A Method to his Madness

Chapters

2 -- A defence in depth
3 -- An instant of insanity
4 -- A day for disaster
5 -- We’re all victims here
6 -- Better living through chemistry
7 -- Bringing a knife to a gunfight
8 -- The enemy of all life
9 -- Patient zero
10 -- Flying visit
11 -- Plague ship
12 -- Monster Room
14 -- Gin trap
15 -- Defence of the Realm
16 -- Panopticon
17 -- The Darkness Awakens
18 -- The dark knight
19 -- Regaining Equilibrium
20 -- Case Nightmare White
21 -- A gift of sunlight
22 -- The Circle
23 -- Loup-Garou
24 -- Boost suits
25 -- Gestalt
26 -- Chimera
27 -- Sundering Claw
28 -- Specials
29 -- Discord
30 -- A Certain Honesty
31 -- VORPAL
32 -- Destroyer of worlds
33 -- Sometimes they don't come back at all
34 -- No Structures Capable of Knowing Joy
35 -- Lost, and never found
Epilogue
Prologue: An Enemy Exposed
13 -- Destination Canterlot

2 -- A defence in depth

Neighmann awoke to the sound of a hoof banging on his door. Muzzily, he looked at his antique mechanical alarm clock, trying to get the pointers to focus.

"Three in the morning?" he muttered, confused. Sunlight was streaming through the half drawn curtains and casting a furnace-hot patch of yellow light on the wall, painfully bright. Forgot to wind it again, I really must get a spellcraft model, he thought, mind wandering off on a tangent.

"Celestia dammit, Neighmann, are you in there? Your neighbour said she heard somepony come back late last night."

His mouth twisted into an 'o' of enlightenment, then his eyes widened. Oh horseapples, he thought, I completely forgot about Equilibrium. Now fully awake and panicking, his legs windmilled, striking the cabinet next to the sleeping pad with a loud thump. The banging stopped abruptly.

"If you're alive in there, Neighmann, open this door and I promise I'll make your end as painless as possible!" Equilibrium snarled.

"Wait! I'm here, hold on, let me just--" Limping to the door, Neighmann popped the latch, then stepped back hastily as Libi, her ears so far back that they were practically hidden by her mane, stomped into his one room apartment.

"I'm sorry I missed--" he started, only to be cut off when she jabbed him in the shoulder with one sharp hoof.

"Where were you?! The last thing I knew you were right behind me, then you vanished off the face of Equestria. I came back to look for you, only to discover you were last seen heading for the roof. I thought you'd... Dammit Neighmann, I even reported you missing to the Guard and went around the hospitals to see if you'd been admitted!"

He stared at Equilibrium for a second, seeing for the first time her dishevelled look and the damp patches under her reddened eyes. "I'm really sorry, Libi. I had the strangest night." I was hijacked by Princess Luna and spent several hours discussing ways to control a monster I thought was a myth, Neighmann thought. That sounds crazy even to me. He cast his eyes around the untidy room, hunting for the scroll he'd been given by one of Princess Celestia's assistants.

"I think I've been offered a job," he started, then held the scroll up to forestall the furious mare, the half sun, half moon 'chasing alicorn' seal of the Royal Palace clearly visible. He then launched into his story, with many backtracks and repetitions, telling Equilibrium everything that had taken place the previous night.

Equilibrium was silent as Neighmann talked, staring at the scroll as it hung between them in his orange telekinetic field. Finally she couldn't take it any more and snatched the thing from his grasp.

"I'd have thought we knew each other well enough that you wouldn't have to make up a ridiculous excuse," she said, voice going cold.

"I'm not!" Neighmann said quickly, his stomach dropping at the thought of losing his best friend over a stupid misunderstanding. "Open it, look for yourself."

Equilibrium narrowed her eyes and broke the seal, a little ringing chime audible as the anti-forgery enchantment confirmed its authenticity. "I hope for your sake this didn't come from Pinkie's."

Neighmann winced at the thought that somepony was playing an elaborate practical joke on him, then relaxed. Not even Pinkamena's Joke and Party Supplies would dare forge a Royal Seal.

As the scroll unrolled, a second, smaller roll of paper fell from it; Neighmann grabbed it before it could hit the floor, twisting it nervously in his magic as his friend read the document. He watched with mounting relief as her expression changed from anger, through confusion and happiness, then on to excitement.

"I'll forgive you this time," she said, mock scowling even while her eyes shined. "What will you actually be doing? This thing doesn't tell you anything. Look at this," she said, rattling the scroll under his muzzle, "it uses the phrase 'contingent to the Defence of the Realm Act of nine-ninety seven' half a dozen times."

Neighmann felt his ears droop and sweat start to bead on his flanks; the DRA was the catch-all enactment of the Royal Prerogative, the modern equivalent of 'just bloody do it or I'll send you to the moon.' "It's... possible I shouldn't have told you anything," he said, finally remembering Luna's command to not tell anypony what they'd discussed. "Can you keep a secret?"

Libi pursed her lips, a crafty smile on her face. "I dunno, you'd have to make it worth my while..."

"Look at it this way -- if you do tell anypony, you'll always know exactly where I am!"

"Heh, yeah. I'll be able to see you every night, if I get a big enough telescope. What's that you're holding?"

Neighmann looked down at the little scroll. Much smaller than the first, it was made of a fine, silky paper that had a faint smell that reminded him of a summer meadow. Written on it in a cursive, calligraphic script was a single word: 'Equilibrium.' His eyes widened in surprise. What the hay? "I think it's for you," he said, offering her the scroll.

Her eyebrow quirked up. "Really? Gimme."

Neighmann passed her the scroll, taking the larger one in exchange and rerolling it. He then had an interesting minute watching the inside of the cream mare's ears blush a delicate shade of pink with embarrassment.

Equilibrium lowered the scroll and stared at Neighmann open-mouthed with a mixture of shock and outrage. "What exactly did you tell them about me?" she demanded.

"N-nothing!" Neighmann protested, "what does it say?"

Wordlessly, she handed him the letter, then staggered off to slump on the edge of his unmade bed, forelegs wrapped over her muzzle.

Now more than a little alarmed, Neighmann read it himself, muttering under his breath.

Dearest Equilibrium,

Please forgive us for interrupting your tryst, you may rest assured that, even though he spent the evening alone with us, he was the perfect gentlecolt and nothing occurred that would affect your interest. I have spoken with Luna and she agrees that your choice of Doctor Neighmann is suitable and thus we give the match our blessing. We hope you will accept the enclosed as some poor compensation for your inconvenience,

Celestia.

Attached to the bottom of the scroll were a pair of tickets to the upcoming Summer Sun Celebration, impossible to get at this late stage unless you had some serious connections and a lot of cash. Their embedded spellcraft anti-forgery tracing glittered gently, outlining the words VIP section. "Oh crap," he said, sitting down with a thump. "What do you say Libi, shall we make it a date?"

"Would it be treason if I said no?" she replied faintly.

===

The Everfree National Park, four years later

The gentle thrum of the airship's motors was a soothing background white noise, only barely audible over the rush of the wind and the flutter of crewpegasi wings as they flitted along the outside balconies. Beneath them, now only a few hundred metres past the swell of the hull, was the canopy of the Everfree National Park and Resort, a lumpy green carpet of densely packed trees. The air was warm and scented with a range of night-flowering blooms, just starting to open as the sun was setting.

Equilibrium rested her muzzle on the rail and sighed, staring out at the colours starting to spread across the western sky. Without turning, she leaned sideways, pressing cheek to cheek with Neighmann. There was a moment's tension in the stallion's jaw, a quiver of the big mandibular muscle, then he relaxed and returned the touch. What is with him? she thought. It's just a holiday -- the Everfree hasn't been dangerous for centuries, and this bit is practically a garden. "Why so stressed, dear? I know you're more of a city pony... I'm still surprised you picked this spot for our break."

He shifted a little and gave a chuckle that was supposed to sound relaxed, but wasn't. "I know how much you've wanted to come here. It seemed only fair that we should get out of Canterlot." There was a slight tension in his words, something he was making a poorly-disguised effort to suppress.

Libi felt a faint wave of unease. Neighmann was always on call, and her own recent promotion as one of Fancypant's roving spellcraft engineers meant that overlapping their personal time was getting increasingly difficult. I've spent too much time out of the country, she thought. This holiday is the most time we've had together in months.

"Is that's what worrying you? We're not that far away; they can always come and get you," she said, nudging him playfully, smiling to make the words non-confrontational, but his ears drooped anyway. "Oh, don't look at me like that! I know what you do is important, and I don't mind." She snuggled closer, nuzzling at the back of his head, making a little line of nibbles behind one ear. "It is lovely here."

He sighed again, finally relaxing as she continued to work. "Yes, yes it is."

The meal, taken after a quiet stroll to work off the kinks of the flight, was excellent, as might be expected from such an expensive restaurant. "Have you been keeping two sets of accounts, or are they just paying you more than you are letting on?" she asked, as they headed off for the guided tour of the ruined castle, one of those limited place things that let a small group poke around the less seen areas, complete with dramatic presentation.

"Panopticon expenses. I just have to make sure Luna doesn't read it too closely," he said promptly, in a tone of such pomposity that she giggled. "We don't do this nearly often enough..." His voice dropped, becoming a little sad. "I wish I didn't have to do what I do."

"Hah!" The exclamation was loud enough that heads turned in their direction, and Neighmann stopped, blinking at her in shock. "You don't half talk some rubbish at times. We both know that you love your job almost as much as me!"

"No, no, that's not right at all -- you are both equal in my heart--" He ducked, dancing away from the snap of her teeth, laughing.

"Oh you... Come on, we don't want to miss the start."

They walked on, joining up with the tail end of the little group, enduring the small expressions of disapproval from one older stallion, and ignoring the sly grin from his mate. The guide, a well-toned pegasus mare in the gold barding of the Royal Guard, flicked an ear in their direction and continued with her speech.

"...and so it was here, in the Castle of the Two Sisters, that we made our final stand." The burnished gold of her armour, brilliant even in the artfully subdued lighting of the cavernous main hall, had become faded and pitted. Burn marks scarred its surface, while something leprous seemed to grow along the length of her muzzle. "Celestia had been fighting the Nightmare for days and was at the end of her strength; she had none to spare for the rest of us..."

Overhead, across the gaping holes in the roof, flitted alien shapes, all sharp edges and bat wings. Magic flashed in the distance, actinic pulses like heat lightning, accompanied by long drum-rolls of thunder that hit the beats of the guide's words perfectly. Libi felt a shiver run down her spine and her ears and tail flattened.

"...the chiropt had little magic of their own, and were targeting our unicorns. In the gloom of the night eternal they had no problems; the Darkness had made them well. Her conversion forges ran constantly; every pegasus they took became another soldier for her forces..."

Ahead was the back of the hall, with what was left of the twin thrones, all metals and stone, smashed and burned by the first strikes of Luna's rebellion. Discreet signs and a low barrier blocked their progress; Libi's ears flicked forward at the sight of the green glowing trefoil, giving Neighmann a nudge to attract his attention. "Don't go collecting any souvenirs," he murmured, muzzle brushing her neck, eyeing the scattered beads and globules of metal from the millennia-old fight.

Libi nodded, listening to the storyteller, but looking up at the tattered tapestries hanging behind what was left of the thrones. The strikes must have been very focused, she thought, very little backlash at the outset, then shook her head and returned her focus back to the tale. Above, the broken and faded outlines of Celestia the Ghost and Luna the Darkness, the former burned and slashed, rippled and waved in an artful breeze.

An hour later the Nightmare had been banished, their guide restored to her previously smiling self, and the show was over. They exited, of course, through the gift shop. "Wow," Libi said, stopping short before a display of fuzzy pony-dolls. "I wonder what Luna thinks of all this?" Her horn glowed, gently lifting out one of the darkly furred, purple-maned things. Reacting to her touch, the figure twitched, wings flapping and fanning her muzzle, then threw its head back and gave a tiny, sinister laugh. "They even gave her fangs..."

Neighmann plucked the doll from her grasp, turning it this way and that before putting it back. "I don't know," he said quietly. "It's been fifteen centuries... all there is left of that war are scary stories and pony plushies. Perhaps she views it as a penance." He stepped close, nudging her with his shoulder. "Come on, let's go outside." Libi looked at him curiously; the tension had returned to his muscles.

The air had cooled, but only a little, and the scent of the night blooms had grown even stronger. I wonder if they taste as nice as they smell. She snorted, smiling in the darkness. Probably horribly toxic. Taking the lead, Libi wandered away from the ruined castle, picking one of the more secluded paths that wound a complex network of routes in the immediate vicinity. Artfully designed, with plenty of twists and turns, and dotted with little glades, these managed to give the impression of solitude even on a busy day. Now, in the middle of the night, it felt like they were the only ponies in the world.

Neighmann was silent, following close behind on the narrow track, and she accentuated the pendulum sway of her hips and braided tail, knowing full-well the effect it was likely to have on him. Little glimpses out of the corner of her eye and the slightly ragged cadence of his hoof falls showed it was working, but he seemed to be getting more tense, not less. What in Tartarus has gotten into him? Hiding a slight frown and feeling unsettled, Libi walked onwards.

In a few short minutes they reached one of the many glades that budded off the path like leaves on a vine. Neighmann stopped, then wandered into the clearing looking up into the shaft of moonlight that fell like a solid object, lighting the grassy space with silver and casting deep shadows under the trees. She followed him in, her hooves silent on the spongy surface, close-cropped by thousands of visiting mouths. He looked... lost. "What is it, Neighmann? You've been acting funny all day."

"I never was any good at hiding anything from you."

He smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile of a pony on holiday, rather one that would be used in the face of some horrible decision. Libi's ears came forward and her head lifted. Is it bad news? It has to be... is he ill? Some rare thing that we can't fix, or... another mare? Is he trying to let me down gently? She shifted her weight, muscles bunching in a sudden urge to flee. "You would make a terrible actor," she said, trying to keep the tremor from her voice.

He nodded, then looked away. "We've been together, what... four years now?"

"Yes," she said in a whisper. Out with it, damn you! "Is there a problem? I thought we were okay--"

His head came up, a look of absolute shock on his face. "No! I mean, yes. It's nothing like that -- nothing bad. At least I hope not." That last was little more than a mumble, barely audible even in the stillness. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to scare you. It's me who's afraid." He paused, looking up into the moon, big and very nearly full where it hung over the treetops. "In the light of Luna... I want to be yours forever. Will you be mine?" There was the dim flare of magic, and he pulled a loop of braided hair out from where it had been hidden under his mane.

Mouth open, Libi froze; it was only the look of increasing desperation on Neighmann's face that shocked her into motion. She plucked it from his grasp, slowly spinning the pale yellow hair in front of her muzzle. It smelled of him, and obviously had been pulled rather than cut. That must have been fun; I would never have taken you for a traditionalist. "I thought your tail looked a little thinner, but figured you'd just had it styled for the holiday," she said in a distracted tone, gaze held by the gloss on the hair. Something glittered in there; fine gold and silver wires had been woven into the braid to hold it in place.

She realised that she was staring at him, then smiled. "In the light of Luna, I will be yours, and you will be mine." Neighmann seemed to lift up onto the tips of his hooves, as if some crippling weight had been lifted from his back. Libi walked up to him and nuzzled his neck, then turned and lifted her tail so he could fit the band of hair around its base. This done, they stayed in the glade, enjoying each other's company by the light of the moon.

The following morning, Libi applied a brush vigorously to her own tail, starting to collect enough hair for a mating band to give to Neighmann.

===

The Bloodline ceremony was old long before Luna succumbed to the Nightmare. It was still a way to ensure that diversity was preserved, and that prospective parents were not too closely related, but had changed from an examination of lineage to genetic testing. What hadn't changed was that it was an excuse for a party.

Equilibrium stood next to Neighmann, the mating band a comfortable pressure at the base of her tail. It had only been a few months since the holiday, but there had been no reason to delay -- after all, it wasn't like this changed anything about their lives, except allowing the addition of tiny hooves in the near or far future. Not straight away, perhaps; need to get some things sorted out first, Libi thought. I think we're ready for this.

To add to the carnival atmosphere, this was one of the city-wide holidays set aside for the event, and many couples were making the same declarations. The sky was clear and the sun bright -- pegasi had been carefully shepherding weather systems for weeks to prepare for this -- and it felt like everypony from a hundred kilometres around was in the park.

They had staked out a spot on the perimeter, between the Royal Institute's Dawn War museum and the Crystal Empire memorial. The enormous mural on the museum's side -- some artist's rendition of the final battle in that conflict between dragons and Diamond Dogs, an event so far back in history that it was part of the global geology -- acted as something of a garish backdrop and meeting point, but Libi had seen it so many times that she could ignore it. There were constant efforts to get it removed, in deference to Dog sensibilities, but the rumour was that Princess Luna liked the thing, so up it stayed.

One of the ushers pushed through the gaggle of mares and stallions -- relatives and relatives of relatives from both family lines -- laughing and wishing them well, to whisper in Neighmann's ear. He blinked, then smiled nervously in her direction and followed the pony to the perimeter of the section of park they'd picked for the function. Making her excuses, she trailed after him, catching up just as he was talking to a pair of unicorn mares.

How does he know these two? Libi frowned; both were striking in their own way, slender creatures, one a pale blue, the other a pale yellow. There's no family resemblance, and I'm sure he's never mentioned them before... Her attention sharpened, ears straining forwards to catch a hint of the conversation. Something from his past?

The little group broke apart as she approached, the yellow mare pausing for a moment at her side. "Congratulations," she said in a throaty whisper and winked, moving off when the blue one gave her a nudge.

"I can't take you anywhere," the other mare said, then the pair drifted off into the herd, leaving her standing there staring at Neighmann.

"Who...?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

He laughed weakly, then glanced left and right to make sure nopony was in earshot. "Remember how I was recruited? The blue unicorn is 'Selene'... I'll give you one guess who the yellow one is."

"Wow," Libi said after a long pause. "Well, I guess they deserve a break as much as the next pony."

===

Chaos Group research post, Canterlot Palace grounds, two years later.

Neighmann cast his gaze once more over the control board, biting his lips as the miniature crane, a small machine with six legs that made it look like a pony-sized praying mantis, shuffled along moving one limb at a time. The similarity to the insect was eerie; the front third was hinged upwards and the pair of forelimbs were wrapped around the module.

The thing it held was a cube of spellcraft almost a meter on a side; enormously expensive and the product of one of Fancypant's more specialist facilities, it was the third iteration of a program started almost five years ago. The first version had been very much a test bed, but these should actually function. Of course, it's very hard to check that... Neighmann shivered at what the module implied. To think we've come so far in only this short time... but will it be enough? Sometimes I wish I had a better understanding of spellcraft. Libi would love to get a look at this stuff. Libi... There was some thought waving for attention at the back of his mind, but he pushed it away. Too much to do.

The mantis-robot carefully deposited the fourth module and scuttled back for the fifth, moving far more rapidly now its delicate burden had been relieved. Two more and we're done. Then it's just the cabling to swap over. Neighmann yawned and stretched, bending to bite at whatever was irritating his left foreleg. Things had over-run -- some issue with final calibrations when the modules left the factory -- and this obvious work was restricted to when the Palace was closed for the evening. I should have been home hours ago. He took a few steps and glanced up past the edge of the canopy; it was leaden and overcast, a deliberately solid blanket that sealed away the sky and made it harder for prying eyes to see what was going on.

At least construction on the proper facility has only another six months or so to go. Neighmann pawed at the expanded mesh underhoof, the bars making a quiet ringing sound. The lawn beneath them, once the pride of the head gardener, was half dead from being under a canopy for so long, despite the efforts of the earth pony contingent. That heavy mesh covered what yellowed tufts remained, protecting the bone-dry ground from the combined assault of hoof, track and wheel.

The site, at the edge of the world-renowned statue garden in the Palace grounds, was organised into rings. The outer layer held the airtrucks, portable dormitories and office spaces. It was here that Neighmann had his workspace and occasional sleeping quarters, much to the disgust of Equilibrium. Inside that were the banks of equipment, sensors, computers and monitoring stations, all constantly occupied by members of his organisation. The innermost ring held six coffin-sized metal boxes, all linked with thick cables that ran back to an airtruck marked with the logo of the Royal Institute's analytics division. Along with the expected scientists and technicians crewing the machinery were three other ponies. They had made some effort to fit in, but it had been obvious from the start that their special talents were not in the sciences.

Those ponies changed every so often, but it was always one from each clade. All had that ease of motion that came with absolute confidence, and all looked like athletes. Neighmann was officially the local dig leader for the Canterlot Archaeological Society; unofficially he was Director of the Chaos Group, under the aegis of the Panopticon, the Equestrian intelligence organisation. In that role he'd had some dealings with the military and had encountered ponies like that before; these were from the Fast Operations Air/Land group.

The FOAL teams, Luna's own troubleshooters. Neighmann shook his head. The first time they'd shown up, with the original iteration of the metal boxes, he'd made the same joke anypony would have made faced with that acronym and they'd smiled and laughed along with him. It was only sometime later that he realised that they'd masterfully steered him away from their airtruck; watching them do the same trick on anypony else who became curious made it clear that he wasn't going to get any answers that way.

He did have some time to examine the boxes, however. The size and complexity of the wiring loom that linked them hinted at sophisticated instrumentation and equipment that required significant amounts of power. This was something else that Neighmann didn't know too much about. All he'd been told was that they'd come out of military laboratories that didn't officially exist; the kinds of places nopony wanted, but everypony needed when the magic of friendship broke down. He'd had his theories, though. There'd been some interesting developments in spellcraft that had vanished from the public science journals...

The following day he'd been briefed by Luna herself, who'd assured him that what they contained would have no effect on anypony, but might just give the Princesses time to gather the Elements of Harmony and respond to Discord's escape. Now, having worked with the Chaos Group for nearly six years, he was privy to their inner workings and was intimately involved in the configuration of this newest set of hardware upgrades.

At the very centre of the bustle of activity was a little area of calm, the eye of the hurricane. All of those working here knew what they were dealing with and none wanted to approach the statue closely; ponies would unconsciously walk in wide arcs, circling round the figure rather than get too close. Not that it would do any good, of course; if Discord did choose this moment to escape his time-slowed prison, his power would propagate at close to the speed of light. If those nondescript boxes didn't do their job -- and the Lord of Chaos wasn't in a playful mood -- there would be no place on this world that would be safe.

Neighmann sighed, his nostrils twitching. There was a vague and distracting odour on the wind. Unconsciously, his upper lip curled, intensifying the scent. Slightly embarrassed, Neighmann made a conscious effort to prevent the flehmen response, glancing around to see if anypony else had noticed. They had, and more than one eye was looking in his direction. Some looked confused, but a couple were distinctly amused. Did somepony forget to put on their masker? It wasn't a crime, by any stretch, but a matter of politeness... and self defence, on the part of the mare.

Unless she wants the attention, Neighmann thought, then froze. "Oh, rutting Tartarus, no!" Was that tonight? He swallowed, stomach contracting into a dense knot, mind working back through days to remember when Libi had taken the drugs to restart her estrus cycle. There was a certain amount of leeway with the things, biology being what it was, but, now he actually thought about it, her parting comments regarding getting home at a reasonable hour made sudden, horrible, sense.

"I forgot," he murmured, "how in Tartarus did I forget that?" The answer was obvious; delays, too much work, the stress of the defence upgrade and the minor risk of a break-out, the requirement to do the work in secret and to Luna's schedule. None of which would do anything to mollify Libi. "I didn't come home, so she came to me." There was a slight sense of movement out in the darkened field, and the silhouettes of two ponies walked out of the gloom and into the lit perimeter.

One of them, a chiropt Night Guard whose name contained far too many syllables in the ultrasonic to be pronounced correctly by anypony other than another of his own kind, and went by the nickname 'Chirr', marched, so fast that he was almost trotting. The other pony was Equilibrium. She wasn't so much walking, as stalking, a near-feline motion that shouldn't have been possible for a creature without a significant chunk of gryphon in its genome.

"Wow," Neon said, whispering in his ear, "I don't think I've ever seen a mare so..."

"Angry?" Neighmann said weakly.

The pegasus snorted, trying to suppress a laugh. "Actually, I think ready is a better word," she said, voice full of merriment.

Neighmann nodded shakily; Libi's tail kept shifting sideways despite her efforts to keep it at a neutral position. "I am in so much trouble right now."

"Oh yes. Boss... I think you should go and meet her, rather than wait for her to get all the way over here."

"Yes." Jerking as if stung, Neighmann leapt into a canter, skidding to a halt in front of Libi, who stared back at him, wild-eyed. Chirr did a quick about-face, shunting the mare around so she was pointing away from the work site, expertly sidestepping her instinctive kick as he did so. Neighmann scampered around to stay in front of her, backpedalling as she advanced once more. "Love, I--"

Equilibrium didn't seem to notice that she'd been deftly turned around. "Don't you 'love' me! You forgot! How could you forget this night?! We are not going to put our lives on hold, just because of old stone-face over there. We agreed, remember?" she said, her ears folded flat against her skull. She lifted one forehoof, jabbing him in the chest when he didn't retreat fast enough.

He winced; her voice was loud and carried easily on the still air. Over her shoulder, many pairs of ears were turned in their direction. "Not deliberate, I promise. The work overran..." He swallowed heavily. "I'm sorry, I can't leave; the Princess will--"

Chirr cleared his throat. "Actually, Director, Princess Luna won't be here for about an hour... I'm sure your staff can spare you for a bit," he said, canine teeth flashing in the light as he spoke. His grey-furred, slightly foxy face wasn't quite the perfect 'Guard blank', and he seemed to be having no problem with Libi's presence.

Not quite the same species, I guess, Neighmann thought, slightly distracted by the sudden look of calculation on Libi's face. Her eyes swept the shadows of the bushes and plants dotted about the statue garden, before locking on to the looming mass of the hedge maze. There was a focus to that stare; it was the kind of attention that could be used to call down an airstrike. Her ears came up, hindquarters shifting slightly as if to relieve some discomfort.

Neighmann followed her gaze; Libi's thoughts were as obvious as if they were hanging in the air above her head. "Not on the Palace grounds, surely? What if somepony sees--"

Chirr snorted, putting on a look of offence that was almost convincing. "This whole area is covered by the Defence of the Realm act. Only those with security clearance are within kilometres. I can guarantee privacy."

There was a terrible sense of inevitability to the conversation, made all the more obvious by the effects Libi's siren scent was having on his brain. "This is all going in the day log, isn't it?" Neighmann asked.

Chirr nodded, muzzle twitching in an effort to suppress a grin. "I'm really going to enjoy writing this one up."

Libi abruptly nudged him, shoulder to shoulder, then nipped him playfully on the withers, dancing way to look expectantly over her shoulder. He sighed and gave in, the promise of ribald banter in the coming days pushed aside by the look and the smell of her. Jumping forwards, he went straight into a gallop, following Libi's pale hindquarters into the darkness.

===

Neighmann smiled fondly at the ten-month old memory. At least there won't be a repeat of that tonight. He was still getting the occasional off-colour joke.

He missed her deeply; for the last few weeks she'd been away on a business trip. She'd also done well for herself, advancing up the ranks of Fancypants Industries alchemical synthesis division to the point where she was one of their lead installation managers. The job took her travelling more than he would have liked, but this time he was glad she was far away. The current project had taken her to the gryphon kingdom of Razorclaw, overseeing the commissioning of a new spellcraft-powered feedstock converter plant that would increase their farming efficiency. Ponies weren't enormously popular with the gryphon population -- the half-cat, half-eagle people were just too independent to like receiving assistance from another state.

That's the quirks of biology for you, Neighmann thought.

Once science had advanced to the point where individual researchers could no longer grasp a whole problem, ponykind's capacity for cooperative action had made them the real power in the world. It made them an economic powerhouse as well, making Equestria close to a utopia. There was certainly none of the poverty or violence that seemed to be so common among the gryphons. Despite this, Neighmann had little fear for Equilibrium's safety; Razorclaw's government knew a good thing when it saw it, and had been treating the installation team as honoured guests.

"Director!"

The voice of Neighmann's assistant sounded out of breath as she cantered into the airtruck that was currently serving as his office. Neighmann looked up from the picture of Libi on the folding desk and smiled at the chestnut pegasus mare.

"Yes, Neon Sparks?" he asked, the building tension making his voice clipped and abrupt. "Are we ready?"

"Yes, Director Neighmann. The lifting team is just waiting for your final approval."

Neighmann got to his hooves and gestured for Neon to lead the way. "I'll be glad when this bit is over," he muttered, half to himself.

"Yes sir, but it will be nice to get the subject into a proper facility."

Neighmann nodded his agreement. There was only so much you could do from temporary structures on the Palace grounds -- and the excuse of an archaeological dig as a cover for their efforts was beginning to wear a little thin.

They'd scheduled the move for the early hours of the morning, away from the curious eyes of tourists and the increasingly nosy reporters. The whole site had been hidden under a red and white striped awning for a year now -- 'to protect delicate artefacts' -- so it was easy to bring in and emplace the heavy equipment they hoped they wouldn't need.

Neighmann stepped up to one of the monitoring stations, quickly scrolled down the status reports, then nodded in satisfaction. "Get the transport into position. I'll call their Highnesses." He'd been checking the chaotic activity incidence plot -- what everypony else in his department had taken to calling the 'Neighmann curve' -- over the last few days, refining the estimates of when Discord might break free from the Element's effects. The count was accelerating, but slowly. There was no sign of the precursor to the near infinite rate that was predicted when the creature would return to Equestrian time; the model estimated at least another two years before that unhappy event.

While watching the heavy lift airtruck gently float towards the statue, Neighmann clipped his phone's headset to one ear, tapping twice to activate the spellcraft dialling enchantment. Call Princess Luna, secure line, he thought, listening to the phone repeat the instructions back to him, then gently chime its 'waiting' tone.

"Royal Palace, how may I direct your call?" The voice was crisp, efficient and instantly recognisable.

Neighmann grinned; he'd had enough interaction with Celestia to finally get used to her sense of humour. "Answering your sister's phone now, Princess Celestia? Don't you have ponies to do that for you?"

"A mare gets lonely in the small hours; I've nothing to do but wait for the call of a handsome stallion."

"I'd need a stepladder to keep you company," he muttered, then froze. Did I say that out loud? he thought in a sudden panic. On the other end of the phone line there was a couple of seconds of total silence, suddenly broken by a most unladylike snort, followed by coughing. Neighmann could swear he could also hear the sound of at least one other pony trying to suppress a laugh.

"Ah, Princess, I'm--"

"I think you may have surprised even my sister with that sally, Neighmann," said Luna, merriment obvious in her voice while the coughing continued in the background.

Neighmann sank to his haunches and rested his head on the instrument panel, ears burning and ignoring the puzzled glances from Neon Sparks and the closest techs. "I'm on speaker, aren't I? Who else...?"

A third voice broke in, this one sounding a little less amused. "The normal crisis team, Director, you know -- the Triumvirate, some of the general staff -- nopony important."

So he'd just propositioned the goddess of the sun in front of the heads of the three pony clades -- unicorn, pegasus and earth pony -- as well as high ranking officers from the armed forces. Oh crap, he thought, shall I offer my resignation now or just pick a fight with one of the anonymous, but certainly highly trained, ponies guarding that unmarked airtruck?

"Don't mind General Buckler, she's just upset because I was taking a sip of tea when you, ah, offered your services," Celestia said, sounding hoarse but cheerful. "The room was getting a bit heavy; I thank you for lightening the tone."

"I'm just lucky that my comms rig is milspec. Can somepony pass me a cloth?" muttered the General. "If we've quite finished with the banter...?"

Neighmann's tone became serious. "We're ready, Your Highnesses. Are we okay to start with the move?"

"Please do. My sister and I are prepared if anything untoward were to happen. We even left the door to the balcony open to reduce the collateral damage should we need to join you in a hurry."

Ready and waiting, the Elements of Harmony out of whatever deep vault they were kept in and glowing with suppressed power. Or whatever it is that they do, Neighmann thought, relieved that the magical might of Equestria was backing him up. The Princesses and all the unicorn magic specialists didn't think that moving Discord would have any effect at all on the enchantment that trapped him, but nopony wanted to take any chances with the Lord of Chaos.

Neighmann gave the signal to the waiting teams and watched nervously as the big airtruck settled to the ground next to the statue. A large crane arm mounted on the flat rear section swung over, its spellcraft telekinetic lifting pads glowing softly with a red light. With the arm in place the glow around the pads brightened and spread, covering the statue and starting to lift it upwards. The statue came free of its plinth with a loud 'crack' that made everypony jump, then hung there for a second, swaying like an enormous, badly made pendulum.

The glow around one of the lifting pads flickered and died.

The breath froze in Neighmann's throat as the statue slipped, dropping half a metre in a jerky, juddering fall before the remaining pads brightened and held it fast. Whoever's driving that crane deserves a medal, Neighmann thought, to react that quickly... Discord's frozen form hung at a sharp angle now, swinging violently from the sudden drop and uneven pressure from the telekinetic grippers. From somewhere in the airtruck came a whine, the high pitched pure tone of an overloading spellcraft device, the now brilliant glow around the remaining pads starting to flicker.

The plan had called for a slow and steady lift of the statue, treating it like it was made of nitroglycerine, before gently placing it into a specially shaped and padded recess in the back of the airtruck. That nameless crane operator had obviously decided -- correctly -- that a little speed was now the order of the day. Fighting a now erratic control mechanism, the pony managed to lift the statue over the recess and drop it more or less into the right orientation. The airtruck's landing jacks folded like they were made of paper under the shock, slamming the belly of the vehicle into the ground with a thump that rattled teeth.

Like almost everypony present Neighmann cringed, waiting for something, anything, to happen. When nothing did he started to breathe again.

"Well, that was exciting," whispered the voice of Luna in his ear. "Does the airtruck still fly?"

Neighmann nodded jerkily, then replied in a hoarse voice. "We'll just check." He watched the engineers inspecting the vehicle's spellcraft levitator, then accessed the data summary from his own instruments. Completely clean, except... There was a spike in the background magic signal, just about when the pad had failed. Not much, just enough to poke its head above the background noise.

"Neon? Take a look at this, I need a second opinion."

The chestnut pegasus trotted over and stared at the display with narrowed eyes. "What does it look like over a longer timescale?" she wondered, running a hoof over the touch-sensitive interface. The noisy graph shrank, individual peaks and troughs compressing into a solid band. "It's a bit of a coincidence," she said, "but there are others like it spread throughout the day."

Neighmann's brow wrinkled in thought. "True, and I suppose the spellcraft failure could have caused that spike rather than the other way around..."

"...but you don't like coincidences?" Neon Spark continued.

"You know who we're dealing with... would you?"

"No," the pegasus sighed. "I'll start checking all the data and see if there's anything... interesting there. You want the manipulator arm inspected?"

"Absolutely," Neighmann said, eyes still on that spike in the data, "I'm thinking we should get some smart and very paranoid ponies to take it apart down to the individual molecules."

"Agreed," came the voice of the unicorn General in Neighmann's ear, "my ponies will collect the arm if you'll have it dismounted."

Neighmann didn't know General Buckler by anything more than reputation, but if she was the one responsible for those unmarked boxes, then the stallion was sure she fit the description of 'smart and paranoid.' Over by the airtruck he saw the engineer close the levitator's housing and trot in his direction.

"Will it fly?" he asked the earth pony mare.

"It will, boss, need to take it a bit easy though; we'll never get the landing gear to retract," she replied, pushing back her foreleg spellcraft gripper and rubbing one oily hoof along her muzzle.

Neighmann stared at the dark streak in her otherwise green fur. How in Luna's name do they find oil in a modern airtruck? he thought, the levitator doesn't even have any moving parts! "That was always the plan; no speed or altitude records on this run." He looked seriously at the engineer. "Are you okay to accompany the airtruck and keep an eye on it?"

She shrugged. "Sure thing, boss. If ugly does get out it won't matter where I'm standing, will it?"

He smiled sadly back. "No, I guess not. Thank you." Another one I'll need to put in for a commendation. This is why you'll never win, he thought at the statue, watching as the engineer climbed aboard and the airtruck floated gently into the night's sky.

For a few breaths Neighmann thought he could hear laughter, deep, rumbling and cruel, then it faded into the sound of the wind stirring the ornamental trees and topiary of the statue garden. He shook his head vigorously, too long mane whipping over his face. So now I'm hearing things, he thought, I must get more sleep.

3 -- An instant of insanity

Author's Note

A departure from S1 lore: Cattle and sheep are non sapient (because a gryphon has to eat something, and the alternative is horrible).

3 -- An instant of insanity

Equilibrium shivered as she looked out across the jagged, snow-covered mountains that surrounded the capital city of Razorclaw. They glowed in the moonlight, cold and stark, so unlike the rounded, gentle peaks of her home and native land. She'd mentioned the mountains of Canterlot to her gryphoness liaison, but she'd just laughed. 'Such things aren't mountains,' Stoops From High Places had said, 'they are just hills.' She'd had a chance to go walking one day while the team was waiting for a replacement spellcraft module to repair a faulty controller; sore hooves and a mild case of hypothermia convinced her that the gryphoness was telling the truth.

This floor of the hotel was designed for the non-gryphon -- it actually had heating and glass in the windows -- but despite these comforts she still felt the cold, even if it was in her mind rather than her body. Part of that came from the locals -- oh, they were friendly enough when you got to know them, but even those she worked with on a daily basis seemed to treat her with a mixture of pity and contempt. She was sure that part of it was down to her lack of wings, but she couldn't shake the feeling that somewhere deep inside they saw her as prey.

"The fact that I'm pregnant must make me an even more attractive target," she muttered darkly, looking back where her once sleek flanks bulged. Her time was still a few months off, although the exact date was always uncertain for a first foal and she could hold it back for a couple of days if absolutely necessary -- at least that's what the nurse had said, how that was supposed to work she didn't know. Hopefully my body will figure it out, and I should be home long before that, she thought. At least it doesn't slow me down and, as all these rooms are built to gryphon scale, they won't have to widen any doors.

It was far too early to be up, but the odd twitches from her belly had driven her awake and so she stood, gazing out at the icy splendour of the mountains under a waxing moon, feeling lonely. "Watch over him for me, Luna," she whispered to the sky, "keep him safe." Keep them all safe.

Equilibrium sighed, puffed moisture across the glass and used the tip of her horn to draw random patterns in the droplets. She hadn't really wanted to go on this trip -- the company had given her the choice and she had intended to turn them down, but she'd seen the look of suppressed fear on Neighmann's face when she'd mentioned her thoughts to him. She'd stared at him for a long minute before asking him if he'd prefer it if she went, and would always remember the way he looked away, unable to face her, then nodded.

She knew what he was doing for Equestria, knew the horrors that might be unleashed if he made a mistake -- would be unleashed within the next few years, like it or not. After that first indiscretion on the night he'd received his job offer, Neighmann had always confided in her, unable to keep from sharing his burden with the one he loved. She'd welcomed it, of course; they were mates, partners in everything. Even if it had resulted in some sleepless nights.

She'd searched his face for the information she needed and remembered their late night conversations about Discord. 'He likes to play with his food' and 'he has a special affinity for ponykind and the Princesses in particular' were the two phrases that stuck in her head. So she'd agreed to go away, far away and surround herself with as many non-ponies as possible.

Turning away from the window, Libi closed the shutters and settled back down on the sleeping pad, turning up its built-in heating elements before lifting her computer from its case. "Well, Junior," she said to her swollen belly as she waited for the machine to start, "if we're both awake, I guess we should at least get some work done."

===

Stoops From High Places -- fortunately she didn't mind being called 'Stoops', a fact that relieved Libi no end -- came for her an hour after dawn. The gentle knock on the door roused the mare from the light doze she'd fallen back into, lulled by the luxurious warmth from the sleeping pad. Jerking upright she glanced around confused, then slumped when she realised where she was.

"Celestia dammit," she muttered, yawning mightily while arching her back and stretching out all four legs. "Coming," she called out, blanking her computer and struggling to her hooves.

Opening the door with her magic she waved Stoops inside and trotted over to the vanity stand to at least attempt to make her coat presentable. "I'm sorry, Stoops, I didn't have a very good night -- only managed to fall asleep a couple of hours ago." She applied the brush to her mane, watching the gryphoness in the mirror as she did so.

"Ah... the little one keeping you up already?" Stoops said, mesmerised by the movements of the brush in Libi's telekinesis. The gryphoness' Equuish was a little stilted, but she'd improved quickly over the last week of technical discussions. Better than my spoken Gryphic, anyway. Libi had no issues understanding the harsh, subtle language but, lacking a syrinx, actual speech was far more of a challenge.

She stayed in the doorway, not wanting to crowd the unicorn; Stoops was average size for her kind, but that made her bigger even than most stallions. She was only a little taller than Libi, most of her extra size coming from the length of her torso and the pair of chestnut wings that seemed massively oversized to the Libi's eyes. Like the vast majority of Razorclaw's inhabitants, Stoops had the white-feathered head and tawny hindquarters of the most common eagle-lion gryphon, indicating that she hailed from the southern end of the coastal country.

Equilibrium grinned slightly as the gryphoness' great yellow eyes tracked the brush. Unlike many gryphons, Stoops From High Places had done some travelling -- probably why she was in this job -- but obviously not for a few years. Even in the more cosmopolitan areas of Razorclaw's capital the overt use of magic would attract stares; just think of the show she could put on for a crowd of farmers or backwoods gryphons! Probably get lynched, she thought, grin fading a little. Gryphon folklore was riddled with stories of witches; they never had happy endings.

"He has his off days, just like the rest of us," she said, running the brush in long curves through the cream fur of her rounded belly and along down her tail, careful of the mating band still at its base. "There, that will have to do. I'm afraid I haven't eaten yet, do you mind if I grab some breakfast? I'd love for you to join me, but..." Equilibrium trailed off, looking embarrassed.

Stoops laughed, much to the Libi's relief. "I understand." She leaned forward conspiratorially, one set of fearsomely sharp talons held up in a mock attempt to shield her beak from onlookers. "Tell you truth, the stuff you ponies eat make me feel a little ill, not to mention the quantities! Why, if a gryphon your size was eating that much, she would be stuck on the ground for a month!" She reached back into the corridor and produced a bulky package. "I hope you do not mind, but when reception said you hadn't been down for breakfast, I took the liberty of ordering for you."

Equilibrium smiled broadly, stomach taking that moment to rumble loudly. "I think that answers your question; you have my everlasting thanks." She dropped her panniers onto her back, grumbling slightly as she had to let the straps out another notch, then placed her computer in one side and the food parcel in the other. Reaching back into the pack she pulled out an apple and bit into it noisily, sighing with contentment and smiling inwardly at the expression of mild distaste that flitted across Stoops' face. "Lead on," she mumbled around a mouthful of fruit.

===

This part of the world was mountainous, with little in the way of farmable land. Gryphons were creatures of the high, cold places -- and for the most part of their history this had suited them perfectly. Obligate carnivores, they had preyed on the abundant fish and animal life of their harsh land and flourished. The modern age had seen a proud people undone by their success; improvements in medical care and the reluctant introduction of farming had resulted in a booming population over the last thousand years.

Equilibrium mulled this over as she stared at the chariot with its four gryphon pilots dropping down on the roof landing pad. Not a chariot, she thought, more of a palanquin, then tossed her head and wickered a greeting as Rheostat joined her at the edge of the pad.

Rheostat was a dark red earth pony, probably viewed as even more useless than she was by the general population. Fortunately he didn't give one horseapple for what, in his words, 'the feathered, friendless masses' thought. He was her right-hoof stallion, with a level of expertise in the engineering that went along with spellcraft converters that dwarfed her own. Rheo gave her a tired nod in return, ignoring the blank-faced looks the gryphon pilots were giving him, then jumped up into the compartment and dropped himself into one of the four padded recesses that were the only concession to comfort. Lost in his own world, he pulled out his computer and settled down to work through some hardware routing issues in the plant model.

Libi joined him more sedately, slamming the doors with her magic, much to the apparent irritation of the closest pilot. Unwilling to start work immediately, she pulled out her breakfast pack and placed it on the floor between them. Opening the bag she rolled a bundle of carrots in his direction; almost stereotypically for an engineer he often forgot about food and Libi was sure he'd not eaten since yesterday morning. Without taking his eyes off the screen or stopping his manipulation of the touch interface, Rheostat reached down and picked up one of the orange roots, holding it in his lips and biting it off in chunks. Equilibrium watched for a second to make sure he was going to take another, then turned her attention to the city.

Through the scuffed windshield -- a necessity in this icy air -- she watched the buildings start to move. Unlike a pegasus chariot, the gryphons only had enough magic to lift themselves and whatever they could hold in their claws; there was no subliminal tingle of natural magic here. A pony team would be able to pull just from the front; gryphons needed teams front and rear for balance.

Razorclaw, like Goldenwing and the other gryphon states it bordered, had a turbulent history by Equestrian standards. They fought, sometimes with each other and sometimes between themselves, building up and tearing down hierarchical societies that tended towards military juntas. The last such coup had been a few decades ago, and the current political landscape was a more-or-less democracy, abet one that heavily favoured the incumbent. The military was still a powerful part of the state, and took a more-than-reasonable share of the economic output.

She'd expected to have her own transport, and it had been an unwelcome surprise to discover that was not going to be the case. When she'd discovered this, shortly after entering Razorclaw, Libi had asked the Consul about the lack of available powered transport and he'd rolled his eyes. They were a proud people, he'd said. If you can't get about on your own you were a burden and didn't deserve to live. Used to Equestrian ways this sounded appalling and she'd almost accused him of prejudice. He'd smiled sadly at her expression, going on to explain that as carnivores they needed a lot of land for their population; there just wasn't that much of it around.

All of this explained why she was alone with Rheo in the chariot; there was no way Stoops would dream of being flown about like cargo. From the horror in her eyes when Libi had asked her if she was going to join them for the flight on that first day, the gryphon would rather cut her own wings off. Libi hadn't asked again.

After that conversation, Equilibrium had formed her own theory as to why her transport was gryphon-powered, and not one of the noisy double-rotored flying machines she occasionally saw over the city. This must be a not-so-subtle insult, a method for the locals to feel superior, despite the fact that the Equestrians were here to help them. And they are almost certainly agents of State Security, she thought, then grimaced. I suppose there would be no need for us if they spent more money on development and less on guns.

The sweep of the city became visible as the palanquin banked, bringing the consul's words flooding back. Unlike a pony city, it hugged the rugged mountainside in the steep little valley; there was very little ground-level access, and the buildings were packed together with only a thin and underfunded excuse for a road network between them. When all of your population can fly, why bother with roads? she thought. Gryphon architecture tended towards the monolithic slab riddled with wide openings, every face an artificial cliff. As the half-cat, half-birds didn't seem to feel the cold -- or at least wouldn't admit to it -- nothing was heated, so at least they didn't have to air-carry fuel to the buildings.

The reason for the precipitous construction was obvious if you thought about it; why waste good land on buildings when it was needed for cattle? Libi shuddered a little at that. There hadn't been ponies living in these mountains for thousands of years, but she knew there had been once. Unlike the cattle they'd been smart enough to leave, leaving the harsh land to those best equipped to deal with it. Were some of my ancestors hunted by some of yours? she thought, staring along the mist-shrouded valley visible over the backs of the gryphon pilots.

Despite knowing the fate of the cattle in the narrow farms on the valley floor, Libi felt glad to have left the city behind. Stoops From High Places had told her that the 'product' of the cattle farms was expensive; it was a special occasion food for even the moderately wealthy. Equilibrium had asked the obvious follow up question -- what about the rest of the time? She'd regretted hearing the answer. Fish, Stoops had said, and rabbits from the warrens in the basements of most of the city buildings.

For several nights after that Libi had suffered from some quite horrifying dreams and a tendency to imagine scratching and rustling from behind the walls of her room.

"I can't blame them for their biology," she muttered, "but I don't have to like it." This trip had made her mind up; she'd apply for a post in the Canterlot design centre when she got back. Discord be damned.

The flight was long enough that she could do all of her pre-work for this site visit and still have time to gaze at the passing mountains. Almost an hour later they touched down at the feedstock converter site, met by Stoops and her other workmate, who'd been racing ahead of the lumbering palanquin. Their pilots ignored Libi's attempt at thanks, nodding instead at the lilac pegasus as they dropped their harnesses from the traces and flew back to the city.

Equilibrium trotted over to the pegasus, Stirling Cycle, and gave him a twisted smile. "They only like you for your pretty wings, you know," she whispered, gesturing to the departing pilots, "I think you're in there, if you want to try for some intercultural exchange."

He sniggered, then guiltily glanced over his shoulder to made sure Stoops wasn't listening. "I don't think I'd survive the night," he muttered back.

Her spirits lifted, she trotted into the factory to start the day's work.

===

The day passed mostly uneventfully, first with project meetings to talk through any issues the gryphon installers were having, followed by a facility walk-round to inspect some of the more critical steps and get hooves-on with any intractable problems. The building was typical gryphon style; a single large block five stories high with minimal ground access apart from the feedstock conveyor and large openings at roof level for the workers to come and go.

Rheostat, a bit of a student of history, said it reminded him of some old pony buildings back from the time before the clades had unified under the Princesses. At that point, Equestria hadn't been anywhere near as peaceful as it now was, and raiding had been fairly common. She'd put the question to Stoops and was surprised -- and more than a little concerned -- to learn that it was for the exact same reason. The gryphoness had seen her expression and laughed; 'don't worry,' she'd said, 'it has been years since the last trouble, it is more of a tradition now.'

It was late in the afternoon and Equilibrium was aligning the field output of the main converter -- something only a unicorn could do and the main reason for her presence -- when she overheard one of the engineers talking in hushed tones to Stoops. It wasn't deliberate -- it was in Gryphic and they obviously had intended the conversation to be private, but they really didn't understand just how good a pony's ears were. With her attention half on adjusting the field geometry, her brain went into a sort of autopilot, swivelling one ear around to catch the little whispers of sound.

"They say it's the Presidium," the engineer muttered.

Libi had seen him around; like many of the better educated among the gryphons he was able to look past her 'disability' and treat her like a professional. He'd always seemed a solid, unimaginative sort, one of those people you'd dread being trapped alone with, but invaluable on a project where attention to detail was essential. He went by the unfortunate name of Screamer In The Darkness, and Libi had often wondered if that was because he'd kept his parents awake while he was a chick.

"How'd it happen?" Stoops replied, glancing furtively at Libi.

Along with underestimating her hearing, gryphons also had trouble remembering how wide a field of view a pony had. Even with her head almost facing away from the pair, Equilibrium could easily see the worried expression on Stoop's face.

"Looks like a gas explosion. The outer walls held but I bet there's nothing inside left in one piece."

"Crap. Who was in there?"

"That's the good bit. Parliament was in session," Screamer said.

"You're kidding, what about--" Stoops said this at normal volume, then stopped suddenly and glanced guiltily at the unicorn mare, seeing the pale yellow nimbus around her horn flicker. "Sorry Equilibrium, didn't mean to distract you," she said, in Equuish this time.

"No problem, nearly... there, got it!" Libi let her magic die and tapped the indicator panel on the side of the spellcraft module. A little row of red lights blinked and flickered, each turning a solid green. "Perfect, aligned to within seven parts per million; they'd have trouble doing that in the demo lab back at Canterlot." She turned towards the pair of slightly worried looking gryphons. "Did you say there'd been an explosion?"

Stoops and Screamer exchanged glances, then Stoops sighed. "Yes. Think someone blew up the government centre in the capital--"

"--and there's been no one of cabinet level seen since." Screamer broke in.

Libi's head whirled and she sat down with a thump. "What, deliberately?" she said weakly.

Screamer nodded solemnly. "Best guess is gas down the roof vents, followed by an incendiary."

"How many were inside?" Libi was starting to feel ill; these weren't ponies but they were all people, they all had families.

"Hundreds probably. That's not the issue, Equilibrium. Our government is... is... gone," Stoops said, pacing in tight circles in the confined maintenance bay.

"Who's in charge now?"

"Whoever did the job, I'll bet. Must be the military or State Security, no one else could have managed this," Screamer said, reaching out to pat Stoops on the shoulder.

"Not the Red Talons," Stoops muttered with a shudder, switching back to Gryphic. "Things will get ugly if they're in charge."

"Blood... ah... Red Talons?" Libi said, confused.

"Red, yes. Is State Security's nickname for itself; comes from time when policing had a more... direct approach." Stoops held up one foreclaw, the fifteen centimetre black claws glittering in the harsh lighting.

Libi shuddered, unconsciously edging away from Stoops' built-in knife collection. "What do we do?" she said quietly.

"Sit tight," Screamer said, "let them fight it out. When it all blows over they'll still need food. We may be stuck here for the night though, I don’t doubt."

Libi relaxed slightly. Very true, she thought, the cattle feed this plant will produce from the endless and unfarmable forests will still be very much in demand. "Okay then, I guess it would be best if we get as much done as we can to look good for the new management."

===

Work, however, was slow. None of the gryphons seemed particularly keen after the news spread across the facility, so in the end the ponies gave up and collected in one of the meeting rooms that had been set aside for them.

Rheostat seemed oblivious to the tension in the air, spending the idle time in the plant's virtual model and fine-tuning the already close to optimum pipework and wiring routing. He lay on folded legs, eyes covered with spellcraft goggles and one hoof meandering through the projected command cube of his computer's 3D input field.

Stirling sat with Equilibrium, the pair flank to flank for comfort, staring out over the darkening valley. Both jumped when Rheo abruptly stood and shook vigorously.

"Well, that's all I can do for now. Can't download the updated firmware for the converter with the data link out," he said.

"When did it go down?" Stirling asked, exchanging glances with Libi.

"Don't know, only just noticed. It was a bit patchy before -- but nothing odd for this backwater."

"That link is a direct line to the embassy, isn't it?" Libi said, her ears drooping, "that can't be good."

"Might be nothing," Stirling muttered, brow wrinkled in thought, "they might be jamming everything until the new command structure is in place."

"Celestia dammit!" Equilibrium shouted suddenly, "why now? Now, of all times!"

Stirling wrapped one wing around the mare, stroking it comfortingly down her back. "Hey, don't worry, babe, we'll be fine. They need us; Razorclaw gets far too much aid from Equestria to do anything stupid. Worst case is they'll kick us all out and we get to go home early."

Libi's head drooped and she closed her eyes. "I know, sorry. It's just, just..." She gestured along her swollen flank.

"We know, don't worry," Rheo said, moving to sit on her other side.

I'm really too old for a cuddle, Equilibrium thought, but what the hay.

All three ponies lay down together in a tangle of legs, tails and feathers, the unicorn mare in the middle of the pile. Libi's last thought as she drifted off to sleep was that, no matter how uncomfortable or undignified it looked, the feeling of being surrounded by ponies she trusted was the best sedative ever.

===

Princess Celestia was seated on a comfortable pad in one of the more secluded gardens on the grounds of Canterlot Palace. She had her eyes closed and a passing observer -- should there ever be one who eluded her Guards, assistants, spellcraft surveillance systems or her own personal magic -- would have thought her asleep. A unkind observer would have put it down to the weight of government on a pony of her extreme years, an old mare -- albeit one who didn't look a day out of her twenties -- dozing in the sun.

They would be wrong, of course. Celestia was meditating, feeling the flow of the world around her and gentle arc of the sun over all of it. There was a gentle cough near her shoulder and the Princess inhaled deeply before letting the breath out in an extended sigh. She knew that cough, knew that its owner wouldn't disturb her one break of the day without good reason. She could picture him standing there at her side, all short-cropped white mane and earth pony grace. I give myself fifteen minutes, she thought, can't the place cope without me for that long? "Yes, Charter," she said to her equerry, "is there a problem?"

"My apologies, your Highness, but there is an urgent intelligence briefing waiting for you."

"Of course there is. Lead on my good pony." With a grace born of ten thousand years of economical motion, the Princess rose to her hooves, now towering over the green and white earth pony, who wheeled and trotted smartly off to the conservatory that backed onto the garden. Another ten aeons and I might just start to match the inborn grace of earth ponies like him, she thought with a smile that didn't leave the privacy of her own mind.

Like the rest of the Palace, the conservatory was built for a pony of Princess Celestia's size, that is to say, huge. The glass-walled room was comfortably large enough for a state function, should she choose to hold one there. Full-sized trees lined one wall, carefully trained up what had been the outer ramparts of the castle, tended into a semblance of wildness that could fool the non-expert; these and other plantings almost made the elegant metal-framed glass disappear.

Charter raised one hoof and tapped a discrete spellcraft panel, pausing for a second while the embedded enchantment confirmed his identity and the presence of the Day Princess. A good-sized section of weathered stone shimmered and flattened into a mirror-smooth surface, turning black then flashing into a full-colour, life-sized, image of General Buckler.

"My apologies for interrupting you, your Highness," the chocolate-coated unicorn mare said, nodding politely to the Princess. "There has been an incident in one of the gryphon kingdoms."

"Carry on, General." Despite her relative youth, Buckler was one of those ponies that Celestia privately suspected of hankering after the past; a soldier of the old school, when the Princess was absolute monarch and the actual head of the Equestrian armed forces.

"Approximately eight hours ago we lost contact with our Embassy in Razorclaw's capital. High-altitude clairvoyant surveillance showed widespread, if minor damage, to the city -- and these two things." A pair of images popped up over Buckler's shoulders, both showing an aerial view of clusters of buildings. As with all gryphon cities it was all squares and rectangles, separated by an afterthought of a street system. At the centre of the first was a ruined building, a big one, while the second held a single, perfectly circular patch of bright pink at the centre of a green square. "As far as we can tell there is a coup underway."

Celestia blinked in surprise. "Have they attacked our Embassy, or is the force field up just as a precaution because of damage to the other buildings? The demolished building is the Presidium, isn't it?"

Buckler inclined her head. "Yes, Princess. The whole area has been blanketed with heavy jamming and we have no communications in or out, but according to the published schedule their parliament was in session. There's certainly been no announcement, and it's suspicious that the jamming is still active. We believe that the coup was at least partially successful, but the jamming must mean they are still hunting for someone."

"Any idea who is in charge now?"

"Not really, although we're not seeing much movement from the traditional military, there are lots of aircraft flying about."

This, Celestia knew, was unusual for the gryphon states; fiercely independent and proud of their ability to go anywhere and do what they needed to do by sheer strength. Vehicle movements were normally limited to heavy cargo lifters.

"There is this," the General said, pulling up a collection of pictures of a number of insectile aircraft and highlighting an indistinct symbol on the side of each. "The resolution isn't very good, but our analysts match it to the Office of State Security."

"The Red Talons," Celestia said, saying the name like it had a bad taste. She'd done her best to spread the Equestrian ideals outside the borders of her own country; sometimes it worked, sometimes it did not. Gryphons had always been too hostile to make much of an inroad; it wasn't just ponies they didn't like, she had a sneaking suspicion that the only way the average gryphon would be happy was when he or she was out of eyeshot of any strangers. Razorclaw was not really any different from any of the other gryphon states; they didn't trust their own people very much, so tended to have multiple, independent branches of the armed forces.

The Red Talons had almost as much available firepower as the normal military.

"How many ponies are inside Razorclaw's borders?"

"Several hundred, mostly in the capital. A more worrying thing is the presence of the airship 'Canterlot Dreaming.' It's currently on a round-the-world cruise, with a full complement. We know it's making full speed for international airspace, but have yet to raise the Captain."

Celestia started to pace in front of the communications screen. "Well, that's easy to fix. Charter, please rearrange my schedule, I will go in person to retrieve our citizens."

"No, you will not, your Highness," the General said in a serious voice.

Celestia twitched. "Excuse me, General Buckler?" she said in a deceptively soft tone.

"This is a pony problem, Princess. Ponies will handle it. The law is quite clear on this; we run our own affairs with your guidance. These are your laws," she said, voice firm.

...and I am not a pony, Celestia thought darkly. She's right enough, I suppose. "Have you spoken to the Triumvirate about this?"

"Yes, Princess, just before I called you. Would you like to confirm this with them?"

"No, General. I believe you," Celestia said with a sad smile. I've been trying for so long to wean them away from calling me in to solve all their problems, and now they've done it, she thought. How many will die unnecessarily because of this? She had written the precursors to those laws, back in the dark days after Luna's banishment when the responsibility had been a crushing weight. It was necessary, of course: there was no way even she could be everywhere, especially in this expanded, populated world. So they limited themselves to 'existential' threats, things requiring their own special talents to fix. Luna... Luna will not be happy with this.

"Have you spoken with my sister?"

For the first time in the conversation Buckler looked uncertain, even slightly nervous. "No... Princess Luna is still asleep."

"You'd best let me break the news to her. She is quite... zealous in her protection of ponies and probably won't care too much about breaking a law she thinks was put in place to protect the world from her."

"Thank you, Princess," the General said, looking distinctly relieved. "There is also another reason why we'd rather you stayed away from Razorclaw. Things are looking sufficiently unstable that we're not sure they still have control over their nuclear arsenal. If they should decide you are taking advantage of their chaos, they might get desperate enough to test your supposed invulnerability."

Celestia opened her mouth to put Buckler at her ease, but then paused, looking thoughtful. "I'll be honest, General, it's not a test I'm eager to run -- if nothing else because of the innocent bystanders who will suffer." Given enough time to prepare she was sure she could survive such an event; after all, magic was quite capable of overriding the strong nuclear force that governed fission and fusion reactions. Assuming I can locate the bomb first, she thought.

The Day Princess knew she wasn't invulnerable; that had been proven several times in the last fifteen hundred years. Thus far it had required a similar level of magic to her own to cause a significant threat; no group of unicorns could ever hope to stand against her, not that they'd ever try. Having said that, she'd seen some of the spellcraft devices in the hidden laboratories Luna sponsored. There were things coming out of those facilities that might give even her pause.

No magic suppressors yet, thank the Maker. She shivered, use of the ancient phrase bringing back her own part in the Dawn War, all those millennia ago. I must remind Luna that not all things need to be rediscovered. She sighed, thinking of all the advancements that had been made, things that had improved the lives of generations of ponies. Maybe one day they won't need us at all, she thought wistfully, what would that be like, to not be needed?

She abruptly realised the General was speaking and her attention snapped back to the screen. "I'm sorry; I was just lost in thought for a second. What was that again?"

"I said that this would be a useful opportunity to complete the commissioning of our latest aircarrier. We don't expect any problems -- as far as we can tell their armed forces are focussed internally -- but it's our fastest and most capable response package."

"It's also the only one on that side of the continent."

The General shrugged. "True. The Diplomacy In Action is still dealing with that equatorial storm system, and the Mutual Grooming is about to start its refit cycle. It's only the weather systems on the Express that need certification, and we'd have to do that mid-ocean anyway. They have the full complement of ponies and aircraft already."

"Very well, General. I know you don't need my blessing but you have it anyway. Send the Friendship Express."

===

Equilibrium was awoken by a strange pulsing roar, faint at first, but rapidly getting louder. She lifted her head; ears twisting this way and that to try and identify the sound, but it was completely outside her experience. Beside her, Rheo was doing the same, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"What is it?" she whispered.

"Trouble," he said, "come on, get up. I need to take a look."

His sudden movement brought the state of her bladder to the forefront of her mind, reinforced when Junior decided to give it a kick. "Oof! Me too. Back in a minute."

The noise was very loud now and, as she trotted to the toilet stalls attached to the meeting room, Libi caught a glimpse of an angular machine settling onto the grass in front of the plant building. A square, armoured-looking hull, it flew by means of a pair of large fans in shrouded housings on each side, the rotor disks swivelling back and forth as the machine fought the ground-level turbulence. Painted a flat, uninteresting grey, it had a stylized gryphon talon in bright red on the side. The talon appeared to be grasping a beaked skull.

Well, that can't be good, she thought, but I can't hold it any longer. Determined not to appear completely helpless in front of their new 'masters,' Libi turned away from the window and hurried to the stalls.

Business complete, she was just about to re-enter the meeting room when she heard the door slam open and the scrape of claws on the bare wooden floor. Hesitating, she put one ear to the wall and listened.

"You, flightless pony!" came the voice of a male gryphon in clear Equuish, "Identify yourself."

"My name is Rheostat, I am chief hardware engineer working for Fancypants Industries and on contract with your government," the earth pony replied calmly, "and who are you?"

There was the sound of something striking flesh and a grunt of pain. Equilibrium reached for the door, but froze, uncertain if her appearance would make things better or worse.

"Hey, what--"

Stirling's protest was cut off suddenly and Libi could hear the sound of hooves shuffling backwards across the hard floor.

"There's no need to get like that," the pegasus said in a suddenly frightened voice, "we'll do whatever you want, just don't shoot."

The gryphon snorted. "Yes, you will. Now where is the unicorn?"

There was a moment's pause, then Rheo answered. Libi listened intently, heart in her mouth.

"She went outside just before you arrived, wanted a bit of air," the earth pony said carefully, "didn't you see her when you came in?"

There was the sudden sound of pawsteps then a thump, followed by an indrawn hiss of breath.

"I'm telling the truth!" Rheo said through clenched teeth, "Stoops From High Places is our liaison, she'll confirm it."

"The flightless one is correct, Reaper Of The Weak" the gryphoness said, after a brief hesitation, using a tone of cold indifference that made Libi shiver, "probably ran off when aerodyne arrived. You know how cowardly these ponies are."

"True," Reaper said in a thoughtful tone, "Sergeant, sweep the area, find the fugitive. Detail someone to search these ponies and their possessions for spy equipment."

"We're not spies; that's stupid! Your government invited us in for Luna's sake!" said Stirling.

"Don't speak of your false goddess in front of me, pony," Reaper said, spitting the last word. "Not spies, eh? Then what do you call this?"

"A computer," Stirling said patiently.

"Yes, containing an unlicensed communications device."

"Well, of course--"

"So you admit your guilt?"

Stirling wisely kept silent at that.

While this exchange was taking place Equilibrium was frantically looking around the bathroom, hunting for somewhere to hide herself before the search inevitably extended to this location. Although the room was built to the usual heroic gryphon scale there was nowhere that wouldn't be detected within a couple of seconds. Unless... She looked into one of the stalls, eyeing the window at its rear; it was too small for a gryphon, but might be big enough for a pony.

Returning to the stall and closing the privacy door behind her, Libi quietly reared up onto the sill and poked her head out of the glassless opening and into the night, glancing around. The window was halfway up the outside of the building, an impossible climb for a monkey, let alone a pony. The grounds were dimly lit -- the full security lighting had yet to be installed -- and she could just see one tail fin of the aircraft poking around the corner of the building. Lucky that meeting room was next to the corner, she thought, otherwise they'd see me in a heartbeat.

From what she'd seen the vehicle wasn't that large, so couldn't hold many soldiers. Wait, what was it Stoops had said, 'rather cut my own wings off than be carried?' Libi suddenly grew more nervous, casting her eyes up and around the empty sky. They came with transport for nonfliers, she thought, they came for us! There was a thin, high cloud, thin enough that the moon cast wide halos across the sky, and more than enough light for her to see by. There were no gryphons in sight, either on the ground or in flight. The sound of their belongings being scattered in the room next door settled it for her.

I can't go back into the room, that would make liars of all of them -- and Celestia only knows what would happen to Stoops, Libi thought. Window it is. She swallowed hard. It was a long way down.

Leaning forward as far as possible, Equilibrium pushed her forelegs out the window and kicked off with her back legs, horn glowing as she used her telekinesis as a lever to pull her body through the opening. Head and shoulders through, she was now balanced on the rim, wriggling desperately to get her bulk through the hole.

Behind her the outer door to the bathroom banged open, the sound of claws scratching on stone startlingly loud. Expecting to feel a talon wrap around her fetlocks at any moment she reached out with her magic and forced it into the cracks and crevasses formed where the stones of the outer wall butted together.

Come on Junior, she screamed inside, breath in or we're both for it! With an almost audible 'pop' she burst free and was falling head first, stonework rushing past at horrible speed. Panicked, her horn flared bright enough to cast shadows, her telekinetic grip slipping half way down the wall before she could provide enough force to halt her descent. With a thump that knocked the wind out of her and almost made her lose concentration, Libi flipped head over hooves to dangle from her magic five metres above the ground.

Gasping at the sudden pain in her neck, she let her magic fade, scraping down the rough wall until her hooves touched the ground. Horn light now gone, she huddled at the base of the wall, trying to catch her breath. A sudden change in the dim lighting made her look up. There, backlit by the bathroom lights was a streamlined head that ended in a hooked beak. Its owner looked down the wall, straight into her eyes, then disappeared back into the building.

Libi moaned in distress, waiting for shouts and the flapping of wings, but nothing happened. She'd been close enough to count the little feathers on his white crest. What the hay? she thought, how could he not spot me? Then a half-remembered snippet of gryphon biology surfaced in her mind. They were diurnal hunters, with fantastic day vision, but at night... Superior race my tail, she thought, giddy with relief. To her, the landscape was a bright greyscale, dark forests coating the steep mountainsides hemming in the narrow strip of paler grey grassland.

She shivered; with her adrenalin rush fading the cold was beginning to bite. They'll find me as a frozen lump right here if I don't get moving. "Oh Luna, I hope this works." Equilibrium skirted the darkened feedstock conveyor and headed for the edge of the forest.

===

Equilibrium was fifteen kilometres down the valley when the aircraft took off. She watched it lumber into the air with a throbbing roar, pause, then start to quarter the land near the plant building. They must really want me, she thought, I might be able to hide from an eyeball search, but that thing is bound to have thermal cameras. Libi looked around -- there was really no way to hide from infrared unless she went for a swim, but in this temperature she'd be better off just surrendering. Catching sight of a herd of cattle, great big shaggy-coated things with wide horns in a nearby field, she had a sudden idea. I'm too small to pass for a cow, but what about a calf?

One eye on the aircraft, she galloped out of the forest, squeezed under the lowest bar of the perimeter fence and trotted towards the herd. The cows, all slightly spooked by the flying vehicle's noise, stared at her suspiciously, nostrils flaring as they tried to identify her. Nervous herself -- and having next to no experience with anything quite that large and mobile -- Libi slowed to a hesitant walk, edging closer as the cattle calmed down and started paying more attention to the aircraft.

The thing was getting closer, flying back and forth over the chaotic grid of fields. Abruptly a beam of blinding light stabbed out, illuminating a herd of cows a kilometre away. Libi looked down at herself; she was a completely different colour to the red-brown cattle. Her cream and tan coat would stand out like a beacon under that searchlight. Without a second thought she dropped to the churned up ground and wriggled in the dirt and other, smellier, material that covered it.

Shaking vigorously to remove any loose material, the unicorn sighed and pressed her head into a patch of icy mud, stabbing her horn into the filth until its normally pristine length was blackened and invisible in the darkness. I hope so, anyway, she thought, as something nasty ran off the base of her horn and down her muzzle. The smell, already pretty bad, became indescribable, and she started to breathe through her mouth.

This did have one beneficial effect: the cattle became a little less wary of her, no longer moving to keep her at the centre of a suspiciously empty circle when she approached. Carefully she slipped between them, their large, shaggy bodies blocking the cold wind and providing a measure of warmth.

Over the next fifteen minutes -- although it seemed like a decade to Libi -- the aircraft quartered the farmland, working its way up the valley. It was visible enough in the reflected glare of its searchlight, and occasionally she could see the much smaller shapes of gryphons swooping around it. If the -- what was it Stoops had called it? -- aerodyne finds me, it will be these gryphons that will come for me, she thought. What in Celestia's name do I do then?

The clattering roar grew abruptly deafening as the world turned a blinding white, the downdraft of the rotors blasting Libi's clogged mane and tail into stinging whips. Deliberate, she thought for an instant, they're trying to spook-- The already nervous herd panicked and ran. Eyes watering and vision completely gone, the mare galloped, trying to keep in step with her nearest neighbours. The uneven ground and the random motions of the much larger cows soon had her bouncing off the flanks, hips and legs of frightened animals.

Bruised, gasping and surrounded, it was only seconds before the inevitable happened. A blunt cloven hoof struck Equilibrium on the side of the head, sending her cartwheeling and ending up in the muddy bank of the pond that served the field as a watering hole. The chaos of cow-screams and thundering hooves vanished along with her consciousness.

4 -- A day for disaster

A bout of intense shivering brought Equilibrium back to the world with a snap. Gasping with the cold, teeth chattering uncontrollably, she jerked and twitched her numb legs, trying to climb out of the sticky mud. On the third try she managed to get to her foreknees then, sobbing with the effort, dragged her hindquarters to firmer ground. Collapsing again, Libi panted, flanks moving like bellows as she tried to catch her breath.

It was still night, although there was a hint of light to the eastern horizon promising an eventual dawn. Trying to focus on her surroundings, Libi looked around for shelter, somewhere to get out of the bitter wind that chose this moment to whip over the grass. Nothing. "Got to move," she said to herself, body made clumsy by the cold, "gotta get up, filly. Stand up you stupid mare, stand up or die here!" Her voice rose to a ragged scream as stiff and numb muscles started to cooperate; with a surge of adrenaline she finally stood on four shaky legs.

Gasping from the effort, the false energy of rage fading as quickly as it came, she started to walk. Painful though it was, the uncoordinated stagger got her muscles working and injected some much needed heat into her body. Still shivering, she finally had enough presence of mind to notice the low building a couple of fields over. "Barn," she croaked, "you're a barn." Hope flaring, she changed direction, only to run into a barbed wire fence. The scored line of pain made her gasp and she stood there, shocked by this new indignity.

Looking left and right along the fence line Libi squinted into the wind, trying to see if there was a gate. "C'mon you inconsiderate feathered bastards," she muttered, "you can't tell me that you fly everything in." Finally seeing it at the far corner, she carefully turned and trotted unevenly towards it, desperately afraid that if she fell now she wouldn't have the energy to rise again. Finally reaching it, and too tired to use magic, Libi took hold of the spring-loaded mechanism with her teeth, the metal bitter and terribly cold on her tongue. It was awkward, obviously designed to be opened by a set of talons, but the gate had been well maintained and opened easily once she unlocked it.

Working her mouth to get rid of the taste, Equilibrium staggered to the wooden building, then used her head to push off the bar holding the big doors closed and stumbled inside. Out of the wind she immediately felt better; it was far too dark to see her surroundings, but her nose told her of the presence of dry hay and food. Following the smell she found a series of bins along one wall, all filled with the globular shapes of turnips. Tears of joy running freely down her muzzle, Libi ate her way through a dozen of the roots before walking to the smell of hay and burrowing into the soft, warm fibres.

===

Squinting into the setting sun, Swift Wind From The Mountains snapped his beak in annoyance when he saw the bar on the barn door was lying on the ground. He was tired, hungry and his foreclaws were sore from wielding the heavy hammer all afternoon. The damage was extensive and there was no telling how many of the stock had escaped through all the smashed fences; if he'd lost any more due to stupidity...

"Pounce! Have you been playing in the barn again? How many times--" he roared, throwing down his fencing tools in disgust.

"No da, been in the house helping ma dress the first dead cow," Pounce From Shadows said quickly, running over from where he'd been trying to hitch the second casualty of the night to the tractor. He was really too small for this kind of work, less than half the size of his parents, but was persistent and had managed to at least get the drag chain around the carcass' neck.

Swift sighed, forcing down his anger and picking up the heavy hammer once more. "Sorry son, I know. Shouldn't take it out on you."

"That's okay da, it was a bad night. I'll fix it."

That it had been; the idiot aerodyne pilot had done all but machinegun the stock Swift was responsible for from the air. The panicked cattle had run randomly in the dark, smashing fences, getting tangled in wire and in a few cases breaking legs when they tripped. He'd had to prematurely slaughter a half dozen so far; his mate, Lightning In The Night, had been working frantically at their little butchery station to try and salvage something from this debacle. Despite the urge to take random shots at the infernal machine he'd resisted; the claw-and-skull symbol on the side was enough to temper his fury with fear.

"Da! Da! There's a weird calf in here!"

Swift's fragile calm, never his strong suit, broke again. Pounce From Shadows' imagination will be the death of me, he thought. "I don't have time to waste on some stupid--"

Pounce poked his head through the door. "No da, I'm not making it up. It's real funny, only got one horn."

One horn? A sudden thought struck him and he swallowed hard. Leaping over the half-finished fence, he glided down to the front of the barn, fencing hammer still in one foreclaw. Stepping inside, he could see why Pounce had mistaken it for a calf; if he'd been in a hurry he might have made the same error. Caked in mud and filth, it was about the right size, but with oddly proportioned legs and a head that was far too big for a dumb animal of its size. A single stubby horn jutted up from the centre of its forehead. It was lying half-buried in a pile of hay and was so still that he thought it might be dead.

Rutting Tartarus, Swift thought, this must be what the Red Talons were looking for. "Pounce," he whispered, "go fetch your ma and tell her to bring the comms. Be quick."

Pounce From Shadows, looking nervous at his father's suddenly serious tone, nodded jerkily and bounded out of the barn, taking to the sky as soon as he was clear of the doors.

Swift crept forwards, examining the creature from all sides. It was asleep, he decided, not dead. It -- she? Swift wasn't sure, never having seen a pony in the flesh, but he could remember something about the shape of the muzzle from one of the strange, imported Equestrian video shows. His eyes fixed on her single horn. Witch! his mind shouted, remembering the feather-raising tales his grandmother had used to scare the guano out of him when he was still a chick.

If she's a witch, she's in no state to curse anybody, he thought. There's no way you can stay here. Decision made, Swift reached out with one large foreclaw and grabbed the pony by the scruff of the neck. The figure awoke with a start, legs thrashing uncoordinatedly, but she was nowhere near as strong as a calf and Swift had no problem dragging her from the barn and out into the fading light.

"No, please..." she whimpered in heavily accented Gryphic, eyes frantic and ears folded back against the sides of her head.

Swift nearly relented when he saw her panic and heard that pleading tone, but hardened his heart. "What do you think the Talons will do to us if they think we've been hiding something they want?" he snarled, giving the small form a hard shake. The pony didn't reply, just wrapped her slender forelegs around his forearm in an effort to support some of her weight. Feeling a little guilty, Swift lowered his foreclaw enough for her to stand on her own legs, but didn't let go.

His mate, Lightning In The Night, still wearing the bloodied smock she used to keep her feathers clean during butchery, landed on the other side of the pony, followed by Pounce carrying their portable comms terminal. Seeing another gryphon so close the pony panicked again, fighting Swift's hard grip, but doing little more than making him stagger slightly.

"Stop struggling, damn you!" he shouted, gratified when she froze.

"Sorry," the pony said in a hoarse whisper, eyes flicking from himself to Lightning, nostrils flaring, "please don't kill me."

Lightning In The Night looked surprised, then glanced down at her once white smock. "We're not going to hurt you," she said in a tone reserved for young animals and frightened children, using one foreclaw to remove the stained piece of clothing and pass it to Pounce From Shadows. "Are we?" she said, in a voice that brooked no argument, turning her gaze to Swift.

Swift flinched, looking a little shamefaced. "We'll give you some food and a head start before we report you. I'm sorry, it's the most we can do." He relaxed his grip on the pony's throat, letting his foreclaw drop to the ground.

The little unicorn cleared her throat and worked her jaw a few times before replying. "Thank you," she said softly, looking nervously up at the gathering clouds before starting to back away from him. A tremor ran through her small frame.

Lightning had been studying the pony intently. "How far along are you?" she asked.

Swift watched mystified as the pony followed Lightning's gaze and seemed to shrink slightly. "I've got about a month left," she said, almost too softly to be heard.

"She stays the night, at least," Lightning said in that same, final tone of voice.

"What! There's no way--"

"She won't survive another night in the open without shelter. You've seen enough cows you old fool, look at her condition."

For the first time Swift looked at the unfamiliar form with a farmer's eye, seeing the similarities with his own cattle. Like a calf, but with that swollen belly she almost looked like... "You're pregnant," he muttered, feeling slightly sick. He wouldn't treat one of his cows like he'd treated this pony. He looked over at Lightning, seeing the conviction in her eyes, then slumped.

"Use the barn; take what you need to rebuild your strength." He watched the tight lines of worry on the pony's muzzle ease, felt his own tension fade and knew this was the right decision. "We can't help you, though, the Talons will be back, and there's no way we can hide you from a thorough search... and they will search. They don't trust anybody."

===

From a distance, the aircarrier looked like one of the larger cargo blimps. This was, in part, a side effect of a tapered cylinder being the most efficient shape for pushing a large object through the air -- a compromise between reducing wind resistance and wasted hull mass. The other reason was that it provided some degree of camouflage; the shape was close enough to that of a bulk carrier that even satellite imagery had trouble telling the difference. The hatches on the underside made it obvious what she truly was, but if you were close enough to see them it was really far too late.

A cargo blimp used helium -- or hydrogen in the uncrewed models -- but the Friendship Express was far too heavy for that to work.

"Engineering, this is the Admiral. Status report," Twister said, stretching his pale mauve wings and yawning mightily. He'd been up most of the night after the 'mission warning' brief came in from the Palace. The cloud dock's aircrew had been run ragged making sure his aircarrier was ready to move within the specified timeframe; the last thing to be completed before they could leave was the reinstallation of half the port side levitators. They'd been disabled in an attempt to isolate a problem with number twelve, but the movement order had come through before the work could be completed.

"Engineering here," came a voice that sounded as tired as Twister felt. "Everything is back online except port twelve. We'll just have to turn off number eleven to balance it out. You've still got full power."

"Thank you, Engineering. Set the clock to six hundred seconds." The Express had levitator power to spare; no warship could afford single points of failure. This would reduce their margins, but there was enough redundancy that he felt comfortable with the decision. It's either that or not go, he thought, grinning suddenly. That would go down well with the Palace.

The Royal Equestrian Air Force technically had Princess Celestia as its commanding officer, although for that to happen the whole of the civilian government would have to be dissolved, something that hadn't even happened during the emergence of Nightmare Moon. Despite this, it was long tradition that all orders from the general staff were sent through the Palace. Luna had similar titular responsibilities for the space forces -- mostly surveillance, although there were some new facilities being built on the moon -- as well as the FOAL teams.

Now they were a bunch of odd-balls, Twister thought. Definitely not the spit and polish type, but they got the job done -- whatever it was. The pegasus turned away from the general access intercom near the door and stepped over to the giant windows that occupied the curved front of the semicircular room. They were high up on the nose of the Friendship Express, the hull of the aircarrier only visible if you were prepared to stick your muzzle out of a window and risk falling out.

Despite the Express' size, the bridge was deceptively small, only enough room for the heads of department or their designates. Five other ponies: aircrew, FOAL liaison, atmospherics, navigation, and spellcraft systems. Everything but engineering -- they were all in the service core of the aircarrier, among the systems they maintained.

Twister trotted over to his command bay -- a raised, padded alcove that would hold him in place during even the most violent manoeuvres -- and settled down on to his belly. Waving a hoof over the gesture interface, he opened the diagnostic systems and ran an eye down the list of status summaries. Looking good, he thought, then raised his head to speak to the bridge crew. "Okay ponies, let's run through the list. I want to be underway in ten minutes."

Pointing at each bridge station in turn, Twister went around the room, listening to the status reports and judging how much any given problem would affect the overall performance of the aircarrier. There were many issues, but nothing critical -- except perhaps the D deck officer's shower was apparently dispensing raw sewage, rather than water, at random intervals. A fault that large should have been easy to fix, but with the stress of recommissioning, somepony had let it slide. Fortunately the Admiral rated his own shower. ...I might let it run a bit before getting in, Twister thought with a suppressed grin, listening to that particular tale of woe.

"Excellent, considering our sudden change of disposition, I think we're ready to go." He swept his gaze over them again, noting the nods and muttered 'yeses,' then nodding himself. "Good. Navigation, please get us on our way."

"Aye, sir," the earth pony replied, activating her command interface.

All over the aircarrier alarms sounded in quick succession: access doors closing, engine start, brace for acceleration. Outside, in the cylindrical space that served as Cloudsdale's number seventeen cloud dock, pegasi suddenly filled the airas the dock's refit teams took the shortest available route to clear the space around the Friendship Express. Within seconds the air was empty again and aircarrier's cluster of spellcraft levitated ducted fans started to blur.

"Cloud dock reports the last of their crews are clear and the gangways have retracted. Dropping mooring line in three, two, one, mark."

A subtle shiver ran through the Express and the puffy walls of the cloud dock started to drift past as the aircarrier slowly accelerated under minimum thrust. Ahead of its blunt nose, the magic holding the big doors together dissipated; the sharply defined layers of cloud lost cohesion and turned into drifting streamers of fog. It took five minutes to clear the dock at this achingly slow pace, but once they were far enough away to avoid damage to the relatively fragile cloud construction the engines were opened to full power.

She still wasn't that fast, certainly not in aircraft terms, but she was far quicker than anything of that size had any right to be. At a stately two hundred and fifty kilometres an hour, the Friendship Express headed for the ocean and the gryphon kingdom of Razorclaw.

===

The Consul looked out the window at the angry crowd and fluttered his green wings in dismay. There had to be several hundred gryphons in the garden spaces surrounding the Equestrian Embassy, a similar number in the sky and the same again roosting on the surrounding buildings. "How can this have happened?" he asked again.

The head of Embassy security, Sergeant Trailblazer, sighed and stepped up to the window next to the Consul. He'd donned his fancy armour and was now the perfect, pristine white of any other pegasus member of the Day Guard. "I don't know, sir. We had no more warning than the Razorclaw government did, even if we do have the ability to do something afterwards."

Paperchase winced at Trailblazer's morbid humour. He hoped it had been quick for the unfortunates in the ministry building. It probably was; the explosion had been powerful enough to rattle the ornaments on his desk. The crowd had started to gather an hour after the coup; Paperchase wasn't sure, but he'd thought that there were individual gryphons stirring them up. The crowd had been loud, but not violent at the start -- something similar happened every month or so, the local gryphons making it clear that they didn't really like the ponies being there. Same old story, proud people, etc.

That was when the trouble had really started. Anti-Equestrian rhetoric on the audio and video feeds, pony-run premises and residences vandalized, individual ponies threatened or attacked. The rapid rise in hostility had been breathtaking, so fast that the following morning he'd used his contact list to recall every pony he could get hold of. They'd all seen the news, seen the looks they were given by gryphons passing them by; it didn't take much for the trickle of scared ponies that'd been arriving all afternoon to turn into a flood.

That had seemed to set the crowd off. The last few pony refugees to make it had done so under a hail of dropped or thrown debris from the waiting gryphons; the Consul had sent out his small security force to shield the stragglers. That might have been a mistake, even though it had probably saved several ponies from injury. As soon as the unicorns had started flicking aside the thrown objects, or deflecting them with short-lived force fields, the cry of 'witch' had risen from the crowd, quickly becoming a chant. The rain of debris became a storm; when the security team had managed to get the doors closed it wasn't just the refugees who needed medical help. At least a dozen gryphons had limped away, struck by their own people's projectiles.

Out of deference to their host country, the Equestrians had built their embassy to the normal gryphon design; that is, a heavy cube with small windows. For their own sanity it didn't occupy the whole of the block they'd been given; they'd flattened out the slope and planted it with a wide range of food crops to supplement the somewhat bland diet they could source locally. For such a small plot the productivity was very high; one of the side effects of having most of Razorclaw City's earth pony population help maintain it. That was one of the main reasons for the regular demonstrations; good farming land was scarce here, and even though the actual area was small it seemed to rub some gryphons the wrong way.

The outer half of that vegetable garden was mush now, stomped flat by angry paws. The inner section, marked out by a perfect circle, was intact only because the Consul had activated the buried spellcraft field generators. Paperchase stared at the crowd through the pale pink shell of the force field. This morning he'd thanked Celestia for the new day, as he always did, here and now he thanked Luna for her foresight. Once among the deadliest of threats to Equestria, the Princess of the Night had was now its most zealous defender.

He'd watched, fascinated, as the force bubble had expanded out from the block walls of the embassy, passing without pause through the trees and ornaments, but gently pushing every gryphon back with irresistible force. They'd really gone mad at that point, even working in groups to pull chunks of masonry off the nearby buildings to rain down on the dome. "The local authorities are not going to be happy," he muttered, "I'm pretty sure we never told them about that."

Trailblazer chuckled. "All hail Luna's paranoia."

Several military vehicles -- those noisy double rotor things the locals called 'aerodynes' -- had flown low over the Embassy and he could see at least one group of soldiers occupying a nearby rooftop. None of them had done anything to disperse the gathered gryphons; the crowd had quietened when they first saw the aerodyne, but when nothing happened they grew even bolder. Something else moved in the distance, occasionally glimpsed through the gaps in the taller buildings surrounding the embassy. A beetle-like shape with podded engines at each corner, the thing looked like one of the big cargo lifters the locals used.

So why is it still here? What the Consul knew about powered flight could be written on a very small scroll, but he did know that such things were expensive to run. That force field can withstand a lot, but if that thing has been hijacked... He caught a flash of sunlight reflecting off the vehicle and shivered. I don't want to be here if the pilot decides to ram us.

"How many didn't make it back inside the embassy?"

"At least fifty, including the group from Fancypants down at the new plant. We were never able to reach them, all the radio links were down by the time we thought to call them."

The Consul sighed again. "There's nothing we can do for them here; I've not even been able to discover who's in charge now. How are the evacuation plans coming along?"

"We're as ready as we'll ever be, the trick will be to keep the gryphons off the chariots from the Canterlot Dreaming."

"Where is it now?"

"It's about thirty minutes out; apparently they've already sent the chariots ahead. The airship's at her pressure height, so they've got a lot of gliding to do."

"How high?" the Consul asked with more than academic curiosity. Down was always easy, even when you had to control a chariot. Up was something else entirely.

"About eight thousand metres."

Paperchase nodded; it had been a long time since he'd tried any real high altitude flight, but eight kilometres was within the reach of most pegasi. "How do you plan to get the chariots through the mob?" he asked, looking again at the large numbers of gryphons still flying around the dome.

"In should be easy, just a matter of timing and a bit of discouragement from unicorns on the roof. Out will be more tricky... but we've enough pegasi for a flying screen and I'll spread out my unicorns between the chariots to deal with any birds that get through."

"What makes you think a few of us flying around will be able to scare off all that lot?" the Consul said, waving a hoof out the window.

"In the end the locals want us gone, sir," the sergeant said calmly, "and, although this armour looks shiny and useless, it is still perfectly functional." He spread one wing, displaying the thin, flexible blade that attached to his leading edge armour and lay like an extra steel flight feather at the end of his wing. Normally purely for ceremonial purposes -- they looked really impressive reflecting the sun during a fly-by -- the sergeant's had been honed to a razor's edge. There was the sliding sound of metal against metal as he refolded the wing.

Paperchase shivered; there was something about Trailblazer's calm acceptance of the fight to come that made him feel cold. "It's a pity about the armoury." Now that's an understatement.

The pegasus sighed. "Yes sir. In hindsight, it was a mistake to place it next to one of the field generators. When the secondary failed..." The thaumic backlash had mangled the contents of the little room, but at least the other generators had kept the field up. "The microwave area denial unit would have been very useful."

Enough energy to hurt, but not to injure. Perfect for violent, unruly crowds. "Tell me, Sergeant, where did you serve before joining diplomatic protection?" Now that he thought about it, the other pegasus' file had been oddly bland and short on details; the Consul was used to the language of government paperwork and this had screamed of something to hide. There was also something about the pony, a frightening competence that seemed out of place in such a backwater embassy.

"I've served Princess Luna in many places, sir. A bit of a troubleshooter, you might say." Trailblazer smiled at the Consul and winked. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get ready for our visitors."

"Carry on, Sergeant," the consul murmured, watching the pony trot out of the room. "All hail Luna's paranoia indeed." The hints Trailblazer had dropped lifted his spirits considerably, and there were several others among his staff that had the same attitude as the sergeant. Perhaps we'll get out of this after all, he thought.

Shaking his head, he reached out and pulled open the nearest filing cabinet, then started removing racks of memory crystals, small pieces of equipment and the occasional document folder, dumping them all in the fancy fireplace. He paused for a moment, staring at a year's worth of work, then held the igniter switch down for a count of five and watched the lot burn. The fire was far hotter than it was normally, the pile burning quite happily under the influence of the spellcraft embedded in the walls of the fireplace. Let's see them get anything useful out of that, he thought.

Turning to his terminal he pulled out a special card from his desk -- the only item that hadn't ended up in the fire -- and placed it into the reader, pulled it out and reinserted it upside down. He watched mournfully as his terminal promptly crashed, every bit of memory randomly overwritten in a cycle that wouldn't stop until the power failed. Standing up, the Consul walked out of his office and headed for the roof, not looking back.

Outside, curiously muted through the force field, came the roar of a thousand voices raised in anger.

===

Trailblazer nodded approvingly as the top quarter of the shield flicked off, just as the first chariot reached it. His guards had assembled on the roof, holding the gryphon's attention long enough for the six empty chariots to get within range of the unicorns. By the time enough of the mob had noticed the vehicles, his unicorns had used their telekinesis to clear a corridor of air through to the dome. It had worked beautifully, but it would only work once.

The Canterlot Dreaming was a luxury airship liner, currently on a round-the-world cruise; fortunately for the ponies in Razorclaw it had been in the area when the trouble had started and was close enough to pick them up. What it wouldn't do, of course, was wait. Her Captain wanted out of what looked to become a warzone, and was taking the fastest route back to international airspace. Perfectly reasonable: the Canterlot Dreaming's master was responsible for over a thousand passengers and two hundred and fifty crew.

In a disorganised rush the ponies that had assembled on the floor below piled onto the chariots; Trailblazer and his team had a fun few minutes reorganizing the loads so no one chariot was overloaded and all had one or two competent spellcasters on board. The chariots were big, ornate things, each pulled by a team of six pegasi. Designed to ferry the flightless -- or just plain lazy -- passengers to and from the giant airship, they bore the marks of hurried alterations where the Canterlot Dreaming's engineers had ripped out internal fittings to get more space.

"Excuse me, are you Sergeant Trailblazer?" asked one of the Dreaming's pegasi.

"Yes," Trailblazer said absently, listening with one ear to the report from a guard who'd been sweeping the now deserted building for anypony they'd missed.

"I'm Nightstick, second in command of the Dreaming's security group. Captain Spinnaker sent as many of my team as she could spare; if we can hitch some of the fitter civilian pegasi to the chariots..." the pegasus trailed off as the armoured Royal Guard switched his full attention to her.

"How many?" Trailblazer snapped.

"Four on each chariot," Nightstick said promptly. "The lead pair on each are normal crewponies, they can do the steering if we can replace the rest. You'll have another twenty-four trained pegasi at your disposal. The whole crew volunteered to help, but we've had some gryphons trying to get to the envelope, so we had to keep a good few back."

The sergeant grinned. I guess you don't get to be in charge of a multimillion-bit airship if you're stupid, he thought, suddenly relieved that the 'luxury' part of 'luxury cruise' also meant archaic pegasus-drawn transport. I'd still have liked a nice fast airtruck, though. He grimaced at that; maybe not. The local military were probably quite twitchy, at least there was no way a pegasus chariot could be 'mistaken' for someone on the other side -- whoever that was.

"Excellent, get your team unhitched. I want you in fours, playing card formation," he held up one hoof, marking out the perimeter of a rectangle. "Keep it tight; no matter what you stick with your wingpony. You get much air-to-air training?"

"A bit," she said, looking nervous, "we're mostly there to help the passengers, but the Dreaming does cruise near some trouble spots and we'll sometimes put on in-flight air displays during the longer ocean crossings."

Trailblazer nodded. "Understood. Like I said, stick together and you'll be fine. This lot," here he waved to encompass the gryphons, "are a disorganized rabble. Teamwork is our advantage here. You patrol the perimeter, keep about two hundred metres out once we get into clear air, if anything gets through, let it go. The unicorns will use that volume as a free-fire zone, so stay out of it. The Royal Guard will be doing the same thing. Questions?"

The security mare shook her head, obviously relieved that somepony had a plan.

"Right!" he roared out to the civilian pegasi watching the frantic preparations. "I need twenty-four ponies to help pull these chariots."

The only reply was the nervous shuffling of hooves and the occasional wing flutter. Trailblazer was just about to turn away, face blank to hide his disappointment, when a familiar voice called out from the middle of one chariot.

"I'll do it," said Paperchase. The consul pushed his way off the chariot and trotted calmly to the front of the vehicle, slipping his head through the collar and twisting around to pull the cinch tight with his teeth. This was enough to goad the others into action and they had soon filled all the empty slots.

Having already assigned the unicorn Royal Guards to their chariots, Trailblazer went to talk to the Guard pegasi and his own personal team. As he approached, one of the pegasi was talking to an earth pony in cooking garb, a concerned look on his face.

"...but you're one of the kitchen staff, aren't you Blevie? Shouldn't you be on one of the chariots?"

The dark blue earth pony mare grinned back at the white pegasus. "I also cook."

The pegasus standing next to the first rolled his eyes at this exchange. "Use your eyes, mate, look at the three of them. One of each of ponykind, involved with the military -- they're FOALs, you idiot."

"What do you mean, 'foals'?" said the first, looking confused. "The sarge has to be at least forty."

"They didn't hire you for your brains, did they?" the second replied, then explained to his wingmate exactly what a FOAL was.

Trailblazer hid his grin at this exchange; Blevie was an excellent cook, it's just that it was one of her secondary talents. While he was gathering his thoughts, Night Storm, his combat mage, nodded in the direction of the Consul, now happily chatting to the pegasi he was harnessed with and the ponies in the front of the chariot.

"He's a good one and no mistake," she muttered.

"That he is," Trailblazer said with quiet pride, "always makes it easier when you think they're worth saving. Are you ready for your party trick?"

"After being stuck in this backwater for two years? You bet I am."

"Blevie, a word if you've finished your conversation...?" he said, eyeing the earth pony mare’s bulging panniers. Short lengths of cord, each ending in a fat knot, were neatly lined up around the edge, just ready to be grabbed by a nimble mouth. "Remember when I gave you explicit orders that all our special kit was to be kept in the armoury? Exactly how well did you obey that order?"

Blevie looked affronted. "To the letter, boss! Everything I was issued with was trashed when the room went up, including my armour."

"Then...?" he said, gesturing to her panniers.

"These are all mine; I made them here. A filly's got to find something to do in this town -- it's not like it's easy to go out for a drink."

Trailblazer grinned, when you worked with smart ponies, it was always wise to give them the right orders. "What are they?"

"Just some bird scarers. You know, aluminium dust and perchlorate all wrapped up nice and tight with string and glue. They're real noisy and bright, but won't cause any permanent damage unless you actually hold one when it goes off."

"Perfect. I want you on the tail chariot. There are going to be lots of birds following us; convince them it's a bad idea."

Blevie gave him a bloodthirsty smile. "It will be my pleasure, boss."

5 -- We’re all victims here

Neighmann rolled off the sleeping pad, once again missing the warm body of Equilibrium. He'd taken to sleeping at the new institute facilities to maintain better control over the operation during the initial switchover from their field site. It was nowhere as comfortable as home, but without Libi the place seemed too empty. Reaching out with his magic he started pulling a brush through his sleep-tangled mane, prodding the wall screen into action at the same time.

"Messages," he said, watching with a casual eye as the list scrolled past. Junk, junk, spellcraft service charges, utilities charges, more junk. Odd, he thought, nothing from Libi. "What is that filly doing that's got her so involved," he wondered. This was most unlike her; they'd been exchanging messages every day since she'd left for Razorclaw. She'd not missed a single one so far. "Check status of sent messages," he said.

His sent messages folder popped up, the last few notes showing the red 'x' of delivery failure. Neighmann paused, then put the brush down and turned all his attention to the wallscreen. "Message held at international gateway, connection refused by Razorclaw national network," he muttered, reading out the error message. What the hay?

"Search news: Razorclaw, gryphon," he said to the screen, still not unduly worried. That part of the world was harsh and it wasn't abnormal for weather to temporarily knock out a data link. Yes, but that's through an ocean-bottom fibre optic line, so unless somepony dredged it up by accident... his thoughts tailed off as he read the list of abstracts.

The very first article on the list made his stomach twist, and with mounting horror he scrolled through the rest; all were variations on the same theme of 'coup in progress' or 'civil unrest after terrorist incident.' Flicking off the news feed, he started the communications system and called the switchboard number for the Fancypants plant where Libi worked.

"Fancypants Industries, may I help you?" The smartly turned out earth pony stallion on the screen looked a bit taken aback by Neighmann's panicked look. "Sir, are you alright?"

"I need to speak to somepony about my mate, Equilibrium, she works in process design. It's urgent."

"One moment."

The screen went blank, showing only the corporate logo, then cleared again to display a tired looking unicorn stallion. Neighmann was just about to speak when the screen split into three, showing a stern looking pegasus mare and another unicorn stallion.

"Doctor Neighmann?" asked the tired unicorn. "It is you, isn't it? We met briefly at one of the Heartswarming Eve balls a year or two back."

"I'm sorry, I don't--"

The unicorn waved a hoof at the screen and cut him off. "No reason you should. I'm Cinnamon, Libi's line manager. I'm here with Mattock and Wintergreen, the heads of global security and pony resources," he said, gesturing first at the pegasus mare and then at the other unicorn.

The worry that had been building inside Neighmann suddenly blossomed into a full-fledged panic. No, no, no, please no, don't let-- his mind babbled.

"I'm sorry, Doctor Neighmann," the pegasus said, "we have been unable to get in contact with our employees in Razorclaw. As far as we understand it, all the fighting has been confined to the capital, and your mate was scheduled to be at the installation plant several hundred kilometres away at the time the trouble apparently started. As far as we can tell they are as safe as they can be.”

===

Libi nodded her thanks to the gryphon, unable to quite believe this sudden reversal of her fortunes. These are good people, she thought, not ponies, but good people nonetheless. It's obvious that the security forces aren't much loved around here.

The male turned and walked to the closest fence line. "Pounce," he said to the smaller gryphon, "start moving the cows to the west fields. These fences need too much repair for us to finish before sunset."

"Da?" the young gryphon said, confused. "There's nothing wrong with this fence, we've nearly--" His eyes went wide as the older male grabbed hold of the nearest fence post and pulled it out of the ground with one convulsive heave. His beak opened and shut in surprise, then a look of understanding flooded his face and he turned and flew towards the distant herd of cattle.

Libi gazed in wonder as he walked to the next post and did the same again. "Thank you," she said, "if there's anything I can do to repay--"

"Don't mention it." The gryphon turned to glare at her. "To anybody. Ever," he said, then moved to the next post along. "Don't come near the house."

"I understand," Libi said, then backed slowly into the barn.

Once inside the comfortingly dim space the stress of her unexpected awakening suddenly rolled over Libi and her knees gave way, causing the unicorn to collapse to the straw-covered floor. She lay there for what seemed like an age, breathing heavily and tears rolling down her muzzle. Finally she drew in one huge, ragged breath and held it until the urge to sob faded. Junior picked that moment to kick and twitch in her belly.

"Thank you, Celestia," she said, a vast relief filling her as an unrealised fear evaporated. "Thank you for everything."

Calm now, Libi climbed stiffly to her hooves and actually looked around the inside of the barn for the first time since she had staggered into it. Most of it seemed to be piles of hay and storage bins full of turnips, but there was a workbench down one wall covered with a range of what looked to be junk accumulated over the last couple of decades. Her eyes had adjusted fully to the dimness now, and enough light came in through the gaps in the walls to allow her to see clearly.

Screws, rusty and broken tools, empty jars and bottles, old paint cans and tubs of chemicals. She smiled, struck by a sudden flash of deja vu and homesickness. This is just like my sire's shed at home, only bigger, she thought. She leaned forward, kindling a faint white glow from her horn to read the faded ingredient names on the tubs. An eyebrow quirked up and she whistled one long note. But we never had such an interesting range of chemicals. Carefully she backed away, an idea forming in her head.

Retreating to the other side of the barn she found a water tap. Turning it on she put her muzzle under the icy stream and drank long and deep, eyes never leaving that work bench. I may be an alchemist, she thought, but let's not forget that most of that is just 'chemist'.

After a slightly nerve-wracking hour of preparations, she had done as much as she could. Placing her creations carefully against one wall where they wouldn't be accidentally knocked over, she took another meal of turnip and hay. Stomach full and mind hazy with fatigue, Libi settled down on a loose mound of straw and wriggled until not even the end of her muzzle was visible. Well fed and feeling reasonably safe, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

===

Ripper Of Flesh glided around the infuriatingly impenetrable witch dome that protected the grass-eater's embassy. He'd spent a good part of the last hour either dropping bits of masonry on the dome or trying to goad the company of soldiers into firing one of their rockets at it. Both efforts had come to naught, and now he flew wide circles around the building, a rock in each talon, getting angrier and angrier.

"You'll have to come out sooner or later," he howled, "and when you do I'll make you pay for what you've done to us!" Quite what the Equestrians had done to the gryphons of Razorclaw wasn't entirely clear, but every time his mind tried to follow that line of reasoning other thoughts would intrude. Visions of how wealthy and soft the ponies' country was. They didn't have to live claw to beak, never knowing where their next meal was coming from. They've taken all the best land, they want us trapped here until we starve, he thought, a fresh wave of hate flowing over him.

Like the rest of the flock he'd been fooled by the sudden appearance of the witches on the roof, not noticing until too late the far more vulnerable chariots flying in from overhead. By the time he'd seen them the unicorn witches had gone into action, with glowing horns they had swept aside the few gryphons who had been in the right place to intercept the chariots. It had been that easy.

Something else to hate them for.

There was organized activity behind the pink haze of the magic dome. The whole roof was now nearly empty of ponies, just two rows of pegasi and six chariots packed with the flightless ones. The chariots were moving, actually moving! This is it, he thought, we'll show these arrogant plant eaters; their witches won't save them now.

All of a sudden the magic haze disappeared, and with a scream that was echoed from scores of throats, Ripper folded his wings and dove on his prey.

The chariots were lumbering things, barely airborne by the time the lead gryphons had crossed the vanished dome's perimeter, charging towards the screen of pegasi who weren't even starting to manoeuvre. Ripper hesitated, wings coming forward to check his headlong dive. Something's not right here, he thought, those pegasi aren't even trying to stop them--

All thought dissolved as the sun went out.

In a panic, his imagination supplying an image of the rapidly expanding stone roof of the embassy, Ripper Of Flesh flared his wings and sought to pull out of the dive. Every other gryphon had exactly the same idea and the flock dissolved into chaos. Ripper slammed beak-first into the flank of someone in the darkness, earning a thump across the head as the other's wings thrashed wildly. Bouncing away he felt a set of talons grab convulsively at his hind quarters, causing both gryphons to tumble beak over claws towards the ground.

"Let go!" he shrieked at the other, unheard in the general melee. Twisting and lashing out with his own foreclaws he was rewarded with a scream of pain and freedom as the other fell away. Wings flaring again to arrest his descent, Ripper flattened his fall into a glide, dumping speed as fast as he could. For a brief instant he flashed out into blessed daylight, then his left wing clipped a tree branch and sent him spinning into a patch of thick bushes near the base of the Embassy.

Tangled in the branches he lay there stunned, mind unable to process the bizarre sight before him. Like the largest basalt boulder in the world, a vast black globe sat over the Embassy. Out of it fell a rain of winged shapes; most quickly finding their bearings and heading for the nearest perch, a few tumbling like dead leaves and never recovering. Ripper was glad he couldn't see what happened to them when they fell behind the nearest buildings.

As he watched, the globe seemed to pulsate and grew slightly brighter; dull grey rather than a midnight black. Within it he could see the six chariots climbing strongly, surrounded by the little dots of pegasi. With a final flicker the globe disappeared altogether, allowing the late afternoon sun to illuminate the area it had shaded. The ground and buildings around the Embassy were littered with the confused shapes of gryphons, all staring up in a mix of fear and wonder.

Ripper closed his beak when he realised he was doing the same. Thrashing wildly he untangled himself from the thick bushes, spread his wings and took to the sky. "Death to witches!" he screamed, voice so full of rage that his words were barely understandable.

Behind him the cry was taken up by hundreds of other voices, and in a storm of wings they leapt to the pursuit.

===

"Is everypony ready?" Sergeant Trailblazer shouted over the murmur of conversation, listening to the subdued replies. Like every pony present he had his eyes shut tightly, waiting for Night Storm to cast her spell. This had better work, he thought, mind running through his woefully inadequate backup plans. He'd trained for the tension of covert operations, so this ten minute wait was nothing, but he could hear the shuffle of nervous hooves and the flutter of wings being stretched to relieve the stress. He'd have liked to have waited longer -- the more time he could have to get his eyes adjusted the better -- but somepony was bound to panic if he delayed much longer. I'm pretty surprised they haven't already.

He turned his head in the remembered direction of his combat mage. "All set, Night?"

"Yes, Blaze, you can start them off now," she said in a distracted tone.

Even through his closed eyelids the sergeant could see the glow coming off her horn as she constructed and charged the complex spell. "By the numbers everypony, and remember, open your eyes only when it goes dark and be ready to dodge, those birds will be coming in fast." He started to count out loud, first stepping, then beating his wings in time with the cadence. Five counts in and he'd just lifted off the ground, the rumble of the chariot next to him disappearing as it left the roof.

This was the tricky bit, staying close together during slow flight and while blind. He'd spaced the pegasi out, but there was going to be an accident if he held back any longer. With one forehoof he tapped the remote control he'd fixed to his chest plate. Abruptly the muted noise from the gryphon crowd doubled in volume, then doubled again as what sounded like every gryphon in the world screamed bloody murder.

"Steady you ponies, five seconds!"

That five seconds lasted a relative age; training or not Trailblazer was just about to ask Night Storm if there was a problem, when the faint glow through his eyelids disappeared. In an instant he had his eyes open and was scanning his surroundings. The light was dim even for a pony, but perfectly adequate to resolve the bulky shapes of the chariots and the now strongly flying pegasus draught teams.

It was like being inside a globe of smoked glass, or outside during the Eclipse Festival. Overhead, the sun looked no brighter than the full moon, lighting the city beneath his hooves with a pale grey radiance. The strangest thing was the heat from it -- even in Razorclaw the sudden dimming of the sun should have dropped the temperature -- but Trailblazer could still feel its meagre warmth. All around him the air was filled with panicking gryphons, tumbling this way and that and already starting to collide with each other. Twisting his wings, Trailblazer swerved to avoid one individual, lashing out with his hind legs as it passed to drive it away from the chariot.

Every unicorn in the chariots simultaneously lit their horns and started to deflect the falling gryphons. There was a risk that this would give their attackers enough light to see by, but the sergeant doubted it. The glow of active telekinesis was subtle at the best of times, and it would take more than a couple of seconds for a gryphon's eye to adjust to this dim light, if it ever could. If only Night could keep this up until we reach the Canterlot Dreaming, he thought wistfully, while body slamming another gryphon.

She couldn't, of course. He didn't pretend to understand how she did it, but he knew it was similar to the giant-sized force bubble that was sometimes used to cover the whole of the Royal Palace. While that was designed to stop intruders, Night's shield was designed to stop light, downshifting it by some arcane method into invisible infrared. His view of the city abruptly brightened, dimmed, then returned to full brightness. Blinking away the tears, Trailblazer checked the sky; nothing above, all the gryphons had been scattered and were either on the ground or flying low and confused patterns.

He grinned wildly, laughing out loud at the sheer joy of outwitting such a large number of enemies. He looked down, still smiling, as the gryphons started to rally in pursuit. "Still a rabble," he said to himself; only half of the crowd had elected to keep up the chase, but that would be enough to provide some excitement. Holding his wings out in a glide, Trailblazer stretched his neck and tugged at the thin plastic guard covering the edge of his right side featherblade.

The blade -- a slender, flexible razor-edged sliver of steel -- was aerofoil curved and attached to his outermost wing joint, just in front of his biggest flight feather. He fanned that wing momentarily, feeling the way it moved in response to the air flow over his real feathers, then twisted his head to the left and did the same to the other featherblade. All around him the other Royal Guard pegasi were doing the same thing; a cascade of plastic covers rained down on the fast-rising gryphons.

His six Guard pegasi were the only ones with the blades -- luxury cruise companies frowned on arming their security staff with anything that might maim a fare-paying passenger -- the security teams only had weighted shoes to fight with. At least they came with anticlaw vests, he thought, not as good as my stuff, but better than nothing. The fancy, polished Guard armour may have looked like the gilded bronze design that predated Luna’s return, but it was far from it. There was gold in it, but only as a five-micron coating over metal-matrix ceramic backed with a spellcraft kinetic damper. The stuff would stop anything from a manticore's bite to a round from one of the heavy chem-fuelled rifles popular in the gryphon kingdoms.

Sometimes I wish I was a chiropt... their armour is so much better for intimidation. Trailblazer thought. This stuff looks too pretty. There were also a few distinct advantages to having bat wings -- you could do things with a membrane wing that would let you fly rings around someone with feathers, although they were much less tolerant of minor damage. I'm sure having fangs and snake eyes would also make more of an impression... ah well, they'll get the message soon enough. His excitement built, the familiar surge of adrenalin taking over from pre-operation nerves.

Seeing the pursuit close the range, Trailblazer rolled once to signal his intent to the rest of the Guard, then turned over a second time and dove at the biggest, meanest-looking gryphon he could find. Behind him the Guard lined up in pairs, forming a falling cone with him at its tip. Getting close, the pegasi flexed their wings, bringing their blades fully forward and letting the mirror-polished metal flicker and flash in the sun.

Some of the gryphons got the message, eyes going wide and swerving wildly to avoid the suddenly fierce ponies charging in their direction. Most had only ever seen the pegasi as pleasant, slightly skittish creatures who were unfailingly polite and looked soft and, well, edible. This was completely outside their experience, those supposedly peaceful, pastel-coloured, flying ponies suddenly charging straight at them, with metal on their wings and determined expressions on their faces.

Trailblazer flashed past his target, twisted to take the gryphon's talon strike on his armour, then opened his nearside wing just enough to let the tip of the featherblade brush the furry hindquarters. He felt the jarring impact along the blade's mounting harness and realised he'd misjudged it slightly; instead of just cutting the gryphon he'd struck bone. Angry at himself he pulled in his wing slightly and angled towards his next target. Out of practice, he thought, can't do too many of those or it'll get blunt. Featherblade fighting was one of those things that required a really good edge; a blade that snagged in a target might dislocate a wing before the breakaway straps failed.

Behind him the formation of Guard pegasi expanded and flexed as it passed through the knot of gryphons, slashing with wings and kicking out with weighted hooves. Following Trailblazer's lead, the pairs of ponies curved out of their dive, flapping furiously as they fought for altitude. Below them the closest knot of gryphons was in disarray, two dozen of the flock had given up on the chase and were gliding stiffly back to the ground, trailing blood and feathers.

This bought the ponies a few minutes of peace as the gryphons circled around the little convoy like vultures in a thermal. A pegasus' size tended to make them a little more manoeuvrable than the larger gryphons, but that was at the expense of power and endurance. Slowed by the need to keep with the chariots, they were rapidly being out-climbed by the flock; before long there was a cloud of gryphons circling almost half a kilometre above the fleeing ponies. Below them was a matching swarm of the slower gryphons, obviously content to let their more energetic brethren make the first move.

Trailblazer looked up with a critical eye, studying the motions of the gryphons above him. Soon, he thought, they'll break soon. Working his jaw from side to side he opened a comms channel to the rest of the Guards and the security pegasi. "Look sharp, ponies, they'll come for us soon. Guards, let's gain some height; we'll hit them as they descend. Nightstick, have your ponies take the middle position, there'll be plenty who'll get through. Guard unicorns to point defence and keep watch for any injured pegasi."

While the acknowledgements came back, Trailblazer studied the ponies' formation, wondering what else he could do. The six chariots were arranged in a stacked pair of triangles, with the civilian pegasi a tight-knit flock at the centre. Above this circled three of the five squads of the Dreaming's security ponies, with the remaining two squads orbiting the civilians, where they could protect the flyers or dive on any gryphons climbing from below. The sergeant shivered in his armour. If I wanted to cause as much trouble as possible, he thought, I'd go straight for the civilians. Hard to use a featherblade in that flock and a unicorn would have problems with line of sight.

He put that out of his mind as the gryphons overhead chose that moment to fold their wings and dive.

===

Ripper Of Flesh had been at the back of the flock as it had climbed towards the pony convoy that first time. He was eager to extract some vengeance for his humiliating crash a few minutes ago, but the impact had left him a little shaken and he didn't quite have the speed of the others. He watched with amazement as a small group of ponies had dived head first into the flock, wings glittering strangely. It was only after he flew through a haze of blood droplets that he realised what was happening.

Knives! They've got knives on their wings! he thought. A second later he was treated to a close up view, as the lead pony pulled out of his dive only a dozen metres away. The pegasus was one of the stern looking white stallions in gold armour that he'd seen about the Embassy whenever he'd flown over it. Now his fur wasn't white; a dapple of bright arterial red painted his hind quarters and wingtips. The face wasn't so expressionless either: the pegasus' muzzle was twisted into an expression of unholy joy that did more to make Ripper pause than the shiny metal blades on the other's wings.

He curved away, watching in horrified fascination as several clawfuls of gryphons tumbled out of the flock, blood staining their feathers and fur. With the shock, the rage left his mind and he could think clearly for the first time in days. What in Tartarus am I doing here? he thought. I have no quarrel with these ponies. A sudden shiver of worry ran through him. Where is my famil--

For an instant a memory welled up; a vision of a pair of mismatched eyes set into a heavy, dragon-goat head, smiling with a cruel smile and speaking honeyed words that he couldn't quite make out. Then the rage flooded back in and his thoughts returned to their previous track without pause.

--rotect my family from these Equestrians, look what they've just done to my friends! A tiny part of his mind protested that he didn't know any of these gryphons, but was drowned out by the tide of anger.

He pumped his wings vigorously, climbing in a wide arc that gave the convoy plenty of room. The ponies were moving quite slowly, burdened by their insistence on rescuing their flightless kinfolk, and it was only a few minutes before he was above them and gazing down, claws twitching with the desire to rend pastel fur.

To his left a gryphoness he didn't recognise was shouting at anyone nearby that they should attack together, smash past the defenders and strike directly at the convoy. Ripper found himself nodding in reflex to the words, flexing his talons in anticipation. Around him every other gryphon was doing the same. The gryphoness started to call out numbers, the refrain spreading from gryphon to gryphon until it had been taken up by the whole flock. When the count reached zero they folded their wings and stooped as one.

This is how it is supposed to be! Ripper thought with glee, squinting into the fast building slipstream. The tiny shapes of the defenders expanded rapidly and started to evade; picking his target he pushed his foreclaws out in front of his beak and spread the talons into a lethal fan of knives.

The outer layer of defenders -- the white-furred, gold-armoured ones -- flicked and wove through the falling gryphons, slashing with those shining wingblades. They were too few to do more than dent the numbers of attackers, and this time the gryphons were expecting the attack and didn't flinch at the sight of them. Ripper twisted his wings in little motions, guiding his fall to put other gryphons between himself and those razor wings. Many others did the same, and the sky became a short-lived game of aerial chess ultimately governed by the skill and relative velocity vectors of each flyer.

In front of Ripper a gryphon had realised he couldn't avoid contact with one of the armoured pegasi and had rolled to intercept it, claws coming forward just before impact. With a thunderous crash the pony was knocked off balance by the larger gryphon's speed; wings flailing, both started to tumble. His talons locked around the pegasus' armoured ribs and his beak reached forward for the pony's unarmoured throat. Ripper didn't see the outcome of the bout; the collision had robbed both flyers of their aerodynamics and he blew past them like they were floating.

There were more pegasi in the inner defensive band, flying in two-on-two patterns. He dimly recognised it from the military flight training as part of his conscription many years ago; a mutually supporting formation that would have served them well in any other situation. Here they were faced with the impossible task of stopping a force ten times their number; it just wasn't going to happen. As before, he yawed and rolled to evade the ponies; other gryphons chose not to.

These ponies were unarmoured apart from a flimsy looking covering over their bodies, with no steel in their wings they were far more tempting targets for an eager gryphon than the white Embassy Guards. On his left, Ripper caught sight of the gryphoness who'd been organizing the flock; she reached into her chest feathers and brought out a small object in one foreclaw, pointing it at the closest pegasus. There was a flat crack and the pony's mouth opened in an 'o' of shock, her wings folding as she started to tumble back towards the chariots.

The sight and sound of the pistol almost shocked Ripper Of Flesh back to his right frame of mind. No gryphon would take a gun to a claw fight; to not even give the attacked a chance to fight was the height of dishonour -- not only to the defender, but also the attacker. And where did she get that little thing? Ripper thought. Concealed weapons were the stuff of the Red Talons, one of the many reasons no right-thinking gryphon wanted anything to do with them. A flicker of shame went through Ripper's mind, quickly forgotten as he fell past the inner defenders.

His original target, a pastel green pegasus-pony hitched to one of the lead chariots, saw him coming and thrashed his wings in a frantic effort to escape. Tied into the traces he was an easy target and Ripper crossed the two hundred metres of clear air in less than five seconds.

6 -- Better living through chemistry

Equilibrium awoke in the late afternoon, completely undisturbed by the heavy weather promised by the dark clouds from the evening before. Stretching carefully, she winced at the stiffness down her left side, the flesh tender and bruised under mud-caked fur.

"I'm going to have to get going, I think," she muttered into the silence. These gryphons had probably taken a considerable risk; if State Security -- these 'Red Talons' -- returned and found her, then protesting that they hadn't known she was there would almost certainly be futile. She stood and took a few painful steps, then started to pace around the inside of the barn to loosen her stiff muscles.

As she walked, she started to assemble a set of simple panniers from the discarded bits of rope, plastic sheeting and cloth scattered across the cluttered workbench. By the time it was complete the sun had nearly set, so she filled them with as many of the turnips as she could comfortably pack. Trotting over to the barn wall she then picked up one of the things she'd made the day before; holding it carefully in front of her eyes she peered into the cloudy glass, studying the contents.

"Well, it looks okay," she said thoughtfully, rotating the stubby glass jar. Inside, almost completely buried in a mixture of metal swarf and white and yellow powders, was a small glass bottle, half full of an oily yellow liquid. The top of the little bottle was fused shut; a tricky task that required her to use her magic to get the glass to a yellow heat while simultaneously pinching the opening closed. She really wasn't happy with that seal, but at least it was better than trusting concentrated acid to a normal bottle cap.

Opening the outer jar she stuffed the free space tightly with straw, then did the same with the other three jars and carefully placed them in her makeshift panniers, separated by more straw. Even with the padding, the hard, round shapes were obvious against her flanks. Try not to kick these ones, Junior. She started walking again, changing to a careful trot, ready to drop the packs at an instant's notice if she heard the sound of glass breaking. Not that I'd have enough time, she thought nervously. She'd not done this kind of chemistry for years, and never on this scale.

That complete, Libi took the packs off and looked thoughtfully at the remaining material she'd collected. Most interesting was the pile of dusty burlap bags she'd found stuffed behind the bench. They were all rodent damaged, but still had a great deal of usable -- if coarse -- fabric. It's cold enough in here now, she thought, watching her breath fog in the still air, Celestia knows what it will be like outside after midnight. She spent the next hour or so crudely cutting the bags to size, then wrapping several layers of them around all the bits of her body she could manage.

By the time she'd finished, the sky had darkened and she looked like a particularly lumpy sack of potatoes. Almost none of her coat was visible apart from her eyes; it itched terribly, but was actually quite warm, although she wouldn't be winning any races while wearing it. Picking up her panniers once more she tied them in place, bouncing up and down gently to settle the makeshift harness just below her withers. Finally ready, she shuffled over to the door and peeked out.

She could see the farmhouse, looking warm and inviting in the cold draught that blew through the crack in the door, but there were no signs of anything else moving apart from the distant dots of cattle. Easing the door open, she sniffed the air and listened carefully in all directions. Somewhere to the north, in the direction of the city, was the sound of aerodyne rotors, but it was very faint. Looks like their search pattern has moved on, she thought, then took a few steps away from the barn, her head up and scanning the sky.

The clouds had mostly been swept away by the high winds tailing the storm. In the darkness this far from the city the clear air made for excellent visibility; the lack of light pollution meaning that the star field was more dense and magnificent than she'd ever seen before. For a moment it took her breath away and she just stared, then her mind settled back to more mundane thoughts. Nothing moved against those stars, at least not as far as she could see.

"I might miss a really high flying gryphon, I suppose, but that high up they'd have trouble finding little old me among all these cows," she murmured. Feeling emboldened by the silence and stillness, Libi broke into a stiff trot and headed towards the steep forested slopes that lined the river valley.

Over the years the gryphons had expanded what was a pretty narrow valley by flattening the lower slopes of the foothills that hemmed it in, leaving them with far more arable land suitable for the large cattle they seemed to favour. One side effect of this was that the valley floor was now artificially flat and the valley walls were far steeper than they otherwise would have been. She'd travelled along the tree line to reach this place; this time she headed further up the slope to stay deep within the forest.

The ground here was poor, thin soil and loose rock, but still managed to support a thick growth of spindly pine trees that weren’t useful for much besides fuel. That was where the feedstock converter would have come in, the unicorn thought wistfully as she picked her way between the trees, take that otherwise useless scrub timber and reprocess it into feedlot food pellets for the overused grazing lands. It was an ideal setup; the gryphons didn't have any use for the land and they had more than enough of the little trees to supply the converters planned for their available farmland.

"Can't see that happening anytime soon," she said sadly, leaning against one of the trees for a quick rest. The gryphon engineers could install the rest of the equipment easily enough, but there was no way they could get the thing calibrated without a unicorn specialist. Levering herself upright again she started to walk, following the contours of the mountainside as they wound their way up the valley.

A few hours later, while negotiating a particularly thick patch of spindly trees, she heard the first rotors. She'd heard the occasional whisper of noise before, so faint amid the deadening effect of the trees that she almost thought she'd imagined it, but this was much louder. It swept through one of the high passes between the peaks, down the mountainside and on into the valley proper. The first aerodyne was followed by several more, each thrashing the tree tops with their rotor wash and turning the world into stark black and white with their high-powered lights.

Equilibrium froze, one hoof half over a fallen trunk, eyes scanning the gaps in the canopy for any other movement. With coloured blobs from the searchlights still filling her vision she nearly missed them. Wide winged shapes gliding silently in the wake of the aerodynes, black silhouettes occluding the stars. They rushed past on occasional wingbeats, all heading towards the farm she'd been hiding in. Horseapples, she thought, biting the insides of her cheeks in worry, that's torn it. Putting her hoof back down she pushed through the thicket, breaking into a risky trot over the unstable and cluttered terrain.

An hour later and the sound of rotors was still loud inside the valley. So far nothing big had flown overhead; all the lights and noise seemed to be concentrated around the margins of the valley, but she was sure that she'd have missed a lone gryphon overflight. Is there any big wildlife in these woods? she thought, anything that might be a distraction? Deer perhaps -- Libi remembered that there were bears and deer in these kinds of forests -- although it seemed unlikely any would be left this close to a city full of hunters.

Sticking to the heaviest cover slowed her down, but gave her a little hope that she might elude the night vision equipment they were bound to be using. She racked her brain for anything else that might give her away; she'd left hoof prints, but only in the soft farmland -- up here in the forest with so much exposed rock, any attempt to track her would be very difficult. I hope, she thought. A good forensic unicorn with a lot of time on her hooves could use any stray hairs she'd shed as the basis of a tracking spell, but these were gryphons. Was there some bit of technology unknown to Equestrians that could see her through all these trees?

Then she heard the barking.

Libi's blood ran cold as the realisation hit her. But how are they working tracker dogs through this dense forest? she thought, breaking into a stumbling canter. Even pregnant and with this improvised clothing there was no way a creature with the bulk of a gryphon was going to match her speed over this terrain. The barking was getting closer now, and through a sudden gap in the trees she had her answer.

The gap, a scar in the forest caused by a small landslide, was only ten metres wide at this point, but ran for a good distance both up and down from her position. A little way down slope she saw a gryphon hovering above the treetops, a smaller four-legged shape strapped to its belly. As she watched, afraid to cross the slope where it might see her, it dropped to the ground then rose again without its canine passenger. Fresh barking rose up, followed by the sound of paws on the loose scree. A small spot of red light appeared in front of the dog, flicking out in a straight line up the slope. The dog started to trot in that direction, casting about with its nose, obviously sweeping the ground for her scent. The gryphon controller started to circle, performing its own search pattern, occasionally directing the dog to check some opening in the trees.

Libi's eyes widened in horror; if she crossed the gap now that dog was bound to find her as soon as it crossed her trail, even if its handler didn't spot her in the open. Ears flicking backwards she tried to gauge the distance to the dogs that were following on her direct trail. Too close! There's no way I can get round this open patch before they reach me. The dog coming up the slope was still several hundred metres away, but it wasn't coming the direct route; its handler was being thorough and checking every likely spot she might have used.

Nothing for it, she thought then, with one eye on the circling gryphon, started to pick her way over the bare ground, trying to stick to solid rock or dirt. She was about half way across when the gryphon completed the back half its circle and started up slope towards her. Libi froze, then sank smoothly to the ground, lowering her head to rest it between her forelegs. Just a rock, just a rock, just a rock, the mantra ran through her mind, praying to Luna that all the gryphon was equipped with was an image intensifier. All this lumpy clothing should be excellent camouflage in the monochrome view of a starlight scope.

The little red light came on again and the breath froze in her throat, but the beam directed the dog to a clump of trees and it obediently headed in that direction. Another few moments and the gryphon started its turn, heading away from her. Libi started to breathe again, heart sounding so loud in her own ears that she felt sure it would be heard all the way to Razorclaw's capital. Carefully she climbed back to her hooves and started towards the relative safety of the forest.

Out of one eye she spotted the dog again, it had stopped halfway to the location its handler had directed it to and had its head held high, making little movements like it was sniffing the air. Abruptly its head swung around and it let out one short howl, before running directly up the slope towards her. Overhead the gryphon started to turn again, much faster than its previous lazy sweeps. Cursing under her breath, Libi dashed for the trees, now only a half dozen paces away, unmindful of any noise she might make.

Under the branches she risked a little magic, lifting out one of the glass jars from her pack and holding it above her head. By feel she opened the jar and took out the straw packing, then resealed it. After so long in these dark woods the pale yellow radiance of her magic was like sending up a flare, enough light that she had to squint even though she couldn't see the source directly. If that doesn't get the birds on to me, nothing will, she thought grimly. She'd planned for this, but even in the relative safety of the barn it had seemed a long shot. Out in the woods, alone, cold and scared in the dark, it was absolutely ridiculous.

"Don't be silly, filly," she said in a tone that was only a whisker away from a hysterical giggle. "You're not alone, you've got all these soldiers and their hounds to keep you company." With that she threw the jar in the direction of the treeless area, then turned and ran into the woods. Behind her there was a thump as the jar hit the ground, then nothing. Dammit, I knew I should-- There was a deafening explosion and the world turned a dazzling orange.

A light so bright it seemed to be solid shone through the trees behind her, as if Celestia herself had brought the sun down into the little clearing. Little bits of something -- a mixture of dirt, gravel and glass splinters -- rattled through the trees around her, a few striking her on the rump as she ran, but doing no damage. The brilliance was over within half a second, leaving only the gentler yellow of burning leaf litter. Equilibrium stumbled on, half blinded even though she hadn't been looking at the flash. "Next time keep your damn eyes closed, you idiot," she muttered, slowing her headlong flight to assess what she'd done.

Breathing heavily and starting to sweat inside her bulky clothes, Libi came to a halt and held her breath, ears straining to make out any sounds. There was the voice of an angry gryphon and the yelp and whine of an injured dog, but nothing else. Then the wind shifted and the voice turned to a cough, followed by the rapid flapping of wings and more yelping. Through a gap in the canopy, Libi caught a glimpse of the gryphon flying away, something cradled in its foreclaws.

She grinned, muzzle twitching, when she caught the merest whiff of the acrid vapour from her improvised incendiary. "Nasty stuff, sulphur dioxide," she murmured, accelerating to a careful trot. Behind her there was a roar of engines as an aerodyne moved over the clearing, sweeping the area with its searchlight, then the fainter sounds of gryphons landing on the scree slope. For a brief moment she wished she'd had the foresight and time to rig a tripwire firebomb, but as with most things you saw in the movies, she was sure it would be far harder in real life. Especially when they're right on your tail. Hopefully her pursuers had seen the same films and would think she had tried to trap her trail...

Half an hour later she came to another open area, this time a space cut by fast flowing water, full of large boulders and completely bare of cover for about twenty metres. Looking around, Libi could see nothing threatening apart from an aerodyne hovering over patch of forest near her first escape, its light sweeping this way and that through the trees. It was about half a kilometre away, far too close really, but seemed to be focused on whatever it thought it had seen.

Taking a chance, and knowing that the group chasing her would be getting closer and closer, she stepped away from the trees and trotted over the gravel. This particular area was relatively flat, beds of gravel either side of a shallow river. The river was low at the moment; from looking at the treeless state of the banks it was obvious it could rise to twenty times its normal flow with heavy rain. Libi looked at it in distaste, then pulled up her leggings and stepped into the icy water.

The cold was breathtaking, but she forged on across the river; the water was fast, but fortunately not coming above her fetlocks.

"Freeze, pony! You are surrounded!'

The voice boomed from somewhere in front of her, while four bright torch beams pinned her from all sides. Libi cursed inside. So close! "By Luna's starry mane, couldn't you have done this before I walked into the river!" she screamed at her captors, the whole absurd situation suddenly making her furious. They didn't answer. The aerodyne she'd hoped wouldn't see her abruptly roared overhead, illuminating her and the whole river bed with its powerful lights, revealing a half dozen gryphons emerging from hiding spots all around her.

Under that glare the little glow from her horn was invisible, so she used that cover to get a hold of the three remaining jars in her pack, then threw them with the full force of her rage at the hovering aerodyne. She couldn't see it, the light was blindingly bright, but it was close and hard to miss.

The pilot's quick reactions nearly spelled disaster for everyone; if he'd ignored the projectiles they would have hit the armoured nose and done little more than singe the paint. As it was, he jerked the noisy machine sideways, almost managing to avoid the jars.

All three impacted somewhere on the vehicle's left hand fan, the fast-moving blades smashing the glass in an instant. The chemicals inside ignited with a brilliant orange flare that nearly outshone the searchlight, then were thrown out by the downwash to rain over the group below. Lacking confinement there was no explosion and no near instantaneous reaction, but everything still burned.

The oxidant was consumed in a flash; what really caused the problem was the metal swarf Libi had mixed in with the powders to give the formula a little more 'go.' These bits were big enough to burn for a few breaths, long enough to reach the ground and still be alight. Spots of white fire, propelled by the downwash, were blasted over the little group; Libi felt a half dozen land on her back and head, hot enough that she could feel them through her burlap sacking clothing.

Her highly flammable clothing. Her eyes went wide and her rage was replaced by terror in an instant; unmindful of the cold, she dropped to her knees and rolled over in the icy water, dousing the fires. Struggling to stand in the now waterlogged clothes she started to pull off the cold material, desperate to get the stuff away from her body before she lost any more heat.

A hard object knocked her back down into the water; coughing and spluttering as the shock made her inhale some of the river, she couldn't resist as a set of talons dragged her through the water and out onto the river bank. Still fighting for breath she was rolled over onto her back, then more claws ripped through her soggy clothing, pulling her free of the cloying mass.

The dragging didn't stop until she was under the lights of the now landed aerodyne and surrounded by angry gryphons, all wearing the same insignia as had been on the very first vehicle outside the feedstock converter plant. The one holding her throat pulled her up to its eye level and stared malevolently at her.

"Get me the toolkit," he snarled, "we'll show this pony what we do to witches!"

Her captor then grabbed hold of Libi's horn, using it as a handle to force her head into the rounded pebbles of the river bed. She started to struggle, but other strong claws held her fast. Libi's heart nearly stopped when the heavy metal box was slammed down next to her. Another gryphon started to rummage through the tools, grunting with satisfaction when he obviously found what he was looking for.

The gryphon transferred his grip to her head, long talons wrapping around her skull with painful force. The tough, scaly hide dug into her flesh, the rounded pebbles doing the same on the other side. From this angle all Libi could see was the white and chocolate brown feathers on the gryphon's chest, starkly illuminated by the aerodyne's lights.

Still struggling she whimpered in distress, trying to move her jaw enough to form recognisable Gryphic words. "N-no, please, won't resist anymore, just don't hurt me--" She broke off as the gryphon tightened his grip, making any further speech impossible.

Her captor leaned forward, crushing her head into the pebbly surface and whispered in her ear. "They want you alive, but no one said anything about being intact," he hissed, holding a fine-toothed saw up in front of her eye.

"Trooper Attacks From The Sun, what do you think you are doing?" The voice caused an immediate lessening of the pressure on her head. Libi recognised the speaker; it was the gryphon who'd been in the meeting room back at the feedstock converter when all her problems had started.

"Flight Leader Reaper Of The Weak, sir! We are ensuring the prisoner can be successfully restrained for transport."

"I see," said Reaper, planting his foreclaws on either side of Libi's head.

"I won't use my magic, I promise. My foal, please," Libi pleaded, her voice high and thin.

"Probably not," Reaper said in clear Equuish, dipping his head to look down at her. He tapped one claw on the tip of her horn. "Still, after all the trouble you caused I don't think I entirely trust you." He gazed off into the distance for a second, then stepped away. "Carry on, trooper," he said, switching back to the guttural tones of Gryphic.

"Yes, sir!" the gryphon replied with enthusiasm, then looked down to stare into the Libi's frightened eye. "I told you we know how to deal with witches," he said to her with a malicious grin.

Libi whined as Attacks rested the saw against the base of her horn, then drew the blade sharply back. "Stop," she whispered hopelessly, but the gryphon just pushed the blade forwards and started to saw in earnest.

There was no pain; the horn bed was well below the skin, so the horn itself was dead and had no feeling. What made Libi scream was the sensation of her magic slipping away. She'd lived with that faint, almost subliminal sensation ever since she came into her power. A subtle buzz that underlay every moment of her life since fillyhood, that aura of potential surrounding every object she could see. As easy as reaching out a hoof she could change that potential into motion, an ability to manipulate the world in ways unavailable to any pegasus or earth pony.

And now it was fading.

Tears rolled down her muzzle, dampening the cold pebbles beneath her cheeks. Deep in her belly, Libi's foal twitched and kicked, reacting to her stress and the change in its mother's magical field. It wasn't her own power she was worried about; even though it was like a pegasus losing her wings, her horn would regrow in time. Her foal, though... she knew her foal was a unicorn, knew also that its mother's magic was essential to normal development of its own power. A feeling of terrible desolation washed through her and she went completely limp.

Unicorn horn was tough stuff and the gryphon had to apply some considerable force to get the blade to bite. Vibrations resonated down the semi-crystalline spiral shell, horribly loud due to direct conduction through her skull. When the gryphon finished, he released her head, stepping back and gesturing his friends to let her up. Libi felt the pressure lift from her hindquarters, but stayed where she was, her mind probing the gap that should have held her magic like a tongue compulsively feeling the gap left by a missing tooth.

"I think you broke her," said another of the soldiers, laughing roughly.

"Get up," Attacks From The Sun snarled, jabbing Libi in the shoulder with one talon. "I said, get up!"

Equilibrium climbed mechanically to her hooves and stared at the ground, eyes blank and unfocused. The cold bit into her, the downdraft from the aerodyne's still spinning rotors driving all heat from her soaked fur, but she didn't notice it. One of the troopers picked something up off the ground and dangled it in front of her eyes.

"Hey, pony, you missing something?" he jeered.

She looked up and stared at her amputated horn for a long second, its glossy cream surface already seeming to have lost its lustre, then returned her gaze to the stones between her hooves. She didn't move when they locked the collar around her throat or attached it to straps that ran over her withers and between her forelegs. She didn't move when they slid the poorly fitting conical hood over her head and muzzle, locking it tight with a chain passed behind her ears and through her mane.

Prodded into motion by sharp talons, Libi was driven stumbling over the river bed and into the rushing air underneath the aerodyne. Here she paused, then was lifted bodily onto a cold, hard metal surface. More claws shoved her against a wall made of the same freezing material and locked straps over her torso.

There was a roar of sound and a feeling that she'd suddenly doubled in weight as the aerodyne accelerated into the sky.

7 -- Bringing a knife to a gunfight

Sundiver, sweating inside his golden armour, watched as the gryphons fell through the scattered pegasus defensive lines. He was new to the Embassy guard, rotated in only a few months before for the start of his first one-year posting. He was one of only three Guard unicorns at the Embassy -- the rest being pegasi in keeping with the local’s lack of magic and ability to fly -- and had spent more time doing heavy lifting than the work he’d trained for. Up until a couple of days ago this post had been quiet, and unlike the earth ponies -- who the locals tended to ignore - unicorns were actively avoided.

Those first few weeks had been a strange experience; none of the gryphons he’d spoken to back in Equestria had any issues with magic, most even managed to hide their almost instinctive pity for any creature unable to fly. The locals were something else entirely; even the more cosmopolitan ‘big city’ folk tended to avoid them, let alone a gryphon from an outlying district. This had made the unicorn pony population a tight-knit little group, much smaller than would have been expected from the total pony numbers. These conditions and attitudes were well known back in Equestria, resulting in lower proportion of earth and unicorn ponies.

They'd not been flying for very long, a few minutes at most, but this sort of climb was very hard on the untrained wing, and were just thinking about cycling out the civilian pullers, when the gryphons had worked up the nerve to attack again. Up until that point he'd hoped that they would out-climb the big-winged carnivores, but no such luck. "Here they come!" he shouted to the rest of the passengers. High overhead the gryphons had started their dive; it would only be seconds before they would be upon the pegasus defenders.

He cursed under his breath as the majority of the attackers avoided the Guard and security pegasi, heading straight for the convoy and central cloud of civilians. About thirty slipped past the cordon and split up to target the chariots. Around him there was a nervous shuffling of hooves, then all the unicorns lit their horns.

Of the twenty or so in his chariot there were only three other unicorns, most were general diplomatic staff with the exception of Ratchet. Ratchet was the Embassy's spellcraft engineer, a career that would be expected to favour precision magic rather than raw strength. She'd joined the staff five years ago and quickly found herself roped into doing a lot more than just manipulating the crystallised magic captured within the solid-state spellcraft devices. Five years of shifting the building's large store of spares, repairing the unreliable number two generator and servicing the surprisingly heavy long-range communications gear had left her with an unexpected reservoir of strength.

Sundiver had organised the other pair of unicorns into a single group, asking them to work together against anything he or Ratchet missed. They had neither the range nor the raw strength of Ratchet, but this way they'd have some backup when the first gryphon got through. Ratchet and himself would operate independently.

The stallion swallowed, mouth suddenly dry as the enormity of the task became obvious. Six chariots and only three combat trained unicorns to cover them and the pegasi hovering in the centre of the formation. Shunting aside his fears, Sundiver narrowed his eyes and let power flow into his horn. Within half a second a dazzling white bead had appeared at its tip, bright enough to cast shadows even in the sunlight. Before he could release it a pale blue glow enveloped the attacker's wings and the gryphon's beak opened in surprise as he lost stability and started to tumble.

Sundiver glanced sideways at Ratchet, hearing the breath wheeze through her clenched teeth. He'd wondered how the engineer was going to stop a creature as big as a gryphon -- that mass moving at ninety kilometres an hour would be almost impossible to hold. The mare hadn't tried; instead she'd used her years of fine manipulation training to actually twist her target's wings and force it to swerve wildly. Excellent idea, filly, Sundiver thought, there's no way I could do that.

Locating his next target, he took aim and released the magic, turning it from a point to a fast moving streak. The pulse was fast, although not as fast as a bullet. Fortunately the range was relatively short and his target was heading for the next chariot over. The magical charge struck the gryphon square on the flank, enveloping him in a crackling cage of lightning. The gryphon spasmed and went limp, falling away with little trails of smoke spiralling off his wingtips and tail. Charging his horn again, Sundiver felt a wave of fatigue wash through his body, ignored it, and released the pulse at the next gryphon.

The amount of power he was using was about twice what he’d use on a pony, which seemed about right for the body mass. Back in basic training they'd all had a chance to practice with this particular spell, both as a shooter and target. Those days had been a heady mix of terror and elation; stalking his comrades through the old catacombs of the Royal Palace or in the dead of night in some secure forest area. It sharpened the mind and built magical strength wonderfully when you knew that around the next corner might be another unicorn eager to get you before you could get them.

He'd been on the receiving end more than once; the spell was painful, but short lived, knocking out the victim for a few seconds and making them groggy and uncoordinated for a dozen more. They were several kilometres up by now; for something like a gryphon that was well over a minute of freefall, more than enough time to recover and land safely. I hope, he thought grimly.

What he had forgotten was how taxing the spell was, especially on 'rapid fire.' After a few more shots he was starting to miss, the fine control required evaporating even as the numbers of gryphons seemed undiminished. He still had power in reserve, just not quite enough for this particular spell. There were other options, though; most unicorns could use their telekinesis all day without tiring. Sundiver made up his mind and dismissed the half-formed stunner spell to reach into his flank armour’s equipment pack and pull out his 'encourager' -- a thirty centimetre metal rod covered in silicone.

Direct telekinetic strikes were a poor choice in a fight; although a strong unicorn could apply a lot of force, they couldn’t do so instantly. You could open a door with your magic, but to knock it down still required a good kick. That was why for the rare occasions a Guard needed to employ violence they used a physical object. Much like a hoof enjoyed plenty of leverage from being at the end of an array of tendons and bones, with something heavy in your magic you could build up a good speed and do real damage when it struck.

He still remembered the day, just before he'd gone off to basic training, when his sire had pulled him aside to give him a going away present. The other pony, still a hulking stallion even in his advanced years, had nudged him away from his tearful dam and younger brother and into one of the empty waiting rooms on the train station platform. 'Colt', he'd said, 'I've got a little something for you, served me well when I was in the Guard.' He'd then looked guiltily over his shoulder and lowered his voice. 'Just for Luna's sake don't let your dam know, she thinks I got rid of the thing years ago.' He'd then passed the 'encourager' to Sundiver.

The young unicorn had nearly dropped the thing, such was its unexpected weight. His father had gone on to explain that it was still regulation, even though it was about twice the weight of the current model, 'you could get a much better swing with it.' He knew the current issue was made of a tough ceramic with a plastic coating; this one was as basic as it came: a silicone-covered steel pipe filled with lead. He’d had the thing ever since; although it had raised a few ears among his instructors, when they heard it was his sire's, they just smiled and nodded.

Feeling the comfortable weight of the club he sent it whirling out towards the next gryphon. They were coming thick and fast now, and he was forced to swing wildly just to get to the target. The gryphon, too focused on his own target, didn't see the rod until it was too late.

The gryphon's own speed, coupled with Sundiver's desperate strength, meant it was like being hit with a sledgehammer. The half-bird seemed to fold up around the rod; wings going limp and eyes losing focus, it started to fall, retaining just enough control to convert the plummet into a glide. The Guard felt a twinge of guilt at that; he had forgotten about the gryphon's forward speed. Hopefully the soft coating on the weapon had spread the impact enough to avoid breaking bones. Then all sympathy vanished and he sent the encourager spinning towards the next gryphon.

===

The impact knocked the wind out of Trailblazer. Briefly stunned, he thrashed his wings helplessly to try and break free of the crushing grip on his shoulders and ribs. He'd been aiming for this gryphon himself, but the flyer had changed course at the last moment and he'd been unable to go for the grazing wing attack he'd planned. He'd had just enough time to rear up in the air and go belly to belly with his attacker, keeping his hooves between them.

The gryphon's hooked beak reached for the unarmoured patch at the base of his throat. Baring his teeth, Trailblazer ducked his head, catching the beak on his muzzle guard. The gryphon didn't seem to care, and its beak snapped shut on the sergeant’s head instead. With the sharp edges of the beak cutting into the unprotected parts of his muzzle and eyes seeing nothing but a close up view of the gryphon's feathered neck and chest, Trailblazer reached forwards with his featherblades to try and slash at his attacker's flanks.

The gryphon felt the sergeant move and twisted out of the way, tightening its talons in a reflexive squeeze that made the pony gasp. Nightmare-damned stupid mess, Trailblazer thought, struggling against the gryphon's greater strength, if Night or Blevie see this I'll never hear the end of it. Ducking his head still further he dug the ceremonial helmet's metal crest into the side of the gryphon's head, just where the two parts of the beak met.

The gryphon hissed, its hot, rank breath making Trailblazer wrinkle his nose, and twisted its head hard, trying to break his neck. That might work if you were a manticore, you overgrown feather duster, he thought, shrugging off its effort. Gryphons had immensely strong backs and legs and looked bull-necked, but most of that bulk was feathers. The pegasus' neck was just as thick and it was all muscle. Jerking his own head back and forth took the gryphon by surprise and it opened its beak to avoid more impacts from the helmet's crest.

Seeing an opening, Trailblazer lashed out with his free forehoof and caught the gryphon on the side of its head with one weighted shoe. Stunned for an instant, the gryphon's talons loosened a little, enough that Trailblazer could twist around and bring his wing tips up and rake the blades along the furry hindquarters. The angle was bad and he didn't have the speed he would have had in a free flight duel but the edges were razor sharp. The gryphon shrieked and fell away, flapping weakly as it clutched at its sides, blood flowing freely through the fur.

"Finally!" Trailblazer growled, twisting back over and heading after the flock. His Guards had done a good job of scattering the attackers, but there had been just too many of them. If they'd stopped to engage the defenders like he'd hoped, the ponies would have been able to keep them away from the convoy; now they had no chance. His ears flicked forwards as he heard the flat crack of a small calibre projectile weapon firing, then again and again.

Zeroing in on the noise he saw it: a gryphoness in an unnatural flying posture, one foreclaw outstretched and holding a small pistol. Already one of the Dreaming's security team had been hit, the unarmoured mare falling free towards the convoy. As he pumped his wings he saw her aim and shoot again, missing this time as the rest of the security team scattered. She must have caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye, as she flicked sideways and angled the gun in his direction.

Lowering his head to protect his throat again, Trailblazer trusted to his armour and the difficulties of hitting a moving target. He made no effort to jink, closing the distance as fast as possible. The gryphon got off three shots in that time; the first made his helmet ring as it bounced off the muzzle guard, while the second nearly sent him tumbling when it struck the thin plating over his left wing elbow. He didn't know where the third went. Flashing past the gryphoness midway between wing shoulder and hind legs he flexed his feathers to put the featherblade at full extension.

In his peripheral vision Trailblazer saw the gryphoness start to tumble, seriously unbalanced by the loss of most of the feathers on her left wing. She curved away towards the ground, screaming curses in his direction. I hope you break something when you hit, he thought back, already hunting for his next target.

===

Night Storm sat panting in the bottom of the chariot, trying to see past the flashes and flickers of the migraine brought on by her overuse of magic during their breakout from the Embassy. Trailblazer had warned her not to overdo it, but she knew that if they didn't break contact with the gryphons at the start and get some clear air they weren't going to get anywhere. She put everything she had into that spell, blocking the sunlight from a sphere over a quarter a kilometre across. It had been glorious while it lasted; the gryphons all tumbling and confused while the ponies' superior night vision let them open the range.

As with all great magical effort it came with a cost; in her case a mind-numbing pain that roared through her head, making it hard to see, let alone think. There was nothing wrong with her hearing, though, and she heard the screams and gunshots even through the haze in her mind. She gasped when some pony shook her shoulder.

"Guard, you've got to help!" said a panicked voice, "I can't reach him."

Shaking her head in a futile attempt to clear her sparkling vision, she peered in the direction he indicated, seeing the bloodied shape of a pony tumble past. Instinctively she reached out, horn flaring and telekinesis straining for the falling pegasus. Every unicorn had a different magical strength, just like some pegasi were faster than others or some earth ponies stronger. Most specialised in one particular magical area; very few were strong at everything. Night Storm wasn't one of those, although she did have a wider range of capabilities than most.

What made her special was the amount of power she could put out, even if only briefly. She was no Twilight Sparkle, but she could do things that would make other unicorns gasp in amazement -- then wince in pity as she collapsed in agony from the overexertion. Night Storm took a deep breath and reached out her telekinetic 'mouth' as fast as possible, hunting for the falling pony by the feedback resistance through the magic. She had to be quick, not so much because of the cold equations governing falling objects, but because she would only be able to concentrate for a moment.

The pain doubled and she had the sudden urge to vomit, but she felt the limp shape even as her vision faded into darkness. With a final effort Night grabbed the falling pony and pulled hard, unmindful of any further damage she might do. That done, she had just enough presence of mind to pull back her tongue and snap her teeth shut as the seizure bent her back like a bow and turned any remaining thoughts into static.

She missed the next bit, twitching and writhing in her own personal Tartarus, although the other unicorn passengers would speak of it in awe for years afterwards. How she'd managed to not only stop the pony's fall, but reverse it on an arc that would have taken the mare high above the chariots had another telekinetic field not pulled her to safety.

===

Blevie rearranged the row of knotted cords hanging out of her panniers for what seemed like the hundredth time. She'd already fixed the little chef's blowtorch to the side of the chariot, and secured it so the blue needle of a flame was shielded from the slipstream by one of the ornate torch brackets that the Dreaming's engineers hadn't bothered to remove. Poking her head over the edge, she turned sideways to let one eye take in the sky while the other scanned the ground.

Their followers were still there, of course. Probably biding their time until we're distracted, she thought. High overhead the gryphons started turning from the 'T' shapes of soaring birds to the 'V' of falling darts. Feeling a smile start to build, she switched all her attention to the followers, confident that Trailblazer and the others would provide top cover. Sure enough, a few seconds after the dive started the gryphons below pumped their wings and accelerated to attack from beneath.

Blevie reached quickly around and grabbed one of the knots, pulling it from her bag and letting the apple-sized sphere of tightly-wound string and glue dangle freely from the end. She pushed her head over the side and checked the positions of the gryphons. Good, they're bunching together to get between the chariots, she thought, then turned to the rest of the passengers.

There were two dozen ponies packed into a space designed to hold ten in comfort. She winked at the stern-faced unicorn Guard assigned to this chariot, then addressed the remainder who stared back at her with frightened eyes.

"Don't worry folks, just a few little fireworks," she said, or at least tried to; between her wide grin and the knotted cord between her teeth not a single word was intelligible.

Seeing nothing but incomprehension in all present she shrugged and turned, waving the trailing end of the string through the blowtorch's flame. The fuse caught easily, the string burning with a hiss and a sputtering lilac flare. Dangling the ball over the side she watched it burn, fascinated for a second, then flicked her head up and over to whip the ball around at the end of the cord, releasing it to fly towards the oncoming gryphons. With quick, economical motions she repeated the action twice more, the little spheres tracing smoky arcs through the clear air.

Pulling out a fourth she paused, counting silently in her head, to look over the side. There was a pinprick flash of dazzling white, followed a second later by a thunderous detonation, loud enough to make her ears sing even at this distance. Not waiting for the other two to explode she lit the next fuse, frowning in concentration as she tried to predict how the gryphons would scatter. That they would scatter she had no doubt; even trained soldiers would at least flinch at an unexpected bombardment. She made her decision and let the bomb fly.

Down below the flock squawked in dismay as the first flash bomb exploded. These weren't fragmentation weapons -- if they had been the casualties among the unarmoured gryphons would have been horrific -- instead they were closer to the bird scarers used by farmers to protect fragile crops. Two hundred grams of aluminium dust and potassium perchlorate, loosely packed and lovingly wrapped in a dozen yards of glue-soaked string, pulled tight with as much force as Blevie could safely apply. The mixture was a fast one; confined within its composite case it exploded with astonishing violence when the fuse burnt down.

Having cast her tenth bomb, Blevie looked down with a critical eye, the eleventh dangling from her teeth. I've still got it, she thought, smiling past the rope. The once compact stream of feathered hate that had been rapidly closing on them was now scattered across the sky. The gryphons in the chase flock had been the more cautious of the original crowd -- otherwise they would have gone for the classic top-down attack -- and the barrage of ear-shattering explosions had shaken them further. Three quarters had decided that these ponies were just not worth the effort and curved back towards the now distant city. The remainder, maybe fifty in total, had given up on the direct attack and were spiralling around the convoy, out of range even of Blevie's skilful aim.

===

As Ripper Of Flesh dove, the chariots lit up like jars full of fireflies. Most were the dull glows of normal magic, the same colour as the coat of its owner, but a few were the brilliant blue-white of a welder's arc. From these flashed fast moving streaks of white-hot magic, targeted unerringly at the lead gryphons. The unicorns aim seemed to be almost supernatural in its accuracy; every shot Ripper saw found its mark, the unfortunate target being briefly englobed in crackling arcs of electricity before falling, stunned, out of the flock. No way to avoid this now, he thought, it will take me longer to escape than attack, and once I'm on them they won't be able to use their witch powers. Magic or not, that was electricity and there was no way to only electrocute one individual out of a fighting pair.

He was close now, no more than fifty metres, when the club came flying in his direction. It was almost invisible against the backdrop of the mountains and he'd have missed it if it hadn't been almost directly in front of him. Twisting his wings in a panic, Ripper slewed sideways, feeling the weapon pass between his legs with frightening speed, close enough that he could have reached out and grabbed it with his beak.

A little bit of fear welled up, but was quickly swamped by the anger. With half a second to go he brought his forelimbs up and spread the talons wide, flaring his wings at the last instant to reduce his forward velocity. With a jolt that was ecstasy to the primitive part of his brain still built for hunting, Ripper slammed into the pastel green pegasus tied into the traces of one of the chariots. His claws closed reflexively, digging into the firm muscles of the prey's wings and haunches.

Under his talons the pony bucked and thrashed, but did little more than make his razor claws dig deeper into its flesh. He screamed out his joy, joined in song by the screams from the other prey nearby. Soon, their time will come soon, a thought that was not his own murmured. He found himself nodding in agreement, then reached down between the traces and dug his beak into the pony's belly.

There was a deafening explosion somewhere beneath him, then another and another. The sound brought back memories of the culmination of the three month basic training at the start of his conscription. He still had occasional nightmares about those two days: a wargame ending in an assault against a prepared position equipped with radar-guided anti-air guns. It had all been simulated, of course, but these events had been run so many times that the military had raised them to a fine art -- they were horrifically realistic.

The string of detonations, the shockwaves -- faint though they were at this distance -- all conspired to bring those memories flooding back. Ripper froze with his beak biting half through pastel green fur, blood flowing into his mouth. The memories and emotions washed away the rage that flooded him and left him thinking clearly for the second time that day. Suddenly very confused, he opened his beak, raised his head and looked around. He stared in disbelief at the aerial carnage; the sky was full of injured gryphons and battered ponies, while bolts of lightning and small glow-enveloped objects moved with terrible speed. Overhead the aerial knife fight continued, while underneath there was a continual rain of gryphons who'd had enough and were retreating to safe roosts to recuperate.

What am I doing? he thought, looking at the limp pony beneath his talons for the first time. He started when he felt the body move weakly, relief rushing through him. I haven't killed it. Something welled up from the bottom of his brain, a flickering vision of yellow, horribly hypnotic eyes coupled with a flood of rage, that blurred his vision and filled him with the desire for violence. His talons twitched, prompting another shudder from the pony, and Ripper pushed back at the anger, realising that it had been forced upon him. Witch magic, he thought, trying to sort through his confusion, but from where?

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely to the stunned ponies, then gently opened his talons and pulled them away from the blood-stained fur, folded his wings and diving for the ground. Panic was rising in his breast. Where is my mate? he thought, Is she caught up in this madness? What about my daughter? Where is my family?

All around him the fight drained out of his flockmates; first a few then more and more turned tail and fled back to their homes, cured, at least for now, of whatever had afflicted them. Within a few minutes the tide had turned and even the remainder who wanted to fight realised the futility of their cause and fell back, leaving the sky to the ponies.

8 -- The enemy of all life

In the total darkness under the hood it was the biting cold that brought Equilibrium out of her shocked state; the aerodyne's passenger compartment had no door and the airflow through the cabin was ferocious. Her fur, still damp from being dragged through the river, seemed to provide next to no insulation and she was shivering violently.

The hood was obviously designed for a more avian head and didn't fit a pony skull very well. It was a wide cone of some thick, flexible material that covered her eyes and ears; the narrow end was open and allowed the end of her muzzle to poke through. Her nose became her only way of interacting with the world, telling her that at least one gryphon was in the cabin with her.

"S-soldier--" she started, only to be cut off by a slap that bounced her head against the metal wall of the cabin.

"Be silent, prisoner," a familiar voice growled.

She knew that voice; it was the one from the feedstock converter plant, the one who'd allowed his soldiers to... Her mind shied away from that line of thought, the empty hole where her magic should have been making tears well up once again. Shrinking away from the gryphon in anticipation of another blow, she started to talk as fast as she could through chattering teeth.

"F-flight L-leader, I can't take the cold like you can," she started, flinching in anticipation. There was no sound of movement, no sudden stinging slap. "I can't feel my legs; if this flight takes much longer you'll be delivering a corpse."

There was the sound of movement and a sudden rustling of something being dragged out of a container. Libi gasped in shock as sharp claws gripped her hindquarters, lifting her back end off the metal floor and stuffing something flexible under her. The procedure was repeated at her midsection and front, encasing Libi in what felt like heavy plastic sheeting. The stuff had no real value as insulation, but at least kept the wind off her body. Soon her shivering was starting to have some effect and Libi felt herself begin to warm up, the feeling returning to now painfully cramped legs.

With the darkness and the noise the flight seemed to take an eternity, but it was probably only half an hour or so later when she felt a set of claws on the back of her head, fiddling with the clips that held the hood on. The fabric cone was pulled off roughly and she gasped at the sudden blast of cold across her face. For the first time she could see the inside of the vehicle -- a plain metal box open at both sides in the middle of the aerodyne, the floor and walls lined with recessed tie-down points and storage compartments in the ceiling. It wasn't particularly large, maybe four gryphons could fit in the thing if they wanted to and didn't mind getting close.

At the moment it only held herself and one gryphon. She was loosely bundled up in sheets of camouflage fabric, a shapeless mass strapped to the rear wall of the compartment. In front of her, hood dangling from one foreclaw, the gryphon crouched with ease on the shifting, windswept deck. He wore no restraints, obviously not caring if he fell out. Must be nice to be in your element, Libi thought, studying the big yellow eyes for anything other than callous indifference. "Thank you, Flight Leader Reaper Of The Weak," she said quietly.

There was something in those eyes for an instant, a flicker of sympathy that was so at odds with her treatment that she thought she'd imagined it. Then his gaze hardened and the gryphon pointed with one talon out of the open compartment.

"Take a good look, pony. I want you to see this," he said.

Her gaze followed his claw, looking out over a darkened city. As if on cue the aerodyne banked slightly and her view dipped to show the buildings below. It took Libi a few moments to place it -- she'd only seen it before in daylight -- but when she realised what it was her heart sank. Down below was the close-packed highrise of Razorclaw's capital, little smudges of smoke rising from a few spots, but seeming mostly intact. Obvious among the artificial cliffs was the little oasis of the Equestrian Embassy; the green gardens she'd so enjoyed for her first few days in Razorclaw were gone now, trampled to mud and used as a landing space for what looked like emergency vehicles. The building itself was no more than a shell, jagged teeth of stone and charred timber surrounding the collapsed centre.

What little heat she'd managed to accumulate under the meagre protection of the plastic sheets seemed to drain away into the cold metal beneath her. "Did everypony get out?" she whispered. She'd got to know the consul and his partner quite well during her time here; they held regular gatherings for the pony visitors to gryphon lands, little meetings that had helped keep her sane while so far away from home and the ones she loved. All that running and there was never anywhere to go, she thought, feeling sick. Could I have saved myself all this if I'd just surrendered?

The gryphon just smiled unkindly at her. "Who knows?" he said, gripping the back of Libi's head and jamming the hood back over her muzzle.

She spent the rest of the flight in darkness, mind hunting for some way out of this impossible situation.

===

The landing, when it came, was the start of more torture. Unstrapped from the flight deck where she'd been tied down in an uncomfortable position, her captors had expected her to walk immediately. That wasn't going to happen and she fell several times, legs uncoordinated and unresponsive through the painful tingling numbness.

She was somewhere high, she could feel it. The air was just as cold as it had been in the aerodyne and there was a sensation of emptiness that seemed wrong for a city. There was the sound of a heavy door opening, the shriek of poorly maintained hinges and scrape of metal on metal. Prodded into motion again, she stumbled when the ground under her hooves fell away, only stopped from falling down the shallow stairs by a hard tug on the harness around her withers. A sudden boom made Libi start and her hooves slipped once more; the big door being slammed shut behind her accompanied the scraping and clicking of metal bolts sliding into their keepers.

With the door shut the wind had died and she started to feel a little warmer. Libi's nostrils twitched and her ears folded flat inside the hood. Now the draft from outside was gone the air from the inside of the structure started to flow back over the little party, bringing with it the smell of blood, many gryphons and... was that ponies? She inhaled again, trying to ignore the stomach-churning scent of death. It is, she thought, there are other ponies here! Her spirits lifted a little then came crashing down. ...and they're all prisoners like me.

The stumbling walk continued; along corridors, and through metal gates, the smell of gryphon getting stronger all the time. Up ahead she could hear the noise of gryphons talking, then she was pulled to a stop once more while yet another gate was opened. When Libi was pushed through the sound of many conversations suddenly halted; she could almost hear the collective shock of the people around her. Then the silence was broken.

"Hey, lookie here! They've brought us fresh meat!"

The voice was loud, the words blurring into the scream of a hunting raptor, and full of laughter that sounded... hungry, and was immediately joined by more shouts, cat-calls and a painfully loud banging of metal on metal. Half-deafened by the noise she could barely make out the individual words, not that it was necessary as they all seemed to be variations on the same theme. Panicked, surrounded by the smell of carnivores she couldn't see, Equilibrium tried to bolt. She made one abortive leap before a sudden jerk on her collar sent her stumbling to her knees, falling heavily to one side and landing against a set of cold metal bars.

Libi whinnied in panic and thrashed her hooves in an effort to get up, but eager talons clutched at her fur, holding her down and trying to pull her through the narrow openings between the bars. There was a sudden angry shout and the meaty noise of something hard striking flesh. The jeers and laughter continued but the grasping claws were snatched away, their owner screaming curses at whoever had struck him.

This has to be one of Razorclaw's prisons. She had no direct knowledge of such places apart from a frankly unbelievable documentary she'd seen on one of the foreign affairs channels; it had been so unpleasant that at the time she'd thought it to be horror fiction masquerading as fact. It was now painfully obvious that, if anything, they'd understated the truth.

There was nothing like this in Equestria; a few discreet facilities for those with mental issues that rendered them resistant to the normal highly social pony lifestyle, but the emphasis was always on cure and rehabilitation. The only other things that might be called prisons were short term 'Guard lockups' for those who'd had a bit too much alcohol-enhanced socialising. The facility she was being marched through appeared to have no redeeming features at all, just designed to hold as many gryphons as cheaply as possible. She couldn't see the conditions, but if her nose and ears were to be believed it didn't bode well.

"Stupid pony. Fall over again and I'll leave you there," growled Reaper.

A set of talons hooked under the harness fitted over her withers, jerking Libi to her hooves. A slap on the rump got her moving forwards, but this time there was a gryphon on each side of her, so close that their wing feathers tickled her swollen flanks. A short trot later and they stopped at another gate; once through, the shouts and crude comments died away to leave Equilibrium sweating and shaken, nostrils flaring and gasping at the shock of being in the presence of so much hostility.

If they put me in there I won't last five minutes, she thought desperately, breaking into a trot to keep up with her captors.

Three gates and a flight of stairs later and the smell of ponies started to become more than just a trace buried within the pervasive gryphon stink. Another short trot and she was pulled to a halt; talons unclipped the harness straps, then the chain around the back of her head was removed and the hood pulled off. Half blinded by the bright lights in the corridor, she was left standing in front of a plain steel door, a small peephole with an armoured cover in its centre. The door was whipped open and she was shoved into the darkness beyond.

With a thud of metal on metal the door slammed shut behind her, leaving Libi in a darkness almost as profound as that within the hood. Somewhere in front of her something moved and there was the slithering of wings being folded. Equilibrium backed away nervously until her rump hit the metal door.

"Hello, I'm Stirling Cycle. What's your name...?" a familiar voice asked, trailing off in confusion. “Libi, is that you?”

A vast relief rolled through Equilibrium, releasing all the tension she'd built up over the last few days. Suddenly feeling weak she sat down in front of the door with a thump, head drooping and tears rolling down her muzzle.

"Hey, are you okay?" Stirling asked, sounding alarmed.

There was the sound of hesitant hoofsteps and within moments Libi was surrounded by a circle of concerned faces. Stirling sat down next to her, spreading one of his wings over her back.

"Luna's moon, filly! You're as cold as a windigo's heart -- where have you been?" he asked, snuggling closer to try and warm her up.

"Trying to get back to the Embassy on hoof. Is Rheo here as well?” she said, blinking away the tears and staring at his misshapen wing where it lay across her flank. “Your feathers...”

Stirling grimaced. “He is, probably still asleep -- we’ve been keeping a rotating watch, for what little good it will do.” He stared at her forehead, puzzled. “They clipped all the pegasi’s flight feathers, could have been worse.” For the first time the pegasus realised what had changed about his friend and colleague. "Doctor Glass, a little help here?"

Another pegasus pushed through the crowd of concerned ponies, lowering his head to study Libi intently. His eyes widened when he saw her belly, then jumped to her head, an expression of fury flickering across his face before being smoothed away under a mask of professional detachment. He reached forward with one hoof, revealing the rough stump hidden under her mane. There was a gasp from the closest ponies, followed by muttering as they passed on what they had seen.

"Hello, Doctor Glass," Libi said, sniffing mightily and wiping her eyes on her forelegs.

"Hello, Equilibrium," the doctor replied, "I'm sorry about your horn. When did it happen?"

"Just a few hours ago, they, they--" ...held me down and cut it off with a hacksaw, she completed in her head, unable to get the words out. "Doctor, my foal -- will he be okay?" she asked, the desperate hope clear in her voice.

The doctor stared at her for a few moments, then dropped to his belly beside her. "Your foal will be fine," he said carefully, watching her face. "He's too old to be permanently affected by the change in your magical background -- he might be a little late developing, but will be no worse off than a unicorn born by an earth pony. I should examine you, though; you've obviously been through a lot recently."

Libi sighed and slumped, one of her worries evaporating. "Thank you, Doctor. I'm just glad you weren't caught when the Embassy was destroyed. Did many get out?"

The pegasus doctor smiled at her. "All of them -- the gryphons aren't happy about that, let me tell you. I was cut off in the suburbs when all this happened, but before the Talons caught up with me I saw the whole thing. A bunch of chariots -- they looked like those ones you get on the big cruise airships -- came in and pulled everypony out." He shuffled a little closer. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to do this the old fashioned way." He turned his head to address the crowd. "Could you give me a little room please? Oh, not you," he said to Stirling, as he made to get up, "but if you could retract your wing a little?"

Doctor Glass lay his head on her chest, listening intently, then moved to a number of spots along her flank and did the same thing. "Both of you are fine, Libi, but you are still very cold. Fortunately that's the one thing I can fix."

For the second time that week, Equilibrium found herself wedged between other ponies she barely knew. Resting her head on the flank of yet another pegasus and surrounded on all sides by warm bodies she fell gratefully into an exhausted sleep.

===

Libi was fast asleep when the door slammed open and light blazed across the huddle of ponies. She lifted her head, looking around in confusion before suddenly realising where she was. Eyes wide, she reared up, trying to stand, but was well and truly trapped by the tangled mess of wings and legs that the group of sleeping ponies had become. Around her others did the same, a process that added to the confusion until a gryphon snarled something and hard talons reached in and pulled them apart.

The ponies bore the rough treatment with no more complaint than a few quiet whinnies, dazed and blinking in the dazzling light after so long in near darkness. Equilibrium cowered somewhere in the middle of the group; she'd recognised that voice and knew it was her they wanted. Around her the ponies closed ranks, slowly moving around to push her further and further away from the door.

"Oh, how sweet," Reaper said in a sarcastic tone, clapping his foreclaws together slowly. "Unicorn Equilibrium, I have someone who wants to meet you."

"After what you did to her she's in no condition to do anything other than rest," Stirling snapped. "When Equestria learns of how you are treating us--"

"What makes you think your government knows you're are alive?"

"We know the ponies in the Embassy escaped, you can't fool us that easily!"

"Yes, they did escape, you are quite correct," Reaper said in a tone of barely suppressed humour, "they made it all the way to that airship of yours. How well do you think it fared against our air defence network?"

"You didn't--" Stirling said faintly.

"We did; a terrible accident during time of internal strife, the guilty party has already been punished, et cetera. We are, of course, allowing your pony military to assist our recovery operations, but the Canterlot Dreaming came down over the south end of the Dragonsback range. It's highly likely they won't find half the bodies. They'll have their doubts of course, but it will never be enough to prod them into action." All the humour went out of the gryphon's voice. "Now you know how serious I am. Step aside."

"No," said another pony, echoed by another half dozen voices.

Reaper said nothing, just rolled his eyes and waved the guards forward. The fight was one-sided; none of the ponies were military, and even earth pony strength was of little help in such confined space against a trained group used to fighting as a team. Less than thirty seconds later Libi had been dragged struggling from the herd, many of whom now sported minor scratches and bloody faces.

"You see? Useless," said Reaper.

"Not so. The point is to fight, not to win. You won't break us."

"We'll see about that," Reaper said with a grim smile, stepping backwards through the door and slamming it closed.

Out in the corridor Reaper dismissed most of the guards, just leaving one grizzled-looking gryphon. He prodded Libi into motion and they started down the corridor, heading away from the area of the prison she'd entered through. At least they didn't use the hood this time, Libi thought; without that restraint the journey was much easier and she reached their destination without incident. This part of the complex seemed older than the rest, the smooth concrete walls had given way to more uneven stone, the barred cells on either side of the corridor smaller and spaced further apart. All of them were empty, a fact that gave the mare some relief.

As they walked the lighting became sparser, eventually fading out entirely, their way illuminated only by a lamp hanging around the guard's neck. The very last cell was opened and she was pushed inside, the door closing with a shriek of rusty hinges then locked with a key that looked like it had come out of museum. Libi looked out through the bars at Reaper, trying to understand why she'd been brought here. "I thought you were taking me to meet someone?" she said meekly.

"He'll be along, sooner or later. Have a nice chat." With that the pair of them left, leaving her in darkness.

The cell was completely bare and slightly damp. Equilibrium stared out into the darkness then, feeling very alone, folded her legs under her belly and settled down on the cold stones. It wasn't quite cold enough to start her shivering, but she saw no chance of returning to sleep. "I hope they don't leave me here too long," she muttered, a nasty thought surfacing. They must know as much about us as we do about them, she thought, they must know how prolonged isolation affects us. She strained her ears, listening for any sign at all that she wasn't alone.

Time passed and Equilibrium discovered that knowing that her treatment was a deliberate ploy to unsettle her didn't form much of a defence against it. The silence was absolute; even back in the other cell she'd been able to hear the faint murmur of the gryphon inmates beneath the quiet sounds of a dozen ponies breathing. It wasn't quite pitch black, though; a faint glow came down from the corridor, reflected off multiple walls from the last set of functional lamps fifty meters and two corners away.

Over time her eyes adjusted to the tiny illumination, just enough that she could make out the borders of her stone cube and the even darker opening of the cell on the other side of the corridor. Despite her thoughts to the contrary she was starting to doze off, never quite enough to be called real sleep but just enough to make it seem that time was stretching to infinity.

There was a little scratching noise from behind her.

Libi's head came up and her ears pivoted backwards, then she shot to her hooves and inspected the floor carefully. It was too dark to see anything as small as a rat or mouse, but her sensitive ears swept the ground and detected nothing. Turning around several times she sat back down, this time in one of the corners and with the rough stone wall against her rump. Remaining alert for another few minutes she slowly relaxed, letting her head droop once more.

Something brought Libi back to full wakefulness, a sensation that just behind her was something terrible. The fur along her back stood on end, a prickling that rolled across her in a wave. She froze, head half raised and ears searching, but heard nothing. A cold sensation of fear radiated from whatever it was, so strong that it made her unable to turn her head even as she strained her eyes to look backwards. Again there was that little noise. Again it was right behind her.

Sweating, teeth clenched and ears plastered to the sides of her skull, Libi slowly turned her head. There, where there had been solid stone, was a wall of dark fur. She jerked away, eyes following the snake-like curve of the body around the wall of the cell, past some indistinct limbs and ending in a heavy, horned head.

"Hello, Equilibrium. I've been so looking forward to meeting you."

Libi let out a shriek and surged backwards from the thing that suddenly filled more than half the cell, cracking her head on the wall behind her. Struggling to get to her hooves, she shrank back from the sinuous body, trying to disappear through the cracks in the stone.

"Oh, I am sorry," the figure said in a rich voice that might have been sympathetic if it wasn't for the malice that dripped from the words. "Here, let me give you a little more space."

The whole body started to move, coiling and twisting and somehow taking up less space without actually getting any smaller. It's like it’s further away without actually being so, Libi thought, mind trying to wrap itself around the impossible sight.

The figure sniffed and cocked its head to one side, as if puzzled. "Really, I'm quite disappointed. You know you're the first pony I've spoken to in over five hundred years? I had hoped for a bit more of a welcome. Perhaps it's the dark; they always did say that the worst thing is not being able to see what you fear. Shall we see if they are right?"

The figure raised one clawed limb and snapped it, kindling a tiny yellow flame that hovered and danced in the air like a live thing. Somehow the little light didn't so much illuminate the small space, as accentuate and deepen the shadows. Equilibrium stared at the figure, now outlined sufficiently that she could see its shape clearly. Snake-like, yes, but with four legs and a pair of wings, each from some different species. She could see bits of eagle, lion, goat, bat and many more.

The head was draconic, although covered in coarse brown fur, with uneven protruding fangs and a little chin tuft that made it look a little goat-like. The eyes were the worst; a sick yellow with red pupils, filled with a terrible, hypnotic intensity that was hard to escape. Libi stared into those eyes, a little voice screaming in her head to look away, but to no avail. Then the eyes blinked and she turned her head with a sudden gasp that turned into a sob.

"Discord," she whispered, struggling to get the word out past trembling lips.

The figure clapped its mismatched forelimbs together and laughed. "So I am remembered; this is just perfect! Yes, I'm Discord, large as life and twice as beautiful."

"How... how is it you're here? I've seen you, in the Canterlot statue garden."

"Yes, well, you can't always believe what you see." The figure seemed to recede still further, floating a little way off the ground and turning swift figure-of-eight loops in the air. "So, I understand you've been in Razorclaw for a few weeks now. I've really only just arrived but I've been doing a bit of redecorating. What do you think of what I've done with the place?"

"You're trying to start a war," Libi said dully, "this is all your fault, isn't it?"

"Me?" Discord said, placing his one taloned forelimb to his chest in mock horror. "Not at all, I'm just here for a bit of entertainment. I have to admit that these gryphons are a bit too easy compared to you ponies; they are so eager to get started. I'm even having to hold a few of them back."

Libi gazed helplessly at the monster. "But why, why do this at all? There's plenty of space on this world for all of us."

Discord slowly shook his head in sadness. "Libi, Libi, Libi. I'm almost disappointed, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It took those Princesses long enough to understand me even slightly, I shouldn't expect a young thing like you to comprehend the torment of my existence." He balanced on one cloven hindlimb, rotating slowly with forelimbs held over his head and body curled into an 's' shaped curve. "But that's enough about me. What we're here for is you."

"M-me?" Libi said, hooves scraping against the stone floor as she tried to retreat.

"Oh, don't be such a little filly. If I wanted to hurt you I'd hardly bother doing it myself -- not when I've got so many willing servants." He gestured with one limb, drawing a circle in the air that filled with a swirl of coloured lights. “Anyway, as a little favour -- to show I mean you no harm -- I thought I'd let you catch a glimpse of home." Discord put both forelimbs over the top of the disk of lights, leaning on it like it was a solid thing, then poked his head over the edge and looked at it upside down. The lights condensed into a familiar orange and yellow pony, deep in conversation with a young and attractive chestnut mare.

Libi gasped and leaned forward as if to be close to her mate even in this insubstantial form. My love, at least you are safe, she thought, vision blurring as her eyes starting to water.

"I've been watching your Doctor Neighmann for a while now. He has been a busy colt." Discord raised his head and stared at Libi, eyes large and hypnotic.

On the screen her mate turned his head and nuzzled the side of the chestnut mare's neck. "No," she whispered, "I don't believe it." The mare stepped closer to Neighmann, rubbing along his flank and leaning into the caress.

"That’s Neon Sparks, you remember her; she's his assistant. They work very closely together, often late at night. Would you like to see?"

The pictures flickered and flashed, little snippets of video stitched together with fast-moving blurs.

Two ponies walking flank-to-flank into a brightly lit restaurant...

...and swaying, necks entwined to a slow dance...

...in a darkened room, the rhythmic movements of orange on chestnut and...

"No!" Libi screamed, desperately trying to turn away from the display, but captured by Discord's terrible eyes.

The draconic head's ears drooped in a parody of sympathy, but Discord did nothing to stop whatever magic he’d used to bring the images. "I guess it's all too obvious why he wanted you to go on this little trip, isn't it?"

9 -- Patient zero

Doctor Glass was one of the few ponies still awake when they brought Equilibrium back. He'd been spending the time in an almost meditative state, compulsively preening what was left of his wing feathers, his subconscious mind trying to arrange the remaining secondaries into a workable flight surface. He knew it was futile, of course, but let his body follow its instincts; in some ways it was more restful than sleep.

With the normal lack of ceremony the door was slammed open, causing all the ponies to snap to wakefulness, then Equilibrium was thrust back inside. Lost in the deeply satisfying state, Glass' head had been buried muzzle deep in his secondary coverts near where the wing joined the torso, and didn't even have his eyes open when the light flooded in. Eyes still closed he twisted his ears backwards, following the sound of hooves and claws on wood, but still preening like he hadn't noticed anything.

There was no talking, just a watchful silence from the ponies and a similar lack of communication from whichever gryphons were outside. A few seconds later the cell door boomed again and the light filtering through the combined shields of his eyelids and wing feathers vanished. Lowering his wing he spat out an errant feather and stared at the silent unicorn, standing head bowed by the door.

There were no obvious signs of trauma, but there was something about Equilibrium that seemed... broken. The other ponies could sense it too, making them shy and edge away. For an instant, Glass was outraged at the behaviour of ponies that had once stood up for the mare, but then analysed his own emotions. There was something there, a desire to look away, to crawl away on his belly and put some extra distance between the two of them.

What the hay? he thought, then mastered his feelings and walked over to her. "Libi," he said gently, "what did they do to you?"

She glanced at him sullenly, then returned her gaze to the floor. "Nothing that you could help with, featherbrain," she said bitterly. "What makes a pegasus become a doctor, anyway? How do you expect to help anypony with only your stupid hooves is beyond me."

Glass recoiled, stung by the venom in Equilibrium's voice. It was a school-yard insult and really should have passed over him like a patch of cloud. He'd heard far worse before, mainly from patients in distress, but somehow this comment struck home. She's right, I am useless, he thought, then caught himself. Nonsense! How many ponies have you saved-- he started, but the thought was interrupted by that same element of doubt. But you can't save these ones, can you featherbrain? He stared at her open mouthed, unable to formulate a coherent reply.

"Thought not. Now why don't you go back to feeling yourself up, or whatever it was you were doing, and leave me alone!" As she spoke her voice grew louder, ending up in a shriek.

"S-sorry," he mumbled, clumsily backing away, only to bump into another pony.

"Why don't you watch where you’re going, idiot?" the pony snarled.

Glass recoiled and fled to the corner of the room, pressing himself into it as if it could swallow him up. Almost numb with feelings of self-doubt, he nevertheless watched the herd with the mind of a trained psychologist, watched as the once unified and supportive little herd become hostile and argumentative. Equilibrium was the worst; now he was attuned to it he could feel the anger and despair radiate from her like the heat from a fire.

It almost makes sense... there is a pattern here, he thought. The ponies nearest to Libi became hostile first, then passed it onto their neighbours until the whole room was affected. It's like she's carrying a diseas-- Then his thoughts broke off, overwhelmed by a wave of futility and self-doubt. Oh, so now you're an expert shrink, are you? Just how much psychology training did you have; three months wasn't it? his internal voice jeered.

===

"Celestia really dealt you the losing hand, didn't she? Can't fly, no magic, just a vague 'connection to the land,' " Equilibrium sneered at Rheostat when the earth pony had stared a little too long at her.

Rheo looked affronted and stepped closer to push his muzzle up against Libi's. "How's your magic working for you these days? I can't even call you a bonehead now!" he spat.

Libi smiled evilly back. "In six months I'll be fine, colt. You'll still be a useless mud pony. Tell me -- what do door knobs taste like?"

Rheostat's eyes widened and he hissed in rage, jumping forward to shoulder barge Libi and knock her back against the wall. In doing so he kicked the foreleg of a pegasus stallion who'd been watching the argument, making him yelp in pain, then flick open one wing and catch Rheo on the back of the head.

"Watch it, mud pony," he snapped.

This diverted Rheostat from Libi and onto the pegasus, resulting in a general shoving match that rapidly spread through the ponies who weren't -- like Doctor Glass -- cowering against the stone walls.

Libi watched the developing brawl with interest, smiling when a particularly sneaky blow was landed. It was all so clear now. I've been played for a fool for far too long, she thought darkly, well no more. That bastard Neighmann, leaving me with his spawn then shacking up with his assistant. I'll make him suffer if I ever get back to Equestria. Then there was the Fancypants corporation, sending her out to this primitive hell-hole and abandoning her amid these disgusting carnivores. I wonder if any of the Zebra states need any inside information on their latest projects?

She was still musing over her plans for revenge when a painfully loud alarm rang and the cell door flew open, gryphon guards pouring in to break up the fight with characteristic efficiency. When it was all over, a sullen silence settled over the herd, every pony keeping as much distance from their neighbour as possible and nursing their wounds.

They came for Equilibrium two hours later; this time nopony stood up for her.

Kicking and screaming, cursing them all for cowards, she struggled and tried to bite her captors until they slapped her into passivity. When she was quiet they put the hood back on her and dragged her from the cell.

Ears still ringing from the slaps, she was half dragged, half marched back through the populated areas of the prison, past the concentration of gryphon prisoners and out onto the cold, windy landing platform. Here she was pushed up a disturbingly flexible walkway and into a space that thrummed to the discordant howl of turbines. Talons shoved her against the wall and roughly tightened another set of restraints, pulling her against the cold surface. There was the sound of a door sliding shut and the mechanical howl died to a low grumble, the air suddenly becoming still as the outside world was cut off.

"If you'll behave I'll take the hood off," Reaper Of The Weak said.

"I'll be good," Libi said sweetly, then scowled as the restraint was pulled away. "Now let me off this primitive death trap," she said, glancing around the spartan interior of the aircraft with disdain. She flinched when a set of talons struck the metal wall just in front of her muzzle with enough force to make the whole panel vibrate, then glared back at the gryphon. "You don't scare me, you obviously want me alive."

Reaper leaned back on his haunches, beak opening and closing in shock, then chuckled weakly. "I would never have believed it," he said. "The change is so profound I almost thought the guards brought me the wrong pony."

"What are you talking about, you stupid barbarian? You're just like a pegasus, the only way you lot could possibly fly is if your brains are half the normal size. Why are you here anyway, too lazy to fly yourself?" Libi said this spitefully, knowing it was one of the worst insults possible for a gryphon. At least that idiot Stoops was good for something, she thought. I wonder if they know she lied for me on that first day? She filed that thought away, just in case she needed it later.

The gryphon frowned at that. "That hood comes with a gag, you know. I can spend the rest of the flight in silence with or without your cooperation."

Libi gritted her teeth, but kept quiet. Outside the howl of engines rose in both volume and pitch, the little patch of ground visible through the porthole dropping away to show a brief view of mountains, then only blue sky and clouds.

===

Echelon was in the shower when his 'scramble' alarm sounded. Cursing, he stuck his muzzle under the stream of warm water to wash the soap out of his eyes, then kicked the spray off and jumped out of the cubicle. Heart racing, he swept the warbling machine up from where he'd dropped it, then snapped the strap around one fetlock, pausing only to acknowledge the alarm. Catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror on the back of the door -- little clusters of soap bubbles still clinging to his indigo mane, lighter blue fur looking matted and still dripping wet like the rest of him -- Echelon grimaced and yanked it open to leap into the corridor beyond.

Leaving a damp patch on an ensign unlucky enough to be trotting past at that instant, he apologized quickly and dashed down the corridor. "Pilot coming through!" he shouted, scattering the ponies in his way, then flared his waterlogged wings and fanned them rapidly. The resultant spray of soapy water raised howls of complaint that only got louder when he lost enough water to get airborne, leaving a trail of fat drops as he zipped along the upper level of the corridor, just above the heads of frantically ducking unicorns and earth ponies.

Within sixty seconds he'd reached the hangar deck, swerving around a slow-moving loading crane as he took a shortcut through the 'no fly' section of the crowded space. The Friendship Express' number two hangar was a cavernous volume, or at least it would have been had it not been full of Loup-Garou deep strike fighters.

The needle shapes, with their variable geometry wings and a set of spellcraft levitators capable of an enormous payload, were part of Equestria's limited rapid response arsenal. Levitators would only neutralise weight, of course, forward thrust was provided by a pair of borane-fuelled multimode engines that were good all the way up to Mach 3.8. At the moment those wings were folded like those of any pegasus, wing roots clamped to the launch cradle that held the ready flight.

Barrel-rolling to shed the last of the moisture from his shower, Echelon dived towards the open cockpit of his bird, Red One. Hovering for a second he dropped his hooves into the captive shoes on either side of the pilot's stall, pushing downwards until he could settle into a comfortable prone position on the padding, neck in the angled groove made for it.

"Ya made it then?" came a voice from behind him.

"Eventually, Willow," Echelon replied. "Why are we on call, I distinctly remember being told that Green One and Two were the ready flight?"

"Green Two suffered a thaumic quench of its port side levitator. As it wasn't a super priority launch they pulled both Greens and put the Reds up instead."

Echelon turned in the limited space and scowled at what little of his unicorn weapon's officer he could see. With her head and its all important horn buried in the padded slot in her console, all that was visible of the lightly-built mare was her pale green mane -- this tied into neat plaits -- and a strip of dark green back fur. "And how did you manage to get here so early?"

In the corner of one eye he caught sight of the crew of Red Two, Chicory and Anabatic. The pair -- he'd flown with them for years -- were leaning on the edge of their cockpit, watching him with poorly suppressed grins. The pegasus mare, Anabatic, gave him a little wave. He smiled back and flicked a wing in greeting. They're all in on it. You'll get yours, Anabatic.

"Sorry, Lonnie, you didn't answer your comms, so I told them to trip your alarm. Didn't you read the message?" she asked innocently.

Echelon ground his teeth, then grinned. "I will have my revenge, just you wait." Turning to his own instruments he settled back down into the shaped padding, opening his wings and pushing the bony joints into the padded clamps on either side. Stretching them carefully, he felt the paired armatures flex and twist with his movements, the metal bars sitting comfortably against his leading edge. Leaning forward he slid his muzzle into the control slot, wriggling slightly to get his eyes lined up with the display panels.

The world around him bloomed in full colour, like the Loup-Garou had disappeared and it was he himself sitting on the launch cradle. Echelon folded his wings then tripped the release toggle with his teeth, gently moving each wing joint in turn through a small fraction of its range of motion. Outside, on a much larger scale, the metal and composite wings of the fighter mirrored his movements, the ponderous motion fed back seamlessly through the armature.

"Control, Red One. Preflight A-OK," Echelon whispered into the microphone by his jaw, then wriggled his back and neck to try and get his damp mane to settle somewhere a little less itchy. "Willow, can you give me a little help here? I didn't have a chance to tie back my mane."

"Sure thing... now don't move, I need to test the kinetics."

Echelon's eyes widened and he froze as he realised what his copilot was saying. Willow was hooked directly into the spellcraft transducer/amplifier rig that laced the belly of the plane, magically coupled to the much larger spellcraft units that jutted like oversized unicorn horns from Red One's wing roots. In this it was much like his own mechanical coupling with the flight systems, such that she couldn't easily disconnect from those systems to use her telekinesis on his mane, so instead she was going to use the weapon system to route her power.

Preflight did call for a test of the magical systems, but this was against an inert target hanging from shock absorbers next to the hangar door, a target built to take the ten-fold enhancement the spellcraft amplifier was able to supply. Holding his breath he felt the static tingle of a telekinetic field caress his back and pull his mane into a crude braid, then the sensation moved lower down to do the same with his tail. His skin twitched at the touch, which seemed far more gentle and sensuous than it should have, given the tremendous forces available to the unicorn. Echelon opened his mouth, but didn't say anything; he really didn't want to distract Willow at this stage. Make her jump and you'll lose every hair from your tail, he thought.

After what seemed like an age she was finished and the tingle subsided. Was that harassment or a come-on? he thought. He always got on well with the mare, but she'd never said or done anything before to arouse his personal interest. Something to think about later, he thought with a twinge of regret, if she's serious it will mean reassignment for one of us. Clearing his throat he spoke out loud. "Um, thanks Willow, that's much better."

"No problem, chief, anytime." she said silkily, then in a more formal tone, "Control, Red One, spellcraft amplifier fully operational."

That was definitely a come on, Echelon thought, grinning. "Shoot me the mission pack, will you?" he said, ears twitching as the opaque canopy closed over them both. There was no need for windows in a modern fighter; the cockpit, such as it was, was buried deep in the centre of the plane and surrounded on each side by engines, levitators and the complex arcane systems of the amplifier rig. His view was purely electronic -- although there was a fibre optic backup in case of a disaster that killed the multiply redundant electronic and spellcraft systems -- and pretty much as good as it got for a pony.

Echelon read through the sketchy mission brief, listening with half an ear to the rattle and clank of the automatic loader delivering the physical weapons. His was a long range, high speed fighter, designed for distant interceptions rather than ground support or slugging it out with one of the flying battleships that seemed popular with the gryphon kingdoms. Not that it had ever come down to a shooting war, of course, Equestrian economic might held the world pretty much in a stranglehold. In physical war everyone would suffer, but it was Equestria's competitors that would come off worse. Highly cooperative and efficient, pony industry supplied large amounts of... everything.

Trade sanctions were a far worse threat than mere force, and to this end Equestria didn't have much of a military. There was just no need.

"Razorclaw Embassy offline yesterday, clairvoyant recon shows fires, blah, blah. Looks like someone wanted a change in government," he muttered to himself. "Oh, here we go. Contact established with airship 'Canterlot Dreaming,' Captain requesting an escort to international airspace." Echelon would have shaken his head in disbelief, but in the confines of the control slot had to settle for rolling his eyes. He dimly recognised the name; they paid pilots pretty well, but there was no way he was going to blow half a year's salary on being carted around like cargo. Who the hell wants to go on a sightseeing cruise over that part of the world, anyway? he thought.

The rest of the briefing held the threat assessment, locations and projected vectors, along with the current map of Razorclaw's air defences. From the look of it the Dreaming was just approaching the southern end of what the locals called the 'Dragonsback' range. He shivered slightly, looking at the local conditions. Those are some nasty looking mountains, he thought.

A thump that made the whole aircraft shiver marked the closing of the missile bay, the last amber light on Echelon’s display turning green as Red One's internal systems completed their self-checks and pronounced them fit to fly. A secondary display announced that Red Two was also ready. Echelon saw the hangar boss wave a hoof at his rear camera, then duck behind the barricade that was tilting up behind the fighter. He hit the starters and listened intently to the engines cough a few times then start with a growl that rapidly rose up through the scale to become a teeth-aching whine, before fading into the ultrasonic. All good.

"Red flight this is Control. Launch in ten seconds."

"Roger that," Echelon replied, tripping the restraints into their launch mode and tensing as his gimballed cockpit pod rotated to place him muzzle down. This was always the bit he hated, ever since that one time there was a kinetic driver abort and they'd left him nose down for the best part of half an hour. He hadn't dared move until they'd safed the driver; if it had triggered while he was in normal flight position he'd probably have broken something.

There were no problems this time and the driver fired flawlessly. The breath wheezed out of his lungs as Nightmare Moon reached in and pulled Red One out by its needle nose.

===

Up here the sky was the blue-black of the approaches to space; the horizon of the world distinctly curved and lined with a bright blue band. Red One and Red Two flew at just over one kilometre a second, engines cramming the thin, unbreathable air into their variable geometry innards and spitting it back out two thousand degrees hotter and far faster. At this cruising altitude the Loup-Garou had tremendous range; the Friendship Express was already halfway to Razorclaw when the Canterlot Dreaming had radioed for assistance. They would need a refuel within an hour or two of reaching the airship, but that would be handled by a tanker that was paralleling their course, albeit much lower and slower. They would arrive at the airship in a little over fifteen minutes.

Echelon whiled away the time chatting to the crew of Red Two and Willow; he still wore the armature, but it was disconnected from the flight systems and he used the downtime to relax his wings. The mechanical systems were surprisingly comfortable, even supporting the weight of his wings just like aerodynamic forces would have done, but it was nice to be able to move them. Keeping them in the precise orientation for this kind of supersonic transit was far easier for a computer than a pilot of flesh and blood.

"Coming up on descent point," came Willow's laconic reminder. "Wait a minute, that's interesting."

"What?"

"Something is approaching the Dreaming from astern. Not a fighter, radar return matches one of their Shredder-class gunships or something built on a similar airframe."

"Crap. How do you rate us against a Shredder?"

"You're kidding, right? I suppose we could force it to retreat if we could hit it hard enough on the first pass. Obviously we'd still be dead."

Echelon closed his eyes for a second and sighed. Shredders were one of Razorclaw's mobile gunships, not very fast, but more heavily built than a flyer had any right to be.

"Funny it's not travelling with the usual escort," he said, inspecting the long range optical/radar plot.

"Here we go, they've just seen us."

Little indicator lights blinked red and his radar started to analyse the Shredder's pulse train, looking for patterns and frequencies it could send jamming signals on if it was ordered to. The Loup-Garou was fairly stealthy as fighters went, but nothing could really hide a thousand-kilometre supersonic transit, at least not for the entire flight. If it did come to a fight, Willow could block or damp down the fighter's electromagnetic signature, but the spell was taxing and would only be good for a few passes. And if one of those passes didn’t somehow find a chink in it’s armor, the Shredder's cannon and extensive magazines were more than deep enough to track them down. They were called 'Shredders' for good reason.

"Heh, listen to this..." Willow said, opening the external radio feed.

"-etion Equestrian fighters, do not open fire, repeat do not open fire. We are returning one of your country..." here the voice, speaking only slightly accented Equuish, paused, obviously hunting for the right term "...ponies. Please respond."

"Are you getting this, Control?"

"Roger, stand by."

Echelon rolled his eyes inside the control slot. What exactly is there to talk about? he thought. His flight couldn't hope to down that Shredder without a lot of luck, and the Dreaming was a big, fat target for the gunship's weapons. One more hostage really didn't make much difference when you had your sights on fifteen hundred.

"Close with the Shredder, we're scrambling the rest of Rainbow squadron, ETA one two mike. Keep them occupied, Red flight."

"Roger that."

Twelve minutes. He'd be dead, but if they could play chicken with the monster and distract it from the Dreaming long enough for the rest of the squadron to get in range... and they'd be loaded with hypersonic breachers, unlike the frags he'd been given. Emptying their bays at altitude in a single salvo would get through even a Shredder's point defences. He nodded, or at least tried to in the control slot. It could work.

"Willow, forget the stealth, configure for point defence. We need to hold them off the airship until the squadron can get to launch distance."

"Sure thing, chief, knowing them it's just a ruse to get closer to the airship," she said in clipped tones, then continued in a quiet, sad voice that was probably not intended to be heard. "Who wants to live forever, right?"

Echelon paused for a minute, trying to decide if he should say anything, then shrugged. It's not like I'll have to go through with it, he thought, remembering the caress Willow had given him through the proxy of the spellcraft weapon systems. "How's about you and me catch a movie or something when we get back to base?"

"I'd love that, you featherbrain," the mare said, voice back to its normal bantering tone.

Echelon grinned inside the control slot, then folded his wings into the correct posture for his high speed dive onto the target. A tap of the control key with his tongue and the armature tightened and began to vibrate, the machine gradually handing over full control of the wings to him. After so long being helpless it was a relief to actually be in control of his environment once more; a pegasus just wasn't built to be carried like cargo.

Together with Red Two, he tilted his metal and composite wings and fell towards the gunship.

10 -- Flying visit

Libi was bored.

She'd spent the bulk of the ride goading Reaper Of The Weak until he'd finally succumbed and put the hood back on, this time with the gag attached. Despite the satisfaction of seeing him lose control, she almost regretted it; the short rubber-coated metal rod forced her jaws open and they pressed against the edge of the hood quite uncomfortably. Shackled, hooded and gagged she'd spent the rest of the seemingly endless trip plotting ways to get even with the gryphon once she could get free.

Her mood wasn’t helped by the fact that her bladder was full. Again.

As was normal these days, Junior took that opportunity to flex and stretch his legs, placing more strain on her already thin patience. I'm starting to hate you, she thought at the foal, the sooner I get you out of me and in some foster home the better. He twitched again, almost as if to punish her for her thoughts. Much more of this and I'll just go on the deck. Her lips curved into an indistinct smile around the gag. What a fantastic idea, that was sure to annoy the barbarian carnivore.

Just as she was trying to decide if it might annoy him a little too much, Libi heard movement and talons unclipped the hood from behind her mane, removing the fabric cone and its attached gag. Working her jaw to get the chemical taste of the rubber out of her mouth, she wiped drool from her muzzle and glared at the gryphon. "About time. Listen, you useless excuse for a bird, unless you want to get out a mop, I suggest you let me use the facilities."

Reaper looked unconcerned and just smiled at her. "We've arrived," he said, "and some of your friends have come along to play." He stuffed the hood in an equipment locker, then undogged the big sliding hatch that occupied half of one wall. Icy-cold air rushed in, ruffling his feathers and blowing Libi's mane and tail around wildly. The gryphon hooked one foreclaw around a grab rail, then leaned out to glance around the sky.

Libi dearly wished she was free to move so she could kick the arrogant bird out the door. It wouldn't hurt him, but at least he'd have trouble getting back to the aircraft. She craned her neck to look through the door, eyes narrowed against the harsh wind. Actually, there are engines at the ends of those stubby wings, if I could just get it right he might... Libi's fantasy became more and more bloody, only halting when Reaper come over and gripped her throat lightly with a set of talons.

"As fun as it's been, it's now time for us to go our separate ways," he said.

"Good riddance. I'll be sure to mention your name to the international criminal court," she growled back.

"Perfect," he chuckled, "I think you'll do very well. Now I'm going to unstrap you; don't do anything stupid, the doors to this compartment are locked and we're at ten thousand metres. If it comes to it, I'll toss you out."

Equilibrium hesitated at that; she'd intended to do her level best to buck the gryphon somewhere sensitive, but he did seem very serious. Perhaps he's not that keen on keeping me alive after all? "I'll be good," she groused.

"Good. Now, we must be quick; the pilot tells me that your friends are getting nervous and might be on the verge of doing something silly." With that he unsnapped the restraints and pulled Libi away from the wall, one foreclaw wrapped around the harness still clipped round her withers.

Stumbling, Libi complained loudly as she was dragged to the doorway, falling silent as the opening loomed large. She'd never been that scared of heights, but the lack of a railing -- and the ground being so far below -- made her stomach turn somersaults. They were above a layer of puffy white clouds, the sort beloved by pegasi as building material or simply to play in, high over a patch of mountains that seemed to stretch to the horizon in all directions except the south, where it was interrupted by a similarly endless expanse of ocean.

If it wasn't for the noise and cold it would have been a beautiful view, one striking enough to distract even Libi's bitter mind, if only for a minute. The aircraft banked slightly, the sun pouring in and making her squint. Off in the distance a pair of somethings moved, tiny slender darts coloured the same pale blue as the sky, scratching white contrails across the flawless horizon. One of the darts came closer, close enough that she could read -- if not understand -- the cryptic markings on its wedge-shaped tail. It looked a little like a long-winged bird, a narrow body with slender wings and tail, all the parts twitching like a live thing. Once in awhile she even saw the wings flap.

It reacted to her presence next to the opening, seeming to shiver slightly before waggling its wings at her. Libi turned to Reaper and scowled. "I thought you said I was going home. How am I going to get home in one of those?"

"Oh, you're not going home that way. Look over there." Reaper waved one talon negligently out of the opening.

Libi leaned forward cautiously, poking her head out into the slipstream. Through watering eyes she could just make it out: an ovoid of darkness looking like a marrow floating amid the clouds. Airship? she thought. "Is that the Canterlot Dreaming?" she said accusingly. "You said you shot it down!"

"There's still time," Reaper mused to himself. "Fog of war, my dear. Maybe it was a different airship."

Equilibrium sniffed in disdain. Why I ever believed this barbarian I'll never know. It's obvious you can't trust anything any of them say. She paused that line of thought, getting more cheerful. At least I get to go home in style. She pulled her head back in, grudgingly grateful for the gryphon's tight grip on her harness as the aircraft dipped suddenly and headed over towards the airship. They lost height and were soon flying only half a kilometre or so above the glossy black upper surface.

The Canterlot Dreaming was a bit of a monster as far as airships went, with only some of the cargo blimps being larger. A tapered cylinder, but this profile was modified and turned into a work of art by fanciful shapes and streamers, making her look more like some tropical fish. These all had practical uses, of course: as tail fins, control surfaces or mounting points for the three giant fans that were mounted around her tail end. The hull was coloured with a similar varied set of abstract curves and patterns, making her an impressive sight from the ground.

From above the effect was spoilt a little by the solar panels integrated into her upper surface; here efficiency was king and they were the flat black of the best -- and lightest -- power sources Equestrian magic-enhanced science could produce. She sipped water from clouds and processed it to hydrogen, fuelling the monstrous propellers that moved her around the world. With the ability to fly above the clouds there was no lack of sunlight and the Canterlot Dreaming could stay aloft indefinitely.

Libi doubtfully eyed the little landing strip running down the middle of the airship's back. The envelope was big, but obviously not very strong; there was no way this aircraft was going to land on that without breaking the airship's spine. She felt the harness bite into her flesh as Reaper tugged her off her hooves.

"Hay! What do you think you're doing?" she yelled.

Reaper smiled back in satisfaction. "You've no idea how much I've wanted to do this," he said, taking a step closer to the hatchway.

Libi's eyes widened as the opening yawned beneath her hooves, then started to struggle, trying to get her forelegs around Reaper's foreleg. He was ready for this, and quickly thrust her out of the opening.

The aircraft flicked up and away like it had been jerked up on a bit of elastic, then she started to tumble. With each turn the body of the airship grew bigger, then flashed past, seemingly close enough to touch but forever out of reach.

===

Feldspar watched the approaching dot of the Razorclaw aircraft with trepidation. He sat in his crow's nest high on one of the tail fins, stubby telescope resting unused on their mount in front of him. He was a little unusual for the Dreaming's crew; an earth pony with outside duty. He'd requested it, told his supervisor that he enjoyed the endless vistas and quiet. The job would have been boring to many, but for a pony content to watch the world go past from such a vantage point, it was paradise.

It was rare but not unknown for passengers to visit the upper hull. In a way it was the flyers that were the worst: they assumed they were safe. What they didn't realise was that the Canterlot Dreaming was deceptively fast for such a massive vehicle. While even an average pegasus could outpace the airship over a short distance, flesh and blood wings would tire while the Dreaming's motors would not. If unnoticed a pegasus could be left behind, a lonely fate if the airship was mid ocean.

Rubbing one hoof along his muzzle, Feldspar leaned forward and placed an eye to the eyepiece. The thing had gotten close enough that he could make out the shape now. It looked a little like a beetle; a flattened ovoid with an armoured look. There were four wings, two front and two rear, each with a boxy engine at the tip. The earth pony shifted position, leaning forward against his safety harness and brushing the hood of his padded jacket back to free his ears. Yes, he could hear it now as well; the high-pitched scream of turbines clearly audible over the low thrum of the Dreaming's multi-metre fans.

Eyes still on the approaching aircraft he studied the shape, trying to match it against what he knew of the gryphon air force. The Dreaming had detected the vehicle some time ago, but its sensor suite was only designed for navigation and hardly able to pick out a shape from the radar return. The Captain had called it in anyway; with all the trouble in this area she was taking no chances.

There had been threats and orders from various gryphons claiming authority: do not approach this area or that, do not exceed this speed, do not pick up any Razorclaw citizens. The Captain had obeyed as best she could, and the few hours it should have taken the Dreaming to clear international airspace had stretched to more than a day. They'd already had to fend off small groups of marauding gryphons, including a number who had claimed to want asylum. None had carried any real weapons, and the airship's security force and been able to deal with them.

Not for the first time Feldspar wondered if this visitor was anything to do with their recent influx of guests. The tattered band of ponies had pulled themselves into the upper hangar deck half a day ago, assisted by a fresh contingent of the Dreaming's crewponies. He'd been on watch at the time, although the battle had been little more than a series of dots moving in complex curves at this distance. It had been an amazing escape; there were plenty of injuries, some pretty severe -- especially among the Dreaming's security -- and more than a few pegasi had been killed, their bodies left to the mountains they'd died over. The real miracle had been Ambassador Paperchase; despite his brutal attack, it looked like he'd pull through... although he'd have an interesting set of scars to live with.

"This just keeps getting better and better," he muttered, then tapped the intercom with one hoof. "Lookout to bridge," he said.

"Lookout, this is the Captain. What have you got for me, Feldspar?"

"Sorry Ma’am, it's a Shredder-class gunship." There was silence at the other end of the intercom; even the subdued chatter he'd normally be able to hear was gone.

"You're sure? Sorry, of course you are. Thank you, Feldspar, keep me informed of any developments." The Captain sounded tired, as well she might with the weight of all those passengers and crew on her withers.

Feldspar grimaced and turned back to the eyepiece. He'd had a little recognition training when he'd taken the job as lookout -- really he was there as a backup, made pretty much unnecessary by the modern electronics carried by all flying craft. When he'd seen this year's cruise routes he'd decided to spend a few extra hours brushing up on the various gryphon kingdom's military vehicles; obviously nopony thought there'd never been any trouble in this part of the world, but he'd discovered an interest in these ugly killing machines.

This was one of the troop carrier variants, more lightly armed than the assault models, but not by enough to make much difference. The thing fairly bristled with gun turrets; he could count eight little point defence gatlings and at least two bigger cannon, along with the normal array of missile launchers. They were nothing like the elegant Equestrian military aircraft, but they had a kind of brutal directness that he thought quite appropriate for the average gryphon's personality.

There was a thunderous double bang somewhere overhead, loud enough to make him jerk back in surprise. Sonic boom, he thought, twisting his head this way and that to scan the sky. There... two fast-moving dots at the head of contrails, curving around to intercept the Shredder. These were the ones he'd been expecting, although he'd definitely hoped for more than two. Gryphon Shredders were notoriously hard to stop, built with multiple redundancy and armour more suited to a land tank than an aircraft.

He watched for a few minutes more, then saw the troop door on the side of the Shredder open, a pair of figures in the gap. He frowned, fiddling with the focus to get the image into sharp relief. A gryphon and... a pony, yes definitely a pony. Looked like an earth pony, but the range was a little long to be sure. He tapped the intercom and reported his findings to the bridge.

The Shredder came closer, actually passing no more than half a kilometre over his head, giving him an excellent view of the missile launch bays -- now thankfully closed. That's a troop carrier, he thought uneasily, are they going to try to commandeer the Dreaming? It kind of made sense; with a hostage on board the fighters would be reluctant to open fire, and once the troops were among the passengers it would be well nigh impossible to get them out without terrible bloodshed. He reached for the intercom again, but caught a glimpse of white figures in gold armour standing inside the hangar. The Captain has done what she can, he thought, perhaps it will be enough. From what he'd heard from the crew rumour mill the Guards had been real terrors during the breakout from the Embassy.

Craning his head to keep the telescope on the Shredder in its awkward position, he almost missed the tumbling figure. One instant there had been two people in the opening, then only the gryphon. Gasping he tore his head away, seeing the flailing pony drop away from the Shredder. The sight was so unexpected that he froze for an instant, then his training took over and he stabbed a hoof through the glass cover to press the alert button beneath.

"Pony overboard, port side, four hundred metres!" he yelled into the intercom, the activated alarm automatically connecting him to the bridge and rescue stations.

The response was immediate. Somepony on the bridge had hit the all-wings signal and the fittest and best trained pegasus crewponies would be galloping for the nearest external hatch, followed closely by their non-flying colleagues who'd act to keep the braver passengers inside the Dreaming and out of the way. All along the sides of the airship little winged shapes appeared, folding themselves into streamlined arrows and diving after the falling pony.

===

"This is the Royal Equestrian Airforce Loup-Garou Red One to the unidentified Razorclaw Shredder. What are your intentions?"

"Ah! It speaks. I was beginning to think you were a drone. I am Flight Leader Reaper Of The Weak, of the Office of State Security. To whom am I speaking, please?"

The voice was smooth, almost oily. Echelon took an instant dislike to the speaker, rolling his eyes at the other's pompous manner. Still, if he wants to chat... "I am Pilot Echelon. What are your intentions towards the Canterlot Dreaming, Flight Leader Reaper?"

"I just want to drop off a little package."

I don't think so, the pegasus thought. "If you attempt to close with the airship we will fire upon you," he said.

"Like I need to get much closer," the gryphon said, amusement obvious even over the radio link.

Echelon ground his teeth, then killed his external feed to talk directly to his weapons officer. "What do you think, Willow? If he goes all-out, can we stop him?"

The mare made a strangled noise, then sighed. "If it's just the missiles, then I can probably field most of them with telekinesis, assuming they don't do anything fancy like shoot them off with odd firing solutions. The guns... well, the main railgun has enough range and I'd have to use a force bubble to block them, and you know what that would mean."

Echelon grimaced, then cursed under his breath. Can't fly in a force field, he thought. The instant the field came on he'd lose all manoeuvrability, the Loup-Garou's sleek aerodynamic shape covered by a sphere of impenetrable force. They wouldn't fall out of the sky, but they would slow to a stop very quickly and the Shredder could just move past them to get its shot. If he was the gunship's crew all he'd have to do was keep one of the gatlings on the fighter, make them keep the force field up just to stay alive. Force fields had their uses, but mostly as last ditch defences or for momentary parrying of an attack.

"Well, Pilot, I think you need a little confirmation of the package I intend to deliver. If you want to get a little closer I'll show you. Pull up along the port side and I'll open the hatch."

Echelon thought about that for a second then slumped slightly in his harness. It's not like getting closer will change things for the worse... might even get me inside the reaction time of their point defence rotary cannon, he thought. "Willow, get the missiles into dogfight mode, if he's telling the truth I want to be able to put a shot through the open hatch." Through the hatch and more importantly past the armour...

Echelon was close enough to read the maker's plate on the Shredder's engine pods when the big port side hatch slid open. Quite what he'd expected to see he wasn't sure, but it wasn't a lone gryphon holding on to a single pony. His wings twitched, sending a shiver through the airframe, then he turned his surprise into a wing-waggle to show the pony that he or she had been seen.

"Fine. Hold your position and we'll send some ponies over to collect your guest."

"So you can get some of those Royal Guards on to my flight deck? Exactly how stupid do you think I am? No, we'll drop her onto the airship's upper deck on a line."

Echelon watched the Shredder nervously, keeping pace with the bulky machine and maintaining his firing solution. Having the thing this close to the airship made him doubly worried, but in reality there was little extra risk. With no troops on board the gunship couldn't take over the Dreaming, and if they were at fifty or five thousand metres of range it wouldn't change anything if Reaper decided to open fire. I doubt that thing has that much airtime left, he thought, I know they don't use levitators so those engines must really drink fuel to keep it up. Whatever the gryphons were going to do it would be quick.

It was. The gunship came to a stop relative to the Dreaming and paused. Echelon studied the scene, wondering what was wrong with it. There's no winch gear at that hatchway, he thought suddenly, how in Luna's name do they intend to drop the mare off without a wire? At that point the gryphon picked up the pony and held her out of the hatch, paused for a second, then let go.

Echelon folded his wings and goosed the engines to full power, curving away from the airship and diving after the pony. "Willow, get ready to catch--"

"Hold on chief, I think we should let the Dreaming's rescue teams do their job," she said, as above them the airship started to shed winged shapes like a dog shaking water from its fur. "Also, the Shredder is on the move."

He cursed, realising she was right. They were high enough that a pony-powered capture was relatively easy and, while the Loup-Garou's kinetics could be used for this kind of operation, it would effectively prevent the fighter from engaging the gunship. He twisted his wings and sent them arcing around in a loop and pointing back at the Shredder.

"Control, Red One. Permission to engage," he snapped down the radio link.

"Negative, Red One. Repeat, do not engage. Maintain CAP around the Dreaming."

"Dammit, Control!"

"Stand down Red One, that is an order."

"Acknowledged," he said bitterly. Echelon fumed, but realised it was probably wise. As much as he wanted to lash out in revenge at that callous action, there was a real risk of damaging the Dreaming even if the Shredder didn't turn its guns on the airship deliberately. He reduced power to the engines and started to circle, watching the insectile gunship slowly shrink into the distance.

High overhead a string of sonic booms announced the arrival of the rest of Rainbow Squadron.

===

Panic overwhelmed Equilibrium. The rage she'd been feeling against a world that had left her trapped in this awful country was completely subsumed by the visceral panic of a land-bound creature plummeting through empty air. She'd stopped screaming, having run out of air, and now stared in horror at the sight of the landscape coming up to meet her.

Below her was one of those fluffy, almost solid looking clouds beloved of pegasi. She'd visited Cloudsdale during one holiday, sightseeing around the ancient but ever-changing cloud city with its towering construction so different from that made by land-bound ponies. There she'd been using one of the certified cloudwalking enchantments -- the surface always reminded her of a giant bed -- but even then you had to step a little carefully. Clouds were fragile things, even when augmented by magic. Jump up and down on the same spot for too long and you'd find yourself falling through, magic or no magic.

She reached for that half-remembered spell, holding the arcane pattern in her head before trying to imbue it with power. If this worked she’d need that fragile cloud nature; a sudden stop would kill her just as surely as if she hit the ground. The gap where her magic was yawned at her, the smooth sense of waiting energy replaced by jagged little barbs of sensation, like the dregs of a badly blended wheatgrass smoothie. She reached for them anyway, trying to modify the pattern on the fly to fit what she was able to fill it with.

The mental exercise took her mind away from the fall, so much so that she forgot the biting cold wind until she was suddenly surrounded by fog, rain drops pummelling her fur as she fell through the turbulence. Too late, she thought, letting go of what little arcane force she'd been able to gather. With the rage and spite that had filled every part of her being neutralised first by terror and then by a sudden ice-cold soaking, Equilibrium could think clearly again. Relaxing as best she could she closed her eyes and directed her thoughts inwards, reaching out to the foal that nestled, now doomed to never be born, in her belly. I'm sorry, Junior, she thought, I tried.

Tender thoughts of her foal let her mind drift back to thoughts of her mate. You'll never know what happened to me, she thought, picturing Neighmann in her mind, I'm so sorry to have to leave y--. Seeing his orange fur suddenly brought back other memories that had been carefully hidden in seldom used parts of the Libi's brain; little flashes of orange and chestnut moving in synchronisation in a darkened room, terrible images playing in the depths of hypnotic eyes.

The rage flooded back in and the evil memories locked themselves away into their little nest of neurons, sealing themselves off and disappearing so completely that she wasn't even aware they were there. Libi screamed again, but this time full of the foulest language she could manage, cursing Neighmann, the Princesses and every single gryphon on this side of the planet. She was still cursing when two pairs of hooves wrapped themselves under her belly and a warm body pressed against the length of her back.

"Got you!" a voice screamed in her ear. "Brace yourself!"

The breath whoofed out of her lungs as the pegasus opened his wings and started to curve their ferocious vertical velocity back towards the horizontal. She started cursing again -- this time at her rescuer -- when he let go with one hoof, but stopped when he clipped a thick webbing belt under her forelegs. A little more gymnastics and there was a mesh of plastic straps tying them together, at which point the other pony let go of her entirely. By now the plummet had turned into a steep glide, then with wings whirring they actually started to gain altitude.

"There, only a matter of minutes until we get you safe onboard the Dreaming. I'm Cloud Runner, sorry we couldn't meet under better circumstances," he said, voice showing a little strain from the effort of carrying her weight.

"Libi," she replied shortly. "You took your time catching me."

"Sorry, we had to wait until you were clear of the cloud layer before we could reach you," he said, sounding hurt and confused.

" 'Sorry' won't save me from the nightmares; I'll be talking about this with my lawyer."

"What!"

"I'm sure we can come to an agreement -- and if you pay the claim without contesting it I won't need to file the sexual harassment charge," Libi said smugly.

"Excuse me, princess, what in Tartarus are you talking about?"

"Don't think I can't feel that you are enjoying this... intimate contact." Nothing was further from the truth, of course, but the mare was sure she could describe the flex and shift of the other pony's well muscled frame against her back in enough detail to convince a jury. Such things were very rare among ponies; the scandal alone would be a wonderful threat -- and who would disbelieve a mare of high standing like herself?

"Listen you stupid mare, I can drop you off right here if you don't like the transport arrangements--" he yelled back at her, furious.

"You heard that, didn't you? He threatened me!" Libi said, turning her head to the other pegasus that was silently shadowing them.

Cloud Runner glanced over his shoulder, a look of panic replacing his anger. "She's mad, been accusing me of harassment, for Luna's sake!"

The other pegasus looked back sternly. "We'll sort all this out back at the Dreaming. For now I suggest you keep your mouth shut and fly. That goes for you too, earth pony."

"Who are you calling a 'mud pony', you feather-brain," Libi snarled at the other flyer.

The argument continued all the way back to the Canterlot Dreaming.

11 -- Plague ship

The bar was a lie.

A curving space that occupied one of the chambers at the nose of the Canterlot Dreaming, it was plushly furnished with dark mahogany panels and brass pipe work, with the actual serving counter facing the panoramic windows that occupied the forward wall. Through those windows was a breathtaking view of the Dragonbacks, a range of jagged mountains that, from the airship's altitude, seemed to rise and fold like rumpled fabric. In the distance was the open ocean, highlighted by a glimmer of light from the low sun at this latitude, and a final end to Razorclaw territory.

Equilibrium sniffed disdainfully and turned her back on the view, returning her gaze to the drink the barpony had put in front of her. Like everything else, the drink was a lie. The heavy-looking wood and metal of the bar was nothing more than a thin veneer over high-performance construction plastics or foamed aluminium structures; it looked pretty, but there was nothing actually there. Libi glowered at the drink; the same could be said of its alcohol content.

"What is this?" she asked with quiet menace, transferring her hostile stare to the barpony.

He trotted over, the kit of measures and basic ingredients jingling gently in the harness over his withers. A towel in the Dreaming's green and blue colours hung over his neck, clashing horribly with his burnt orange coat and red mane. "Ma'am? Is there a problem?"

"I asked, 'what is this,' you stupid earthpony. This is not what I ordered."

The stallion flinched at the anger. "There's no call for that, ma'am. My apologies, but I'm not allowed to serve you any alcohol because of your condition. The doctor was very specific." He waved a hoof to encompass her swollen flanks.

Libi hissed in displeasure. Everything always comes back to you, doesn't it Junior? she thought, turning her attention inwards. Damn you, Neighmann, even now you are ruining my life -- and damn you, Doctor whatever-your-name-was. I bet you did this just to spite me.

The unicorn medic had examined her as soon as she'd been dropped off by that pervert of a crewpony, an examination that had been excessively invasive and overly rough, especially towards the end. Her neck still ached from the clumsy oaf's attempt to get a blood sample, and she'd managed to get in some cutting remarks that had almost made the unicorn stallion lose his temper, especially after she'd threatened him with misconduct. Libi ground her teeth. Petty and unprofessional. Another name to add to my list when I call my lawyer. The unicorn had ignored her after that, rushing off to treat the rest of the injured from the embassy break-out. Hearing that many of the ponies had escaped did little to improve Libi's mood, and only served to deepen her anger at Reaper Of The Weak.

"I can get you anything you like, but nothing alcoholic. I'm sorry, ma'am."

"Then there's nothing I want from you," Libi said, watching as the barpony turned and trotted away. "Useless mudpony," she muttered, just loud enough that he could hear. His ears twitched, but he didn't turn around. She smiled slightly, then took a sip of the drink -- something fruity and tropical -- before grimacing again. Don't these idiot ponies know I just want to forget what they did to me?

Her gaze drifted around the room; it was moderately busy, with perhaps a score of ponies talking in small groups. Nopony was standing near Libi. She occupied a zone of cleared floor; anypony approaching the bar seemed to unconsciously walk in curved lines, like they were following contours on a hillside. Off to one side, at the corner of the big window, was a family of gryphons. Two adults and a-- What do you call a child gryphon? Chick? Cub? Or is it just 'monster'? --sat staring out at the mountains, occasionally moving to follow the track of the gull-winged aircraft that was circling the Dreaming.

"Why are those still here?" she said, loud enough that the nearest sets of ears swivelled in her direction.

"Excuse me?" the next pony along the bar said, turning away from his companion.

Libi took a couple of paces towards them, a mare and stallion pair of pegasi in late middle age. "Them. The gryphons."

Both ponies twitched at the venom in her voice and the stallion looked uncomfortable, like he wanted to sidle away. His mate looked puzzled and leaned closer to Libi, her eyes narrowing in confusion at the odd lump on her forehead. Libi smiled slightly and flicked her head to swish her mane to one side, revealing the stump of her horn.

Both ponies gasped. "Oh! You’re her, the one who was dropped off that gryphon aircraft this morning," the mare said, lifting one hoof to touch Libi lightly on the shoulder. "I'm so sorry to hear what happened, it must have been terrible. What... what has been happening down there? If you don't mind talking about it, that is."

Libi sniffed. "Monsters, they're all monsters. I didn't see any other unicorns, but there are still pegasi in the prison I came from. At least a dozen, all packed into one cell deep in the mountain." Other ponies had started to drift closer, the lure of her story overwhelming their unconscious desire to stay away. Even the gryphon family looked interested, although increasingly uncomfortable, as Libi raised her voice and started to tell her tale to the whole bar.

"...and that's when they caught me. The farmers must have called their police as soon as I left; it was the only way they could have found me so quickly. They-- they held me down and used a hacksaw--" Libi broke off, breathing fast. The memory was crystal clear; the feeling of the cold pebbles against her head, the pressure of the gryphon's talons, the grating rasp of the saw as it bit into her horn. For just a moment the anger was overwhelmed by horror.

"It's okay, you don't have to continue," one of her audience said, casting a dark glance at the gryphons. A muttering went through the crowd -- now swollen by other passengers from elsewhere on the airship as news of Libi's story-telling had spread -- and many of the ponies turned to stare at the family. They both took a nervous step back, wings spreading to shelter their chick.

The hate returned and, keeping her eyes fixed on the female gryphon, she reached forward, tapping the closest pegasus on the wing. "Every single pegasus was clipped... like they cut off my horn, to stop them flying away. They did the same to their own prisoners as well." Her hoof moved, making a cutting gesture up by the outermost wing joint.

The pegasus flinched, his ears folding back. "You mean they clipped their feathers?"

Libi tapped again on his wing joint. "No, the wing."

"Pinioned," he whispered, half dazed. "That's barbaric." He shook his head and took a step towards the gryphons. "Is this true, do you do this to your prisoners?" he demanded, wings making little flicking motions.

"It's reserved for a capital crimes, it's very rare..." the male said, his Equuish rich with the tones of a person who'd spent a lot of time in Canterlot. His gaze darted about the group, and he took another step backwards. The pegasus took a step forwards, and the rest of the crowd followed him. The gryphon trailed off at the hostile stares from the ponies, who now filled the bar almost to bursting point.

"Listen, we're not even from Razorclaw, in Goldenwing that punishment hasn't been given for over ten years--" He stopped talking at a frantic nudge from his mate, and both cast glances at the door. There was no easy exit in that direction; the crowd had pushed them to the other side of the room and the ceiling was too low to fly out without being grabbed.

The whole crowd had turned in their direction and both adult gryphons took one final step backwards, their rumps brushing the curved window. They exchanged a fearful glance, then the female put one wing out and folded it around her chick. The little gryphon looked out of the shield of feathers with big, frightened eyes. "Please, we want no trouble," she said, the normal raspy gryphon tones soft and trembling. "You're scaring my child. Let us leave if our presence is making things difficult."

"So it is true," the pegasus snarled, "a people who could do that are little more than animals!" He raised a hoof and jabbed the male sharply on the shoulder. The gryphon staggered, bringing up one clawed front leg to ward off another blow. Its fifteen centimetre black talons gleamed wetly in the bar's spotlighting; both adults were larger than the average pony, but were cowering in the face of the crowd's hostility.

The pegasus went to push again, dancing back when the gryphoness snapped her beak and hissed loudly. The volume of muttering in the crowd became louder and they shuffled their hooves, nopony wanting to be the first to make a move. For a moment it seemed like the situation would resolve itself, then a bottle sailed out of the crowd and struck the gryphoness on the side of the head. The glass shattered and she staggered, her mate turning to aid her.

That was all the crowd needed, and the front ranks surged forwards. Libi smiled nastily from her position back at the bar; she could see little except when a pony reared to kick out with forehooves, but hoarse gryphon cries and the thump on hoof on flesh was clearly audible.

A shrill whistle cut the air and a dozen pegasi wearing the ID collars of the Dreaming's security staff ploughed through the crowd at head height, dropping straight down into the centre of the fight with all four hooves. The struggle spread, the angry passengers turning on the security staff when they protected the gryphons.

A trio of unicorns appeared at the door, horns flashing as they quickly pulled passengers from the perimeter of the crowd and passed them onto the waiting earth pony staff who ushered the peaceful ones away while restraining those still keen on causing trouble. In the face of such organised resistance the fight drained out of them, the crowd dispersing to leave the bar to the security teams and medics.

With one last glance over her shoulder, Libi saw the pair of adult gryphons, huddled over their chick in the centre of a circle of bloody, trampled feathers.

===

Trailblazer lay bonelessly on the padded surface of the Canterlot Dreaming's sundeck. He was in 'civvies', the natural grass-green coat his parents knew him by, and otherwise only recognizable as military by his well-developed physique. To any but a keen observer, he was just another passenger snoozing in the sun. This particular spot, a platform jutting out of the rear of the airship, was protected from the wind by the bulk of the envelope, and sat in a bubble of warm, still air.

The Dreaming had left the coast of Razorclaw behind some hours ago and all three of the FOAL team had been taking advantage of the luxury accommodation the grateful crew had provided. Nothing had been more satisfying than watching the ominous bulk of the Shredder retreat as a flight of Equestrian Loup-Garou had encircled the airship.

That, and being able to wash the drying gryphon blood out of his fur in the best shower he'd had since leaving Canterlot city. A Guard pegasus could take his armour off and lose the white coat and blue eyes the enchantment provided, but the blood always stayed behind.

Stealthy hoof-falls were approaching from somewhere behind his tail; with the practice of one used to subterfuge, Trailblazer suppressed the natural motion of his ears and stayed still, as still as a foal asleep in the sun. He focused on the cadence of each quiet sound, trying to pick up any scent in the calm air of the sundeck. The pony had training, that was clear, and there was the near ultrasonic rushing sound of low-noise shoes brushing on the flexible deck surface. A slight hint of smoke...

"What do you want, Blevie?" he asked, then opened his eyes a crack.

The mare dropped to her belly next to him and rolled onto her back, waving her legs in the air like a large dog begging for a belly rub. "Spoil-sport," she groused, "I never can creep up on you."

"Nope. Where have you been? I thought you'd want to do a little sight-seeing yourself."

The pegasus opened both eyes and tilted his head to regard the dark blue earth pony. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed somepony had placed a large pitcher of something colourful and fruit-laden just within reach, and he blinked. What the hay? I didn't hear that arrive. Perhaps I am getting a little old for this -- snoozing in the sun like some civilian! This thought did more to bring him to full wakefulness than any teasing from his explosives expert. He reached out and dragged the drink closer, dipping his muzzle in the liquid and fishing out one of the juice-soaked apple slices. Flavoured with exotic plants from the tropics, it was heavenly. Perhaps there is something to this life, after all.

"Helping out the Dreaming's security staff. You heard there was a bit of trouble?"

Trailblazer's eyes snapped open and gave Blevie his full attention. "Report," he barked.

"A group in one of the bars became violent after a story session from that mare the gryphons dropped off. They turned on a family of gryphons that just happened to be in the way. Broken bones mostly, but there's a risk the female might lose an eye. Glass splinter." Blevie mimed something breaking against the side of her head. "Hopefully they can fix it when we get to a real hospital."

Trainblazer winced; any gryphon on a primarily pony airship like the Dreaming had to be extremely cosmopolitan. They would be far enough removed from the attitudes of their countryfolk that the sort of xenophobic responses of Razorclaw's population would seem as alien to them as it did to the average pony. "Any idea what set it off?"

Blevie hesitated, then rolled back to her belly and stared him right in the eye. "I don't know, boss. I've never seen a crowd turn so fast. It would have been different if the gryphons had been threatening, but by all accounts this group just wanted to stay out of the way." She bit at her lips, obviously trying to decide what to say next. "Boss, do you feel something odd about this ship?"

Trailblazer went to shake his head, but paused. Is there something? This was the first time he'd been in a potentially high-risk situation where he hadn't needed to be a Guard, and it wasn't obvious how large groups of threatened civilians would act when confined to this relatively small space. "There's certainly a lot of stress; everypony knows that if Razorclaw wanted to down the Dreaming, the fighters might not be able to stop them," he said neutrally, still trying to pin down the elusive feeling. It's not the only thing that's strange, is it?

How much of this can we put down to the chaos of a coup? he thought. Too many strange things that didn't quite make sense. Why didn't they object to the Express and her fighters? I suppose their command and control could be that distracted... and why bother returning one pony, and why in such a state? Was it a message, to make up for their inattention -- 'we can be ruthless, don't interfere'? He frowned, muzzle wrinkling. Everyone knew what the Princesses were capable of -- they had demonstrated that during the last Changling war. There was the feeling of something, a tantalising hint of revelation, just out of reach.

Blevie, silent for a long while, made a noncommittal sound, then sighed noisily. "I dunno. When I was down on the lower decks... there's something... I just get this feeling that something is off." She dropped her head to the deck with a thump and growled with frustration. "I don't know, maybe you're right and it's just the tension. Equestria has been at peace for a very long time... the sudden danger and the inability to run away, no way to follow your instincts..." She eyed Trailblazer's fruit salad of a cocktail and he sighed, pushing it in her direction. Fishing out a mouthful of fruit, she chewed reflectively, eyes half closing in bliss while Trailblazer waited for her to finish her thought.

"I don't like being here, boss. I was in with the passengers when the Shredder was overhead. You could hear the drone of its jets everywhere you went, and anypony who knew anything about the military hardware was just waiting for the crack of a railgun. Ponies were getting ready to jump ship; some crew were prepping the chariots and emergency gear, others were passing out carry-harnesses and pairing up pegasi with the flightless. There was panic, but we were working together, you know? We were doing what we do best; with a strong leader everypony falls in and follows the herd."

Trailblazer nodded slowly. He'd been up on the hull with the rest of the Guard pegasi, ready to do what he could if the gryphons had tried to board the Dreaming. He hadn't really believed the aircraft would open fire, but it had been a tense few minutes watching the stand-off between the Loup-Garou and the Shredder. Blevie had been in with the rest of the passengers, helping to organize the evacuation and ready to hide herself in the hull if they'd been overrun.

"So something's changed since then?" he said.

"Yes. I can't put my hoof on it, but... yes. There's anger and fear -- exactly what you'd expect, but it's magnified." Blevie made a reaching gesture out into the cloud-spotted sky, then sighed. "I don't know, maybe it is just me. Nopony likes to be in a situation they can’t control." She bounced back to her hooves, all traces of uncertainty gone, and nudged him sharply in the ribs. "Transport is on the way. We're supposed to go over to the Friendship Express, just in case the Triumvirate decides they want to get a little more 'hooves on' with the gryphons. I've got your kit already packed and in the hangar."

"What would I do without you, Blevie?"

"Still be snoozing in the sun, dead to the world, I've no doubt. You've got a few minutes, so finish your drink. I made it for you specially." Her smile widened at Trailblazer's look of dawning understanding, and she winked before turning and sauntering away.

Trailblazer watched her go, his relaxed mood shattered. He pulled a slice of something tropical out of the drink, suddenly feeling old. She got me, she finally got me... how long has she been playing with me like this? Their game of cat and mouse had spanned most of the few years he'd known the mare. Despite the mild embarrassment, Trailblazer smiled. It's always good to know you work with the best... and she really can do wonders in the kitchen.

His ears twitched at the distant hum of a new set of engines, but he ignored it. Plenty of time yet, he thought, dipping his muzzle back into the drink.

===

Back in armour -- it was always easier to wear the stuff rather than carry it -- Trailblazer stood on the windswept hangar deck with the rest of his team. All but a pair of the Loup-Garou fighters had departed; the remaining two were distant specks several kilometres overhead, circling and ready to pounce like a gryphon on a rabbit. It wasn't enough to stop a concerted attack, but that wasn't the point. The fighters, like the Shredder, were there to deliver a message. We are watching you. Quite whether Razorclaw had enough of a coherent government to take the hint wasn't completely clear.

Their transport plane, a squat thing with broad wings that seemed too small, approached with the characteristic near silence of a levitation drive aircraft; with no need for aerodynamic lift at these slow speeds the engines were only just above idle. It was far too heavy to land on the delicate upper deck of the Dreaming, so the pilot kept it floating a hoof-span above the chariot landing strip, little twitches of the flexible wings counteracting the turbulence behind the deck's observation dome.

A still fragile-looking Nightstorm slid the hatch open, using her hoof rather than magic, then carefully stepped inside, followed by Blevie and then Trailblazer. He nodded to the crew chief -- the earth pony, still tethered to a rail that ran along the centreline of the cargo bay, was instructing the Dreaming's crew on which of the supply crates they should take to avoid upsetting the craft's balance. Finally his task was complete and he trotted over to check the FOAL's harnesses were correctly secured.

"Welcome aboard, Captain," he said, tapping his forehooves together in salute, which Trailblazer returned with a nod.

"Don't worry about the formalities, Chief. I'm just glad you ponies were in the area. What are you offloading?"

"Medical, mostly. The Dreaming's got a well trained crew, but they're not equipped for these numbers of injuries. The desperate cases have already been airlifted back home, but we don’t have enough planes to evacuate the rest. Leaving them onboard looks to be the best compromise for everypony."

Trailblazer nodded again and the crewpony retreated back to the flight deck, leaving the FOALs in peace. He pulled off his helmet, stowing it behind the elastic mesh panels that lined the cargo bay. The rest of the chamber was empty, a cavernous space studded with equipment tie-down points and roofed with storage lockers. The three FOALs were lying along one wall, attached to the aircraft floor by wide, padded straps.

Leaning forward against his restraints, Trailblazer studied Nightstorm. His mage always over-exerted herself on these kinds of missions, but it normally didn't take more than a day or two for the mare to be back in fighting shape. He wasn't sure if it was the gentle swaying of the aircraft as it powered away from the Dreaming, but she looked distinctly ill.

"How are you feeling, Night?"

Nightstorm swallowed heavily and opened her eyes. "Pretty good, all things considered. It only hurts when I move. Don't worry, I'll be fine tomorrow." Her eyes glazed over and her breathing accelerated and became shallow. "Oh crap; get these straps off of me!" Her head came around and she tried to open the quick release with her teeth, but panic made her clumsy. With the expertise borne of long practice, Trailblazer knocked her muzzle out of the way, stabbing the trigger with a hoof.

The harness popped loose, retracting into the wall, and the mare sprang to her hooves, throat already working. At a near gallop, she charged across the aircraft, almost diving into the afterthought of a toilet stall the sometime troop carrier was equipped with. Trailblazer's ears flattened in sympathy as she was noisily sick, glancing sideways at the sleeping form of Blevie. Not a twitch, he thought, how did one so young get a soldier's reflexes so quickly?

Releasing his own straps -- the things were supposed to be worn at all times on a military craft, but were hardly necessary right now, especially for a pegasus -- he walked slowly over to the stall, waiting for Night to finish. "Better?" he asked when she backed clumsily out of the stall. She didn't look better; with fur matted with sweat and ears drooping, Night looked like she was in the throes of a particularly unpleasant tropical disease. Trailblazer kept his voice neutral; if there was one thing that Night hated, it was pity.

"Top of the world," she said hollowly, refusing to look him in the eye as she slowly walked past.

Like Tartarus you are, he thought. "Right. Wait here."

"I don't want any special treatment--" Night said hotly, a trace of fire in her voice, breaking off with a queasy sounding moan.

"You aren't going to get any. Stay there, that's an order." Trailblazer stamped off towards the flight deck, his voice fading from a sergeant's bark to an irritated grumble. "Stupid, stubborn Celestia-damned idiot unicorn." He nosed open the forward hatch, looking into the compact space beyond.

Like just about any vehicle that used aerodynamics rather than a pure vectored thrust/levitator design, the cargo transport was best flown by a pegasus -- there were controls suited for the other clades, but even a unicorn would have trouble without lots of practice. You just couldn't beat a pilot who was born with wings. The pegasus in question was strapped into the control bay, wings outstretched and locked into the flight systems armature that linked directly to the aircraft's own wings. To Trailblazer's untrained eye it looked a bit like something you might find in a hospital... or a dungeon.

The pilot, a lilac mare with tightly braided copper-coloured mane and tail, lifted her head and raised an ear at Trailblazer's intrusion into her domain. "Problem? I thought you ponies would be using the time to catch up on your sleep, after all you've been through..." He muzzle twisted into a grin and she bit her lips, as if she was trying to hold something in.

Here it comes, Trailblazer thought, I wonder which one this time...?

"...after all, I always thought foals needed a lot of sleep!" The pilot delivered the line like a comedian to a packed theatre.

...and there it is. Trailblazer rolled his eyes. "We do, and if we don't get it, we get very cranky. Listen, I've got a sick pony back here and the lack of windows isn't doing her any good. Mind if I crack open the side door of this mareplane?"

The pilot grinned, then winced. "One of my colts was like that; I wouldn't have thought it possible, but he suffers from airsickness. The time it took me to get the mess out of my feathers, you-- ah, sorry. Yes, go ahead, so long as you are all strapped in. Want me to wake the crew chief?" She nodded at the earth pony, currently asleep in the unused co-pilot's bay.

"No, I'll be fine. Thanks."

"No problem, Captain. Use the port side -- ETA to the Express is about thirty minutes. You might want to take a window seat yourself; it's going to be quite a sight."

"Will do." Trailblazer backed out of the flight deck and returned to Night, who was standing there on slightly splayed hooves. The mare had a fixed expression on her face, the look of a pony concentrating on something as hard as possible. He pulled out a pair of the mobile crew harnesses, locking one around Night and the other around himself, then attached both to the rail system running along the roof. A nudge had Night seated by the port door, which Trailblazer quickly wound open a few metres.

Brilliant sunshine and a flood of chilly air rushed into the compartment, ruffling the ponies manes and tails and driving away any thoughts of sleep. The view was breathtaking and, even though he'd spent a good part of his life in the clouds, Trailblazer never got tired of it.

Out in the blue depths were ramparts of clouds, the kind any right-thinking pegasus would love to gallop and fly over, great masses of cottony soft, ever-changing landscape that was denied to all the other clades. Even a unicorn cloud-walking spell didn't do it justice; those poor ponies were forever trapped on what they could reach by hoof, machine or spell.

Over the roar of the slipstream he heard Nightstorm sigh and take deep breaths. She had her eyes slitted against the wind, but Trailblazer could already see that she looked better, and certainly less likely to throw up without warning.

"Thank you," Night mouthed, completely inaudible over the rushing roar.

Trailblazer nodded, then twitched an ear in greeting to Blevie, who had moved from her original position and had sprawled on his other side. Together, the three ponies looked out onto the cloudscape as the transport flew on.

12 -- Monster Room

The Friendship Express was a dark rice grain at the edge of a supercell thunderstorm. Thick, cottony grey clouds were spreading out from the storm with abnormal speed, and the temperature inside the transport dipped sharply as the sunlight dimmed and vanished. Lightning flashed almost continuously from the anvil head to the lower layers of the cloud; even more strikes were taking place between the black, angry base and the rough ocean below.

As Trailblazer watched, a particularly intense series of strikes converged on a single spot on the water, then the electricity shifted to another spot for a few moments, before returning to its first target. He'd read about such things and seen the test footage from the trials of one of the Express' sister ships, the Diplomacy in Action, but this was the first time he'd experienced it, and it made a tingle run down his spine. Blevie had fallen asleep again, her head against his withers, so he turned to glance at Night.

The mare was looking much better, and she was watching the view with a critical eye, her horn glowing slightly as she sampled the local magical conditions. "Should you be doing that?" Trailblazer asked, placing his muzzle next to her ear to avoid the need to shout.

"It still hurts, but a little bit of light exercise does wonders. Just a few arcane stretches to work out the kinks." She nodded at the still tiny aircarrier. "Not that I need to do much with the amount of juice that thing is putting out."

Trailblazer found himself nodding in return. Like all pegasi, he had no real way to feel magic directly, but something about the clouds felt different. "At least they left the door open for us." Normally the aircarrier would have cloaked itself completely in cloud, but that added more excitement than was strictly necessary for what was only a test. You had to treat a powerful storm with respect; even with modern thaumic systems it wasn't always possible to prevent a microburst or errant lightning bolt from striking where you didn't want it. The Express had built itself a monster, but the crew knew not to rattle its cage too carelessly.

The view outside the door started to move as they came on final approach, gracing the ponies with a final glimpse of the edge of the storm cell, a bulging mass of cloud that looked more like hammered iron than something made from water droplets, glowing and flickering with internal discharges and curtained with torrential rain. In moments the scene was gone, replaced by the complex shapes of the aircarrier's portside fan cluster as the transport neatly slotted in through the rear door of the number one hangar.

Another moment and their aircraft had come to a rest, slotted into the powered transport tracks that snaked over the floor of the hangar deck. After a nod from the crew chief, the three FOALS jumped out of the open hatch and trotted away from the hazard zone and into the relative safety of the walkways next to the port wall. Their aircraft was pulled away with an electrical hum, leaving room for the pair of fighters that had been their unseen escort.

The Express and the Diplomacy were built to the same plan: a basic tapered cylinder with hangars in the lower spaces. Number one hangar extended the length of the Express and was open at both ends to allow aircraft to land and launch at the same time. Numbers two and three occupied the midsection of the cylinder, like panniers on a pony, holding the Loup-Garou multi-role fighters on their thaumokinetic launch rails. With the new powered taxi systems attached to each aircraft, there were no delays waiting for each fighter to be placed on the launcher, instead the airboss could get all forty-eight airborne in less than a hundred seconds.

Waiting for their escort, Trailblazer looked on appreciatively as the first Loup-Garou flew neatly through the opening, its wings half furled and in constant motion as the pilot made the tricky transition from fast free air to the slow 'bubble' that filled the hangar. During combat operations number one hangar would be kept clear of all but the minimum number of workponies; with the aircarrier at full speed the inside of the hangar was a literal wind tunnel, the walls slick and featureless apart from the track system, and designed to produce smooth flow throughout the volume. Ironically, this made it far easier to land when the Express was living up to her name.

Trailblazer watched as the fighter was pulled through the big doors about halfway down the deck, ready for loading back on the launch track in hangar two, when there was a polite cough level with his hindquarters. Starting, he wheeled sharply, coming muzzle to muzzle with a slightly embarrassed crewpony.

"Apologies, Captain. I didn't mean to startle you," the earth pony, a piebald stallion of late-middle years, said with a slight smile. "It's quite a view, isn't it? Fairbairn Sykes, FOAL liaison. The internal notification system is down, otherwise I'd have been here to greet you."

"Quite alright, sir," Trailblazer said, with a tap of his hooves that the other swiftly returned. "It's been a few years since I've been on a ship of the line. The Express was still under construction when we were sent to Razorclaw." He knew this stallion; every FOAL knew Fairbairn Sykes. Four decades ago, his team had been the ones to discover that the Changelings, under the latest incarnation of their Queen, had been breeding at far over their treaty-sanctioned rates, amassing an army that would have been horribly difficult to root out if it had gotten into the general population.

...and that had been exactly what had happened. The Queen had chosen, not Equestria, but the Crystal Empire, as her first target. By the time anypony had found out what was going on, a significant proportion of the ponies had been duplicated, their bodies spirited away and replaced by Changeling drones.

The story of Fairbairn Sykes' escape with the vital information was the stuff of legend, and was still required reading at the Academy. This was just the worst in a series of attacks and treaty violations spanning centuries; only on this occasion there was no time to gather the usual multispecies coalition of conventional forces to respond. The end result was what everypony had known was coming, sooner or later. As was their right, Celestia and Luna acted to remove the threat; by the time the day was over the Changeling lands were dotted with impact craters and lakes of glass that took months to fully cool, and the Empire was no more.

Cadance had fallen with her people, one of the first targets of the Queen's improved tactics, the memory of her and the Empire the subject of memorials dotted about Equestria.

The sunsets had been fantastic from all the dust injected into the upper atmosphere, but the main fallout had been political. Despite that the Changeling threat was well known and had been dealt with many times before, there was nothing quite like having really visible evidence that your nearest neighbours were best friends with beings able to cause that much devastation on a whim. Populations soon forgot the original threat, remembering only what was done to defeat it.

Whispered conversations in every forest, field, city and aerie held the same refrain: If they would do that to their own kind, what's to stop them doing it to us? The world was now a more dangerous place, as every polity quietly tried to build something it could use as a deterrent.

Sykes frowned. "Nasty business, in Razorclaw. Come on, we'll get your team settled, although Intel wants to debrief you as quickly as possible." The stallion opened a small hatch and started walking down the corridor. "Any idea what set it all off?"

"It was very strange, sir. Generally we got on quite well with the locals, although there was always a few groups who didn't like us... then one morning the whole place went mad."

"Still, excellent job you all did, getting that many civilians out. Impressive, no question." Sykes swept his gaze over the three FOALs, nodding sharply.

Trailblazer felt a quiet glow of pride, but was careful not to let more than a polite smile actually reach his face. "Thank you, sir. That's appreciated, but a lot of credit should go to the Dreaming's security detail. This is our job, but they never signed on for a combat mission. I plan to put their names forward for honours."

"Quite so." Sykes nodded again, then gestured at the hatch they were just approaching. "This is your stop, Captain. The reward for a job well done, and all that."

Trailblazer sighed, pushing open the hatch. Inside was a compact meeting room, with a half dozen ponies working around a central map table, making adjustments to a little holographic model of Razorclaw city. His heart sank and he fought to keep a grimace off his face. Let me go hoof to paw with a manticore, he thought, I guess this is the price I pay for that afternoon in the sun. He turned and nodded to Sykes and the rest of his team, who were busy trying to keep smiles off their muzzles. You'll get yours, soon enough.

Keeping his ears erect and a spring in his step, Trailblazer walked into the room, the hatch closing behind him with a solid-sounding clunk.

Celestia save me.

===

Since Libi had been swallowed by the maelstrom that had overtaken Razorclaw, Neighmann had taken to living out of his office. He plodded the few hundred metres to the main facility, mind full of a yawning emptiness. The sun was up, but seemed to hold no warmth, despite it being the middle of summer. Neighmann knew that the cold was in his bones. No amount of heat seemed able to thaw that core of ice that had developed in his belly after he'd spoken to Libi's manager, Cinnamon.

Nodding mechanically to the Guard -- the Princesses had decided that, as this was their own pet project, they could have their own ponies on site -- Neighmann went through the side door and into the main facility.

Not many ponies were up at this hour, and this was the way Neighmann normally liked to start the day. As he had grown older, he'd become more and more of a morning pony; it wasn't uncommon for him to rise before Celestia. This time he hadn’t slept at all, his mind continually sifting through the meagre information available, searching for some overlooked fact or inference that would give him a sign that Libi was still alive. When the sun rose he was still wide awake and desperate for something to distract himself from the waking nightmare.

Trotting through the security barriers, the powered doors opening at the delicate touch of his magic, he bypassed his workstation completely and went into the Monster Room. That wasn't its real name -- officially it was 'containment bay one' -- but everypony called it the Monster Room. A shallow amphitheatre, with concentric circles of instrumentation surrounding a central dais, it was a more finished version of the setup they'd built in the statue garden of the Royal Palace.

The outer row of workstations sat behind panels of what looked like slightly tinted thick glass, although they were actually single crystals of artificial sapphire, the aluminium oxide doped with very specific lanthanides and holding a series of complex enchantments. They had been horrifically expensive to make and required hundreds of unicorn-hours each to enchant, but the result was a barrier that could stop a hit from a tank railgun and at least slow down some of the more vile magics that the Chaos Group's research mages had devised.

I wonder if it will make any difference at all? Neighmann thought, not really caring one way or the other. The only really worthwhile test was the one nopony wanted to make. The Princesses had given their approval for the effort, but when he'd asked Luna after the opening ceremony, she'd just shrugged.

Inside that were arrays of delicate and sensitive electronic instruments: high definition multispectral cameras, interferometers to monitor the slightest movement or change in shape, and things to detect gravity waves, radiation, change in the charge on the electron or the value of pi. Interspersed with the mundane equipment was the arcane: carefully shaped arrangements of gems and crystals containing a multitude of spellcraft systems, things designed to detect the slightest and most subtle of enchantments. They'd practically taken over the Fancypant's Canterlot R&D facility to make that order.

All of this information was collected and fed back to the computer farm that sat several kilometres away in its own shielded bunker, but the most important part of the Monster Room sat in the open space surrounding the dais. The metal boxes he'd seen before were now part of the floor, sunk deep into the concrete so that all could be seen of each was a brushed steel square, about a metre on a side. Not quite featureless; whoever had made the things had carved a subtle but historically significant pattern into each: butterflies, gems, an apple, and so on.

Neighmann walked slowly down the ramp that cut its way through the equipment, ignoring everything except for the thing that was at the centre of it all. Discord, the original monster, the worm in the apple of Equestria. The 'statue' towered over him, a strange mishmash of parts taken from all over the animal kingdom. The first thing they'd done was remove the thin layer of concrete, giving the instruments a direct view of the figure. Without that artificial skin, the odd temporal effects had become apparent -- if you waved a hoof over him, the movement of your shadow was curiously delayed, the light taking far too long to travel the tiny distance through the thickness of the spell's effect.

Coarse brown fur, big yellow eyes and wings of contrasting colour and shape; Discord made the eye twitch with the effort of trying to impose logic to his form. He looked like a clown, or the product of a taxidermist’s LSD fueled binge… but only until you knew what he had done. "Why did I make you go, Libi?" Neighmann said, dropping to his belly on the cold floor and staring up at that distorted head with its uneven eyes. "Are you going to destroy everything I hold dear, even before you wake up?"

The statue kept its own council. Neighmann stared into the mismatched yellow eyes; there was something about it that gave him the creeps, over and above the malignant intelligence that lurked behind the shield of relativistic space-time. Perhaps it was the light -- the ring of lamps cast strange, multiple shadows across his coat -- but the expression of fear on Discord's face appeared to have a mocking quality. It wasn't so much the look of a creature being blasted by the most powerful magic Equestria could bring to bear, but that of someone making a parody of one.

The ice in Neighmann's belly spread to his legs, and he found himself unable to break the creature's gaze. Much had been said of Discord's manipulative powers, and even vastly slowed there seemed to be something still there, looking out at a world that blurred and buzzed far faster than anything he could imagine. Tears started to roll down his muzzle and his eyes started to burn. The muscles of his neck knotted, fighting for control of his head. You fool, he screamed, the words going no further than the inside of his own skull, this is why it's a three pony minimum in the Monster Room.

Over the roaring in his head, Neighmann heard a gasp, then the sudden rapid beat of hooves at the gallop, then a wall of chestnut fur stepped into his line of sight. His body twisted, trying to regain eye contact, but none of the muscles responded correctly and he just toppled over sideways. Warm feathers wrapped around his head, while a quiet voice started singing a foal's lullaby in his ear, and slowly Neighmann's screaming muscles relaxed.

"T-thank you, Neon. I've been so stupid."

His assistant sighed. "Yes, you have. I'm sorry about Libi -- I take it there's nothing useful coming out of Razorclaw?"

Neighmann choked back a sob, then cleared his throat and pulled away from Neon. "No," he said dully. "The military is heading out there, but they won't intervene unless the gryphons step outside their borders. I'll have to wait until it all calms down before I even know if she's--" He flinched and swallowed heavily, his ears folding back.

"Come on; let's get you away from this thing." She put her head under his shoulder and started to lever him upright. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Neighmann climbed heavily to his hooves, starting up the ramp with a reluctant, dragging walk. "Not really, but I probably should." By the doors leading out of the Monster Room was an uncertain-looking white pegasus in gold armour; at a nod from Neon he backed off, disappearing down the corridor leading to the outside world. "Is that how you found me?"

"I asked Silver Star to call me if he saw you going into the facility too early. I'd rather you stayed at home, to be honest."

"Can't go home; it's too empty. Too much space to think."

Neon was silent as they went through the heavy door to the outer circle of workstations, then nudged Neighmann into one of the padded conference niches that were dotted about the ring, purposely placing him with his back to the statue. Another moment and the mare had placed two wide bowls of black lemon tea between them. The aromatic steam made Neighmann's nose twitch, and some semblance of life re-entered his eyes.

"Hot, with plenty of sugar. Tea is the best remedy in the world for situations like this. Talk and drink, but mostly talk. I'll listen." She dipped her muzzle into the dark golden liquid, taking a tiny sip, while looking up at him with sympathetic eyes.

Knowing there was no escape, Neighmann started to talk, hesitantly at first, then, after some more prodding from Neon, with greater confidence. By the time he had finished, drink untouched, his voice was rough but at least held some animation. There was still a lot of dread there, hidden in the deeper layers of his mind, but he could now manage it, lock it away and let it bleed and diffuse into the void without it paralysing him.

Eventually he ran dry, and lay there staring into Neon's chocolate brown eyes for a long moment before looking away, embarrassed. "Thank you, Neon. That was above and beyond the call of duty."

"Don't talk rubbish, I'm your friend. It's what I'm here for."

"Even so," he muttered, picking up both bowls of now cold tea in a haze of yellow magic and placing them in the recycler. His ears twitched; there were sounds of another pony walking down the corridor. "I'd like to keep busy... shall we start by looking at today's data." Neighmann kept a neutral expression on his face and his tone bland. "This experiment may prove useful to assess our detection systems."

"Busy it is, boss," Neon replied with a grin. "First on the list was recompiling the chaos plot, now that we've got his lordship fully in place, but that sounds like a better idea. I'd like to run a repeat, but the ethics board might object." The smile faded and she looked thoughtful. "I'm a little disappointed that the breakout alarm didn't even murmur." She turned to the nearest display, telling the computer who she was and calling up the mathematical models Neighmann had spent the last decade building and refining.

"Right," Neighmann said, "let's start with the raw data for this area. Those qubit decoherence devices looked promising, so we'll go with those."

He dove into his work, successfully distracted, at least for a little while.

===

"Well, I don't know what's wrong with it," the earth pony, a steel gray stallion with a straggly, white-streaked mane, said. He reached out and tapped the cryostat with one hoof, listening thoughtfully to the dull clank of the metal vessel. "They are all hoof-built, and every one is a little different, but I've never heard of them being too stable. Normally it's a fight to get the things to stay coherent for more than a few seconds; we've got this one up to..." He waved the same hoof through a near-by terminal's input volume, calling up a report. "...over a minute, with luck."

The component parts of the sensor were strewn over a polished metal worktable, the brassy coils and plates gleaming dully under the spotlights. Everypony stared at the core of the device, a carefully engineered fragment of semiconductor no bigger than a tooth. "The original tests were very promising, that's why we ordered a half dozen. Perhaps some subtle flaw that's only manifested after the time they were in storage?" Neon said, holding her breath and leaning closer.

The technician winced, then sighed with relief when Neon stepped back. "It's not impossible. The early models had issues with atomic drift through the quantum dot boundary layers, but that would cause fast decoherence, not slow." He bent down and placed his muzzle into the control interface, coming back up with the device firmly in his teeth. Waving Neighmann and Neon back and mumbling something indistinct about charging spectators extra, he twitched his lips and tongue, activating the robotic assistance rig suspended over the table.

More twitches -- the technician looked like he was trying to eat a particularly reluctant carrot -- the quantum computer heart of the sensor was removed and placed into the electron microscope mounted next to the bench. Spitting out the control interface, he turned to stare at his onlookers with a disapproving glare. "I suspect it's the readout systems in the substrate; they are probably reporting garbage. I'll pull this one apart and see if there are any flaws, but it will take time. Come back tomorrow." With that he turned his back on them, kicking out with one hoof to turn on the vacuum pump, and settled down to wait for his instrument to become ready.

After all that, was it all in my head? Neightmann sighed, then exchanged a fleeting grin with Neon, and they both left the technician to his domain.

===

Walking back between the buildings, Neighmann found his mood falling as fast as the night was creeping across the land. The vast majority of staff had already gone home for the night, leaving only those totally dedicated to their work. ...or those with nopony to go home to, he completed the thought. Reluctantly he picked the path leading back towards his office and the cramped sleeping pad he kept in one corner.

Neon nudged him on the shoulder, jolting him out of his reverie. "Not that way, come with me."

"Sorry?" he said, brow wrinkling in confusion.

"I think you need a break from this place, and you shouldn't really be alone at a time like this. You can sleep at my place." She saw the look on his face and smiled. "Not attractive enough of an offer, huh? Or if sleep's going to be hard to come by, how about shouting at a few bad science-fiction films?"

"The recent crop has been pretty poor," he said weakly, almost in tears over the unexpected offer. "I'd be delighted."

"That's the spirit! There's nothing like righteous anger after a trying day. I'd suggest we start with 'Canterlot Has Fallen', a film that has to be seen to be believed."

===

"Another one?" Captain Spinnaker said wearily, her wings drooping slightly as the injured Night Stick approached him, chief purser in tow.

"I'm afraid so, ma'm," Night Stick said, limping slightly as her steps aggravated the recent gunshot wound to her right wingshoulder.

Spinnaker closed his eyes. "What was it this time?"

"Somepony had been spreading rumours about that Shredder, and how easy it would be to down the Dreaming. They want off this airship as fast as possible."

The Captain stole a glance at the airspeed indicator, already five percent higher than the maximum permitted under the company’s safety policy. "I take it they were told we're going as fast as possible?"

"Yes ma'm. Unfortunately that didn't seem to calm things much."

The Purser, a grizzled unicorn fast approaching retirement, cleared his throat nervously. "That's a bit of an understatement. I've had at least a dozen fights between passengers and my stewards. Most have been little more than shoving matches, but the last one put Lemon Grass in the infirmary, while the pony who was with her can't be found at all." He looked uncertainly at Night Stick for support.

"Nothing too sinister, we think, but Jackstaff was a pegasus and his personal effects are missing. Personally I think he's another deserter -- there are just too many hatches being vandalised for the engineers to keep up, especially with the harassment from the passengers. I only hope he took his keys with him, because we can't find those, either."

"That's what... the fifteenth?" Spinnaker said, ruffling her wings in agitation. "Surely they can't all have panicked... most of them are ponies with years of experience. Any theories?"

"There is something of a pattern," Night Stick said slowly. "Since I'm no use on patrol at the moment, I've put some thought into this. It's not just the pegasi, but all ponies who have the most contact with the passengers. The pegasi can just leave, now we've made Equestria landfall; with the other clades it manifests as increased absenteeism and a more general reduction in efficiency."

"Some kind of disease?" the Captain said sharply. "I thought the medics had cleared those we picked up from Razorclaw."

"They did, the doctor swears blind that there's nothing wrong with them other than physical injuries, and I believe him. There aren't many bugs that can jump the species barrier, and none at all that cause this... madness. I think it's an odd kind of panic -- we're overcrowded, loaded with the injured and just escaping from a hostile power; you know how confined herds can react in extreme ways."

Spinnaker nodded slowly. Makes sense, she thought, I can feel a little of it myself. The Dreaming feels... ugly, somehow. She loved the airship, had been its master since the maiden voyage almost a decade ago, and this strange, slow-motion disaster made her want to weep. "What do you recommend?"

Night Stick shrugged. "I've talked this over with Tiller," he said, waving his uninjured wing at the Purser, "and we're both in agreement. You need to seal off the bridge and engineering, protect the critical areas in case any of the passengers--"

"Or crew," Tiller broke in, ears drooping slightly.

"--try to take matters into their own hooves. Those areas are off-limits anyway, we just need to reinforce them a little."

"It's only another day to the landing field, I've received clearance to make a direct overflight, rather than the normal course. I did suggest landing at one of the closer fields, but they said medical facilities were better at Canterlot."

Night Stick breathed a sigh of relief. "That's something, at least. I'm just glad we managed to get the most critically wounded off in the Express' transports before things got so bad. Even with the extra medics they flew in the medical bay is over capacity... and those staff have the highest dropout rates of any of the crew."

14 -- Gin trap

Neighmann rubbed his muzzle against one foreleg, trying to work some energy back into his mind. What in Tartarus is going on here? There really should be something by now. He looked again at the data, scrolling through the plot and trying to see something that the algorithms had missed.

"You really should get some rest," Neon said, leaning against Neighmann's shoulder as she squinted at the data. "There's just nothing here. Give it time; it's only been a few days."

Neighmann stared through the enchanted windows at the time-bound Discord. "I know, but the equipment we have now is much better than what we had back at the Palace... and I know the quantum sensors worked before we moved him here. There should be something."

Neon rested her head against Neighmann's. "I know. Still, he is the Lord of Chaos. Perhaps he's never going to be predictable. Anyway, random chance should cluster, right? It's an outside shot, but it is possible."

"Everything's possible, but this is like winning an eight-way accumulator on the Cloudsdale to Manehatten circuit race."

"Data's data," she said, shrugging. "Give it up, Neighmann. Come on, there are plenty more bad movies to get through."

"Nothing will quite live up to 'Canterlot has Fallen'," Neighmann muttered. The funny thing was, Neon had been right. The film had been so bad that it had actually managed to distract him for a few hours, long enough that he could fall into an exhausted sleep. "Okay," he said reluctantly, "let's call it a night." Turning to leave, he paused as the screen flashed a message icon in the bottom corner. Another request for an update from the Palace, he thought, slumping. With a flicker of magic he opened the message, then all thoughts of sleep evaporated.

"Thank Celestia," he whispered, turning to Neon with shining eyes, "it's Libi. She's turned up on that airship."

"You're kidding! Why didn't they tell you before -- and where is she now?"

"I've no idea, and I don't care. She's just across town, in Canterlot General."

"Well what are you waiting for? Let's go!"

===

Being a pegasus, Neon had never owned an aircar, or even spent much time being driven. Neighmann grinned to himself at Neon's impatience; her wings kept flicking out and brushing his flanks as he charged the levitator and spun the electric ducted fan up to speed. What must it be like to know how much better you'd be at this? She'd flown him in that first morning; it wasn't an experience he wanted to repeat. Her instinctive grasp of flight had translated to the most frightening fifteen minutes of his life.

The flight over the city seemed to take forever; air traffic control was routing flights away their normal paths, forcing them to curve around the back of the city. As they flew, Neighmann looked down across the suburbs with their complex tangle of streets dating back the best part of a thousand years. Something was happening; ponies were in the streets, hundreds of them, running at a gallop. Here and there was the multicoloured flash of magic, and in several places fires were starting to spread through the old buildings.

Neon's happy chatter faded to a gloomy silence and she looked out of the windshield, staring down at the city. "What's happening down there?" she said in a small voice. "Neighmann? I don't like this. Can you feel it?"

Neighmann shifted nervously, hornlight flickering over the control panel, then turned to his friend. "I've lived in Canterlot for almost fifteen years; I've never seen it like this before." His eyes glinted with the reflected lights from the control panel. "I've also never seen it under threat of war... but this seems to be a bit of a strong reaction. There are stories about what happened when the Changelings sacked the city, back in Twilight's time..."

"Yes, but surely it was nothing like this." She gestured out at the plume of dark smoke just starting to rise from one of the bigger fires.

Neighmann shook his head mutely, then focused his attention back on flying.

===

Neighmann slotted his aircar into the parking structure -- a tall cylinder punctured with hexagonal cells that protruded from its roof -- then both ponies trotted down the central ramp and into the hospital proper. Harried staff at the upper level reception desk gave them curt instructions, and they worked their way through the confusingly similar passageways until they reached the floor Libi was registered to.

He'd been to the Canterlot General a few times recently as part of Libi's prenatal programme, and it had always seemed to be full of organised chaos, a hive of purposeful activity. This time there seemed to be something else overlaying that feeling of energy; a general sensation of anger and fear that was almost seeping from the walls. What happened on that airship? Neighmann thought as they walked past patient rooms. How were so many injured? The hospital was divided into small 'wards', holding five ponies each, and every single one was full. More ponies were lying on low gurneys down the corridors, some strapped in and obviously drugged; others had curled themselves into quivering balls of fur, burying their heads under bedding as if to block out the world.

Loud arguments occasionally broke out, shouting matches between the medical staff and patients. In one room-- Neighmann swallowed heavily, pausing despite himself as he caught a glimpse of a doctor stabbing a syringe into the throat of a struggling earth pony, the patient's muzzle held shut by a haze of copper magic. The sheer panic in the pony's eyes held Neighmann as surely as a noose around his neck, and he took a hesitant step forwards.

"Doctor? Is everything alright?"

The medic, a deep red-brown unicorn stallion, glared back at Neighmann. "This patient has been aggressive towards the staff and others. He's being sedated for his own protection." Beneath his magical hold the other pony relaxed with a sigh, all the tension leaking away from his limbs. "Are you questioning my medical judgement?" The stallion took a step towards them, light starting to collect at the tip of his horn; Neighmann could feel the odd twitchy sensation of undirected magic.

"N-no, Doctor, I didn't mean--" Neighmann backpedalled hastily, his apology cut off when the door slammed shut just in front of his muzzle. Confused and more than a little angry, he nudged at Neon and they both hurried on. "They've got my Libi in this madhouse," he half shouted. At his side, Neon said nothing, just huddled a little closer, so close that her tightly folded wings rubbed against his flanks with every step. And when did you get to be so clingy? he thought, casting an irritated glance at the chestnut pegasus. She didn't meet his eye, seemingly captivated by the patch of floor between her hooves.

Libi's room was one of the quieter ones. Two of the other patients were deep asleep, obviously drugged considering the general level of noise in the hospital. The other two were cowering on their sleeping pads, pressed firmly against the low panels that surrounded them, each trying to put as much space between them and the tan mare as their restraints would allow. Libi herself was deep in conversation with another unicorn, a sunny yellow mare with a mane cropped so short it looked like a line of bristles down her neck.

All of Neighmann's building anger and confusion was swept away in an instant by the sight of his mate. Ignoring everything else, he rushed forward, only to be stopped dead by the sudden expression of malice on Libi's face when she turned her head to stare at him. "So, you're finally here, are you?"

His mouth dropped open and his eyes fixed on the stump of Libi's horn. "W-what have they done to you?" Neighmann took a hesitant step forward, quailing before her rage. She'd always had a bit of a temper, and he'd even been on the receiving end a few times, but the hatred in her eyes was completely alien to him.

Her gaze flicked to Neon, who shrank against Neighmann's side. "And you had the nerve to bring her with you..." she said, "I should have figured you'd be the type to go for a featherbrain. Anypony stupid enough to fall for your lines long enough to lift her tail, eh?"

Neighmann's stunned brain finally processed what Libi had said, and his mouth snapped shut, a spark of anger kindling amid his rapidly fading joy. "What are you talking about? This is Neon, my assistant, you've met her -- you know there's nothing between us!"

"Oh, I know all about you two. I checked with your work; Silver Star was very helpful. Exactly how long ago did all this start? This must have been a dream come true for you; your little plan to get me out of the way really paid off, didn't it?" Equilibrium was spitting the words, leaning forwards against the loose straps holding her into the medical stall. Her head dipped, and she came up with her mating band, its edges ragged where it had been cut off sometime earlier, and she flicked it in his direction.

The little loop of dirty fur struck him on the chest, then fell to land on the floor. Neighmann stared at it for a second, mouth opening and closing, then he stepped forwards to the bedside. "How could you even think such a thing! When I first heard that you were missing, everything fell apart for me -- Neon kept me sane, stopped me from doing something stupid. Whatever happened to you out there has messed with your head." Neighmann reached out to touch her cheek, only to have his hoof batted away.

"Should have known you'd be blaming me for this, when I can see with my own eyes what you two have been getting up to." Libi stabbed a hoof at Neon, who was pressed close against Neighmann's flank. "I suppose I should thank you. This makes things so much easier." She nodded to the other pony, who pulled out a sheaf of heavy looking papers and thrust it at Neighmann.

"I'm Affa Davit, of Mako, Lemon and Whitetip. On behalf of my client I'm serving you with legal notice of court proceedings against you. Have a good day, Doctor." She stepped back to Libi's side, her smile widening as Neighmann unfolded the document packet.

"What is this?" he demanded, fanning out the papers. Reams of complex legalese covered the papers; it might as well have been in Zebrican for all the sense it made.

"Separation proceedings and a restraining order. My client is also forbidding you access to her property, effective immediately--"

"Lucky you've got somewhere else to stay!"

"--and your initial court hearing dates are on sheet fifteen. Failure to attend will result in automatic forfeiture. I'd get yourself a lawyer, if I were you."

Neighmann stood there dumbfounded, then a wild rage bubbled up inside him and he leapt at the lawyer, only to sprawl muzzle first on the floor when her telekinesis tangled his legs. Too angry to focus on his own magic, the stallion thrashed about, trying to reach the still-smiling Affa. Dimly he heard the sound of pounding hooves, then a pair of burly orderlies burst in and pinned him down.

"...and that's assault. Thank you Doctor Neighmann, you've been most helpful," Affa said, the smile reaching her eyes for the first time since he'd seen her. "Get him out of here, he's disturbing my client."

The orderlies marched him back to the parking structure, one pony on each flank to stop him from doing anything stupid, with a nervous and shell-shocked Neon following so close that she kept bumping into his rump. They left them at the bottom of the ramp, and Neighmann stamped his way up to his aircar, not looking at Neon.

"I'm sure she doesn't mean it, Neighmann, she's just traumatised from losing her horn. Give it a few days and I'm sure she'll reconsider."

Neon's tone was sympathetic, but just made him more angry. Stupid nag, did that look like a pony who was just lashing out? She planned all of that, did it just to get to me. Neighmann ground his teeth, side-stepping away from the pegasus when she tried to hook a wing over his withers.

"Neighmann, please, talk to me," she said, her tone pleading. "I'm sorry if I made things worse back there--"

"Yes, you did," he snapped, "Celestia knows what will happen now. You know how the courts always side with the mare. I'll probably not be allowed to see my foal until it comes of age!"

Neon gasped, stumbling to a shocked halt. Neighmann ignored her, popping open the driver's door and dropping heavily onto the shaped pad. A touch of magic and the hatch slammed shut, then he threw full power to the turbines, launching the aircar into the sky like a missile from a tube. In the rear view camera he caught one last glimpse of Neon, a small and huddled figure lying on the floor of the bay.

===

Princess Celestia stepped out of her personal chariot, the pegasi Day Guard unhitching themselves from the traces and falling in around her. She'd received the first report, light on detail as they always were these days, just after she'd watched the sun rise. There had been an outbreak of violence and panic at the arrival of the Canterlot Dreaming; something that had immediately set the tone for an increasingly grim morning.

The news kept coming in, none of it good. By accident or design, fires had been set in several parts of old Canterlot, and only now were coming under control of the combined efforts of the weather teams and ground-based response units. The pall of dirty smoke still lingered over that quarter, the ash having been trapped by the rain clouds still being used to dampen down the now smouldering ruins. A dirty rain was falling over the white and gold stonework, leaving black streaks that would take an age to clean off.

Efforts by the Triumvirate to restore calm had proved futile, and the panic seemed to be spreading to the more staid members of society; even ponies who had received special training -- the Guard, police and emergency staff -- were starting to feel the effects. Rumours of war with the gryphons were on everypony's lips, and with every passing report the ideas became more sensationalist. The early morning news bulletins had spoken of little else, other than the relative sizes of the Equestrian forces compared to those of Razorclaw, even going so far as to play on fears of the gryphon's carnivorous nature.

Celestia had waited long hours for the Triumvirate to ask for her assistance, but the mechanisms of government seemed to be in just as much turmoil as the pony in the street. After that initial report, little had reached her apart from public media reports, things that had become more hair-raising with each passing hour, and in the end she had taken matters into her own hooves and ordered this little trip. She would have gone before, but they were decades past the point of impromptu escapades, especially after the last flight she taken with Luna had ended in the formation of a new area of badlands where the Crystal Empire once was.

Since then, the Triumvirate had passed a new set of laws to restrict her movements without an escort. The aftermath of that particular outing still affected international politics to this day; to reduce the tensions she'd agreed to the rules, no matter how chafing she found them. Not that they could stop me, Celestia thought sadly, but if I appear to obey the will of the government there is at least a chance the other states won't try to nuke my people. The gryphons and the zebra had never known how to deal with her; it was far better they should accept the polite fiction that she was subordinate to the will of the ponies of Equestria.

...and in a way, I am. Any unsanctioned deviations from policy would result in a loss of trust and an increase in tensions. I have no desire to rule a world covered in ash and dust that won't cool for hundreds of years. Once was enough.

She didn't like to do it, but playing the goddess card was sometimes the best solution to some of the more intractable problems. Ponies who'd been deadlocked for weeks would suddenly find amicable solutions with little more than a raised eyebrow from her. She was a source of stability in Equestria, the one thing that had been a constant in the lives of generations of ponies; she was in their history from before the point that they knew how to write things down. It was hard to overestimate the effect that kind of presence had.

Calm rippled out from her like oil being spread on a stormy sea. Everypony that saw her stopped what he or she was doing to just stand and watch. Walking through the temporary camps, she talked to the patients and praised the doctors and emergency staff, taking the time to be seen by as many ponies as she could. Her own personal magic, normally tightly controlled for fear of overwhelming anypony in her presence, was unfettered. Princess Celestia glowed with the shifting pastel hues of the aurora, and behind her she left a trail of harmony that lifted a little of the darkness that had fallen over Canterlot.

News of her impromptu tour spread fast; even an overheard comment about her presence would be enough to distract ponies from their new-found paranoia and mistrust. As much as I want them to rule their own affairs, I admit that I have missed this, Celestia thought, as she knelt down on the grubby tent floor to get closer to a colt who'd fractured a foreleg in the panicked stampede from the Dreaming. I will have to have words with the Triumvirate, convince them that there's more to my sister and I than just keeping the heavens on track. It wasn't anything to do with a desire to rule -- no sane pony would want that if there was any alternative -- but the simple contact and the ability to make the world a better place.

Luna had thrown herself into her work as patron of the sciences, while Celestia had become more and more isolated from the ponies she wanted to serve. It had been a subtle thing, a slow creeping nopony land composed of layers of bureaucracy, a distraction by subcommittee. Is this how it started for Luna, all those years ago? This... insulation from those we swore to protect? At least her sister had made a name for herself in academia; the work of the teams she sponsored had done an enormous amount to shape modern Equestria.

The wide-eyed colt and his nervous dam thanked her and she ruffled his mane before climbing to her hooves and stepping back into the bustling bridleway between the row of tents. "The hospital next, I think," she muttered to her equerry, Charter.

"Yes, Princess." The green earth pony trotted to keep up with her long-legged stride, nodding to the discreet circle of the Guard. Three unicorns formed themselves into a triangle and headed the group, while pairs of pegasi circled overhead to ward off the curious and give Celestia a little room.

So much pomp and circumstance, even for a trip inside my home city, Celestia thought, but this really is the least I can get away with. If it wasn't for the emergency, any event like this would have been carefully managed by one of the many working groups that had an input on how her time was spent. Her customary gentle smile wavered slightly, then returned in full force before anypony could notice. There would be repercussions for this, there always were. The polite and oh-so-reasonable suggestions that they must be allowed to assist the Princess with her schedule, to prevent disruption to the delicate machinery of state, or how her very presence was such a distraction to productivity.

Celestia ducked her head slightly to clear the doorframe -- a habit developed over long years of catching her horn tip on ceilings and fixtures not really placed with a pony of her stature in mind -- even though, like all public buildings, the hospital had been constructed to allow the movement of heavy and bulky equipment.

The staff of Canterlot General had been given plenty of warning of her approach; the smell of fresh cleaning fluid and the subliminal tingle of newly cast antibacterial magic filled the air and she wrinkled her muzzle in an effort to stifle a sneeze. Celestia accepted it all with a good-natured smile and a sigh that she kept to herself.

===

"Princess? You might find this one interesting," Charter said, looking up from the chart posted outside the next ward along.

Celestia poked her head into the small room, sweeping her gaze over the five ponies within. Two earth ponies and a pegasus, all asleep and, if the rest of the hospital was anything to go by, under sedation. So many given drugs, she thought, her muzzle creasing in a slight frown, I can't believe this is normal. Of the remaining two, one was a lilac pegasus mare, huddled against one side of her stall, the other a cream earth pony. The pegasus-- Celestia paused and stared at the earth pony. You are familiar, where do I know you from? The pony was staring back at her with an unnerving intensity, holding her gaze with an almost hungry look on her face.

She glanced sideways at Charter, raising a questioning eyebrow. "That's Equilibrium, Director Neighmann's mate; she's the one the gryphons sent back, ah..."

He tailed off as Celestia nodded slowly. ...without a horn. The intelligence analysts were still wondering about that; the best theory she'd been privy to was that it was a message, something to ward off any potential intervention. She was also the source of the accusations about pinioning the pegasus prisoners. The Princess shivered; the gryphon kingdoms always had a different view on crime and punishment than the one she'd strived to instil in her ponies. Sometimes I wonder if there was more I should have done, back in the early days. Luna and I saved them all from Discord's reign, but did we spend too much time with our own kind? How much modern suffering could we have averted if I'd pressed them for a truly integrated society?

Unsettled, Celestia stepped into the room, smiling and talking with the pegasus until she smiled back and started to relax. All the while she talked, Equilibrium was staring fixedly at her, barely taking time to blink. Finally she turned to the unicorn, her normally unflappable smile faltering. "I'm so sorry for what happened to you, Equilibrium, but you can rest assured that you are safe from that particular nightmare. Have you had a chance to talk this through with your mate? I know he was very worried about you."

As Celestia focused her attention on the abused unicorn, she felt the faint tickle of magic, some enchantment that she was sure she'd tasted before, but so long ago that it was a distant and fading memory.

"Neighmann, yes." Equilibrium laughed, a hard, cynical chuckle that ran through the Princess like a lance. "Let me tell you about my mate..."

Equilibrium continued to talk, an outpouring of venom that would have made Celestia step back in shock if it wasn't for her centuries of experience with the worst ponies could do to each other. After the first few insults and snide remarks, she tuned the unicorn out and opened her magical senses to examine the world's arcane dimension.

The hospital with its bustle and noise faded to shades of black and grey, the sounds becoming distant and vague. The tentative, subliminal patterns of magic that laced the building popped into sharp relief, filling the machines and instruments with rainbows of light. The ponies became little moving shadows, each clade marked out by the way their power manifested. Her pegasi Guard became jewelled insects, great crystalline wings of light sprouting from their flanks. The unicorns were more indistinct; all of their magic was concentrated in their horns and it formed a hard, laser-bright glare of colour at the top of each head. Earth ponies were some of the most beautiful; glass sculptures lit from within by the gentle magic that filled them from hooves to muzzle tip.

"--with his assistant, that featherbrain nag--"

Equilibrium was different. Celestia had seen ponies mutilated in any number of terrible ways, by accident or design. The concentrated magic of unicorns had resulted in some truly evil practices employed by individuals and groups with no understanding of what horrors they were perpetrating. The disbudding of unicorn foals at birth, back before she realised the practice went on among the superstitious pegasus and earth pony tribes in prehistory. Dehorning as a punishment for prisoners, the list went on and on.

"--so if he thinks he's getting anywhere near--"

This unicorn mare showed all the classic signs of traumatic horn loss. The directionless rage that came with any profound injury -- shifts in personality that could only be fixed by therapy or the understanding of those close to her, ponies willing to wait out the mood swings until the magic returned. Celestia focussed her shadow sight, examining the remaining horn material. The doctor's preliminary work looked sound; what was left had been smoothed off and there was no damage to the horn bed. With this much loss it would be a long road to recovery for Equilibrium, but it would happen.

"--my lawyer is going to take him to the cleaners--"

Celestia frowned; there was something else here, almost like a fragment of the unicorn's power had been displaced into her brain. Something twisted between the neurons, so faint that she could barely see it. Her own magic flared, reaching out to examine the strange pattern. The hint of deja vu, still directionless but stronger than ever, returned. It was an old, old memory that surfaced, something from the deep past of the world, of a spell that bound a pony's power and bent it to another's will...

"--I'm going to make sure that that faithless bastard suf-f-f..."

Equilibrium's voice stuttered and she tailed off, then the pattern suddenly bloomed, rushing outward. Celestia jerked back, blinking in surprise and sweeping the surroundings for any sign of the magic. Nothing around, and nothing in Libi's head, either. Uneasily, she dropped out of her shadow sight, staring at the unicorn. Libi was gazing back at her, blank eyed and open mouthed.

Did I just imagine all that? Like a dream at the edge of waking, the memory was fading, the pattern and its sudden half-seen, half-guessed at expansion disappeared under the oppressive atmosphere of the hospital. "Libi? Are you alright?" Celestia asked, covering her nervousness with a practiced half smile.

The unicorn slowly closed her mouth, looking confused. "I... I'm sorry, Princess, what was I talking about?"

"You were telling me about your mate, Neighmann." Celestia watched fascinated as the confusion was washed away and Libi scowled.

"The sooner I'm rid of him and his spawn the better I--"

A sudden flash of unaccustomed anger flickered in the back of Celestia's mind. Something must have shown on her face, because Libi abruptly fell silent. A glow started to fill the room; not the warm dawn or dusk hue that normally surrounded her, but the hard, unsympathetic white of the noon-day sun. "You should be silent now. I have heard more than enough." Celestia felt her power rising and struggled to control her anger. So much hate, she must have suffered greatly. Remember, it is not her fault.

The glow faded and Celestia stepped back from the medical stall, suddenly embarrassed by her surging emotions. "You should rest; I can see this has been very stressful for you." She turned, not looking back at the now quivering Equilibrium, only to come face to face with Charter.

The earth pony stared back at her, ears folded flat, then backed away, bowing deeply. "Perhaps we should go back to the Palace, your Highness."

Charter, don't look at me like that. She'd known her equerry for decades, knew his moods and body language like almost nopony else, but never had she seen that look before. Don't be afraid of me. His face had closed down, any hint of expression gone.

"Yes, perhaps that would be a good idea," Celestia said softly.

===

They flew back to the Palace in silence. Charter was by her side as always, while the unicorn Guard were in a discreet spellcraft airtruck that maintained pace with her chariot. Three times Celestia started to talk, to try and apologise to her equerry, but each time a glance at his stiff face and posture made something freeze inside her. In the end she settled for staring gloomily out over the beating wings of her pilots, trying to unpick what had made her lose her temper.

There seemed to be no obvious reason, other than the accumulated weight of years acting like a calm, wise matriarch finally getting the better of her. She looked again at Charter, more openly this time. Judging me, you are all judging me. Locking me in this padded box, then getting all shocked when I make the slightest action that doesn't fit that mould you have cast around me. You have no idea how much Luna and I did for all of you, how much we sacrificed and how much we suffered.

Her gloomy mood started to lift, pushed aside by a spark of irritation when the earth pony's ears drooped under her scrutiny. I think even Luna has more freedom than I do, these days. She's not tied down by the machinery of state, and nopony is surprised when she loses her temper.

I am tired of being constrained by the wishes of others. The thought hit with the force of a thunderbolt and Celestia jerked upright, jaw slack at the revelation. The endless mire of the bureaucratic process, filling her time with the minutiae of policy decisions and diplomacy. They want me out of the way... want me to stay away from pony affairs, do they? I made those laws to give them their freedom, but perhaps this experiment has gone too far. She looked down over the side of the chariot, seeing a fresh fire starting in the streets far below. This is what has come of it. The society I thought was strong is falling apart after one little incident.

All these years I've been working towards letting them walk on their own four hooves, and this is the result. I have let them go too soon; even after all these centuries, they are still not strong enough to weather a crisis. The flight went on and Celestia brooded, mind turning back to the events in the hospital. Everything was fuzzy, tinted with the surge of unexpected emotions that had overtaken her, but she finally remembered. There was something in Equilibrium's head -- I suppose I could just have imagined it, but what if it was real?

That pony was specifically returned to the Dreaming; it must have been for a good reason. Everypony is assuming it is a warning not to interfere, but the Panopticon has been wrong before -- and what about the sheer level of panic on that airship when it docked? The reports had been clear; the only reason the ship had made it to the airfield at all was because the crew had locked themselves away from the passengers. Panic is contagious, but perhaps someone has found a way to help it spread?

Celestia thought about all the battles and horror she'd witnessed over her very long life; such minor things would never affect her. Taking that as a starting point, there was only one logical explanation for all the recent events in her city. Mind control, or at least manipulation. Not as comprehensive as she was familiar with, but the effect was the same.

This is deliberate. We are under attack.

15 -- Defence of the Realm

The aircar's autopilot had decided that he wasn't in a fit state to drive after he deviated from the standard air track for the fourth time in five minutes, deactivating the manual controls and leaving Neighmann to his anger. Deprived of any way to externalise his rage, he spent the remainder of the flight grinding his teeth and cursing Equilibrium and Neon under his breath. Only when the aircar was halfway into its parking slot did the automatics relent, and Neighmann gunned the turbine to slide the vehicle home with a satisfying crunch.

Stepping out, he slammed the hatch and stamped down the ramp to the ground floor, to be greeted by a chime from his phone. A quick glance told him everything he needed to know, and it took an effort of will not to hurl the thing against the wall. Bastard lawyer; should have known you'd be efficient. Looks like I'll be here the rest of the night. Now where did I leave my office keys? Neighmann groaned and changed direction, heading back to the Monster Room.

Chirr, the Night Guard on duty, waved him past after a friendly admonition not to forget his ID in the future. Neighmann gritted his teeth and smiled back, resisting the urge to swear at the pony; even in his anger he knew better than to irritate one of the Guard.

Inside the Monster Room he found his panniers, tucked under the console next to the meeting nook he'd shared with Neon only a few hours earlier. Grumbling, he dumped the contents of the bags over the console, catching sight of the time-trapped Discord grinning in the corner of his eye. The Monster Room was brightly lit, a shadowless light that left the Lord of Chaos' curves illuminated with a clarity that seemed to bring him to life. For a moment the grin seemed to flex, exposing uneven fangs.

"And you, you horror -- what are you looking at?" The anger that had never really gone away abruptly flared up, and Neighmann shoved the door open and stalked down the ramp towards the statue. Without thinking, he reached out and plucked a heavy focusing element from an optical bench and brandished it at the immobile shape that towered above him. "All you do is destroy; even while you’re trapped you’re ruining lives--" Neighmann, practically screaming in his fury, retained enough control to avoid locking eyes with Discord.

He flung the carefully shaped piece of glass at the statue with all his might, horn glowing bright enough to leave afterimages in his vision. The projectile struck the relativistic boundary surrounding Discord and exploded into fragments, the temporal gradient so sharp that it was like striking a solid wall. The small act of destruction did nothing to calm the fire in Neighmann's mind, and he cast about, hunting for something else to throw.

"I'll wipe that damned smile of your muzzle--" Neighmann wheeled, galloping back up to the ring of control stations. I'll put an end to you; I know all the codes for the defence systems... Barging through the heavy door he skidded to a halt, magic flaring as he brought the console alive.

The emergency systems were designed to be fully automatic, taking the power from buried coils of superconductors and channelling that energy into the six oversized spellcraft modules that circled the centre of the Monster Room. This was the only way to catch Discord in time; pony reactions would never be fast enough to stop the Lord of Chaos... but that didn't mean that he couldn't fool them.

Neighmann, magic made erratic by his rage, opened a link to the sensors and started to flip them into their test modes. The row of indicators started to turn red as each module reported activation, then a mournful siren started to sound somewhere nearby and red light began to flash.

There was the sound of wings and Neon burst into the workstation ring. "Neighmann, what's happening, the alarms--" Neon took one look at the stallion's wild-eyed stare and the warnings flashing over the panel, then charged. She hit him on the shoulder, shoving him away from the controls, then their legs tangled and they both ended up on the floor.

Neighmann snarled and kicked out at Neon, catching the mare in the belly. "Interfering featherbrain, you've done enough to me already," he spat, standing over the gagging pegasus. His horn flared, lifting Neon up and throwing her down the walkway. Wings flailing, she tumbled nose over tail and slammed into a row of consoles, her head striking the lower edge. She slumped to the floor and didn't move.

Neighmann spared Neon a glance, then turned his back on her... only to come muzzle to muzzle with a furious Chirr. The Night Guard, all wide yellow eyes and long sharp teeth, collided hooves-first with Neighmann and sent him tumbling. Stunned and gasping, Neighmann's horn lit up and he reached for the Guard's foxy face with his magic.

"None of that!" Chirr said, jumping forward on flared, membranous wings and tapped Neighmann sharply on the side of the head. The light went out and he slumped, eyelids fluttering.

The world moved in and out of focus for Neighmann, a shifting patchwork of grey fur and scales. A strap, tight enough to cut off the circulation to his forelegs, had been looped around his withers from a haul point on Chirr's armour harness. Neighmann tried to speak, but the memories of what he'd just done were almost paralysing in their intensity. Over and over he heard the sick thump as Neon's head struck the console, saw the look of confusion and pain on her face in the final moment before impact.

What has happened to me? What am I doing? The thoughts flickered and spun, spiralling around and dragging him down into darkness.

===

Neighmann watched the door through dull eyes. The weight of his memories was too much to bear and he crawled into the dust under the lowest shelf in the disused office and hooked his forelegs over his head in an effort to block out the world. This did little to his ears, and he could still hear little snippets of speech from the other side of the door.

"...don't understand it, he just came back from the hospital and flipped, tried to trigger the specials..."

He recognized the voice of Chirr; high-pitched and squeaky, sounding more like a young filly than the hulking chiropt it was coming from.

"Uh huh, will do. Not sure about the mare, the doctors are with her now..." A drawn out pause, the other party in the conversation inaudible. "So long? I didn't realise things were that bad. Don't worry, he's not going anywhere."

Sweet Celestia, how badly did I hurt Neon? I didn't mean to... His memories called out the lie and he knew that wasn't true. His anger had been calculated and he'd put his full strength into that throw, wanted to make sure she didn't try to stop him. Neighmann whimpered and curled into a ball, but those few seconds of intense satisfaction wouldn't go away. It's like I was somepony else, I've never lifted a hoof against another pony in my life, and now I've... The thought choked off he started to pant.

The door to the office rattled as something pounded on the other side. "Hey, Neighmann. Can you hear me?" Chirr's little filly voice sounded flat and professional, somehow sinister despite the high pitch.

"Y-yes, I can hear you."

"You're going to be in there for the night, until we can get you somewhere they can treat you. If you try anything stupid I'll have to restrain you, do you understand?"

"Yes, Chirr, I understand," Neighmann said dully. "Is-is Neon going to be okay?" There was a long silence, and he crawled out from under the shelf to get closer to the door. Still nothing, and he placed one ear against the panel, only to hear the quiet clip-clip of hooves walking away. Suddenly panicking, Neighmann pounded on the door with a hoof. "No, Chirr, don't go, don't leave me like this! Is she going to be all right, did I--" He backed away from the silent door, tears starting to roll down his muzzle. "What have I done?" he whispered.

===

The hours passed, broken only by an occasional visit from a cold-eyed Chirr to check up on him. The Guard didn't speak, just stared down at Neighmann for long seconds before closing and relocking the door. For his part, the unicorn barely moved between visits, just stayed at the back of the room and gazed at the patch of carpet between his hooves.

Neighmann had long since stopped crying, spending the time in a kind of mental haze that made the minutes seem to stretch to an eternity. Slowly he started to think; with no easy way to understand his own recent actions from the inside, the stallion fell back into the hard learned habits of scientific thinking that had ruled his life for the last two decades.

There was a pattern here, something beyond the simple panic and abuse that everypony was attributing to the problems in Canterlot. It was like I was somepony else... The thought rattled around Neighmann's head, and the more he thought the more he began to wonder. My Libi just wasn't there; it was like she'd been replaced by something else. Fantasies of changeling covert operations teams hijacking the Dreaming and replacing the passengers with Hive-controlled duplicates filled his head, using the distraction as cover to infiltrate the city and cause chaos as a prelude to...

Neighmann shook his head. No, not this time. The Changelings were in no position to mount such a raid; even with their breeding rates, their numbers were nowhere near the point where such a thing would be possible. Besides, they are good at this kind of thing. If Libi was a changeling I'd never know... and she's lost to me forever if that is the case. Encased in a cocoon and hidden deep within the Queen's territory, her mind linked into the collective and feeding information back to the duplicate by non-causal arcane channels, her body repurposed for the Hive.

"No," he muttered, "I won't believe it... and she's not the only pony to undergo a dramatic shift in personality, is she?" Neighmann replayed the painful conversation with Libi in his head, feeling the second-hoof ghosts of emotion that came with it. This time he felt only confusion and sadness, not the irrational anger that had flooded him back at the hospital.

Then there was Neon. Neighmann squeezed his eyes shut against the tears and waited for the almost physical feeling of sickness to pass. His self-assured and cheerful assistant had become silent and withdrawn, practically gluing herself to his side as they had moved through the oppressive environment of the hospital. And the other patients, they were like that as well, either shivering in their stalls or aggressive and antagonistic... does that explain all the drugged ones as well?

Neighmann opened his eyes and started pacing the cramped space behind the dusty desk. Something came off the Dreaming-- no, that's not right, either. The news had clearly shown that the ponies on board were acting irrationally mid flight. Neighmann wracked his brain for that half-remembered report, something about the crew having to barricade themselves in the bridge... The final piece clicked into place and he stopped dead, a shiver running down his spine.

It's like a mental disorder, one that is contagious, and those it infects become aggressive or overly meek. Neighmann swallowed. It infected me -- from Libi, or just from being in the hospital? All those doctors had no chance; it's amazing they were working at all. Then why am I fine now? That led to a worrying chain of thought as he tried to decide if he'd actually be aware of any changes in his personality from the inside. I think I'm fine. Neighmann chewed the inside of his cheeks, then dismissed the idea. No way to prove it, but I don't feel angry anymore.

What's changed? Neon must have been infected like me, when I left her-- A small figure, huddled against the inside of the parking bay, mane whipping in the exhaust from his aircar's turbine. --yet she worked up the nerve to try and stop me. Oh, Celestia, I hope she's alright. Neighmann took deep breaths and waited until he could think again.

What links her and me? We were both exposed, then... I've been left alone, and Neon... she must have flown here, again alone. Is it isolation, separation from infected ponies? When you are close to them it reinforces the malady, stay away and it fades.

"It's elegant, and if what I've seen continues it will pull Equestria apart," he muttered. "Could it really be the gryphons, without any warning at all? They've never shown much aptitude for magic... I could almost believe a biological weapon." Neighmann paused, suddenly horribly afraid. There are parasites, ones that affect brain function, have they engineered something-- "No, too fast, and why would it go away after I was isolated?" He resumed pacing, trying to piece together the puzzle from what little information he had.

Suddenly frustrated, he reared up and slammed both hooves down on the concrete floor. "Everything is happening at once; how can this be? The gryphons, riots in Canterlot, even the new sensors are all faulty. At least I can rely on my original research; that is showing something." All of this only a few years from Discord's release.

The Lord of Chaos... He froze again, the horror returning. "Data," he mumbled, "got to trust the data." The years of historical data from the original Palace site seemed internally consistent, correlating with a wide range of measurements and events, but there had been something odd about the test data from the new facility. Validation sets, recorded during commissioning of the new hardware, had been fed into the models, but the results had not quite been right. There were always problems with new systems, especially at this level of complexity, and the investigations had been delayed.

And we could find nothing from my hypnosis, or whatever that was. With the idea nagging at his mind, Neighmann examined the desk for the first time. Under its plastic wrapping it was just a standard workstation; a combined touch- and arcane-sensitive panel, hooked up to the Institute's internal network. "Please let them have hooked it up..." he muttered, pressing the floor-level power switch with one hoof. "Praise Celestia," he breathed, watching as the galloping pony icon ran little racetracks around the screen.

Finally it allowed him to log in, and Neighmann quickly connected to the machines holding the raw data. The statistical interpretation tools came next, although somepony had taken an axe to his privileges, and he was restricted to running them on the local processor only, rather than the main array with its room-sized multiply parallel system. "Luna made your kind efficient, didn't she, Chirr? What else have you done?" While the simulations ran, he poked around the network, trying to see what the Guard had left him with.

"I suppose I should be grateful you didn't just delete my account." No external communications, just the ability to read data he'd had a hoof in collecting. The model slowly built, with many false starts as Neighmann modified the processing parameters, trying to extract meaning from the sparse, near-random information.

===

There it was again, that odd pattern to the early data. Not really visible at all when using the majority of the standard transforms, but if you picked a particular set of processing parameters it was right there, a subtle periodicity in time and space. Neighmann stared at the screen with its holographic plot, a three-dimensional slice through the n-dimensional data set generated by the hundreds of sensors scattered throughout the Monster Room and the surrounding buildings. The multicoloured patterns juddered and twitched as the computer tried to move the slice along one of the many axes available to it.

"This would be so much easier on the main array," Neighmann muttered, eyes aching from staring at the slowly cycling display. He cleared the results, waiting impatiently while the slow machine saved the multi-terabyte file to its already over-stretched storage system. How do I know this isn't just some artefact of the processing technique? This was always a risk with this kind of analysis, the accidental introduction of a bias into already noisy data. Just because I want it to be there...

He shivered. "Do I? If I'm right then it's pretty much the worst case scenario. Got to be sure, got to have proof." Especially now they think you're mad... and who are you going to show this to? There are perhaps a dozen ponies in Equestria who'd be able to follow this sort of esoteric analysis. The little needling voice at the back of his head wouldn't go away, so Neighmann reset the software and loaded the data from the original site at Canterlot Palace. First convince yourself.

He eliminated all the really old stuff, filtering the inputs to the modern sensors they'd installed around Discord those last few years. The equipment he had now was better than the early devices, but they had kept most of the equipment, installing it at secondary locations. Neighmann filtered the list still further, looking at the responses of those individual sensors, comparing their outputs back and forth through time.

An hour of time and eleven datasets later he leaned back from the display, trying to escape the sick feeling of dread that was filling his belly. The sensors were the same, but the data was different. Even after making allowances for the different distances, it was still all wrong. "We didn't check, spent too much time on the new equipment. I didn't check." At some point in the last few weeks -- it was hard to tell exactly when, but it must have been during or shortly before the move -- the sensor outputs had changed from the characteristic chaotic dance to something subtly ordered. Something that looked artificial.

"Discord is out; he's been out for weeks, feeding me false information." There, said it. All your nightmares made real. So why hasn't he done anything, made his play for power? "...because he knows he can't face the Princesses directly, he's done that before and lost." Neighmann's eyes widened as the reason for the odd mental contagion suddenly became obvious. "This is his play for power, he's distracting us with a sideshow while he prepares the real strike." All of it; the coup in Razorclaw, the chaos here, all designed to fool the princesses while he prepares.

Does anypony else know this? They must have figured out about the disease by now... but they don't know what I know -- they can't. It's the middle of the night and I know for a fact that nopony has looked at this data like this. Neighmann sat bolt upright and leapt to his hooves. Wheeling, he charged the door, slamming into the panel and making it rattle in its frame.

"Chirr! Anypony! Let me out, you've got to let me out!"

Five minutes later and Neighmann gave up shouting, turned his back on the door and lashed out with his hind legs. A few good strikes and the hinges had rattled loose, the metal pins twisted and bent. Another couple, and I should be able to burn--

"Neighmann! What in rutting Tartarus do you think you are doing!?"

The unexpected shout made Neighmann stagger in mid buck, nearly toppling over when he pulled the kick. "Chirr, thank Ce-- Luna. You've got to let me out of here; I've got information that must get to the Palace."

There was a moment of silence from the other side of the door, then the Guard sighed. "Nice try, Neighmann." The handle rattled, metal squeaking. "Step away from the door; you seem to have broken the lock." Neighmann jumped back quickly, just as Chirr kicked out at the door. On the second blow it popped open and the Guard stepped into the room.

Neighmann backed away nervously, stopping only when his rump banged into the desk. He'd never been on the wrong end of an angry Guard; the Day Guard were bad enough, but those who worked the Night added a whole new level of menace.

"You try any magic, and I'll hit you so hard--"

"No magic, I just want to talk. It's urgent." Neighmann talked rapidly, well aware that he'd used up any good will he'd had with Chirr. "I'm not mad, I promise. What afflicted me faded when you locked me in isolation."

"Not mad, right." The Night Guard snorted. "Have you looked at yourself?"

Neighmann winced, suddenly aware of his sweat-soaked flanks and straggly mane. Calm, be calm. He could feel his pulse pounding and made a conscious effort to slow his breathing. "I was mad, I think. I-I can remember everything clearly, the rage, what I did to Neon--" Neighmann stopped, his throat closing up. The dull thump of her head striking the console. Lowering his head he took a deep breath, then looked up to stare Chirr in the eye. "I'll never forgive myself for that, but it wasn't me. The panic and violence in Canterlot has been artificially induced. Equestria is under attack."

"Neon will live, although she'll have a nasty bruise for a while." Chirr drew his lips back from his sharp teeth in a rictus grin. "It's not just Canterlot. Manehatten and Fillydelphia and Baltimare. Whatever it is, it's spreading fast. Convince me that you're cured.”

Neighmann gaped at the chiropt. "You knew!?"

"We're not entirely unobservant, Director."

"Sorry." Neighmann thought quickly. How do I prove I'm not something? "I think the best proof I can give you is this conversation. The other me wouldn't have the restraint, he’d have charged you the instant the door was down."

Chirr looked thoughtful. "Perhaps. You do seem more like I remember. Do you know what happened to you?"

Part of Neighmann started screaming inside, wanted to push past Chirr and gallop to his aircar. He's testing me, trying to get me to react. He slowly folded his legs and sank to the floor, looking up at Chirr. "I'm not certain, but I think it was the hospital. I saw a lot of strange things there; aggressive doctors, frightened patients, loads of drugged ponies. It must have been there. Coming out the other side... it was the shock when you tackled me, broke something in my head, let me see what I'd done."

The chiropt nodded slowly. "Okay, I'll bite. You said you had something new for the Palace?" Chirr smiled at his own joke, a quick flash of his pearly-white fangs that made Neighmann flinch.

Remember, the chiropt only eat fruit... I think. "I've been running some simulations, and I think we've been tricked. Discord's out."

Chirr blinked, then grinned. "I never took you for having a sense of humour, Neighmann. Could have fooled me, the last time I passed the Monster Room."

Neighmann waved a hoof helplessly at the computer with its multicoloured display. "How's your grasp of chaos mathematics?"

"I know fifteen ways to break your spine, but they don't cover much in the way of math in the academy, other than a bit of orbital mechanics, you know, because of..." He waved a hoof, encompassing what would be the night sky, had they been above ground.

"No, that won't do it. The rest of the specialists in the Chaos Group could follow it, but they all live in Canterlot and that might take too..." Neighmann froze, mouth half open. She solves n-body gravitational problems in her head every night.

"If this mental thing is as bad as I've been hearing, going into the city could really give you a new outlook on things." Chirr noticed the look on Neighmann's face, and paused. "What is it? What have you thought of?"

"Can you contact your Commander in Chief? I really need to talk to Princess Luna."

"Right to the top, eh? You do know she's not really in charge any more, don't you? Everything goes through the Triumvirate."

"She's the one who set up the Institute... and I'd imagine that the Night Guard will follow her, with or without the government's permission."

Chirr looked uncomfortable. "The last time that happened, my mistress was exiled for a thousand years," he said softly, then glanced sharply at Neighmann. "Probably. Especially with this level of disruption and evidence that it's been caused by an external threat."

"And you, Chirr?"

"I would die for my Princess, but that's beside the point. Come with me."

"You believe me? You'll help?"

The chiropt said nothing, just waved a membranous wing down the corridor. Neighmann obligingly trotted at Chirr's side, stopping uncertainly when the Guard paused next to a small, blank door. "What are you doing?" he asked, staring into the dark opening when Chirr nosed open the door. Inside was a narrow storage area, walls lined with shallow shelves filled with cleaning supplies.

"You're a smart pony, Director, I'm sure you'll figure it out."

Trust, Neighmann thought sickly, then bowed his head and backed into the storage closet. Chirr closed the door, leaving him in the dark.

===

Celestia paced the Sunset Room, her regalia scattered carelessly against one wall. These things they gave me, they are like chains. The rest of the elliptical room was a wide expanse of polished floor, intricate pseudorandom tiles in gold, orange and red that swirled and wove from wall to wall. The whole long, curving east side of the room was glass, a single huge panel that looked out over the city and towards the distant rise of the Unicorn Range.

It was after noon and the sun was behind Mount Aither-Erebos. Its shadow stretched across the city, but did nothing to hide the columns of smoke rising from various points. Celestia stopped in the middle of the floor, staring out at the fires, imagining the chaos in the streets. My poor ponies. For a moment, Celestia's thoughts reached out towards the sun, feeling its motion along an orbital track so regular it had almost worn grooves in space-time. I could move it, bring it around and bring light back to the city. When night falls things will only get worse.

The temptation was almost impossible to resist, but the thought of what it would mean for the other cities in Equestria tempered her instinctive reaction. She spared no thought at all for the countries on the other side of the world, the ones who'd suffer a sudden nightfall, or for whom the sun wouldn't rise at all. If I'd known, I'd have ordered the airship isolated. We're spread too thin. All those pegasi... The only pegasi left on the Dreaming were those too injured to fly, the rest had dispersed to the coastal cities.

"Your Highness, the Triumvirate is here."

"About time. Charter, show them in." The earth pony bowed, walking to the door on trembling legs. A group of ponies walked into the room; there were three obvious leaders -- a blue unicorn, a grey earth pony and an orange pegasus -- and each was trailed by several assistants. All looked harried and irritated.

The grey earth pony stepped forward, chin held high and staring the Princess straight in the eye. "What's going on, Celestia? We're too busy for this kind of spur of the moment meeting. In case you hadn't noticed--"

"Silence." Celestia's voice wasn't loud, but somehow still managed to echo from the walls. The earth pony's mouth snapped shut in shock, then his eyes narrowed. The Day Princess glared back at him. "I told you that this was to be a private meeting. The rest of you ponies, clear the room." There was a shuffling of hooves, and the assistants backed away, trotting out of the room with frightened backward glances. "Not you, Charter." Celestia pointed to the side of the room, and the earth pony practically cantered to the wall, pressing himself against the hanging tapestries and trying to vanish. The temperature in the room seemed to jump a few degrees.

"We are the elected representatives of our clades, you can't order us about like servants!" This was from the pegasus, her wings flaring in agitation.

"Praetors Green Flash, Cloudwalker and Kimberlite. You have all shown yourselves to be unable to control this matter." As she named them, Celestia shifted her gaze from unicorn to pegasus to earth pony. The last two stepped forward, ears folded back in anger, while the unicorn shrank back, nearly prostrating herself against the tiles.

"We are doing everything possible to--"

"It is not enough. It is plain to me that your methods are not working. As of now, I am declaring a state of emergency and invoking the Defence of the Realm Act. Your duties are suspended; Luna and I will resume direct rule."

There was a moment of stunned silence, then Praetor Cloudwalker jumped into the air, hovering level with Celestia's eyes. "You dare! As if we will trust the Nightmare ever again -- by doing this you are proving yourself to be just as bad as she was. What's next, will the sun never set on Equestria?"

A bubble of white light, the hard colour of the noon-day sun, materialised around the Praetor. For an instant the pegasus stared back at Celestia, eyes wide and all bravado gone, then he accelerated backwards, slamming into the wall. The bubble disappeared, leaving Cloudwalker in the centre of a circular crater four meters off the floor. The pegasus fell to the floor in a puff of orange feathers, one wing limp, sluggishly trying to get to his hooves.

The same white glow plucked the pony off the floor, levitating the weakly struggling form back to position next to his fellows. "You will keep a civil tongue in your head, Praetor, or the next time I will not be so gentle." The unicorn was now cowering on the floor and making little whimpering noises, while the previously aggressive earth pony was cringing and backing away.

"Yes, your H-Highness," the earth pony said, sweating heavily, "what do you want us to do?"

"Contact General Buckler and inform her that I have invoked the Act. I will need to speak to her immediately. Contact the dragons and tell them that we are declaring a state of emergency and that Equestria is closed to their kind... for their own safety. Arrange a meeting with the ambassadors of Whitefeather, Razorclaw, Goldenwing and Hookbeak, within the hour."

Celestia stepped forward, standing over the three ponies. Looking down, she smiled. "Better include the Zebra Alliance as well."

===

Neighmann fretted inside the storeroom. It seemed like an age since Chirr had locked him in, and he'd kindled a small light to relieve the absolute darkness in the small chamber. The back of the door was a featureless rectangle of dark wood, with only a push plate on this side. Like most of the doors it was fire-resistant and heavily built, but it wasn't a security door and he was sure he could manipulate the simple lock from the inside. And if I get out, he'll know I was playing him and everything will go south.

"Come on, Chirr, how long does it take to get word to the Palace?"

There was an odd, high pitched whine, brief and sweeping up through the frequencies into the ultrasonic. Neighmann twitched, then realised what it had to be. "I'm still in here, Chirr. Come on, let me out."

The door rattled and swung outwards. For a moment the chiropt stared at him, then he nodded slowly. "Okay, Director, you pass. Come with me."

Neighmann jumped up. "Oh, thank Luna."

"You're getting better at that. The Guard is too stretched to send a transport, so we'll take your aircar. I'll drive." Chirr accelerated to a canter, forcing Neighmann into a full gallop.

By the time they reached the aircar's parking bay, the unicorn was gasping, lungs working like bellows and foam dotting his sweat-soaked flanks. Chirr was in his aircar's control stall, flicking switches and spooling up the turbine to operating speed. The levitation drive was already running, the vehicle floating a hoof-span above the concrete deck. Neighmann dived in through the open hatch, thumping down into the passenger stall with a groan. A flick of magic closed the hatch and the aircar jumped backwards with a howl and a blast of dust.

"A little bit out of shape, Director? You should get out more."

"Says the pony who flew up the centre of the shaft," Neighmann groaned, trying to get his breathing under control.

Chirr just smirked, then tapped something on the control interface. "You might want to cover your ears."

"What? Gah!"

Chirr had opened his mouth, but what emerged wasn't speech. A teeth-aching skirling filled the small cockpit, stopping abruptly. "Night Guard five five seven one zero."

"Override accepted and logged. Safety systems are offline."

Neighmann worked his jaw and unfolded his ears. "I didn't know you could do that. That was your real name?"

"Uh-huh. You can see why I don't use it among you day walkers. Hold on."

The engines roared, far louder than Neighmann had ever heard before. There was a look of concentration on Chirr's face and the aircar jumped like a pony trying to rid itself of a biting fly. The unicorn started to slide backward in the stall as the acceleration climbed. Chirr kept the aircar low, dodging the spires of the tallest buildings and the occasional pegasus. "I didn't know my car could this!"

"You're probably going to have to get the turbines checked when we're done."

===

They landed at the Guard barracks, slotting in next to an armoured airtruck. The rest of the area was empty. Both ponies climbed out and trotted across the landing field, heading towards the wide gate surmounted by the royal sun-and-moon sigil. A harried-looking grey unicorn in gold armour came out from a side passageway, trotting up to the pair.

"This him?"

"Yes, sergeant." Chirr clicked his hooves together in salute, which the other pony returned with a distracted nod.

"Good. Both of you, follow me."

They trotted off, a journey taking them through deeper and deeper levels inside the Palace. How deep are we going? Neighmann thought. We must inside the mountain by now. This part of the Palace was obviously older than the rest, and a far cry from the white marble and gold inlay of the upper, more public, levels. Is this part of the Panopticon?

"Ah, sergeant, why--"

"Be silent, corporal. Do not complete that thought."

"Yes, sergeant."

Chirr sounded confused, and Neighmann started to wonder. I've been in the Panopticon, and I'm sure it didn't look like this. "Sergeant, I'm supposed to be seeing Princess Luna, what is she doing down here?"

"You'll see."

Neighmann opened his mouth to ask another question, then caught a glimpse of Chirr's grim expression and didn't speak. They rounded a corner, coming up on a heavy-looking door. There was a strange shimmer over the entire wall, something that seemed to tickle in the centre of Neighmann's head, in the place where his magic came from.

The unicorn did something to a wall panel, causing the door to open. "In," he said, gesturing curtly.

Dragging his hooves, Neighmann walked in, stopping to stare at a short corridor lined with transparent, thick-looking doors. He could see through the nearest panel; inside was a bare room with sink, latrine and sleeping pad. The whole area had that same subliminal tingle, and it felt like his head was being stuffed with cotton wool. The panel in front of him slid open.

Neighmann's ears folded flat and his flanks became damp. "Please don't do this. You don't know what's at stake," he said, turning to the Guard. There was no sympathy there, so he looked at the batpony. "Chirr, I thought you said...?"

"I did." Chirr's voice was flat, all emotion gone.

"Yes, he did. Get in, Neighmann."

He took two slow steps into the cell and turned to face the Guards. "At least tell the Princess I'm here," he pleaded. The oppressive feeling intensified as the door started to slide shut.

"Who do you think ordered your detention?"

16 -- Panopticon

General Buckler was quiet and reserved at the start of her planning meeting with Celestia, but within a few minutes she became more animated, striding through the three-dimensional magical map like a dragon. Her own horn glowed a deep orange, annotating the map with the positions of Equestria's military units.

"Yes, your Highness, we can do that. There are a number of groups overseas at the moment, on international assistance missions, but they can be recalled immediately. The movement restrictions will be harder to implement, but we can use magic and microwave area denial to enforce a no-fly zone around the infected cities."

"See that it is done, General. It is obvious to me that our entire way of life is under threat. We will need our entire strength for this fight, but we will prevail." Celestia was motionless for a moment, staring off into the distance. "I waited too long, was too trusting, while the Changelings killed Cadance and most of her people. I won't make that mistake again," she murmured.

"I agree completely, Princess. You have spent centuries trying to convince this world that the pony way of cooperation is best and still they plot against you." Buckler was marching through the map again, a commander on the eve of a great battle, voice raised to give a stirring speech to her troops. "You, who bring them sunlight every morning, and yet they engage in this treachery. No," she said, wheeling to face Celestia, legs and back ram-rod straight, metal-shod hooves slamming down against the stone floor, "not treachery. Blasphemy."

The word hung in the sudden, ringing silence and something twitched inside Celestia's head, a momentary doubt. No, I don't want this, I'm just like you inside, I'm not a god, she thought, but this was washed away by the glow of pride and fervour in the General's eyes. She found herself nodding in time with the unicorn's words. "I have been gentle for far too long, it is time to return to the old ways. I will not tolerate any more threats to my ponies. I carved out this land from the ruins left by Discord's rule, and I will not let it fall!"

"We will need to recruit more to the Guard... this latest crisis has shown that many of our soldiers do not have the stomach for a fight."

"Do not blame them, Buckler, this... memetic plague our enemies have used against us is a foul weapon. Not everypony is strong enough to resist its effects like you or I." General Buckler made a contemptuous sound but nodded reluctantly. "Once the full extent of this attack is known, your ranks will be swollen by the outrage of the common pony."

"Excellent! Highness, with your permission...?"

"Carry on, General."

===

It was more than an hour and a half before a trembling Charter hesitantly nosed open the door to the Day Throne. "P-princess? The ambassadors are here."

"We said we wanted them within the hour, Charter. Aren't you aware that every second counts when we are at war?" Celestia's voice was low and filled with menace.

"T-there was a problem getting across the city, a fire--" Charter was practically incoherent, the terror obvious in his voice.

"No more excuses from you, earth pony, get out of my sight!" Charter turned and galloped from the room, barging past the small group of non-ponies standing in the entrance.

Four gryphons and a zebra, all wearing the chains of office that marked them out as senior diplomats, exchanged worried glances, then stepped forwards. The door closed behind them.

"Princess Celestia, may I be the first to offer my sympathies for the troubles that are afflicting your country." The ambassador for Goldenwing, an elderly gryphon missing patches of feathers from his chest and throat, stepped forward and bowed. "It is a tragic thing when the innocent suffer. Have you managed to track the source of this malady?"

As if you don't already know, gryphon. To think I considered you to be my friend. Celestia felt a flicker of anger welling up within her, a feeling that had been her constant companion these last few hours. They dare to keep up this front, even to my face. Very well. "We have, Ambassador Talons Sheathed In Steel. An airship fleeing the conflict in Razorclaw was carrying the plague. We even have reports that the trouble only started after a single pony was returned to the Canterlot Dreaming by Razorclaw security forces." She turned her gaze on Razorclaw's ambassador, a gryphon with the characteristic deep red-brown feathers from the northern reaches of the coastal country.

Ambassador Darkness Covers The Hunter shrank back under the intensity of Celestia's gaze. "I am deeply sorry for your troubles, your Highness," he said with a bow, "but I'm really not sure what you are implying. I have had no contact with my superiors since the coup, and by the looks of it my own people are not going to have a happy time of it. I have family in the capital, and if the Talons are being thorough in their purge..." he trailed off into a mutter, ruffling his chest feathers nervously.

"If I were you, Ambassador, I'd do my best to prove my worth to my new masters," Celestia said with a cold smile, "you might want to make sure they get the right information."

"I'm sorry, I don't--"

"No, perhaps you don't understand, but I know the rest of you do." Celestia stared at each of the ambassadors in turn. "We know that, singly, your countries have no hope against Equestria. Together, on the other hoof..."

"You have the right to call us here, but not to make wild accusations!" The zebra held her head up, ears flattened. "With Equestria, we have had nothing but good relations--"

Celestia tossed her head, snorting with disgust. "Do not bother with the rhymes; I am not some tourist. I brought you here to listen, not to talk. Don't be fooled into thinking this is a negotiation. You, Ambassador Farasi Jasisi, I am very disappointed with you. To have sided with these carnivores over fellow equines." The zebra made to speak, but Celestia cut her off again. "There is no way that Razorclaw could mount this attack on its own. The Alliance is the only other nation state with the capability to produce such a monstrosity."

"Princess, please, there is no conspiracy against you. If what has happened here is a deliberate act, then all will be behind you in your search for justice." The Ambassador for Hookbeak, a grey gryphoness with snow leopard colouration, reached out with a claw. "This kind of thing threatens us all."

"Threats, yes. Since we are on the subject of threats, let me be completely clear. If we receive information on the nature of this plague -- and its cure -- within the next forty-eight hours, I will consider not searching for those answers within your countries."

There was a stunned silence in the throne room, then all four ambassadors started to shout at once. Celestia watched the little display with grim amusement. They can act the part very well; I can almost admire them for that. Almost.

Finally the little group was silent, leaving the venerable Talons Sheathed In Steel to speak for them. "Your Highness, we cannot give what we do not have. Let us work with you to understand the nature and origin of these events. Please, I beg you not to do anything hasty."

"So you can feed me lies? No, we said this was not a negotiation. You will return to your countries and tell them we await their answers. Our patience is not infinite; any further attacks will be met with immediate reprisals."

Jasisi made to speak, but Talons Sheathed In Steel laid a claw on her shoulder, shaking his head. "We understand, your Highness. I'm sorry it has come to this, but we do not take kindly to these unwarranted threats. We will defend ourselves against any Equestrian aggression."

"Perhaps you should ask the Changelings about what our aggression means. If you can find any."

"We are well aware of your power, Princess; that particular demonstration was very educational." His voice dropped, becoming sorrowful. "We have not been idle in the decades since you reduced the Changeling Empire to its current state. Please think before you do anything rash."

Celestia narrowed her eyes. "Then get me my answers, Ambassador. The clock is ticking."

===

The Ambassadorial compound was on the other side of the city, a section of the suburbs isolated from the rest of the city by a strip of parkland and an elegant, but functional, stone wall. Within this area were a number of large, rambling houses, built specifically to accommodate the consulates from each of the countries, and supporting the staff, guards and other paraphernalia that came with a diplomatic mission. Each house had its own entrance in the wall, but all backed onto the same central space.

By mutual consent, all four had met up after their disastrous meeting with Celestia. "Well?" Talons Sheathed In Steel said sharply to Darkness Covers The Hunter, "do you have any idea what is going on?"

"There is no weapon program even remotely able to duplicate these effects in Razorclaw," Darkness Covers The Hunter said, drawing spiky shapes in the dirt with one long talon. "Of course, I can't actually check until the new government answers my messages." He looked off into the middle distance, beak snapping shut with an irritated click. "Celestia's right about one thing; we don’t even have any theoretical research in that direction. Magic and gryphons just don't seem to mix."

"...which leaves us with you, Jasisi. I have been privy to some interesting intelligence coming out of the Alliance states -- are any of your many and varied organisations behind any of this? Try not to take this personally; we are all well aware that the hold your government has is, shall we say, loose."

The zebra shook her head. "We have our own arcane programs, obviously, but there's nothing like this. In any case, we have no cause for hostilities -- our trade links with Equestria run extremely deep, and even if a war doesn't directly involve us, it will still cause a lot of economic harm." Her stripey head turned upwards to where the sun was starting to set. "A war with the Princesses would have only losers, you know this."

"There is always VORPAL, or RUBICON," Talons said, narrowing his eyes.

"Things will have to get far worse before we take that path," Jasisi said, her ears flat back. "It's not called mutually assured destruction for nothing!"

"Yes, well... " Darkness Covers The Hunter said, "That aside, can you do anything? Use your arcane expertise to find out what has caused this disease? The first place she will go for answers is Razorclaw, and my family..."

"Perhaps if we would study it directly. If we could convince Celestia to open the borders and let our scientists in... but does that seem likely to you? She seemed convinced that we were all in it together."

Talons Sheathed In Steel sighed and lowered his haunches to the grass. "She sees a conspiracy against her, and she's right. Now, at least."

The others shifted uncomfortably, staying silent. Finally, Jasisi nodded in agreement. "We have no choice if we want to survive."

===

Trailblazer looked with interest at the large display that filled the Express' map room. On it was a three-dimensional relief map of Razorclaw, the area dominated by an extensive range of snow-capped mountains. The settlements -- all but the largest were invisible at this scale -- were picked out by hovering green markers, concentrated in the deep coastal valleys that edged the cold country. Other markers, orange this time, were spread through the interior, highlighting the mining industry that formed the bulk of Razorclaw's economic wealth.

The FOAL was more interested in the red indicators, the ones for the military bases. The other members of his team lounged in various attitudes of attention around the central table. The other members of the Friendship Express' FOAL compliment were with them; five teams of three ponies, all of whom Trailblazer knew at least in passing.

"I see they are still putting military sites in with the civilians," he said, mildly disgusted.

"That is unfortunately the case, Captain," Fairbairn said, "although arguably the average gryphon's level of aggression and their policy of mandatory military service makes any of the cities a potential military camp."

"Tell that to the chicks," he muttered, then winced. "Sorry, sir."

"Don't worry, Trailblazer, I understand. There will be no indiscriminate attacks. As you can see, our presence here has permitted extensive clairvoyant surveillance, with greater accuracy than the scans taken from the Panopticon. We have located the facility where our ponies were taken, although things are never simple." He waved a hoof over the display's controls, causing the image to zoom in rapidly.

Trailblazer blinked, then screwed up his eyes until the view stabilised. It was a narrow valley with a landing platform jutting out of one near-vertical wall, behind which was a set of heavy-looking doors. What could only be antipersonnel weapon stations flanked the doors, with secondary turrets carrying heavier armaments high up on both ridge tops. There was a curious fuzziness to the view, a distortion that was limited to the area directly around the platform.

"Jammers?" he said, glancing up at Fairbairn. "When did they start using those?"

"It's been part of their procurement program for some time now. The Alliance has made quite a bit of money from the gryphons over the years."

Trailblazer grunted. There's so much I need to catch up on. The Zebra Alliance had a thriving industry in spellcraft systems, even more so than Equestrians, something he'd always put down to them being more similar to earth ponies than unicorns.

"Unfortunately, the system over this facility is relatively new, so we can't even get a vague idea of the internal layout, but we do have an estimate of its size from the volume that is denied to us." The mountainside twisted, sliced open to show a creeping mass of darkness amid the rock strata.

"Bigger than it looks. Deep, too. What is it?"

"It's listed as a prison, and we think that is the truth. Intel has been calculating the numbers from the quantity of cargo transports that land -- there is no ground route -- and we did get this from a few months back as part of a routine sweep." An inset cube showed the same platform, this time with one of the blocky gryphon transports perched to one side. A line of figures were being led down the cargo ramp, the resolution just good enough to see the chains that linked each gryphon's neck.

"What makes you think our ponies are there?"

"A local asset, before she was unfortunately made by the Talons. We also have data on a flurry of small transports arriving from various points, which match up with the known locations of Equestrian citizens, as well as deliveries of supplies from farms that only produce material for their cattle industry."

Trailblazer nodded. "They have herbivorous prisoners."

"Exactly. Apparently there was one pony released from the prison, a mare by the name of Equilibrium, dropped off on that airship you came from. She'll be interviewed by ponies from the Panopticon as soon as she's fit to be questioned. Apparently she led them a merry dance, and the gryphons dehorned her for it." He made a disgusted face. "For reasons that will become obvious we probably won't know the truth until this is all over."

Nightstorm, silent up to now, leaned forward. "I heard about that. She was taking it pretty hard, by all accounts."

"How debilitating is that? Can her information be relied on?"

"It's pretty bad; the shock alone can cause real mental problems, but if she's able to talk, then her memories will be as accurate as they ever were."

Trailblazer nodded, looking thoughtful. "With that information..."

"There's a complication. The news coming back from the Palace has been... confused. What was thought to be just an extreme example of panic at the news of a potential war isn't the case. That mare was sent back for a reason; she was carrying some sort of mental plague, and--"

"Ha, I knew it! Didn't I say there was something odd about that airship?" Blevie sat bolt upright, her eyes alight.

"Yes, you did, Blevie. Perhaps we can hear the major's briefing?"

Blevie snorted, unapologetic, and Fairbairn tried to hide a small smile. "Interesting that you managed to detect the plague; there were reports that others have felt the same. Based on what happened in the airship, it was lucky we pulled you off when we did. Anyway, this means that the mare isn't going to be of any help unless she can be cured." The major's expression grew grim. "The threat was not understood in time; when the Dreaming docked the ponies were not successfully quarantined. There are reports of the plague in all of the cities on its route. This means our mission has changed."

Any pretence of joking vanished and all eyes and ears zeroed in on Fairbairn Sykes. The pony nodded in return. "The Shredder that carried that mare came from here. All the evidence points to her being infected at this site. There are answers in there, and we are going to find them."

===

"We need to keep the attention of the gryphon military off your teams, Trailblazer and Scoria, so we will be inserting the others at various points to cause a little havoc."

The reward for a job well done is another job, Trailblazer thought as Fairbairn Sykes listed the other targets that would be hit as part of the far-ranging 'distraction'. The Express itself would be stationed some distance away, hopefully acting as a giant magnet for Razorclaw's big guns. He exchanged glances with the heavily-built earth pony mare that led the other team. He'd never worked with Scoria, but he knew her by reputation, and had spent one training rotation with her during a combined forces exercise. She grinned back, then returned her attention to the briefing, a hungry look on her face.

They'd been stationed in Razorclaw for several years, ergo they were the best team for the job; if nothing else they knew a lot of the ponies by sight. This time I'll be going in with the right equipment. The civilians he'd lost during the evacuation of the embassy still smarted, despite how heavily they'd been outnumbered. They'd never deployed against gryphon military before, but already Trailblazer was looking forward to it. Those half-birds won't know what hit them.

"--turrets are here and here, but they are for air defence and are unable to bear on the landing platform. The valley floor is listed as a safety area for the artillery range to the south, but the Panopticon suspects it is also mined. This particular prison is for the worst examples of gryphonkind Razorclaw has to offer; they routinely clip their wings, so a minefield makes a lot of sense."

Something beeped, distracting Fairburn from his briefing. Calling up the message, he scanned it then scowled and slammed a hoof down on the map's controls. The image blinked out and the room lights came up. "As of two hours ago, Princess Celestia has declared direct rule. We have been ordered to return home to reinforce the borders of Equestria. The Palace is expecting an attack from a mixture of zebra and gryphon states."

There was a general disapproving mutter from around the room and Trailblazer opened his mouth to object, before closing it again. Beneath his hooves the deck was tilting; the Friendship Express was coming about.

===

"This is completely screwed up," Blevie said, just one variation on a continuous litany of complaints that had started on the walk back to their shared quarters.

Trailblazer rolled his eyes and refused to take the bait, but Nightstorm was at the end of her already short temper. "Oh, will you just shut up about it already! Orders are orders; get used to it. You've been on detached duty too long if you think it works any other way."

"But it's not fair! You heard what they are doing to the prisoners -- I joined up to make a difference, not turn my back on stuff like--"

"The Palace knows more than we do; the big picture obviously requires hard decisions. If they think we can do more good at home, that's their call," Trailblazer said loudly, hoping to forestall a shouting match between the unicorn and the earth pony. One look at Night's face made him almost wish he'd kept his mouth shut and he sighed inside. The mare looked like she was spoiling for a fight, one that she'd gladly lay on him if Blevie wasn't around. The earth pony looked similarly mutinous.

He stopped mid corridor and turned to stare at the pair. "We all want to go in, Blevie. If I had the choice, we'd have stayed behind and cracked that prison like an egg. I've read the same reports you have; what the gryphons have done is very hard to stomach."

"Well, now that you mention it... it will take the Express about a day to get back, and we'll be in range of her power circle for at least another six hours. If we start now, they could drop us off and we could go in, get the prisoners out using a one-shot beacon--"

"I'd have to stay behind to run it," Nightstorm said, her anger turned thoughtful.

Sweet Celestia, not both of them! Trailblazer thought. "Don't even think that, you know it would be all of us." We'd have to make our way to the coast; if we stashed a set of parawings en-route, then island or cloud hop until we could travel through a friendly country. The five thousand kilometres back to Equestria would take him over a week; the others much longer as the parawings wouldn't have the range. ...but they could send a transport once we are clear, pick us up mid ocean. Trailblazer realised what he was doing and shook his head vigorously. "No! Absolutely not."

"Will you at least ask?" Night said. "It might be the only chance those ponies have."

Trailblazer slumped. "Fine. But don't get your hopes up. You know as well as I do what the Palace will say. You too get some rest--" He scowled at the two mares. "--or work on your plan, I don't care. Just so long as you find somewhere quiet where the inevitable shouting match won't scare the rest of the crew." He'd left the pair to plan before; without him to mediate he was half certain they'd come to blows before a quarter of an hour was up. "And if you do plan, don't forget to come up with a away to avoid catching the plague." He stomped off down the corridor, muttering all the way.

===

The Panopticon operations centre was not the hive of activity it was supposed to be. The cavernous circular space, lit with subdued lighting and ringed with work stalls around the big holographic display, was three-quarters empty. Director Krett, a nondescript earth pony mare of middle years with a pale blue-grey coat, lay in one of the padded stalls and closed her eyes in despair. Reaching out a hoof, she triggered the surveillance video again, in a vain hope that lack of sleep had caused her to hallucinate.

No, there it was again. Her Princess had just declared war on four of their neighbours. The urge to believe was a powerful one; the Princess had been a constant guiding light as far back as any historian could imagine, and now this... "Oh, Celestia, why are you doing this?" she asked plaintively, turning to the other screens that ringed her low walled stall. The intelligence summaries were clear: no evidence of a military build-up within any of the states Celestia blamed. Something had come out of Razorclaw, but it was very hard to believe the gryphons were the source.

Topsy chewed at the insides of her mouth, rapidly opening links to the original reports, desperately hoping there would be something that she, or any of the analysts that reported to her, had missed. "What in Tartarus am I going to do now?" What you should do is clear, isn't it filly? Reluctantly she sent a message to the Palace, tagging it with a 'Royal Eyes Only' marker. Topsy was the head of Equestrian Intelligence; that should at least get her through to one of the Princesses. She stole a glance at the time display: still not sunset, so Celestia would be the first in the queue.

The Panopticon wasn't affected by whatever was running riot through the city; its isolation had meant that Topsy had managed to issue the lockdown order before any of the infected had gotten inside. Deeply buried under Mount Aither-Erebos, the centre was staffed at all hours, although she was stuck with the early shift and any others -- like herself -- who had been working past their normal times when she'd realised the extent of the threat.

What might have happened if she hadn't acted was made horrifically clear; ten minutes after being refused access, a group of staff and fresh security ponies had assaulted the guard post in the main entrance tunnel. The short, sharp battle had left many wounded to limp away -- and several who were dragged, unmoving.

Then there was the matter of the orders coming down from the Palace. First was the dissolution of the civilian government, not something that surprised Topsy, all things considered, then the orders for increased surveillance of their national borders and all international approaches. The internal monitoring was the worst; all of the coastal cities were in the grip of the plague, spread by frightened pegasi fleeing suddenly hostile cloud cities.

Topsy tapped out a code and waited impatiently while the system routed her call through non-causal channels to the intelligence station in Vanhoover, then on to the science group she'd hastily assembled in that distant city. The call was answered by a stout yellow unicorn mare, who looked as tired as Topsy felt. "Professor Dala, have you made any progress?"

Amy-Gee Dala glanced over one shoulder to the rest of the room; little groups of ponies were huddled around spellcraft display panels covered with hastily scrawled diagrams that looked to be a mix of advanced mathematics and esoteric arcane theory. "Some. We have a working hypothesis on how the plague spreads, based on the information you supplied. The real problem is that the infected seem to seek other ponies out." She looked grim, ears folding back. "I almost wish it was a real disease; anything lethal which presented symptoms this fast would not be half as dangerous."

We'd have a city full of dead ponies, but at least we could stop it. A chill ran down Topsy's spine. "It is just close proximity that does it, then? Ponies suffering the passive reaction either hide or seek comfort of friends and family, and that's why it's moving so fast?"

"Yes. It's the pegasi, of course. Your local officer tells me that there have already been ponies flying in from Cloudsdale. He's preparing an alternative site to keep us isolated."

"I've more news for you. Celestia has blamed a conspiracy of gryphons and zebra. If they don't stop the plague within two days she's going to do to them what she did to the Changelings. I think she's jumping to conclusions, but she's been alive for far longer than any of us... and if she is right, then it's the biggest intelligence failure since the Crystal Empire. We really should have seen the precursors to something this big; they don't call this place the Panopticon for nothing, especially after all the upgrades we've had in the last thirty years. I'm going to show you something." Topsy played a copy of the throne room surveillance video to the scientist, who stared at it in fascination.

When it finished, Dala looked two decades older. "There seems to be two possible responses to the infection; excessive meekness and excessive aggression. It's also obvious that the affected pony doesn’t think he's been changed, so it's remarkably difficult to fight the effects. This seems uncharacteristic of the Princess' public persona, but I've had little interaction with her. I take it this is a real change?"

"It is. In all my years of daily briefings -- even during the Changeling fiasco -- I've never seen her like this. The pony she dismissed right at the start was Charter, her equerry. She's known him for longer than I've been alive; he's practically her right hoof."

"Classic type one response. It's probably only his deeply ingrained loyalty that kept him there that long. Most just flee." Dala looked at Topsy with haunted eyes. "What are we going to do, if the Princess is infected--"

"We will keep on working to stop this," Topsy said firmly, "we have to. This plague is unmaking us as a species."

The words hung in the air between them, then Dala gave a shaky laugh. "So, no pressure then. If we come up with anything, I'll call you directly." Topsy nodded and the unicorn closed the connection.

===

Topsy had just started to dig back into the terabytes of data that were being processed by the few analysts still on duty, when her central screen was cleared by a priority incoming call. Cautiously optimistic, she opened the link, only to be greeted by an angry-looking General Buckler.

"What is the meaning of this, Krett?" the unicorn snarled.

"Are you answering the Princess' mail now, General?" Topsy asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.

"I am second in command of Equestria, I have the right to--"

"Surely you mean third, General. Unless you had forgotten about Princess Luna?"

"The Darkness still sleeps; until she awakes I am at my mistress' side -- and I don't want an earth pony like you bothering their Highness' with such doubts. We have known each other for a long time, so I will let you go with a warning. If you try this again, I will have you relieved."

The Darkness Sleeps. The old phrase rattled around Topsy's brain, stirring up interesting connections. An old term for Princess Luna, back near the dawn of recorded history when the Princesses were regarded as living goddesses. I never took you for the religious type, General -- and I know the Celestia of old would not have tolerated it if you were. A sudden stirring of worry tickled at Topsy and she decided not to say that out loud, or ask exactly how the General would have her removed from the inside of the arcanely-shielded, highly-armoured Panopticon.

The General is showing the aggressive response, yet she's still loyal -- more so than normal if the religious overtones are to be believed. How widespread is that? Are all the Guards that have not run showing the same symptoms? "I understand, General, my apologies. I would like to fully brief The Dark-- ah, Princess Luna when she awakens. Would that be possible?"

Buckler stared out of the screen at Topsy, a suspicious look on her face. For her part, Topsy schooled her expression into one of genuine contrition, thankful for her years of experience as a field agent. Finally the General snorted. "I don't see why not," she said, "but I want to see the information packet first."

"Of course, General. I will have it to you within the hour." Topsy nodded smartly and hurriedly cleared the connection, shaking slightly with the release of tension. I must talk to Luna, and quickly. She has been secluded in her chambers for the whole day, so there is hope she has not been exposed. Topsy mulled over what she knew about Celestia's day, trying to decide how long it had taken her to succumb. A 'normal' pony might be infected within minutes; it seemed that the Princess had spent several hours traipsing around one of the hospitals before being overcome. There is still time, Topsy thought.

She leaned back against the padded wall of the stall and plucked a carrot out of the food dispenser next to the screen. The orange root was the last one, and Topsy slowly crunched her way through it, trying to think of a way that would let her bypass Buckler without having to fake up a briefing.

17 -- The Darkness Awakens

Princess Luna awoke from troubled dreams. Instinctively, she reached for the heavens, checking the locations of sun and moon like a sleepy pony would fumble for the snooze button on a stall-side alarm clock. Everything is where it should be, she thought, her mind drifting back towards sleep. There was still time; the moon was less than an arcminute from its correct location, something that she would fix as soon as she'd had a few more minutes of rest.

Despite her half-doze, sleep wouldn't come. The half-remembered dreams chased her through the twilight and she finally rolled off the low sleeping pad to stand in the middle of the room. Back arched and wings flared, she yawned mightily, then opened her eyes to the darkness. Imagine, me being afflicted with nightmares, she thought without any amusement, oh the irony. She left the room in its gloom; even though the only source of light was from under the balcony door, her excellent night vision painted the room in bright shades of grey.

Luna looked around her chamber, then frowned. The room served as a combination work space and sleeping chamber, a perfect dome of a flat, uninteresting grey that provided a distraction-free surface for her to experiment on without causing global panic. The rest of the room was as empty as she could make it, but there was always food available in a low series of storage units around the rim, for the times she was too busy for more formal affairs. Except this time, there wasn't.

"Astrid, are you there?" The hours she kept were a little stressful on the average pony, but she'd gotten used to the quiet efficiency of the unicorn mare, whom she suspected of never actually going to sleep. "Is there a problem?" A glimmer of power and the discreet door to the rest of the suite opened silently; walking through she stared at the deserted room, then closed her eyes and swept the Palace with her magic.

The world opened out before her, the solid stone and metal of Canterlot Palace fading into shadows filled with moving pastel lights, every one a pony. Why are there so few? Large sections of the Palace were quiet, while others were only half occupied. A twist to the power and she could also feel currents of suppressed aggression that seemed to flow from many of those motes -- the remainder were almost muted, like they were somehow being turned off from life. These were all ponies who were static, tucked into odd corners and out of the way spots, including...

Luna's head swung around and she stared through the wall to the small kitchen that attached to Astrid's quarters. Her building anger evaporated, replaced by worry, and she trotted smartly through the door and into the kitchen. There was nopony visible and for a moment Luna was confused, then her eye was drawn to the set of storage units that formed an island in the centre of the compact room. Ears cocked, she stepped hesitantly forward, suddenly nervous about what she might find.

Something whimpered in the darkness of the kitchen, the sound sending chills down Luna's spine. "Who is in here?" she asked, keeping her voice soft. It almost sounds like a foal, but how would one get in? There was a quiet gasp, then the silence of somepony holding her breath. Suddenly losing patience, she strode forward, magic flaring and flooding the room with a cold violet glow. Lights danced over the cupboards, then one set of doors flew open.

Inside was a grey unicorn with a pale purple mane; Astrid had managed to cram herself completely into the cupboard, wedged in with the packets of dried produce. For an instant, Luna gazed in at the mare, then Astrid gave a shriek and tried to burrow through the solid oak back of her tiny refuge. "That is quite enough of that," Luna muttered, dragging the struggling pony out by her hindquarters. Astrid finally stopped trying to run and just hung there, eyes tightly closed, her sides heaving like she'd just galloped all the way up the mountain.

Now what? Luna thought, trying to work out what to do next; it had been nearly five centuries since anypony had been this afraid of her. Shrugging, she carried Astrid to her large circular sleeping pad and dumped her in the middle, holding the pony still while pulling a set of sunrise-yellow -- and exceptionally fluffy -- blankets out of a little-used storage closet. She eyed them with distaste; they were one of Celestia's many attempts to get a little colour into her private chambers and she found them offensive to the eye, but for a pony willing to hide in the dark... Luna wrapped Astrid in layers of the things, enough that the unicorn looked like a foal in a crib, then lay down next to her.

Now for the million bit question. "Why were you hiding, Astrid?"

"I'm s-sorry, D-Darkness, please don't hurt me. The kitchen had run out of cherries for your breakfast, and I know how much you like them... I-I tried to get some more, but a guardpony shouted at me and I had to come back." Tears were running down Astrid's muzzle as she spoke, her words distorted by the tremor in her voice. "I couldn't face you, knowing I had failed, couldn't leave because of the Guards, so I hid..." Her voice trailed off into a sob-wracked mumble.

I have not been called that in a long time, Luna thought, even more confused. There were traces of the old religion in the more distant corners of Equestria, a relic of the days when she'd been instrumental in exterminating the monstrosities left behind by the reign of Discord. I wonder what 'Ghost' thinks of all this, she thought, then frowned. Why didn't Celestia wake me? She always thinks she can do it all herself. Astrid cringed and whimpered at Luna's expression, making the Princess roll her eyes. This is ridiculous! Is every one of those other hiding ponies in the same state as Astrid?

I don't have time for this. Irritation mounting, Luna reached out with her power and tickled the unicorn's somatic nervous system until she slumped and started to snore. Standing up, Luna threw the doors open and stalked into the corridor, making the single Guard drop his ceremonial spear with a loud clatter. "You!" Luna snapped. "There is a pony asleep on my bed; you will make sure she is not disturbed."

"Y-Yes, Darkn--"

"Don't call me that!" she snarled, involuntary twinges of magic boosting her voice to a bellow.

The Guard, not one of her chiropt, looked stunned for a second, then snapped to attention, metal-shod hooves ringing off the flagstones. He stared into the distance over Luna's shoulder, the very picture of a Guard recruiting poster. "Yes, Princess!"

Luna stared at the Guard with narrowed eyes, long enough that he started to sweat. Finally she nodded and stalked away down the corridor, looking for her sister.

===

Luna's temper was a fragile thing by the time she located Celestia. Her steps had become louder and more martial, and only iron self-control stopped her from accidentally leaving cracks in the ancient stones with every hoof-fall. Some of the ponies she'd met had fawned over her, or trailed behind her with doe-like eyes. Others -- many of the Day Guard -- had stared back with barely concealed distrust and contempt. This fear had followed her for a long time -- ponies who only knew her by rumour and what they read in the history files had a hard time shaking what she had been for what she was now. She understood this and made allowances, considering it penance for mistakes she'd made over fifteen centuries earlier.

But this was Canterlot. All the Guard knew her -- she sponsored and helped to select and train the FOAL teams -- so there was no excuse for this behaviour. There was something behind their eyes, something alien like a half-glimpsed shape in the fog, but it was faint and elusive. The temptation to pin one of the Guard down and forcibly pull his mind apart to chase down the cause was getting harder and harder to resist. If Celestia has no answers, I may do it anyway. Better one should perish if it provides a clue to this... taint.

As she walked the long path to catch her sister, Luna kept enough of a hold on her anger to observe the Palace. It was painfully obvious what was happening, even if the cause was still a mystery. They are segregating clade by clade, she thought, the old racism is returning. It had taken generations to cajole, coerce and sometimes threaten the pony subspecies to work together, despite their common origins. To see all that work undone over the space of a single day should have been heart-breaking, but instead it filled her with fury. Whoever has done this will pay.

===

There was five times the number of Guard outside the Sunset Room than might have been expected, even during a crisis. She strode up to the door, not slowing as the guardponies hustled to get out of her way. The last set didn't move, the higher ranking of the pair stepping forward. "Your Highness, Princess Celestia is in conference and is not--" A wash of violet light picked the pegasus up and threw him down the corridor; whinnying in fright, the other Guard struck sparks against the stone floor in his haste to avoid the same fate.

Luna threw the doors open with a thunderous crash, the whispers of 'Darkness' from the guardponies only serving to fuel her anger. "Celestia! Why have I awoken to this madhouse?"

Her sister was in deep discussion with General Buckler, and looked up with a smile as she entered. "Ah! You are early, excellent. Come, I could use your advice for our military operations."

Unlike Celestia, Buckler didn't seem at all pleased to see her; the unicorn's eyes narrowed and her ears folded back. "Princess Luna, I must ask that you don't interfere with my Guard. Morale is very important to the common pony."

"Then you should instruct them more thoroughly, General," Luna said, not looking in the unicorn's direction, "because a pony that stands in my way will not have much need for morale in the future."

"I appreciate your enthusiasm, sister, but there is much you do not know. Let me brief you on the events of the day."

Celestia spoke and Luna listened, her anger fading to a mounting horror. The Zebra Alliance in league with a number of gryphon kingdoms. The deliberate spreading of a memetic weapon among the cities between Canterlot and the coast. What she was planning in reprisals if a cure for this plague was not delivered. What she would do as punishment even if it was. Luna listened, not just to the words, but how they were spoken, the body language Celestia was using.

Who are you, and what have you done with my sister? You couldn't fool thousands of years of familiarity so easily; something was desperately wrong. Under the guise of closing her eyes in thought, Luna carefully opened her shadow sight and inspected Celestia. It was easier to see than in the comparative dullness of the unicorn general; something not quite right in the tides of magic that flowed through her sister. The sense of déjà-vu became very strong, and for a moment Luna was sure she'd seen something like it before. Then there was a sudden sensation of falling, and--

"--so the only way to assure the safety of my little ponies is to expand our influence over the whole world. Imagine that, the sun will never set on the Equestrian Empire!"

--the night will last forever. She sounds just like I did. The thought ripped through Luna and she flinched, breaking the connection. "What? What did you just say?"

For the first time during her monologue, Celestia looked uncertain. Her confusion only lasted a second, then her features smoothed and she tossed her head in irritation. "A figure of speech, nothing more. So, what do you think?"

I think you are insane if you think you are immune to this malady, but I have seen it before -- only from the inside. The megalomania, the increased aggression, a conviction that you were right, despite any evidence to the contrary. Even if I went along with you, you'd still turn against me. Suddenly realising she'd been silent too long, Luna made a show of pacing the floor.

"Your plan is interesting, sister. I agree that security should be our priority -- but surely what you suggest will overstretch our forces?" How did you let this happen to yourself, did you not recognise the nature of the threat? Feeling sick to her stomach, Luna realised how easy it would have been to fall victim to that alien voice, so similar to your own thoughts, especially if you were not expecting it. I always skirted around the exact cause of my failure, the incident was too tied up with my jealousy. That little snap in my head that pushed me over the edge. Fighting the urge to gallop away, Luna stood her ground and stared back at her sister. It must be him. Despite our best efforts, the Lord of Chaos has sunk his teeth into you. How has he done this?

"They will not dare stand against us!" Celestia's eyes flashed, their depths filled with the glimmer of distant flames. "If our enemies fight, they will lose. An enforced peace will serve all those fractious gryphons as well as it will us. In time they will come to see we were right."

"And if they don't want our peace, and fight us anyway? What then?"

"Then we shall make ourselves a silence and call it a peace," General Buckler said.

Luna looked at her in shock, waiting for Celestia's reprimand. Instead all her sister did was nod slowly.

"We must hope it doesn't come to that, but we will be ready," the Princess said sternly. "I still regret not finishing the Changelings when we had the chance."

"Quite so," Luna said faintly. "Sister, this is a lot to take in. I-I need to clear my head." And get away from you before I do something stupid. "Our people are in dire straits; while I think on this I will make tonight's sky especially uplifting." Luna started to back away. I will not make the mistakes you did with me. I will need to act quickly before the madness sinks too deeply into your soul. If only you had noticed the change in me and not waited until the Elements were the only option. Memories of those distant, bitter days, still as fresh as if they were yesterday, welled up and threatened to fill her eyes with tears. No, not again. I will not allow history to repeat itself.

"As you wish."

Celestia watched her go, a faint frown of... What is that; disappointment? Suspicion? Luna shivered, glad when the Day Princess bent her head to resume her discussions with Buckler.

===

Luna took the shortcut back to her quarters, leaping out of a nearby window and soaring around the turrets to the high tower that held her workroom. Alighting on the balcony, she carefully nudged the door open, nosing past the heavy drapes and into the still darkened room. Her eyes, one of the few things she'd reacquired from her time as the Nightmare -- although without the draconic pupils -- had already adjusted, and she could see the still sleeping shape of Astrid.

That is something, at least, she thought, gazing down at the unicorn, then trotted over to a blank section of wall. A glimmer of magic woke the wall screen, turning a quarter of the dome a glossy black. A few fumbles later and the tired face of Topsy Krett peered out of screen. The camera at the other mare's end was very good; Luna could see every capillary in her bloodshot eyes.

"Princess Luna? Is that you?"

"How are you feeling, Topsy? Answer quickly."

Topsy blinked, then frowned. "I should ask you the same question, your Highness. If you mean 'are you feeling like hiding or starting a fight', then no, I'm fine. I sealed Panopticon before any of the infected got inside; as long as Buckler thinks I'm cooperating, she won't order the doors breached. Have... have you talked to Princess Celestia? She has been saying some interesting things lately."

"I have. It does not look good." Luna said, turning up the lights at her end and letting Topsy see her face.

The earth pony was visibly relieved, her head sagging to her hooves. "I'm so glad you called; every time I contact the Palace I get Buckler or one of her aides. Listen, it is vital that you stay away from the infected as much as possible. Celestia fell under the influence of the plague after visiting Canterlot General; I have to believe that the Palace is just as much a toxic environment -- although there is another possibility, if all of this is just a smokescreen to get to Celestia and you. As far as I can tell, the last patient Celestia visited was Equilibrium."

"Director Neighmann's mate?" Luna asked sharply.

"Yes, she was the one the gryphons returned, and apparently she infected the passengers of the airship Canterlot Dreaming."

A pony that was bound to attract the interest of Celestia or myself, either directly or through Neighmann. Luna nodded; it all made a horrible sense. "In that case I am safe from infection from any other pony. It is obvious that she was prepared as a weapon to strike against us." My sister too, I think, Luna thought, remembering that odd sensation of falling before Celestia had shocked her out of her shadow sight. Sweat abruptly dampened her flanks. Is that all that saved me? A chance word?

"Do you have any orders for me, Princess?" Topsy's voice was calm and even, but held a note of pleading.

"I do. Despite the fact that Discord is still under the Element's influence, this event has his nasty little claws all over it. Contact Director Neighmann, I have questions for him."

Topsy nodded, doing something to a control panel out of sight of the camera. The screen split, one half blank for a long minute, then lighting up with the foxy face of a chiropt in partial Night Guard armour. He was in the process of yawning, pearly-white fangs glinting in the light, when the call was connected. For an instant he froze, then his mouth snapped shut. "Mistress! Ah, I mean, your Highness -- how may I serve?"

At least he didn't call me 'Darkness'. "I need to speak to Director Neighmann, immediately."

"Then you are closer to him than I. He was delivered to the detention block beneath the Palace a few hours ago. He wanted to speak to you, Princess, had some story about how all the sensors around Discord were lying to him."

"Why was he imprisoned?"

"I didn't know at the time, but he must have caught the same madness everypony else has. He assaulted a co-worker when she tried to stop him from activating the specials in the Monster Room."

Luna looked thoughtfully at the Night Guard. You were in close proximity to two of the infected, yet you appear perfectly normal. Is it that finely tuned to a pony brain? Perhaps it is the alterations I made during their inception... Their sonar had required a significant revision in brain structure before it had functioned. The guilt at her thoughtless creation of a new species, first for somepony to appreciate her work, then forged into a weapon against Celestia, was still there -- although faded and faint from the intervening centuries.

Where are most of my Guard, then? If they are immune to the infection they have probably been maintaining order as best they can. She'd never had the numbers of the Day Guard, partly because of the lower population pool to draw from, but mainly because such fawning was too close to what the Nightmare had wanted.

"What is your name, Guard?"

"I am corporal--" There was a high-pitched squeal of noise, loud and complex. On the other screen, Topsy winced. "NG five five seven one zero..." The chiropt glanced to one side, looking at the part of his own screen that held the image of Topsy. "...but everypony calls me Chirr."

"Is your station secure?"

"Yes, Princess. After the incident with the Director and what's happened in the city, almost nopony has turned up for work. I can handle any security requirements."

"Excellent. Remain at your post; I will be joining you shortly."

Luna nodded to Chirr, cutting him out of the call. "Director Krett," she said formally, "continue to feed information to Celestia and General Buckler. Keep them happy, but be vague about my actions. I will take my secure earpiece; contact me as required. I will especially need updates on any military movements. Avoid talking directly to my sister if at all possible; she is excellent at reading ponies and it is unlikely you will be able to lie to her, even on a voice-only line."

"Yes, Princess. What should I do if she asks me to locate you?"

"Do as she asks. In her current mood she may break down your door and ask questions later." Luna gave Topsy a twisted smile. "Also, I don't plan on telling you anything useful."

===

Luna launched herself off the tower's balcony and into the night sky, sweeping past the white stonework and heading for the lower levels. Shadow sight turned the palace into a ghostly, translucent model, picked out by the jewelled lights of ponies. She frowned, then nodded, turning over in the air and diving to land outside a small door in one building. A teleport would have been quicker, and taken her to right outside the detention block, but also would have broadcast her actions to Celestia and any unicorn within a dozen kilometres. I need to be ready before I face my sister and rip out that thing growing within her.

Ever present in Luna's mind was what might have to be done if she was too late. Forced to use the Elements under the same circumstances as before, the results were bound to be the same, only the consequences would be worse. With Celestia locked away, she would have to face the Lord of Chaos alone, when he finally came out of the shadows. Even if I win the cost may be too high. She quailed at the thought of a millennium alone. At least her own banishment had passed at the distorted speed of a relativistic time frame; the idea of having to take the long way around terrified her.

This part of the palace was practically deserted; the few remaining ponies were either huddled out of sight or ferociously guarding entrances that nopony cared about. She saw nopony as she flew through the warren of passages, wings practically touching the walls, alighting before the heavy entrance door to the small cell block. The two Day Guard -- one a white pegasus, the other a grey unicorn -- crashed to attention, ceremonial spears crossing in front of the door.

"Halt! None may pass without permission from General Buckler," the pegasus said, his voice booming out in the classic drill sergeant tones.

The infection must also affect a pony's eyesight, Luna thought, suppressing the urge to laugh in his face. "A Guard with a sense of humour, how novel. Open the door."

The pegasus blinked and shook his head, staring at her in shock before stumbling to one side. "Princess? I--" There was a flash of blue-white light and electrical arcs spidered over his body. Luna stared open mouthed as the pegasus crumpled without a sound.

"Not my Princess!" the unicorn snarled, lashing out with a hind leg to strike the emergency panel on the wall behind him.

Luna reached out with her own magic, phantasmal claws folding around the suddenly terrified Day Guard. Her anger bubbling over at this act of disloyalty, she lifted him off his hooves, then realised her mistake when laser-pure colours erupted from the floor and ceiling. Luna’s wings flared in surprise, then froze at half extension as telekinetic fields made the air feel like molasses. She released the Guard, scrabbling for the detention block’s defence system controls, but more magic lashed out and folded over her like a suffocating blanket.

Her power was pulled away, sucked into some bottomless pit as fast as she could collect it, by spellcraft systems designed to cope with a dragon or another super mutant like the self-styled King Sombra. Her mind started to fill with random sparkles and strange atonal noises, the anti-magic user ‘dazzlers’ tapping into her senses and further disrupting her efforts. Luna saw the Guard out of the corner of one eye, his face screwed up in the glare of waste light from all the magic being thrown around, start to cast a spell of his own. She opened her mouth to try and talk some sense into him, but a point of hot, white light lanced out from his horn to strike her on the shoulder.

It was like being struck by a hammer. All her muscles locked up and her teeth snapped shut on the end of her tongue. Mouth filling with the taste of old iron, Luna struggled to get a grip on her magic, but the shock spell did something to her concentration and allowed the dazzlers to get a grip on her mind. The spell she’d been building to destroy the defences turned into randomised blasts of telekinesis that punched craters into the hewn stone of the deep tunnels.

Stupid filly, getting caught with your guard down! All these years of peace and prosperity have made you soft. The unicorn deftly dodged her wild magic, channelling the raw power away from his body with the skill of a martial artist. I trained you all too well, she thought fleetingly, then the Guard charged another spell. There was a flash and the high voltage electric arc sound of the enchantment, filling her nostrils with the smell of burning fur.

The world went away, shrinking to a bright pinpoint and blinking out.

===

Neighmann watched the unicorn carry Princess Luna past his cell door, the feeling of unreality making him think he was dreaming all of this. The deadness in the air, a direct result of the magical shielding built into the walls, increased the feeling. He'd suffered from his share of 'loss-of-magic' dreams -- mostly from when he'd just come into his power -- and the memory of waking up in a cold sweat prompted him to bite his lips hard enough to make them tingle.

No such luck; a nice nightmare would be a relief from this mess, he thought. He watched carefully as the Guard deposited the Princess none-too-gently in the next cell, half-heartedly reaching out with his magic to soften her landing. The transparent dividing wall, probably the same stuff as he'd commissioned for the Monster Room, just seemed to soak up the power as if it wasn't there. It had that same 'fishtank' optical effect, a sure sign of a thick layer of something dense. Artificial sapphire, he thought gloomily, tapping the wall with one hoof. It clanked dully, giving an impression of immense solidity.

He stared hard at the Princess, trying to see if she was having any difficulty. As far as he could tell she was breathing normally, but red had dripped out of the corner of her mouth. "You were supposed to be indestructible," he whispered, the sight of her minor injury more of a shock than he thought it would be. Speculation was rife about the true nature of the Princesses, something they refused to comment on in any depth. To see one of the theories confirmed was deeply unsettling. She looked different somehow; smaller and lighter in colour, her mane and tail no longer star-filled depths, but just light-blue hair.

Neighmann reared up and pounded on the wall hard enough to make his forelegs hurt, sure that it would be inaudible in Luna's cell. Despite all expectations, her ears pricked up, swivelling in his direction. One large teal eye opened, then the Princess jerked upright, head swinging left and right in panic. Hooves scrabbled silently against the slick flooring and she fell, landing heavily. The impact seemed to shock the panic out of her, because she lay still for a long minute before climbing carefully to her hooves.

Violet light flared over Luna's horn, but it was a dim and flickering thing compared to what it should have been. More light danced over the door, glowing worms of a purple so deep that they were hard to focus on. Neighmann's eyes widened as the door twitched and rattled. "Come on," he shouted, "you can do it! You move the moon for Tartarus' sake; you must be able to shift that little door."

Something groaned, faint and far away, a mechanism being stressed past its design limits, but Luna was flagging. Her sides were heaving like bellows, sweat turning her flanks a darker blue. The violet glow flicked out and her legs gave way, dropping her to the too-small sleeping pad, eyes closed and gasping for breath. Neighmann slumped, staring through the wall at the creature he'd always thought to have infinite power, now huddled against the opposite wall and refusing to meet his gaze.

18 -- The dark knight

Time passed in the slow and unknowable way that it did when you had no access to a clock. The light level was a constant, comfortable twilight: bright enough to see clearly by, yet dim enough to sleep in should he ever feel tired. Neighmann had a feeling that he'd been in here for days or months; that this was all he'd ever known. Ears attuned to the faintest whisper and eyes hungry for any movement, it was Luna he noticed first.

The Night Princess was standing up, staring at the just visible main door with ears pricked forward. Any sign of distress was gone, instead she was... you couldn't call it a smile, exactly, more the toothy grin you'd see on a big cat; all business and no pleasure. Then she did something odd, jamming the tip of her horn into the corner between the door and wall nearest the detention block exit. Tentatively, Neighmann did the same, and was startled to hear voices, faint and almost intelligible. His eyes widened and he almost laughed. Direct bone conduction; at least we can talk now.

He opened his mouth to speak, hesitating when Luna shook her head slightly. The Princess started to breathe deeply, in through her nose and out through her mouth, each breath deeper than the last. One final inhalation that made her ribs starkly visible through blue fur, then she opened her mouth and screamed. Neighmann flinched, but there was almost nothing, just a thin, high-pitched whine at the limit of his hearing.

Staring at the obvious effort on Luna's face, the muscles of her neck standing out like cords, he suddenly realised what she was doing. The vast majority of the sound was being made in the high ultrasonic, and all he could hear was some faint subharmonic down in the audible range. Something left over from the Nightmare? Neighman's ears flicked back for a moment, then relaxed. And who is she calling to?

Luna, panting slightly, stepped back and looked at the door expectantly. A few seconds later it opened, a battered but cheerful looking Chirr backing down the corridor, dragging an unconscious unicorn with his teeth. Parts of the chiropt's fur looked singed, but the Day Guard was in worse shape. His eyes were rolled back in his head and a little trickle of blood was running out of each ear. Neighmann looked at Luna, suddenly glad of the sound proofing between the cells. She rolled an eye in his direction and winked.

Chirr did something to a control panel and all the cell doors popped open. Luna was the first out, two long-legged strides and she was standing in front of the Night Guard, staring down at him and frowning. "I ordered you to stay at the Institute and await my arrival; were my instructions not clear?" Glittering lights were filling the Princess' mane and tail, changing them into something more than mere hair, while light flowed down her horn to cover her body in a fine web-work of violet radiance. The first lattice of light sank into her body, then was joined by another and another.

Neighmann could feel a little tickle in the centre of his head, the signature of a building arcane charge. The exact spells were not familiar, but the fundamental design matched that from the shielding around the Monster Room. Magic to absorb physical force, magic to shunt aside electromagnetic or particle radiation, magic to blunt the effects of hostile spellstuff. The difference was in the scale and density of the magic: Luna was putting on the arcane equivalent of an aircarrier battle group.

"No, mistress. Your orders were perfectly clear." Chirr jumped to attention, hooves slamming down on the stone floor, and looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Your Highness was gone too long for a simple recovery operation, so I took the initiative."

"And what would you have done if, instead of a single unicorn, you had encountered my sister?"

"Considering the circumstances, you would have had somepony to talk to while on the moon." Chirr said this with a perfectly straight face, gaze fixed on a point over Luna's withers. "Mistress."

The Princess' ears twitched and for an instant her expression softened. "I expect my orders to be obeyed, Sergeant Chirr."

"Yes, ma'm, but it's Corp--"

"I am not in the habit of making mistakes, Sergeant!"

Despite Luna's harsh tone, Chirr's muzzle twitched with the effort of suppressing a smile. "Yes, ma’am, understood." He twitched again, and Neighmann could see the battle going on behind his eyes, a war that the chiropt was clearly losing. "How was your inspection of the detention block, Princess?"

"Satisfactory," she said haughtily, then lowered her head to brush muzzles with Chirr. "Thank you, Sergeant. I will not forget this."

Chirr's face finally lost the battle and broke into a huge grin that showed enough sharp dentition to make Neighmann shiver. "The honour is all mine."

Luna nodded in return, and trotted towards the door. "Come, we should leave. Director, I need to examine your mate."

"Do you think you can do anything?" Neighmann said, a wild hope building in his chest. Libi, oh please come back to me, Libi.

"I caught a glimpse of this plague in Celestia's head, and it is hauntingly familiar... but I need to carry out a detailed examination to be sure." She bared her teeth in a rictus grin. "This is not something I can do with my sister. Changing a pony's personality requires constant influence, especially at the start. Eventually the changes become permanent, requiring the most drastic of measures to reverse." Luna fell silent, her ears lowered at a painful memory.

Neighmann had a sudden premonition as to what Luna was talking about. "You... you are talking about the Nightmare?"

"Yesssss..." The word was a long, drawn out hiss. "We thought we were on top of the world, back then. Discord had been imprisoned, our people were finally free of his tyranny. How little we knew of how the universe worked." Luna laughed, a bitter, quiet sound. "Discord left me a little present. It was slow, taking millennia to fully manifest -- much slower than he had in mind, I'm sure, but the Elements worked well, back then -- but when my sister finally realised the truth... The change was complete, so tightly linked with my mind that separation was impossible for our limited knowledge of the Elements. So she made a choice and banished me to the moon for a thousand years. She needed all that time to breed stronger unicorns."

Celestia had a eugenics program?! Luna's last words were said with a shocking casualness. Later, ancient history can wait. "This seems a lot faster, and it spreads," Neighmann said, casting a sidelong glance at the long-legged Princess. She was in a steady, ground-eating trot that forced him into a canter to keep up.

"Discord has refined his methods. He knows we can beat him head on, so he returned to his old tactics of sitting in the background and pulling at the threads of the world. Quite how, I don't know -- this was the reason I wanted to talk to you."

Neighmann nodded, beginning to get a little out of breath. On the other side of Luna, Chirr was loping along like it was a gentle stroll. "I can show you the data, but the only possible conclusion is that Discord is out. Our instruments have been lying to us for weeks."

===

They reached Neighmann's aircar without incident; the few Day Guards still within the lower levels of the Palace scattered at the group's approach.

Neighmann popped the doors, moving to the passenger side when Chirr made a bee-line for the driver's stall. "Princess, do you...?" He gestured to the front stall, resigning himself to the cramped afterthought of the rear stall.

Luna peered down at the sleek vehicle. "I'd have to amputate your legs to get you in that foal's compartment. Very chivalrous, but don't be a fool. Chirr, fly this thing as fast as it will go. Do not slow for anything or anypony."

"Yes, Princess," the chiropt called, already running a hoof over the touch panel. Somewhere inside the aircar a turbine started to whine and Neighmann hastily got in, the vehicle bobbing slightly as its levitator powered up. The doors slammed shut with a pulse of violet magic, catching a few of Neighmann's tail hairs, then he sank into the padded stall floor as Chirr gunned the engine.

They had barely cleared the walls when the smoky darkness of the night sky abruptly turned a pale pink, the low resonating drone of a vast, crystalline bell sending vibrations through his entire body.

"Ha! Looks like somepony was paying attention, after all." Chirr did something to the controls and the aircar curved forward in its transition to forward flight.

Neighmann went cold inside. He'd seen this before, but only during the once every five years 'army day', where various parts of the Equestrian military did a combination air show and firepower demonstration. "The Palace's force field, we're trapped -- Chirr, what are you doing? You have to stop!"

"You heard the Princess, I'm not stopping for anything. Hold onto your tail!" Chirr hunched up in his stall, hooves still trying to eke another few metres per second out of the labouring turbine.

Neighmann's ears folded back and he tensed in a futile effort to forestall the impact, but nothing happened. A section of the force shell directly ahead of the aircar abruptly vanished and they were through with only the slightest of jolts. He started to breathe again, only to flinch at the sudden appearance of Princess Luna outside his window.

She looked irritated and mouthed something that looked like 'too slow', then her horn glowed and violet fire blossomed over Neighmann, Chirr and every surface of the aircar. He suddenly felt weightless, then the world seemed to accelerate to a mad pace, even while the airspeed indicator read zero. Luna flew like it was no effort at all, but the slope of Aither-Erebos ran out in seconds and within moments they were dodging the taller towers of Canterlot city.

Neighmann had no idea how fast they were travelling, but it seemed only a few breaths before the violet glow disappeared, allowing Chirr to drop the aircar onto the hospital's priority roof landing pads and tuck it in next to the ambulance hangars. Shakily stepping out of the vehicle, Neighmann got his first proper look at the city.

It was far worse than before. Smoke was curling up from a dozen spots, and there was the distant sound of many voices raised in anger. In one or two spots there were little flickers of light in the pastel colours of unicorn magic. Discord must be rubbing his mismatched paws in glee, Neighmann thought. I only hope that Libi is still here, we'll never find her out in all that chaos. It had only been a day since he'd seen her last, but with all the changes it seemed like he'd been dropped into a distant, dystopian future. The mournful howl of a siren started up somewhere out of sight, and above it all the bulk of the Palace squatted, half hidden behind the glowing shell of its force field.

"We will fix it," Luna said grimly, standing next to him, "and it will be better than ever before. Then I will dedicate myself to putting an end to Discord, once and for all."

Neighmann nodded dumbly, unable to shake the idea that he was looking at a vision of future Equestria. We will fall apart, becoming either frightened loners or paranoid isolationists. Our cities will be wrecked by arson or vandalism, nopony willing to lift a hoof to help another.

"Princess?" Chirr said tentatively, his big ears twitching and searching the building below them. "How sure are you about not being susceptible to the infection that claimed your sister -- would it be better if I went in and pulled her out for you?"

Luna froze, one hoof in the air, then lowered her head to stare at the chiropt. "I will not put others in harm's way to protect myself." She closed her eyes for a few seconds, waving Chirr into silence when he tried to speak. "There are precious few ponies within the building; the risk will be minimal, especially as Celestia apparently took some time to become affected."

"Are you willing to bet the future of Equestria on that, your Highness?" Chirr asked the question quietly and with deference, but Luna jerked as if struck.

"I take your point. Very well, bring Equilibrium to the roof and I will work on her here. I am similarly... convinced of your own immunity to this malady." Chirr's wings fluttered with unconscious nerves, but he nodded. "Do not dally; I will be following your progress. If it looks like you have deviated or been waylaid I will come for you." Glimmers of blue light danced around her earpiece. "Can you hear me?"

Chirr nodded, then turned to Neighmann. "I've met Libi several times -- do you remember where she was?"

===

Chirr listened with half an ear to Neighmann's rushed description of his mate's location, nodding absently as he pulled the tools of his trade from the slim conformal panniers just behind his wing roots. First the overshoes -- thick metal things with rubber bases that gripped his hooves with spring clamps when he stepped into them, then the slim blades that attached to the stubby clawed 'thumb' on each wing. These last were similar to pegasi feather blades, although with a more slender aspect as they didn't act as part of his wings' flight surfaces.

Neighmann trailed to a halt, seemingly mesmerised when Chirr waggled his thumbs to settle the weapons; in the dim light atop the hospital they were practically invisible with their black coatings, only showing their presence by the faint glint of light from razor edges. "Do you think you will need all that?" he asked weakly.

"Hope not," Chirr grunted, then glanced at Luna. "Princess, how much force am I allowed to use?" What am I going to do if cornered in those confined spaces? Can't just fly away... he thought, half wishing that he had kept his mouth shut. Rousting out a few drunken ponies is one thing, but nopony here has any choice in the matter.

"As much as it takes to bring Equilibrium to me. If sacrifices have to be made, so be it."

"Yes, your Highness, I understand." Chirr swallowed, a sudden bout of nervousness making him shiver as the unreality of the situation hit him. A solo mission from the Mistress, just wait until the rest of the unit hears about this! No pressure... he successfully suppressed an unconscious whinny, then stamped a hind hoof in salute. I just wish it was outside, where I can out-fly anything with feathers. A quick nod to Neighmann and he was away, silent on his rubber-coated shoes.

The inside of the hospital was dark; the main power was out and some enterprising soul had taken it upon themselves to smash every emergency light they could find. Two turns down the access ramp and it was too dark to see more than vague and threatening shapes in the gloom. Chirr paused, ears twitching. Somewhere a pony was sobbing, long, drawn-out cries of a despair so deep it was almost unbearable. Something about the noise made the chiropt's fur stand on end; it was more disturbing than the distant screams and curses from the street outside.

Other, more random, noises filtered up from the depths of the building: the breaking of glass and the scraping of something heavy over a stone floor, the rapid drum-beat of hooves at a gallop and once a single scream, suddenly silenced. "Right," he muttered, then closed his eyes and pulled at the special set of muscles in his neck that had no analogue in the throat of any other pony clade.

Chirr sang in the high ultrasonic, his hearing chopped into little packets of sound as his middle ear decoupled in time with each carefully modulated click. The blackness disappeared, replaced with a sense of space. It wasn't quite like sight -- there was too much extra information in the returning echoes that had no real analogue for anything outside pulse Doppler radar -- but the analogy was one that was useful. He'd once tried to explain this extra sense all chiropt had to an earth pony friend; the mare, a pretty little green thing -- who he suspected thought of him as a challenge -- had been so hopelessly confused by his analogy-laden answer to her question that he'd given up.

The string of pulses illuminated the ramp and the open archway leading off it. Below and above him the ramp spiralled away beyond the range of his sonar, the structure bare of any objects, but showing traces of the exits onto other levels out of his direct line of sight. Keeping absolutely still, Chirr cocked his head and swept his muzzle over the nearest exit. Mind drifting, he let it piece together the returning patterns into something he could use.

The walls of the shaft that held the spiral ramp became translucent where they were closest to the open archway, the short pulses bouncing off the corridor walls and returning scattered echoes. Faint and distorted, the view was distracting enough to start a mild headache at the back of his skull, but showed Chirr that the passageway was clear. Eyes still closed, he stepped through, daintily avoiding the detritus that littered the floor.

At the limit of his senses, perhaps fifty metres away, there was a lumpy shape sprawled across the corridor. Standing still, Chirr swept the object with a string of pulses, varying the frequency to try and get more information. It snapped into focus, the arc of one wing clearly visible against the hard floor. Whoever it was wasn't breathing, and the chiropt swept forward, gently touching the pony's neck with his muzzle. Cold, he thought, stone cold.

There was a sudden slam of hoof against wood, then a scream from the same direction. Ears pricking up, Chirr opened his eyes, straining into the darkness while he sang his ultrasound call. There was a hint of light from that direction, the pale green of a self-powered emergency light, and Chirr trotted forward, accelerating to a canter when he realised that the sounds had come from where Equilibrium was supposed to be. Now, after all this time, you are in trouble now!?

Wings flicking out, he took long, gliding leaps down the corridor, flashing into a section containing small wards. The emergency lights, little things high up on the ceiling, were intact here, flooding everything with a ghastly monochrome pallor. Along both sides were doors to the actual wards, shared spaces for five ponies to recuperate in peace. Nonono-- At this end of the corridor, all the doors had been broken down, smashed to fragments by repeated kicks. There was no finesse here; whoever it was had just hit the door more or less at random, their accuracy marked by the number of strikes that had hit the wall instead.

The hammering came again, coupled with the sound of splintering wood. Nearing a corner, his sonar gave him a warning before anything else could. Chirr dropped silently to the ground and approached the edge at a walk, crouching down and cautiously peering around the corner. Three or four ponies were milling around one of the doors, watching another of their number lash out with his hind legs. Not keen on those odds, perhaps... Keeping one eye on the group, he pulled a stubby cylinder from one of the conformal packs along his flanks. Holding it still with a wingthumb claw, it was the work of a moment to set the fuse.

Slam! The figure by the door, a large earth pony still wearing the remains of an orderly's equipment harness, kicked out again, both hind hooves landing a solid blow on the door. Chirr inhaled deeply, nostrils twitching at a bewitching scent; it wasn't quite right, but close enough that he suddenly realised why the group had picked this room.

The door flew open and the group gave a whooping cheer, falling over themselves in their haste to get into the room. Some distant part of Chirr's mind registered the fact that all those in the little herd were earth pony stallions, but the rest of him was just reacting to the sudden wash of cold calculation that overwhelmed petty everyday thoughts. On the other side of the smashed door a pony screamed, high and full of terror. He closed his eyes.

Bite down on the ignition paddle, flick the grenade down the corridor and kick out with his hind legs; the actions were choreographed from long hours training in the mountain fastnesses in which his kind had spent the millennium waiting for Luna's return. His wings flicked out and he glided silently towards the laughing group, the matte black cylinder tumbling ahead of him. The nearest ponies were just starting to turn in his direction when the grenade detonated.

The flash was bright enough to be dazzling even through Chirr's eyelids, and the ear-shattering crack should have been just as disorientating, but the same training taught him to decouple his middle ear in anticipation of the flash. The shockwave felt like slamming into an incandescent metal wall, but it was only a subdued thump to his muted ears. An instant later he screeched out his sonar hunting call, the corridor appearing as a bright monochrome filled with staggering ponies.

Number One went down when Chirr slammed into his flank; the pony was bowled over and sent a dozen metres down the corridor when the Night Guard used him to change the direction of his rush. Blinded by the flash, Two's back legs lashed out, but the angle was bad and he only struck a glancing blow on one cuisse. His armour shed the blow, the spellcraft systems on the underside soaking up most of the momentum and growing warm, but enough leaked through to knock the leg out from under him.

Chirr staggered, wings flicking out for balance, then used the motion to rake one blade across the backside of his attacker. Unable to see the source of this new pain, the pony panicked, galloping off down the corridor and bouncing off the walls in his haste to escape. Three and Four were already inside the room, crowded around another struggling figure. A toss of his head activated the anti-grab function on his barding and he charged in, aiming for the largest of the pair.

The emergency light in this room was still working and its occupants had been protected from the flash-bang, so Chirr opened his eyes. All three were reacting to his presence; the two stallions sprang away from the more lightly-built pegasus mare they were in the process of forcing into one of the immobilisation stalls sometimes used for examinations, Four opening his mouth to spit out her tail. The emergency power obviously didn't extend to air conditioning, and the smell he'd noticed earlier was much stronger. Talk about bad biological timing, he thought fleetingly, then leapt again.

His target, Three, the large ex-orderly who'd broken down the door, had half turned by the time Chirr was upon him; sparks flashed from the zig-zag electrodes plated onto his pauldrons and radio-frequency arcs spidered over the stallion's flanks. The pony gasped, staggering sideways as his nearside legs buckled, but Chirr had already wheeled around, wings beating for balance and forelegs lashing out.

Four, already backing away, caught a weighted overshoe on the side of his jaw. Spitting blood and bits of tooth, his head snapped sideways and into one of the storage cabinets that lined the little ward. Chirr turned slightly, catching a glimpse of Three as the pony staggered in his direction. In a movement unchanged from his distant, fully equine ancestors, the chiropt's hind legs left the ground and lashed out, catching the pony full in the chest and dropping him in an untidy heap.

Attention back on Four, Chirr raised a hoof to make sure the pony would stay down, relaxing when he realised the stallion was unconscious. Three was still awake, but made no effort to rise, so the chiropt just returned his murderous glare with a snort, then turned off his armour's defences and looked at their erstwhile victim. A pale tan pony with curly chestnut mane, the pegasus mare's eyes darted around the room like she was still trapped.

"It's okay, you’re safe now," Chirr said in the tone he reserved for every victim he'd ever encountered.

Her eyes snapped to his and she cowered within the narrow confines of the immobilisation stall. "D-don't hurt me!" she squeaked, wings flicking out and banging against the padded walls.

"You're safe from me, ma'am, we're not really the same species." The poor attempt at humour didn't seem to help and she just crouched a little lower, tail tucked in as tight as it would go.

"Sergeant, we don't have time for this." In the quiet of the room, the volume of the bone-conduction communicator was loud enough that Chirr thought it would be audible to everypony present.

Chirr twitched at Luna's voice, the slight movement making the pegasus flinch. "Princess, I could hardly stand by--"

"You have played at being the dark knight enough this evening. That mare will never trust you while she is under the influence of the contagion; leave her to find her own way, or I will take matters into my own hooves, no matter what the risk." There was a pause, then Luna's tone softened. "I am not without sentiment; I understand, I really do... but there is no way we can save them all if we do it one at a time."

The chiropt started to back away, then paused as Three kicked out in his direction. The feeble blow was only just noticeable through Chirr's greaves, but that didn't seem to bother the stallion. "That's right, you go. Leave this one to the real stallions, you Nightmare-spawned freak, I'll show her what a real stallion is like." He laughed, low and ugly, looking hungrily at the mare.

I don't want to save them all, just this one, Chirr thought, then sighed. "Yes, Princess," he said, walking out of the room, pausing only to deliver a hearty kick between the hind legs of the orderly that left the stallion writhing on the floor and completely unable to speak. At the door he paused, glancing over his shoulder to the still frozen pegasus. "Get to the roof and fly out of the city, hide yourself somewhere away from anypony. We're going to fix this." She didn't reply, so Chirr broke into a trot, heading for Equilibrium's room.

19 -- Regaining Equilibrium

Chirr glided silently down the dimly lit corridor, big ears hunting for the slightest sound. There were noises aplenty, but all were too far away or of the wrong sort -- galloping hooves several floors down, something heavy being dragged across a wreckage-strewn surface over on his left, and any number of less identifiable sounds -- but finally he found the room he was looking for. Head cocked, he listened intently, sighing slightly when he heard the near-imperceptible sounds of at least one pony breathing on the other side of the door. A gentle touch confirmed that it was locked.

Carefully, he pulled out his Guard-issue 'master key' -- a glittering cube that shimmered with little sparks of blue light -- and stuck it on the frame, right next to the lock. Sometimes I wish I'd been born a unicorn, he thought, staring at the little device, then stepped back. Stretching one wingclaw forward, Chirr hit the trigger and smartly pulled his wing away. A moment later, there was a flash of blue light and the sound of heavy objects tumbling to the floor.

The thaumic door-opener had done its job perfectly, taking a precise, circular bite out of the door and frame before turning into a pile of sharp-edged crystalline grit. Chirr nosed the door open, carefully avoiding the mirror-smooth and very sharp edges of the cut, sweeping the ward with eyes and sonar.

Libi was still in the room, but only because she had been tied down. The rest of the small ward was deserted, discarded medical supplies littering the floor. One of the stalls had an unpleasant brown stain on the floor and the whole room smelled slightly of rusty iron.

"Equilibrium? I'm here to--"

"Stay away from me, you bat pony filth! Come any closer and I'll make you wish you'd never been born, or hatched, or whatever it is you freaks do."

Uh-huh, I should have figured I'd have to do this the hard way, Chirr thought. "Do you want to get out of here or not? I've got transport on the roof to take you out of the city." He gave his armour's anti-grab function a little flick, making sparks jitter from the electrodes on his shoulders. "Staying here isn't an option."

Libi narrowed her eyes, then snorted. "I suppose getting out of this madhouse is worth the olfactory trauma of standing next to you."

Chirr rolled his eyes, then pulled the rescue straps from his harness and arranged them over his withers and flanks. "I'm sure you'll manage. Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to fly you out." Equilibrium opened her mouth, but the chiropt didn't give her a chance to respond. "I can't guarantee your safety otherwise; I passed a group of stallions going door to door looking for lovelies like yourself."

Her ears flattened and she tossed her head, but she said nothing more. Right, let's get this over with, Chirr thought, unsnapping the fastenings that secured Libi to the stall's pad. Gesturing for Libi to crouch in a cleared space, he moved to stand over her while trying to remember his one-pony rescue training. The flight harness was usable by one, but there were good reasons why a squad of three was the standard procedure...

"Put your hoof through that loop. Good. Now shift your tail, please, I just need to push the hindquarters strap through here--

"Hey!”

“I'll just grab the end and--"

“Get your muzzle out of there!"

Wings thrashing for balance, Chirr managed to get his teeth around the end of the universal clip, dragging it through to mate with the junction plate nestling amid the fur of Libi's sternum. "You're really not my type, ma'am," he mumbled, giving the plastic cylinder a tug to make sure it had gone home.

Switching his grip to the dangling toggle, he gave a mighty tug, tightening all the retaining straps and pulling the unicorn off the ground. Libi whinnied in surprise when the hoof cups retracted, leaving her trussed uncomfortably between his forelegs. "It would be less embarrassing if you left me for them," she said loudly, trying to shift her weight.

Chirr ignored her, grunting at the extra effort to lift the mare, before waddling to the door of the ward, spreading his wings, and flying off down the corridor.

One short, complaint-filled flight later and Chirr had located one of the exit balconies and lifted his cargo to the roof. Even before she'd been unstrapped, Equilibrium had locked eyes with Neighmann. "I should have known you were behind this little foalnapping. Well, you can kiss goodbye to any hope of seeing your spawn ever again. That restraining order--" Violet magic congealed around Libi's mouth and she fell silent.

"I can see why you picked this one, Director," Luna said dryly. "Fortunately we do not need her cooperation for this next part."

The glow over Libi spread and she relaxed, slumping against the wall of the rooftop hangar.

===

Luna motioned Neighmann and Chirr to stand back, then placed Libi against the wall of one hangar. At her first delicate touch, the faint tendrils of magic coiling inside Libi's brain seemed to pulse and surge, so she hurriedly pulled back. After a few moments the patterns resumed their endless roll, and Luna nodded to herself. A trap, that much is clear. My sister must have tripped it without realising, investigating too deeply when she caught a glimpse of the magic.

When it was quiescent once more, Luna reached out, intent on the reaction of the magic. She made careful alterations to the nature of her probe, hunting for a method that would let her examine it without causing it to activate. It was delicate work; being able to look into the arcane pattern necessarily made her vulnerable to it and there was no way to fully shield her mind if it went wrong. We have not been idle, Discord, magical theory has advanced to the point where we can match you without the Elements. I hope.

There, that was what she was hoping to find.

Previous incarnations of this magic had been tied into a pony's horn, back before the catastrophe that split the race into the individual clades. While something might be managed with a pegasus -- there were distinct, magically active, areas along their wings -- it would never work with an earth pony; their magic was just too diffuse. This spell was connected to somewhere else, through a non-causal channel to an arcane power source.

Luna traced the patterns, seeing how they all connected up to a single point where energy was popping up from nowhere. In principle the range was infinite, but the complexity of the operation meant there would be losses. No, Discord is fuelling this, and he's somewhere close. Somewhere on the surface of the planet -- but where? Luna carefully sank her magic deeper into Libi's mind, wrapping herself around the alien spell, mimicking its every twitch and pulse. When the time was right, she pushed.

Violet light flooded the hospital's roof, visible even through her closed eyelids. To make sure that she was fast enough, Luna poured all of her strength into the attack, neutralising the spellstuff at all locations simultaneously. The pattern dissolved like spun sugar in hot water, far easier than she'd expected and left Luna with most of the energy she'd applied. All that power had to go somewhere, and she frantically diverted it into other magics before it ended up as waste heat and cooked Libi from the inside.

===

Now he recognised it for what it was, Neighmann could feel the hostility in the atmosphere and, while he watched the Princess work, he tried to fill his mind with thoughts of the old Libi. How they'd met and their first intimate moments, the joy when they'd discovered she was pregnant, all in the hope that it would immunise his mind against the contagion. Desperately afraid that it wouldn't be successful -- that he might not even notice the personality shift -- Neighmann moved back to place Luna between himself and Equilibrium.

Neighmann watched the look of intense concentration on the Princess' face as her magic twisted and curled around Libi's head. The complex flicker of hornlight was starting to give him a headache, and the amount of concentration required to keep the toxic emotional environment at bay wasn't helping. His anger spiked, replacing the fear. Why is it taking so long, you are supposed to be--

Light suddenly flashed, bright enough to leave afterimages, at exactly the same time as a wrenching sensation, like somepony had twisted the world a few degrees. The wall behind Libi's improvised bed exploded, throwing masonry blocks the size of his head into the empty hangar beyond.

Dust and gravel blasted backwards and he quickly conjured a zone of telekinesis to clear the air around them all. In the centre of the bubble lay an exultant Princess Luna and a confused Equilibrium. "Was that really necessary?" he snapped, then froze when Luna turned to look at him, her eyes narrow.

"That spell is like a weed," she hissed, hornlight flashing once.

Neighmann flinched at the sudden pressure in his head, folded ears relaxing as all the anger vanished. It got me again, he thought, a horrible tightening in his chest making it hard to breathe. "Libi?" he asked tentatively. "Are you okay?"

She looked at him, then over at the Princess laying next to her, all covered with cement dust and brick fragments. "I-I..." Her eyes grew large and she started to tremble. "No, it can't be true, it must be a dream... I remember--" Her eyes met his and she gave a piercing wail, jerking and pulling at the magic that held her down, legs churning like she was trying to gallop somewhere and hide.

Something broke inside Neighmann's chest and he ran over, collapsing to his belly by Libi. He leaned forward, pressing his muzzle against her neck, trying to provide some measure of comfort. Oh Celestia, what did it make you do? Nothing seemed to work, and his presence only seemed to make her more frantic. "Libi, please, it's not your fault. Whatever happened wasn't your choice. Libi, can you hear me? Talk to me, Libi!" Neighmann looked hopelessly up at Luna. "What's happened to her? Did something go wrong?"

"She remembers everything she did while under the influence of the spell." Luna said softly. "Worse, she remembers wanting to do those things. It comes as a terrible shock to discover that side of yourself, voluntarily or not. The spell only enhances what is already there." The Princess stood up, a rapidly building fury on her face.

"Equilibrium, if you will not listen to your mate, you will listen to me." Luna's voice was hard, full of iron and fire, and loud enough to shake the dust from Libi's mane. "I know of this kind of mind control, and you are not at fault. I, Princess Luna, say this is so." She leaned forward, coming nose to nose with the now mesmerised mare. "Do you doubt my words?" she demanded, holding Libi's gaze.

"I--"

"Answer the question!"

"No," she said in a small voice, then her face seemed to collapse, tears running tracks through the dust in her fur.

Luna turned to Neighmann, her ferocity disappearing in an eye-blink. "Be fast. We must move quickly."

He nodded shakily, then reached forward to nuzzle at Libi's neck. This time she didn't shy away, leaning into his caress. He whispered in her ear, reaffirming his love and trying to convince her that it would be alright, then slowly pushed his head under Libi's chest to help her up. She stayed at his side, pressed so close that she was almost glued to him, flank to flank.

"Okay Princess, we're ready," Neighmann said. Libi just nodded, then rested her head against his neck.

"Good. Into the aircar with you; I need to see the thing that claims to be Discord."

===

With Libi and himself in the aircar and Chirr flying alongside, Princess Luna repeated her telekinesis trick and hurled them all out of the city on a low ballistic arc. Neighmann kept his eyes on Libi, separated from his mate by the low walls of the safety stalls, but she had lowered her head and refused to meet his gaze.

A thousand words collided in his head, filling it with everything he wanted to say, but the guilt was piling up in his mind like water behind a dam. Will you ever forgive me for sending you away? What did you do to survive out there... how much worse than the things I did? Any chance he had of even starting the painful conversation was lost when the feeling of weightlessness disappeared and the autopilot brought them in for a hesitant landing. The turbine was far too loud for this slow descent; a high-pitched warble that spoke of an imbalance somewhere in the finely-tuned blades. Amber lights were flashing on the console, warning him that the machine would not permit another take-off.

The lights were on at the Institute, even though the parking structure was essentially empty. There was a furtive movement in the half light beyond the limits of the security lighting; a pair of eyes briefly glowed green in reflection, then there was the drumbeat of hooves receding at a gallop. The big glass main doors had been smashed, a sight that made Chirr swear softly. The office area attached to reception was thoroughly trashed and full of smoke, soot staining the walls and ceiling where somepony had started a fire in the cupboards.

Entering the room, all four ponies immediately became wet from the efforts of the fire suppression system trying to get at the fitful flames still visible from one shelf. Luna ignored the dirty water pouring down onto her already dusty coat, reaching out with a flick of magic to wrench the burning cupboard from the wall and throw it out onto the stone path outside.

The damage became less severe the further they progressed; the vandal obviously didn't want to go to too much effort and had just left after taking whatever it was they wanted. The final set of doors bore the marks of forced entry, but this was a proper security door, one designed to slow even the Lord of Chaos, and the only real damage was scratched paint.

The doors slowly opened, the normal smooth silence turned into a grinding as the motors fought against the debris clogging their tracks. Inside, the power was still on, although with the subdued emergency lights rather than the full glare of the ceiling spots. Discord almost seemed to glow under the influence of the one remaining spotlight. Taloned gryphon's foot raised in the air, he stood on his hind legs with wings outstretched, mouth half open as if in the middle of a sentence. Probably was, Neighmann thought, by all accounts he really liked the sound of his own voice.

Motioning them all back, Luna strode down the shallow ramp to walk circles around the Lord of Chaos. Her horn glowed, violet light casting huge and distorted shadows against the instrument-studded ceiling. While the Princess worked, Neighmann stepped close to Libi, lowering his head to gently nibble at the junction between her neck and withers. His mate seemed transfixed by the immobile Discord. "It will be okay," he whispered between mouthfuls of fur, "whatever happened; I know it wasn't you."

Libi tore her gaze away from the ever increasing display of magic, stepping away from Neighmann and laying down with her back to Discord. "No, I don't think it will. I--" Libi's mouth snapped shut and she shivered, curling into a tight ball and flicking her damp mane over her face.

"It must, I won't let him win, not after all this."

"What makes you think he hasn't won already?" Libi muttered, twitching away when Neighmann moved to lie next to her.

He resisted the urge to get too close, leaning back to give her some space. "Please, just talk to me, tell me what happened to you." Neighmann's ears drooped and he looked away, voice dropping to a mumble. "When I think that I sent you away because I thought it would be safer..." I sent you away, and he sent you back as a weapon.

Neighmann felt suddenly sick, and glanced at the frozen Discord. All this time working with that thing,.. was it even my decision? He tried to remember when they'd talked about her going to Razorclaw. He's been manipulating me all this time. "...stupid, how could I have been so stupid. If you can ever forgive me for that, then I can forgive you anything." Libi said nothing, and both ponies stared off into their own memories, the reverie broken only by the return of Princess Luna.

"I have gone as far as I can without risking Discord's release, should he not actually be free already. I need absolute proof." She stepped up to Libi, gracefully folding her legs to get down to the mare's level. "Equilibrium, I need to look at your memories."

"No, I-I can't, mustn't know." Libi jerked back, but was unable to break Luna's gaze. "He's out already, I promise. He spoke to me, then he showed..." Libi's mouth worked and she swallowed loudly, shaking her head vigorously.

"That's not enough," Luna said gently, "I think that you are right, and Discord is out... but I need to be sure. There are ways to implant false memories, ways that are very hard to detect by conventional means." She smiled slightly, but there was no humour in it. "Not that such things would fool me."

"No! I refuse, you can't make me!" The panicking mare stole a frantic glance at Neighmann, then got to her hooves and started to back away.

I bet she can, Neighmann thought, feeling a sick, helpless horror as Luna advanced on Libi, her horn starting to flicker with violet light. "Princess, please, she's suffered enough without you forcing her through it again." Libi was staring at him now, eyes wide with terror. Wait, she's not afraid of Luna... she's afraid of me!

Princess Luna saw the same look and turned her hard gaze on him. "Neighmann, you need to leave. This has to be done now and your presence is inhibiting Equilibrium."

"Princess, no! You can't--"

"Do not think to instruct me, Director. Sergeant, clear the room."

"Yes, Mistress." With a bound and a flash of membranous wings, Chirr landed in front of Neighmann, trotting forwards to force him to retreat. "Come on, Director, back off."

"Chirr, please..." Neighmann took one look at the hard, uncompromising expression on the foxy face and fell silent. He gathered his strength, arcane power building for the effort to push Chirr out of the way, when the chiropt opened his mouth and squealed.

The sound did something funny to the inside of Neighmann's head, making the magic bleed away and his eyes defocus. Thoughts came slowly and were disjointed; he could only protest weakly as Chirr hustled him from the room. Neighmann collapsed in the corridor, balance suddenly gone, laying against one wall and shaking his head in an effort to clear his vision.

Chirr leant down, peering intently into his eyes. "Sorry about that, Neighmann. You feeling okay?"

"I didn't know you could do that," Neighmann said, trying to get his eyes to focus on the chiropt's face.

"We don't talk about it much... my mistress made us to fight the Guard, back when she, ah..."

"Wasn't quite herself?"

"Huh, still got a sense of humour, that's good. Yes, the Nightmare didn't want any magical competition, so she didn't breed some super unicorn. Instead she selected some of her pegasi and gave them bat traits, gave us a way to see in the dark and give any unicorn a really bad day." Chirr stepped back, giving Neighmann the space to struggle to his hooves. "That's only the second time I've had to use that in anger," he said softly, "I'm sorry it had to be you."

"Me too. Listen, you must know that what she's doing is wrong, my mate has been tortured by that spell for days, she needs time to recover. I-I don't want to get her back just to have her spirit broken."

"This is hard, Neighmann, really hard, but try and see it from the Princess' perspective. Celestia is on the warpath and talking genocide, while the rest of Equestria is dissolving beneath our very hooves. Equilibrium might have information from the heart of the enemy's stronghold -- if we don't do something soon there might not be anything to recover for."

===

"There, your mate has gone, and he will never discover whatever secret you have, unless you choose to tell him."

Libi, unable to retreat any further, cringed away from the looming Princess. Luna was almost twice her height, and in the darkened room her stern visage and half-raised wings brought forth foalhood dreams of the Nightmare. Please, I've done such terrible things, don't make me remember. Even the idea of having to look in detail at her memories was bringing forth little snippets: a wall of coarse brown fur filling the inside of a stone cell, the satisfying crunch of her hooves making contact with a prone earth pony's ribs, the look of fear in the gryphoness' eye as the mob she'd stirred up closed in. The feeling of teeth gripping my mane and heavy, warm fur on my back, and--

Libi moaned, a low wordless sound full of despair. "Yes, but you'll know, and I'll have to think about what I did... and how much I enjoyed some of it." Tears started to soak her muzzle and her legs gave way, dropping to her belly on the ground. "I've ruined everything... I hated Neighmann so much and I did everything I could to hurt him. It will never be the same, he'll never love me again."

Luna stepped close and sat down next to the weeping unicorn. Gently she opened one wing and folded the big, glossy feathers over her comparatively small body. "I think you are wrong. It is true that terrible revelations can drive ponies apart, but it is also true that it can forge them together into something far stronger than before. Your Neighmann tried to fight his way past Sergeant Chirr to get to you; I think he would have attacked me, given the chance. That does not sound like a pony that would let you go."

"How can you be so sure?" Libi sniffed, gazing up into Luna's eyes with a desperate hope.

"I have been alive for a very long time, and have seen many ponies in the most dire of situations." She looked away from Libi, staring over the consoles at the mocking shape of Discord. "I am also something of an expert on guilt and regret. What you feel now is almost paralysing with its intensity, but the edge will dull with time, especially with the support of those around you. The worst thing possible is to lock the pain away, hide it deep in your soul so it can grow and fester in the dark."

Libi nodded dumbly, but Luna wasn't finished. "I suspect you have suffered worse than most, but you are not alone. Many other ponies are afflicted with the same spell, and it is spreading rapidly. Soon there will be nothing left if we cannot stop it. I believe that vital information is locked in your memories; with it I can form a strategy and put an end to all of this."

Without thinking, Libi dried her eyes against the Princess' shoulder, an act that made Luna's distant expression soften and a small smile twitch at the corners of her mouth. "I guess that's probably treason, Princess."

"I think you are safe from that charge. Libi, please."

She nodded slowly. "Okay, I'll do it. How does it work?"

"It will be like a waking dream; there will be a sense of dislocation."

"Good."

"I will be as quick as I can. Remember, I will not judge you; my wrath is reserved for the one who did this to all of us."

Luna's horn glowed and Libi's eyelids closed.

--where there had been solid stone, was a wall of dark fur, a snake-like undulating body with multiple, asymmetric limbs and ending in a heavy, horned head--

20 -- Case Nightmare White

"I had almost hoped my sister was correct, and that the zebra and gryphons were behind these events," Luna said, pulling the door open and stepping through into the corridor, a trembling Libi leaning against one flank. "But it is not so. I believe that Discord is using a prison in Razorclaw as a base of operations. He has chosen not to confront us directly, but to pull away the foundations of what makes us such a threat to him. Only when our harmony has been thoroughly destroyed will he be truly free." She gently pushed Libi over towards Neighmann, who rushed over before she could make more than a step. I'm sorry, my foal, but it was necessary.

"What do you plan, Princess?" asked Chirr.

"Given the rate that this infection spreads, I need to act immediately. Chirr, you will remain here with Neighmann and Equilibrium and keep them safe--" Chirr opened his mouth to protest, but Luna cut him off. "--and I mean it this time. Do not try and follow me, especially if I do not return."

Chirr looked very unhappy. "Then what am I to do? Just wait here until the clouds turn pink and start to rain chocolate?"

"I think not." Luna pulled off her secure communicator and passed it over to Chirr, who winced as she clipped the oversized device to his tufted ears. "You will wait thirty minutes, then use this to contact the Panopticon; it will take you straight to Director Topsy Krett. Tell her 'Case Nightmare White,' code aardvark-ampersand-wildfire."

"...and what will that do?"

"My sister and I both have contingency plans for eventualities such as these, but it will not be pretty. Director Krett will give you your orders." And then all my children will die, because Celestia will certainly do the same thing, if she hasn't already.

Chirr clicked his hooves in salute and Luna nodded in return, then formed the correct patterns in her mind and pushed--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--materialising neatly before a large, ornate door somewhere in the depths of the Palace.

The pair of unicorns guarding it had obviously felt the portal terminus form and had shouted a warning to their pegasus comrades. All four ponies had spread out to cover a semi circle around her arrival point, polychromatic light already starting to flare from the two magic users. Spears were levelled, secured into the lance mounts on the pegasi's armour. These were ceremonial weapons but still perfectly functional; the tips were single crystals of water-clear sapphire enchanted to penetrate force fields and ceramic armour alike.

The shock on the Guard's faces was almost comical, and Luna nearly threw back her head and laughed out loud. "I commend your alertness, but who exactly did you expect to teleport in? There are maybe a dozen unicorns in Canterlot who could manage this feat, none of whom could get in through the Palace's barrier."

The Guards looked uncertain, the spear tips wavering and casting splintered points of light on the walls and ceiling. "Your H-Highness, Princess Celestia ordered that no pony is allowed into the vault without her express permission," one of the unicorns said in a trembling voice.

"These are the standing orders in the event of the Defence Act's conditions being met. Stand aside." Luna seemed to grow a little taller and a little darker, shadows condensing in the corners even with the brilliance of the corridor lights. The Guards twitched, but didn't move. "Celestia and I are equal in our authority. I will not ask you again..." Her voice trailed off into a hiss. And if they still don't move, what then? How many more ponies are you going to hurt to achieve your goals? Luna smiled gently at the thought. What a foalish idea; as many as it takes.

Her unintentional grin seemed to have the desired effect, even when her threatening posture did not; the centre pair of Guards fell back, opening the way for her to pass,

"Excellent. You are a credit to your unit." A flicker of magic and the door swung open, revealing a small room with another set of doors, these less ornate, but far more solid-looking. Luna closed the outer doors in the faces of the uncertain Guards, then applied her magic to the lock on the master vault. This whole facility was built to house the Elements; the walls were seeded with spellcraft devices designed to block teleportation and remote manipulation or viewing, while the main door would only open to a select few ponies, as well as herself and Celestia.

Her magic filled the little room, overpowering the subdued lighting set into the corners. Lines of violet traced complex networks over the circular vault door, causing embedded arcane mechanisms to light up in turn. A few seconds of this and the hair-fine crack around the rim of the vault pulsed a bright apple green and the whole panel pulled back into the wall and rolled sideways.

Inside were a number of plain shelves covered with black velvet, each holding one or more artefacts too dangerous for any other facility, or too valuable to risk losing. A black metal circlet, too large for a normal pony's head, its inner surface studded with tiny jewels that glowed in complex patterns. A grey and red unicorn horn, strangely curved. A glass bottle filled with ordinary-looking black seeds. A set of six perfect spheres, three crystal bubbles containing a glittering point of light, three plain grey globes, one hemisphere intricately patterned stone, the other in shadowed darkness... and they weren't here.

"Wasted too much time, I should have come here first," Luna muttered. When did you take them, Celestia? As soon as we had our conversation, or had Discord's touch made you suspicious even before then? There was a change in the air and Luna stiffened slightly, before wheeling around and scowling. "Why are the Elements not in the vault, sister?" she demanded. "They are not to be moved without agreement from both of us."

Celestia stood in the doorway, sans regalia. "Are you alright, Luna?" She waved a wing at the Night Princess' dusty and waterstained coat. "Your deliberations seem to have been quite stressful." She cocked her head to one side. "I also see that you have prepared yourself for battle."

"I am in no mood for pleasantries! Celestia, where are the Elements?" A quick check with her shadow sight showed that her sister had done the same; her body was layered with enchantments to the point where she seemed to be made of molten gold.

"I moved them, for safekeeping. I suspect this vault is not as secure as it needs to be against a determined foe." Celestia smiled gently, but her eyes were calculating. "Come, sister. We need to discuss our combined response to this crisis."

Luna was suddenly very conscious that she was standing in a magically shielded room, the only entrance blocked by one of the most powerful beings on the planet. Too much like a trap. "Yes, Celestia. You should have talked to me first," she said wearily, taking a few steps forward. "It's almost like you don't trust me." Luna kept her face as expressionless as she dared, allowing a trace of fear to colour her tone. It's what she'd be expecting.

"Nothing of the sort, but these are dangerous times... and such information should only be passed directly."

They walked in silence for a few minutes, leaving the guards standing in front of the resealed vault door. Luna watched Celestia out of one eye, wondering what her sister was going to do. The other mare seemed completely at ease, as if this was nothing more than a stroll through the less occupied parts of the Palace. Finally she couldn't take it anymore. "Well, where are they?" she demanded.

Celestia paused, one hoof off the ground, then turned to face her. Gone was the calm smile, replaced with a look of deep distrust. "Don't take me for a fool, Luna. What were you doing in the detention block a few hours ago?"

She's never going to tell me. The revelation hit Luna, and for a moment she wondered why she'd ever thought it could be otherwise. Obviously Celestia knew she'd been held in the cells; the Guard would have reported it immediately. So much for any hope that the unicorn was purely under the influence of the spell. It can't be as simple as just making a pony hate, but must cause them to align behind a sufficiently strong leader. It matters not; I must at least try to convince her.

"Sister, the contagion runs deep inside Canterlot, and I have discovered not only where it is from, but how to cure it."

Celestia nodded, but her ears folded back in anger. "You should not have wasted your time on these things. I told you I knew that already. It is something monstrous out of the Zebra Alliance's arcane laboratories. Our forces will be ready in a few hours; soon we will strike at their centres of power and discover what they have done."

Luna felt like whinnying with frustration. You are still in there, you must be. "This is not something they are capable of; the threat is far more severe than that. Discord--"

"Discord is still locked in his relativistic prison, you know that! There is no way he can do this." Celestia snorted in disgust. "I can't believe you would stoop so low, trying to distract me when it is vital we act immediately. If you are going to persist with this ridiculous fantasy, I'll--"

"You'll what?" Luna said challengingly, but she had a sinking feeling exactly what her sister had in mind. Imprisonment again; for how long this time? What would I have done if I had won all those years ago? The sick dreams of the Nightmare still haunted her sleeping hours on occasion; there was nopony to protect her from those. She knew full well what she'd have done. Celestia would have been blasted to atoms and the sun would be extinguished like a candle flame and converted into a gateway for Discord's escape.

"It will be for your own good, Luna, and the good of Equestria; we all have to make sacrifices. When this is all over you'll see reason, I know you will."

"But I have proof -- Director Neighmann has noticed a number of anomalies that can only be explained by Discord's escape." Fight this sister, for the sake of us all, fight this!

"The same Neighmann who assaulted and half killed his assistant? No, sister, he is as infected as the rest of our unfortunate ponies and cannot be trusted."

She is so certain she is right, Luna thought, if only I could hold her down like Equilibrium... That idea was a fantasy; they were very evenly matched and any fight would destroy most of Canterlot city if she didn't take steps to draw Celestia out. So now I'm planning violence against my only remaining family. "Trust me, then. I have seen the data, I have seen inside Equlibrium's mind, cleaned away the taint of Discord's touch."

"Then the data is wrong and you are mistaken. I trust my own senses, and I know that Discord is still imprisoned. We put him away, and we would know when he escaped. This has been the case every time, has it not?"

Yes, but Discord is not stupid! Luna wanted to scream, but Celestia had that fixed look on her face that Luna recognised of old. "I will not help you with your war. The zebra and gryphons will fight -- you've seen the Panopticon's reports, you know what they've been doing after we did our little changeling stomping exercise. You may well survive, but our ponies will pay a terrible price."

Celestia's face grew stern. "Luna, I have had enough of this rebellious behaviour. In times of war it is treason to go against the will of the Crown."

"Just listen to yourself! I am also the Crown; the whole point of our rule was that we balanced each other." Luna was shouting now, ears back and wings flexing in agitation. "I can not commit treason against myself!"

"It is clear that I made a mistake in ever trusting you, Luna," Celestia said coldly. "Your emotions always did get the better of you. You never did learn from your mistakes, and now you are making the same ones all over again. It's exactly this that forced me to banish you last time -- I'll do it again to save our ponies from your madness."

"My--" Luna stood there, momentarily speechless by the enormity of what her sister had just said. "You do remember what caused...?" Celestia's expression became fixed. She's not listening at all. "You are the one who's going mad; the same plague that is running wild has got to you, and you have comprehensively failed to recognise it within yourself."

"So that's it, is it? I was going to return you to the detention block, but I can see that will not be sufficient. Don't worry, it won't be like last time, I'll bring you back when it's all over."

With a string of pops like distant fireworks, six hoof-sized spheres -- all six like miniature suns -- appeared from whatever place Celestia had hidden them and began to orbit lazily about the Day Princess' head.

She's bonded to all of them-- Luna backpedaled frantically, but the magic hit her like the sudden crack of a whip.

===

Luna saw the Elements appear and a terrible bolt of déjà vu nearly paralysed her. Not again, I'm not going to be sent away again! That first time was etched in her memories like a midnight landscape illuminated by a lightning flash. Every detail, from the crackle and boom of distant magic as their forces clashed, to the smell of stone dust in the gutted remains of their once-proud castle on the plains. The clearest were the emotions; her own hate and fear, contrasting with the expression of despair and resolve on Celestia's face.

For a moment there was the false hope that the Elements would not respond to her sister, that they would somehow be repelled by a soul ruled by hate and anger. This was the comforting lie they had spread to the world, and the reason that the Elements were kept in the most secure vault pony science and magic could manufacture. It had never been the case: the Elements were magical tools made long ago by something so powerful as to be incomprehensible, and they would respond to whoever knew the trick to operating them.

That the first blow didn't strip away her shields and bundle her up in a rainbow cocoon of magic was a source of distant shock to Luna. Her layered defences did what they were designed to do, turning from vague, cobwebby things to a solid shield in less time than it took light to travel the distance between the two ponies. Claws of pure force and tendrils of paralysing electricity closed on that shell and shattered, the energy emerging as heat and motion.

She didn't use them... she must be trying to be gentle. The thought was fleeting and Luna didn't spend the time required to analyse it. She could have deflected the power off in opposing directions, remaining near Celestia for her own counter strike, but she chose to use it instead. The wall behind her, almost a meter of dressed basalt taken from the deep tunnels, blew outwards like it was made of foam. Luna flew backwards with it, skilfully surfing the turbulence behind the shockwave and opening the distance. Lightning stroked the walls and floor, and every light in the Palace went out as an electromagnetic pulse fused wiring and burned-out semiconductor junctions.

Using her own magic, Luna smashed through service corridors and deserted store rooms, heading for the surface and hoping that nopony was standing anywhere along her route. The now dark labyrinth of the Palace filled with high-velocity stone fragments as she accelerated, carving out a worm-tunnel through the ancient building. The dust was suddenly illuminated by a hot, white light shining up from behind, her shadow forming a sharp-edged pattern through the haze.

Breaking through the next wall, Luna emerged into one of the large ballrooms that were spread throughout the lower floors of the Palace; a light and airy room, delicately furnished in the amber and gold of a sunset around the walls, complemented by a dark roof covered with patterns of glass and crystal designed to catch the light and mimic a star-speckled sky. It had been commissioned by Celestia in the years leading up to her return from exile, and had been one of her most cherished gifts -- one of those things that showed to the world how much faith her sister had in her ability to change and overcome her inner demons.

Luna darted sideways, familiar with her sister's way of fighting. A globe of light, as bright as the sun, burst out of the tunnel behind her. Luna's view of the world wavered and distorted as her shields diverted the excess electromagnetic energy away from her body, but the rest of the room wasn't so fortunate.

Paint blistered and exposed wood charred and burst into flame, turning the far end of the room into an instant conflagration. The compact sphere of plasma, confined under enormous pressures by the ferocious magnetic fields generated by Celestia's magic, curved around and headed straight for her. Luna reached out and twisted the magic underlying the impossible physics that was holding the weapon together.

Celestia fought her, adapting the arcane patterns to resist the disruption, but Luna could tell she wasn't really trying too hard. One minor alteration slipped past her sister's defences, creating an imbalance in the fields holding the plasma confined, something that rapidly went out of control and caused the whole thing to unravel.

The plasma bolt exploded with a flash and a crack that made Luna's ears ring even through her layered defences. The shockwave blew out the ornate doors and stripped the roof of its glass ornamentation, gutting the room and removing anything recognizable. She really is going easy on me, Luna thought, there's still something of my sister fighting behind Discord's influence. She focused her own power and cut a large hole in the roof. More effort and a flick of space-time collapsed her tunnel into a twisted pile of wreckage. It stood no chance of actually stopping her sister, but it might slow her down enough that she could break contact.

There was a wrenching twist in the middle of the room, a fast-blooming distortion that stretched the quantum foam and sucked it away along a direction not describable in terms of up-down or left-right. Instinctively, Luna reached out and smoothed away the half-formed wormhole, breaking the teleport terminus before it could stabilise. With all the magic being employed, Celestia really needed to get close enough to actually see her to use the Elements, something Luna intended to make as difficult as possible.

Without hesitation, Luna launched herself for the neat hole, accelerating far faster than any pegasus could manage. More magic, and objects in front of her muzzle were grabbed and shunted around her body at ever-increasing speeds. Within a second she'd cleared the outer wall of the Palace, her sonic boom rattling windows inside the pink shell of the force dome. The spellcraft defence systems sunk deep into the mountain responded to her telepathic call, opening a brief hole in the field, just long enough for her to pass through.

The Palace field was designed to be a barrier to arcane, as well as physical, forces, but Celestia could teleport through it just as easily as Luna could. Behind her there was a flash of light and Celestia materialised, her body radiant and bright enough to cast hard shadows among the towers and battlements. One swift glance was all Luna took the time for, then poured all her strength into speed and fleeing Canterlot like a bullet from a gun.

How long before she-- Complex magic started to form, the space-time shaping patterns of teleportation, but instead of trying to stop the spell, Luna created her own, matching Celestia step for step. Teleportation wasn't very energy intensive compared to some of the things she could do, but it did take skill. This would take a lot of skill and more than a little luck... The wormhole terminus started to form and Celestia disapp--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--Luna reappeared outside the doors of the Chaos Institute, immediately falling to the ground and folding her wings. It was a matter of moments to collapse her active defences, and before she had gone a dozen paces her mane had faded and lost its starry depths. Nervously looking over her shoulder, she trotted into the institute to be greeted by a suspicious-looking Chirr.

"What happened to you, Princess?" he asked carefully, placing himself between Luna and the still seated pair of Neighmann and Equilibrium.

"A little teleport tag with my sister. I have suppressed my connection to the moon so she will not have an easy time locating me. I tried to reason with her; it did not go well."

Chirr's ears flattened and he stepped out of Luna's way. "What does this mean? Is there to be war between you again, along with all the rest of this?"

"Only if she catches me." Luna sagged slightly, her head lowered. "Discord's plans run deep this time; had he manipulated both of us there would have been war for sure, and of a like you've never dreamed. Imagine two Nightmares, one dark and one light, evenly matched and out for each other's blood. We would still be fighting over the ruins of this world a century hence."

"All of the chiropt will be with you, for what it's worth."

Luna's head came up and she stared fiercely at her Night Guard. "Yes, and I thank you for it." The first thing I did was give them their freedom, release them from the geas that bound them to the Nightmare, and they will still follow me to the end. "You and your kind are the hope of Equestria, and I know your fellows are doing their best to dampen the worst excesses of this madness." She stepped forward and bent her head to nuzzle his cheek. "I will do everything in my power to do your loyalty justice."

Stepping back, Luna mock scowled at Chirr. "Enough of these distractions! Come, there is work to be done and not much time. You too, Neighmann and Equilibrium." Motioning the chiropt to open the door, she swept down the ramp to the centre of the Monster Room and stared at the six metal plates embedded in the floor around the statue of Discord. Now, how much of this do I need to take? "Director Neighmann, you are the most familiar with the construction of this room. We are going on a little trip and I need to do some packing...

===

Twister lay slouched in the command stall, gazing past the great cloud vistas before the Friendship Express without really looking at them. Orders are orders, he reminded himself, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. At least the rest of the crew can blow off a little steam and complain. The reports of what might be in that Razorclaw prison made him sick to his stomach, but there was the rest of Equestria to worry about. The last conversation he'd had with the FOAL team commander had been especially taxing; they had the best local knowledge of any of his teams as well as the will to go in. Trailblazer had not been happy when he'd finally been turned down, although he'd hid it well.

The intel coming back from the Panopticon didn't make good reading. There was no end to the strange mental plague that had arrived with the Canterlot Dreaming; soon it seemed that the whole country would be affected. Which raises another problem, he thought. It's obvious that some in the chain of command have changed -- can I really trust anypony on the mainland? Have to do what's right, protect Equestria from anyone wanting to take advantage of the situation. The chain of logic was inescapable -- there could be no rotation of personnel, no face-to-face contact at all, until there was a fix for the problem.

Still lost in his thoughts, Twister started when a loud beeping cut through the air of the command deck. Windows ringed with flashing arcane warning signals bloomed over his console and he gaped at them for a second before his mind caught up. "Defence, report!"

"Thaumic spike, sir, levels still rising. Centred on hangar one, just forward of frame fifty. The cameras are giving me nothing but static. Active defences are running but whatever it is has already bypassed most of them."

A quick glance at the status screen showed that the lieutenant was quite correct; nothing but a fuzzy, static-ridden violet glow filled the camera view. The defence systems were fighting the magic, but whoever was running the spell was reacting faster than the banks of carefully tuned crystals were able to. A shiver ran down Twister's spine as he read the thaumic pattern analysis system's conclusion. They're trying to set a teleport terminus, anything could be sent through-- "Security teams, prepare to repel boarders in hangar one! Set battle stations." I only hope it's an assault squad, and not just a bomb...

There was a flash of light on the screen and a shudder ran through the aircarrier. Twister felt his insides clench, waiting for the groan of metal twisting and breaking as the Express was gutted by whatever weapon had managed to penetrate her defences. Nothing happened, and he looked back at the camera view in time to see it clear and reveal an unmistakable silhouette.

Relief washed through him, followed immediately by annoyance. "Captain Flint, you have the bridge. I need to attend to our royal visitor."

===

Luna stood in the cavernous space of the Friendship Express' number one hangar and fought for breath. The aircarrier's arcane defence systems had proven to be quite a challenge to penetrate; teleportation by its very nature was a delicate process and required a level of precision above and beyond most other magics. Couple that with the need to compensate for the significant velocity difference between Canterlot and her mid-ocean target, and Luna had been at the limit of her skill for this particular task. It was only their power circle that made it possible at all; I must mention this potential security flaw to the designers.

All around were hard-eyed military ponies, their stern looks slowly changing to wonder and confusion as they realised who she was. Luna lifted her head and raised her wings. "Permission to come aboard?" she asked, in a voice that rang out over the assembled ponies.

A mauve pegasus with admiral flashes on his collar flitted over the heads of the closest security team and landed with a slightly out of breath flutter in front of her. "Permission granted, your Highness. I am Admiral Twister, commanding the Friendship Express. What brings you to this corner of the world, if I may be so bold as to enquire?" His eyes roved over the little group she had brought with her, lingering on the six large and concrete-covered metal boxes in an untidy pile to one side.

"Admiral Twister, my apologies for this unannounced visit. Under the Defence of the Realm Act of 997 I need you to turn your command around and head at full speed for Razorclaw. I have a vital mission for you."

Twister looked up at her with a blank expression. "I see. One moment please." He turned his head and nodded at the security team leader. "You are dismissed. Thank you for your speedy response." There was the flutter of wings and the clatter of hooves and within seconds they were all alone in the centre of the hangar deck. "Princess, my orders come directly from the Panopticon and Princess Celestia, who has also invoked the Act. Could you please explain the change in priority?" Seeing her thunderous expression, he continued hastily. "Not that you don't have the right, of course, but a confused chain of command is a deadly thing."

It is not enough that I order this pony; he is already suspicious. Luna stayed silent, then nodded. "I understand your confusion. Tell me, Admiral, have your last orders made much sense to you? What about the news coming out of the Palace, or the actions of my sister?"

"It is hardly my place to question orders from the Palace, or the actions of Princess Celestia."

"Indulge me, please." She must know where I am by now, but what will she do? Luna had made her initial escape by jumping at the exact moment Celestia had teleported; while the transit was effectively instantaneous, distortions at the exit provided a small window during which the teleportee was essentially blind. Not so this last jump -- it had taken so long to get through the aircarrier's defences that she'd been half afraid that Celestia would arrive before her. Luna's wings started to twitch with impatience at the pegasus' thoughtful look.

"It seems unlikely that a plot by the Zebra Alliance at this scale would go unnoticed, and I know that they are not exactly allies with Hookbeak or Goldenwing, given the number of trade disputes recently. If it is a conspiracy then the Panopticon has been very lax. You sister seems... very set on her conclusions, although no evidence has been forthcoming."

"My sister has the same disorder that many in Equestria are suffering from. She cannot be trusted to make the right decisions."

"Princess, I will be blunt. You have a certain... historical precedent for rebellion. Why should I take your word for this?"

"If I was in the throes of the Nightmare, that comment would have earned your destruction. If I could not have your loyalty I would rip apart this machine and then drown the earth ponies and unicorns in the ocean." Luna's voice remained calm, but her insides were churning. "Then I would have run the pegasi through conversion forges to swell the ranks of my chiropt. You I would have saved for last, so you could watch." The things she had done all those years ago were still stark and fresh; it would be so easy to fall back into threats and viewing other ponies as mere insects to use and abuse as she wished. I must be calm... how to convince this pony that I am sane?

Twister stared up at her, unmoved by the threat, then nodded. "I daresay all that is correct, Princess. However, I will need a little more than that."

He tests me. "Your honesty and suspicion is well placed, Admiral. My sister is convinced that the Zebra Alliance is behind all of this, that there will be a general invasion. As a member of the Admiralty Board, you are privy to the high-level intelligence briefings -- has there been any sign of a military build-up? It would be impossible to hide such a thing from us. If you want confirmation from another source, contact Director Krett at the Panopticon; she is also working on this problem."

"I'll do just that, Princess. I also see you have Doctor Neighmann with you... I take it our old friend is involved?"

"The signs are all there; the Lord of Chaos is not predictable so it should be of no real surprise that his tactics have changed. I also have a witness--" Luna extended a wing in Equilibrium's direction. The mare was still glued to Neighmann's side, casting wide-eyed glances around the Express' hangar deck. "--who also knows something of the internal layout of the target."

"That's the pony the gryphons used to infect the Dreaming, and you brought her onto my ship--"

"She is perfectly safe, although traumatised by the experience; I stripped away Discord's influence myself."

Twister sighed, his anger subsiding as fast as it had arrived. "Very well. In that case I will need to talk to both of them; we already had plans to assault the prison before our orders were changed. I will have them updated after I have spoken to Director Krett. Who is the chiropt?"

The tension inside Luna abruptly released, and she sagged slightly in relief. "Thank you, Admiral. This is Sergeant Chirr; I place him at your disposal." Chirr stamped one hind hoof in salute as Luna gestured at him. "His clade are immune to the effects of the mental plague, something that your teams on the ground may find useful. Admiral, my time is limited and there is a risk Celestia may track me here. While you are debriefing Neighmann and Equilibrium I need to speak to your engineer and as many combat unicorns as you are planning to put in the field."

Twister tapped at his collar and muttered something into its communicator. "It is done. I take it you have something to protect us from the plague?"

"I do, but the engineer first; I have a present that needs to be integrated into the Express' systems."

Twister eyed the mixture of metal and rubble that lay to one side. Thick cable bundles the characteristic golden hue of high temperature superconductor were tangled over the pile, hastily cut or ripped from whatever housing they'd been attached to. "Oh, I'm sure Manny Fold will be delighted."

21 -- A gift of sunlight

Topsy Krett stared at the split-screen comms display in a mild panic, but was careful not to let any of her emotions actually reach her face. Princess Celestia was frowning at her. General Buckler, on the other half of the display, was scowling, but Princess Celestia was frowning at her. Does she know? Topsy had been funnelling information to the Express for almost an hour now; there was no actual proof, but the conclusions were inescapable. "I'm sorry, Princess, could you repeat the question?"

"You seem a little distracted, Topsy, is there anything I should know about?"

Celestia's expression had changed to one of concern, but even on a good day there was no such thing as a casual question from the Solar Princess. She is as inscrutable and hard to read as ever. Topsy sighed and rubbed her muzzle against one foreleg. At least I don't have to fake the fatigue. "I'm sorry, your Highness, the news about your sister was a terrible shock. You must be devastated."

An eyebrow quirked, but Celestia said nothing to that. "Trying times for all of us, but soon we will have justice and I will have my sister back."

Or lakes of glass that take decades to cool and a new set of mare-in-the-moon craters. Topsy suppressed a shiver; the images of the moon from all those centuries ago were a chilling reminder of what the Princess was capable of, even against her own kin. Topsy sighed again, suddenly remembering what she'd been asked. "Yes, Princess. As to your question... there has been a general mobilisation of the surrounding states. I have evidence of a joint command structure--"

"Ha! I knew it. It's about time you managed to see what was under your muzzle all along."

"Yes, General. It's obvious that something has gone very wrong with our intelligence gathering efforts." Or because there was no activity until Celestia threatened them with annihilation. "You will have my resignation as soon as this crisis is over."

"Accepted, Director," Celestia said.

Topsy nodded dumbly, wondering why it came as such a shock to hear the Princess she'd served for so long calmly announce the end of her career. No. Not my Princess, not any more. I certainly don't want to serve this one. There was a sharp ping of an incoming priority call, and the familiar face of Princess Luna filled one half of the screen. Topsy's ears flicked back for an instant and she tried desperately to keep her face expressionless. One hoof darted forward, muting Luna's audio.

"Who was that, Director? A pony who has your personal line must be quite important."

Celestia's face was a study of polite curiosity, and Topsy knew it was only a matter of time before she was found out. "A field agent, Princess, out in Hookbeak territory. We are so short-hoofed that I have had some of the calls redirected."

"Really, Director. Do you take me for a fool? How long have you been consorting with my sister?" Try as she might, Topsy couldn't avoid the little twitch of her muzzle. To somepony like Celestia, it was like sending up a flare. "I want to talk to her. Now."

Topsy's eyes flicked to the other screen, where Luna just nodded. Slumping, she reached out and tapped a control. "She would like to talk to you, as well."

"Luna, that was a very clever stunt you pulled. I know you are somewhere in mid ocean, but how are you--" Celestia suddenly smiled. "You're on the Friendship Express, aren't you?"

"Yes. We go to disrupt the likely origins of Discord's operations." There was raw need in Luna's voice, and she leaned forward into the camera. "Please, sister. Help us, I beg you."

Something flickered over Celestia's perfect white face, a flash of uncertainty that was immediately replaced with anger. "I should have known you were behind all this... and now you run to your allies. You will not escape my justice for long." The perfect white head turned slightly, looking at the other half of her own display. "General Buckler, this is more serious than I suspected. It is obvious that the contagion has breached the Panopticon's security. Firstly, you are authorised to relieve Director Krett by whatever means necessary."

"Yes, Princess," Buckler said with a great deal of satisfaction, grinning savagely at Topsy.

"Secondly," and here Celestia stared straight into her camera, "I am declaring the aircarrier Friendship Express and all her crew enemy combatants. Bring it down." Buckler's feral grin died for an instant, a brief flicker of horror crossing her face, then it was back and the mare nodded once.

"Sister, please, don't do this. I gave none of these ponies any choice in the matter," Luna said, while behind her there was the sound of shocked muttering and the sudden beat of galloping hooves.

"Perhaps you should have considered the consequences before suborning my ponies. Yet again, others will suffer for your vanity and personal greed. I will see you soon, Luna."

Luna flinched as if slapped, then turned back to Topsy. "I'm sorry, Director, there's little I can do. I suggest you surrender and cooperate fully."

Topsy reached out and killed the connections to Celestia and General Buckler. "I think not. You will need the best intelligence I can get you to plan your attack. Unit efficiency isn't as high as it might be, so I think it will take them some time to get through my doors. I'll keep working until the last minute."

===

"So... Sergeant Kreeeekikissshhht--" Blevie gave a very credible attempt at the chiropt name, then broke off with a strangled cough, turning to dip her muzzle into the room's water fountain. Nightstorm winced and rolled her eyes, then went back to muttering the stream-of-consciousness, almost comprehensible babble some unicorns used as a focus to settle their minds before heavy magic use.

"Chirr, please. That's actually very close, but you were missing most of the mid and upper registers," the Night Guard said, doing his best to keep a straight face.

Trust Blevie to know how to break the ice. Despite his slightly alien body form, it had been easy enough to read Chirr; the chiropt had been distinctly uneasy with the attention the FOAL had been giving him. As well he might... what was the Princess thinking, giving us a new pony just before an operation? Trailblazer sat back on his haunches and sighed. "You do understand our reluctance here, yes? We've trained and worked together as a team for years... how are you going to do any more than get in the way?"

"My record--"

Trailblazer waved one wing, cutting Chirr off. "...is not accessible. The Friendship Express has been disconnected from the network."

"Have you ever worked with the chiropt before, Captain?"

"Not directly. FOAL units are generally on detached duty. We've been embedded in Embassy security for the last two years; before that..." Trailblazer smiled mirthlessly "...you don't have clearance for before that." He cocked his head, looking thoughtful. "Still, you lot were always challenging as OPFOR. I take it you are fully qualified -- what's your speciality?"

"Long range scouting and covert intrusion with--" Chirr glanced at Nightstorm. "--spellcaster suppression." The unicorn paused in her quiet muttering, opening one eye to briefly stare at the chiropt, before closing it again and restarting her mental exercises.

"...yet you were stuck on the night shift, guarding the world's least loved statue."

"We are spread thinly, Captain, and frequently have to operate alone," Chirr said, eyes locked on Trailblazer's own. "My Mistress will not fall into the same trap she did before... but we are the best at what we do. I will not get in your team's way."

Trailblazer stared at Chirr for a long time, then sighed. I suppose it won't be too bad... and if the improvised protection spell doesn't work as advertised, it would be very useful to have a pony who's immune. "Fine. As long as you can follow orders--"

He flinched as the aircarrier shivered under his hooves. Before him was a spellcraft map table, a slightly translucent model of the prison and surrounding area floating just above it. The model was still changing as their maps were updated, but the real gold was the internal mapping of the facility, carefully teased out of Equilibrium by the Express' skilled intelligence officer. After her interrogation, the poor mare had been released into the care of Neighmann, who was helping to integrate the Princess' gift into the aircarrier's systems.

"Now what?" he muttered. Blevie had already run to the edge of the planning room, trying to see out of the small porthole. Light was blazing in, like the sun was directly behind the thick glass. Wait, isn't the sun on the other side of the hull? he thought, ears going up in alarm, then hunched involuntarily as another thought struck home. Have we just been nuked? An air burst, the million degree fireball radiating light, heat and X-rays into the Express. Trailblazer held his breath, waiting for the shockwave to break the aircarrier's back. Alarms started to sound in the corridor outside their briefing room.

"Blevie, get away from that window!" The mare had already spun away before the sentence was half complete, falling to the ground with forelegs firmly over her head. The shockwave never came and the light didn't die, instead it just got brighter, shifting towards an electric blue-white. Not a nuke, but what... oh no, not that. One glance at Night confirmed his fears.

Nightstorm's ears had folded completely back and she was hunched against the ground as if in anticipation of a blow. Little glimmers of light flickered around her horn and she groaned again, shaking her head. "Magic, lots of magic, near. Either Discord's come out to meet us or it's one of the Princesses."

Trailblazer's heart sank and he started to feel sick. That's it then. The monster has won; Celestia has succumbed and is attacking us as traitors.

The light outside went dim and started to flicker erratically, and Trailblazer reached for the table's controls, switching through the various camera feeds from the hull. Next to him, Chirr started to do the same with another section of the tactical table, spawning multiple hoof-sized images. Clouds were spreading rapidly around the Express, thick things that looked pregnant with rain, but there was a bright spot directly overhead. The view seemed to darken, but he realised that it was the camera reacting to the extra light; everything was covered with inky shadows from the rapidly building glare. There was a warbling whine from somewhere deeper inside the Express, the characteristic note of many spellcraft devices approaching overload.

"The ship is actually fighting her off," Trailblazer whispered, staring intently at the video windows, "can you believe that, Night?"

"Not really," she replied, climbing carefully to her hooves and standing next to him, "but it is happening... although not for much longer, by the sound of it." The warble was loud enough that she'd had to raise her voice, the high-pitched noise putting his teeth on edge.

The deck shook again, this time accompanied by a distant explosion and the aching moan of twisting metal and the gunshot cracks of fracturing ceramics. Fire burst out of a patch on the Express' flank, small and seemingly inconsequential on the video image. "That's one of the thaumic suppressors gone," Night said quietly, voice empty of all emotion, "more stress on the rest. They'll go like firecrackers any moment."

More alarms and the sound of galloping hooves, all mixed in with the ponies shouting incomprehensible orders to each other. Trailblazer badly wanted to get out there and help, but he barely knew the aircarrier's layout, let alone what her battle damage procedures were. The only thing we can do is be ready. "Blevie, Night, get your gear. Chirr--"

Something small darted away from the aircarrier's stern, a black pip of absolute darkness accelerating so fast that a conical shock wave was clearly visible against the backdrop of ocean. In its wake the clouds curdled and grew dim, as if the very light was being sucked into the object. The brilliant spot above the clouds wavered slightly, then moved to follow the flying thing.

"It's Luna," Night breathed, "she's drawing Celestia's attention." Already the harsh whine had started to fade back into the background aircarrier hum.

"Makes sense, she's the real threat. Do you think she'll make it?"

Nightstorm made a whistling sound as she drew air in through her teeth. "They were always supposed to be equal and opposite, the Ghost and the Darkness... but I don't know. Celestia always struck me as a little stronger, and by all accounts she has the Elements. It didn't end well for Luna last time."

Chirr shrank slightly at Night's final words, his eyes fixed on where the point of darkness had been, and where now was nothing more than a searing blue-white glare. "My Mistress is strong and smart; she won't make the same mistakes she did the last time." Membranous wings sagging slightly, Chirr looked from one FOAL to another, a desperate hope on his face.

Trailblazer shifted uncomfortably, exchanging a glance with Nightstorm. "Of course. Celestia isn't in her right mind; that's got to give Princess Luna an advantage." He shook himself all over. "We need to get prepped. Chirr, you go see the armourer. Come on, ponies, let's not waste the chance the Princess is giving us."

===

Luna felt the magic build and unconsciously looked up, as if she could see the sun growing brighter through the hull of the Friendship Express. It wasn't a teleport -- Celestia obviously didn't want to worm her way through the aircarrier's defences like she had -- but a brute force application of power. My sister seems a little clumsy of late, perhaps a side-effect? Less adept or not, she would be able to destroy the Express in moments, given the opportunity.

The automated threat alarms sounded and the Admiral muttered something sulphurous and galloped from the briefing room. Luna followed him for just long enough to tell him of her intent, then teleported directly down to the hangar deck. A distraction, time to let them complete their mission... and do everything that comes along with that.

She'd left the mangled mess of the Monster Room's defences in the hooves of the aircarrier's chief engineer; the last she'd heard, that pony had been mercilessly questioning Neighmann about the correct way to connect the experimental spellcraft modules to the Express' summoning circle. At least they finally let Neighmann have the full specifications, and he's surprised me with how much he'd already figured out. Give a scientist a hint and the theories soon follow.

Ahead of her was the organised chaos of the main hangar deck, big rear doors slowly grinding open to let in a hot, blue-white glare. The heat came with it; a solid wall that slapped her across the muzzle like somepony had suddenly opened a furnace door. The little hairs on the end of her nose shrivelled and she brought all her defensive enchantments up to full power. I wish I'd had time to collect my armour, she thought, then extended her influence and brought night to the hangar.

Shadows curdled around her as the light and energy seemed to flow away from her body; photons transformed by unlikely routes into neutrino-antineutrino pairs that took the energy away without it being passed directly to atoms. Pity I can't protect the whole Express for long enough, she thought, but the strain of keeping up this trick was already starting to tell. Even if I could, she'd just come here in person, and anything I can do to keep her at a distance...

Luna galloped towards the doors, wings open and skimming along the decking and out into the hostile sky, already flying faster than most pegasi. When she cleared the rear of the Express she really started to accelerate, wings becoming proxies for much larger and more complex fields that scooped up the air and threw it rearwards, filling the sky behind her with turbulence and short-lived condensation.

The darkness collapsed around her, forming a tight barrier against the concentrated sunlight and letting her fly within a globe of refreshingly cool dimness. Switching away from normal sight, Luna surveyed the area for magic, picking out the suddenly visible patterns of arcane activity. The whole world faded to sombre hues -- clouds, water and even the horizon itself became indistinct and faded to deep shadows -- with the exception of the Friendship Express and the sky directly overhead.

The aircarrier was alive with waves of colour, like some creature of the abyssal deeps caught in the lights of a submersible, laser-pure hues shifting and flowing all through its transparent innards. The sky... great bands and curtains of gold and orange circled and wove in the upper atmosphere, a dance that took light from kilometres around and pulled it together at a spot of Celestia's choosing. It was beautiful, in its own way; the shifting patterns of the aurora time-lapsed and visible in the artificial night of Luna's shadow sight.

As she flew further away, Luna made no attempt to hide her presence, and the patterns shifted to place her at the focal point of the monstrous lens. Sweat started to dampen her flanks as her defences took the additional strain, converting most of the light and diverting the rest harmlessly around her body. Celestia's aim wasn't perfect -- at these velocities the speed of light lag became significant -- so the area hit by the concentrated sunlight was a hundred meters across.

Under her body the upper layers of the ocean flashed into steam, the water explosively boiling in her wake and leaving a plume of hot clouds that wouldn't stop rising until they reached the stratosphere. Overhead, the apparent size of the sun had swollen to fill the whole sky, heat and light pouring in from all directions; inside her little bubble of darkness the temperature started to rise as her defences began to fail under the onslaught. Luna gritted her teeth and pushed--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--flashing into clear air three kilometres above the top of Mount Aither-Erebos, placing herself squarely between the sun and the Palace. Even without her shadow sight, Celestia was immediately visible.

Her sister was standing on the flat top of one of the highest towers, shining like she was the sun, rather than just the controller of it. A halo of light, so bright it was painful to look at, surrounded her, casting long and midnight-black shadows across the city even in the light of the day. Celestia had turned the palace shield off to use her magic, so Luna didn't hesitate and threw the object she'd brought along from the Express.

A fifty metre sphere of water, parts of it near boiling from its encounter with the Day Princess' power, fell towards the Palace. Luna held it together with a zone of magically generated gravity, releasing her power when several bright points of plasma rose up from the tower and accelerated towards her. Sixty-five thousand tonnes of liquid moving at close to a third of the speed of sound dissolved into a boiling torrent and blasted into the Palace.

The only things that saved the building from being washed away were its origins as a defensive fortification and the fact that Luna released the force holding her projectile together long before it actually struck. The water had spread and slowed by the instant of impact, but there was more than enough force to blast the smaller towers from their foundations and drive cracks through the most sturdy of stonework. Every window and door, even the massive entrance gates, was blown inwards, and the whole structure went dark. The water roared on, tumbling down the mountainside towards the city.

I think that got your attention, she thought, buffeted slightly by the premature explosion of the plasma bolts. Celestia had disappeared in a flash of gravity waves a moment before impact, reappearing... Close, too close! A wave of furnace heat washed over Luna as something detonated with a blue-white flash less than twenty metres away; air compressed and heated to plasma suddenly allowed to expand. The shockwave slammed into her side, knocking her tumbling through the sky.

Her own defences blunted the blow, channelling the pressure pulse around her body and keeping her organs from being turned into puree. Luna converted the tumble into an evasive manoeuvre, pumping more power into her flight magic and heading towards the Unicorn Range, away from Canterlot and any large settlements. Windows rattled for kilometres as she cracked the sound barrier on the way to becoming hypersonic, an incandescent plasma shock cone building up only a hoof-span from the tip of her horn.

More explosions nipped at her fetlocks, but Luna was better prepared and used the concussion to further boost her already high velocity. The mountains of the Unicorn Range hove into view and she slowed and dropped slightly to weave between the highest peaks. Her own passage blasted the closest peaks clean of snow and stripped the leaves from trees up near the snowline, but Celestia was increasing the power of the magnetic pinch she was using, and the shocks from these weapons started fires and triggered landslides throughout the lower valleys.

She has become careless; this isn't the master tactician I know my sister to be. The thought was fleeting; Luna's mind almost completely occupied by keeping her magic going. Celestia had followed her into the valleys, chasing her like a falcon might hunt a pigeon, when it would make far more sense to climb and attack from above. I hope there's nopony living in these valleys-- Luna's magic grabbed hold of the next plasma bolt and deflected it into a mountainside just ahead of Celestia's flight path.

Celestia might have been reckless, but her magic was just as strong as it ever was. The knot of intense magnetism folded around the packet of oxy-nitrogen held just long enough for the half arcane, half physical weapon to burrow deep into the granite of the mountain peak. There were limits to how much even Celestia's magic could do, especially when she was distracted by the multiple demands on her skills and strength. For an instant she lost control of the patterns powering the projectile.

Far faster than the blink of an eye, the patterns unravelled and the magnetic fields collapsed, dumping all their stored energy into the plasma. Temperature and pressure, already astronomical, spiked further and the bolt exploded. The whole side of the mountain blew out as Celestia flew past, catching the Princess in a ten thousand tonne hail of boulders that blasted her against the sheer cliffs on the other side of the valley.

Luna was travelling much faster than the shockwave, but immediately noticed the absence of pursuit. Killing some of her tremendous velocity she curved around, magic making the now devastated valley jump into sharp relief. What has once been a steep-sided, tree-lined gap between two mountains was now choked with boulders bigger than most houses. A visceral terror flooded Luna, a sudden dread that made her defences flicker and her flight path erratic. Stupid mare, you knew she wasn't thinking straight, how could you expect her to deflect all that--

A hot yellow light shone out of the gaps between the boulders, then the rubble pile blew apart to leave a miniature sun hovering at the focal point of a red-hot crater nearly a kilometre across. Dazzling pinpoints of white light arced out of the floating figure, their passage creating shock cones that distorted the hazy and dust filled air. Luna felt the magic build and the approaching heat, so she fled, a pony-shaped star in close pursuit.

The pair of ponies flew a complex, corkscrewing course, occasionally moving from one part of the sky to another in short range teleport jumps. Sonic booms and the flash-crack of plasma explosions smote the landscape, as Luna began to fight back in earnest, drawing Celestia to higher altitudes and pulling her further away from the populated centres of Equestria.

On the ground, many a pony paused in what they were doing to look upwards, attracted by the snap of sonic booms, or the odd stomach-churning flutter of gravitational distortions.

===

"Staff Sergeant Chobham, I--" Chirr paused in the entrance to the armoury workshop, taking in the frantic, near panicked motion of the ponies inside. The room was a low chamber that tucked in under one of the levitator nodes and was lined with racks of armour and weapons, all of which were in various states of disassembly. A ring of work stations, each one holding a set of pegasus armour that looked like it had been eviscerated. Scales and curved plates with the characteristic bone-white hue of metal-matrix armour ceramic were scattered everywhere: the hallmarks of a job being done without regard to the collateral damage.

At the very centre was a stand holding a nearly complete set of armour. Two ponies, both heavily masked, were busy with a plasma arc cutter, doing something to the elytra carapace panels that would cover a pegasus' wings. Electric light flashed across the ceiling, making Chirr squint and highlighting the faint haze of vaporised metal oxides that drifted up from the cutter.

"Sergeant Chirr!" The gravelly voice, only barely identifiable as female, came from a burly unicorn mare whose front half was swathed in silvery fire-resistant cloth. Her back half was filthy with soot and oil, so much so that it was hard to identify her coat colour. "You can tell that Princess of yours that her choice of wing design for your kind has made our jobs very difficult." A large wrench, completely unsuitable for any work likely to be carried out in this room, floated menacingly at her side in a field of pink magic. "Do you know how much perfectly good armour I had to cut up to make a set in your size? I mean--" She broke off, gesturing with the wrench at the work stations with their mute cargo.

Chirr blinked, gaze flicking from Chobham to the armour suit and back again. "Wait... do you mean to tell me that you managed to build me a custom hardsuit in just the last couple of hours. Staff Sergeant, I'm--"

"Humbled, yes. Of course we did! You think when one of the Princesses asks in person for a favour that we wouldn't manage it?" Chobham's tone was aggressive, and Chirr would have sworn she was ready to lay him out with her over-sized 'persuader', had it not been for her fierce grin. "Well what are you waiting for? Get your mutant arse over here so we can see if it fits."

Despite the insult, Chirr found himself grinning back, and jumped forward to land in the centre of the workstations. One of the junior armourers shut off the cutter, then grabbed a portable fire extinguisher, spraying a blast of cold vapour in through the still open carapace. "This might be a mite warm for a few minutes," Chobham said, horn glowing as her magic swept the inside of the suit, coming back with a cloud of ceramic splinters. "But I'm sure a strapping lad like yourself can take it." She gave him a nudge that sent him staggering, then more magic pulled out the undersuit with its attendant harness, fitting it around his legs, torso and neck.

Chirr stood very still as Chobham's expert touch attached armour plates as quickly as a Las Pegasus croupier might deal cards at a blackjack table. She watched with a critical eye as he made increasingly acrobatic movements to test the suit's range of motion, culminating in a tricky low-level hover. The thing was heavy, but well balanced and, apart from the occasional tight spot that was bound to cost him some fur in the next few hours, unreasonably comfortable for the rapid manufacture.

The unicorn armourer stood back, eyeing him critically. "Hmm, it will have to do. I'm still not happy with the elytra design, but that's the price you pay for having freakish wings."

Chirr folded his wings, watching as the panels snapped shut and turned his flanks into an unbroken expanse of pale armour ceramic. "It's beautiful," he said, still smiling. "I don't suppose you have it in black?"

===

The deck under Trailblazer's hooves was hot to the touch and the air was filled with a fine haze of smoke from the numerous small fires that had broken out in the last few moments of the attack. He stood for a moment in the icy blast coming from one vent, relishing the sensation as it swept along his sweat-soaked flanks, and tried to forget what was going to happen next. The undersuit, with its high-performance fullerene weave, might well save his life during the drop, but it was as hot as Tartarus without the climate control modules in the rest of the armour set.

Of all of them, Chirr seemed least affected by the heat. Trailblazer frowned at this display of stoicism, then realised with some jealousy that the chiropt's membrane wings were flushed pink with blood. That must be useful... I wonder if that's why they don't do much during the day -- too much heating from the sun? His expression turned sour as he reviewed the mission plan again. It was pitifully vague, due to the scant information on the target; it was just a pity the Express was too far from the target for the easy covert insertion he'd wished for.

Carried like cargo, he thought with distaste, no, worse than that... like munitions.

Their pilot, Echelon, flew out of the haze and landed between Trailblazer and the cold air vent. He frowned at the other pegasus, who blithely ignored the look, just nodding in lieu of a salute.

"They've just about got all the fires, so hold on to anything loose," he said with a grin, "be glad to get some clean air in here."

Trailblazer nodded in return, then narrowed his eyes and folded his ears at the sudden blast of wind and roar of sound. In moments the haze was gone and the temperature dropped to something more manageable, and the deck crew resealed the forward doors. They'd only been opened a crack; at the Express' top speed of nearly four hundred kilometres per hour any more would blast the hangar clear of anything not bolted down.

Echelon waved Trailblazer and the rest of the FOAL team out of the refuge alcove and onto the walkway that ran around the outer edge of the hanger. This space was smaller than the main hangar, but only relatively so. A number of Loup-Garou fighters were stacked up in the rear half, each one sitting on a cradle attached to the hangar's trackway system that allowed the hangarboss to shuffle the aircraft between the compact and chaotic-looking storage zone and the neat rows of launch tracks in the forward half. The aircraft were in constant motion, a disturbing sight when you were walking close beside them, and all the ponies kept away from the hazard tape marking the edge of their path.

Their ride was at the far end of the hangar, its previously sleek belly hanging open like it had been gutted. A large pod was just being pushed up into the space; too large to fit within the lower weapons bay, it occupied all of that space and bulged outwards in a smooth curve that ran a third the length of the slim fuselage. "Celestia dammit! I didn't realise how big that was going to be," Echelon said, losing his grin and frowning, "Red One looks like she's really let herself go."

Blevie trotted forward to stand next to the pilot, giving him a nudge with her shoulder. "Nah, she's not fat--"

The mare paused, turning her head to wink and give Trailblazer a sly grin. Don't you dare, he thought, it's bad enough without you adding to--"

"--she's pregnant!"

Trailblazer groaned and Nightstorm shook her head, trying to hide a grin. Echelon looked confused by the reaction, then understanding dawned and he sniggered. "Oh, well that puts a whole different perspective on things. In that case, I'm the pony to make sure there are no complications and we bring this to term. I mean, what a lucky mare, she's going to have quads!"

Just remember, if you really wanted to, you could break his neck and probably make it look like an accident. Trailblazer caught a glimpse of the other ponies and relented, feeling some of his own tension bleed away. "I hope you've had plenty of experience with these sorts of deliveries. I'd rather it didn't get too messy."

"Don't worry, I'll wash my hooves before we start." Echelon waggled his ears, but the joke was too poor to elicit more than a flicker of a smile from Trailblazer. "Tough crowd. Right. We'll do a stealth launch with half of Green and Violet as chaperones, so that's six birds overall. The remainder of the complement will be flying distraction missions and defending the Express as required. When we've dropped you off, I'll head off on another route to make it look like it's just a coincidental fly-by."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Trailblazer nodded. "How long until launch?"

"As soon as the techs have got the pod fitted... your armour and kit are already by Red One, ready for you to get suited up. We have to leave before the force from Baltimare gets within firing range. I really hope they don't try and get up close and personal -- missiles are one thing, but if we have to shoot down our own ponies... I used to be stationed over there."

"The faster we can get this done the better, then," Night said, "keep the casualties to an absolute minimum. I hear things are getting pretty bad in the cities, but the good news is that if we break the magic keeping the thing running, everypony should revert very quickly."

"At which point psychiatry will be big business," Trailblazer muttered.

"The Express is nearly in position and will be slowing down. She's just started to spin up a nice big cyclone to hide in and as cover for us. Last thing I heard was that we're seeing aircraft movements out of the main Razorclaw bases, and stuff is heading in this direction. It's even odds which group will get to us first, although it looks like they'll be sparing some attention for the Baltimare force."

One of the engineers gave a wave and they all trotted over, inspecting the insides of the pod with expressions ranging from distaste to mild interest. With four, rather than three, ponies, it was going to be a chance to get very friendly with everypony.

Next to the launch cradles were the suit racks. Big wheeled frames that held the armour suits up like gutted puppets, their ceramic and fullerene shells hanging open like cattle at some gryphon's slaughter house. His exoweapons, enchanted spider-things with long legs wrapped around the suit's barrel, were already attached to the shoulder mounts. A parasite infested slaughterhouse. Nice image, Trailblazer thought sourly, nodding at the armourer. Ducking his head, he crouched to wriggle in through the belly hatch, settling forehooves in their cups before lifting each hind leg in turn to do the same at the rear.

His suit seemed to come alive in a most disturbing fashion, but it was just the armour techs adjusting the fit at leg, hip and wing shoulder. He peered out through the visor, checking that the heads-up display was aligned correctly, then detached from the support frame and trotted on the spot for a few moments. "She'll do. Thanks Staff," he said to the chief armourer, then turned to the rest of his FOAL team.

The bulky parawing assemblies for Night and Blevie were next, and Trailblazer hooked up his team-mates with the speed of long practice. At least Chirr won't need a set, he thought, fussing for a moment, stretching his own wings and making sure the haul harness didn't interfere with their motion.

Satisfied, he ran a cable from the base of Blevie's throat to the tow point just above Night's tail root, then repeated the process between Night and himself. "You'll fly down by yourself; I'll ferry Night and Blevie. Takes a lot of practice." The chiropt nodded, and Trailblazer waggled his jaw to open his mic and checked communications between his team and Echelon in the Loup-Garou. "We're all set. Echelon, Willow, pull us up."

The straps tightened and they were winched into the pod, left to hang with hooves dangling free in the dark as the doors closed beneath them. Something grumbled behind and above him, then Trailblazer's earbud came alive with the calm voice of a mare he didn't recognise. "Reading green across the board. Are you feeling comfortable, mares and stallions? Then let's begin..."

Blood drained out of Trailblazer's muzzle as the engines roared and the fighter was thrown out of the Friendship Express.

22 -- The Circle

Chirr shook his head, groaning as he tried to get some feeling into his tail. The thaumokinetic launcher's acceleration had been reduced in deference to Red One's live cargo, but had still been high enough to make his vision turn grey. Not that there was much to see, except for his hardsuit's heads-up display.

"Everypony still alive?" Trailblazer asked, his voice strangely hollow in the confined space.

"Just about," Chirr grumbled, his response hidden beneath the enthusiastic 'I've gotta do that again.' from Bleve. Nightstorm just grunted. Chirr bounced in his shock harness as the Loup-Garou shook violently. "Rutting Tartarus--!"

"Just a little turbulence, my little ponies." Echelon's cheerful voice came over his intercom. "No shooting just yet. If you would switch to channel fourteen, that's the rear camera. It's quite a sight and you don't want to miss it."

Clumsily manipulating the unfamiliar tongue and lip controls, Chirr blinked as the static suit parameters were replaced by a wonderfully detailed video feed. The Express hovered over an expanse of ocean, at the centre of a spreading patch of clear blue sky. Tendrils of steam curled up from the water, looking for all the world like what might come off a pan of boiling water, but much, much bigger. They twisted together under the dark pip of the aircarrier, lifting ever faster to surround the vehicle in a column of fog that started to spin.

"So Celestia did us a favour, after all." Trailblazer's voice contained more than a little awe, and Chirr found himself nodding. All that heat dumped into the surface layers, enough sunlight to bring the ocean to a boil...

"That she did, everypony." That voice, light and playful, was the unicorn weapon's officer, Willow. "Intentional or not, I don't care. Our Express is spinning herself a hurricane to hide in."

On the feed, violently churning clouds the colour of pitch were boiling up from the volume above the aircarrier, spreading out at altitude like they had reached a glass ceiling. The Express was lost from view in moments, but the clouds expanded like ink dropped into a swirling bowl of water. Magic was reaching out faster than even the Loup-Garou, the once blue sky overhead turning wispy with mare's tails before bubbling grey cumulous covered everything. The first lightning strobed from the newly-formed eyewall, flash-bulb freezing an ocean surface covered with building waves.

===

Equilibrium jumped as the alarm siren whooped once and the deck shivered under her hooves. Since she was already crowding close behind Neighmann, she leaned into the contact and drew comfort from his solid warmth. Heart still fluttering, she smiled briefly as he glanced questioningly at her and said something that sounded reassuring, but couldn't be made out over the combined warble of hundreds of damaged spellcraft systems.

She stood wedged into one of the narrow spaces that honeycombed the walls around the Friendship Express' summoning circle, a piece of spellcraft technology she'd read about but never thought she'd see. Neighmann was ahead of her in the one-pony passageway, and in front of him was another unicorn, Manny Fold, who was the chief spellcraft engineer. Half-seen hornlight flared in the gap between the two unicorns, as they did something to part of the mechanism embedded in the walls.

The circle, quiescent now the Friendship Express was no longer under direct magical assault, was powered by the many cubic meters of equipment that they stood within. A highly versatile magical machine, it was the core of the Express' defences, as well as allowing control of the local weather. Where she stood was part of the arcane waveguide that allowed all these banks of spellcraft devices to operate in concert; when running, this space would be full of unpredictable short-lived spells and was not a place anypony could survive for long.

The noise of the place was really beginning to set her teeth on edge. The walls were rough with crystals of various shapes and sizes -- not actually sharp, but you wouldn't want to fall into them -- so tightly packed that they might have grown there like sugar crystals in a foal's chemistry experiment. All the light came from the walls, each gem a separate colour that cast odd diffuse patches of light that distorted the natural hues of anything it shone upon. A fair proportion were pulsing instead of glowing steadily; each of these emitted a harmonic of the distressing whine.

Even without most of her horn, Libi could feel the damaged crystals; they almost seemed to cry out for somepony to fix them. The half-powered spellcraft made her nervous; while working on operating systems was necessary to fine-tune the trapped magic, it was only ever done when they were in good repair. Damaged spellcraft could be unpredictable, and the last thing she wanted was to be caught in an accidental casting.

The fear did have some benefits, distracting her from the despair and self-loathing that had filled her mind of late.

I'm worse than useless, she thought, mouth working and ears flat, mind diverted from its recent preoccupation with what she'd been forced to remember. Manny Fold might know his ship's systems, and Neighmann must understand those things the Princess dug out of the Monster Room's floor, but I've been fixing spellcraft for years. Libi ground her teeth, trying to feel what the other ponies were doing.

It wasn't going well. They'd hooked up all the physical connections -- a chaotic wiring loom of optic fibre, high-frequency shielded analogue cable and meters of distribution-grade superconductors -- some time ago. Libbi nodded to herself. Integrating the spellcraft will be hard. I keep getting flashes-- She shook her head, smiling weakly when Neighmann, distracted from his work, turned to look at her. "It's too complex, isn't it?"

Her mate's ears drooped and Manny Fold sighed, his magic fading as he let a thaumic monitor fall back into his tool panniers. "We'll get it working," the engineer said, his eyes drawn to the hovering rectangle of his terminal, currently displaying a set of schematics in thaumic notation. "These arcane systems are designed to do so much, and these new things of Luna's..."

Neighmann shook his head slightly. "Too complex, yes. I was never on the build teams, and I only watched the installation. We really need Luna for this... " His voice dropped to a mumble.

Libi nodded unconsciously, trying to read the schematics over her mate's shoulder. There's something very familiar about parts of those... "Manny? My job involves a bit of spellcraft installation -- do you mind if I take look at those?"

He looked at her with narrowed eyes, suddenly suspicious, then relaxed. "It's all secret, and so is the inside of the summoning circle... yet here you are." The terminal floated over to land between her hooves, and the engineer pulled out the little control stylus and held it up. Libi looked at it in confusion for a moment, then slumped, reaching forwards to grip it between her lips. Waggling her ears in thanks, she lay down in the confined space and started to read.

With each screen of complex symbology, her excitement grew. Here were things she'd discussed as theories, blue-sky extensions of wild ideas kicked around during late-night lab sessions. Things that she would have bet were impossible, or pure fiction, yet obviously had been formed into physical devices. Complex doesn't do it justice, she thought, drawing air in through her teeth in a silent whistle. This is an order of magnitude more involved than that feedstock converter.

Still... there are some interesting similarities. Flipping quickly to the Express' own engineering files, Libbi searched for the summoning circle, immersing herself in the far more comprehensible -- although massively overpowered -- spellcraft systems it was constructed from. A kilosecond later she sat back, staring up at her mate's horn as it flickered and flared. Libi gritted her teeth. This is my speciality, dammit! There must be something I can do!

The germ of an idea took a grip of her mind, and her face became slack. "Neighmann? Do you remember the sharing spells from back in university?"

The interplay of hornlight went out. "Focus, Neighmann! If we don't get this working--" Manny Fold broke off and stared at her, trying to keep the anger from his features. "Equilibrium, I must insist that you return to the infirmary." A glow of spellight pulsed over his communicator and Libbi shrank back, sudden uncertainty and guilt making her heart race. "This is Manny Fold at the circle; I need somepony to escort--"

Neighmann reached out and touched the engineer on the chest with one forehoof. "My Libbi wasn't kidding when she said she did spellcraft installation; she's Fancypant's chief arcane hardware troubleshooter; I don't know about you, but I'm stuck."

Manny fell silent, then after some internal struggle whispered "Standby." into his microphone. Looking tired, he tossed his head in a gesture for them to continue.

"What is it, love? What have you thought of?"

"I can't do it myself, but if you share with me..."

Neighmann looked doubtful. "Are you sure? After what Luna put you through--"

Libi nodded vigorously. "This is my area of expertise, Neighmann, and Discord... Discord used me to get to the rest of Equestria; I was his v-vector." She spat the last word, head drooping and eyes filling with tears. "I know you don't blame me, but if I don't at least try to fix this, I'll... I'll never be able to live with myself. I want to be able to look into junior's eyes and say that this didn't break me." She swallowed heavily, heart starting to pound. "Just... no peeking, okay?"

"Promise." Neighmann smiled gently, nuzzling at the junction between her neck and shoulder. His horn glowed, and suddenly there was another presence in her head. Libbi gasped, fighting the urge to fight off the intruder, relaxing as her mate resolutely turned his attention to the arcane standing waves that filled the complex spaces around the summoning circle.

Light, in brilliant, primary colours, washed through the whole volume, penetrating the walls, floor and ponies. Everything glowed and flickered, pulsing in rhythms that seemed overwhelmingly complex as first glance, but actually contained hidden patterns. There was a dissonant presence, of notes and colours out of harmony with the vast array of the summoning circle. Below everything, in a cleared engineering space, were those six featureless cubes of brushed metal. Heavy cables linked them, not to the aircarrier's normal power circuits, but directly to the massive banks of homopolar generators that fed the circle.

Right. Equilibrium fought to remain calm, hunting for that state of mind that came while she was calibrating some multi-million bits worth of spellcraft machinery that had taken months to construct. Let's start with the waveguide's resonance frequency. From what I've seen, the new additions were designed to operate in free space. Manny? Could you put one of the modules into test mode please?

More light flared in the shared mental space, and Libbi reached out through Neighmann's magic and started to work.

===

Admiral Twister wanted desperately to pace the command deck, either that or take wing and turn tight loops in the air to release some of the tension. Instead, he bottled up all that urge to move, channelling it with long practice into a ferocious stare that raked his personal repeater displays. It's not like I can actually go anywhere, he thought, mouthing the harness' quick release with his lips.

"All fighters at their initial points," called out the steel-grey unicorn stallion at Flight Ops, with all the inflection of a computer.

"Engineering?" Twister glanced at that station, watching for the nod from the crewpony.

"Circle has been safed, sir. The installation is underway."

Well, this is it. I could call them all back right now and suffer no more than the courts-martial for the whole crew and a major international incident... Twister snorted, earning himself questioning glances from the bridge crew. ...that would be a hoofnote in the subsequent war with Celestia, who'd probably make a terminal example of us all. Despite everything, that thought tore at his heart. To think that the pony he'd believed to be a beacon of perfection could do all this.

"Sir? Your orders?"

The worried tone, well hidden under a veneer of professionalism, brought him back. You don't need to worry about me, Flight. "Acknowledged. Space, you have authorization to launch. All stations, stand-by." There was a chorus of reflexive 'aye sirs' from the bridge team, then muzzles reached for master switches and telekinetic glows condensed around thaumic command interfaces.

Twister straightened his wings where they lay over his restraint harness, then stared straight ahead at the main screen, currently showing a view from high up on one of the Friendship Express' tail fins. Careful computer processing and well-designed optical surfaces meant that, even with the torrential rain from the eyewall, it was only like looking through a fog. "Execute," he snapped.

High above the eye of their pet storm, the Express' complement of Cicada electronic warfare drones did their job, pumping megawatts of radiofrequency energy out through their phased-array transmitters. They'd spent long minutes collecting pulse trains from the active radars along Razorclaw's coast, and those installations were immediately irradiated and brutally suppressed. Other systems came online, only to become targets themselves as the agile transmitters switched focus.

Dark shapes, little more than slender cones with tiny fins halfway up their sides, jumped from a pair of silos on the aircarrier's flanks, flicking out and away without any sound. A few hundred meters out they seemed to pause, like a gently thrown ball reaching the top of its arc. Then the rain just vanished.

Yellow light, painfully bright, shone through the clouds as the dozen missiles lit off their drives and punched upwards, moving far faster than anything physical had any right to. They were out of his visual range in moments, five hundred gravities of acceleration pushing the anti-satellite missiles to Mach fifteen in less than a second. Only two seconds after that the oversized, spellcraft-augmented, solid fuel boosters were discarded and the high-efficiency plasma drives lit, inhaling the rapidly thinning air and preventing the feeble paw of gravity from slowing their onward rush.

Not that it could; they were already at escape velocity.

Tracking systems followed them as they flew, vectoring in on communications, navigation and surveillance satellites. Not all of these were Razorclaw national assets; Intel had long known that the gryphon nations in the area had a number of military cooperation agreements. Flight time to the middle orbital altitudes was only two minutes or so; the missiles had long since switched to on-board reaction mass and were adding to their early headlong flight at a steady half a gravity.

The military satellites were already manoeuvring, but Twister had ordered the Express' full complement of anti-satellite 'Shrike' missiles to be used. The important targets had been tasked to multiple weapons, and there was little chance of escape. The Shrike was very good at what it did, able to provide almost a hundred gravities of lateral acceleration with a reaction time measured in microseconds. Worse, they talked to each other, each missile in a flight covering a particular escape vector.

The feed from one of the Cicadas, orbiting high in the stratosphere and well above the cloud 'cap' covering the hurricane, was through a half metre reflector that compensated for what little atmosphere was sitting between the telescope and space. The target satellite, a boxy thing studded with a bewildering array of antennae and sensors, jetted gas from one corner, sending the background lights of the orbital debris ring spinning as the Cicada's scope tracked its evasive manoeuvres.

A point of light, only really visible because of the green tracking diamond that surrounded it, swept across the corner of the screen and exploded. A tenth of a second later, so did the target. "That's one," Twister muttered, then raised his voice. "Space, report."

"Shrikes four, five and nine report kills. One and two, and six and eight have been retasked to the secondary targets at higher altitude; intercept in... five hundred seconds, plus or minus."

"Excellent. Carry on, Space." And all across Goldenwing and Hookbeak, entertainment and data feeds will be going out as I kinetic kill their orbital hardware. That the satellites would die was not in question; these were civilian vehicles only used by the military when they had to. Twister smiled quietly to himself. If the average gryphon was like the average pony, then stopping them from watching Gryphon's Got Talent was the act that would gain him the most notoriety.

The view from the Cicada abruptly went a brilliant green, as the drone switched to using its telescope as a laser mirror, blinding the debris ring installations and high-orbit satellites that were out of the Shrike's immediate reach.

I'm never going to hear the end of this, the Admiral thought.

===

Echelon crooned gently to himself, near unconscious flutters of his wings translated through the flight armature to their metal and composite proxies. The clear air turbulence under the masses of heavy cloud made Red One feel alive. He goosed the throttles, the shockwaves of his supersonic transition ripping the water under his keel to vapour. Red Two was five hundred meters to his port, with Green One -- carrying the other FOAL team -- and Green Two as a similar pair a couple of kilometres behind his tail. Other formations of the deep strike fighters fanned out from the Express, heading for Razorclaw's coastal defences and airfields.

The mission was clear; punch through whatever the gryphons could throw up in front of them, dropping the special operations pod en route to a target deeper in Razorclaw territory. Doing so much with only one aircarrier; how many-- Echelon bit off the dangerous thought, instead grinning ferally in the close confines of his console's muzzle slot. We'll show these feather dusters what it's like to face a real force.

His radar warning receiver made coloured shapes on his virtual display, placing markers on the horizon where it had located hostile emitters; others were high in the sky, running racetrack orbits at the ocean borders of the gryphon kingdom. The first were over-the-horizon backscatter units: Razorclaw's long-range early warning systems. Too poor a resolution for anything other than threat detection, they operated at frequencies which were the hardest for Red One's passive stealth to defeat.

Echelon's grin widened still further as friendly emitters came alive behind his fighter. A dozen bright green icons moved in chaotic orbits over the centre of the artificial hurricane, radiating rays of light that represented the pulse and chatter of the heavy transmitters that lined the drone's flanks. The OTH-B signals flickered and fluttered, threat indicators fading as the faint, multiply-reflected radio pulses they relied upon were overwhelmed.

Patches of dense cloud to his stern glowed brilliantly in the infrared, hazy zones of fast-moving light appearing across a wide arc of horizon and accelerating upwards. It was almost like they had been pulled straight up by an angry Goddess, the lights turning into elongated streaks that jumped from the horizon to halfway to the zenith in less than a second, before going dark. Huh, I was half expecting old Twister to back out at the last moment. Makes me glad I'm not in charge.

"There go the Shrikes," Willow said, her normally cheerful voice sombre, "first shots fired. We're actually at war."

Despite the situation, Echelon chuckled quietly. "Ah, Willow. We're not at war; we're a rogue military unit carrying out an unauthorised operation." The broadcasts from the rapidly closing Baltimare force had been harrowing to watch, full of accusations of treason from ponies that many of the Express' complement knew personally. These are the ones I don't want to fight. Bring it on, gryphons.

He was lead pilot on this flight, so at least he could do something about that... and the briefing had been completely clear. Getting his cargo to its target was the only goal that mattered, a task more important than his life or Willow's, right up there with the Express and its still not working payload of top secret spellcraft. A quick signal through the closed squadron network and all the Loup-Garou fighters responded, engines surging.

"I guess." Willow sighed, the quiet noises of her breathing through the intercom sounding a little strained at the sudden acceleration. "Coming up on our insertion point. I'm seeing launches from sites bravo, zulu and... delta. Looks like... at least four Shredders and a whole bunch of aerodynes. There's something bigger further back..." There was a long pause, so long that Echelon thought she might have decided not to speak. "Luna dammit. It was supposed to be laid up for a refit."

"What have you got, Willow?" Echelon pulled up the displays his weapon's officer was examining: colourful, three-dimensional plots of radar and emissions profiles as received by electronic warfare drones flitting ahead of the fighters. Means nothing to me, he thought, frowning at the annotated graphs.

"It's the Sundering Claw, I'm sure of it. It was at site delta, the last intel packet I saw, with half its engines pulled. Guess they put one over us this time."

Echelon swallowed, the hair of his mane tingling. The Claw was nearly the size of the Express, and far more heavily armed. With a properly supported expedition she wouldn't be a problem, but for just the Express, her aircraft scattered across the mountainous country... "Well, it's a good job we'll be below its horizon, at least until we can deliver our FOALs. We'll have our agility back after that." Celestia, despite everything, I'm going to thank you again. Without your 'gift' of sunlight... "Any clue what her refit was for?"

"Not really, although there are some interesting new ports on the top side; might be an upgrade to the spinal mount."

Red One had reached its new speed and, fifty metres beneath his hooves, the waves vanished sternwards at almost a kilometre a second.

===

Chirr gritted his teeth as the suspension harness jerked again, this time as a prelude to a long, high-G pull that seemed to be trying to draw his stomach out through his mouth. A red haze crept in from the edges of his vision, accompanying the suddenly loud thunder of his heart and a feeling that his head was going to explode. Then, just as quickly as it started, the horrible feeling vanished, replaced by a surge through his hooves that made him exhale in a startled whoof.

"Fifty klicks out, fillies and colts. Get ready; we'll be upon their defences momentarily."

"Roger that," Trailblazer said, his voice calm and clear in Chirr's ears. "Alright everypony, you know the drill. Check everything you've already checked a dozen times. This one's for real."

Damn the pony, the chiropt thought, trying to keep his breathing steady, he could at least show some sign of excitement! His ears folded back and his wings unconsciously flexed against their confining carapace panels. Chirr could feel the urge to fly building.

"Chirr, this is a private channel. Everything okay with you?"

That same, steady voice. For an instant, Chirr hated the pegasus, but the feeling faded almost immediately and he chuckled weakly. "A contested drop into enemy airspace isn't exactly what I've trained for, Captain, but I'll manage."

"More of the ninja type, eh? Don't worry, all you need to do is find the ground; my team and I will do the rest."

I know why you are in charge. There was something unshakably solid about the big pegasus, even over a voice-only link. Chirr's ears relaxed and he held that voice in his head. Princess Luna herself wants you here. She believes in you, even if you don't. The thought made his head come up inside the hardsuit. I'm not going to be the first Night Guard to question the Mistress.

"Yessir, understood. I know the plan." Do a stealth drop while the fighters deal with the local defences while en route to their decoy target. The suits were almost completely dielectric, and wouldn't add to his already small radar signature. Infrared was similarly not an issue; for the brief minutes they were likely to be in view of any thermal sensors, all his body's heat would be transferred to his drinking water, currently four kilos of ice at liquid nitrogen temperature.

None of which will stop a hit from one of those defensive triple-A units if they decide go 'spray and pray'. Chirr pushed aside the thought, listening to the chatter between the pilots.

===

Red One and the rest of the squadron had slowed below the speed of sound, muting the howl of the engines and allowing the airflow manipulations of the unicorn weapon officers to direct the remaining sound high into the air. The formation contracted and they flew in a vertically staggered single file, weaving through the glacial valleys and high mountain passes. To any gryphon on the ground they were like ghosts, flitting bat-like against a background of dark rock and precipitous pine forest. With the heavy cloud and rain they were effectively silent at any distance greater than two hundred metres.

Which was fine, as long as enemy forces weren't exactly where they needed to be.

"Aerodynes ahead," Willow sang out, throwing up a spray of red diamonds across his overhead map. About half flickered, pulsing to show that detection wasn't certain. The things were noisy, not just to the ear, but electromagnetically. The twin disks of their rotors thrashed the background radio frequencies in a very particular fashion, giving the receivers distributed across the squadron advance notice of their presence, even without line of sight. "Site alpha has picked us up; they're scrambling more assets."

Threat warnings flared on Echelon's HUD, ringing his filtered and stabilised view with red icons. "I've got a flash from the launch detector--" The moving map in the lower part of his visual field tracked the missiles, showing them as a spreading glitter of pulsing red points attached to velocity vector arrows that lengthened as he watched.

"We're below their visual horizon; they must be receiving data from a passive we missed. I'm seeing mostly Slugfish, which is good... bad news is there's more than forty." Willow's tone was one of distraction as she worked with the threat mitigation suite to deconvolute the multitude of signals from her sensors.

Pretty slow, but pack-brained; that was the main point he remembered from the OPFOR briefings. Singly they were no threat, but they cooperated well, especially amid terrain they were programmed with. They've fired at extreme range, so at least they won't get much maneuvering time. His training threw up the best solution, just about at the same time as Willow launched their countermeasures. The semi-disposable drone gave him half a second warning, then jumped from its housing on Red One's back.

At the same moment he turned away from his original course and throttled the engines into high bypass mode, dumping some of his meagre supply of emergency coolant into the airflow. Injected into the vectored exhaust and wept from pores in the aircraft's composite skin, the liquid nitrogen crash-cooled hot leading edges and nozzles to close to outside air temperature, rendering Red One near-invisible to an imaging infrared sensor. "You can fool some of the sensors some of the time..." Echelon muttered, his eyes on the approaching swarm.

"They must have salvoed all their long range stuff; this is about right for ten aerodynes." If anything, Willow's voice had become more disconnected from the physical reality of forty missiles with twenty-kilo directional blast-fragmentation warheads closing at twice the speed of sound. She was far too busy running the drone to spend any time worrying about their imminent future.

They know it's just us and no support. Why hold anything back? Echelon hunkered down in his crash couch. Wish I had something to occupy my mind, he thought, fighting the urge to flex his wings and send Red One into wild evasive manoeuvres

Ahead, the drone, along with those from the other fighters, continued on their original course, engines bright and noisy at any number of wavelengths and blowing hot gas along unfolded wing spars to simulate the warmth of fast atmospheric flight on aircraft surfaces.

23 -- Loup-Garou

Waits Until Sunrise opened one eye halfway and looked disinterestedly at the rain-streaked window. Freaky weather we're having... wasn't it blue sky a minute ago? Perfect flying weather, if it wasn't for those damned Talons taking over. He pushed the thought away before it could destroy what little of the philosophical mood he’d managed to acquire.

Any chance of sleep ruined, Waits rolled over on his sleeping pad, idly running his talons along the half-healed scratch on his belly. All of his squadron, and the other three, all crammed into the single barracks roost, were in similar attitudes of repose. Most slept, compelled by boredom and confinement, to escape the close proximity of so many others. There had been fights, not at the start, but after it became obvious that the Talons would not be letting them out very soon, but the dominance order within the wings was already well established, and the extra training took the edge off those instincts.

I hope the rations are going to be more plentiful than yesterday, he thought, a little spike of worry washing away some of the boredom. Comrades or not, if that greedy bird takes more than her fair share, there's going to be trouble. Waits eyed the recumbent form of Breaker Of Bones, flight leader for the whole air wing, the bulk of her large frame rising and falling as she breathed. The goshawk-snow leopard was huge, and easily had a hundred kilos on him. Perhaps I should just do it now, while she's asleep...

The thought made Waits twitch, and he clicked his beak quietly, pushing away the suddenly fascinating idea. If you wait, and end up missing another meal, you'll just get weaker... best to do it now. The baser levels of his mind supplied the intimate details; flying in this space would just wake her up, so snake between the sleepers and get your beak around her throat before anyone is the wiser. Waits groaned, the noise making his wingmate open one sleepy eye. ...that's right, attack the flight leader; and the rest of her squadron will shred you, then yours will attack hers and we'll all be dog food.

"Just wait, Waits," the other gryphon murmured, his one exposed eye twitching with suppressed humour.

"Says the gryphon whose name just screams 'take a bath'. You never did get tired of that joke, did you?" Waits muttered, but Dusty Feathers was right. There is still time; as soon as the coup is over, they'll need experienced pilots again. As paranoid as the Talons are, they'll never want Whitetail to think it has a chance to roll us over. They obviously think something is going on, though. I wonder where they shipped all our planes?

Lightning strobed outside, flaring through the narrow window and sending sharp-edged and sinister shadows flickering across the ceiling. I think I'm glad to be locked in here; that does not look like fun flying weath--

There was the sudden, shrill warble of the 'scramble' alarm, a sound that had been specifically designed, or so the rumour went, to drill through the most exhausted gryphon's brain and send them into adrenaline overdrive. Waits Until Sunrise was on his paws and reaching for his flight bag, beak closing on empty air before he realised it had been confiscated like everything else he owned. Every other gryphon was similarly in motion, and the darkened room was a maelstrom of wings and flying feathers, as four times the normal number of pilots tried to get to the door.

Several small fights broke out, filling the air with threatening hisses and screeches, loud enough to overpower the siren. "Damn you all -- be still and silent!" Waits shouted, putting all the anger and frustration he'd built up over the last few days into his voice. His own squadron reacted as if electrocuted, the long hours of training making his the only voice they could hear, and froze on the spot. The sudden patch of calm spread, helped along by the efforts of the other squadron leaders, wading in with beak and scaly fists to break up the fights. Breaker caught his eye and nodded; Waits blinked, then nodded in return, remembering the temptation he had to murder her in her sleep.

The lights flicked on and, in the sudden silence, the sound of the doors being unbolted was shockingly loud. Every head turned in that direction, with the closest gryphons crouching, wings mantled and leg muscles tensed to spring. "Steady, don't give those trigger-happy goons an excuse." The deep voice of Breaker carried with it a lot of authority, and Waits found himself nodding along with the gryphoness' words, relaxing a little and retracting his hind claws where they had dug into the wooden flooring.

The doors thudded open and four of the Red Talon troopers burst in, forcing back the closest pilots with back-clawed slaps. They were in full riot armour, and electricity snapped and flashed at each contact, raising little plumes of smoke from singed plumage. There were no cries of pain, just the occasional hiss of anger as the gryphons pushed back, crowding their fellows.

The individual that strode in was shorter than average, but stocky and heavily muscled about the forelegs, looking a little like a hyena. That will be all that time spent swinging a club during interrogations, Waits thought, narrowing his eyes, beak opening slightly in an unconscious threat gesture, he should try a more balanced exercise program.

"What do you want, Render?" Breaker asked, pushing through the dense crowd like an icebreaker through a berg-choked fjord.

"I want you to do your jobs." Render looked around the room, eyes wide and unblinking. "The Equestrians are here."

"With what, bad language?! You idiots took all our aircraft, you fight them." Breaker laughed, a harsh sound that made Render hiss and the four nameless Talons take a step forwards.

"Oh, some of the aircraft are still here, but we have our own, trusted, pilots for them... but that doesn't mean that there's nothing for you, does it, air wing leader Breaker Of Bones?" Render's anger had suddenly vanished, and he smoothed raised head feathers down with one foreclaw.

The vicious pleasure in his voice made Breaker blink, suddenly uncertain. Waits' attention was drawn back to the window, and the distant flicker of lightning past the hammering rain. There's always the... Waits looked back at the Talon commander and cringed inside at the expression on the other gryphon's face. He cannot be serious...

"There's no way I'm letting any of my pilots--" Render made a flashing motion with one foreclaw, and the gun over the shoulder of the nearest Talon trooper cracked once. Breaker faltered, looking confused, then dipped her beak to touch the rapidly spreading red stain under the black and white feathers of her breast. Her legs gave way and she fell to her knees, hindquarters collapsing a moment later. "What..." She gave a groan, and would have fallen sideways if it weren't for the gryphons to either side of her lowering her to the ground.

"Still alive..." Render snapped his beak, the sound nearly as loud as the gunshot. "...you need more weapon practice, trooper."

"Sorry, Sir. Won't happen again, Sir." The Talon didn't sound anything more than bored, his eyes still scanning the tense crowd.

"We are at war. To refuse an order at this time is insubordination and, given the number of you, will be regarded as mutiny." Render's beak opened, not in threat, but in a smile.

That chick-rutting little piece of guano-- Waits hissed in involuntary fury, but it was fear that kept him frozen to the spot. ...but I know him; he'd do it. He glanced at Breaker; the gryphoness was panting, her sharp tongue extended and little pulses of blood dripping down her chest with each breath. How many have already died out there? No one will care about us. He met the eyes of the other two squadron commanders, then sighed. "Fine. Get a medic for Breaker and we'll all fly."

===

"Time to drone intercept sixty seconds... mark." Willow whispered, her voice flat and disinterested as she conducted her own particular and rarefied brand of warfare. "Starting to see leakage from the missile pack's network; isolating the frequency tables." There was a little pause. "The gryphon can see the pony."

Echelon's senses, a gestalt view assembled from the drones and all four Loup-Garou, showed the swarm of red glitter starting to break up, some of the missiles throttling back and dropping behind the bulk, while a few accelerated away. The leader's vector markers swung minutely, placing them on a heading towards the drones, the others...

"Celestia damn me!" Willow said in a strained whisper. "This isn't going to work." The remaining vectors had opened out like the spread of a taloned claw, expanding the missile's search envelope to include the tracks of all the Equestrian fighters. "Switching the drones to full active." Echelon's map display twitched as the electronic warfare pods on the ersatz fighters came alive, showing him a true map of the surroundings for the first time.

Positions, previously a diffuse haze of probability, narrowed down to precise pin-pricks, and he called up his own weapon systems, keying a pair of missiles for stealth launch. "Weapons live and in the launcher." A twitch relayed his intentions to the rest of the flight, but most of the other pilots had already reached that decision on their own.

Willow gave an unmare-like grunt of effort and the tingle of magic swept over Echelon from tail root to muzzle tip in wave that made his skin shiver. Red One gave its own shiver as, deep in the fighter's belly, a pair of Wren missiles were thrown from their magazines. They travelled on silent ballistic arcs, their dark hulls thermally matched to the ambient air, curving with subtle shifts in profile of their pliable, variable geometry noses, heading towards Red Two's drone.

Echelon watched them with a critical eye, then smiled, a tight little gesture as every single missile passed just under a drone, then lit their drives. Looks like a launch to me... now to see if those Slugfish are as easily pleased... Their Wrens accelerated violently, leaping towards the aerodynes. The trajectory passed close to that of the rapidly closing Slugfish, and several of the red vector lines abruptly swung around, then disappeared.

"Well, that's not on the spec sheet," Willow said, sounding mildly irritated, "I will have to have words with the Panopticon about that." Both Red One's Wrens vanished in the same instant, the data feeds from the other missiles in the little flock veering wildly as they swerved to avoid any further countermeasures.

"At least that's another couple we won't have to dodge." The little spots of light, still glowing in the infrared, expanded like tiny smoke rings, marking the demise of the missiles. Echelon popped Red One's autopilot into fully autonomous mode, then switched his armatures to the drone. Never did trust the computer... and this way I get a bit of practice. The feeling of weight and power associated with the Loup-Garou vanished, replaced by the far lighter and decidedly flimsy sensation of the drone's folding wings.

The first flight of Slugfish were upon them, and Echelon twisted violently, sending his counterfeit fighter into sharp corkscrew turn to slide between the pair of missiles heading for him. They turned sharply, vectors dancing in the spherical energy plot that sat in the corner of his vision, trying to find his position. They were agile things, and had dumped a large chunk of their forward velocity to better engage, throttling back as little airbrakes popped out from their hulls and thrust diverters slewed them around at frightening rates.

His tactical plot showed them as points of red light, each sitting at the tip of a wide pink cone, with a long tails straight down the centre. The tail was the vector, now rapidly shortening as the missile went into dogfight mode. They sought him out, lines waving wildly as the missiles cooperated to close off his escape routes. One vector abruptly lengthened and Echelon sent the drone into a screaming turn, narrowly avoiding the edge of cone, only to get caught with nowhere to go as the other did the same trick exactly in his path.

Twisting his wings violently and ignoring the warning vibration that marked the ragged edge of the flight envelope, Echelon's lips found the countermeasures dump toggle and flipped it, dumping the drone's limited active and passive ordnance all at once. Wide-spectrum flares flickered and flashed, lighting the valley walls, while clouds of active and passive chaff exploded into short-lived, exceptionally crude, renditions of a Loup-Garou's radar signature, filling the sky with hundreds of distorting images in the radio bands.

The vector-and-cone wobbled, as if the machine mind was hunting for some other solution to this problem of mass and momentum, then the leading edge of pink swept over the centre of the plot. Cameras went dead, then, an instant later, so did the flight linkage, sending odd twisting motions through the armatures, before Red One's computer put the pegasus back in control. Echelon blinked, then made an adjustment to his fighter's engine settings. The simulations don't really do them justice, do they?

"We have twenty-two Slugfish remaining; I'm going active in five," Willow said, her voice back to its inflectionless professionalism. "You have the physics, I've got the arcane."

"Roger that." A bank of arming lights and magazine indicators blinked into being along the left and right sides of his synthetic view, marking Willow's release of the mundane defensive weapons. That tingling sensation came back, and the steady cadence of the unicorn's breathing hitched and became strained. Vague, febrile glows danced along the nose of the Loup-Garou, some tiny fraction of the spellcraft amplifier's output latching on to the closest physical object. On the tactical plot, the forest of vector lines became chaotic, fanning out like a hedgehog suddenly curling into a ball, then realigning to put the fighters at their focus.

The fastest Slugfish had taken wide paths before curving back in, placing the fighters at the centre of a cup that grew rapidly lengthening spines. "Can't get a grip; too many and too fast," Willow gasped. In his synthetic view there was a flash, then another, little red lights flicking out in quick succession. "Got one." Willow was panting now, the sound loud in his ears.

Echelon grunted, then flicked on Red Ones's active countermeasures. All of Willow's hard work, coupled with that of the other weapon officers and the massed processing power of the four fighters and the now distant Friendship Express, poured out through the phased array plasma antennae that flashed into being along the Loup-Garou's flanks. Pulses in very specific patterns and at rapidly changing frequencies lashed the inbound missiles, hunting for that particular combination of settings that would let them reach in through the Slugfish's receivers and drown the computers that controlled them.

Beamforming focused all that energy onto the individual missiles, turning each into a little repeater for the complex radio signals. The directional receivers mounted on each missile, designed to reject foreign signals coming from any direction other than that of a legitimate member of the pack, could not distinguish the reflections from genuine. Overwhelmed, the shared data network collapsed, isolating each Slugfish and dramatically reducing its intelligence and sensor horizon.

The spined bowl lost some cohesion, vectors switching from one target to another, the missiles no longer able to share their targeting information and decisions about which were a priority. Echelon made a little, abbreviated nodding motion, scarcely more than a twitch, the only movement the padded head socket would allow and caressed the deployable munitions panel with his lips.

Five seconds before the expected terminal dash, he started firing.

The air around the little squadron flashed to solar brightness with broadband flares, an order of magnitude more powerful than that used by the drone decoys, and filled with strips of metallised plastic, ejected from high-speed cutters under his nose. Dynamically changing their length to best match the hostile spread-spectrum radars and scored with simple inductors and circuitry, the madly fluttering cloud didn't disperse, but was dragged along in Willow's amplified magic to form transient ghosts that looked for all the world like solid metal to the right radar receiver.

Echelon twisted, pulling the Loup-Garou around, the blood prevented from rushing to his hooves by the sudden, near painful, constriction of their padded sockets. The ghosts, ripped and tattered by the motion, gamely followed suit, failing and dispersing into fluttering silver as they went out of range, only to be replaced by other, fresher spectres. Blinding lasers, their tiny goniometer mirrors turning and vibrating at a tremendous rate, reached out for the missiles and lit then with lurid monochrome hues that spanned everything from the deep infrared to the vacuum ultraviolet, trying to distract them for just long enough to survive.

Within the needle nose of each Slugfish, behind an array of passive and active sensors that sought to thread a route through all the lies and deception to the things they'd been sent to kill, was a plain metal-capped plastic drum mounted on a clever lattice of rods packed with explosives. Not much explosive, and certainly nowhere near as much as was in the drum itself, but just enough to bend the lattice in very specific and repeatable ways, and at speeds that would dwarf any system made of gears and bearings.

A missile came within range of something it thought was real -- not contact, for such a thing was near impossible under these countermeasure-saturated conditions, but within a hundred metres of a ninety degree cone centred on its nose. Little charges fired, bending the lattice and slamming the plastic drum exactly where the target would be within the next fifty milliseconds. The missile then waited a fraction of a second, just long enough for the spin of its hull to move it just so, then triggered the main charge.

Shockwaves moved through the densified block of octanitrocubane at close to ten kilometres a second, distorting and shaping the thick layer of tantalum that formed the dimpled, concave lid of the drum, as if it was little more than soft plastic. Freed, the metal took the energy and folded into carefully planned fragments, each one a horn-length needle and boosted to twice the detonation velocity of the explosive that birthed them. They swept through the thin composite hull of their parent missile and rushed out into the world.

===

Chirr flinched as the fighter bucked twice, his wings straining against the armoured panels of his suit. Luna, if you get me out of this, I swear I'll never get on another aircraft for as long as I live. The sense of loss of control and entrapment was horribly strong, and Chirr ground his teeth together, trying to pay attention to the multitude of views and other, less identifiable, data cascading across his helmet's visor. How many times have these FOALs hung together like this? Strapped in the belly of some machine, just waiting for a bit of invisibly fast metal to come flicking through the hull and end their lives. He desperately wanted to ask the question, but to give voice to his fears, here among these ponies... Give me the night and a good fight, alone against a half dozen gryphons.

Gentle curves, almost like the rocking of waves as felt from some small ship, replaced the sudden, unnerving jolts, then the characteristic tingle of magic stole along his wingbones and up his spine. Powerful, like when he'd stood next to the Princess, but without the subtle rhythms of her arcane presence. Instead, this was regular, like being tickled by a machine.

"Brace, everypony. I'll eject us if we are hit." Trailblazer's voice was calm, as it always was, and Chirr grabbed a hold of it as an anchor amid the howl of engine noise. "Blevie, you do it if I can't."

"Yes, boss." The mare's voice was tight with excitement, like she was a coiled spring held under great pressure.

I'm glad you don't have the primary release... otherwise I'll be flying at the next loud noise. The thought made him smile, and Chirr made a conscious effort to relax. The next burst of acceleration caught him by surprise, a sudden intense pull through the frogs of his hooves that made the helmet display seem to lose colour and fade inwards from the edges. The armour suspension straps, wide padded things lined with dense microfibers that were as soft as the fur on a foal's belly, suddenly became steel cables cutting into his flesh. His armour suit creaked alarmingly, settling under the load and pressing heavily against his back.

The air woofed out of his lungs and all his efforts wouldn't get it back in again, the world of sight shrinking to a grey-lined tunnel with only darkness at the end, hearing starting to fill with the harsh jangling of tinnitus. There was a crack, loud even through the blood-loss induced deafness and helmet filters, then the lethal forces vanished, replaced by a violent seesaw that had his helmeted head slam into the side walls of the cargo pod.

"Nightmare take me for her harem!" he gasped, inhaling a great, wheezing lungful of air. The rapid motion died away, but the normally rock-solid smoothness of the Loup-Garou's flight was filled with odd little vibrations, as of machinery running too hard or too long without maintenance.

"Isn't that one of the things in the chiropt afterlife legends? Something about a hidden delight? I'd have thought you want--" Bleve's voice was strained, as if the mare had just run fifty kilometres with a heavy pack, but the edge of mischief was still there.

"That's enough, Bleve," Trailblazer snapped. "Echelon, report."

"Sorry, Captain, things got a little tricky for a moment. I've lost a chunk of the port-side wing and I've no thrust vectoring to speak of, but Red One is a tough bird and she's rebuilding her flight surfaces right now... or at least Willow is." The pilot's voice was still carefree but, like the fighter, held a note of roughness. "I hope you have a plan B, Captain," he said, voice becoming a little more ragged still, "because Green One got hit."

There was a moment of silence, then Trailblazer spoke again, sounding tired. "I'm sorry. Survivors?"

"No beacon from Green One, but I've dropped a relay to scan for portable sets... it's a rare hit that gets everypony."

Green One was carrying the other FOAL team. Chirr tensed, his stomach contracting. I never knew those ponies, and now they are gone. "What's the fallback -- do we still go in?" The instant he asked the question, Chirr knew he was being stupid. Of course they would go in; it was unthinkable not to. "I mean, still through the front," he amended hastily.

"Well, unless Luna has given you the ability to slip through fifty metres of rock, yes, it will still be the front door." Nightstorm said.

Chirr winced at the unicorn's tone, resisting the urge to snap back. I guess nothing has really changed... seven ponies or four, I can't really believe it will make that much difference if his Lordship is in residence. The sounds of the other ponies' breathing went quiet for a few seconds, then came back. Did they just cut me out of the comms circuit?

There was a sigh, his suit's adaptive sound system placing it accurately, so the natural seek and search of his ears could localise it as coming from just ahead. "Sorry, Sergeant Chirr, that was uncalled for. I got on well with Scoria," Night said.

"I only met Scoria at the briefing, but if she's half as tough as you ponies, I'm sure it would take more than a missile to stop her." Chirr paused, his ears drooping. "I'm sorry too."

"I hate to interrupt this little bonding session, but we're coming up on the drop point. Scope is clear of anything big, but there are a number of small fliers that might be gryphons, if they weren't so hot. Any update, Willow?" Echelon's voice had regained most of its composure, so Chirr forgave him the gallows humour.

"The port array took a hit at the same time the wing did, and I can't spare the time to get it up and running again. Clairvoyance is useless in this weather; can't see anything but water in all directions." The mare was obviously distracted; little grunts of effort broke up the flow of her words.

"There you have it, ponies. The drop will be hot; Willow has suppressed the antiair on the valley walls, so you'll have plenty of cover. Okay," he said, suddenly business-like, "IP in twenty seconds... mark."

"Roger that," Trailblazer replied. "This is it, fillies and colts, time to go. Chirr -- follow us down and don't get separated."

"Yes, Captain." Chirr did one last check of his arcane shocker, a stubby, prismatic crystal of a spellcraft device that sat along his helmet's sensor crest, and was designed to do anything from electrocute to flash-fry a target, then pinged the two exoweapons perched on his shoulders. They responded with little flashes of light announcing their readiness, and snuggled closer, wrapping their spidery legs around his barrel and between his forelegs. He glanced sideways and tried to catch a glimpse of the semiautonomous machines, made slightly nervous by the unfamiliar grip and feeling like he'd been trussed up like a fly, ready to be sucked dry.

The timer in his helmet gave three bleeps. Chirr inhaled deeply and let his legs go limp. Two bleeps. Wings flexed and mantled under the carapace armour, the muscles twitching with the urgency to fly. One beep. The belly of the pod snapped open, so fast that it had to have been explosively driven, showing a howling maelstrom of rain and rock passing far, far too close. The mountain fell away into darkness, the valley floor beyond even his augmented vision, and Chirr was thrown into the teeth of the hurricane.

24 -- Boost suits

As soon as Waits Until Sunrise stepped out of the barracks roost it was obvious that the weather was completely abnormal; he paused, staring up at the spiralling clouds. The sky, already dark, was getting rapidly blacker, as if the sun was moving away. A set of claws shoved him forwards and he turned, beak snapping, but it was only Dusty, who glanced pointedly at the State Security trooper glaring in his direction. "Scuttlebutt is that the pony princess blasted half the western ocean to vapour to make this to cover her invasion," he shouted, giving Waits another push.

"The sun! Skies above, the sun!" Feeling numb he cantered forward, heading for the hangar.

"Well, she isn't called the Solar Princess for nothing!" The gryphons ducked inside, running between the rows of hanging boost suits, spreading out to find one of the right size, then unpicking the carefully secured straps and attachment points.

The wind howled again, ruffling Waits' feathers as he struggled to get the underharness straps in the correct orientation. Both doors of the hardened shelter were open and the wind blew straight down the middle of the low building, making the flight packs dance and jiggle on their suspension lines. The four squadrons worked in silence, not looking at the trio of Talons covering them with their short-barrelled machine guns. It's not them that will kill us; my bet's on this unnatural storm... not even the Equestrians can match that for danger.

Waits pushed his forelegs through the rigid shoulder loops, catching hold of the master connector and trapping it between his hind legs, the metal cold and angular against the thinly furred flesh. Forelegs freed, he hunted down the thick webbing, finally locating it where it had become tangled with the suspension rig. Two quick movements and he was locked in; it was the work of seconds more to complete the fitting.

A yank on the power bus lit the afterthought of a display, nothing more than a little grid of lights, and made the engine whine as it started to take fuel from the paired tanks of cyclohexane that ran along his back. A warm wind brushed over Waits' tail, making the black tuft at its tip dance. I hate these things; always make me think my arse is on fire. A claw-flick shut the little turbine back down, and Waits disconnected from the suspension lines, lumbering forwards to join the others starting to gather at the far end of the shelter.

"Well?" he snarled at the closest trooper. "Are you going to arm us, or is it going to be claws against metal-matrix ceramic?" The Talon shrugged, then whispered something into his throat mike, smartly stepping sideways as a low-slung truck was wheeled in by the tired-looking armourer, who was also being watched by another pair of the State Security troopers. On it were stacks of grey rectangular boxes, all marked with explosives trefoils.

Waits strode forward, reaching for one of the weapon packs, then froze at a sharp beak-snap from somewhere behind him. Turning slowly, he glared at Reaper. "What now? Every second you waste, the ponies get closer."

"In case you should get any funny ideas," Reaper said, pitching his voice loud enough to reach all the pilots, "I have authorised the air defences to fire upon any object that leaves the confines of the valley. We will be watching... have a nice flight." He stepped back, making a grandiose gesture with one foreclaw.

"You really know how to inspire the troops, you know that?" Waits grabbed one of the boxes, passing it to Dusty Feathers, before taking one for himself and retreating to the arming stations that ringed the shelter. "Gods-damned rutting suicide mission," he muttered. "What is there here for the ponies, anyway?" He snapped the seals on the crate, lifting the lid.

Within, nestled on scuffed plastic blocks, was the angular shape of the cannon. Lifting it out with a grunt, Waits attached the receiver to the thigh straps and the barrel to lugs on Dusty's chest pack, then pulled the fire control unit forward so it rested halfway between front and hind legs, just the right place for the forelimb to curl around it when in high-speed flight. The ammunition pack came next, a compact drum that fitted between the fuel tanks in the middle of his back, connected to the gun by a linkless feed chute. Last on were the missiles; a pair of fat tubes that clipped to either flank, just under Dusty's wings.

Gesturing for the other gryphon to spread his wings, Waits tore open the wet weather pack, lifting the applicator and spraying the oily, fluorinated liquid liberally over the feathers. Dusty twisted, opening up his pinions so that the foul-smelling milky stuff could reach all his flight surfaces. "Gonna take a dozen baths to get the stuff off; can't stand the taste of it when I preen."

"I'm no fan of it, either, but better a bad taste than getting waterlogged. The valley floor is still mined... I wouldn't want to have to land there." Throwing the now empty canister to one side, he eyed the other weapon pack. Dusty bounced up and down a couple of times, settling the boost suit and making the cannon barrel bob suggestively. He winked at Waits, beak half open in an avian grin. Waits suppressed a groan, then sighed. "Worst case of penis envy I've ever seen," he said, making the weak joke that Dusty was expecting.

The other gryphon's grin widened, then he picked up the other weapon pack and slid it along the ground to Waits. "Come on, let's get this over with."

===

Nothing could quite match the feeling of air across the feathers, especially after such crowded confinement. It's just a pity I'm carrying all this junk. Wings beating to gain altitude, Waits felt the extra effort required to lift the boost suit, and strained to regain his normal flight performance. To his left, slightly above and behind, was Dusty, almost invisible through the stinging, pounding rain.

The view through his visor was a little better; the HUD fused the non-existent external view with that from the thermal imager and stored terrain profiles, leaving him with a smooth wire-frame in green neon, carpeted with the blurred grey-scale of the heat sensitive camera. Resolution was poor -- partly because of the low pixel count from the HUD projector, and partly from the rain interfering with even the infrared wavelengths. More worrying was how the wireframe occasionally didn't actually seem to follow the thermal surface, and Waits was left wondering when the local maps had been updated.

At least the rocks are still warm from the sun; this witch-spawned weather hasn't completely cooled them down. The thermal camera showed him the cool snake of the river, meandering down the centre of the glacial valley, and Waits turned to follow it, heading for the blue diamond of the target indicator. Behind him, two dozen of his fellows did the same, spreading out into their squadrons, only visible as a bare flicker of infrared from their idling turbines.

"Missile warning!" The voice, containing as much urgency and authority as the voice actor could force into the words, sent a thrill of panic dancing down Waits' spine, and he glanced down at the crude electronic warfare overlay. Lights flashed, bright, insistent points of fluorescent red, on the rear sector of the stylised disk, and Waits hunched his shoulders, quickly glancing backwards.

Yellow plumes, bright enough to actually illuminate the valley walls, were lancing up in sprays from rectilinear blocks around the airfield. These infrared dark objects, trailing flame-hot jets bright enough to saturate his camera, accelerated at a frightening rate, curling over to lance overhead. All this was in complete silence, and Waits counted the seconds in his head, ready for the massed crackle of sonic booms.

The missiles flicked by, disappearing into the rain as their solid fuel boosters were jettisoned, vanishing over the valley wall in the direction of the Equestrians. We're out of range of the field's guns especially if I stay low... for all Render's threats, there's no way those State Sec idiots could get me. Hit the emergency jettison, dump all that incriminating hot metal and electronics... I could be away and far from here before anyone found me. The idea was tempting, extremely so, but it would mean abandoning his country to the apparently limited mercy of that nightmare-in-white, Celestia.

More to the point, I'd be abandoning Dusty. Waits swallowed, pushing the idea away. Whatever its flaws, Razorclaw is mine. I won't see it dotted with lakes of glass without a fight.

The enemy was approaching fast, so Waits reached back and flicked off the safety for his gun with one taloned foreleg, the other pulling the charging handle to feed the first caseless round into the breech. "Flight, go hot," he said, opening the mesh radio link with a click of his beak. "Testing." A quick check of the local surroundings, not really needed as he, as the new flight leader, was at the front, and Waits gripped the paired triggers where they rested just below his sternum. The trick is not to look down... The words of his old combat instructor came back, and Waits nearly smiled.

A light touch and the guide beam came on, a pulsing indicator on his visor taking the place of the invisible and carefully coded infrared laser. Waits swept his head from side to side, moving the dot within the circular reticule that appeared on his HUD. The reticule remained stationary, bore sighted on the cannon itself. A flex of the wing tilted his course, shifting the circle and placing it over a likely looking clump of bushes on the valley floor. Waits pointed his beak at the unfortunate bush, then...

Beneath his belly, the cannon fired a single shot, the solid slam of recoil making him grunt. At the same instant there was the slap of muzzle exhaust, hot and pungent, on his throat and beak, the sensation strangely at odds with the cold rain that had long ago worked past his oiled feathers and soaked his skin. The projectile, already supersonic, accelerated further when the tiny solid fuel motor fired, subtle motions of its piezoelectric nose bending its course towards the particularly coded patch of infrared laser light. A breath later the bush exploded, and Waits straightened his neck.

And what are the odds I'll get close enough to use the thing? At least the missiles have a decent range, but there's no test firing them.

A touch of the thumb-claw control awoke the seeker heads behind their frangible, transparent covers, and the broadband cameras within started to search the sky for anything of interest to their tiny, paranoid minds. Green 'no lock' indicators appeared on his lower left and right, so Waits refined the designated search area to the expected zone of the Equestrian's appearance.

The top-down map gave him the best view; it was obvious this was just a small group of aircraft, on some sortie out to the critical infrastructure deeper in country, perhaps one of the larger bases, or the heavy mass-drivers that protected them. The bases' few remaining aerodynes had gone out to meet the intruders, preceded by the salvo launch of the air defence missiles, but they were all gone now; playback had shown a series of kills in quick succession, but it was obvious that these were just decoys, and the three fighters had blown through the aerodynes in a moment, leaving nothing but burning wreckage in their wake. Only three, though. They normally come out to play in fours... at least we got one.

They were coming in low, just a little below the speed of sound, far faster than a gryphon in a boost suit could ever hope to manage, even in a power dive, which really only gave them one chance to intercept. He picked the engagement plan, one of a clawful he and the rest of the pilots had devised while they were finishing the load-out, and sent to the rest of the gryphons. At least it has the advantage of simplicity.

The time indicator blinked twice, and Waits pushed the suit's little turbine to full power, pulling in his wings to reduce drag. There was a steady, rapidly building push in the middle of his back, and the high-pitched howl of the engine sang through the rigid carapace armour, sending hot air blasting over his hindquarters and tail. Speed climbed rapidly, nearly as fast as the fuel indicator was dropping, but Waits held his course, heading straight for the rocky wall of the steep-sided valley.

A quick check of his six confirmed the crude tactical map, showing the rest of the flight doing the same manoeuvre. The cliff was growing larger, filling his entire world, so close that even the thermal imager was showing the scrubby bushes and low trees that clung to the nearly sheer side-- Waits twisted his wings, feeling the strain of the boost suit's extra mass on his shoulders and the rush of blood to his foreclaws and hindpaws, holding it, holding it, then turning over at the top of the arc as the cliff-edge shot by only a few wingspans away.

Feathers held back, giving his missile seekers the best field of view, he goosed them into priority search; the risk of false positives was high, but at least the things would find something in this mess. That, and the Equestrians had the ability to make really stealthy kit. The low-pitched burble of the missile's 'hunting' sound changed to the pulsing warble of 'lock' in his right, then left, ear, the tactical repeater throwing up blue tracking boxes somewhere in the right direction. Good enough for me. Waits For Sunrise reached between his hind legs and grabbed his tail with his left foreclaw, then held down the paired triggers with his right.

A brutal flash of heat washed down each flank, hot enough that he was sure the short-cropped fur on his hips curled and singed, then the missiles were away. Kicked out of their tubes by charges of solid fuel that burned so fast that it was completely consumed before the missile had gone more than half its length, they travelled silently on ballistic trajectories, then lit their main motors and accelerated away.

Waits changed heading, killing his turbine and dropping down to skim within claws-reach of the rocky ridge the flight had just climbed above. Warning receiver shouting in his ears, he manoeuvred violently, just in case he was outside the arming distance of one of the missiles fired, relaxing as the paranoid device decided that nothing was actually on course to hit him. Overhead there came the crackling roar of massed exhausts, as every gryphon fired at the same time.

===

There was a swarm of thermal plumes coming over a ridge, tiny things compared to the more diffuse heat signatures of the aerodynes, but at a higher temperature. Vague reflections in the infrared gave them a shape and a size; they were cruciform with a central engine and a five metre wingspan. As Echelon watched, the blurry outline of the wings flexed and pulsed. That explains it; must be those 'boost suits' of theirs, the pegasus thought, feeling slightly ill. I had hoped they wouldn't have the nerve to fly naked in this weather. The thermal signature got abruptly brighter, small things accelerating rapidly. More missiles, great.

There was nothing for it; the enemy were right on top of the prison complex. Can't leave all those scouts hunting my FOALs. A waggle of his jaw activated the master arm and selected dumb fletchette 'canister' rockets. Lips parting, he gripped the trigger and bit down.

The Loup-Garou bucked as the weapons were kicked out of its belly-bay by Willow's augmented telekinesis, then their own motors fired and pushed them supersonic. The range wasn't that long, only ten kilometres or so, and flight time was short. The targets suddenly got brighter again, sprouting their own thermal plumes, then twisted and spun, obviously receiving some warning of his launch.

Echelon's canister rounds, along this those from Green and Red Two, detonated a hundred meters from the wave of gryphon flyers. Each contained several hundred tungsten needles and, under the influence of carefully programmed explosives, they sprayed out at precise angles, ending up as a flying disk only one projectile thick. The little dots of infrared, still scattering, flared and flashed, some becoming large and enormously bright, while others just disappeared as if they'd never existed.

I've seen what those things can do on a test range, Echelon thought, the feeling of sickness returning, then all considerations vanished as the gryphon missiles arrived. A dense wave of flying metal, closing at almost three times the speed of sound, filled the tactical overlay with red diamonds, all prioritised by the threat they posed to the Loup-Garou. An ear flick released packages of flares and short-lived RF jammers, while the tape cutter in the nose keened as it pumped out clouds of fluttering metal foil.

"On it." Willow's voice had that distracted tone again, and red light grew like an aura around the spellcraft amplifier's antennae. Missiles swerved and fell out of the sky, some dissolving into streams of flower petal confetti, while others simply detonated upon striking immaterial and very short-lived disks of pastel light or grew great, spidery fans of metal crystals and tumbled out of control.

Only a half dozen of the fifty or so missiles actually made it through the arcane defences and these, without the sophisticated anticountermeasure systems of the Slugfish, curved off in random directions, following infrared and radar ghosts. Explosions dotted the sky, but the Loup-Garou were long gone. Echelon goosed the throttles, punching through the pitiful scattering of still airborne gryphons in a moment, then dropped into the valley.

Radar traces lit up from points all along the steep walls and flat floor, highlighted with crawling points of blue where his fighter's threat assessment systems had found something that concerned them. Many were marked as priority, already assessed and located by the Friendship Express' clairvoyance surveillance, and had additional signifiers for gun platforms or munitions bunkers. Ground attack was Willow's job, so it was only moments before those markers changed from points to squares.

She took a selection of the closest artillery sites, earmarked as probable anti-air installations, muttering in a rapid, abbreviated language to the unicorns on the other fighters. More diamonds appeared, the pale blue that denoted targets designated by the rest of the squadron, then they contracted as missiles started to fly.

Echelon twitched his lips, starting the automatic sequencer. Two meters below his hooves, a set of doors snapped open, and the Loup-Garou seemed to float, jumping upwards as it lost two tonnes of weight all at once.

===

Wings straining, Chirr tumbled in the dark, rain-thrashed air, trying to distinguish sky from rock. His artificial horizon spun at the same rate, and he ignored the maelstrom, twisting and flexing his wing membranes until the little two-tone ball stabilised. Chirr spun, a tight turn balanced on one wing-tip, sweeping around until he found the markers for the FOALs, then pumped his wings and headed after them.

The valley walls, slick with moisture and near invisible, rushed past, so Chirr opened his throat and squealed. The echoes were weak, distorted things, coloured by his rapid motion and the myriad of water drops in the way. The added information made his flight that much more certain, and he rapidly gained ground.

Thunderous detonations echoed from the rocks, making strange and brilliant false images in his head; Chirr gritted his teeth and hunched his shoulders, trying to ignore the shuffling motion of the exoweapons on his shoulders. The things were horribly alive, now he was in battle mode, and moved about as they hunted for the source of the explosions. Nervously, Chirr checked their safety settings, making sure that they would only find targets, and not actually open fire. Another few ear flicks made them quiescent, stilling the shuffling of spidery legs around his barrel.

Trailblazer and the others were already at the prison's landing platform when Chirr swept in for a cantered landing on the slick, rain-soaked steel mesh deck. Trailblazer nodded in his direction, gesturing for him to fall in behind Blevie, then returned to intently watching Nightstorm as she worked on the doors. Big things, large enough to take the rear end of a gryphon cargo transport, they were made of segmented metal plates, and were intimidatingly solid-looking.

Pale orange fire danced around Night's horn, the only part of her exposed to the elements, a similar glow from the lock controls around the much less imposing personnel door inset in one corner. The microphone spines, slender things mounted high up on each pony's helmet that mimicked the movement of the operator's ears, made a few quick, sweeping movements, then the arcane light about the door vanished. Chirr's brow furrowed. There's something familiar... he thought, smiled. Waggle code looks really odd without real ears. Now he knew to look for it, the motions were obvious -- the language, devised back in the time when radios hadn't been invented, was perfect for when you needed silence, or when your mouth was busy holding some tool.

'Done, watchers neutralised,' Night's ears said, and she shuffled back a pace.

'Standby.' Trailblazer nodded, then moved past her to crouch next to the opening. A slight touch of a hoof pushed the door open a fraction, then a slim tentacle uncoiled from under his muzzle, its tip sliding through the gap. There was a long pause, so long that Chirr thought they might have encountered a real problem, then the pegasus retracted his probe. 'Clear'.

Really? Chirr blinked, then shook his head. There really should be someone on guard, even if they do routinely clip the prisoners... perhaps they think all the guns outside are enough. He stepped forwards, over the threshold and into the prison, gently closing the door behind him. Inside was a plain concrete box, easily big enough for a score of gryphons, and another large metal door, the same design as the first. It was completely dark, apart from the pale, shifting radiance of Night's magic, but a combination of thermal infrared and light amplification rendered the scene in bright shades of grey.

Nightstorm was just attaching a grey metal disk to the underside of a security camera cluster in the middle of the ceiling. 'Done, got thirty minutes,' she waggled, trotting silently to the inner doors and examining a control panel. This time she shook her head, and reached into a conformal pannier to pull out a boxy device, making one of her exoweapons shuffle out of the way.

Chirr swallowed, his ears folding back. I never really got a chance to see them on somepony else... The armed machines, powered by a mixture of electronics and spellcraft, were disturbingly biological, and looked like nothing more than oversized ticks. The illusion was heightened by the situation; their wide, flat bodies, each with six slender legs, moved over the mare's body like they were hunting for a place to insert their mouthparts.

While Trailblazer watched Night work, Blevie was also busy with the outer door. Unlike the others, her suit fairly bulged with external storage panniers, wide things that ran from shoulder to tail and spine to belly. Her pair of exoweapons were mercifully still, lying in the groove between the panniers, legs stretched out to the front and back, turning them from ticks to something more snake-like. If Chirr squinted, he could almost think they were a part of her suit, until one of them moved, dipping its head into a pannier and coming out with a flat disk, passing it to the mare. She gripped it with her suit's mandible, tucking it in an unobtrusive place between two of the big metal segments.

The dedicated lockbreaker did its work within a dozen breaths, popping the inset door open with the harsh clack of a solenoid bolt. Everypony froze, waiting tensely while Night checked the area behind the door, then relaxed when she flicked her suit's ears. 'Two gryphons. Watchers neutralised.'

A video feed, popped up in Chirr's visor, showing a brightly lit ramp that ended in an open grid of heavy mesh, with a small guard post to one side. A pair of gryphons sat in the area, little more than a marked area on the concrete floor. One was leaning heavily against the meshwork, while the other seemed half asleep on a folding cot, his foreclaws stretched out like he was a housecat. Both were armed, short barrelled firearms that attached to harness over one shoulder or the other, designed so that the gryphon could shoot on the run or, by pulling it forwards, fire it over a barricade. Behind the mesh was another boxy space, just like the one at the top of the ramp, and another large door.

One of Trailblazer's exoweapons jumped from his withers, landed silently and scuttled like a low-slung spider, one of those ones with long legs that can move like the wind, to the door, turning sideways to slip through the crack. One of Night's followed it, clambering down her front leg before assuming the same break-neck pace. Chirr watched them on the little inset video window; each of the machines had the same photochromic coatings as the armour suits, and had changed colour to match the black anti-slip coating on the ramp. They were barely visible even though he knew where to look.

Resolutely, he ignored the siren call of the video feed and turned his back on the pair of ponies, watching the outer door in case something should follow them in. He awoke his own weapons and instructed them to stay motionless at the normal attachment point; their short, wide mouths were just forward of his hips and, although their legs remained still, their bodies tilted and twisted, following the motions of his eyes to aim wherever he looked.

'Ready.' The waggle of Trailblazer's ears attracted Chirr's attention; despite his best efforts he found the little video window irresistible. It had spawned two more views, low down things that bobbed violently then froze, as the exoweapons made little dashes towards their targets, covered with traceries of targeting information that were far too small to actually read.

'Chiropt, come. Take left.'

Chirr blinked, then jumped to Trailblazer's side, ignoring the questioning look from Nightstorm, who stared at the pegasus, then shrugged minutely. There were two subdued thumps, then the gryphons jerked and thrashed, falling sideways with limbs covered with a spiders-web of electrical arcs. Orange magic closed over them, holding their beaks closed, as Trailblazer launched himself through the door and half flew, half fell down the slope.

Wings popping out of his carapace panels, Chirr followed him down, landing with a solid thump on 'his' gryphon. The instant before he hit the electricity vanished, the gryphon going limp, little trembling vibrations making his claws twitch. A flick opened the end of his muzzle guard, then Chirr gripped a set of self locking restraints, hooking them over his prisoner's forelegs and beak, pulling them tight to close the beak and hold it together with the claws in a tight bundle.

Another flick locked the hind legs together and bound them to the other restraints, curling the gryphon's body into an untidy circle. The creature was recovering from the shocks and resisting feebly, but a quick hoof to the ribs left him too busy trying to breathe through a closed beak to worry about struggling. He stripped off the gun harness and dragged the guard over to one side, placing him next to the one Trailblazer had already trussed, then carefully plucked the spider-like shock cartridge from the guard's flank. Alternating red and green lights pulsed on the body of the thing, indicating it was safe to touch, but still held plenty of power.

He winked down at the glaring orange eye, then shifted his gaze to trace a line down the gryphon's neck and back. I've not had the chance to study too many of these at this distance, but I'm sure that's not normal. He ran a hoof-boot along the guard's spine, feeling the irregularities in bone and musculature. There was far more muscle than there should have been, and it bulged out in odd places. 'Pegasus, look.'

Trailblazer took one look and nodded, gesturing at his own prisoner. "I think we can lay off waggle, now we're in, Chirr," he murmured. The same sorts of defects were there, but they were not identical; this gryphon had odd bulges to the bones of her wings, so much so that she had trouble closing them and probably would not be able to fly in a straight line.

Night and Blevie trotted down the ramp to join them, a combination of their soft shoes and the rubberised ramp making their hooves near silent. The earth pony accepted a wide, circular drug patch from one of her exoweapons-cum-utility robots, holding it delicately between her teeth while she used her muzzle to nose between a gryphon's hind legs, placing it on the thin fur near his torso. "And you didn't even have to buy me a drink first," she whispered in his ear, gently using a hoof to make sure the patch had good skin contact. The gryphon had gone rigid at her touch, straining against the plastic ties, but his muscles slowly relaxed and his eyes reluctantly closed.

Night was doing the same with the other guard, although with magic, then quickly fixed another of her little metal disks to the camera cluster in the ceiling. "Really, Blevie, you are getting worse."

"Just thought I'd reduce the tension a little; the poor dear was probably quite stressed by the whole thing."

I think I'd have bad dreams, drugs or no, if the last thing I saw was Blevie in that suit getting too close to my hindquarters. Chirr shook his head, then carefully picked up the guard's keys, cocking his head at Trailblazer. The pegasus nodded, and Chirr unlocked the gate.

"I can't believe that there is so little activity, but I think from this point we'll lose stealth. Stay loaded with shockers, unless we come across armed resistance. We cannot get bogged down... kill them if you have to. We'll go in first; you take care of anything we miss."

Trailblazer looked straight at Chirr as he said that, and the chiropt nodded. We've all been briefed, but I am the unknown here.

"Chirr, we're going to be sharing for this... I'm sorry you can't join in," Night said, her horn starting to glow. Sparkles of orange light condensed about Trailblazer and Blevie's heads, seeming to sink through their currently pale grey ceramic armour helmets.

Taking a step back, Chirr felt a new set of shivers running down his spine. This was only rumour... but I can see the sense of it. There was that unicorn mare back when I was on secondment, she offered but I didn't really... He watched the others closely, filled with an intense curiosity. What was her name, Sunny something? Perhaps I should look her up, if she's made it through all this.

The herd of FOALs, who already moved with the long familiarity of ponies who had lived and worked together for years, suddenly started to move in complete synchronisation. A quick shuffle and pirouette; it could almost have been the opening moves of some formal dance, but had the feeling of ritual about it. Something to make sure the magic has taken hold, I'll bet.

Exoweapons leaped from their shoulders and clustered around the door, those from Blevie crawling over the surface and laying a trail flat disks they went, then returning to her side. All the FOAL's ears flicked, in perfect synchrony, 'Ready,' the signal just an afterthought for his benefit.

Chirr's ears folded back, half in reflex, even though his suit would protect his hearing, and half from a crawling sense of unease at the unnatural movements. He let his own weapons have a little more freedom and, released from their restrictions, they shuffled around his body, constantly hunting for the best shooting positions as his gaze shifted. He crouched as three pairs of ears flicked again: Once, twice, three--

A ragged arc of the gate vanished in a cloud of dust and metal splinters, blowing inwards as if bucked by a giant's hoof.

25 -- Gestalt

The feeling of oneness spread as the gestalt took hold. It was like being a foal again, tucked in against the warm belly of his dam and shielded against anything the world could throw. Thoughts invaded his mind, as familiar as his own internal voice, along with a multiplicity of shadowed viewpoints and a rapidly fading sensation of having too many legs.

Everything is ready, they thought.

The component that was still Trailblazer felt their acceptance of his acknowledgement through the sharing, then caught sight of Chirr a few paces back. A wave of pity flashed through the gestalt; he was a fine pony, and it was a shame that he could not be included. They flicked their ears in waggle code, then focused back on the door.

A breath later the charges blew. The explosive, the normal high brisance blend of tetranitrotetrahedrane diluted with nanoscale particles of tungsten, shattered the steel and smashed the heavy door inwards. Inside, the half dozen or so gryphons who had been moving through the wide corridor were thrown backwards by the blast, which also smashed the windows along each side.

They leaped forwards, on hoof and wing, their exoweapons moving from marker to marker in little dashes, turning and flexing to face wherever they were looking. The guns in their flat bodies coughed, spitting out shockers at each of the gryphons. Each struck with the force of a hearty kick, then latched on with barbed legs and applied radio-frequency voltage. In some cases they hit clothing or armour then, like the spiders they resembled, they would scramble until they could find fur or feathers before plunging in their fangs.

The central corridor was cleared in the first breath, then they split up, fanning out into the rooms on either side. The exoweapons followed and more gryphons hit the floor, jerking and twitching, folding up around barbed metallic spiders. Their flying part shot through a shattered window, flicking out a hoof to meet the head of a gryphon who'd jumped out of hiding to intercept it, then the creature, lumpy with muscles in strange places, was struck by three spiders at once and fell spasming to the deck.

There had been explosions and the flash of lightning from behind them; the chiropt was clearing the rooms they had bypassed so they signalled to him. Fatigue was creeping through a part of them, an insidious ache that was driving a wedge between the fragments, and they knew that this time of closeness and warmth was nearly over. No matter; the task they had set themselves was nearly complete. There were other doors, leading deeper into the facility, and another one of the large, armoured ones that must connect to the actual cell blocks.

The chiropt was heading for one of the interior doors, a smaller one than the main exits, but just as heavily built. There are supplies in there. The smell was obvious; more gryphons and the scent of butchered meat. They felt a trace of revulsion, a desire to move away, but it was faint and easily controlled. To the other side there was the sound of movement, and the smell of still more gryphons. Muzzles wrinkled, sampling the air and filtering out the odour of explosives and voided bowels. There was something else; a trace of pony that didn't belong to either them or the chiropt, but like nopony they had ever smelt before. Their magic swept the surroundings, examining and mapping the layout of the rooms, immediately making a decision.

They pulled out several of the universal keys, attaching the spellcraft devices to the metal doors in three separate locations. Magic flared, and the stored power in the little cubes spread over each frame, welding them to the doors like the whole thing had been cast as a single piece.

Chirr had looked through his door briefly, then slammed it and carried out the same operation, but slow, so very slow. They moved to assist, taking care of the final exits. The only opening left was the one to the cell block, so they moved to surround it, exoweapons scuttling along the floor, walls and ceiling to take up station. The sense of fatigue was getting stronger, so they reached a decision--

===

The FOALs leaped through the door a bare half second after the explosion opened it. Chirr followed them through, eyes sweeping both flanks of the prison's vestibule. The air was filled with the quiet coughing of the exoweapons in low velocity mode, almost completely overwhelmed by screeches and sticky squeals from electrocuted gryphons. Perhaps half the guards were armed, all with the same style of shoulder-mounted, short-barrelled automatic weapons, but the combination of blast from the 'door opener' and the sudden rush of ponies meant that none managed to get their guns ready, let alone actually get off a shot.

What had looked like a dance earlier was now closer to a ballet. Night and Blevie swept through the central corridor at a full gallop, with Trailblazer flying overhead. Their exoweapons kept pace, the skittering of their limbs turning into great ferret-like bounds, guns firing each time they touched down. The five gryphons, all who had been in various stages of walking across the corridor, were down, twitching and writhing. The FOALs had already reached the end and fanned out, moving back through the rooms on either side.

The corridor was lined with glass-fronted rooms, all completely open now the blast had either shattered the windows or blown the tough panels out of their frames. Within these spaces more gryphons moved, recoiling in shock from the concussion, claws and wings coming up to cover their heads, or fumbling for weapons. One, perhaps closer to the door and shielded from the blast, was faster than the others.

The creature eschewed its weapon, leaping straight at Chirr. He had a seeming infinity of time to watch the gryphon fly, but there was no time to actually do anything about it. Chirr started to turn, ducking one shoulder and twisting his neck, wings half protruding from their carapace panels, eyes locking onto the feathered chest of the guard. His exoweapons were already on target, and it took only a twitch of his lips to tell them to fire.

A pair of shockers slammed into the guard's chest, making his body go rigid, but doing nothing to stop his forward movement. Claws still out-stretched, he fell onto Chirr, bowling the chiropt over. Staggering sideways, Chirr kicked his legs out, bouncing away from the half-tonne of comatose gryphon and rolling upright, then continued the motion and jumped into the room on the opposite side.

This area was once an equipment store, filled with gryphon-sized harnesses, weapons and all the other paraphernalia of an institution designed to hold aggressive and independent carnivores against their will. Now it was chaos, with ammunition spilling from open crates across tangle of prisoner restraints, all mesh panels and long straps of tough yellow polymer. Wings fully out, Chirr skipped over the debris, coming down squarely on the back of another guard, cowering behind an instrument panel.

The gryphon collapsed, breath woofing out of her body, and Chirr had the briefest of moments to stare into her frightened eyes, before one of his exoweapons shot her in the back of the head. For a moment, Chirr shared her fear -- the kinetic impact part of the weapon's 'shock-and-awe' function was quite capable of smashing her skull at this range -- but the gun was smarter than he was; the recoil was completely unfelt and the nasty little machine struck the gryphon no faster than if he'd been throwing a ball to a foal. He jumped away, wings thrusting down to reduce the chance of breaking too many of her ribs as he took off, then switched to flash-bang and fired a couple of grenades into the next room along.

They detonated simultaneously, keeping the pair of gryphons stunned and staggering, then Chirr was upon them. The furthest was struck by a shocker and dropped like a felled tree; the second was struck by one of the chiropt's hind legs, lashing out in a forward, sweeping motion, right where neck and shoulder met. Chirr landed, his port side exoweapon perched high on his withers and laying bright, eager targeting graphics over his left eye. He prevented it from firing, instead triggering the arcane shocker in his helmet.

Lightning forked out, bringing with it a wave of thaumically induced voltages that left his muzzle tingling, despite his armour's shielding. The electricity stroked the gryphon's wing and flank, making fur and feathers explode and burn. The sickening scent of cooked meat competed with the throat-catching stench of hair, and his target fell like it had been stabbed through the heart.

Chirr froze. Too much! Smoke spiralled up from little burned patches, and he quickly lent forwards, relaxing when he saw the rapid flutter of the gryphon's throat. This is the reason we have the exos, you foal.

Trailblazer was coming the other way, through the line of rooms on this side of the corridor, and twitched an ear at him as he passed. 'Door, forward,' came the fleeting message, then he was gone before Chirr could do so much as nod. Wings moving with short, choppy strokes, he leaped and flew in the indicated direction, coming up against the far wall. To his right was the big door, the one they assumed lead down into the cell blocks, to his left a short corridor ending in a double set of metal doors.

They had a sturdy look, presumably designed to hold off any prisoners, should there ever be a break-out that reached this far, and were held open on automatic grippers. On the other side there were what had to be the first of several rows of padded sleeping nests, little concavities in the ground, surrounding an open space. The smells of meat came from within; there were another dozen or so gryphons, all in various states of surprise and shock, and apparently halfway through a meal.

The scraps had been flung about, bloody, unrecognisable things that made Chirr's heart freeze; some still had coatings of hide attached. The diners had all scrambled to their paws and were starting to come forward, so the chiropt fired another flash-bang into the room, then kicked the doors out of their grippers, slamming them shut. It's just cow, it's just cow, he thought, desperately trying to erase the images that were bubbling up into his imagination. Almost no ponies have that skewbald colouration; not even this insanity will have caused them to sink so low. For a brief moment he almost gave into the horror, considering switching his exoweapons to fletchette and opening the doors again to fill the room with blood, screams and high-velocity needles.

Instead, he leaned against the closed door, reaching around to pluck a master key from one pannier, just as the whole thing thumped against his flank. Hoarse gryphon cries came faintly through the thick door, then he pushed the spellcraft device against the joint, bit the activator and took a hasty step back. Arcane light spidered over the doors and frame as the device mapped its surroundings, then it flashed red, making the metal flow and merge. You're going to need cutting gear to get out of that. Chirr turned his back on the door, trotting to the main exit.

The FOALs were already there, then the ballet just stopped, each pony taking a few staggering steps. Nightstorm looked especially shaken; her head hung low and her sides moved in great, gasping heaves.

Blevie, though... The earth pony mare seemed as spritely as always, and took a few steps towards him, head bobbing like she was making exaggerated sniffing motions. "So the rumours are true... but they never said you liked your chicken fried!"

===

Waits flinched when his 'missile launch' warning sounded again, only this time from the forward quarter. The flight's own missiles were just approaching the targets; in response, the Equestrian fighters seemed to have multiplied in his thermal view, spawning dozens of spurious signals. They put us up in boost suits against the best the pony air force can muster; if we even get one hit I'll be shocked, he thought, twisting his wings and body in a violent change of direction.

A tap of a talon triggered the chaff and flare dispensers on either hip and, for a few seconds, the air was filled with burning magnesium and clouds of fluttering foil as the whole flight followed suit. The ground came rushing up and Waits thought he was going to make it into cover, when the world exploded.

Something slammed into the side of his flight helmet, hard enough to make his vision blur and fire jagged bolts of pain down neck and back. It was followed immediately by another strike between his shoulder blades, the impact making his wings go numb. Warning tones screamed in his ears and bright icons flared down both sides of his visor, but there was no time to do anything about them. Waits tumbled, instincts still fighting for aerodynamic control, when the scrubby trees that coated this area of the rocky terrain reached up and plucked him from the sky.

Chaos, all branches and spiky leaves, filled his world for a moment, then everything became still. Frozen and on his back, legs splayed like he was a kit begging for a belly rub, Waits stared up into the rain and fast-moving clouds, confused by the clouds of glitter that drifted around brilliant pinpoints of painfully bright light. The patterns and glows were mesmerising, multiplied tenfold and given strange trajectories by cracks and discontinuities across the sky. None of my pilots are airborne. The thought came slowly, then realisation hit. How many made it to the ground?

Legs and wings thrashing, Waits got himself upright, gasping at the pain running down his back and feeling like he'd strained every muscle at once. Ripping off his helmet he flung it aside, head whipping left and right, desperately searching for any sign of life. Overhead there was a sudden rush of air as a dark and gull-winged shape flashed by, seeming close enough to touch, then it was gone, descending down into the valley. He stared out after it; right at the edge of vision, just before it became invisible, something fell from its belly. Waits held his breath, but there was no explosion. Dropping something off -- or somepony? There's nothing down there but the prison.

Shaking his head, then hissing at the pain and moving more carefully, Waits fished his helmet out of the bush he'd thrown it into, running a talon over the scarred surface. A deep groove ran from ear to eye, glinting with specks of metal where the tough ceramic composite had abraded the projectile. "A direct hit would have gone right through," he murmured, suddenly feeling shaky, "at least that explains the light show." The visor was intact but badly damaged along one side, and so heavily cracked that it would be like being blind. He put the helmet on anyway, fumbling for the connector that hooked the HUD up to the flight systems in the rest of the boost suit.

The instant he plugged it in, the helmet's speaker filled with the jumbled noise of panic and pain. Voices, barely recognisable as gryphon, let alone as pilots he'd trained with, called out for help, or just plain called out, hoarse screams that set his beak on edge. The horrible sound only lasted for a moment, then the audio cut out, and wouldn't come back, no matter what Waits did. The left side HUD still functioned -- the right only produced kaleidoscopic patterns of red and green when he prodded it into action -- and, working from memory, Waits brought up the search-and-rescue transponder, turning in a steady circle. "Control, Flight Leader Waits Until Sunrise reporting in," he croaked, then cleared his throat and repeated the call.

There was nothing, only an error message from the software controlled radio. The actual hardware was in the equipment bulge that sat high on his shoulders, just above the wingroots; there was obviously something wrong with the receivers, but only the long range transmitter was actually giving an error, even if it was incomprehensible to anyone but a tech.

Lights flickered over the HUD for a moment, marking the closest downed pilots. He searched the tiny codes over each light, hunting for ones he recognised, then the display went dead. "Dammit, Dusty. Where are you?" He trotted in the last indicated direction, flexing his still-numb wings in an effort to get them working again. Freeing the underslung cannon barrel from yet another gnarled branch, Waits contemplated pulling the eject switch and dumping the bulky suit, then he forced his way onwards. Got to have something more than claws and beak if those ponies come back. His mind turned to that what-ever-it-was he'd seen falling from the belly of the Equestrian fighter.

They want something, that much is obvious. Can't call it in... and what will happen if I go back to report in person? Waits hissed a quiet, bitter laugh as he pushed past another one of the annoyingly spindly trees. "Courts-martial for failure and just shot out of paw. Bastard Red Talons." There was a groove in the vegetation, a line of bare rock where the bushes had been ripped from their shallow root systems. At one end, no more than a dozen paces away, were the hindquarters of a gryphon. Waits jumped forwards, panic rising. I'd know that arse anywhere. He reached out to pull the pilot out of the underbrush, then hesitated.

There was blood matting the tawny fur, trailing down from a wound high up on one hip. There was no sign of current bleeding, just the blood in the fur, and Waits swallowed. "Ah, Tartarus, Dusty." He pulled apart the bushes, reaching under his wingmate's belly for the boost suit's eject control. A twist and a tug, and the rigid torso frame separated at shoulder and flank, coming away in panels. Gently lifting off the back plate with its compact turbine, Waits felt for the pulse point under the shoulder.

He slumped, sitting back on his haunches, then reached out to smooth the feathers of Dusty's wing. "I'm sorry, old friend." Waits clenched his talons tight, then turned to look in the direction of a distant explosion. Damn ponies; why did you have to come here? He pulled off his helmet and stared up into the clouds, letting the cold rain run down his beak and soak the feathers underneath his boost suit. "There's nothing I can do for you, Dusty, but perhaps I can do something to screw up their plans..."

He jammed his helmet back on then opened his wings and jumped into the air, skimming over the rocks. Within moments the ground dropped away, and Waits dropped into the valley, diving towards the prison.

===

Strange false memories crowded Trailblazer's mind, like the echoes of dreams, rapidly fading before the onslaught of the rising sun. He blinked, pushing away the odd sense of duplication, then focused his gaze on Nightstorm. Luna, she does look rough... "Night--"

"Fine, Captain. Give me thirty seconds."

Her voice was firm, at odds with her slumped shoulders, and Trailblazer sighed quietly. Right. "Cellblock next. There will be more guards, but this must be the bulk of them. Watch out for any loose prisoners." His exoweapons returned, dipping their abdomens into his panniers and drinking up his stores of ammunition. He caught sight of Chirr staring at Blevie, while one of her exos performed the same procedure, the other scampering off to dash around the devastated administration section. There was an expression of disgust in the way the chiropt held his whole body, from his folded ears, the cant of his head and the bunched look of his hindquarters.

Trailblazer suppressed a smile, imagining what Chirr thought it looked like. Giant bugs, probing the earth pony's body with ovipositors that pulsated as they delivered eggs into her helpless body. That was where the illusion broke down; the eggs were being removed, not injected. They are creepy, I'll give you that. Just be glad you can't see what the other exos are doing right now. A small part of his awareness followed Night and Blevie's robotic weapons as they ran from gryphon to gryphon, following the electronic ping of activated shockers, administering a sedative, skin penetrating gel to the stricken guards. They couldn't look more like parasitic wasps if they'd been designed to. "Okay, everypony, get ready."

Narrowed eyes and a flick of his lips marked out a line over the heavy metal door leading to the cell block. One of his exoweapons followed the line, laying a series of charges as it went. Laying. Now Chirr's got me thinking like they are insects. He pulled a master key out from his pack, setting the field to 'disruption' and reducing the zone of effect to the minimum. There was a certain amount of intelligence in the spellcraft device; on activation it was more than capable of checking the construction of whatever it was placed against, and determining how best to act.

Magic flickered, inscribing a tight circle, no more than a centimetre across, just above the bottom of the door. He pulled away the device, slowly withdrawing a shiny bar of metal, absolutely round and as bright as the most perfect of mirrors. More lip movements sent the sensor tentacle under his muzzle questing through the opening, showing him a set of metal bars, just in front of a wide corridor, lined with more bars. There were hints of movements behind those bars, furtive, like who-ever-it-was in the cage was trying to remain hidden in a small space.

Let's give Night a few more moments, I think. Compartments on his shoulders, just forward of his wingroots, opened to reveal a complex, fractal surface. The mechanical shapes within rippled, then flew upwards in a little spiral, coiling around his head. He followed one of the tiny drones as it flew; for all they looked like insects when glanced at by the uneducated eye, at this distance they were nothing like anything living. Two pairs of wings, made of a fine, transparent polymer laced with a cubic grid of carbon veins, were at either end of a slender rod-shaped body that was capped by a bulging sensor array.

Each little unit couldn't see much -- those cameras were too small -- but the network as a whole would give him total situational awareness. For as long as the batteries lasted, at least.

The map built up as a three-dimensional diagram, spinning silently in the lower quarters of his visor. Still images and video windows popped up, plastering over the rest of his sightline. Gryphons, lots of gryphons, huddled in groups at the back of the prison cells. The sight, compared to what Trailblazer was expecting, was very strange. Gryphons, antisocial and xenophobic at the best of times, huddled together. Some were sleeping, but many had the look of beings who'd been awake for a long time, and who had no intention of sleeping any time soon.

The cell block furniture, such as it was, had been dismantled and turned into improvised weapons; metal bars were clenched tight in foreclaws and held between their owners and the cell doors. What really made the hair on his mane stand up, was that some of the cells were empty, yet had had obvious signs of recent occupancy. Splashes of blood marred the dirty walls, and there were claw marks on the concrete floor.

The little things flittered through the air on trajectories that mimicked real flies where they had to cross open spaces, and keeping close to walls and corners where they could not, as they spread through the complex. As the battery life of machines this small was always an issue, they didn't loiter, but simply moved, flying to destinations distant from their fellows, then settling in unobtrusive places to watch and listen, photochromic skins blending in with the background. At least we won't have to worry about prisoners moving about. The drone network had reached as far as it was going to, both in terms of adequate sensor density and the presence of a number of doors that they couldn't pass. It's a shame the things are so fragile.

Less than sixty seconds had passed since they had blown the outer door to the administration block. Ears flicking with the silent count, Trailblazer bit down on the trigger.

===

Wings aching, Waits came to an unsteady landing on the platform serving the prison gate. The door was closed and the intercom panel responded with nothing but static to his attempts at getting it to work. Where else could they have gone? There's the air base, but there is no one left that would be of any use. He peered over the edge, eyes straining through the murk for any sign they'd gone somewhere else. All that's down there are mines and the artillery range.

Turning, he looked up at the camera cluster above the door then, feeling foolish, raised one claw and waved it over his head. What is... The glint of light on a faceted surface caught his eye, and Waits jumped up, awkwardly hovering next to the camera. A smooth disk, inlaid with patterns of coloured crystals, had been placed up against the side of the housing. Unlike the rest of the security equipment, it was actually clean, and was surrounded by fresh-looking scratches. That's Equestrian spellcraft tech. He reached out to touch it, then snatched his talon back. Who knows what else it might do... but it is obviously doing something to the camera.

Waits landed with a thump, pacing in quick, nervous circles before the door. "If they are already in, that means they will have left a surprise for anyone who follows. This place is already compromised." Now think about the kind of pony that they might drop behind enemy lines at the start of a war. Waits swallowed, suddenly feeling decidedly under-armed. "They must want something in here... has to be one of the Equestrian nationals." If they want them that badly then perhaps I can rut it up for them.

Stepping back to the edge of the platform, Waits splayed his hind legs for balance, crouching down at the back while stretching his forelegs. Then, awkwardly reaching for the gun controls with one foreclaw, he pulled out the remote cable release and gently gripped the bite trigger with his beak. Of all the helmet systems, at least the targeting designator still works... not that I'll need it over this range. A twist of the claw selected single shot, and Waits placed the reticule over the door lock, biting down.

The cannon boomed, sending a flash of heat across the feathers of his throat, and the inset door blew open as the twenty-millimetre explosive round detonated with a hard crack, the sound simultaneous with that of the gun. Waits flinched as metal splinters whined overhead, then jumped forwards, shouldering open the twisted wreckage of the door. Inside, he flicked open his wings, twisting in mid air and trying to sweep the high ceilinged concrete room with the awkward length of his underslung gun.

Empty. Thank the Sky for that. Waits' heart slowed from its frantic thunder, and he turned his attention to the inner door. Unlike the outer, this one was actually open, despite the electronic lock reporting that the door was sealed and required an entry code. He gently pushed the door open the rest of the way, crouching down to place his eye in one lower corner. There was a ramp ending in a metal mesh gate at the bottom of which were a couple of compact, feathered bundles. Nothing moved.

Damn ponies, have they killed them, just like-- He pushed open the door and jumped, gliding down the ramp on silent wings. Foreclaws forward and trigger still in his beak, he swept the corridor beyond with the gun's aiming point. In a silent waft of feathers he landed beside the pair of gryphon guards, dropping the bite trigger and allowing it to retract into the fire control module below his sternum.

A dozen metres behind the mesh gate was another metal door, as large as the first, but blasted inwards by demolition charges. Waits stared through the opening for a moment, but it was all quiet, only disturbed by drifting curls of smoke that smelled of explosives and guano. Nothing else moved, so he glanced downwards, checking the guards. Trussed like cattle for the slaughter. Watching the opening, Waits lent forwards, biting down on the straps tying foreclaws to beak. The plastic sheared, but the restraint didn't separate.

He pulled back, glaring at the glint of metal in the plastic, then worked his claws under the ratcheting lock; with a grunt the strap parted with the sound of fracturing metal. The guard, a heavily built female with musculature of a bodybuilder who seemed to have been focusing on a few sets of exercises rather than general fitness, relaxed, her beak dropping open. Waits felt between her hind legs; her pulse was strong and steady, but there was something... claws found a sticky disk, and he lifted the leg, looking in disgust at the medicated patch. Should have known, I suppose.

Waits left the guards, grabbing one of the gun harnesses and pulling it on over his boost suit. "Good job they spec this for the largest gryphon," he muttered, pulling the straps out to their loosest and wedging his wings through the openings, while selecting a clawful of magazines and stuffing them into the carry-loops. He slid the stubby weapon forwards on its rail, pulled back the cocking handle, then pushed it back so the forward bite trigger was next to his beak. A click knocked the safety off and set it to auto. Slightly less dangerous than firing the cannon in a confined space...

He jumped forwards, sailing through the blown door, gliding through a cluttered space, filled with shattered glass and more comatose prison guards. The smell in here was stronger, and there was a muffled pounding coming from one set of doors at the far end. Further down, through another smashed opening, there came the sound of gunfire and the pure, monochromatic flash of magic in several colours.

26 -- Chimera

Red One was alive again. "Ah, my baby's come back," Echelon crooned, waggling his wings and feeling the response of the fighter.

Willow snorted. "Colts. Delivery was clean... retracting bay extension." There was a series of clunks and whines from Red One's belly as the insertion pod collapsed, allowing the bay doors to close and rendering her hull back to its normal smooth and stealthy finish.

It's amazing what losing a couple of tonnes will do to your figure. "Much better, thank you, Willow. Anything on our route to the next target?" He increased the throttle smoothly, accelerating to the Loup-Garou's cruising speed, just a hair below Mach two.

"We're past the outer skin of air defence radars and scope is clean. Mass driver battery, designation Copper... we'll be over their horizon in thirteen minutes," Willow said. They flew on in silence for a while, Echelon manoeuvring the fighter around the taller mountain peaks and along valleys. "I'm getting updates... CAP is up around Copper, no surprise, but is thinner than expected. Looks like they were pulled out of position by some of the earlier strikes."

Thank Luna for small mercies. Pity we lost the drone. Echelon swallowed, taking a sip from the drinking tube just below his jaw. "Any change to the point defence locations?"

"Some extra mobile units; K31 Hornet swarmjet launchers, by the looks of it."

She shunted a map overlay to his HUD, and Echelon let the autopilot take care of the flying while he mulled over the best route in. The time passed quickly, and before long the final set of mountains were on the horizon and fast approaching. Echelon pulled Red One back a little, letting Green Two and Red Two take the lead. His own warload had been reduced by the bulk of the insertion pod, and countermeasure stores were particularly low after the first engagement.

A shiver ran down his spine, spreading into a whole body, near subliminal tingle that concentrated in the leading edges of his wings. Everything grew suddenly quiet, even the infra to ultrasonic roar of the engines fading, as if someone had taken those tonnes of white-hot metal and wrapped them in layers of deadening foam.

"Suppression arcarna active," Willow grunted, her words squeezed out like she was trying to breathe during a high G turn. The scent of her sweat leaked through the shared air system, making Echelon's upper lip twitch.

Down, colt, down. The thought was fleeting and vanished he swept his eyes over the status lights. "Thermal, radio and sonic indicators are clear; suppression confirmed." Red and Green Two, only a few hundred metres away, had vanished, only really visible because he knew where to look; they were clear glass sculptures of themselves, slightly distorting the background. At that moment the little squadron popped over the next ridge and had a clear view of the target's outer defences.

Red designators swarmed over the hills and crags like clouds of flies over dung. Each was a radar drone, reporting back to an air defence site. Cheap and with long endurance, their crude phased arrays were transmit only, allowing the launcher to remain electromagnetically silent while waiting for targets.

This was a good tactic, but the local terrain was too rough to allow the mobile sites much movement, and the Express had been watching when the drones were launched. Under those points of red light were fuzzy blue diamonds, snapping into sharp focus as the fighter's sensors locked on to the swarmjet projectors. Designators changed with a ripple as each fighter took its share of the target list, then went amber as weapons were released.

Red One remained out of this fight, saving her ordinance for the main target, but
more lights in Echelon's HUD went amber, this time the ones for the crew biometrics. "Hang in there, Willow," he called, wishing he could turn and give the mare some physical comfort. Each of her gasping breaths sounded thick and strained, matching the flashing warnings from the medical systems.

The missile launches were stealthy and carried them a good distance from the fighters, but nothing could hide them when their high-acceleration engines fired.

Bright in the infrared and vacuum ultraviolet, the dozen missiles accelerated to a kilometre a second in the space of a breath, taking tangential, curving paths to their targets. On the ground, visible as camouflage netting blew away, were the blocky spider-shapes of high-mobility vehicles, legs churning as they started to move. On their backs were fat cylinders, snapping up and around to track the missiles, then flares and puffs of chaff blew up in choking clouds, shrouding the rocky slopes and peaks in smoke.

Fire rippled out of the launch bays, blasts of smoke and flame that ripped away the ground behind the exhaust ports. Dark points rode out on the tips of yellow spears, hundreds upon hundreds of unguided rockets designed to do nothing more than fill the sky with high-velocity metal.

The closing speeds of the weapons were ferocious, but the Equestrian missiles were as smart as the gryphon ones were dumb; they plotted the launches and measured trajectories and velocities, manoeuvring when they could. The swarmjet spreads were wide, giant shotgun blasts, and tailored to potential escape routes, so this was frequently impossible. In these cases the missiles detonated early, all the force of their tetranitrotetrahedrane cores birthing their lethal progeny, a cluster of nanocrystalline tungsten alloy rods, at terrible speed.

Explosions filled the sky as the time fuzes on the swarmjet rockets triggered, each of the hundreds of projectiles spraying out a thousand or more flechettes. The sheer numbers of them actually obscured the ground a little, a literal cloud of arrows.

Metal met metal at close to five kilometres a second. The Equestrian weapons that were struck, though much heavier than the swarms of bullet-sized needles, instantly flashed into smears of white fire, their tungsten cores heated to far beyond their pyrophoric ignition temperatures. Thermal and optical pulses lashed the hillsides, like sudden flashes from a titanic strobe light.

Missile flight times were measured in a few, scant, seconds, but the fighters all started to turn as soon as danger zones, coded by the probability of impact, appeared in virtual displays. Red One was in a volume marked amber, with sprays of polychromatic light emerging from her tiny model that dictated where she needed to go to evade the onrushing storm of metal needles. Echelon twisted his wings, pulling the Loup-Garou around in a sharp turn and onto a 'green' vector.

Tiny models of the other two fighters stumbled and spun in Echelon's peripheral vision, and he was attracted to a flicker of crimson. Ah, pony. How's your luck? Red Two was deep in a zone of dark red, at the confluence of three swarmjet trajectories. Just bad luck; there was no way the Razorclaw defences could know where they were, other than in general terms, so they'd swept the sky, firing in areas they might have been. Here the lack of dynamic communications and target sharing had worked in the gryphon's favour; an Equestrian network would have spread the firing solutions evenly.

While the counterfire was still approaching, the missiles did what they were supposed to do, releasing their cargo of tungsten rods at the correct distance and vector to cause the most damage. Explosions dotted the mountain slopes, hard, bright things filled with the glowing, smoke-trailing shrapnel of burning rocket motor fuel being sprayed in ballistic arcs from each impact site. Flame stabbed out from hatches and ports, like the inside of each armoured box had been turned into a jet turbine on full afterburner.

His own model went green, then the wavefront of flechettes swept over Red Two's position. The fighter suddenly appeared, visible across all the wavelengths from millimetre radio to hard ultraviolet, disks of yellow light popping into being between the onrushing projectiles and the Loup-Garou's thin skin. Come on, Chicory, hold that field togeth-- The arcane defence went out as the distant point of sophisticated metal and polymer, flesh and bone, disintegrated into sprays of ragged components haloed by streamers of burning jet fuel.

Willow gave a sobbing sound, then the subliminal feeling of magic vanished. "All Hornet launchers down," she said in a clipped tone, then her voice dropped to a whisper. "Goodbye, Chicory and Anabatic. I'll raise a glass for you."

Don't say that, there's a chance-- Echelon stopped the thought before it could turn into words. They would be lucky to find anything bigger than a hoof after a strike like that; hundreds of those little needles would have passed through each square metre of Red Two's airframe. Echelon gritted his teeth and tried not to imagine that happening to Willow, then switched the fuzes on his remaining missiles to deep penetration.

The next ridge took them to within visual range of the target, Copper. The mass driver battery, part of Razorclaw's coastal defences, had a huge range, either by direct fire, or by boosting self-powered hypersonic weapons on trajectories that could take them halfway around the world. The one thing that Razorclaw had in abundance was mountains, and the mass driver took advantage of that.

The knife-edged ridges swelled into a cluster of peaks, the largest of which housed the mass driver. This whole section of the Dragonsback range had been reworked to house Copper's installation, with the surrounding peaks sliced off to give the weapon a clear field of fire. The high valleys surrounding the weapon were all flooded and dammed, pump storage facilities that acted as simple and robust power reserves, things whose moving parts were buried so deep that even nuclear explosives would have trouble disrupting them.

The mass driver itself occupied the central peak. It was housed in a squat, massive sphere of a turret, replacing the whole top of a mountain, with its attendant bunkerage dug into the rocky roots below. More weapons, smaller things designed for smaller targets, were scattered throughout the upper slopes, all with overlapping fields of fire and able to wipe the ground clean of any enemy in sight. Airfields, sunk into the rocky slopes, completed the defence in depth, each loaded with shredders and aerodynes.

Trying to hit the thing from altitude was suicide; if you were above its horizon, it could hit you and any weapon you cared to send its way. Vast power reserves and bottomless magazines filled with cheap, dumb metal meant a sneak attack was the only way to get close enough; get inside that massive, and thus slow, turret's reaction time. It was turning to meet them, had probably been doing so since the swarmjet launchers had fired, but that was only a dozen seconds at most.

The CAP was diving to meet them, but it was slow, far too slow. One of the penalties of having too much faith in your point defences, Echelon thought grimly, grasping the trigger paddle in his teeth and biting down. His missiles leaped away and he poured on the power, stealth less important than distance after their encounter with the K31's. As fast as the Loup-Graou was, the missiles were faster.

Of the six launched, four were intercepted by the circlet of high-rate autocannon strung like beads of pearls about the throat of the mountain. The remaining two struck the turret, kicking up little puffs of dust, seemingly inconsequential against that spherical bulk. These were not the simple constructions of dumb mass he'd fired at the point defences or those poor, naked gryphons, these were spellcraft arcana specifically designed to attack complex mechanisms.

Deep within the mountain-top mass driver, magic flared and pulsed, seeking out straight lines and perfect, pure materials. Carefully designed armatures, things made of the toughest alloys and faced with refractory ceramics, warped and twisted in subtle ways, with nanometre fractures opening within their structures. Metre thick superconductors, fed from massed banks of graphene-boron nitride capacitors, suffered from atomic drift at the most tiny of scales, disrupting the property that made them the most valuable.

As they flew away, the turret completed its turn, finally achieving a firing solution for the stinging insects that had bitten it. High velocity loading mechanisms whined, bringing up the first of many sheaves of metal arrows, an order of magnitude more numerous and more massive than those used by the swarmjet launchers. Under computer control, firing permission long since given by taloned forelimbs, electronic switches opened, instructing the capacitor banks to discharge into the weapon's barrel.

There was thunder inside the peak, or at least that was how Echelon imagined it; no sound could reach them as they far exceeded its laggard velocity. A blue-white flash burst from the barrel and the whole massive structure seemed to sag, a plume of black, gritty smoke shot with orange flames poured from the opening.

"Gotcha," he muttered, one eye turned up towards the still diving CAP aircraft, then reached for the master throttle, pressing it to its maximum. "Catch me if you can!"

===

Chirr followed the FOALs into the prison block. Inside was the smell of many gryphons who had not had the opportunity for much in the way of personal hygiene, but this was still an improvement over the stench of the room he had just left. As the insect drone swarm video showed, the nearest cells were completely empty, their doors half opened and the insides scarred with the marks of fighting. Trailblazer, Night and Blevie swept through the cell block, surrounded by an ephemeral haze of the tiny camera drones, each one manoeuvring to place the ponies at the centre of a ring of surveillance, much like their exoweapons, but Chirr held back, looking into one of the occupied cells.

The gryphons within stared back in silence, whatever improvised weapons they had managed to construct clutched tight in foreclaws. There were obvious strop marks on the concrete walls and fresh abrasions on every talon he could see; even those with weapons had been busy trying to get their claws sharp. The closest prisoner, one with the common white head feathers of Razorclaw's southern gryphons, moved hesitantly forwards, letting the heavy steel bar fall. Chirr's exoweapons chose that moment to crawl around his body, poking their snouts around his shoulders to focus on the prisoner.

The gryphon flinched, freezing under that blank gaze, then relaxed slightly when Chirr made them retreat. He twitched his lips through the complex set of menus controlling the basic suit functions, finally managing to retract his visor and muzzle guard. "So you are a pony," the gryphon breathed, "I thought..." He shook his head, reaching forward to grip the bars. "Open this door; let us out!"

"I don't think so," Trailblazer said, appearing at Chirr's shoulder. "Sergeant? Time to go."

"You've come for those others haven't you?" The gryphon gave a quiet, angry hiss. "Always knew the Talons had made a mistake in taking those ponies. No one cares about a vanished gryphon... but ponies have friends." He narrowed his eyes, then reared up, holding on with both sets of foreclaws and pressing his beak through the bars. "I met one of them... a unicorn; a little cream thing with a red mane. The Talons took my family from me for it. Listen... there's something freakish here. They empty the cells and they never bring the prisoners back. The guards... they don't look right."

Chirr nodded. Political prisoner, then? Perhaps the worst gryphonkind has to offer' is a matter of opinion. "Thank you. We're here to--" He paused, resealing his suit. "Never mind. We'll be back." He backed away, feeling the pressure of every eye in the cell, following the quiet hoofsteps behind him

"My mate is in here somewhere; be careful, please!" he called out in a fearful whisper, one foreclaw reaching through the bars, grasping after the chiropt.

Not trusting himself to speak, Chirr nodded again, then turned and loped after the FOALs.

===

Night opened the next three barred gates; their simple mechanical locks failing under the expert flicker of her magic, either by direct manipulation or damage to their internal components. They travelled down another level, through a cell block occupied by female gryphons and the occasional, well hidden, chick, ignoring their increasingly desperate entreaties, when the network of surveillance drones started to fail. More of the tiny flying things flowed into the void, but it swallowed them up in an expanding zone of darkness.

Tactical systems flagged this immediately, and the FOALs sent their exoweapons forward, creeping along the junctions between wall and floor. Chirr stayed at the back, not wanting to get in the soldiers’ way, crouching down in the deepest section of shadow he could find. Abruptly, every single drone died, filling the cell block with a scattering of blue sparks and Chirr's visor with a burst of error messages. Then, at a gallop, a pair of large gryphons came through a gateway at the far end of the cell block, all gaping beaks and extended claws, and far, far faster than any gryphon he'd seen move before.

He fired, as did four other exoweapons, the quiet coughing of the low-velocity shock rounds the loudest sound in the room, at least until the still-captive gryphons in the closest cells let out startled screams. The ammunition exploded in brilliant flashes of red light, bursting at some immaterial surface a pace from the lead gryphon and sending sparking metal fragments ricocheting off the walls and ceiling. The first attacker, a blurred, strangely asymmetric rush that mixed dark grey feathers with a patch of pale green, struck Trailblazer with wide-spread talons, sending the heavily-built pony slamming into the closest cell door.

In the same bound it landed on one of the scuttling exos, crushing the carapace, then leaped away, straight at Blevie. The pony ducked and turned, her exoweapons firing, not with the quiet coughs of shockers, but the ear numbing cracks of high-velocity rounds fired so fast that they blurred together in a solid wall of sound. Their targeting was perfect, and the creature was wreathed in red fire and a haze of vapourised metals. It let out a harsh, atonal shriek, as if from two throats at the same time, landing awkwardly enough that Blevie managed to roll away.

She left behind a sphere the size of a chicken's egg, which promptly detonated, flicking the gryphon off its paws and into the wall. Chirr's eye widened; a ball of red light surrounded the attacker at the instant of the explosion, and the shockwave curled over the arcane field, blasting grooves from the ceiling. The creature was stunned for a moment, still enough that he could get a brief glimpse of steel-grey fur and feathers interspersed with a dragon's skin of fine scales and odd flecks of pastel green, then it was on its paws, bouncing upright with a horrible vigour.

A bare twitch of his lips and his own exoweapons flicked into 'lethal' mode so fast that Chirr almost thought that the expert system was operating under remote control. Magazine feeds changed in the blink of an eye, and he dropped the pair of robotic weapons into autonomous mode and gave them their target before it could move a pace. The air was filled with dust and thunder, the writhing shape of the gryphon outlined by chaotic pulses of red light, like it was a captive electrical storm, under the combined onslaught of Blevie and his exos.

The other gryphon had gone after the stunned Trailblazer and was on top of the pegasus, forclaws raking his body like a cat with a mouse, trying to get its beak around his throat. Night was off to one side, staggering backwards as red tendrils contracted about her horn. The unicorn's own magic, a feeble glow compared to the furnace glare of the other's arcane power, fought the incursion, but she seemed barely conscious of her surroundings and was banging her head against the wall as if trying to dislodge something. High-pitched whinnies, full of pain and horror, cut through the radio bands for a moment, then went silent as if choked off. Night dropped to the floor, legs uncoordinated and thrashing.

The reaching claws caught on the carapace panels on Trailblazer's flanks, pulling open the armour plates and exposing the pale green of the pegasus' right wing. A hindpaw came forwards, stamping down on the panel to hold it open, then the foreclaws reached inside, coming away with a fist full of feathers and bright, arterial red. Hooves flashed, catching the creature in the belly and between the hind legs, but it did little more than jerk under the impact, dropping the bloody wing and plunging its talons back inside Trailblazer's armour, digging deeply.

His own exos reported that their target was down, but Chirr ignored them and the feeble excuse for a weapon attached to the side of his head, hitting the emergency open command for his helmet, unlocking his muzzle guard and making it split in two from side to side. Then, wings firmly closed, the chiropt jumped towards Trailblazer, aligned his neck, throat and muzzle into a single, long tube, and squealed. The sound was horribly loud to his ears, the protection of his helmet doing little against direct bone conduction of what was half whinny, and half complex, instinctive waveform, rich in both ultrasound and frequencies so low that even an elephant couldn't hear them.

Chirr put all his strength into the scream, jagged pain running claws down the inside of his throat as all the relics of the Nightmare's changes came alive and functioned just as the mad goddess had intended. Red light vanished and the gryphon's head whipped sideways, just in time to be struck by the full force of the chiropt's charge. It might have been almost twice his size, but Chirr was at full gallop, and the pair collided with a thunderous crash, the impact throwing the gryphon into the wall.

The creature seemed confused, and Chirr turned to kick with the full force of his hindlegs--

"Get down!"

He dropped, the aborted motion of the buck leaving him sprawled on the concrete floor, as something flashed overhead, subliminally fast. There was a flat, wet sounding thump, then silence, only broken by rapid breathing and whimpers. Chirr struggled to his hooves, helmet still hanging open, and turned to stare at the creature. It was dead, it had to be, with half its belly ripped away, but the little whimpers were coming from the corpse.

Recalling his exoweapons, Chirr stared at the thing. What in Tartarus is it? Superficially similar to a gryphon; it shared the same basic shape, but that's where the similarity ended. Grey feathers and fur poked out from the gaps between ragged patches of scales that would have looked more at home on a dragon, layered over a musculature that could have come from a demon body-builder. In that it was similar to the guards on the upper level, although here the changes were magnified and combined with odd alterations in the underlying skeleton; some bones were longer or shorter than they should have been, giving the creature a lopsided appearance.

More disturbing were the patches of pastel fur that spread over its shoulder like somepony had sprayed it with pale blue paint. That looks like... The whimper came again, the body twitching slightly. Suddenly feeling sick, Chirr hooked a forehoof under one of the creature's wings, pulling it over so he could see the other side.

There was more blue fur, much more. Mouth open, Chirr swallowed, ignoring the pain from his raw throat, and traced the smooth bulges of gryphon muscle to where it blended in to a second head, a pony's head, on a short neck. Some kind of new chimera? You knew who we were facing; why is this such a surprise? The second head moved, drawing in a shallow, wet-sounding breath, then twisted a little in the chiropt's direction.

The eye opened, big and violet, ringed with delicate lashes. On the top of the head was a horn, flickering with light, not red, but a pale blue. "Is it over?" The voice was trembling and raw, but unmistakably female. Chirr nodded, wanting desperately to turn and run, but forced his legs to remain still. Tears welled up in the mare's eyes, running down her cheeks to soak into the gryphon's fur. "I'm sorry, I tried so hard to stop, but he was always stronger. Did I kill the unicorn--?

Chirr risked a glance over his shoulder; Trailblazer was on the floor, hooves to one side and twisted wing splayed out across the concrete like an untidy flag, being tended to by Blevie. Nightstorm was shakily pacing the cell block, her own helmet open. The unicorn looked shaken, and blood was dripping from her nostrils. "No, you didn't," he said, trying to keep his scratchy voice steady. "What's your name?" he whispered, dropping to his knees.

"Rose," she said, her voice becoming faint. "He has others, all those poor ponies..."

Her neck flexed, as if to look down the length of her body, but Chirr gently nuzzled her, blocking the movement. Her lips twitched into a slight smile, ears relaxing from where they were pinned against the sides of her head. "Don't look. I have a medical kit; are you in much pain?" Cursing himself for being a fool, he turned, dipping his muzzle into his right pannier, coming back with the trauma injector. Where am I supposed to apply it? He looked blankly at what was left of the mare, then slumped, the single use injector tumbling from his lips, and leaned forwards to close her eyes. "Goodbye, Rose. I wish I could have met you sooner."

He stood up, coming muzzle to muzzle with Blevie. "Why? Why do this to us? He could make anything he wants to, out of nothing, so why do this?!" he said, voice rising to a ragged shout.

Blevie stared down at the body. "Because he finds it funny to watch us suffer." She twisted her head, pulling a short rod out of her panniers and offering it to him.

Chirr stared at the device, one of the two spellcraft beacons they'd brought with them from the Express. Why is Blevie giving me her-- His head whipped sideways, and he pushed past the earth pony, skidding to a stop next to Trailblazer. Orange light flared over his exposed flank, visible through the gaping hole left where the carapace panel had been ripped away. The stallion's helmet was open, and he lay there, unmoving.

"Luna, no..." he whispered.

Night sat back, the light about her horn going dark. "Too many chances, too much risk. It catches up with us all eventually. I don't know of any FOAL unit that has kept all its ponies." She sniffed, shaking her head angrily to flick away the tears. "No time for this, not now. We will mourn Blaze later." She gently closed the carapace panel over the injury. "Now we will build him a pyre that can be seen from the moon."

"Discord will pay for this; he will pay and pay and pay." Chirr clenched his teeth, cheek muscles bulging and flexing, then reached forward to close his helmet's muzzle guard with a decisive click. On his back, the pair of exoweapons moved fluidly, hunting for the targets that had made their master angry. I only wish I knew how.

27 -- Sundering Claw

"That's Tau, Alpha and Pi," Equilibrium muttered, trying to hold the complex patterns of the 'Special' modules in her head while simultaneously working Neighmann's magic. Her mate made an encouraging sound, his breathing slow and regular, almost trance-like. He'd opened his mind to her, becoming as clear and transparent as a still pool of water. If she wanted to, she could control his body like it was a puppet, or rifle through his memories, living them like he was some kind of all-senses entertainment system.

There were things down in the depths, hard knots of recollection tainted by the dark colours of heavy emotions, moving like sharks amid the bright and fluffy memories of his everyday life. Libi felt a gnawing curiosity, an intense desire to discover what he'd been through, and the sharing magic acknowledged this, showing her little flashes of horror, despite her best efforts to stay focused.

Eyes closed, she leaned against the lumpy, crystal-lined wall of the Express' summoning circle. The deck shivered under her hooves, tilting to one side, and she lost concentration for a moment. Pi took that opportunity to make one of those odd random jumps in configuration it seemed to be prone to and slipped out of alignment. "Two, dammit!"

"Stay calm; you are doing a great job," said Manny, so close she could feel the little puffs of air from his muzzle. "You are making far more progress than we did... let me just--" His magic reached in and took control of some of the variable and highly mobile arcana flowing only a metre beneath them.

Libi nodded slightly. "Every time I make a change on one of them, it changes the patterns for the others. I've never seen anything so interdependent," she said, taking a shaky breath.

"This is all a bit of a bodge, but we'll make it work."

She swept through Neighmann's memories again, pulling out the little snippets of knowledge he had about how the things had been installed in the first place. The Princesses had set up the originals, that much was clear, but all the fine-tuning had been done by specialist arcane techs from Fancy Pants. If only they'd given me that job!

Okay, let me just try... The second-hoof memories of Neighmann watching the installation became sharp, and she picked away at the third- and fourth-order echoes of the magic they used. The third box-of-whatever suddenly snapped into alignment, its output waveform synchronising with the swell and rush of the quiescent circle.

There was another tremble, then the sharp whoop of a klaxon, followed immediately by a rapid crack-crack-crack. Equilibrium flinched, focus wavering, but managed to hold the patterns stable. "W-what was that?" There was a moment's silence, and Libi opened one eye to see Manny staring back at her. His lips twisted, and she could see the indecision in his eyes. "I've been through a lot, Manny, and it's not broken me yet. Tell me the truth."

He sighed. "The Express is under attack; that was the antimissile railguns cycling. Normally we'd use the spellcraft defences, but…”

...but there are three ponies working inside the summoning circle. Libi nodded. "I'm used to working under pressure. Nopony has told me what we are trying to do..." She smiled, a twisted thing that didn't reach her eyes. "Aside from the obvious."

"We have inserted two FOAL teams into the prison complex you came from. When they find anything interesting they will activate a spellcraft beacon so the Express can do the rest." There was worry on his face now. "We have to be ready for them, otherwise all this might be for nothing."

Libi closed her eyes and nodded, feeling again for the strands of magic tying the Specials to the summoning circle. Pi had fallen back into a chaotic oscillation mode that wasn't uncommon for complex spellcraft, and she knew it was pointless to try and force it into alignment until it had calmed. "Okay, let's try Phi this time..."

===

Twister listened with half an ear to the report traffic coming back from the fighters spreading over Razorclaw. The Express was working well and the current losses were 'acceptable', according to the cold calculations drummed into him at the Baltimare Combat Command School. He kept a straight face, ears attentive, resisting the urge to unsnap his restraints and fly to relieve the churning in his stomach.

Ten crews lost so far, including half the FOAL contingent, but at least we got one team in. A new flurry of activity on the battle management screens caught his eye, and he gave it his full attention. "Flight Ops, report," he snapped.

"The mass drivers at Copper, Iron and Cobalt have been hit; teams are vectoring towards the secondary targets," the unicorn said, pulling up a number of little video clips, each taken from the sensors of a Loup-Garou, or one of their drones. "Intel is making its assessment now, but prelim is that Copper and Cobalt are down. Still checking Iron."

"Unknown track," the earth pony mare at 'Space' sang out, her voice suddenly tight. "High supersonic suborbital, launch point somewhere close to site Delta. Impact in... one-ninety seconds. After that, there are more projectiles en route; looks like one every fifteen seconds."

"Acknowledged. Space, get me intel on that launcher. Helm, take us into the cloudwall, full speed. Spellcraft, what is the status on the Specials?"

"Three out of six, Admiral." The cream and slate-grey dappled unicorn hesitated, his ears going back. "Admiral... our location relative to the target will affect the final spellcraft calibration."

Twister made a little disgusted snort. "Why am I not surprised. Noted; we'll worry about that when the time comes." Typical; our best weapon was designed for fixed emplacement under carefully controlled conditions. The Express tilted under his hooves, the near subsonic beat of the big fans rising to a clearly audible hum.

"Intel has come back on that launcher, Sir," Space said. "It has to be the Sundering Claw; those new upper hatches are likely for the spinal mount to operate in a ski-ramp configuration... and the launch site appears to be moving with each salvo." She shrugged, waving one hoof over her console's display. "Probably explains why the velocity is lower than expected."

"Position the Cicadas for a soft intercept." Not that it will do that much good, but... "I presume the Claw is coming to meet us?"

"Yessir. She is currently climbing and will be in direct fire range within thirty minutes."

Don't want to have line of sight to that monster without the summoning circle. There's too much power in that railgun of theirs. Twister nodded sharply. "Atmospherics, shift the centre of the storm over the coast--" The pegasus opened his mouth to protest, but Twister flicked his wings to silence the other pony. "--we'll take the hit in intensity; it only has to last until we can fire the Specials. Helm, take us lower; follow the storm and get in among those mountains." He turned his gaze on Flight Ops, mouth forming a hard line. "Send whatever we have left against the Claw."

The unicorn flinched, then nodded shakily. "Yes Sir. She... she has a full complement of escorts with her."

Aerodynes and Shredders... I wonder if any-- He bit off the thought, returning Flight Ops' nod. Outside, the howl of the wind built, sending little shivers through the Express. Ahead, filling the direct view windows, the cloudwall looked like a thing made of hammered iron, riven with forks of lightning.

===

"New orders," Willow said, a veneer of professionalism covering a deep well of fatigue. "Change heading to zero one five and join up with Orange, Blue, Yellow and Indigo. It's the Claw."

"Roger that," Echelon muttered, casting an eye over the map overlay and curving the remains of his little squadron down another one of the maze of valleys that rent the land like it was a gryphon-clawed carcass. A settlement, lights still burning, flickered by no more than a hundred metres under his keel. I seem to remember that they don't have much in the way of glazed windows... probably for the best.

"We're a bit low on ordnance," he said. "How are you feeling, Willow?"

"Tired, but I'll manage. The Express is under fire; they are pretty sure it's the Claw. All the remaining mass drivers are disabled"

"So they need some breathing space to get those special weapons of Luna's working. Right." Echelon paused, fiddling with the response settings on the wing armatures. "All this spellcraft stuff leaves me cold... do you think they will manage it?"

"They are artificial versions of the Elements... I had the opportunity to see the real thing, once. Complex, massively complex, but you could almost see how a pony could get them working. These new things..." She sighed, a note of doubt entering her voice. "They were working before the Princess dug them out of the floor of Discord's cage, so it's obviously possible."

Echelon grunted something indistinct. But these are battle conditions, not some nice laboratory stable... and it's not like they stopped him from actually getting out. "I hope so. The Claw is going to be a tough nut to crack." With one eye on fuel reserves, he reduced their speed a little, then blinked. "Willow; sanity check. This is fate-of-the-world stuff, right?"

"Oh yes. He's started with us, but gryphon, zebra, dragon or pony, it won't matter once Discord can operate with impunity."

Echelon smiled. "We were low on weapons when we started, we don't have enough fuel to get back to the Express unless we glide half of the way back, and we have completed our primary mission." He gave the throttles a nudge, letting Red One's speed climb, and sent his revised battle plan to Green Two. His smile widened as the acknowledgement came back. Everypony knows the score.

"Well, what in Tartarus are you waiting for?" Willow snapped, the tremble in her voice masked almost completely by the bravado.

"That's my filly!" The pegasus laughed, pushing the throttles to their maximums, the sheer joy of being able to go so fast -- and actually be paid to do so -- overwhelming his own fear.

===

The Sundering Claw came over their horizon sooner than expected. "She's certainly climbing," Echelon muttered, pulling Red One a little lower and placing a rock ridge between him and the flying battleship.

It wasn't as large as the Express but, unlike the Equestrian craft, it wasn't designed to actually carry any commensal vehicles. The Claw was a weapon, pure and simple. The only one of its kind, at least under Razorclaw control, the other two in the same class not having yet been completed, it was closer to a hurled brick than anything streamlined. Only half of the Express' 300m, it flew using a mixture of stubby, high-lift wings -- as two sets of vertically offset tandems -- and oversized engines. Deep within its metal and composite heart was a triplet of thorium-powered molten salt reactors.

Those reactors were the secret to the Claw's ability to fly at all. Without the need to convert the reactor power to electricity, losing most of it in the process, the aircraft used the nuclear heat directly; those engines were a critical part of its coolant system, replacing burning hydrocarbons with heat exchangers flooded with pressurised molten lithium fluoride.

When the rock ran out and Red One had another clear view of the Claw, Willow was ready. "She's starting to transition to forward flight-- Oh! Did you see that?"

"I did." The view through the half metre telescope, stabilised by the adaptive optics and played on a loop, each iteration getting slightly better as Willow tried to tease out ever finer details. A v-shaped shockwave, visible where it passed in front of some distant clouds, had flicked away from the nose of the Claw at a sharp angle, the projectile invisible at this distance. "How are they... ah. Must be a kind of ski ramp addition to the spinal mount."

"Yes; pretty simple, really. I'm surprised the Panopticon didn't figure that one out. Lets them fire at long range while still in forward flight." She paused, then sighed. "I see this is where all those Shredders went."

The flying beetle machines, miniature versions of the Claw, but with only two sets of wings, flew lazy subsonic orbits at various points around the much larger aircraft. Echelon stopped counting when he reached a dozen. Classic gryphon CAP positions; high and dispersed. Who needs straight line speed when you can stoop on your prey? "Willow, we only have enough ordnance for a single pass; I can't see any benefit in getting tangled in the CAP, can you?"

"Our orders are clear," she said, that little tremor coming back into her voice. "We should get as close as possible; try and punch through the point defence. I'll be able to hold them off for a short while."

Echelon grinned. "We'll show them the flaw in their policy of only building those flying tanks. There are some things you need a real fighter for." Little icons flicked up on his HUD, marking Red One's connection to the remains of the other Loup-Garou squadrons. A battle plan popped up, little more than a few terse lines of abbreviated text and a map covered with curving lines, and the pegasus let out a quiet snort. "That will be old Geodetic's work, I'll bet." The unicorn in the back of Orange One had a reputation for directness. Can't see anything wrong with that... Blue and Indigo flights are nearly whole, makes sense they are the strike package. "Willow, do you concur?"

"Agreed. We don't really have the warload for the assault, so it's CAP-busting duty for us."

The pair of fighters, Red One still in the lead, curved around the Claw in a long, gentle, supersonic arc, heading for their insertion point. Behind him, Echelon could hear Willow take deep breaths, letting them out in quick exhalations, like a free diver preparing for descent. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to take the brunt of this. Despite the spellcraft amplifier, there was a real physical toll exacted on Willow by each arcane operation, something that bled through into her biometric signatures and made the tactical computer tag the unicorn with a caution flag.

The timer spooled down to nothing and Echelon pulled Red One around in a tight arc, accelerating as fast as the Loup-Garou could manage. Willow gave a kind of grunt, like that of a body builder about to lift some monstrous load, and the tingle of magic swept through him from muzzle to tail root. "Suppression confirmed," he whispered, half afraid to say the words out loud, lest he distract Willow from her labours.

At seventy kilometres the gryphon and pony aircraft were well within each other's missile range, but the stealth arcana was obviously working, despite the distressing noises coming from Willow, and the Shredders did not shift from their racetrack courses. Sixty kilometres and Echelon curved up to head for where the Razorclaw aircraft that most threatened the strike group would be-- Something flickered on his screen, a bloom of infrared coupled to a point of vacuum ultraviolet, and Echelon cursed.

One of the Loup-Garou in the strike group, Blue Four, was abruptly visible, and high-powered radars popped up from all corners of the sky and land, sweeping the quadrant to hunt for what else they knew must be there. Burn-through alarms sounded and Willow gave a groan, releasing her hold on the protective enchantment. The circling Shredders all turned, converging on the fighters, but the stealth magic had done its job; the Loup-Garou would close the distance to the Claw in a little over one minute.

The temptation to fire all his remaining missiles was overwhelming, but Echelon held them back, his ears flattening as the 'hostile radar' tone changed to the shrill whine of 'missiles inbound'. Plumes of fire and infrared blossomed from all the Shredders on this side of the Claw, missiles leaping from belly-bays. His own countermeasures went full active, pumping gigawatt jamming pulses at the emitters in view, mercilessly tracking everything that looked like it was heading for Red One.

Echelon changed the priorities of the ECM suite, and the phase-steered beams shifted to increase the protection for Blue and Indigo. Green Two, still operating as wingpony, flew a little closer and expanded her defences to cover them both. The range ticked down further, a kilometre closer for every three seconds, and at twenty thousand metres, with missiles still halfway along their high-Mach crawl, the Shredders fired their own mass drivers.

They had nothing like the power of the surface stations or the Claw's spinal mount, but with a combined closing speed of over three and a half kilometres a second, they didn't need it. Guided things, steered by little slivers of vanes poking into the hypersonic airflow, they appeared as bright red arrows on his threat display, swallowing the distance horribly fast.

What would have been a hundred and twenty seconds to closest approach was suddenly only ten, and the timer in his HUD marked the expected turning capability of those hypersonic projectiles. The indicator flashed from red to green in the last second and Echelon twisted his wings as hard as he dared, praying that the already damaged port wing wouldn't do something unexpectedly lethal in the supersonic airflow.

The early shots missed, out-manoeuvred by the fighter, but the follow-up rounds in the burst, each a half kilometre further behind the one in front, had more time and manoeuvred to match his course. His chaff cutters shrilled their high frequency whine and dazzling lasers fired, all trying to distract the relatively crude sensor suite that could be packed into the kinetic harpoons, but it was Willow that saved them.

Magic reached out, an immaterial hoof kicking at the tiny, fast projectiles, hunting for something to get a purchase on. A few of the frantic impulses connected, imparting just enough force to overwhelm the harpoon's high-speed actuators. In a blurred instant they tumbled, and aerodynamic forces far exceeding the tensile strength of their tungsten bodies shredded them into jagged rubble. At that speed, no material in the world could survive that level of frictional heating, and the highly refractory metal flashed past its autoignition point in an instant, filling the air with magnesium-bright particles.

Smears of light filled the air as Echelon spun the Loup-Garou on its long axis, the crack-crack of near miss shockwaves loud even over the white noise keening of the engines. The pegasus exhaled explosively, then inhaled with a great gasp, holding the breath as the acceleration forces made the blood drain from his head. G-socks clamped down on his legs, tight enough to leave bruises, but they did their job, keeping him conscious during the manoeuvre. The burst of railgun projectiles were past, but the missiles were only five seconds behind.

With his active countermeasures focused on a completely different set of missiles, Echelon pulsed the chaff cutters and flare dispensers again, but the plumes of sliced and patterned tape just blew away in the slipstream. A glance at the medical display told the whole story; Willow was unconscious. Off to one side, Green Two, obviously higher up the Shredder's firing lists, disintegrated in an orange fireball. Damn you, Celestia, for putting us in this position-- Still frantically hunting for a trajectory that would get them away from this trap, the pegasus mouthed the emergency controls.

The cocktail of amphetamines and epinephrine hit the mare's bloodstream, right in the carotid artery, and Willow gave a strangled scream. Her magic thrashed wildly and stabbed out in random directions, some falling within the fighter itself. Immaterial clawed paws struck at Echelon's hindquarters, pulling out bleeding chunks of fur and making something go crack in one leg, then the power stabilized and moved on. The closest missiles exploded, dissolving into sprays of molten metal and incandescent fragments, then Red One was past the rest of the engagement envelope, heading on towards the Shredders, which had started to sprout lines of fire from their point defences.

Willow was sobbing even as she panted, making fast, frantic little noises; the sounds made Echelon quail inside, even as he fought to manage the sudden spike of pain from his rear right leg. Every little motion produced a feeling like gravel being ground together, and he gladly accepted the autodoc's painkillers while manually tightening the G-sock around that leg to immobilise it. Sweet Luna, I'm so sorry. The combat drugs were horribly effective, and grim, ready-room humour always said they were strong enough to make a corpse break into a canter. Every unicorn had a chance to try them, under medical supervision, and Willow had spoken at length about what the experience was like. She hadn't been able to stand still for hours, full of a nervous energy, describing it like 'being filled with burning ants'.

He queued the last of his missiles, targeting them all on the lead Shredder, then let them fly. "One last push, Willow," he said, keeping his voice level. Just us now; got to keep the pressure off Blue and Indigo. "We're nearly done." The enemy aircraft would still be invisible to the naked eye, if it wasn't for the stuttering flash of autocannon fire, but the stabilized optics in the Loup-Garou's nose gave him a wonderfully detailed, multiple wavelength, image of the beetle-like machine. The tandem wings with their tip-mounted engines were twisting, sharp plumes of infrared spraying in wide arcs as the Shredders turned to put as many of their point defence rotary cannon into play as possible.

Weapon fire, highlighted in the optical and infrared from the muzzle flash, and by terahertz imaging of the rounds themselves, reached for the missiles, but Willow was there again. Her magic, made strong and clumsy by the drugs, lashed out and bit into the closest Shredder, making the ceramic armour plates twist into weird and short-lived jagged tentacles that smashed into splinters even as he watched. There was movement on the flank of one target, the troop door abruptly bulging and flying away, ripped off by the pressure of suddenly mobile metal within the hull.

The first missile pair slammed into the unprotected belly of the closest Shredder, outlining the frantic movement within the hull with white fire, and Echelon shivered. Shadows etched in that rapidly blooming brightness told their own story: gryphon shapes struggling with whip-fast snakes of jagged darkness, before the fire engulfed them all and turned the aircraft into fragments and a rain of burning jet fuel.

His final missile, the only one to survive the now overwhelmed defences of the other Shredder, exploded next to its port engine pod. The blow, not immediately fatal, flipped the vehicle into a sudden spin, dropping a hundred metres in less than two seconds as the pilot fought to keep his aircraft under control. The gryphon obviously came to the conclusion that his aircraft could not be saved, because the crew immediately bailed out, diving for the safety of the ground, several kilometres below.

"Good job, Willow! How in Tartarus did you--" Alarms flared over his HUD, not some external threat, but from the spellcraft amplifier.

"Warning, input overload. Internal arcane suppression active. Weapons officer experiencing thaumic shock." The voice, filled with urgency, spat out the message at chipmunk speed.

"Willow! Snap out of it!" Even as he shouted, Echelon prodded the medical systems for something to knock the mare out of her exponentially rising magical surge. More errors came back; the randomised power, despite the amplifier's best efforts to drain it away, was wreaking havoc on the systems surrounding the unicorn, and the drug injector had gone failsafe and shut down. Willow was screaming; long, raw wails that were loud enough to hear over the roar of the engines and slipstream, and through his hearing protection.

Below, carried far closer by Red One's head-long flight, was the Sundering Claw, her defence systems engaging the missiles from Blue and Violet flights. More missiles flew out from her, leaping back along the same trajectories, flicked out at railgun speeds before their engines fired. Magic flashed, but the Loup-Garou crews on Blue and Indigo were focused on keeping their own weapons alive rather than self-defence. Fighter after fighter vanished in fast smears of fire and smoke. Unaffected by the fight, the Claw seemed to pause, making minor adjustments to her alignment.

In a moment of perfect clarity Echelon knew what the big aircraft was doing. Behind him, the Express, hidden within her captive storm system, was above the horizon, marked out by the golden 'home' marker. Shockwaves rippled out from the Claw's nose as she fired; not some high altitude lob, but a direct line, high Mach number shot.

Rage and tears threatened to overwhelm him, and Echelon tipped his wings over, heading straight for the big gryphon warship. "Not long now, Willow," he whispered, trying to shut off her cries. Red One's engines roared as the Claw expanded in his display, its gunnery systems not seeming to realise he was as much of a threat as the missiles they were picking off. A snippet of information from a medical course suddenly flashed into his mind, and Echelon grabbed for it, even while the first 'incoming fire' warnings flickered on his HUD.

A shock. She needs a shock to knock her out of the feedback loop. Echelon grinned, a wild hope building in his chest, and fine-tuned his aim while dipping his muzzle to reach for the eject controls, just as the first shots smashed holes in Red One's wings. The flight systems were good and reacted quickly, but at the speed they were going even a small amount of damage was catastrophic. Echelon bit down as the Loup-Garou flipped into a high-velocity tumble and disintegrated around them both.

28 -- Specials

The flash of magic and crackle of gunfire reached a crescendo, then cut off. Now, do it now! Waits Until Sunrise stood at the entrance to the cell block and dithered, a sick fear filling his belly. The flight through the administration block had been sobering; not one of the gryphons were actually dead but, equally, they had obviously not been given the chance to fight back. How many ponies was this? One of those aircraft can't have held more than half a dozen.

He glanced at the side door, running a claw over the rounded lumps where the hinges and lock had been. It was like they had been cast as a single piece; the heavy security door was now no more than a seamless plate of solid metal. There was another flurry of muffled thumps from the other side. Looking down at the blunt muzzle brake of his underslung cannon, Waits slumped. It's not like a lock; I'll have to blast the whole thing open, pumping dozens of explosive rounds into it. It'll kill those inside.

Waits backed up, then turned to trot through into the cell block. Inside it was as he'd expected; a wide corridor lined with barred cells, some empty, many packed with gryphons. They all looked scared, but were without the belligerence from such a supposedly violent bunch. I guess that much gunplay will intimidate even this lot. He looked into the closest cell, rapping on the bars with his talons. "You in there -- did any ponies come through here just now? How many?"

One individual came forward, looking him up and down with suspicion. "You're not prison staff are you, soldier?" The gryphon relaxed a little, shifting his gaze and trying to look into the administration block. "What happened back there? Are all those bastards dead?"

"Knocked out. Well?"

The other gryphon laughed. "Pity, but I guess ponies always were a bit soft. Let us out and we'll fix that." There was a terrible intensity in the prisoner's eyes, and Waits took a cautious step backwards. "Yes, they came through here. Four of them; better equipped than you are, soldier-chick. They are going to stop whatever madness the Talons have started here."

"The Equestrians -- did they tell you that?"

"Not exactly... but right at the start the Talons paraded the pony prisoners through here. Why else? I hope they kill them all; after all, I'm damn sure the Talons have been killing us a cell at a time. You've seen them, right? Those guards, all distorted and wrong?"

Empty cells, with others packed to capacity. Guards that looked like strangely dedicated body-builders. There is something going on. He shifted uneasily, then took a grip on the bite trigger once more and stepped away. The gryphon hissed at him, but he ignored it, heading for the other door and the next block down.

Two floors later, he found them. Three ponies, with a fourth sprawled on the floor in the middle of a spreading pool of blood. Two gryphon corpses, similarly decorated. Crouching low, he slid the small automatic rifle back on its runner, then eased around the door frame, aligning the reticule of his cannon with the closest pony. I don't care how much armour you have on, there's nothing portable on this world that will stop a twenty-millimetre AP round. He took a careful grip on the bite trigger, taking up the slack.

And what if that prisoner is right? Thoughts of Dusty, dead and cooling on that rocky plain, made his vision blur and Waits nearly bit down there and then. I'll never know. Waits gently let go of the trigger, shifting it to one foreclaw, then swallowed, letting the anger wash over his fear. "Freeze, or I'll shoot!" he yelled.

The ponies jumped as if electrocuted, parts of their armour suits -- weapon drones, Waits realised -- moving independently. "Keep those damn drones still or your friend is dead!" he snarled, terror making his voice come out high and shrill.

The closest pony looked up, then did something that opened his helmet. Big yellow eyes, slit like a cat's, bored into his own. "Don't do that. Is that a flight suit? Are you from the air base the pilots hit?"

Waits' muscles went rigid, his throat closing up. "You killed them all! All those people I worked with for years, snuffed out at the push of a button. Why shouldn't I do the same to you?"

"This is war," the pony said quietly, "but not with you. Something rotten has grown up in Razorclaw, and it's infecting the whole world. Princess Celestia has gone mad and Luna is trying to stop her. The last thing I heard was that your military was poised to launch an assault on Equestria; mad or not, neither Princess will stand for that."

And you know what they did to the Changelings, Waits completed in his head. "Speak sense, damn you. No riddles!"

"Discord is loose in the world and he's doing something to... power the insanity, from right here, we think." The pony looked down at the corpse of its fellow, his body seeming to shrink slightly.

Waits laughed. "Your Princesses have gone mad before, and Discord is nothing more than a legend about some statue in Canterlot."

"Whether or not you believe me about Discord, there is evil here... I can prove it." He looked over his shoulder at one of the gryphon corpses. "Will you let me?"

"Slowly," Waits growled, talons tense on the trigger. The pony took careful steps to the body, turning it around so he could see the head... heads. Next to the gryphon's head, almost nestled in the crook of its shoulder, was the pale blue head of a unicorn. The remote trigger dropped from nerveless claws and Waits stood up. A trick, it's got to be a trick.

The pony knelt down, brushing the pony's short blue mane with his muzzle. "I don't know what the gryphon was called, but her name was Rose. She was taken from Razorclaw city a few days ago, and now she is this." He looked up, tears in his eyes. "Where is the rest of her body, pilot? Look at what was done here and tell me it is right."

Half in a trance, Waits walked across the cell block and stood in front of the corpse, staring down at the mismatched heads, then looked up at the female prisoners in their cells. "Well? Was this their magic?" he demanded of the huddled, broken mass, ignoring the choking noises from the kneeling pony.

One of the prisoners, looking a little more alert than the rest, shook her head. "N-no. There is something below us... sometimes I can feel it, in my head." She shivered, burying her head back in the mass of feathers and fur. "It did this; we're only things to it," she said, barely audible.

Waits took an uncertain step backwards, rump sinking to the floor, then looked around and saw he was at the centre of a circle of those weapon drones, flattened, multilegged things with gun barrels for heads. "What's your name, friend gryphon?" said one of the others, an earth pony mare by her build and voice. "I'm Blevie.”

"Waits Until Sunrise," Waits said numbly, unable to keep his eyes off the armed robots. "Now what?"

"I'm sorry about your friends, really I am, but we're going to have to tie you up now," Blevie said, voice distorted a little by the plastic ties dangling from her mouth.

"We could use a non-pony witness, all things considered," the unicorn said, eyeing him speculatively, "and another gun wouldn't go amiss. I'm Nightstorm, by the way." She popped open her own helmet, revealing a bloodstained muzzle and offering a wry smile. "We're not really operating with the sanction of our government, if that makes a difference."

"There is no government," the cat-eyed pony snapped, standing up and flexing bat-like wings. "Chirr. You couldn't pronounce my real name." The pony glanced to Blevie and the restraints. "Well? What's it going to be?"

===

After they left the female cell block, the appearance of the structure changed. No more painted concrete slabs and beams, but worked stone, stained by water and streaks of brown from ancient iron fittings. The lights, feeble things spaced too far apart to really do more than accentuate the darkness, were tacked across the ceiling with messy blobs of adhesive and, despite being modern solid state devices, had been fitted years ago.

"What was this place?" Chirr muttered, throat still sore and resisting the urge to send sonar pulses down the dimly lit corridor. At the far end the lights gave out completely and the gloom, coupled with the flat, even temperature of the stone walls, was giving even his suit's wonderful optics trouble.

"Started life as a fortress, back... a thousand years ago, maybe? Some king probably had it as his pride and joy," Waits said, padding along at his side. He still wore the boost suit, the thing bulky even with the removal of the engine and fuel tanks.

Behind him were Blevie and Night, their concession to security if he wasn't being completely truthful about wanting to help. The unicorn's horn glowed gently in the dark and her mouth moved, subvocalising the same nonsense syllables Chirr had heard her use back at the aircarrier. I hope she's in better shape than a few minutes ago. At least she's managing to walk in a straight line.

Night gasped. "Another one, ahead," she said in strangled tones, stopping dead.

'Halt.' Chirr dropped to a crouch, waggling his ears, then opened his mouth to repeat the order for Waits, but the gryphon had already stopped and was staring intently at their destination. A glance and a lip curl sent his exoweapons scuttling forwards, their ammunition tanks already filled with an alternating mixture of explosive and armour piercing.

It bounded out of the dark at the end of the corridor, covering the distance at a frightening rate. This time its speed was little help; in the narrow space, without room to dodge, it was an easy target. Six exos fired, short bursts at their appallingly fast rate, placing patterns of shots to fill the whole corridor, joined a moment later by the shocking thunder of the gryphon's cannon.

The exo's guns were efficient things, near silent apart from the crackling roar of each supersonic round, and had no optical signature; not so Waits' cannon. The muzzle flash stabbed out nearly the length of his body, lighting the dark space and freezing the charging monster like a strobe light. A shell of red light surrounded it, bright sparks and shockwave flashes rippling over the surface like it was behind a curtain, but it obviously wasn't enough.

Something got through, although if it was from the ponies or Waits wasn't certain. The light flicked out and the creature tripped, sliding to an untidy halt half a dozen metres away from the lead exoweapons. The whole front half was gone, pounded into an unrecognizable mass of bone, feathers, and the occasional scrap of bright yellow fur.

"Is that it?" Chirr asked, not moving. The last time this had happened they had been hit by another one, just while they were checking the body. The second had been hiding in a small room off the corridor, and it was only Night's quick reflexes in slamming the ancient door shut that had given them enough time to kill it before it was upon them.

"Can't feel any others," she said finally, turning in a slow circle.

The bastard's playing with us. The same old arrogance as in the stories. Well, that's been your downfall before, old snake. Chirr averted his eyes from the corpse, letting his exos scuttle down the corridor for a visual check. "Looks clear to me."

"There is something else; more magic... feels hidden, like a veil over a light." Night shivered, staring down through the floor. "So strong--" She swallowed, then looked away.

"You only just felt this now? I thought you witches--" Waits flinched at the sudden sharp glances. "Sorry. Why now?"

Night pawed the ground. "I don't know!" she snarled. "I meant what I said about a veil." She jumped over the corpse, striding forwards to push past Waits.

So he must be here, and must know we are, too. Chirr accelerated, overtaking Night. Of course he knows... how in Tartarus is this ever going to work? Trailblazer's beacon, slotted into one of his external carry loops, bounced a little as he cantered, and he became very aware of how small it was. It took six ponies and all the Elements to get rid of Discord last time... and all we've got is a machine that they were still trying to fix when we left the Express.

===

A hammer-blow of sound and force, intense enough that Echelon's vision wavered into the black. A continuous thrust under his hooves, strong, like he was back in the centrifuge, but not more than he could withstand. The noise, after the initial concussive thunder, subsided to a roar, not unlike that of the main engines, but it was what he couldn't hear that made Echelon twist inside. Willow was silent; gone were the terrible, heart-rending screams, replaced with nothing he could hear over the solid fuel emergency rockets.

By Luna, let this work. Let me not have killed her after all this.

Most of the systems were dead. The armatures, normally so alive with the airflow over the Loup-Garou's wings, were rigid, like a corpse in the throes of rigor. They had sprung open, folding his wings shut and holding them against his flanks. The G-socks were still operating, although on residual pressure and slowly softening, now they were disconnected from the fighter's systems.

There were no windows in the crew compartment, as it had been buried in the heart of Red One. His entire view was synthetic, normally pumped to high resolution displays that cupped his eyes, but all those electronics were offline. All he had left was the fibre-optic backup; heavily shielded by passive, nonlinear optics as a defence against flash or laser blinding. The resolution was poor and the field of view distorted by wide angle lenses, but at least it was something.

The sun was up, and in the wrong part of the sky for the time of day, but at least it illuminated his surroundings. There was the Claw, listing badly to one side, but still in the air. Black smoke boiled up from a section near her nose, and the long, angular shape was precessing slowly, her engines obviously unbalanced. Got you. Echelon spat out the eject controller and grinned savagely, imagining how much harder it must have been for her point defences to stop a ten-tonne engine moving at supersonic speed, than some fragile missile. She's not out, but we bought the Express a few minutes peace.

The roar of the pod's rockets died and all sensation of weight went away as the thing started on a purely ballistic trajectory. The whole crew compartment, a lifting body teardrop designed to self-stabilise even when thrown into a high Mach airflow, had thrown itself clear of the fighter when Echelon had bit down on the eject paddle. Rocket motors, things that bore more resemblance to oversized fireworks than the level of sophistication in the fighter, had fired to lift them clear of the impact point, a self-contained mechanism designed to cope with disaster even at zero speed and zero altitude.

Nervously, he scanned the sky, looking for any signs of the gryphon Shredders. There had never been any real conflict between the Equestrians and gryphon nations, but they had plenty of experience of fighting amongst themselves, and had developed a set of protocols to deal with enemy combatants. The Palace had signed up to them as a show of support for all parties involved, so, in principle at least, they should not be greeted by a burst of railgun fire.

Of course, that was the previous government... who knows what mistakes might be made in the heat of the moment. Perhaps I should ditch the aeroshell early. The ground beneath was rocky, a mixture of ridges and deep, forested valleys, and not the best of places to land the pod. Reaching a decision, Echelon twisted his wings just so, popping them free of the armature in preparation for the next stage. An escape pod for my escape pod. Stretching each wing as best he could, working out the kinks left from the high-G separation from the fighter, he grabbed hold of the eject paddle again, giving it a sharp twist.

Explosive bolts popped in a rapid sequence, starting at the tail of the pod and working towards the nose. In less than half a second the raw, cold outside air slapped him across the muzzle and ran icy claws along his flanks, making mane and tail thrash wildly in the slipstream. His wings, folded tight against the sudden surge of air, extended slightly and the flight magic took hold, passing along the semi-rigid traces linking him to Willow. The cold air must have done something, because there was movement transmitted along those rods.

Echelon glanced backwards, nearly shouting out with joy. Willow was moving, slowly, like she'd just awoken from a two-day drinking binge, but she was moving. "Hang in there, filly! I'll have us down in a moment." Blood was flowing from her nostrils and was being whipped along her muzzle by the slipstream, but she nodded, blinking and uncertain in the sunlight.

===

Equilibrium gritted her teeth. The patterns had multiplied in her head, and were far too complex for one mind to manipulate while still holding on to the ones she'd already calibrated. She reached out sideways, spreading into an adjacent volume that was different-yet-familiar. The resident presence made room as she moved, but there was something else; the distant and vaguely distracting echoes of Neighmann's body, wracked with tremors, came back along the link.

"Neighmann, what--"

Manny Fold, his voice inconsequential amid the buzz and howl in her head, moved to support Neighmann as he collapsed against the rough walls of the summoning circle's waveguide complex. Libi had her eyes shut, but the motion disturbed the interplay of magic in the crystal-lined tunnels, throwing Pi, the fifth 'special' out of the tenuous approximation of alignment she'd managed to achieve. "Stay rutting still!" she shouted. "This is hard enough without you screwing up what I've already done!"

"Stay cool, Equilibrium; you'll do it," Manny said quietly, "just got to get your mate more comfortable. Take it easy with the sharing; back out if he starts to fight it."

Don't tell me to take it easy! Libi wanted to scream the words, but just squeezed her eyes tighter, trying to hold back the tears of frustration that were trickling down her cheeks. The errant thought made the tottering collection of magic, a task not unlike building an arch without internal support, fall further from optimum. First Delta, then Tau, escaped her control, filling the narrow space with shrieking dissonance before Manny damped the power flow. "It's too hard; it took the Princesses to set this up before, I can't--"

There was a soft touch at her throat, the gentle nibble of teeth working their way down the line between shoulder and neck. "Luna thinks we can do it," Neighmann said muzzily, his words distorted by a combination of the hold she had on his body and a mouthful of her close-cropped fur. "Don't dive right back in; stop for a moment and think. What is making this too hard?"

"Complexity," Libi whispered, "I'm trying to visualise six, eleven-dimensional arrays by looking at three-dimensional slices through each of them. I can see why Celestia couldn't help the Nightmare, and why it took Twilight and all the others to use them after that."

"We don't need you to use them; the rest of the hardware will do that," Manny said quietly. "With the final module aligned, even for a moment, the rest of the system will take over."

Libi slumped, resting her chin on the top of Neighmann's head as he continued to nibble at her throat. "You don't understand. Every time you move, or the Express moves, or the weather control systems change their parameters, it makes a little bit of a difference to the patterns within the circle, and that affects the modules. Not much when I'm just working on just one, but the effect is squared with two, and so on." Oh Luna, I'm so tired. If only I wasn't having to do all this by proxy. "By the time I get to Rho -- and you know we leave it until last because it's so rutting sensitive -- only perfection will do."

Manny was silent for a moment. "With the Express stationery and the weather systems off... how long do you think it will take you?"

"Thirty seconds, a minute or two." Or an hour, or a lifetime. "Maybe never," she said, reluctantly.

"Take a few minutes rest; I'll talk to the Admiral," the engineer said, backing up a few steps and turning away, his horn glowing dimly as he operated his communicator.

Libi could hear the doubt in his voice, and the carefully controlled frustration at being completely unable to help. The gryphons will have an easier time hitting us, won't they?

Yes, love, Neighmann replied through the sharing. Don't think about any of that; what's important is that we do what we're here to do. Let the crew take care of the rest.

Manny returned, a serious expression on his face. "Are you ready? Do as much as you can; hold three or four modules together and we'll wait for the beacon to be triggered. After that they'll stop the engines and everything else for you."

Libi's ears flattened and she swallowed. Don't waste it, she completed in her head, reaching for Alpha, solid, dependable Alpha, and optimised it as best she could, joining it to Delta, then Tau.

The work continued, each additional module increasing the complexity by an order of magnitude. Optimise one, then reoptimise the others in a cycle of alternating attempts that resulted in all being slightly out of true, each modification changing the others in ways that were not quite predictable. What little fragile calm and confidence she'd managed to gather evaporating under the strain, and she paused for breath, holding on to Alpha, Tau and Phi, while Delta slipped from her grasp and Pi went into one of its phases of chaotic oscillation. Again.

Love, what if the initial patterns you set for Alpha or Delta are wrong?

Neighmann's thought was distracting, and Phi started to pull away. Libi reached for the slippery pattern, pulling it back with gentle nudges. Then everything I'm doing is a waste of time, she thought dully.

But you said they are all interdependent, yes? So it's possible that what looks optimum for an isolated module is not what the combined set requires?

Libi's mouth dropped open. It would be like climbing a mountain by only going up. If I'm only on one of the hoofhills, I'll never reach the summit. That means-- "Neighmann, you are going to get the ride of your life when we get out of this!"

Confused joy came back down the link, but the mare wasn't paying attention. Rather than make delicate alterations to Phi's pattern, she reached in and shifted Alpha radically, watching the others respond. Without the need to be slow and careful, the changes could be made with lightning speed, and Libi quickly built up a crude map of the group's interactions. A few minutes of frantic work later and she had Alpha, Delta, Phi and Tau more perfectly balanced than she'd managed with all the previous hours of careful experimentation.

There was a light touch at her shoulder and Libi opened her eyes, smiling at Manny as he nodded appreciatively. "We've picked up the beacon," he said. "The engines are spooling down. I'm going to feed a trace of power into the summoning circle, just enough to key in on the signal." Little vibrations came up through the floor plates, and the subliminal hum, always at the edge of hearing, faded away. A different noise, not really a sound, but part of how her mind was interpreting the rush and boom of the weather systems also vanished, replaced by something far closer and more hair-raising.

The crystal-lined catacombs of the summoning circle came alive; waves of light chasing along the walls like shoals of colourful reef fish swimming in some shallow, sun-dappled sea. Through Neighmann's shadow sight it was almost hypnotic; those coloured patches on the walls mere cross sections through far more complex patterns that filled the volume. "That's a tenth of a percent; can't go any lower," the engineer said. "You okay?"

"I'll manage," Libi said, distracted by another set of quick-fire alterations to the patterns she'd built. It's a shame we couldn't have done this earlier; everything is twisted again-- There was a rapid crack-crack-crack, then the deck lurched under her hooves. Not the gentle vibrations she'd become used to, but the hard, bone-numbing shock of landing on a too-hard surface. There was an explosion, thunder-clap loud, followed by another and a crackling roar.

She gasped, nearly losing everything she'd built so far, but the patterns in the circle didn't change. "Don't stop!" Manny shouted, voice barely audible over the background howl. "If you are going to get this working, it has to be right now!"

Libi's muzzle twitched, the faint scent of something acrid was in the warm air. Metal oxides, she thought, that's a superconductor fire, then pushed everything except the spellcraft patterns out of her mind. Pi was the next; still changing in those strange, semi-random formations it was prone to, it forced Libi to make more adjustments on the fly. The presence of the other modules, obviously close to some pinnacle of alignment, seemed to do something to those little outbursts -- not taming them, so much as accommodating them.

There was a beauty to the almost complete array; the way the modules reacted to Pi's shifts and all shuffled around, like they were all partners in some complex, formal dance with rules that an outside observer could only guess at. Libi's excitement built, and she reached for Rho, trying to slot it into the final space.

It wouldn't go. Oh, come on! Not so close! Libi made changes, to Rho and the others, but there was no sudden connection, like in Neighmann's memories of their original installation. Libi shuffled her hooves, mind casting around for something, anything that could give her a handle on this problem. These are supposed to be artificial versions of the Elements, and there was something about the original patterns being recorded during the time they were wielded by Twilight and the others, back during the Nightmare's return.

It's almost like these things have different personalities... Libi's breath hitched and she jerked as if electrocuted. Tau. Twilight. It can't be that simple, can it? She started to pant, heart thudding loud enough to hear, even over the background of explosions and the odd shrieks of twisting metal.

That was Calculus' favourite Twilight-Elements quote, Neighman thought, in the vague way of a recently awoken sleeper or the heavily sedated, magic is the key.

Libi started to laugh, the simple words bringing back the details of Professor Sparkle's biography, and the way she'd described how using the Elements had felt. Like the keystone in an arch. She reached in, deliberately detuning Tau, then optimised Rho as best she could, before slotting Tau back into the matrix.

She barely had to modify the pattern at all before something just went snap. In the mental space Libi was using to interface with the modules, crystalline shards of light sprang out from Tau, linking it to, and combining it with, all the others. All six patterns abruptly shifted, turning from a collection of parts to something more, something that had a life of its own and reached out to grab the barely active spellcraft of the summoning circle.

Harmony bloomed through the whole complex system, a six-dimensional star expanding like a crystal dropped into a supersaturated salt solution. Libi opened her eyes, grinning as the expression on Manny's face turned from fear to savage delight. She opened her mouth, but he was already shouting into his communicator, while barging forwards to hurry them out of the crystal-lined waveguide tunnels. "Bridge, this is Manny Fold at the Circle. Fire at will, repeat, fire at will!"

The magical power was rising rapidly within the waveguide, and random bursts of telekinesis lifted Libi's mane like a playful wind as she bent down to nuzzle a confused-looking Neighmann. Lights, of many and varied colours, played over his face, and he blinked up at her like a pony who'd been hit on the head.

Manny was less gentle. One forehoof lashed out, striking the other stallion on the shoulder, and he dipped his head in a threatening gesture. This obviously didn't have the effect he was hoping for, as his ears went back and his head darted forwards, teeth closing with a snap a hair's breadth from Neighmann's muzzle. The unicorn reacted on instinct, surging to his hooves and trying to escape, but Manny didn't let up. "Move, you useless lump of gryphon fodder!" he screamed, adding another lunge for good measure.

Equilibrium ran, Neighmann hot on her fetlocks, buffeted by the rising tide of magic within the circle. Manny chased them out, alternating between shouting down his communicator and snapping at the rump of whichever pony he thought wasn't running fast enough.

A blurred, frantic few moments later they were back out into the engineering spaces around the summoning circle, skidding to a halt as Manny slammed the heavy, shielded hatch closed with one hind leg. "Good work, you two," he said, smiling, all the barely contained rage from a second ago completely gone. "Wait here, I'll send a crewpony to take care of you." He cantered off, talking rapidly into his communicator.

"I haven't been chased like that since my foal years," Neighmann muttered, his confusion completely gone. He shifted his weight uneasily, ears pricked at the sound of another explosion, this one more distant and without any accompanying vibration.

"Worked though, didn't it?" Libi said, nipping playfully at his withers, then shivered as she had a strong sensation of something standing at her flank. "Oh my. Even without a horn I felt that."

"That's the specials, has to be."

"Is it going to work?" Libi's elation faded as the deck started to tilt under her hooves, dropping away like they were in a descending lift. "Even if it does, we're still at the start of a war."

Neighmann nuzzled at her throat, letting out a great sigh that ruffled the hair of her mane. "One problem at a time, love. One problem at a time."

29 -- Discord

Roughly hemispherical, with a brilliant, magnesium-bright coil of white light hanging at the centre, the room was perhaps fifteen metres across. Around the light, features bleached and made monochrome by the intensity, was a ring of ponies, alternating earth, pegasus and unicorn. They were still, but not stationary, standing there with expressions of terror, but were not trying to gallop or jump. Instead, they just stood there, with hooves stuck to the floor, like they had been arranged, like they were an audience.

That coil of light twisted and writhed, a fast flickering motion that was horribly hypnotic and made the stationary ponies' shadows bulge and distort. Chirr blinked, looking away from the data feed, watching Nightstorm. The unicorn's ears were flat back, and she stared through the wall to where the coil was. "Suggestions?" he asked, in a strangled tone. I don't know what I expected; his snakeness sitting on a big throne?

Nightstorm shook her head. "Can't tell if he's here or not. Too much--" The words broke off with a hiss, and the mare grunted, as if kicked in the gut.

"If he's not here, do we still trip the beacon? Can you do anything for these ponies?" He reached back and pulled the slender, fan-ended cylinder out, holding it with the gripper under his muzzle guard.

Night walked to the opening and took a hesitant step forward, head bowed like she was walking into a fierce wind. "I don't know... the magic is so strong, but any spell can be broken with a push in the right place." She popped the locks holding her helmet together, letting the muzzle guard hang loose around her throat. She stared up at the light, eyes narrowed against the glare. "Balance is everything; all that power, like a knife standing on its tip..." An orange glow, faint and barely visible, flickered about her horn. The pulsing of the coil started to become regular, matching the beat of Nightstorm's magic.

Something reached in and dragged Chirr from his hooves, pulling him into the room and setting him orbiting about the twisting helix. His wings flared, popping out from under their armoured panels, and thrashed, beating as hard as possible, but nothing made any difference to his gentle trajectory. The same had happened to the others -- off to his left and right were Night and Blevie, with Waits on the opposite side of the magical glare. All that was visible of him was the occasional flash of a wing and some loud curses, their meaning distorted by the acoustics in the room.

Here he had a good look at the ponies. Their skin moved and twitched, as if infested with insects, or perhaps like they were nothing more than empty husks, filled to bursting with wriggling, fighting rats.

And their eyes.

Their eyes were not still. They hunted, searching for a way around the light, but it drew them back, always back to that hypnotic swirl and pulse, like moths to a candle flame. There was awareness in there, the look of a pony able to see all the horrors of a world dissolving into chaos.

Blevie's head was swinging from side to side, matched by the frantic crawl of her exoweapons, which clambered around her, completely unaffected by her slow, floating tumble. "Night?" There was meaning in that single word, a whole page of questions and requests; Chirr could dimly feel the depth to the utterance, but had no idea as to the actual content.

"Look at their eyes, Blevie; it would be a mercy." Night's reply came out as a strangled scream, but the earth pony only needed the first syllables. Her exos went to full automatic, emptying their magazines then dipping their abdomens into her panniers and asking for more. Apple-sized grenades flicked out from the concealed launcher on her hindquarters, compact packages of destruction that twisted in the air under the influence of bat-winged vanes that popped out of their smooth surfaces, spreading around the whole perimeter of the chamber.

Chirr flinched at the sudden thunder, waiting to die and waiting for the walls to be painted red and the floor to be strewn with bodies and parts of them, but nothing happened. The guns continued to fire, but the bullets never arrived at their targets. Instead, they turned into sprays of confetti, streamers, jets of water or live butterflies, which flew about in a confused manner. Blevie cursed, then both exoweapons jumped from her back, extending glittering blades from under their gun-barrel heads, a harsh whine filling the air as the cutting surfaces spun up to speed.

The sound cut off with the nasty metallic noise of high velocity parts suddenly encountering immovable objects. His armour's visor went hazy, then black, locking him in a tiny space. Air recycling went next, cutting off the odours from the outside and filling the volume next to his jaw with warm, stale air. Chirr struggled, lips reaching for the controls, but they didn't respond, not even the manual emergency eject. Legs thrashing, he fought and wriggled, futilely trying to shake the helmet off.

"Oh, I suppose that's enough."

Rich and deep, the words moved through the air like a slick of velvety-black oil over the ocean. They slid and coated every surface, every pore and fibre of Chirr's being, penetrating his ears and making them swivel around within the malfunctioning helmet, then taking a hold of his brain and demanding that he attend the voice this instant. He'd never heard it before, but it could only come from one being. "Discord. So you are here." He relaxed, slowing his breathing and closing his eyes. So this is how it ends. There was a sudden noise, the gentle snick-click of his helmet mounts unlocking.

"Oh, come come now, Sergeant! Giving up so soon?"

The voice was disappointed, but held a note of amusement. Something gently twisted his helmet, pulling it free. Fresh air gushed in and Chirr coughed, taking deep, gasping breaths. "We'll stop you--"

"And that's the first thing you can think of? Did they tell you so little about me? How boring."

Whatever force was making Chirr orbit the light -- not normal telekinesis, as there was no glow -- stopped, holding him still. He twisted, trying to catch sight of the source of the voice, then, suddenly, there he was. Long and slender, stretched around the perimeter of the chamber like a furry snake, with afterthoughts of limbs in a variety of shapes. Discord had his head propped up on one foreleg, the one that looked like it had come from a giant gryphon, and was looking on in interest.

"Let's get a proper look at you... my last few appearances were so brief and I didn't get much of a chance." Armour ceramic, some of the toughest materials that pony science could manufacture, crazed and broke into gravel, then dissolved into sand that ran down his body and cascaded to the ground, the particles becoming finer and finer until they disappeared altogether. The underharness and attached spellcraft kinetic dampers came next, flying apart as threads and tiny, glittering splinters that circled Chirr like a halo for a moment, then vanished.

His wings moved, not pulled apart, but of their own volition, as if he was soaring over some distant, moon-lit landscape. They stretched out to their full extension, great sails of membrane and slender bone casting vague, monstrous shadows against the stone walls. Discord waved a paw in a lazy circle, sending Chirr spinning, then held him upright, nose in the air and tail dangling, legs and wings splayed so he felt like an eight-pointed star.

"Even after all I did to her..." The big head made a slow nodding motion, then Chirr's mouth opened and he tilted forwards, letting Discord look down his throat. "...your Luna always was a smart one." Another flip and he was upside down, tail lifting and hind legs splaying themselves wide. "She was a true genius and, since she gave you dominant genetic traits, I'm not even going to need to save a breeding pair. My little bat pony... you have such a fun future ahead of you!" He sighed, the sound of an artist admiring the efforts of another like-minded soul.

"I do miss her so... she was always so much more interesting than little Miss Sunshine -- and look at the rest of you! I've never seen an engineered killing machine that was so fluffy!" Discord clasped both forepaws under his muzzle, rich voice going up through the registers until it was mimicking a filly's squeal of delight. "I bet you're ticklish..."

Something hard and sharp touched his belly, running through the fur and digging in at all the right places. Chirr twitched, muscles jerking and straining, jaws clamped shut as his body convulsed, trying not to scream at the intensity of the sensations. Diaphragm paralysed and unable to draw a breath, his vision started to go grey, but still the torment continued.

After an age, the claws withdrew, and he hung there, gasping and sweating. "This is all just a game to you. Out there, there are ponies with lives you are destroying--" His mouth snapped shut, teeth nipping the very tip of his tongue.

Discord waggled a talon, his uneven face looking disappointed. "That's a nasty prejudice you have. I am not so narrow-minded; I am making people's lives more interesting." His whole body moved, contracting until it was no more than twice the length of a pony, then he stood upright on his asymmetric hind legs, body bent like a snake about to strike. "Always so serious with you ponies. Work, work, work and no play. You want to see what all this work gets you? Take that pony, right there."

He pointed to an earth pony in the circle, snapping his talons together. "That is Cinnabar -- fine earth pony name, don't you think? You do like your rocks and flowers. Anyway, he has a mate, who misses him terribly... at least she would, if she wasn't letting that pegasus friend of his rut her brains out, right at this very minute. I thought I'd let him watch as a favour, but he doesn't seem to be particularly grateful." Discord pouted, then smiled. "Plenty more things to see... I let all my volunteers watch the outcome of their efforts. They enjoy it, I'm sure. It gives them a connection with their friends."

"Anyway, two point four foals back in Canterlot, blah blah blah. Always working so hard -- especially now." The talons snapped again and the stallion fell over, crumpling to the ground like a puppet with cut strings. He didn't move, but seemed to shrink into the rock like sugar dissolving into water. "They don't last so long, these modern ponies; too soft." Discord spun around, a huge grin exposing uneven canine teeth, gesturing at Blevie. "Which is why I'm so glad Luna sent me these presents; they even come with their own wrapping." The mare's armour dissolved and she drifted downwards, settling in the space left by the stallion.

Her throat worked, like she was trying to speak, but no sound came out. "Always the problem with live food -- too much noise," Discord said, claws up as if making a secret comment. The fight drained out of Blevie, fury replaced by a slow-dawning horror, and she just stood there as if rooted into the rock, tremors running up her legs and eyes held captive by the light. "She's a strong one; excellent. Let's see... I don't need you; got plenty of gryphons to play with already."

Waits was pulled from his orbit and tumbled to the floor. Moving weakly, one hindleg dragging limply, he tried to crawl away, but was picked up and spun around to face inwards. Discord reached up and plucked a strand of fur from his own head, shaking the hair until it grew to giant size, turned to a shiny metal rod the length of a spear. In one quick motion he plunged it through Waits' back, just behind the ribs, and deep into the rock floor. The gryphon let out a sharp gasp, foreclaws reaching back to grasp the smooth metal. Eyes bulging, he let out a whimper.

"You are here as a witness! No shirking your civic duty; what would your mother say?" Discord made a tutting sound, then turned back to the still floating ponies.

Chirr watched Wait's impalement out of one eye, unable to turn his head. Discord was still talking, but he'd stopped listening some time ago. Now the snake-monster had turned to Nightstorm, sinking one set of claws through the unicorn's head, paw twitching like he was working some complex machine in the depths of her brain, and he tried to close his eyes to avoid the wordless expression of horror on her face. Instead, a slight movement attracted his attention.

Waits was still moving, but no longer the directionless twitches of a bug speared through its vitals. Muscles on his shoulders tensed and flexed, the gryphon pushing up against the ground, drawing his body through the metal spike. His eyes bulged, beak opening in a silent scream. "So why do all this, Discord?" Chirr said loudly. "Princess Luna said you were just a creature that lives for destruction, but I don't buy it. This is way too complicated -- what do you really want from all this?"

The heavy head with its uneven yellow eyes moved with the speed of a striking snake, suddenly appearing in front of him. "Well, I am easily bored, and you ponies did have me locked up for a very long time..." He looked thoughtful, head cocked and a frown twisting his muzzle. "A long time for you, anyway. No, it isn't all revenge."

"I knew it!" Chirr did his best to inject a note of smugness into his voice, carefully suppressing the urge to scream invective at the monster. Treat him like a drunk unicorn; terribly powerful and not very logical. If I can be enough of a distraction... Off to one side, Waits had pulled himself a little along the sloping metal spike, working forwards towards a slender cylinder lodged between two rough flagstones. The beacon had fallen there when Chirr had been snatched into the air, forgotten amid the general clutter of their discarded gear.

Discord eyed him speculatively. "You are remarkably sanguine about all this... she really did build you well. I want out, Sergeant Fluffy. Out of this trap of a universe that contains nothing more than a single sun, a planet and a pawful of floating rocks."

"What? How can you leave, this is all there is!?" A drunk super unicorn, spouting rubbish from some weird magical theory.

"Bah! You really think this is it? I can feel the other universes out there, pressing against the brane walls that hold us trapped here. There is an infinity of interesting things out there, and your Princesses won't let me go!" A slight whine entered his voice, but it sounded more like a parody than any real emotion.

"You've got the power; why not just go?" Waits had moved another painful quarter-metre along the spike and was stretching out for the beacon, still just beyond his claw-tips.

"Because if I open the walls it will change the fundamental constants, and I doubt you'd have the same sorts of atoms again." Discord paced, throwing his arms in the air. "After all I did for you ponies, right at the start of all of this. You've had a good run, the best part of twenty thousand years; surely it's my turn now? So selfish!"

Mad, completely mad. Chirr coughed, unable to think of anything to say to that last outburst, trying to cover the sound of Waits hooking a claw-tip over the end of the beacon and dragging it towards him.

"Anyway, as I've said to a few other ponies recently, that's enough from me. Now it is your turn. That clever moon filly made some drastic changes to your brain, and your kind are not catching my little meme. As much as it's been fun to watch them 'hold the line', or some other nonsense, I really should do something about that." Chirr floated towards Discord, tipping forwards until he was level. "Now I have one of you here, I can add you to my circle of friends." The paw made a vague gesture, and all the ponies shuffled around slightly, opening up a space for him. "You'll get to see all that you have missed by being on that aircarrier of yours."

Chirr tried to struggle, but nothing below his neck obeyed commands. "You'll never win; the Princess will stop you," he spat, glaring at Discord. He likes to talk and needs an audience for his clever schemes; something more than these poor ponies.

"Ha! A challenge! I like a challenge." A furry arm tipped in a lion's paw folded over Chirr's shoulder, giving him a brotherly squeeze. "You want to see how things are going for 'the Princess'? Or perhaps on the Friendship Express?" He turned slightly, manoeuvring the chiropt like he was a balloon, winking at the gryphon. Waits froze, his claws wrapped around the beacon. "Go on, push the button; I want to see what it does." Claws trembling and slick with blood, Waits worked at the cap, then the cylinder slipped from his grasp, skittering out of reach. "Oh for--" Discord sighed, making the device float back to Waits, gently helping the gryphon until he managed to prise off the cap and twist the control beneath.

A small red light started to flash on the base, but nothing else. Waits groaned, a sudden spasm making his foreclaws open and drop the beacon to the floor. "How disappointing," Discord said, cocking his head and looking at the spellcraft device, "I had hoped for some heroic sacrifice; perhaps one of those nuclear bombs you gryphons set so much store by." He gave the beacon a flick, sending it spinning away. "I guess I'll just have to wait until you start using them on Equestrian cities."

Halfway between them and the twisting coil of light, a flat disk of absolute darkness opened up, as if a monster had just opened its eye. Colours spiralled across it, building up an image, full of chaotic motion and flashes of brilliant light. At the centre were two dots, one light, the other dark, weaving around each other in a complex dance. The point of view rushed forwards, centring on the dark spot and getting close enough that Chirr could count the individual hairs on the pony's coat.

It was Luna, but not the indestructible, unchanging icon from the centuries before he was born, but more like the Nightmare after her final battle. Battered and bloody, dusky blue fur scored with the black streaks of burns, the Princess twisted and turned within a wavering globe of darkness. A bright flash impacted on the barrier, making it wobble and flicker, Luna flinching in time with the pulse.

"Oh dear. I think that Princess of yours has lost some of that killer instinct that made her so interesting, back when I had a chance to play with her. Celestia looks like she means business, this time." Discord shook his head sadly. "Soon there will be no mare in the moon for your kind to call out to."

"Lies -- I don't believe anything you could show me, Discord," Chirr said, but the anger had gone, replaced by a terrible fear.

"Perhaps not, but you will soon enough. I'll let Celestia tell you herself; she'll probably want someone to talk to after I've lifted her enchantment. Killing your own sister and having to watch your nation fall apart will do that to a--" Discord's expression became uncertain, then his head flicked up, looking at something through the rocky wall of the chamber. "That almost feels like... why, you clever little ponies." He clapped his mismatched forelimbs together and laughed with apparent pleasure.

The image on the black mirror changed, showing a chaotic swirl of cloud and rain, shot through with intense lightning. At the centre of all this was the Express, smoke pouring out of several rents in one flank and the bright arc-welder flare of a superconductor electrical fire in her tail. She was low and apparently sinking, belly nearly within the reach of the jagged, knife-edged ridges she was flying over.

A shell of rainbow light was rippling from nose to tail, a rapidly building flicker that soon overwhelmed the lightning, then vanished. In that instant the rainbow was here, filling the chamber and making the hypnotic swirl of Discord's magic falter. All around, the ring of captive ponies swayed, shaking their heads as if waking from an overly long sleep, then the skeins of colour vanished and the magnesium flare-bright coil returned to full strength. "See, all that effort for nothing!"

The ponies returned to their places, eyes once more fixed on the magic, but now they were not silent. Little whimpers came from a multitude of throats, a sourceless keening like the wind over a taut wire, and tears were running down many cheeks. Please, no! Chirr's heart sank and he resumed his struggles, but it was like his spine had been cut. Slowly, but surely, he settled into his place within the circle.

===

The bead of plasma, held together with magnetic fields so strong that they could only be generated by the application of magic, flashed by under Luna's hooves, so close that she thought it was within touching distance. Heat, and not a few X-rays, radiated out from the weapon, the infrared making the fur of her already scorched fetlocks shrivel a little more. She pushed another fraction of her dwindling reserves into the shield, skewing the exotic physics that converted photons to neutrinos towards the higher frequencies.

"It's not like a little more heat will make much difference." Luna giggled, high and hysterical, the sweat plastering her dark fur flat and coating it with a thick layer of lather. Little foamy drops flew from the matted tips of her primary feathers, vaporising the instant they crossed the boundary between her shield and the incandescent outside world.

With a grunt, she reached down and bent space-time, twisting it into a tight little knot of potential and flicking it out as hard as she could. All around was nothing but light, a hard white that shaded toward the blue, but she hadn't used the optical bands since the early part of this fight. Her weapon moved at a respectable multiple of the speed of sound, trackable by the sharp eddies it left in its gravitational wake, curving under the influence of her power towards the brightest point in the incandescent sky.

More little packets of plasma moved in the other direction, and Luna steered her weapon into their path, expending some of her strength to disrupt the field lines holding them together. X-rays flared, the signature of air heated to beyond endurance as stored energy was liberated without control, flash-bulb pops that would smite the land below with heat and yet more light.

Far below, the mountain range, its jagged peaks and knife-edged ridges already crumbling under the continuous battering of shockwaves, was devoid of snow for hundreds of kilometres. Lit by the harsh light of the fight, monstrous shadows danced and wavered, casting black silhouettes through the pall of smoke rising up from the burning forests in the high valleys. Craters littered the landscape; circular ones where Celestia's focused plasma had been diverted into rock, and great linear furrows marking the passage of Luna's own particular style of destruction.

She kept moving, flying great loops and random arcs to keep from the centre of the sun's power. Celestia had moved it, throwing the world into chaos but allowing her to use the same burning-glass magic she'd used to drive Luna from the Friendship Express. The focus tracked her, always a few hundred metres behind, so she could never remain still to really concentrate. In its wake, rock glowed and slumped, the hills and mountainsides clawed with fresh basalt and glassy obsidian.

Celestia had stopped firing back, the focus of the magical lens opening out as she diverted her strength to defence; through feedback from her weapon, Luna could feel her sister's efforts to disrupt the knot of folded space-time, unpicking the magic that held the ersatz mass together. Mind singing with the effort, Luna reinforced the arcane patterns, preparing to release the magic early, if it looked like Celestia would fail to stop it herself.

Something reached in and flattened her weapon, a sudden hammer of power that smoothed over the tortured volume as if it had never existed. The stored energy bled away as sharp pulses of gravity waves focussed back towards Luna, sending the Princess tumbling as randomised force vectors threatened to pull her extremities off. That magic had a different taste to it; not just Celestia, but Celestia plus the Elements. She's getting to grips with them, I can feel it. More X-ray bright pinpoints arched out and the sun overhead brightened, so Luna opened a teleport terminus, reaching for a spot a few hundred kilometres and several mountain-thicknesses of rock further away--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--heat and a blinding light. The spall of stripped nuclei spilling out from tight weaves of thaumomagnetic containment that had somehow jumped with her, emerging from their own termini a fraction of a second later. She was waiting for me. The thought was fleeting and Luna accelerated madly, her protective bubble of darkness collapsing inwards under the unexpected onslaught. A mountain peak was in her way but she didn't slow, just shouldering the granite aside like it was an ephemeral mass of foam. The spray of smashed rock saved her, exploding under the impact of magnified sunlight and hypervelocity packets of plasma.

Shockwaves, enhanced by the dense, incandescent rock vapour, swept over her, carrying with them a supersonic pyroclastic flow to reflect from the mountains beneath. Her shield, still optimised to damp the ionising rip of X rays, faltered, letting some measure of the appalling heat through. The sweat and lather soaking her coat flashed away in a moment, carrying most of the energy with it, but it wasn't enough.

The fur on her flank disappeared under a wave of flame and choking white smoke, the flesh underneath blistering and burning. The pain stabbed in her chest, but distantly, like she was some machine just receiving a warning of damage. Spells, long since cast and charged with power before she'd confronted her sister, felt the unconscious call and fired, crash-cooling the still burning tissues and sweeping away the pain. More magic released, locking muscles solid under the iron grip of telekinesis and stopping bones from shattering as the laggard shockwave, force nearly spent, was transmitted through her shield.

For a moment, Luna passed out, then consciousness returned and she was seized in a brutal grip. Celestia was right there, eyes a solid white and wings burning with ephemeral flames, a spinning halo of six solar orbs circling her head.

===

The black globe covering Luna wasn't as opaque as it looked. At certain frequencies it was hazy, revealing the twisting shape at its centre, and by shadow sight it wasn't dark at all. To Celestia's enhanced vision it glowed, pulsing with the near ultraviolet hue of her sister's magic like the core of some gryphon nuclear reactor, drowned deep below metres of water.

"You can't get away from me!" she screamed, but even that magically augmented bellow was lost in the roar of the slipstream that folded around her defences. Fresh spikes of anger washed over her, in time with Luna's avoidance of her latest attack. Traitor! I've dealt with you before, and I'll deal with you again. This can only end one way. The thrust and parry of magic and physics continued, and Celestia narrowed the focus of her solar influence, concentrating the redirected sunlight still further and sending it after her sister.

Under that lethal point the land burned; rock exploded or slumped at yellow heat, while what remained of the forested valleys turned into instant firestorms, lofting immense columns of ash high into the air. Grinding her teeth at her inability to pin down that little evasive pip of darkness, Celestia sent another flurry of accelerated plasma on a range of trajectories, trying to confine Luna's possible escape routes.

Something at the back of her head protested, a continuous muttering of disquiet that all this was wrong, but Celestia pushed it aside and shifted the lens focus once more. Slippery little nag is trying to get inside my head... well it won't work. A pocket of distortion leaped away from Luna, only visible where it bent the light from the rocks behind it, but brilliant through shadow sight where compact, folded space was held in strained and complex shapes by powerful magic.

Celestia reached for it, but Luna actively fought her efforts to disrupt the weapon. Mild stirrings of panic bloomed in her mind; the requirements of the burning-glass, multiple plasma bolides and her own defences had split her attention too much. Reaching in, she dropped her control of the weapons, hunting for the familiar-and-strange feeling of the Elements. Those complex objects were singularities within the arcane space; seemingly infinitely bright and dark at the same time.

There was a trick to controlling them, but it required a great deal of skill and focus, something that had not been in great supply during this confrontation. One mind wasn't really enough, as she'd found out the only other time she'd been forced to use them alone. Fighting the Nightmare to a standstill had been a challenging task, and controlling all of the Elements to cure Luna had been impossible; the only solution was banishment. Not this time; I don't need that level of finesse.

Celestia tried again, holding the slippery patterns of the strange objects and moulding them to her will, forcing them to unlock their power in the precise shapes she desired. Abruptly, a whole new mental vista opened out before her, the singularities inverting to reveal a fractal landscape that seemed to extend down to an infinite depth. Power and an endless feeling of possibility; the realisation that she could change the tune that made the world dance. This she knew, this was what she and Luna had felt during their first capture of Discord, and what she'd felt when she'd battled Luna alone.

The knot of space-time unravelled under the pressure of her will, its bound energy blasting backwards along the direction of travel. Luna's magic wavered, shield shrinking, and Celestia redoubled her assault. Soon, I will have you soon. The magic changed, building into a teleport, but slowly and clumsily. New insight traced the route of the wormhole, and Celestia opened her own portals, pushing the still accelerating plasma through to where Luna would emerge.

That quiet voice of discontent became louder and, just for a moment, Celestia hesitated. She really hasn't actually done anything, just refused to follow along. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of that irritating whisper, then let her own portal enfold her.

Explosions and a building mushroom cloud of burning-hot dust and ash greeted her as she appeared. Under that roiling torus, sun temporarily obscured and replaced by a sullen red heat that came from all corners of the sky, she found Luna.

The mare was limp, just starting to move her head in the confused way of the recently struck, so Celestia wrapped her with bands of force, holding her up above the sizzling ground. She coughed, red liquid trickling down her chin, and opened one eye, blinking to clear it of pulverised rock. "What's it going to be? Another thousand years locked in my room?" Little coils of light started to condense around her horn, but that was easily suppressed.

"Not this time, sister," Celestia said, ears flat back against her skull, "you keep making the same mistakes, time and time again. It is obvious I can never trust you for long. Ponies would be better off if you'd never existed."

Luna's eyes widened as she spoke, starting to struggle against the forces holding her still, but the slightest extra effort tightened the magical grip and she gasped, staying still. "I never could win a fight against you. So that's it, then. Ten thousand years, and this is how it ends, at the hooves of my only remaining flesh and blood." Luna offered her a twisted smile. "What was it you said last time, when our situations were reversed?"

You think I wanted this? Any of this? You are all the family I have left! The memory, of that small space behind the auditorium in the small village she'd picked for the confrontation, of words spoken to the twisted parody of Luna, hit and made her concentration falter, then her heart hardened. "You were a murderous psychopath; I said anything I could to distract you," she snapped.

Luna flinched as if struck, giving out a little whimper. "I was a monster, but it wasn't my fault--"

"No, it never was, was it? Always someone else made you do it." Celestia prodded the Elements, then realised that, against a helpless pony, there really was no need for them. A twist of magnetism appeared a dozen meters away, clamping down on a point of suddenly star-hot air. The light, hard and bright, lit them both from the side, the radiant heat making Luna shrink away.

"Please, for the sake of our world, don't give in to this madness. Kill me if you must, if that is what it takes to bring you to your senses, but this isn't you, this isn't the pony I fought for all those years." Tears glistened in her eyes, and she kept turning her head to glance at the actinic brilliance.

The voice in her head became a wail, a high-pitched cry of horror, and Celestia hesitated, a little of the anger and determination fading. At the same moment, something else was there, a little flash of distant magic, oh-so-similar to the Elements, but fainter and without the purity. How can that be? Distracted, she sent part of her will hunting for that trace, then staggered when a stiletto spike of magic punched straight through defences built to withstand any amount of physical attack.

It was a slender thing, scarcely more than a feather's touch, but Celestia reacted instinctively, throwing Luna away and slamming her across the rocky slope. She made to send the plasma bolus as well, to blast whatever remained to ash and pulverised bone, but hesitated, transfixed by the trail of dark feathers leading to the still shape.

"Luna?" she asked tentatively, all anger gone. Her mind whirled, surrounding her with memories of the last couple of days. The plasma ball vanished, thrown away with a supersonic crack, then blasted a crater in an adjacent mountainside as Celestia's grip on its containment field faltered. About her head the Elements went dark, turning to smooth grey spheres and falling to land amid the rubble. "Luna?" Celestia's voice became high and brittle and, in her head, the wail became louder. This time she didn't push it back.

This time she let it out.

30 -- A Certain Honesty

There was the occasional pony running past, but nopony came for them. Neighmann gave Libi another nuzzle, pressing close to her, flank to flank, as they lay in the twisting corridor outside the summoning circle. He kept his eyes closed as a wave of indigo light swept along the deck from the direction of the bow. The glow was pure and bright, like that generated by a laser, but not unpleasant -- which was fortunate, as it seemed to emanate from everything at the same time, including the insides of his own eyes.

The feeling of numinous power that surged in time with the light passed, then built again as the next colour, a shade of red like a well-ripened apple, followed the previous, near ultraviolet, hue. He risked opening his eyes, but the face of the mare next to him was completely unknown. The smell was right, but the rest... He rolled his eyes, squeezing the lids together as hard as he could, as if the problem was one of blurred vision. Neighmann looked again, studying the mare's face and trying to find anything familiar in the colour of her mane. It's not my eyes, it's my brain.

They always did say the deep level sharings held some risk. Disconnection of brain from body could produce some odd effects; sometimes they fixed themselves, sometimes not. Tears came, but he blinked them away. Oh well, if an inability to know you by sight is the price I pay for this, I won't complain. I can still know you by other means. He rested his muzzle against her withers, inhaling Libi's familiar scent. I've got you back, for however long it lasts, and that is everything that matters.

Abruptly, the light vanished and both ponies tensed, heads coming up and ears scanning the corridor. The numinous feeling hadn't vanished, but it had changed, had become stretched, elongated and distant, like the power was being directed. It was like being next to some giant orchestra, one that played both searingly high and bone-shakingly low notes at the same time, and it caused a rapidly building pressure at the centre of his head. He gritted his teeth and hissed, pressing against Libi with all his might, then the magic vanished.

Something went crack, just through the wall at his back, accompanied by a stinging slap of thaumic feedback that resonated within his horn like it was being rubbed across a rough stone wall. Weird harmonics lashed through the background magical leakage seeping through the bulkhead from the summoning circle, strange enough to make the hair of his mane twitch, then that too went away. "I guess that was it," he said softly. Libi looked up in askance and his ears drooped. "I think the circle just suffered a thaumic quench."

She sighed, closing her eyes. "Now what? That thing will require months to get back to a stable field." Something groaned off in the distance, a great wailing moan that should have come from the death agonies of some giant sea creature. The floor tilted again, little shocks running through it. This time they didn't fade away.

"I don't think they are coming back for us... we should get out--"

There were seven quick tones through the address system, followed by a longer one, all loud enough to make his ears fold reflexively. "All crew, this is Admiral Twister. Abandon ship." The voice cracked on the penultimate word, and there were more orders after that, but Neighmann wasn't listening.

He scrambled to his hooves, horn flaring as he lifted Equilibrium to hers. He looked wildly from left to right, ears twisting at the sudden sound of drumming hooves on the metal decking. The urge to do something, anything, was building, and he forced it down. "Remember where the muster station was?" he asked in strangled tones.

"This way," Libi said promptly, setting off at an unsteady trot along the now alarmingly tilted passageway.

The movement did something in Neighmann's head, easing the near blinding urge to gallop away, and he fixed his gaze on Libi's rump and swaying tail. I still recognise you from this side. In seconds they were away from the complex spaces around the circle and in one of the main thoroughfares. This thronged with ponies moving with purpose and at a steady, collected canter. Others, all in pairs of a pegasus with one of the other clades, and all wearing panniers and wide harnesses coloured a brilliant orange, were directing the traffic and helping where required, and it was one of those that noticed Libi and Neighmann.

The pegasus of the pair, a stoutly built mare with a close-cropped peach-coloured coat, leaped over a cluster of earth ponies dragging stretchers between them, the bodies of crewponies, so badly burned that the clade could not be identified, loaded on them. She had the look of a pony focused on a complex task, one which they'd interrupted. "Why in Tartarus are--" she said, voice loud and tinged with anger, then stared at Equilibrium and swore softly. "Sorry; they must have forgotten you. This way." She waved a wing at her partner, a grey earth pony stallion, who pushed through the stream of hooves, horns and wings to join them, then the little herd merged with the flow.

"We'll get you into one of the boats," she shouted over one shoulder, while fishing a spare harness out of her panniers and passing it to Neighmann. "Get this thing on; we'll check it and do your mate's when we stop."

Like Tartarus you will. I'll not leave Libi to the last minute, Neighmann thought, dropping the compact package on her back. Carefully folded, and with fat, numbered pull-tabs on each side, it straddled her withers like an abbreviated set of panniers, unfolding when he gave it a tug. He was familiar with the operation -- regular evacuation training was part and parcel of working in the Monster Room -- and even at a canter it wasn't hard to pull the straps fore and aft of her belly, fit the crupper, then clip them together under her sternum.

This earned him an approving glance from the crewmare, and another harness for himself, which he'd just finished adjusting as they turned a corner and entered the port-side hangar space.

The complex trackway, glimpsed through the side doors when Luna had brought them in, was empty, apart from a couple of blocky transports, their ducted fans idling even as wounded ponies were loaded. Along one side were a half-dozen hatches, all open to the rain-soaked air, each at the end of a heavy-looking section of track studded with faintly glowing crystals. The two transports were aligned with the central hatches, while fast-moving lines of ponies queued at the others.

It was noisy, full of shouts and the loud ringing of hoof on deckplate, but there was no panic. Everypony seemed to know exactly what he or she was supposed to do; there the stretchers were being clipped to mounts on the insides of the transports, surrounded by the glow of telekinesis and a haze of more sophisticated healing magic, here the flightless clades were paired up with pegasi, harness joined to harness by telescoping rods running between the girth straps, then leaping out into storm.

A few, equipped with flat black equipment, rather than the bright colours of the majority, were hitching on wide bat-wings, the test pulses of their levitation drives sending hastily discarded trash skittering across the floor. These were heavily armed, departing in groups of three or six, and were lost from sight the moment they jumped out.

All this was taken in at a glance, and through eyes still blurred by the sharing, as they were bustled up through the central aisle of one transport, past silent bundles smelling of seared flesh and burned fur, and into the cockpit, where they displaced one of the crewponies. Neighmann felt a flash of guilt at this, but that didn't stop him from securing Libi to one wall of the stall. The other pony, a unicorn, winked at him and grabbed a flight pack from an overhead locker, horn glowing as he pumped energy into the spellcraft levitation system, then locked him to the other wall. It was a tight fit, but the system had been designed to accommodate a pony with a full military pannier set, and there was just enough room for the pair of them.

To his left, the pilot, a grey pegasus mare, finished whatever she'd been doing and started to mutter into her throat mike. The sound of the engines abruptly grew deafening, then died away as the rear doors slammed shut. A second later there was a sudden push against his rump, and the transport lumbered from the Express.

The pegasus swore softly, then curved the aircraft around. The view through the front ports was one large HUD, festooned with tactical markers and script too fine for Neighmann to read in his current state, but he could make out the highlighted apple-pip shape of the Express. It was lit from the inside, a bright white light from the open ports and launching bays, and from the flickering, electrical glare of something burning near its tail. The aircarrier was tilting nose up, the angle getting more acute with each passing second, and visibly falling against the backdrop of mountains.

"The Admiral is going to use the scuttle charges," the mare said, gesturing through the window. "I thought they might be able to recover her later, but--" Pin-points of light rippled along the aircarrier's flanks, and the slow fall became a plummet, ending in a pall of dust and splintered trees, followed by more explosions that seemed to map out some of the interior spaces.

The pilot turned them away, just as laggard sound caught up with them, a crackling roar, like surf on a gravel beach.

===

Rock exploded outward, flung away from Luna's body in a sudden fountain. Fields of force followed, a general telekinetic impulsion that pushed away the dust and ash rain, enclosing the mountain top in a bubble of clean air. Celestia slid to a halt next to the still form, dropping to her knees amid the sharp gravel, magic probing for any sign of life while she swept her wings forward to lay her snowy-white feathers over singed and blackened fur.

No no no no--

There, a flicker of motion within the ribcage, the distant thunder of a beating heart, the swell of lungs and a twitch of muscle. "Alive..." she whispered, "It's not too late." Tears ran down her muzzle and she pressed close, nuzzling at the junction of Luna's neck and chest. "Wake up, please," she mumbled, nibbling gently. The mare tasted salty, a combination of sweat and tears, layered with charcoal and the acrid flavour of burned fur.

A dark wing shakily came up and touched her on the cheek, tracing the damp patches of fur beneath her eyes. "Don't cry, Celestia. I got you back. After all he's done... you've come back to me."

"It was Equilibrium; whatever magic Discord put in her head was a trap, and I galloped right into it." Celestia leaned back, turning her head away with flattened ears.

"Yes." Luna carefully rolled upright, waving away Celestia's offer to help. "All the rest of this chaos was just a distraction. That was the plan; infect our ponies, then use them to get to one of us."

"All this is my fault; if I'd just been stronger I'd have..." Fresh tears worked their way down her cheeks.

Luna lurched to her hooves and stood there for a moment, as wobbly as a new-born foal. "Discord is very good at what he does, and we've both had a lot of experience with mind control -- you know how hard it is to stop if you don't catch it right at the start." Her wings flexed, then a ribbon of violet magic snaked over her body, stripping away the dirt and grime. She took a step, grimacing and favouring one hind leg.

"He's done so much harm this time; I don't know how to even start fixing this." Celestia stood up, flinching at the nasty-looking burn on Luna's flank. "I'm so sorry; yet again you've had to bear the brunt of my stupidity."

A gentle touch on her forehead made Celestia lift her head, and she looked up into Luna's teal eyes. The other mare leaned forwards, resting her neck against her shoulder. "Even in the depths of this, I never blamed you for any of that. You are a trusting pony, and some people just take advantage of that. Don't let this change the sister I love." Luna pulled back, a sudden anger making her ears fold flat, nearly vanishing in the hair of her mane, and Celestia quailed in the face of this fury. "Our little ponies are tough and they will get through this, but there is something we should take care of first."

Celestia nodded jerkily, then lit her horn, pulling up the Elements and passing three to Luna. They immediately changed from featureless grey to cratered and patterned globes, one hemisphere bright, the other dark. Luna straightened, energy seeming to flood back into her body, then looked down at them and smiled, a hard edged thing that didn't reach her eyes. The Elements lifted into the air in a haze of indigo light, describing lazy orbits about her head. As they moved they always looked the same, as if illuminated by some distant source.

With her mind clear and only three of the artefacts to control, it was a matter of moments to attune them to her will, changing them back to little crystal spheres, each containing a point of light far too bright to do more than glance at. Yes, plenty of time for blame later. Celestia opened her wings and leaped off the mountain. "You sent the Express to Razorclaw -- you think Discord is still there?" she called back, spiralling upwards, hunting for that elusive taste of not-quite-Elements magic. The bearing is about right... and if that's the case, what do we have locked in the Monster Room?

"I felt the Specials fire; it has to be them."

So that is what it was. There was a gentle pressure at the back of Celestia's mind, akin to standing flank-to-flank with a friend, and completely unlike the insect-crawl of Discord's magic. She accepted the mental sharing, ears folding back at the pulsing flickers of pain reported by Luna's body.

I'll be fine, sister. With you at my side and the Elements in our control there is nothing in this universe that can stop us. There was a sharpness to Luna's thoughts, an eager predatory intent.

Light, heat and a sudden darkness, swathed in steam from a vaporising ocean. Information came down the link, detailed memories of what it had been like inside the Express during her first attack on her sister. Celestia took the memories, pushing aside her own feeling of sickness and extracted the location details, completing the teleportation enchantment. Halfway around the world... but there is plenty of water; good. There was a feeling of assent, then both mares pushed--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--emerging in heavy rain. Deep, surging craters were blasted in the surface of the stormy ocean, soaking up the excess momentum from their long-range jump. Visibility was effectively zero, so Celestia switched back to shadow sight. The universe went black, darker even than the rain lashed midnight of Razorclaw. To one side was Luna, a blown-glass pony sculpture filled with violet vapour, wings like great fans of laser light shining through fog, while further out...

Distant glints and glimmers, the hard colours of spellcraft machines moving in curves and making fast dashes against unknown assailants. The deep-sea creature shape of the Express, faltering waves of polychromatic light rippling out to touch the heart of the fading storm system. Not nearly enough power to maintain their weather control. The thought was immediate, and Celestia wondered how much damage the aircarrier had sustained. Changelings. We should remember the Elements, next time we have to move against them.

Discord's linkages, yes. The same non-causal channels... but it's not them.

No. He has hidden it well... would we have ever found it without the Express? Air started to pummel Celestia's flanks and she channelled some tiny fraction of her power to diverting it around her body. Beneath her hooves the water convulsed, smashed apart as the Mach cone formed.

Even as she asked the question, Luna was shaking her head, the wet slap of her soaked mane stinging on the abraded skin of her neck. Not with a whole world to search. They flew in silence for a moment, then Luna shared a sensation of motion, something flicker-fast travelling at the tip of a plume of energetic gas. It was heading in their direction, lofted on an arc that took it above most of the atmosphere.

The pair changed course, but the projectile followed suit. Re-entry shock was starting to build up at its needle nose, then it split apart, shedding a flimsy aeroshell to release a sheaf of submunitions. Too many to count, they felt like a heavy cloud in Luna's shadow sight, a fog of high density death vectoring in on their path. Almost like old times, she thought. Luna laughed, actually laughed, and Celestia felt her heart lift.

It's been quite a while since someone has shot at me with hypersonic weapons, Luna sent back. It has a certain honesty to it. What do you think they are tipped with?

Celestia cast her will outward, finding the rapidly closing warheads. The Elements make this so much easier. When I remember what it was like before... not just kinetics; antimatter catalysed fusion, I think. Magic poured into her mind, spells to modify the strong interaction and render the weapons inert.

Aw -- I was hoping to show them the fireworks!

I think that is best left to their imaginations; if they think they have a chance, it may stop them from doing something really silly later.

Luna pouted, then burst out laughing. Spoilsport. A flicker of power and she gave them a nudge, sending the projectiles tumbling. Light flared high overhead, silent, bright and flickering, then died away.

The coastal mountains of Razorclaw were upon them, jagged things covered with snow, then they dropped into a glacial valley, scattered with burn scars and explosion craters. There, Luna thought, dumping velocity to hover above one cliff. There was a small landing platform and a metal door, big enough for cargo. Deep in the rock was that source of magic, carefully hidden yet terribly strong. With it was...

"He's here," Celestia breathed, reaching for her power and using it to guide the Elements, "and there are others with him." Lots of others, compact masses of gryphons and, even deeper, the tiny jewelled shapes of ponies. That is how he did it. Anger built, but she held it in check, sculpting her magic into the form she desired.

He will try to leave, Luna thought, watching Celestia for a moment, then following along.

Try, yes. Succeed, no. There will be no escape for him this time.

There was a flood of wordless assent down the sharing, then the two mares released their power.

===

Even though the interruption to his power was over in moments, Discord did not look happy.

The jovial air of one used to control had vanished. He variously paced, floated and flew around the chamber, doing something arcane that made the fur on Chirr's flanks shiver. The coil of light, still twisting at the centre of the ring of ponies, swelled like an incandescent balloon, becoming far too bright to even look near, and rendering everything in the room in a high contrast monochrome.

Chirr could feel the magic plucking at his mind, a whirlpool of flashing images laden with emotional overtones. It was like being part of something larger, a kind of mass insanity similar to that felt when any group of ponies panics and just wants to run from some unknown terror; it was the logic of the herd and it had a will all of its own and brooked no dissent or compromise. There was no stopping it, no resistance, and the play of other lives overwhelmed him--

--trembling and silent, eyes searching the cubby for an escape route that didn't exist, while the heavy hooves of somepony she'd once trusted slammed into the flimsy door, sending cracks racing through the plastic--

--seeing that idiot gryphon walking across the open parkland between the smouldering Manehattan tower blocks; oh so arrogant, like he didn't have a care in the world, then the bite of feather in air and the thrill of weightlessness, followed by the shock of impact--

--a magnified image of some vehicle park with a targeting reticule superimposed over the top of it. Little ant-like shapes scurrying for cover, lit by the flickering shadows of the first burning aircar, moving to escape the cross-hairs like insects under a magnifying glass. Power, so much power, as the autoloader hummed and delivered the next kinetic harpoon--

--and they flickered, drawing away behind layer upon layer of gauzy, monochromatic light, not the hard glare of Discord's arcane trap, but soft, like a foal's fur or the caress of a dam or a willing partner. The haze thickened and curdled, spreading through Chirr's mind and out into the world, wrapping itself around all the lives he was connected to via the mental contagion. The images, blurred and distant, started to change.

Hooves raised in anger were lowered and weapons dropped, then came confusion and a feeling of being awoken. Ponies who had been running in terror cantered to uncertain halts, staring back as suddenly tear-stained assailants gave up their pursuit. Some turned and headed back, drawn by the looks of absolute horror on those faces and, as the chemistry of fear drained away, reached out to offer comfort.

The last images blinked out, but the soft glow was still around him, smothering and extinguishing the floating light and coating the walls, floor and ceiling with a never-ending rainbow of colour. The circle of ponies fell silent, crumpling to the ground or swaying unsteadily on their hooves. Across the other side were Blevie and Night, both staring open-mouthed at the light, then the earth pony cantered over to the unicorn, heading for the pinned shape of Waits. Frozen by the memory of the things he'd seen, Chirr watched them go out of the corner of one eye, but all his attention was on Discord.

He was still there, forelimbs raised and frantic, as if he was conducting an orchestra where all the instruments were out of tune. "Oh, come on! That's not fair -- I'm sure it's against the rules, or something. I lose focus for one lousy moment and you can do all this?"

A delicate vibration went through the floor, little more than what might be felt when somepony walked next to you. It got stronger, building until Chirr could hear a faint rumble, like the sound of a distant waterfall. He looked up, imagining what must be happening to make the mountain shake, and smiled. I don't care if you bring the whole thing down, he thought. "Things not going to plan, Discord?" Chirr took a step, then froze, muscles locked solid when those mismatched eyes fell upon him.

"They think they have me, but it won't work." He vanished with a noise like a thunderclap, only to reappear at the edge of the rock wall, paws held protectively over his head. Quick as a flash, he spun, bounding on all fours like an oversized ferret, heading for the exit. There was nothing between him and it but the insubstantial film of rainbow light, but it might as well have been made of armour ceramic. Discord bounced, body folding up in coils and curves, ending up on his back with tail in the air.

The sound was louder now, a continuous rumbling groan that made the floor jump in sympathy and little runnels of dust cascade down from the ceiling. Chirr, still frozen with a foreleg half raised, laughed. "I would not want to be in your fur when the Princesses come through the roof," he said, pain of his paralysed muscles making his voice half crazed.

"Excellent point," Discord snarled, body folding in on itself, shrinking down in both size and length. His colour changed, becoming a slate grey, and limbs altered shape to become matching pairs. "Thank you for volunteering," he said, voice now squeaky, flicking out one membranous wing at Chirr.

Lightning raced along the chiropt's flanks, twisting and distorting as it went. Chirr's muscles loosened and he fell over, unable to control the great lengths of brown-furred flesh that stretched behind his suddenly mismatched forelegs. "What have you--" His words boomed out, then died suddenly, as if his voice box had just been smoothed over.

"Can't have you giving the game away, can we? Do you think I've made them angry enough to just blast you out of hoof?" Chirr's clone waved a foreleg down its flank, muzzle stretched into an unpleasant grin. Great, bleeding, gashes opened up through the fur and delicate wing membranes were slashed and torn, but the smile just widened, exposing sharp teeth, then the pony tossed his head. "Perhaps a little something to encourage fast reactions on their part..."

Chirr's body moved, tubular torso straightening itself out, and he padded forward, lifting one of the sleepers into the air. The pony awoke as if electrocuted and, seeing where he was, let out a terrified whinny and started to struggle. Claws penetrated, releasing runnels of blood, then he transferred the stallion to his mouth. The taste of old iron flowed across his tongue, and Chirr fought to prevent Discord from biting down, but his new body only obeyed the orders of its creator. Sweet Luna, don't let it end like this, I can't...

His jaws flexed and the pony wriggled, screaming high and shrill. The rumbling stopped, then the rainbow of light brightened to solar levels and kept going. Sightless, eyes filled with blues, yellows, greens, and reds, Chirr tried to add his own voice to the stallion's terror, but even that was denied him. Heat and an arctic cold flooded in with the sound of beating wings, bringing with them the prickly touch of powerful magic.

31 -- VORPAL

Wind From The Ocean leaned heavily against her shock cradle and sighed. The half-eaten rabbit carcass lay at her side under its mesh cover, a slight distraction from the drama unfolding on the big screens. She looked mournfully at her XO, Claws In The Night, who was busy reviewing their various response packages, then out over the rest of the command pod.

Sunk deep within one of the mountains within the Dragonsback range, the small size of Goldenwing's 'Maul' base command room belied the amount of power its occupants had at their claws. It was circular, with every surface covered with screens showing every aspect of the surroundings, from multi-spectral camera views of the surrounding valley network, to top-down schematics of the whole globe. These last were pocked with glowing icons in a number of colours; red for Equestrian, green for Goldenwing and blue for their allies.

One of the views, a monochrome synthetic aperture radar plot of coastal Razorclaw, held her attention. The shape of the aircarrier twisted and fuzzed periodically, but the actual radar emitter was on a different projectile, so the electronic countermeasures were only partially effective. There was also the fact that the ship kept transmitting. "Are they still broadcasting that propaganda?" she asked, tapping one talon tip against the edge of her console.

In response, Claws tapped a few controls, opening a link to the radio receivers.

"...iscord is responsible for the coup in Razorclaw and the chaos in Equestria. We ask that you show restraint in any military response--"

The voice died at another tap. "Same message, on a constant loop, same package of 'evidence' with each cycle." He paused, glancing at the other four members of the mass driver's control staff, then leaned closer. "It's an interesting ploy for a commander actually engaged in an attack. Do you think there's anything to it?" he murmured.

Wind hunkered down. "Does it really matter? Our allies are under attack, and another task force is heading this way."

"I suppose... but when have you known the ponies to fall apart like this? And those Princesses of theirs -- supposed to be inseparable."

"Huh. Now, maybe... but one of them went mad-- When was it? --a couple of centuries ago? Perhaps it's all to do with that." But there are those briefings about Discord, and if it's only a few years before he's due to escape...

Claw made a dissatisfied noise. "Unless they were wrong about when Discord is due to get out. It wouldn't do for the Lord of Chaos to be predictable -- if we can believe anything that the ponies have told us about his past."

"There are a lot of eye-witness accounts in the restricted archives... it's hard to imagine all our ancestors -- and those of the zebra -- deciding to simultaneously play a joke on the future."

"As you say; it doesn't really make much difference." Claw sighed, running one set of talons through his head feathers. "The ponies are here now, and that is what matters. Looks like the last drone is going out of range," he said, pointing at one of the displays.

"Launch the next flight; we'll need the coverage. I wish their commander hadn't been quite so efficient with his ASAT operation. It's going to be years before the lower orbital tracks are clear." Millions of bits in hardware trashed, then clouds of shrapnel inserted onto counter orbits and sanding out everything over the horizon as well. Bastard. "I want to get a better view of the Princesses. Looks like Razorclaw will be able to cope with the existing task force on their own."

The vibration isolation of the command pod was excellent and the only indication of anything happening was the external camera view. The spherical turret, thousands of tonnes of armour ceramic and concrete that occupied the very peak of the mountain, abruptly spun, extruding the squat barrel of the mass driver from its protective cover. Shockwaves flicked out from the muzzle, the only visible signature of the invisibly fast projectile as it sped off at hypersonic speeds. A moment later there was a subdued rumble, like that of a distant lightning strike.

"Package looks good; separation in three, two, one-- telemetry is up," the tech at Space Operations announced, updating the main screen. Intense flashes of light marred the Equestrian landmass, nuclear explosion bright, while points of brilliance arched out from a fast-moving object, far too small to resolve at this distance, and darted after another light, this one a deep violet.

"Looks like they are still going at it... spectral signature matches that from the Changeling suppression."

There was awe in Claws' voice, and Wind could understand why. "I'm guessing you were still at the academy when they hit the Queen?" He nodded, unable to take his eyes off the big display. "A tragedy, really, but it showed us what the Princesses were capable of, both physically and mentally. It takes a certain coldness to be able to kill your own kind, even at that level of threat..." Pretty much an entire subspecies exterminated; even if the Changelings had done most of the actual killing, the Princesses had finished the job. "I had a chance to visit the Crystal Empire a few years before it happened, on an exchange program," she said, half to herself. Nothing there now, just rubble and glass.

They watched in silence for a few minutes, the computer compensating for the changing angles from the string of surveillance drones arcing over the ocean at just below orbital altitude. On the screen, the two 'Princess' markers jumped abruptly to a new location, then there was another flash, brighter than the rest. When the view came back, both were in the same location. That doesn't look good for one of them... if Celestia is rid of her sister, there's nothing to stop her from coming here.

Both markers jumped again, and Wind felt a sudden pang of relief, which immediately turned to dread. Tartarus, no! Don't do that, I beg-- The Princesses jumped again, straight to the coastal waters of Razorclaw. "Rut it all; that's torn it," she said, looking up at Claws. More indicators flared, these ones tracking projectiles fired from Mallet base, another hundred kilometres to the south. "Dammit, I knew the Zebra wouldn't come through when we needed it..." Can it work with just nukes? Wind hunkered down and held her breath, only to release it explosively when the weapons disintegrated at altitude. "You are leaving us no choice," she whispered, feeling cold. Please don't make me do this!

The sun came up, at the wrong time and with unnatural speed, dropping cameras from monochrome light amplification and back to full colour. Something was wrong with the overhead view; clouds were evaporating like snow before a welding torch, but there was a spreading zone of darkness, as if the light was being funnelled down to a single point. At that centre there was nothing but a patch of solid white, the sensors unable to cope with the brilliance.

"Our orders are clear," Claws said softly, reaching for the miniature safe under his console and twisting the combination dial. A complex code went into an electronic keypad, then he pulled out a key from around his neck. Numbly, Wind From The Mountains did the same.

===

The trap was deployed, a spinning sphere of disruption that acted as a barrier to magic and any attempts by a magical creature to cross it. It will also stop our ponies from escaping, Luna thought, then grimaced, holding back a sudden flood of pain from the sharing. Her right wing complained mightily with each stroke, but it was still better to fly than try and use her rear right leg. That first step had been like stepping into molten iron. A flicker of inwards directed magic damped down the pain, but not completely.

Yes, but they are all he has to slow our response; he will not dare do anything to them. Deep within the rock, the arcane field pulsed, bowing out on one side as its prisoner tried to force his way through. Celestia's magic spiked, adding to the barrier. He has grown stronger; we should do this now.

Behind the clouds there was a brightening, a rapid dawn that lit the landscape a sullen grey which rapidly became pearly and then a blinding white. The rain stopped in moments and the clouds rolled back around the focus of Celestia's influence, light from the now mid-morning sun funnelled in from kilometres around and focused to a spot only ten metres across.

Rain-soaked rocks exploded in an instant under that hellish glare, spraying out in gouts of white-hot lava or simply boiling away. The opposite side of the valley, more than five kilometres away, was immediately covered in smoke, then mad, yellow flames, as the reflected heat ignited every scrap of vegetation.

Luna reached in, pulling at the shock-fractured rock and throwing it behind them in an ever-growing fountain of ejecta. The artificial cavern, sides still at a yellow heat, deepened, bypassing the prison's upper levels and bending to intercept the cavern. Without line of sight, Celestia's light could no longer help, so both mares flew down the passageway, ripping and tearing the rock as they went.

The final dozen metres were the most tricky, so Luna, more skilled at fine manipulation, took the lead, with Celestia pulling away the spoil and blasting the rock walls with solar heat to fuse them into smooth, glassy basalt. The final thickness of rock, nearly five metres deep, was removed as a single plug, its sides the perfect polish of a force field cut.

Luna darted through the opening, her personal defences merging with the Element-spawned shield like a stone falling into a pond. In a single, perfect moment, she saw the cavern laid out before her -- tens of ponies, stumbling like the survivors of some industrial accident, trying to get away from the long body of Discord. Screams and cries from a dozen throats, the thrash of wings shorn of flight feathers. A shape wriggling in those heavy, draconic jaws. Her own chiropt, body slashed and bleeding, sprawled against one wall.

All her attention focused on Discord, Luna's magic, amplified by the Elements, surged and reached out with the hammer-blow of power needed to twist space-time so tight that it would lock Discord away for another millennium. There was a tickle at the back of her mind, a vague warning that this scene was too perfect and more like a bit of theatre, and she hesitated, all that potentia held in abeyance. Celestia, why have you not--?

The attack came, not from the focus of her will, but from the side. The sergeant who'd rescued her from the secure prisons under the Royal Palace was on his hooves, eyes now mismatched and glowing with a terrible intensity. Magic, already laid within the fabric of the world, sprang into being, funnelling into the weaker flanks of her defences. She struggled to reorient her power, change the potentia from offence to defence, but it was slow, far too slow, and the attack was already well underway.

And then Celestia was there. Not a presence at her back, but by her side, her own magic closing over the assault and drawing it away, like venom sucked from a wound. The delay, that vital second, was enough, and Luna unleashed all her power on that smiling, lying form. The rainbow shield collapsed inwards, changing its properties to pass unhindered through her and everypony present, falling upon the chiropt and splashing, filling the chamber with cascades of light from red to the deepest violet.

The shape writhed like a moth in a flame, holding together for a brief moment, then expanded into twisting coils of brown-furred flesh and flopping, mismatched limbs. The first Discord collapsed and simply blinked out, depositing a trembling Chirr and a bleeding stallion. Sister, now! We must... sister? That comforting presence, normally so solid and potent, was but a faltering trace of its previous self.

I... I... Luna? Everything feels funny.

Luna wheeled, beating her wings awkwardly when her right hind threatened to collapse, jumping to Celestia's side. The mare was on the floor, wings splayed untidily, breath coming in gasps. She checked her sister by magic, sight and smell, but there was no obvious injury, no sign of corrosive arcana or anything hostile. Her mental presence remained unsteady, fluctuating in and out of balance, like a foal attempting to stand for the first time. Her eyes tracked Luna as she moved, but they were slow and a little unfocused.

"Ow. That hurt! What did I do to deserve all that?"

Discord was smiling unpleasantly at her, muzzle twisted with the hint of sneer. The light still surrounded him, and it was like he was illuminated by invisible lamps of many hues that sent waves of colour along his body. Periodically they would spark, throwing off rays of some pure primary colour; on these occasions Discord would flinch, but his smile never went away. With each occurrence the overall brilliance of the light faded a little, turning ever more muddy.

"What did you do?" Luna snapped, reaching for more power to bolster the magic holding Discord in check but, with only three Elements under her control, the response was weak. The colours brightened slightly, then resumed their steady decay. Come on Celestia -- we need to finish this!

I can hear the blue of your coat. Celestia blinked a few times, shaking her head vigorously, then the light flared and she screamed.

A lance of magic, visible where it curdled the air and changed mundane oxygen and nitrogen in exotic, short-lived and highly reactive species, stabbed out from Discord. It punched through the polychromatic gauze and unpeeled the rainbow shield like it was the wrapping of a Sol Invictus present, catching Celestia square on the breastbone. She staggered and fell, wings thrashing, her tripwire defences activating and shunting the alchemical power away in random flares of actinic brilliance. Light, the colour of the noonday sun but far brighter, flooded the chamber and cast sooty, distorted shadows up the walls.

The output of the three Elements Celestia held faltered, and Luna's own efforts to rebuild Discord's temporary cage collapsed. Leaping to the side, she reached out with her own power, stabbing, grinding and pounding at the source of the assault, fighting to disrupt it before--

The beam flicked sideways, attacking the stone roof and filling the chamber with a blast of rock dust and hurricane-force winds, tainted with choking hints of chlorine and ozone, and sending the whimpering, cowering herd of prisoners tumbling into the wall. Their screams, pale, insubstantial things against the bellow of Discord's magic, made Luna flinch, and she dropped her own attack in favour of extending her shield over everybody present.

In a flash of brown fur and mismatched limbs, Discord was gone, trailing tattered webs of rainbow magic as he bolted up the new passageway and out into the world. Luna ground her teeth and pushed as hard as she could, keeping the remains of the Element's entrapment enchantment active, even as their target accelerated away. Little pulses of feedback pulled jagged claws of pain through her head, but she held on, worrying at Discord like a dog with a rat.

Celestia's cries died away to a moan, then she staggered to her hooves, swaying like she'd had a close encounter with a slaughtergryphon's hammer. There was a discoloured patch on her chest, concentric rings of fur changed into metal needles that leaked blood as she moved. A wisp of pale magic stripped the splinters away, leaving a ragged zone of stippled and scarred skin. She looked up, ears flattening as she saw the empty room. "Where--?" she asked, voice harsh and pained, then broke off, body wracked by a sudden cough.

"I still have him," Luna ground out through gritted teeth. "He's trying to teleport, but I'm interfering." She looked around the room at the huddled mass of ponies, all wide-eyed and frightened. They will live. "Can you fly? He's getting too far away and I don't think I can hold him--"

"Sorry," she muttered, "he's really getting strong, even with the Elements." Celestia flapped her wings experimentally, then jumped for the freshly dug tunnel, Luna hot on her fetlocks.

At the surface, Discord was a dot over a distant mountain, but still very close. The Elements still have a hold on him, Luna thought down the sharing.

Yes; they are inhibiting his world-shaping powers. No supersonic flight with that body shape. Celestia's mental voice gained strength by the second and, below the ponies' hooves, snow was blasted off the mountainside as they cracked the sound barrier.

Luna nodded with satisfaction; there was shame in that voice, but also anger. Perhaps we should give him something else to worry about. Assent came back along the link and a twist of sun-hot plasma materialised at Celestia's side. The mobius loop collapsed into an unbearable pinpoint, then flicked outwards. Another followed it, then another and another, until they seemed to merge into a continuous stream.

Baring her teeth into the slipstream, Luna growled, drawing on her Elements and feeling them grow heavy with potential, then reached out and twisted space-time into a complex knot a body-length from her head. The light bent around it in strange ways, distorted by the harsh gravitational gradients. This close she could feel the weapon, a ghostly tugging on her muzzle. The power of the Elements lent her strength and the zone of distortion abruptly deepened, developing a painfully bright point at its centre.

Sighting on the rapidly closing Discord, she let it fly.

===

Luna poured her power into the Elements and had it returned tenfold, focused and refined to a degree she could not match even at her freshest and most alert. Twisted packets of space-time, shedding hard X-rays that made the air around them glow blue with ionisation, manoeuvred under the influence of her will, trying to get a clean strike on the impossibility that was Discord. More power, and most of her attention, was on maintaining the tangled skein of rainbows that coated their enemy like an amoeba trying to engulf some food item.

Discord is weakening, but so am I. She risked a glance at Celestia, some tiny portion of her will magnifying her view of the mare, until it was like she flew alongside, rather than ten thousand metres away. She looks how I feel, Luna thought. Wing beats -- not needed at this level of potentia, but used to steady the mind and make flight magic instinctive -- were ragged where they should have been smooth, marking out Celestia's fatigue and apparent uncertainty. Plasma bolts continued to spring from the appalling patch of brightness that travelled with her, but the rate had declined markedly.

Look at her, so weak! I bet I could take her right now, then the world would be rightly mine and the night could--

Luna hunted down that errant thread of thought, crushing the alien presence that sought to worm its way into her mind. The feel of the thoughts was frighteningly similar to her own, and it was hard to see where she ended and the other began. "Oh no you don't; never again," she muttered, sweat soaking her flanks once more. Power sprang out of Discord, not the simple energetic plasma of Celestia, or her own gravitational tangles, but alterations to reality that tried to subvert the building blocks that held her atoms together and change them into new and less useful forms.

Disrupting these magics took both finesse and strength; things that were in increasingly short supply as her body weakened and her mind lost focus. The realisation was an unpleasant one; if Celestia had been at full strength they could have finished this quickly, but the fight had dragged on, and it was horribly apparent that Discord was far stronger than either had imagined.

I gave you a chance, Luna, you should have taken it. The oily voice was tired, but held a note of victory, and the image of a smile, full of mismatched and jagged teeth. This time it resisted her efforts to close the connection and little tendrils of alien thought started to creep into her awareness. Look at your sister, really look. Her eyes flicked sideways to the still active imaging spell, seeing Celestia's head sag even as her eyes filled with panic. She can feel me as well... Another pulse of plasma left the mare's side, but it went wide, smashing a crater in the flank of a nearby mountain. The tendrils became vines, then great, thorn-covered branches, twisting and coiling through her mind.

Magic faltered and muscles stiffened, her wings fixed into a steady glide as her velocity bled away, Luna tried to call on the Elements but there was a barrier to her thoughts, and the intent faded even before it could be formed. Come to me... the oily voice whispered in her head. She twisted in the air, heading towards the distant Discord. Beside her, Celestia did the same.

===

Safe open, Wind drew out a small case and extracted a red-edged square of plastic marked War Plan Seven -- RUBICON. A quick flex snapped the plastic, and she withdrew the card within. Claws held up his own, and they compared the four-digit codes on the front. Both matched, so the cards were slotted into their consoles. "Ready?" she asked. He nodded and typed in his personal code with trembling talons. The system accepted hers and the strategic targeting list started to update, marking off the weapons as they were withdrawn from the deep magazines and slotted into autoloader queues.

Cloudsdale. A floating city, one of the wonders of the world and a must-see for any tourist visiting Equestria, but also the main base for their air force and their primary cloudocks. A hundred and forty megatons worth of airbursts in a time-on-target barrage; fourteen, ten megaton weapons in two rings of seven at two and seven thousand metres in altitude. Enough energy to turn flesh to steam over ten thousand square kilometres.

Manehattan. Most populated city, filled with tall sparkling towers and the bustle of millions of ponies adding to the already prosperous Equestrian economy. A financial hub, containing the headquarters of many companies across the world. A pattern of low yield devices -- only two hundred kilotons each -- spread like oversized cluster bomblets up and down the coast. A few surface strikes to crack open the towers, followed by airbursts to set the wreckage on fire. The most ammunition intensive city target, attracting nearly a hundred warheads.

Canterlot. Iconic seat of power, boasting buildings more than fifteen hundred years old, and the home of some of the most advanced science institutes ever seen. High yield earth penetrators for uprooting the Panopticon and turning Mount Aither-Erebos, and the Royal Palace, into dust that wouldn't settle or cool for years. A plume of fallout stretching halfway around the world.

The prairie-sized hay farms, supporting a wide mix of species and wild flower meadows large enough to change the colour of a country when seen from orbit, and providing enough staple fodder for half the equine population of the world. Thousands of small, cheap, filthy fission devices made from uranium and plutonium that was no longer needed by modern pure fusion weapons, scattered at random to seed the farmland with long half-life radioactive poisons from activation of their cobalt casings.

Millions ended in a moment of fire, hundreds of millions from untreatable burns over the next day, and billions dying from poisoned food and water in the year after that.

"RUBICON protocol loaded," Claws acknowledged hollowly, grabbing the recessed T-shaped trigger bar and pulling on it so it stood proud of his console.

She did the same, wrapping one set of talons around her bar. "Ready? Three, two, one--" At least no one will be left to remember the names of those who just killed a world... and when we are done with the burning, the Princesses will dig us out of our holes and finish the job. She twisted the handle sharply to the left and let go, feeling her throat contract as if she'd just swallowed something poisonous.

"Ma'am, look!"

Claws was pointing at the main screen. The suborbital drone view showed the two Princesses, as identified by the hyperspectral cameras, and something else. No defined spectral signature, unlike the ponies, but highly variable, full of wild spikes and surges. The computers had drawn a tracking box around the other object, tagging it with 'unknown high-energy magic source'. There was a magnified image, blurred and jittery, in a sub window. Six limbs, but long and snake-like; it wasn't a pony.

Wind gaped, eyes going wide with horror. No! Not for nothing, don't tell me we just-- Her head flicked sideways, gaze locking onto Claws' console and its trigger... its unfired trigger. Exhaling in a sudden, explosive, rush, Wind carefully reached out to reset her own control bar, then cleared the firing list with a shaking claw. A second chance; we all get a second chance. "I owe you my first born, XO."

"I'll settle for a steak," he said with obvious relief. "It was all true..." He looked troubled, then brought up the records of the initial fight between the Princesses. The current power levels were significantly lower and dropped further as they watched. "They are fighting for all of us out there... and I don't think they are winning. Is there anything...?" Foreclaws clenched, he looked at her helplessly.

"We still have a full load-out for VORPAL." She leaned forwards, suddenly excited, and called up the battle management system. Wind altered the attack plan to cope with one, rather than two, targets, then sent the revision out into the strategic command network. On one of the internal camera feeds it showed the suddenly frantic activity taking place deep within the base's magazine; machines large enough to shift an aerodyne were shuttling back and forth, removing one set of projectiles and replacing them with another, more slender, type.

"The godkiller package didn't work so well for Mallet," he said, starting work on his own panel. "Thank the sky for adaptable terminal guidance," he muttered to himself, "at least we can tell them which targets are friendlies." Claws nodded in satisfaction, then took a hold of his trigger. "Mallet will be firing a full set of penaids only, but Sledge and Club are on-line and loaded; all stations ready for remote activation. Oh, my--" Claws' expression became savage, and he indicated the networked systems monitor. "Mauaji, Kuumia and Ghadabu have just accepted remote fire authority -- the Zebra have agreed to your battle plan!"

Hope bloomed in Wind's chest, a sudden lightness and giddy joy that made the room swim for a moment. VORPAL has always been a bone of contention between us and the Zebra; assured destruction is one thing, but to deliberately target the creatures that make the heavens move is crazy at the best of times... but they agree! "Mallet only had their part of VORPAL, not the whole setup... and the Princesses were at sea level; this thing... this Discord is at over ten thousand metres. Much less atmosphere for the beams to penetrate." ...and if they are busy with each other, perhaps it will be enough of a distraction for those zebra gadgets to do some good. She finished setting up her orders, then gripped her trigger bar again. Over her head, there was a faint rumble as the turret moved to its new firing position. At a nod to Claws, they both twisted their firing controls.

No drone launch, this. No need to limit the muzzle velocity for the relatively delicate instrument packages. The mass driver crack-crack-cracked, a rolling barrage of sound that was like standing next to a cycling autocannon. The narrow 'V' of shockwaves rippled out, each on a slightly different path as the turret changed its angle for the time-on-target salvo. The master map updated and changed scale, showing a fleet of green points arching up from various points in Goldenwing and Hookbeak and from across the Zebra Alliance.

"Flight time is... two hundred seconds, plus or minus. Telemetry is good; post-attack sensors deployed and recording," Wind announced, feeling happy for the first time in several days. We can see Discord, so he must have some presence in the physical world. That many megatons must at least tickle. She smiled, staring at the multiple views from drone and distant aircraft vectoring in on the battle.

Whatever happens, at least we tried.

32 -- Destroyer of worlds

Discord seemed to be in no hurry, and let them glide towards him at a pace set by gravity and wind resistance. Her magic still functioned -- the Elements maintained their orbits about her head and her personal defences were active -- but it was like being separated from her power by a glass wall. Luna tried time and time again to dislodge those mental claws, but they were like little wedges forced into her skull; with each tap of the vivisectionist's hammer the bones were driven a little further apart. What made it worse was the grinning presence watching her every effort and blocking it with ease.

"It's more fun when you fight," Discord said, his tired voice reaching her ears without crossing the multiple kilometres of air that still separated them. Her head turned without volition and she stared at Celestia. Her sister was flying as if somepony had tied a pole across her wings, all frozen and rigid, but her eyes were very alive, darting from side to side like they were trying to escape. "She's no fun anymore. Our recent dalliance has made her a bit of a pushover."

The sharing was still open and Celestia was trying to form coherent thoughts, but it was like she had been pushed under the surface of a frozen lake and was scrabbling at the underside of the ice. Strange whinnies and grunts, coupled with the random thrashing burble of a mind failing under a carefully administered torment, came back down the link. "Get it over with, you monster," Luna slurred through lips not fully under her control. "I'll never give you the satisfaction of surrender."

"Oh, I don't want surrender, anymore than I want your deaths," he said, with a voice that seemed to ooze through every crack and crevice of her being, tainting everything it touched. "Where's the fun in that?"

"Then what do you want?"

"A measure of revenge... you two have been a thorn in my side for quite a while, but I need you. I don't need the rest of them." Discord flew them both in quick, tight manoeuvres, so close that her hooves struck Celestia's rump. "I never mentioned this before, but I need the Elements to get out of this glass bottle of a universe. Alas! Fate has been unkind, and I can't use them myself." The smile in the voice grew wide, to the point where it must have unhinged the whole of his head. "But you can, my little puppet--."

Lights, flashbulb-bright even in the noon-day sun, bloomed in a perfect circle on the horizon. Heat swept across Luna's coat, immediately damped down by her defences, and Discord's hold on her mind faltered, just enough that she regained control of her wings. Twisting violently, she slammed belly to belly with Celestia, legs tangling and wings wrapping around the other's sweat-soaked barrel. The pair tumbled and started to fall, but they were still many kilometres above the mountains and Luna paid it no heed. Her defences folded around them both, clamping down on the incoming thermal pulse, just as a second ring of lights flared.

Off in the distance, visible even through the intense attenuation of the layered fields, the shape of Discord floated at the centre of a cone of blue-glowing ionisation that stretched down from a perfectly clear heavens.

===

The weapons left the atmosphere behind at over five kilometres a second, shedding their aeroshells as the pressure dropped and air resistance became negligible. Carefully engineered armatures expanded from tight-packed bundles of heavy metal rods, moving the dense filaments into position around the spherical 'physics package' that was at the heart of each projectile.

Seamless, made of atomically fine layers of platinum and silicon carbide to act as X-ray mirrors in the first, frantic, nanoseconds of detonation, they held a few kilos of lithium deuteride wrapped around a magnetic trap for ten micrograms of antihydrogen. The filament bundles flanked the fusion cores, each three meters long and able to move independently. They flexed and twitched through self-test routines, settling back to point at a single location, just coming over the horizon.

The flight of weapons started to draw apart under the influence of their slightly different launch velocities and the careful application of braking vanes biting the near-vacuum. Lasers connected them to each other and a multitude of sensors and computers on drones, aircraft and ground stations, providing a continuous stream of updates for the onboard systems. Momentum wheels rotated the vehicles, a gentle drift with sub-arcsecond resolution, keeping the target in view as they flew overhead.

The three anomalies were stark and clear, highlighted by pronounced signals at various optical wavelengths, further confirmation provided by long baseline gravimetric interferometers buried deep within mountains over a thousand kilometres away. They were examined and compared against stored spectral profiles, all the computers reaching their own decision and voting on the one that best matched their orders. Two of the targets, the ones the system had originally been designed to attack, were rejected, and the massed weapon platforms fine-tuned their orientations.

Clocks, accurate to within one part in a trillion, exchanged synchronisation pulses and counted down the cold microseconds. At an agreed moment, across two hundred kilometres of space, carefully shaped arcs of octanitrocubane detonated, generating a symmetrical shockwave that collapsed the lithium deuteride into the antimatter containment vessels.

In a moment, no more than the time it took that ten-kilometre-a-second shockwave to rebound a clawful of microns, all the antiprotons had been converted to gamma rays and relativistic particles, flashing the fuel past its ignition temperature. Electrostatic repulsion overcome, the nucleons combined in an orgy of the strong nuclear force and liberated three orders of magnitude more energy than the antimatter provided.

The pulse of gamma rays, travelling just ahead of the energetic helium nuclei, immediately turned the inner surface of the warhead into plasma, but not before a fraction of their number were reflected back onto the second stage. More lithium deuteride, much, much more, burned, liberating over fifty petajoules, mostly as hard radiation.

Everything was falling apart now, the inside of the weapon at temperatures found in the core of an operating fusion reactor, but the laggard movement of atoms was no match for that of light. High energy X-rays, produced from the stripped atoms of the bomb's internal structure, shone out through the casing and illuminated the heavy metal rods, pumping inner shell electrons into highly excited states. Such things cannot last and, as the casing ruptured under the pressures of expanding plasma, all that briefly stored energy was released as a beam of X-rays.

By their very nature, the bomb-pumped lasers were not efficient, and the thickness of atmosphere between them and the target further reduced the intensity, but over a petajoule of collimated X-rays reached their target, and that could not be ignored. This happened not once, but dozens of times, as all the twelve-megaton warheads detonated simultaneously, transfixing their target from all points of the compass.

Five seconds later another salvo arrived and did exactly the same again while, unnoticed in the electromagnetic storm, a collection of dark, stealthy projectiles fell through the centre of the ring of detonations, their initial velocity undiminished.

===

Luna bit and kicked and thrashed and stomped, pursuing the alien presence through the recesses of her mind, power and control increasing as Discord's influence waned. The flashbulbs popped again and she anticipated the flinch at the other end of the link, lashing out at the distant snake-like shape, making it writhe under the combined onslaught of nuclear fire and her own magic.

Suddenly, there was another presence in her head. Wet, shivering and weak, where the drowning pony had found a thin spot in the ice and fought her way free, but it was there. Luna... Tremulous, but getting stronger, the other mind added its efforts to her own, hitting Discord's probes from both sides.

"Nukes!" Discord laughed, although it sounded a little strained, and clapped his mismatched forelimbs together. "Oh, how precious!" He snapped a claw and the next wave of weapons detonated early and off target, flash-vaporising the snow from mountain tops and setting sheltered valleys ablaze. The scratching at the edges of Luna's mind returned, the worming, stretching motion of alien thought forcing its way back through half-healed fractures.

Something, barely felt at the edges of her awareness, bloomed overhead, shedding a dark rain of needles that dispersed violently before converging on Discord from all sides. Throwing caution to the wind, Luna left her defences to Celestia, galloping back along the link Discord had opened between them and assaulting his mind directly.

The shapes converged, allowed close by her distraction, and activated. Magic seemed to twist and distort, sucked away by whatever spellcraft mechanisms were within that multitude of machines. Kicked back into her own body, Luna floundered for a moment, only able to gasp and watch. There was a look of surprise and momentary confusion on Discord's muzzle, then he snarled and the drones started to explode with flashes of green fire.

For the briefest of instants, Discord's hold on them vanished. His magic was sucked up into the drones, brilliant glowing butterflies as seen by shadow sight, dying like they were under a blowtorch. Luna grabbed at her power, slamming her defences into place, then drew on the Elements.

At Luna's side, still wrapped in her dusky-blue wings, Celestia stirred, head coming up to stare out at Discord. About her head the three Elements lit up, casting a lurid glare across her features. "Bastard." She coughed, great, wracking shivers making her whole body convulse.

There was anger there, a hint of the pony who had stood at her side against all manner of foes from the deep past all the way to modern times. Luna pushed away, wings flicking out to halt her fall, watching as Celestia, after a few wobbles, managed the same. The magic of the Day Princess' Elements reached out, meshed with her own, the fractal plane of potential filling her shadow sight with endless possibilities.

There was no need to speak; the desire was obvious.

Rainbow light flooded the mountains just as the last of the drones vanished behind a green flash, a tangled mesh of polychromatic wires that collapsed around Discord's snake-like form and froze him into immobility. He fought the power, but was weaker from the fight and the after-effects of the spellcraft weapons, and his magic collapsed, folded away behind the gauzy and ephemeral-seeming shield. Clumsy, Luna thought, but it will hold for long enough to finish the job.

He continued to struggle, but it did no good. Celestia and Luna flew cautiously closer, finally coming to a hover in front of his floating form. "Well, that was fun... best two out of three?" Discord smiled hopefully, uneven eyes wide and innocent. The ponies stared back with expressions of outrage, and he slumped a little. "You can't blame me for trying... go on, let me out and I'll help you fix everything, just to show there are no hard feelings."

Luna snorted. "Never, Discord, never again. You might be becoming able to resist the Elements, but we are getting better. Every day that passes we understand a little more."

Discord's expression changed, muzzle twisting with malice. "Take as long as you like. I can wait you all out... in the long run you will make a mistake, and I'll be waiting. It will make your ultimate defeat all the sweeter."

Behind her, Celestia lifted her head, eyes having trouble focussing on the floating Discord. "Not today, and not tomorrow." She nodded at Luna, horn starting to glow. "No matter what happens to us, our ponies will always stand up against you."

"Mortals," Discord said, his sneer becoming more pronounced, "little sparks in the wind. One gust and they are gone."

"As individuals, perhaps... but it is the society you will face. You threw them into the fire, but they will come out tempered, not burned."

"We'll see." His smile came back, wide and predatory. "I have plenty of time."

Luna matched Discord's grin and lowered her head to look him in the eye. "One last thing before you go. Who do you think disrupted your spell, right when things started to go wrong for you? I'll give you a clue... it wasn't me." Discord looked uncertain and Luna's smile widened. "Our little ponies did pretty well for a first effort. Now they know it works, guess how much effort they are going to put into improving it?" Are you ready?

There was assent and the power built once more, much more ordered and controlled than the hasty capture of moments ago, then pure colours washing over the recumbent form, his expression of uncertainty now frozen into immobility. The rainbow died and Luna captured Discord in her magic, before he could fall more than a few metres. She turned in the air, heading back towards the prison, suddenly stunned that it was all over. Or is it? He infected just about everypony with his madness. There will be consequences.

She shook her head, then looked up into the sky, wondering if anything else was heading in their direction. "Come on, Celestia. Let's get under cover."

Her sister blinked, brow furrowed, then her expression cleared. "Yes. I want to see if there is anything we can do for those poor ponies he was using."

===

Discord's light show washed over Nightstorm, the surge and boom of magics far beyond her experience, let alone capability. Dammit, I'm trying to work here! "Blevie, is there anything left of your medical supplies, or was it all trashed?" The earth pony was nosing through the random collection of junk before she'd half finished the sentence, and Night turned back to the gryphon.

Waits was pinned to the rock floor by a fluted metal spike that looked suspiciously like a giant hair, complete with little scales on its surface. He panted shallowly, eyes half closed and forelegs trembling where he was stopping his body sliding further down the widening shaft. Her magic swept his chest and she relaxed slightly. "Waits, can you hear me?" A barely perceptible nod. "Discord wanted you to live for as long as possible, so that spike has missed every organ in your body." No accident, that; he'd shifted a chunk of the large intestine to do it.

"You are going to bleed a bit when I cut you free--" Blevie dropped a pitiful collection of items at her hooves; little more than a few trauma pads and some antiseptic. "That's it? Cele-- Dammit. Waits, I'm sorry, but there are no painkillers. I'll do my best, but I'm going to be concentrating on getting this thing out." What I wouldn't give for another medically trained unicorn about now. She glanced at the huddle of Discord's prisoners; even in this uncertain and variable light it was obvious that nopony was in the right state of mind to be any more than lethally dangerous to the gryphon.

She closed her eyes, feeling with her magic for the shape of the metal. The curve and orientation of the scales was making things difficult; pull it out in the wrong direction and it would rip his innards to shreds. "Blevie," she murmured, "grab a hold of the top part." The earth pony moved, a sensation of sweat and exhaustion, then mumbled something indistinct. "Three, two, one--" Night grunted, a sudden headache making her wince, then the field manifested with the sound of a crystal bell.

" 'Loody Tartarus!" There was the sound of staggering hooves and a loud clang. "What was that made of... tungsten?"

"Probably. Think you can support his weight a bit?" There was a gasp and sigh from Waits, then Night gritted her teeth and cast the spell again. The pain was worse this time and, for just a second, she thought it hadn't worked, then Waits stumbled sideways. She opened her eyes, guiding the hoof-thick and enormously heavy metal bar as it slid from his body. Some blood came with it, dripping in a steady stream, but not the life-draining flood that signalled a severed artery.

The gryphon groaned, slumping to the floor and making odd little gasping noises as Night gently probed the hole in his chest. "Of all the ways to ensure you stayed put... sick bastard," she muttered, stripping the fur from around each wound and liberally spraying the area with antiseptic. Waits made a sharp inhalation and his beak snapped together. "Sorry. This next bit is going to hurt -- I have to get coagulant inside, and all I have is the stuff on these pads, understand?" She pulled apart one of the packs and held up a sterile dressing, twisting it into a tight cylinder.

His eyes widened, then he clenched them shut. "Don't take too long about it," he whispered through a closed beak, the muscles in his cheeks bulging.

Night nodded to Blevie and the other mare straddled Waits, holding him as still as possible. "Three, two, one," she mouthed, then pushed the trauma pad deep into the wound cavity. Waits let out a piercing hiss, like gas escaping under high pressure, then lay there gasping while she applied two more pads to the entrance and exit wounds. "All done; you'll keep until we get extracted." In a daze, he nodded, then started to stand. "I don't think so," Night said gently, pushing him back down, "just lie there for a bit."

===

High up on one ridge, just below the tree line, Echelon huddled with Willow in the space between a pair of parallel fallen trees. They'd landed as quickly as possible, taking advantage of the post fire-fight confusion to avoid discovery; the limited emergency supplies slung from each pony's underside were enough to make the improvised shelter tolerable, if not actually comfortable.

Echelon's breath steamed in the cold air. He squinted upwards through the gaps in the canopy, leaden clouds just visible through the infrared barrier film he'd spread across the narrow space. The sky was darkening, as fast as if somepony was drawing a curtain over the world, and the temperature was starting to fall from an already chilly starting point. He shifted slightly, easing the stiff muscles in one wing, while the other tightened about Willow. The mare, still in a fitful sleep, twitched and muttered something indecipherable, moving a little closer.

His injured leg was cold where it stuck out of the shelter, despite the blanket he'd tucked around it; being unable to bend it was moving from an inconvenience to down-right dangerous, especially if the temperature was to drop much further. His ears pricked and swivelled, tracking the faint whine of jet turbines as they passed somewhere to the south. And if they get close, what do we do? Are we still at war? Should I try and make it out?

He gnawed at the inside of his lips, dipping his head to look at Willow. There were ugly streaks, almost like scar tissue, running the length of her horn, and the skin at its base was reddened. While her horn was mostly dark, those odd patches on the otherwise perfect surface glittered with their own light, as if infested with tiny, luminescent, ants. Something else caught his eye in the gathering gloom; a little movement at the end of the Willow's muzzle. "Tartarus, Willow, don't do this," he whispered, gently tilting her head so the thin trickle of blood missed her forelegs and soaked into the ground. She didn't wake up, just snorted quietly, spraying fine droplets into the trees.

That's the third time in the last hour... she must be hurt inside. The only thing that had kept her alive during the episode of thaumic shock had been Red One's amplifier draining away the power, but it obviously hadn't been perfect. I'm hurt, she's hurt. This is only going to end one way. His ears flattened as a shadow flickered overhead, silent as a windigo. "Better a gryphon prison than a lonely grave on this mountain." He moved carefully, sliding away from the sleeping mare, but she awoke with a start and blinked up at him, her eyes large in the dim light.

"What's happening?" she asked, then licked her lips, ears going back at the taste of blood on her muzzle. She dabbed her nose on one foreleg, staring down at the dark patch.

Echelon was silent for a moment. "I think there are search teams in the area; I'm going to bring them here."

"You should leave me," she said, distantly. "You could make it home without me."

"It wouldn't be worth going without you," he said in a fierce whisper, the expression on her face making something contract in his belly.

"You saw what we did to them... I can't imagine they will be very sympathetic to aircrew." She closed her eyes, ears drooping. "I don't want to be responsible for your death as well as my own."

He gave a quiet, frustrated whinny. "We have not come this far to die on a mountain in the arse-end of the world!"

"I need a unicorn surgeon, Lonny. I can feel it, a pressure in my head. My magic is going to kill me, sooner or later. There's nothing a gryphon can do for me." She opened her eyes again, looking up at him sadly. "Well, I guess one could trepan my horn bed... but I don't want to live out my days as a brain-damaged cripple."

"No." Echelon's lips set in a hard line and he backed out of the shelter. "Get some rest; I know that too much activity just speeds things up with you unicorns." She stared back at him silently, then turned away.

Jumping into a steady hover -- trying to walk over this terrain with one leg splinted into immobility was a slow and frustrating business -- Echelon climbed into the canopy, working his way to the gap left by the fallen trees. Here, despite the failing light, he could see gryphons criss-crossing the valley and circling over the mountaintops.

Most of the shapes were dark, but here and there were those with strobes that flashed alternating red and white, brilliant against the evergreens. He blinked, the cold of his body and the pain from his leg making him feel slow and stupid, then broke into a wide grin. "Willow!" he shouted down through the leaves. "They've got civilian SAR teams out; hang in there, I'll be back with help." He sped off, ignoring the sudden ache in his wings, heading for the closest flyer.

33 -- Sometimes they don't come back at all

Waits For Sunrise made a half-hearted movement to stand, then flinched and relaxed. Night nodded and backed away, finally turning to look at the rest of the room. Discord's ponies were in a quiet, nervous huddle, bunched up and moving with the high, prancing steps of foals separated from their dams. She took a step towards them and they flowed away, heads high and drawn back. Night froze, holding her breath. Don't bolt, not in here. They relaxed and she exhaled slowly.

"It was bad enough being under his power for a few minutes... I can't imagine what they have been through," Blevie murmured in her ear. "Poor bastards."

"They're going to need specialist help," she whispered back. "Best leave them for a while." Night nodded to herself, glancing in turn at the two holes in the ceiling and the entrance they had used. "What do you think... any chance of the local gryphs coming to find us?"

"Rut all we can do about it. Discord destroyed all our kit." Blevie frowned, then circled around to the archway, taking position where she could surprise anyone coming through.

What little light in the chamber came in through one of the ceiling holes. Even this faded as something blocked the opening and cast distorted shadows across the floor. She tensed, inhaling with a hiss, preparing her magic and ignoring the sudden stab of pain in her head--

Purple light flooded in as Luna dropped into the chamber, looking tired but victorious, dragging a frozen Discord behind her. Celestia followed a moment later, landing clumsily, the gentle pastel glow of her body shading the walls with the colours of a predawn sky. Night let her breath out with a sob, sagging the relief, then looked at Discord's ponies. There was no panic, no sudden, directionless stampede, but a hesitant movement towards them.

Discord was dropped unceremoniously on the floor, lying on his side like a fallen statue. He stared sightlessly up at some point on the ceiling, strange, delayed shadows played over his features. There was an expression on his face that Night had never seen before, one of uncertainty, almost fear.

Celestia and Luna, the magically dense shapes of the Elements still orbiting them, moved like icebreakers into the ice shoals of the other ponies. They clustered around the two Princesses like a crèche of foals around their teachers, constantly in motion and always seeking to touch and be touched. Both Princesses had spread their wings over the herd, and a feeling of calm seemed to ripple out from them both. More magic, Night thought, or perhaps it's just them. Old and eternal...

Night narrowed her eyes, staring at the pair. ...but not indestructible. Little patches of burned fur and feathers dotted Luna's coat, and she was obviously lame on a hind leg. With Celestia it was less obvious; she was the normal, perfect shade of white, the only visible damage a section of stripped fur on the chest. More concerning was the slight vacancy to her gaze, like the expression of an elderly pony wondering exactly who all these visitors were.

The sight kept her transfixed and she was still staring when Princess Luna came over and carefully lay down beside her. There was nothing but fatigue on her face and her horn glowed with a faint violet haze, powering the telekinetic glow over her hind leg. "Blevie, Nightstorm, thank you for everything. I owe you and all the ponies who went along with me a great debt. Without you..." She shook her head, eyes fixed on Celestia. "It doesn't bear thinking about." Night nodded, too tired to reply. "How did Captain Trailblazer die?"

Night froze, mouth half open, the image of those talons reaching inside the pegasus' armour suit and coming away with clawfuls of red blotting out everything. Tears started to run down her muzzle, and she sagged against Blevie when the earth pony leaned against her. "One of Discord's toys," Blevie said flatly, "he'd made a new kind of chimera, out of a unicorn and a gryphon. Rose still had her mind all through that, or so Chirr said." She nodded at the chiropt, still unconscious and propped up against one wall. "What will happen to Discord?"

"Now we know this trick we can watch for it, and the artificial Elements the Express used will be rebuilt and improved. There will be no next time for Discord, and I think he knew it, at the end." Luna climbed to her hooves, swaying slightly. "I will make sure a rescue team gets here as soon as possible. In the meantime, I have a war to stop and a monster to cage." She stared at Celestia and frowned, then shook her head and trotted over. The pair separated themselves from the nervous herd and stepped into a clear section of floor, Luna lifting Discord in a field of violet magic.

Night watched with interest, probing with her own power. A chance to watch the Princesses jump... All three blinked out with a whump of displaced air, leaving the rocky room a lot darker and more threatening than it had been, then a breath later there were the rattling noises of pebbles falling to the floor. She winced, a sudden spike of sensation from her horn making her headache flare up.

"Problem?" Blevie asked, getting up and walking over to investigate the last noise.

"Must be me, but one of those teleport spells seemed really ragged; there was a lot of wasted..." She tailed off, seeing Blevie look down at something and her ears fold flat. "What?"

"You'd better take a look at this." She reached out and tapped a crystalline sphere with one hoof, rolling it in Night's direction. As it moved, the little spark of light at the centre dimmed and went out, turning the ball a flat, uninteresting grey.

Night stopped the thing with her magic and held it up, stomach suddenly twisting. "That's one of the Elements," she said softly, "one of the ones Princess Celestia was using." She swallowed, feeling ill.

"There are two more here. Why would the Princess leave half of the most powerful magical artefact in the world behind?" Blevie's ears stayed back as she stared down at the objects between her hooves.

"I've never been able to master the teleport spell... but I've spoken to those who have. They all say that it needs a lot of focus, and that if you lose concentration..." She gave Blevie a pained smile. "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."

===

Luna teleported holding the time-locked body of Discord close, like he was some sort of giant, misshapen, stuffed toy. One long jump to take her to the coast of Equestria, dumping excess momentum in one of the big marine reserves that were forbidden to shipping, then a flurry of short ones to end up at the Monster Room. On the way she had a taste of what had happened; cities dotted with tall columns of smoke and the countryside with roaming herds of displaced ponies, but the flow of traffic was now towards, not away from, the cities.

The inside of the Room was as she'd left it; a shallow bowl lined with expensive spellcraft equipment, surrounding a section of broken concrete that had held the artificial Elements. The other Discord was gone, replaced by a pile of dusty ashes. A wave of her wings cleared the plinth and Luna put 'her' Discord down. "See you later," she said, turning around and not looking back. A leap and she was hovering under the high ceiling, then a push--

~~~discontinuity~~~

---landing and staggering in a wide and shadowed concrete corridor, in front of a door heavy enough to have come from a bank vault. There was blast damage in the surface; the outer layers of concrete and steel had been flayed away, revealing the flat grey armour ceramic, still glowing gently from the spellcraft thaumic damping systems below its skin. There was movement in the darkness at her back and Luna wheeled, coming muzzle to muzzle with a Royal Guard pegasus wearing the discrete horse shoe tabs of an entry specialist on the pauldrons of his scarred armour.

He flinched, backing away from her, stopping when his rump hit the fluted tip of a thaumic ram. Behind the big cutting machine were a pair of unicorn mares, still strapped into the control traces, and what must have been half a platoon of Guards. Everypony was looking at her, open-mouthed, and she scowled back. "You, soldier," she snapped. "Where is my sister?"

"Y-your Highness!" His mouth dropped open, then snapped shut as he reflexively stamped to attention. "We have not had word of Princess Celestia for six hours, ever since you..." He fell silent, looking up at her with wide eyes.

"Ever since I what?" she hissed, dropping her head, ears going back.

"...attacked the Palace," he said in a small voice, hunching up inside his scuffed and battered armour. Tears started to run down his muzzle. "Princess, what happened? I remember orders to breach the Panopticon, insane orders that seemed to make perfect sense, and fighting in the streets, and the city on fire, and you being declared traitor, and-and..."

I suppose I did, at that. Luna stepped back a pace, making an effort to relax her features. "Discord got to my sister, but we have him now. She was supposed to meet me here, at the Panopticon, within the last five minutes. Are you saying that she never showed up?" The stallion nodded, and a slight shiver of worry stole up her spine, then Luna pushed it away. She's a big filly, she must have had an idea at the last moment... but what could be more important than this? She bit her lip, then shook her head. "Do you have a working communicator?"

One of the grey unicorns bent her head, unsnapping the fixings tying her to the cutting machine. "Yes, Princess. The ram has one," she said, backing away and horn glowing as she manipulated the controls, "but the Director won't talk to us."

Luna snorted, pushing into the small space the unicorn mare had just left. "Topsy Krett will talk to me, or I will break her door myself." A few seconds of high speed manipulation of the thaumic interface left Luna looking at an image of Director Krett, obviously taken from some wide angle lens on a portable communicator. The background showed blank concrete walls, covered with packed shelving.

"Princess! Tell me your plan worked?"

"You can stop hiding in the cupboard, Topsy, we got him. What is the status of our forces?"

"As soon as I noticed the change in radio traffic, I took the liberty of cutting a new set of orders. We are in full retreat." The earth pony mare looked nervous, relaxing when Luna nodded. "The gryphon-zebra coalition is in pursuit, but they are not pushing too hard." She swallowed, eyes suddenly haunted. "The sight of those mass drivers firing and the nuclear detonations... this is not a day I will forget in a hurry." Topsy took a deep breath, then another. "I have been talking to some of the ambassadors, but they are reluctant to believe anything I tell them, what with me being locked in here. Localisation risks being what they are, I can't reach the heads of state." The point of view moved, showing a long avenue of shelves and narrow aisles, then started to bounce up and down as Topsy cantered forwards. "Do you want the Sky Chamber?"

"Yes. I'll start with the hotline, then I will probably have to talk to them in person." There was the loud sound of concrete rubble being ground into powder, then the big blast doors slowly opened. "Where is my sister, Topsy? I know everypony keeps tabs on us."

The view jerked as Director Krett stumbled, the cadence of her hooves slowing. "Nopony has reported seeing her since you entered Razorclaw territory. The last sighting was from one of the Express' drones, but that was when everything was still crazy. Big chunks of our orbital infrastructure have been lost to radiation and clouds of fragments, and it's going to take days to fill those holes."

"Keep looking with whatever you have." Luna turned to the Guards, who seemed transfixed by her presence. "There will be explanations in time. For now, go out into Canterlot and help wherever you can. Spread the word that Discord was the cause, and that he is imprisoned." They jumped as if electrified, galloping off down the corridor to leave Luna alone. She turned and trotted smartly through the still opening doors. Probably just happy to be away from me, but it will do. Topsy met her at the main reception block, a concrete bowl lined with defensive positions, all unoccupied, and Luna grabbed the mare with her magic, the pushed--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--materialising in a compact, understated chamber, ringed with large monitors. Dropping Topsy and leaving her, wide-eyed and trembling, to recover from the sudden teleport, Luna walked into the centre of the chamber. The screen opposite came alive at her presence, displaying the splayed wing-and-talon seal of Razorclaw before fading to a very nervous looking gryphon, whom she didn't recognise. "Princess Luna! I'll put you through."

Why is everyone always surprised to see me? She stamped one hind hoof impatiently, letting the pain clear her mind. After what seemed like an eternity, the seal disappeared again, revealing three gryphons and a zebra, all looking like they hadn't slept for a while. Join the club. "Ambassadors. The Equestrian forces are pulling back. The threats made by my sister were the result of Discord escaping his relativistic imprisonment. He has now been contained."

There was a moment's silence, with all four Ambassadors sharing a glance. "I see," said Farasi Jasisi carefully, "and where is Celestia now?"

Where indeed? Luna's ears lay flat and she fluttered her wings. "I am no more than a few minutes from the final battle we had with Discord; my sister was injured in the fight. I suspect--" Luna's head came up and she gasped. That must be it! "--she must have been unable to teleport." Got to go, got to get back--

"These are big claims, Princess. Equestria's own research said that his release was at least two years away. In any case, your forces have been hitting targets within my country for several hours, so it seems that your sister's 'threats' are closer to fact than fiction!" Talons Sheathed In Steel’s beak closed with a snap. "Prove what you say is true, and we won't view all this as Equestria suddenly taking advantage of Razorclaw's internal troubles."

Luna laughed, an abrupt, humourless sound. "Look out your window, Steel. Canterlot is burning. Come the night, the sky will be alive with the aurora caused by all those high altitude nuclear detonations. Who were you firing at, if not Discord?"

"Our strategic forces were firing at something," the gryphon said, "who can say that this isn't some elaborate bluff on your part."

"I would not put my people through this for another patch of mountains." Luna leaned forward, voice becoming hard. "This may not have been of your making, but I will defend my people. Ask the Diamond Dogs or Changelings about my resolve, if you have any doubts." Her tone became softer, more pleading. Stick and carrot... or would it be rabbit, for most of these? "I can show you everything; just stop your forces from doing something everyone will regret. We can talk about reparations later."

"Diamond Dogs? But the Dawn War was between dragons and the Dogs, and any pony involvement was just a myth--" Steel looked confused, then his eyes widened and he looked thoughtful. "Sometimes I forget just how old you are, Princess. Very well. Show us this proof."

Luna nodded. "Assemble as many medical staff as you can; I will take you all there directly." Delays and more delays; would that I could take their leaders directly, but there was never enough trust for that. Her horn started to glow and she pushed--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--appearing in the brightly lit courtyard under smoke-stained skies, surrounded by the bustle and controlled panic of security staff who knew they might be called on at any moment. She stood still, waiting for the many and varied weapons to be lowered, magic held at trip-wire readiness. Behind all the gryphons were a herd of ponies, tightly packed behind an improvised fence, more armed gryphons at the gate. Her ears went back.

A burly female with the characteristic white plumage of the southern Razorclaw states landed at her side, her barrel of a chest made even larger by the equipment harness that went from shoulder to hip. "Princess, I am--" She noticed the direction of Luna's gaze and paused, swallowing hard. "They requested asylum, your Highness. I assure you that no one... ah, pony, has been held against their will."

"I am very glad to hear that," Luna said, looking sharply at the gryphon. "You have my thanks." The ambassadors emerged from the Razorclaw embassy and variously trotted or flew over, followed by a retinue of what were obviously security staff, all equipped with bulging panniers.

"Princess Luna," Steel said, staring up at her, eyes narrow. "You still have the Elements with you. I must insist that you--"

Luna gave a humourless laugh. "I will not leave them behind, Ambassador. Whether I have them or not will make no difference to the threat I pose to you."

The gryphons looked unhappy, muttering among themselves, but decided not to push the matter. "Our forces are holding in international airspace while we verify your claims. I have requested transport, but it will be hours before--" Steel said, then gasped as Luna picked him and everyone else up.

"There's no need; I can take you all." And Celestia might be injured... perhaps some delayed effect of Discord's last spell. She formed the pattern and pushed--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--the dark, the rapid pummelling of high velocity air, suddenly shutting off behind a layer of violet light--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--a sudden surge as velocities changed and a shocked silence; the moon jumping to a new position in the sky--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--screaming and curses in several dialects and from several sets of vocal apparatus; the moon moved again, the faint whisper of dawn colouring the sky a faint rose--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--mountains under her hooves, starkly lit by skies filled with rapidly evaporating little clouds--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--a valley, blasted on one side like someone had detonated a nuclear weapon right in the middle. Ash and dust, the fines still raining out of the heavy, dirty cloud overhead, coated everything and turned it into a wasteland. "Just down here," Luna called out, swooping down towards the platform jutting out from the valley wall. She glanced over her shoulder, a slightly vindictive smile on her lips at the looks of outrage on the faces of those tugged along in her magic.

Luna pushed them all, the four Ambassadors and over twenty support staff, through the front gate, then landed behind them, forcing her way through the group and ignoring the babble of complaint. Her horn glowed as she swept the complex for any sign of Celestia, but there was nothing. Where are you? The urge to fly on, ripping this place to shreds as she searched, was very strong.

"This way." She cut open the inner door and trotted down the ramp, then passed through the mesh gate and blasted opening in the heavy door behind that. Her new retinue was slow to follow, clustering around the drugged guards.

"Princess! Why does this gryphon look like... like... this," Ambassador Talons Shod In Steel asked in strangled tones, sweeping one set of feathers over the misshapen sleeper.

"Discord likes to play with his food. There is worse to come." She walked off, brushing aside the wreckage that littered the corridor on the other side, clearing a path. There was a thumping noise from the left, and she cocked her head, listening for a moment. "More gryphons in there," she said, gesturing with one wing. "The door is sealed and, by the sound of it, we should leave them in there for a while longer."

The medical teams had fanned out among the gryphons lying amid the wreckage, then moved on, leaving a few of their number behind to check for any life-threatening issues. Luna strode ahead, deaf to the questions and pleas from the prisoners in the next few levels, as well as those from the ambassadorial staff, stopping only when she encountered the body of Trailblazer.

Unlike the other blocks, the prisoners here were silent when she entered, all watching intently as she walked up to the FOAL and stared down. "You did well... I gave you an impossible task and you managed it. Sleep well." She turned, staring at the group entering behind her, then moved to the second body, gently lifting the two heads so all could see. "If you weren't convinced before, then this should be enough."

She waited, impatiently tapping a hind hoof on the ground as they examined the body, then moved on again. Finally, they all reached the lower chamber, lit only by the gentle glow of unicorn magic and filled with nervous ponies, who immediately shrank away from all the gryphons filtering in behind Luna. "Everypony," she called out, sending up a bright ball of white light, "these are friends. If you are hurt, let them help you." She turned back, addressing the ambassadorial group directly. "These are your witnesses. Treat them gently; they have seen far too much."

===

Chirr looked out over the mixed crowd of ponies, zebra and gryphon, eyes fixed on the towering shape of Princess Luna as she moved through the chamber. She looked tired and worried, her head constantly sweeping from side to side, as if looking for something. Three objects orbited her head like a halo, patterned spheres whose surface lighting didn't match the ambient light sources. Stiffly, he got up and limped over to Night and Blevie, sitting at the back of the room, moving each leg one at a time. His body felt odd: too small and the wrong shape, with each pair of legs exactly the same, and walking was no longer something he could do without thinking.

Carefully laying down, he leaned heavily against Blevie, sighing as the mare shifted to better support his weight. She eyed him for a few moments, then nodded. "Did you see things while you were part of the circle?" she said, head cocked to one side.

"Little flashes from everywhere Discord's magic went, I think. Full of anger or terror... is that really what it was like everywhere?"

Night reached out a hoof, tapping one of three grey stone spheres where they rested between her forelegs. "Everywhere a pony was infected by his magic, I guess. At least the Elements did their thing. At the end, I saw ponies reverting back to their real selves... anypony else see that?" There was hope in her eyes, and Chirr and Blevie nodded. "Thank Celestia for that... I was beginning to think that part was a dream."

"Speaking of... why isn't she here?" Chirr asked, eyes going back to Luna.

"The Moon Princess looks on edge... Celestia was really the better statesmare of the two; I guess she's trying to repair all the damage. I'd hate to have to go to war after all this." The Night looked down at the stone spheres and frowned. "I just don't know why she left the Elements behind."

Finally, Luna came in their direction, trailing a cometary tail of uncertain looking ponies and gryphons wearing the bulky harnesses of security staff. They made to stand, but she shook her head. "Stay there; you earned it. Everypony -- everybody -- owes you a great debt, myself especially. Without..." Her gaze was drawn to the stone balls and she trailed off into silence, transfixed.

"Princess...?" Chirr said, tentatively.

She jerked, nostrils flaring and eyes going wide, dancing back with flared wings like a pony surprised by a snake. "What are they doing here?" she said in strangled tones. "Where is my sister?"

Something cold ran down Chirr's spine. "She teleported away at the same time as you did. We assumed you went to the same place."

"There was something odd..." Night said, shifting uneasily. "I can't teleport, but the spell seemed... I don't know, ragged?" Her ears went back at the sudden look of horror on Luna's face. "You don't think--?"

Luna's face abruptly shifted, losing all expression and becoming as still and distant as the surface of the moon. "I need your memories," she rasped, horn glowing.

"Yes, of cou--" Night's face became slack, mouth drooping.

The Princess' eyes closed, rapidly moving under their lids, then she inhaled sharply and gave a little whimper, legs folding and dropping her belly-first to the rough stones. Tears leaked out past closed lids and she slumped, wings relaxing until they splayed messily across the floor. Chirr stared at her in alarm, glancing at a shocked Night and Blevie. That can't be good news... she must have had an accident -- but what can go wrong while teleporting? He started to feel sick, then tentatively reached forward to lay a wing over Luna's back. "Princess, what's wrong?" he said softly.

"I won't believe it... I can't," Luna whispered, then shrugged off his touch and scrambled to her hooves, wiping her eyes on the soft feathers of her wing's leading edge. Staring down at the three other Elements, she gathered them up and held them to her chest, then stalked away. Ignoring the questions thrown at her by the Ambassadors she took flight, accelerating down the still hot tunnel so fast she blurred. A moment later there was the sharp bang of the sound barrier being broken.

Does that mean what I think it means? He stared, open mouthed, at the hole she'd left by, trying not to come to the awful, obvious, conclusion, then looked at Night. The mare was shaking her head and trembling, like she was trying to dislodge some invisible fly. Her teeth chattered, sudden and loud, then she clenched her jaws to still them. An angry-looking, elderly gryphon wearing an ornate collar carrying the seal of Goldenwing was approaching, but Chirr ignored him. "Night? What was that?"

"Pony! I demand to know what--"

Blevie surged to her hooves, suddenly appearing far more dangerous than the either of the two security staffers at his flanks. "You will let Nightstorm speak without interruptions," she said in a low voice, making the gryphons bristle and open their beaks in reflexive response.

Night, slightly calmer, nodded and cleared her throat. "Princess Luna wanted to see my memories of Princess Celestia's departure." Her ears went back and she gulped air, swallowing hard. "She watched the teleport a dozen times, and I-I had to, as well. I think something went wrong." Tears started to run through the fur of her cheeks and her voice roughened, like she was trying to squeeze the words out past a garrotte. "I took some teleport lessons, and the failure modes are varied... but if you get it wrong, sometimes things come back damaged." She looked up at Blevie with haunted eyes. "Sometimes they don't come back at all."

The earth pony growled under her breath, a sudden, furious, sound more suited to the throat of a Diamond Dog. "I don't believe you; that's impossible. This is Celestia we are talking about!"

Night made a quiet whinny and looked down at her hooves. "You must have noticed how she seemed confused, after the battle. Discord hit her with a spell, right before he made a break for it. It felt like his usual reality warping magic, but what if it was more than that?"

"Something in her mind... we all know how good Discord is at that sort of thing," Chirr muttered, giving the gryphon a hard stare. The desire to lash out was sudden and very, very strong, and he had to close his eyes and force back his directionless anger. Luna certainly suspects it... You saw the injuries on Luna's body; they might not age, but that doesn't mean they are unkillable. Night must be right. It's true, it's really true. He saw the acceptance of the truth in Blevie's eyes, then the mare turned, lying down next to Night, getting as close as possible to the unicorn. "There, you have your answer. Happy now?"

The elder gryphon seemed to shrink, and he stared at his foreclaws. "I've worked our Embassy in Canterlot for nearly forty years. Being able to interact with the Day Princess was a constant wonder..." He backed away, waving at the security gryphons to leave. "I can't imagine a world without Celestia. You have my deepest sympathies."

34 -- No Structures Capable of Knowing Joy

I won't believe it. Luna cast about with her shadow sight, hunting for the tell-tale signature that would shout out 'Celestia'. Glimmers dotted the thaumically dark landscape below -- the pin-point glares of unicorns, the crystal insect-wings of pegasi and the glassy models of earth ponies -- but nothing the brightness or size of Celestia. The city on the horizon would make things harder, but it was next on the search grid that filled her mind.

Eyes narrowed, she reached out, feeling her destination to make sure the airspace wasn't occupied, then pushed--

~~~discontinuity~~~

--arriving with a bang and a violet flash at three kilometres altitude, the riot-damaged streets of Baltimare spread out below her. The place seethed with activity, a hive of ponies and spellcraft mechanisms engaged in rescue from, and making-safe of, the damaged and frequently still burning buildings. Luna ignored the work, hunting instead for her sister's characteristic signature in the shadow world.

Something went crack overhead, the sudden shockwave crash of a sonic boom. Luna tracked the glittering shapes of a pair of Loup-Garou fighters, decelerating rapidly and heading in her direction. Leave me alone! She went back to scanning the city. She could have come out anywhere she'd visited before, and Celestia has been everywhere. A twist of her wings and she changed from circling to a steady glide that took her through the centre of the city and over the areas of greatest damage.

Still nothing. Luna gritted her teeth, lifting her head to look at her next destination, towards the west and the zebra lands. The patterns formed in her mind, only to distort and evaporate under a sudden surge of power from the pair of fighters. She glared at the distant, orbiting, dots. "What do you want with me!?" She tried again, but the disruption effect just intensified. She reached out, feeling for the spellcraft mechanisms, preparing to twist their power back into the body of the aircraft. And what will happen to the unicorn controlling it?

Magic flared, not at the Loup-Garou, but slashing the air under her hooves. Acceleration surged, compensated for by her iron grip on the local gravitational gradient, and she leaped upwards, cracking the sound barrier within a second. The fighters curved upwards, their afterburners throwing out spears of green fire patterned with shock diamonds, trailing in her wake. She fed in more power and the Mach numbers ticked upwards, far faster than the Loup-Garou could manage.

Princess Luna, wait, please!

The familiar voice entered her head without going through her ears, clear and intelligible, if a little faint. What do you want, Director Krett? Have you found something? Luna directed her reply down to the fighters, her head-long flight stilled for the moment. I will not stop my search until I have proof.

I understand, but you must stop. The Zebra Alliance has been tracking your progress, and they know you will soon enter their territory.

So? I will search this whole world if I have to. Luna prepared her magic once more; this time there was no disruption.

They are afraid of you; they think that you are carrying some taint of Discord.

Then tell them that it isn't so!

The reply was slow in coming. Princess... how can we prove that to them if you won't work with us? The Triumvirate has reached an agreement with the Alliance and the gryphon states, but...

Luna's ears folded back and she turned in a circle, slowly descending. What exactly have they promised?

Please understand that they are testing us. If it was up to me, we would let you search... but if you continue as you are they will try and stop you.

I would like to see them try! She nearly screamed out the words but had a sudden vision of the flash-bulb pulses of nuclear explosions scattered across Equestria. They won't be able to kill me, but to stop them I might have to... I have the Elements, I could do now what I couldn't do back when the Dogs tried to kill us all. Other memories surfaced, from her brief days as the Nightmare, bringing the insidious promise of power and a sociopath's freedom to act. That thought was enough, and she pushed the desire away with a shudder. What have they promised, Topsy? she sent, a sudden sinking feeling making her chest freeze.

You, Princess, the Director said, the telepathic signal getting stronger as the fighters climbed up to her level. They want you locked away for a few days while things calm down.

The cells under the Palace, she sent. You want me to sit in a shielded box and do nothing. What happens if I ignore this 'request'? You know full well what I am capable of.

Like I said, they will try and stop you... There was a pause, and when Topsy's voice came back, it was full of pain. ...and we will have to help them.

I see.

The search won't stop, Princess. We want to know the truth as much as you do.

I would cut a swath through anything they send against me. Luna kept the thought back from the telepathic communion. How many ponies am I willing to kill in your name, sister? A sick despair seemed to fill her from the hooves up, and she twisted her wings, angling her glide towards the distant Canterlot and the cells in the deep levels. I have one more thing to do, and then I will return. Do not disappoint me, she signalled, resuming her meteoric climb.

Beneath her, the pair fighters, now joined by four more, orbited in wide circles.

===

The shock cone built up in front of Luna's head, an interface of huge pressure and temperature that rapidly became incandescent. Her altitude climbed and the heat died away as the air pressure dropped; more magic took over, applied without conscious thought as it became hard to breathe. The bubble of air, a layer over every part of her body, pulsed with each great gasp of her lungs, yet more magic cracking the carbon dioxide into oxygen and tiny particles of soot that burned with a yellow glow as they entered the high-velocity slipstream.

At the top of her ballistic arc, high above the official limits of the atmosphere, Luna stilled the useless pounding of her wings and drifted in free-fall. The sun was still up in its abnormal position while the planet turned beneath them both, and she stared into its light, reaching out in the same way as she did with the moon. It took longer, not because it wasn't hers, but because of distance, and the fluid, boiling touch of its power stung like stepping into too-hot water.

There was a reluctance to it, as though it knew her and didn't like her very much, but this was no more than she was used to. After she'd returned from exile, and was stripped of all the poison Discord had planted in her mind, Celestia had insisted she practiced with the sun. And to think I never wanted to do this... too much like planning for failure. For me to do this is a step to believing you are really gone. She pushed, carefully shunting the sun back toward its proper location.

After a little coaxing it moved readily enough, almost like an old dog returning to its normal position at its master's hooves. I'm going to have to do this every day, all those little modifications and adjustments to stop the sun from wandering about the sky. The moon was never so much work as that tiny, massless thing, that flaw in the universe that let all the light in.

Every time I do this I will think of you.

The thought made her shiver, and Luna pulled in her legs, tucking them up under her belly against a cold that came from within, rather than without. Is this how you felt, after you sent me away? The first time you adjusted the moon's path? Only it's not the same, is it...? "Because you're not coming back." Luna tasted the flavour of the idea, the whispered words hanging in the silence of orbital altitude, the world rolling beneath her in an endless parade of green, blue and brown.

"No!" Fury flooded through her, and she let it, casting around for something to break. There, no more than a hundred kilometres away, was one of the rocks she used to decorate the night's sky. Her horn flared, a brilliant, lurid violet that would probably be naked-eye visible from the ground, and the fifty metre boulder vanished into a soundless spray of fragments under the hammer of Luna's telekinesis. Parts of it glowed a dull red, heated by the sudden impact.

"Damn you! Why do you always have to try and do it all!?"

More impacts. Hitting, smashing, pounding the larger fragments again and again until they were reduced to gravel, then sweeping them together and squeezing, hard enough to turn the red heat into yellow, then white. Sweat and tears, flung off by her exertions, drifted away as tiny, glittering spheres, and surrounded Luna with her own little constellations of stars.

Finally she just hung there, lit by the fading glow of the molten rock, as the terminator swept under her hooves and cloaked the world in darkness once more. I wonder how much of that was seen... Luna snorted, then shook her head. All of it; well, let's give them something to really look at. She reached out again and started to break up the magma, pulling it out into a cloud of little spheres the size of river pebbles. She worked quickly and with precision, not rage, until there was nothing left, then spread the whole mass out and altered its orbital velocity.

There's only one place to watch this kind of show. Luna teleported ahead of the cloud, moving in ever longer jumps as she killed her kilometres-a-second velocity, finally arriving at the snowy peak of Mount Aither-Erebos. Breath steaming, she looked out over the city, still burning in places, where it spread around the lower slopes, and the Palace, looking as dark and forlorn, and just as damaged as the city. There were aircraft in the distance, heading in her direction, but there was still plenty of time.

We won and we lost. You always said there would be a time when they wouldn't need us. I hope you were right. If... if they can't find you... Goodbye, sister.

Overhead, stars started to fall, filling the sky with a glittering rain.

===

There is a word in any language that, when used in the proper context, will flood the body of even the bravest stallion with both hope and a terror so profound that it should have its own name.

That word is now.

Neightmann awoke to the sound of a groan followed by rapid breathing. The fabric-walled 'room' in the prison camp, one of a number partitioned off from the communal tents-cum-barracks, was dark and filled with scents both familiar and strange, a curious mixture of Libi's musk and blood. She was standing by the side of the sleeping pad, shifting from hoof to hoof, her pale hindquarters darkened with liquid.

Libi groaned again, as sudden muscular contraction rippled down her flanks and made her ribs starkly visible. "Body says now," she squeezed out between pants.

Suddenly clumsy, Neighmann staggered to his hooves. He reached out with his magic to shift the soiled bedding, but there was nothing apart from a frustrating blankness in his mind and a sudden diffuse glow from the spellcraft mechanism at the base of his horn. Cursing his gryphon captors and their zebra allies for using the things, he pawed at the thin blankets, kicking them against the wall and out of the way. You'd think after a week I'd be used to it. "Now now?" he asked, then winced.

"Yes of course now!" Libi snapped, then gasped.

"Sorry," he muttered, voice high with strain, then looked at the door as another pony poked his head through the flap. The arrangement of features and coat colour were familiar, but Neighmann couldn't put a name to the face. Even the sex was indeterminate until the movement of air brought him the other's scent. Manny Fold, the engineer who he'd worked with in the summoning circle, so close that they were practically on top of each other. He stared at the other, trying to reach that conclusion from sight alone but, like his magic, there was nothing there.

Libi's teeth snapped shut and her tail twitched and lifted, something pale and alien protruding from the shadowed space underneath. Gracelessly, she folded her legs and lay down on the mesh floor, rolling onto her side. The sight unlocked something in Neighmann's head and he stepped forwards, gripping a clean segment of the sleeping pad between his teeth and dragging it under the mare's head. She rested against it gratefully, then shuddered again.

"Oh, wow, that's fast! Normally it's ten minutes or more before you get to that stage. I'll wake the flight surgeon," Manny said, ducking back into the main room. There were questioning voices, still muzzy with sleep, and things that sounded like orders, but Neighmann wasn't listening. There was a sudden terror in Libi's eyes. "Discord had his claws on me, do you think--?" She broke off, legs kicking helplessly.

Neighmann froze, remembering the long, stuttering conversations with Libi, slowly drawing out what had been done to her. Even after a week of having nothing else to do, he was certain she'd told him only a fraction of what had happened. His own trials had been nothing in comparison. "I'm certain not. He only got to your mind, like me and everypony else." He cursed the tremor in his voice. He likes to play with his food. Who's to say what plans that thing might have had for Libi after he'd taken Luna and Celestia? "No. I can't think that... I won't think it."

She nodded and closed her eyes, hind legs drawing up, almost in an attempt to escape what was trying to break free of her body. The mental image was a strong one and sent shivers down Neighmann's spine; it really did seem like Libi's body was trying to expel something monstrous. A pair of dark objects were visible within the pale membrane, pointed things less than the width of his horn, twitching to the call of some hidden signal. She's not been examined magically since then... and Luna was more interested in her mind than her body. "No," he said again, this time managing to at least sound convincing. ...and she'd not the only one who's been within Discord's reach, is she?

Long hours working in close proximity to that statue, spread over days and years as they carried out experiments to try and measure what effect Discord might be having, or to refine when he might escape. How long was he out before he made his bid for power? Was it months? What about that evening, eleven months ago, when Libi came to visit at the Palace because the time was right and he'd not come home? The unanswerable questions whirled through his mind, and Neighmann sank to the floor next to Libi, inhaling the scent of her sweat as he nibbled along the line of her shoulder. Am I this foal's sire in any meaningful way? The thought was persistent, hanging on in the way only a truly horrible idea could, and he desperately tried to lose himself in the mindless animal activity of grooming.

Two ponies barged in, and Neighmann's ears went back at these sudden, unknown, intruders. The first, a unicorn, came straight over, dropping its head to touch his muzzle. "I'm Systolic, remember? This is one of my nurses, Anneal," she said, blowing gently so he could catch her scent. "Keep doing what you are doing; this all looks normal, but it's important for everypony to keep calm," she said, in a no-nonsense voice. "Nopony else will be coming in." Systolic lifted her head, looking back over her shoulder into the other room. "See to it please, Manny."

"Yes, ma'am," the chief engineer said, and there was an immediate sense of space, as ponies were moved back from the divider.

Neighmann felt a wash of gratitude. She diagnosed me; of course she'd know the best way to act. His eyes were drawn to the nurse, a blue and green earth pony stallion who had dropped the pile of bedding he'd been carrying next to Libi's back end, then lay on it, using the stack to support his chest clear of the floor. Forelimbs free to move, he pulled out a spatula that must have been improvised from items around the camp and, gripping it between his teeth, gently probed the now much larger shape protruding from under Libi's tail. "Anneal. You an engineer?"

"Mostly. I'm also the best non-unicorn medic the Express had. Head's clear; all looking good." he mumbled, and Systolic gave Neighmann a quick nod before shifting to the other end of Libi.

What did you expect, two horns? It won't be anything obvious. Something hidden, perhaps something in the deep structures of his brain or coiled in his genetics, only to emerge after a few years-- Neighmann cut off the thought with a snort. If there's one thing that Discord has, it's arrogance. He'd never have planned for his defeat this way... would he? With that level of power it wouldn't be difficult. He carried on nibbling, ears twitching for the slightest muttered comment from the other two. Beneath his lips, the muscles of Libi's throat alternately tensed and relaxed, in time with the contractions rippling down her flanks. "Hear that," he whispered, "everything is fine."

"Good," she grunted. "Wish it felt fine."

Medical jargon flowed back and forth, but the tones never shifted from calm and business-like, and the motions of the two medics never became urgent, so Neighmann shut out the world and lost himself in a tiny universe of warmth, skin and fur.

"Oh!" Libi said, a few minutes and an eternity later. "That's it." She relaxed and sighed, letting her whole body slump, then her ears came up and she twisted around, urgently trying to see her foal.

Neighmann stood to give her space, his own gaze focused on the slender, spindly-limbed creature, still covered in slime and parts of the amniotic membrane, that lay on a folded blanket. Discord likes to play and likes to leave little hints. There will be something, however brief, if my foal is enveloped in his schemes. He tensed, a sudden coiling of the muscles in his forelegs and chest. What am I going to do if there is something there? It wouldn't take much, a step forwards and then stamp.

"A beautiful little colt," Systolic announced, standing up and backing away, followed by Anneal.

Libi glanced at Neighmann, and in that moment it was like they were sharing again. She stared intently at the foal, eyes roving over every part of his peach-coated body, searching for something out of the ordinary. There was nothing, and they both gazed at his face with its closed eyes. What's behind those lids? Will they appear mismatched for a moment, or perhaps the whites will be yellow and irises red? Neighmann held his breath willing the foal to move.

The miniature head moved in unsteady arcs, nostrils flaring as he sampled the unfamiliar air and detected the scent of his dam. Mouth working, little pink tongue protruding from tiny, delicate lips, his eyes opened and he peered back at them both.

Neighmann sighed and Libi relaxed, her head resting against his leg.

The foal's eyes were green; a wonderful, clear, even, apple-green.

===

It was briefing time. Each morning, General Buckler would show up with a portable terminal and take her through all they had done the previous day, and what they had planned for the next. So far there had been no news, but the efforts continued apace.

They are late. Luna shifted from hoof to hoof, futilely trying to see down the short corridor to the door to the cell block. Finally, there was movement; it wasn't one pony, but a whole entourage. Her ears came up and she stared, suddenly excited. Something's happened, it must have! The ponies gathered on the other side of the crystal wall, unsettled and nervous expressions on their faces.

Nopony seemed willing to speak, and Luna felt her excitement shift over into alarm. "Well? Has the search finally found something? Out with it!" she snapped. They exchanged looks, still silent, and Luna gritted her teeth, holding onto anger to avoid sliding into despair.

"Oh, for-- Get out of my way!"

The voice, elderly and full of grumpy disgust, came from a dappled grey pegasus of advanced years. His face would probably light up if allowed to smile, but right now held nothing but a scowl. "Princess, my name is Professor Haygen. I was called in by the Triumvirate."

"I know who you are, Professor. Why are you here?"

The pony turned and glared at General Buckler, then raised a wing and swatted the unicorn mare across the back of the head like she was some abnormally ignorant student. "You haven't told her?! Of all the stupid, disrespectful--" He broke off, then sighed. "Princess, they have called off the search for your sister."

"What!" Luna's wings flicked out and she tossed her head, glaring down at the group from her full height. "I was promised a full and thorough search in return for agreeing to stay here," she hissed, anger bleeding away into fear. And now they have you, why should they keep their end of the bargain?

Buckler frowned at Haygen, then pointedly took a step further away. "It's been a whole month, Princess, without any sign. During this time, we also asked the Professor here and his research group to carry out extensive research into teleport accidents... that work has now reached a conclusion."

"Teleportation is a relatively rare skill among unicorns, and the spell is remarkably safe, in that, if you get it wrong, most of the time it just doesn't work," Haygen said.

"This is not news, Professor. If you have a point to make, I suggest you make it."

"Sorry, Princess. I am too used to idiot students." He cleared his throat, then his tone shifted to that of one used to talking in public spaces. "There have been a number of instances of failure-to-return, and never has any trace of the teleportee been found. That said, energy cannot be created or destroyed, so the mass has to go somewhere--"

"Exactly!" Luna said, stomping a forehoof. "If necessary I will recreate her jump and follow her."

"That would be... unwise, Princess. It is obvious that the destination of these failures is not here, so therefore it must be somewhere else. Examination of the spell gives us some clue as to the possible range of destinations, and their nature." Here his voice carried a note of warning, and Luna tried to focus on what the pony was saying. "All such destinations appear to be hostile, not just to life, but to chemistry."

"What do you mean, Haygen? I am not in the mood for vague hints and implications," Luna said, her voice going dead and emotionless. The fear came back, stronger even than what she had felt back in Discord's chamber, and she clamped down on the urge to scream and shout. That desire was getting increasingly strong, these last few days, as the lack of progress became obvious.

"Princess, when I started this work there was some hope that, whatever the conditions at the other end of a rogue wormhole terminus, they would be such that a creature of power like yourself or Celestia might survive. It wouldn't be in her original form, obviously, but the possibility existed that the environment would still support structures capable of knowing joy, if you catch my meaning."

Luna's brow furrowed, horn glimmering as she made an unconscious effort to reach out and shake some sense out of Haygen. Structures capable of knowing joy? What is he-- A quiet whimper escaped her lips and she trembled. Minds. He's going to tell me that no minds can exist at the other end. Luna's legs folded underneath her and dropped her to the floor. All the strength drained from her body, and she stared at the pegasus, wanting to tell him to go away, but her mouth opened silently and nothing came out.

Haygen looked her straight in the eye, a sombre expression on his face. "I'm sorry to say, Princess, that this possibility has now been eliminated."

===

Echelon stretched out his wings, then flapped them vigorously. The pressure of the ground under his hooves lessened, and he managed an awkward hop, then came back down only a few metres away.

"Will you give it a rest!" Willow snapped, turning her head away from the sudden downdraft and its associated bits of dirt and vegetation. "They won't grow any faster with you playing with them."

"Sorry," he mumbled, holding one wing out and glaring at the truncated set of primary feathers. "And I was only a month out of my moult. Bastards." He returned to her side and lay down, gazing out through the coils of razor wire and along the steep-sided valley. Their prison camp, housing all the survivors from the Friendship Express, was a raw addition to the landscape, hastily assembled from part of a cattle farm.

"Yes, I know. Look on the bright side; at least you don't have to wear a suppressor, even though your horn doesn't work." She waggled her head pointedly, waving her stubby, distorted horn under his muzzle. Far shorter than it had been, and gouged out like somepony had taken a power tool to it, Willow's horn was a constant reminder of how close he had come to losing her. The suppressor, a bright yellow thing covered with intricate patterns of inlaid crystals, pulsed sullenly where it was clamped next to her skull. "The thing keeps throwing off my balance, and I've no real idea if I've a trace of power, even now."

Echelon stared at the distasteful device. The Guard and Equestrian military always had a few of the things ready in case of need, but this was of Zebra manufacture. Could have been worse; they could have just shot us as spies. He shivered; their first few days in the camp -- obviously just a cattle farm hastily fenced in for the purpose -- after Twister had surrendered to the Razorclaw forces, had been extremely tense. The last thing they'd heard was that Celestia had disavowed their actions completely; without the backing of their government, everypony present could be considered to be a terrorist.

The brief appearance of Princess Luna had fixed that problem, but she'd left them to the tender mercies of the gryphon state security apparatus. The ensuing interrogations by Talon intelligence officers had been unpleasant at best and down-right violent on occasion, but the knowledge that Luna was taking a personal interest seemed to have put a damper on the worst excesses that he'd thought might happen. Then, three weeks ago, they'd stopped coming.

"I just wish I knew what was going on." He sighed, then laid his head on her back. "Should you be able to do magic by now, if they take the suppressor off?"

Willow leaned sideways a little, putting some of her weight against his shoulder. "A bit, I think. The flight surgeon had to burn pretty deep, but at least she caught it before the plaques extended into my horn bed. It will probably be a year before I'm back to full strength, though."

Echelon grunted, staring out over the fringe of Willow's mane and along the valley. A triplet of aerodynes, accompanied by a flight of gryphons, was coming towards the camp. Looks like the normal supply run, he thought, then narrowed his eyes as the noisy vehicles came in for a landing a hundred metres outside the wire. That's interesting... I don't know that symbol. Gone was the grasping talon of State Security, replaced with a set of wings on either side of a staring eye. The troopers with the aerodynes didn't have the same uniform harnesses, either, and seemed to be unarmed.

I guess we'll find out soon enough. Funny... and add this to the lack of interrogations... "What will you do, when we get out of this? Going to stay in the service?" he asked idly, still thinking.

A shudder ran through the muscles of her back. "No, I don't think I could, not now. The thaumic shock was... I can't describe it. Horrible. Sometimes I think I can still feel it when I sleep. What about you?"

Echelon nodded. "I thought so." More than once he'd been awoken by the tension in her muscles and the sweat in her fur as she dreamed. "I love the flying, but if I can't do it with you, then I'd rather not do it at all. Probably join one of the weather teams; they're always on the look-out for an experienced pegasus. Unless--" He twisted slightly, looking hopefully at her. "--you fancy some company?"

Willow laughed, a low throaty chuckle, turning her head to nibble behind his ears. "Oh you featherbrain, as if you have to ask."

Echelon sighed, eyes half closing, feeling content and happy with the world, while the surrounding coils of razor wire cast jagged shadows over the thin grass.

35 -- Lost, and never found

"Gryphons coming!"

Equilibrium's ears twitched, sweeping the space outside the fabric shelter, hunting for the sound of talons tearing at the grass. She stood, leaning closer to the loose flap, unconsciously shifting one hind leg when she felt a delicate touch at her belly. The contact intensified, and the soft, tiny muzzle worked its way along her underside, before closing around one nipple. Still listening, she stretched the leg a little more, feeling the tickle of his fuzzy ears on the sensitive skin under her thigh as the little colt pressed closer. There was a slight pressure and a feeling of release.

"You're getting good at that, Tumble," Libi said softly, bending and running her teeth along his back, nibbling gently. The sounds were getting closer and she froze as a shadow fell across the tent flap; it was a familiar collection of long, curved shapes, that of a set of talons, and she nervously backed away. Tumble made a slightly annoyed noise, shuffling sideways to retain contact. More questions? How many times do they want to hear the same story?

The gryphon scratched at the tough synthetic of the door and Libi blinked. "Yes?" she said, confused. Since when do they ask to come in? Tumble flinched at the unexpected sound, head coming up with ears cocked.

A beaked head pressed through the flap, large orange eyes glancing at her then flicking down to stare at Tumble. The foal reacted as if shot, jumping backwards and wheeling to run. Libi made a little nickering sound and remained absolutely still, fighting to keep her own body relaxed. He cantered to a confused halt a few paces away, then turned again and crept back to her side, tucking under her belly and peering back at the gryphon from between her forelegs.

"Ah, I should have realised; sorry. Is it okay if I come in?" the gryphon asked in a low voice.

Against her flank, Tumble twitched but didn't run, so Libi took a slow step backwards, then another. He stayed glued to her side, staring at this new and monstrous intrusion into his previously inviolate personal space. "Can I say no?" Libi asked softly, flicking her tail over the foal.

"Actually, yes. I'm not a member of the Talons." His beak opened and he made a quiet hissing noise that might have been laughter. "No one is a member anymore, thank the stars."

"Strange days... come in. Slowly, please." They've not been into the camp for weeks, and when they do, they are polite; what's been going on out there?

"Thank you. My name is Waits Until Sunrise. I know you, Equilibrium, but who is this?" He made a tiny gesture with his beak, settling down onto the expanded mesh flooring.

"This is Tumble; I was pregnant when I was on the Express." Libi moved to the far corner, wedging the foal between her body and the shelter side.

Waits blinked, then shook his head. "So he's less than a month old? That's his... milk name, I think you call it?"

"He'll be a week old tomorrow." Libi turned her head, nuzzling between the colt's ears. He leaned into her touch, eyes still fixed on Waits. "He'll get his adult name when we get some idea about what he is interested in."

"So mobile so quickly! A chick can't even stand until six weeks or so."

"Oh, he can run nearly as fast as me; he just doesn't want to, yet. Still falls over a lot, hence the name. That time will come in a couple of months... hopefully it won't be into that razorwire fence."

Waits winced, lowering his head a little. "You won't be here much longer. There have been changes at the top... and not a little civil unrest when it became clear just how completely the Talons were controlled by Discord. There has been something of a counter-coup, and it's taken this long to get everything sorted out. There were assassinations." He made that hissing noise again, then sighed. "Because of that, and the level of control exerted over individual people, there is a general amnesty, subject to investigation."

"And that's where you come in."

"Yes. A number of those affected are now field agents for the URC -- the Unity and Reconciliation Commission. I went into the prison Discord was using as a base, so..."

"Then what do you want from me? This sounds like a thing for gryphons."

"Mostly, but there are a number of people in that prison who might not deserve to be there, those disappeared by the Talons for their own purposes. I am trying to corroborate some of the stories."

Libi nodded slowly. "Fair enough. What do you want to know?"

Waits reached back into a set of slim panniers, momentarily showing her a flash of breast feathers. In the middle of the russet plumage was an angry red scar, about the size of a hoof. "You were shot?" she asked.

"Impaled. Discord's idea of a little joke." He held a block of black plastic up in one set of talons, making it light up and display the image of a dishevelled-looking gryphon, quickly followed by two more: an angry female and a frightened juvenile. "Do you recognise any of these people?"

"I don't know their names... but I think so. If it is them, they tried to help me avoid the Talons. I'll be honest; it was dark and I was half dead from the cold. If you are looking for any others, there was also my liaison, Stoops From High Places."

"We know about her; she was never imprisoned." He reached back and brought out a transparent plastic case, inside of which was a single, long feather, clipped off at the end. "Since you ponies are more scent oriented than sight, would this help?" He half opened the lid, then slid the box across the floor.

Tumble flinched, struggling to rise, then sank back down when Libi didn't move. Carefully, she nosed open the box, sniffing delicately at the feather. Straw, mud and the pungent tang of cow. The memory came back, hard and strong, of being dragged out of a barn into bitter cold by the scruff of her neck. She closed her eyes and nodded. "Yes, that was the farmer who hid me."

There was the faint thud-thud of many hooves on earth, and Libi whipped her head around, biting down hard on Tumble's crest, half way between withers and poll. The foal, who'd heard the siren drumbeat at the same time she had and had started to rise, struggled, letting out a startlingly loud whinny, then slipped, back end falling to the composite flooring. Waits started, eyes wide in shock, beak open to protest, but she ignored him. "Oh no you don't," she mumbled, mouth filled with short and downy mane hair.

The hoof-beats ended with a sliding stop and an out of breath Neighmann barged through the loose opening. At his back were at least half a dozen other ponies, all with similar expressions of determination. "Libi, are you--"

She released the squirming foal and he exploded from her grasp, diving headlong at Neighmann, who broke off whatever he'd been trying to say with a grunt. Trembling, Tumble hid between the stallion's legs, and Neighmann twisted, placing his body between the foal and Waits and the other ponies. There was a look of confusion on his face, one that Libi was getting very familiar with, one that said 'I don't recognise you or this foal'. Neighmann lowered his head to sniff gently at Tumble's flank, the expression of uncertainty vanishing.

The gryphon, now open-beaked and switching his gaze between her and Neighmann, cleared his throat. "Was that really necessary?" he asked weakly.

"Galloping away isn't always the best answer to a problem; we are not on the plains of our ancestors anymore," Libi said with a sigh. "Back in Equestria this wouldn't be an issue, but here... He's operating on pure instinct, and will do until his brain catches up with his legs. Better a bit of discomfort now than a broken leg." She stood up, trotting over to Neighmann, sandwiching Tumble between them. "Nothing to worry about; Waits here was asking, not demanding. He says we'll be going home soon." She gestured to the gryphon with one foreleg, then bent her head to nibble behind Tumble's ear while making quiet nickering noises.

He relaxed and the other ponies moved away, many taking up positions where they could keep watch. "Home? Really?" he said, ears pricking up.

"Yes. There's supposed to be an announcement over the camp's address system in a few minutes, but it won't hurt to give you a head start. Another of your aircarriers, the Diplomacy in Action, is on its way. They are going to start loading transports at first light tomorrow."

===

Princess Luna, blank-faced, stared out through the thick artificial sapphire wall at the ponies, zebra and gryphon assembled in the narrow corridor outside her room. Cell, call it a cell. There had been some attempt to make it more comfortable, removing the inner partitions to open out the whole set of cells into a single chamber, but nothing could take away the deadness in the air, or the sense of disconnection. She shook her head, jaw clenching at the unnatural feeling of having a mane composed of actual hair for only the second time in centuries. No chiropt to get me out this time.

This should be done in the old throne room; everything to do with the diarchy always was, she thought, gloomily. The brief chance she'd had to look around the Palace had shown that that was never going to be the case, even if she was free to move where she wished. In the month since Celestia had fired the first shots in their short-lived struggle, little in the way of repairs had been carried out. The rubble had been cleared, and the burned wall coverings removed, but the large chamber was still open to the elements through its large stained-glass windows, now nothing more than gaping holes.

"Well, Praetors? Have you reached a decision?" Luna asked, her voice as distant as her gaze. As if I didn't know. Cloudwalker glanced at the other two, then shifted uncomfortably, his damaged wings still strapped into their discreet support harness. His gaze flicked around the rim of the spotless crystal wall that separated them from her, and Luna almost smiled at his discomfort. I will not make things easy for you; this is the path you have chosen, completing the events my sister set in motion all those years ago.

Thoughts of Celestia in her final moments, a confused look in her eyes, made Luna's chest ache, but she kept any emotion from reaching her expression. She's the one they wanted, and then she went and failed them. They never wanted me, and I no longer want them. The thoughts brought back the old anger, twitching in her mind like a metal fragment under long-healed skin, and Luna finally smiled, ever so slightly, something that made the leaders of the three clades a little nervous. No... don't lie to yourself, you stupid nag. After all we gave they will cut us adrift from their lives.

You destroyed us in the end, Discord. Killed my sister and provided our ponies with proof that we could not be trusted. Luna's mouth twisted into a sneer. Of course, they never really trusted me. "Out with it, Praetor."

"We have," Cloudwalker said, then sighed. "I'm sorry, Princess. We have deposed you in absentia. There will be no state funeral for Celestia and--"

The words, though half expected, were like hot steel being thrust through her vitals. "Do you know how many years Celestia gave to the service of ponykind?" Luna hissed, leaning forwards to stare at Cloudwalker. At the back, the Ambassadors from the Zebra Alliance and Goldenwing shuffled nervously, taking a cautious few steps further away. "She was around at the dawn of your whole species, not just you, Cloudwalker, but Farasi Jasisi and Talons Sheathed In Steel as well, and she gave everything to keep you all safe, including her life! Do what you like to me, but you will leave her memory alone!"

The pegasus swallowed, but looked defiant. "That is our decision. There will be a memorial in time, but right now there is a lot of anger... We will have a clean break from the past and try and remember your sister the way she was, and not what she was going to bring down upon us all." The other two Praetors, Green Flash and Kimberlite, nodded in support of Cloudwalker.

"There are plenty who will never believe she's gone," Kimberlite said softly, "despite the evidence from the unicorn who saw you teleport and the testimony from the Institute. Far better that there is no definite ending." He looked up at her, ears drooping. "We have been through so much and the healing has only just begun... ponies need to remember the good, not the bad. She was our rock, the mountain upon which we built our nation, and she crumbled... better she's dead than alive as a symbol of our misplaced faith."

The unfairness of it all coiled up inside her chest, threatening to burst out in screams and threats, but in the end Luna just laughed, a short bark of sound devoid of humour. "That explains the extension to my own quarantine time." First ten days, then forty, supposedly at the behest of the Zebras. Will they ever let me out of my box? "Don't worry, I won't contest your decision. I have no desire to be a constant reminder that all they have left is the second best princess."

"Actually, no, your Highness," the zebra, Farasi Jasisi said, her head dipping in a shallow bow. "That was part of the revised terms agreed to by your government."

"Yes, quite," Kimberlite said as Luna snorted. "Well, P--" He looked downcast and shook his head. "That's going to be a hard one to break." His head came up and he looked her square in the eye. 'Luna, we thank you for giving up your freedom; we know there is nothing we could really do to force you to do this."

"I may not be my sister, Kimberlite, but I am not a sociopath--" Not now, at any rate. "--and I am bound by the same chains of duty. We started this whole mess, so long ago that the world was a very different place, and we... I am still responsible for it, whether you like it or not." The ponies looked increasingly nervous as she spoke, and Luna shook her head. After all this time, you think you'd know when to keep your mouth shut. "I learned my lesson half a millennium ago. I will not have anybody suffer for the sake of my ego."

The earth pony nodded. "I believe you, I really do. Still, what you did allowed us to normalise relationships with the other states--" Here he glanced at the gryphon and zebra, who nodded in return. "--far faster than might have been possible otherwise. Trust is increasingly hard to come by, these days."

"I have been told very little, so I will have to take your word for that," Luna said, dryly. "Is there anything else? I would much rather be alone."

Green Flash stepped forwards and cleared her throat. "There are hints in the School for Gifted Unicorns’ oldest records that we once were able to control the sun ourselves. Is this true?"

Luna blinked, then nodded slowly. So this is what they really want... and when they get it, what use will there be for me? She tasted the notion of being disposable, something they could actually achieve in her current state, and realised with some shock that the idea was actually attractive. "Yes. It is not easy, even for me, but a sufficiently dedicated team of unicorns could manage the task." She cocked her head and smiled at the unicorn. "You do realise you'll have to let me out if you want me to help, yes?"

Green Flash smiled sadly back. "Yes, Luna, I realise that. It will be soon; the sun has already drifted off by over a degree. Much more and it will retard the arrival of next winter in the northern hemisphere. We will make some requests -- how many do you want to train?"

"Twenty-five, at a minimum. Larger and faster adjustments will require more ponies, but that will do for the start."

"Thank you, Luna. This is our last big stumbling block... the team will be part based overseas, to counteract some of the accusations about holding the world to ransom."

"Hostages." Luna made a disapproving face and Green Flash nodded.

"If you like, but I prefer to sell it as a spreading of responsibility. The plan is to form them into a new organisation, one without national ties... tricky, when all the staff have to be unicorns, but Farasi Jasisi tells me that some of the Alliance's spellcraft may be able to help, once they understand the process."

"It is a dangerous thing, this knowledge, but I will train your ponies." At least I won't have the constant reminder of doing my sister's work. Luna closed her eyes, willing them away; they must have taken the hint, for when she opened them again, she was alone.

===

The final training session had gone well, and Luna had watched with some satisfaction as the sun drifted the two arcseconds back into its proper place. She couldn't see it -- the training was being carried out in a hastily dug chamber adjacent to her prison -- but that was scarcely necessary for the process. The reason for it being here was obvious from the first moment she stepped into the room: some industrious pony had wired the place to the trap-and-suppress systems around the cell block. If she was ready for them they were no real threat, but a number of blank-faced unicorns were watching her every move, ready to sound the alarm should she act.

It's almost tempting to try it... can I break the system before it gets a hold on me? She shifted slightly, maintaining her own blank expression. I don't think it would get me a second time, but there are all those ponies... All around her, the ranks of unicorns let out a sigh, the sudden loss of effort required for the combined spell making them sway on their hooves, and the noise brought her out of the reverie. "I am satisfied with your performance, but do not try too much too quickly. The key is to make small, regular adjustments."

The group leader, a dazed looking palomino stallion by the name of Flare, nodded, trying to get his breathing under control. "Thank you, Luna. We understand the gravity of this responsibility."

"See that you do," she said, sternly. "The sun is not like the moon... it is a fragile, complex thing, and if you try to experiment with it, it could be extinguished."

The unicorn's ears flattened and he nodded, but Luna had already turned away, all the better to hide the sudden surge of emptiness that filled her belly and threatened to break the blank expression she'd assumed for the last three months. That is my last link to you, Celestia. Nothing left but my memories. Her current mixed species of minders noticed, though, and were slow to take her back to the shielded cell.

The door slid shut behind her rump, the sense of connection to the cosmos cutting off. "That's it, then. They don't really need me anymore." She turned, lifting her head to stare at one of the discrete cameras. "Now we find out your real intentions." Will they have the nerve to look me in the eye when they do it?

"You know what? I don't think I care." She lay down on the sleeping pad, staring out of the transparent door.

===

It was halfway through the night cycle when the little noise awoke her from a dreamless sleep, the quiet tapping of a hoof on something immensely strong and thick. The light was dim, but Luna had excellent night vision, and she regarded the chiropt standing in the corridor outside the cell with open curiosity. "Hello, Chirr. Have you come to play the dark knight and rescue me from my foul prison?"

Chirr smiled slightly. "It looks pretty good -- nicer than my apartment -- but I guess royalty has elevated tastes."

"No longer royal, I think."

His smile vanished. "No, Mistress. I'm sorry it has taken so long to reach you... do you want to be rescued?"

"A dangerous question to ask, considering the totality of surveillance in this block."

"They may have disbanded the Night Guard--" Luna's head came up in shock, and Chirr nodded. "The whole Guard organisation has been rolled up into the conventional forces; casualties among the chiropt were especially heavy." He sighed, then fluttered his wings. "It's not important. We all did our duty... anyway, you still have friends here, some of whom are in the security station at this very moment."

Tears welled up in Luna's eyes, and she blinked them away. "Not this time, Sergeant. I need to be here for a while longer. If I'm still here in another decade... hold that thought." She stood up, walking the few paces to the transparent wall and lying down so her flank rested against it. After a moment's hesitation, Chirr did the same, and the pair lay side-by-side, separated by the impenetrable sapphire wall.

"I understand. We... I had to see you, make sure you were alright. There has been little in the way of news of you; just that you were in seclusion."

"The time alone with my thoughts has been... it was hard at first, but I have seen many terrible things in my life. I have become very good at packaging up the pain and storing it out of reach."

"What will you do, when they let you out?"

"Seclusion actually sounds quite nice. Fitting. I am the last of my kind; perhaps it is best if I just go away, vanishing from sight and mind." Luna trailed off, lifting her gaze to the ceiling, hunting for the touch of the moon and failing to find it through all the shielding.

"Mistress, please--" Chirr's ears folded flat, and his wings flexed and shifted with unconscious desire.

"Don't worry about me, Chirr. A few years, a few decades, are nothing. Now go, go and live your life -- find a nice mare and settle down to make lots of little batponies. Think of it as my last order, if it helps."

"Yes, Mistress," the chiropt said forlornly, standing up and dropping his head down to her level. He brushed the tip of his muzzle against the wall and, on the other side, Luna did the same. "Goodbye, Luna. I won't forget you."

"Nor I you. Goodbye, Chirr."

===

It was the middle of the night, but the skies were filled with hazy streamers of red and green light, great curtains that hung from horizon to horizon and shifted with a speed that belied their size. No normal aurora, not this far south, but the product of multiple, high altitude nuclear detonations in the previous few hours. The Castle of the Pony Sisters, its carefully preserved and reinforced ruined towers jutting up above the tree line like the stumps of broken teeth, was a dark and brooding mass against all the bright colour and fast motion.

The carefully maintained grounds around the old building were now trampled, great divots dug out of the perfect meadows by careless hooves, but the Castle had survived the wave of insanity that had overrun the staff, unlike the burned-out shells of the visitor buildings at its base. Light flared from the windows, and the Castle's stones shifted with a groan under the gravitational shear.

Deep within the wide spaces of the great hall a light flashed, a brilliant pin-point that jumped from a dimensionless dot to a three-metre sphere in less than a microsecond, then vanished. In its place was a six-limbed shape, made blurred and indistinct by a velocity that hurled it diagonally across the floor at head height, to vanish through a set of glass doors marked 'Gift Shop'.

More magic flashed, ethereal tentacles that reached out for walls, pillars, merchandising display stands and anything else within reach, grabbing, holding and dragging to slow the shape's terrible speed, and it finally came to rest within a maelstrom of dark-furred pony dolls.

===

There was movement in the little corridor beyond the door. This is it. Luna tensed, wondering how it would happen. Gas, perhaps? Then why bother to show themselves at all? She blinked, then released the breath she was holding in an explosive grunt of surprise. "Chirr? What are you doing here?"

He waved up at the camera cluster and something under the door went thunk, then the whole panel slid to one side. Luna stayed where she was and frowned. "I thought I made myself clear--"

He flinched, shaking his head, then gestured with one wing down the corridor. An earth pony stepped forward, and she finally recognised Praetor Kimberlite. "I'm sorry it's taken so long, Luna, but you are free to go," he said.

Luna stood up and ruffled her wings. Without any effort, she reached for the moon, and the sensation of cold mass moving at tremendous velocity filled the void in her mind like water being poured into a trough. A pulse of violet light travelled from muzzle to tailroot, turning mane and tail from hair to something other. While this was happening, she stared down at him in silence. "Just like that," she said, finally.

"With certain restrictions." He gestured to Chirr, then back down the corridor. "You will have a multinational escort detail. You may go wherever you wish, but we ask that you don't travel without them." There were other people in the darkness; a pegasus and a gryphon, the latter wearing a slim light amplification visor.

"I see. Well, you can be assured that I have no intention of reentering public life." She stalked out of the cell, forcing the others to back away rapidly.

"Where will you go?" Kimberlite called to her rapidly disappearing hindquarters.
Luna paused, turning to look back at him. "It is night-time out there, and I want to see the sky with my own eyes. After that... when I arrive at a suitable answer, I will let my minders know." She gave him a cold little smile, then walked away with long strides, making the others trot to keep up.

Director Krett joined her at the outer entrance to the cell block. "Luna, I would not presume to know your mind, but--"

"No, Topsy, you should not," Luna said, not sparing her a glance.

The earth pony's ears twitched and she swallowed. "I can understand your desire to retreat from the world, but I really think you should hear me out--"

"Listening in on me, were you, Topsy? Did you glean any other subtle insights from my night time mutterings?" Her voice was hard and caustic, the sorts of tones that could reduce twenty-year veterans to trembling wrecks.

"Of course, Luna. It's my job." Director Krett showed no concern and her ears twitched again, and this time the pattern penetrated. Enemy action; ambush imminent.

That's a variant of waggle language... The code was old, predating the mare's birth by at least fifteen centuries, and was a last-ditch emergency signal passed from chiropt to chiropt. Supposedly it was never written down or mentioned in the presence of any of the other clades. She came to a halt and stole a quick glance at Chirr, who was staring back at her with unnerving intensity. His ears flicked as if trying to dislodge a fly, then came forward and were attentive. This code was more common, although still in the chiropt dialect.

Friendlies. Listen.

Paranoid thoughts of some buried nuclear trap, a terrible accident that would remove her from Equestria permanently, fled at that little flicker of communication. Stupid filly; if they wanted you dead they would have killed you when you were helpless. What does the code mean in this context? Luna bottled up her excitement and anger, allowing only resignation to the surface, then cocked her head. "Fine. Topsy Krett, what do you want to tell me?" she asked, maintaining the sarcasm in her voice. And why don't you want the others to know?

===

Luna walked down the wide central path of the Canterlot medical health triage centre's 'Sunflower' site, moderating her pace to match that of the pony at her side. Once one of the many parks that had dotted the extensive suburbs of the city proper, it had been fenced off and seeded with small prefab structures for the many little groups and singletons that wandered the grounds. It was still a tranquil space, with the new structures placed in a dispersed and concealed manner, the many planted paths providing private ways and gathering spaces for the patients.

The earth pony stallion, a doctor by the name of Thalamus who had overall responsibility for this site, glanced up at her, and seemed to be on the verge of trying to start a conversation. Luna ignored him, her mind focused on examining the many ponies in this place while simultaneously maintaining her disguise, that of a pale blue unicorn. Even without the odd hints from Topsy, this has merit. All around her were minds that didn't fit the normal patterns of pony, missing the casual trust and feelings of togetherness that she remembered since she was born.

She looked away, scanning the dispersed herd, then up at the sky, picking out the distant bird-of-prey silhouette of her gryphon watchers, ostensibly acting as scouts in support of the repair teams. With those shapes was another, slightly alien for Canterlot's daytime skies: a scallop-edged set of membrane wings. I hope you put sunscreen on all that exposed skin, Chirr. I didn't really build you for this much daytime flight. She smiled, but the change in expression was so slight as to be nearly invisible.

"So, Selene..." Thalamus said, looking up at her hopefully. "Before all this, we would not normally take a pony without a long history of clinical work, but--"

"I have a lot of experience in dealing with disturbed ponies," Luna said in a distracted manner. "Many years, in fact."

"I appreciate that your records are sealed; the Panopticon made it very clear that you were highly recommended, and that no questions into your past would be answered. However... I have a duty of care to my patients." He let the words hang for a few seconds, obviously waiting for Selene to fill the silence. When she did not, he sighed. "As one professional to another, can you give me something?"

Luna halted, shifting the whole weight of her attention on to the earth pony. He seemed to wilt a little, shifting his weight nervously, but stood his ground. "Your dedication does you credit," she said, with a shallow nod. "My experience is with invasive mind magic; it is both personal and through third parties. More than that I cannot say, as the information is both damaging and of no use to you."

Thalamus nodded slowly, seeming mesmerised by her words. "That will have to do, I suppose. Needless to say, I will be monitoring your progress; if there is any evidence of harm it won't matter who vouches for you, because I'll throw you out myself."

She smiled at him, but it was a fleeting thing and without warmth. "I wouldn't have it any other way, Doctor. Now, you mentioned I'd have an assistant?"

"Yes, of course. You will be working with one of our ad-hoc nursing staff; she will get you up to speed on our more challenging cases. She has been here for several months -- came in off the street as a patient and never left, even after she was fit enough. Kept saying she was of more use here than at what she used to do. No qualifications, of course, but she has a knack for drawing ponies out of their shells... and these days we need everypony willing to help. It is sad that so much fear still exists within the population at large; many of our patients just need somepony to talk to."

Nerves make him ramble, Luna thought, then nodded. They continued walking, stopping again when they encountered a small herd of ponies lying in a loose circle a few metres from the path. In their midst was a pale cream, long-legged pegasus with a light pink mane and tail, who was leading a group discussion. They settled down at a respectful distance, waiting for a lull in the conversation. Presently, one of the other ponies gave the pegasus a nudge, and the mare turned to look at them, then hastily rose to her hooves and came over.

Luna's mouth dropped open, then closed with a snap. It can't be! She blinked, then closed her eyes, shifting to shadow sight. A normal pegasus, silhouette of a body flanked with the crystalline shimmer of wings, nothing more. Am I seeing things? She looks so like-- A delicate touch of magic, full of sorrow and not a little fear, brushed against her mind. She recoiled as if stung, a sudden blast of fury making the world swim and shimmer. Her own power surged, forming phantom shapes in the shadow world that begged to be made real; there would be enough energy and gravitational shear in the magic to turn half of Canterlot into a column of burning debris that would reach into the stratosphere.

"Selene, are you alright?" Thalamus asked, reaching out to touch her neck with his muzzle. The approaching pegasus had frozen at that instant, eyes wide and staring, one hoof held off the ground and wings half raised.

The contact broke the patterns and Luna struggled to her hooves, pushing back the urge to lash out. "Yes, Doctor," she said, voice tight and strangled. "Just a sudden memory; the last few months have been very stressful." She breathed deeply, fighting to clear her mind as she studied the other mare. Celestia, if I am not hallucinating and you really are alive, I'm going to kill you! Her expression went blank.

"Yes, Doctor Thalamus?" the pegasus asked, but her eyes were still on Luna. A complex series of emotions passed over her face, an odd mixture of joy and shame.

Thalamus looked between the pair of mares, brows knitted in confusion. "Ah, right. Sunny, this is Selene, the new mental health practitioner I mentioned. Selene, this is Sunny Skies." He nodded to them both, then cocked his head to one side. "You two aren’t related are you? There's quite a similarity..." He trailed off, taking an unconscious step backwards when both ponies turned to look at him. "Sorry, Selene. I'm not supposed to ask any questions, am I?"

Luna smiled, another cold, mechanical thing, born out of politeness and habit. "Perhaps we are, in some distant way. Sunny, it will be a pleasure working with you. We have much to discuss, I think. Doctor, if you will excuse us?" She turned back to Sunny, but watched from the corner of her eye as the other pony retreated hastily.

'Sunny' was staring at her like a rabbit caught by a gryphon. "Lu--" Mouth obviously dry, she swallowed, casting a nervous glance at the discussion group. "I'm so sorry... I had no idea it would take this long."

"Three months in a cell under the ruins of the Palace. Before that I nearly started a war looking for you." Muscles tensed in Luna's forequarters and she pawed the ground, kicking up a spray of gravel and attracting frightened stares from the closest patients. She turned and trotted away, ponies scattering before her as if repelled, heading for a secluded spot on the grounds. Sunny was right behind her and, as soon as they were out of sight and under one of the larger trees, Luna wheeled to face the pegasus. "How could you do this to me!?"

'Sunny' leaned forward into a tentative nuzzle, but Luna stepped back out of reach. She slumped, wings drooping. "He got to me, at the end. Got inside my head and was trying to pull me apart. I think he was trying to change my mind, to bend it into something more to his liking." She looked away, gaze captured by the leaf litter. "Not fury and rage, like he did to you, but something cold and... mechanical. A machine to torment the world in his name."

Her head came up, tears glittering in her eyes. "I don't think he managed to do anything permanent, but I can't be sure. Couldn't trust my own mind, couldn't think straight, couldn't put myself in a position where another bad decision might ruin lives. So I ran and left you to face the consequences."

Some of Luna's anger subsided and she edged a little closer. "But why didn't you tell me? We could have got through this together--"

"Right now I'm only a little hazy, but back then... I very nearly misjumped. Old memories intruded and I went to the wrong place; I ended up at the site of our last big fight, in the Everfree. That old castle is even more of a ruin now; the gift shop killed my velocity... those stuffed dolls won't be the same again. All I could think of was that I was vulnerable and had to hide... so I did. Changed my form and returned to the capital, but by the time I got here I--" She broke off, breathing fast.

"By that point the Triumvirate had made a bargain. You were gone and they had never really trusted me... my freedom for peace. They said they were searching for you... did they?" Luna took another step closer and Celestia tentatively lowered her head, reaching out to brush the ersatz unicorn's neck with her muzzle, leaning closer when she didn't retreat.

"I think so...but I have massive gaps in my memory. Whole days that are just blank." She shivered, pressing the side of her head against Luna's neck. "That scared me... I thought that whatever he'd done to me was taking hold. What was the other me doing during that time?" She shivered and sniffed, and Luna felt tears soaking into her fur. "My disguise must have held, because nopony took me away."

"They declared you dead," Luna said, throat closing up on the last word. "I... I gave up. Let them do whatever they wanted." She twisted, backing away to look the pegasus in the eyes. "You are obviously better now... so I'll ask you again. Why keep up the ruse?"

"Our ponies had a chance, their first real chance, to look after themselves. If I was dead and you were... in retreat, then they would finally be able to step forwards without being in our shadows." She hung her head, voice dropping to a mutter. "And I wanted out. You had your independence already, but they had me bound in chains of duty and government. That's the one thing he made me realise... that I was so insulated from our ponies that I could no longer act to help them. So I was selfish, and I left you alone." She sniffed, fresh tears running down her muzzle. "I'll never know if those thoughts were mine, or some early manifestation of his plans."

"You did... it's going to be very hard to forgive you for that." Luna sighed and started to nibble at the junction of the pegasus' wing root and shoulder. "I should have known, really. You were always the master at teleportation; the idea that an error in that spell would be the thing to kill you... ridiculous." She closed her eyes, losing herself for a moment in the feeling of fur and feathers between her lips. "...and you always were one to put our ponies' needs before your own -- or mine, for that matter. No more masters, I seem to remember."

"The logical conclusion to all our plans, right from the very beginning. I contacted Topsy and swore her to secrecy, so I could discover where you had gone... and also so she could check up on me. There are security teams watching the centres, in case a unicorn loses control. I left orders about what they were to do if I..." She paused, moving the wing so Luna could get to the underside. "...but obviously I didn't."

I wonder what that team was told? They can't have known the truth. "Who else knew?"

"Just Topsy, and whoever else she thought had to know. That mare lives by the principle of 'two ponies can keep a secret if one of them is dead', so probably nopony."

"Chirr knew -- eventually, anyway. I'm certain that the Triumvirate doesn't."

"Your favourite chiropt? I'm not surprised. I know I've seen one circling, playing tag with the gryphons. I assume they are here for you?"

"They are. That was the deal; if I stay quiet they'll leave me alone." Luna paused in her ministrations, head still buried under the cream wing and frowned. "Tell me... towards the end of my confinement, when they called off the search, I was visited by Haygen, from the Institute. He, more than anypony else, convinced me you were dead. Was that part of your plan?" She resumed grooming, working through the small feathers on the leading edge.

Celestia shifted uncomfortably. "Nothing specific; Topsy wanted to get you out of there as fast as she could... they had to think you had given up."

"You wanted me broken." Luna bit down on Celestia's wing, hard enough to make the other mare inhale sharply. I can be pragmatic, but that felt good. "It worked," she said, relaxing her grip, "that pony has the mind of a dark poet."

"So what do we do now?" Celestia asked, after a short and uncomfortable silence.

"You stayed here for months, even after you were better... do you like it here? You don't think you'll get bored?"

Celestia was silent for a moment. "I only ever wanted to help ponies, and here I can make a difference. Call your minders; I'll come back with you," she murmured, sounding defeated.

We set them free, and in doing so they have set us free, whether they realise it or not. Luna stepped back, placing her mouth next to the other mare's ear. "You always were the planner, 'Tia, but you are rubbish at mind magic. As if you could ever do this without me." There was a look of dawning joy on the pegasus' face, and Luna snorted and butted the other mare with the side of her head. "Back? Why in Tartarus would we go back?" She smiled, her first genuine smile in a long time.

Epilogue

Nightmare Base, lunar farside, twenty years later.

"Hey, Tumble!"

Anneal flinched, the muscle twitch enough to make his hooves leave the ground in the one sixth lunar gravity. He sighed and ignored the mare's shout, trying to recover his focus. Why did I ever tell her my milk name? The annoyance passed and he stared at the console, frowning slightly at the software's predictions. It was really pretty good, as it should be after all the years refining the models, but the slight deviation was getting larger as they approached activation of the containment systems.

"I said--"

"Yes, Pinion, I heard what you said. I'm a little busy right now, what do you want?" Anneal waved his head across the instrument panel, the orange glowing tip of his horn making the control systems glitter. Many of the functions were duplicates of those managed by other ponies at other stations -- the actual, important stations, controlling devices with actual, important functions -- but he had all the cameras. Nopony was going to let a barely adult colt get his hooves on anything vital, but he had the best view.

"I just wanted to see what you are looking at," Pinion said, sounding slightly put out. "They don't need me for anything now that our honoured guest is trying to break free, so I'm down in the bunker with nothing to do." She fluttered closer on dapple grey wings, the tiny motions all that was needed to hold her aloft in the low gravity. "This place is a bit oppressive at the best of times."

Anneal sighed and shifted over slightly, eyes flicking over to the big shield door that had sealed them in. There was a deadness to the whole room, only slightly alleviated by the presence of the other few ponies in this section of the independently hardened complex. "I know what you mean... and I'd appreciate the company right now."

"Do you think it will hold?" She gestured to the walls and their buried layers of spellcraft.

If we need the shielding, things have gone very badly wrong indeed! Anneal kept that thought to himself. "We'll never get to find out. What with the spellcraft Elements and Luna herself with the originals... Discord doesn't have a chance."

"Do you think we'll see her?" Pinion asked, a wistful tone in her voice. "She's not been seen in public for years. I've only seen her in documentaries."

"We have the best view in the house!" With a flourish, Anneal shuffled the video displays across the console, bringing one small window to prominence. "There you go. She arrived an hour ago."

Pinion inhaled sharply and crowded close, stiff feathers pushing him to one side and her muzzle practically brushing the centre of the curved display. It showed the central receiving plaza of the containment zone -- part display ground, part muster station -- full of ponies, zebra and gryphons. Amid the militaries of a dozen nations was a quiet multispecies group, surrounding a tall figure with a star-filled mane and tail.

"It is her!"

"Of course it is -- you did read the agenda, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I didn't really believe-- Who are the others? It's all ponies in the middle."

"The triplet with the chiropt are FOALs. They've got the real Elements."

"The pegasus with the pink mane? What about her?"

"That's Sunny, Luna's companion." Anneal said that with a shrug. "Whatever that means. She's been seen with Luna before, ever since Celestia passed."

"Huh, she was never in the vids." Pinion shivered. "Interesting choice of name, considering." She narrowed her eyes, switching her gaze from screen to Anneal. "That's... When were you going to tell me?" The excitement transitioned to outrage, her voice going up the registers.

"Shhh!" Anneal's ears flicked back but he grinned. "Keep it down, the booth soundproofing isn't that good."

Pinion's voice became a sharp whisper and she jabbed a wingtip at him. "That's your sire and dam, down there with Luna! Why are they here?!"

"Long story, which I'm not really allowed to talk about." And I'm sure there's more to it than I've been told. "They were on the Express, right when Discord was locked up again. Did some important stuff."

Sudden understanding dawned across the mare's face. "Your sire's mental condition... is... did it happen then?"

"A result of it. They are here as witnesses; Luna invited them."

Pinion's expression changed again, turning to something uncomfortably like awe. "Actual war heroes," she whispered. "Just wait until I--"

"Please don't," he said. "All they want is a bit of peace." He watched her internal struggle, knowing full-well that he was asking too much. This thing was just too big not to tell. "Tell you what, if--" Anneal looked at Pinion seriously, any good humour gone. He lifted a foreleg, prodding her with one hoof in time with the words. "--if you agree to keep this between ourselves, I'll introduce you."

"I've already met your parents!"

"To Luna." He wanted to smile at her shocked expression, but didn't. "After we're done here I'm meeting my parents for the tour, with Luna. I'm allowed to bring a suitable guest."

Pinion's expression shifted to one of joy. "You could do that?" she asked faintly.

"It's already set up... I was going to surprise you later, but since you are here." He gestured to the master clock, which was approaching the appointed time. On the main screen Luna and the rest of the group were on the move. "Anyway, back off a bit so I can work." She did so and he nodded. "Thank you -- and I'm serious about not talking. It will make my parents unhappy if this comes up in the news." Not to mention that it's covered by the defence of the realm act and it will get me into trouble. "And Luna owes my parents a favour." He gave her a meaningful look.

That seemed to do it. Her eyes stayed wide and full of excitement, but her ears drooped slightly. "Got it. Lips are sealed."

Anneal grinned. "Not trying to scare you--" Much. "--but this is important to me." On the screen the doors to the containment bay were starting to open. He gestured at the thaumic controls, horn flickering. The video windows moved again, bringing up a view of Discord ringed by concentric circles of spellcraft machines. "Right... show time."

===

Luna could feel a pressure in the air, a sense of something massive like a distant thunderstorm. Soon, she thought. I might not be able to feel Discord, but the machines are obvious. At her side, 'Sunny' stirred, her head coming up to point at the big door on the opposite wall. "Glad you came?" she murmured.

"Very much so."

There was excitement to her sister's whisper and Luna hid a small smile. After years of small problems it was nice to be asked to save the world again. "If the equipment doesn't work as intended, it's going to get very exciting very quickly," she said in her normal voice. Are you ready for that, sister? Twenty years in hiding down the drain.

"They will work, MIstress," Chirr said, bouncing up and down in the low gravity and making his panniers rattle. "If not, there's always..."

I almost wish... Luna looked at Chirr with her shadow sight, feeling the promise of power bottled up in the Elements he carried. "Let us hope not; Equestria is still paying for this base. It would be a shame to break it."

Chirr grinned, sharp teeth showing, but said nothing and stepped away from Luna, leaving her and Sunny at the centre of a circle of cleared concrete. Big enough that we might be able to avoid killing them in the first exchange. Just Sunny and I... I wonder what ponies will say about that.

The rumours had swirled around them both -- foal from a secret liaison, psychiatrist, Panopticon agent, lover, thrall -- but none had latched on to the truth. The closest anypony came were comments mentioning Sunny's colouration and how it matched the earliest known representations of Celestia, but even those went more towards how she was trying to recapture some fragment of her lost sister. The Triumvirate didn't know and the Panopticon denied all knowledge... but it was still a source of constant amazement that the secret hadn't yet leaked.

At her side, Sunny nudged her with a wingtip and she grunted, stepping towards the now opening door. "Right, let's see if all that money was worth it," Luna said.

"Not your money to worry about, Luna," Sunny said. Her voice dropped to a whisper almost to faint to hear and her lips were as still as a skilled ventriloquist. "Not that you ever helped me with the budgets."

"You enjoyed it, don't try and claim that you didn't. All those numbers and books to be balanced." Luna shivered, then opened a wing and spread it over Sunny's back, and they both entered the containment bay.

===

Anneal stared at the video feeds, arming the high-speed cameras and clearing their buffers. There were dozens of cameras focused on the bay -- wide-angle ones covering every part of the chamber, telephoto ones gazing at specific sections of Discord or the various machines surrounding him, hyperspectral ones operating from the vacuum ultraviolet all the way down to terahertz -- filling the local storage before being sent off to other servers over the horizon and up towards satellite relays and off towards Equestria.

Discord was there in the middle, as he always was, surrounded by cubic blocks of spellcraft machines. There were twenty of them attached to an icosahedral gantry around him, each inner surface polished to a mirror finish. Heavy cables snaked across the frame, plugging into the back of each module and vanishing into the floor, connecting them to buried homopolar generators and superconducting storage coils.

They glowed, subtle patterns of rainbow light, coiling and pulsing over the angular globe, filling the gaps between the gantry with a soapbubble film. "This is it," Anneal said, gesturing at the power display. "I've only seen this on video of the test rigs." The light brightened and brightened again, the various cameras either ignoring the light or filtering it to maintain a good image.

"Look at Luna," Pinion whispered. Her mane and tail, always in slow, constant motion, were streaming back from the containment systems, like she was standing in a gale. By contrast, Sunny’s plain hair barely moved; this wind was pure magic, a tiny leakage of the huge energies being marshalled. The soap-film thickened, becoming almost opaque like heavy stained glass, then abruptly exploded inwards and outwards at the same time. The inner spellshock folded around Discord, sinking into what passed for his flesh. The outer...

Anneal held his breath. Rumour coming out of the development teams said that if anything was going to happen, it would be now. Power levels were dropping as the machines returned to their standby state and everything seemed normal... Abruptly he grinned, leaning into Pinion to whisper in her ear. "What do you know, all the scientists were right -- it worked!" The grin faded and he stared at the little window showing Luna and Sunny. I could swear that I saw something--

She sighed and relaxed, all her tension leaking away. "It must have." She gestured at Luna again -- the ex-Princess had turned and was walking away, one wing wrapped tightly around Sunny. "Luna looks happy."

"Yes, she does," Anneal muttered, magic reaching for the playback controls. He spooled back through the feed from the relevant camera, frame by frame, watching as the outer spellshock rolled over Luna and Sunny. There it was, an odd pattern in the shock front, blurred and distorted by the speed of the event. The shape was achingly familiar, something he'd only seen in the history shows his dam and sire used to watch with sad expressions. Must be a better view. Pinion was asking him a question, but he was too focused and didn't hear her.

One of the high-speed cameras on the other side of Discord had the pair in shot, and he waited impatiently as the relevant tenth of a second of video was copied to his terminal. That was still over ten thousand frames, enough for four hundred seconds of normal recording, and it took a few moments to find the precise time point.

The individual frames were a little grainy from the enhancement required to generate usable images from this short a shutter speed, but it was perfectly clear. Where Sunny stood was the ghostly outline of another pony, as large as Luna and having both wings and horn. A faint echo of a mane streamed out behind the mirage, the mirror of Luna's.

"Rutting tartarus," Pinion whispered. "She's supposed to be dead."

"They never found a body..." Anneal swallowed. ...and she was hidden all this time. Celestia is ancient, she would have had a good reason. He felt his heart thunder in his chest and he remembered the warning he'd given to Pinion. ...and Luna helped her hide. "There's nothing I can do." No access, can't wipe the data... somepony will talk.

"Do? This is fantastic! Just wait until I-- oh."

"Exactly." He smiled brightly at her, eyes slightly wide with suppressed panic. "You want that meeting with Luna now? We can at least give them some warning."

===

Sunny was looking at her, head cocked slightly to one side, as they walked back out of the containment bay. "What?" Luna said.

"You're disappointed."

Luna sighed. "I could never hide anything from you."

"You're bored." Sunny nodded and looked away. "Me too."

Luna came to a sudden halt, waving one wing at Chirr's concerned expression. "Give us a minute, please." Chirr trotted off, taking position in the doorway and intercepting anyone trying to come the other way. "It's taken you twenty years to get to this point. What do you want to do, given your condition?"

"Discord was right, I think. This universe is a trap... it won't be long before our ponies can't grow any more."

"I remember Twilight's panic when she found out the universe was closed and finite!" Luna smiled, expression softening. "You have something in mind?"

"A project. Long term. Do what Discord wanted, only without killing everyone. What do you think?"

Centuries, I'd think. "Our world is happy... the war and our ah, departure brought pony, gryphon and zebra closer together. Your plan has worked and they've not needed us for years." Luna's ears twitched; there was a growing noise from the outer room and Chirr's voice was becoming louder and more stern. "Okay, sounds interesting. I think we should..." She trailed off, staring at Chirr and the agitated group he was holding back.

"That's Neighmann and Equilibrium, with their colt. What's got them so excited? Come on, let's go and find out." Sunny said, giving Luna a nudge.

=== THE END ===

Prologue: An Enemy Exposed

"...so it can be seen from the data that our universe appears to have a low mass-energy compared to others outside the brane boundaries..."

Neighmann stood nervously in the presenter's entrance to the main lecture theatre in RIMS, the Royal Institute for Magic and Science. Through the gap in the curtain he could see the banked seating stalls, full of other students from the Institute; the crowd was slightly more unsettled as the current presenter started to wind down. Ponies knew that this was nearly the last presentation of the day and were eager to be off to the local pubs to celebrate or commiserate with those that had already passed this particular gauntlet.

To Neighmann they were all a rainbow sea of coloured blobs -- he knew his friends were out there, but his mind was so focused on the upcoming ordeal that the individual ponies just blurred together; the faces and marks may as well have belonged to any crowd in Equestria. All of the clades were present in roughly equal proportions: unicorns like Neighmann, as well as pegasi and the prosaically named earth ponies who made up for their lack of either horn or wings with phenomenal strength and endurance.

"...this could be by a factor of as much as ten to the thirtieth power -- such a vast amount more than ours that it is hard to visualise, but we can try. Our universe contains our world and its moon, the sun, a collection of orbiting 'stars' -- just rocks, of course -- and, as far as we can tell, nothing else..."

A unicorn's ability to remotely manipulate dangerous material meant that those with an interest in science tended to gravitate towards chemistry or other practical field, while the other two clades’ lack of fine physical control tended to make them better theoreticians, a fact born out by the higher numbers of pegasi or earth ponies with tenure at RIMS. It was here that Neighmann was bucking the trend; his special talent was mathematics, with a particular interest in chaos theory. It was hard to find a more theoretical subject.

"...even have enough mass for it to collapse under its own weight and form some kind of gravitationally stabilised fusion reactor, and this would happen not once, but many, many times. The vast darkness would be lit by lights, but they would be so very different from our own tiny sun. Thank you, everypony, for your attention. Are there any questions?"

There were, and Neighmann removed his eye from the gap in the curtain, looking instead at the mirror-finished plaque that hung at chest height near the opening. Sitting back on his haunches he reached out to rest one hoof on the bottom edge of the metal plate. It was a tradition with graduating students, a bit of silly superstition in this modern world that nonetheless provided some comfort at a stressful time.

"The Twilight Sparkle theatre," he mumbled under his breath. Like most students Neighmann had read Professor Sparkle's biography -- with foreword by no lesser light than Princess Celestia herself -- she, despite her genius, had apparently also suffered from terrible nerves in academic situations. Knowing this, and knowing what she'd gone on to achieve in her long, productive life, did something to ease the young stallion's nervousness.

Not all students held with this tradition, of course; when he'd spoken to his alchemist friend Equilibrium about it, she'd said she had a different technique to handle the stress of public speaking.

"Oh that's easy," she'd said. "My lab is just down the corridor from the theatre; if things go really badly I know I can be back in five minutes with enough transmogrification potion to turn the whole audience into monkeys."

Neighmann's eyes had widened at her flat tone and serious look, wondering if he should have a quiet word with her supervisor, but she only managed to hold the expression for a few seconds before bursting out laughing.

He shook his head and smiled at the memory; Equilibrium had passed her viva and would be in the audience somewhere. "'The joy of discovery is the greatest joy of all.' " He read out the quote quietly, voice steadying as the truth of the statement settled in him. "Very true, Twilight. Here's hoping the rest of the faculty agrees with you." Neighmann traced the embossed five- and six-pointed stars that had made up the long-dead scientist's mark, then lowered his hoof to gaze past the engraving to his own reflection.

Standing up, he fussed with the drape of the black student's robes over his withers, quick touches of magic smoothing down the dark orange fur underneath the rented clothes. His horn glowed a faint orange once again, more magic pulling the slightly too large robe forward to fully uncover his own mark. Looking down at the image of the stylized abacus growing in the fur of his hip he smiled, he'd had to look it up in a history crystal before he understood what the thing represented.

Even though his folk were farmers, they'd been delighted when his mark had appeared -- his sire had said that having somepony to handle the farm's accounts was a blessing from Luna herself. They'd been even more pleased when he'd received the scholarship to study advanced mathematics at the prestigious Canterlot Royal Institute, although they freely admitted they didn't have a clue about what he was actually doing. It was a shame that they couldn't make it to his final presentation.

"If that's all, everypony, we’ll move on."

Neighmann's eyes widened at the sudden loud voice from the theatre, then hurriedly used the polished plaque to check his pale yellow mane -- cropped short enough that it really should have been more manageable than it was -- then stood ready behind the curtain.

"Thank you. For our final presentation of the evening we have 'On location sensitive deviations from mean entropy; a complex intuitional fuzzy soft-set approach' by Mister Neighmann."

The curtain was whisked away and the young stallion trotted smartly up to the podium, cleared his throat and launched into his presentation.

"As you know, our world is governed by five fundamental forces; the strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetism, gravity, and, of course, magic. It has been known since Starswirl the Bearded's day that magic is able to override the other forces, and it has been suspected that even undirected magic can have some effect. What I will show you today is proof of this, which has some interesting and possibly worrying implications for health and safety policy."

Swallowing heavily, he called up his first slide on the big screen, then picked up his spellcraft pointer and started his talk in earnest. Most of it was pretty straightforward, and he felt his confidence build and his voice steady. Over the next thirty minutes he talked about the data collected from the Equestrian Office for Accident Prevention, the Royal Guard and the Office of Public Works, how he'd mapped it and used a method of his own devising to pick out subtle anomalies in the distribution of accidents, crime and maintenance problems.

After ploughing through several slides of complex mathematics, he got to the bit that would interest even those outside his own chosen field of study. The next slide showed a photograph of the city of Canterlot taken by high-flying pegasus, a number of locations highlighted with green circles.

"So after all that, what did we actually find?" he asked the crowd. "When this work started, we expected to find a correlation between the incidence of the events we were examining and areas of high magical background." The blue dot from his spellcraft pointer tracked across the photo, pausing at the marked areas. "The School for Gifted Unicorns, the Royal Institute's high energy magic building, the Fancypants corporation's spellcraft production facility, and so on."

Neighmann pulled up the next slide, overlaying the map with his processed data. The streets and buildings faded to a pale greyscale, buried under a mottled rainbow of colours. Most of the city was a dull red with the occasional patch of orange or yellow, except for those areas he'd just marked out, which were yellow-green.

"This is pretty much as we hypothesised -- areas of experimental or inexperienced magic use do show higher than normal accident rates. This is obvious, you might say -- if a foal doesn't know what he or she is doing, there are bound to be more accidents. There are, of course -- but this isn't just in the immediate area, but shifted both in time and position from the working locus." Neighmann smiled at the audience, gesturing grandly. "It also shows that the data extraction method is working."

"This is the really interesting bit." He zoomed the image out, bringing the bulk of Mount Aither-Erebos, into view. Here, to the east of the city, the colours rose up through the spectrum until they formed a patch of violet right over the location of the Royal Palace itself. The image on the slide then rotated, going from plan view to one in three dimensions. The signal over the Palace was huge compared to anywhere else in the city. A gasp ran around the auditorium.

"I know what you all may be thinking, but I'm not for one moment suggesting that their Royal Highness' are responsible for this peak in the data -- for a start, their celestial manipulations occur at great distances and would not expected to influence anything in Equestria itself." This particular statement was one suggested by his supervisor, and for once he heartily agreed with the mare. Any suggestion that the Sisters were involved in anything suspect would get shouted down by the crowd, and he'd probably be summarily ejected from the theatre.

"There are two other reasons for this conclusion. First, the locus of effect isn't actually in the Royal Palace; rather, it is half a kilometre to the west, somewhere in the grounds." Neighmann flicked the image projector's controls and moved to the next slide. He turned and watched the video play on the big screen, a cardinal sin for any presenter, but the data was fascinating even after all the times he'd seen it.

The isometric view of Canterlot stayed the same, but the spiky 'accident plot' became blurred and rounded, the sharp peaks of the previous slide turning to low, rounded hillocks that covered multiple buildings. The mountain near the Palace had disappeared entirely. "This is the same statistical map, but is using only the oldest data. We started at 1002 anno noctis, two years after the reinstatement of Princess Luna, as these were the earliest records available to us. As I advance the video the map will change, each frame using a slightly later data set, so what you'll see is how these anomalous events are changing with time."

The video played at a few decades a second, advancing from 1002AN to the present day at 1524AN. The data overlay slowly increased in resolution as the years rolled by, while the initially flat plot developed small humps and peaks that shifted and changed as industries and institutions moved around the city. There were a few constant features -- the School for Gifted Unicorns for one -- but these were pretty small compared to the peak in the data that was developing near the Palace. The first sign was at around the thirteen hundreds; a persistent 'hill' that gradually rose to dwarf the rest of the plot, turning into a mountain that rivalled the size of the one Canterlot was built into.

"This, then, is the other reason why Their Highnesses cannot be responsible; they and the Palace have been present for centuries, yet this signal only really appears in the last hundred years or so." Neighmann shrugged, a flex of shoulders and forelegs that came close to dislodging his rented robes.

"Accepting that the Princesses cannot be responsible for this--" Neighmann broke off, distracted by a sudden snigger from somewhere at the back of the theatre. "--for this signal, there is only one candidate that I am aware of. Unfortunately he is only a legend." Here the Neighman stopped again, smiling weakly to his audience, as he put up a final slide. "I am still working on trying to understand the cause of the signal, and would welcome any suggestions."

On that last screen, overlaid with a list of acknowledgements, was an image of a snake-like chimera of a creature, no two limbs or body parts from the same species. A heavy, goat-like head with mismatched eyes seemed to glare out at the audience. Out of the corner of one eye Neighmann caught a glimpse of his supervisor, Calculus, closing her eyes and shaking her head in despair. Calculus had tolerated his more outlandish theories with her customary good humour, but had cautioned him not to put anything like that in his presentation. 'Don't give hostages to fortune' was one phrase she was fond of.

Neighmann, suddenly feeling nervous, nodded his head to the audience and put his pointer down. "Thank you for your attention. Are there any questions?"

After the polite hoof-stomping died away there was a moment of silence, then one of the faculty, a dappled grey older pegasus, got slowly to his hooves. Neighmann groaned inside. "Yes, Professor Haygen?" Not him, he thought, anypony but him. Haygen looked like somepony's grandfather, but that kindly muzzle hid a mind as sharp and as pitiless as a lance.

The pegasus cleared his throat. "Thank you, Mister Neighmann for a most... interesting presentation. Your final flight of fantasy notwithstanding, I'm sure the rest of the Institute are as grateful as I am that you don't think their Royal Highnesses, our sponsors, are responsible for waging a subtle campaign of terror throughout Canterlot."

Neighmann gritted his teeth at the sarcasm, ears flattening a little as some not-so-subtle laughter rippled through the audience.

"All that aside, I have a question about the method you used to deconvolute the historical data. I believe you said the technique was novel; it has not undergone a full peer review?"

"No, Professor."

"I thought as much. Would you be so kind as to go back to equation fourteen?"

Neighmann did so and, over the next twenty minutes, Haygen proceeded to pick apart the method he'd used to process the data. The one error he'd apparently made was used as a hammer, the pegasus wielding it to break the carefully balanced edifice of his years of research into a pile of disconnected fragments. By the time it was over Neighmann felt as broken as his work, stunned by the apparent flaws in theories that he'd been sure were correct. He barely heard the announcer thanking him for his efforts or the bulk of the crowd leaving the auditorium.

"Welcome to academia, Neighmann," Calculus said in a wry tone, stepping into his line of sight. "I warned you about getting too frivolous; you must have pushed all of Haygen's buttons for him to rip into you like that." The green earth pony mare reared up to give him a quick hug. "I'll admit, I didn't see it coming, but the old bastard is a genius. Take a couple of days to get your head together, then come and find me; we'll do a post-mortem and see if he's right." She glanced over her shoulder at the other pony waiting a few steps away. "Don't sweat it, we'll sort it out."

Easy for you to say, you're not the one who's just been humiliated in public, Neighmann thought bitterly. "Yes, Doctor," he said, fighting to keep his voice steady.

She nudged him on the shoulder and trotted off, allowing Equilibrium to approach. She stepped up to his side, then leaned her head against his. "I'm sorry, that must have been pretty awful. Let me help you commiserate; I know the Golden Delicious has just had a delivery from Apple Industries."

Neighmann hesitated, tempted by the two attractors of a sympathetic mare and the opportunity to get very, very drunk and forget this nasty evening. Even if I can't forget, the hangover will make it hard to think of anything at all, he thought, smiling weakly at the cream and tan unicorn mare. "You're on, Libi," he said to the alchemist, "let me just sort out all this stuff and I'll be with you." He gestured at the rented robes and started to collect his spellcraft presentation equipment.

"Sure thing," she said, mock scowling at him and prodding his shoulder with one sharp hoof, "be there in fifteen minutes or I'll come looking for you."

Neighmann smiled in return, watching Equilibrium's tan tail sway hypnotically as she trotted out of the theatre.

"A stallion could do a lot worse than her."

The voice came from behind him; it was cultured, female and nopony he recognised.

"Excuse me?" he asked in a slightly annoyed tone, turning to glare at the cloaked figure who'd intruded on his conversation with Equilibrium. The newcomer was a tall and slender unicorn with fur the colour of a winter's sky, and a mane and tail that was a blue so pale it might as well have been white. The features of her face and muzzle, shrouded by the hood of the cloak she wore, were strong, definitely striking, but more handsome than beautiful. Something about her screamed aristocracy; Neighmann was sure he knew her from somewhere. A member of the Royal Court, perhaps? He didn't gallop in those circles, but you couldn't live in Canterlot without encountering the nobility.

She smiled, completely ignoring Neighmann's irritated tone. "A very interesting presentation, Doctor Neighmann."

Neighmann gave a short, bitter laugh. "I think you might be a little premature, my lady...?"

Her smile transformed into something conspiratorial and amusement danced in her eyes. "Here and now you may call me Selene."

"Selene. Right." Neighmann rolled his eyes. So she wants to play games, does she? he thought, I'm really not in the mood for this.

"I have a favour to ask of you. I'd be very grateful if you could spare a few minutes to go through your work with myself and a colleague. I think you may be able to shed some light on a potential problem we are having."

Neighmann's curiosity was piqued despite the vague nature of the request. It wasn't unknown for ponies going through the Institute to be picked up by those in industry, even before they graduated. Perhaps I can salvage something from this evening? he thought, spirits rising. Better not get too hammered with Libi. "Sounds interesting. Give me your details and I'll call your office tomorrow for a meeting."

Selene frowned slightly and her voice became full of iron. "I'm sorry, but that just won't do. We'd like a few minutes of your time right now."

Damn aristos, even in this day and age they expect to be obeyed. "Now? It's nearly nine o'clock!"

"We keep irregular hours. We also have some influence with the Institute and can make this worth your while."

"Fine," he grumbled. "Where is this colleague of yours?"

Selene's stern face changed to a radiant smile. "Excellent! Follow me, I have a chariot on the roof."

Neighmann trotted after her, mind roiling with confusion and upgrading his estimate of the mystery mare's wealth and status. Chariot? Who in Tartarus still uses pony-powered vehicles? he thought. Even a pegasus would normally use a spellcraft airtruck rather than hitch himself to the yoke of a cart to move anything he couldn't lift. It's true what they say; the rich really are a different species.

The pair trotted up the wide ramp to the rooftop parking normally reserved for flying guests. Neighmann didn't consider himself an athlete in any sense of the word, but still thought he was in reasonable shape. He'd expected the slender blue unicorn to slow down as they climbed the dozen floors, but she powered on at a steady trot, leaving him more than a little winded by the time they reached the open air.

Neighmann slowed to a walk, enjoying the cool night air on his overheated body. The Institute building was tall enough that they were above all but a few others; this, combined with careful street lighting that didn't waste light upwards, meant there was little to obscure the sky. Like many students he was prone to working -- or playing -- into the small hours, and it was a bit of a habit of his to spend a few moments looking up. Tonight was unique, as were they all; the delicate, slow-shifting, patterns of the orbital debris and glowing gas perfectly complemented by a slim crescent moon. "Beautiful," he murmured, head craned back. Still nicer to call them 'stars' than 'rocks', though.

"Thank you."

Neighmann lowered his head to stare at Selene. "I meant the sky," he said, then winced. "Not that you aren't, of course!"

The mare smiled, an expression of simple joy that made her whole face light up. "I know; that's why you have my thanks. Come, your chariot awaits."

Neighmann walked slowly after her, alarm bells ringing in the back of his head. I am missing something here, he thought. Glancing at Selene he blinked, shook his head, then stared, open-mouthed. With every step she took her coat and mane grew a little darker, her legs a little longer. By the time she had reached the shadowed form of a two-pegasus chariot, she was half again his height, with fur the deep blue of the sky an hour before dawn and a mane and tail that seemed to contain little reflections of the stars themselves. He'd already fallen to his knees, body realising the truth even if his mind still didn't accept it, when 'Selene' removed her cloak.

Along with her horn, the 'unicorn' had a pair of wide wings and a patch of white on her hindquarters that matched the moon in the sky above.

"P-Princess...!" he said in a strangled whisper. After the destruction of the Crystal Empire, decades before his birth, there were exactly two winged unicorns in Equestria.

Her Royal Highness, co-ruler of Equestria, probably-immortal-not-actually-a-goddess-but-close-enough of the night, she who painted the stars and maintained the heavens, Princess Luna turned to him and smiled gently. "Please get up, my little pony. If I required your obeisance I would not have bothered with a disguise."

With a wave of her head the deep shadows around the chariot were lifted, revealing the baroque monstrosity that was Luna's private transport. Neighmann staggered to his hooves and trotted after her, shying away from the pair of ponies -- no, not ponies, chiropt -- Night Guard that stood patiently between the traces. Unlike the members of the Day Guard they did not appear identical; the Day were magically changed while in armour to be perfect clones, while the Night were an actual species unto themselves.

In his early days of being a student he'd encountered the Night Guard; they could occasionally be seen out on the streets of Canterlot after sunset. There were far fewer of them than the white or grey Day Guard, but they made up for their reduced numbers with a visual appearance that was downright sinister. Bat-winged and with lizard scales in their dark grey fur, they were just as stoic as their daytime comrades. The nearest chiropt turned his head to stare at Neighmann, a flat expression made doubly intimidating by bright yellow eyes with cat-like slit pupils.

The young stallion shivered, remembering how the chiropt had come into being, unconsciously giving the Royal Guards a wide berth as he moved to join the Princess in the chariot, stepping up between the spikes and jagged metal that made the thing look like it was out of a horror movie. If there are any carnivorous ponies in the world, this is what they'd look like, he thought, staring at the chiropt pair, then felt slightly ill at the disgusting concept. They even had the little points of canine teeth, just visible between their lips. He'd have remained just as intimidated if one of them hadn't glanced backwards and winked.

There was no discernible signal from the Princess, but as soon as he was aboard the guards spread their wings and accelerated along the takeoff strip. A few seconds later he felt the subtle tension of pegasus flight magic extend to the body of the chariot and the iron behemoth left the roof. Because that's what they were, at the start... every single one a pegasus twisted by the Nightmare's magic.

Neighmann stared out over Canterlot city, the shadowed and ancient buildings with their curious mix of wide and narrow streets curving around the bulk of Mount Aither-Erebos. The chariot was climbing steadily, heading for the Royal palace which, at this distance, seemed to be a spun sugar confection attached halfway up the mountainside. After an uncomfortable period of silence and several false starts that earned him side-long glances from Luna, he finally worked up the courage to ask the first of many questions that had built up in his mind.

"Your Highness--" he started.

"Please," the mare said in a pained tone, "you can call me Luna while we are alone, or Princess if you must."

"Of course, your Hi- I mean Luna." First name terms with a goddess, his brain babbled, soon I will wake up and forget all this in the mother of all hangovers. "You listen to many graduate presentations?"

"My sister and I attend as many as we can. You didn't think there were so many early morning and late evening slots just to increase your levels of stress, did you?"

He'd grumbled about that with the other students, but never actually bothered to investigate why. "So you listened to all of mine?" Including the bit where Haygen spent twenty minutes proving I'm a fool, he thought.

"Yes. Your error was a subtle one and I'm not surprised it was missed. Despite that, I do believe your findings are sound."

Neighmann's heart sank. "It looks like it was obvious enough to everypony except my supervisor and I," he said glumly, hating the trace of self pity that had crept into his voice.

The Princess glanced at him sharply. "Did I not say it was subtle and that I still had faith in your work? You may not have seen any of my research published, but know now that I have an instinct for mathematics and you should not doubt my word." Gone was the tone of gentle amusement, replaced in an instant with the same iron as before.

Neighmann cringed at that voice, ears flattening. Even more than Celestia, this was not a pony to get on the wrong side of. Fifteen hundred years after the Nightmare, the stories of what the Princess had nearly done to Equestria were still the subject of whispered conversations whenever she attended any ceremony in public. ...and besides, he thought, an 'instinct for mathematics' is probably the least of it. I'll bet she solves n-body gravitational problems in her head every night.

"M-my apologies, Princess, I didn't mean--" he stuttered.

"Do not worry; it is forgiven." Luna had the good grace to look a little embarrassed by his reaction.

Neighmann dragged his attention back to the chariot's flight path; ahead, the cantilevered bulk of the Royal Palace was looming large, mostly dark apart from a few lit balconies. Any thought that this was a light and airy structure vanished when faced with the sheer presence of the place. The chariot's course was curving around to land in the gardens a kilometre or so away from the Palace proper, heading for a patch of light amid the statues. That's an odd place to alight, he thought. "I'm to meet a statistician on your staff?" he asked.

Luna gave him a surprised look. "Staff? Of course not; we're going to talk to my sister."

===

Princess Celestia was, well, radiant. Literally. That patch of light was her, a dim radiance filled with shifting pastel hues of pink, green and lavender from her gently moving mane and tail. "Is that really necessary?" Luna muttered, quietly enough that Neighmann wasn't sure if he'd been supposed to hear it, and rolled her eyes. Waving at Neighmann to dismount the chariot, she signalled her Guards to depart, then trotted over to briefly nuzzle her sister.

"You may want to go easy on the whole 'sun goddess' thing if you want an intelligent conversation out of the good Doctor; he's had a stressful evening," she said with a frown.

Celestia smiled back. "I don't know what you mean. Anyway, I doubt he can see as well in the dark as you can, my dear."

Luna sighed and shook her head. "Doctor Neighmann was kind enough to spare us some time to talk over his work, perhaps we should start?"

"Of course. Doctor, if you would walk with us?"

"Yes, Your Highness, it would be an honour," Neighmann said, surprised at how calm his voice sounded. He stared up at Celestia, mesmerised even as walked towards her. Like Luna, she had a unicorn's horn to go with her swan-like wings, currently folded neatly along her flanks and half covering the solar disk mark on each hip. Unlike Luna, Celestia was the blinding white of a snow field under the noon-day sun, with a mane and tail like little segments of the aurora.

"Celestia will do between the three of us, I think, otherwise it's going to get a little too formal for such a small meeting." The Day Princess smiled gently down at him, then turned to walk off between the statues, forcing him to trot to keep up with her long-legged gait. Neighmann felt like a foal again, sandwiched between these two creatures; Celestia was even taller than Luna, and the tip of his horn barely came up halfway up her chest.

"Luna shared the last part of your presentation with me. I was especially interested in the time series; tell me, did you model the data into the future?"

For his part, Neighmann had passed through shock and into the calm waters beyond. His mind had settled into that post-disaster state of detachment and was treating this as some kind of lucid dream; thinking this wasn't real was the only thing that kept him from turning into a gibbering wreck.

"Yes I did, um, Celestia," he said carefully, "but the answers were just garbage. That should have been a clue, I think, should have warned me that I'd made a mistake somewhere."

"Indulge us," Luna said.

Neighmann sighed, his voice adopting the same mechanical tones it had during Haygen's questioning. "The rate of anomalous events rises asymptotically, becoming infinite throughout the extent of the modelled area."

Celestia froze, ears flattening, then swung her head down to stare into Neighmann's eyes. "When?"

The graduate mathematician cringed at this sudden, focused attention from the undisputed co-ruler of the world. As Luna moved and organised the night sky, so Celestia made sure the sun rose on time; to see her so concerned... Wait, she's taking me seriously? he thought, head coming up and ears twisting, hunting for some indeterminate threat, what have I discovered... and if she's worried about it, what does it mean for the rest of us? "In five to ten years," he said.

"So soon," Celestia breathed.

"At least we'll have some warning, unlike last time," Luna muttered, staring off into the darkness.

The three resumed their walk, wending their way through the statue garden to some destination that Neighmann couldn't guess. He wracked his brains, trying to understand what the other two were talking about. Finally they came to a halt again, stopping in the middle of a cluster of statues. Six ponies and one... thing. The ponies were familiar to Neighmann, instantly recognisable to anypony who had even primary school knowledge of Equestrian history.

These were the six heroes, all centuries dead, who'd used the Elements to face down the Nightmare when she'd returned from her banishment; without them the world would have only one Princess and the night would have reigned forever. He stole a glance at Luna; the Princess' face was unreadable, but somehow he knew that she was thinking of the other group of statues, the one with the same six ponies surrounding her own stone statue.

This, though, was something else. Another monster, but one that was supposed to be fictional, one he'd always thought represented chaos in some metaphorical way. Serpentine, like a furry snake with four legs and a pair of wings, and a head looking like a cross between a goat and a dragon, with large, uneven, carnivore teeth. If it had been in a museum's specimen collection it would have only been kept as an example of how bored a taxidermist had been. No two limbs were from the same species; legs from bird, big cat, deer and pony, wings from a gryphon and a bat. Even the eyes didn't match.

Gazing up at the mismatched body parts of the snake-like creature, Neighmann suddenly jumped to a wild conclusion.

"Ah ha, you're talking about Discord? But he's only a legend; I put him in my presentation as a bit of a joke, I don't really think--!" He chuckled, then fell silent as the two Princesses stared down at him, unsmiling. "Wait, you're serious?" He felt dizzy, the world falling away under his hooves.

"Did you never visit the Palace?" Celestia asked sharply, then sighed as Neighmann flinched. "Do you remember your map? This statue is at the exact centre of the anomalous data you detected."

Neighmann was silent for a few moments. "This isn't just a statue, is it?" he asked slowly.

"No," Luna said. "This is the real Discord, petrified by the Elements."

"Petrified isn't quite right, more slowed. He's effectively operating in a relativistic time frame; a tau factor of over a hundred billion." Celestia walked in circles around the monster, talking half to herself.

Neighmann struggled to remember the few details he'd researched in passing for his presentation. "The Lord of Chaos... so all the stories are true, then. He still has influence, but his power is diluted by the difference in the flow of time between us and where he is?" He did the calculation in his head; to Discord the world must move so fast that even the passing of the seasons would be invisible. Over three thousand years in the time taken to draw a breath.

"You've heard of the Elements of Harmony, of course." Luna turned the question into a statement, her voice flat and emotionless.

Everypony knew about the Elements, so-called 'weaponised friendship', magical tools of immense power that were said to predate Luna and Celestia. They were legendary; not least because they had been used to banish the Night Princess for the best part of a thousand years, back when she had become the Nightmare. Neighmann nodded cautiously. Even after fifteen hundred years that failure still hurts her, he thought. Some things the mind wouldn't allow to fade; probably a good thing for everypony else, as when you're that powerful your mistakes can have planetary consequences.

"Celestia and I originally used the Elements to fight Discord. It worked, after a fashion. We had wanted to destroy him, but he's too powerful. The best we could do was to hold him for a fraction of a second--"

"--but extend that second for an age, relative to our time frame." Celestia broke in, earning a slightly annoyed glance from Luna.

Luna continued in a slightly louder voice than was strictly necessary. "The Elements have been used to hold him twice, once in the distant past when he first became corporeal, once more recently by Twilight and her friends."

Neighmann's head swam as he digested Luna's statement. Twilight Sparkle was born in 981, he thought, that's 'recent' to a Princess. How long ago was the first use? He began to get some real understanding for the true age of the beings he was talking to so casually. "It's hard to judge on only a couple of data points, but the time interval appears to be getting shorter," he said cautiously.

"Yes, we suspected something like this was happening. Discord is too powerful; he's building an immunity to the Elements," Luna said. "Until now we had no way to even guess at when he will return to our time rate; it was one of the reasons we supported your project, among others,"

"The support of the Princesses," Neighmann muttered, "no wonder all those ponies were so helpful." The level of assistance he'd been given from the various public institutes had been unprecedented; most had actually volunteered information! He'd gotten to know the colonel in charge of the Day Guard so well that he'd even been invited back to his home for a meal. Shouldn't be surprised, he thought, when you live forever you're bound to play the long game.

"What will happen if he escapes again?" Neighmann asked, gesturing at the statue with one hoof. "There are no records of that event back around the turn of the millennium."

"We didn't encourage any record keeping; there wasn't much point," Celestia said quietly. "Those events were so surreal that most took it for a hallucination. Like most things that don't fit inside our normal world view, ponies forgot it with time. All that's left is Foal's Day."

"I'd always wondered where that one came from," Neighmann said, "I'd always assumed that it was invented by one of the practical joke supply companies as a way to sell more stock. So Discord is a bit of a trickster?"

Luna laughed, a short, harsh sound completely devoid of any merriment. "He certainly has a sense of humour, although you might not find his jokes very funny. When he wakes up again he will try to eat this world. Unfortunately for us he likes to play with his food."

13 -- Destination Canterlot

Libi groaned and opened one eye, the other having swollen to the point where she couldn't see out of it even if she tried. She lay in a heap against one corner of a companionway, half buried in books and magazines from the collapsed shelves she'd been thrown into. A shift of her shoulders and the pile cascaded down from her withers, freedom bringing with it a series of sharp, stabbing pains all down one flank. Cautiously she lifted her head, ears cocked and scanning the corridor for any danger.

The fighting has moved on, she thought, we must have them on the gallop, but if that stupid mudpony had better aim... The hoof had caught her square over her left eye; a little to the right and it would have shattered the delicate bones of her muzzle. For a moment she flashed back to an image of that hoof, seen up close and from an unexpected angle, and she shivered.

It's everypony for themselves. I can't trust any of them, she thought.

She staggered away, reaching around to dig her teeth through the matted fur of her flank, freezing as she caught sight of the mating band, its orange weave grubby amid the tangled hair at the base of her tail. Why are we acting like this... but the thought died before it could be completed, washed away with the satisfaction of the chaos she'd started. For a moment, Libi reached for it, then smiled viciously. A reminder of how much you betrayed me. I'm not ever going to forget what you've done.

She closed her eyes and resumed her search, flinching as she found the splinter that had been the shelving's parting gift. Spitting out the bloody fragment, Libi tried to work out a way to get back to the unicorn-controlled section. They barely accepted her, but to go anywhere else would invite an immediate beating, especially after what she'd just done.

Libi grinned a slightly unhinged smile. That will teach those mudponies that we mean business. The rest of the unicorns had let her join because she looked like a mudpony; the perfect decoy to break their hold over the central supply block. That, and certain considerations, Libi thought, smile broadening at the memory. He'd been a little rougher than she was used to, but it had been fun and certainly more exciting than with Neighmann.

From what little she'd seen, the plan had worked flawlessly. She'd led the unsuspecting group of mudponies straight into the ambush; in the ensuing fight unicorn magic had routed the enemy before they could bring up reinforcements and they'd pushed deep into their territory, taking possession of valuable food stores. Nopony seemed to have the concentration for complex magic anymore, but something heavy swung in your telekinesis still worked wonders.

A few uncertain steps later and her muscles started to respond reliably enough that she could break into a trot, moving through the no-pony land of the B deck passenger lounge towards the barricades walling off unicorn territory. Feeling very exposed and glancing over one shoulder to check for mudpony skirmishers that had slipped around the attack, Libi banged a hoof against one of the upended tables blocking the main exit.

There was a shuffling of hooves, then a face appeared at an irregular opening between the light and unreasonably strong dining furniture. "What do you want, mudpony? Get out of here."

Libi gaped for a moment, then flicked her head to expose the stump of her horn. "It's me, Copper, you idiot. Let me in!" Her voice rose to a shout, punctuated by more kicks to the barricade. Amid her fury was a kernel of fear, a seed of uncertainty that threatened to bloom into a full blown panic.

"You mares are all the same; you think that just because you let a stallion ride you that you now have some hold over him." Copper leered back at Libi, his voice filled with contempt. "As much as I appreciated our little liaison, it was a one time deal. You're no use to us now the mudponies know that pretty little flank of yours."

"You treacherous, foal of a changeling, tick-bitten nag! Let me in or--"

"Or you'll what, mudpony?" A pale green hornlight flared, and an empty bottle floated up to the narrow opening. Libi took a nervous step backwards and stared at the bottle, trying to decide if it was plastic or glass. "Yes, that's right, go back to all your useless friends." The half-seen face was given a sinister cast by the glow, which abruptly brightened as the bottle was hurled in her direction.

Libi started, wheeling to run, but the bottle struck her a stinging blow on the back of her head. Plastic, she thought fleetingly, if Copper has any glass ones left... The idea made her shiver and she fled the room, chased by jeers and whatever the other unicorn could find to throw at her.

I'll make them pay, she thought, tears of fury running down her muzzle and stinging the abraded flesh around her bruised eye. Without looking back, Libi vanished into the rat's nest of service passageways that threaded the belly of the airship.

===

There were other ponies in the warren of crooked paths that ran between the alveoli that made up the Dreaming's distributed gas bags, but Libi never saw more than fleeting glances. This suited her fine; after being betrayed by the rest of the unicorns, she was in no mood to talk to anypony. There was also no food or water in this part of the airship, and for a while her fear of encountering either remaining clade of ponies warred with the horror of getting lost in this maze.

At least I don't have to worry about pegasi... all those cowards flew off as soon as they had the chance.

The bulk of the Canterlot Dreaming was filled with squishy semi-spheres, each a half dozen meters across; the whole airship was a bit like a fat tube stuffed with grapes. If you picked the right path, you could worm your way between them, scrambling up the pleated sides in the dim half-light that filtered through the silkily thin balloon material. Libi thought it must be night; the quality of the light had changed and no longer came from above, but from a direction down and to one side. She thought about how far she'd come, trying to recall that documentary she'd once seen about the construction of the Dreaming.

That must be from the structural spine, she thought, getting to her hooves and peering in the direction of the light. The crew have barricaded themselves away from us, but I bet they've not been able to do anything about that lattice passageway. The more she thought about it the more sense it made; the spine was an open truss-work of alloy girders surrounded on all sides by pressure control systems and the alveoli themselves. There was nearly half a kilometre of space, with no way to block off the whole thing. And why would they bother? Who would ever come this far?

Libi eyed the squashed triangle shape delineated by the junction of three gas bags, then sank to her belly and wriggled through the opening. Once through, the space opened out a little and she kept moving, driven on by her intensifying thirst.

An hour or so later -- it was incredibly hard to tell the passage of time in this featureless environment -- and Libi was beginning to fear she'd missed the spinal truss completely. The light had become stronger, but the diffusing nature of the gas bag material made it very hard to gauge the direction with any accuracy. For a moment she imagined she was going in circles, forever orbiting the spine without actually finding it, eventually collapsing from dehydration and expiring in this lonely place. The light was much brighter when she stopped to catch her breath on top of the next bag; through the glow she could make out the regular triangular lattice of the spine.

The gaps here were much smaller; the shape of the bags was distorted around the rigid form of the spine of the Dreaming, and Libi thrust her muzzle between the adjacent bags, trying to get past the elastic fabric. Finally, after what seemed like an age, and with her head and neck damp from condensed breath in these tight confines, her nose broke through into clear air. More wriggling, fur slick with sweat and muscles weak from the struggle, Libi managed to get her forelegs through and lever herself into the hollow core of the truss-work.

She lay there, gasping for breath, staring down the long, straight corridor. It was little more than an expanded metal mesh platform inside the triangular lattice, with a line of lamps along the ceiling, but it was actually straight. No more of those stupid curving passageways, I can actually make some progress. Libi squinted in each direction, trying to decide which way to go; completely disorientated, she didn't even know where the nose of the airship was.

To the left the corridor disappeared into a vanishing point, to the right there seemed to be a little knot of light. Right it is, she thought, getting tiredly to her hooves and breaking into a reluctant trot.

The truss continued uninterrupted, but passed through a small chamber with the same expanded mesh walls as the floor. It looked like some kind of auxiliary control station -- there was a console with a large screen, currently showing a schematic of the Dreaming -- but what interested Libi was the comfort station. She headed straight for the little unit, pressing her chin on the trigger plate and drinking deeply.

While she sucked up the water, her eyes roved around the room, returning to the control station. The image of the screen looked like an anatomical drawing of some deep sea creature, an unwholesome mess of tubes and sacs in organic curves. Boxes full of constantly changing numbers and little spiky graphs surrounded the diagram, including one group intriguingly titled 'helium pressure'. Lifting her head from the trough, Libi stepped closer to the screen, water dripping unnoticed from the end of her muzzle. Placing one hoof tentatively on the input pad, she started to manipulate the controls.

The crew don't want us to land, so let's see how well this thing flies without any helium, she thought, lowering the gas pressure as far as it would go. Beneath her hooves there was a whirring noise: the sound of distant pumps starting up.

===

"You stupid pony, do you want to kill us all?" Night Stick snarled at the cream and tan mare, her last remaining unicorn officer holding the struggling pony still in a haze of violet magic. "Without control over the sink rate, the Dreaming will break its back." The security mare waggled her jaw to activate her radio. "Bridge, this is Night. We found the problem; somepony had reached the axis station and was messing with the controls. We have her in custody."

There was a moment of silence while the bandaged pegasus listened to the captain's mate, then she turned back to the mare. "Fortunately for you, you didn't figure out the emergency vent controls, otherwise there'd be nothing we could do." She gestured to the crewpony busy at the controls. "It is all okay, isn't it, Stillson?" The green earth pony was cursing under his breath in a distracted monotone and making quick, jerky motions over the input panel.

"We'll stay up, if that's what you mean, but she's messed up the balance and it's going to take me hours to retrim."

"Like I care; if you idiots would just do your jobs and get this flying death-trap on the ground, I wouldn't have to take matters into my own hooves. I have no intention of being two kilometres up when the gryphons come back," Libi said, panting as she strained against the telekinetic field

"And what exactly do you think would happen if you succeeded? When we hit, this whole area would have crumpled like a cheap drinks container, and at the very least you'd have been suffocated by the venting helium. It's especially stupid because we're only half a day away from the Canterlot field!"

"Fine! Let me go and I'll keep out of your mane -- then I won't have to get the Guard involved with charging you for assault."

Night Stick frowned, but otherwise ignored the empty threat, then bent her neck and retrieved a roll of repair tape from one saddlebag. Hooking one hoof through the centre of the roll, she pulled out a strip and started winding it around the mare's fetlocks. "They tell me that short fur is in this season, I hope that's true, because you won't have much left by the time they get this stuff off." She smiled nastily, then started on the pony's hindlegs.

"I'll add foalnapping to the list, when they find out that you restrained a pregnant mare--"

"--and I'll tell them you were going to kill a few hundred ponies. How do you think that will sound?" Night snapped back, glancing down at the roll of tape and then up at the mare's muzzle. I could gag her, then with a little bit of tape in the wrong place... it would just be a tragic accident. The Night Stick's eyes widened as the thought sank home, and she shook her head. This place must be getting to me, the sooner we're out of here, the better.

Every hour away from the temporary security room she'd staked out on one corner of the bridge seemed to make her more stressed and prone to violent thoughts. And actions, she thought gloomily, how many passengers have you hurt in the last couple of days? Even injured as she was, Night Stick was more than a match for any of the rich tourists on the Dreaming. The urge to hit the bound mare grew very strong, and she swallowed and stepped away.

Night cleared her throat, then nodded to the unicorn. "Let's go." Then, to the crewpony: "You done here?"

"Yes, I've locked the console. No more problems from this station, I can finish the trim from the bridge." He prodded the mare with one forehoof, harder than was strictly necessary, then danced back as she tried to bite his leg.

"Get away from me, you filthy mudpony!"

Night Stick tried to suppress a grin, then something caught her eye. "Don't I know you?"

"I doubt it. I don't associate with the subnormally intelligent. Why are you still here, anyway? Why haven't you flown off like all the rest of the cowards?"

"I do know you -- you're that mare the gryphons dropped off." Night put a hoof on the mare's neck, staring at her head. Just a little pressure... she thought, feeling the muscles twitch as she bore down. The pony whimpered, her anger turning to terror. The little sound twisted something inside Night and an intense feeling of shame washed over her. She gently released the pressure, moving her leg so she straddled the mare's throat instead, then brushed her mane back, revealing the stump of a horn.

"Equilibrium," she breathed. "We'll take her with us." No dumping this one back with whatever side seemed best.

"Anything you say, but where in Tartarus are we going to put her? You know the rest of the bridge crew won't let us back in. The Captain's made a lot of questionable decisions lately, but that's one rule I agree with."

Night frowned at the unicorn, then started back down the spinal corridor. The thought was a troubling one. Why didn't we divert to one of the closer cities? Things got so bad so quickly. Orders were orders, but this wasn't the Guard; she should have spoken up, but it had just never occurred to her. This has gotten to us all, no matter what we think. "We'll use one of the crew cabins, up near the nose. I can lock it from the outside and keep her isolated."

"Fair enough. Even with the engines playing up it's only for an hour or so."

Stilson was already half way back, and the unicorn sighed and hefted Libi in a haze of magic. The mare wriggled and started to mutter curses, stopping when he swung her into one of the exposed beams. "A little silence would be nice," the unicorn rumbled, "there is a lot of exposed metal down this corridor."

===

Libi seethed inside, but said nothing. Her head still rang slightly from the impact with the metal truss, but she kept quiet while they dropped her on the sleeping pad.

"Try to stay calm, we'll be at Canterlot soon", the pegasus with a grubby bandage said, "I'm going to lock you in, but as soon as we're down I'll tell the rescue teams where you are." She nodded to the unicorn, who pulled out a knife and was waving it under her muzzle. The pegasus winced, nudging the unicorn. "Please, don't do that. Just cut the tape." The unicorn scowled, but did as he was told, then the pair backed out of the small room, locking the door with a click.

"Bastards!" Libi screamed at the door, kicking her legs free of the last of the tape. "You'll all suffer when I get out of here, my family has a lawyer on retainer..." Her voice trailed off into a mumble as she focused on stretching each leg in turn, working the feeling back into the muscles. "Celestia-damned tape will take forever to get off," she said, tugging at a loose edge with her teeth, then wincing as it pulled at her fur.

Giving up, Libi climbed slowly to her hooves and stumbled over to the window. They had locked her in a small cabin, one obviously not ransacked as part of the four days of escalating vandalism that ended with a vicious series of riots that had washed through the Canterlot Dreaming. It wasn't a luxury berth by any stretch, but it did have a window.

Libi rested her hooves either side of the plastic pane, trying to work the catch with her teeth. "If a stupid mudpony can do this..." she mumbled, "...got it." The window swung open, but only a crack. "Figures." Pressing her head in close, she stared down at the ground. What do you know... they were telling the truth.

Off in the distance was the filigreed bulk of Canterlot Castle, surrounded by the complex maze of the city. Pegasi were rising from it, heading in their direction. Despite all she'd been through, the sight was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

===

The landing field was a kilometre-wide circle in the middle of the parkland that surrounded the city. A central spire formed the docking hub, an elegant peak of prestressed concrete that looked like the antenna of a very flat radio dish. The Dreaming locked into the hub with a near undetectable thump, then slowly settled down to ground level, but all Libi cared about was how long it was all taking. The itch to get out into the world and start working on her revenge against those who'd hurt her was incredibly strong.

The field itself was swarming with ponies; many had the red collars and bulky panniers of medical staff, but the Guard were also out in force. Despite the hour -- the sun was only just past noon -- Libi could see more than a few of the Night Guard with their bat wings among the white and gold of their Day colleagues. The air was buzzing with pegasi and, even before the airship had finished its achingly slow landing process, Libi could see them flying into the upper level hatches. There were also a row of emergency vehicles, their bright yellow wedged-shaped prows all orientated towards the Dreaming.

The background noises of the airship -- the faint whisper of air over the hull, the thrum of the main engines and a wordless, almost understandable, muttering from the melding of a thousand conversations -- started to change. She had gotten used to them over the days, first in medical, then spare staterooms she'd either been given or stolen from more timid occupants, and finally as a fugitive and eventual prisoner, to the point where they existed below the level of her conscious mind.

With the engines finally off and the wind noise stilled, all those little conversations popped into sharp relief. The thin, rigid hull with its circular cross-section was the perfect conduit for sound; everything seemed to just go around and around, blurring and merging until it sounded like distant surf, rife with almost-meaning. With the clang of hatches being thrown open, that mass conversation stuttered and paused, only to swell to a frightening level and fill the airship with the metallic sound of storm waves on a pebble beach.

Thunder came with the storm, the blended rumble of hundreds of hooves in a stampede. Ponies retained some of their old instincts, as much as they would like to forget them, and Libi heard the distant drum-roll and fought the panic welling up inside her. She'd only experienced a stampede once, when an ageing spellcraft cargo truck had suffered a thaumic quench while landing near a busy shopping area. Safety systems had saved the driver from anything more than concussion, but panic had rippled through the once calm ponies in the street, stripping away millennia of civilization in an instant.

It had been the strangest feeling; a sudden loud noise coupled with movement in her peripheral vision, then the drumming of hooves that seemed to reach up her spine and shake her hard by the hindbrain. Pegasi exploded up out of the crowd like startled pigeons, and before Libi realised what was really happening, she was adding to the panic. A full gallop, her mind completely focused on the movement and flow of bodies around her, taking the temporary herd several kilometres away before they trotted to an embarrassed halt and started to wonder what they were all doing.

Somewhere in the flight she'd picked up a skinned knee where she'd failed to clear a railing, and there was a tender spot on her flank from striking a lamp post, but she'd gotten away lightly. The driver had been fine, but twenty three ponies in the crowd had to be hospitalised with broken bones and other major injuries.

Looking down on the panic below, Libi's hindquarters bunched and relaxed as she fought the flight reaction; she was obscurely glad she was locked up in this stateroom. With her eye swollen shut and body made less responsive by the extra bulk of her pregnancy, she was bound to suffer in the crush. The sounds of the stampede filtered up to her half-open window, the thunder of hooves on dirt mixed in with high-pitched shrieks of pain as individual ponies lost their balance and were bowled over.

This was where the emergency vehicles came into their own. Long experience had taught ponies that once a stampede takes hold, the best solution is to let the participants run themselves out, while splitting the herd into smaller and more manageable sub groups. The brightly coloured wedges of the vehicles rolled forward, padding inflating on their prows. The emergency service ponies retreated into cover behind their vehicles, allowing the herd to stream past, unicorns occasionally pulling those they could from the confused mass.

Pegasi fluttered over the galloping crowd, following the streams of ponies as they dispersed out over the field, dropping down as the little clusters finally ran out of steam and cantered to a confused halt. With the flood over, the unicorns and earth ponies fanned out from their shelter behind the vehicles, tending the most injured and sorting the rest into those who would need minor aid and those who just needed a good meal and some water. The Day and Night Guard patrolled the perimeter and tried to prevent ponies from leaving before the medics had assessed them, but this was where the well rehearsed and practiced emergency plans came unstuck.

The sound of voices raised in complaint came up out of the crowd, then small fights started breaking out among the less injured ponies. Those forced to wait for attention were the worst, and soon the Guard were pulled in to break up the brawls. This disrupted things still further, and many ponies just left the field, trotting off past the perimeter and into Canterlot city.

Behind Libi the door rattled, then a hoof banged against the plastic. "Search and rescue, is anypony in there?" a voice called out.

"You took your Celestia-damned time!" Libi snarled. "Get me out of this place."

There was a moment's uncertain silence, then the voice came again, this time a little weary. "Yes, ma'm. Please stand away from the door."

Blue light flashed and the lock fell out of the door in little red glowing pieces. The door was pushed open and a pale blue unicorn stepped in, his eyes roving over her body. "Sorry it took so long, it's a madhouse out there. I can't believe that the Captain didn't--" He shook his head. "Not important. Do you have any immediate medical problems, or can you walk out?" His gaze went down her legs and stopped at the remains of the tape. "W-were you being held prisoner in here?"

Libi opened her mouth to deliver a scathing retort, then let her ears droop. "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were one of them coming back for me." She tottered forwards, rearing up to wrap her forelegs over the unicorn's withers. "They tied me up, and-and threatened to do terrible things if I didn't do as they said. M-my foal--"

The outrage was clear in the stallion's voice. "Don't worry, you're safe now. I'll get you to a hospital and get you checked over. I'm sure everything will be okay."

Head resting on his shoulder, Libi carefully suppressed a sob, then twisted her muzzle into a smile that didn't reach her eyes.