Ungula

Nothing was wrong.

So why was Twilight so nervous?

Fluttershy and… and… they should be safe in the garden while she investigated.

Rarity would be safe with Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie would be safe with Applejack. That left…

(How many were aboard again?)

That was everyone. That was everyone, right?

Nothing was wrong.

Nothing was wrong.

NOTHING WAS–

Who was that with Fluttershy?

Twilight broke into a gallop.

Something was wrong.

It was just the two of them now, and Fluttershy was not at all comforted by the presence of her friend.

This wasn't the way back to the garden.

Fluttershy followed as they turned into a room she rarely had cause to enter.

On most starships, the reactor would be a great thing of metal and pipes, or plasma spinning in magnetic containment, or something of the sort.

On ESS Fire of Friendship, it was a tree. A tree of glittering translucent crystal, inside of which guttered a flame the size of a bonfire, smaller wisps of flame traveling up and down the roots and trunk and among the branches and through the air in winding streams of power.

The name of the ship, after all, was literal.

Anywhere inhabited invariably developed a magical field. Its strength seemed to increase with the number of inhabitants, with the crew of a starship usually generating only enough to power basic spells and simple magitech. Interestingly, solo crews generated no magical field at all – not simply not enough to do anything with, but zero.

Most ships made do with whatever meager magical field followed its crew around. Fire of Friendship was different: Her mission was to test the hypothesis that friendship was, literally, magic.

Six crew, each of them close friends with each of the others, created a magical field strong enough to power the whole ship on magic alone.

So, Fluttershy reasoned, it made some sense to come here, where the field was focused into power, in order to try and jumpstart things a bit.

"Um… the power is flowing fine, but… I guess it couldn't hurt to give it a boost."

Fluttershy hugged her friend.

The fire didn't react at all.

Something was wrong.

Something was wrong.

SOMETHING WAS–

Fluttershy shoved her friend into an open flaming power conduit.

Twilight would have never expected to see Fluttershy snap and murder one of her friends, but for a moment that's exactly what she thought she had walked in on.

Then she remembered why she came after her, and realized that none of her friends would have actually been burned by the literal fire of their friendship.

It was burning.

The spell was broken, and she wasn't looking at her friend, but a faceless white thing that was shaped like a pony but proportioned all wrong, with no mane and a bald tail.

Where a pony would have a cutie mark, a nail had been driven into the flesh. There was no blood.

It barely reacted even as Fluttershy held it in the flames, yet its fur and flesh were unmistakably blackening. It just stared into the fire – at least, its blank canvas of a face was pointed directly at it. It wasn't fighting, wasn't struggling.

It wasn't their friend.

Twilight's lance of magical force pierced its skull, and it fell limp.