answer. We will be able to travel by ley line tunneling,” she replied, licking her fingers of some pastry icing. “We had a magical nexus in the area I seek to go once, and with some occasional reinforcement, it remains active. It has been sealed for a while, however,” she mused, her tone grim. “It is now accessible only by me.”

“Sealed?” Twilight could scarcely imagine what would cause such drastic action, given that humans were unable to sense or access the nexus to travel with.

“Sealed,” Celestia confirmed as they finished their brief meal. After they were done, she shed her clothes and human form, instructing Twilight to do the same. She waited until she was finished and they were both in their pony bodies before continuing, leaving Twilight feeling strangely naked even though she was once again equine; she couldn’t but reflect again at that moment how well she’d adapted to her human body after such a short period.

“Now, my student, before we depart, I will give you some instructions that may strike you as odd, but it is crucial that you obey them. For where we are going, you must stay close to me at all times. Do not wander off the paths or paved roads we travel, except under my protection and only with my express permission. You must likewise not enter structures unless I tell you to, even if they seem safe. The dangers of our destination are unseen, but still present. I know you are confused, but I promise you will understand in due course.”

“Okay…” Twilight agreed, her unease only growing the more she heard. “I promise to stay close, Princess. I don’t think I’d want to be out in an unfamiliar human area alone as a pony anyway.”

“Very well.” Celestia nodded gravely as she turned to face the mirror. “Then let us be off. Watch closely as I cast this unsealing spell, my student. In the unlikely event that we are separated, do not linger or look for me—you must return to the nexus immediately and unlock it yourself in order to return to Equios.”

“Yes, Princess.” She bowed low and observed carefully as Celestia’s horn glowed, reading the complicated course of the incantation she cast on the mirror and then magically committing it to memory; she couldn’t help but swallow as the glass surface of the mirror opened into a swirling cacophony of light. As they stepped through, it immediately swept them forward; the magical conduit automatically re-sealing itself behind them.

Where are we going? What am I about to see? Twilight couldn’t help but dread the answer for the Princess’s odd behavior even as she tried to hold onto her barely eaten breakfast in the face of the disorienting travel method; one that never seemed to get easier no matter how many times she took it.

And why all the secrecy? she further wondered as she sensed their destination approach, coming up with no good or reasonable explanation for it.

Author's Note

Welcome to the story! This takes place in the Phoenixverse of Turnabout Storm and The Lawyer and The Unicorn, though reading these stories is unnecessary to enjoy this one.

Thanks go to prereaders James CyberLink, AJ_Aficionado, Silentwoodfire, and Denim_Blue. Nothing else to say except I hope you enjoy!

1: First Impressions

Less than a minute after Celestia and Twilight had departed the Royal Equios Chateau where they were staying, they arrived at their destination and were somewhat roughly ejected outside of the portal.

Their abrupt exit left Twilight struggling to maintain her balance as the transit tunnel resolved into what she could only call a rather unremarkable but otherwise healthy-looking forest; one she judged as belonging to a temperate climate from the greater number of deciduous trees.

It was a cool but sunny morning; the plants and trees were flowering with the advent of Spring. She heard the nervous chittering and chirping of various animals startled by their sudden appearance; sounds she knew Fluttershy would immediately seek out if she were there.

As the portal disappeared behind them with a ripple of the air, leaving only an invisible magical nexus it would take a magically aware pony to sense in its wake, Twilight looked around and saw nothing she could immediately call out of the ordinary, recognizing they had materialized in the middle of a small clearing with but a rough path leading away into the woods.

One of the things she’d had the most trouble getting used to on Earth was the fact that the further east you went, the sooner the sun rose, but she used it to deduce that the direction they had traveled was roughly east. “This is where you wanted to go?” Twilight asked as her mentor cast a shroud spell and instructed her to do the same, the former’s tone dubious as she detected no humans in the vicinity. Human auras were generally quite weak, she had found, but still present despite their lack of magic; she’d gotten better at detecting them over time.

“Yes,” Celestia confirmed. “It is in fact a place I have visited several times before. Now remember my instructions and stay close, my student,” she reminded her, and Twilight obeyed, knowing that whenever the princess felt compelled to repeat herself, the situation was suitably serious. “Our destination lies down this road. It is unlikely we will encounter any humans during our time here, but that cannot be guaranteed. So maintain your shroud at all times.”

“Unlikely?” Twilight repeated, suddenly aware of an odd and growing tingling on the tip of her horn as they reached an old human road with no vehicle traffic. There was nothing she could sense immediately out of place except for the fact that the road appeared not to be maintained; grasses were growing from long cracks in its paved surface. And yet….

Wait. Why are we unlikely to encounter humans? And for all my visits to the human world, how often have I seen a long-abandoned road?

Her unease was not helped as they continued down the path, seeing and hearing nothing, encountering little but some old rusting husks of human mechanized ground carriages—cars and trucks, they were called, she had learned long before—off the side of the road. From the looks of them, they had been involved in crashes and then simply been pushed out of the way; left derelict in the dirt.

Like they weren’t just driving, but fleeing… she had the odd and discomforting thought as Celestia remained silent, though she noticed her mentor bow her head briefly as they passed one of the more-damaged trucks. But fleeing what? she wondered as the odd and unpleasant tingling around her horn got worse, traveling down from the tip to closer to its base. It felt like a slow prickling sensation, and though it wasn’t painful, it was disconcerting, making her increasingly uncomfortable.

With that, she stopped her advance. “Is something wrong, my student?” Celestia asked, turning back to her.

“There’s something not right here,” Twilight stated with certainty, unconsciously pressing close against her mentor for protection as she felt her hackles raise. The temperature was fine for a furred pony, and yet… “I don’t know why, but I feel… cold.” She shivered even as she wasn’t sure why.

“Indeed,” Celestia said gravely, but did not elaborate. “Trust your senses, my student, both physical and magical. What can they tell you?”

Twilight swallowed as she checked both, pointing her horn to and fro before reaching an uncomfortable conclusion. “That there’s an alien energy present. It’s not magic, but not anything I’ve ever felt before, either. I don’t know what it is; I just know it’s not normal. Or natural. And I don’t think it’s healthy, either.” She shivered again.

“I see,” Celestia replied neutrally. “And this ‘alien energy’—can you tell where it is coming from?”

Twilight’s horn glowed again beneath her shroud. She took steps in several different directions, aiming her magic at both the air and the ground, only to shake her head. “No,” she finally admitted in some frustration. “It seems to be coming from everywhere! It’s in the ground. The water. The plants… and the very air around us!” she proclaimed nervously, her eyes darting.

“And Princess? Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s benign. Or safe for ponies or humans to be in. I’m not sure what it’s doing to us, but I don’t like it.” The prickling on her horn only grew as she spoke, leaving her wondering yet again why her mentor had wanted to come to this place, which she increasingly suspected had somehow been magically cursed. But humans don’t have magic! And what curse could do… THIS?

“You are correct on all counts, my perceptive student. Save one.” The Princess broke into her thoughts. “It is in fact a fully natural phenomenon you sense. But the means and concentration of it are categorically not,” she explained cryptically.

“Now come, Twilight. Our visit to this place has just begun. And worry not. What you sense is not strong enough to hurt you. At least, not now. And not without a great deal more exposure,” she added somewhat grimly to Twilight’s increased consternation as she led her onward. “But we must still be cautious. There are places where this is not the case, but if and when we encounter them, be assured I will protect you.”

“It’s natural!?” Twilight repeated dubiously, knowing no magic or alchemy that produce such a strange and potentially dangerous phenomenon. “But how? Where did it come from?” she found herself almost desperate to know despite her fears.

“That is one of the questions we must answer,” was all Celestia would say as she led Twilight up the road, the sound of their hoofclops echoing with eerie clarity and volume in Twilight’s mind as they continued to encounter no humans or human vehicles, despite their everpresence in every other place she had visited thus far on Earth.

At least, not until they came upon a very large yard of them, with hundreds if not thousands of old vehicles parked in a grassy field in long rows.

“What the…?” was all Twilight could say at first as the scale of the place became clear. “What’s this?”

“Intriguing,” was all Celestia would say in response. “What do you make of it, my student?”

Twilight could only stare balefully across the double-wire barriers before speaking. “It’s a vehicle junkyard. But it’s completely out of place,” was all she could immediately observe, not sure at first why she felt so disconcerted by it. “And wait—it’s not just ground transportation either. Those are flying vehicles in the back!” She pointed with a hoof, having learned to recognize helicopters quickly—especially after taking a rather harrowing but strangely exhilarating ride in one during her stay. “But what are they doing here? For that matter, what are any of these doing here, out in the middle of nowhere?”

“A good question,” her mentor agreed. “Perhaps we should take a closer look?”

“Are we allowed?” Twilight asked, but Celestia could only smile coyly in response, a look Twilight knew well meant she wouldn’t get an answer. She probed for electronic devices or active electromagnetic emissions in the area that might suggest surveillance, but came up empty aside from distant radio and television signals. “Well, I guess it’s safe… but you said to ask your permission before going into strange areas?”

“And you have it, my student.” Celestia smiled as she nodded. “Proceed.”

“Okay…” Twilight said, teleporting to the other side of the fence. She was quickly followed by Celestia, who cleared the low barrier with a single beat of her large wings, folding them at her sides when she landed. She trailed Twilight but made no effort to restrict her exploration, watching patiently as her student tried to make sense of the place.

After several minutes, however, she seemed no closer. “I don’t get it. We saw some damaged vehicles abandoned at the side of the road earlier,” Twilight gestured with a hoof behind them, “but these aren’t damaged at all! Well, aside from some rust. And most of these aren’t even personal vehicles! Those red ones look like emergency services—old fire engines, I think—and those green trucks with the dilapidated canopy coverings… those are military!” she recognized. “So why are they all grouped together in one place? And why were they just left out here to rot even though they all seem intact?” she probed at one of the fire engines with her aura as she spoke, and then recoiled, taking a step back with her eyes wide.

“What is it, my student?” Celestia prompted.

It was a moment more before Twilight could speak. “That alien energy I sensed… it’s coming more strongly from these!” she motioned to the fire trucks and military vehicles. “I don’t think they’re the source of it, though. No, they’re just… tainted with it.” She couldn’t think of a better description than that.

“I see. And from that, what can you conclude?” Celestia asked, letting a hint of pride lace her words as she watched her student continue to analyze the decrepit vehicles.

Twilight took a moment to gather her thoughts before speaking. “That whatever this energy is; that whatever the taint was… it’s dangerous. That these vehicles were somehow contaminated with it, rendering them no longer usable. Or at least, no longer safe to use,” she reasoned, her eyes darting back and forth between them as she had a sudden and very strong urge to retreat back to the portal. “And that in turn means… that something happened here. Something very bad to have caused this contamination over such a wide area, affecting ground and air vehicles alike.”

Celestia nodded sagely at that. “Then it would seem beholden on us to find out what that something is, my student. So let us move on from this place, as I believe we have exhausted the clues here. Let us therefore follow the roadway leading here and see where it might take us.”

For the first time that morning, Twilight hesitated before obeying. “Yes, Princess,” she finally acceded, though she found she had to force her legs into motion before doing so.

2: Ghost Town

The walk out was spent in silence, with an increasingly uncomfortable Twilight feeling alone despite Celestia’s presence, keeping company with her own strangely brooding thoughts.

She had tried to come up with a more benign explanation that would fit the clues they found, but each theory that suggested itself was quickly shot down by her own logic. Increasingly, she was forced to reach the discomforting conclusion that her first guess was correct—that something very bad had indeed happened there, an uncertain amount of time in the past.

After an hour of walking south along the unmaintained and cracking road with only the rising sun to keep them company, they reached a crossroads at the end of the forest, with an old sign at one corner standing out to them and gaining their attention.

“Can you read it, my student?” Celestia asked, motioning with her head up to the odd lettering.

“It says… town of Pripyat?” Twilight recited somewhat dubiously, squinting at the sign, sounding out the exotic letters carefully in her head before speaking the name. “My Cryllibex is a bit rusty, but I think that’s right.”

“It is,” Celestia confirmed as they followed the arrow, walking towards the town, which shortly resolved into a series of buildings in the distance. And was it her imagination, or did Celestia’s mane colors appear just slightly more vibrant in the morning light? “I am pleased to see you kept up on your language lessons. Now come, my student. Let us look around. Perhaps there is some clue as to what happened here. And the origin of this strange energy you sense.”

* * * * *

Minutes later, they came upon several rows of what Twilight could only call old and nearly identical apartment buildings.

Each seemed as drab and utilitarian as the last; a far cry from the colorful structures that ponies favored both in Equestria and in Equios.

They were disconcerting enough—they seemed barely adequate to the purpose of housing workers or families in anything approaching comfort—but they, like the road they had come in on, seemed abandoned, with broken windows in places; visible rust and water stains that spoke of lack of maintenance for a very long time. A glance inside one showed plants growing in what had once been a building foyer, while another had the remains of a rotting and waterlogged rug on the floor.

There were at least some parks and plazas to be found, including a school with, of all things, a large but empty swimming pool; slowly being stripped of its tiles.

And later, they came upon something very odd and out-of-place—an old amusement park, the centerpiece of which was an equally old and run-down Mare-is Wheel that likewise appeared to not have been used in years, if not decades, judging by the rust on it.

Here and there was a discarded bicycle, also rusting away, and there were even some wooden tables with old plates and cups set out as if for a family picnic, coated with a layer of dust or outright dirt.

Celestia said little as she led Twilight from place to place, letting her student take the lead at times, though Twilight remembered her instructions to ask permission to enter even small structures. Worse, the odd and dangerous energy was only growing stronger the deeper they got into the town, and the more she saw of it, the more ominous the picture in her head became.

“Very well, my student. You have seen the residential areas of this town now. From them, what can you conclude?”

Twilight shivered as she voiced the undeniable answer. “It’s like… they just up and left!” she exclaimed. “No, it was worse than that—they left almost everything behind! And there were crashed vehicles on the road behind us that weren’t salvaged. So it was if they had to drop everything they were doing without warning and run for their very lives, leaving all their possessions behind in their panic to just... get away!”

She swallowed hard as she sensed the truth of her own words, but also the contradiction that underlay them. “But the weird thing is, there’s no destruction here except the ravages of time. There’s no sign of an attack or war,” she further noted, having visited some human battlefields in the past and studied old pictures and videos of human conflicts. “Everything seems peaceful, just… abandoned. But why?” She again sensed the answer even as she asked the question. “Is it this corruptive energy I sense? But you said it wasn’t strong enough to hurt us!”

“I said it wasn’t strong enough to hurt us now, my student,” Celestia gently corrected, causing a chill to go through Twilight.

“Then it was once?” she immediately realized, then followed her own logic chain to a very troubling place. “But Princess… this town and those vehicles back there… they look like they’ve been abandoned for thirty years!” she guessed by the level of rust and the extent the town had been overrun by the encroaching forest. And that means…

“An excellent guess, my student,” Celestia acknowledged with a pleased expression. “Your deductive abilities serve you well, as the actual number is thirty-three.”

“Thirty-three?” Twilight reeled, taking no satisfaction from the compliment for what it also meant. “But that means that whatever this… contamination… is, it’s been here at least that long, and was once much stronger! And for it to be this detectable even now…” She suddenly had a very strong urge to leave; to teleport back to the portal and flee this sun-forsaken place forever before she was forced to learn the truth behind it. “Princess… what is this energy? And what poison could possibly last this long with such a low decay rate?”

“What indeed,” Celestia echoed grimly. “The answers you seek can yet be found elsewhere. So come, my student. Perhaps there are more clues to be found with a better vantage point. So let us get to high ground. We will go to the top of an apartment building to look over the area. And as I do not wish to disturb the crumbling interiors of these buildings, we will simply teleport up.”

Twilight blinked at that. “But Princess… I can’t accurately teleport unless I can see my destination or have already been there!” she reminded her mentor.

“I have on previous visits, so I can,” Celestia replied evenly. “I will take us both. Now touch my hoof, my student, and we will be off.”

“Y-yes, Princess.” Twilight wasn’t quite able to keep the tremor from her voice as she obeyed, desperately wanting answers but also afraid of what they might be as they disappeared in a flash of light.

3: High Ground

It took Twilight a moment to regain her bearings after they rematerialized, which she always found a little more difficult to do if she was the passenger instead of the driver of the teleport, casting the spell herself.

The roof was in no better shape than the buildings, with rusting rails and moss growing all over the edges; water pooling on sunken areas that spoke to the slow collapse of the structure.

“I apologize for the discomfort of the transit, my student. But now that we have the high ground, what can you see?”

“Um…” Twilight looked around at the rows of identical buildings, occasionally punctuated by a taller one that had the same bland architecture as the apartments. There had been at least some effort to provide residents recreational areas, she noted in some minor relief, with parks and plazas visible with swingsets along with the old Mare-is wheel. But looking out further, she saw an odd emblem mounted on the roof of a nearby building, its colors faded but still present, of what looked like a blacksmith hammer overlaid with a harvest implement earth ponies sometimes used.

I’ve seen that symbol before… she knew, but she wasn’t immediately able to place it until she recalled some of her human history books. “That’s the sigil… of the Soviet Union.”

“Sigil might be too strong a term, as that symbol bore no magical properties, my student. Though there were—and sadly still are—those who believe it does,” Celestia sighed. “But yes. Well-spotted again.”

“Then this town… once belonged to it?” Twilight guessed, recalling that the Soviet Union had been once a vast nation that covered much of two continents, and that its written language had been Cryllibex. She knew humans had a slightly different term for it, but she couldn’t recall it just then. “But that doesn’t make sense, Princess! I studied human history, and that nation dissolved nearly thirty years ago!” She recalled, then blinked as something else occurred to her. “But this place has also been abandoned that long…”

Celestia remained silent, letting her student follow her logic chain.

“Are the two events connected?” Twilight suddenly wondered out loud. “As the Soviet Union no longer exists, this place must fall under the dominion of one of the new nations that replaced it! I remember the big one was Russia. But there was also Belarus, Latvia, Lithumanea…” she hoped she wasn’t mangling the words too much; she had to constantly check herself from ponifying the human location names, which were often eerily similar to places she knew back home. “Wait—Pripyat. That is also the name of a large series of swamps in Belarus. Is that where we are?”

Celestia couldn’t help but smile at that. “Close, but not quite. Those are the Pripet marshes, my student,” she corrected gently. “The similarity in names is a coincidence. But if it helps, the marshes are not that far to the north.”

“Then we’re south of them… in the Ewecrane—er, I-I mean Ukraine, sorry,” Twilight deduced from the clue as she continued to look around, the puzzle of their location providing at least a brief distraction from the more ominous mysteries she found herself struggling to solve.

“I see a confluence of two rivers as well as a large lake or reservoir they flow into, past that industrial area in the distance. That the forest is just breaking into spring at this point of the year suggests we’re in the northern fringe of the country. In that case, I think we’re not far north of Kiev, the Ukranian capital city. And that being the case, the larger river is likely the Dnieper,” she concluded, recalling from her reading its historical importance to the nation as both a waterway and a natural barrier to military operations as late as seventy-five years earlier.

“Well done, my student.” Celestia bowed her head. “I am gratified you have kept up on your human history studies so faithfully. We are indeed where you say. But I regret that does not answer the questions before us,” she motioned out to the town again with a sweep of her wing, a gust of cool wind ruffling her large feathers. “And the one I wish to be answered before we depart is very simple: What happened here?”

A chill instantly returned to Twilight, one not imparted by the breeze; she was suddenly keenly aware of the prickling, tingling sensation on her horn all over again. “So is that why you brought me here? You want me to determine the answer to that question from the available evidence?” she guessed, going downcast. “With respect, Princess—for all we’ve seen of this… contamination I’m sensing, I’m not even sure I want to at this point.”

“In part, that was my purpose, yes,” her mentor conceded. “But this is not merely a test of your deductive abilities, Twilight. There are reasons I have brought you here that go far beyond that, but I wish you to first reach the correct conclusions on your own. I know this place makes you uncomfortable, as well it should. But there are important lessons to be drawn here, for ponydom and humanity alike,” she promised.

“For ponydom?” Twilight looked around dubiously at their dilapidated surroundings. “I’m sorry, Princess, but I’m not seeing that. All I do see is evidence of some form of disaster I can’t yet quantify, let alone identify. Something that required the residents to leave and leave quickly, never to return. Something that might have to do with this evil energy in the air.” She shivered again. “No, check that—at this point, I conclude it definitely does.”

“Then you are already halfway there, my student,” Celestia noted. “And our investigation continues. So what should be our next step in solving this mystery?”

Twilight instantly guessed the answer even as she cringed to think it. “Find the source of the corruptive energy,” she knew. “And that means we have to find the highest concentration of it.”

“Precisely,” Celestia concurred. “You said before that you were unable to determine a source because the ground and air were both saturated with it. But we are off the ground now. So perhaps you could try again?” she suggested gently.

“Yes, Princess,” Twilight grimaced, finally understanding that the Princess had been one step ahead of her yet again, bringing her to the roof in part for that purpose. She ignited her aura and scanned the surroundings once more, trying but not entirely succeeding in tuning her awareness to the odd energy emissions that continued to uncomfortably prickle her horn.

It wasn’t a magical energy by any stretch, but she’d gotten good at reading electrical and magnetic fields as well, which were very common in the human world. This, however, was neither, and the more she grasped at it with her magic, the more it simply seemed to slip through her net like grains of sand, refusing to be analyzed or contained.

“Anything?” Celestia prompted after a minute, watching her student carefully as she struggled to sense something that eluded even her considerable abilities.

Twilight waited a few seconds before replying. “It’s not easy, but… now that I have some height, I can sense that the energy is stronger… over there!”

She pointed in the direction of what appeared to be a more industrial district, at the center of which sat an oddly lopsided building with a single large smokestack in the middle; the confluence of rivers just visible behind it. “It’s hard to say from here, but I think that structure is the source of it. Princess? I don’t want to go there. I really don’t think it’s safe,” she added with an involuntary swallow, the prickling sensation now spreading from her horn to all over her body, though she wasn’t sure how much of it was due to the odd energy and how much to simple anxiety.

“That you can detect such a thing at all means your magical awareness is superb, my student,” Celestia praised, then bowed her head. “But it is there we must go. And this is why you must be under my protection, Twilight. Even outside of that building, there are hotspots, for lack of a better term, that are not safe to be in. We will avoid them where possible. But where not… I must be present. So I instruct you again to not stray far from me, my student.”

“Don’t worry,” Twilight promised. If it was up to me, I’d run away from this poisoned place as fast as I could!

4: Closing In

To Twilight’s relief and consternation, they teleported again instead of walking the distance, which Twilight had conservatively estimated as around ten miles from atop the building roof.

She was, however, less than pleased when Celestia insisted on taking them again instead of letting her go the distance as she was capable of, explaining that she did not want to drain any of her student’s power in case they were separated and she had to retreat to the portal quickly.

Twilight relented after that, not at all relishing the idea of being inadvertently marooned there and worse, having to spend a night or two in the woods eating contaminated flowers and grasses while waiting for her magic to recharge enough from Earth’s feeble field to open the portal.

Disappearing in yet another golden flash, they rematerialized instantly just outside of a building complex Twilight had noted earlier from the distance; to her further relief, she discovered to her great and happy surprise that despite the larger concentration of the corruptive energy she’d sensed coming from it, the overall level of it where they stood was only a little higher than where they were.

But the princess said there were ‘hotspots’ of this stuff… well, it’s not like she’d deliberately take us to one of them, right? she reasoned, guessing that the Princess had worked out their tour route, for lack of a better term, long before.

After Celestia magically scanned the area to ensure no humans were present, she invited Twilight forward, inside the rusting fence line. It was a token barrier only at that point, given its crumbling state and the vegetation overgrowing it, but had once been insurmountable for humans and the removed gates had what appeared to be unused guard shacks.

Both mares also sensed the presence of some electronic surveillance equipment, but their magical shrouds guarded against those… though a careful observer might have noticed the sudden presence of sourceless hoofprints in their wake.

As they walked forward into the area around the structure, Twilight was also surprised to see there were signs of fresh activity in the area—tire tracks were present and there were imprints where some temporary shelters had been set up; she also recognized a large and recent construction site was also present near the building.

“That’s weird…” she noted at her own observations, despite her discomfort.

“What is, my student?”

“The town behind us was abandoned, but this area hasn’t been despite greater contamination. Humans have been here very recently. In fact…” her purple eyes played over the near end of the building with the smokestack, which was covered on one side by a very large and new-looking half-cylinder, in marked contrast to the crumbling, rusting facilities that existed elsewhere.

“That odd dome structure… was emplaced just recently. I can tell because its steel is pristine—unlike everything else here—and there are what look like miniature railroads leading to it.” She pointed to one, then the other. “It must have been built further away on that construction site, and then moved into position by rail—quite an accomplishment for something that big.”

“Well-spotted again.” Celestia smiled, only to turn solemn once more. “But what does it all mean?”

Though initially pleased with herself, Twilight bit her lip as she considered the question, studying the structure anew. “It has no windows; no exhaust and only one or two well-sealed doors,” she cataloged.

“It has no ventilation or utility service that I can see. It’s also completely opaque, even to my aura. I can’t probe inside it with my magic, which means that it’s quite thick. So its only possible purpose would be… to contain something. To keep it from escaping. And that, in turn, means...” she paused again to swallow as she reached a single, inescapable conclusion. “That whatever caused this contamination… is in there.” She pointed with a shaking hoof.

Twilight sensed her mentor’s next words even before she said them, but her heart still all but stopped to hear them. “Then it would seem that we are closing in on our answer, my student. And that is where we need to go next.” Celestia began to walk towards the apparent middle of the structure, where the smokestack lay, but this time, Twilight did not immediately follow, finding her hooves frozen in place. “Twilight?”

“Princess, I—” she didn’t know how to voice her fears.

Celestia’s face softened as she turned back to see her student’s consternation. “Come, my student. It will be fine. I promise.” She was now facing Twilight fully as she continued, “I would not lead you to a place I could not protect you in.”

“It’s not that, Princess.” Twilight began to tremble and for the first time, she felt on the verge of tears. “It’s that whatever is in there… I’m now sure I don’t want to know what it is. For the first time in my life, I’m afraid of the answers. I’m afraid that what I’ll find… will change everything.”

“That remains to be seen, my student,” Celestia said sympathetically. “And I’m sorry to be so coy. I know it’s frustrating, but this is one instance where simply telling you the answers will not suffice. You must discover them for yourself to fully understand their import. They may not be pleasant, but nor are they without redeem. I assure you again that there are reasons I have brought you here that go far beyond a simple test. Reasons that will become clear in due course.”

Twilight considered her words, then nodded, if jerkily. “I’ve always trusted you, Princess. And I will here as well. But I don’t know what could possibly be redeeming about this place or whatever happened here!”

“Then we have but one more mystery to solve, my brave and intelligent student,” Celestia offered with a reassuring smile, the pastel hues of her mane seeming to Twilight even more pronounced than they usually were. “And I believe you know as well as I that the answers to it lie within that dome.”

“Yes,” Twilight agreed, blinking away her tears, sensing again the odd prickling sensation on her horn and wondering how long she would have to stay out in it for it to affect her. Or even how it WOULD affect me! She still didn’t know, but the fact that the surrounding area had to be permanently evacuated to a distance of at least twelve miles was hardly encouraging on that score.

“Come, my student,” Celestia offered a hoof. “We must teleport once more. We have but two more sites left to visit, and then all will become clear.”

“If you say so…” was all Twilight could offer as she gathered her remaining nerve, taking a deep breath as she placed her hoof over her mentor’s. She closed her eyes as the teleport took her, not knowing what she would see upon opening them again.

5: Control Room

Of all of the places Twilight thought she might end up, an old circular room full of stripped electronics and empty sockets covered with dirty, rusting panels was not her first guess. It was a large room, and like so much of the area, it bore few signs of actual destruction beyond the simple ravages of time, though it looked to Twilight like some panels or buttons had been crudely ripped out in places.

It didn’t look much different than other human technology centers she’d seen, most notably reminding her of when the Princess had taken her to visit Cape Canaveral some months earlier. But the technology it once had was very dated by what she knew humans now possessed, and the most prominent of all the features there was an odd grid covered with square lights or buttons in a circular pattern.

There was a geometric symmetry to the colors and layout of the grid, leaving her no immediate idea what it was for, but the room—like the surrounding area—appeared to have been abandoned long ago.

Twilight was startled enough by their surroundings that she didn’t immediately take notice of the contamination level, but soon enough felt a renewed and intensified prickling on her horn. “The poison is more intense here,” she noted, a fresh edge to her voice. “Not by much, but… is it strong enough to hurt us?” She held her breath in trepidation as she awaited the answer.

“Not without prolonged exposure, but it would still be unwise to linger here for very long,” Celestia replied after probing the ether herself. “In fact, I note the level of contamination is actually somewhat higher since my last visit, perhaps because the new containment dome is confining it, and thus concentrating it. And as that is the case…” She cast a shield spell to encompass them both, causing the prickling sensation on Twilight’s horn to instantly cease.

Twilight sighed in relief at that—it wasn’t like she didn’t believe that the Princess could, in fact, protect her as she promised, but getting confirmation was still immensely reassuring. “Now stay close, my student. My protection spell is only effective within a few yards of me.”

“Yes, Princess,” Twilight instantly answered as she took a few steps closer towards Celestia’s side, probing her mentor’s aura construct with her own magic. She found it to be not a typical shield spell with a well-defined edge, but a much more gradual one that contained not a solid barrier, but a strong magical field that got denser the closer to Celestia it got.

It seemed to somehow block the contamination from reaching them, but a renewed if only slight prickling of her horn as she took but a step away from her mentor underlined the truth of Celestia’s words. “Now where are we…?” she wondered aloud, finding her anxiety abruptly reduced by the absence of the evil energy, allowing her scientific mind to engage fully.

To little surprise, Celestia did not answer, letting her student explore. As she watched, Twilight probed the remains of the wires and panels with her magic, sounded out some of the unfaded labels she saw, recognizing a few as giving energy readouts using human units.

She also found labels for flow rate and temperature, though there wasn’t enough left of them to say more. She likewise found no controls remaining below the large grid, though she did note there seemed to be a corresponding socket on the bottom panel for each button or light on the top one.

Finally, she completed a single circuit of the room, having examined everything in turn. “Very well. What do you think this facility is, my student?” Celestia asked.

Twilight considered the question carefully. “I’m not entirely certain. It’s some kind of control center; that’s obvious enough. But I’m still not sure what it was controlling,” she mused. “It looks like they were monitoring everything from water flow to temperature. There are indications of power output as well as some form of cooling systems. But what I find of most interest… is that.” She pointed again at the circular board festooned with hundreds of tiny buttons in a symmetrical circular pattern.

“I honestly don’t know what that is. My best guess is that each button or light must represent a sensor, or perhaps a probe of some sort. But what substance would require that literally every inch of its body be monitored or controlled?”

Celestia again remained silent, knowing from long experience that Twilight was only asking the question in an attempt to answer it herself based on the available evidence. “It would have to be something so volatile and dangerous that such extensive monitoring was necessary over its entire surface. Something that had to be kept in careful balance with its environment at all times, with the means to quickly correct any imbalance that occurred. But why would they even have such a substance? What purpose could it possibly serve?” she wondered aloud.

A hint of a smile broke Celestia’s face, visible beneath the light of her horn. “Perhaps the question to ask, my student… is what do humans require more than anything else to power their society?”

“Electricity,” Twilight answered instantly, having marvelled previously at the extensive—if not always secure—infrastructure humanity had invented to support their insatiable need for it, involving everything from flowing water to the rather dirty burning of various fossil fuels to generate sufficient steam to turn massive turbines. “Then this is a power plant! Or was…” she quickly corrected, recognizing again the ruins around her.

“Very good, Twilight,” Celestia praised while giving a gentle nod and smile to her pupil. “But questions still remain.”

“You’re right. Like, what fuel source was it using? I don’t see evidence of any of the usual ones...” Abruptly, her guts clenched again as something occurred to her. “Wait—is the fuel what caused this contamination?” she sensed, and this time the tingle on her horn told her she’d found the answer.

“That’s it, isn’t it? Whatever fuel they were harvesting to generate power here… it was dangerous and it required careful control, but there was some sort of accident. And thus, they lost control of it!” she guessed. “It broke free of whatever containment structure lay beneath that dome outside. And when it did, it contaminated the entire area!” she stated authoritatively, knowing she had it right.

“And at last, we reach the crux of our questions,” the Princess acknowledged. “Well done, my student. And with that, there is one last location to visit. And this time, we must walk,” she announced. “It is not safe to teleport there, both because my memory of the area may not be accurate given infrequent corridor collapses, and because the radiation is strong enough that it can actually disrupt the magic used.”

“Radiation?” Twilight blinked at the unfamiliar term.

“That is what humans call this energy, my student,” Celestia explained after a quickly suppressed grimace. “That was actually a slip on my part, as I did not wish to use that word just yet. But so be it. We are close enough to the answers now. So let us proceed.” She zapped a far wall to reveal a hidden doorway behind a panel, and then turned back to Twilight.

“Heed my words and heed them well, my student. From this point forward, you must follow me closely at all times. It is extremely dangerous down here, as the structural damage is severe and the energy emissions are intense. My field will keep you safe, but only if you stay deep enough within it.” At this, she met Twilight’s gaze directly, lowered her head slightly so she was closer to her height, and asked with perfect clarity: “Do you understand?”

“I do.” Twilight gulped.

“Then let us proceed,” Celestia invited with an approving nod. “For we are almost at our goal.”

6: The Truth

Twilight found her apprehension growing again as they proceeded down stairwells and crumbling corridors that were occasionally blocked by debris or locked doors; their way lit only by the light of their horns.

They were able to proceed through a combination of levitation and lockpick spells, as well as at least one instance of Twilight teleporting herself across a small chasm; the sounds of dripping water and an occasional but very disconcerting creak beneath their hooves the only companions to Twilight’s increasingly dark and brooding thoughts.

This place is like something out of a zombie movie… was all she could think. She’d been warned off the human versions of those by Celestia, having once watched just ten minutes of Spike’s favorite Equestrian one ‘for science’ and ending up with nightmares for a week afterwards.

She detected no humans present, but couldn’t help but have the thought that, being undead, zombies wouldn’t show up to her aura awareness; with visions of them in her mind, she wasn’t altogether sure if she could restrain herself from firing a magical bolt if something unexpected appeared.

But nothing did as they went deeper into the complex; the light of their horns remaining their only source of illumination in the sealed structure.

We’ve got to be near or on the lowest level by now! Twilight was certain as she self-levitated down their fourth flight of stairs, not trusting her hooves against the steep and rusting steps that were designed for a human gait. But if the source of the contamination is THIS deep, then how did it ever get out…?

Finally, ten minutes after departing the control room, Celestia told Twilight to halt. “Please wait a moment, my student.” She did not wait for an answer before casting a new spell; one Twilight recognized as some form of sensory magic. “Right. This way.” She led her on again, and this time, as they got deeper, Twilight felt the buzz against her horn growing again, even despite Celestia’s magical field.

It’s close! the young mage realized, feeling her heart beginning to race.

It was then they turned a corner, and Twilight froze. In the light of Celestia’s horn, she saw a mass that was neither natural nor normal; a mottled and ugly grayish-black conglomeration. Its wrinkled surface showed that it had once flowed as a molten liquid out of the half-melted pipe above before being deposited there; it had even eaten halfway through the solid cement floor before its heat was spent.

Twilight could only stare at it in horror. She had to stifle a sudden urge to scream for the sheer level of corruptive energy she detected was coming from it. She tried to assign it a word, but each one she came up with seemed woefully inadequate to what she was sensing:

Toxin.

Contamination.

Destruction.

Poison.

Death.

“Wh… what is that?” She stared at its wrinkled surface, her tone aghast, recognizing that whatever its origin, it had once flowed like lava.

“Alchemy, my student,” Celestia replied solemnly, staring upon the substance sadly. “Alchemy of the very worst kind.”

“But humans don’t have alchemy!”

“Not as we define it, no. But it is alchemy nonetheless. What you are looking at is a substance that did not even exist before its formation here. It was named corium, and it is a dreadful substance indeed. It is a fused-together mixture of boron, sand, graphite, melted cement—“

“Wait—Melted?”

“—and a very rare element known to humans as Uranium.”

“Uranium?” Twilight repeated the unfamiliar word even as she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it, the prickling on her horn intense even within the shield Celestia was casting. “I’ve never heard of it!”

“Not surprising, as that is its human name. It is far more likely that you would know it by its alchemic term instead,” Celestia said, then paused and closed her eyes before speaking it:

“Arcanocite.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide and her ears splayed back. She took an involuntary step away, stifling a renewed urge to shriek and flee as both the source and enormity of the contamination they had encountered finally became clear. “One of the most deadly and dangerousalchemic agents known to exist?” she all but croaked out.

“The same,” Celestia confirmed, her voice subdued.

“But why?” a shaky Twilight begged to know. “Were they out of their minds? Arcanocite is incredibly powerful but it’s also very unstable! It’s hard to gather and refine as it’s not only very rare, but just being in its presence can poison you through the energy it emits! Even the Zebras don’t use that and certainly not in that amount! So why in the name of their sun and moon were humans?”

“Because they accomplished something we never could, my student—they tamed this exotic element and turned it to their purposes. They learned to use its instability and propensity to decay to their advantage,” she explained carefully.

“You call that taming?” Twilight stared at the globulous mass, aghast. “Princess, it poisoned this entire area!”

“And before that, it powered it,” Celestia answered patiently. “You were correct earlier when you suggested humans were trying to harvest a fuel both powerful and potentially dangerous. We are standing in the wreckage of what humans call a nuclear power plant. It is one of four identical units that once supplied electricity to this entire region, with the others located further down this structure.

“Each of those plants, which they call ‘reactors’, once had a similar amount of the substance you see—though the others, thankfully, remained uncompromised by what happened here.”

“But… but… how could that produce power and not poison?” Twilight continued to point her shaking hoof at the dangerous mass on the ground in front of them.

“Through very clever use of chemistry,” Celestia answered easily. “Over the past seventy years, humans have learned how to regulate its decay rate and energy emissions, which they call ‘radioactivity’ or ‘radiation’, with various substances, some of which are now incorporated into that mass. They have in fact been doing it for well over half a century using reactors of various designs and source materials.”

“And they were using this to power the city?” an aghast Twilight had to ask again.

“And much of the province, yes. Indeed, they still do.”

Twilight reeled, having a sudden urge to flee not just the area, but the entire human world, never to return. “I look at it, and all I can think is—that is pure death.” She shivered, stepping forward fractionally out of her mentor’s protective shadow.

As she did, the once-lava’s powerful emissions now felt like not just prickling, but a slow burning sensation against her aura that made her skin crawl; for a moment, she thought she tasted something metallic like she’d just bitten the tip of her tongue. She tested her own protection spell against the evil energy, which produced only an odd sparking in the air before she conceded defeat and returned to her mentor’s protective umbrella. “I can’t block it. But you can?”

“Only through sheer strength of aura,” Celestia replied, her horn glow maintaining the spherical shield around them. “A dense enough substance or deep enough magical field can indeed block its emissions. I can teach you the spell I am using if you wish. But the strength required for a source this potent would quickly drain its caster—even you, my student. Doubly so on this magic-poor world.”

“But you can sustain it… because you’re an alicorn?” Twilight guessed.

Celestia smiled sadly. “No, my student, though the additional power of my alicorn form admittedly helps. It is because the energy this substance emits is similar if not identical to what the sun itself emits. I am bound to the sun and powered by all its emissions, not just the light you can perceive.

“And thus, in a rather ugly irony, being in the presence of this substance makes me not poisoned… but morepowerful.” She bowed her head to show off her now-brightly glowing mane and tail, which caused Twilight to start, having not even noticed before that moment. “And thus, I alone can walk these halls without injury. As such, and as I’m sure you have surmised, this is not the first time I have visited this place. Far from it, in fact.”

“But why, Princess? Why would you have come here?”

“Because, my student, I sensed the accident when it happened,” she explained, deciding to leave out the fact that she’d also been able to detect nuclear detonations from across the globe when she’d been present on Earth for them in the past.

“I was in Equios during one of my twice-yearly visits at the time, and I sensed the burst of radiation from faraway. Alarmed at what I felt—such a thing never bodes well on the human world—I immediately investigated. I passed through the tunnel… and my worst fears were realized when I reached a bridge near the town and beheld this:” She projected an image from her memory into the air above them.

“It was a beam of ionized air over a burning power plant, and I knew it could mean only one thing, even without the intense energy emissions I sensed.” Celestia bowed her head mournfully. “For all my power, I knew there was little I could do as it was something no amount of magic could fix—a nuclear reactor meltdown.”

“M-Meltdown?” Twilight echoed, her voice barely a whisper.

“Once again, a human term. But the sequence of events that led to it—and to this—” she motioned to the ugly mass with a hoof “—I will not make you try to determine on your own, as you have not yet enough knowledge of human science to deduce it.” She sat down as she began her story, still staring mournfully at the mass.

“It was the early morning hours of April 26th, 1986 of the human calendar; just over thirty-three years ago. This plant—informally named Chernobyl for one of the nearby towns—had been in operation for some years without incident, but there was one lingering worry: what would happen if the cooling system should experience a sudden power loss, causing the water pumps that serviced the reactor and kept the Arcanocite heat in check to shut down.”

“And they didn’t have backups for that before?” Twilight recoiled. “That seems like a huge oversight! And a completely unacceptable risk for a substance like… that!” She pointed a shaking hoof at the melted mass once more.

“Unfortunately, my student, the state this plant served was willing to take such risks for the sake of their international image and own propaganda,” Celestia recalled with a sigh. “In due fairness, backups for the cooling system did exist, in the form of three diesel generators. They would activate within seconds upon loss of power, but it would take them nearly a minute to spin up, leaving a small gap of time—perhaps half a minute—where there might not be sufficient coolant flow to keep the reactor stable.

“The test, therefore, was to determine if residual steam pressure and the rotational inertia of the turbines could cover the gap and keep the coolant pumps operating at sufficient speed.”

“But that’s still something they should have figured out even before they built this alchemic abomination! Any such gap is unacceptable, and you don’t try to test theoretical fixes like that on a live process!” Twilight reeled.

“Unfortunately again, meeting deadlines and other arbitrary goals were often prioritized over safety in the Soviet Union. So shortcuts were often taken, both in terms of materials and procedures.” Celestia bowed her head. “In this case, the test had already been performed repeatedly, but unsuccessfully at other plants, and thus the potential danger remained. Their management and government demanded a successful test so they could declare the issue fixed, so they simply tweaked the system as well as the terms of the test, and tried again.”

“But… that’s…” Twilight couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Insane!”

“There was nothing sane about what happened here, my student.” Celestia sighed again. “And the oversights you have already spotted were but the start of a very long chain of events that led to this disaster. Another such event was that the reactor was to be partially powered down and reduced to a low output state for the terms of the test.”

Twilight blinked. “Lower power? But that doesn’t sound dangerous!”

“It would not have been, except there was a failure at another, non-nuclear power plant that meant this plant would have to remain in operation to cover the gap in electrical generation during peak evening demand. That, in turn, meant that the test would have to be postponed.”

Twilight blinked again. “So what’s wrong with postponing it a day or a week…?”

“Nothing, except that they were under intense pressure to perform the test as scheduled. The plant managers wanted to be able to report success when their superiors came to work the next day.

“So instead of postponing it as you suggest, or at least waiting until the day shift workers who had trained to do the test would return, the night shift was ordered to do it—after the reactor had been left in a lower-power state all day.”

“So they were under needless pressure and untrained in the test procedure?” Twilight couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“Yes. Now, as you may recall from your alchemic studies, when Arcanocite decays, it does so into several other volatile elements. And one of them—what we call ‘Nightglow’ and what humans call Xenon-135—tended to ‘poison’ the reactor and lower its power level further.”

“Yes… yes, I remember that!” Twilight distantly recalled, a chain of events beginning to crystalize in her head; her thoughts starting to race ahead of her mentor’s explanation. “Nightglow is useful for some lighting applications once properly alchemically treated and stabilized. But too much Nightglow renders Arcanocite, if not inert, much less reactive. So they had to get rid of it first to run a proper test.”

“Precisely. At a high enough energy output from the Arcanocite, the Nightglow itself burns off, removing the restriction. But after being left in a lower power state all day, the Nightglow was present in large quantities, quenching the reaction further and preventing the test parameters—the minimum power level—from being reached.”

“So they tried to bring up the power via other means,” Twilight guessed, gulping again. “But how?”

“It goes back to that odd grid you saw in the control center.” Celestia smiled at her student’s deduction. “You were indeed correct as to its importance. Each light and button on that grid represented a single ‘control rod’ that covered a small sector of the nuclear ‘pile’, as humans call it, where the Arcanocite was present.

“In very simple terms, the Arcanocite was not a solid mass, but it had a series of slots through which these rods could be inserted and through which cooling water could circulate. Those rods were the primary methods of slowing or accelerating the reaction—fully lowered meant the former while fully raised meant the latter, and each rod could be raised or lowered independently of the others.

“So they began both deliberately reducing coolant water flow and raising the rods in an attempt to boost the reactor power to the point that nearly all the rods had been removed. They even disabled the automated control and cooling systems, violating many safety protocols in the process.”

Twilight wanted to bury her head in her hooves. “Had they no sense at all?”

“Some of it was carelessness. Some of it was governmental pressure. But some of it was simple ignorance. The plant workers believed that disaster was impossible—they had been assured, after all, that the reactor design was foolproof and catastrophic failure could not happen,” Celestia reminisced. “At first, it wasn’t working—the Xenon was simply too thick. But then, all at once, it changed.

“The Xenon began burning off quickly, and suddenly the core temperature spiked dangerously high. The exact sequence of events remains in dispute to this day, but what cannot be disputed is that through a series of very poor decisions that were brought about by unconscionable negligence and carelessness, the reactor went out of control as they attempted to conduct the test. Disaster was imminent… unless, perhaps, the crew used their last resort.”

“Last… resort?” Twilight’s head came up, half-hopefully.

“This, like all nuclear reactors, had a failsafe—an emergency shutdown measure the Soviets called AZ-5 that could be used if a meltdown or explosion was deemed imminent. A button that, if pushed, would result in all control rods being lowered at once, thus quenching the Arcanocite reaction from within, making it cool down and retreat from the brink of disaster,” she explained.

“It was the correct decision. And it might even have worked. But unfortunately… this particular type of reactor had an additional design flaw that was in fact known, but never addressed.”

“Wh-what?”

“The control rods I speak of consisted of two parts—graphite, which accelerated the Arcanocite reaction and thus increased its power output, and boron, which conversely reduced it. The ratio of those two elements plus a steady supply of water was required to regulate the pace of the reaction, and the ratio was in turn set by how many rods were raised or lowered into the pile.

“But the design flaw was that in order for the dampening boron parts of the control rods to be reinserted, the graphite would have to enter first,” she explained, as Twilight listened to the damning description of events, completely stunned and unable to understand how anyone could be so incredibly stupid.

“Under normal circumstances, this would not have caused anything more than a fleeting spike in power before the boron took effect, but unfortunately… you may recall that they had withdrawn nearly all the control rods in an effort to boost sluggish power in time for their test, which was both unnecessary and in violation of all safety protocols for the unstable state that the reactor was in.

“As a result, their failsafe turned into a detonator. The graphite took effect first and super-accelerated the reaction; the heat it generated flashing the remaining cooling water to steam and pressurizing the system far past what it was designed to withstand. The result… was not one, but two explosions. The first was a steam explosion that ruptured the pile’s containment vessel, blocking the rods from being lowered any further. At that point, air rushed in, igniting the pile.

“It was shortly thereafter that the second explosion occurred, perhaps resulting from the cooling water devolving into a highly volatile mix of hydrogen and oxygen from the unimaginable heat. It blew the roof off and vented both Arcanocite dust and highly contaminated pieces of the control rods onto the roof and immediate area. And then...” She bowed her head.

Twilight could only too vividly fill in the blanks from there. “And then, with nothing left to check it, the remaining part of the ‘pile’ began burning at temperatures too high to fathom and shortly melted; the rapidly rising smoke and gasses it produced releasing even more contamination high into the air! It then settled all throughout this area, poisoning everything—and everyone—within!” Tears began to well in her eyes as the terrible truth was finally made clear.

“And as long as the fire raged unchecked, still more contamination was released! And worse, this wasn’t a fire you could put out with water!” She remembered that much from her alchemic lessons, including time she had spent with Zecora.

“Correct again, my student,” Celestia acknowledged. “When the meltdown occurred, the Arcanocite turned molten and flowed, breaking free of its housing and spilling downwards through these pipes that originally served to cool it and collect its heat to turn into electricity—this is but the most prominent deposit of it; there are several others throughout this facility.

“I need not tell you that the hotter it is, the more dangerous it becomes, and when it was first deposited, to be in its presence for mere seconds would have been sufficient to kill even a fully-shielded unicorn,” she noted idly, causing Twilight to instinctively burrow deeper into her mentor’s protective aura.

“Over time it has cooled and lost much of its potency, but even now, were you to stay here for but half a day outside of my shield, exposure could still be fatal. And thus, we will not linger here. For I fear there are limits to what even my protective spell can restrain.”

“But the Arcanocite fire... how did they put it out?” Twilight’s desire to know warred with her urge to flee.

“A good question,” Celestia granted. “They were forced to risk the lives of pilots to airdrop a mixture of sand and boron on the pile in an attempt to gradually smother the fire and slow the reaction. Those flying vehicles you saw were used in the effort, and thus, too contaminated to be used afterwards.

“Whether by those efforts or simply by its own cooling, it was two weeks before the fire was out and further radioactive release finally ceased. But by that point... the damage was done. Surrounding forests turned red and died beneath the plume the plant emitted; animals and humans alike likewise fell ill… or worse.”

“How… how many died?” Twilight sat down heavily, her mind reeling, having to ask even as she was terrified of the answer.

“Not known,” Celestia answered honestly, her voice solemn again. “At least one plant worker was slain in the initial explosion of the pile, which blew apart its containment vessel and then allowed the second explosion to destroy the building and scatter its deadly debris. The Soviet government then covered up the accident and its costs, later admitting only to several dozen deaths, mostly among the plant workers and the firefighters who initially responded to the explosions.

“And there again, is why you saw fire engines in that vehicle graveyard. They were summoned to put out the outside fires the explosion ignited, and fought it without any protection or knowledge of what they were facing, pouring water on the flames even as large pieces of red-hot and highly contaminated graphite from the destroyed control rods lay all around them.

“Within hours to days, many had fallen gravely ill from acute radiation poisoning, as humans call it,” Celestia explained as tears now openly rolled down Twilight’s cheeks.

“The effects of Arcanocite emissions are cumulative with exposure, resulting in progressively worse cellular damage over time. And even if the emission level is not strong enough to kill you directly, a constant low-level dose dramatically raises the odds of various maladies in the future. The true death toll remains in deep dispute, and all but impossible to research given the secrecy of the Soviet Union. But it is possible that thousands of early deaths were the result of the contamination here, due in large part to a delayed evacuation.”

“D-Delayed…?” Twilight choked out, having thought there was no way this story could horrify her any worse.

This time, it was Celestia who hesitated, sensing her student had heard about as much as she could stomach. “Yes. Delayed,” she confirmed, deciding there was no point in sugar-coating it. “The authorities were slow to realize what had happened here, both because their underlings were afraid to report failure, and because they simply did not believe that this type of reactor could suffer such a catastrophe.

“Even the surviving reactor crew was in denial for a time, as their radiation-measuring instruments—called dosimeters—either did not function or gave readings that were so high they simply could not fathom they were accurate.

“As a result… false reports were sent up the chain and an unconscionable amount of time—36 hours—elapsed before the order to evacuate was given,” the Princess explained in some visible disgust, causing Twilight to give a choked sob. “The results… you can well imagine.

“The residents of Pripyat and other nearby towns began taking ill when the nuclear ‘fallout’ bathed them for an extended period, slowly poisoning them. When the magnitude of the disaster was finally understood, it was too late. And the residents—everyone within roughly twenty miles, in fact—were indeed forced to drop everything and flee as you surmised.”

Twilight openly wept as Celestia offered her a comforting wing, at which point her student buried her face in her mentor’s glowing mane. Another half-minute passed before Twilight finally found the ability to speak once more. “No government should ever fail their people so miserably! And no system of governance should ever prioritize their bucking image over the safety and security of their citizens!” Her emotions roiled, she couldn’t bite off the curse, even in the presence of her mentor.

“On that, we agree, my student.” Celestia nuzzled her, unperturbed by the outburst. “But they did. And the radiation was not confined to the evacuation zone. In fact, the accident was only exposed to the outside world when radiation alarms were triggered at nuclear power plants in adjacent nations, where small but measurable amounts of the contamination had been blown by the prevailing winds.”

Twilight’s head came up sharply from where it had been pressed against her mentor’s foreleg. “Wait—then there are more of these abominable power plants?”

“Nearly four hundred worldwide,” Celestia admitted, causing Twilight to cringe. “But though there have been a few accidents over the years, their failsafes have proven almost uniformly sufficient to prevent such catastrophes. This is the only plant to have suffered a disaster of this magnitude, with such a wide release of radiation. There was another meltdown at a coastal plant eight years ago caused by a severe earthquake and tsunami, but the radioactive release there was but a tenth of this.”

“I’ve heard enough.” Twilight’s shoulders slumped in defeat, feeling sick to her stomach as her legs threatened to buckle. “No more, Princess. Please take me away from here,” she begged, suddenly entertaining thoughts of heading back to Equestria as soon as she could, never to return to Earth again regardless of the friends—and more—she had made there, fearing her image of humanity was now forever tainted just as badly as their surroundings.

“Very well,” Celestia draped a wing over her student. “I understand it is a great deal to absorb at once. So let us leave the way we came. And you will be relieved to know that we do not have to completely retrace our steps. Once we are far enough away, I will teleport us out. We will leave the area soon, but before we depart this land, there is one last place I wish us to visit. And this time, it is a place that I feel you will appreciate seeing.”

7: To Save the World

Five minutes later, a still-broken Twilight found herself back out in the open air, miles away from the power plant outside a different building. This time, to her relief, she sensed nothing except the everpresent background energy—radiation, she corrected herself—of the area; the remnants of the disaster that had once poisoned the town beyond the point of habitation.

“What’s this place?” she asked for what felt like the hundredth time that day, looking around in confusion before spotting an odd sculpture.

“We are now standing outside the Chernobyl fire station, my student,” Celestia explained, her mane and tail still visibly glowing, if not as intensely as before. “This complicated statue you see… in fact went up after the disaster.”

“After?” Twilight blinked in surprise, stifling another sniffle. “But I would have thought this area was too contaminated!”

“The worst contamination subsided fairly quickly, once further radioactive release ceased. This was thanks in large part to a literal army of ‘liquidators’, as the Soviets called them; soldiers who cleansed the area and cleaned up the radioactive debris. They worked tirelessly and despite the danger to prevent any further steam explosions, and later entomb both the reactor and the contaminated fragments of the core.

“In the end, they succeeded, preventing a far greater catastrophe. From the firefighters who initially fought the flames to the army soldiers who came later, they saved many lives and prevented the disaster from becoming immeasurably worse.”

“Then this is a memorial?” Twilight realized in disbelief.

“Yes, my student. It is in fact made of the same concrete as the reactor sarcophagus—the cement tomb that originally contained the destroyed reactor before that dome you saw replaced it. Can you translate the inscription?”

Her emotions still raw, Twilight had some trouble doing so, but was finally able to dig up enough focus, remembering the Ibexian tongue. “To those who saved the world.”

“Well done. A bit of an exaggeration perhaps, but nevertheless, a valid sentiment,” Celestia confirmed. “I promised you there was redemption in this story, Twilight. And you see the start of it here.”

Twilight considered that, only to shake her head. “But a monument doesn’t undo what happened, Princess! Or bring back the dead!”

“But it does give their passing meaning, and ensures that neither the disaster nor their sacrifice in the face of it will be forgotten,” Celestia answered patiently. “Thirty-three years ago, the people of this land fought a war, Twilight. A war unlike any they ever faced in their long and oft-unhappy history, but a war they nonetheless had to win. Not just for their own sake, but that of the entire continent.”

“They fought a war? How?” An uncomprehending Twilight could only stare up at the statues. “This wasn’t a physical enemy, Princess! It was an invader as insidious and ever-present as the air itself! It got everywhere, and it couldn’t be stopped! All they could do was flee it!

“And yet they did not,” Celestia noted, her calm tone in marked contrast to Twilight’s quavering one. “That vehicle graveyard outside the city is evidence enough of that. And in doing so, they prevented an even worse disaster from befalling not just this area, but perhaps the greater region.”

“Worse?” What could be worse than…? THIS?

“Worse,” Celestia confirmed with another bow of her head. “The initial explosions were potentially only the opening salvos. With the core exposed and burning, there was a danger of additional, and even more powerful steam explosions should it burn through enough floors to reach the water remaining in the basement coolant tanks, and the distinct possibility the other three reactors could be compromised by it.

“If that happened, the contamination could become exponentially worse and the affected area far wider, rendering a large part of the entire continent both uninhabitable and unfit for agriculture. But it did not.”

“Wh-Why not?” Twilight could scarcely imagine there was some part of this story that was not the worst case.

“In order to prevent it, they had to send three volunteers from the plant day shift to go into the basement beneath the still-burning pile, with the mission to manually open the sluice gates to drain the cooling water tanks in case the core should burn through to them. They knew it to be a suicide mission from the radiation dose they were likely to receive, and yet they went. And remarkably, they not only succeeded, they survived.” Celestia’s smile turned coy for just a moment.

Despite the description, Twilight’s shoulders slumped further. “I grant they were heroes, but that’s still only three.”

“But even then, the danger was not over. There was a chance that the Arcanocite could burn all the way through the base of the building to the groundwater below, both contaminating it and causing another steam explosion at least on the order of the first. To prevent it, they dug tunnels beneath the base to inject liquid nitrogen to freeze the area and cool the pile, and later, they enlisted a cadre of coal miners to dig much larger tunnels to install a machine that would vent excess heat and cool the pile more quickly.

“They, too, did so despite the danger and the knowledge that they were poisoning themselves, perhaps fatally. In the end, the core did not escape the building, and its remains still rest where you saw it to this day.”

“A few dozen brave workers more, then. Perhaps worthy of remembrance, but still nothing compared to all... this!” Twilight insisted.

“No? Six hundred pilots were used to airdrop sand and boron on the fire, flying those vehicles you saw. One later crashed during the entombing effort. Many fell ill, but they knew the danger and still they went.”

Twilight blinked, then shook her head again. “But they were just soldiers, following orders!”

“Do you truly believe it’s that simple, my student?” Celestia gave her a rare reproachful look. “Take it from me that even well-trained soldiers have their limits. They will not obey orders they feel are unjust or sacrifices their lives to no valid purpose. And even when such a purpose exists, ‘following orders’ still takes great courage and resolve in the face of such extreme danger and certainty of death.”

Twilight felt her own resolve start to crack at that. “I see your point, Princess. But…” She suddenly couldn’t think of any more objections.

Celestia did not wait for her to come up with one. “And finally, there was the literal army of soldiers—fully half a million—they mobilized to the task of evacuation and decontamination, removing the residents while clearing and cleansing the area,” Celestia concluded. “Just like the pilots, they did so, even knowing the danger. And to borrow a phrase I heard only recently, ‘if you tell me that is not enough, I won’t believe you.’”

Though she had no idea who her mentor was quoting, Twilight finally fell silent as Celestia went on. “And those are but the most prominent examples. There are in fact many others I could mention. So consider, my student, the many workers; firefighters and pilots alike who braved intense radiation to perform rescues and put out the fire.

“Think of the many medical workers who risked contamination to care for and comfort the afflicted—many of whom they did indeed succeed in saving.

“Think of the human scientists and engineers who worked feverishly to find solutions to a disaster that had never happened before, preventing an even worse one from occurring.

“Think of the workers who volunteered for the suicide mission to drain the broken water tanks beneath the facility to prevent a second steam explosion.

“Think of the miners who dug underneath the building to install machinery that would cool the pile down more quickly despite the heat and radioactive output.

“And finally, think of the countless thousands of soldiers who did their duty to cleanse and contain not just the site but the entire area, even knowing the danger they were in. In the end, they did so not because they were ordered to… but because, for the sake of their friends, their families, and even for neighboring nations, they understood that it had to be done. That is ultimately what this monument memorializes, my student.” Celestia gave Twilight a firm look for only a brief moment before turning towards the memorial, her gaze softening.

Twilight considered that, only to shake her head again, if with somewhat less certainty than before. “All well and good, Princess. But still just meaningless symbolism unless it resulted in serious reforms. Unless steps were taken in the names of the fallen to ensure this horror could never happen again!”

“I couldn’t agree more, my student. And so did it come to pass.” Celestia smiled. “In the years that followed, the design flaws of the remaining reactors of this type were examined and corrected, ensuring this catastrophe could never recur. The disaster also rocked the foundations of the Soviet Union to its core, finally exposing the bankruptcy of its governing philosophy; the false belief of its leaders in its own manifest destiny and infallibility.

“Forced to humble themselves before international opinion and pay a massive cleanup cost—this on top of the economic stagnation and a failing military campaign their own blinders and blunders had brought upon their nation—the Soviet leadership recommitted themselves to the twin programs of Glasnost and Perestroika in an attempt to reform the Soviet Union and make it viable again.”

“Openness and restructuring?” Twilight instantly translated.

Celestia gave Twilight an approving nod. “Very good, my student. But in the end, the rot went too deep. The reform programs failed, and the Soviet Union collapsed, dissolving surprisingly peacefully into its many component countries. That was not always the case with some of its vassal nations that made up the eastern bloc, and there are tensions between many of the former Soviet states to this day. But that is a story for another time.”

Celestia walked forward to face the memorial again. “In short, many lives were lost needlessly, but many more were saved heroically, and those who fell did not die in vain. You are correct that the leadership of this now-former nation failed their people utterly in the leadup and immediate aftermath to this event. But their people did not in their response to it.

“The citizens of this land rose to the occasion magnificently. And they did so not for the sake of their state or its leadership, but for the sake of all—for, as this inscription says, the sake of the entire world,” she recited reverently, then bowed her head once more.

“Such folly. Such hubris. Such appalling arrogance and utter ignorance, to both the danger and the potential for disaster. But such heroism. Such selfless sacrifice. Such devotion to duty and to each other. Such incredible efforts in the face of the unimaginable. And such far-reaching consequences that were, in the end, much for the better,” she stated with certainty.

“Make no mistake, Twilight—I condemn unreservedly the system of government and backwards state of mind that led to this cataclysm, but I admire immensely the response to it over the weeks and months that followed, and see within it a window into the very soul of humanity.”

With that, she raised her gaze to her student’s, causing Twilight to start when she realized that Celestia’s eyes were likewise glimmering, and for the first time, there was a tremor of emotion in her voice.

“And that is the lesson I wish you to draw from this place, my student. Not just of the disaster, but of what came after. That humanity is capable of great wrongs, but even greater rights in the face of overwhelming adversity.” She paused just long enough for Twilight to absorb her statement before continuing. “Their resiliency and ability to turn tragedy into a victory over the most implacable of foes, using it as the motivation and means to better themselves is something we can learn from, and is something we, as ponies, should aspire to.”

With those words, Celestia materialized two objects encased in crystal—a pair of medals, Twilight realized; she didn’t want to think of how much magic was necessary to summon them all the way from Equios. “Princess, those are Equestrian awards!”

“Indeed they are. The Celestial Seal of Sacrifice, and the Defender of Harmony, though by strange coincidence, they are also awards of valor given by the human state of Equios,” she noted with a wry grin as Twilight’s eyes went wide at the last.

“I see you recognize their import, my student. The first, as you know, was traditionally given to soldiers and civilians alike who fell in armed conflict, but as I say, this was a war no less than a real one.

“The second, of course, is Equestria’s highest civilian and military award, given for acts of utmost valor in defense of other lives. I do not give the latter lightly, Twilight. There have in fact been but forty awarded over my long reign. But in my mind, if there is anything that defines the idea of utmost valor, it is the response of those depicted to this disaster.”

She laid the medals, along with a scroll of proclamation written in Ibexian from the Equios crown, on the base of the main statue by the flowers. She then cast a spell on them, hiding them from view. “Until the time is right,” she said with a momentary but coy grin at Twilight’s questioning look. That accomplished, she stepped back and bowed low before the monument, spending a moment in silence before speaking again.

“Humanity has accomplished miracles that rival even the greatest feats of magic we have, achieving a kind of alchemy far beyond anything we have ever envisioned. Even without magic or being able to control the weather, they have tamed the very forces of nature; bending even the most volatile of elements to their purposes, both creative and destructive.

“There are always risks to such endeavors, and sometimes the worst case can happen even if you plan for them properly. But that alone should not dissuade them—or us—from trying to tame them.”

“Even for Arcanocite?” Twilight challenged, feeling her sadness starting to ebb at Celestia’s actions and passionately delivered defense.

“Even for that,” Celestia confirmed without hesitation. “That substance you saw beneath the plant was neither evil nor without redeem, my student. It is merely a tool that can be used for good or ill. It is a particularly potent type of fire, yes, and like any fire, it can warm or burn—or in this case, it can power or poison.

“But the fact it is capable of the latter does not automatically make it evil or unable to be used. There is no such thing as a risk-free power, my student, and the greater a substance or energy’s potential benefits, the greater also is its potential for harm.

“There are no exceptions to this, including our magic. Whether spells, enchantments or curses, there is always a chance that something may backfire or spiral out of control. Indeed, such things have happened in our own past, to even greater cost.” This time, it was Celestia who shivered once.

“So what happened here was not, in fact, unique in my experience, either to humanity or the many races of our world over our long history. But the response to it was. That is what I seek to both honor and emulate. And that, my loyal student,is ultimately what I wished you to see—a place and story that demonstrates both the best and the worst of humanity.”

Twilight considered her words carefully, staring at the statue through glimmering eyes. Looking around, she saw a few spring flowers budding in a patch of dirt. Walking up to their parent plant, she cast a spell that caused its growth to accelerate and the buds to almost instantly bloom, far brighter and larger than they would have otherwise.

She bathed the plant in her magic for nearly thirty seconds, ensuring it would have enough energy to produce additional flowers before she plucked the first growth of them, gathering them into a group before laying them beside her regent’s offerings with a deep and respectful bow. With that, teacher and student stood by the human memorial side by side in silence for a minute before Celestia put her wing over Twilight’s shoulders again.

“Come, my student. Our visit is complete and as it is now nearly noon, I’m sure you are hungry. I have already ensured that lunch will await us upon our return. It might also be best to vacate the area before the first tour groups arrive,” she added in a note of amusement.

“What? Tour groups?” Twilight repeated in shock as she fell in beside her mentor.

Celestia chuckled. “That is in fact the reason I wanted to come in the early morning—to avoid such groups. This place is a microcosm of human life thirty years ago; a preserved relic of a bygone age and nation. The residual radiation level is not generally enough to hurt visitors who are only staying for a few hours or even overnight, so guided visits are possible and even encouraged as a source of income to the region. There is even an open hotel.”

“And just when I think humans can’t surprise me anymore…” was all Twilight could mumble in response.

“Indeed. There was also a dramatic television series on the disaster recently which rekindled interest in this place—including, perhaps, my own. It was rather difficult to watch at times, but also very compelling as it explained decently—if not perfectly—the full story of what happened here. Albeit with a few gratuitous and rather unnecessary embellishments.”

“I think I might like to see it,” Twilight finally announced as she walked beside her mentor, leaving the memorial and their offerings behind. “And research these ‘reactors’ more.”

“That could be arranged, my student. Now let us return home.” She offered her hoof again, waiting until Twilight touched it before teleporting them both out, returning them to the portal nexus in a final flash of light.