Fallout: Equestria - The Spark of Life

Chapter 5: Cat Scratch Fever

You think that's natural? They're infected with "pastelis coloritis".

The forest stretched on for miles, interspersed with a rocky desert-like ground beneath us. It was a wonder anything actually grew out here, but it was good to be out of the heat of the sun at the very least. My map indicated we were still a few days away from the heart of Abyssinia and its capital city of Panthera. Silently we continued to walk through the forest, taking cues from Bright Ember as we did.

My thoughts turned to my companions and how they were doing with things since escaping Klugetown. Violet seemed to be holding up the best, rejoicing in her newfound ability to utilize magic despite the fact that the magic still seemed to be highly erratic. During the previous day, an attempt to levitate a rock resulted in it being turned into a frog. It screamed. Then it died. It was altogether quite frightening, but Violet seemed… happy about the progress, so I didn’t think to question too much the ethical issues behind converting inanimate life to animate life even if it was purely by accident.

Sunshine also appeared to be doing well, having experienced a bit of magical burnout again for the first time in forever. It hadn’t taken long for her magic to recover, but having something like that happen was always problematic. Still she seemed to be in good spirits, and had been spending most of her time getting to know Bright Ember better, which I suspected helped with the Kirin’s normally reclusive nature.

Trick Shot seemed rather morose since we escaped. The ghoul had watched the memory orb I’d given him several times more since we discussed it outside of the border of Klugetown, and I suspected he was feeling a bit lost in understanding Tempest’s motivations. He had known her personally, on a level I suspected was far closer than he liked to admit out loud. I desperately wished there was something I could do for him.

Of the others, Bright Ember seemed to be more alive once we got out of Klugetown. He spent most of his time chatting with Sunshine Sky, avidly asking questions about Equestria. I occasionally detected a hint of sadness inside of him and I felt maybe I might have to worry about a Nirik flare-up, but Ember seemed to be controlling the creature inside of him, at least for the time being. I suspected a lot of this had to do with having someone to talk to, personally. If there was anything I had learned about Twilight Sparkle it was that friendship was a solid way of helping others feel safe and comfortable, and Sunshine extending her hoof to Ember had done that in a way few could understand.

I felt for the most part… sore. My body had undertaken quite a bit during the excursion into Klugetown and while I was recovering thanks in part to Bright Ember’s intervention in the caverns beneath the town, I was still not a hundred percent. Between the smog, the building falling on top of us, and the draining use of my magic, I was thoroughly tired. Still, I couldn’t stop. If whatever was controlling that army knew where we were headed… the results could be catastrophic. The sheer fact alone that there could be something at Mount Aris that could help us kept me going. I had to hope that Equestria would be alright. That we would have something to go back to in order to save it.

I had to hope we could see this through to the end.

* * *

We crested over the next ridge, looking down at our first glimpse of Abyssinia from its supposed border. I quickly spotted and identified more Hippocampus Energy plants along the border. After realizing how extensive the power grid down here was, I really began to wonder just what was waiting for us in Mount Aris. What kind of weapon required that much power? Was it just Minerva? Teleportation combined with radio wave technology to utilize communications arrays as weapons? That didn’t seem to make much sense to me. There had to be more to it than that.

An ancient settlement, once inhabited but now seemingly lifeless sat just a stone’s throw away from the nearest energy facility. The architecture was far different than any Equestrian settlement I’d ever seen. Buildings of clay colored stone littered the desert-like plain the town sat upon. A large pyramid shaped temple sat in the center of the ghost town. As we came down the ridge closer to it, I could see the skeletons that lay unrested around the town. Strangely enough they didn’t look like ponies.

“Doesn’t quite look like a place for technological development,” I said aloud as we made our way onto the outskirts of town. “It looks a lot more tribalistic.”

“When I traveled through here in the past, I read some of the writings in the temples. The Abyssinians were very tribalistic in nature,” Bright Ember said. “They chose to live like this.”

Trick Shot scowled, looking down at one of the skeletons. “These aren’t ponies. I remember hearing about Abyssinia a little bit during the war. They were supposed to be feline creatures, right?”

“Feline?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “You mean they were…”

“Cats,” Bright Ember said with a sad smile. “They were cats. I don’t know if any actually survived the end of the war. They were quite reclusive.”

“Not reclusive enough if there are power plants built here. I wonder how Equestria managed that,” I said.

“Probably had something to do with whatever Project Minerva is and whatever is actually inside Mount Aris,” Violet interjected. “I keep reading over these schematics to make sense of it all. I suspect the Abyssinian’s in the towns had no say over what Equestria did here.”

“Based on what research I’ve been able to pull together on my PipBuck library, Abyssinia was beholden to a King and Queen. Perhaps they ordered the creation of these plants,” Sunshine said with a scowl. “There isn’t much further information than that, though.”

“We’d better keep moving,” I said, lifting my leg to look at my PipBuck. “Ember, do you remember which way the capital city is?”

Bright Ember walked over and looked at the mapping function on the PipBuck and then looked up around us. He pointed in a direction due east, slightly northeast. “There,” he said. “Panthera is in that direction. I’m sure of it.”

“Let’s get moving then,” I said. “I have a feeling that we shouldn’t be out here after dark.”

We started walking through the town and all I could feel was the sadness of it all. An entire civilization destroyed by the actions of Equestria. Even if they had not been directly attacked by the megaspells, the radioactive material would have washed over the Badlands and to Abyssinia. The damage would have been far more at the level of massive death than actual destruction.

I hated the prewar ponies even more.

We made our way past the temple in the center of town. It too looked deserted from the outside. Everything about the town felt a little too quiet. If I knew any better about the state of the world outside of Equestria, I would have wished it was just quiet because it was dead… but then I also knew nothing stayed dead forever.

I heard the keening sound before I saw what was making it. It was coming from inside of the temple. It started as a low wail before kicking up into a full high pitched screaming. I flipped on my E.F.S., seeing one large blob of red directly inside the temple. A large tentacle slipped out of the temple’s main doorway, followed by several more and a creature that had to be one of the most disgusting things I’d ever laid eyes on.

It was bulbous and slimy, with skin that appeared to have simply been stretched over the thing. It had no eyes that I could see, but it did have a large beak-like mouth protruding from it. Several tentacles extended from the main body of the creature, but it did not appear to have great mobility, using its tentacles to pull itself along.

The creature had a very strong psychological effect that I quickly began to identify, thanks to having been under the complete mind fuckery of a mind control smog in Klugetown. The creature wasn’t fast, but it could root its prey into one place using fear. It seemed to be working on the others, except for Trick Shot and myself. I took the opportunity, extending my magic outward into forming my blade. I sent several shards of it at a tentacle that started to extend towards Sunshine Sky, slicing it off in a bloody stump. Trick placed a careful shot into the things beak, impaling its bulbous body with the bullet and causing gore to spurt from it.

The shock of the thing’s cries was enough to dislodge the others from the thing’s control at least. I expected most of this thing’s prey was not strong enough to run away or fight back. Then the thing’s tentacle and body regrew in an instant and I blinked. What the actual fuck?! My mind screamed.

“We need to run,” I said, pulling the others back with my magic as a tentacle lashed out right where Sunshine had been standing just a moment before. “Now!”

We picked up the pace, keeping as much of a distance as we could from the slow moving thing. However, my E.F.S. suddenly began to light up all around me as several ghoulish figures stepped into the light of the day from the buildings on each side of us. They appeared to be ghouls, but they weren’t ponies. It was like Bright Ember had said. They were indeed cats.

Trick Shot scowled and fired several shots into the litter of cat-ghouls that approached on our left flank, taking down two of them. The remaining beasts hissed and rasped loudly. The slimy tentacle thing in the middle continued following us, seemingly unaware or uncaring about the ghouls around it. It moved slowly but with intent to kill. Violet spat hot fiery death with her rifles, keeping the things on the right flank contained while Sunshine and Ember huddled close to me. I sent more shards of magical blade energy outwards, slicing into the tentacle thing’s tentacles, hoping to slow it down. Indeed I did slow it down but only momentarily before the tentacles reattached themselves.

I glanced back and realized we were slowly running out of places to run in the town, the next road ending firmly in a dead end against the outer wall. The things had herded us to a favorable position to overwhelm us before swooping in for the kill. We needed a way out, but thankfully brittle walls couldn’t contain us.

“Sunshine,” I said, pointing to the wall. “Take Ember, see what you can do about busting us out of here.”

The pink mare nodded, grabbing onto Ember’s hoof and pulling him away. I hadn’t yet quite figured out what Ember could do in a fight and it seemed that every fight we’d been in had resulted in Ember functionally clinging to me in some fashion. I knew that he feared being put in a position where his Nirik side took over, and I feared that to an extent as well, but perhaps if we got out of this alive a little combat training wouldn’t hurt.

I turned my attention to Trick and Violet. They were both managing rather spectacularly, fending off ghoul after ghoul with their combined firepower. It still wasn’t going to be enough.

“Sunshine and Ember are finding us a way out through the wall,” I said. “We need to start pulling back so we can get through and drop the rubble back down on the way out.”

“Copy that,” Trick said, lifting his rifle into the air with his magic and taking another several shots at some of the cat-ghouls approaching on the left. He obliterated the legs of one and the arms or another, causing them to try to pull themselves along on the ground, snarling and biting at whatever they could. “Fuck! We might have to pull back sooner. Regeneration charm on my rifle is wearing itself thin.”

“Regeneration charm?” I said quizzically.

“Not really the time to discuss,” Trick said. “Let’s hope they can get down that wall!”

A loud crashing sound behind me indicated that in some part, Sunshine had been successful. A hole sat open in the wall, propped up by several vines. I shouted and grabbed onto Violet and Trick with my magic, dragging them along next to me as the tentacle creature lashed out right where they had been, followed by several cat-ghouls. I ran full bore through the hole as Sunshine let go of the vines, dropping the rubble back in place. One unlucky cat-ghoul managed to stick its head through the falling debris before getting splattered by rocks. The hole was sealed. I heard growls and pushing on the wall from beyond.

“Not out of this yet,” I said. “Come on, let’s move deeper into the forest. If they think we’re not around they may not follow.”

We moved as one, heading further in as we tried to locate a place to hunker down for the night. We managed to find a small clearing that seemed pretty defensible and stopped, listening for any sounds that we’d been followed. When there were none, I let out a massive sigh of relief. The others began walking around and setting up some defenses using some of the trees while Bright Ember sat down near me.

“How in the ever living fuck did you survive on your own out here?” I asked the Kirin quietly before slumping down onto my haunches next to him.

“I uh… mostly ran. Or turned into a Nirik. That always seemed to scare away any predators. After a while, the reputation of what I was…” he said, fidgeting with his hooves.

I nodded. “I know you still fear it, but you haven’t transformed since you joined up with us,” I said. “Perhaps there is something to the magic of Friendship after all. I know that Sunshine and you have been getting to know each other, and I think that’s helping you, you know that right?”

Ember looked down at his hooves again before nodding silently. “Sunshine has been… really nice to me. I haven’t felt the urge to transform. The rage, the pain…” he said. “But it’s there. I can still feel those things. That’s what scares me about it.”

“You’re scared of what might happen if something happened to one of us,” I said. “Or rather… to her?”

Ember blushed fiercely. “I… I don’t know what you’re… you’re talking about,” he stammered. “Sunshine has just been really nice to me and I think she smells pretty and… oh horseapples.”

I chuckled softly. “I’m not so good at picking up on a lot of things, but love and romance? Violet and I have been together long enough that I know that very well,” I said with a smile. “It’s okay. Sunshine is technically unattached. You’re cute together.”

“I… I… I…”

“You’ll figure it out, I’m sure. That being said… we do need to discuss something serious,” I said softly.

“We do?”

“I think you’ve noticed already that we tend to have a good idea of each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” I said. “We work well as a team because we all know each other, and even though Trick Shot is fairly new to working with Sunshine, Violet, and I, he is used to this kind of thing from his military training. I think it would make a lot of sense to learn a little combat training and how to utilize a firearm in combat.”

“I’ve never really fired a gun before,” Ember replied. “I get a little flustered in those situations, and then I get scared I might turn.”

“I know, and that’s something that’s going to be hard to work on,” I said. “But believe me… I’ve seen what you can do and I believe in you, Ember. I believe you can get past this, you just have to work hard and direct your fear into a positive and productive fashion.”

“You really think so?” Ember said.

“I do,” I said with a wink. “Plus, I don’t think it would hurt to show Sunshine that you can protect her in a pinch if you know what I mean.”

Bright Ember blushed again fiercely as the others came back to camp, having gathered some dead wood for a fire.

“Everything alright?” Sunshine asked. “Ember?”

“EVERYTHING’S FINE, I DON’T KNOW WHY I SHOUTED, I’M SORRY,” Ember said, before diving behind me. He looked past me meekly and grimaced. “Star and I were just discussing helping me learn some combat training so I could help in situations.”

“That’s probably a really good idea,” Trick Shot huffed. “I have a few spare firearms in my kit. You can borrow one of mine. We’ll talk it through as we go.”

My eyebrow raised. Trick was offering to help? That was interesting. I had been under the very real impression that Trick hated Niriks and only considered Ember to be a Nirik.

“I would… I would like that very much,” Ember replied.

I smiled softly to myself as Sunshine and Ember walked past and sat while Violet stoked the fire. She sat down next to me and smiled.

“Seems like we’re out of the woods, or well… in the woods I should say,” she said softly. “Everything about this journey has felt absolutely insane so far.”

“Yeah,” I said, watching Sunshine and Ember from across the way. “But you know what? Despite the insane things that have happened, and the supposed threat to Equestria… this is what I missed. Going on adventures. Seeking the truth of the past. Building friendships with others. Goddess, I’m starting to sound like Twilight Sparkle.”

“Honey, Twilight used far larger words than you do on average. I think you’re fine,” Violet said with a playful shove. “Besides, she was prettier too.”

“Oh you really think so?” I said, shoving back playfully as well. “I guess maybe I should have stayed purple then, huh?”

“Nah,” Violet said, leaning in and kissing me on the cheek. “I like this you so much better, honestly. Because it’s you.”

I smiled and wrapped a wing around her. “I love you too,” I said. “How’s your horn doing?”

“I can still feel the tingling sensation. It’s gotten much stronger since that outbreak, but the magic is still irrational. I tried levitating one of the logs for the fire and it teleported away somewhere. I don’t actually know where,” Violet said.

“Remember what the Doctor said, don’t rush it,” I said. “You are getting there. I knew you would. You’re a fighter.”

“Well, I have something to fight for,” Violet replied, snuggling into my side and falling asleep.

I looked up at Trick from across the fire. He nodded solemnly, offering to keep the first watch. Already Sunshine and Ember had fallen asleep next to each other. I couldn’t help but be thankful for what seemed to be a beautiful friendship and possibly more. I let myself slip into slumber shortly after.

* * *

It was the dream again. The falling. The waves, everything. Except this time the voice I had heard before was practically shouting. I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t grasp what was happening to me because it all felt too real.

The purple blur I had seen before reappeared. I could hear it calling to me. Saying my name. That part I began to hear more clearly. I lifted a hoof, tried to spread my wings to propel myself forward to it. I tried to call back, but couldn’t speak due to the water. I felt my mind beginning to slip away, when suddenly the water began to recede. I fell further into the void of blackness, finally hitting what felt like a hard surface but ended up being just more black. I groaned loudly and looked up at the purplish blur began to coalesce into something more concrete.

“Sweet fucking Celestia,” a voice said. “I’ve been trying to reach you here for days.”

My eyes widened as the winged purple blur became a carbon copy of me, or at least what I’d looked like when Spark and Twilight had invaded my body. Except this version of me looked… older. Wiser.

“Who…?” I said weakly.

“You really don’t know? I didn’t think you would forget me that easily, Star,” the purple alicorn said. “We spent a lot of time together after all.”

“Spark?” I said, pushing myself to my hooves to further take in the mare in front of me.

Upon further inspection, the alicorn was much more me than I had been during that time, and a crown of jewels adorned with Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark sat on her brow. It was her somehow.

“Now she gets it,” Spark replied with a chuckle. “I had to break you out of that dream spell to get you here.”

“Dream spell… What do you mean? Why are you here?” I asked, trying to parse just why in the world the very Element of Magic would come back to me.

“Yes, Star. You’ve been under the influence of some very powerful magic. I know this isn’t going to make sense yet, but you are walking into a trap. I came to warn you,” Spark said with a scowl.

“What about your bearer? Do they know…?” I said.

“They’re aware of what I had to do,” Spark replied. “The Elements are in danger, Star. This army… they’ve acquired something very dangerous, and their leader is even more dangerous than anything you’ve ever encountered. It’s the thing that casted the dream spell on you.”

My mind was fuzzy, but the memory of being on the airship, seeing those eyes in the smoke. How had it managed to put me under a spell? I voiced this concern to Spark, who sighed loudly.

“The thing controlling this army is an ancient evil, so much so that its name has been lost to time. However, that’s not the real problem here… where you’re headed is a trap,” Spark said frantically. “The city of Panthera. It’s been that thing’s hiding place since it reappeared. You’re walking right into the belly of the beast.”

“How did you find this out?” I said. “Is the portal to Mount Aris still active then?”

“The portal is under the control of the leader of the army,” Spark said. “As for how I know about this… how else do you think I know?”

“Velvet Remedy, Calamity, the other Elements,” I said, reasoning it out in my mind.

“Correct. We discovered some intelligence back home that suggests the army has been formed up outside of Equestria and made their way from somewhere to the east. Then we heard some transmissions about you and the others down here and about Abyssinia,” Spark explained. “We knew we had to warn you, but didn’t know how. It was actually sort of Kindness’ idea to use the Elements connection to you.”

“Connection? But I thought you had a bearer,” I said, feeling very confused.

“Sure, but loosely speaking you were created to bear Twilight’s spirit. There was always a connection to the Elements there, regardless of whether you were picked to be a bearer or not. Honestly, it’s probably for the best that you weren’t. No offense,” Spark said.

“None taken,” I replied. “So this portal… it’s under the control of this army. Why have they tried to stop us from reaching Mount Aris then?”

Spark scowled. “I believe the reason is because they can’t use it,” she said. “They have it, but it’s possibly turned off or keyed to a specific gene marker.”

“A Ministry Mare. I’m going to guess it was Twilight Sparkle,” I said with a groan. “I’m kind of getting super tired of cleaning up her shit, you know.”

“I’m sure,” Spark replied with a grin. “Still, you can’t press deeper into Abyssinia. I’ve been asked to recall you back to Equestria. This mission is too dangerous and quite frankly… we could use you back home.”

“What’s happening there?” I said.

“It’s only been minor skirmishes thus far between the invaders and the NCR, but more is coming. The airship that you and your friends damaged is close to being repaired, despite the NCR’s best efforts to keep it grounded,” Spark explained. “We need you, Star. You’re a strong fighter, and we can’t lose you.”

I looked down at my hooves. It would be easy enough to abandon this quest and head home, cut our losses and spend time defending my home. I wanted to do it badly. I wanted to leave and try my best to protect ponies. But at the same time… I also knew that where we were headed had an answer to all of this. We could stop the war with the power in Mount Aris. We just had to get there.

“I… I can’t,” I said finally. “We can’t. This mission, it’s important. What we will do will help save lives, I just know it deep down. I can’t abandon it.”

Spark scowled yet again. “Somehow I knew you would be stubborn as hell. Fine. But what do you plan to do about the trap? You’re walking right into their home base here. How do you mean to get to the portal?”

“I’ll figure that out,” I said. “Once I wake up and talk to the others. We’ll figure out a plan and do our best. I need to see this through.”

“I… I get it,” Spark said after a few moments of silence. “I was able to cut through the dream spell and hopefully disable it. You shouldn’t have this crazy fucking dream again… and I suspect I won’t be able to contact you again after this even with the connection to the Elements. The dream provided a loophole for us, so this was sort of a Hail Celestia on our part.”

“I understand,” I said. “Tell the others… tell Velvet that we’re going to do our part. We’ll find whatever it is in Mount Aris, and we’ll come back with it.”

“Of course,” Spark said before turning to go. “Star? Be careful. I wouldn’t want to hear that you went and died on us.”

“Sympathy? I’m shocked, Spark. You used to be so cold,” I said with a grin.

“You wouldn’t believe how much having a real family helps you,” Spark replied.

I thought of Violet, of Sunshine and Ember, of Trick Shot and smirked. “Yeah, I think I do know that.”

* * *

I awoke with a startle, trying to clear my head and remember the dream. Spark had warned us that we were headed into a trap, and I needed to come up with a plan to get to that portal. What worried me more is that the portal could contain some form of a bypass spell, a kind of magically keyed spell that only allowed certain ponies through an area or allowed them to interact with something. In many cases it was keyed to a genetic marker that the pony needed to have in their very DNA.

Twilight Sparkle. Even from beyond the grave she was having a chuckle fuck at me. I hated her with my very soul.

The others were stirring, beginning to wrap up the camp when I stepped in the middle of them and cleared my throat. Several pairs of eyes looked my way and I sighed.

“We’ve got a problem,” I said, launching into an explanation of what Spark had relayed to me in the dream world. By the time I was finished the others were scowling deeply.

“So, the only reason they let us go in Klugetown is because they knew we were headed right to them,” Violet said angrily. “We can’t go back to Equestria now. We have to see this through.”

“I agree with Violet,” Trick Shot said nonchalantly. “There’s a potential here to take out the head of this army. Even if they do know we’re coming, we know that they know and there’s an element of surprise there we didn’t have before.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to help,” Bright Ember said confidently, looking over at Sunshine, who merely smiled softly.

“Do we have a plan?” she said.

“We have to expect that they may consider us to cross the country due east to the capital,” I said, lifting the hastily scribbled map that Violet had been crafting as we moved. “If we know that, we can probably circumvent to the north and come in that way once we’re in sight of the city. That’s going to depend a lot on what the defenses of the city look like, though.”

“I can figure it out once we see it,” Trick Shot said. “Kind of my specialty when I ran special forces with Fizzy.”

I nodded. “We should take a moment and make sure we’re all physically ready for this. My biggest concern is that if we can get close to the portal that we might not be able to use it, so we’ll need something of an exit strategy. If the portal is locked to a genetic marker…”

“Then this might all be for nothing,” Violet finished for me.

I stared gravely at the ground. “Yeah,” I said. “We’d likely be sacrificing ourselves in the middle of enemy territory for no reason.”

“Not exactly for no reason,” Bright Ember said. “Like Trick Shot said, if we could take out whoever is leading this army… we could… what’s the phrase… cut off their head?”

“Possibly, but only if the opportunity presents itself,” I said frankly. “Our first objective should be the portal device.”

“I have an idea,” Sunshine said. “If they know we’re coming, why not use that? Take out some of their guards and gain access to their tech. We can figure out what’s going on inside then.”

“I like this idea,” Trick Shot said.

I nodded again, feeling slightly proud of the little family I’d cultivated here. I just had to hope that I wasn’t leading them to their deaths.

We packed up the rest of our camp and started out, heading towards the east and the city of Panthera. We passed by several other cities along the way, all of which were seemingly deserted. After our experience at the border we opted to take the time to go around them, fearful of whatever was left by the Abyssinians. We also saw more and more power nodes for Hippocampus Energy. They all seemed to be feeding right towards where we were headed. The kind of power needed to power this portal device and the shield at Mount Aris must have been incredibly massive.

As we walked along the rocky trail, I fell back from the others next to Violet.

“I’m scared,” I admitted under my breath. “What if we’re doing the wrong thing here? What if I’m just getting us all killed?”

“Star, since when has that fear ever prevented you from rushing headlong into danger?” Violet replied with a smirk. “You’ve always been the headstrong one, and I’ve been the smart one. What’s got you thinking like this?”

“I just… I don’t want to see anything else bad happen to… to you and to the others,” I said. “I fear that whatever we’re walking into is going to devour us alive.”

“Sweetie… I know you feel responsible for what happened to my horn,” Violet said, nuzzling my side. “But we know the risks. We also know what will happen if we fail. That keeps us going. Plus, we’re together. We can do anything together, you know that.”

I chuckled softly. “I guess I do know that,” I said. “Thank you. For being you. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“You’re welcome, Sweetie,” Violet said, smirking yet again. “Just… when the time comes… be brave. I know you can do it.”

I smiled and nodded, extending a wing around her side in a hug.

We continued onwards, taking short breaks to rest. During these breaks, Trick Shot would take Bright Ember aside and show him the basics of handling a firearm. Because the Kirin had a form of magical ability himself, it was quite easy for him to grasp manipulating the device with his magic, which in turn made it much easier for Trick Shot to teach him.

Bright Ember for the most part, picked it up and was able to hit most of the targets Trick provided, while I helped with a cone of silence around the group so that nothing in the wild could hear the shots. We didn’t really need to advertise our presence after all. Ember still seemed pretty shaky with it, but he was definitely getting better with each session.

Violet’s magic also continued some form of improvement, but it was still highly erratic. Still, she’d managed to be able to shed the battle saddle for the time being and was able to wield her energy rifles with levitation. Levitating or using telekinesis on other things however… well let’s just say that things got weird fast and not the good kind of weird.

According to Bright Ember’s estimations it was going to take at least another day to arrive at the outskirts of the city of Panthera. This meant locating some place to hunker down in the evening. I was struck by just how barren the country of Abyssinia really was. Despite the few tribalistic towns we’d seen and the Hippocampus Energy plants, there was very little wildlife and the plant life was either dying or already dead. It was like a grave the deeper we moved towards the capital.

It was one of those energy plants that we found that seemed like the best place to sit for the night and camp. We approached cautiously, knowing that these places tended to be pretty dangerous. Everything seemed pretty still except for the constant humming of the power station itself. The office attached to it was a small affair consisting of only one large room, so it was clear that this was just a way station and not a major operation. I pulled up by E.F.S. and scanned the building itself and found nothing of note except for the friendly blips belonging to my friends.

I pushed on the door and it opened stiffly to a dark room that slowly illuminated as the automatic lighting began to turn on. True to my E.F.S. was the fact that the room was indeed empty of anything hostile. Instead it was a room full of skeletons. Well, five skeletons to be exact. Not all of them were feline either. There were at least two ponies, two Abyssinians, and a Kirin skeleton all around the room in various positions. From the fact that there were a few rooms in the back with beds suggested that these creatures were workers here and lived here as well.

Along the side wall was a massive row of switches and monitoring devices for monitoring the power grid. They still appeared to be going, clicking every so lightly and beeping in the silence. A lone desk with a single terminal sat along the other wall. It too was still working.

“Well there’s no ghouls, no raiders, nothing absolutely insane. I’d say this is an absolute win,” I exclaimed. “It’s even got beds!”

“I guarantee you it is probably not a good idea to use those beds,” Violet said, striding across the room and peeking inside the bedrooms. “They look disgusting.”

“Probably fair. Well, at the very least we can help clean up and bury these poor souls. Give them a proper resting,” I said, using my magic to scoop up one skeleton at a time so as to not get them confused.

While the others prepared and Violet sat down to hack the terminal I took each one neatly outside and dug five holes. Once they were all placed in their graves, I covered them back up and used some nearby rocks to make rudimentary markers. As I finished the work it was beginning to get dark. I stepped back into the station to find that Violet had managed to crack into the computer system.

“Anything important?” I asked as I stepped up next to her.

“Well, we were right about one thing. This whole grid is connected to this Minerva Project. I’m guessing that’s what the portal is for,” Violet said.

“We kind of already guessed that though. Does it say anything about the power output to the east?” I said.

“Still going strong, which means that the portal device must have power of some sort,” Violet replied. “However, I did find something else that was interesting.”

“And that is…?”

Violet clicked over to an audio file and instructed the terminal to play it through the speaker. At first there was static, and then a mare’s voice came onto the terminal.

“We had a visit by Equestrian Special Forces today. They came to check on the relay power for Minerva. I’ll never forget the mare in charge. Her eyes pierced my very soul, and while she seemed like she was very nice, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her the entire time. It was like she was channeling some raw intensity that captivated me completely. Plus, she had this gnarly looking scar across one of her eyes.

She seemed to be interested in knowing how the power fed from here to the capital city of Panthera. Said it had something to do with Minerva. I explained to her matter of factly that there were three stations that fed directly into Panthera’s royal palace, along with a dual station track that replicated the structure for redundancy. It should provide all the power she needed for Minerva.

She then started asking several questions about something called the genetic bypass for Minerva. I told her it was above my pay grade and I didn’t even know what the flaming Celestia a genetic bypass was. She didn’t seem too pleased about that, but she accepted my answer nonetheless. Without another word, she left. I was able to finally take a deep breath after she had gone. It felt like I hadn’t breathed properly the entire time she was here. Celestia, she is scary.”

The audio flickered off and my eyes narrowed. There was indeed some sort of genetic bypass in place for Minerva. How did it work? The mare in the recording didn’t know, she was just a peon who worked for Hippocampus. But the mare who came to see her…

“Tempest,” Trick Shot said from beside the desk. “She came here?”

“It seems like it,” I said. “She was in charge of this Minerva project, whatever it was being used for. The other problem is that now we know there’s some sort of genetic bypass for it.”

“Which means we might not be able to go through the portal,” Violet said with a grimace.

“I don’t quite understand what that means,” Bright Ember said.

“Back in the day before the war, the Ministry of Arcane Sciences was investigating a spell known as a bypass. It could be used in numerous ways but one of the biggest was using it to seal off areas to genetic markers. Namely in those days, the Ministry Mares,” Violet continued to explain. “They weren’t widely used in a lot of places, only in high security areas. Based on what we know of it, there’s a bypass spell around the shield of the Single Pegasus Project that the Lightbringer Littlepip is inside that is keyed to a Ministry Mare.”

“I… I see,” Bright Ember said. “It sounds complicated.”

“Problematically, what if the only one who could use the portal was Tempest herself?” I voiced out loud. “And of course… she’s long dead. Maybe that’s why this army is not able to use the portal to get to Mount Aris?”

“You’re forgetting something crucial here, Star,” Sunshine interjected. “Even if Tempest was keyed to the bypass, this was a Ministry project right? It had to be. And that would mean…”

“That it’s possible that I can open the bypass,” I said with a grimace. “This could be a suicide mission for anypony who comes into the capitol.”

“Star,” Violet said. “That doesn’t mean we’re not coming with you. We stand a better chance of getting there and holding anything off together.”

“But…” I started to say.

“But nothing,” Violet said. “We’re doing this together. If only you can get through the portal… we’ll get out alive. I promise you that.”

I scowled. “Fine. But we have to get some rest first. It’ll take us another day to get to Panthera. Hopefully by then we’ll have something of a plan.”

The others nodded in agreement before moving about to rest in our makeshift shelter. I took the first watch, glaring outside as I tried to let the words of my friends sink in. After a moment of deep thought I smiled. Friendship, I thought. Makes ponies do some crazy shit.

* * *

The night passed without issues and no more bad dreams. Spark really had managed to remove the dream spell that had been cast upon me it seemed. I kept watch until Trick Shot arrived, while not needing actual rest the ghoul was busy taking inventory of our stuff before taking his watch.

We made our way out of the Hippocampus plant silently and started again eastward. My thoughts drifted to what lay ahead. If this really was the base of whatever thing was in charge of the army attacking Equestria… then maybe we could defeat it? I couldn’t keep the image of those eyes out of my head as I thought of it though. I knew deep down that was not why we were going to Panthera. It was for the portal. For Mount Aris and whatever was there.

It was late in the afternoon when we came over a ridge that gave us a long view of Panthera. The late capitol city of the Abyssinians was massive in scale with many buildings and temples. In the dead center of the city was a large palace that stretched upwards and outwards. As was expected, several large Hippocampus plants were ringed around the perimeter of the city, creating almost a wall of sorts between them.

What further drew my attention was the airships. There were two of them docked at a tower on the north end of the city. They didn’t appear to be moving.

“Star…” Violet uttered next to me. “That’s…”

“I know. They’re the same as the one that attacked Hope Hollow,” I said. “If there are more of those things then we better hurry before they’re fully airborne.”

“I spotted some hostiles,” I heard a voice say from nearby. Trick Shot was peering through his scope down at the land around and inside the city. “Camps. Raiders and Storm Guards.”

I took the scope from him as he offered it and looked down at the land. Sure enough there were multiple raider camps situated around the outskirts of the city. Storm Guards patrolled the entrances into the city.

“Curious,” I said aloud. “The raiders aren’t actually allowed into the city.”

“The Storm Guards are keeping them out for a reason. Which means if we can get inside, we might be able to move about rather freely,” Trick said.

“Did you see a way even in?” I asked.

“It’s crazy but it might work,” Trick said. “Take a look at the airship tower again through the scope.”

I lifted the scope and found the airship tower. My eyes widened. There were no guards, no workers, no pegasi? Something felt off. Why would they leave them unattended? Unless the guards were at the bottom of the tower. They wouldn’t expect….

“No,” I said with a grin. “You can’t be serious.”

Trick Shot grinned widely. “Think you can do it? It’s a straight shot to the back of the palace from there.”

“What? What’s she going to do?” Bright Ember asked.

A wilder grin formed on my face. We had a plan. It was insane, but it was something.

“How do you all feel about flying?” I asked.

Author's Note

Slightly shorter chapter here, but we're now getting close to some good action! Trust me the next chapter is pretty groovy.

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