Hitch checked the locks. He peeked through the shades. A pony waved at him. A suspicious pony. But at least one with a face. A suspicious face.

He turned back to the others. Izzy was sitting at his desk, one of the jail’s several blankets wrapped around her shoulders. Zipp had poured her a cup of hot chocolate, which was steaming in front of her. She had not drank any of it.

“We’re safe in here,” said Hitch. “I don’t think it can come in doors.”

Zipp looked up, incredulous. “Like vampire rules, or like...it’s super polite?”

“It’s not polite,” moaned Izzy. “It’s not polite at all.”

“Easy,” said Zipp. “Are you two feeling okay?”

“No,” said Pipp, who was pacing the room, continually checking her backup phone but not actually paying attention to it in the slightest. “What was that thing? That’s not...That’s not what Thunder and Zoom found in Zephyr Heights, is it?”

“No,” said Zipp. “That one’s still with Opaline, supposedly.” She looked toward the door. “I think that’s...the one it was worried about.”

“Can we please not talk about this?” asked Izzy, seeming on the verge of tears.

“Sorry,” said Zipp, truly apologetic.

“It...hurt,” said Izzy, staring at the steam over her chocolate. “But not like...hurt hurt. Like...” She shook her head. “Like all the bad things came up all at once and tried to pull me back down.”

“I felt it too,” admitted Pipp. “But for me I...” She shivered. “I got super angry. Like I...”

“Like you hated me?”

“Izzy, I don’t, I wouldn’t—”

“Because that’s what it made me feel. Like you hated me. Like everypony did.”

“I...” Pipp put her phone away. “It was lying.”

“I know,” said Izzy. “I just...I don’t want to feel that way. Not again. Ever.”

The room fell silent. Then Zipp spoke.

“We...while you two were...Hitch and I, we went to Seashell’s house.”

“Zipp,” warned Hitch.

Zipp continued. “Door was unlocked. Open. Nopony there. No fillies. No parents.”

“There was a note on the counter,” protested Hitch. “It said they went to see Peach Fizz’s aunt in Bridlewood.”

“But Auntie Peach Pit hates visitors,” said Izzy, looking up. “She has social anxiety. It makes her queasy.”

“Maybe she’s working on it?” suggested Hitch.

“Or maybe somepony put the note there to throw us off.”

“Zipp,” snapped Pipp.

“What? Pipp, come on. There’s a literal monster out there. It almost got Izzy and I’m...” She stamped her hoof. “I’m so angry! It tried to hurt my friend, our friend, and...and...”

“And what do you expect us to do about it?” snapped Pipp.

They all fell silent. None of them had an answer.

The urge to weep was almost unbearable. Blank—a hideous name, given to a hideous mockery of life, a permanent reminder of her nature that she well knew she deserved—was far out of her depth. Almost impossibly so. And she knew it was her fault. The devastation of this planet would be laid on her hooves. She had brought it here, in the process of doing something she could still not even remember.

She had gathered what she could. A few fragments of primitive technology. Circuitry, crystals, organic material—and she was attempting to assemble it in a desperate attempt to make something work. To create a machine or a weapon that could do something to defend the ponies of this world.

It ought to have been straightforward. She required the parts necessary to build a small transidmentional projector. To break the bonds that held it to this plane before they could be fully solidified—essentially, to send it into the Subwarp without a target destination. Back where it had come from.

Which was something she did not know how to do. She probably had never known how to do it. She had no idea what kind of pony she had been before, but she assumed a pilot. Perhaps some kind of scientist. Or maybe a prisoner sent on a journey she was not expected to return from. There was no way to know. Those memories had been permanently lost. She only hoped they had backed her up before she had initially departed—for all she knew, she was whole and complete, walking around none the wiser on whatever planet she had been born on. Not knowing the humorless parody of her left in a part of the universe so far from actual civilization that no pony would ever even know to look for her.

The technology of the planet she had landed on also proved to be totally unhelpful. They had no concept of even the most basic systems—they were still using electricity and magic instead of fluids and solid-state geotech.

Her ship might have had some useful technology—or exploded the moment she tried to turn it on. Still, as her benefactor Opaline had informed her, the pegasus savages that had stolen it were quite carnivorous and wholly evil. Approaching it would be impossible.

As she was trying to cobble something together, she felt something tug at her side.

“With annoyance, it is laser-etched on. As such, indelible.”

“Really?” said Opaline. “You have a cutie mark, but no cutie magic.”

Blank sighed. “Laser-etched. As indicated. Your audio-comprehension proves quantified lower-less-than adequate.”

“Stop talking, you do it poorly.” Opaline looked over Blank’s shoulder. “What is all that junk?”

Blank sighed again. “Intent: construct item of use. Purge violent interloper.”

“You do realize I have magic for that, don’t you?”

Blank sighed a third time. “The consolidation point cannot bypass the primary containment array without risk of damage or fatal depowering event. It is retaining you non-un-alive.” She paused. “Surgery. Access-point internal hardware required.” She turned to the tall-horse. “Inquiry: can you extract my components?”

Opaline grimaced. “Either you asked if I’m a doctor or you are trying—quite badly—to flirt. I dislike both.” She paused. “Although...”

“Irrelevant. Hold...” Blank released her grasp on her device and it promptly collapsed into a pile of blue smoke and liquefying resistors. “Failure. How expected. I am disapointed.”

“I know the feeling,” added Opaline. “I did raise Misty, after all.” She looked around. “I wonder where she is...but I don’t especially care, maybe?”

“I do not.”

Despite their shared ambivalence toward the young pony, that same filly immediately trotted into the room, carrying a pile of books.

“I found these,” she said, setting them on the desk—far away from the smoking ruins of the failed projector.

“Misty,” sighed Opaline. “There you are. I keep having such a hard time finding you.” She shrugged. “But then again, I never look terribly hard. Where have you been?”

“I was spying on the ponies in Maretime Bay.”

“Spying?” asked Blank.

“Oh, yes,” said Opaline. “A bit of an ongoing project. Don’t worry, you’ll be working on it too soon enough. Making sure I can be the utter undoing of Sunny Starscout and her annoying little friends. You know, being evil. As I am, in fact, very evil.”

“My assigned alignment cannot be recollected.” Blank turned sharply toward Misty. “Why behold upon ponies? To what end?”

“To steal their magic,” replied Opaline. “You’re...not terribly smart, are you?”

Misty shivered slightly as Blank looked at her. Expectantly.

“It’s there," she said.

Blank’s entire body tensed. “Such is...comprehended...”

“What is that even supposed to mean?” asked Opaline. “Misty, please speak clearly. And do it in the PROPER accent. No, wait, never mind, you do it poorly, and I don't want to risk you flirting with my ugly not-daughter.”

“The ponies there say they saw something. Something...not great.”

Opaline rolled her eyes. “Ugh. You just have to make it so ominous, don’t you?” She picked up one of the books, squinting at it and dropping it back down. “It’s simply some form of monster. Little more than a pest issue on my beautiful planet. And when it comes to pests, if we’re being totally honest, Sunny Starscout is the far worse of the vermins.” She frowned. “Is vermin plural?"

Misty continued. “I think it came out of the ocean. It probably landed there. I think you damaged it on the way down.”

“I...cannot recollect a cohesive narrative.” Blank shivered. She looked at Misty. Her eyes, to Misty, looked utterly empty—save for the barest spark of terror. Terror, and shame. “Inquiry: reports of overall form?”

“They said it looks like a pony. But...without a face.”

Opaline grimaced—but seemed, in her own way, disturbed by that revelation.

“Then it...has converged upon a unified format? This description fails convergence with previous data...” Blank shook her head. “Indicates assumption of novel format. Stabilized. This is...ungood.”

She looked up at Opaline. “This place! Toward I must depart at rapid cadence!”

Opaline rolled her eyes. “To do what?” She gestured to the lump of smoldering material on the desk. It sparked slightly. “You have no means to hunt it. No weapon capable of capturing it. No plan.”

“Wow, Opaline,” said Misty, shocked. “That’s actually...not a bad observation.”

“Of course it’s not, you unfortunately-colored little girl. I make plans for a living. The most EVIL of plans.” She turned back to Blank. “Your...whatever it is. Not-magic.”

“Technostructions. Bio-integrated hard-light constructs.”

“I do not care what it is called. But yes. Whatever that is. Will that be able to contain it?”

Blank seemed confused by the question. “I cannot disperse a dimensional entity with simulated machine-constructs—”

“I did not ask that, you creepy-little undead thing,” snapped Opaline, stamping her hoof. “Oh my me, you’re starting to grate worse than that one!” she pointed at Misty. “I do not need you to kill it. I need you to capture it.”

“Toward what end?”

“Toward bringing it to me! I cannot leave this protection barrier that fat hideously-colored horse Twilight Sparkle put around my castle! I need you to get it...and then bring it to me.”

“Your timeline does not converge, Sparkle Prime has been deceased spanning hundreds of kiloyears—”

A band of magic wrapped itself around Blank’s neck, lifting her up to eye-level. “Do not talk back to me! Despite all her failings, Misty never talks back to me! She’s nice to me! Because I DEMAND PONIES TREAT ME WITH RESPECT!”

Blank hissed slightly, although apparently not through her mouth.

“Decrease my elevation,” she growled. “Or increase pressure and choke harder.”

“Can you contain it? And get it to me?”

“Toward what end?”

“If it has magic, I will suck it dry. Then it’s power becomes mine. And I can put it to far more productive uses than some mindless monster wandering through a town.” Opaline snapped her head toward Misty. “Did it at least eat somepony?”

“No, it just sort of...acted creepy.”

Opaline nodded and dropped Blank. “Then you and it will have something in common,” she snapped. “Misty. Take her to that pointless little stinky town and help her bring it to me.” She sighed. “Although then again, if you can barely even steal a baby dragon, I can’t fathom how you are supposed to catch a...I don’t even know what this is.”

Blank’s eyes widened. “An extant dragon? The genetic profile is ablated from all records, I—”

“Oh trust me, it will be ‘ablated’ once again as soon as I can suck all their magic out of them and put it where it belongs. INSIDE ME.” Opaline pointed. “Now go, my minions! Do my bidding!”

Blank seemed noplussed, but grabbed the books, balanced them on her back, and began to go. Misty paused, a moment, and then followed.

“I am sorry,” she said. “She’s usually like that, but she doesn’t...well she does mean it, but...”

“I do not invest energy into it,” sighed Blank. Her empty gray eyes turned toward Misty. “Save in empathetic response to you. Your behavior is mediocre. But does not warrant incurring accusations inferring inferiority.”

“I guess...I am used to it.”

“Then stop talking, fog-horse.” Blank turned back to her path, seeming to look far beyond it. “Your words make me far too sad.”

Author's Note

It occurred to me re-reading this chapter that it is not immediately apparent how Misty would be keeping track of what is going on in Maretime Bay. It does come across as slightly confusing, but re-remembering, I think it is that she is aware of the creature from Hitch's initial story but not actively aware of it attacking Pipp and Izzy. She, in other words, does not realize the danger it presents.

Although, these ponies do have cell phones. Which should, in theory, make long-range communication much easier.