Fallout Equestria: The Ashlands Timeline

Sunday, 10/30/2287
POV: Mercury Shine
The Ashlands

Mercury feared she’d lose Solar at first and would have never forgiven herself. Solar wouldn’t volunteer for something so dangerous to protect anyone but Mercury. Thankfully, none of Solar’s injuries were life threatening, and she had enough bandages from what she’d brought.

Afterward, Mercury sat with Solar and waited for her to wake. Mercury had put the unused sleeping bags all atop one another to give Solar a more comfortable bed. Starlight wouldn’t stop the wagon for long, but her sleep spell kept Solar resting peacefully.

The best she could do for the missing hoof was to clean it. She replaced it for the time being with an awkwardly carved wooden hoof with padding soaked in numbing agent in between so it didn’t agitate the exposed nerves. She’d need to clean it regularly and watch for infections. Mercury had also shaved the fur and mane around injuries to make sure they were sterile and tightly bandaged. Solar would hate it the next time she looked in a mirror, but it’d get better with time, and at least none of her feathers needed to be plucked.

It might look better by the time they found a mirror, anyway, and at least she now smelled better than any of them from the sterilizing agents. For now, they discarded Solar’s shredded blinder barding and stable suit to replace them with spares. It was a good thing they’d kept the ones the Pies had worn.

But this didn't solve the bigger problem. The attack implied that Midnight tracked them. If she used their pipbucks, it meant they needed their IDs reset.

“We can’t wait until Solar is conscious,” Crimson said to Limestone. “The dragons will be contacting Midnight right away, and she’ll be peeved that we fared so well against her general. You don’t have a choice but to trust me.”

“Why can’t Starlight do it?” Twilight asked. “Didn’t she invent most of this?”

“Starlight just stamped her name on things her subordinates created,” said Crimson.

“Care to correct yourself, Crimson?” Starlight growled.

“Oh right, I work for you again,” Crimson said. “I keep forgetting. The clever lie I meant to use is that knowing their inner workings doesn’t help. Pipbucks in my stable are altered from the base model and not even Solar knows the changes. That last part isn’t a lie; I may have lied about lying.”

“What a pain,” said Dinky. Her small form was resting atop Limestone’s back, front end draped over Limestone’s head and wearing Limestone’s general hat that was too big for her. It was as cute as two corpses could be.

“So, you only need to check the ones that came from Stable 27?” asked Limestone.

“Right,” Crimson said. “Trash Solar’s; it’s too damaged to boot, but may still be tracked. I’ll need my horn free to do all this though. Scary right?”

“Why do you need your horn?” asked Starlight.

“Because we locked certain functions to my magical frequency,” said Crimson. “I can’t undo that because I had other ponies more skilled than me set it up. I’m sure you’re familiar with the practice.”

“Are you trying to find the point where my irritation exceeds your usefulness, Crimson?” warned Starlight. The longer they traveled, the less patience she had for Crimson and most other things. Mercury assumed the lack of good rest was getting to her.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” claimed Crimson. “After all, good leaders know how to delegate, right? Just delegate it to Maud when you order someone to kill me, I like her style.”

Ignoring the nonsense, Crimson’s claim made sense, but even Mercury wasn’t foalish enough to think she was telling the whole story. Still, Mercury doubted she was still Midnight’s buddy like the others seemed worried about. Crimson spent the last 200 years turning Midnight into a boogeymare to Stable 27. She could have contacted her and offered an alliance, and likely succeeded given what Mercury had learned about Midnight.

At most, Midnight was somepony Crimson might resort to if out of options, but they weren’t out yet.

“Very well,” Limestone agreed. “The Empress and myself will keep a close eye on you, got it? And when Solar is able, she’ll double check to make sure you didn’t change anything else.”

“This at least means Stable 27 is okay, right?” Mercury asked. “You said if they made a deal with Midnight, she wouldn’t destroy them.”

“Likely,” Starlight said. “Even in the early war, she kept true to her deals. Not out of decency, but because she didn’t want to threaten somepony to get them to do something and them say ‘You’ll kill me either way’. That happened more than once to me and can be really annoying.”

“What happened to you more than once?” Twilight peered at Starlight from the corner she rested in.

“She got threatened with murder a lot,” Crimson said, filling into her role as Starlight’s official excuse-maker. “It’s practically how we said hello back in the day. And now too, given the radio broadcasts I’ve heard.”

“Right,” said Starlight, chuckling awkwardly and looking away from Twilight.

“Thank goodness,” Mercury sighed in relief at the thought that her remaining friends and family were okay. “I’d hate to think…”

“They could also have killed them and got the codes from the maneframe,” Crimson said. “Or forced somepony to tell them before mass-murder fun times.”

And the short-lived relief vanished.

Starlight tugged the horn-restraint from Crimson and tossed Solar’s damaged pipbuck out of the wagon. The air was still tense, so Mercury tried another conversation to calm things down and get her own mind off the worst.

“So, Twilight?” Mercury asked. “How did you get your wings? I assume not by killing your Daybreaker.”

“My Celestia,” Twilight corrected, but smiled. “Celestia gave them after a series of tests, though I didn’t know what I was testing for until she… upgraded me.”

“Upgraded you?” asked Mercury.

“Honestly, I’m not sure how the process worked,” smiled Twilight. “It involved disintegrating me and shoving my soul into a new body. I wonder if that process contributed to soul gem technology come to think of it… Anyway, it also involved luring my friends into doing the disintegration. I guess that’s really creepy now that I think about it.”

“But if Daybreaker could just make alicorns, why didn’t she create an army of them?” asked Mercury. “Why did the Ministries have to spend so much time trying to make artificial ones?”

“Because almost nopony can survive the process with mind intact even with training,” said Twilight. “And performing the ritual too often would have detrimental effects on her.”

“What tests did you pass to earn them?” Starlight asked, sounding curious, but looked at Twilight with a guarded expression.

“Well both tests and just things I did when they were needed, I guess,” Twilight said. “Saving the Crystal Empire from King Sombra, defeating Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, and… some others...”

Twilight trailed off as if she regretted wording it as she did. Mercury took a moment to realize why.

“Right, I was tasked with a few of those things,” sighed Starlight, watching data flash across her pipbuck screen. “I failed. Was that the underhooved point you were making?”

Mercury cringed, hoping she hadn’t made things worse by starting this conversation.

“I don’t think she meant it like that,” Limestone said as Dinky boredly played with one of her ears from atop her head. “Either way, you’re the Empress we need. We need a strong ruler, not a mascot.”

“I am not a mascot,” Twilight snapped, finally objecting to the designation.

“I don’t mean that you’re weak,” Limestone shook her head. “You have solid fighting skills and a sharp mind. You’d make a fine diplomat or even general in more peaceful times, but we need somepony that understands how bad things can get...”

Dinky sighed from atop Limestone’s head, tugging her ear slightly with one hoof, and Limestone trailed off almost apologetically. Limestone peered at Twilight again as if considering something.

“It’s that kind of thinking…” Twilight started but took a deep breath and stopped. “Never mind. That’s high praise coming from you General, thank you.” She looked to Starlight. “You are capable of everything I did, Starlight. I want to help you make the world better, so remember I’m here for you.”

“I know,” Starlight said, slowly adopting her happy face again, but twitching a bit as if it wasn’t as easy as usual. “Feel free to speak up when you have useful advice. I’ll leave it at that.”

“I’m sorry,” muttered Mercury. Though she didn’t want to risk bringing it up, Mercury thought Starlight missed the most important part of Twilight’s story. Twilight was made an alicorn; she didn’t ask for or want it. Mercury found it hard to believe that type of pony would make a play for power for no reason.

“No worries,” Crimson said as she finished with her pipbuck. “You distracted them at a vital moment.”

“She would have,” smirked Starlight. “If I wasn’t watching your screen through the PCB connection. I saw you disable the tracking alarm and can reactivate it.”

“Can you then?” Crimson chuckled. “Well that’s a relief. I wouldn’t want to get lost.” It was all a game to her.

“I told you she’d stall until she thought we were distracted,” Limestone said.

“Is that a taunt?” Crimson smiled. “Being sure I’m too paranoid to try something later?”

“Seems you figured me out, Minister,” Limestone said. It was a game to her too, so at least some ponies were having fun.

Mercury wasn’t worried that Crimson would betray them. At most she imagined Crimson disappearing for a few hours at their next campsite to freak them out. Crimson seemed like the type to subvert their defenses for the sake of a prank.

“Why can’t I feel my everything?” Solar’s weak voice whispered beside Mercury.

Mercury smiled when she found Solar had awoken, leaning down to hug her even if she couldn’t feel it.

“Thank Break you’re okay,” said Mercury. “And don’t worry, you’ve had a lot of potions so it will make you numb… had to use a lot because the draconic injuries dulled the magic part of the potions.”

“There she is,” said Limestone. “You know when we started, not even I could have predicted our engineer would make for an adequate dive bomber.”

“Just goes to show,” said Kamikaze, discreetly scratching her face against the side of the wagon. “There are few problems you can't solve by throwing a pony at them.” It was good to hear her joke a bit more, maybe she was slowly coming to terms with things.

Solar looked worried when she heard Kamikaze speak, “I’m not missing limbs am I?”

“Your limbs are fine, mostly,” Mercury assured. “We fixed your broken wing and your legs will heal enough to walk, though you’ll have scars. You are missing most of your front left hoof, but that won’t require cybernetics to repair and you still have your wings to hold things.”

“Are my fun bits fine?” Solar asked with sincere concern.

“They are,” Mercury smiled. “But go easy on your body until you’ve healed, nothing strenuous.”

“Oh, for Celestia’s sake,” Twilight shook her head, but couldn’t help but chuckle. “That’s what Kamikaze asked when she got spit out of the reactor.”

“Nothing wrong with that question,” Kamikaze said. “It’s an important question!”

“Even more important, in this case,” said Solar. “I was promised Pie! ...though I guess I’ll have to settle for Kami’s muzzle until I’m strong enough for that.”

Mercury was relieved, and pleasantly surprised, that Solar took her advice to avoid the strenuous activities for now.

“I’m sure I’d beat them with everything, but hey, Midnight always thought my tongue alone was enough if something was making her feel down,” Kamikaze added with a chuckle, while Twilight groaned.

Mercury was sure the Pies would have something to say about that were Pinkie not pulling the cart and Maud not taking a nap after pulling before her.

“So, what about Tranquil?” asked Mercury. “Has she moved out of the forest?”

“She has,” said Limestone. “So that’s good news. She’s following the path south I suggested, but it’s odd that she stayed so long.”

“Maybe she was captured and escaped?” asked Twilight.

“If so, she couldn’t have on her own,” said Limestone. “Somepony would have needed to rescue her. Which would be good; it'd mean she has someone with her now that is willing to risk their safety for her.”

Mercury sighed, relaxing at that news.

“By Nightmare’s starry twat, that someone better not have a dick,” Crimson wasn’t as happy. She needed to work on her priorities.

“Do you have a better fix on where she camped in the Everfree?” asked Mercury before Crimson could derail the conversation. “We could check it out.” Confirmation that Tranquil was doing well would do her soul some good.

“Well it’s not as near the castle as we feared,” Limestone said. “Empress?”

“We can, assuming nothing unexpected happens that makes it a bad idea,” Starlight said.

“Thank you,” Mercury said. She hoped they’d find good news there.

Monday, 10/31/2287
POV: Twilight Sparkle

When in the wagon, Twilight spent much of her time reading articles in the magitech encyclopedias she’d borrowed from the library. It wasn’t easy to read with the occasional bouncing, and poor lighting, so she found herself trailing off into deep thought more often as time passed.

Twilight had been terrible at her job here. If repeatedly resorting to violence under stress wasn’t bad enough, Twilight feared that the awkwardness of her recent conversation gave Starlight the impression that she wanted to take control. She didn’t want to be like Crimson, with everypony expecting her to stab them in the back.

For the moment, Limestone at least didn’t think of Twilight as a threat, and Starlight trusted Limestone’s judgment. Twilight wanted Starlight to trust her by her own merits though; how to do that?

Perhaps she should just offer sex; that seemed to be the standard method of bonding and stress relief for most of the team.

Twilight’s mind kept going there because she’d never been this pent-up. What she wouldn’t give to be alone for a few minutes to relieve tension and work out the aches from sitting all day on a hard rocking surface, but she hadn’t even gone potty by herself since they left the stable. Limestone insisted nopony go off alone even for a moment; Twilight understood why, but that didn’t help.

It’d already been a week. Twilight missed her friends and family, her home, and her faith in ponykind. She also missed decent food; they had run out of the Stable 27 food and began eating the 200-year-old military rations from Canterlot. Even if they were edible, they tasted rotten.

As her tummy grumbled once again, she attempted to scarf one down without tasting it, and it mostly worked. She washed it down with the last gulp from her canteen, and hoped she wouldn’t throw it right back up, either from the taste or the bumpy ride once they started again.

At least she had her small collection of books and a slightly better understanding of their world. To her credit, Crimson had been nice about bringing the books out on request when the others allowed her to, and seemed to like Twilight in her own way. Twilight just hoped that wasn’t because Crimson liked Midnight.

While Crimson avoided Midnight before, losing control of Stable 27 might make Midnight her best hope at getting power again. They had to be careful not to give her reason to give in to that temptation.

Music from outside of the wagon interrupted Twilight’s thinking. Twilight recognized the hum beneath it as one of the sprite-bots. They had encountered them throughout the Ashlands, though none had spoken to them. As the song ended, this one played another of the Crystal Princess’s messages.

“There are those amongst us who would shatter our hopes for peace, order, and security,” Skyla said over the broadcast. “Mmph... These radical malcontents don’t care about you. They don’t care about Equestria! All they care about is fulfilling their own selfish desires.”

“Let’s take a tally of these agitators, shall we?” she continued. “There are the raiders. Those anarchistic ruffians who roam the wastes, preying on all, stealing, murdering. There’s the New Lunar Republic, who would blanket this land in eternal night given the chance. And of course, ‘The Trinity’. They have the audacity to claim to be the remnants of the Ministry of Magitech, but their claimed unity means turning us into monsters.”

“That is to say nothing of the power-armored terrorists called the Children of the Pearl, the bigoted Unicornia, the deceptive changelings, and Discordia where chaos reigns supreme.” She paused briefly for a short squee. “They’re all around us, but not for long, sweet Equestria. I will restore peace, order, and prosperity to this great kingdom. And I will remove those who oppose Equestria. Forever.”

“She talks a big game,” Twilight said as another orchestrated anthem played. “Crimson, what do you know about her outside of her broadcasts?”

“I only know what the radio says,” said Crimson. “She makes a lot of big claims, but few trust her because she’s the princess of the blockheads. She seems to have a truce with both Trinity and Midnight since they’re busy with each other, but makes no secret of her feelings for them. There are rumors of her searching city ruins for pre-war artifacts, but otherwise she’s a mystery.”

“I thought for sure the shinies were extinct,” said Kamikaze.

“Can we please cut down on racial slurs?” sighed Twilight. “Please.”

“I thought for sure the crystals were extinct,” Kamikaze corrected herself, but rolled her eyes.

“Maybe they are extinct,” said Crimson. “All reports say her soldiers are fully armored, so it’s impossible to tell what they really are. Maybe she’s just somepony that found a radio transmitter and went bananas. Nothing wrong with bananas. Bananas are good.”

“I wonder if she’s descended from Shining and Cadance,” Twilight mused. “That might make her a standard unicorn, or pegasus as Cadance was before being getting her upgrade from Celestia, rather than a crystal pony.”

“You murdered Shining on his wedding night,” Crimson laughed. “Cadance didn’t have one soon enough after that for it to be his. Might be Sombra’s rape-foal instead; that’d be a fate worse than death for poor Cadance, but your point that she might not be a blockhead stands.”

“Right,” Twilight sighed. “You know, I wish you had the decency for me to bother telling you not to slur.”

“So sad,” Crimson said dismissively.

“I still don’t understand: why would Midnight do that?” asked Twilight. “The Alicorn Amulet corrupts, but enough to murder your own family? I’ve seen a unicorn under its control and she was annoying at worst. Does it get worse over longer periods of wearing it?”

“Not sure,” Crimson shrugged. “My job was to paint you as a monster, not find out what made you one.”

“Midnight became obsessed with Celestia’s students,” Starlight answered for her. “She thought she’d gotten an unfair test, though it’s true she didn’t start picking off Celestia’s other students until after putting on the amulet. I have to admit I had more than a few sleepless nights due to her attempts on me.”

“She had a point with the test,” Crimson said. “Asking a filly to hatch the egg of a creature that ponies knew so little about… even Daybreaker would have trouble passing that test.”

“I passed that test,” Starlight said defensively. “It’s how I got Spike.”

“Celestia had a premonition that her next protégé could pass that specific test,” Twilight said, having asked Celestia that very question. “I wasn’t even the first she gave it to, but I don’t understand. They still gave the ones that failed it the regular test so they could join as a normal student. Was that not the case here?”

“It was,” said Starlight. “But apparently Midnight failing a test of any kind is traumatic for her, so her aunt, Star Sparkle, played with her disillusionment to get her interested in dark magic. It snowballed from there and she decided she could do better on her own. Daybreaker blamed herself, I’m sure, until the day she died.”

“I see,” Twilight sighed. She remembered her aunt offering to train her if she didn’t pass the test, but nothing came of it. Twilight wished she’d realized she was into dark magic before so she could get her help, but she had since disappeared even in Twilight’s timeline.

“It could be the amulet,” said Starlight. “But she really went off the deep end after a research trip to Ponehenge in the Foal Mountains.”

“Ponehenge?” Twilight asked. “There were stories about it, but we hadn’t yet found its location in my timeline. Is it from your ancient alicorn civilization?”

“It wasn’t that old,” said Starlight. “But she destroyed it, and we only have her propaganda to tell us why. She claimed she discovered six villains attempting to release a monster from Limbo. She killed them while they were weak from the spell and smote the shadow, saving the world from it. Blah blah. You know how it goes.”

“Sounds like a hallucination or lie,” said Twilight.

“I’d agree,” said Starlight. “But afterward she had a huge power boost and shadow magic we never explained, even upgraded her delusions to call herself the Divine Shadow. So, something happened there.”

“For some reason that seems familiar,” Twilight mused.

Twilight latched onto the possibility more than she might have otherwise. If Midnight were possessed, it allowed Twilight to rationalize that she wasn’t actually as bad as she acted, that she might even be saved.

After the attack, they began their journey again. In the end it didn’t waste more than a few hours of their journey, not that they’d be able to catch up with Tranquil anyway. In the time left before they reached Everfree, most of them took their time to take a nap, but their peace didn’t last long.

‘Pinkie sees trees!’ Pinkie’s voice over the PCB broke the silence soon after Mercury awoke again.

‘Calm down, Pink,’ Maud assured as she sat up from her own sleeping spot. ‘We expected to see trees when we got close to Everfree.’

“These are tiny blue moving trees,” Pinkie stopped the wagon, poking her head under the cover from outside and clarified. “Pinkie always suspected plants were plotting against Pinkie, and now she has proof! Yes.”

Twilight peeked out. They neared the forest, but it was more of an abrupt change than Twilight expected. The border of where the gravity bombs hit was an immediate change from crushed glass to green plant life. It wasn’t the gradual shift one would expect at the edge of a large explosion, but she supposed it hadn’t exactly been an explosion.

Plant life within the forest looked as thriving as ever. The tiny blue trees Pinkie mentioned were blue vines growing just outside the forest edge. They moved about in a random pattern, sinking into the ground and emerging a few seconds later a few hooves away. Twilight recognized the flowers and her heart sank.

“That’s poison joke,” Twilight said, “But why is it moving? A mutation?”

“Poison joke that chases you?” Kamikaze asked. “That is ten pounds of nope in a five-pound bag.”

“That’s killing joke,” Starlight groaned in frustration as she looked out. “But it can’t be. We never brought it back here after the experiments.”

“Experiments?” Twilight asked, trying not to raise her voice and failing. “Exactly how many of your experiments are currently terrorizing Equestria?”

“This can’t be ours!” Starlight said. “I mean we studied its psionic properties, the way it gets into your head to know what ‘joke’ to pull. When we magnified it, it became mobile, and the jokes became more lethal, but I don’t know why it’s here. The experiment was inside the Ministry of Magitech in Fillidelphia, not even close to here.”

“And who did you experiment on to know it became lethal?” Twilight growled.

“Simulations,” Crimson filled her role as propaganda mare. “Never on enemy soldiers or under-informed volunteers.”

Twilight liked it better when Crimson was merely evil instead of working for Starlight. Either way, it was hard for her to let such immoral science go, and it seemed Starlight had done a lot of it.

“What benefit could that research even produce?” asked Twilight.

“You’re wearing it,” Crimson motioned to Twilight’s pipbuck.

That made a little sense. The pipbucks had to get into a pony’s heads to recognize friends from foe, not to mention the PCB and readings on the wearer’s health and inventory. The psionic capability made Twilight even more guarded about the device on her leg.

“I don’t think the families of your experiments would see this contraption as adequate justification.” Twilight said through clenched teeth.

“We made mistakes,” said Starlight. “Blame won’t help. Besides, I engineered it so it could only survive in the lab. They should be dead.”

“Well these are surviving,” said Twilight, shivering as she tried to hold it in. “Thriving on ground that even Everfree plants can’t touch.”

“Odd,” Limestone commented after looking one direction and the other through Ashmaker’s scope. “They’re in patches along the edge of the forest for as far as I can see, but I don’t see any inside the borders of Everfree itself. It looks like an intentional defense perimeter.” She lowered Ashmaker. “They’d need control of them. But how? A repellent? Psionics?” Limestone’s confusion was not a good sign.

“How did Tranquil get past them?” asked Mercury.

“A single pony with a lighter cart could find a gap to run between,” said Limestone. “This seems more to deter large groups.”

“Tranquil’s camp site is a few hundred hooves inside the forest border,” said Maud. “Are we aborting?”

“The trees in the forest are still alive,” Twilight said, checking radiation levels on her pipbuck and finding them significant. “They must have adapted to the taint.”

“Well if no one depowered the Tree of Harmony, it’s keeping the forest alive,” said Starlight.

“You know of it?” Twilight asked. “And the Elements?”

“Yes, we were studying the Elements and trying to weaponize them,” said Starlight. “We were close to a weapon that would turn entire battalions into stone.”

“A non-lethal weapon,” added Crimson. “After all, we passionately desired a peaceful resolution.” She looked to be having fun, but every denial felt like confirmation of the opposite.

“We had an issue with black vines growing out of control from the forest, which forced us to put the Elements back on the tree,” continued Starlight. “Daybreaker decreed they remain there until we found ponies that could wield them properly. Apparently Daybreaker couldn’t because she used them to banish another Element bearer in the past, which broke her connection.”

“Sounds like the vine problem was the same in both timelines,” pondered Twilight. “I know it’s close to the castle, but can we check on the tree from a distance through Ashmaker’s scope? There’s also another place I’d like to check, because I suspect I know where the Midnight clones come from… really hope I’m wrong but...”

“Huh,” Crimson said. “I didn’t have to make excuses to go into the forest. We have a grocery list of reasons.”

Starlight sighed as she pulled up her map projection and pointed at locations. “Tree is here. Where is the stash and potential cloner?”

“We’re looking for the Mirror Pool,” said Twilight, tapping her hoof on the map. “Here.”

Starlight cringed at the mention of the pool, then peered at Twilight with a curious look. It felt an awful lot like she knew about the Mirror Pool and now wondered why Twilight also knew. Twilight realized that Midnight likely wasn’t the first one to find the pool, and Starlight certainly knew something about it she wasn’t keen on sharing.

“The stash I mentioned is here,” Crimson tapped on it too. “Good camp location, as I said.”

“That’s Zecora’s hut,” Twilight recognized the position. “I guess I should have realized that it’d be there.”

“That it is!” said Crimson. “I should have mentioned that; I’d have had Not-Midnight vouching for me!”

“Can’t we go invisible again?” asked Mercury.

“To avoid guards, yes,” said Starlight. “But invisibility tricks eyes, not psionics. The joke will ‘see’ right through it, and I’m not good with keeping large moving things invisible anyway.” She turned to Twilight. “Twilight. Do you think you can fly us that short distance without crashing?”

“I think I’m better enough to manage a short flight,” Twilight nodded, hoping she was.

“The vines look prehensile,” said Limestone, “They might stretch, so stay as high as you can without going above the tree level where patrols might see us.”

“Once we’re in the forest,” Starlight said. “We’ll go to the campsite, tree, pool, then hut, where we’ll camp so I can get actual sleep, but if we see any indication that this is harder than we thought, we’ll leave immediately.”

“Good,” Limestone said. “Okay Masco... Twilight, hitch yourself up and let’s go. Everypony keep an eye out. They may have mutated in other ways.”

POV: Starlight Glimmer

From the beginning, Starlight suspected that Twilight might be trouble. She wasn’t the trouble Starlight expected, but it was trouble all the same.

Though she wasn’t Midnight, Twilight was a thorn in Starlight’s side by going to the opposite extreme. She seemed determined to draw attention to Starlight’s every flaw, as if to show how Starlight didn’t measure up to Twilight’s high moral standards.

For many of Starlight’s underlings like the Pies, this didn’t matter. They would be faithful to her because they deferred to ponies of rank. Most ponies of today wouldn’t have that indoctrination though. Mercury and Solar might side with Twilight if a real rift formed. While Starlight hoped that less sheltered ponies wouldn’t fall for it, she still feared Twilight might defy her at an inopportune time.

Besides, the timeline Twilight described was impossible. Twilight wanted them to believe she defeated the fiends of her own world by being friendly. Starlight had spent years studying magic, and it didn’t work like that.

All this friendship nonsense Twilight spouted seemed more like self-propaganda. Starlight knew because it was the same sort of things she told ponies as she experimented on their friends and families behind closed doors.

With any luck, the rock farm would be faithful enough to Starlight that Twilight couldn’t cause issues there. If all else failed, it wouldn’t be too hard to convince ponies that Twilight was a problem just for her looking like Midnight.

For now, Twilight was an asset as only she could fly the wagon over the killing joke. Starlight just wished she knew why the killing joke was here to begin with.

As Twilight took off, the pegasus enchantment on the wagon kept it upright, though the dizzy alicorn still rocked back and forth. Flying with a large wagon was harder than just flying, and Twilight scrunched her face as she strained to overcome the vertigo from her injury. She elevated to about a hundred hooves off the ground before moving forward.

Starlight saw more once they were higher. The Everfree covered a smaller area than before, but was still sizable, an oasis of green in the desolate wastelands. The lights and the top of Midnight Castle shone above the trees, with what looked like bat patrols flying rounds, some with a single dragon member. They’d have to watch for those, but at least none were close enough to notice them at this elevation. They were on the opposite side of the forest from Trinity so this side probably wasn't as well guarded.

Everfree was the only life visible. Further south, she looked towards Ghastly Gorge, which they’d be walking alongside on their way to the Pie Rock Farm. It was a good thing they didn’t have to walk through it because there was a swirling green and pink glow emitting from various points inside the gorge. Starlight remembered the quarray eels that had lived there, and definitely didn’t want to fight a mutated version.

“Pinkie’s knee is pinchy!” Pinkie blurted out. “We are under attack! Yes.”

Starlight focused, looking around in the sky. She expected a bat or dragon patrol closing in but saw nothing at their elevation. Then she looked down just in time to see a floating killing joke bloom lunge at her. A second later it disintegrated in a flash from a beam of gray magic from Dinky’s horn.

They could fly? Starlight’s experiments never flew!

Starlight erected a magical shield around the whole wagon, but some were already within the shield’s radius. She backed up, activating the face shield on her blinder suit just before one latched onto the front. Starlight strained to maintain the forcefield, covering her exposed horn with both hooves.

The creature didn’t need to touch her though because she still felt it in her head. Random memories surfaced as if it was digging through her mind to find a weak point, and she felt her magic fade. It would have made her drop the shield had Dinky not blasted it off her too.

Afterward the little ghoul squealed as one lunged for her. She dodged, but for once the ghoulish resistance to environmental hazards was a disadvantage. Neither ghoul had full-body covering.

The shield would fall if Starlight tried to attack them herself, and dozens more clung to the outside of the forcefield. The more that gathered, the more energy the shield required, as if they were draining it. Her experiments couldn’t do that either.

These weren’t a mutation. Starlight was certain someone had intentionally improved on her design. But how did somepony even get her design? Nopony outside the Ministry of Magitech knew about this experiment, and someone would need Starlight’s own security codes to get information to duplicate it. Unless it was… for Break’s sake she hoped not.

The ability to drain magic made them slippery to telekinesis, but despite the difficulty Dinky and Mercury managed to gather the ones they saw with it. Crimson still couldn’t use magic, but it didn’t matter since all she did was cover her horn in a corner and laugh at the situation. Starlight couldn’t help but wistfully wonder what might happen to Crimson if they infected her.

“Pull them together!” directed Limestone, pointing above them.

Mercury and Dinky held as many as they could together and Limestone glowed as she focused a burst of radiation at the bundled joke. The batch burst into flames from the focused radiation, disintegrating into ashes. Limestone groaned, her glow dying down after using so much of her stored energy.

A bolt of energy rattled the wagon as Twilight unleashed an uncontrolled burst of magic from her horn stub, jolting several plants that had surrounded her. Twilight had to protect her own exposed wings, but the energy use made it hard to fly. The wagon lurched back and forth, supplies and ponies sliding from one side to the other.

“Twilight! Into the trees now!” shouted Limestone.

Twilight flew towards the tree line as quickly as she could, the wagon rattling behind her. Starlight thought they were home free for a moment before Dinky screeched. She turned to see Dinky lunging at her, teeth bared. Starlight couldn’t do much while holding up the shield, so watched as Dinky tried to bite through her face shield and kicked at her. The little ghoul had some solid kicks for her size, and Starlight backed away.

Limestone tackled Dinky to the floor of the wagon as Mercury used her magic to pull a killing joke bloom off of Dinky’s leg. She slammed an empty potion-mixing beaker over it to catch it, perhaps thinking the infecting plant might help make a cure. Mercury slipped a lid onto the beaker and sealed it.

An instant later they crashed through the brush and into the forest. Starlight dropped the shield as the impact threw her to the floor, a stabbing pain filling her head as she jarred her horn hard against one corner of the wagon.