The training had involved a lot more running than Rolling Thunder would have thought. She'd even gotten tipped off by Short Fuse, but it hadn't prepared her for the reality of it. They ran every morning. They ran after lunch. They ran before dinner.

Sergeant Blaze hadn't been the nightmare Wonderbolts instructor she'd feared. In the Guard, it seemed, having a method of flying that made half the sky dangerous to fly in was considered a bonus—she'd gotten pushed to an advanced training group because of that.

Five laps of Canterlot, and while she was breathing hard—it was because she'd galloped the whole way. Even slowing down, she quickly regained her breath and cooled herself off. And, it had only taken four weeks of training to do, she told herself with a mocking tone to her mental voice. Things were different now, though. Rather than split off into their various specialty classes, all three training sergeants were standing together.

It wasn't a huge leap for her to figure out they were doing something as a group today. Trotting over, she stood straight and waited for their instructions.

"Fall in," Solid Ground said, her parade ground voice a little more sharp than her two peers'. "After a month of training, we think you're all to the point where you can engage with someone and not accidentally kill yourself; congratulations!" She paused for the few chuckles to die down. A little levity was fine, but she wouldn't let it continue too long. "So, today, we're going to start with your teamwork training. We'll have three groups that will rotate each day for the next nine days. One group will focus on full combat and engagement, second will work on counter-escalation and using strictly soft subduing methods, and the third will focus on special circumstances. Pick a sergeant and fall in. Don't be surprised if we break you up and shuffle you to other groups."

As far as Rolling figured, it wasn't going to matter either way. She walked over to Solid Ground and stood before her. She waited for others to move around, and then yet others to be moved around, and finally things seemed to be starting.

"Cadets, I'll be taking you for counter-escalation and subduing tactics. You'll learn a little psychology, to head-off problems before they become problems, and ways to slow and stop all manner of creatures without having to use dangerous force." This was some of the newer topics that Solid had been working on with Lyra. She read over her own notes in her head and let the words flow as she explained the simplest method of talking someone down from a rash action—and that was talking to them.

The morning was spent on theory. Rolling learned about the importance of speaking with a calm voice, of trying to picture why someone was doing what you didn't want them to, and the most harmless ways to dissuade such actions. It was weird for her, but she'd learned from Lyra—in her short time in close contact with her—that weird often came together into something amazing.

The sun peaked in the sky and Rolling found herself reunited with the rest of the cadets as they filed into the mess. The food came with two menus, and all that changed between them was how spicy it was. There were specialty foods for other species, but Rolling was fine with the mild fish stew. She filled up a bowl with the stuff, grabbed some flatbread, and a big mug of water, and looked around at her choices. There weren't a lot that she cared too strongly about, so headed for the nearest table and sat down beside a griffon. "This spot taken?"

Shrugging her winged shoulders, Glint shook her head. "Nope."

Not having spent much time with griffons before, Rolling figured there wasn't much different between them. "I'm Rolling. You live in Equestria?" she asked, using a fork to spear pieces of fish and vegetables out of the stew.

"Glint, and yeah. South of here in a town called Den. Moved here to get away from—" Glint sighed and looked down at her pie. It was fish again, but she couldn't exactly say it wasn't good fish. She prodded it with her fork and tried to pretend it was some other kind of meat. "Griffonstone isn't exactly a nice place to live anymore, and its influence has spread to all the griffon settlements. If you're not in a hunting pride there, you can't do anything to get better, ya know?"

"Yeah, mate, I've dealt with some crap. So why here then?"

"Den's great, don't get me wrong. Anyone can be whatever they want now, and the town won't fall apart because we lack someone, but I want to cook." Glint laughed aloud at Rolling's confused look. "You can't cook griffon food unless you can hunt, and everyone tells me the best way to learn to hunt in Equestria is to join the Monster Hunters."

It took Glint a moment to realize that Rolling wasn't following her. To help demonstrate, she pried open the top of her fish pie. "Griffons have to eat a lot of meat. Unless you're big on making food for ponies, you either need to pay someone to hunt for you, or you learn to hunt yourself. So, I'll do my training here, spend a year in the Monster Hunters, then change to being a reservist." After explaining it, Glint felt a touch defensive about her plan.

"Huh. You've got it all planned out." The pie, Rolling could see, wasn't a mix of vegetables, lentils, and a little fish—it was a lot of fish all packed in tight with some kind of thick sauce. "So you normally eat other stuff?"

"Yeah. We—" Glint paused as she felt a bump on her other side. Turning her head to look up at Grendel, she watched the big guy shake his head. "R-Right. Yeah. You probably don't want to know what we eat."

"Come on, it can't be that bad." The moment she said it, Rolling had a feeling like she shouldn't. "Is it that bad?"

"We eat what we hunt, and griffons are all about hunting. The only thing off the menu is anything that talks." Shoving the contents of the pie around a little, Glint sighed. "And all we get here is fish."

Griffon and pegasus both froze as a new pony sat down at the table. Both tried to jump to their feet and salute at the same time, but Lyra said, "At ease, we're in the mess. I've been meaning to catch up and ask if the meals are okay?"

Letting loose a little squawk of surprise, Glint felt like she'd gotten caught in a hurricane. She'd just been complaining about the food, and here Lyra was sitting before her and asking—after she'd had a month to learn how exceptional the mare was. "I— It— S-Sir—"

Grendel didn't envy Glint one bit.

"What Glint's trying to say is the food is always the same," Rolling said and looked to her eating companion. "Right?"

"Right." Glint looked at Rolling, wishing she hadn't been so open about her food. "It's always fish."

Interested even more now, Lyra asked, "You don't normally eat fish?"

"Once a week. Maybe less." Pushing the pastry aside, Glint looked down into the pie. "It's tasty, but—"

"You want red meat. Something with fiber and sinew. Even salmon won't do?"

"Salmon is better than this, and tuna would be better still, but—" When Lyra had said "fiber and sinew", Glint couldn't stop herself from drooling a little. Now she had to wonder how a pony would learn of the very things that made red meat so good.

From the corner of her eye, Lyra spotted one of the few bat ponies that had applied. "I'll talk to some ponies who might be able to help. I can't promise it, but I'll do everything I can to get you at least one good meal before the end of your training, and hopefully secure more for your time as part of the Guard."

Curiosity got the better part of at least fifty percent of Glint, and she asked, "How do you know so much about meat? Uh, sir."

It was a good question, and one she'd been asked before. What surprised Lyra though was how much easier it was to accept sir than your highness and for that matter how the Guard used sir for every officer regardless of gender. "Do you know the history of the bat ponies?" When Glint shook her head, Lyra wasn't all that surprised. "They weren't ponies at all ten— Yeah, ten years ago.

"In their world, something happened that ripped open a hole to Equestria. For a world without magic, having so much suddenly pour into it was a shock, so the beliefs of that world coalesced magic into some familiar shapes. Tjinimin, a bat spirit, was the first to appear. He saw a catastrophe in progress and gave the magic forms that blended local forms and those of the magic's origin.

"He made the first bat ponies. Or, rather, he told magic how to make bat ponies, and it started infusing people with that form. One person, however, went through the portal to Equestria and saw an amazing event take place. A sonic rainboom lit up the sky, and while he spoke with a friend there, they got a cutie mark and became a unicorn."

The room had quietened down so the loudest noises were coming from the kitchen, and even those seemed muted compared to Lyra's voice.

"After some time in their home world as a unicorn, they eventually came back to Equestria to ask a friend to make good on a promise to teach them how to use magic. I think you know where that went. The important thing, though, is that pony lived years as another creature entirely. You might even say that it made them an exceptional diplomat when it comes to the needs of our more predatory friends.

"I also make it my specialty to find people who can help with problems, and two of those are here now, at least I hope so. Mango, Big," Lyra said, looking over at where the two bat ponies were sitting, bowls of fruit before them, "can you tell me if I'd have any luck buying some meat from Batstralia?"

"That wouldn't be easy. With the country a bit, uh… wild, most farms have given up on trying to farm cattle. Sheep are still kept, but in smaller numbers." Big Empty, named such because he couldn't reach the Dreamtime at all, shrugged his shoulders.

"Wait," Mango Thief said. "What about 'roos?" When she got a confused look from Big, she turned her attention to Lyra and did her best to ignore the crowd of ponies listening. "Kangaroos. They've been giving the monsters hell, and some folks still hunt them. You might be able to buy some 'roo meat. Maybe emu too."

"Is there anyone at the embassy I can talk to about it?" Lyra asked. The shrug she got in reply was enough, and in keeping with her request to keep the mess informal, she didn't push. "Thanks, I'll see if we can't figure out something to keep our griffon guards from going crazy from eating nothing but fish."

As if a signal, everyone seemed to get back to the job of refueling their bodies, and Lyra was sure that Glint looked less upset with her meal. "I'll go see them right now, actually. I'll get something for you, even if I have to hunt it myself."

Flying from Canterlot to anywhere except for Cloudsdale was the easiest thing in the world for Lyra. Altitude equated to speed and speed meant she didn't have to flap at all. She could have visited the new embassy in Canterlot, but Lyra wanted to spread her wings a little, and the bigger building situated on the railway line beyond Ponyville was ample distance for her to have some fun.

Diving close to the ground from the height of Canterlot was not for the feint of heart, but Lyra had trained for such wild flying, and executed a recovery to practically skim the tops of the trees. Ponyville was there and gone again in the blink of an eye, and soon Lyra was curving around the Everfree Forest and following the railway line to what had been a blank platform when she'd first come to Equestria.

The new station had its own spur line that then continued on south. There were several buildings in what had become a small town. Lyra dumped speed by angling her wings up into a stall and letting the chaotic air buffet her and, eventually, landing neatly near the station.

The platform had a roof over it now, but Lyra's focus was on the bat pony that looked at her in surprise. "Hi, I've come to invade. Is there a line for that, or do I need to book an appointment?"

Staring at the strange pony wearing what looked like real armor, the bat pony did his best not laugh—and failed. "You what?" he managed to ask, after a few seconds of vocal mirth.

"I think I need to talk to someone who can find and import some food products. Who would that be?" Lyra asked.

"Ah, that makes more sense. Here was I thinking you were going to hold me hostage. If it's fruit you're after, though—"

Lyra shook her head. "Not fruit. I need to buy meat. Specifically, red meat."

"Oh. Huh? Well, as you can guess, we don't sell that here, so you'd have to talk to the quartermaster to arrange a price and quantity. The big building over there. Someone will be waiting inside, ask them if you can speak to the quartermaster."

"Thanks!" Lyra turned for the indicated building and trotted off in its direction.

"No probs." It took the bat pony nearly thirty seconds before he realized what had been bothering him about Lyra, but he eventually blurted, "That was a princess."

A sign on the front door of the building said,"Come in." Lyra smiled at that and used her magic to open the door and walk inside. The room looked fairly typical for a waiting room and reception, though she had to wonder how many people came to visit them to warrant such a design.

"Can I help y— Lyra?!"

Not recognizing the bat pony mare behind the counter, Lyra nonetheless smiled as warmly as she could. "Uh, yes?"

Laughing with a screech she quickly covered her mouth to stop, the mare said, "Giggle Fit—Err, Kelly. You remember me?" The look of dawning realization on Lyra's face as she pinned a human name and a human face on a bat pony made Giggle do her namesake. "It's been so long! I heard you were some kind of famous here, but haven't seen you around at all."

"I've been all over the country, or so it seems, dealing with problems here there and everywhere. But I've never needed to come here until today. What about you? How are your parents handling the bat life?"

"Oh, they love it. Who wouldn't? They were in their late thirties, then bam, half their age. I have two little brothers and a little sister now." Tilting her head, Giggle asked, "If you don't mind, why the costume?"

"Costume?"

"The whole getup you have there. Are you going to one of those fairs? The wings are a nice touch."

"Oh. Ooooh." Lyra shook herself a little, closing her eyes and preparing for a big reveal. "Alright, so this might be a minor freakout moment, but…" Opening her wings and spreading them, Lyra struck one of the more traditional alicorn poses she'd seen Celestia use. "The wings are real and so is the armor."

Facehoofing, Giggle slumped and looked at Lyra. "You can knock it off. I know you're a unicorn. We had another so-called alicorn princess last week. Came in and asked about our new ambassador. I didn't believe her any more than you."

"Twilight?"

"No. Cadence or something. Look, I know for a fact that Equestria has two alicorns ruling it, one white and one dark blue, and there's a new one in purple. There isn't any pink alicorn, Lyra, and you certainly aren't one either."

Taking a moment to focus, Lyra closed her eyes and counted to ten. "Alright. First off, Cadance. And you're right, she—"

"I knew it!"

"She's not a princess at all. She is an alicorn, though, and empress of the Crystal Empire. Also, Princess Twilight Sparkle's sister-in-law and adopted niece of Princess Celestia—'the white one.' I'm not a princess either, but I am an alicorn." With her lecture voice subsiding a little, Lyra added, "And I am, in fact, Commander of the E.U.P. Guard. The armor is real."

When Giggle looked at her, dawning realization on her face, Lyra added, "Why would I come here wearing fake armor and pretending to look like an alicorn—when I didn't know I'd have someone here I knew?"

"She— She was an empress?" Lyra's slow nod made Giggle shudder. "I—"

"Relax. Breathe. Cadance is a friend. I'll talk to her about it." The sound of a distant train whistle didn't distract Lyra from helping Giggle recover. "You didn't know. Alicorns are a bit more common here lately. Did you know Cadance's daughter is one, too?"

"Wait." Jerking her head up from where she'd slumped on her counter, Giggle perked her ears. "Was that a train whistle?"

"Huh? Yeah. So, don't stress abo—" Lyra had to dive out of the way lest she be trampled by a screeching bat pony rushing for the front door. "Giggles?!"

"The new ambassador!" Reaching the front door, Giggles opened it and looked around. Sure enough, a train was slowing to a stop having come up the spur line from the portal.

As more bat ponies rushed out, looking eager and, at least in Lyra's estimation, flustered, she followed along to see who it was. It would have to be someone important to cause so many to act so crazy. By the time she made it to the station, there was one pony she immediately recognized standing on the edge of it. "Robin?"

It was a boring midday when Robin arrived at the freight-handling town that was the midway point between the Batstralia portal and Canterlot. She was well-versed enough in politics now that she knew she had to ensure everyone saw her and she got to have words with them.

Fifty-six bat ponies, and Robin was counting each of them. They clustered around as if she would have all the answers to every problem they faced. She could have laughed if she didn't have her political smile in place, greeting each with a little screech of greeting. Then she reached number fifty-seven, and stared. "Lyra?"

"Hey, Spud." The ear-splitting screech Lyra's sister let out, and the following pounce-tackle would have caught her off-guard, but her armor absorbed the strike without making her move at all. Not that it seemed to do anything to her sister.

Wrapped in two soft wings, Robin squeezed Lyra with her own. "How did you know I was coming today?"

"I am an alicorn now, Spud. I have flown the winds of destiny. I have meditated for days on end to commune with fate. I have even—" Lyra was cut off by a boop. "I needed to buy meat."

"Meat? Why would you need it? Don't you eat grass or whatever?" Lowering her hoof, Robin nodded toward the building Lyra had left a moment earlier. "We can probably talk in there. The train will be heading to Canterlot in about an hour."

"We could always fly. It's not far."

Opening the door to the reception, Robin stepped inside. "No. Screech made me promise not to do that. I have to go by train and stick to my schedule. There's going to be a ceremony in Canterlot." Looking around the waiting room, Robin walked up to Giggle's desk. "Is there a spare room I could occupy while I wait for my train?"

"Of course! Conference room one is free." Giggle might have known Robin from their time growing up together, but she was still an important bat pony—one of the most important. "It's the first one on your left."

When they were inside and the door was closed, Robin had to ask, "Isn't that stuff uncomfortable to wear?"

"My armor? Sis, it was made specifically for me to wear. It's more comfortable than wearing a dress once you're used to the weight. Even that is reduced because it's magic armor." Finding a seat and settling in, Lyra leaned back and heard the poor chair creak under her. "Okay, it's not completely weightless, but still way lighter than it should be."

"How's Mum and Dad?" Robin switched gears and topics. Her sister was always going to treat fantastic things as mundane, and she knew she had to deal with that.

"Mum's still working at the castle as the princesses' advisor. She's loving that and— Oh! She's pregnant again. Dad's more chill than ever. He's basically put the local cha—" Stopping, Lyra mentally berated herself for almost certainly summoning the spirit of chaos in question. "The local version of Dad. He's not a bad guy, but he's calmed down a lot from when he first awoke and helped me learn to master chaos magic."

There were several questions Robin had, but what she came up with first related to the last thing Lyra had said. "How many kinds of magic are there?"

"There are eight kinds of magic that ponies can use. There might be a ninth coming soon, though. We have light, dark, change, motion, emotive, chaos, harmony, and friendship. Love is just a matter of time."

"And how many can you cast with?"

Lyra snorted. "I can cast with any of them, but the ones I am missing the source of are light and change. Both are things I need to learn from Princess Celestia. It's a slow process, but this is something I am destined to do. It's part of what I need to be."

"How many ponies can do all this, then? All the alicorns?"

"You mean, how many sources of magic has anyone ever managed before me? Princess Celestia has three. Gathering them all is my thing, and I hope it is never needed." The idea that it might was something Lyra didn't like thinking on, but did anyway. "If an alicorn is disabled for any length of time, they either have to pass on the sources they control or the magic might perish."

The look of horror that passed over her sister's face highlighted for Robin how bad that would be. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Red meat?" When her sister rolled her eyes, Lyra pressed her advantage. "No, seriously. Beef, 'roo, pig, whatever."

"Everything I've read says ponies don't eat meat, though."

"Okay, first, that's wrong. Pegasi eat fish regularly, and there are some earth pony families that hold to traditions of fish eating, but this isn't for them. I have two griffons who joined the E.U.P. Guard, and they are not fans of an all fish diet."

"That's your job now? A cook?" Robin's mind was already racing, trying to think of how to get such a supply of meat. "We still have plenty of people who like to hunt. Kangaroos haven't stopped breeding like crazy because there's magic, so there are no laws restricting it. What your problem will be is getting it killed suitable for export.

"The laws didn't change in that regard. We didn't think we needed to change them. I can get Screech to change them, if you want?"

Nodding and taking down notes, Lyra said, "We don't issue armor like this to our chefs; they get the same armor as anyone else. As for it being slaughtered, if that's the issue, maybe you could issue hunters with stamps they can apply to carcasses so the quality can be tracked and penalties imposed for bad practices? How soon could we get the first shipment?"

Now Robin narrowed her eyes at her sister and looked—really looked—at the armor she was wearing. "Who do they give armor like that to?"

"Commander—"

"I heard you were already commander of one of the Princess' guards, and that you had one pony working under yo—"

"Commander of the E.U.P. Guard." Lyra smiled as innocently as she could. Her sister's laughter was itself enough to make her smile turn into a grin. "I know! I was surprised too. I thought I was going to be commander of the Training regiment, but then I find out that the Training regiment commander is the big cheese."

Robin's grin turned into a rolling laugh. She almost fell out of her chair at the sheer Lyraness of accidentally becoming in charge of a nation's military. That's when it hit her and she sobered immediately. "You're in charge of the military? So when those offers of training came through…"

"The first ones were from my predecessor, though I put that bee in his bonnet. Then the most recent ones were mine. They, uh, might be on your desk when you reach your new embassy in Canterlo—" A knock at the door interrupted Lyra.

"Come in," Robin said, years of practice lending her voice that bored authority that was required of someone who had to not give opinions on things regularly lest those opinions be seen as intent.

Giggle was surprised to see the siblings looking so somber and composed. Remembering the pair from growing up, she would have expected them to be far more relaxed with each other. "Your train is scheduled to leave in ten minutes."

Lyra could stop laughing at that. At the weird looks from Giggle and Robin, she managed to stop long enough to say, "I think that's the most polite way of telling your boss to move her ass I've ever heard."

"She's literally the right-hand-woman of Princess Screech—even if she was my best friend growing up. Besides, the train won't leave without her. It's her train." Shrugging her shoulders, Giggle pointed to the door. "Either way, if you want a ride to Canterlot, it's out there ready to go."

"It'd be so much easier if I could fly," Robin said.

"It'd be so much easier if I could teleport us," Lyra said, and when both Robin and Giggle stared at her in shock, she asked, "What?"

"Teleport?" Robin asked.

"Teleport?" Giggle asked.

"Yeah. It's not that hard, and besides, I could aim for the sky above Canterlot and we could fly down to the station." It sometimes took Lyra by surprise when she realized that some people didn't know that much about teleporting. "Here, let me show you."

"Wai—" was all Robin could get out before her sister cast a spell. Instinct made her snap her wings out and, with a glance, she realized she was in the air above Canterlot. "Lyra!" And, with another pomf sound, she was back in the room they'd vacated with the first teleport.

"See! It's soooo much easier."

Giggle and Robin both stared at Lyra as if she'd gone crazy. It was Robin, though, that spoke up first. "Lyra, you're my big sister and I love you to bits, but never do that again without warning me, okay?"

"You're almost as bad as Bonnie. Look, all I'm saying is that we could be cozy and warm in Canterlot right now. We were in Canterlot, as a matter of fact, and I know you need to follow this whole thing and stuff. Oh! You know I could disguise some other bats as you and me. Well, disguising one as me might be against the law, I'm not sure on that, but—" The hoof wasn't in Lyra's mouth, but Robin was threatening to do so with a sobering glare and a boop that would put Pinkie to shame. "Mrrffmmr."

"Come on, we're going to take the train. You get to be my escort—and I'll make sure you get some meat samples by the end of the week." Robin looked over toward Giggles, and nodded.

"W-What meat samples?" Giggles asked.

"Some kangaroo, let's try for four sides." Robin waited for Giggles to nod. "Okay, thanks to that little demonstration of Lyra's magic, I need to sit down for a bit. It's one thing to know your sister is a wizard, and another to have her do that. Oh, and if anybat says anything about it, let them know it's a diplomatic requirement to maintain relations with Equestria."

Lyra's eyes widened at that, which made Robin raise an eyebrow at her. "What? It is a diplo—"

"No, not that." Almost vibrating with excitement, Lyra held up her hoof to shield the conversation from Giggle, and spoke into her sister's ear. "You said anybat."

It took Robin a moment to remember her own ribbing of Lyra for ponyisms the last time they'd spoken. She groaned and used her wings to herd her sister outside and to the train.

Author's Note

Lyra: have you tried rapidly strobing your wings to see how bedazzled folks could get with the rapid oscillation of The Alicorn Effect?

"That... That would be a completely different study. For one thing, the alicorn effect is passive. It would happen anyway and we are just observing how it happens and with what side effects. We would need all kinds of permission and consent for a study like you suggest," Lyra said, "and asking for permission to do the study would probably affect the outcome in this instance."

So I do this "Ask X" thing. X can be any character within the story. You can ask them anything and they will definitely, hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories, and they will answer the best question in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right character to answer. Try to keep it to one question per post!

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