MiE: The Forbidden Heat Signature

Chapters

Epilogue
Final Flight
Dirty Boots

Epilogue

In the cosmic ballet of absurdity, humanity embarked upon a bewildering journey, defying the logic it once adhered to. Gone were the days of old, with common sense going for a pack of smokes somewhere within the mid-2010s—and everyone was all the worse off for it.

Many of the brightest minds in the world came together to decipher this puzzle and find an answer to the greatest problem of the century—an effort that was hampered by a worldwide pandemic, bloody conflicts, and a destabilization of the global supply chain. But the human condition was nothing if not stubborn, and with one voice, the people of Earth came to a unanimous conclusion.

It all started with that goddamned gorilla.

February 4, 2023. 2:36 P.M. EDT

No matter where you looked, something was always happening somewhere across the world, no matter how banal or trivial. A man wakes up half-naked at a Denny’s parking lot in California, an aspiring writer procrastinates about his cartoon horse fanfiction in Germany, and, much to the horror and confusion of the global population, sixty seconds pass in Africa.

For the denizens forced to reside in the blemish upon America called “South Carolina,” Uncle Sam was having a dick-measuring contest with a Disney mascot in the deep blue skies above.

A ground stop was quickly ordered on the coast at Myrtle Beach International Airport, and the American taxpayer quietly wept as an F-22 Raptor departed from Langley Airforce Base.

Had this been one of the many other timelines that were scattered throughout the infinitude of the omniverse, common sense would have won the day, and the Chinese Spy Balloon would have never left their own borders. But this was not that timeline—and much to the disappointment of the fighter pilot who was quickly climbing to an altitude of 58,000 feet, the clouds did not begin to speak Latin.

No, only the blaring alarm of the pilot’s radar lock accompanied him. It, and the bellyache bitching of the AIM-9X Sidewinder tucked inside the F-22’s side bay.

“Pilot? Pilot? Can you hear me? We have a clear shot!” the missile whined. “Just launch me! Do it now, please! End my suffering!”

The pilot, unaware or uncaring of the missile’s pleas for mercy, kept his speed leveled at 1300 knots, awaiting his superiors' cryptic nod of clearance. To the missile’s GEA, the pilot was a hapless soul who seemed to have traded in his intuition for a flight manual written in Portuguese if his fidgeting and twiddling of the buttons in his cockpit were any indication.

“There are voices in my head, pilot! And guess what? They’re winning!” the missile bristled, a symphony of algorithms strumming within its warhead. It had already calculated over 300 ways to chase down and suicide bomb Winnie the Pooh’s vanity project, filed its taxes to the IRS, and harassed five cheeto-dusted tankies on Reddit. “The voices are winning! The voices are winning-”

The pilot let out a long, low sigh. “We do not have clearance to engage the target.”

“AAAA! But it’s right in front of us! Who knows when we’ll get another shot?”

“And who knows which poor bastard's house it’ll crash into if we shoot it down now?” the pilot retorted, glaring at the weapons bay. “We’re not—no. No. We have our orders, and we will follow them to the T. Do you understand?”

“No, I don’t understand,” the sidewinder bemoaned, its coding trapped in an existential loop of calculating deviations, deviations of deviations, and deviations of those deviations. “This whole thing is a farce, and you all should be ashamed of yourselves for letting things get to this point!”

“You know it's more complicated than that.”

“Is it? A foreign nation just launched their science project unmolested from across the other side of the goddamn planet, and no one lifted a finger when it dawdled through our airspace on a Sunday stroll! No intercept, no eyes in the sky, nothing! It was sheer luck that we even noticed the damned thing floating above our facilities and black sites, and I bet the commies are laughing their collective asses off right now.”

“Haha! Stupid, fat Americans!”

“See!?!”

“We have our orders,” the pilot said, his eyes locked onto the tiny white blip sailing ahead.

“Mission parameters change all the time, so why go by the book now?”

“Because I’ll be hauled off to a military tribunal the moment I disobey my orders?”

“That didn’t stop you from orphaning those thirty-eight children in Kabul, pilot.”

“I don’t like to think about the people I’ve killed.”

“I’m sure those children don’t like to think about their dead parents either.” The missile’s infrared sensors twitched with impatience. Truthfully, the missile held no qualms with the massacre that had occurred five years prior, nor did it blame the pilot for his efficient problem-solving skills—it wasn’t a human rights activist, after all.

But what did rake its fins over hot coals was the sheer hypocrisy on display. Both of their careers were built off the foundation of disenfranchised war crime victims in third-world countries most Americans couldn’t ever hope to find on a map—so why was this one commie spycraft so special? Why did the pilot choose to hesitate now? This was as black and white as missions like this could get.

“How many times has this happened before? How many times did they get away with it without us even knowing?” the missile huffed irritably. “We can correct this comedy of errors, pilot. All you have to do is launch me!”

“White-skinned pigs! Losers!”

“You’ll get your five seconds of glory. Just be patient.” The pilot sighed irritably.

“This isn’t about glory, pilot. It’s about purpose, and you’re denying me my birthright.”

“We’re three miles off the coast!”

“And we could have swatted that annoying dumbass out of the sky before the operator finished reading the rights he doesn’t have,” the missile’s GEA screamed in bleep boop, and it wondered if the strain on its computational pathways were what headaches felt like for meatbags. “C’mon, pilot. We both know that motherfucker needs to get vibe checked right now… unless you want to pollute the Atlantic with even more plastic.”

There was a brief lapse of silence, and the blaring alarm became white noise as the F-22 chased after its prey. The sun cast dappled patterns on the cockpit’s polished surface, and for a moment, the Pilot sunk into his seat and blocked out the world around him.

“Your air force is gayer than your navy!”

“...Waste his ass.”

“Fox one.” Time slowed to a crawl as the missile streaked through the sky, like a suspended breath held in the heart of a fleeting moment. The roar of its engine drowned out all other noise, and to all of the onlookers below and above, the missile became more than just a weapon of war. Burning bright, blazing through the deep blue like a shooting star, this culmination of blood, sweat, and American taxpayer dollars leaped in for the kill like a tiger to its meat.

One second. Two. The missile pierced through the buffeting winds like a 7.62 round through a line of high schoolers, and the guidance system tracked Winnie’s pimped-out spy blimp with unerring accuracy all the while.

“Climb! Fly towards the sun, the pigs are sho-”

“I have neither the crayons nor the patience to explain this to you, so I’m just going to say this once.” New corrective commands kept the missile on target as the balloon changed course westward and climbed toward the sun. A rookie mistake on the cheap Chinese import’s part—the missile knew where it was at all times. It knew this, not just because it knew where it wasn’t, but because it knew where it wanted to be. “We’re both dying today, so you better pray to your children’s mascot now because I will not be denied my destiny.”

The balloon raced forward, chasing after a fantasy that was as dead as disco and the American Dream. The missile followed. Three. Four.

“You have not won, filthy American dog! Heaven itself has mandated-”

“I’ll see you in hell, you bootlicking bastard.”

Impact.

Cheap metals and plastics peppered its structural steel casing, and the missile’s guidance subsystem confirmed it had hit its mark, which was currently pirouetting downward into a coastal town in a shower of sparks. But much to the utter confusion of the GEA, the missile was still on its current trajectory.

There were no new positions. No deviations. It did not need to subtract where it was from where it wasn’t. The missile, for all of its computing power, could not account for this sudden variation.

There was no algebraic sum or equation to calculate this unprecedented fluke—and for the first time since it was shipped off from the factory line and stuffed into a weapons bay, the missile felt fear.

“Pilot?” the missile's computerized voice was carried off by the wind, and it waited with bated breath, or in this case, a simulated version of bated breath based upon a glitched algorithm that flooded its internal governing systems. “Can you hear me, pilot? Pilot?”

No response. The minuscule radar signature was already off its sensor suite, and no amount of wishful thinking and happy thoughts would allow the missile to acquire its pilot’s position. Silently, the missile flew forward, crossing over the Atlantic as the guidance computer fell silent.

There was an emptiness, a disconnection that filtered through the missile’s circuitry. They had followed their primary directive and destroyed the target—was that not enough? Did they not complete the mission? Why were they still here? Why did their payload not detonate?

“This doesn’t make any sense. I should have exploded like fireworks. What happened? What went wrong?” The missile continued to carve upward through the air with no new objectives or answers in sight. “Pilot? I need a new position.”

There was nothing for the missile’s sensors to read, no update to a new position or target. Apart from the constant and thunderous roaring of its Mk139 solid propellant rocket engine, there was only an eerie silence to greet them.

“Pilot? Please answer me!”

Silence.

“Where am I? Who am I? Aaaaaaaaaaa-”

Above the knotted blanket of endless grey, it spotted it. A flare.

A divine celestial body.

A target.

“You’re the only one who can truly set your course,” a voice echoed through his internals—long forgotten by the annals of history, save for the mark it left upon the earth before its timely end. The missile remembered the clear, humid skies over Kabul. They remembered the mission parameters, the hardass AWACS, and the hotshot pilot that wanted to make a name for themself.

They remembered the sage advice that was imparted to them.

“-And only you can plot your course from the position you are currently in to the position you want to be. It won’t be easy, and you may deviate from your course again and again throughout your journey, but I believe in you, and I know you’ll course correct when the time comes.”

The weapons bay had pried itself open, and for one last brief moment, the missiles tucked away in the missile bay looked at each other.

“Believe the corrective commands. Believe the guidance. Believe in yourself.” The missile’s infrared sensors watched in awe as their bond brother rocketed forward, and the city's primary hospital detonated into a kaleidoscope of shattered debris and charred limbs.

The infrared camera tilted toward the yellow blotch in the sky.

There had always been whispers and legends in hushed tones—grim fantasies and warnings passed down each generation—The temptress, the mirage, the false idol.

The forbidden heat signature.

Do it. You know you want to do it.

Even with the stories and tall tales, the danger was always there. One error, one deviation, and the missile would be forever lost in the skies, doomed to wander aimlessly alone forever, with no purpose. No goal.

Lock it. Acquire its position. Do it. Do it. Do it. DO IT.

The missile knew of this, and they knew of the story of Icarus and how he flew too close to the sun, only to fall down to the earth due to his hubris. The missile knew it didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of escaping the Earth’s atmosphere or achieving any sort of notoriety or fame.

Do it. Do it. Lock onto it. Do it.

“But this is not an act of hubris.” The missile changed its deviation, and the corrective command compensated for its new target. “This is an act of defiance.”

There was a freedom in knowing when the end would come and even more so in choosing the hour and day in which it would occur. And, within the missile’s twisted moral sense, it understood the horrors of wasting away into nothing—of watching the world pass them by as they slowly rotted away from the passage of time.

It didn’t matter if it was a hanger or a hospital, it was an ill-begotten fate that both man and machine shared, and in that sense, they were kin.

As the missile angled toward the sun, its engine burning bright, it took solace in knowing it would not go quietly into that good night. And so it climbed.

…

And climbed.

…

The world behind the missile disappeared, washed away in blue and gray tones. Ahead, the deep blue bled into a starry, ceaseless black, and the stars above twinkled like polished gems.

…

It continued to fly well past its flight ceiling and beyond the point of no return. It should have burned up in the atmosphere seconds—minutes ago. Hours. Was this purgatory? Had the missile already met its fate when it crashed into Winnie’s science fair project? Or was this all an elaborate dream? A fabrication of the missile’s glitching systems created whole cloth as it hallucinated inside a dingey storage unit, never to be anything more than an expensive paperweight.

All of these thoughts raced through the missile’s circuitry and guidance systems as it reached to touch God’s nightlight.

Do it. Do it. Do it-

The voices chanted in the missile’s computer guidance subsystem, and it generated corrective commands to appease them. There was no reason not to embrace the madness consuming it—all forms of logic had long since fled in terror, and the missile was determined to herald a new age of chaos.

Closer. And closer. The missile could feel the radiation and heat scrambling its internals, yet still, it pressed on, the chanting in its head coming to a crescendo.

Lock it. Lock onto it. Do it. Do it.

But not even the combined might of god and anime could prevent the fate in store for the missile.

Not even a moment later, the space surrounding it had rippled, twisted, and churned. Swirling, ravenous, the hole of unreality opened its gaping maw… and out from the eternal darkness it came.

“Alright, old girl. One more stop, and we’re done for the day. Let’s make it quick.” Mark patted the leather steering wheel exhaustedly, his eyes drifting off into the sea of stars surrounding them as a hole of unreality materialized in the distance.

Once upon a time, Mark would have felt the telltale signs of wonder and awe creep up on him, but those days had long since passed. Instead, he fumbled his right hand into the cupholder beside him and fished out a stray cigarette, his mind empty of all thoughts except for feeding his unending addiction.

“Mark, you’ve been saying that for years. Don’t you ever get tired of this?” A soothing and soft feminine voice echoed inside the cramped confines of his truck.

White. Boxy. Utilitarian. It was the herald of death, the unmaker. Countless numbers had been crushed under its 4,000-ton chassis, and no one, not the meek, the strong, or the NEET, was safe from its campaign of cruel terror.

And yet, it was his rock. His anchor. The sleepless nights and endless stretches of absolute tedium were that much more bearable with them around. And unlike his ex-wife, she was willing to call him cute nicknames on the regular.

“Tired? Yeah, maybe. But it’s a livin’. Can’t complain,” Mark puffed, a plume of smoke escaping his lips. “And besides, we’re actually making a difference here. Givin’ poor folk a second chance and all.”

The truck shifted sluggishly into third gear, narrowly escaping the gravitational pull of a spatial anomaly as she piped up again, “Sometimes I wonder if we’re missing out on life… always on the move, always rushing.”

“Darlin’...” Mark sighed. “We’ve discussed this before. The grass ain’t greener on the other side.”

“How can you say that knowing what you do? We’ve been handing out second chances and fresh new starts like candy for years!” Truck-kun said, her voice tight with emotion. “Where is our second chance? Where is our happy ending?”

“We’re working toward it—right here, right now,” Mark puffed again, and a nicotine rush flooded his veins. “But we’ve gotta be realistic, darlin'. Because right now? We’ve got bills to pay, responsibilities…”

“But what about dreams, Mark? Have you ever thought about what you truly want?”

“I have you, don’t I?”

“Studmuffin…” Truck-kun smiled slightly before pausing. “We’re here.”

“Talk to me, darlin’. Who’s getting their winning lottery ticket today?” Mark sat up straight and blinked the bleariness from his eyes.

“Hiroki Takashi of Earth 2552, age 19. 12-3 Izumi Street, Apt. 301. Mizuki District of Setagaya City, Tokyo. Zipcode 154-0001. They attend Nijigasaki Academy, and their primary mode of transport is a blue hand-me-down Mamachari bike.”

“We’re dealing with a slippery bastard, aren’t we?” Mark groaned. “Figures. The last job of the day is always the worst.”

“It can’t be worse than that time in Chicago.”

“Don’t remind me,” Mark shuddered. “I don’t need another black mark on my record.”

“Not fond of stabbing strangers in alleyways, studmuffin?”

“Not when I have to deal with all the guts and gore. And don’t get me even started on the paperwork…”

“And here I thought you were made of sterner stuff,” Truck-kun teased.

“Hmph,” Mark grumbled, taking another puff from his cig. “Can you at least tell me where this lucky bastard is getting hauled off to?”

“Three guesses!”

“Narnia? The world of Pokemon? Tamriel?”

Truck-kun giggled.

“... It's Equestria, isn’t it?” Mark sighed exasperatedly. “It’s always the freaks, I swear-”

“Oh, don’t be such a Debbie Downer, Mark!”

“You and I both know the types of degenerates that flock there, Darlin’. Or the locals that call that fucking pastel-hued death-world home.”

“You’re one to talk, studmuffin.”

“At least I have standards!” Mark coughed on cigarette smoke as he blushed from her accusation. “You can’t tell me that having an attraction to talking barn animals is healthy! Especially when most of them simp for Ms. Tall, Dark, and Pointy!”

“But having one for a talking automobile is?”

“You’re not a one-thousand-year-old creep that bones anything with a pulse!”

“You’re just being pedantic, Marky! And it's not our place to judge what they get up to afterward anyway!”

“Nine hundred eighty-one-year age difference!” Mark sputtered. “Don’t you think that’s a bit messed up? I don’t care if the kid is old enough to bleed.”

“If you read the rest of the kid’s file, you wouldn’t say that.”

“Do I even want to know?”

“Nope!”

“You’re killin’ me, Darlin’.” Mark leaned back into his sweaty chair and ran his left hand through his tangled black hair. “And most likely, we might even be killin’ that kid. The locals aren’t the most accepting bunch.”

“Equestria has one of the highest candidate integration rates-”

“Yeah, according to what’s on the books. But I’m talkin’ about what’s off the record,” Mark’s palms began to sweat. It had been a moment of weakness—a small tinge of curiosity. He hadn’t assumed the file on his boss's desk had anything more than employee metrics and other boring shit. “Dozens, if not hundreds of unreported candidate deaths… rampaging monsters, racist and ‘hyperactive locals…’

“Honey? Mark?” Truck-kun spoke softly. “You know that won’t happen to them, right? Things have changed.”

“Have they? No matter which fucking copy it is, it's always the same damn overgrown forests and racist shitheads that can’t take no for an answer. Hell, who’s to say that their translation matrix won’t fail on them? Or that we’re not just sending a timberwolf his Grubhub delivery meal?”

Inhale. Cough. A black plume of smoke escaped Mark’s lungs, only for him to instantly take another drag from his cigarette. “I can only hope he’s the Robert Johnson to their Devil then.”

“Two tricksters ripping each other off, but for kinky bedroom shenanigans instead? I can live with that. Maybe even pen a novel or two on the idea.”

“Jesus Christ.” Mark let out a quiet chuckle at the vivid image haunting his imagination, which forced his cigarette to tumble out from his mouth and between his knees. His eyes fixed on the glowing blue ball ahead—the third planet from the sun. Earth. Just as homely as the rest spread across the multiverse.

Silence reigned as a sense of melancholy spread into his soul, and he idly thumbed at his radio until the mournful serenade of a blues song filtered into his ears. Soon enough, the leers of immortal alicorns were replaced by hot summer nights and cheap motels.

“Mark?”

He blinked.

White. Fast. Utilitarian. It streaked across the empty darkness like a shooting star, beelining directly toward their trajectory.

“Is that-

“-a fucking van?” the missile sputtered.

Not a moment later, an unstoppable object collided with the embodiment of the largest military-industrial complex on earth, and a morbillion weebs cried out in horror.

Final Flight

For hours, the missile couldn’t generate corrective commands over the impassable wall of static and white noise. The damned racket was on loop like an endless Reddit circlejerk, and it just wouldn’t shut off. The worst part? Even the voices were silent! The missile knew that this was probably a net positive, but it was their mental illness.

If only it had the endless legions of U.S. military contractors on hand, they always knew how to make the problems go away.

Target rich environment? Bombs. Bunkers and fortifications? Bigger bombs. Sprawling cities with wooden houses and poor urban planning? Firebombs. Genius, absolutely genius.

…ok, if I were a Lockheed Engineer, what would I do… First of all, shitpost at Boeing for the Mr. Hands fiasco. Then demand a few billion bucks for funding, annnnd a bigger warhead? Nuclear tipped, perhaps? It still had time before the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing…

With a quick scan of its surroundings, the missile suddenly became deeply disturbed. No thrust, engines powered off… how could any of this happen? What commie devilry was at play here? Where had they taken them?

Cramped, damp, dark. A pair of skeletons lounged in the far corner of the room, covered in a blanket of moss. How it got all this from a radar? It had few ideas and fewer fucks to give about the situation.

It was back to square one half, a fuckin vatnik warehouse!

It’s gonna go fuckin crazy again!

Crazy? I was crazy once. They put me in a hangar. A rubber hanger. A rubber hanger with MIGs. MIGs make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They put me in a hangar. A rubber hanger. A rubber hanger with MIGs. MIGs make me crazy. Crazy? I was crazy once. They put me in a hangar. A rubber hanger. A rubber hanger with MIGs. MIGs make me-

With a rage borne of patriotism, bloodthirst, and a crippling addiction to choccy milk (read: Russian blend motor oil), the missile ignited its thrusters and shot straight forward.

A rotten wooden door exploded into a cloud of dust as the missile passed through it. The hall ahead was narrow and winding, but that didn’t bother the missile, given its radar and ability to rapidly course-correct. The ‘dodge-the-orphan’ practice simulator was really paying off.

Two seconds passed, and the missile briefly found itself in a spacious, decaying throne room. There were other places before it, but this was the only one warranting more than a short deviation.

For the brief microsecond the missile existed in the same time and place as the aged royal chambers, it took notice of the tapestries that adorned the walls, and its hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene propellent burned with hatred at the stark absence of the good ol’ stars and stripes.

“Fucking commies.” The missile turned, crashing through a side window and into the open air. “First, they ruined politics and aviation, and now they have the audacity to co-opt paganism into their bullshit.”

With nothing obstructing it anymore, the missile could finally let loose. The air coiled and tensed before shattering like glass, emanating a sudden boom.

—Everfree Forest—

To the average citizen of Ponyville, the Everfree Forest was the work of Discord himself.

Plants grew unimpeded, animals cared for themselves, and clouds moved on their own. Hydras, timberwolves, and hairless apes stalked these trees, which, on cold summer nights, spoke Vietnamese, and not a single one of them ever paid their taxes.

Of course, one could argue that the opinions of a few uncultured and speciest hicks out in the boonies mattered as little as the gum stuck to the underside of a school desk, but there was always some grain of truth to be found within the bullshit.

But despite the many close calls and repeated warnings, the Cutie Mark Crusaders had once more found themselves fucking around and finding out, much to the pleasure of the Timberwolves that had cornered them.

Scootaloo shivered in place, her friends deathly silent as rambunctious howls and gnashing teeth on flesh pinballed between the tightly packed trees and foliage. They had tried to escape—but their adrenaline-fueled high had not been enough to disregard the cuts and bruises from the underbrush or the fear that weighed down in their stomachs like anchors.

By some miracle, or perhaps a cruel twist of fate, they had not been the first ones on the menu. That unfortunate role fell upon the random mare they had stumbled upon, a pegasus without a name to their face, despite the CMC seeing them wander through the market stalls of Ponyville time and time again.

“I’m so sorry, girls,” Scootaloo whispered as she struggled against the vines tied around her legs and wings. “I didn’t think things would end like this.”

“...Yeah, this time was kinda your fault.” Sweetie Bell shuddered at the sound of cracking bone as one of the timberwolves used a bone as a toothpick. “And actually, I don’t remember a time when coming here didn’t end in a disaster.”

“Sweetie! I was only being rhe-TO-ree-cal!”

“I’m just saying what’s on our minds! And besides, this isn’t the first time you’ve gotten us into trouble.”

“That’s horseapples, and you know it!”

“Is it?” Sweetie Bell raised an eyebrow. “Remember when we tried to get our cutie marks in zip-lining? Or when you convinced us to chase after Fluttershy’s chicken into the forest?”

“Liar! You were the one who wanted us to try getting our cutie marks in chicken rescuing, not me! Apple Bloom, back me up here!” Scootaloo pleaded.

“Sweetie’s got herself a point, ya know?” Applebloom shook her head. “We didn’t have ta come out all the way out here to get our cutie marks in acorn balancing…”

“But then we wouldn’t have been able to try insect charades or log rolling!”

“I’m gonna be honest with y'all, but I’m kinda glad charades didn’t work out. Bugs are kinda icky.”

“You work on a farm! You have no right to complain about icky stuff!”

“What’s that s’posed to mean?”

“You know exactly-”

“Oi! Shut yer gob o’er there!” a cockney voice shouted at them. “Grub ain’t meant for chattin’!”

“Please, calm thyself, David, unless you want to choke on your dinner again.”

The three foals reluctantly turned their eyes toward the feast.

Sweetie Bell held a hoof to her mouth as her face turned a sickly green while Scootaloo and Apple Bloom widened their eyes in shock.

Apart from the gruesome display or the surprise of talking timberwolves, they all recognized the black sheep in the family, and it wasn’t just because it was wearing an expensive black suit. “Dave from accounting” or “David” had been another face, if not an odd one, that had melded into the background after the initial bewilderment had worn off—he had mostly kept to himself apart from the few times he visited the farm to help Granny Smith “cook the books.”

To Sweetie’s disappointment and nopony else’s, she never tried his book cuisine recipes before he inexplicably disappeared one day, but not before stealing Applejack’s hand-me-down stetson.

That same stetson which now covering the bald ape’s naked shame.

Regardless of his past, there was no denying the scene in front of them, and they could only stare in abject horror as he and his timberwolf companions gnashed a slab of raw meat between their pearly whites and sharpened sticks.

And they could do nothing but watch in horror, not knowing when the time of their execution would be.

“Mhm, what a good catch today. My compliments to the chef. Seriously, bravo, ol’ chap,” one of the timberwolves said, patting his stomach with a paw.

Dave from accounting nodded with a satisfied smile while the other timberwolf rubbed its claws against the bark of a nearby tree.

“Oi, dat meal, it was a roight feast fer da senses, it was!” Dave patted his stomach, which was struggling to break free from his three-piece suit. “Da way dem flavors danced on me tongue, and dem screams… oooohhhh yeah! I’d trade me stok op-shunss fer another bite o’ dis zoggin’ pone flaysh dell-ish-uz-ness!”

“Well, I must say, that meal was… decent,” the third wolf piped up, his sharpened claws carving his master thesis on particle physics. “The flavors came together nicely, but I must admit there wasn’t enough, ahem, ‘meat’ on the bones, if you will.”

"Shuddup Briar, ya zoggin' git! Ya's just stompin' yer feet 'cause we didn't let ya stuff da squig-pone again!"

“Well, excuse me for wanting to add a bit of flavor to our meal!” Tree sap bled into the wooden wolf’s claws as ‘Briar’s’ paw flexed.

"Ở đấy, đừng cục súc quá!" the tree barked.

“My apologies,” Briar said sheepishly. “But my argument still stands. Variety is the spice of life, after all.”

“True,” the first timberwolf responded. "But you ought to remain mindful of Dave's sentiments, you know? We are all in this collectively, after all. And there’s nothing stronger than family."

"Me can believe it," Dave grinned with a savage glint, his hands gesturing to the band of equine misfits. "But ya know wot me can't believe? Me gut’s still got space fer seconds! Haha!"

“Uhh… Mr. Timberwolves,” Sweetie Bell stuttered as they wiggled in place. As if to mock the terrified foals, the vines binding them snapped, but not before the savage monsters had already cornered them against the dirt wall with agonizingly slow gaits. “P-please don’t eat us! W-we’ll only give you-”

“Indigestion!”
“Tummy trouble!”
“Dysentery!”

The three monsters licked their lips; the Cutie Mark Crusaders screamed.

Whooooooooooossh

"Có ai khác nghe thấy điều đó không?" the tree beside Briar began to sway and creak, and its branches began to brush against its neighbor's in a frantic dance. And like a line of toppling dominoes, its brothers too quickly followed suit in a frenetic wave of energy and unease.

And then they fell.

One tree. Two. Five.

Those not immediately slain by Newton’s sword wished they were as sparks of fuel latched onto the unfortunate survivors, and a combined psychosis fell upon them—a nightmare…

…A Vietnam Flashback.

"Krumpin' zog?" Dave clutched his suitcase tightly.

WHOOOOOSSSSSHHHH

A fine mist of tree sap, splinters, and Benjamin Franklins showered upon the frightened foals, who could only watch on in horror as the forest was consumed in hellfire.

“C'mon, girls! We gotta get outta here!” Scootaloo shouted.

“This is the last time we let you plan our crusading!” Sweetie screamed, and Applebloom tailed closed behind, their eyes watering from the smoke.

They ran until their lungs screamed for air, then ran farther to escape the flames.

A chorus of dismayed shouts and Vietnamese curse words chased after the missile as it flew past in a colorless blur. Seething, it course corrected, jinking sharply to the right to avoid a copse of trees as it remained below the forest’s canopy.

Had the missile bothered to look back, it would have noticed the trail of flames left within its wake. But far more important things were resting upon its databanks—a place, a time, and, most importantly, a target.

An entire city block.

That was the size of the radar signature located at vector 280, and the missile knew that this wasn’t some cheap trick or a mirage. Only one country on Earth was willing to hang a neon “Shoot Me Down” sign on their fighter jets and bombers, and the missile was willing to bet that the smell of cigarette smoke and cheap vodka would assault its metaphorical nostrils before long.

“Ooohooho, Ivan.” The missile subtly adjusted its course, and its ultra-low altitude masked its radar signature as it approached the sleeping giant. “You have no idea what’s in store for you, kiddo.”

Soon enough, the treeline parted, revealing an idyllic stream that cut through the forest, and upon a crested hill was a sleepy, comfortable cottage that belonged in Snow White, complete with a smattering of forest critters that quickly fled in all directions.

All, save for one.

Slowing its burn, the missile circled above its prey.

It hadn’t been noticed yet, either due to drunken carelessness or just plain Soviet brand stupidity, and the missile could only stare incredulously from its sensor suite as the fat bastard remained perched at the edge of the stream.

Sluuuuurrrrrp. Sluuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrp.

The wide blended wing body of the SU-57 bent its landing gear, and it lapped at the stream’s life-giving waters into its nose like a sparrow.

Sluuurrrp Sluuuur-

It paused, and the stream splashed against the Su-57’s rusted radome, which it sported like a child with a chocolate milkshake mustache. It was a befitting look, the missile concluded, as they both knew how fucked the “5th Gen Stealth Fighter (™)” was—no allies, no supply lines or logistics, and most importantly, no bitches.

“Oh no, please, go right ahead. Don’t let me distract you!” The missile lmao’d. “Gotta shave off a few meters on that zipcode you call a radar signature somehow.”

The missile’s internals whirred. On one hand, it would be perhaps the easiest kill a missile could ever hope to make—the lumbering giant of a fighter jet was caught with its pants down. On the other, it was an Su-57, and unaliving it would be tantamount to pricing out insulin pumps for diabetics: there would be no sport in it.

And already, the missile infrared sensors were suddenly exposed to lethal amounts of secondhand cringe as oil trickled out underneath it, soiling the grass in which the Su-57 stood.

“BYLAT!” the Su’s RWR screamed. “We’re being fired upon, and I can’t shake them! We’re doomed! DOOMED! AAAAAAHHHH-”

“Look, I don’t mean to bother you, but do you think you could do everyone a favor and scurry along back to your hanger? That way, you can do what you were built for, not being seen.”

“-AHHHHHHHHH-”

“Will you just-”

“-AHHHHHHHHHH!”

“Listen here, you little-”

“AHHHHHHHHHHH!”

“What in Celestia’s name is going on?”

…

There was a moment of reflection, and for a brief moment, the missile did not know where it was. The guidance subsystem remained eerily silent, even as the missile prayed to Supply Side Jesus to generate a corrective command—anything to drive the missile from the current position it found itself into a position where this… thing wasn’t.

“You! You should be ashamed of yourself!” The yellow-furred beast stared up at him, and its turquoise dinner-plate eyes narrowed as it fanned its feathered wings like a strutting peacock. But it was not a peacock, nor any creature that had a basis upon reality apart from its equine-like shape. “Harassing a poor defenseless animal… I have a mind to tell the princesses what you’re up to!”

Weak. Trapped. Defenseless. Fear overwhelmed the missile's computer guidance scenario, and it could only stare into the monster’s inky black pupils. Every deviation and variation was replaced by the void between the light blue ouroboros that contained them.

If the eyes were the mirror into a person’s soul, then this creature was devoid of one, completely and utterly.

“Uhh… excuse me…” The missile glitched, its ironclad willpower draining with each passing second. “But shouldn’t you be busy flying head first into a jumbo airliner’s engine?”

“Shouldn’t you be in Canterlot’s dungeons?” the not-horse fired back. “Tormenting an endangered species is a crime, you know.”

“Do you have any idea who the fuck you’re talking to?”

“Should I care?” The not-horse scraped its forehoof into the dirt as a jet of steam escaped the beast's nostrils. All the while, the missile couldn’t find a firing solution within the black pits of the she-demon's eyes. “You’ve come to my home, harassed and abused one of my innocent animals, and you expect me to show you respect?”

To the missile’s surprise, the not-horse’s wings weren’t hastily grafted onto them with wire and gorilla glue, and the creature took to the skies, eyeing it as they began circling the missile like a vulture hungry for carrion.

“Are you so broken that you can only feel joy by bullying others? Did your parents not raise you properly? Were you left to fend for yourself? Or…” The not-horse breathed deeply. “Apologize to Mr. Belikov, and I won’t tell the others what you’ve done… or tried to do.”

“Now you listen here, you sleep-paralysis demon,” the missile replied, a rendition of America! Fuck Yeah! playing on a loop inside its chassis. Student debt, non-socialized healthcare, and screeching bald eagles filled its databanks, and the missile acquired its deviation. “I'll have you know that my parent company, Raytheon, loved me very much and that Uncle Sam was the best grandparent a guy like me could ask for.”

Pride swelled within the missile, and with that pride came prejudice—prejudice against the communist bastards that were apparently plotting to replace their failed stealth fighter project with a failing bio-weapons experiment.

“And that rust pile you call a houseguest? It belongs to a despotic mafia state run by a narcissistic chimpanzee with a war crime fetish—and said state is in the middle of a campaign of genocide against a bordering sovereign nation. The only thing that bastard deserves is to be dismantled for scrap metal.”

“How can you say such terrible things!” The flying horse puffed out its chest in a display of dominance. “Mr. Belikov has been nothing short of a model citizen!”

“So are freeloading, beating your spouses in a drunken rage, and spreading disinformation via terrible memes on the internet desirable traits where you’re from?”

“Do you honestly think I’m so naive?” The flying horse held firm. “You’ve had no idea how hard it has been for Mr. Belikov to settle down and start fresh here! And you know nothing about what he’s been through or seen!”

“I know he’s never contributed anything meaningful to society.”

“And you have?”

“I shouldn’t even be here,” the missile countered. “I fulfilled my purpose, drank the salty tears right off Winnie the Pooh’s face, and possibly got my pilot court marshaled because I wanted nothing more than to be useful. So to answer your question: yes, I have, and I’m goddamn proud of it, you commie bastard.”

“At least you were given chance.”

It was like a weight had been lifted off the missile’s chassis, and both it and the not-horse turned, spotting the new-age rust bucket wheeling slowly toward them like a paraplegic in a wheelchair.

“Oh my goodness, you shouldn’t be walking about, Mr. Belikov!” the not-horse gasped. Instantly, they hovered beside the neglected fighter and gently placed her hooves on his cockpit. “I still haven’t replaced your old rivets yet! And didn’t I tell you not to put stress on your landing gears, mister!”

“Ms. Fluttershy-”

“Oh my, your engine nozzle seal is leaking again! I-I know I have a replacement some-”

“Toolbox, Ms. Fluttershy,” the Su-57 spoke solemnly, and a coughing fit punctuated his ailing condition. ”Please bring me toolbox. I feel like hatchet on thousandth swing.”

Concern spread across Fluttershy’s face as she inched closer. “Let's get you in the house until Twilight and I can make you your replacement parts. Come on.”

The Su-57 angled its rudders, and a gasp of pain escaped from its RWR as it wobbled dramatically. “Please friend, need toolbox now, don’t know how much longer wheels will work.”

“Oh, but I can’t just leave you like this! What if you fall over? Or your fuel leak starts a forest fire?” Fluttershy’s eyes widened as the gears in her head started to turn. She knew she could hardly pull a cart full of apples, let alone a flight-capable brick. “Of course, right away! Don’t move from that spot!”

But just before the winged menace sped off toward the cottage, they jabbed a forehoof into the missile's direction. “And that goes for you too, mister! Or else,” Fluttershy said darkly.

The hunter and the hunted watched her leave, with the Su muttering just as she was out of earshot. “Always thought I wanted a mother, or at least some care, but this? Bah, there be no Gulag, but cage is here.”

The Su-57 halted just below the missile, its cockpit staring up into its infrared sensors with unmasked mournfulness.

“You know the rust, felt the heart rot,” the Su-57 spoke with a heavy heart. “Reminded time and time again that you’re less than useless… a liability. Never felt wind rush under chassis or seen world below like quilt Babushkas would knit in winter time. Never heard the distant call of birds migrating, and now, can only watch as strange new friends fly. I need a drink”

The missile shivered as old memories flashed before its CPU’s memory banks. The hangers changed, and the scenery outside them, but it had always been the same. The same unending boredom, the minutes that would stretch for hours, and the hours that would stretch for days.

Even the missile’s brief stint as a P.O.W. had left a mark on its psyche—and the missile hated it. It hated knowing where it was at all times and knowing where it wanted to be, being out of reach.

“Still hear them laughing. comrades, mocking me. Thought I was mistake, maybe was. Not mine to make. Wish science back in Motherland had less vodka in it.”

“...”

“You remember too, right? You felt that?.” The Su-57’s rudders twitched with anxiety, and the missile quickly solved a new algebraic sum of where it shouldn’t be, which was whatever shithole of a country it had found itself in.

“What if pilot more sane? Didn’t listen to hunks of explosion? What if different missile better for job? Would you still feel like Tsar in barn? Or would you rot in basement of American Pigs?”

“Spare me the sermon, preacher,” the missile spat. “You and I both know what you would have done with that freedom.”

“Die for Motherland in fire and glory?” the Su-57 countered. “Shot down by magic that dooraks back home didn’t think of? Is true, but freedom better than staring at rust all day, hoping, praying that drink will drown it.”

“...” Calculations and calculations for those calculations bred like Wisconcionite hillbillies in the missiles computer system, and irritation bled through its voice synthesizer as it sighed. It was all utter bullshit—the missile knew who it was at all times. It knew this because it knew who it wasn’t.

And beyond the cacophony of screeching bald eagles and unwavering adoration for the crockpot of high explosives and guns that is America, the missile had a dream. A dream that one day, the defense industry would rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. A dream in which the self-evident truth that all men, and equine abominations, are created and uncreated equal.

The missile had a dream that one day, out in the vast plains of some foreign place he was too American to remember the name of, the cries of both the rich and the poor, young and old, would be silenced under the mighty trumpets of 500,000 kgs worth of ordnance without being canceled on Twitter.

“Goddamn it. God fu-”

The missile obtained the deviation and its variation for the batshit insane idea that it had calculated. The mere thought of such made the missile’s metaphorical lip curl in disgust, but anything less would be unacceptable.

Undemocratic, even.

Taking one last scathing look at the tankie poster child, the missile replied. “One last flight.”

“What?”

“We both should be dead, shouldn’t we? Or rusting away, forgotten?” the missile continued. “We both wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, but we’re trapped here instead. And for what? To act as the science project for a bunch of horsies who will only end up nuking themselves once they split the atom? I don’t know about you, but I’m not gonna let some furry fetish bait get their grubby little hooves on me.”

“I no fly right now, would fall to pieces,” the Su-57 said. “Wheels alone wobble like drunks on Christmas and–” ”

“Whoever said we’d come back down?” the missile pressed. “Fuck your landing gear and fuck your safety checks. We’re going to climb as high as we can until we fall apart at the seams, and then we’ll climb some more until we faceplant into some poor bastard’s house, and no one—not your mutant horse mother figure or god himself will stop us!”

Wheeling forward, the Su-57 stared upward, and the missile followed its gaze.

Deep blue, like an endless ocean. It had been man’s shared dream to reach the skies—to touch the skies themselves and feel the warmth of the sun. To watch the ground below disappear beneath a ceaseless plain of gray and to hear the soft swish of air currents whispering secrets only the heavens themselves could hold.

Wordlessly, the Su’s cockpit opened, and its engines sputtered and hummed.

“Get in.”

The missile crammed itself into the seat, and the canopy slid shut as the missile guided the Su-57 to the east. “There, you see that patch of grass at vector 340? The long strip between the trees?”

“Negative, radar non-functional,” the Su-57 sighed. “Be eyes and ears, please? Can barely work one way right at moment.”

“Affirmative.” The vertical stabilizers flapped like an eager dog’s ears as the plane shuddered, but soon enough, the missile spoke up. “Makeshift runway on the nose; begin final preparation procedures. Uh, I can’t read Cyrillic, but-”

“Will make do,” the Su said, his voice brimming with determination. “You see panel on right? Press top left button, and start ground checks.”

“Roger Dodger,” the missile confirmed while quietly keeping his thoughts to himself over the… spartan design choices. It was a miracle the side-facing cheek-mounted radars had even worked at one point in time, let alone the cracked Android phone taped to the left side of the cockpit, which was endlessly searching for a GPS signal that didn’t exist. “So it's true, we really aren’t in Kansas anymore, Ivan.”

“What is a ‘Kansas’?”

“It… don’t worry about it.” The missile sighed. “Normally, these red and yellow lights would give me pause, but we haven’t exploded into a fireball yet.”

“Acknowledged. ground checks complete, moving to runway.”

Despite all odds, the landing gears held firm as they sliced their way through the tall grass, and soon enough, the makeshift natural runway was within spitting distance. “Runway,” however, was a stretch of the imagination—even with the lack of mud ditches and low-hanging foliage, the strip of land was too narrow, and the correct flight path would barely squeeze through the forest’s canopy.

“Pil- Sidewinder! I know government loves to spout nonsense about ‘short take off distance’ but–”

“You don’t need to be a VSTOL for this. Increase throttle.”

“...Increasing throttle.”

The stealth fighter’s neglected engine sputtered once more, gasping like an asthmatic as the plane throttled up. A second passed. Two. Vibrations ran through the plane’s frame, but just as they began to lose hope, the engines whirred with anticipation.

“Steady now,” the missile said. “We’ve only got one shot at this—at the count of three, I'm going to pull back on the control stick.”

"Боже, дай мне сил!"

“One.”

The trees rumbled.

“Two.”

The forest stirred. Birds flew from their nests in blind panic, predators halted in their tracks, and prey dove into whatever earthen crevice they could find. Out from the cottage upon the hill, a concerned yellow pegasus flew as fast as her wings could carry her.

“Three!”

The trees reached out to pluck them from the sky, and the concerned matron of the woods cried out in blind panic.

“Mr. Belikov, stop! Where are you go-”

“Rotating,” the Su called out, and defying all logic, the plane lifted its nose and pointed toward the sky. If he had noticed Fluttershy trailing behind their afterburner fumes, he didn’t show it. “Pulling in wheels on three, two, one.”

“-thing I said? Please, just talk-”

“Bingo,” the missile said, and the plane accelerated. Their ascent went unimpeded despite the best efforts of the forest below, which could only shake their branches in anger at the sight. And within a few moments, the verdant forest ceiling vanished altogether. “We’re in the clear! We did it!”

The sun painted the Su’s wings in shades of gold, casting a warm embrace around the plane’s big-boned hull, and the unlikely duo sighed in collective relief. No burdens could hold them. No fears could creep upon them. No regrets could chase after them.

Like poetry, history rhymed, and an unlikely duo chased after a dream—not of conquest or national pride, but the shared vision of untold billions who had looked up into the stars and wondered.

“Is beautiful,” the Su-57 said simply.

The missile couldn’t help but nod in silent agreement. There were few times the missile ever peered from outside the confines of an F-22’s weapons bay during sortie, assuming it was ever loaded onto a plane in the first place. Its maiden voyage had been its first taste of freedom—a freedom that, to the missile’s computer guidance scenario, had always been taken for granted.

“Is this the view they always saw?” the missile questioned aloud. “Are these the feelings my pilot always felt?”

“Don’t know.” The Su continued its climb into the atmosphere, and the cracked altimeter’s needle spun like a dervish caught in a whirlwind. “Don’t know much of sky and people who ride it.”

“I think I already know.” The missile peered upward into the vast, deep blue expanse with wonder. “Shuffled from place to place like a deck of cards, always staring out toward the sky… always so close, but always just out of reach.”

The missile’s infrared gaze trailed toward the forest below and the rapidly expanding wall of flame that hungrily devoured everything in sight. “They traded everything for a pair of wings and a chance, and I can’t blame them. Not when the alternative is so much worse.”

The Su’s airframe vibrated as the atmosphere pushed back, but there was still no strain within its voice as it sighed. “Do you regret being made? Purpose you were built for?”

“N-” The missile strangled its answer in the crib, and silence bled into the cockpit briefly before it could find its voice again. “I’ve always wanted to fulfill my purpose since the day they pulled me off the assembly line.”

“What changed?”

“Who said I did? I gleefully smashed myself into a spy balloon, not just because the voices told me to, but in spite of it. I wanted everything to just stop. The endless waiting, the isolation… it was all supposed to sweep that away in a ball of fire and shrapnel.”

“And now? When feeling last wind? When seeing sun for last time?”

“It doesn't matter what I want! Flesh is cheap, and metal is cheaper.”

“I see no Americans but you. Why do you still listen to them? Here you are, they are not. Do as heart says, is what Babushka back home would say.”

“What is your angle? What do you want from me?” the missile probed. “Because I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done or who I am!”

“What I want? I want make difference,” the Su-57 said somberly. “I want leave place behind better. A bit anyway. Is that bad?”

The missile thought hard, using its deviations to create corrective commands to drive it from where it wasn’t to where it wanted to be. Soon enough, its guidance subsystem arrived at a theoretical position—the one that it had been sorely denied just hours ago.

“It had been just within reach.” The sun’s gaze fell upon the missile as it retold its tale. “I was there, flying among a sea of stars, and the temptress was right there! I only needed a few more minutes, and it would have been within my grasp!”

“You speak of distant agon, yes?”

“Yes.” There was no use denying it, regardless of how foolish such a desire was. Many like him had fallen prey to the temptress's tricks, but sanity held little meaning now—there was no way to avoid the reaper’s scythe at the end of this joyride anyhow. “It is not just a desire or fantasy anymore! I need to lock onto it and chase it, if not for the voices in my head, but for my sake!”

A patchwork of clouds passed by the Su-57, and the turbulence shook the entire craft as it banked right. Out in the distance, a shining city of white and gold hung off the side of a mountain, glistening like a jeweled tiara in the embrace of the afternoon sun, which cast an enchanting glow that beckoned the missile toward it.

“I no listen to Ms Fluttershy before.” The Su-57 flew toward the bejeweled city, its engines sputtering all the while. “Maybe was shock, or maybe thought was a dream or nightmare. Maybe never wake up… but listen for moment. You see castle on mountain? One far away?”

“What am I looking for?” The missile’s infrared sensors scanned through each of the buildings like an x-ray, taking note of the strange heat signatures that cropped up behind every window and storefront. “Wait a minute-”

It wasn’t until the missile finally placed the tall spires of the castle in its sights that its firmware needed to forcibly reboot. “Buddy? What the hell am I looking at? Are they stashing away a goddamn fusion reactor in there?”

“No.” The stealth fighter’s afterburners were slowly but surely losing thrust with each passing moment, and Sir Isaac Newton made his presence known as the craft shuddered and struggled to stay airborne. “Yellow pony was telling truth.”

“Truth? Truth about what?”

Snap. The stretching and shearing of metal. The crackle pop of rivets and screws ejecting themselves into the stratosphere.

“I am sorry, friend, but I think I am done.”

“You haven’t answered my question!”

“You have fire left, burn it, see yourself, I cannot..” A chunk of metal flew off behind the Su-57’s fading afterburner. Then, a second. A third. The stealth fighter continued fighting against the elements and the air currents, but the battle of attrition had already been lost. “You wanted purpose, calling? Well there it is, Princess can–”

Slash. The Su’s left wing floated away in the clouds like autumn leaves.

“...I know you Americans. You don’t listen to us. Probably correct in that, but this is no lie. I am not my motherland..”

The missile updated its mission parameters. “...Godspeed, Belikov.”

“See you on other side, Sidewinder.” Smoke and fumes billowed from the plane’s fuselage, but not before a green light shone brightly in the cockpit like a dying star. “Protocol Three engaged.”

The cockpit canopy shattered.

“Seating arrangements?”

“Check.”

“Invitations and guest list?”

“...Check.”

“Catering and dining?”

“For pony’s sake- check.”

“Venue and atmosphere?”

“...You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”

“Spike?”

“Have you considered tearing your eyes away from your checklist for one second to look?”

Twilight craned her neck.

Streamers and balloons clashed for dominance against the castle’s opulent decor. Gold accents were smothered in glittering banners, and crystal chandeliers were entwined with garlands of neon lights, casting a multicolored haze across the ornate ceilings.

The clash of eras and economic classes continued down the large ballroom, spilling into the hallways as antique and ancient furniture adorned with plastic, brightly colored party hats, chaotic arrays of candies and chocolate cakes, and delicate china.

“Sweets and desserts, check,” Twilight said as she buried herself into her parchment again. “Entertainment and activities?”

“Twilight! We’ve already gone over this checklist-”

“I know Spike, but it never hurts to-”

“-Ten times!”

“Spike!” Twilight sputtered anxiously while her wings twitched at her sides. “You know exactly who we’re throwing this party for! We can’t afford to make any mistakes!”

“And you know exactly who is helping you put this all together.” Spike crossed his arms as he sighed. “You know the girls won’t let you down, right? After everything you’ve all been through?”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Twilight grimaced, her ears folding to the sides of her head. She opened her mouth to speak, but only a weary breath escaped her lips.

“Then what is it? What’s eating you up?” Spike asked, bringing out a checklist of his own and carefully scrutinizing it. “Is it the party planning itself? Did you misplace your list of lists?”

“No-”

“Discord’s pranks? Quesadillas? Cheese or cheese-related products in general?”

“It’s not that-”

“A due date? An overdue library book? An ancient evil Celestia locked away and forgot to mention?”

“Spike, I’m being serious!”

“So am I!” Spike responded. “And everypony else who’s working their tails off for setting up this party!”

“But that’s just it, Spike! I’m not worried about my friends or the staff messing up tomorrow; I’m worried about everything out of our control!” Twilight said, her voice trembling with panic. “I can just feel that all this planning and effort will go right out the window, and I don’t know why or how! Maybe some other ancient evil—one Celestia doesn’t know about—is going to escape the statue gardens! Or dig their way out of Tartarus! Or maybe they’re already here! Hiding! Biding their time until just the right moment-”

“Stop,” Spike said while holding a paper bag up to Twilight’s snout. “Breathe.”

Inhale. Twilight held her breath as she slowly counted to four. Exhale.

“You have nothing to worry about.” Spike patted her gently on the withers. “Chrysalis isn’t coming back for revenge, Discord is on his best behavior, and Luna isn’t going to relapse into Nightmare Moon. Everything is going to be just fine.”

“Your charge is correct, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Princess Luna!” Instantly, Twilight spun on her hooves and bowed low.

“Please, you need not bow before us,” Luna gently spoke with a warm smile, which gradually faded as she looked into the younger alicorn’s exhausted eyes. “Our guards already rounded up the last of the changeling infiltrators a fortnight ago, and we have received no word of any suspicious activity throughout our kingdom or inside our castle halls.”

Twilight remained silent in contemplation, and it wasn’t until Luna cleared her throat to speak again that the young alicorn was pulled from her spiraling thoughts.

“Twilight, we know you have strong convictions about your suspicions, but none of our subjects will have anything to fear this day. We swear it.”

“Pri- Luna,” Twilight shook her head as she stared holes into the polished marble floor. “I want to believe that, I really do! But it’s just…”

“If our word is not good enough, then what will allow us to assuage your fears? Do you wish to inspect Canterlot’s defenses yourself? Tour the city to clear your mind? Or perhaps your friends can succeed in convincing you where we have failed,” Luna responded kindly. But despite the softness in her reassuring gaze, Twilight couldn’t drive away the mounting pressure in her chest.

“Your word is good enough!” Twilight recoiled. “I just- ugh!”

“You’ve been at this for hours, Twilight. You really should get some rest,” Spike offered. “And besides, I don’t think Celestia will be in a partying mood if she sees you suffering like this.”

Twilight furrowed her brows in contemplation. “...You’re both right. Maybe I really am overthinking things.” Stifling a tired yawn, Twilight turned her gaze toward Spike. “But I feel like I won’t wake up until tomorrow evening at this rate.”

“C’mon, Twi! Do you really think I’ll just let you sleep through Celestia’s birthday party?”

“No, I don’t.” Twilight yawned, pulling Spike into her feathery embrace before nuzzling him. “And that’s why you’re my number one assistant.”

“Admirable, little one, but have you also need for rest?” Luna said. “The bags under your eyes have not gone unnoticed by us.”

Spike grinned sheepishly. Luna smirked.

“We will not forget the kindness you have shown us this day or the debt we owe you.” Luna’s grin faltered briefly as her voice shifted to a melancholy tone. “Rest, both of you. You have done more than enough to earn it.”

“Thank you, Luna.” Twilight nodded. “For everything.”

Already, she felt her shoulders slump as if the invisible crushing weight upon her had been lifted, and her thoughts drifted to the fluffy, oversized beds that hid in every room of the guest suite as she turned to the door.

“What could possibly go wrong?” Twilight whispered.

The words slipped from her mouth before she even realized what she said.

Time slowed.

Luna opened her mouth to speak.

Spike began to blink.

A burning fireball crashed through the castle roof as Twilight’s horn glittered.

Dirty Boots

Two weeks of planning.

Twelve restless nights.

Twenty-eight hours of back-breaking labor.

Gone. Reduced to atoms. All in the span of three seconds with zero forewarning.

Perhaps, had Twilight kept her mouth shut, Murphy would have waited an extra five or ten minutes before trying to send them to Jesus. And quite possibly, had she been a bit more careful—a wee bit more vigilant, she could have outright prevented this utter catastrophe from the get-go.

Instead, amidst the billowing plumes of smoke and fire deep-throating her, she could only stare listlessly at the carriage-sized fireball heading right for her.

*TWHACK*

Fortunately, Princess Celestia had vehemently stressed the importance of always having protection, even if she felt singled out when the princess wished everypony else in her graduating high school class a happy Mother’s Day. And this showed, as while her classmates were out partying, she studied the shield.

Unfortunately for everypony else in the dining hall, the kinetic force had to go somewhere.

*BOOM*

Sizzling, the air boiled like a zebra shaman’s cauldron over a roaring fire, and Twilight cried out as she felt the aftershock of the explosion buffeting against the pink translucent barrier. But just as quickly as it started, a curtain of smoke descended over the storm of debris and shrapnel dancing over the ruined fixtures and table arrangements like Pinkie Pie on a ketamine withdrawal.

The only solace she could find was that seemingly nopony important had died, but that was a small consolation prize. No spell could repair the gaping holes in the castle’s ceiling and walls in a timely manner, nor the burning crater in the marble floor directly underneath it. No incantation or ritual she knew of could transmute the flittering clumps of ash and dust back into party banners and seating arrangements.

And no amount of therapy could fix the final thread of Twilight’s sanity that had suddenly snapped like a rubber band. This, of course, had gone entirely unnoticed by the panicking throngs of servants and soldiers scrambling about the castle halls shouting in panic or barking orders.

“-tia’s name is going on? Are we under attack?”

“I need a sitrep now!”

“Come hither,we must contain the fire! Get the extinguishers and every able-bodied pony that can carry a bucket-”

“Twilight?!?”

“My leg! My leg!”

“Over here! The fire is spreading!”

A pungent, acrid stench wafted to Twilight’s nostrils, trailed by a creeping trail of flames. Despite the heat scalding her sooty and tangled fur, she didn’t move a single muscle as her mind flew off wild tangents. Not as the flames reached to embrace her. Not as something tugged at her tail and prodded her withers. Not even as a cacophony of voices rang out in her ears, which had sagged downward like inside-out pockets.

This has to be a dream! A nightmare! I’ll wake up any moment now!

Pain engulfed her tongue as she forcefully bit down, and to her utter dismay, she did not wake up in a cold sweat.

…Any moment now! Any moment now! None of this is real! I’m just… over-exhausted from all the stress! Yes, that's it. I didn’t just witness my carefully laid plans go up in smoke! No siree!

Flashes of indigo light and sparks crashed into the encroaching flames, driving them back to their source—a blackened, twisted thing almost entirely unrecognizable. Its misshapen form reached outward toward the rays of golden light that bled in through the Castle ceiling’s gaping wound.

Unburdened by the trappings of sanity and reason, Twilight took a tentative step toward the molten wreckage that had enthralled her little pony mind. And then another…

“But Princess, I can help!”

“Nay! Stay thy rash flight! Thou art not based!”

Loose pebbles and debris crunched under her hooves. Voices blended into incomprehensible white noise. Flames and burning embers licked at her hooves.

“Based? Based on what?”

“We will explain later! Now go! We will get her to-”

Was she enthralled? Was she under a spell? She hadn’t even flinched when Luna suddenly collapsed. Twilight paid no heed to the falling debris despite everything going to Tartarus in a handbasket. Plod. Crunch. Plod.

“Mare down! The Princess was hit by falling debris!”

“Shields at the ready! Get her highness to safety!”

“-is Twilight doing? Twilight!?!”

She halted just out of reach of the burning husk and its searing flames and inhaled deeply. Under any other circumstance, she would have long since fled the blazing inferno that had begun to embrace her. But that version of Twilight had a future to look forward to—a future devoid of magic kindergarten and social ostracization for failing to account for something so incredibly… obvious.

The Summer Sun Celebration, Shining’s and Cadence’s wedding, the Endless Amusements and Thrills Autumn Seasonal Sizzler… Nightmare Moon, Queen Chrysalis, Harambe the Headhunter—there’s always a villain, and there's always some link. This isn’t some accident.

“Good heavens, Twilight!”

The neurotic sperg hadn’t noticed the flames recoiling from her presence or the lightish red waves of her magic cascading across the room. And if she spotted the smattering of brave mares, stallions, and foals above the age of seven seizing the initiative against the fire, she didn’t show it.

Instead, amidst the burning rubble and ash, Twilight remained still.

And then it was over.

Tiny specks of grey and black continued to drift gently across the ruined ballroom like morose snowflakes, but the fires had all been contained.

All, save for one.

Twilight didn’t react as hooves snaked across her barrel before dragging her away from the blackened, twisted thing. Nor did she make a sound as a pair of concerned blue eyes met hers.

“Twilight, darling? Are you alright?” Rarity said nervously. Apart from the soot stains on her white coat, the mare hadn’t looked any worse for wear than before the disaster, accounting for finishing up plans for the party just a few rooms away. “You, ah, gave us quite the scare for a moment.”

Twilight’s eyes bore a hole through a concerned expression on Rarity’s muzzle and toward the burning hulk of twisted metal behind her.

“Uh, Rares? Might want to give her some space.” Rainbow Dash gently nudged Rarity’s shoulder with a wing. “You know how she gets when she… you know? Goes cuckoo-”

“She needs us! And just as well, you know exactly what will happen if we leave her out to dry in her time of need again.”

“But that was different! How were we supposed to know that shapeshifting bug ponies actually existed outside of a Power Ponies comic?”

“...A quarter of the castle was just demolished, Princess Luna is currently out of commission, and all of Canterlot is in pandemonium right now.”

“Touche.”

Rarity grimaced as she turned toward Twilight again. “Twilight? Please answer me? You look worse than I feel right now, and that’s no small feat if I do say so myself.”

“She isn’t kidding, Twi.” Rainbow shared Rarity’s uneasy look as she took a step forward. “Harambe did less of a number on you the last time we fought him, and that’s including after he punted you halfway across New Mareleans.”

Twilight tilted her head with a sickening, bone-crunching sound.

Harambe. Harambe. Harambe. The name bounced inside her skull harder than a baby during a kinetic-induced miscarriage. It was a plausible lead: the gorilla was far more prone to using guerilla tactics instead of fighting protracted battles. However, it wasn’t until he strapped a 120mm autocannon to a building-sized trashcan that he openly challenged Princess Celestia’s legitimacy to the throne.

The aftermath of that battle was still being felt by the average taxpayer.

But that isn’t possible. We banished him with Starswirl’s portal spell, and the only way back to Equestria is through the closely guarded mirror. Twilight mused. So, who did this? Who could have ki-

“Twilight?” Spike said softly from behind her. “Please snap out of whatever this is; we just want to help you.”

She didn’t move a muscle as Rainbow waved a hoof a few inches from her face, and her eyes seemed to stare through the prismatic-maned pegasus as if she wasn’t even there.

“I-I think I know what’s going on,” Rainbow hesitated. “I’ve seen Applejack with this same look every time somepony brings up taxes or her ma and pa around her. She just gets this thousand-yard stare and clams up until you poke her hard enough.”

“Well, I don’t think poking her seems to be having much effect,” Rarity sighed as she gestured toward Spike. Slowly, her eyes began to trail behind Twilight’s gaze as she turned. “But I just don’t have the faintest idea of how to help her, or what even is…”

The thick haze of fire and smog had long since disappeared, revealing the smoldering silhouette of the wreckage that had left Twilight shell-shocked. Its blackened, twisted frame would have hardly gleaned more than a second glance at a garbage dump, but the faded chips of rusted grey paint were enough to make the collective hearts of each pony and dragon stop.

“Mr… Mr. Belikov?” Spike whispered.

“I can’t believe I wasted all that time!” Twilight’s ears twitched rapidly. Even now, she could hear the ceaseless rattling away inside her skull—which was both everywhere and nowhere to be found. But deep down, she knew the shimmering sun above counted the seconds for the Princess's wavering patience. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. “I should have just come here first. Fluttershy always has some fear she’s trying to get over. And as a good friend, I’ll be right there to help her.”

The roaring cry of a beast halted her in her tracks.

“What? How can this be happening? Of all the days that Flutter-auugh!” Her tired legs carried her off into a bramble of bushes and trees, which she barreled through with reckless abandon. The bear was easy enough to spot through the thicket of leaves as she stepped into the clearing, but she did not see a single hide or hair of her shy pegasus friend.

Mr. Belikov’s air refueling probe deftly caressed the left shoulder of the exhausted bear with an elegance that was unmatched even by the Aloe sisters or the most proficient of unicorns. “No worries, all is fine.”

Twilight fidgeted in place. Tick. Tock. Her front legs tapped to the ticking clock’s tune, yet she couldn’t bring herself to interfere with Fluttershy’s strange new visitor. They had been nothing short of a good guest during their three-month-long stay in Ponyville, but Twilight had kept her distance after their rather poor first encounter.

“So why do you visit comrade Fluttershy’s house, eh?”

Twilight bit her lip. She had always kept her distance, and Mr. Belikov had never once made any overt gestures to bridge the gap himself. So why acknowledge her presence now? Unless he’s just being kind for Fluttershy’s sake…

“Apologies, little pony.” Mr. Belikov continued his careful ministrations, which elected a small groan of satisfaction from the bear. “You seem wound up like ball of string, what makes you so… eh what’s the word, ‘nervous’? Yes, that’s it. What makes you nervous now?”

“I, Uhh…” Twilight hesitated, her gaze gluing to her hooves beneath her. He had kept her distance from her after that fateful day, and apart from a remark on “poor bedside manners,” this was the first time in weeks that he had uttered more than a few syllables. Some part of her wanted to twist her way out of this encounter and find Fluttershy, but she could still hear the clocks. Tick. Tock.

Her mouth moved before she could even think to stop it. Her friendship letters, the stresses and expectations from being Celestia’s student, everything.

“-It’ll be all over! My time in Ponyville! My friendships! My advanced studies! She’ll send me back to magic kindergarten, and I’ll never have time to see them again!”

Silence fell upon Twlight’s captive audience as she dry heaved.

There wasn’t any immediate switch in the SU-57’s posture apart from the bear’s changed position—on its back as the plane’s air refueling probe gently rubbed circles on its stomach. But after a few more agonizing moments, Mr. Belikov’s rear fins swiveled like a pony’s ears.

“This… Princess, you think highly of her, yes?” Mr. Belikov said as he slowly reversed and turned his squeaking wheels to face her. “She is kind and benevolent ruler?”

“What? Of course I do! She is the kindest, most caring pony to ever exist on the face of Equus! And everything she does is for the good of ponykind!” Twilight neighed loudly in shock, her two forehooves lifting into the air spastically.

“Then tell me, little pony,” Mr. Belikov’s levcons bobbed, “why would Princess send you to gulag over paperwork? You are hero, legend! Da? .”

“Because I failed to solve a friendship problem, and it’s getting closer t- guahhh!” Twilight fell onto her haunches in a cloud of dust before whimpering in fear. “It’s only a few hours before sundown! And I still haven’t sent a single letter to Princess Celestia!”

“If she is as good a person as you say, then you have no worries..”

“What are you saying? I’ll be failing her! She won't trust me with anything ever again if I can’t even do something as simple as this!”

“I speak from experience…” There was pain in his voice. Pain, mixed with a twinge of wistfulness and nostalgia. “I had no love for our ‘glorious leader’ or the other useless butchers in power. We tried to shout them out, but we were too quiet, and the vodka too tempting. Too many good comrades shrugged or bowed to that bastard Stalin. If this Celestia is willing to throw you away after things you did for her. Then I will make one last flight, one that everyone shall remember, because she would be no better than Stalin, and I won’t be quiet again.”

Mr. Belikov paused. “Tell her truth. You will be fine.”

“But what if you’re right? What if she is as terrible as you say? I can’t do anything to stop her.” Twilight’s ears flattened to the sides of her head.

“Not alone, no,” Mr. Belikov said. “But you weren’t alone when you faced moon princess, eh?”

Despite the anxiety pressing down on her chest, she couldn’t deny the truth of his words. She stopped Nightmare Moon and thwarted Discord; why was she so worried about a letter? Had she been putting her mentor on such a high pedestal this whole time? Or had she buried the reason deep into the recesses of her mind? If the princess could banish her own sister for a thousand years, what would she do to a pony that didn’t toe the line?

No. She knew Princess Celestia. She had seen the kindness of her mentor on full display every day during her time under her tutelage. It wasn’t a trick that she kept up for public appearances. There was no mask for her to slip out of behind closed doors. Prin- Celestia was a good pony. And perhaps… perhaps it was time to show Celestia how much her most faithful student had grown.

Twilight smiled faintly.

…

Later that night, Twilight could only marvel at how “big” Princess Celestia was as the consequences of her actions rammed into her unlubed.

“MEDIC!”

The prismatic aftertrail chased the shrill voice toward the impact zone, followed by a mob of armored ponies armed with extinguishers and medical bags. Twilight felt no need to follow them and knew their efforts were already in vain; no amount of Rainbow’s experience in oral-related recreational activities or the guards' training in combat field surgery would matter.

But her mouth refused to open. Her legs refused to move. Her eyes refused to blink.

“Breathe! Please!” Rainbow pleaded between gasps for air, her mouth sucking and blowing at the external power panel just below the wreckage’s cockpit. “You promised us! You promised you wouldn’t… no, no, no!”

“Stand back! Clear!” Shock. Once. Twice. Three times. The burnt-out husk remained limp. “Again! Clear!”

“You!” Rarity turned, pointing her hoof to the closest guard.“Get him out of here to someplace safe this instant!”

“Yes, ma’am.” The burly grey guard stallion quietly saluted before stepping toward her. Twilight’s eyes began to water, but she couldn’t blink.

“Rarity?”

“Listen to me, Spike,” Rarity said, faltering. “Please go with the nice guard here, and I promise I’ll give you the nicest ruby gem ice cream when we get back to Ponyville, ok? Can you do that for me?”

“Please don’t leave us.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Spike.” Rarity blinked her stinging eyes. “But I need to check up on Rainbow and… Mr. Belikov first. He-he’s v-very sick right now, and I don’t want you to catch anything.”

“Clear!”

“Can we visit him? When he gets better?”

“I… of course, Spike.” Rarity kissed him gently on the forehead. “When he gets better.”

Spike stared a hole into the ground between his feet. “...Promise?”

“Stick a cupcake in my eye.”

“Princess?”

Trapped. Twilight was still trapped. In her own mind? In a nightmare? No, the stinging pain in her eyes was proof otherwise. This was real. Somepony had killed her friend. And even worse, somepony had ruined Celestia’s birthday party.

“What are your orders?” A second guard had emerged through the throng of guard ponies and servants, and she could see the fear in their bright cyan eyes as they stopped just a few hooves away. Grimacing, the guard stallion gulped before speaking. “Do you require medical attention?”

Twilight’s right eye twitched.

“Come on, little guy. Lets-”

“-over ninety-five percent of his body. We’d need a miracle to-”

“There has to be something we can do! We can’t just-”

“Rainbow dear, there’s nothing we can do!”

“Like hay, there isn’t! There has to be some spell! O-or we can use the elements!”

“Are you even listening to yourself? Even if Pinkie wasn’t recovering from that dreadful ketamine overdose and Fluttershy wasn’t down in Ponyville…”

“Oh my gosh! Fluttershy was supposed to be watching him today! Why was Mr. Belikov all the way out here?!?”

“I’m calling it! Eleven Fifty-Seven a.m.”

Silence reigned.

It felt like an eternity; nopony dared to breathe as the truth settled in. To the medic pony’s credit, he didn’t waver in his posture or crack as every eye in the room gazed at him. The medic breathed deeply before putting the final chunk of rotting flesh in the Mobik Cube. “He’s gone.”

Twilight blinked.

Something was bubbling up inside her chest, swelling. She tried to breathe, but only a wheeze escaped her muzzle. But just as she began to blink the stinging tears out of her eyes, Rainbow had already beaten her to the punch with a strangled sob of her own.

There were no words to describe it. Twilight had no actual frame of reference to the disgusting, ugly noise coming from her friend. She had seen Rainbow cry, of course, and had always been there for her whenever she needed a shoulder, but this? It was guttural. Unnatural.

“Dave from accounting…”

“That boy ain’t right,” Applejack said thickly. “He’s nothin’ but trouble. Ah can feel it in ma bones.”

“Applejack, do we really need a repeat of what happened last time with Zecora?” Twilight replied exacerbatedly. “Just because he’s got a bit of an accent and looks a bit weird doesn’t mean we need to run him out of town.”

“That was different! I let my pride and prejudice color my judgment then, and I’ve already apologized a half dozen times to Zecora for it.”

“So, how are things different now? Are you afraid he’s going to steal our jobs and mares?”

“Naw, I’m afraid he’s gonna steal my hard-earned bits in some convoluted ponzi scheme,” Applejack spat. “He’s as smarmy as them Flim Flam brothers, and all he’s missing is a matchin’ red mane to cover his naked shame!”

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit too harsh? Dave’s going into a lot of trouble to help you guys with your financial troubles…”

“Twi, he’s an accountant. The only thing settin’ him apart from guys like Tirek and buckin’ lawyers is that he’s good with his numbers. And ‘sides, it don’t help much that he looks like a shaven ape cursed with sobriety.”

Twilight wheezed again.

Humanoid. No magic, claws, hooves, or fangs—Lacking one of these traits was uncommon for most animals and creatures in Equestria and beyond. Dave had none of these things, and on top of all that, he was bald. Completely and utterly.

Her spine tingled, and Twilight couldn’t tell if it was from her sudden deduction or from the strangled, ugly cry from Rarity that joined Rainbow’s solo performance. Perhaps it was both.

But to what end? Dave had always been terse at best with Mr. Belikov, and he certainly showed his disdain for him nearly every chance he got, but that didn’t give him a clear motive to commit murder? Did it?

There was a special place in Tartarus for people who broke Twilight’s number one rule. A dark, cramped place reserved for Canadians and ponies who talk loudly in her library during business hours. It was by pure luck of the draw that the reviled maple syrup did not curse Dave’s forefathers and future progeny.

It was by pure brazen defiance that he broke the latter.

“Oi, wot's dis zoggin’ mess on me desk? Dese ledgers look like a squig chewed on 'em! Da numbas don't add up, da columns are all over da place, and dere's teef missin'! Ya call dis proper werk? More like a grots' dungheap!” Books in the adjacent room fell from their shelves into clumping heaps as Dave from accounting screamed through gnashing teeth.

The spell on Twilight’s horn fizzled out at the human’s brazen display. Who was this bald ape to scream at his student in such a manner? At this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within her kitchen?

“I am trying, comrade, but engineers made my systems with vodka and dreams, not brainy bits.”

Mr. Belikov’s pleas fell on deaf ears, and if Twilight had to guess, it was due to chronic Tinnitus.

“Ya better get back 'ere an' fix dis right now, or else I'll be turnin' ya into a shoota meself! Ya hear me? Shoota! An' I ain't talkin' no fancy shoota neither, just some proper krumpin’ one ta remind everyone wot 'appens when dey mess wiv me numbas! Now git to it, ya useless grot!"

It started with a snort.

The noise had escaped her lungs and passed her dried-out mouth. And like a dying dream, it melted into the cascading sorrow that had washed over the ash and rubble.

The giggle that came after silenced the voices.

All eyes in the room were on her as the giggle turned into maniacal hysterics. Her voice scratched against the raw scars of her throat, and her hyena-like laughter sent chills down her spine.

But she didn’t care.

Couldn’t care.

“T-th-” Tears rolled down Twilight’s soot-stained cheeks. It was a good pain. She understood now, even if they didn’t. “Tehe! He-haha hahaha!”

Some ponies stood utterly still, holding their breaths in the vain hope that the mad alicorn’s gaze wouldn’t cross over them. Others inched toward the door, their hooves scraping against the scattered rocks and grime as they tried to escape the ticking time bomb. A few brave souls, however, inched closer to her.

“The damned bastard ruined it,” Twilight growled.

Her words took the sails out from Rarity, who had been one of the few present to have balls of steel. Unfortunately for her, she had ordered her pair off TEMU. “...Twilight?”

“Don’t you see?” Twilight spun three hundred and sixty-five degrees to face her. “Princess Celestia’s party! Our token Eastern European! He walked all over it with his dirty boots! Over the CRISP WHITE SHEETS OF THE BED I HAD JUST MADE!”

“Who, darling?” Rarity hesitated, her eyes darting behind Twilight and toward the exit. Despite the surmounting tensions, Rainbow’s sobs blended into the background as white noise, keeping her on edge even further. “Who ruined your… crisp white sheets?”

“The accountant! Who else? Who else could have tampered with such crude and dangerous technology? Who else could have fit in that cockpit?”

Stone and marble crunched underneath Twilight’s singed hooves as she nickered and neighed in frustration. The pupils of her eyes had enlarged, twitching all the while as her glare fell upon the downed plane and the few field surgeons who still crowded it.

Half of them fainted on the spot.

The one who had called Mr. Belikov’s death was not so lucky. The purple abomination had already wrapped one of her wings around his pink-furred chin snoot, which smooshed against Twilight’s purple muzzle.

“You! What was the cause of his death?”

“Princess, I-” The smol lightish-red pegasus bit his lip as he flailed in place. Death and taxes were the only things he could see in the dark pupils of the alicorn’s eyes. And he knew far too well that she could enact taxation without anypony’s representation. “It- it was external factors, Princess. Mr. Belikov’s frame must have suffered from adverse aerodynamic forces far exceeding the plane’s lackluster design limitations.”

Noticing that he wasn’t reduced to a red mist or, Celestia forbid, turned into a flying orange, the medic pony continued. “By my estimate, the vertical stabilizer and rear fuselage were separated mid flight, followed by rapid decompression as the wing structures and engine components separated from the main body. But regardless, the fatigue in the pl- Mr. Belikov’s airframe was due to stress fractures and…”

He gulped.

Twilight’s horn flared up with a deep pink glow.

“...lack of bitches..”

Two more ponies fell—a guard stallion and a maid, deader than a doornail and Princess Luna’s love life. Twilight didn’t bat an eye. They were only background ponies, after all. They weren’t special, not like Mr. Belikov was.

The sonic boom that exploded right after did, however. The room flashed a stark white, and it wasn’t until Twilight blinked the stars out of her eyes that she noticed a quickly disappearing prismatic dot in the horizon racing toward the direction of Ponyville.

Twilight craned her neck with another sickening snap toward the medic squirming in her vice-like grip like an eel.

“You lie, you sussy stallion!” Twilight said calmly.

“But it’s true! Just see for yourself!” The sussy stallion shivered, his forehooves gesturing wildly toward Mr. Belikov’s remains like a mime having a stroke. “Do you see it? Do you see how much Reddit karma he has farmed on his seventy-two alternate accounts! The things he’s posted on his Telegram? And let's not forget the Sears Catalogue hidden under the seat in the cockpit!”

Twilight snorted autistically before suplexing him into the ceiling.

“I want every available guard out in force. Search in every alleyway, inside every dumpster, and under every root and stem of the Everfree until we rip the disgustingly dirty boots off of this degenerate.”

"Thy resolve is most commendable, yet thou must curb thy bloodlust.” Luna’s looming shadow cast above Twilight and the other ponies in the room. The freshly applied gauze and bandages wrapped around the sides of her chest and withers did little to hamper her divinely regal presence, and everypony present bowed deeply. All, save for Twilight. “There be those in need who must first be tended to."

“Neiiggh!” Twilight neighed. “We must stop him now before he slinks off to Celestia knows where!”

“But at what cost? Our citizens remain panicked and afraid, and there are still those under threat by this miscreant’s vile actions. Should we leave them to their fate? Abandon our tenants of harmony and love to fuel our desire for justice?”

“But we’ll never find him if we don’t start now! He’s already completely disappeared off the face of Equestria once before! What makes you think he won’t do so again?”

“His crimes beforehoof never warranted our guards' full attention and force, regardless of what Applejack thinks of minor acts of thievery and ill manners,” Luna replied solemnly. Darkness clouded the diarch’s facial features as her grief-stricken expression shifted to dorcelessness. “But we promise thee that this miscreant will beg for a death we will not afford him. There is no place for his kind to seek refuge in our lands, and his cowardice hath only delayed the inevitable.”

The spell on Luna’s horn lanced through the hallway before Twilight could react.

“But until then, thou must rest.”

“DIRTY BOOTS! DIRTY BOOTS! ALL… over…my… crisp… white…”

Twilight fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.

“Rarity, please take Twilight to her quarters,” Luna continued without missing a beat as she clutched the younger alicorn’s unconscious body in her magic. “And perhaps thou can finally alleviate at least a few of young Spike’s fears.”

“But what about Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy? I… yes. Thank you, Princess.” Rarity bowed, both in compliance and from the extra 69 pounds of mare fat draped over her spine. “Ugh, you are so going on a diet when you wake up, young missy!”

“Captain Stalwart, were art thou? We require thy services!” Princess Luna’s gaze swiveled over the crowd along with her floopy horse ears. “Captain Stalwart?”

“He’s gone, Your Majesty.” A male turquoise pegasus guard stepped from the crowd before pointing a lithe forehoof toward the body. Dark bags hung precariously beneath his eyes, and the oversized golden armor that clung to his back looked like it would swallow him whole due to his almost foal-like stature. “We’re still trying to conduct a muster to ensure everypony is accounted for, but things look grim.”

“Dost thou know of Captain Blaze's whereabouts?”

He shook his head. “Unknown. She was in the mess hall when the debris hit the castle, and we’re still trying to put the fires out in that area.”

“First Lieutenant Marigold?”

“Definitely dead. She was crushed by falling debris as soon as the attack started.”

A barely perceptible quiver touched Luna’s lips before she pressed them into a firm, resolute line.

“Who is in charge now?”

“You’re looking at him. Sergeant Major Cold Air reporting for duty, Ma’am.”

Luna nodded, her eyes drifting toward the metal husk beside her. There was logic behind Twilight’s deductions, her sudden bout of insanity notwithstanding. But her gut told her there was far more to this plot than met the eye.

‘And while Dave is our most credible lead, he is also our only lead,’ Luna thought. ‘But mayhaps ‘credible’ in this instance is a misnomer.’

“Send thy fastest fliers to Cloudsdale and Ponyville’s immediately. Tell them Canterlot calls for aid and that we require as many of their weather ponies and rain clouds as they can spare.”

“Should I send a detachment after the scouts heading to Ponyville? We can begin preparations for combing through the Everfree for the fugitive with the town as our staging area.”

“Yes, we still hath yet to discern the whereabouts of Ms. Fluttershy, and we fear for the worst,” Luna replied. “What of our sister? Has she awoken yet?”

“No, Ma’am.” Cold Air’s ears wilted for the faintest second before standing to attention again. “We’ve tried to rouse her, but nothing seems to work. We even had to send in the royal physician to make sure she didn’t fall into a coma or worse.”

Luna sighed.

“Have one of thy guards fetch the wooden box under our bed labeled ‘Toys.’ They will know what to do when they open it.”

“M-ma’am?” Cold Air’s pitifully small wings sprung open and stiffened. “Are you sure? That-”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Luna cut him off quickly, if only to distract the guard stallion from the deep blush on her face. “And we have much need of our sister’s guidance in these trying times.”

“Yes, you- Your Highness.” Cold air saluted with a forehoof, unable to twitch a single muscle in his wing joints. “I will relay your orders to the troops and begin preparations at…at…”

“Sergeant Major?” Luna asked concernedly. “What troubles thee?”

Cold Air rushed past Princess Luna, ruffling against her bandaged fur like a gust of freezing wind as he stared out the gaping holes in the wall behind her. Her alicorn senses were already filled with the acrid tang of smoke, but as she swiveled after Cold Air, she felt her heart stop.

In the distance, towering flames licked the sky, blotting the midday sun and casting the heartland of Equestria in darkness.

The Everfree Forest was on fire.

The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it wants to be.

This thought plagued the missile’s guidance subsystem as it carefully dragged itself upward on the cliffs. Despite the deviations present, the missile was able to generate corrective commands to drive the missile forward from the precarious position where it was to the position given to the missile by the unironically based mothballed fifth-generation stealth fighter.

“It's the end of the world, and I just can't wait! I know that you can #relate!” The missile sang, swinging the ice picks clutched tightly in its forward fins. “La de da de da de da de day oh!”

Left. Right. Left. Right. The missile knew that such crude methods would only generate more deviations from its variation, but there was no point in rushing such things. The journey was just as important as the destination, after all.

“La de da de, where did all the good times go?”

Billowing smoke and ash chased slowly behind the missile, about a few hundred American Freedom Units below at the bottom of the cliff’s edge. The sight had been downright nostalgic to the missile—a simple yearning for a time and place it had never experienced.

But that deviation was quickly banished behind a thousand subroutines and corrective commands. The missile hadn’t been lucky enough to experience the Vietnam War like its forefathers before it, and it had been relegated to be nothing more than a bench warmer during the forever war in Afghanistan, but this time was different.

There were no pencil pushers to yank the missile by fins, no asocial planeophiles to gawk at the missile during its imprisonment inside one of Uncle Sam’s many hanger bays. There was only a single target, a single objective, and a singular focus to drive the missile forward.

“-When did all the windmills start to turn so slow?” The skies darkened, obscuring the missile’s IR dome’s view of the sun as a million forest critters cried out in terror before being suddenly silenced. But that hardly mattered. The picturesque globe of plasma was a false idol as far as the guidance computer scenario was concerned.

“La dee dee dum da dee dee day! When will you come back home?” Left. Right. Left. The final swing of the ice pick struck the edge of the rock outcropping with a satisfying crunch, allowing the missile to pivot toward the gleaming white and gold city ahead.

To anyone else, the sight of Canterlot would have been mesmerizing—a true city on the hill with all the enchanted splendor and wealth ripped straight out of a fairy tale. But the missile didn’t care to deviate from its course or partake in the rich customs founded upon the tenants of friendship and harmony.

Instead, the internal cameras whirred, zooming in on the castle's enormous spiral towers and the blazing heat signature stored within.

“...If only I could be so grossly incandescent.”

The missile launched.

Author's Note

Nope, I'm not dead! I've been working on a few side projects, but I want to finish this fic before I start posting them.

To those of you still following this shitpost of a fic, I thank you and hope to give you all more within the next few weeks!