You have no idea just how upset I am right now.

My business at the old GFE headquarters was wrapped up, Bastion and Iron Gates were arrested, I and my team had given our full reports to the Royal Police, and I’d taken Maverick and Magnum home. I’d knocked on Gray’s door and didn’t get an answer, but that didn’t seem unusual at first; she was out on her little mission, her husband was at work, and the children were probably still visiting Fiver like Ebony had said they would. So I decided to go back to the Pyre, get a bit of rest, and visit the family again later.

Only when I returned to the apartment in the late afternoon, I still didn’t get an answer.

It felt suspicious to me, so I went to Manehattan General to see if Fiver was still there. I got there just as Ocean Guard and the children were leaving. Fiver was leaving with them, so that was a good sign. What wasn’t a good sign was that Gray wasn’t among them, and they looked like they’d been crying. I immediately inquired what had happened.

I was in Gray’s recovery room five minutes later.

Caramel Mocha, of all ponies, was in there when I arrived. She was talking with Juniper Leaf and several members of the medical team that had treated Gray. The doctors told me that Gray was very tired, weak, and needed to rest. At the very least I was able to get a more complete story out of them than the one I’d gotten from her family (who I’d found out had actually been there twice, with Ocean Guard being present the second visit).

But I’m still almost as mad as I’d been when Gates had his little laugh at my expense earlier. For crying out loud, you little...

...

“Miss Leviathan, please. Calm down,” Juniper quietly protests as I pace the length of the recovery room. “This anger isn’t going to help anypony.”

“My first real friend in this place almost died by being a self-sacrificing idiot,” I bite out, trying to keep my voice low. “I have every right to be angry right now.”

“Self-sacrificing, maybe, but I can’t agree with the ‘idiot’ part,” Caramel comments. “That little child she rescued is doing perfectly fine, so I’d say it paid off.” She looks up at the ceiling, tapping her chin. “Although I still think it’s suspicious that the child has her Cutie Mark already. Obtaining those at that age is unheard of.”

Trying to maintain some level of politeness here. “Why are you still here?” Didn’t succeed.

Caramel brushes it off. “Because the two of them were found on company property. I don’t have the complete story as to why they were there, or what Mrs. Gray was doing, but that makes the Chocolate Mocha Beverage Corporation responsible for any harm she suffered.”

“That was the basis of the conversation she was having with the staff when you arrived,” Juniper continues. “She was finishing hashing out a plan to have Manehattan General bill her specifically for all of Gray’s medical expenses.”

This gets me to stop pacing. ...Well, then. “And you’re… okay with that?” I ask, just a little bit calmer.

“I’m one of the richest ponies in the city,” Caramel tells me in all seriousness, her posture straight. “I’m barely doing anything with my money right now. Paying for her treatments barely counts as a drop in the bucket.”

“...You have no idea how thankful I am to hear that.”

All three of us turn towards Gray’s bed. Her right eye is open a sliver, but not enough for me to see who she’s looking at. She’s utterly tired, and her voice is almost as weak as she is, but she’s insistent on talking. Her speech is slower than I’m used to hearing from her. “We’ve never been a ‘well-off’ family. Ocean’s job pays him a decent sum, but it’s not always enough to cover an apartment, four kids, and a cat. I’ve had to work odd jobs off and on for years to help make ends meet. If we had to try and cover those bills on our own…”

“...That would’ve left you destitute,” I finish. “Is health insurance not a thing around here?”

“It is, but it doesn’t always cover every owed bit,” Juniper informs me. “Particularly expensive or specialized cases like this one tend to leave some left over. And this is without going into the oddities of that little child.”

That feels familiar. “Speaking of,” I wonder, “what’s going to become of her?”

“In most cases she would be taken to an orphanage,” Juniper says, pensive. “Unless we can find who her family is. We’ll get an ad put in the Minutes.”

“You won’t find them,” Gray mutters. “They don’t exist.”

Juniper sighs and shakes her head, befuddled. “Gray, I love you like the daughter I never had, but I have to ask: what in Celestia’s name are you talking about?”

Gray’s head tilts a little towards a nurse that’s been watching us the whole time. “Some privacy, please. Close the curtain.”

The nurse does as instructed, sliding it shut across the length of the room (and it’s a very pretty blue curtain with goldfish, very nice). She makes no move to leave, however. “What about her?” I ask.

“She already knows who I am. She’s trustworthy,” Gray assures us. The nurse nods in confirmation.

Caramel shakes her head. She’s acting as high-class as possible, but you don’t need to be a socialite to see the cracks in her decorum. “I have more questions than answers right now. An injured pony and a child in the sub-basement, wreckage and black fluid of some kind all over the place, none of our belongings being where they’re supposed to be, and suddenly I’m being dragged behind a veil of secrecy. I’m trying to be as polite as I can when I say this: I. Need. Answers. Please.”

“We’ll start at the beginning,” Gray decides. She frowns. “Or as close to the beginning as I can get. Details are slipping past me that I should be remembering, and I don’t know why.”

Uh-oh. “Just tell us what you remember,” I instruct her. “We’ll fill in what pieces we can and sort out the rest later.”

A tiny nod. “Okay. This morning I got... some kind of package?…” An equally tiny growl leaves her. “C’mon, brain, work with me here...”

“Ah-hahahaha!”

Ignition continued staring straight ahead, stern and unruffled as ever. “Don’t you think you should be focusing on the repercussions of you letting the Ghost live right now?”

“Ah-hahahahahaha!”

“Project Ashes has been taken. Our security and magitech teams are a mess,” Ignition continued. He paused to take a bite of his dinner, hiding just how hungry he was after missing lunch. “It’s only a matter of time before the Police start to search the tunnels. And the Prism Tower may be in danger. A lesser pony would call this a disaster.”

“Ah-hahahahaha!”

He looked down to his left. Quarter hadn’t stopped laughing in the past few minutes. It was the sort of rolling-on-the-floor reaction he’d never seen before from his boss. “And you’re just going to keep doing that, aren’t you?”

Quarter struggled to get a grip on her fit, working herself upright with one hoof over her mouth. “I’m s-sorry,” she managed to gasp. “But… she got you s-stuck in the ve-he-he-hent--- ah-hahahahahaha!” She fell back over as she resumed being sick with the giggles.

Seeing as nothing was being accomplished, Ignition opted to remain silent and continue eating his meal. And for this I gave up on being an accountant.

He didn’t yet know about Hazelnut’s return. If he did, he probably would’ve felt worse knowing that the scion also found his situation a laugh riot.

“...and I felt something hit my Mark. I don’t remember anything else between that and everypony singing my lullaby.”

“That part’s normal,” the nurse reassures Gray. “You were probably unconscious the entire time.”

“Oh. Okay.”

It took some time to get the full story out of Gray, in-between her slow speech, trying to fill in the gaps in her memory, and trying to nudge her thoughts in the right direction. Now that it’s finished I’m not sure which of us three is more dumbstruck.

I’m still upset that she’s in this situation. Just thinking about how close she came to dying… It’s like how I felt when Drama decided she wanted to settle the score with Illudere. I have friends now, and I don’t want to lose them. But… it couldn’t really be helped. Who knows what they were going to be using that child for?

Gray takes a few deep breaths, and while she does that I turn to ascertain the others’ reactions. Juniper Leaf is fairly mad in her own right. She’s remembering what was done with Gray in the past and comparing it with what could possibly be done with the science experiment that was rescued.

While some of Gray’s experiences in the city’s underground were forgotten, she was able to recall the most pertinent ones with some prodding. Among the details that she had given was that the child was codenamed “Project Ashes” and that it had been in development for four years… right around the age that the child was estimated to be by the doctors, according to the nurse. A great deal of time and money had been invested in the project, towards what end no one knew. After hearing this I had to talk Juniper out of sending the company a strongly worded letter, explaining that not everypony there was at fault.

Caramel Mocha had fallen silent halfway through Gray’s explanation, not doing anything but listening. Now that I’m looking at her, I’m realizing that she’s been feeling straight-up betrayed. “Grandfather… it couldn’t be,” she whispers as she sits down, audibly pained. “You were doing this all along? Why?”

“...You’re not going to like what I have to say next, then,” Gray murmurs. “This memory’s clear as day. Cocoa Mocha was behind the city-wide attacks and the jailbreak. He unleashed all of those involved in the hopes of killing myself, Leviathan, or both.”

“It can’t be,” Caramel denies, shaking her head. “It can’t be! He wouldn’t have any reason to! As long as I’d known him, he’d always been one of the most morally upright ponies I’d ever met! He raised me and Hazel after our parents passed. I should know this for a fact!”

I raise a hand to bring myself into the conversation. “If I may interject? This might seem like a random thought, Caramel, but does the term ‘First Quarter’ mean anything to you?”

She’s still having trouble believing what she’s hearing, but she’s not so far gone as to not consider my question. “I… I believe so. In Grandfather’s suite, he had this old painting behind his desk. The moon was on it, but without the Mare in the Moon craters. Instead it was split down the middle, with the left half being completely dark. The first time I saw it I didn’t know what it meant, so Grandfather explained to me the term ‘first quarter moon.’”

...There’s something not right about this, but what is it? “Why did you want to know?” Caramel asks, perhaps seeing my thoughtfulness.

“I fought the Midnight Castle leaders today,” I explain, both to her and to Gray. “During the battle, Gates name-dropped somepony named ‘First Quarter’. Said something about her wanting me turned into silverware.” I frown as I remember something else. “And my Frost Javelin used as a toothpick. I’d like to see them try.”

“Probably their new leader,” Gray guesses. “The Police interrogated… who was it? ...Ugh. Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, the suspect confessed that she didn’t think Leviathan’s abduction was masterminded by Cocoa on account of his passing. More like whoever was selected to replace him as head of their group.”

“It…” Caramel turns away from us. “I still can’t believe it. All this time…” Her voice is beginning to get choked up. “Why? Why?”

Juniper Leaf approaches her and rests a hoof on one of her shoulders. Caramel doesn’t react to it, too caught up in her own realizations regarding somepony she must’ve looked up to. That feels familiar, too.

...Gray’s looking at me, her eyes a bit more open than before. She knows something more about all this, but when I open my mouth to ask her she just shakes her head. “Not now,” she breathes just loud enough for me to hear. “The flake has to know. I’ll share what I can on my own time.” She grimaces. “I hope.”

I nod silently in deference to her decision.

“...Did she just call Princess Celestia a flake?” I can hear the nurse whisper faintly, sounding incredulous.

If Gray hadn’t been so tired, I’d swear she would be indignant. “Well, she is.”

…

It takes a minute for Caramel to regain enough cognizance to talk to me again. She’s been crying; a handkerchief that she gives back to Juniper is stained with tears. “I have to think long and hard about this,” she decides wearily. “Leviathan, I’d like to extend an offer to have you visit me at my personal suite in three days time. 10:00 in the morning, 18th floor, Mocha HQ. We can continue this discussion then.”

“That may be tricky,” I warn. “Between the collective failure of the enemy agents to stop me and Gray discovering a host of secrets, everypony will know if I try to set foot in the building. And that’s without any potential autograph seekers seeing me enter and begging for my attention.”

Caramel dismisses me with a head shake. “I’ll leave it to you to figure out how to reach me. Before I go: Miss Juniper Leaf?” she turns to talk to She-Of-Tremendously-Poor-Hoofwriting. “You might want to consider making yourself available to adopt Cozy Glow. If it’s true that she has no real family, she’s going to need somepony to take care of her.”

“Cozy Glow?” I wonder.

“That’s the name they decided to give the child,” Gray mutters at me. “Hazelnut Mocha’s suggestion.”

Meanwhile, Juniper’s split somewhere between hope and denial. If I remember her journal correctly, her willingness to engage in unethical science had destroyed any chance of her having her own family. A salesman named Opportunity is at the door, and she’s trying to figure out if he’s a scammer.

It takes her some seconds to work past her surprise enough to speak. “M-me? I… it would be an honor, but… raising my own child? At my age?”

“You’re already doing that and getting paid for it,” I point out. “I don’t know how much my opinion matters here since I don’t have a living family to speak of, but this just feels like the next step up.”

Gray’s smiling for the first time during this visit. “And you won’t have to treat her any differently from her peers. A toddler with a Cutie Mark’s still a toddler. Raise her well and be honest with her when she asks questions. Let her interact and play with those in the Daycare. And depending on how this conflict with ‘First Quarter’ ends, you may not even need to keep her origins a secret for long.” Her smile dims some. “Though you may need to make it clear that Cozy’s still loved and valued no matter where she came from. Speaking from experience, that means a lot.”

Juniper’s demeanor fully shifts towards ‘hope’. Seeing that shift… how could anypony not feel joyful? “Do you really think I’m able to do this?”

Gray’s smile returns with its entire extended family, including Aunt Sharp and Uncle Pointy. “I don’t see why not, Junie. Once upon a time, you did it for me. I am never forgetting that.”

…

The instructions of a prison guard had driven Juniper for years. Once again they pushed to the front of her memory. Do not think about the life you’ve lost. Think about the life ahead of you. Think about what you can do in the time you have left, and then do it. You still have time to benefit both yourself and others by your actions. Do not waste it.

...

If there was any more doubt that Juniper was going to follow Caramel’s suggestion, her subdued joy is erasing it. “I’ll talk to them before I go,” she decides, her eyes glimmering. “At the very least it’s worth a try. I’d given up hope of having my own family a long time ago. Being able to adopt Cozy Glow would be a dream come true.”

“If it works out with everypony, write to me,” Caramel instructs her. Seeing Juniper’s joy didn’t do much to change her saddened face. “Send me a bill for any costs you incur every few weeks.” She continues speaking, raising a hoof to forestall any protests. “As I’ve already said, the Mocha Corp. has been criminally negligent. I will assume responsibility and render aid to those who need it. Please don’t try to stop me---wuh?”

That was the ‘wuh’ of somepony who’s just been hugged and hadn’t been for a while. “You’re such a little dear,” Juniper tells her. “You’re welcome to visit my Treehouse Day Care anytime, child.”

This gets Caramel’s lips to twitch. “You sound just like my mother,” she softly utters before she gently undoes the hug. “Celestia, I still miss her…”

I nod at the nurse, and she opens up the curtain. “I think we’re done here,” I say as Caramel and Juniper part ways with us. I wave at them as I ask: “How long do you think Gray will need to stay in the hospital?”

“General consensus is that she’ll need to stay for at least another two days,” the nurse says with some concern. “We want to make sure that she’s well out of the danger zone first, and to see if there’s any lasting effects from what she went through today. This partial amnesia of hers is worrying.”

Fair. I figured that basically willing oneself back to life after temporarily dying had to have come with some sort of catch. “I’ll stop by two evenings from now, then.” I smirk a little at Gray. “Though, fair warning: Sally’s going to want to visit you tomorrow.”

She snorts by way of a reply and shuts her eyes, dropping out of the waking world before too long. Knowing Drama, I’d want to get plenty of sleep too in this situation.

But for now: Gray indicated that Celestia’s going to have to know about the most important stuff at some point. That doesn’t mean that I can’t fill her in on what I’ve seen today. Project Ashes was big, but my final battle today was bigger. It’s time to craft another letter.

Dear Leviathan,

It saddens me to hear that Gray was hospitalized in her line of work. Please, tell her that I wish her a speedy recovery and that I look forward to reading what she’s able to share.

I imagine Cadance is going to be delighted to hear that Gray and her family’s mutual love succeeded in bringing her back from the brink. I’ll have to tell her that story the first chance I get.

Back to business. I agree with your suspicions. Something big is, in fact, on the horizon. I’ve been feeling this way for some time now. Permit me to explain.

Aside from what you already know about my abilities, I do possess a certain level of clairvoyance. Around the time that the incidents in Manehattan began, I had a nightmare that I was caught in a malignant energy field and losing all of my strength, as if my magic and life were being torn from me. However, it was not clear as to the cause of my de-powering or when it is to occur.

I have already taken my own steps to ensure that this scenario does not come to pass, but I would like to enlist your continued aid in stopping those responsible for this possible threat. I don’t recognize the name “First Quarter”, and everything you’ve said suggests that she has access to a great many resources. I’m happy that you’re still willing to defend my little ponies, Leviathan, and with Gray no longer able to fight I need your help more than ever. Please, protect them from this unknown entity.

Part of my delay in writing this letter involved your news that the former Royal Guards were using stolen Neo Arcadian technology. I was shocked, and I initially believed that your world had been in contact with ours at some point without me realizing it. However, after some pondering, recollections, and research in the Canterlot Library’s restricted section, I believe I might have a clue:

Many years ago when my rule was still relatively young, there was a loud and explosive disturbance in the Everfree Forest. One of my best soldiers and his squad found a powerful monster when they investigated. He destroyed the monster, but he was the only survivor of that encounter. He brought back something enigmatic: the monster’s weapon. We tried and failed to learn how it worked, and when the soldier was deemed unfit to lead he was allowed to take the weapon home with him as a souvenir. The only thing we knew about it is that it could easily fit in the crook of a hoof, and created a triangular purple blade that cut through everything and was stopped by nothing, per the soldier’s eyewitness account.

There have been no records of that weapon since, so I assumed it had either been lost to the ages or destroyed. With the news you have brought, there is a possibility that the weapon has survived to the modern day. Additionally, somepony may have finally figured out how the sword works and started to make copies of it. You have my permission to destroy any more of these you find: I do not want these to endanger my ponies. It goes without saying that you should do the same to the original if you locate it.

I apologize for sending you this letter so late at night, and I imagine I’ll have to try to take short naps whenever I can to make up for it, but this was too important a matter to dismiss.

On a lighter note, how is that feather I sent you treating you? Has it helped you go places like I believed it would?

Sincerely yours,
Princess Celestia

Celestia,

That soldier brought back WHAT?!

Leviathan

Author's Note

It just figures. The two-parter leaves me stumped for more than a month, and its aftermath gets finished in two and a half days.

Just one music link today: Savfk's "The Travelling Symphony".

I actually had this more or less finished last night, but I was reminded in the comments that what Gray went through would've had some detrimental effects on her memory. I tweaked the chapter this morning to account for it. Hopefully it's satisfactory.

Ko-Fi Tip Jar!

Trope Page!