Bridlewood Spectra Power Station, Safe Zone

No sooner had Argyle finished speaking than Alphabittle swung into action. He looked over to two soldiers. "Kindly escort Crimson Moon to the local police station," he said bluntly. "We have no further use of his services."

Crimson Moon fought them the entire way. "IT WAS SKY CHASER! IT WAS SKY CHASER! Get your dirty wings off of me, you foal eaters!"

The soldiers, to their credit, did not reply to these insults, and instead continued in their duty that was given to them by the powers that be. Alphabittle had no further time to think about that fool, however. He marched over to the nearest telephone box and dialled the local number for the administration that ran the area. There was a brief beeping as the tone engaged, and then a voice spoke on the other end. "You have reached the Office of the Mayor of Bridlewood. How can I help?"

"Get me the Mayor, and quickly," Alphabittle said. "There's a bonus of 100 bits for you if you transfer me within a minute."

"Understood sir, transferring you now." There were some more whirrs and clicks, followed by what Alphabittle swore was a brief segment of a pop song playing (he didn't know which one. He hated pop music), and then finally he heard the sound of somebody picking up the phone on the other end.

"This is Moonlight Hunter, Mayor of Bridlewood, may I ask who is calling?"

"Alphabittle Blossomforth. I have some urgent information that you need to hear.

"I'm listening."

"It concerns the power station. We just had a team conduct a sweep of the site with a high power dosimeter to check the local radiation levels."

"What were the results?"

"The dosimeter gave a reading of 15,000 Starswirl, not 3.6. I don't entirely understand what the numbers mean, but I'm pretty certain that means not great, simply terrible."

"Good Heavens!" Moonlight Hunter replied. "This situation really is bad."

"I need you to evacuate Bridlewood. There is virtually no chance of the area being safe to inhabit with this place spewing out its filth."

"I'll be convening the city council and the town authorities tomorrow morning to decide a strategy and settle the situation."

"You'll convene them now," Alphabittle said bluntly.

"But it's the middle of the night, and they'll all be in bed, and-"

"I don't care if they're taking a dump or not, get them convened by any means necessary!" Alphabittle growled. "There are lives at stake, and we need to do something rather than sit around talking. Do you want to be remembered as the Mayor who got thousands of her own citizens needlessly killed because they were asleep?"

There was a brief pause. "I'll get them convened right away, sir."

"Good. You are dismissed." Alphabittle put the phone down and glanced over to an aide of his. "Find me a HAZMAT suit," he said. "And find one for Argyle as well. I'm certain we can find Unicorn and Earth Pony ones around here."

Bridlewood Spectra Power Station, Inside Radiological Monitoring Trailer

I stepped inside a trailer that had been deployed earlier that day, and when I did enter it I found two figures I had not expected to meet. One of them was the unicorn scientist I had been on the call with yesterday, and the other was none other than Princess Haven, heir to the Pegasus throne. I bowed quickly, my nose coming scarily close to touching the floor in the process.

"There's no need to bow," Haven said. "I'm rather relaxed about all that. Besides, I believe we have a situation to deal with."

"Of course," I said. "But I thought the sector was locked down. How did Doctor Blossom get here?"

"I was given diplomatic immunity by Princess Haven to enter the sector," Solar Blossom replied. "But we have bigger matters than travel arrangements to deal with. As you're probably aware, we're facing a disaster on a massive scale."

"I know," I said. "I've spent the last few hours butting heads with an entire political machine that wants to pretend it isn't happening."

"Unfortunately," Haven said, "it gets worse, based on what Dr. Blossom's explanation of what this information means."

Solar Blossom nodded, and pointed to a screen. "During the initial explosion, the incredible heat resulted in fuel elements being mixed together to create Sombrum."

"That's not good," I said. "With the lava like properties, it would-"

"You made lava?" Haven asked.

"In short, yes," Solar Blossom said. "As you correctly guessed, the Sombrum is slowly sinking its way down through the ruins of the power station to the bottom. And I'm afraid it gets even worse from there."

She pointed to the bottom portion of her screen. "See that down there? Owing to the lack of the required pipework, all of the water from the pumps and the firefighting efforts directed on the reactor itself has sunk to the bottom of the building, and collected in a large reservoir down there, deep underground. When the Sombrum reaches the bottom, the extreme heat from the substance impacting the extremely cold water will trigger a massive explosion."

"How big?" I asked, already dreading her answer.

She checked some numbers on her tablet and then looked back to me. "Based on conservative estimates, we're looking at a surface blast radius of 200 miles. Unfortunately, the design of the plant means that most of the blast will be forced downwards, straight through the planet's crust and all the way to the core. We're looking at an extinction level event here."

Something Solar Blossom had said gave me an idea. "We need to redirect the flow of the Sombrum away from the water. You said it's underground, right?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Crystal miners also work underground. If we can find enough mining workers, we can dig a tunnel underneath the plant and install a machine that will change the direction of the flow!"

"Yes," Solar Blossom said. "But where are we going to find enough miners?"

Atlas Crystal Mine, outskirts of Foggy Bottom

Moonstone Mustang and his fellow miners were on their lunch break on the surface, waiting for the bell to ring so that they could relieve the morning shift of their work digging for crystals. He was, naturally, rather surprised when a helicopter came into land, the heavy whirring of the rotor blades throwing dirt and dust everywhere.

"Watch it! We spent ages putting those piles together!" shouted one miner.

The doors on the helicopter opened once the rotor blades had spooled down. Out of it stepped a trio of pegasi. Two of them were soldiers. The other was a figure who was very nicely kept and clean, and who presumably had never been amongst working class ponies before.

She cleared her throat. "Good afternoon, everybody. I am Princess Haven of the Pegasus Lands."

"I figured as much from your pristine coat," Moonstone Mustang muttered. "Prissy snob."

One of the guards raised a weapon. "How dare you speak to the Princess in such a vulgar manner!"

"Shut your fucking mouth," Mustang replied. "You'll run out of bullets eventually, and there are more than 200 of us."

"Can we please stop fighting?" Haven asked, adjusting her jacket awkwardly. "I'm here because I need your help."

"Go on. If it involves tunnelling, we're probably good for that."

"There has been an accident near Bridlewood, the consequences of which would spell doom for us all."

"Bridlewood and Doom only have one letter in common," said one miner.

"You know what I mean. If we don't do something, a disaster will happen that will spell the end of all life on the planet. We need your help to avert it."

Moonstone Mustang sighed. "As much as I dislike the other tribes, the world ending does sound pretty bad. How many of us do you need?"

"About 500 should do it," Haven said. "You will also receive four times your usual wages to compensate you, as these working environment will be extremely dangerous. What say you?"

There was a pause. And then a response. "We'll do it. Come on boys, let's go! Get the trucks and set off for Bridlewood!"

"Where exactly is Bridlewood?" somebody asked, trotting towards their security gear and helmets. "Wouldn't want to go anywhere without this kit."

As the procession of miners made their way to their trucks, they each walked past Princess Haven. As they did so, a fragment of mining dust 'fell' off their bodies and onto her clothing, which was a process that continued along until they were all past.

Once of them called. "Now you look like one of us!"

Haven quickly glanced over her clothing and fur, seeing it was now covered in dust, as if she had spent a long time underground. "I'll keep these," she said, "as a way of remembering them." She looked over the guards. "Back to the helicopter. Make all speed to Zephyr Heights. We need to get them some more help."

Author's Note

Glossary of Terms

Sombrum-A chemical substance formed due to incredibly hight temperature reactions within a reactor core. First observed at the test sight for the HELIOS megaspell weapons.