This is why you should never let ponies play Terraforming Mars

by Petrichord

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Crossover, Applejack, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Starlight Glimmer, Fluttershy, Mystery
Length: 43021

Rainbow Dash and some of her friends sit down to play Terraforming Mars. Things get a little out of control.

It's a theoretically simple setup: five ponies on a train, deciding that playing a popular board game about the restructuring of a barren planet so that it can comfortably sustain life for the ponies of Equestria. They all compliment each other when it comes to forming the perfect group for a board game: Rainbow Dash brings her undeniable charisma to the table, Starlight Glimmer brings her brains, Rarity brings her panache, Applejack brings her delightfully sardonic wit, and Fluttershy's also just kind of there, I guess.

Theoretically, it shouldn't be a bad way to spend a couple of hours.

Theoretically.

*******************************************

My entry into no writing competition whatsoever. The idea of deliberately sending yourself up to be graded like a bad entry on the fanfic equivalent of Hell's Kitchen doesn't really do anything for me, thank you very much.

Story is a work in progress. Expect to see new chapters Mon-Fri between 2:00 PM-5:00 PM CST, and that's a schedule I'm really going to try to keep to for a change of pace.

All my thanks to Flashgen for his help.

Elements of cover art are by Isaac Fryxelius, and will be taken down upon request.

Published 2019-09-02 21:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-09-13 20:16:29 UTC

Chapter 0: No matter how well things start off...

Applejack and Rarity stared at each other from opposite sides of the train car’s table. It was the sort of cold, mutually evaluating gaze normally exchanged between two ponies playing poker for preposterous sums of cash, or perhaps between mob bosses negotiating an underground alliance over similarly preposterous sums of cash. It spoke volumes in silence, about impossibly high stakes and life-defining moments and the cold reduction of a pony to a fleshy bag of organic pulp and assumptions about courses of action that were calculated down to a hundredth of a percentile.

Which was impressive, since the game hadn’t even technically started.

Starlight Glimmer cleared her throat. “So are we gonna play, or…?”

“Of course we are, dear.” Rarity sniffed, straightened up in her chair and dropped her gaze down to her hoof-ful of cards. “I’m simply...considering what courses of action may be necessary throughout the game if I wish to to be victorious in my endeavors.”

“An’ I’m jes’ tryin’ to figure out what sort of competition’s the most likely to be a burr up my backside if’n I’m tryin’ to win, too.” Applejack looked over at Starlight, blinked and weakly held her cards up in the air. “I mean, besides these, too. Jes’ tryin’ to account for all factors.”

Starlight chuckled nervously. “Look, maybe we should give this a try some other time. I can understand if everypony’s a little stir-crazy — ”

“A little?” Rainbow Dash snorted. “Try mega-ultra-super stir crazy! Like, does anypony have any idea how long we’ve been on this train?”

“Nope.” Applejack looked back at her cards. “But I don’t reckon it’s gonna get any shorter if we spend all our time up here flappin’ our gums about how long we’ve been on the train for. You picked your cards yet?”

“Uh…” Rainbow Dash looked at the small pile of cards in front of her. “...Maybe?”

Starlight sighed. “Do you want me to explain the rules again?”

“Me? Pshh! Nah.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “It’s just a game. How hard can it be?”

“Famous last words.” Applejack grinned. “I think I’m ready, Starlight.”

“Likewise.” Rarity matched Applejack’s smile with a grin that could cut diamonds. “I believe that I’ll be able to make a fair amount of use with what I’ve been dealt. Are you ready, Starlight?”

“I think so. Not the greatest start that I’ve ever been dealt, but I should be able to manage.” Starlight chuckled. “So that’s all four of us, then?”

“Um.”

The quartet of ponies turned their heads in unison. Fluttershy, now the center of attention, went from staring at Starlight to trying to hide her face behind her cards in record time.

“I think I’m, um. I think I’m ready, too.” Fluttershy squeaked.

“Okay, so that’s all five of us, then.” Starlight turned back towards Rainbow Dash. “You said you wanted to go first, right?”

“Right! Uh.” Rainbow Dash grabbed at her pile of cards. “Totally! Just as soon as, uh, I get a quick reminder about something.”

Starlight arched an eyebrow. “About what, exactly?”

“Well, uh…”

Rainbow Dash looked back at her cards.

“...What are we doing again?”

Applejack and Rarity groaned in unison.

Starlight sighed. “So when you said that you didn’t need to have me explain the rules again…”

“I kind of sort of do. A lot.”

“Starting from the beginning?”

Rainbow Dash grinned sheepishly. “Basically.”

“Right.” Starlight Glimmer stretched her forelegs, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes again, they had all the raw charisma and aggressive salesponyship of a carnival barker, and for a brief moment it was easy to see the Starlight Glimmer that had enthralled and enslaved an entire town full of ponies half a decade ago.

“Welcome!” Starlight Glimmer boomed. “To Terraforming Mars! The exciting new board game in which you are one of several Equestrian megacorporations tasked with turning a barren planet into a lush, beautiful new world for ponies around the world to live in.”

“Megawhatsits?” Rainbow Dash interrupted.

“Very big companies, dear” Rarity replied. “Can you imagine if the Carousel Boutique had enough wealth and influence to own all of Cloudsdale? Theoretically speaking, of course.”

“So like a mayor, then?”

Rarity shook her head and grinned. “A megacorporation isn’t like owning one Cloudsdale, Rainbow Dash. Imagine owning your own private Cloudsdale over every city in Equestria, and all of the water in its rainclouds to boot. That’s the sort of power you have at your hooves in this game.”

“Ohhhhh.” Rainbow Dash looked at her cards again. “So can I attack you guys and take over your companies?”

“No.” Rarity raised a hoof to cut Rainbow Dash off as the pegasus opened her mouth again. “No, Rainbow Dash, we are not playing another game in which we wage war on each other.”

“But why not?” Rainbow Dash huffed.

“Cuz’ the last time we tried a game like that, you blew all your armies on tryin’ to attack one of my most heavily garrisoned cities and put yourself outta the game in fifteen minutes.” Applejack tipped her hat back slightly. “Which was funny until you started crying.”

“Hey, I wasn’t crying! I was just being mad at how unfair it was.” Rainbow Dash sputtered. “The dice hated me. There’s nothing wrong with being mad about dice being stupid!”

“I’m pretty sure most folks don’t break down in big, blubbery ol’ tears when they’re mad, sugarcube. Jes’ sayin’.”

“In any case,” Starlight Glimmer pressed on, “in this game, the nations of Equestria have established the United National Mars-Equestrian initiative, in which they give a portion of all their tax funding to organizations in the process of turning a barren, inhospitable planet into a new one where all creatures can live in peace and harmony, as well as partial shares in ownership rights to anything personally manufactured by the company for the general public.”

“Uh. What does that mean?” Rainbow Dash replied.

“It means that instead of fighting each other to take each other’s countries, we’re competing with each other to get all the good space to build our own infrastructure on.”

Rainbow Dash blinked. “So instead of attacking other ponies, you’re fighting to own more of a planet than everypony else without being allowed to directly attack them?”

“Exactly!”

“Can I rub it in everypony else’s faces when I win?”

Starlight grinned. “If you win.”

“Well, duh, I’m Rainbow Dash. Of course I’m going to win. I was just worried that this game was going to be, y’know, boring. I kind of zoned out when you guys started talking about ‘income’ and ‘expenditures’ and ‘investments’ earlier, ‘cause you were making it sound like this was a game about nothing but money.”

The train car went quiet for a few seconds.

“...Dear, do you actually not understand what a corporation does?” Rarity replied, rubbing her head. “Or any company?”

“Well, yeah, there’s that. But you guys didn’t tell me that we were going to be owning a planet!”

“Part of a planet, technically speaking.”

“Still!” Rainbow Dash straightened up, looking noticeably more chipper. “Okay, now I want to play. Like, actually want to play. Instead of just joining ‘cause you guys needed a fourth pony.”

“A fifth pony” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Yeah, sure, whatever. So! How do you play?”

*******************************************

“...And that’s how you play the game.” Starlight Glimmer rubbed her eyes. “Do you think you’re ready to start playing now?”

“Yeah! It should be easy enough to play now.” Rainbow Dash looked at her cards again. “It didn’t seem too hard to figure out, you know.”

Starlight shot a quick glance to her side. Rarity and Applejack appeared to be locked into yet another round of a foreleg-wrestling match. “I’m pretty sure that it took about five times longer to teach you how to play the game than it took everypony else.”

“Meh. I bet you could teach them for five times longer than however long you taught me and they’d still lose. They aren’t Rainbow Dash.” Rainbow Dash reclined in her chair, sporting an entirely undeserved and eminently punchable smug grin on her face.

Starlight Glimmer, clearly resisting the urge to teleport Rainbow Dash off of the train and into the middle of an active volcano, pressed on. “Whatever you say, Rainbow Dash. Applejack? Rarity? Are you ready?”

“Jes’ a minute, sugarcube” Applejack replied, muscles on her foreleg straining as she pushed Rarity’s hoof as hard as she could. “Jes’ gotta...prove who’s...th’ boss at this…”

“Bring it on.” Rarity gritted her teeth, face briefly contorting as she pushed back. “You’re...hff...getting tired already...hff...aren’t you?”

“Right.” Starlight Glimmer’s voice took on the sort of calm, emotionless inflection commonly adopted by serial killers and torture experts. “Now that I’ve lost all idea of how long I’ve spent explaining the rules of the game, I would very much appreciate being able to engage in some minor diversion from the length of our travels to play at least one round of this game, if all of you wouldn’t mind.”

Applejack and Rarity calmly discontinued their activity. Rainbow Dash took a more serious look at her cards. Briefly, the four of them remembered that Fluttershy existed in the first place. And, after some careful consideration and setup of their opening positions, the game began.

Author's Note

Chapter 1

In an endless ocean of void, the planet Venus continued its slow, unceasing voyage around the sun.

For eons, its passage had been unburdened, unadulterated, unmarred by any activity outside of its bright, hostile surface. Beautiful and tempestuous, it orbited in the silence of absolute darkness kept at bay only by the bright, delicate lights of uncountable multitudes of stars.

And such beauty and tempestuousness it had! Of radiant reflection from sunlight and captivating hue from its atmosphere, it might have seemed tailor-made to support beautiful light on its supposedly beautiful surface. And yet, the truth was far uglier; everything from its temperature to its atmosphere to its minerals was hostile beyond compare, ready to torture in its own vindicative fashion any pony foolish enough to come close to its poisonous atmosphere.

Which is where the totally awesome Helios megacorporation, lead by the totally awesome Rainbow Dash, came in.

Using, like, all the money Helios had, Rainbow Dash built a gigantic mirror in orbit around Venus. It pretty much bounced a lot of the light going onto that planet back at Mars, because it was too hot and Mars was too cold and that was how mirrors worked.

Then crowds of thousands proclaimed their love for Rainbow Dash and showered her in diamonds.

So that was pretty cool. Not literally, but the other way around. The not-literally one. It was cool in that way. Yeah.

*******************************************

Rainbow Dash set her cards down, tucked her forehooves behind her head and smirked. “Done.”

Starlight Glimmer, Rarity, Fluttershy and Applejack stared at Rainbow Dash.

“What?” Rainbow Dash said. “I’m out of money.”

“I’m…” Starlight Glimmer rubbed her eyes. “Did you actually spend all your money on building that mirror?”

“Forget the mirror.” Rarity stared at Rainbow Dash, jaw hanging slightly open. “That description started out almost poetically. Where did you…?”

“Uh, you mean talking about what I was doing? I’unno. It just kind of came to me.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Pretty neat, huh?”

“Well, I — I’d say that’s a bit of a misunderstatement, dear.” Rarity shook her head. “I can’t say I was expecting something like that.”

“Me either. But in a different way. Rainbow Dash, are you sure you want to spend all of your money right out of the gate?” Starlight Glimmer said. “It’s a pretty big gamble.”

“Uh, it gives me more money, right? And other stuff which helps me get more money, ‘cause I can get paid for making Venus a nicer place, too.” Rainbow Dash blinked. “Which makes me more awesome and helps me win the game, right? It’s not like I’m not getting anything out of it.”

“But I...well...okay.” Starlight sighed. “Your logic isn’t totally bad, so...my turn, I guess.”

*******************************************

There would always be problems with colonizing Mars; chief among them was difficulty in arranging for a transactionary system, which is to say a lack of ability to set itself up to harvest the most valuable commodity on Mars or any other planet. And that commodity, the one valuable enough to carry a whole financial situation by itself, was the currency of energy.

Energy, enough to power the basic building blocks of life, in all of the shapes and forms it came in! Ubiquitous, yet priceless in worth, for in the day and age of the decline of one planet and the reformation of another, there was nothing more necessary to recreate the foundations of life. But there was none to be channeled on Mars, save for scarce imports of traditional sources.

And yet, some megacorporations could make do with even this. Enter Thorgate - the Yakyakistani-rooted company which channeled its aggressive roots to establish a stranglehold on the energy of Equestria. Not merely shareholders and financial manipulators, no; Thorgate’s scientists and technicians were miracle workers in their own right, channeling cutting-edge magic and technology to seemingly fabricate energy where none was thought to be found, through innovation or sheer efficiency.

And efficient they proved to be. Under the wise leadership of Chairmare Starlight Glimmer, they found ways to make much out of little, and to squeeze every last drop of technology’s nectar out of any source they could find. Even the crude, inefficient methods of the past could be spun around Thorgate’s fingers with the brilliant insight of Chairmare Glimmer’s mind, and those scarce commodities were enough to sustain, at least in part, the foundations of Mars’ first city, tucked safely away in one of the craters of Solis Planum.

And this miraculous first city bore only the most fitting of names: Glimmeropolis.

*******************************************

Rainbow Dash arched an eyebrow at Starlight Glimmer. “And you got on my case about spending a lot of money, huh?”

“I’ve still got plenty of money in my reserves.” Starlight Glimmer huffed.

“But how does that even work? You’ve got to have, like, so many different things to import in order to sustain small colonies of worker ponies, much less an actual civilian base. There’s no way you’re not going to lose bits hoof over fist.”

“One word.” Starlight Glimmer’s grin could have been used to carve diamonds. “Taxes.”

“Really?” Rarity replied, contempt dripping out of every syllable. “And what sort of ponies do you suppose would be willing to pay enough taxes to fund your ludicrous enterprise?”

“Celebrities looking to retire away from the masses, the heads of organizations looking to take up residence in a place that Equestria’s legal bodies couldn’t afford to reach and affluent ‘investors’ hoping to carve their name into the history of the planet and achieve a different sort of immortality. Or something like that. It’s a work in progress, but so is everything else on the planet, right?”

“I’m...not sure that means entirely what you want it to mean, dear.”

“I’m the one with the most experience with this game.” Starlight Glimmer eyeballed Rarity. “But go ahead and try to prove me wrong. Show me if you can be more efficient with your finances.”

“With pleasure,” Rarity replied. “Let’s see…”

*******************************************

The ponies of Equestria had, back in the days of yore, attributed the inexplicable miracles of the universe to gods. Hundreds and hundreds of them, from all sorts of cultures, and the overlap between many of them was great. As the days passed by, the ponies of Equestria discarded their silly superstitions and grew to recognize the powers of magic, the princesses and technology alone; yet, the gods never vanished in their entirety. Faith in the mythological and divine may have been nevermore, but symbolism was eternal, and ponies steadfastly held onto the names of these deities for inspiration and a twisted sense of historical permanence.

Such was the case with Aphrodite. Long ago, even back in the roots of its founders as soil experts and farming shareowners, the ponies of its spirit and its pay understood the value of beauty in all things: how it gave meaning where none seemed to exist, how it touched a universal chord with all living things, and how — arguably — it was a thing of prime importance to cultivate in a universe filled with vast, ugly truths.

And from this vision and the cleverness of their financial affairs came a leader known as Rarity, whose sheer beauty surpassed not just that of all ponykind, but of all living things.

“Ugh,” Rainbow Dash moaned. “Spare me.”

“Don’t interrupt,” Rarity snapped, and continued.

Rarity, the immeasurably beautiful unicorn chairmare, sought only to bring beauty to Mars — for the good of the universe and the good of the planet (and, perhaps, for the good of the company itself.) Yet, there was one slight flaw in the concept of terraforming Mars to a lush planet of unrivalled beauty — namely, that there was rich beauty on the planet itself, unique and — should the terraforming process remain woefully unchecked — tragically ephemeral.

And thus, Rarity proposed a bold, daring resolution to the United National Mars-Equestria initiative, the global financiers of the whole bold terraforming enterprise: why not preserve a small slice of this beauty? Why not set aside some of this land to reflect the Martian landscape as it originally was, in all its resplendent glory? Surely, Equestria would have no need to terraform the beautiful Pavonis Mons volcano, inefficient and expensive as such an endeavor would be. Surely, instead, it could remain an everlasting testament to the beauty of an untouched mars, pure and eternal?

And the United National Mars-Equestria initiative saw wisdom in this. They increased Aphrodite’s funding for as long as Aphrodite promised to maintain the boundaries that kept the Old Martian National Park, as it was named, in a state of perfect preservation and historical significance. And it was so, all of it was so, and Aphrodite was justly rewarded for their wisdom.

*******************************************

“Hardly spent anything on it.” Rarity struck an elegant, refined pose. “I’ve got plenty left in my reserves. And, I dare say, that should help bolster my income significantly.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “That’s mighty generous of you, Rarity. Good t’know how much effort you put into doin’ absolutely nothin’ and getting paid for it like actual hard working ponies.”

“Do I detect jealousy in your voice?” Rarity smirked at Applejack. “Is somepony jealous that they, the farm pony who works with the land, hadn’t thought to recognize the value of the landscape before a simple seamstress?”

“I ain’t jealous that you didn’t put in enough effort to break a sweat. Once I get done with my genuine, bona-fide labor, you’re gonna wish that you had half the gumption an’ half the profits that I do. Mark my words.”

“Shall ‘prove me wrong’ be the catchphrase of this train ride, then?” Rarity’s smirk broadened. “Or is your grandstanding unfounded? Do you actually have a plan to surpass my glorious intellect?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Applejack readjusted her hat. “Now, let’s see — ”

“Um.”

Four sets of eyes turned towards Fluttershy, who was continuing to hide her face behind her cards.

“I think, um. I-I think it’s my turn. If that’s okay.” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Oh, right, yeah.” Applejack sighed. “Yeah, get on with it.”

Fluttershy nodded.

*******************************************

Once upon a time, there were all of these big, important corporations. They did a lot of big, important things, and they all tried to make Mars a beautiful, happy planet that was easy to live on! And that was very kind of them.

But next to all those corporations, there was one last, teensy little one called Ecoline. Ecoline liked working with plants, because they saw how pretty plants could be. So they wanted to bring plants to Mars, too, and make it all lush and green! I-in the spots where it was okay for Mars to be lush and green, anyway.

But to make it green, Ecoline wanted to set it up to make it rain, eventually. And for that, they needed water. So, um, while it was pretty expensive to do, they decided to import some water from Europa! It should give them all they needed to help make Mars beautiful and full of water. They had to set up a colony there, and they had to get ready to send shipments in and out of there, too! But they knew that, in the end, it would all be worth it.

And for the first time ever, there was beautiful water and ice in Shalbatanis Vallis! A-and everyone was very, very proud of Ecoline for doing that.

*******************************************

“How was that?” Fluttershy asked. “Did I say everything okay?"

“How much water are you plannin’ to bring over?” Applejack replied.

“Oh, goodness, I don’t know how much more. I think I might need to bring over some more ice for — ”

“Good. My turn.”

*******************************************

Now, of course, the United National Mars-Equestria initiative weren’t just gonna let all them corporations do as they pleased. It wouldn’t be right for ‘em it they didn’t get a piece of that sweet, sweet Martian pie, after all, an’ it only made sense for them to do what they wanted.

An’ they had some good ideas. All that water that was goin’ about the planet, straight from Europa? Perfect breedin’ ground for some algae suited for arctic climates. It wouldn’t have been much green, but even a little bit of green was better than no green at all. So they did the thing where they set up their own independent group related to ‘em — the Martian-Equestrian Multinational Establishment, a megacorp only in name — and that independent group developed an’ sent out the arctic algae for Mars, which would thrive in that good ol’ Europan water an’ ice, an’ so everythin’ was right as rain. The end.

*******************************************

Rarity snorted. “That was your idea of a narrative? Really?”

“ ‘Course it was” Applejack replied. “Short, sweet, to the point. Ain’t no sense in usin’ a lot of fancy language like you did.”

“The point is in having an enriching experience.” Rarity sniffed. “I daresay that your offering to this particular platter was rather poor.”

“Oh, sure, I bet you’re livin’ like a queen over there, bein’ so rich an’ all!” Applejack snorted. “Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash over here’s got more accolades than you do.”

“A-and me,” Fluttershy added.

“Yeah, an’ that. So you think you wanna actually spend some of your hoity-toity fundin’ and get on their level?”

“...You know what?” Rarity glared at Applejack. “Why not?”

*******************************************

Not that Aphrodite was one to take up arms against such ugly accusations that certain institutions had levied at them, baseless and crass as they were. It was simply a matter of whether or not Aphrodite had more to contribute to Mars. And Aphrodite had the funds to do something grand, so Aphrodite did.

A large comet was set to sail past Mars — a comet full of ice and other nutrients that would enhance the terraforming process considerably. Though expensive, it was a clever plan, executed brilliantly, and so the common pony’s fondness for Aphrodite increased exponentially.

*******************************************

“How’s that for getting on their level?” Rarity added, sporting an expression that was almost as smug as Rainbow Dash at her finest.

“How’s this?” Applejack replied.

*******************************************

Aphrodite forgot that all that ice from the comet would just get the Martian-Equestrian Multinational Whatsits that Applejack was leadin’ to do better, ‘cause now their arctic algae had even more room t’grow in. Also, Applejack’s group did good enough that they built a titanium mine on Mars, too, ‘cause everypony needed titanium, so now Applejack’s group was good for everypony in a sensible manner.

*******************************************

“Um, perhaps this was a bad idea” Starlight Glimmer cut in. “Maybe I should put this away if everypony’s going to start getting mad at each other.”

“I’m not being mad!” Rarity replied. “I’m being competitive. There’s a difference.”

Starlight cocked her head to the side.“What’s the difference?”

“Being competitive is fun, of course!” Rarity stared at Starlight as if she had just publicly admitted to not knowing the sum of two plus two. “Haven’t you ever felt that way, dear?”

“Besides,” Applejack added. “There ain’t much we’ve got to do around here, anyway. I can’t even look out th’ window.”

“You can’t?” Rainbow Dash said. “Why not?”

Applejack pointed at the window. “Take a look for yourself. It’s all black out there.”

Rainbow Dash took a look.

Applejack wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t just dark outside — it was pitch black. It was the blackness of being somewhere entirely without light, like they were hurtling through an endless void.

“Huh. Where are we, exactly?” Rainbow Dash mused. “We’re going through some kind of tunnel, right?”

“I think so?” Applejack replied. “But I ain’t sure what tunnel we’re goin’ through.”

“Come to think of it, does anypony know where we’re going to?” Rarity added.

Silence settled in the air. Five sets of mouths, unwilling to acknowledge a lack of familiarity with the answer, let the question hang in the air.

“Eh.” Rainbow Dash finally replied. “It’s not like we’re not gonna get a reminder eventually. Besides, if we’ve been in a tunnel for this long, it’s probably not gonna be for much longer until we get out. We’re just underground or going through a mountain range or something, right?”

“...Yeah. That’s got to be the case.” Applejack rubbed one of her eyes. “I probably ain’t thinkin’ clearly ‘cause I haven’t got a chance t’sleep yet. I’ll see if I can catch a nap after this game, while we’re busy doin’ this whole cross-continental thing.”

“Cross-continental. Right. Probably just a friendship map deal that’s got us all slightly stressed out,” Starlight Glimmer concluded. “Is everypony up for playing another round?”

Five heads nodded, the starting player token was passed clockwise, and the game continued.

Author's Note

Chapter 2

Saying “Mars thrived” is a bit of a whitewashed sentiment. Not entirely, but not a negligible amount, either.

Thirty years had passed. Thirty years of assembly, construction, groundwork, skywork, raw establishment. Megacorporations spent money and earned funding in unequal measure: each with their own plans and goals and dreams for a better future.

And the ponies of Glimmeropolis — the celebrities and the mob bosses, the egotists and the theorists, and all the other ponies that worked under them and for them — had managed to avoid extinction. Their lives weren’t any more pleasant than they had been in Equestria; arguably, between the punitive taxes, limited luxuries and occasional megacorporate intervention, they had become substantially less enjoyable. And yet they were free, in a fashion, and living in the land of the future. For some of them, that was enough.

And their funding had not gone to waste, not in the least. Or, at least, it had not gone to waste for Thorgate, who ruled over Glimmeropolis with a fair, if forceful, hoof. After all, there was land to be claimed, land that would be precious and fertile in the years to come. Land that it was for the best to stake an early claim on, while the prospects of a better life on Mars got better and better over time. Wise future investments were wise future investments, regardless of the commodity invested in, and the Venerable Chairmare Starlight Glimmer was nothing if not wise.

Argyre Planitia was full of valuable minerals which could be discreetly extracted. By downplaying the value of those and playing up how potentially fertile the land might become — and that potential was vast, to be sure — wealth could be obtained in goods now and in resold shares later; wealth forever for Thorgate, for the promise of a better tomorrow.

The next thirty years would be easier. Starlight Glimmer would have to be less than wise in order to sour her prospects now, and Starlight Glimmer was wise enough to see nothing but growth in her future.

*******************************************

“So instead of makin’ things better for everypony else, you decided to make things better for your pocketbook.” Applejack snorted. “Real altruistic of you, Starlight.”

“What’s good for me is good for everypony else. It just takes more time for that goodness to trickle down. You’ll see.” Starlight’s eyes flicked briefly to the cards in her hoof, then flicked back towards Applejack. “Besides, I don’t see you making overtures towards that part of Mars.”

“That’s ‘cause I weren’t planning on makin’ overtures there. Not just yet, anyway.” Applejack gazed cooly down at the table. “Got my own good works to take care of first.”

“Oh, please.” Rarity groaned. “You’ve done nothing but piggyback off of the work of others with your custom-tailored algae. Unless you’re planning on sharing the formula with us?”

“Depends on how much you’re offerin’.” Applejack snorted. “Quick hint, though: it ain’t gonna be enough.”

“Suit yourself.” Rarity sniffed. “I suppose I’ll have to show you how a true altruist operates, then, won’t I?”

*******************************************

What was best for Mars?

Now that was a question with answers multitudinous!

Was it the ponies who lived on Mars? They were the end goal, after all: the establishment of a new world, a new paradise, a new realm of existence. They would develop the culture that would shape the land, craft the laws that would guide the ponies, create and procreate and invent and reinvent and catalyze the changes that would bring beauty to the universe.

Or was it that which nourished them, in all its humble forms? The arctic algae that grew from frost and strange waters was nourishing, if not delicious. It grew. It could create symbiotic attachments, and grow more and help other things grow more. And if it gave birth to variety, it could be the genesis of a whole spectrum of greenery, the greenery of the future and the paragons of the present, epitomizing the beauty of nature.

But at this moment, for Aphrodite, the answer was an even purer form of nourishment: it was water. Liquid life, for consumption and habitation and transportation and more. It shaped the boundaries of the land, from grand oceans to winding rivers to small ponds, and was as vital to a healthy, beautiful planet as it was overlooked.

But overlooked it would be no longer. Ugly as the exploitation of aquifers was, ugly as the tapping of reservoirs of latent power might have seemed in the short term, the long-term gains it would yield would be nothing short of perfect. Nothing short of vital. Nothing short of necessary. Nothing short of intrinsic to the composition of a new paradise.

And the promise that poured through the Ius Chasma, the promise of water, was fundamentally beautiful. Nothing less.

*******************************************

Five seconds of silence.

Eight seconds.

Ten.

Twelve.

“...Well?” Rarity said. “Isn’t anypony going to offer some sort of negative comment on the matter?”

“Like what?” Applejack replied.

“Like criticism, or condescension, or baseless accusation. Isn’t that what you want to do?”

“You did what I wanted you to do.” Applejack shrugged. “I got more plant life out of this. Mars got healthier. You did somethin’ useful. Why would I complain about any of that?”

“I liked it, too.” Fluttershy gave Rarity a small smile.

“Yeah, an’ that too. I don’t think anypony minded, Rars.”

“Oh! Well, ah...well, thank you, I suppose.” Rarity fell silent. “You’re too kind.”

“Anytime.” Applejack smiled. “My turn, then —”

“Um.”

“Oh, right.” Applejack gestured at Fluttershy. “Your turn, I guess.”

*******************************************

Living things could not be constrained to tight spaces, not for long. Living things needed to be set free.

The ponies of Glimmeropolis, for now, might stay in their thick, protective canopied city. But Fluttershy was sure that they longed to walk outside freely on days, even though death was certain to any unprotected pony who stepped outside the city’s bubble.

Nature did not have the choice to stay in one place. Nature wanted to disperse where it wished, and in the end nature would find a way to do such things.

Ecoline knew about this. Ecoline understood. And Ecoline could easily explain, with their knowledge of all things in nature, what nature would do and what nature could do and how best to help nature do these things.

And so Ecoline began to give the algae places to climb, and water places to float. It gave the means for nature to do as it always should have done, and so readily could have done on Equestria, and would so readily be able to do now.

And after thirty years of diligent work, of vast expenditures and the careful thoughts of brilliant minds, the nature of Equestria was starting to find a new home.

Algae had begun to seep its way onto the Hebes Chasma, and clouds had started to fill the sky.

*******************************************

“Did everypony like that?” Fluttershy’s smile grew a little wider. “I thought that would help the planet a lot — ”

“Aww, come on! Clouds? Really?” Rainbow Dash moaned. “You’re gonna make Mars even colder than it already was! That is so, like, not cool. But not cool in the not-literally way. Literally, that’s, like, way cold of you.”

Fluttershy’s smile vanished. “I-I’m sorry — ”

“Relax! I’m not mad.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “It’s just a game. Besides, I’m not gonna let a little setback like that keep me from winning.”

“You still think you’re gonna win, sugarcube?” Applejack smirked.

“Think? Nah. Know? Yeah.” Rainbow Dash smirked back. “I’ve got this totally in the bag. One hundred percent. You’ll see.”

“How ‘bout you wait an’ see how I do things, first?” Applejack fired back. “Then we’ll see who’s seein’ things right.”

*******************************************

The...Martian-Equestrian Multinational Establishment, or somethin’...did two things good: frozen plants an’ titanium.

Thing about frozen plants is, you got to hybridize the crops sometimes. Mix things up a bit. Otherwise, you get too much of one thing, an’ then one bad bout of blight’ll kill everythin’ you ever worked for. Same went for every kind of plant, not jus’ the cold ones.

But Applejack’s crew done did good on that front. They lab-made their own batch of fungus that’d keep basically forever in extremely cold conditions — an’ Mars was an’ is downright frosty— an’ basically got it to work in tandem with all that algae that was growin’ around all over the place. Ecoline, or whatever the name of the group that Fluttershy lead was, was doin’ all kinds of good by Applejack’s book (an’, for that matter, so was Aphrodite, though there weren’t no sense in givin’ them hoity toity fancy folks even bigger heads than they already had.) Mars was gettin’ a little greener every year, which suited Applejack just fine.

Now, on the titanium front, they didn’t manage to go all that much further with their mines they had. An’ that weren’t great, but it weren’t a kiss of death, either. All Applejack an’ her crew had to do was go elsewhere an’ get the titanium they needed. So, after doin’ a lil’ bit of lookin’ outward at the stars, she found this big ol’ planet called Triton, an’ it had all kinds of useful minerals in it. So now, Applejack basically had a big ol’ setup to be an ol’ fashioned mineral princess. An’ that was pretty neat.

*******************************************

“That was...better.” Rarity said.

“Ain’t much of a compliment,” Applejack replied.

“No, it isn’t. And neither is ‘it could have been worse.’ Both of those apply, but if you’re looking for some sort of validation of quality…”

“Nah. I guess progress is progress, in th’ field of bein’ all fancy-like.” Applejack smiled. “I’ll take what I can get.”

“...Huh,” Rainbow Dash muttered. “Weird.”

“What, you think it’s weird that I don’t mind doin’ things that Rarity likes?” Applejack said, turning towards Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t looking at her. Rainbow Dash was looking at her own stomach.

“...Uh. Do any of you guys remember the last time we ate something?” Rainbow Dash said.

That same, eerie silence that had afflicted the group the previous turn settled once more.

“What, ah...what brought that up, dear?” Rarity replied.

“I’unno. I was just thinking that mushrooms were kind of gross, and then I thought a little bit about what I’d want to eat more than mushrooms. Which is, like, a lot of things, really. But then I sort of realized that I hadn’t had, like, anything for I dunno how long, but you figure that I’d be starved by now or something.”

“Come to think of it…” Starlight rubbed her chin. “If we’re on a train for a long enough time, aren’t they supposed to send out a food cart at some point in time? Or remind us that there’s a dining car?”

“If there even is a dining car,” Applejack added. “Or anypony else here. Come to think of it…”

Applejack turned back towards the window.

Still black.

“...Guess it’s not been that long since we all took our turns, though.” Applejack muttered.

“True.” Rarity replied. “...Speaking of. Isn’t it your turn now, Rainbow Dash?”

“Oh! Right!” Rainbow Dash looked down at her cards. “Uh, let’s see…

*******************************************

Life was never meant to be contained.

Plant life would spread where it pleased, given the tools to make it so. Water would spread where it pleased, given the conditions to make it so.

And heat? Heat spread as it wished, and found ways as it wished. And it always wished.

Helion did not abate in their pursuit of heat, though. Heat may have spread where it wished, but there were still ways to guide its healing hoof towards areas of need. Intensely rich concentrations of carbon dioxide, disliked as they were on Equestria, were godsends on the frigid surface of Mars. The mirror that Helion had built decades ago orbited still, endlessly gathering light from the boiling Venus and tactfully redirecting it to Mars, the planet solely in need of such a thing.

Was the planet warming? To an outside observer, not by much. But even if its efforts seemed for naught, the alleviation of the burdens of excess heat from Equestria and Venus more than made up for it, and more than justified the increase in funding awarded to Helion.

And the outside observers were, of course, wrong. Objectively, measurably, wrong.

Bit by bit, the temperatures on Mars began to trickle up…

*******************************************

“My word!” Rarity beamed. “I had no idea you had the soul of a poet, Rainbow Dash!”

“Do I?” Rainbow Dash blinked. “I, uh...thanks, I guess. I mean, I’m really just saying it as it comes, y’know? I didn’t have any of this planned out.”

“That’s what makes it a poet’s soul! Unpracticed in its refinement. Fundamentally complex. Astonishingly, spontaneously intricate. I wish I had seen this side of you before, dear.” Rarity tucked a couple of strands of mane behind one ear. “There’s so much we could have discussed together.”

“Really?”

“Why, but of course! I wouldn’t mind discussing it — ”

“Ahem.”

Rarity and Rainbow Dash turned their heads. Starlight stared at them, brow slightly furrowed.

“...perhaps after we finish this game, of course.” Rarity chuckled. “I do hope we’ll have time, don’t you think?”

“The way things are going?” Rainbow Dash grinned. “Yeah. We probably will.”

Silently, Rarity and Rainbow Dash turned back towards the board and their cards.

The starting player token was passed clockwise, and the game continued.

Author's Note

Chapter 3

Life continued to spread. Algae and Fungus continued to paint the rusty soil in shades of green. Water, fresh from the Unaging Chairmare Rarity’s everflowing aquifers, continue to enrich the soil and continued to promise a future full of rivers and lakes and oceans and honest-to-goodness rain.

Yet, Aphrodite — and by extension, Rarity — struggled to bring the world the beauty it deserved. Not out of lack of desire, no; there was desire abundant in every worker in the company, from the lowest temp to the highest financial officer. Not out of lack of creativity, no; Mars was the new muse, a constant muse, and it sang to them in the language of memories past and visions of the future. From their memories and what little nostalgia remained, the legacy of Equestria would endure forevermore.

But all of this was brought low by one vexing irritation, and that irritation was money.

Was Aphrodite getting the funding it deserved? Of course it was. It had accomplished much, to enrich the planet and bring beauty in ways both obvious and subtle. It was rewarded with what it deserved, which was to say more than that of any of its competitors.

Was the funding it deserved enough funding?

No. No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t nearly enough.

There were projects to be planned, of course - projects in abundance. Aphrodite had a surfeit of options, all of them glorious, all of them truly beneficial to the ultimate fate of Mars. And almost all of them were far, far too expensive for Aphrodite’s needs.

They needed to secure more funding, any way it could. And the only affordable answer, the only one they could grasp, lay not within Mars at all.

It was Venus that called to Aphrodite, now. Venus, as a potential second home to be planned for some inordinately distant part of the future. Perhaps ambitions were that great, to create two new Equestrias instead of one. Perhaps desperation sang louder than practicality. Perhaps curiosity had simply turned into morbid obsession. Regardless, there was one answer available to Aphrodite, and they took to it with none of the passion Aphrodite was known for and all of the diligence it required.

The unwanted gases, after all, would not disperse themselves. Perhaps they could learn something from all this, in some far stranger future. There was always hope.

And, though the Unaging Chairmare Rarity was wise in many things, she failed to see any mirth in the similarity between the name of her beautiful corporation and the name of its ugly task.

*******************************************

Applejack leaned back in her seat. “Can’t say I was expecting that.”

Rarity tilted her head. “What, that I’d run out of money? I’ve been spending rather extravagantly over the past couple of turns, dear. Besides, I’m going to need quite the surfeit of capital if I’m to see some of my other projects funded.”

“Ain’t talkin’ about that.” Applejack readjusted her hat. “I’m talkin’ about how you went an’ almost criticized yourself back there. I didn’t figure that was possible.”

Rarity arched an eyebrow. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that you’ve been talkin’ a lil’ bit full of yourself, that’s all. What with beautiful this an’ perfect that an’ all your whatever.”

“Girls, perhaps we should just calm down?” Starlight interjected, scooting over to the side of her booth and standing up in the aisle. “Maybe we can take a breather from this for a bit. Stretch our legs, apologize to each other — ”

“I am not apologizing to that...to that cad!” Rarity shrieked. “Not for anything! But I do expect your apology in full, Applejack!”

“What, for speakin’ the truth?” Applejack snorted. “That was supposed to be a compliment. You ain’t got to twist it back at me, ‘less you’re itchin’ for a fight.”

“Um.” Fluttershy mumbled. “M-maybe I should, um, take my turn?”

Starlight shrugged as Applejack and Rarity continued to bicker. “Sure, whatever.”

*******************************************

Ecoline, too, had run into its share of troubles with money. They were never as prosperous as Aphrodite, even on their best of days, and Ecoline felt a most uncomfortable contraction even as Martian greenery expanded: the contraction of their budget.

Still, there was always funding to be found in raising plants, even those that barely qualified as sustenance even after heavy treatment. Ecoline had made its pitch to the United National Mars-Equestrian initiative that, with an increase in funding, they would be able to make use of the uniquely fertile conditions inside the depths of the Noctis Labyrinthus to grow their algaes and funguses at an even faster rate. It would have to do, for now, until Ecoline had more money and better plans.

*******************************************

Fluttershy concluded her narrative, saw that Applejack and Rarity were still arguing with each other, and cringed. “Um. A-Applejack? It’s, um, it’s your turn.”

“Whatever.” Applejack snapped, then turned back and launched into a heated monologue about the futility of self-aggrandizement.

“Eep.” Fluttershy mumbled, and hid her face behind her cards again.

“Rarity?” Starlight Glimmer raised her hoof. “Rarity, could we perhaps break up the discussion for a bit, please?”

“Never,” Rarity snarled, and launched right back into a tirade about Applejack’s crassness and thoughtlessness and farm-grown priggishness.

Starlight Glimmer winced. “Uh, Rainbow Dash? A little backup, maybe?”

“What, at friendship problems? I’m not the expert at that. Maybe we should…”

Rainbow Dash trailed off, staring at Starlight in silence.

“...Uh.” Rainbow Dash said. “Where’s Twilight?”

“I...dunno?” Starlight Glimmer replied. “Maybe she’s just off in some other compartment, doing princess things.”

“Okay, but that’s still...wait a minute, there should be six of us, right? Not counting you, no offense. And even discounting Twilight…”

Rainbow Dash lapsed into silence.

“Um...girls?” Fluttershy mumbled.

“...An’ if you think that I’m a pot callin’ a kettle black, Rarity, clearly you ain’t looked at some of the kettles you’ve got lyin’ about!” Applejack snapped. “I wouldn’t touch those things with a fifty meter pole!”

“Oh, as if you’ve kept your proverbial pots managed well enough!” Rarity shot back. “You and your bumpkin-ness may be content to simply ignore all the filth you’ve got building in your basin, but the rest of Equestria certainly can’t ignore the rot inside of it!”

“Girls?” Starlight asked, a bit louder.

“You say that like you know what rot actually is!” Applejack pushed onward. “You ain’t got a clue what’s bad an’ what ain’t, ‘cause you’re so firmly in denial about how you don’t stink!”

“I beg your pardon?” Rarity shrieked. “That’s quite the talk, coming from a pony who I’m pretty sure only gets clean when she’s out in the middle of a rainstorm! Do they even have soap in your backwater part of the — ”

“Where’s Pinkie Pie?” Rainbow Dash shouted.

The train car lapsed into stunned silence.

“Look. I dunno if you two have noticed, but we’re down a couple of ponies.” Rainbow Dash waved her hoof at the mostly empty train car. “And Twilight I can understand. Like, she does princess stuff all the time, and we’re not exactly princesses. But there’s no way that Pinkie wouldn’t be hanging out with the rest of us without giving us a good reason, and I can’t remember her saying anything about it. Can you?”

Silence.

“This is...this is getting really weird.” Rainbow Dash mumbled. “Like, really weird.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” Starlight Glimmer shook her head and trotted towards the door. “I’m gonna go find her. Back in a bit.”

A sudden, cold weight settled at the bottom of Rainbow Dash’s stomach. “Starlight, I don’t think that’s a good — ”

Starlight opened the door.

The train car next to them looked exactly the same as the one Rainbow Dash and her friends were sitting in, except that it was empty.

Five voices sighed in unison.

“Okay, that’s less strange.” Starlight Glimmer said. “I’ll be back in a bit, girls.”

With a bit of a spring in her step, Starlight Glimmer trotted over to the next train car, letting the door swing shut behind her.

“...Well, ah.” Applejack scratched the back of her head. “...do y’all figure we should take a break an’ wait for them, or…?”

“I don’t think it’ll hurt anything if we kept playing.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “At least until Starlight’s turn. And I kind of want to get my mind off of all this weirdness.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Applejack sighed. “Alright, let’s see here…”

*******************************************

Now, funding-wise, the Martian-Equestrian Multinational Establishment weren’t doin’ too great on their fundin’. All the other megacorporations were gettin’ plenty of kickbacks from the United National Mars-Equestria initiative for all the good work they’d been doing in makin’ Mars a nicer place. An’, technically, the Martian-Equestrian Multinational Establishment had been doin’ that sort of thing, too. But they weren’t gettin’ any recognition for it, which was a darned shame.

Still, they may not have been gettin’ as much funding, but they still had plenty of savings they could work with. And, fortunately, there was still plenty of nice minerals on Triton to extract. Gettin’ them off of the planet was an obvious move, but fortunately the...Applejack group...could do one better than’ that.

They were smarter than a bunch of other folks thought. Smart enough to hire smart folks to do smart thinkin’, anyway. And one of the smartest ideas they done did have was investing in cryostasis. Whoo-whee, it was a heck of a word to say! But the short of it was, it’d help ponies go and dig up a bunch of stuff on far-off planets, ‘cause they could just hibernate while they were on their ships an’ stuff. Made supplyin’ ‘em for the task that much easier, which meant that many more trips with that much more cargo on it and plenty more nice materials for Applejack’s company, who were startin’ to get mighty tired of usin’ that big ol’ fancy official name that they had.

They had a few other plans down the line, of course, but that could wait for a bit.

*******************************************

“A few other plans?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Can’t do all th’ things I want to do on my turn right now. Got to let you other folks take your turns first, y’know?” Applejack replied.

“Uh, sure. So do you want me to take my turn, then?”

“Sure thing, sugarcube.”

*******************************************

With every generation, Mars looked more and more tempting to the ponies of Equestria. Not that Mars was habitable, not by a long shot. But...it was getting better and better every year.

There were more immigrants. Desperate ponies. Poor ponies. Ponies more than willing to be laborers for the affluent ponies of Glimmeropolis, full as that city was, unable to accept more ponies as it was.

There would have to be a way, expensive as it was, to do the right thing. The tired, poor, huddled mass of ponies yearning to breathe free would need accomodations elsewhere. And, were they to prove useful, they’d need to make their way over to Glimmeropolis somehow.

And Rainbow Dash, she wanted to do the right thing. Not the affluent thing, not the fiscally clever thing, but the moral thing nonetheless. And so Helion set up a courier network, to give the huddled masses a way to go from one place to another in as much safety as could be afforded on a planet still too toxic to host ponykind. And, with the hope of the water and ice and algae and lichens surrounding Tithonium Chasma, a dome was built for these immigrants. Not an affluent dome, not a clever dome, but a moral dome. It would have to do.

*******************************************

“Not a great play, I guess.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “But if Mars ever gets more ponies on it, hopefully the cheap labor for the rest of you ponies will pay off.”

“If we build more cities,” Rarity added. “That’s a bit of a gamble, don’t you think?”

“Starlight seemed kinda enthusiastic about it. And she’s played before, so she probably knows what’s a good idea and what isn’t. If she does more of this, then...I guess it was a clever thing? I dunno. It’s a risk, but…”

“I guess it ain’t a terrible risk, no.” Applejack shrugged. “None of us really know what’s for the best and what ain’t, so none of us got any rights to say what’s good and what ain’t.”

“It’s a moot point until Starlight returns, anyway — ”

The rear door of the train car banged open.

“Pinkie! I’ve found you!” Starlight stumbled into the car, breathing a sigh of relief. “I was worried that — ”

Starlight froze.

“Wait.” Starlight pointed a hoof at the group, wide-eyed. “None of you are Pinkie.”

“Didn’t…” Applejack gulped. “Didn’t you just leave through the door on the other side, sugarcube?”

“I...I did, I must have, but…”

Without another word, Starlight spun around and barged through the back door. Save for the squeaking of door hinges as the door settled back in place, the train car fell back into silence.

The front of the train car banged open. Starlight stood in the doorway, panting, mane askew.

“No. No, no, no, no, no.” Starlight mumbled. “This isn’t right. This isn’t right at all.”

“You think?” Rainbow Dash replied, sitting up. “Okay, look. Did you see anything magical happening? Like, did anything flash? Did you get a tingly feeling in your feathers or anything like that?”

“No!” Starlight replied. “I just ran, and it wasn’t far at all, and...and now I’m here.”

“Okay, everypony. Don’t panic. This ain’t a good time for panicking.” Appledash turned around in her seat to look at Starlight, either deliberately or accidentally not acknowledging that Fluttershy had started to hyperventilate. “Starlight, runnin’ ain’t the only way you can get around. Twilight can do magical teleportin’ things, right? Do you figure that you can do the same?”

“Oh, right! Right! Yeah!” Starlight chirped. “Just give me a second, I’ll try to teleport to where she is.”

Starlight’s head drooped a little as she closed her eyes. Her horn glowed a brilliant turquoise as her lips curled in a triumphant smile.

Then Starlight shrieked, face contorting in an agonized rictus as blood spurted out of her nose.

“Starlight!” Rainbow Dash gasped, pushing herself out of her seat, spreading her wings and barreling over to Starlight in record time. Gasping, the unicorn shook her head as blood dribbled from her nostrils and the glow around her horn dissipated as quickly as it came.

“R-right.” Starlight gasped. “Don’t...don’t touch me. It’s...I-I think I can be okay.”

“Okay? You, like, sneezed blood all over the wall!” Rainbow Dash landed, but didn’t step back. “How is that okay?”

“No, like...okay, I’m not gonna lie. That hurt. It hurt a lot.” Starlight wiped her nose with the back of her forehoof, wincing as she looked at the large smear of red painted all over her fur. “But just for a bit. It’s...I think if I tried it again, that’d be worse. But I’m pretty sure I’m...did the bleeding go away?”

“You’re still dribbling blood, if that’s what you — ”

“That could just be from the first bit. Like, try to ignore the residual stuff. Uh…” Starlight Glimmer looked around, then up, squinting as if noticing the fluorescent lights at the top of the train car for the first time.

“...Dash?” Starlight started again. “Could you...could you lift me up near the lights and try to take a look in there? I know I’m not supposed to tip my head...in some direction or another, I don’t remember which one it is. But I don’t want to magic up a little flashlight under there and try to look for myself.”

Rainbow Dash nodded, trotted closer to Starlight — taking care not to step in any of the blood on the floor — and grabbed Starlight under her forehooves. Spreading her wings again, Rainbow Dash flapped upward, hoisted Starlight’s head near the lights and tried to take a good look.

“...No.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “I don’t think I see anything, like, opened up or anything.”

“Right.” Starlight took a deep breath and tilted her head forward again. “So. No getting out of here, and no magic. I’m pretty sure those are a couple of rules of this place. And when I say ‘no magic,’ I mean that it felt like somepony was shooting a rivet into my brain when I was preparing that spell, so please don’t ask me to try again.”

“After that nosebleed? I’d certainly rather not, dear.” Rarity sighed. “So, trapped it is, then.”

“Just the four of us.” Applejack added.

“Five.” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Yeah, that. So, uh...What...what do we do now?”

Rainbow Dash flapped down, gently set Starlight back down on the floor and took a deep breath.

“...I think we should keep playing the game.”

Starlight shook her head. “What? No! That’s, like, the last thing I want to — ”

“Listen.” Rainbow Dash raised a hoof. “We can’t go anywhere. We can’t do much of anything. But, like, we didn’t notice these things until we started playing, right? We — I mean, I didn’t notice anything in particular or tried to think of anything in particular until we started playing. And if we keep playing, maybe we’ll think about more stuff that’s weird. Maybe we’ll even remember what happened, you know? And maybe we’ll be able to deal with what’s happened and what’s happening if we do.”

Silence.

“Well, uh…” Starlight faltered. “I...I don’t have a better idea, I guess.”

“...Neither do I,” Rarity admitted.

“Same here,” Applejack agreed.

Fluttershy’s breathing gradually began to slow down, and — after a few seconds — she nodded.

“Then, uh...it’s your turn, Starlight.” Dash turned, trotted back over to her seat and sat down.

Starlight sat in her seat, looked back at her cards and began. The words that poured out of her mouth were smooth and melodious as ever; but, for the first time, they seemed utterly unbidden.

*******************************************

The ponies would spread. They always did. Not just from Equestria, but from their own wombs as well.

The planet’s surface could not sustain life. There was a need for another bubble, another cupola. This was not such a tragic thing, though - if anything, it was another siren song, triumphantly exultant, promising freedom for only the mandatory price of living under Thorgate’s rule, under the Unaging Chairmare Starlight Glimmer’s guidance. And so, next to the finally fertile valleys of Argyle Planitia, Glimmersburg came into being.

But the city was not enshrouded in the darkness of energy throttled for every last drop. Thorgate, in its cleverness and forethought, tapped one of the great sources of energy in the universe - fission.

Nuclear power had come to Mars, radiant in its own fashion. And there was light. And the ponies of Glimmeropolis saw the light, and declared that it was good.

*******************************************

“And...and that’s me.” Starlight exhaled, blinked and looked at her cards again. “Did...did anypony else have anything they wanted to do?”

“Jes’ me,” Applejack replied.

*******************************************

Mars was cold. Perhaps not cold forever, but cold nonetheless. Perhaps that would change in the near future; perhaps only hundreds of years later. But, for now, it was cold, and the algae and fungus struggled.

And that was where the...Psy-chro-phile-s...came in. Bacteria helpin’ bacteria, just as the other livin’ things on the planet had to help each other to survive. Finally, things were startin’ to come jes’ a little more together than they had been.

And green spread from the waters into the Juventae Chasma. An’, finally, Applejack an’ her crew started to get the recognition they deserved, for all the helpin’ hooves they provided.

*******************************************

“That’s me.” Applejack set her cards down. “I’m done.”

“...Remember anything?” Rainbow Dash probed.

“Can’t say I do. Do you?”

Rainbow Dash shook her head.

“...couldn’t hurt to do a lil’ more, though. I think.” Applejack added.

Rainbow Dash nodded. Silently, the quintet drew cards and readjusted their income.

The starting player token was passed clockwise. The game continued.

Author's Note

Chapter 4

Ecoline tended to its crops.

There was more to that, of course, that mattered to Ecoline’s pocketbook. But to Mars, there was little left but for the algae and fungus and psychrophiles to spread, guided over the land with careful, nurturing hooves.

Still, Ecoline was forced to look elsewhere, to tend to themselves as they had tended to others. There were opportunities, of course, but few that hadn’t already been capitalized on by their rivals. But not all the planets with exploitable assets had been exploited - and, rich in sightseeing opportunities and speculative opportunities and strange nostalgia, Equestria’s moon — called Luna — had plenty of assets to exploit. It would help Ecoline nurture its pocketbook as Ecoline nurtured its Martian planets, for the moment.

*******************************************

Rainbow Dash snorted.

The group looked over at her. Rainbow Dash, grinning like an idiot, seemed to be suppressing the urge to break out into a fit of giggles.

“Rainbow Dash?” Rarity frowned. “Is there something funny about our current predicament?”

Rainbow Dash shook her head, clasping a hoof over her mouth.

“Somethin’ about her turn, then?” Applejack added. “Don’t see what you’ve got to be laughin’ at. Fluttershy made some plants, exploited Luna’s assets — ”

The dam broke. Rainbow Dash doubled over, going red in the face as she howled with laughter.

“Dear?” Rarity said, between Rainbow Dash’s breathless wheezings. “What in Equestria has gotten into you?”

“P...plundering!” Rainbow Dash giggled. “F-fluttershy’s gonna c-claim Luna’s assets!”

“And how is that — ”

A loud snort echoed down from the other side of the table. Rarity turned and saw Fluttershy covering her mouth with her hoof, silently doubling over as her sides heaved.

“Not you, too!” Rarity sighed as Rainbow Dash’s laughter redoubled. “Could one of you please cue me in on — ”

“Big, big assets!” Rainbow Dash giggled, tracing out curves with her hooves. “A-and Fluttershy’s driving herself rrrrrright into them!”

“Oh, for Celestia’s sake, is that sexual innuendo?” Rarity groaned as Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy burst out laughing again. With a sigh, she turned to look at Applejack, who seemed like she was trying a bit too hard to keep her face neutral.

“Laughter’s contagious.” Applejack tugged the brim of her hat down. “That’s all there is to it. They’ll all calm down, don’t worry.”

“All aboard for the dark side of the moon!” Rainbow Dash bellowed.

Fluttershy raised her hoof in the air, then jerked it down as if she was tugging on an invisible rope. “Toot, toot!”

That set both of them off yet again, and Rarity frowned as Applejack’s shoulders trembled. Worse, though, was the faint tinge of hysteria beginning to seep into her mood. Contagious, of course, and nothing more.

It wasn’t funny. It was juvenile and bizarre.

“C-careful, Fluttershy!” Rainbow Dash sniggered. “Y-you don’t want to get lost in...in Luna’s big, deep crevice!”

“I-I j-just h-h-hope there aren’t too many craters!” Fluttershy wheezed.

Applejack snorted as Starlight Glimmer joined in Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy’s fit of giggles.

“Th-this isn’t...th-this I-I-isn’t…”

And then the five of them were laughing. For no sensible, rational reason at all, they were laughing like loons, bent back in their chairs and over into their laps, riding a wave of unabashed mirth for minute after breathless minute.

Gradually, one by one, they came down from their euphoria: wheezing, red-faced, tear-streaked and sore-chested, grinning as if each of their respective days had just been made.

“That…” Rainbow Dash gasped. “I-I needed that.”

“What?” Rarity puffed. “You needed to laugh at something silly?”

“Yeah. I just...hff. Wow. I just needed to feel, y’know...not all tensed up. I think my body went a little overboard with rebalancing itself.” Rainbow Dash slumped backward in her seat. “Not that I’m complaining, though. I just...let’s not think about our questions for a bit, okay? I just want to smile a little longer.”

“Can’t say...can’t say that don’t sound reasonable.” Applejack sat up a little. “Whoof. Goodness gracious, but that was a dumb thing to get all worked up about. Not that I mind.”

“I can think of worse fates, yeah.” Starlight Glimmer sighed. “Right. So, uh...it’s your turn, isn’t it, Applejack?”

*******************************************

Now, just because Aphrodite thought that there was little point in getting rid of Venus’ bad gas…

*******************************************

Applejack snorted, cracked another grin, shrugged apologetically and kept going.

*******************************************

Just because that effort was thought to be wasted didn’t mean it was to be wasted. Maybe makin’ Venus a safe place was a long, long, long time in th’ future thing, but that didn’t mean it was impossible. It didn’t mean it couldn’t have been useful to those folks a long, long, long time in the future, either.

Maybe it didn’t look good to anypony but the ponies in the United National Mars-Equestria initiative, but Applejack’s folks thought they had a pretty good idea in doin’ like Aphrodite was doin’. It weren’t pretty, weren’t the sort of work that the other megacorporations might get to see an’ be jealous of every day, but it did a useful thing. More useful than just securin’ more funding from the United National Mars-Equestria initiative, anyway, but the extra funding wasn’t unappreciated, neither.

*******************************************

“I suppose I should offer you a compliment right back, then,” Rarity said. “Backhoofedly admitting that I’m playing cleverly? That’s positively flirtatious, coming from you.”

“Keep dreamin’, Rares.” Applejack smirked. “You had an okay idea, once. Okay enough for me to do on my own. That don’t mean you’re some kinda genius.”

“Whatever you say, dear.” Rarity hummed happily to herself.

“In any case, I ain’t got any more things I can do on my turn. Who’s next up? Rainbow Dash, right?”

*******************************************

Ponies are preemptively manipulable and post-emptively stubborn.

A complex way of phrasing an ultimately simple sentiment, to be sure, but sometimes the complex phrases were also the most succinct. And such a principle most certainly applied here.

Ponies, as a rule, preferred to think of morals in black-and-white terms: good and evil, easy to define, easily pleasant, all-encompassing in nature. When probed to see if their feelings were slightly more complex, ponies tended to say that they see morals in a sort of dawn-and-dusk nature, too. Like the dawn, ponies could rise out of the night (which was bad) and come into the light (which was good;) or, like the dusk, ponies could descend from the day (which was good) and sink into the night (which was bad.) Good, becoming evil, evil, becoming good: those were the four points on a pony’s moral compass, which had guided them through untold eons, from their roots amidst the grassy fields towards the present-day voyages to the specks of dust that floated around the stars.

There wasn’t much space at all in a pony’s moral compass for anything grey, which was what made them preemptively manipulable and post-emptively stubborn.

Helion, the housers of immigrants and refugees, was a good company run by good ponies. That had been established early on, years and years ago, and the fact of their goodness was now undeniable. It would take multiple serious incidents to convince the other ponies of Mars and Equestria that they were anything but good. This meant that, so long as Helion was clever and cautious, incidents of a slightly unfavorable nature could be dismissed as mere accidents.

Besides, Mars needed heat. Heat must flow, and would flow, for it could not be contained. Kinetic energy, too, would disperse when it wished, including all the heat that came with it. If, theoretically, a large enough asteroid was guided to smash into the surface of Mars, the amount of energy and heat that the impact would release would be great - and quite suitable indeed for the purposes of creating a habitable planet.

There weren’t even any ponies living by the Sinai Planum, technically. It was such a victimless crime that it could barely be considered a crime at all.

*******************************************

“Barely a crime?” Rarity sputtered. “There were lichens growing there! My lichens!”

“Accident.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Totally an accident. Couldn’t be helped.”

“Oh, it most certainly could and you know it.” Rarity sniffed. “Mark my words, you’ll pay for this.”

“Shouldn’t you be the one paying for things? On account of you being so unaccountably rich?” Rainbow Dash fired back.

“If I had anything to pay for, I might. But I’ve earned everything I have on virtue alone.”

“I’m sure that virtue lead you to ignore the well-being of Mars in pursuit of Venusian contracts. Anyway.” Rainbow Dash raised a hoof, cutting Rarity off. “It’s not my turn anymore. Starlight? You’re up.”

*******************************************

All of this talk of the uncontrollability of spreading life was, in some regards, true. It was, in some regards, a fundamental aspect of the spreading of life. But it wasn’t the only aspect, to be sure.

Now, commerce — that was a lifeblood so easily ignored. But what was the exchange of materials but an extrapolation of the exchange of particles? To dismiss it was to dismiss the nature of the universe, which was a ludicrous proposition at best.

No, the invigorating aspect of trade must be recognized, embraced and capitalized on to its fullest extent. Thorgate was no stranger to the value of monopolies and establishment and possession of subsidiaries. Countries did not matter in the greater schemes of those designs; and if nations meant nothing, then why should nationless planets have any greater say?

Thorgate, and the Undying Chairmare Starlight Glimmer, displayed their cleverness on this matter. The establishment of a trading colony on Triton may not have been an original move, but simply because the Martian-Equestrian Multinational Establishment had elected to engage in a desirable endeavor did not mean that said endeavor was subsequently off of the table. There was plenty of wealth on Triton to go around — what use was there in not sharing it with ponies in need?

*******************************************

Applejack snorted. “They wouldn’t be in need if you treated ‘em right.”

“My civilians are thriving, thank you very much.” Starlight Glimmer stretched her forelegs. “Besides, I’m not wrong. There’s more than enough minerals on Triton to go around.”

“It ain’t the technicalities that’s the problem.” Applejack jabbed a hoof at Starlight. “It’s the principle of the thing! You keep doin’ things like that, you’re gonna end up like Rarity. You don’t wanna be like that, do you?”

“I beg your pardon?” Rarity sputtered. “What’s wrong with being like me? Do you think that you, or anypony else at the table, has their affairs together better than I do?”

“Well, if last turn made a show of it, you’re got your affairs put together so well that you ain’t got any money t’do anything with, ‘cause you can’t budget worth a darn.”

“Can’t budget worth a darn?” Rarity glared at Applejack, before suddenly grinning with all the cheeriness of a shark’s smile. “Well, dear, I’ll have you know that my subsidies are here in my bank accounts, practically begging to be spent. And it would be remiss to not invest them, wouldn’t it? So, if you’ll allow me…”

*******************************************

It had been said, by the cruder races of Equestria, that the quadrupedal forms of ponies implied that they were meant to be ridden.

Even in a traditional sense, this was gauche beyond words. If anything, being the pioneers of a civil society and beacons of the free world, they were meant to ride, not to be ridden. And while they were too noble and graceful to stoop to such a thing to other living creatures, it did not mean that concepts were exempt from becoming makeshift steeds.

Such was the case with fiscal investments. Profits did not need to be claimed right away, and sources of revenue did not need to be “cashed in” immediately. There was still money to be made, at the behest of investors who had not cancelled their contracts, in clearing the poisonous atmosphere of Venus. And there was still money to be made, too, in tapping aquifers and gathering non-planetary sources of ice, and bringing much needed water to Melas Chasma. All for a greater cause, of course, but all greater causes started with humble, well-founded and thoughtfully laid roots.

*******************************************

“That was supposed to be your clever play?” Applejack arched an eyebrow. “You didn’t really do nothin’ important, Rares.”

“I beg your pardon?” Rarity sniffed. “I’ve increased the funding being invested in my enterprises immensely! Once again, my gains are towering over the gains of everypony else here, and that certainly includes your paltry sum.”

“Okay, sure, yeah, you did good ‘bout the money. Congrats.” Applejack rolled her eyes. “It just wasn’t very excitin’, was all. I mean, Rainbow Dash crashed a big ol’ rock into Mars — ”

“On top of my lichens, I should add!”

“ — an’ Starlight got herself a big ol’ colony set up, even if it is kinda treading on my hooves more’n a little.” Applejack readjusted the brim of her hat. “ ‘Course, you still got plenty of money left. Plannin’ on actually spendin’ some of it on your next turn?”

“Perhaps.” Rarity sniffed. “But a pony shouldn’t inquire about the personal affairs of a gentlepony before she wishes to share them. I’m afraid you’ll have to take your turn first.”

“Um, actually — ”

“Right.” Applejack groaned. “Whatever. Fluttershy, you’re up.”

*******************************************

It seemed like space was starting to get a lot more crowded for everypony.

Not, um, not that having a lot of ponies in space was a bad thing. They were all doing very useful things out there! It was wonderful to be able to bring so many wonderful minerals all the way over to Mars! And, um, and it wouldn’t be very nice for Ecoline to try and stop them from doing something like that, anyway.

Besides, Ecoline wanted to help! So they, um, they decided that the best thing to do would be to create a city for all the seafaring ponies out there! A big, friendly base, right in the middle of Lunae Planum, full of infrastructure to help all the traders and colonists out. A-and they had to keep it powered with, um, by burning a lot of materials, so that wasn’t very nice to the planet. But maybe they could switch to nicer things later, once everything on Mars was green and beautiful!

Anyway, all the ponies who lived in this base were so thankful they had all these nice things build for them, that some of the ponies decided to stay there! And they decided to call it Flutterport, for all the nice things that Ecoline and Fluttershy had done for them.

*******************************************

“Alright. My turn.” Applejack cut in.

“Um.” Fluttershy mumbled. “Maybe, um. I might have wanted to add more…?”

“Really? ‘Cause that sounded like you didn’t have much else to say. Or you didn’t need to say much else, anyway. So. My turn, then.”

Rainbow Dash sat up a little. “Hey. Cut it out a little.”

“Huh?” Applejack cocked an eyebrow. “I ain’t sayin’ anythin’ bad, sugarcube. I’m just tryin’ to move things along.”

“You’re really not. Though, I mean, I’m really not being great about this, either.”

Rainbow Dash blinked.

“...Um. Have we been downplaying Fluttershy being here this whole time?”

Applejack and Rainbow Dash turned to look at Fluttershy, who was once again doing her best to hide behind her cards.

“I, um, I-I mean, I haven’t felt downplayed to,” Fluttershy stammered. “I just, um...I just thought that you wanted to play the game the right way.”

“There’s playing the game and there’s being a jerk about it. I...oh, man, we’ve been jerks the entire time, haven’t we?” Rainbow Dash rubbed her forehead. “What’s wrong with us?”

“Yeah, I...I reckon I’ve been real unkind to you, Fluttershy.” Applejack scratched the back of her neck. “I...I dunno what came over me. I’m...I’m real sorry, sugarcube.”

Fluttershy didn’t speak for a few seconds.

“...I thought you were all mad at me,” Fluttershy finally mumbled, “A-and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t think of why. So I, um, I just thought that, um...m-maybe i-if I let you be angry, then eventually y-you wouldn’t want to be angry anymore — ”

“Yeah? Well, that’s stupid. Not your line of thinking is stupid, I mean. The stupid thing is that we...we just went along with it! Without even bothering to think a little!” Rainbow Dash groaned in frustration. “Okay, look, everypony, new rule. Nopony acts like a jerk to Fluttershy anymore. And if one of us does, the rest of us immediately call them out on it. And Fluttershy, if all the rest of us forget about that for some dumb reason, jog our memory, okay? ‘Cause there’s no way we’re supposed to treat you like…”

“Garbage. We’ve been treating her like garbage.” Rarity sighed. “And I’ve been the worst of the lot in that regard. I’ll do my best to remember, Fluttershy. I promise.”

“Same here,” Starlight Glimmer added.

Applejack nodded her head. “Yep. Me too.”

“You gonna be okay, Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash turned her head. “Is there anything else we can do?”

Fluttershy shook her head, and broke out into a small, timid smile.

“I’m, um...I’m just thankful. Th-that you want to, um, not be mad at me anymore. That...that makes me happy. Thank you, Rainbow Dash. Thank you, everypony.”

“ ‘Course.” Applejack nodded. “Like I said, I’unno what came over me. But I ain’t reckon I want it to happen again. An’ I’ll do my darndest to make sure that nopony has to go an’ stop me from bein’ a jerk to you again.”

Fluttershy nodded. “I-I, um. I appreciate that.”

“ ‘Course.” Applejack nodded her head. “So you had some more stuff ‘bout your turn to talk about, right?”

Fluttershy peered at her cards, then shook her head. “Um. I, um. I think I’m fine, actually. Y-you can take your turn.”

“Are you sure? Seriously, no pressure. Take as much time as you need.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I-I’m positive. I’m ready. Your turn.”

*******************************************

Strange how the ponies of Equestria seemed to be fickle about what they wanted changed. Applejack’s crew almost started to wonder if there was something that weren’t right ‘bout them. But they kept funding whoever did good things to Venus, sure as sugar, an’ so clearly there was some value in tryin’ to make planets besides just Mars better.

An’ that weren’t a bad thing to do, to take a bit of a break from Mars to go help out Venus for a lil’ while. ‘Course, the other megamoneygroups competin’ with Applejack’s crew were all tryin’ to work with Venus’ atmosphere. None of them gave a hoot about its soil, so it seemed.

But the Applejack sort-of-family, they knew how to work with the soil. They had special bacteria on Mars that could help all the algae and fungus grow even when it was real cold. It weren’t easy to develop a kind of bacteria that could live in super hot places and eat all the nastier bits that were stuck in th’ soil, but it weren’t impossible, neither. An’ Applejack an’ her makeshift family managed. An’, bit by bit, they made Venus a little bit better a little bit deeper down inside.

*******************************************

Applejack lapsed into silence. The rest of the group matched her silence with their own.

“...Huh. Sorta figured y’all would say somethin’ sarcastic ‘bout what I did just now.” Applejack scratched the back of her neck. “Are y’all tryin’ to be nicer to me, too?”

“Not really trying, dear.” Rarity shook her head. “I just...I rather liked that, honestly. It wasn’t elegantly phrased, but it wasn’t overly crude, either. And it sounded meaningful.”

“Shucks, you actually liked all that?” Applejack boggled. “That’s almost as crazy as everythin’ else we got goin’ on around here. Huh.”

“It wasn’t quite as much of a surprise as Rainbow Dash, of course.” Rarity shook her head. “Not as poetic, trust me. But...but it’s been getting better. I won’t complain about that.”

“I’ll...I’ll take that compliment for what it’s worth.” Applejack nodded. “Well, uh...Rainbow Dash? You doin’ anything else?”

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Out of money.”

“Same,” Starlight Glimmer added.

Rarity looked back at her cards. “I suppose it’s back to me, then.”

*******************************************

Truthfully, however, Aphrodite’s claims had slightly overstepped their financial boundaries. Opportunities were still plentiful, but money was still rather sparse. Money, truly, was what Aphrodite needed. But money, truly, was what it did not and could not have.

There was still work to be done on Venus, of course. And there were still some funds left in Aphrodite’s accounts. But in order to properly clear the more toxic elements of Venus from the air, more experimental methods were required. There needed to be a steady operation in a potential-rich environment, which required investing more money to earn more money. Such was the way of all altruistic corporations: to have their hooves bound by the very ponies that nurtured them.

But the operation would be seen to. A colony would be founded, in Titan, no less. Studies would be made. Venus would be improved. Money, and beauty, would flow shortly after.

*******************************************

Applejack tucked a couple of strands of mane behind her ear. “Gotta admit, Rarity, I’m kind of looking forward to your next turn already.”

Rarity smirked. “What, no sarcastic comment from you?”

“Nah. I aim to give as good as I get, but you ain’t exactly in the givin’ department right now, are you?” Applejack spread her cards in front of her in one hoof, like a makeshift cardboard fan.

“...Had I known that you’d be willing to drop your theatrical posturing so quickly, I might not have elected to exercise the barbs of my wit so freely.” The corners of Rarity’s mouth turned downward in a faint frown. “You’ve gone and made me feel like a bit of a fool.”

Applejack grinned. “Out of money, then?”

“Sadly, shamefully, yes.” Rarity huffed. “But I assume you’ve still got some left to use.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Applejack nodded. “Are you game to feel even more foolish after I show off my, ah, ‘clever play?’ ”

“I’m ready and eager.” Rarity grinned back. “Go ahead and give me a benchmark to vault over next turn. I’m looking forward to your stunned silence already.”

“Well, how’s this for a stunner?”

*******************************************

The multiwhatever Applejackian group still did at least two things well, not just the bacteria stuff: They were good at the whole titanium business, too. An’ now, with their cryothingie sleep pods, they were good at colony an’ shippin’ stuff, too.

So shippin’s what they did. Back to Titan? Naw - Thorgate an’ Starlight Glimmer’s other related folks were diggin’ up the good stuff on there for all it was worth. Naw, there were other planets to make the most of.

Ganymede was one of ‘em. Now, Ganymede weren’t a place for livin’, per se, but it was still a pretty good place to test out growth of the green stuff. A good place to figure out how to grow the green stuff a lil’ better, away from pryin’ eyes. And, once Applejack’s folks had pretty good-er batches to work with, plenty of green stuff to bring back down to Mars an’ spread, nice an’ pretty-like, over the rocky, barren soil.

*******************************************

“So that’s why your start seemed a little slow!” Starlight clasped her hooves in front of her. “Setting yourself up for sneaky little operations already, huh? I’ve underestimated you.”

“You’d be surprised how often I hear that line, hon.” Applejack rolled her eyes. “Or maybe you wouldn’t, I dunno. Still, I reckon I’m done here. Got more of Venus seemin’ a lil’ more healthy-like, got a lil’ more breathable, maybe edible junk on Mars, an’ I can’t think of any better way to go from here. Not even with the cash I’ve got on hoof.”

“Well...okay, then.” Starlight Glimmer paused. “Next turn, everypony?”

Silently, they nodded. Starlight began to distribute cards and income for the next turn.

“...You know what?” Rainbow Dash piped up. “That wasn’t so bad, just then.”

“What wasn’t, dear?” Rarity replied.

“This turn. Like, things have been kind of...ugh, you know? As we’ve been going deeper and deeper in. And I’m not sure I want to think more about that, even though I guess we’re probably going to have to. But I don’t mind having the sort of breather where we get to laugh and...and learn how to actually not be awful to Fluttershy. Which I still, y’know, kind of feel really crummy about.”

“It’s okay,” Fluttershy replied. “As long as, um. As long as everypony remembers, then...then I don’t think I can be all that angry with everypony.”

Rainbow Dash cocked her head. “Are you sure?”

Fluttershy nodded her head. “I’d rather be happy than angry. And I don’t think I can be not-angry if I let myself think about this too much.”

“...Fair. I guess.”

The starting player token was passed clockwise, and the game continued.

Author's Note

Chapter 5

The future is always defined, at least in part, by its beginnings.

For living things, those beginnings were the primordial soup, way, way back before there weren’t even multicellular organisms. But times change, an’ circumstances change to fit them, an’ now the beginnings of ponykind could be found in its soil. Soil, host of nutrients so desperately needed by even the smallest strands of plant life. Plants, so absolutely vital to the continued existence of ponies. Soil was where it began, and where all things returned to after they expired.

Applejack’s group knew that. An’ they knew how to work the soil, too. It weren’t without effort, unlocking its secrets, an’ it weren’t without effort t’see ‘em put to work, either. But you put in that work, an’ suddenly the roots of life — heck, that which came even before the roots — start t’form the fundamental buildin’ blocks for all livin’ things to come into bein’.

Such as it was on Mars: subtly alterin’ the ground t’make it more amenable t’all the algae an’ fungus on th’ planet. Such as it was on Venus, too: breakin’ down all that nastiness on th’ planet’s crust t’make it into somethin’ livable. It all came back to the soil: a soil that Applejack an’ her big ol’ corporation knew how to work, knew how to use t’make the beginnings tha’ would shape th’ future.

*******************************************

Rarity sighed. “Well, it started out lovely, I’ll give you that much.”

“I’unno what came over me tha’ made me want t’speak fancy, for th’ record.” Applejack set her cards down. “I mean, I say the words as they come, y’know? I jes’ figured that the words wouldn’t be so, y’know…”

Rarity arched an eyebrow. “Rarity-like?”

“Yeah.” Applejack paused. “Not that it’s a bad thing, y’know. Not all the time.”

“Well, I…” Rarity faltered. “...Thank you, Applejack.”

“Welcome.” Applejack nodded. “Anyways, that’s it for me. Rainbow Dash?”

*******************************************

Energy was the purest form of a fundamental building block of life to expand in a vacuum. Plant life was a form considerably more specialized and complex form, but no less vital. There were, however, in-betweens to those apparent extremes.

Air molecules, for one. Inside a contained environment, such as a planet with a sufficiently intense magnetic field, the molecules would spread throughout its constraints. Without the field, air molecules were all too easily carried away by solar winds, lost to the vast gulf of the universe. Perhaps it seemed unkind to constrain things that wished to be free — but in this case, in a matter of literal life and literal death, some constraints were perhaps necessary.

It had started as a whim, to see if wind turbines could eventually recapture some of the energy flowing through the planet. And this vast scheme ended with the groundwork of laying cable, uncountable yards of cable, with the hope of eventually creating a strong enough magnetic field to let the atmosphere exist.

And with the atmosphere, much less radiation. With the atmosphere, air pressure. With this atmosphere, wind, and rain, and the foundations of a planet which might seem less like it was strong-legged into becoming habitable and more like habitability was an inevitability.

Meanwhile, populations continued to grow and emigrate; more bubble-domes would be necessary to sustain them. The Noctis Labyrinthus, thankfully, was not entirely filled with lichen farms; on the less cultivable grounds, there was room, or rooms, to establish more living space. Hopefully, the ponies of Mars would find chasmic surroundings and a perpetual grey mist to be acceptable trade-offs to their continued existence.

*******************************************

Applejack whistled. “Good gravy, Rainbow Dash. Didn’t figure you had the funds in you to pull that sort of thing off!”

“I mean, it’s still a work in progress, you know?” Rainbow Dash scratched the back of her head, looking more than a little sheepish. “But when I realized that was still, y’know, kind of a thing that we needed to do...and that Fluttershy’s cloud-seeding program didn’t really look, y’know, like clouds...I figured that we probably wouldn’t be able to get much serious life established here unless somepony pulled that particular trigger. And this won’t hurt my chances of getting more funding, right?”

“I’m pretty sure that it’ll be a steady enough source, actually, so long as you keep at it.” Starlight Glimmer pointed at the board. “Though unless you’re going to deliberately start seeding life around Tithonium Chasma, and…” Starlight trailed off. “Uh. Does your immigrant city actually have a name?”

“What? Oh! Oh, crud.” Rainbow Dash peered at the board, looking a bit flustered. “How about, uh, um…”

“Dashville?” Fluttershy suggested.

“Dashcester?” Rarity said.

“...Nah. This city isn’t about me. I mean, I founded the city, but...I dunno. It’d feel weird doing…” Rainbow Dash trailed off.

Inspiration struck, with all the force of a precision-guided asteroid strike.

“New Manehattan.”

Silence.

“Unless that’s dumb. Or pretentious.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I, um. Actually, I think that’s really neat.”

“Agreed. Given its origins and original purpose, it’s likely quite the fitting name,” Rarity added. “...I suppose I’ll have to think somewhat carefully if and when I decide to found a city of my own. It would need to be referential, of course, but there were plenty of cities in Equestria that could lend their names to fitting successor.”

“Huh?” Rainbow Dash replied.

“As in, if I founded a Martian city, depending on where it is — ”

“Nonono, back up a bit.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “You said ‘were.’ ”

Rarity paused. “...Pardon?”

“You said ‘were.’’ There were plenty of cities in Equestria. Not are.”

Silence.

Rarity’s face went even whiter. “No. No, that can’t…”

“Hold on,” Starlight Glimmer cut in. “Maybe it was an accident! It could have just been a slip of the tongue. It doesn’t necessarily mean something awful.”

“It doesn’t, um. It doesn’t not mean it, either.” Fluttershy’s eyes went a bit wider. “M-maybe this was one of the things that we were supposed to notice. That…”

“Okay, but if something did happen, can anypony remember what it was?” Starlight Glimmer interrupted. “Sorry about cutting you off, Fluttershy, but before we start panicking...does anypony remember what we should be panicking about? Anypony at all?”

Silence.

Starlight sighed. “See? Accidents happen. I vote that we don’t start pulling out our manes over this until we get a better idea of a bigger picture. It’s like Rainbow Dash said: maybe if we keep playing, we’ll be able to put everything together.”

“...we could learn that things really are that bad…” Fluttershy mumbled.

“And if they are, I’ll help you ponies get through it,” Rainbow Dash said. “I promise. Okay?”

Fluttershy didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Finally, she nodded. “...Okay. I trust you, Rainbow Dash.”

“I trust you, too.” Rainbow Dash grinned. “We’re a team, y’know? As long as we’re not being brain-bonked into forgetting it or something, we’ve got each other’s backs. That’s what being an Element of Harmony is about, right?”

Applejack, Fluttershy and Rarity nodded in unison. After a second, Starlight nodded her head, looked down at her cards and started her turn.

*******************************************

It seemed more and more that Thorgate had turned away from the enterprise of Mars and turned solely towards the enterprise of money.

Which was an unkind sentiment to level against them, but perhaps not an inaccurate one. Certainly, their endeavors had turned from Mars to minerals, from safety to space - but with Thorgate’s troubles being as they were, it was difficult to see a different course of action.

Triton was, of course, always exploitable. And there was still plenty to exploit there, so exploiting is what Thorgate would have to do. It was expensive, but not too difficult to expand their mining operations on Triton, nor was it infeasible to do it elsewhere. And when the asteroids of the solar system were so mineral-rich, and so ripe for the taking, it seemed almost a crime to not exploit them where Thorgate could.

*******************************************

“Out of money already.” Starlight Glimmer chuckled, laying down her cards. “That’s it for me.”

“Geez.” Rainbow Dash winced sympathetically. “Game’s not going your way, huh?”

“It could be going better. Ah, well.” Starlight sighed. “You win some, you lose some. And this appears to be a ‘losing some.’ Rarity?”

*******************************************

Before grander plans came the little things: the improvements already established, improvements that would prove necessary despite their lack of panache or innovation. Venus’ atmosphere needed more clearing, and Mars, particularly the Fesenkov basin, needed more water. And, thanks to forthright arrangements and clever planning, Aphrodite was capable of doing both. Simple, yet powerful: a beautiful thing in its own right.

*******************************************

“Nothing else?” Applejack plied.

Rarity shook her head. “Nothing else I can do this turn. It will have to come later. Fluttershy?”

*******************************************

All of the space traffic meant the Flutterport needed to grow, and all of the growth meant that more of everything was necessary. There wasn’t enough space to go around, that much was true. But they needed more workers, even if there was no space to house them! And they needed more energy, even if there was barely any space to create it!

But Ecoline knew that create was the wrong thing to do with energy, in confines as small as theirs; collecting it would be necessary. For if they had a large enough mirror in space to beam it down to a collector near Flutterport, that would provide them with more than enough energy. And if they supplemented their workforce not with more ponies, but with robotic automatons tailor-made for industrial purposes, they would be able to get all the workers that they needed!

It wasn’t a plan that was best for the planet right now. But it was a plan that helped everypony else, and that would help Mars in the long run.

*******************************************

Fluttershy hummed happily as she set her cards down. “I-I’m done for this turn, too. I should be getting more money soon, but, um.”

“Nothing else right now?” Rarity chuckled. “That’s fine, dear. That was still quite the clever play on your part.”

Fluttershy blushed. “Th-thank you…”

“No worries, sugarcube.” Applejack leaned forward. “Now, lessee what all else I can do…”

*******************************************

Power. Mars needed more power, in all its shapes an’ sizes. Power on th’ outside, an’ power on th’ inside - both were good t’have around.

So Applejack’s company put power to work. Power from th’ outside came first, since there was a big ol’ opportunity t’make it work. They grabbed a big ol’ asteroid that was floating close enough t’be of use for ‘em at th’ moment, an’ sent it down to mars; not just for th’ minerals, but for th’ ...kin-eh-tic?...energy as well. For best impact they had to, ah…

*******************************************

“Ah, shucks.” Applejack sighed. “I got to put this down near the Hebes Chasma. Didn’t mean t’ruin your plants, Fluttershy. Sorry.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “It’s okay, Applejack. I know you didn’t try to hurt me on purpose.”

“Dang straight I didn’t. Jes’ trying t’help out in whatever ways I can. So...yeah. Guess it’s back to Rarity, then.”

*******************************************

Clearly, every megacorporation had things to learn. Not that this was inherently a bad thing — learning was an inherent, and beneficial, process of living and evolving. But the potential for learning would certainly be put to waste if there was no way to properly bring it into being.

Mars would need a center for higher education, even among its cramped domes and haggard workers. It would need instruction on the sciences and the arts, for every individual and every possibility; all were needed, from technicians to painters, if the colonies were truly to feel like Equestria had.

*******************************************

Rarity froze. Blinked. Four sets of eyes turned to stare at Rarity as her lip trembled, and for several seconds she was unable to speak. And when she opened her mouth again, it was with with all the smoothness and grace of a thoroughly battered wind-up doll.

*******************************************

But.

Space.

Aphrodite needed more space for it in order to make its dream come true.

This was where Rarity’s newest...newest city came in. Stratopolis, in Venus, the floating city amidst the —

The clouds that had been most substantially cleared of their toxins. And from there came the University of Aphrodite-Stratopolis came in. The first of its kind, to uplift the affluent and those who served under them, in...in the unceasing quest for intellect, self-actualization and ultimate beauty.

*******************************************

Rarity fell silent, hooves trembling. Several seconds passed as the miasma of silence spread to the four other ponies in the train car.

Applejack played some other cards and moved some of her other pieces, then set her cards down. Rarity played some of her cards, moved her pieces and set her cards down in return.

Silence.

The starting player token was passed clockwise. The game, inexorably, continued.

Author's Note

Chapter 7

Mining never stopped being a thankless process.

It was perhaps the greatest of necessary evils of Mars, Venus — any planet that fostered any kind of pony life or pony labors. Buildings could not be forged on well-wishing alone; ships could not be fabricated with good intentions; habitations and transportations and all sorts of growing equipment did not suddenly come into being from hopes and dreams. And while Thorgate continued to send asteroids spiraling into Venus to set it on a correct course of rotation, while Thorgate pumped excess heat into the steadily increasing levels of atmosphere to bring warmth to the rocky planet, they also continued to expand into this necessary evil, the fundamental building blocks of civilization that ponies tried desperately to ignore: that the infrastructure of ponykind was still built on the blood, sweat and tears of the working class.

And now, more than ever, it was needed. There were more mines needed, ever more. They needed more spaces for the mines to get what they needed, ever more. Triton would not offer up its sweet, fertile teat of industry’s lifeblood to Thorgate and Aphrodite and the Martian-Equestrian Multinational Establishment forever.

But there were other planets, with other mining opportunities. Io had fuel in its belly and precious minerals in its skin: difficult to reach, but practically begging to be reached nonetheless. And it seemed like almost a moral obligation to see that fuel and minerals extracted and used for the good of ponykind.

So, without any further preamble, Thorgate did.

*******************************************

“That is...that is a truly absurd amount of money that you’re pulling in per year, darling.” Rarity coughed. “I...I’m not sure when you’re planning on actually attempting to terraform Mars, but…”

Starlight shrugged. “I’ll leave that up to the ponies that are willing to exploit the minerals that other ponies provide. You know, the ones they take for granted.”

“An excellent jab, dear.” Rarity grinned. “Almost enough to make me consider you a credible threat. Now, if you could only give as stellar a performance on the dusty plains as you do around the train table, I might be inclined to show some genuine trepidation.”

“I’m sure the trepidation will come out when I bring a trade embargo out onto the table.” Starlight returned Rarity’s grin with a knife-sharp smile. “I’ll bet your research efforts on Stratopolis will go just swimmingly when you’re unable to procure any materials for any of your courses, laboratories, construction projects…”

“You wouldn’t dare.” The venom oozing out of Rarity’s voice was belied by an almost playful smile. “And who’s going to offer kickbacks for your asteroid-crashing plans on Venus if you do that, hmm?”

“And once again, we’re back to declarations of economic warfare.” Starlight waved a stack of unplayed cards in Rarity’s direction. “I don’t suppose that any ‘purely accidental’ miscalculations involving the precision asteroid strikes on Venus might make you reconsider not offering financial compensation?”

Fluttershy giggled.

Rarity arched an eyebrow. “Is there something funny about how Starlight’s plans are driven by the corporate greed brought about by the suffering of innocent workers, dear?”

Fluttershy giggled a little more. “G-goodness, no! It just sounded like you two were really getting into the game.”

Rarity’s eyebrow climbed even higher. “Is there something wrong with that?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “Actually, I think it’s really nice. I know things are...things could be better, but...but watching the two of you look like you’re having fun, it’s…” Fluttershy’s ears drooped. “I-I guess that sounds pretty, um. Pretty dumb. I’m sorry.”

Rarity stared at Fluttershy, incredulity etched into every last one of her features. Then, abruptly, she snorted.

“I suppose it has been a little fun exercising my superiority, honestly.” Rarity’s sardonic smile disappeared, then replaced with a smaller, far more genuine one. “When I can forget about everything else and just listen to myself grandstand while I play, I’ll admit that the whole theatrical package is rather endearing.”

“It...could be worse.” Applejack tipped her hat back. “Times like these, when folks are havin’ fun, it...feels like a lil’ bit of a shame to have to actually think about the stuff here that ain’t good.”

“I feel like this could have been something we enjoyed if it wasn’t, y’know…” Rainbow Dash trailed of. “...which kind of stinks, honestly. Even despite what’s happening, I don’t regret this as much as I probably should.”

Starlight scratched an itch next to one of her eyes. “...I still want to get to the end of this as quickly as possible. But, sure, whatever. It’s fine.”

Deftly, Rarity plucked a card out of her stack and placed it gently on the pile of her completed projects. “It’s a little more than merely ‘fine,’ dear. Allow me to show you.”

*******************************************

For as long as existence remains a constant and stable force, there will always be beginnings and always be endings. There was something beautiful about the endless loop of it all: how beginnings invariably collapsed into endings, and how endings so often seeded the ground for new beginnings. From the entirely abstract to the entirely physical, it was present in all of the building blocks that made up reality.

Aphrodite acknowledged this. It acknowledged this as it brought about an end and a beginning.

The end was, symbolically, of life: namely, it was the aquifer exploitation breathing its last after vomiting up its remaining contents into Kasei Valles, as there was simply nothing else left to easily obtain from the planet’s belly. There was, arguably, a somewhat acceptable level of Ice and quasi-water left on the surface of the planet, if enough to cover nine percent of the planet’s surface was considered acceptable. Perhaps if all the corporations planned on limiting their land usage to a total of thirteen percent of Mars’ actual surface area and kept their conditions carefully contained, there was a chance of establishing an ecosystem that somewhat resembled that on Equestria.

It would have to do for now, though. And, if nothing else, it was ultimately a fruitful conclusion to a fruitful endeavor that couldn’t be regretted at the end of all things.

And while the bounty of the material world drew to a close, the lotus of a different world bloomed: a world of enlightenment, or the promise thereof. For Aphrodite had become the collective seats of the scholars in the metaphorical palaces of academia, whose dedication to the sciences how expanded beyond the roots of a single city.

On Stratopolis, of course, the concerns of Aphrodite had become increasingly less focused on scholars and academia, and increasingly more on figurative and literal seats to host them in. No more, not as of this seventh generation of ponykind: not when Aphrodite had finally perfected their plans for large-scale floating habitation units and used the profits from tuition and rental fees to reproduce them in truly staggering numbers. Stratopolis spread ever wider as the increasingly spacious accommodations in the city allowed for true, genuine private living; meanwhile, the University of Aphrodite-Stratopolis (or the UAS, for short) experienced unprecedented growth as dormitories and staff housing spread like wildfire over the edges of campus. With the increasingly pleasant conditions came increasingly heated competition from prospective students all over Mars and Venus and rumors from other colonies who, apparently tired of relying on apprenticeship to teach ponies about the higher sciences, seemed intent on creating universities of their own.

But the Endless Chairmare Rarity’s ambitions didn’t stop simply at venus, no. The highly educated ponies of Venus would need places to fully exercise their knowledge to its absolute limit, and the glories of science shouldn’t have been constrained to the secret research facilities of Aphrodite’s core commercial centers and the hidden laboratories of the UAS in the first place.

Plans were quietly drawn up for the repurposing of large sections of Martian soil in the Ganges Chasma. Lands were purchased with ironclad contracts, then hidden deep within a sea of unimportant and unobtrusive legal documents so as not to attract attention. Facilities began to creep up in faint scatterings on the surface and sprawl in staggeringly large quantities deep underground. And, hidden from the watchful eyes of surface ponies, experiments of all types and natures began…

*******************************************

Applejack eyeballed the game board. “Y’all are startin’ to sound like supervillains.”

Rarity sniffed. “Oh, so there’s something villainous about the pursuit of knowledge, is there?”

“There’s somethin’ mighty suspect about buildin’ that big ol’ black ops facility is what I’m sayin’. Also, ain’t the Ganges Chasma kinda close to that mohole Dash got set up last turn?”

“Access to free runoff heat.” Rarity sniffed. “Should help cut expenses.”

“An’ what about all that ice in them valleys that Rarity helped excavate?”

“Water access. Eventually. When the temperature rises.”

“An’ my fungal farms?”

“Free samples.” Rarity grinned. “Of experimental organic fodder and food.”

Applejack glared. “You can’t just eat my greens without thinkin’ I’d notice!”

“I’m afraid that a certain amount of losses are to be expected in Mars’ makeshift agricultural business, dear. Consider it bad luck, or an inopportune throw of nature’s dice. Certainly it couldn’t be attributed by an honest-to-goodness black ops research facility, could it? That would be absolutely silly.”

“I don’t figure meddlin’ in th’ affairs of two ponies at once is silly. I think it’s the sorta thing that’ll have repercussions, if y’ask me.” Applejack tipped the brim of her hat down. “Not that it’s a threat or anythin’. Just a prediction.”

“You’re attempting to use guesswork to thwart the pony and the corporation most heavily invested in the pursuit of knowledge?” Rarity set her cards down. “Speaking as a pony who sits in on her corporation’s national educational committee, that’s not a clever thing to do.”

“Oh, it’s plenty clever. It’s just the sort of cleverness you ain’t gonna find in academia.” Applejack leaned back against her seat. “You’ll find it sure enough, though. Jes’ got to wait for me to show you soon enough what a real pony does.”

“That certainly sounds like a threat to me, dear.” Rarity grinned and arched an eyebrow. “Prepared to back it up?”

“Not before Fluttershy takes her turn. ‘Sides, I’m sure she’s got plenty of impressive stuff t’do too, right?” Applejack turned her head toward Fluttershy and grinned. Fluttershy returned Applejack’s grin with a small smile, looked down at her cards and slid two onto the table.

*******************************************

The ponies of Ecoline may not have been as good at researching as Aphrodite was, but they were smart enough to understand the value of learning by example. And Aphrodite seemed like a pretty good example to follow.

A-at least, trying to make better profits by doing what Aphrodite did seemed like a reasonably good idea, right? And ponies that, um, that had enough money to go to Stratopolis and live in nice places and study nice things probably, um, probably could afford to help sponsor a public project that would improve their quality of life, right?

S-so first, there, um, there was work that Flutterport had to do. B-because there was starting to be so many travelling to Venus that it was starting to clog up the air traffic from all the other ships going out to all the other places! S-so Flutterport decided that they needed to, um, needed to fund a public waystation so that they could make sure that they could regulate traffic a little bit, um, as well as make the trip a little nicer for ponies trying to Venus from Mars and, um, the other way around, too. A-and Ecoline needed that help to move a lot of materials. A lot of materials, um, a-as Ecoline started to build…

Build a really, really, really big shade all over the parts of Venus where ponies lived and travelled.

I-It was really expensive! E-even with public funding, Ecoline blew almost all their available budget for years and years just to see it built. They even needed to ask for extra donations from, um, from the ponies who went to the Flutterport Zoo just to make sure that everything was built! B-but when it was, um...it got a lot nicer for ponies to live up in the clouds, with the temperatures regulated, um, regulated a lot more to make living there comfortable. T-temperature wise, I mean.

They...Ecoline hoped that they might, um, might start being reimbursed for doing that. B-but they didn’t have to. It was...it was a really good thing for ponies to do for each other, and Ecoline was happy that they were able to do that.

*******************************************

The table fell silent. Fluttershy set her cards down, glanced around the table and blushed.

“I-I mean, i-if it’s not too much to ask…” Fluttershy mumbled.

“Well, of course it isn’t, dear! You should have said something in the first place!” Rarity beamed, “I’ve no doubt that I’ll be able to justify a tax increase with this and send the additional funds your way.”

Applejack snorted. “You ain’t collaboratin’ with each other, are you?”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I just, I had an opportunity to set up a big public project, and I thought...I thought this would be a good one to do. That it would help everypony. A-and I sort of...I wanted to make sure that Ecoline is a name that ponies like. That’s all.”

“Well, if you were doing it for the PR, then that was a pretty good move.” Starlight looked at the board. “Huh. I dunno how you managed to get your profits so high, but I guess all those investments haven’t really helped your public standing out all that much, right?”

Fluttershy nodded. “I-I thought if...if I could give back a little, um…”

“T’weren’t a bad way to give back, Fluttershy.” Applejack grinned. “I mean, even if that givin’ back did mostly help out Rares an’ her nefarious evil schemin’, it still weren’t a bad way to go about that sort of thing.”

Rarity sighed good-naturedly. “And back we are to the steady stream of anti-intellectual assertions. Now are you willing to put your bits where your biter is and demonstrate the superiority of your inferior intellects?”

Applejack started moving her tokens around the board. “More’n willin’ an’ more’n ready. After I finish seedin’ the soil full of helpful bacteria over where all my greenery setups are. ”

Rarity arched an eyebrow. “Playing the slow game, are you?”

“Playing the smart game. Dash?”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes weren’t focused on the board. Instead, they were fixed on the window, as if peering through the void outside of it.

“Dash?” Applejack called. “You still with us, hon?”

“Oh!” Rainbow Dash jolted in her seat. “Oh! Right! Sorry, just...just thinking.”

“You gonna take your turn at all?” Applejack chuckled. “Or is this too close to the endin’ an’ all for you to be comfortable?”

“No! No, I’m not uncomfortable. Like I said, just thinking. Right. Uh.” Rainbow Dash looked at her cards, plucked out a couple near the middle and set them down on the table. “Reflecting more energy down onto Martian collector dishes and using it to increase power to the planet’s magnetic field. Done.”

Applejack blinked. “That’s it? You ain’t gonna do any narration or nothin’?”

“Just...give me a bit. Next turn, maybe.” Rainbow Dash turned her head back to the window. “I feel like I’m on the verge of something big.”

Starlight arched an eyebrow at Rainbow Dash. “Well, I’m out of money right now, so...Rarity?”

*******************************************

Just when Aphrodite assumed that Venus would no longer be subject to major issues, growth became its undoing.

Living quarters had skyrocketed. Populations had skyrocketed with them. Demand for goods and services alike of all shapes and sizes bloated with the population itself, and the ability to transport goods came to a grinding halt as transportation issues once more stifled Aphrodite’s growth. Stratopolis was, amusingly, too great for its own good.

*******************************************

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Goodness, them Aphrodite folks must be so humble.”

“Shush.” Rarity kept playing.

*******************************************

Transportation! Always the need for more transportation! Of course, adding yet more vehicles to the airways of Stratopolis would only get Aphrodite so far — though they certainly did quite the admirable job of constructing plenty of dirigibles to meet the demands of an ever-expanding populace. So, lacking in ways of resolving the issue through the satisfaction of the private sector, Aphrodite turned its attention towards public shuttling instead.

Granted, the size and scale of Aphrodite’s new “transplanetary shuttles” might have seemed a bit overambitious to the unfamiliar, given the scale of what needed to be transported, the shuttles were unambitious if anything. Still, the massive vessels did have a way of inspiring awe as they filled the sky, undoubtedly, and served as a fitting reminder to what Aphrodite was capable of accomplishing in the name of beauty.

If there was one thing finer, it was the final refinement that Aphrodite would need to make to satisfy their student and resident body alike: the thorough refinement and neutralization of the toxins of Venus’ atmosphere. The planet’s body itself remained toxic and hostile to nearly all forms of life, and there were a number of factors that outlined the dangers of trying to move about Stratopolis and its university unprotected. But in these years, the air itself had finally cleared into a consistency that appeared, at least from the outside, almost safe to breathe.

*******************************************

Rarity smiled, apparently pleased with her own exceedingly clever plays. Humming faintly, she settled back against her chair, eyeballing Applejack with unvarnished pride. “Now let’s see where your ‘slow game’ has gotten you...”

Then Rarity paused, as if remembering something important; then, looking rather flustered, she turned back towards Fluttershy. “I-I mean...unless you had something you wished to do, dear? I’m sorry, I know you’re out of money, but I should have asked…”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I-it’s okay. I already mentioned that, um, I don’t really have any money I can work with right now. There isn’t anything left for me to do, so…”

“Right.” Rarity looked back down at her cards. “Right. Ah...Applejack, then.”

*******************************************

Applejack knew all about endings an’ beginnings, too. Even better than Rarity an’ her group.

For instance, the time for workin’ at Venus was basically done. Venus had its atmosphere all sorted out; it had insane amounts of ponies for a city in th’ clouds, an’ a ridiculously big an’ affluent university that was pourin’ money into everyone an’ everythin’ from all the ponies who’d got more bits than brains.

None of that was goin’ to terraforming Mars. None of it was goin’ to helpin’ the common pony. It was jes’ kickbacks on kickbacks on kickbacks, an’ the terraformin’ of the planet that was actually s’posed to house everypony got pushed to the curb entirely.

But at this place, at this time, Martian society was a society with a popular vote. Mars was a place where the common pony could come together, an’ form all sorts of ideas. An’ ideas lead to petitions, which lead to political movements, which lead to referendums an’ the large-scale public vote.

The public wanted more things they could use t’live on Mars. The vote weren’t unanimous, but the vote was majority. An’, totally unrelated to any ideas or propositions tha’ Applejack’s megacorpathingie might have put out there, a motion was passed to block any future plans for improvin’ the ecosphere of Venus until Mars got to be sufficiently better t’live on.

*******************************************

“Y’know,” Applejack concluded, “Y’all accused me of playin’ the slow game, but don’tcha think tha’ in reality it was y’all who were slowin’ things down by takin’ focus away from Mars?”

Rarity’s reply didn’t come in the form of words. Her glass-cutting glare was sufficient, anyway.

“Am I not allowed t’actually get the ponies we’re buildin’ new lives for involved in this whole shebang?” Applejack shrugged. “I ain’t exactly the villain, here, Rares.”

“That’s up for debate,” Rarity replied, dropping the temperature of the train car several degrees through the iciness of her voice alone.

“Look, your group’s the group of smart ponies, ain’t it? You’ll figure something out.”

“I’ve got it!” Rainbow Dash yelped.

Applejack and Rarity both turned to look at Rainbow Dash. Smug self-satisfaction and unadulterated vitriol both slid off of their faces, with confusion quickly taking their place.

Rarity raised a hoof. “You’ve got...what, dear?”

“Wait, wait, wait. It’s my turn first, right?” Rainbow Dash looked at her cards, practically rocking back and forth in her chair. “Lemme see if I can get anything that backs this up, first.”

Applejack tilted her head. “Backs what up, Dash?”

But Rainbow Dash wasn’t listening. Instead, Rainbow Dash selected two cards and flopped them out onto the table.

*******************************************

Even Helion understood how vital the need for proper transportation was these days. Sure, their focus had seemed elsewhere for the longest time, what with the ways they’d sought to bring magnetization and heat to Mars and happy living to the ponies of New Manehattan and Noctis City, but at this point it was impossible to ignore the importance of transportation.

Still, the transportation of ponies was largely Aphrodite’s and Ecoline’s turf these days, what with Ecoline helping manage the waystations between Mars and Venus and Aphrodite managing, well, everything else about Venus. Mars would always need its rovers for private transportation, of course, and always need larger projects for public transportation — but those were monsters that had been dispatched decades and decades ago.

But resources would always, always be necessary. Thorgate’s enterprises strained to manage the ludicrously high levels of demand for raw resources, anyway, and any help Helion could provide in aiding extraction would not go remiss. Thus, asteroid mining: not nearly as great in quantities as that which Thorgate provided, but enough to reduce their import needs considerably and help keep money within their corporation and its people.

Of course, heat was a resource of its own to be managed, and its transportation was just as necessary, if not moreso. Fortunately, the huge carbon dioxide collectors that had recaptured so much undesirable heat by Stratopolis could be relocated elsewhere and put to better use, too. Helion recognized its value, and — willingly shouldering the burden of private transportation — brought more much-needed heat to Mars.

*******************************************

Rainbow Dash hummed, moved around the appropriate tokens on her board and straightened up again. “I’m done!”

Applejack arched an eyebrow. “So are you gonna let us in on that big secret of yours now?”

“Well, are we done?” Rainbow Dash turned towards Applejack. “I thought you and Rarity still had stuff you needed to do.”

“There ain’t nothin’ that can stop us from doin’ that, Dash. Nothin’ that you could say would do it, anyway.” Applejack huffed. “Spill it.”

“It’s — ”

“No.”

Four heads swiveled around. Starlight, looking up from her cards, shook her head at Applejack.

“No?” Applejack replied.

“No. Rarity, Applejack, finish your turns first.”

“But — ”

“Yeah, I know Dash said that she wanted to tell you something. I think I know what she’s going to say, and I’m pretty sure it’s not entirely correct. Work-in-progress theory. But I need more data, and I’m not sure I want to interrupt things if my talking would change the inevitable outcome.”

“So it’s just gonna be more secrets, then?” Applejack snorted. “I’m not sure I like where th’ two of you might be goin’ with all this. Ain’t we supposed to be figurin’ everythin’ out?”

“That’s the whole reason — ”

“An’ you think I’m gonna be inclined to trust ‘the whole reason’ when y’all are playin’ secrets an’ lies over there? ‘Cause I sure as sugar ain’t — ”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Rarity snapped, grabbing a card and slapping it down next to her other projects. “Let’s just get this over with.”

*******************************************

Mars, sadly, was a damaged planet.

To some regards, this was the ponies’ fault. They had been the ones powering their cities with dirty industry, the ones releasing vast quantities of heat into the atmosphere, the ones who had created an atmosphere at all with their artificial magnets and who had poisoned it with the oxygen left behind by the greenery that oozed over Mars’ surface.

But cosmic radiation was damage that no pony could cause. And, despite the ongoing efforts of Helion, it was damage that no pony could fully prevent or truly cure.

Until now.

The breakthrough happened in carefully controlled conditions, deep beneath the planet’s surface. It did not stay there for long. Success so brilliant, so dazzling, so revolutionary and so immensely necessary couldn’t be contained for long, and Aphrodite had little control over whether news of the technology would spread — only who would be spreading it.

But could ponies be blamed for their enthusiasm? Could they be blamed for their utter ardor to combating not just the damage of Mars, but the damage of age as well? Could any pony not be excited about a practice that could cure radiation damage, cure the gradual degradations of an ailing form, cure conditions long thought untreatable with effects inevitable?

Gene repair was the future. It was a future so brilliant that living in a pre-repair area might doubtlessly seem inhospitable and cruel to future generations unaccustomed to living without it. It was a future considered nearly miraculous, brought to life by a company whose brilliance and focus on the preservation of beauty seemed almost tailor-suited to see things through to a conclusion.

*******************************************

Rarity set the rest of her cards down. “Did that help with your ‘data,’ dear?”

Starlight shook her head.

“Right, then.” Applejack straightened up, grabbed her cards and started slapping them on the table. “Spreadin’ more all-purpose greenery on Xanthe Terra, claimin’ planetary accolades for my work on spreadin’ planetary biodiversity an’ increasin’ habitability overall, developin’ new psychrophile cultures. Done.”

Rainbow Dash’s brow furrowed. “Don’t you want to — ”

“No, I don’t want to. Ain’t none of that fancy at all. Ain’t none of that require any kind of special explanation. You ponies ain’t gonna get nothin’ else special from anythin’ we could do, and we ain’t gettin’ anythin’ from your attempts at buildin’ suspense or whatever. Spill it.”

“It’s not suspense!” Rainbow Dash chirped. “It’s excitement!”

Rarity and Applejack blinked.

“Uh. Come again?” Applejack replied.

“Think about it!” Rainbow Dash waved a hoof at the pitch-black windows. “We’re on a train, right? Trains are supposed to go from place to place! And given how much we were talking about transportation, this means that we’re not trapped her forever. We’re going somewhere!”

Rarity sighed. “Dear, I think that much was obvious.”

“Not just that!” Rainbow Dash straightened up. “Look, none of us can really remember what Equestria was like, right? None of us can really describe it. But we keep hearing about going places, and starting new things, and...and the point is that we’re not going somewhere to Equestria or going in Equestria. There’s someplace else that’s —”

“This Mars place.” Applejack cut in.

“Yeah!” Rainbow’s tail swished about in her seat. “So that means that we’re either going way, way in the future or to a different dimension entirely! And that’s why we can’t leave, or teleport out of here, or anything. There’s no other place to go to! Either this is, like, weird time stuff that’s keeping us trapped in the middle of time stuff until we figure everything out, or we’re between dimensions and stuff and we can’t go out to where nothing actually exists, either! That’s why we’re stuck here!”

“So what does that make us?” Applejack cut in.

Rainbow Dash froze. “...Uh?”

“Look, we remember that this Equestria place is our home. It feels like home to me. A place I was in, where I lived, even if I can’t remember all of it. An’ I’m pretty sure I’d be cued in otherwise if that weren’t the case, an’...look at the game board, Dash. We ain’t far to the finish line. We ain’t got much time left here ‘til something big happens, I don’t think.”

Rainbow Dash looked at the board. “I...I guess you’re right. But we did all come from Equestria, right?”

“Can you think of any reason we’d want to get away from there, then? From where our forever home used to be, an’ sit out here in th’ middle of tangible, concrete nowhere, waitin’ for somethin’ to happen while we try to figure out whatall happened?”

“I…” Rainbow Dash trailed off. “I don’t.”

Abruptly, Applejack sighed, looking years older than she had only a couple of seconds ago. “It’s...it’s prolly ‘cause we didn’t want to. I don’t think any of us wanted to. An’ if we’re here, an’ if we’re goin’ away from Equestria, an’ we can’t do anythin’ about it, an’ we can remember that we belonged there an’ what some general ideas were like but we can’t remember why we got switched over here, then…”

“I don’t get it.” Rainbow Dash’s voice broke. “Why wouldn’t we want to…”

“Remember why we got switched over here? ‘Cause brains have a way of blockin’ out trauma. I...I think we’re dead, sugarcube.”

Starlight Glimmer snorted.

Applejack turned around and glared at her. “Somethin’ funny over there?”

“I thought that was the case a while ago, you know. That would have been such an obvious answer, wouldn’t it?” Starlight Glimmer sighed, passed the starting player token clockwise and reached for the deck of cards. “And it meant that things would be wrapped up if our journey was just five dead ponies moving from one world to the next. But it’s not. Not all of us are dead.”

“We ain’t?” Applejack replied.

“Nope.” Starlight dealt cards for everypony else. “I’m pretty sure at least some of us are ponies that never existed here in the first place, and I’m pretty sure I’m one of them.”

Author's Note

Chapter 8

“I…” Rarity began.

Then Rarity fell silent. She opened her mouth, raised her hoof, then slowly lowered her hoof as her jaw closed shut again. She blinked. She shook her head, rubbed an eye and sucked in an unsteady lungful of air.

“...How?”

“You mean, how did we die, how did we get in this train car, or how do only some of us exist?”

“...Yes?” Rarity sputtered incredulously.

“Ahh, the mathematician’s answer. I’m not sure whether to be annoyed or amused, honestly. So, for the first question…”

“Violently.” Applejack nodded her head. “ ‘s the only reason why our brains would want t’block it out, ain’t it? If it was really, really bad, our brains’d probably just go ‘nope, we’re gonna shut this whole memory thing down.’ Then they did, an’ so we’re here.”

“Precisely. I don’t think that whatever happened to Equestria killed everything off right away. It didn’t all end at once in the game, which is what I’m using as a tentative model here. But I think what could have doomed everything probably happened right at the start, and everything from then on out was Equestria gradually dying off until...boom.” Starlight gestured with her hooves. “No more ponies. And not long after that, boom, everything’s gone. I’m pretty sure nothing in Fluttershy’s zoo existed on Equestria hundreds of years after...whatever it was.”

“Well, um…” Fluttershy trembled. “What, um...what do you think it was?”

“Honestly? No idea. And I’m not even sure it’s important. Point is, some of us tried to fight against whatever it was that was going to doom Equestria. We failed. And I’d say ‘all’ of us because I think that all of the ponies sitting around this table did, but I don’t think we all physically died at the same time and at the same place.”

Applejack tilted her head. “Why not?”

“Where’s Pinkie? Where’s Twilight? You guys are the Elements of Harmony, and I’ve been on your side for...it’s got to be at least half a decade at this point. At least, half a decade as far as I can remember, or whatever I’m supposed to be thinks it remembers, but that’s not the point. The point is, the Elements of Harmony all fight together. They all win together, or they all fall together. If everypony here actually died, then Twilight and Pinkie would be in here, too, because you all would have died together. But, clearly, that didn’t happen. So at least one of us died without all of her friends by her side, and that’s why they’re here.”

“But you don’t figure it’s all of us that’re dead, right?” Applejack replied.

“I don’t. I’m not sure why I would be partnered up with anypony else here, because I’m not sure how I could make my talents work with anypony else specifically here.”

“So why don’t…” Rainbow Dash faltered. “Why...why don’t you think it’s you? Who died, and the rest of us — ”

“Because if I’m not dead, then what am I doing here? Right?”

“I mean...yeah?”

“I was wondering that, too. I didn’t know the point of having ‘real’ dead ponies and ‘fake’ dead ponies mixed in for a while, which is why I didn’t want to say anything. But…” Starlight Glimmer sighed. “I’m...Rarity, can you take your turn, please?”

“Me?” Rarity held a hoof up to her chest. “Why?”

Starlight gave Rarity a faint smile. “Well, first off, so I can highlight something. Second off, I’m just...tired. Of having to go through all this, explain all this. I need a little bit of fun to break things up, okay?”

Rarity stared at Starlight, not saying anything. Then, slowly, Rarity nodded.

*******************************************

Beginnings lead to ends, and ends lead to beginnings.

But that was not to say that what came between beginnings and endings was mundane. On the contrary, what came after beginnings was often, figuratively or literally, quite explosive.

Aphrodite’s studies did not stop at the cellular level, after all. Certainly, the building blocks of life that they uncovered the mysteries of were as vital to the wellbeing of ponies as they were difficult to fully understand and manipulate, if the perfection of the “miracle cure” of gene maintenance and its subsequent ubiquity was any indication. And, perhaps, Aphrodite’s contributions to Martian society would have been sufficient if they had “stopped there.”

But Aphrodite did not wish to stop there. It wished to uncover more, experiment with more, perfect more, use more. It wanted to play around with energy conversion at a more fundamental level, to dig deeper into the smallest, juiciest little droplets of matter, to bring the greatest potential out of the most humble of universal stock. And, deep beneath Martian soil, they hypothesized. Calculated. Experimented.

Save for the scientists whose very existence was a deep-level corporate secret, nopony really understood how the extractor worked. The extractor didn’t even have a name pronounceable or comprehensible to most Ponies alive on any planets where they still lived. But the extractor, and the amount of energy it produced, cleanly and efficiently, was vast.

And at least some of it was necessary.

Aphrodite’s ponies, without ways to grow their enterprise on Mars, tried to live around Flutterport. But the city, a city built around interplanetary vessels, was not meant to host a burgeoning population of Aphrodite’s ponies. So they struck out west, built infrastructure out west, and as more and more ponies flooded there and opened up more and more jobs for themselves and the ponies around them, the sprawl stretched all the way from Flutterport over to New Manehattan.

In older, less advanced pony societies, there would have been rioting. Combat. Deep, antisocial, xenophobic tensions that built and built between the megacorporations that grew and would never be resolved. But here, they were resolved, with calm voices and calculated plans in the boardrooms of no less than three cities.

And then, the three cities became one. Easily the largest city on the surface of Mars, it was built on the backs of ponies from three different companies and three different cultures who, after a period of unease coupled with intense curiosity, melded into a surprisingly harmonious collective.

It was one of Mars’ strangest and least expected of developments, to be certain, but certainly not an unwelcome one. In fact, with every passing year, it seemed to prove a triumphant example of what Ponykind could accomplish when they came together and worked not simply with their bodies or their minds, but with their open and welcoming hearts.

And so began the story of Grand Manehattan…

*******************************************

Four ponies looked at Starlight Glimmer. Starlight Glimmer looked at Rarity.

Rainbow Dash gestured at the new city that had sprung up between New Manehattan and Flutterport. “Well?”

“That was a perfect example.” Starlight Glimmer smiled, then blinked. “I think.”

Applejack stared incredulously at Starlight. “Whaddya mean ‘you think?’ ”

Starlight Glimmer sighed. The smile vanished from her face, and—briefly—the corners of her mouth twisted in dejection. “...Look, has everypony here read A Hearth’s Warming Tale?”

Everypony except for Rainbow Dash nodded.

“So we’re familiar with the idea of imaginary spirits personally visiting a pony and convincing them, through words and examples, to live their life in a certain manner?”

Applejack raised a hoof. “Uh, sugarcube, that’s kind of a story. As in, y’know, it ain’t real.”

“And you consider the idea of five completely different ponies dying at the exact same time and being shuttled off to the same fate to be somehow more plausible?”

“Um, well, what if—”

“And so help me, if you challenge the notion that we’re dead right now, I’m gonna have to ask you if the idea that ‘something bad happened that we died trying to prevent’ is somehow less realistic than ‘something bad happened, and due to a magical mishap we’re now shuttling off to a completely alien location, with no ability to use magic or escape or affect the world whatsoever except interact with a board game.’ A board game that has consistently been dropping hints about things that may or may not have happened, but which—given our current situation—are very much not out of the picture.”

Starlight gestured furiously at the board, and Fluttershy and Applejack scooted back a couple of inches in their respective seats.

“You’re welcome to think that this is layers upon layers of conjecture. You’re welcome to believe that,” Starlight ranted. “But if you have a better idea as to why we’re trapped in an utterly inescapable situation, completely helpless, and with the only source of implications about information coming from the board game which has been using us as vessels to drop a steady stream of hints, be my guest. Because at this point, I will take any source of potential knowledge as a way of understanding why everything is as it is.”

Silence. Applejack squirmed in her seat, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“...Can I at least point out that the idea of dyin’ an’ somehow bein’ alive don’t sound all that—”

“Which is why I dropped the idea that this ‘Mars’ thing is just in the far future, and went with it being in a different dimension. And maybe we’re not dead, but we’re good and gone from the world we’ve spent all our lives in. And you, personally, said that the most likely reason you can’t remember why we would have forgotten what took us from our world to the next would have been something violent. Magic could have done it too, yeah, but I know about magic. Magic is really part of my thing. I would have sensed it and known about just as much about it as, say, you know about working with the soil, or Rarity knows about beautiful and creative things, or Fluttershy knows about animals. And that’s all stuff that’s been similar enough with what you’ve talked about in the game, what sort of things you’ve seemed to emphasize, that I’m not inclined to believe it’s untrue. That’s the sort of thing that cutie marks can tell you, right?”

Silence. Then, simultaneously, all four other ponies nodded.

As if she was a balloon, Starlight Glimmer deflated. The air went out of her in a protracted sigh as she slumped in her chair, looking utterly defeated.

“I don’t...I don’t like this,” Starlight mumbled. “I don’t like that the idea that makes the most sense after all the thinking I’ve done implies I’m more likely a phantom, or a memory, or some kind of not-really-tangibly-existing sort of spirit. But I don’t know why I would be here otherwise.”

“So, um…” Fluttershy mumbled. “...why would, um, why would you…?”

“Because all the learning we’ve done has been given from each other. All the hints that have dropped have come from the voices speaking through us. But it’s not just been hints about where we are, right? It’s been lessons based around ourselves, too.” Starlight straightened up slightly. “I’m a twofold example: What I’ve been saying to you guys, and what I’ve been doing in the game.”

“So, uh...what have you been saying?” Rainbow Dash said.

Starlight rolled her eyes. “You should know best of all, Dash. I’m the pony who knew the rules and explained it to everypony. I’m the pony that acted as the guinea pig to show that searching for ponies and trying to use magic were bad ideas. And I’m the pony that’s going over all this quasi-mystical stuff with you guys right now, which is probably the hardest part of everything that we’ve been trying to figure out, right?”

“And in game…”

“I’ve been playing to win, don’t get me wrong. But I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to. I’ve been focusing so hard on bolstering my economy that i’ve barely been doing any terraforming at all, which is sort of how you win the game.”

“I dunno what that means,” Rainbow Dash said.

“I’m basically giving two lessons over here. Inside the world the game has, I’m teaching ponies ‘Don’t get so focused on increasing your own standing that you forget to treat other ponies well, even if that involves a bit of self-sacrifice.’ And outside the game world, I’m explaining parts of what we’re doing and why, which is helping everyone figure out the entire deal of why we’re here. Basically, all I’ve been doing is being instructive, like one of those spirits. And…” Starlight sighed. “I can’t imagine why you ponies would be the sort of ponies in particular that would help me learn. No offense, but we’re not really that close, are we? And even on a symbolic level…”

Starlight trailed off, scratching her left foreleg a little harder than was necessary.

“I want to exist. I want to be more than just an example for somepony else.” Starlight’s voice cracked. “But I think that’s all I am, here. A couple of strands of thought. Nothing else.”

“Starlight…” Rainbow Dash reached over and gently rested her hoof on Starlight’s shoulder. Starlight stiffened, then relaxed, and leaned ever so slightly against Rainbow Dash’s hoof.

“I guess I’m gonna disappear once we’re done. Once one or more of you girls knows what you need to know. And I think...I think that’s just that.”

Gently, Rarity rested a hoof on Starlight’s back. “I don’t think that it has to be that way, dear.”

“We’ll see, I guess. One way or another.” Starlight took a breath. “Anyways. I guess...I guess it’s Fluttershy’s turn, then?”

After a couple of moments, Fluttershy nodded and began.

*******************************************

Perhaps Venus would cease to grow, but it could still continue to improve.

Government was one factor. Not that Stratopolis couldn’t manage fine on its own, and not that the University of Aphrodite-Stratopolis wasn’t capable of taking care of itself, but there was always room for improvement. Always officials that could make it easier.

And Fluttershy knew a pony that would do an excellent job of helping manage things. Helping govern them. Help with, um, all the normal financial business and everything.

A-and it was good that Fluttershy didn’t need to spend much time scouting for him, because there was plenty of business on Mars that she, and Ecoline, needed to take care of. They had begun importing nitrogen into the planet in vast quantities, bringing it closer and closer to the sort of atmosphere that Ponies used to have back in Equestria. And the enriching of the atmosphere helped the animals in the Intercorporate Flutterport Zoo—or, um, I guess it was the Intercorporate Grand Manehattan Zoo now—a-anyways, it began to grow and proliferate, and it got a whole lot healthier and bigger! Which was also really nice.

*******************************************

Fluttershy smiled faintly, the froze; after a couple of seconds, she looked over at Starlight and, ever so faintly, nodded. “Th-that’s all the actions I have. It’s, um. It’s your turn, Applejack.”

*******************************************

All things considered, it was a lil’ bit silly for Applejack to, ah...not that they had anythin’ to do with the whole “let’s not improve Venus no more” thing that got real popular on Mars, an’ all that...but anyways, given that whole thing got said, it was a mite silly of her to be focusin’ on stuff that weren’t Mars. But wouldn’t you know it, there was still a lot of stuff that coulda been done off of Mars that woulda been real useful for makin’ Mars a nicer place in th’ end.

So they went, an’ they expanded off the planet. Got a nice base set up on Ganymede, in th’ hope that bringin’ in some stuff from there would set the nice conditions t’help make things grow. An’ for the sake of goin’ over things for some of th’ richer folk on Mars who wanted t’see stuff from Equestria’s history, even if it weren’t gonna go nowhere, they set up a colony for sightseein’ on Luna’s best side.

*******************************************

Rainbow Dash smirked. Fluttershy covered her mouth with a hoof.

“An’ I guess we’re still gonna make butt jokes.” Applejack rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Y’all wanna get in touch with it like I did — ”

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy broke out into a simultaneous fit of giggles. Applejack grinned, doing her best to hold in laughter, and a quick glance at Rarity told her that the fashionista was doing the same. Even Starlight seemed to be smiling a little, and it was only after a good fifteen seconds of giggling that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy came down from their suppressed laughter and settled for breathy grins.

Then, unexpectedly, Starlight smiled a little wider.

“Y’know what? I don’t regret this.”

“Regret what?” Applejack replied.

“Look, I really believe the stuff I said earlier was true. But even given that I might not be real in the end, this not-real part of me has still sort of enjoyed this.”

“You mean the parts where we were all fearful—”

“I mean the parts where we got to play a game together. The parts where we made silly speeches out of nowhere and worked with and against each other. The parts where we built up our own little corners of the planet. It’s been fun, and...and I don’t regret having fun.” Starlight sighed, but the smile remained. “I can think of worse ways to spend the time I’ve had.”

It was as if, slowly, the train car began to fill with sunlight. It fell into silence, of course, and it wasn’t lit by anything more than the fluorescent lights; but there was something calm about it, this time. It was a silence that soothed, rather than unnerved; instead of chilling spines, it warmed the spirits of the ponies there.

“...y’know what, Starlight?” Applejack said, nodding her head as she broke the silence. “I reckon you’re right. Dead or never-was or whatever the heck we all are, this ain’t a bad way to end things. I figure there’s definitely things I’d like less than this at the end of everything.”

Rarity nodded. “Agreed.”

“Yeah!” Dash added.

Fluttershy didn’t say anything, but the smile on her face didn’t fade in the least.

“Alright, then,” Applejack started again after a couple of moments. “You ready t’do your thing, Dash?”

“Yep!” Rainbow Dash replied.

*******************************************

Helion, at its core, was all about warmth. Distributing warmth, sharing warmth, bringing warmth to cold and unforgiving spaces.

Perhaps the solar reflectors they took to building were excessive. Perhaps, though, they weren’t such a big deal after all. Perhaps it was just in line with what Helion had been doing all along.

*******************************************

Applejack blinked. “That’s it?”

“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “And I’m heating up Mars, too. Nothing really different.”

Rarity tilted her head as she stared at Rainbow Dash in mild confusion. “Are you sure you don’t wish to have a more...involved explanation of the significance of your actions, dear?”

“I don’t really know what I’d say, or why any of it would help.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “So...nah. I don’t really figure it’s necessary.”

Rarity bit her lip. “Rainbow Dash, are you sure?”

“Totally” Rainbow Dash replied, smiling with a bit too much cheer for it to be plausible. “So, uh...Starlight, right? Your move.”

“Yeah, but I’m not really doing anything amazing, either.” Starlight blushed. “Just increasing my mining operations. And I already know that nothing really amazing is going to come out of me, but...I’d kind of rather hear what you guys can do that’s amazing. If that’s okay.”

Applejack chuckled. “Suit yerself. There ain’t been much flashy goin’ on recently, though—Guess things are jes’ a little more quiet this turn. Gettin’ ready for the end.”

“Does it…” Rainbow Dash faltered. “...Does it have to be the end already?”

“ ‘less you wanna put things on hold forever, Dash, I think things are just gonna keep goin’ that way. You said it yourself, right?” Applejack gestured at nothing in particular. “We got to keep going if we’re gonna figure everythin’ out. And I reckon we got a right to know how things end, don’t you? Got to let the dead move on, an’...”

Applejack glanced at Starlight Glimmer, who looked distinctly uncomfortable.

“...I guess we could wait for a lil’ bit.” Applejack concluded.

Rarity readjusted her cards. “I concur. As for now, though, allow me…”

*******************************************

It was strange to think that, in the hundreds of years that had been spent on Mars, only now was nutritional diversity starting to become an area of concern.

But, finally and to thunderous applause, things were beginning to change. It took immense amounts of effort, but so did many terraforming initiatives on Mars these days. And the efforts undertaken by Aphrodite, here and now, were efforts that were public, transparent and undeniably laudable.

Raising crops, even staple crops, in the “traditional” manner still took an onerous amount of effort. They had to be kept secure, not just from the extremes of temperature but from the battering, withering waves of cosmic radiation. The soil had to be properly treated to allow them to grow. They needed water, specially treated water, to get them to develop properly. And they needed light, and light meant power, and up until recently power had always been scarce.

But, finally the pieces of the puzzle were starting together. And the picture at the end of the tunnel? It was a picture of lush wheat, of gleaming maize, of stretches upon stretches of rice. It was the upright promise of soy, and the semi-hidden hints of lush tubers: All of them, every last plant, waiting to grow beautiful and healthy and strong.

And as more and more agricultural domes were constructed, less and less food was needed to be artificially processed and reconstructed. More and more of it came, for lack of a better word, “naturally.” And this was merely the beginning of the eighth generation of ponies on Mars; as more generations passed, doubtlessly there would be more types of plants, and in greater quantities. No longer would ponies survive off of sustenance; they would eat food.

The fruits of Aphrodite’s efforts were, figuratively and literally, delicious.

*******************************************

Fluttershy blushed a little. “Oh dear.”

Rarity turned her head. “Is something wrong, dear? I hadn’t intended to overshadow any of your efforts, I promise. I didn’t even know that you were interested in crop production, but I suppose I should have asked...”

Fluttershy shook her head. “Oh, nothing like that! I just feel a little silly that, um. That I never got around to making sure that my animals ate nice food.”

Rarity paused for a moment, then broke out into a smile. “You really are a wonderful pony, Fluttershy. I certainly hope that, well...that if…”

“It’s okay,” Starlight Glimmer cut in. “I think it’ll be okay.”

Applejack arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t you just say that—”

“That some of us are dead and some of us were never real, I know. I don’t think that’s not true. But I think…” A smile returned to Starlight’s face. “The things buried in the ground, ready to grow into wonderful things? How ends come from beginnings and beginnings create stuff that’s unexpectedly amazing and beautiful? And how we’re all here, hurtling towards an uncertain ending for the dead? I think...Well, it’s gonna sound silly.” Starlight blushed.

Applejack peered a little closer at Starlight. “You do sound like you’re feelin’ a little better.”

“Well, not better for me. But better for the dead. I think whatever’s waiting for you at the end of everything else, whatever the heck that is… I think it’s gonna be nice. I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be some kind of posthumous reward for whatever you girls did in life or if that’s just the way things are, but… but I don’t think that the end will be terrifying.”

“I...guess that’s good.” Applejack nodded. “I guess I didn’t really think all that extra much about whatall’s goin’ on after everything’s said an’ done, but I don’t reckon that’s somethin’ I’d not want to have happen.”

“Same,” Rainbow Dash agreed.

“Indeed,” Rarity replied. “Well, ah...Fluttershy?”

******************************************

It was sort of amazing just how Grand Manehattan managed to bring everything together.

It wasn’t as if Ecoline was struggling to develop yet more greenery; the hardiest of grasses, for one, had started to spread across Mars’ dusty red surface; certainly it wasn’t beautiful just yet, but it endured, and it wouldn’t belong before it surpassed endurance and climbed upward towards genuine lushness and beauty. Soon, like ponykind, it would spread; soon the desert would subside, and in its place would come the verdant lands that the almost-mythological texts of old Equestria had once promised.

For it wasn’t as if Flutterport was interested in such things, but Grand Manehattan was. The ponies of Helion loved such things, and it almost took the breath away of the ponies of Aphrodite. It was the natural progression, to take the brutish and ugly and necessary, and find ways to provide necessity without sacrificing opportunity; provide beauty without reducing function; create elegance and growth without weakening one’s plans.

It was a work in progress, but it was an intercorporate work in progress, too. Not the most magnificent of steps, but steps nonetheless. It was the first, faltering attempts at grasping true harmony, and judging by the love of the forward tottering, not likely one to be backtracked upon.

Growth had come to Mars. Not material growth, not intellectual growth, not the growth of a society or its ambitions; but, arguably, it was the growth of something far more important.

It was the beginning, for the first time in nearly two hundred and fifty years, of harmony.

******************************************

Applejack blinked. Rainbow Dash’s jaw dropped. Starlight Glimmer set her cards down.

“That…” Rarity took a breath. “That was beautiful, dear.”

Fluttershy sighed, looking a little more content than before—but, at the same time, a little more tired. “I’m...I’m glad. I wanted to...I thought it’d be nice. Right now.”

“It certainly was, dear.” Rarity looked at the board, and—gently and affectionately—toyed with the buildings. “It’d be nice to see something like this happen in the real Manehattan, I think.”

Rarity paused.

“Well… happened, I suppose. Unfortunately.” Rarity shook her head. “It’s still a soothing thing to imagine, in any case.”

Fluttershy nodded. “I-I’d hoped it would be. Um…” Fluttershy looked at her cards. “I-I think I’m out of actions, though. Applejack, could you…?”

Applejack nodded and began.

******************************************

Now, see, Applejack an’ her horse buddies, they weren’t never gonna be as good at spreadin’ plants as Fluttershy—an’, uh, an’ Ecoline too I guess, the whole dang company—but they could do their own thing to help everythin’ grow. It just weren’t as pretty, not at all, but it did alright.

The whole Venus business—that was an ugly, ugly thing. It didn’t seem like Mars an’ Venus were gonna get along all that well over what happened on Mars, and could folks really pass blame for what happened there? Not really, they couldn’t. What’s done was done, an’ that may have even been a good thing—but it was a mighty hurtful thing, too.

But Applejack an’ her folks saw that, and they realized that things weren’t right at all with that. So they… they sought to make amends. They couldn’t help the place grow no more, but they did try their darndest to set up a big ol’ talking network, to make it so folks could go about an’ talk to each other pretty quickly between planets.

It weren’t that easy a deal, but it was one of them deals—like what Rarity had—that seemed like a good enough deal at the time. An’ maybe it wasn’t as good as buildin’ the whole thing, but it did help. An’ maybe it was too late, but it weren’t nothin’. Hopefully, it would do.

An’ while they helped things grow a lil’ closer between Mars an’ Venus, they did their own thing for growin’, too, but in a whole different way. Ecoline did their own thing with plants, for sure, an’ Applejack was never gonna be that good. But she did work with the little things, like the tiny things that broke down the weird stuff in the ground an’ make it good. She worked with the fungal things, an’ bacteria that broke down things, an’ she figured “Hey, I could work a lil’ bigger. I could get things real big, an’ do a bunch of real big breakdowns, right? An’ that would be super cool. I jes’ gotta figure out how.”

Then she remembered all them animals an’ stuff—like how Fluttershy got her zoo, an’ how the… the ponies at her big ol’ corporation helped make some of ‘em into pets for some pony folks, more an’ more over time. An’ so Applejack realized that critters weren’t outta the question.

Then she got a real good idea. What if they got critters to help break stuff down? Get all that greenery bein’ a little better by workin’ through the new stuff an’ turnin’ it into new-tree-ants that’d make them things like grass an’ lichens an’ that sorta thing get real big an’ real healthy. So Applejack’s scientists got to workin’, an’ plannin’, an’ thinkin’...

An it weren’t too long ‘fore they had pillbugs an’ worms. An’ they weren’t the prettiest things on Mars, not by a long shot, but they weren’t too bad, neither.

An’ hopefully, that’d help bring everythin’ together, too.

******************************************

Rarity picked through her cards. “That was also pleasant, dear. Would you be offended if I said ‘surprisingly so?’”

“Ehh. Two out of ten, Rares. I’ve heard worse.” Applejack set her cards down. “I’d say you’re off your game if you weren’t just fussin’ over Fluttershy over there.”

“Well, it was a very impassioned description. Are you really going to criticize me for possessing a profound appreciation of the arts? I’d consider that more than a little gauche.”

“Nah. I know you well enough to figure that’s just the sort of frou-frou pony you are. Anyways,” Applejack added while turning towards Rainbow Dash. “You ain’t got enough money left on you t’do much at all, right?”

“Just set up a colony on Io. I’m not sure how to make that descriptive, though.” Rainbow Dash, looking a little nervous, set her cards down and moved some pieces around on the board. “And… and I guess that’s it for me.”

“...You seem a little quiet over there.” Applejack paused. “Are you sure you’re doin’ okay?”

“I’m just kind of… it’s garbage that some of you guys aren’t gonna be around, you know?” Rainbow Dash pointed a hoof at Starlight Glimmer. “I mean, first Starlight’s not gonna be around, but that might not be the end, right? Like, what if all of us disappear?”

Applejack sighed. “Look, darlin’, I don’t figure that all of us disappear. I don’t think anythin’ like this would happen if nothin’ happened to nopony that wasn’t here, there or anywhere at all. It don’t make sense.”

“Yeah, but what if almost all of us are gone? I don’t want any of you to go.” Rainbow Dash’s voice cracked. “And I don’t want to go, either. That’s not fair.”

“Life ain’t fair, darlin’. I guess death ain’t fair, neither. Sometimes, all you gotta do with it is take it for what it is.” Applejack paused. “An’...an’ if it’s any consolation, an’ if what Starlight says is true, I don’t figure I’m makin’ it out of here, either.”

“No.” Rainbow Dash leaned over the game board. “No, that’s not fair, that’s not right—”

“It’s more’n fair and more’n right. I’ve been doin’ a fair amount of explainin’ an’ helpin’ us ponies talk to each other an’ all that. I figure I been the chattiest Celestia of all of us. It wouldn’t make sense if I got out of here, I don’t think.”

“We don’t know—”

“We don’t know for sure. None of us know for sure. Heck, maybe Starlight’s wrong. Speakin’ of…”

“Just building a fuel factory on my turn. Nothing worth talking about.” Starlight looked at Rarity.

“I’m just going to help grass proliferate by Grand Manehattan, dear. Also nothing worth talking about.”

“Fluttershy?”

“Setting up a national park.” Fluttershy blushed. “That’s all. Um, I guess…”

“All up to me.” Applejack sighed. “See? That’s what I been tellin’ you. I’ll be the one talkin’ now, an’ I won’t be the one talkin’ in the end. An’ that’s how it’s gonna be. So…”

“Um…” Fluttershy cleared her throat, but Applejack wasn’t listening. Instead, she was pouring over her cards, then looking back at the colony ships as if calculating her opportunities down to the last bit in her bank account. Then, with the sort of stone-faced resolution common among veteran soldiers told to hold the line, Applejack began to play.

******************************************

Applejack’s work was startin’ to become all-encompassin’. The other different corporation’s all did their own thing, of course; there was Helion with its heat, Thorgate with all its minerals an’ richs, there was Aphrodite with its brains an’ her Venus-y things, an’ there was Ecoline with its plants, animals an’ all that. Every megacorp had its own function, did it’s own thing, an’ that was fine.

An Applejack’s lil’ family did everythin’ else.

These days, they handled Mars on all its levels, or so they liked sayin’ to other ponies. They’d got the Mars beneath, that was the first one; they kept breedin’ their decomposers, kept workin’ on the material, kept processin’ what coulda been waste an’ made into somethin’ useful, Kept doin’ all of that. An’ on th’ third level, that of Mars beyond, they kept settin’ up colonies to do all sorts of useful things for Mars.

On th’ second level? That was Mars around, doin’ the parts of the planet that ponies could see. An’ that bit varied, ‘cause that weren’t the sort of thing that Applejack’s friends an’ her were used to doin’. Eye...Eye-ron-ick-lee, or somethin’.

But here, they could make it work. Here, they finally got enough raw resources scraped together, from all kinds of sources, an’ they managed to make th’ planet even warmer. Wouldn’t be long now before the whole thing actually felt like Equestria used to, all that ways back.

Felt almost nostalgic, an’ it weren’t even complete yet.

******************************************

“An’ that weren’t all bad, I guess. For some of th’ last things I get t’see, that felt almost kind of rewardin’. Like I really did do a good job well done of showin’ everythin’ off.”

Fluttershy coughed.

“Somethin’ on your mind, Sugarcube?” Applejack replied, turning to face Fluttershy. “You ain’t got to make me feel…”

Four ponies at the table had expected Fluttershy to look soft-hearted and tender, trying to make Applejack feel better in the last few minutes before annihilation. Instead, Fluttershy’s face was uncannily rare: resolute, determined, entirely unafraid.

“I don’t think that’s true.” Steely-eyed, Fluttershy grabbed a stack of cards off of the table and began dealing them out to everypony else. “You know how Starlight could tell that she wasn’t here, on top of being the pony to explain everything? It’s because she knew that she wasn’t fighting with anypony else here. She knew that she wouldn’t be trying to do things like that, because she knew that there would be other ways that she would be trying to save everypony. She knew that she wouldn’t have us around her, doing what she was probably going to do with her magic unicorn powers and her own friends. And she knew that she had to be all alone if she was dead and here, but she knew that she couldn’t be here if she was being so instructional to everypony else. Right, Starlight?”

Starlight froze. A few strands of mane drifted in front of her eyes, but she didn’t bother to tuck them away. Finally, after a few seconds, she nodded. “...Yeah. Yeah, that’s it.”

Apparently finished with dealing the cards, Fluttershy began to distribute income to everypony else at the table. “But Applejack, you still could have. It’s possible that you did. I know that you’re the kind of pony who would have tried to help any one of us ponies around here, even if it wouldn’t be possible. I don’t think you could have tried to save Starlight, but I know you would have tried to save everypony else if you could. That’s who you are. That’s how you would have died. So even if you were a pony explaining things to other ponies, it could have been that you were with somepony else when they died, and the two of you are here, trying to explain things to each other. That’s… that’s not impossible. To explain while still needing things explained to you. To try and help, while not being alone when everything ended.”

The table fell silent. Fluttershy finished distributing income and calmly passed the starting player token clockwise.

“I… didn’t figure we were thinkin’ about goin’ down with each other that way.” Applejack paused. “That’s… true. That’s possible, ain’t it?”

“It is.” Fluttershy’s lip trembled, but only for a second. “And… and that’s why I didn’t make it. That’s why I couldn’t have died alone or with anypony else. That’s why I’m not real.”

Chapter 9

Applejack paused. Then she blinked, rubbed an eye, readjusted her hat.

“...You’re joking.”

“Yeah. Yeah, she’s joking,” Rainbow Dash added. The pained tone of her voice didn’t help. “You’re joking, right? That’s not…”

Fluttershy sighed. “Look. Everypony here, we...we would have, y’know...that would have happened with ponies we care about, right?”

“...That includes you, dear.” Rarity replied. “Don’t you think we would have tried to protect you?”

Fluttershy squeezed her hoof around a lock of her mane and blinked a little longer than was necessary. “I know you would have. But I don’t think you would have been the only creature who might have tried to help.”

Rarity’s ears flicked. “I’m not exactly following, dear.”

“You don’t think that there’s anycreature else who would have tried to protect me if something awful happened? Somecreature powerful and who didn’t want to see me hurt? Somecreature that would have protected me as best he could if he felt I was in danger, and could have been at my side in seconds in an emergency?”

Rarity blinked. Then, after a pause, she sighed and looked down at her cards. “...And he’s not here, is he?”

“He’s not.” Fluttershy shook her head. “And if I was...if I was gone, he would be with me. But he’s not. So I’m...I’m just somepony’s imagination, I think. Like Starlight. Trying to tell them something important.”

Silence.

Fluttershy sighed. “...I’m tired. I just...I’m going to take my turn now.”

******************************************

There needed to be life. Even after everything broke down, even after everypony and everycreature and everything was...was gone, there needed to be something else that came from that. That’s how life worked. It’s how Equestria worked. It’s how every planet worked.

Ecoline did its own work on that. It discovered how to rebuild mushrooms, and spread them around the greener things while it worked on other decomposers. It learned how to create, raise and release all kinds of herbivores, too: cows, goats, sheep, deer, rabbits, beaver…

The secrets of the sapient mind weren’t known to Ecoline yet. They couldn’t recreate themselves, or bring back what Equestria lost. But they would learn. They could help. All they needed was time.

And maybe they wouldn’t have all of the time that they needed, but Ecoline wasn’t Mars. Nature would find its own way. And, in the greater scheme of Mars, that was all that was really needed.

******************************************

“That’s my turn.” Fluttershy set her cards down. “It’s your turn, Applejack.”

“Fluttershy, I…” Applejack faltered. “If you need somepony to—”

“I don’t.” Fluttershy gave Applejack a sad little smile. “I’m not afraid anymore. I can’t be. There’s nothing left for me to be afraid of.”

“That’s the point.” Applejack shivered. “This ain’t—”

“It’s how things are meant to be.” Fluttershy sighed. “I don’t think it will hurt. I don’t think I’ll notice when it happens, really. I can say what I need to say, and then...even at the end of everything, I still get to play one last game with my friends. Spend a little more time with them. It’s...it’s not so bad.”

“Fluttershy…”

“The dead ponies need to go where they need to go. I shouldn’t...they shouldn’t stay here just because of us. That’s not fair. Please, Applejack.”

Fluttershy leaned over the table and rested her hoof on top of Applejack’s, looking right into Applejack’s eyes. The steely glint in her eyes was gone, but the resolution, the determination, the acceptance remained.

Fluttershy sighed, then smiled again. “Take your turn. We need to finish the game. Everything will be okay.”

Applejack returned eye contact. Her face crumpled and her eyes sank back to the board. But, after a few seconds of silence, Applejack played a card.

******************************************

There weren’t many places left to go.

The other planets? They had their own colonies, their own business t’take care of. Didn’t make sense for Applejack to set up stuff t’get any more goods.

Mars? Well, they weren’t gonna touch most of it. They’d have to take things slow-like, get all this stuff settled in where things would be livable. Filly steps, an’ all that.

It couldn’t hurt to set up a lil’ place on Phobos, though. Nothin’ grand, but it’d give the folks on Mars just a lil’ more space to live in. An’ ponies, they were startin’ to grow even more. They’d got enough stuff around that they couldn’t really live out on Mars without protection, but it definitely coulda been worse out there. Started to seem almost Equestria-like at times.

Applejack just wanted folks to live. It...it never stopped feelin’ bad that almost everypony had to age, if nothin’ else. It...it stunk that ponies had t’die an’ be gone forever. But...but she needed t’accept that as they way things are. An’ maybe, amidst all this livin’ stuff, she might get t’feel like she could accept it again.

******************************************

Applejack rubbed her eyes. “An’ that’s...that’s me for the turn. Don’t got much else left t’do.”

Starlight paused. “I don’t...Applejack, if it helps, I’m not sure that—”

“It don’t help all that much. But I don’t mind the thought.” Applejack sighed. “Rainbow Dash?”

“I’m just, uh...I’m just heating things up on my turn.” Rainbow Dash took a breath. “Nothing else I can do.”

Starlight Glimmer tilted her head slightly as she stared at Rainbow Dash. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. You and Fluttershy...you want us to go to the end, right? And this is what my setup’s supposed to help me do, so...yeah. It’s time for it to end, I think. Uh, your turn, right?”

“Improving my launch pad on Triton and increasing my mining operations.” Starlight sighed. “I don’t think I can pull anything educational out of that. Rarity?”

“Treating the atmosphere on Mars and establishing a trading hub on the moon.” Rarity set her cards down. “Fluttershy’s turn.”

“...Is somethin’ the matter, Sugarcube?” Applejack ventured.

“Yes.” Rarity gritted her teeth for a second. “I’m rather disdainful of ponies avoiding their narratives at this stage in the game.”

Starlight blinked. “I really don’t have anything—”

“You have clues, buried inside of you. Rainbow Dash has clues too, apparently.” Rarity’s voice took on a sharp tone. “There’s letting actions lie because there’s nothing to explain, and there’s letting actions lie because there’s a fear of progressing a narrative.”

“Fear?” Starlight scoffed. “Why would I—”

“Because for all your talking about needing to push things forward, you’ve yet to contribute anything. You’ve skipped contribution several times over. This isn’t conducive to reaching a revelatory conclusion.”

“What if it’s really—”

“You would try.” Nostrils flared, Rarity looked over at Fluttershy.“Would you be a dear and...?”

“Of course.” Fluttershy nodded, flipped through her cards and began.

******************************************

Twelve percent of the atmosphere was oxygen.

It was insufficient. The percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere that was healthy was twenty-one percent for ponies. And while the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere was consistently twenty-one percent on equestria, it didn’t feel that way all the time.

Some ponies lived way up high, in mountainous regions. At fifteen hundred meters in the air, the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere felt as if it was at seventeen and one half percent. Ponies in these areas grew used to it; ponies traveling there grew very dizzy, quite uncomfortable, and unwell for some time without assistance.

At twenty-five hundred meters in the air, the atmosphere felt as if it was a little under fifteen and a half percent. This was still, technically, safe. A pony might eventually get used to conditions like these. But if it was uncomfortable at fifteen hundred meters in the air to a newcomer, it was certainly more than uncomfortable at twenty-five hundred meters. Certainly unsafe to take in all at once. Perhaps ponies were spoiled, too accustomed to having oxygen artificially created, artificially distributed, artificially managed to keep everypony comfortable and working to the best of their ability. Twenty-five hundred meters in the air most likely wasn’t.

At the current concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere, it would be as if everypony was living forty-five hundred meters in the air.

This was not merely unhealthy; it was unsafe. It was dizzying and disorienting at best; at worst, it could be incapacitating, crippling. Ponies deeply unaccustomed to the sudden shift in oxygen, or ponies of a sickly constitution, might very well die if moved too quickly to such heights.

And yet, twelve percent oxygen was all that existed outside. Even with temperatures warm enough that ice was starting to melt, and water—dazzling, shimmering, eminently captivating water— now flowed through the surface of Mars, it was still far too unsafe to open the domes of the cities and let ponies finally move freely. The outside world was beautiful, but it was the beauty of the mythical sirens, whose sweet tones drove ponies to insanity and violence.

Ecoline could not make everything better with a bedtime wish. But they could study, could experiment, and could learn how to make things better. They cultivated fungus, spread grasses, redeveloped hearty and beautiful strains of flowers to dot the greener parts of the planet’s surface. Soon they would have shrubbery. Soon, they might even have trees.

But best of all, Ecoline could bring animals back, too. And it was more mind-straining effort, but at last it was done: certain strains of ants, finally, began to walk upon Martian plant life. But if ants were helpful to the greenery and pleasant to watch, there was something far nicer to look at, and even more helpful when it came to spreading beautiful things and using those beautiful Martian flowers.

For the first time in two hundred and seventy years, the air began to hum with the sweet sounds of colonies of happy, healthy bees.

******************************************

“And that’s how things are coming to pass on Mars. And that’s how things were on Equestria. And…”

Fluttershy exhaled and closed her eyes. She had smiled before, all sorts of smiles; but on the train, at that moment, her smile was serene. Her smile was almost spiritual, as if connected with some distant shore on a distant planet on an unheard-of star, remote and alone and beautiful.

It was the smile of a pony entirely at peace.

“That’s how things will be,” Fluttershy said without opening her eyes. “That’s a lesson we knew from the very start. Things have ended, and new things may begin. And the cycle is beautiful.”

“Isn’t...wasn’t I talking about beauty before?” Rarity paused. “I don’t know that…”

“You talked of beauty, yes. But it wasn’t the beauty of life. Not here, not now. Your beauty was elsewhere; progressive beauty, ascending beauty, the beauty of the imagination. Not the beauty of here, and now.” Fluttershy giggled. “I think, um...I think it’s the sort of beauty that both you and Applejack had all along. Just not...just not complete.”

Silence.

“Does that…” Applejack gulped. “Does that mean we’re…?”

“I don’t know.” Fluttershy turned towards Applejack; no longer smiling, but still eminently calm. “Do you feel like you don’t exist? Or do you feel dead?”

“I’m...I’m not sure.” Applejack stared at the game board. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think of all this.”

“You knew before, when you didn’t know the nature of things. Why are you scared now?” Fluttershy leaned over the table again; once again, her hoof slid over Applejack’s. “All things end. New things come from endings. The only way to make this happen is if you play, Applejack. You can’t make wonderful things if you never work at them.”

Applejack fidgeted. She flicked her tail. She stared at Fluttershy, then Starlight Glimmer, then Rainbow Dash, then Rarity, and, finally, back to Fluttershy.

“Do you need me to help play your cards?” Fluttershy probed.

“...nah. I can...I can do it. Yeh. Like you said, there ain’t no way…”

******************************************

...There weren’t no way to not be afraid of it all.

It hadn’t struck the family that Applejack had made for the longest time: not for everypony workin’ their hardest tryin’ to make their own dreams come true, an’ all that jazz. Everypony was too busy thinkin’ about what needed to be done, what they had to get done, what they dreamed of, that there weren’t hardly any time to realize a pony didn’t have to be scared of the big things ‘til they were on their deathbed. An’ sometimes, not even then.

But some ponyfolk, the wisest kind, saw at th’ end of things that it was time to let go. Nothin’ stays forever, an’ some of those nothin’-stayers become new things all over again.

Applejack learned that from Fluttershy. From Ecoline. An’ Applejack, now after everythin’ else, tried t’help with all that. They took them’ flowers an’ them grasses and bushes an’ whatall else, an’ they helped plant ‘em too, right next to all that beautiful water in all them lakes. They...they built better schools t’help folks learn more about the environment. Not jes’ the scientists, but all them little colts an’ fillies, too. Gave everypony a chance t’learn about all things bright an’ beautiful about the world around ‘em.

The sun seemed downright friendly, now. The atmosphere seemed a lil’ better, what with all them magnets an’ stuff keepin’ the radiation out and keepin’ th’ atmosphere in. It was almost kinda warm, out there. Oxygen at fourteen percent.

Wouldn’t be long before ponyfolks could see that for ‘emselves.

Wouldn’t be long ‘fore it was time to let everythin’ go.

An’ it was time to make peace with that. That was okay.

******************************************

Applejack tilted her hat back and took a deep breath before turning to Fluttershy. “Did I...did I do okay in th’ end?”

“I think so.” Fluttershy nodded. “I think that was very beautiful.”

The barest twitch of Rarity’s head was the closest she got to a nod. Rainbow Dash followed suit: much more obvious in its motions, but much more fake in its warmth.

Starlight Glimmer said nothing at all.

“I guess...I guess that’s what I was supposed to do in th’ end. Embrace my...do the whatever. Got t’give the hints ponies need.”

“Sort of came full circle, didn’t it?” Starlight chuckled. “I guess—”

“You guess wrong,” Fluttershy replied, matter-of-factly.

Starlight rolled her eyes. “Okay, seriously, what’s gotten into you? You talk yourself into non-existence, then—”

“Then I accepted things I was wondering, when trying not to think about how everypony hated me. I accepted that sometimes bad things happen. I accepted that this could be worse than bad. And it was. But these aren’t ends, Starlight. They’re beginnings, for the ponies who died.” Fluttershy pointed a hoof at Starlight. “And I don’t think you want to recognize that.”

“Me?” Starlight pointed at her chest. “Why in Equestria wouldn’t I want to do that?”

“Because of what happens if we don’t get it right. If ponies want to pass on, what do they get if they don’t pass on?”

“Uh, I think I remember this from Daring Do. More of the same?” Rainbow Dash replied. “Like, their spirits just kind of stick around forever until Daring Do figures out what she needs to do in order to break their curse. That’s what happens in—”

“Exactly. They get to be stuck where they are until they pass on, forced to do the same thing they’ve been doing since they were first bound somewhere. And in here, I-I think that means we get to play the game forever, over and over and over again. But we’d be bound to figure it out eventually, and bound to escape, so I can think of only one reason why anypony might try not to make that happen. Everypony?” Fluttershy straightened up. “I don’t think this is the first time we’ve played this game. And I think that might have been on purpose.”

The table fell silent.

“I…” Starlight took a deep breath and glared at Fluttershy. “You realize that you, the pony who abruptly decided to bandwagon information given by me, the pony who’s been explaining every major thing to everypony here, is accusing me of being misleading?”

“I don’t think you were in the beginning. I wasn’t, either.” Fluttershy sucked in a mouthful of air. “None of us knew anything. I think that if we’re forced to do things over and over again in order to get it right, it’s something that we have to relearn every time, too. But I think that we might have been able to figure it out without you, too.”

“Bull.”

“You weren’t the first pony to push for the fact that we needed to keep going in order to learn about things. That was Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash also pointed out that ponies acted strangely around here, and that things weren’t quite the same as they would have normally been. And Rainbow Dash also pointed out that Equestria was gone.”

“Yeah, but what about the pony that realized that some of us were spirits? Do you think we wouldn’t be stuck here perpetually if it weren’t for that?”

“You didn’t bring it up at first.” Fluttershy snapped. “Said that you were ‘thinking’ about things until Applejack brought up the death possibility. I think we were close, and that was when you decided to co-opt the narrative. That way, you could point us in whatever direction you wanted once we didn’t have any time left.”

“And we don’t have any time left!” Starlight snapped back. “The oxygen’s liveable, the radiation is manageable, we’ve got water, and the temperature’s almost—”

“Here.”

Fluttershy and Starlight’s conversations died in their throat. Applejack and Rarity stopped watching them. Two pairs broke from their respective fascinations, and turned towards the odd mare out in their group.

An odd mare out holding up a single card, depicting the release of a massive meteor full of ammonia and water. With the water, civilization could grow a little further past its limited boundaries; with the ammonia to help warm up Mars’ atmosphere to the point of comfort, the game would come to a definitive conclusion.

The odd mare out held that definitive conclusion less than a meter above the table. The mare’s wings were splayed; trembling slightly, but unwilling to bow.

The mare’s right temple throbbed. Her hoof shook. She blinked, then blinked again.

“It’s my turn. There are things I want to say.”

Author's Note

Chapter 10: ...it always ends in tears.

Fluttershy’s eyes widened in alarm. “Rainbow Dash, you don’t have to—”

“I know I don’t have to,” Rainbow Dash replied. “But I need to.”

“But you don’t know—”

“I’ve still got my turn left. If I understand, then I’ll understand. If not, then...maybe I’ll figure it out later. Some other game.”

“Didn’t you understand what Starlight and I were just talking about?” Fluttershy snapped. “Dash, if everything ends, that’s it. There won’t be anything to—”

“There isn’t gonna be anything anyway! I mean, what, some of us are going to realize we’re dead? What kind of a life is arguing forever about whether you’re a delusion or just lifeless?”

Rarity leaned over the table. “Darling, can’t we just stop and think for a little?”

“Look at Fluttershy and Starlight!” Rainbow Dash spread her forelegs. “Does this look like thinking? Because it looks like fighting to me!”

Something in the back of Rainbow Dash’s mind shifted, dimly. Blinking a little harder than was necessary, Rainbow Dash pressed on.

“Maybe you ponies get to figure things out by fighting, but I haven’t gotten that. All I’ve gotten to learn is by pressing on. All we’ve developed, all we’ve thought about, is by pressing on. You can think that we’re gonna conclude things by debate, and maybe that’s helped you, but I don’t understand any of it. I don’t understand anything that hasn’t been said. And I think…” Rainbow Dash took a shuddering breath. “...I think I need to talk. One last time. Bring everything to an end. That’s...that’s the only way I’m gonna know for sure, that we’re gonna know for sure, if we’re gonna know anything for sure. Only at the end."

The shifting at the back of Rainbow Dash’s mind grew a little stronger. Before anypony had time to say anything else, Rainbow Dash opened her mouth and reached out for one final truth.

******************************************

The growth of pony life on Mars had started slow, developed exponentially and surpassed its limits in a brilliant burst of innovation.

It seemed most fitting that the growth of heat on Mars had done the same. From humble beginnings with mirrors and angles to the recycling of GHGs, building in on itself in the increasingly magnetically-constructed atmosphere exponentially and due to reach a brilliant, explosive conclusion.

The conclusion was an Asteroid, borne on the void’s wings: a precision-guided missile, full of life-giving water and life-enriching heat. Destruction birthing creation. One rock’s travels through the inky blackness would end, so that another rock’s true journey could finally begin.

It soared, ever onward, ready to make contact…

******************************************

Fluttershy waved a hoof at Rainbow Dash, looking—for the first time since she had apparently come to accept her nonexistence—alarmed. “Rainbow Dash, Wait!”

Rainbow Dash did not wait.

******************************************

There...there was that...that missile soaring out, ready for...ready to...there was contact…

******************************************

“Contact! Contact right!” Rainbow Dash screamed, before diving straight into the driving winds.

The winds couldn’t disguise her quarry—or prevent her from reaching it, cold and fierce as the winds were. A twisted amalgamation of ebony crystal and sheer ice surging towards Spitfire, Wonderbolts Captain, as she flung glowing ivory globes at the ground far below.

The amalgamate was only a meter or two away before Rainbow Dash barrelled into it, hind-hoof first. With a howl like sheet metal scraping against sheet metal, the creature shattered and dissipated into the tempest around them.

“What the—Rainbow Dash?” Spitfire sputtered.

“Reporting for duty, captain!” Rainbow Dash replied, snapping a forehoof up against her forehead in salue.

“No! No, you aren’t!” Spitfire tossed one last globe into the storm, seemingly oblivious to the steel-on-steel scream that followed as she pointed a hoof at Rainbow Dash. “I explicitly ordered you to retrieve Twilight Sparkle from Canterlot! We need her help!”

“Help isn’t coming, captain.”

Spitfire paused. “...What?”

“I flew there, ma’am. The entire city’s covered in a bubble of lavender energy. I could just barely make out the form of Twilight battling with—”

“How did you get there so fast? I was expecting—”

“Captain.” Rainbow Dash looked Spitfire squarely in the eyes. “You know who you’re talking to, right?”

“Insubordination aside, why didn’t you fly through the bubble?”

“Solid. Completely solid, Captain. Like flying into a mountain.”

“And did you attack it?”

“Like I just did with that windigo-and-dark-crystal amalgamate, Captain.”

“Could you make contact with—”

“Completely locked off, ma’am. Tirek Ascendant must still be in there. If Twilight hadn’t beaten him by the time I arrived, then...she’s my friend and a hero of the country, Captain, but I’m not sure that she’s making it out of there in one piece, or at all.”

“We’ve got no help at all from anyone outside of the north?”

“Nopony as far as I know, Captain.”

“Damn it!” For a second, Spitfire’s stiff and unwavering hover wobbled a little. “You know we can’t retreat, don’t you? There’s no line to hold after this.”

“...I’m aware, Captain.”

Spitfire gritted her teeth, clearly trying to maintain her composure. “...Ammunition’s at the second post. Get whatever you can carry and try to shatter as much of these Winterborn as you can. If we thin their numbers enough, maybe they’ll—”

A hoof of dark crystal and sheer ice wrapped itself around Spitfire’s hind leg and pulled. In the span of an eyeblink, the Wonderbolts Captain vanished from the air.

Rainbow Dash dove through the cloud bank. Whatever was pulling on Spitfire, it was pulling hard and pulling fast. If Rainbow Dash had been a slower pony, or if she had reacted just a couple of seconds slower, Spitfire would have been sent hurtling terminally into the rocks below.

Instead, no more than ten meters away from the ground, Rainbow Dash cleared the distance, pivoted and swung her hind leg around. The hoof shattered, and the disproportionately large winterborn pulling Spitfire down shattered along with it, crumbling to frigid dust as Rainbow Dash swooped down under Spitfire, brought her legs to bear and prepared for a landing.

Way in the back of Rainbow Dash’s mind, a dim little memory flitted into view: an impatient young pegasus who still dreamed of creating wonderful routines to impress the Wonderbolts, catching a statue at a formal party with her back to keep it from falling. It had seemed like such a valiant act for such a wonderful occasion at the time.

Then Dash’s hooves hit the ground with almost meteoric force..

Not that it was the first time she’d experienced sudden impact before, even sudden impact with a passenger, and she had even known it was coming this time. It never stopped taking her breath away, though, and it never stopped hurting. It was hard to imagine what this sort of landing would do to an actual, normal, non-Element-of-Harmony-al pony, but it likely wasn’t a good thing. Still dizzy, Rainbow Dash’s knees buckled, and Spitfire tumbled off of her and onto the snow and rock with a soft thump.

“Captain?” Rainbow Dash panted. “Status report?”

“Ugh.” Spitfire took a shuddering breath. “I’ll...I’ll manage, Dash. Thanks for the save.”

“Least I could do.” One of Rainbow Dash’s forelegs trembled, as if trying to find the capacity to salute; after a couple of seconds, the trembling stopped, and Rainbow Dash nodded. “Sorry for my informality, captain. Not feeling awesome.”

“Informality excused.” Spitfire tilted her head and looked behind Rainbow Dash. “Okay. That’s...that’s Lake Mareoz. Good.”

“Recognizable landmark, Captain?” Rainbow Dash glanced skyward. Overhead, the occasional flashes of light and faint screams were the only signs that the battle hadn’t ceased.

“We’re not far from the third post. If we can get back there, we’ll be able to catch our breath a little better.” Spitfire grinned. “I’m not gonna have the best flier in the history of the Wonderbolts get herself needlessly injured.”

Rainbow Dash blinked. “...Captain?”

“You heard me.” Spitfire rolled over, hooves scrabbling over the soil in an attempt to right herself. “Don’t let it get to your head, Dash, but we can’t afford to lose you.”

“I…” Rainbow Dash gulped, slowly flexing her wings in a vain attempt to loosen them up again. “I appreciate that, Captain.”

“Appreciation acknowledged.” Spitfire slowly began pulling herself to her hooves. “I’ve thought about retiring you from active duty after everything’s done, you know.”

“Did I…?” Rainbow Dash gulped. “What did I…?”

“Nothing. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re going into the hall of fame, is what I’m saying. Get the time you want to just come up with new tricks and show up for practice when you feel like it. Do whatever it is you want to do at your own pace. Enjoy life. You deserve it.”

“I...I appreciate the thought.” Rainbow Dash flapped her wings experimentally. “I think I’d actually really like to glurph. Ghh.”

Spitfire’s eyes widened. “Rainbow Dash!”

Rainbow Dash’s head drooped. There, protruding from her chest, was a slick black tendril, dripping some sort of red fluid onto the snow below.

Rainbow Dash had just enough time to turn her head and watch as the tendril pulled itself out of her chest and launched itself a little higher, right between her—

******************************************

T-the meteor…

******************************************

Rainbow Dash retched.

It wasn’t enough red fluid to call it vomiting, but there was certainly enough red to dribble onto her cards and the table. There was enough red to splatter over her tokens. And, judging by the wet sensation under her nostrils and on her chin, there was enough red to drip steadily over her mouth and onto her chest.

“Rainbow Dash!” Applejack yelled. A hoof reached out behind her, but not behind her chest; this time, it was around her right foreleg in an attempt to tug Rainbow Dash into a hug.

“I-It’s okay.” Rainbow Dash shuddered, then shook her head. “Like, I...that didn’t feel great, okay?”

The contents of Rainbow Dash’s stomach flip-flopped a little, but stayed below the esophagus where it belonged.

“It didn’t feel great, but I think I’m fine. I think I’m okay. I think I can be okay.” Rainbow Dash tried to ignore the dual tastes of iron and salt as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hoof.

“You think you’re fine? Land’s sakes, Dash, look at you! You’re—”

“Like Starlight Glimmer when she tried to get off the train? Yeah. Yeah, I know.” Rainbow Dash took a shuddering breath, shrugged off Applejack’s shoulder and straightened up a little. “Like, I’m not gonna lie. It hurt. It hurt a lot. But it was just for a little bit, okay? I think it’s over.”

“That didn’t look like a little bit t’me.” Applejack frowned. “Look, I know it’s a dumb thing t’say, but I don’t want you gettin’ hurt any harder than you—”

“I’m not hurt.” Rainbow Dash’s voice caught in her throat for just a second. “Not worse than…”

Rainbow Dash paused.

“I mean, I’m...did you all hear that? I didn’t…”

“Didn’t think it would come up?” Rarity picked up her cards, toying with them idly while she stared at Rainbow Dash. “I’ll...I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting anything like that to happen, either. I didn’t think anypony would...would remember that.”

“It wouldn’t make sense for anypony else to remember it if they never died.” Starlight Glimmer sighed. “And I guess you did, huh?”

“I guess.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “So that means…”

Rainbow Dash froze. Then, slowly, she tilted her neck down to look at the card.

It still hovered less than a meter above the table.

Rainbow Dash tried to lift the card back up. It wouldn’t budge.

Rainbow Dash let her hoof relax a little. The card inched closer to the table.

“No,” Rainbow Dash said, stiffening her hoof again.

“No?” Fluttershy replied.

“No. No, this isn’t right. This...you had to be with me, right?” Rainbow Dash’s voice cracked. “You, I-I didn’t die alone, I just didn’t see you, all of us were…”

Rarity shook her head. “I’m sorry, dear.”

“Don’t be sorry! I’m...this is stupid!” Rainbow Dash struggled to lift the card up again. “That isn’t how it happened! I, what I said was stupid, and, and fake, and lies, and exaggerated, and…”

“Sugarcube, the truth ain’t always pleasant. That’s...that’s how it is.” Applejack set her cards down and tilted her hat back.

“But the truth was all I wanted to find out! That, that isn’t...what comes after it doesn’t matter!” A bead of sweat trickled down Rainbow Dash’s temple: the spiritual conjuration, almost like an imaginary reflex, of a creature who no longer needed to sweat or breathe or blush or blink or imagine the familiar voices and familiar faces talking to them.

“We don’t have to keep playing.” Rainbow Dash stammered. “I, we, we can just ignore that, can’t we? That isn’t...that isn’t important.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “It’s all that matters. We’re just helping you try to realize that.”

“Realize what?” Rainbow Dash snorted in an exceptionally fake display of humor. “We’re just playing a card game, or a board game, or a board-and-card game. That’s all.”

“There isn’t even a ‘we.’ ” Starlight shook her head. “Stop letting me talk through you, Rainbow Dash.”

“You’re not—”

“The part of you that’s trying to block out all the things you need to know so that you don’t have to admit that something’s wrong? The part of you that would torpedo everything around her so that she wouldn’t have to say goodbye? The part of her that wants the superficial parts of her life explained to her so she doesn’t have to think too deeply about her situation and take responsibility for the unfortunate truths she uncovers?” Starlight shook her head. “Honestly, the only thing that surprises me is why you’re imagining me instead of somepony else.”

Rarity chuckled. “You’re smart, dear, and you’re clearly good at magic. But unlike a certain other magically talented and clever pony I know, you wouldn’t aggressively press her about uncomfortable topics.”

“Ahh, right.” Starlight turned towards Rarity and nodded, then turned back towards Rainbow Dash. “Sort of like wanting to learn without taking tests, huh? Like the difference between reading a Daring Do book and taking a university course on ancient history? I’m not surprised that my job is to hold up that mirror for you.”

“I’m. Not. Playing. The. Card.” Rainbow Dash’s face contorted in frustration.

Applejack shook her head. “You will. Common sense. You’ll get over yourself an’ move on from all this needless caterwauling.”

“Yeah?” Rainbow Dash snapped. “And who are you to tell me about caterwauling when you’ve been so...so…”

“Wantin’ to say the sarcasm you’d like to say but don’t want t’get in trouble for? Or jes’ the pony who’s open about layin’ the groundwork for useful stuff, even when it ain’t as flashy as mirrors or meteors?” Applejack chuckled. “You always knew you didn’t have a work ethic, sugarcube, but I feel like you’ve done a pretty good job of learnin’ how much borin’ work you’ve got to do anyway. And you wanted somepony to show you how good that was even if they didn’t make you do it right away, right?”

“Groundwork for what?”

“Being your own innovator. Creating your own routines and fancy tricks for the Wonderbolts, years before anypony besides your parents really noticed you. Writing up lesson plans for your students as wacky and as useful as you could manage. Even the increasingly elaborate nature of your pranks.” Rarity smiled, then giggled. “And don’t think that we’ve forgotten about the Daring Do fanfiction you’ve kept in your bedside dresser, either.”

Rainbow Dash’s face flushed. “Hey!”

“You have the soul of a poet, Rainbow Dash. Just like I said at the very beginning, when I first heard you narrate your actions. Even if it’s locked behind the body of an athlete and the spirit of a competitor, it’s still there.”

“I don’t think it’s just the soul of a poet, Rarity.” Fluttershy shook her head. “Remember how I...or Fluttershy was like, I guess...during the Cloudsdale weather funneling? Remember all the times she’s taken Scootaloo under her wing? Or what about Tank?”

“Don’t you dare say anything else about him.” Rainbow Dash snarled. “He’s fine. Everything’s...everything’s fine! There’s a different answer! You’re...you’re trying to trick me, all of you…”

“You died, Rainbow Dash. You died alone, with nopony else besides you.” Applejack crossed her forelegs and tilted her head as she stared at Rainbow Dash. “Ain’t none of us around t’cross over with you. An’ that’s just how it goes, sometimes.”

“That’s stupid! And it’s stupid that you don’t exist either!” Rainbow Dash’s ears flicked back. Something was building in the back of her eyeballs, or maybe it was her throat, or...or somewhere else. Something rising, trying to wash over the sandy shores of an endless sea. “Why can’t you be alive? You deserve to exist! We all deserve to—”

Fluttershy slammed her hoof down on the table “Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow Dash fell silent.

Fluttershy, though she clearly had no need for it and never had a need for it, took a deep breath. “You know what we’re saying is true. You know that there’s something waiting for you at the end of this. I don’t think the rest of us have much time, so I need you to listen to me.”

The rising sensation in Rainbow Dash’s throat and the back of her face didn’t cease and didn’t find resolution. Silently, she nodded.

Fluttershy stood up. “When you’re ready, the train is going to stop. You’re going to need to leave. It won’t be your last stop, but you’ll find out what to do when you get there.”

“Don’t try to stay on the train.” Starlight Glimmer nodded as she rose from her seat. “It won’t work out. Don’t try to drag your hooves on the train or elsewhere. You need to move forward.”

“Take it simple.” Applejack arched her back, then began to rise just as Fluttershy and Starlight had. “Don’t need to worry about big fancy plans all at once. Stick to basic stuff ‘til you’re sure of what you’re doin’. Folks can always use that.”

“But don’t be afraid to get creative, either.” Rarity, while the last to stand, did so without hesitation. “You’ll find everything a lot more wonderful if you think a little and try to make things as beautiful as you can.”

“...Can’t we just talk about it a little more?” Rainbow Dash’s voice wavered. “I haven’t...I haven’t even played my card yet.”

“Are you sure?” Fluttershy looked down at the table and smiled.

Rainbow Dash followed her gaze. Her hoof was still hovering above the table.

The card, however, wasn’t. Maybe it had slid out when she was nervous, or Fluttershy had jostled it when she slammed her hoof down or something, but the card wasn’t there anymore.

It was lying face-up on the table, next to Rainbow Dash’s face-up stack of cards. Played, as clearly as any other card in front of Rainbow Dash had been.

“It’s not such a bad thing.” Starlight Glimmer said. “It should be fun, honestly. I think you’ll enjoy it. Just don’t get too hung up on what you think you have to do.”

Rainbow Dash jerked her head up. “What are you—”

Starlight Glimmer was gone.

Rainbow Dash’s jaw dropped. “B...she was, she was just here, where did she…?”

“Always with you. Always will be.” Fluttershy smiled faintly. “She was just a part of you, really. Trying to help you figure out what you needed to know before you left.”

“How are you all so calm about this? She just disappeared!” Rainbow Dash snapped. “Doesn’t that worry any of you at all? Why are you all okay with the idea of that happening to you?”

“T’be honest, sugarcube, I wasn’t. Would have said I wasn’t for the longest time. But I just sorta...knowing that I ain’t here, an’ all...knowin’ that if I’m a part of anything, that I’m a part of you? It’s...almost a relief.” Applejack reached up to scratch her forehead, letting some of her bangs drift in front of her eyes; when she stopped scratching and took her forehoof away again, it wasn’t possible to tell exactly what her expression was. “Sorta like the emotions just went out of me a little. I ain’t my own thing, ain’t my own pony. Just a part of you tryin’ to figure things out, for however long you’ve been figurin’ things out.”

“So what was this? I just, I just finally figure out that I died and what I need to do with that and...and that’s it?”

“...It can be hard to accept that sort of thing, dear.” Rarity tilted her head. For a moment, she almost looked sad. “You really don’t know how long you’ve been doing this for, do you?”

“I’ve…” Rainbow Dash rubbed her eyes. “I have been?”

“Tryin’ t’come to grips with it?” Applejack’s lips twisted in a wry grimace. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s been a bunch. But if us bein’ here an’ tellin’ you things you think ain’t bad advice is some kinda indication, it’s that you finally got through to yourself this time. You finally heard yourself talk.”

“That still…” A phlegmy-like sensation ran up Rainbow Dash’s throat as she looked at Applejack. “That doesn’t explain why you’re all okay with just being...being done.”

“You think I’m really me?” Applejack chuckled. “Starlight weren’t even Starlight, hon. She was th’ part of your brain that wanted t’try out new things, but didn’t want t’have repercussions for ‘em.”

“Yeah, well, what about you?”

“I’m the sensible bit. Not too sensible to not get dragged along into gettin’ too interested in my work an’ not too sensible to not get worked up when some folks are tryin’ t’get me to do petty or pretty things…”

Applejack chuckled, winking at Fluttershy, before pressing on.

“...not too sensible to not get worked up about all that junk, but still sensible enough to know what’s what, y’know? Even if I don’t like thinkin’ about it all that much. An’ you know it’s sensible of me t’be a lil’ blunt an’ tell you t’move along.”

“Move where?” Rainbow Dash replied, trying to ignore the increasingly powerful phlegmy feeling in her. “I don’t know where this goes! I don’t know where I go!”

“Neither do we.” Applejack chuckled. “Just ‘cause we know what you gotta do doesn’t mean we got a context for it.”

“Then why should I listen to you?” Rainbow Dash fired back. “If you’re just...just me imagining things, then why—”

Rainbow Dash blinked. When she opened her eyes, Applejack was gone.

Rainbow Dash pointed at the spot where she had been. A sound like the whistle of a tiny teakettle leaked out of her lips. She blinked once more. Twice. Three times.

Nothing.

Fluttershy sighed. “You know, for a ‘sensible’ part of your brain, I think she forgot to mention that things won’t get worse.”

Rainbow Dash didn’t respond.

“If there was something...if there was something awful waiting for you at the end of this, I imagine it would have already happened. Or this is it, maybe.”

Rainbow Dash didn’t respond.

“...You’re scared. I know how that feels. The part of me that you’re imagining me as is a part of you that’s scared all the time. Because it’s based on a pony that’s scared all the time, isn’t it? So it’s easier to imagine it that way.”

Rainbow Dash closed her mouth. Slowly, her hoof drooped down again, until it brushed against the train car’s floor.

Rarity stepped a little closer to Rainbow Dash. “It won’t be so bad, dear, whatever it is. If you’ve been put through such a curious thing to have to do over and over again, I can’t imagine that the end of it all would be mundane.”

“So…” Rainbow Dash turned her head towards Rarity, stiffly and mechanically. “I know you told me what I need to do, but after that…”

“There will be other ponies to help you, dear. It’s not our place.” Rarity reached up to gently caress Rainbow Dash’s cheek. For the first time for as far back as Rainbow Dash could remember, she couldn’t feel anything actually touching her.

“My place is to tell you that you like being creative more than you think you do,” Rarity continued. “You like coming up with ideas more than you think you do. In your particular manner of learning, even, you like it more than you think you do. It’s not something intuitive to grapple with, I know, but…”

“So is that what’s gonna happen to me after…?”

“Being creative? Coming up with ideas? Learning? I don’t think it has to be, if you don’t want it to be. But I think that you might find it more enriching if you think you are.” Rarity stepped away and giggled. “Of course, the pony you can imagine saying all of this would be somepony as aesthetically obsessed as Rarity. But that isn’t to say I’m wrong, dear.”

“I...I just…”

“I think you’re still looking for answers. Don’t worry. You’ll find them. But the process of finding them will be more pleasant, I think, than you assume it will be.” Rarity stepped back again. “Imagination is a wonderful thing.”

Rainbow Dash stared at Rarity. Rarity stared back. Silence settled. Neither blinked.

Finally, Rarity feigned a sigh. “...You think that closing your eyes will make me disappear.”

“I know it will.”

“You’re thinking about it from the perspective of a pony who’s awake. But that’s not how things work here, is it?” Rarity turned her head towards the window. “Not in this lightless realm, it isn’t.”

“Does it matter if you think I’m awake or if I’m asleep?”

“Of course it does. Sleeping ponies eventually wake up. All you need to do is open your eyes, bit by bit.”

“My eyes are open,” Rainbow Dash hissed.

“Oh, really?” Rarity pointed a hoof at the windows. “Then how come you haven’t commented on the sunrise yet?”

Rainbow Dash turned her head. “The Sunr—”

Nothing. Still pitch black. Rainbow Dash turned back.

Rarity was gone.

“No,” Rainbow Dash whispered.

“It isn’t far now.” Fluttershy tilted her head. “Soon you’ll get to see everything grow again.”

“No I won’t.” Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. “I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t I won’t.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being dead.” Fluttershy took a step closer to Rainbow Dash. “It would be a very different life if nothing died. I don’t think it would be one you liked. You or anypony else.”

“Then why did you try to stop me?” Rainbow Dash snapped. “That outburst—”

“I didn’t want you to not remember.” Fluttershy shook her head. “I just didn’t want you to end the game before you understood. It...it came a little later than I, um...than I would have felt comfortable with, but you figured it out. I’m proud of you, Rainbow Dash.”

“Don’t be. I could have saved you,” Rainbow Dash mumbled. “I could have saved everypony.”

“You couldn’t have.” Fluttershy took another step closer. “You didn’t.”

“It was a cheap shot!” Rainbow Dash snarled. “I wouldn’t have lost if I had known about it. Nopony would have. We would all be alive, and everypony would be fine, and all of my actual real friends would be with me somewhere, playing this, this stupid game…”

“Shhh.” Fluttershy walked forward, slowly, until their hooves almost touched. “Don’t be sad.”

“I’m not sad.”

“You lived a good life.”

“I died. What if my other friends died, too?”

“They’ll have what they deserve.”

“They deserve to live a good life!”

“And they did. Maybe they still do.” Fluttershy leaned a little closer. “It’s okay to be scared to talk about it. I understand.”

“I’m dead, according to you.” Rainbow Dash fired back. “Why would I be—”

“Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow Dash froze.

For a second, Fluttershy’s face had warped into a stern, steely glare. Then, second by second, it dissolved, until Fluttershy’s gentle smile took its place again.

“I can stay with you, if you like.” Fluttershy reached over and rested a hoof on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder. “Just for a little while longer.” It didn’t feel like a hoof was there, but at least there was some resistance. At least it was something she could feel.

A great wave of something undefinable surged up in the back of Rainbow Dash’s body, like a colossal tidal wave ready to break. Weakly, she nodded.

Fluttershy leaned over and wrapped her other hoof around Rainbow Dash’s back.

The wave broke.

There wasn’t any fluid in Rainbow Dash’s body outside of what she imagined. Her lungs didn’t need to breathe. Her jaw didn’t need to open. Technically speaking, she didn’t need to feel emotions, and wasn’t supposed to have any of them.

None of that stopped her from burying her face into Fluttershy’s neck and sobbing.

The tears didn’t exist, and they didn’t stop coming.

They didn’t stop.

They didn’t.

…

…

…

...

******************************************

Rainbow Dash opened her eyes.

She was in a train car. There were barely any furnishings. There were communal tables between the booth seats, the right shape and size to accommodate a game.

There weren’t any games in the room.

Something ugly sat in the pit of Rainbow Dash’s stomach. Memories flitted through her brain, of smiling faces and shocked expressions, recalling tall tales and begrudging sentiments and sweet wishes.

Rainbow Dash tried to block it out. Any distraction would do. Out of idleness and quiet desperation, she looked out the window.

It wasn’t dark anymore.

It wasn’t pretty, either. The sun didn’t look quite right, not in the atmosphere. And the ground was patchy like a mangy dog: interspersed with grass and trees and flowers, there were ragged stretches of dusty rock that Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure really counted as soil.

Rainbow Dash watched.

It had clouds. It might have had birds; Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure. There were things on the horizon that she couldn’t quite make out: large, bumpy uprisings that could have been hills or exceptionally large rocks.

The window went dark again. A faint squealing filled the air as something shifted beneath Rainbow Dash’s backside, as if the train was coming to a slow, gradual stop.

With a loud, shuddering noise, the train car came to a screeching halt.

The doors on the front and the back of the train car swung open; from the front, all Rainbow Dash could see as she looked down the aisles was an endless string of train cars, interiors that seemed identical to the one she was in, linked together by smaller segments.

Suddenly, a crackling whine, like the sound of microphone feedback or the readjustment of a loudspeaker, blared out from right above Rainbow Dash’s head.

“Attention. This will be the final stop on our route. Please make your way to the cabin junction nearest to you and exit via the descending staircase. Thank you.”

Part of Rainbow Dash wanted to refuse, solely for the sake of refusing. The rest of Rainbow Dash, though, wasn’t sure what she wanted to feel, or even what she was supposed to feel now. Everything just felt...dry. Tapped. Like there wasn’t anything else to feel, at the moment.

She needed to move forward. That was all she could do.

Without another thought, Rainbow Dash walked to the front of her cabin, turned right and walked down the staircase and through the open doors below.

Author's Note

Chapter 6

Rainbow Dash paused. Looked at her cards. Paused again. Looked up. Saw everypony at the table watching her, expressions blank.

“We need to talk about this.” Rainbow Dash began.

Nopony replied.

“We actually do.” Rainbow Dash rubbed her eyes. “Look, we don’t even know what — ”

“Does that matter?” Rarity snapped. “We can guess.”

“It does matter.” Rainbow pushed. “We aren’t going to make things better if we don’t remember.”

“ ‘Make things better?’ As if there’s likely anything left to make better, darling!” Rarity snapped. “Whatever happened to Equestria put it in the past tense. There are problems that make our home merely worse, and then there are problems that make it cease to be. And, I assure you, we’re not looking at the former!”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, what shouldn’t make me think that? Unless you’re wrong, of course. And trust me, I’d love to believe you’re wrong. But what you told us when we realized that we couldn’t escape makes sense in hindsight. It made sense when we realized we were being cruel to Fluttershy.”

“And?” Rainbow Dash shot back. “Those could have been coincidences!”

“So where are we, then?” Starlight Glimmer cut in. “If we’re trapped in a place that we can’t escape from by a force that we can’t defeat, and we can’t even remember where we are or how we got here or even why, do you think that us being down here is a good thing? Do you think we wanted to put ourselves in a position of no escape because it was an idea that sounded fun?”

“Why are you asking me?” Rainbow Dash replied. “I thought you were on my side!”

“I’m on the side of wanting to make things better. You think trying to wrack our brains for stuff we’re not allowed to think about is going to help at all? I know how that particular dance works. We’re going to suffer, it’s going to be awful, and we’re not going to get anything out of it but pain. Besides, even if we did know what went wrong, would it really make anything better? Or would it just give us something to feel guilty about? Because I am so done with feeling awful about things that can’t be helped.”

Rainbow Dash raised a hoof, an objection forming on her lips. But instead of rolling off of her tongue, it hung just behind her teeth, unable to clear the distance from emotional impulse to actual assertion. She slumped in her chair again, looking at her cards.

Then she looked at the board again.

Then she looked at her cards again.

“Well, I…” Rainbow Dash trailed off. “...even if Equestria...even if it doesn’t exist anymore, I’m…”

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath.

“Maybe the game is a way of showing what happened. Or is happening.” Rainbow Dash held up her cards. “If what we’re subconsciously saying is making us remember the truth or recognize what’s going on right now, then maybe this game’s just a way of recreating...recreating Equestria. But not the part where everything goes into decline. If this is the future, then maybe we’re just reliving it while our brains catch up from…”

Rainbow Dash paused, aware that all eyes were on her.

“...The present, or something. Look, I’m not the smart pony around here, okay? I’m just guessing. But I figure that if I was some sort of weird force that wanted to show ponies what’s going on but couldn’t directly talk to them and couldn’t let them leave, then this wouldn’t be a bad way of doing it.”

“And you think a force like that exists?” Rarity asked.

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Do you have a better idea?”

Silence.

“...Right.” Rainbow Dash looked at her cards again. “I guess I might as well go ahead and play.”

*******************************************

Triton was all the rage when it came to plundering mineral wealth. It wasn’t the only pebble on the rocky beach that was the galaxy, but it was certainly one of the most glittery, lustrous pebbles out there.

But Helion didn’t mind. They knew better than to mind that, when there were other pebbles that were just as useful to their purposes. What they chiefly needed were minerals for excavation and minerals to withstand heat, minerals which — while they likely could be found on Triton — were also fiercely guarded by the teeming hordes of Thorgate, Aphrodite and Mars-Equestrian Multinational Enterprise ships, who swarmed around the planet like a throng of wasps.

Ceres, however, was a pebble that had minerals for excavation and minerals that could withstand heat. Ceres was a planet that was significantly less glittery than Triton, and significantly easier to overlook.

Ceres would more than suffice for Helion’s Plans.

Minerals poured out of Ceres at an almost alarming rate. Minerals poured into the Corporates Chasma at a similarly alarming rate: minerals that gouged at the soil, tore through its fragile crust and bandaged the rocks around the hole to Mars’ creamy center.

Moholes had come to Mars. Heat flowed onto the planet’s surface at an almost alarming rate. But, given Mars’ current frosty conditions, it was a most satisfactory source of alarm.

*******************************************

“I’m amazed nopony noticed Ceres,” Rainbow Dash admitted. “Seriously, for it to go untapped for the entire game so far? I’m not exactly an expert on the game, but somepony seriously needed to pop that cherry.”

Rarity frowned. “Don’t be vulgar.”

“At least I’m saying something. Somepony has to break your guys’ tomb-like silence.” Rainbow Dash paused. “About that…”

“Yes”

“Rarity, how come you and Applejack didn’t say anything back there? A little bit ago, I mean. You just kind of took your turns in silence.” Rainbow Dash cocked her head. “Didn’t words come to you?”

“I…” Rarity trailed off.

“I jes’ didn’t feel like talkin’, Dash,” Applejack replied. “I really, really didn’t want t’say anything, so I tried to think about not sayin’ anything so I didn’t sound like a complete featherbrain. Pretty sure that’s what you did too, right, Rarity?”

Rarity nodded.

“I know you’ve been sayin’ that the words jes’ kind of...come to you. The urge t’speak after you do somethin’ in th’ game. I’ve been gettin’ that, too.” Applejack paused. “But I don’t reckon we’ve got t’ do that if we don’t want to. I figure we can keep our traps shut if we want to.”

“Huh.”

Silence.

Starlight Glimmer cleared her throat. “I guess I’m up, then?”

“Hold on.” Rainbow Dash raised a hoof. “I think we should try to talk out our turns if we can.”

“Why?” Applejack arched an eyebrow. “Why d’you figure any of us’d like reminders about how kaput the whole of Equestria is right now?”

“Because if you didn’t want any reminders at all, you’d stop playing. We’d sit here in silence and probably go insane. You can think that your choice is between playing and talking or playing in silence, but if we play in silence then things are gonna end up the exact same way they would if we didn’t talk at all. We’d just take a little longer to realize it before the monotony would kick in and we’d all go out of our minds.”

Applejack, looking a little uncomfortable, didn’t reply.

“We’re basically being held hostage here, girls. We comply or we’re trapped here forever. And I don’t want to be trapped here forever, so I’m gonna keep talking when I can, where I can. If you want to beat me unconscious and gag me with a mouthful of somepony’s mane or something, I guess I’m not sure I can stop you from doing that. Otherwise, I’m gonna start taking your turns for you, and how long it takes us to get through whatever the heck this is basically depends on how long you want all of this to take.”

Starlight squeezed her cards a little tighter. Rarity pulled her mouth into a faint grimace. Applejack took in a deep breath of air.

Then Starlight straightened up, slapped a card on the table and opened her mouth.

*******************************************

In retrospect, it was a bit of a surprise that Thorgate — a megacorporation whose initial initiatives had been geared towards helping the common pony — now mostly tackled work that nopony else wanted to handle.

Mining on Triton, for one thing. Colonies had sprung up all around the moon, hammering away at it for its precious resources, but none of them lead the charge as fervently as Thorgate. Where once the immoral rich had taken up ranks in Thorgate’s cities, now their cities housed legions of the honorable poor; miners, technicians, pilots, medics, whatever ponies could be used to field work that was as dirty as it was useful.

But it wasn’t just Triton that was infected with Thorgate’s fervor. Venus, too, had caught their attention. For while useful labor could be done on Venus, possibly as useful as Thorgate’s Triton enterprises, there simply weren’t any workers who would be able to stomach the long days of labor there. Emphasis on long days; the planet turned the wrong way, unless the idea of 117 Equestria-length day-cycles seemed ‘right’ in some fashion. And if it wasn’t healthy for the blue-collar ponies of Thorgate, it would certainly be nightmarish for the ponies of other Megacorporations, with their far less sturdy stock.

Asteroids, again, were the answer. This time, though, the angle mattered as much as the impact itself. If Venus could rotate the right way, at the right speed, perhaps there would be hope for the planet after all…

*******************************************

Applejack chuckled. “Y’know, Starlight, I ain’t sure that what you’re doin’ ain’t some other form of insubordination or somethin’.”

“Huh?”

“Jes’ admiring your progress on Mars.” Applejack leaned back in her chair, looking a little more relaxed than before — or, rather, on a slightly lower level of alarm than everypony had been set to minutes before.

“...I really am playing to win.” Starlight huffed. “I know my cards for it haven’t been great, but…”

“I mean, you’re the one with experience.” Applejack paused. “Allegedly. Uh...you’ve played this game before, right?”

“I remember that I played it before, yeah.” Starlight replied.

“Do you remember anythin’ about that game? Who you played it with, when, where…?”

Starlight didn’t reply.

After several seconds, Rarity started moving her tokens around the board.

*******************************************

What good was a study without a place to live?

It was a question that vexed Rarity. Stratopolis may have been the finest university that the galaxy had to offer, as far as Rarity knew, but it was certainly not complete. Constructing habitable conditions on Mars was hard enough, but building a floating city high above a vast, toxic wasteland? It was miraculous that Stratopolis had figuratively gotten off of the ground at all, much less that it hadn’t sunk by now.

Still, there were plans made to counteract this. The plans would have to be put on hold for just a bit while Aphrodite continued to clear toxins from the Venusian atmosphere and fill the Eos Chasma with necessary levels of ice.

But Aphrodite had certainly poured more effort into research than any other megacorporation, and they hadn’t exhausted their brains just yet.

*******************************************

“That said, I’ve exhausted my actions for now.” Rarity tucked some strands of her mane behind one of her ears. “Fluttershy, dear? Your turn.”

*******************************************

There were things to be said for the proliferation of Algae and Fungus across the planet, particularly in light of the ever-increasing magnetic field around Mars. Oxygen was actually beginning to linger in the atmosphere, breathable oxygen, and while merely seven percent of Mars’ atmosphere was comprised of oxygen, that was still seven percent more than at the point where they had begun.

One hundred and fifty years ago. A century and a half. Some things had remained the same since those days, of course, but many more things had changed. It was hard for the Timeless Chairmare Fluttershy to not spend entire days staring out at the stars, thinking about what had once been and what would remain nevermore.

Mars and Venus were truly the homes of ponies now. Not comfortable or pleasant homes, not homes that Ponies wished to live in, but their homes nonetheless. Out here, among an atmosphere only slowly starting to come together, clouds only barely starting to remain in shape and temperature only barely starting to rise; here, trapped in the bubbles that protected them from a still-lethal planet, ponies survived.

They had developed their own markets. Credits still flowed into Mars from what was almost certainly an automated process never quite shut off, of course, and the colonies on Mars had certainly bartered with each other outside of the watchful eyes of the Megacorporations, but it was still strange to imagine a Mars with a private sector. Mars, with a free market, with luxuries traded among commodities and with supply and demand! Almost as much as the carefully focused efforts that the Megacorporations had undertaken, it made Mars feel like home.

And if their Martian home wanted to see a free market used, they would have their free market. If Mars wanted luxuries, they could have luxuries. And if Ecoline wanted to see the free market turned towards their benefit, all they needed was to find luxuries they could not otherwise provide.

There had been plenty of animals in Equestria. Some of them had been seen as glorious and exotic, some of them had been seen as commonplace and mundane, but they were all animals nonetheless. Through carefully kept archives, it was possible to see how those animals had been made; and, though the effort and resources would take tremendous effort, how to remake some of them again in small numbers, maybe even a little better than before.

A vast, sprawling sanctuary was out of the question, given the exorbitant cost of constructing living space on the planet. But if the public was willing to help fund its creation through a sufficiently flashy and glamorous proposal, then a humble and modestly-sized zoo was not entirely out of the question.

The public was willing. The public was willing to pay admission fees, and shuttle fees, and exclusive newsletter fees for “distinguished patrons.” And such was the story of the construction of a mini-dome amidst the fungal fields of Hebes Chasma. Such was the story of how rabbits came to Mars. Rabbits and other strange, exotic Equestrian animals that one could only find at the Intercorporate Flutterport Zoo: dogs, cats, owls, tortoises…

*******************************************

“I hadn’t thought you could exploit Martian sponsorship to enhance the profit of your late-game zoos,” Rarity mused. “That was very cleverly done, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy beamed. “Th-thank you…”

“I imagine it’d be nice for folks to get t’see common sorts of things like they’d never seem ‘em before.” Applejack sighed. “Good gravy, it’s been a real long time since the game started, hasn’t it? A hundred an’ fifty years…”

“I don’t imagine that there’s anypony left alive who lived in Glimmeropolis after it was first built.” Starlight sighed. “Definitely not anypony who originally started building things up here.”

“Except for us,” Rainbow Dash added.

“I guess.” Starlight paused. Then she blinked a little bit harder than before and chewed on her lip, brow furrowing ever so slightly in deep thought.

“...Something on your mind, Starlight?” Rainbow Dash probed.

“Nothing. Nothing I want to jump to a conclusion about before I think about it a little more.” Starlight shook her head. “I’m not saying ignore me, I’m just saying give me a bit of time.”

Rainbow Dash sighed. “I...okay. If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Right.” Rainbow Dash scratched her neck. “So, uh. I guess it’s Applejack’s turn, then?”

*******************************************

The drive for animals didn’t just stop at zoos. The private sector was an insatiable critter, just as it had been all them years back. When ponies found a thing they wanted, they’d go lengths and lengths just t’find it. And now that they knew they wanted animals…

It wouldn’t be an easy process. Heck, as far as processes went, it was basically a break-even task for Applejack’s group to get everythin’ set up, which meant that what they did would be more of an...al-true-is-tick...affair than anythin’ else.

But was the process worth it? Heck yeah, it was worth it. Sure, maybe only th’ very, very rich ponies on Mars could afford pets, but at least some pets could be had at all. Havin’ a half dozen dogs in homes around the planet was still better’n no dogs at all, an’ if the dog-makin’ process could be made cheaper, than...who knows? Mebbe there’d be as many folks with pooches as those who wanted ‘em.

It weren’t a dream for makin’ the planet Mars better, but it couldn’t hurt to start dreamin’ for somethin’ better’n just fungus an’ ice.

*******************************************

Rarity smirked. “I can’t tell if that’s a jab at me or not, dear.”

“Nah, it weren’t.” Applejack grinned. “Fungus is better’n dirt if you can’t use dirt to breathe, an’ ice is better’n no ice if you ain’t about to drown or get the chills. But don’t tell me you wouldn’t like to have a pet with you if you were livin’ on Mars.”

Rarity paused. “I...I guess it wouldn’t be bad to have Opal with me. There, or... or here.”

Silence settled.

“I.” Fluttershy’s voice took on a hard edge. “I think I want to keep playing instead of thinking about what might have happened to all my animal friends.”

Rainbow Dash nodded and looked back at her cards.

*******************************************

The free market had come back to Mars. With it, of course, came Competition.

Helion was no stranger to competition. None of the megacorporations were; by definition, they were born into an economic war, fought for all their lives to get every last bit that they could, and would not and could not rest until every last one of their rivals had been crushed under hoof.

It had been strange to think of the other megacorporations almost as friends while they tended to Mars together. It was not the truth, truly, and their actions had not entirely been peaceful toward each other. But something about the last thirty years seemed to have awoken the powerful beast of commerce inside the hearts of Martian ponies, and it spread ever upward into the very hearts of the five core Chairponies of the new world.

Helion would not be left out of that battlefield. Helion would not let itself fall by the wayside. And so Helion began to boost its trade fleets drastically, in numbers and in security, and made a move on intercolonial trade. The kickbacks to Flutterport would be worth having the space necessary to get delivery after delivery sent to New Manehattan and the city in Noctis Labyrinthus — now colloquially referred to as Noctis City — in precedence over the fleets of the other megacorporations. And with the uptick in trade came all sorts of wonders: minerals, independent contracts, precious, precious ice…

*******************************************

Rarity arched an eyebrow “Are you deliberately cutting in on my aquatic operations, Rainbow Dash? Should I take this as a declaration of economic war?”

“It’s a declaration of me wanting to have some money,” Rainbow Dash huffed. “Look, since apparently our ‘donations’ are just meaningless numbers artificially being pumped into our companies by some kind of super-old program somewhere in Equestria, it wouldn’t hurt to actually get ahead in the part of economics where money actually means something. You’ve got your whole cloud college and all its tuitions, Fluttershy’s got her zoo, Applejack’s got her designer pets and Starlight is being Starlight. I need a piece of the action too, y’know?”

“Oh, I’m sure you’ll be getting pieces of the action soon enough, Rainbow Dash.” Rarity sniffed. “There are still all sorts of asteroids practically begging to be crashed into Mars, and I suppose that if one of them were to be crashed too close to a colony, it couldn’t be helped…”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Rainbow Dash sat up in her seat a little. “Are you declaring actual war?”

“Oh, goodness, no.” Rarity waved a dismissive hoof in the air. “Just considering my options. I wouldn’t want to do anything that might result in somepony getting hurt, after all!”

Starlight’s brow furrowed again as she leaned over the table.

*******************************************

All the wealth in the world could not make ponies moral. Wealth did not beget morality. Try as the megacorporations might to make sure that everypony was happy, there would always be ponies who would not be happy unless they brought misery to others.

This wasn’t just true of the “free” colonists who lived on Mars, no; it was true of all the ponies who worked directly for the megacorporations in some capacity, from the lowest lows to nearly the highest highs. Punishment was always a question: fees seemed not to deter some folks who could easily recoup their losses, while capital punishment was viewed as cruel and totalitarian. Many ponies espoused that imprisonment was sufficient punishment for the lowest of ponies, but where was there space for prisons? On Mars? Surely not - that space was needed for spreading greenery, water and noble ponies, not crooks.

But the answer was never on Mars. Callisto, though — that was a rock in the endless black sky with plenty of space to go around. That was a rock with ice and minerals that could be put to use; perhaps not in the quantities that places like Triton or Ceres had, but enough to keep hooves busy. Hooves, guided to the point of near collapse, watched over by wardens with sufficient numbers and weapons to deter any sort of insurrection. Hooves which other Megacorporations would be more than happy to contribute their criminal element to, and who would likely be willing to pay heavy fines to see their problems put to work, far, far away from where they’d ever have to see said problems again.

Of course, this wasn’t a matter of the bottom line. Insofar as public relations went, anyway, it wasn’t a matter of the bottom line. But if it was possible to turn a substantial profit while drastically curtailing crime among the colonies on Mars, then wouldn’t that be for the best for everypony?

*******************************************

Applejack snorted. “I reiterate: I admire your progress on Mars.”

“Are you telling me that the planet’s problems with crime are just going to go away if I don’t do anything?” Starlight shrugged. “I’m trying to be a good pony here. Crime isn’t good.”

“An’ that hefty income per turn bonus you just trawled in is?” Applejack smirked.

Starlight rolled her eyes. “Shush. Stop trying to make me feel bad about doing good things that happen to benefit me.”

“An’ that whole thing about back-breakin’ labor that you hinted at?”

“A fitting punishment for terrible deeds and part of the price of progress.” Starlight pointed a hoof at Rarity. “Is this because you decided to stop making fun of what Rarity does? You had to go and find yourself another target for your disingenuous assertions?”

“Calls ‘em like I sees ‘em. Rarity was bein’ Rarity-like...no offense, Rarity.”

“None taken.”

“And now you’re goin’ and bein’ all Starlight-like.” Applejack concluded. “No offense.”

“No offense to what?” Starlight fired back. “I don’t even know what that means!”

Applejack smirked. “You don’t think settin’ up conditions for a group of poor ponies t’work themselves half to death for the sake of an overlord and heavily punishin’ dissenters don’t sound mighty familiar to you at all, Starlight?”

Starlight blinked, looked down at her cards and went slightly pale.

“Relax, Starlight.” Applejack chuckled. “I think if you were goin’ the full nine yards on that whole regression thing, you’d prolly go an’ change your mane back to th’ way it used to be. So if you’re plannin’ on gettin’ a manecut out of nowhere, give us a bit of a heads up, okay? But other than that…” Applejack reclined back. “Rarity? Wanna show Starlight how to not be an evil villain?”

Rarity chuckled and redistributed her funds. “With pleasure, dear.”

*******************************************

The University of Aphrodite-Stratopolis needed more room. It needed more room for its teachers to take up even tiny residences by its classrooms, it needed more room in its classrooms to properly conduct studies and experiments, it needed more room to collect and host all of its notes in huge private databanks and vast public libraries alike, it needed more room for its students to come and go from classes, it needed more room for maintenance and maintenance supplies and equipment and administrators and resources…

It needed more room for everything. It needed to figure out how to outsource some of that insatiable demand for more and more room.

One solution was initially expensive, yet fittingly simple: public transportation. Not free public transportation, of course, but more than enough public transportation to ferry ponies from the docking bays of Stratopolis throughout its city and all over the University of Aphrodite-Stratopolis campus and back again. With this, traffic of all sorts would ease up, encouraging ponies in the city proper to not loiter around campus while waiting for private ways to return home. And, once proper facilities were established to increase the campus size, it would help carry all of the University of Aphrodite-Stratopolis’ most important resource — ponies — where they needed to go, and help the lifeblood of the university and city flow properly again.

*******************************************

“And that,” Rarity concluded, “is how you defy expectations.”

“Except for the bit where you charged a buncha money for somethin’ that coulda been free.” Applejack pointed a hoof at Rarity. “An’ don’t tell me you can’t afford things like that.”

“Well, I can afford them now.” Rarity huffed. “But that doesn’t mean I have enough money for all of my good intentions. Or would you rather I not set up public projects that would better everypony simply so that I could make a few institutions a little cheaper? Are you willing to cover all the transportation fees for me, right now, out of your personal accounts?”

Applejack fell silent.

“Thought so.” Rarity turned to Fluttershy. “Fluttershy, dear — your turn.”

*******************************************

The ponies of Equestria might have said that building a city in a volcano was a silly idea.

But if they did, they were probably thinking of active volcanoes. Inactive ones were an entirely different matter. And besides, it wasn’t as if Ecoline’s ponies were actually living inside-inside a volcano.

Lava tubes were an entirely different manner. Assuming there wasn’t any more runoff to be worried about — and Ecoline’s researchers made very, very sure that it wasn’t the case — building inside pre-carved areas with very stable surroundings and a surprising amount of protection from fluctuating temperatures and cosmic radiation wasn’t just a passable idea, it was a good idea.

Admittedly, the issue among Ecoline’s exploration and terraforming crews wasn’t realizing that lava tubes were good places to live in. The problem was finding them in the first place, and Ecoline hadn’t wanted to poke around the volcanoes that Aphrodite had claimed were part of a natural preserve.

But Ecoline’s legal team came to the swift and well-backed conclusion, shortly after lava tubes were discovered near where the natural preserve was, that the subterranean territory of Arisa Mons bore no legally significant relationship to the surface territory of Pavonis Mons.

Ponies, like mosses and lichens, needed to grow. Fluttersborough gave them a perfect place to do it.

*******************************************

“...and I’ll be spreading some greenery over by Flutterport, too.” Fluttershy looked up at Rarity. “I-I mean, is...if you don’t want me to do that, um…”

“Shush. Nothing of the sort.” Rarity chuckled “I wasn’t exactly using that land, anyway. Getting upset over somepony else using it would be rather gauche.”

“Just wanted to make sure.” Fluttershy looked down at the board, smiling. “I...I like to imagine ponies living there, anyway. All snuggled up in their dens like sleepy animals during winter…”

Fluttershy paused, then looked up at Rarity.

“Um...do you think anypony might be, um, in burrows of their own? In Equestria? I mean, i-if it can happen here…”

“Floating cities can happen on Venus, dear. Colonies can exist on far-off planets. But…” Rarity sighed. “I’m sure that the ponies on Mars would have found any ponies in Equestria that were in their burrows that could be helped.”

“Oh.” Fluttershy looked down at her cards again and fell silent.

And, at that moment, something sparked in the back of Rainbow Dash’s mind. An idea, like a flickering ember; but the ember grew hotter with every second, glowing brighter and brighter until it rekindled itself into a roaring flame.

Rainbow Dash raised her hoof “...Y’know, this is gonna be a dumb question, but, uh…”

“There ain’t any dumb questions,” Applejack fired back. “Just dumb question-askers.”

Rainbow Dash snorted. “Okay, no, but seriously, uh...what’s Mars?”

Starlight Glimmer blinked. “Uh, Rainbow Dash, have you been tuning out this entire game? We’ve been playing on — ”

“Yeah, I know, the name of the game has Mars in it. We’ve been playing on a board representing Mars, doing stuff involving Mars. But, like, can anypony here remember a planet called Mars that you learned about while you were in Equestria?”

Silence.

“Well, I…”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m not an astronomy expert, but seriously — Mars? Venus? Triton? Those don’t sound like the sort of names we’d use, guys. Those aren’t pony names.”

“I…” Starlight Glimmer raised a hoof; it hung in the air, waiting to be accompanied by a question that never came. “...You do realize that language changes over time, right? That the names for things don’t always stay the same or mean the same thing?”

“I do.” Rainbow Dash grinned. “So that probably means that this Mars, this Venus, this Triton stuff — that probably means it’s not from right now, right. And by now, I mean the present day.”

Applejack rubbed her forehead. “That ain’t exactly surprisin’, y’know. If we’re supposed to be thinkin’ that what happened to Equestria, y’know, already happened, then…”

“Then this is all way, way in the future. So unless something really weird is going on, we’re basically...we’ve been here for a while, huh?”

“Or we aren’t in Equestria,” Fluttershy mumbled.

Four heads swiveled to look at her. Fluttershy, in turn, was peeking over her cards to stare at Starlight Glimmer.

“I mean, um. S-starlight, you’ve...you went to a different world with Sunset Shimmer, right? So maybe this is, um...this is an entirely…”

“Somewhere entirely outside of the Equestria that we know?” Starlight shrugged. “Maybe, but that doesn’t explain why this other place has places like Equestria with names like Equestria, then, since Equestria doesn’t really sound anything like Triton or Ceres or whatever. Unless this place is just a jumbled mishmash of here and there and elsewhere all smashed together…”

Rainbow Dash groaned. “At this point, I almost want to stick with the future idea. If it’s true, it means that figuring this out should be a lot more coherent. We’d actually be able to finish learning what we need to learn before this game ends.”

“Um.” Fluttershy’s voice dropped to just a hair above a whisper. “...what happens if we don’t, um, figure everything out before that...it…”

The table fell silent.

Four seconds passed. Seven. Ten.

Rainbow Dash took a deep breath. “We need to keep playing.”

“Are you insane?” Starlight snapped. “Did you not hear what Fluttershy just said?”

“What, that possibly something bad happens if we don’t get out of here before the game ends? Yeah. So what do we have to lose if we keep playing until we’re almost done? We’ll probably learn more than we do right now once we get closer, and maybe we’ll get a better idea about which idea is correct, on top of everything else we don’t know.”

Applejack arched an eyebrow. “And you think everything’ll be alright if we get close to finishin’ an’ then just stop?”

“Do you have any reason to believe it won’t?” Rainbow Dash fired back.

Applejack fell silent.

“Right.” Rainbow Dash took another deep breath. “We should keep going. At least until we’re closer to the end. Then we can stop. Okay?”

Applejack sucked in a mouthful of air between her teeth. “I don’t like it, Dash. I don’t got a reason to agree with you.”

“So, what, we’re just gonna wait?”

“No. ‘Cause I want to know how this all ends, too. But I ain’t doin’ it ‘cause I think you got a bright idea. You wanna convince somepony that you’re doin’ the smart thing, convince yourself that you got an actual idea outside of ‘maybe we’ll think of somethin’ else’ first. Then I’ll be all ears. Until then…” Applejack trailed off, stared down at her cards, moved a few of her tokens around the board and set her cards down. “I’m done.”

Rainbow Dash blinked. “You aren’t gonna say anything?”

“Why should I? All I did was develop my microbe structures an’ end my turn. There ain’t no point in talkin’ when you ain’t got nothin’ to figure out from it, ‘less you want to learn about how all the little squirmy critters in your body an’ on the land can make different things happen.”

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. “That’s not helpful.”

“It gets us closer to the end. That’s what you want, isn’t it? ‘We have to keep goin’ ’ an’ all that. Well, I’m goin. You best be goin’ too. Let’s go until we can’t no more.”

Rainbow Dash looked down at her board. “But all I can do is manage my heat production. I’m not gonna get anything useful out of that.”

“Then do it.” Applejack stood up and waved a hoof at the pitch-black train windows. “Everypony, get all the useless junk stuff you gotta do before your turns end, then we’ll start another one. I don’t wanna waste my time listenin’ to ponies prattle on about heat production or psychrophile generation or anythin’ else that’s useless. We talk about the important stuff on our turns, an’ we think when we’re not doin’ anything, okay? I don’t wanna waste time on improv theater junk.”

Rainbow Dash glared at Applejack. Applejack glared back.

“...Fine,” Rainbow Dash replied. Without another word, she finished moving tokens around on her board and set her cards down. Starlight Glimmer, Rarity and Fluttershy followed in silent, somber procession.

The starting player token was passed clockwise, and the game continued.

Author's Note

Epilogue: But without an end, you can't have a new beginning.

Rainbow Dash wasn’t sure what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t an actual train station.

Well, it looked close enough to a train station, anyway. The huge, vaulted ceiling and solid stone construction looked a couple hundred years out of place, but most of the signography was decidedly contemporary.

It was also full. Rainbow Dash hadn’t even seen anypony else leave the train, but the station was chock-full of ponies trotting this way and that way, talking to each other and readjusting manes and trying to swig down cups of coffee on the go and doing other stuff that was entirely and utterly mundane.

“Rainbow Dash? Over here, Rainbow Dash!”

Rainbow Dash turned her head. To the right of her and a few meters ahead, a yellowish hoof was waving at her from above the crowd, and flashes of an all-too-familiar face peeped out from between the heads of a slew of strangers. Pushing her way past a scruffy, bearded stallion, Rainbow Dash emerged from the crowd, face-to-face with the waving pony. “Fluttershy…?”

And there she...well, it wasn’t quite her. The mane color, coat color and wingspan? Down to a tee. But her mane, while long, was a little too straight, and Rainbow Dash couldn’t remember Fluttershy’s irises being some shade of dusty rose.

“Me?” The pony pointed a hoof at herself and giggled.

“Well, yeah.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “I don’t see any other pony who looks like…uh. Wait a minute, you probably don’t know—”

“Oh, I know! I paid attention in history class. You wouldn’t believe how often I get that, trust me.” The pegasus giggled again and held out her hoof. “I’m Crepe Myrtle. Or just Myrtle, for short.”

“Uh...Rainbow Dash, I guess.” Rainbow Dash shook her hoof. “I, uh...Sorry, I’m just kind of lost. I don’t really know what I’m doing here.”

“Ah, that’s simple. You’re not really supposed to be here.” Myrtle withdrew her hoof and toyed with her mane. “Not permanently, I mean. Your departure’s in...six hours, I think? Yeah, six hours. Your train came in pretty late.”

“Uh...sorry, I guess?”

Myrtle shrugged. “No worries! I’m still supposed to be your guide while you’re here, so I figured you’d like to do a little sightseeing while you’re around. Ever had ice cream?”

“...Yeah? I mean, who hasn’t?”

Myrtle turned around and started making her way through the throng of ponies, while Rainbow Dash followed in her wake. “You’d be surprised, actually. Not really something we got around to making the right way until a decade ago or so, and I figure that’s what you meant.”

“Really?” Rainbow Dash looked around as they walked. “This place looks kind of, uh...modern.”

“What, you mean the architecture? Psssh. Building things isn’t exactly hard. But food? Legitimate, honest-to-goodness food? It’s not something you need to worry about, don’t worry!” Myrtle looked back, waving a dismissive hoof. “But it’s not been easy.”

Rainbow Dash tilted her head. “It’s just food, right? You grow it out of the ground, you bake or something, you eat it. Right?”

Myrtle giggled. “That’s summing it up a bit too succinctly, I think. Not entirely untrue, though. Hey!” Myrtle pointed over at a huge, glass column, built right next to one of the walls of the station. “Wanna take the lift? I’ve got clearance for it. Give you a nice, pegasus’-eye view of things at the top. Should help me give you some pointers at what you might enjoy looking at.”

“...Sure. Okay. Sure.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “Still don’t know what I’m really supposed to do here, though.”

“Get a look around! Get inspired!” Myrtle giggled. The crowds were starting to thin, and Myrtle trotted a little faster to the lift than she had before. “Like I said, you don’t have all that long here. This isn’t your stop, not really. Just a transfer point. But I’ll make sure you get on your next train at the right time, don’t worry!”

“Well, where is that going?” Rainbow Dash huffed. Myrtle didn’t answer for a moment; instead, she cleared the distance and peered into a small, black box next to the lift. Whatever was supposed to happen worked; with a soft ping, the door to the lift slid open. Myrtle gestured with her hoof, as if Rainbow Dash was supposed to go ahead of her. With one more quizzical look at Myrtle, Rainbow Dash passed ahead of her and stepped into the lift.

“Bit of a ways off. Not as nice as this place. Kind of a mixer-upper.” Myrtle followed Rainbow Dash inside the lift and pressed a small button on a smooth, flat console inside the lift. Silently, the lift began to rise. “It’s called Neighthon. Heard of it?”

“Uh…” Rainbow Dash trailed off. “...No?”

“You’re gonna end up working there for a while. Gonna be kind of a hot shot, actually! In charge of lots of super important stuff. It’ll be fun!”

Myrtle paused, tilting her head as she looked contemplatively at Rainbow Dash.

“Not big on astronomy yet, huh?” Myrtle mused.

“Yet? More like never.” Rainbow Dash snorted. “That sounds like serious egghead business.”

Myrtle chuckled. “You’ll wind up liking it eventually. Most ponies I know eventually do.”

“They like studying? Ugh! That’s even worse than, like, doing work.”

“Nah! There’s ways of making it fun!” Myrtle beamed. “Astronomy, And studying. And work…”

“Doubt it,” Rainbow Dash muttered.

“Just need to get into the right mindset for it.” Myrtle tapped her head with her hoof. “Ever played board games before? Any you enjoy?”

Rainbow Dash’s blood froze. “Uh. Um. Well, uh…”

Myrtle giggled. “Thought so! Look, if you get the right kind of teacher, anything can seem like it’s part of some kind of game. Even the stuff that doesn’t seem all that fun! Just gotta open your mind to that idea a little and try some new stuff out!”

“This is, uh…” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “This is starting to sound kind of familiar.”

With another ding, the lift door swung open. The brilliant, nearly blinding amount of light made Rainbow Dash cringe, and she reflexively threw a hoof over her eyes.

“Careful!” Myrtle called out as she plodded out of the elevator. “It’s a little high up out here. I know you’ve got wings, but…”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Whoof.” Slowly, Rainbow Dash took her hoof away from her eyes.

It was...it was a stunning view, really. Gleaming skyscrapers rose from the ground like shimmering feathers under a brilliant blue sky. Rainbow Dash glanced down at her hooves, walked out over uneven ground until she drew even with Myrtle, and looked out again.

There was a city below her, to be sure; everything from the dazzling skyscrapers to the sprawling mass of streets, from arching complexes with rooftop houses to a veritable garden of storefronts of every kind and variety below, homes and cafes intertwined with arterial commercial districts…

“...Beautiful.” Rainbow Dash sighed. “Not normally my kind of thing, but…”

“It’s beautiful outside the city limits, too. Once you get thataways, anyway. Used not to be nice at all, but, y’know…” Myrtle turned and winked at Rainbow Dash. “A few generations worth of work will do a pretty nice job fixing that up.”

“...Generations. Uh…” Rainbow Dash trailed off. “So way before you were born, huh?”

“Yep! And there’s probably gonna be more stuff after I’m gone. Which I guess is funny to say to you, huh?” Myrtle chuckled. “But heck, if you’re here and you’re talking to me, I guess that just means you don’t have to worry about getting old or eating or any of that other self-maintenance stuff, huh?”

Myrtle walked over to the edge of the building. Wings spreading, she took one last look back at Rainbow Dash. “Kind of wish you could stay here longer. But I guess you’ve got a big beautiful world of your own to build, don’t you? And I bet that if you worked your hardest and used your brain, you’d be able to design a city just as beautiful as this one. Maybe even more beautiful.”

Rainbow Dash followed Myrtle to the edge, spreading her wings in a near perfect copy of Myrtle’s form. “Where are we?”

“Welcome to Grand Manehattan,” Myrtle replied, and jumped.

Author's Note