The Manehattan Anomaly

I jumped, and opened my eye.

Darkness. Damp, hot air. The walls closed in around me, forcing me into a fetal position. The sound of my breath echoed in my ears, pain radiated from my left side. I couldn’t remember how I got here.

Was I…?

No, it was coming back. I restarted the magelight, gathered my things. Notebook, map, spell guide. Right.

I was underground. The plant-thing hadn’t lifted the barrier yet.

The map showed the south side of the city. I’d marked out the main highways, highlighted elevation markers and coordinates, and referenced those in my notebook to my current position: two hundred meters beneath an intersection on the west side.

The spell guide was open to a page on transportation, specifically planar portals. Flat tunnels connecting one location to another. It was primitive stuff compared to modern spells - for one, there was no priming stage. Casters were expected to visualize their exact destination instantaneously, and there were even references to special maps and slide-rules.

I didn’t have any of that. I could do trigonometry in my head on a good day, though, and while this wasn’t exactly a good day, the proportions still came easily.

Old-fashioned as it might have been, there were some reasons why I picked a portal spell: it was quiet, both literally and in terms of its energy signal; it was long-ranged, relative to teleportation; and it was almost impossible to intercept. I needed every advantage I could get if I wanted to get out of here.

Now I just had to pick a site, crunch the numbers, and wait.

The ideal site was in the south-west end of the city - close to the bridge, and far from the north end, on the assumption that that was where the plant-thing had originated. I also needed a motor-carriage once I arrived. I couldn’t find one with the map, obviously, but wealthier areas with a lot of detached homes seemed like a good place to look. I was, again, assuming that there were still any functional motor-carriages left to find.

I had pared the sites down to a few neighbourhoods. It was hard to choose between them. At some point I had taken to counting buildings within a 500-meter radius of the clearest point, as a way to rank them, decide which one I preferred, but that was tedious work.

Instead, I did the math for all of them, keeping the numbers around for when they were needed. I took pains to rewrite the final values, when I realized my mouth-writing was illegible.

Normally not a problem, but it was difficult to keep data in mind. Numbers and words blended into each other. I could barely keep my eye - my good eye - open.

Not good. But I had pushed myself so hard. A short rest wouldn’t kill me.

At this point, I was only waiting.

I jumped, and opened my eye.

Darkness. The air was damp, hot, the walls closing in, all familiar, all coming back to me quickly. But then - a drip. Groundwater. Unusual.

With the slightest magical exertion, I reached out with telekinesis, pushing the chroma through tiny cracks in the wall. I felt it extend five meters out before I was sure.

The barrier had fallen.

There was, of course, still one more barrier: the large dome that had surrounded us after we were intercepted. The plant-thing would keep that up as long as it could, if it was smart. My plan relied on the assumption that, when it discovered me missing, it would conclude that I had somehow entirely evaded or penetrated the barriers, making them only a hindrance to its thralls. Then it would drop the outer barrier and I could escape.

So many assumptions, and that one the biggest of them all. I couldn’t say I wasn’t nervous, but I had to stay focused on the plan, stay driven. It was all I had.

I waited a few moments, burning a little energy on a passive detection spell. At this point any magic at all was blurring my vision or entirely blinding me, but I could cope. With the spell, I ‘heard’ some activity above. It was hard to make out, but the echoes were rhythmic, mixing high and low pitch, with a timbre I could have interpreted with a clearer mind and, frankly, more practice. Magic buzzed around the spot where they’d trapped me for some time, then stretched into the distance before disappearing altogether.

That felt like my chance. With the cheapest, quietest scrying spell I could manage, I checked out my destinations, hoping to smell out engine oil, fuel vapour, and rubber. That I was getting anything at all confirmed the barrier was gone.

The first neighbourhood was positive, meaning it probably had motor-carriages. I felt a flush of excitement as I read the numbers in my notebook, and applied them to open a portal, and when it opened, I had to bite my tongue.

In front of me was a tear in space. The moonlit asphalt was bright to my eye, and, in the distance, I caught the glare of dozens of motor-carriages lined up on manicured yards. I fell through the tear, feeling the cool air on my face, and laughed.

I made sure to close the portal, before I forgot, and then limped out to the vehicles. The surrounding houses were detached, upscale, three-story affairs with big doors and windows. The driveways were large as well, more than enough to fit four carriages in each one. It all seemed excessive, but I wasn’t complaining if it gave me better chances.

The nearest carriage was a bust - doors locked, no keys in sight. I didn’t want to make too much noise breaking in, or waste time and energy trying to hotwire the thing. The next two had broken windows and ransacked interiors, not giving me much hope for their roadworthiness. But the next one - peering up into the cab, I noticed the glint of a keychain tucked between a sun visor and the padded ceiling, and, while the side doors weren’t unlocked, the rear hatch was. It was a hassle climbing and crawling over two sets of benches on only three hooves, but when I got to the front, and pulled the visor down, the keys dropped onto my face.

I laughed again, at that. There was still some preparation ahead, but I felt I’d found my golden moment.

Commandeering the carriage was one thing - which I wasn’t fully confident in, considering I could only use one forehoof - but doing it unnoticed was another. I dropped my saddlebag, unlocked the driver-side door, and climbed out, so I could walk around to take in the size and shape of the thing. Hard-topped and pearl-coloured, it was quite a lot larger than the carriages I was used to in Ponyville, but I could imagine how an envelope might fit over it, containing its volume. That was a major requirement for the concealment spell, and the more form-fitting the envelope, the better the effect.

I was about to cast it and be on my way, when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. A disturbance in the window of a house across the street. I looked.

Though I still couldn’t see very well, I got the immediate impression of a face looking back at me, and my stomach leaped.

A thrall? Had they found me?

No. I looked again - it was a filly's face, peering between a set of curtains, and she didn't have that cold expression I'd seen on all the others. Her eyes widened with curiosity and fear when she saw me looking back.

She was gone just as soon as she had appeared, pulled out of the way by an adult, and the curtain was thrown shut.

Survivors - actual survivors, this time!

I was amazed that anypony had lasted through… all this, on their own. I considered contacting them, but, if they'd endured this for three days, what could I tell them? To stay where they were? It seemed they were already doing that.

Maybe I could leave them some supplies, then. I had some packages of food, water, and survival equipment for this exact purpose. At the front door, maybe, or on a windowsill-

Wait.

I shook my head, hoping to knock those stupid ideas out of my mind. Why, by the Sun and Moon, would I leave them behind?

Still a little on edge from seeing the filly's face, I checked all around to make sure I wasn't actually being watched by some thrall. Not all that meaningful, once I thought about it, since the ones who'd ambushed me before were concealed, but it was something to do while my heart settled. Then, I walked across the street, and knocked softly on their front door.

It took a moment before I realized how silly that was. Of course they wouldn't answer the door!

So, I doubled back to the carriage, counting my steps as I went - as best as I could, anyway, considering the limp - and did some calculations in my head - again, as best as I could. With the same portal spell I'd used to get here, I could open one inside the carriage, and use it to bring them along without even leaving their home. The magic I burned by doing that would give us less time under concealment, but the fact that I'd found a working carriage so quickly had put me ahead of my previous estimates.

Besides, they were worth it.

I opened the portal just inside the rear passenger-side door, and, through it, saw the living room, foyer, and front door of the survivors' home from the inside. It was very dark. The only source of light were the windows, which had all been covered by curtains. The living room furniture had been pushed to the edges of the rooms, especially around the front door and larger windows. My eye adjusted slowly as I looked around, and soon I noticed the silhouettes of two ponies - a stallion and a mare, both earth ponies by the looks of them. They stood on either side of the entrance to the foyer, facing the door, both holding something in their mouths.

Carefully, I stepped through the portal. The carriage cabin was tight to stand in, forcing me into an awkward half-crawl, half-walk, made even more awkward by the fact that I couldn't use all four hooves. So my step through was more of a lame hop, and my right forehoof landed on the floor with a harsh clack.

Both of their heads whipped around to face me, their eyes wide. I realized, then, that they were holding weapons - him a mallet, her a knife. The stallion stepped to the side, putting his body between me and the mare.

"I-" I hesitated, not sure what to say to them. "I'm here to rescue-"

The stallion bounded towards me, mallet raised to strike. I was wrong. More thralls.

I didn't have the energy to fight them. Not here, not now. I'd backed up on instinct, but the portal was too high to just walk back into, and the bottom edge dug into my back legs. I was stuck. Telekinesis - pull the hammer from his mouth? No, it was moving too much. A better option was the spell from earlier, the instant-force spell, but I'd lost sight of it in the panic. No time to reformulate it.

Nowhere to run. Nothing to do. The left side of my skull tingled where I imagined it would strike, and I closed my eye, hoping it wouldn't kill me instantly. Or was that preferable?

Just when I thought the blow would come, it didn't. There was instead a clatter, and another set of hoof-steps.

The mare had jumped between us, holding the stallion back with a hoof. Her knife laid where she'd dropped it.

"Don't," the mare said. "I recognize her."

"You 'o?" the stallion asked, around his mallet.

The mare turned to me. "You're - my goodness, you're…"

I wanted to ask what she was saying, but I suddenly found myself closer to the floor, short of breath. I let my left foreleg fall, to keep my balance, and it radiated a sickening pain.

The mare sat down and put her hooves over my shoulders, steadying me, but worsening the pain. The stallion was gone. When had he moved?

"Stay with me," the mare whispered. "You're hurt, but you're safe now. We're - my husband is looking for something to help."

It was so hard to think, to see, to breathe. What was happening? Why was the floor moving so much?

"I'm fine," I said, and I tried to push something away with a hoof. But then the ground came up from under me, struck my face, and I saw stars.

I jumped, and opened my eye.

I was laying on my back. A mare was dabbing a cold, wet cloth over my face, coming away with dried blood. The little cuts stung, while my left eye pulsed with a dull pain.

She noticed me looking, and asked, "Better?"

All I could say was, "Whuh?"

I tried to sit up, to get a better idea of what was going on, but she pushed me back down with little effort. "Careful, dear. You passed out." She looked away - the stallion was to my left side, wrapping something around my injured leg. "And you're really hurt. You can't be moving around too much."

I passed out? I managed to ask, "How long?"

"Only a minute or so," the stallion said.

That relaxed me a little, and then the exhaustion washed over me again, even though my heart was beating out of my chest. I could hardly keep my eye open.

But I needed to stay focused. I said, "I c-ahh," finding that it took a lot more effort than usual to form words. Deep breaths. "I came here to r-rescue you. I…" Deep breaths. "I have a plan."

The two of them looked at each other.

"That's great," the stallion spoke, "but we're safe here for now, really. You need to rest."

"No!" I shouted, though I didn't mean to - their ears went back at the sudden noise. I repeated more quietly, "No. It's under the city, everywhere, it has so many-"

The mare brushed some of my mane away from my face, shushing me. "Shh. It's not here. You're safe now, Twilight."

I recoiled from her touch. "You know my name?"

Her expression fell, but she pulled her hooves back. "Sorry. It's a long story. Um… I'm Misty."

"And I'm Lustre," the stallion said, and then he gestured to my leg - it was wrapped shoulder-to-hoof in a bedsheet, with something hard and straight on the inside. "And that is an immobilized leg."

That was something, at least. There was still the dull pain, and the discomfort from knowing something was wrong, but, as long as I didn't try bending my elbow or fetlock, it was manageable.

I sighed, and shook my head. "Who cares about my leg? The city's been taken over. I barely escaped with my life. We need to leave now."

"Alright," the stallion - Lustre - said, a little exasperated. "We get it. It's urgent. Right, honey?" He looked at the mare - Misty - who nodded, after a moment's hesitation. "But can I at least look at your eye first?"

"No," I answered, and I tried sitting up again. This time, Misty let me, and I turned over to my right side so I could stand, keeping my left foreleg straight. "It's… it's just an eye." I looked towards the portal, still open to the motor-carriage's cab.

I took one step, then-

The room turned sideways. I stumbled back into one of them, and they caught me before I hit the ground. It was Misty.

"It's okay," she said to me. "Just take a minute. Let us look at your eye, at least."

There were tears. It stung where my face had been cut. I didn't want to stop, I knew I needed to keep moving, but…

I was so tired.

Lustre showed me the roll of gauze. "I'll just cover the eye. It'll help."

I laid back down. He folded some gauze into a square and laid it over my left eye, then Misty held it carefully while he wrapped more in a loop around my head, to keep the square in place. The pressure was new and uncomfortable. I tried to remind myself that it was helping, somehow.

"You should rest here," Misty said, after a while. "Until morning, at least. Okay?"

I nodded, even though it sickened me. To wait.

Lustre put a hoof on my shoulder - my good shoulder, thankfully. "You've done good, Twilight. We can follow your plan when you're feeling up to it."

I nodded again. More tears ran down the side of my face, or soaked into the bandage. Why? I didn't feel sad. I felt sick and empty.

"Oh, dear," Misty spoke. "It's not a good time."

Hoofsteps approached. There was somepony else here?

Lustre cleared his throat, and said, "Come on, honey, she's not feeling well. You can talk to Twilight later."

"It's really Twilight Sparkle…?" came the filly's voice.

I looked. The face I'd seen in the window - it was her. A young filly, an earth pony like them. She stared at me, frozen, with her mouth hanging open.

Misty had a sad smile when she looked back to me. "This is our daughter, Firelight. She's… well, she's the reason we recognized you."

Firelight took careful steps closer. She arrived next to Lustre, still staring at me.

"Honey," he said. "Twilight came to rescue us, but she's hurt. You shouldn't-"

Firelight fell onto my chest and wrapped her hooves around me.

"-bother her," Lustre continued. He shook his head, but he was almost laughing. "Okay then."

I asked, "huh?"

"You're kind of a role model for her," Misty told me. "She's always wanted to meet you. Maybe just… not like this."

"No," I sighed. "I wouldn't think so."

Firelight spoke quietly into my fur, "I knew you'd come." She was crying.

I patted her mane. I was crying, too.

The mare in the mirror looked different to how I remembered her, and not just because I was only looking with one eye. The cuts and bruises were notable, too, as was the razor-cut mane that terminated just shy of her horn. But the main difference was her expression. She looked tired. And scared. And hopeless.

I put the mirror back on the night table. There was nothing to gain from pitying myself. I needed to do something productive. Misty and Lustre had convinced me that that meant sleeping, but considering our situation, that didn't feel productive!

Another wave of nausea hit as I sat up in bed, and I sighed. I needed to rest. That was simply a fact of my situation.

I braced myself to lie down again, but the clip-clop of hooves outside the guestroom kept me upright. A moment later, the door opened, and Firelight stuck her rust-coloured head through, into the dim candlelight.

"You should be sleeping," she whispered to me.

I croaked, "I know. So should you."

"Yeah."

When I didn't move, she took that as an invitation to enter the room and carefully close the door behind her, walk up to the bed, and hop up next to me. The shaking rattled my brain.

There she sat for a long moment, hiding her face in her pearlescent hair and twiddling her hooves. According to Misty and Lustre, I was her idol. It felt silly. More for me than for her.

Eventually, she said, "Mom and Dad don't want to send me to Canterlot."

"To Canterlot?" I repeated. "How…?"

"It's the best magic school in the world. They think I don't have the potential."

"Oh." I understood. She wasn't talking about now. She was talking about eventually.

She continued, "They don't say it, but they think it."

This felt like a thoroughly pointless subject. I needed rest so I could help get these ponies out of Manehattan and tell Celestia - all of Equestria, really - what was going on here. I didn't want to think too hard about what would happen to the city if I failed, but I couldn't force my train of thought away - they would use it. Maybe they would use it either way, but with the threat still unknown there would be no other option but excision.

I blinked, and realized I'd been completely lost in my head, thinking evil thoughts. Firelight was looking at me. I couldn't bear to tell her even a fraction of what I'd just imagined.

I went along with it, hoping to comfort her, "They're your parents. They-"

"They don't know best!" she snapped. "Not always!"

I leaned forward - damn the nausea - to put a hoof on her shoulder. "I was going to say they don't want to send you away. Sending you all the way to Canterlot, so far from home. You wouldn't know anypony there. It would be hard to make friends."

She shook her head and shrugged away from my hoof. "Screw friends," she said in a stage-whisper. "I don't have friends now. Ponies at school think I'm a freak. I was-" She sniffled. "I was hoping you'd understand…"

"Because I'm a freak too?" I asked, bluntly. Firelight started to deny it, but I interrupted her, "No, you're right. I was in the same position when I was your age."

She turned to me, and I absently glanced at her forehead, noticing a distinct lack of horn. Right, she was an earth pony. And she saw me looking. Understood why.

I corrected myself, "... Maybe not exactly the same position."

She hid behind her hair again, but whispered, quietly this time, "I want to show you."

Show me what? It didn't matter. "Okay," I replied.

She took a deep breath. Then exhaled. Then a deep breath. Then exhaled. Then-

Firelight raised her hooves out, towards the wall, and something happened. The space around her rippled and shimmered like desert air. It felt like chroma, but it wasn't - not exactly. The shimmering dripped out from her forehooves and slowly solidified into a refracting ball before it lit up like a multi-coloured magelight. Then it shattered, silently, and Firelight sighed.

"I can't do anything yet," she muttered in an apologetic tone. "Nothing cool or useful. Just… that."

I said, in awe, "You're a laycaster!"

She smiled. "Mhm."

"That's-" I struggled to keep my voice down, since Misty and Lustre would be asleep across the hall. "That's amazing! Do you know how rare that is?"

She thought for a moment, but then shook her head. "I know it's not normal, but…"

"One in a million," I told her, "- no, not even that. Last I heard, there were ten known laycasters in Equestria. Probably more elsewhere, but in baramins without structured magic, it's hard to differentiate between normal magic users and-"

She looked at me the way ponies looked at me when I was rambling at them.

"... You know, nevermind. But all the laycasters I've heard of are very powerful. Clearly you've got a lot of potential."

That she followed. "... Thanks."

A moment of silence followed, though as it went on, I heard a murmur of voices. It frightened me at first, but I soon realized it was coming from across the hall - Firelight's parents were speaking. She heard it too, and frowned.

"I wish mom and dad would see it that way," she mumbled.

I put my hoof back on her shoulder, and she seemed comfortable with it.

The murmured speaking continued, sounding a bit sharp.

"... I guess they can't sleep either," I commented.

"They're always arguing," Firelight explained. "Even before everything closed and we had to stay home. But that just made it worse."

It was… interesting, hearing her perspective on the anomaly. But I couldn't fault her parents for keeping the details from her. "They're scared," I suggested. "They don't know what's going on, and they can't do anything about it. That'll ruin anypony's mood."

I didn't mean for that to come out so dry, but Firelight didn't seem to mind. She just turned to me, and asked, "Are you scared?"

I answered, "Ye-"

Something changed, making my hair stand on end.

It felt familiar in a way I couldn't place.

"Twilight?"

I shook my head, focusing back on Firelight. She was looking at me strangely.

"Did you hear something?" she asked.

"No," I muttered, though now that I was listening, I noticed that I wasn't hearing anything. Not even Misty and Lustre arguing, even though they were at it a second ago.

Firelight was about to say something else when there came a piercing scream from down the hall, before it was silenced just as abruptly - and I had that feeling again. Something changed. I remembered.

The anomaly was here, and it had Firelight's parents.

"We need to go," I whispered, grabbing Firelight by the hoof with my good leg - causing me to nearly hit the floor face-first when I jumped out of bed.

"Woah!" she cried, though thankfully also whispering. "Why? Mom and dad-"

"Just go," I said, pushing her towards the door. "Lead me downstairs. Eyes closed. Stay quiet."

I bit the end of her tail, and she did as I said, though not as urgently as I wanted. I kept my good eye closed as we walked, and I didn't hear any movement from down the hall as we passed and got to the stairs. That was either good… or very bad.

Once we were on the first floor, I opened my eye and directed her towards the portal out to the carriage, which was, thankfully, right where I'd left it.

I leapt over the threshold and started casting the concealment spell, but she stayed behind, hesitating.

"Come on!" I begged her.

"But…" she objected. "Why? What's happening? What about-"

I could practically feel our opportunity slipping away with every second of delay. In a full shout, I said, "No time! Trust me!"

She bit her lip, and jumped through, sprawling onto the bench next to me.

I tripped the spell to close the portal, and it snapped shut, leaving us far away from the house and fully enclosed in the cabin. Then I cast the concealment spell over the vehicle. Nothing changed to our physical senses, but I could feel a muffling of the static aether.

I let out a breath. "Okay."

"Okay!?" Firelight asked, her voice wavering. "Why did you take me here?"

I turned the key to start the engine, and glanced out the window towards the house - watching for movement.

She asked again, "Why are we here?"

My eye passed over her as I aligned my hooves with the levers. There was an issue - I needed both forehooves to steer and control the throttle. I could do one or the other, but not both. That would make for a dangerous drive, especially closer to the bridge where the roads were jammed.

"Twilight!"

I didn't want to say it, but I said it: "It has your parents."

That gave Firelight pause. "What has them?"

Looking past her, I could see movement from the house. Two earth ponies emerged from the front door, inspecting the street calmly, with flat, cold expressions.

"Look," I told her. "The city is closed because there's something growing underground. It sprouts up and takes control of any pony that looks at it." Firmly this time, I repeated, "It has your parents."

She turned to watch them, as they stood watch over the street, their heads on a swivel. Lustre's gaze passed over us, and I prayed to Celestia that they wouldn't suddenly walk in our direction.

"They… they look normal," she said.

"But they're not normal," I responded. "Didn't you feel that, back in the house? Before we heard the scream, something happened. I felt it."

She turned back to me, her eyes wide. "I felt it too. But I felt it a whole bunch around when we started staying home, so I thought…"

The colour drained from her face, and she slumped back in the seat - she was putting it together.

"Oh, Celestia…"

I wanted to pull her closer to me, but she was to my left, and I could barely move that hoof. So instead I leaned against her, and sucked it up when more pain radiated from my shoulder. It was feeling distant and dull by now anyway.

Firelight was silent for a moment, no doubt reeling from the realization, and the sight of her parents moving around like robots. But the contact seemed to bring her back to me, and she asked, "What do we do?"

"Right now, I need you to help me drive," I told her, gesturing to the throttle lever. "Push this lever to speed up, pull it back to slow down."

"I know what it does," she said coldly. "Dad showed me."

"...Right," I replied, trying not to make light of things. "We need to get out of the city, and we don't have much time. So-"

"-push hard," she finished, throttling up, and we were moving. The engine roared, but the concealment spell seemed to be working perfectly - Lustre and Misty didn't turn in our direction. They were looking to the east, their faces brightly lit by the dawn sky.

I did my best to steer down the curving street and recall the best path to the bridge. Getting over the bridge wouldn't necessarily mean we were safe, but it was something to aim for, for now, and I felt elated that I was finally making progress after so many setbacks.

Firelight asked, as we slowed to make a turn onto a westbound road, "We're coming back for them, right?"

"Yes," I answered instantly. "Once ponies know what happened here, we can fight the thing and rescue your parents."

"Okay," she responded. She wasn't looking at me - she was focused, and looking out at the road. But her face softened soon after that. Relieved.

She was a good filly. When we got out, when her parents were safe, I'd be sure to introduce her to Princess Celestia.

I thought back to Cere and the other enthralled ponies I'd encountered. We'd be coming back for them, too - for everypony in the city. Whatever this thing was planning, it wasn't going to succeed once the elements were assembled, let alone with the full force of Equestria behind us.

I'd introduce Firelight to my friends, too - they'd love her.

But that was in the future. Here and now, as we found our way onto a highway that led downtown, I was struck again by how desolate the city was. When I came here - Cere and I - it was in the dead of night, so in the back of my mind I must have expected the city to be inactive. Now that the sun was almost up, and the sky was brightening, the lack of ponies on the streets and in the skies found its way into my heart.

We still occasionally passed a burned-out wreck that told of the panicked evacuation, of course, and this got worse the nearer we got to the core of the city - where it wasn't just carriages, but the charred skeletons of towers and apartment blocks that stood on the horizon. We even had to skip a few blocks because part of the elevated rail line snaking through the city had collapsed onto the road.

Firelight stared at the enormous pile of twisted metal whenever we could see it between buildings, and asked, "How did that happen?"

I could only shake my head and say, "I don't know," even though I had my suspicions. Those flashes of chromatic light I'd seen last night had come from around here. If I was right, this place was a battlefield, fought in as desperately as the parks and rooftops had been for Cere and I.

But that was behind us. Ahead, beyond the fencepost of shadows cast by eastern towers, I could see it. We'd closed the distance to the bridge.

It was open.

All down its length, the path was clear!

I laughed and cheered to myself, then to Firelight when I remembered she was here, too. "Stampede!" I shouted, and she pushed the throttle until it bottomed out. The carriage roared down the street, around what few obstacles remained.

Firelight gasped, and I thought it was more cheering, but then she let off the throttle, panicked at the controls, and stuttered through: "B-brake!"

After a slim moment of confusion, I almost couldn't see the large truck exiting the side road, making to intercept us. It was turning in from the left. My blind spot.

"Shit," I exhaled, and slammed the brake lever down with my left hoof - damn the pain.

With my other hoof, I tried to maintain steering, but I had to pull the lever rather than push it to turn right, so it was harder than usual.

It seemed we might make it past the truck, but fast as we were going, it would be close.

I braced, as best as I was able, and said, "Keep it-"

Impact. The carriage was suddenly on two wheels, pushing Firelight into me and me into the steering levers and sending us careening off the road.

I had half a second to counter-steer, and I could feel Firelight braking, but the combined effect was only to tilt the vehicle over until, after a long half-second, it rolled and crashed onto its side, throwing us into the right side door. Our speed kept it going, though, making a horseshoes-on-chalkboard noise as the carriage scraped across yet more road.

I was rattled and in pain, and shoved by some weight into the right door, but all that was distant. "Firelight?" I asked.

"Yeah," she groaned from above, in a direction I couldn't see. A shift of weight, and she stepped on my face, then onto my bad leg. "Sorry."

"G-" I shook her hoof away. "Get down! Eyes closed!"

She fell back down onto me. "Sorry."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. You?"

I couldn't feel my left side at all. But that she had to ask if I was okay told me nothing was missing, at least. "I'm fine. That truck, the driver-" I stopped myself. It didn't matter. "We were going too fast-" Still didn't matter. "I'll - I'll teleport us out. We need to make a run for it."

"They're here," she said, quietly, and I heard the scrape of distant hooves. Firelight continued, her voice hitching, "Twilight, they're here."

"I know," I growled. "We can get away. Just need to-"

Not teleportation. I wasn't falling for that again. Flight? No, some of the thralls I'd met earlier had been pegasi, they'd take us out of the sky. Nothing I could do mattered anyway. If it thought we'd escape, it would just call up another barrier and negate whatever I tried.

No - there was something!

"Firelight, use your magic."

I felt her exerting herself, trying to make it happen, just as she strained to ask, "why?"

"Laycasting has anti-magic properties. We might be able to escape if you-"

No. I had to think. If she did what? Broke the barrier the plant-thing used? Cancelled out the thralling spell? How could I know if any of that would work?

"Twilight!" she cried, as two, then three, then half a dozen sets of hoofsteps made their way towards us.

My thoughts were an abstract mess. I needed something like when I survived this before: a reduction of options. Something that let me cut out all the unnecessary possibilities and find one thing I could be certain of - one thing that would keep both of us alive, even for just another minute, another second…

Then it came to me.

I didn't need all that.

"Firelight," I said, "Stop. I'm going to teleport us out."

"Will that work?" she asked, letting what little laycast she'd conjured melt away. "It has to work, right?"

"Right. You just have to gallop as fast as you can, as long as you can. Follow the roads. Find somepony who can help. Tell-"

"But-"

"Tell somepony what I told you. Make sure they know it came from me, got it?"

"But what about you? Can you gallop, with your leg?"

I shook my head, for all that it would matter, and lit my horn up. I could send her far away, far out of the city, reliably enough that I wasn't worried about interception.

But not if I went with her.

"Make sure they come back for me, too."

She understood, then, and tried to object, but I'd already burned my last reserves and committed to the spell. With a flash of magic, she was-

Not gone.

Firelight burst into laughter and fell back into the bench seat, giving me a chance to crane my neck and turn to look at her. She looked normal. But laughing. And dripping with laycast.

"What…?"

"Oh, and it was-" - more laughter - "-and it was going so well, right up until the end."

"Firelight?"

She wiped a tear from her eye, and then all expression dropped from her face, and she said in a cold voice, "Let's not prolong this."

Cere had said that. Right after he'd been thralled.

But… She wasn't…?

No. I'd been with her this entire time. If she was enthralled, I would have felt it happen, distinctly. Like when it got Cere, or her parents. It couldn't have gotten her without me noticing.

Not unless it had her the whole time.

"Oh Celestia," I breathed.

Down in this wreck, sideways and broken and numb, I couldn't think of any way out of this anymore.

"You were interesting," it said, monotone, through Firelight's body, using her voice. "So you get three questions."

"What?" I said dumbly.

"That will not count. Ask three questions."

This was pointless. Didn't it just tell me not to prolong this? I managed, "Why?"

After a moment, it said, "That will count. But it was answered. You were interesting, difficult, and the subject of much learning. I intend to learn more from you."

"Fuh…" I groaned, propping myself up with a numb foreleg to spit in her- its face. The gob of saliva dribbled uselessly down my chin and neck. "Fuck you. Why don't you just kill me."

It just spoke, giving no other reaction: "If you die, you will be almost worthless to me."

No. No. No.

It wasn't going to get me. I wasn't ready to just lie down and let it happen.

But my horn was dull. My body was weak. No reserves, nothing left to scrape and burn. Even my thoughts were running thin.

More hoofsteps. A groaning, crackling, crawling noise. A growing feeling that something was approaching the carriage besides more thralls.

"Was it-" I coughed at a pain in my side, shooting through the numbness. "Was it possible? Could I have escaped?"

The Firelight-thing did not hesitate to say, "No. And that's three."

Something began climbing the carriage roof.

"Wait - no, no! That's not my question!" I begged, realizing what I really wanted to know. "Please, tell me-"

It looked down at me with those innocent, emotionless eyes.

I didn't want to ask. But I wanted to know. "Will I see my friends again?"

Its head tilted to the side, as if considering - as if it needed time to consider - and it answered, "Yes."

Something else entered the carriage.

"Just not how you're thinking."

I looked up at it, and knew I'd made a mistake, but it was too late. A black, thorny vine hung from a gap in the shattered windshield, and on its tip was a glowing, red flower.

That's when things began to change.

I saw myself, and the cabin of the sideways carriage, through a new pair of eyes. Through Firelight. Then I saw the carriage from the outside, on the street, through a few more sets of eyes. Then the surrounding street, and the surrounding block, and the surrounding city, and beyond, dozens and hundreds and thousands of eyes I couldn't close no matter how hard I squeezed.

I was a broken unicorn; I was an earth pony filly; I was a pegasus soldier; I was all of them, and I was a million more. I was working, resting, eating, fighting, breeding, birthing, being born, and lying in the wreckage of a sideways carriage. This reminded me of harmony, but harmony implied a diversity of purpose. This was something else.

I breathed the air of Manehattan. Distantly, as once I would have felt an organ or a bone, I felt the germ. It was growing, burrowing, branching, anchoring into bedrock, and rising back up in nodes to feed, to breathe, and to grow larger. This was part of me, too.

A small part of me resisted, down in that sideways carriage, but nothing was hidden from me anymore. I only lied when I had to. And in order to convince me, I needed to show myself the scale of things. The assembly into which I would be subsumed.

Now, feeling my hearts beating, seeing the vastness of my purpose, I relented, and I was whole again.

Even now it was palpable. Even now it was exhilarating. To have done so much!

But there was still work to do.