Back to the Past 01: Grave New World

by Zobeid

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Adventure, Violence, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 42730

Trapped in stone for unknown ages, a mysterious pony awakens. Lost and confused, haunted by old ghosts, she searches for friends in a bleak world ruled by her worst enemy: Princess Celestia!

“Long ago in the magical land of Equestria, I, Empress Eris Sceleste—Ruler of Ruin, Mistress of Misery, Destrier of Doom—unleashed an unspeakable evil. But, a foalish alicorn warrior stepped forth to oppose me. Before the final blow was struck, I cast a magic spell to trap her in stone, consigning her to the future where my evil is law. Now the foal seeks to return to the past and undo the world that is SCELESTE.”

YES, this is an homage (not a crossover!) to Samurai Jack, with a several other influences mixed in for seasoning. But who is our mysterious protagonist? (And what the hay happened to Celestia??)

This story is meant to be read as the "pilot episode" of a mini-series. Whether it will continue to the saga's ultimate conclusion depends on how it is received.

Published 2024-07-05 20:30:00 UTC
Last updated 2024-08-28 15:17:55 UTC

Prologue: The Prophecy

The room glowed in yellow, orange, red and gold. The walls, the ceiling and the chandelier were all made from the most intricately carved and assembled pieces of natural amber, and the light filtering through this precious material cast an almost magical ambiance upon everything within. Satin cloth covered an ornate mahogany table. Upon this rested a tea set of fine bone china.

Lying couchant upon a silk cushion was a being of equine conformation, though anyone seeing her for the first time might understandably feel confused about her exact species. Though similar in many respects to the common ponies of the realm, she was a giant, double the size of an average mare (and, according to the law of cubic volume, presumably eight times the average weight—though only the most foolish would ever have mentioned this within earshot). Her coat was salmon-pink, and her large wings, folded by her side, shaded into azure blue at their tips. Her mane and tail were streaked with the pastel colors of sunrise, and they constantly shifted as if wafted by some imaginary breeze. She was adorned with gold: hooves encased in gleaming sabatons, a peytral hung from her neck inset with a large amethyst, and a golden tiara with another amethyst sat upon her head. The spiral horn jutting from her forehead, far longer than that of any common unicorn, scintillated with sparkles of gold, and the delicate tinkling sound of magic filled the air. A teacup sparkled with the same color of magic as it floated in front of her, and she delicately took a sip.

On the other side of the table sat an earth pony of normal stature, although her frame was lean, ribs easily counted, and she wore only a tatty cloak of butternut brown. Sitting upright, she balanced a teacup with some difficulty between her trembling fore-hooves, and managed to take a sip.

“What do you think of the tea?” prompted the larger pony.

The smaller one replied, “It’s good, I guess.” Her belly grumbled, and her eyes drifted to the cookies lying on a dish, untouched. She would not take one unless the Empress did.

“It’s my favorite, although it could be a bit fresher,” the pink giantess continued. She turned to a unicorn pony near her side, this one wearing a fine blue satin coat. “Which reminds me… Day Planner, isn’t the latest shipment of tea from Inaria overdue?”

He nodded. “I believe it is, Ma’am.”

“Send the Inarians a reminder of what will happen if I fail to receive my tribute, would you?”

“I shall, Ma’am.”

She turned her attention to the earth pony once again and commented, “You showed great courage and initiative in coming to my court, uninvited, to bring your problems to me directly.” Her look was not happy, and the tone of her voice leaned more toward accusation than praise.

The earth pony set down the teacup and bowed her head. She said, “Oh great Empress Sceleste, my people are desperate. Griffins have come down from the mountains and attacked our villages. They take our food, they take anything of value they can carry, and they burn our homes. They even take ponies, or kill them. We have no way to fight back. At first they only attacked the smaller villages, but they’ve been getting bolder, and more of them come each time.”

Sceleste’s eyes narrowed. “And this is my problem because?”

The pony pleaded. “We’ve been loyal to you! Our valley is fertile, and we send as much food as we can to your cities, as you have commanded. We send most of what we grow; there’s barely enough left to feed our own people—and now the raiders are taking our food stores.  We’re starving!”

Sceleste sneered, “After I’ve allowed you to live in my lands, in my fertile valley, this is the gratitude you show?” Then the empress raised a pastern to her brow, and then pitched her voice higher to speak in a sarcasm-laced falsetto: “Oh Sceleste, you have to save us from those mean old griffins because we’re too lazy and selfish to look after ourselves.”

The earth pony’s voice cracked as she begged, “Please, we’ll do anything you want!”

The empress rolled her eyes. “And now the waterworks are about to start. How pathetic.”

True enough, the little pony began to sob as she choked out, “What… What am I going to tell everypony when I go home?”

The empress stood up and said, “You can tell them how lucky you are to return with your hide still attached. And you can tell them…” She paused for a moment, then smiled. “Tell them they need to prove their love for their empress. Every month they will raise a new statue to honor me. If their work is sufficiently impressive, then I’ll see about reigning in those rowdy griffins.” Then, as an afterthought she added, “And keep food shipments flowing to the city, or else!” She turned and strode out of the room, and Day Planner followed.

They had hardly ventured down the broad hallway of the palace before a commotion was heard echoing through its walls: clattering of hurried hooves and angry shouts. The empress perked up her ears to overhear:

“Halt!”

“Head him off!”

“Stop that old fool before he gets to…”

A pony came skidding around the corner of an intersecting hallway. He was wild-eyed, mane and tail unkempt and streaked gray with age, goat-like beard trailing from his chin, fetlocks unshorn. Two guards, golden armored, were hot on his tail. One of them leapt forward and tackled the old stallion, slamming him onto the floor. The other guard skidded to a halt, the rug bunching up under his hooves. His eyes went wide as he spotted, “…the empress!”

The old stallion pinned to the floor wheezed, “Beware the colt!”

Frowning, one foreleg lifted tentatively, Sceleste demanded, “What is the meaning of this? Who is this pony?”

“I’m sorry, Empress! We tried to keep him out,” said the guard who was still upright.

“Hmm, we can discuss your failures later. Answer my question!”

“The colt! Beware the colt in shining armor!” cried the old pony again, more loudly.

Day Planner cleared his throat. “If I may… I believe this old soothsayer has been seeking an audience with you for several days. He was turned away, of course, to spare Your Greatness from his incoherent ramblings.”

“Let him up! Let me hear his message!” She stepped forward as the guard withdrew and allowed the old stallion to stand.

He looked around, then blinked his cataract-clouded eyes upward at the empress, as if reluctant to believe he’d finally reached her. Then he said, “The gods granted me a vision. A warning! Only a colt clad in shining armor can strike you down. Only the colt can end your rule. This I saw.”

Day Planner stepped forward and exclaimed, “Preposterous! You see, this old geezer is addled in his brains. Pay him no heed!”

Empress Sceleste chuckled good-naturedly. “Heheh… Of course, I see.”

Day Planner snapped an order to the guards. “Take him away! Put him in a cell for a while to keep him out of trouble!”

“Throw him to the manticores!”

Day Planner blinked. “What?”

Sceleste looked to him and repeated herself, slowly and deliberately. “Throw. Him. To. The. Manticores.”

“Err… Of course, Ma’am. The manticores.” He turned to the guards. “You heard Her Greatness. Take him to the arena!” The guards nodded grimly and began dragging the old soothsayer away. Muttering to himself, he hardly seemed aware of the doom that he’d just been sentenced to.

Sceleste said, “Come, Day Planner! Let us enjoy the sumptuousness of my gardens for a while.” She resumed her walk down the hallway, and Day Planner fell in beside her. As they made their way to the garden, she asked him, “What did you think of the old soothsayer’s warning, I wonder?”

“Poppycock! Pure rubbish!”

“But did you listen carefully?”

His ears drooped nervously. “I… I tried my best not to, Your Greatness.”

“Pity. If you had, you might have noticed that he did not foretell my end. He said, ‘Only the colt clad in shining armor can strike you down.’ If those words are true, then I have nothing to fear from any other threat. And even the colt he spoke of is not preordained to defeat me. It is merely a possibility, and one that I am now forewarned against.”

Day Planner pondered that for a moment, then asked, “Do you think it’s a true prophecy, then?”

“I am not sure yet. Some research is in order. Such pronouncements are not to be taken lightly. And if his words are sooth, then he may have done me a great service.”

“I see. So… Shall I have him released from the arena?”

Sceleste laughed lightly. “Oh, heavens no! After he spoke openly of my downfall? Leave him to his fate!”

The Element of Honesty

Rain showers during the night had temporarily cleared away much of the haze and smog from Spaceport City, allowing a few rare shafts of morning sunlight to penetrate through the maze of megastructures to the city’s lower levels. Heftig and Cloud sat upon a rooftop, scanning the sky warily for chopperoids or police vehicles.

“Is everyone gonna be safe down in the tunnels?” the alicorn asked.

“I wouldn’t call the tunnels exactly safe. There’s things down there. But yeah. We’ll have to split up, lead the Commissars in all directions.”

“But you’ll regroup somewhere, right?” Cloud pressed.

Heftig gave her a sudden, penetrating stare. “No. There’s not gonna be any regrouping. Don’t you get it? Iggy’s Army is finished. The Commissars came down against us, they even brought a robot army, Sceleste’s army. There’s no fighting something like that. All we can do is run and hide. And you!” She didn’t make a sentence out of it, but the accusing tone was impossible to miss.

“Me? I fought back those robots. You might all be dead if I hadn’t.”

“There’s a million more where those came from. I thought you were working for Sceleste! I knew you were an alicorn. I thought she sent you to test our loyalty, and you’d keep the Commissars off us, or even bring them on our side if we impressed you enough.”

“Heftig, all I ever wanted to do was defeat Celestia. I’ve fought her before, and I’ve beat her before. I’ll do it again, no matter what it takes.”

The griffin recoiled. “You’re nuts! We’re all going to end up dead—or worse—because we trusted you.”

The alicorn looked down at her feet, her nostrils flared. After some moments, without looking up, she spoke: “I thought we were friends, and I believe we could have been. But there was a critical element missing between us, on both sides. Honesty.”

“Honesty! That’s a laugh.”

“I know, I know! It’s a mistake I’ll never make again. No more disguises, no more false names. From now on, everybody will know who and what I am and why I’m here.” She looked up, looked to Heftig, and declared, “My real name is Nyx. I’m the daughter of Twilight Sparkle, and I’m heir to the legacy of Princess Luna, and I won’t rest until everyone is safe from Celestia’s evil.”

Heftig shook her head. “I can’t be part of your mad dreams. It’s a scramble for survival now, and every creature for themselves. But for whatever it’s worth… Good luck! You’ll need that, and a few miracles too.” Then Heftig opened her wings and hopped off the roof and glided down toward the haven of the tunnels.

Awakening

Pain and confusion were the first things the pony felt. Her body slammed into something solid, possibly the ground. She couldn’t see. Startled awake, her mind reeled with confusion. She flailed her limbs, but every muscle screamed with pain. Dampness soaked into her skin.

The world felt like it was spinning. The intensity of confusion and dizziness, not to mention the pain when she tried to move, forced her to stillness. Her lungs heaved and heart pounded as she tried to make sense of her surroundings, her situation. What happened? Where am I? She struggled to remember how she’d gotten here, but the pieces wouldn’t come together in her mind.

Cold rain pelted down.

A blazing flash of light, and the thunderclap an instant later, changed everything. With a shriek of terror, she jumped to her feet, heedless of pain. Ghostly after-images of menacing silhouettes were burned into her eyes. Overcome by the instinct to flee, she flex her hind legs and her wings and tried to take flight, but it was hopeless, and she crashed to the wet ground in a heap.

Panic undiminished, she staggered to her feet and tried to run. She managed only a few strides through the pitch blackness before her shoulder crashed into some unyielding structure, and she spun and flopped painfully onto the ground once again.

It was too much. Exhausted, she broke down sobbing. Lightning and thunder crashed again, not as near this time, and the pony shrieked once more as if struck by a whip. She cried out into the darkness, “Help! Anypony!” She tried a few more times, but no one answered. Cold, miserable and afraid, she lay there. The occasional flashes of lightning suggested menacing creatures around her, but she could never see clearly enough to know what they were.

After some while the rain eased, and the thunder receded into distance. The pony lifted her head, and she tried to cast light. It was the simplest spell that any unicorn could cast, and the first learned by their children. She shrieked again, for the pain that shot through her horn was breathtaking, and she could only cower with her arms across her muzzle until she was done seeing stars.

After some time the clouds began to break up, and a gibbous moon shone through.  Now the pony could begin to make out something of her surroundings. The dark figures around her remained motionless. The pony did likewise, hardly daring to twitch a muscle, aside from her eyes and ears that swiveled warily. It wasn’t until crickets began to chirp that the pony felt safe enough to try standing up again. It hurt, but not as much as before. Her muscles felt sore, everywhere, as if she’d started a new workout regimen the day before and had badly overdone it.

She looked around from her new, higher perspective. She blinked. Her eyes had always been night-sensitive, and moonlight filtering through the trees was more than adequate. Yet, everything remained unclear. She lifted an arm and rubbed at her eyes with her pastern. It didn’t help.

She took a cautious step and managed to stay upright on all four feet, despite her lingering wooziness. She ventured over to the nearest upright figure and squinted through bleary eyes.

It was a statue. More specifically, it was a statue of a pegasus pony rearing up on his hind legs. His eyes were wide and his mouth was open, contorted in a panicked neigh, so it seemed. The cold, gray stone was covered with a patina of dark grime and growing lichens. Yet, as she sniffed at the statue and inspected it, she noticed that it was completely undamaged. Even the delicate ears and wing tips had not a chip missing.

The pony made her way slowly around the sparse woods, weaving around clumps of underbrush and trees that had tipped some statues and ensnared others deeply in their branches. A firm majority of the figures were ponies of various genders and races, some of them with clothing or armor that had been faithfully replicated in stone. There were also a few griffins, a minotaur and several species unfamiliar to her. Their poses and expressions varied. Some appeared terrified, some defiant, some resigned to their fate. None looked to be at peace. All appeared to have been here for a very long time, and yet she never found even the smallest crack or missing chip. Was this a graveyard or a museum?

Her gritty-feeling eyes improved slowly, and the scene about her became clearer. She circled around and eventually came back to a place near where she had begun, and she stopped. There was an empty plinth, a block of stone just the same as the pedestal every statue stood upon. Scattered around it were many fragments of stone. She lowered her head to peer at them, tipped a few over with a hoof. The pieces were thin like eggshells, and each had one side that appeared pale, fresh and clean, and the opposite side darkened with grime and lichens. The grass was flattened, and her own hoofprints were visible in the mud.

“No,” she muttered. She sat down on the wet grass and gazed around with fresh eyes. She looked at the statues with large trees grown around them. “How long?” she breathed. “How long was I turned to stone?”

Author's Note

Right now my plan is to post a chapter per week until Episode One is complete. It's all written, so I don't expect any bad hang-ups.

Lost

The pony spent some time searching around the gloomy glade, studying the statues and determining that she didn’t recognize any of them. Meanwhile the sky lightened so slowly that dawn sneaked up on her. Nearby she found the ruins of some buildings, now unidentifiable with only outlines of broken down walls remaining. Weeds grew through tumbled piles of stones, and her brief attempt to poke through them only disturbed angry wasps and snakes.

When the sun cleared the treetops, she decided there was nothing more to be done here. She stretched her wings, carefully flexing them several times, working out as much of the remaining soreness as she could. They still felt weak, but she decided she could risk taking flight. She took a deep breath, steadied herself, partially spread her wings, and then, with a somewhat painful thrust of her hind legs, she leapt into the air. Her wings protested but did what was needed. She leveled off at thirty meters and banked right, settling into a lazy circle around the glade.

She peered into the distance, and what she saw was a mixed landscape: grass, savanna, and clumps of denser forest. There was no order and no visible buildings or other signs of civilization. As she circled, the moon came into view, and she gasped and faltered for an instant in her flight—catching herself only by instinct. The moon! Although it was sinking in the west, it hadn’t set when the sun rose. She thought to herself, “So… I must be far outside of Equestria, or else Equestria has changed in some fundamental way while I was a statue. Could Celestia be overthrown?” Then more troubling thoughts flickered through her mind. “Does Equestria even exist anymore? Do ponies? Did the world end somehow?”

She flapped to gain some altitude, to see further, but there was only a mostly clear sky, the sun, the moon, and what appeared to be an endless expanse of wilderness in all directions. Patches of yellow, blue and purple wildflowers mottled the land with colors of springtime. With no direction in mind she circled an ever-widening spiral, always scanning the land below for any signs of civilization. Eventually she saw where thicker forest snaked through a low, flat area that she recognized as evidence of a watercourse. She glided down to land in the tall grass, then entered the woods. She soon found a game trail to follow, but she went slowly, picking her way past tangled greenbrier vines and large spider webs. The trail led her down through some deep ruts in the earth until she reached a creek bed. There a modest stream trickled from one pool to another across a floor of rounded white stones.

The water looked and smelled clean enough, and she paused for a much needed drink. Next she wandered around the banks, looking for tracks. Frogs jumped and turtles slid into the water when she passed near, and she caught glimpses of large fish in the cloudy, green-tinted pools. Along the sandy shoreline she found tracks from raccoons, tracks from large birds—turkeys, she guessed—and then what she’d been really hoping for: hoofprints! They were cloven hooves, dainty and slender, not the tracks of ponies but of deer. Still, here was evidence that this land was inhabited.

She glanced upward, to the narrow band of sky visible between the tree-crowned banks of the creek. She took flight again, launching directly from the creek bottom into the blue sky. She followed the creek downstream on the theory that villages are built near water. She didn’t fly too high or too fast; her eyes kept busy scanning the land below for people or structures. After some miles the creek joined into a river. Whereas before she’d seen pools linked by trickles of water, now there was a steady stream of muddy brown flowing over and around scattered logs. She blinked in surprise when a couple of the presumed logs suddenly lurched into motion, splashed and disappeared into the water. They were alligators!

The pony’s lips pressed together, her mouth forming a thin line to match her worried thoughts. The ponies that she knew, in the Equestria that she knew, did not like wilderness. To them, Mother Nature was only a foe to be vanquished.

Mile after mile of green passed below her, until she reached a broken bridge. It was a concrete bridge built on timber trestles, and it stretched across the wide river bottom, spanning a couple of hundred meters at least—or mostly spanning, for a portion near the center had collapsed. She glided downward to land on the bridge close to one end.

Despite the bridge’s ultra-modern (to her eyes) construction, the concrete was stained with dirt and moss. Weeds and tufts of grass grew from crevices and cracks in the road surface. She walked to the end of the bridge, where the road almost disappeared into the earth. Relics of pavement remained, a ghost road snaking through the woods, broken by dirt and grass, sometimes encroached by underbrush and even small trees. She lowered her head to closely examine a piece of paving, and she thumped it experimentally with a hoof. The material seemed akin to concrete, though with a matrix of larger pebbles. She could only imagine that it must have once been a very fine road surface, long ago, before Father Time had taken a hammer to it.

She turned and walked back onto the bridge, aiming for the opposite side. She came to the broken span, where a large section of concrete had tumbled to the grassy plain below. She opened her wings, about to hop across the gap, but her motion prompted a loud snort from somewhere below. Glancing down at the flood plain, she noticed what she’d been too preoccupied to see before: a small herd of deer! They stared up at her, their ears perked. The pony reared on her hind legs, placing her front hooves on the bridge railing, and she called down to the deer, “Ahoy!”

The deer turned and fled. A buck was in the lead, and white tails were held high as they bounded across the flood plain with a swiftness and grace that no pony could match. “Wait!” the pony yelled after them. “Don’t be afraid!” She jumped over the bridge railing and glided down to the grassy plain, but the deer were already vanishing into the woods. She took a few steps, but then stopped and looked after them, looked to the line of trees where they’d gone. She mumbled, “I only wanted to talk.” She lowered her head and closed her eyes, taking a moment to calm down. This wasn’t the first time strangers had rejected her based on her appearance. It was understandable, she couldn’t blame them.

It still hurt, though.

She was beginning to feel pangs of hunger, along with a grimly amusing thought: “I wonder how many years—or decades, or centuries—it’s been since I had lunch?” She spiraled down to the river bottom and browsed for a while on the foliage of spring. There was clover and ryegrass in the flood plain, and tender young leaves of greenbrier in the woods. It wasn’t proper food for a civilized pony, but neither was it the first time in her life that she’d foraged. If nothing else, at least she wouldn’t starve here. After some time, with her belly feeling less empty and the sky painted with colors of sunset, she improvised a place to bed down under the bridge.

On the second day of her journey she caught sight of something standing on a hilltop, standing taller than a tree. She veered toward it. When she’d drawn closer she circled around a ruined tower, caked with rust and vines. A bulbous, elevated structure was eaten through by rust, with jagged openings leading into the dark, mysterious inside. After brief puzzlement, she decided the structure was the ruin of a water tower—far larger than any she’d ever seen, and constructed entirely from steel. Another was visible across a small valley, on another hill. She soared over to the second tower, which was of the same design but in an even further ruined state, the tower legs broken and the tank laying on the ground, its shape distorted by gravity and the violence of its fall to earth.

The pony glided to a landing near this collapsed tower, and she began to explore the area. A small hut made of concrete blocks, its door long missing, housed rusted pipes and valves. Finding nothing of use there, she explored in a widening circle around the tower. Using her hooves and magic she poked through grass, and dirt, and tree roots. She found concrete slabs, bricks, pieces of broken and melted glass, and unrecognizable items of corroded metal. She then followed a dirt path down into the valley, to a creek. Near the creek were the recognizable ruins of a town, a village. Crumbling stone walls and a few broken down timbers of what had once been roofs remained, with trees growing up through them. The largest building she found, in the presumed center of town, had pieces of what must have once been impressively large stone columns tumbled in front of it. Scattered around the buildings were some rusting skeletons of abandoned machines, their purpose inscrutable. She spent hours digging in the rubble, magically, to see if she could unearth any clues about the prior inhabitants. She turned up bits of broken glass and pottery, nails rusted almost away, pieces of broken combs, buttons and other mundane household items, along with corroded tools and bits of mysterious devices. Nothing provided the answers she needed about her situation or the state of the broader world she’d awoken to.

As she wandered the ruins, she spotted some distance away a figure partially in shadow. She approached and noted first a curious silhouette, overall rounded, but with some sharp protrusions. As she moved closer she struggled through a few moments of confusion before identifying the shape as that of a giant beetle. Giant, in this case, meant more than three times the size of a typical pony. Posed partially upright on its hind legs, standing taller even than the alicorn who now inspected it, the beetle presented a menacing figure.

It was also quite dead, if, indeed, it had ever been alive. This beetle was constructed from pieces of metal and appeared entirely robotic. Robots were something the pony knew only from dime novels or comic books. This one looked real enough, though. Rust stains streamed down from its joints, and vines strangled its form, draping it in irregular garb of green foliage. The body was black, perhaps once glossy but now dingy and weathered. A pair of horns protruded forward from the sides of its head, along with a nose-like spike in the center, combining to form the head into a sort of trident. On the underside of the head was a shiny metal grill that resembled nothing so much as a shark’s mouth. Its front legs ended not in feet or pincers, but more resembled scythes, and they were held in a posture like that of a praying mantis. The corroded blades were integral with its arms, giving the creature no obvious way to pick up any objects, or use tools, or do anything other than swing its blades and attack.

And then there were the eyes. They looked like faceted compound eyes, the right eye a brilliant cyan-blue, much like the eye color of a changeling. The left eye was broken, the glass covering partially shattered. As she examined the robot, a mud dauber wasp carrying a ball of mud alighted on its head and crawled around the fractured eye, then vanished into the metal skull. Moments later a purposeful buzzing sound emitted as the wasp added material to its nest.

Unsettled and not knowing what to make of the long abandoned robot, the pony moved on to continue her search. She found another robotic beetle, similar to the first, but collapsed in a heap and much more ruined than the first. Then she found the cemetery. The grave stones were tangled in tall grass and scrub, stained, some broken, but many intact. The language carved on them was at least readable, though the dates made no sense. The names were descriptive: Cherry Morning. Sugar Pop. Lucky Music. They might easily be pony names. She supposed she could have found out for certain by digging one up, but there seemed no valid reason to commit such a distasteful action.

She eventually abandoned her investigation and took flight again, despite a leaden heart, as she began to wonder if any civilization still existed. Did ponies survive? Did any other race she’d known from her own time? Even the deer she’d seen, she began to wonder about. Did they have a village, some kind of civilization, or did they only live like wild animals in the woods?

What happened to the world?

That evening was clear, and the pony decided to watch the sky. She had history with the night sky, history both good and bad, and she was anxious of what she might learn. She found a hill with an open view, and she watched the sun set slowly in the west, stately and unhurried—indeed, far more slowly than the sun she had known in her own time. The sky looked like it was on fire, streaked with wild, ragged clouds.

The moon rose late, but not too long after sunset, and its phase was approaching full: closer to full than when she’d first seen it, a couple of nights earlier. Clearly the sun and moon were out of synchronization. Yet, she reasoned, they hadn’t stopped moving, nor were they bouncing around randomly as they had during the Reign of Discord. They appeared to be following their own natural rhythms, as they had always done far outside the borders of Equestria. These rhythms she had learned well during her years of exile and wandering through Lopanga.

Stars were slow to make their appearance in the sky. As she waited, her thoughts drifted back to happier times, stargazing sessions with her mother and brother.

Any night with a bright moon was, she knew from experience, a poor night for stargazing. However… With moonlight washing out all the fainter stars, only the brightest ones remained visible, which in some ways made picking out major constellations easier—or should have. The more stars appeared though, and the more she studied them, the more confused she became. Some bright stars looked familiar at first, but then their surroundings didn't seem right. Some constellations seem familiar at first glance, but important parts were missing or out of place, shapes distorted.

She blinked. Was a star moving? It was! She watched in amazed puzzlement as a star steadily sailed across the sky. She followed its motion with her eyes until it disappeared into the murky horizon.

She knew planets, that moved imperceptibly over a time span of weeks and months, and she knew shooting stars that flared and burned out in moments. This was different. It looked like a normal star that had simply been going somewhere. That didn’t make any sense. Stars don’t do that.

She watched the sky for a while longer and saw two more of the mysterious wandering stars. Curiously, all the ones she saw moved north or south, never east or west.

She finally gave in to fatigue and frustration and abandoned the effort. Some night when the sky was darker, when a bright full moon wasn't lighting up the whole sky, then she could try again to make sense of it. Her horn sparkled as she used her magic to flatten out some tall grass and make a bed, crude but adequate. Then she cast a quick spell and magically summoned a favorite blanket from her equinventory.

Hours later the pony awakened with a start, the blanket tossed back as she sat up under a still-dark sky. Ears perked up, and her eyes were wide as she gasped. In moments she got her bearings, realizing where she was, the dream already fading and slipping away. She blinked and struggled to remember what it was about. It was muddled, confused, but she remembered being in Ponyville… but not exactly, because her old castle had been there, or at least parts of it… and Luna! Princess Luna had been there. They'd talked. She didn’t remember what about, but they’d had some kind of conversation…

And in her dream she hadn't remembered—or even known, perhaps—that Princess Luna was dead. She felt for a moment as though her heart was squeezed in a vise. She’d just spoken with a dead pony in her dream, and it was one of the most unsettling feelings she’d ever known. She shuddered, and gave up trying to remember the details of the dream. A thought much worse had just hit her.

“They're all dead,” she muttered. She wasn’t thinking only of Luna. It was everyone, all her friends, her family, the ponies and other beings who'd taught and trained her. She didn't know how much time had passed, but it was obviously too long. It might be a thousand years, it might be ten thousand for all she knew. Everyone was gone. Everyone except, maybe, just possibly, the one pony in the world who she least wanted to ever see again. She squeezed her eyes shut and hissed through gritted teeth, “Celestia!”

It was too much. She dropped flat to the ground, brought her wings forward to hide her head under them, and her body shook uncontrollably as she cried her heart out.

Later, after her tears had run out, she wiped her face with her blanket and wrapped it around her withers, and she watched the sun rise in the same slow and stately way that it had set. “Who knows if Celestia is even still alive?” she wondered. “Spike might still be alive. But my friends, even my mother… Well, if I’m here, then maybe some of them were turned to stone too. Maybe some of them were trapped somewhere that time doesn’t pass, maybe in Tartarus or in Morbia, maybe in the moon or stars, who knows?” It was the thinnest of hopes, but, there being no way to disprove it, she chose to hope.

She foraged on leaves and grass for breakfast, then rejoined the river and continued flying downstream. Twice she spotted deer below her, but again they fled and vanished into the woods each time she tried to approach.

In the early afternoon she noticed something above her. In the clear blue sky was a thin, sharp streak of white. The closest thing she could compare it with was a comet, but that was hardly any comparison at all. This was visible in broad daylight, and brightly at that, and it steadily moved across the sky. After watching and puzzling at this phenomenon for several seconds, she turned toward it and began flapping hard to gain speed and altitude. The chase was on!

She began with complete confidence in her ability to catch the mysterious streak. She was an alicorn, after all, with the natural speed of a powerful pegasus and the stamina of an earth pony. Rainbow Dash could out-sprint (and certainly out-maneuver) her, but she didn’t think anything with wings could stay ahead of her for very long. With eyes locked on the mysterious missile, she flapped hard and powered her way upward and after it.

After a couple of minutes, though, her target appeared to actually be pulling away, and she had to reevaluate. The source of the white trail was still indistinct to the eye, and she began to wonder if she had completely misjudged its size, distance and speed. Well, she had the powers of a unicorn too. She gritted her teeth, and her long, spiraled horn sizzled with energy. She cast a haste spell on herself, and she shot forward and upward into the sky with renewed vigor. Now she exceeded the ability of even the most talented pegasus.

She was sure that the mystery object was a barely-visible speck leaving a bold trail of white clouds behind it, shining brilliantly as they caught the sunlight. Even making maximum effort with her haste spell, she was gradually losing it—and worse, the air became painfully thin and cold. Never in her life before had she flown this fast and high. Her wings weren’t supporting and propelling her as they should, and her lungs burned as she couldn’t catch enough breath, and the white streak was still somewhere high above her, disappearing toward the horizon.

With a frustrated shout, she gave up the chase, stilled her exhausted wings and began gliding a spiral path toward the earth. Descending took a long while, as she huffed and panted and tried to figure out what she’d seen. A dragon? Wendigo? Some kind of magical super-airship? Something related to those mysterious moving stars? She blinked and peered downward and realized she’d lost her bearings and couldn’t identify the river she’d been following. It had been left far behind. Far off to the south she caught a glimpse of curious bright marks on the land. They were too far to reach by gliding, but she made a mental note to investigate them later.

In a daze she let the thickening air filter through her wings, until she finally landed on a knob-like hilltop, isolated and treeless. She scrambled for footing on the loose rocks while a stiff breeze swept across the hilltop. She stood there, panting with head hung low, wings partially open with the wind flowing across them to help her cool down. When she’d recovered and folded her wings to her sides, she glanced up at the sky, but the thing she’d chased was long gone. Then she looked around. She could see across the open plains for many miles in every direction. A few flat-topped hills jutted upward on the far horizon, but no landmarks worthy of the term. The white marks she'd noted before were somewhere over the horizon, from this vantage point.

She took a couple of hops downward to the leeward side of the wind-swept hill, and she lay down among large clumps of dark-leaved basket grass, and she rested for a little while as she pondered what to do next. Hardly any breeze reached her, but she could hear the rustling of the long, flowing leaves above, on the hilltop. She spread her dark wings to catch the warmth of the sun, and she closed her eyes, and she calmed her thoughts.

After the pony had rested, she took flight again and headed south across the countryside, looking for those mysterious white marks. They were farther away and bigger than she had realized. What she found was an enormous scar upon the land, like a set of gigantic craters roughly gouged from the earth. The white color proved to be limestone, pulverized and exposed, speckled with only light, scrubby vegetation. One of the craters was partially filled with stagnant water, a shallow pond with clusters of reeds concentrated at one end. She descended to investigate, and her hooves clomped on the rubble close to the edge.

The sides of the crater were riddled with holes, presumably the burrows of some digging animals. Her ear caught a buzzing-and-grinding noise, and she saw a gout of dirt eject from one of the holes. It was followed by another and another. She approached the hole and lowered her head, tried to peer into the darkness. From the sizes of the burrows she expected something like a coyote or badger. When a giant wasp backed out of the hole, she screamed like a little filly and instinctively reared up and then tried to stamp it with her front feet. She landed a glancing blow with one hoof and sent the creature tumbling. It thrashed helplessly on the ground for a few moments, then righted itself and started to shake its wings and make a harsh buzzing noise.

In seconds answering buzzes came echoing back from all around the pit. Giant wasps poured out from the burrows and took flight, filling the sky. The pony’s ears folded back and her cat-like pupils shrank to narrow slits as she realized she had, almost literally, stirred up a hornet’s nest.

Her first response was to fly away. She beat her wings, but no creature her size could possibly take off very quickly—without even a running start—and the energy she’d spent earlier chasing the mystery comet made matters worse. She felt insectile claws dig into her flank, followed an instant later by a stab of searing pain in her hip. She screamed again and turned loose a barely-formed burst of magic from her horn with only one impulse: GET THEM OFF ME!! Her horn sizzled, and all the nearby bugs were flung away by the spell’s blue aura. A moment later, through the almost breathtaking pain of the sting, she managed to cast another, more coherent, spell. A translucent blue sphere sprung into existence around her. Swarming wasps bashed into it and fell back stunned by the impact. Some tried to land on it, but their claws found no purchase, and they too fell away.

Gasping with fear and streaming tears from the pain, the pony flew away from the crater. Stubbornly the wasps pursued for a couple of minutes, still trying ineffectually to get through her shield. She increased her speed and eventually left them behind. When she’d gone far enough to feel safe, she dispelled her shield, dropped to the ground and clumsily plowed into the grass. The grass all around was taller than her head, even if she’d been standing, and the weight of her body flattened out a patch of it, such that she almost appeared to be huddled in a green pit. A crazy thought flitted through her mind: Did I somehow shrink? Is that why wasps and grass are gigantic to me now?

She turned her head to try and see her hip where she’d been stung, but not much was outwardly visible: a tiny puncture, and swelling only beginning to appear. The pain of the venom was still intense, though. She drew a hissed breath inward through her teeth and cast another spell. Her horn glowed, and the pain eased. It was the magical counterpart of aspirin, but at least it allowed her to breathe easier and concentrate on what to do next. All the healing magic she knew was modest first aid, not how to neutralize venom from a giant wasp. Her hip and leg felt numb by this time. She’d once read a story in a dime novel where the hero sucked the venom out from a snake bite. That might have been worth a try, but she found that she couldn’t contort her body and neck around far enough to properly reach the sting with her muzzle. She could reach with her tongue, but mere licking wouldn’t help this, and she couldn’t think of any spell in her repertoire that could mimic the needed suction.

A chill of fear went through her. Didn’t wasps paralyze their prey before dragging them back to the nest? If the venom spread through her body, would it paralyze her completely? She struggled to her feet and then started pushing her way through the grass, head lowered, splitting a path through it. She had a vague notion of finding shelter and water, at least, while she could still move around. It only took a minute to realize that she wasn’t going to find anything by stumbling through the sea of grass. She needed to fly, if she was still able. She tried to spread her wings, but the tough stalks of grass interfered with her use of them. She turned around, facing the path she’d already made through the grass, and she took a running start before leaping into the air, trying to get above the grass where her wings could work.

She almost made it, but her numb hind leg snagged on the grass and flipped her forward, landing her face-down in a heap. She groaned and extracted her horn from the earth it had stabbed into. She had to try again. This time she put all her remaining strength into a leap upward, and she managed to get clear of the grass enough for her wings to spread and bite air. With intense effort she stayed airborne and got safely above the grass. Gaining altitude she look around for any sign of a watercourse. The dark green of treetops snaked across the land, a few miles away, and that was where she headed.

Her strength was failing, and a tightness constrained her chest, but she reached the edge of the woods and skidded to another clumsy stop. She pushed her way through the undergrowth, finding a game trail that led down to the creek bed. Thorns raked her as she stumbled down to the bottom of the trail; there she found a murky pool. Along the banks were some large overhangs of limestone that could serve as the most basic shelter. She drank, then settled under the shelter. She once again summoned her blanket and wrapped it around herself.

There was nothing left to do but wallow in misery for a while and hope that her body could burn off the venom rather than succumb to it. As an alicorn, she was supposed to have the strong constitution of an earth pony. It would have to be enough to see her through.

Over the next hour numbness spread to her other hind leg, and her nose and eyes became runny, and her vision blurred. Her mind spiraled into dark places. In the myths of her kind, an alicorn was supposed to be the pinnacle of equine being, almost god-like, able to defeat entire armies or flatten mountains. They weren’t supposed to be defeated by an accidental encounter with an insect. What would ponies think? What would the history books say? That’s assuming there were still any ponies, or that there ever would be any more history books.

Feeling too ill to do much else, the pony rested and eventually drifted into fitful, troubled sleep. By morning she had regained most of the feeling in her legs, but her runny nose and blurred vision remained, and she was too nauseated and dizzy to travel or to eat anything. She was sick most of the day, though by nightfall she’d started feeling well enough to explore a little of the surrounding area on foot. As she’d come to expect, there were no traces of civilization. She continued to rest and recover throughout the next day, waiting until she was strong enough to fly with confidence before venturing out again on her search.

This time she departed at nightfall. She could see practically as well at night as during the day, and she reasoned that any lights of civilization, or even campfires, would be visible from great distances. What she saw instead were flashes of lightning somewhere far over the horizon, although the sky above her was clear. As unfamiliar as the stars were, they still turned around an axis. She took her bearings from the great wheel in the sky, and she headed due south based on little more than intuition.

The land gradually became drier, vegetation more sparse and scrubby. As time passed it was hard to stay alert, to maintain concentration on the land passing below. The rhythm of her wings beating put her almost into a trance, and she lost track of time. She was startled back to alertness when she spotted a flicker of orange light on the horizon. A campfire? A bonfire, even? She banked and turned toward it.

Soon the land below appeared to be traced with a network of white lines almost like a web spun by a drunken spider. Many of the white lines ended in larger nodes or splotches of white. The network stretched for miles and miles across the arid plain, and several fires were burning like gigantic torches in the night. A sour odor wafted in the night air. With the experience of giant wasps fresh in her mind, she approached cautiously and flew over one of the white nodes for a better look.

Up close it became obvious that the white lines were simply roads paved (and rather neatly, at some expense) with pale dirt, and the nodes were square or rectangular pads of the same dirt with all of the plain’s vegetation kept clear. She risked landing on one of the dirt pads.

The sulfurous odor, reminiscent of fireworks, was stronger at ground level. Near one corner of the earthworks was a row of cylindrical storage tanks, presumably made of steel, with a complex mess of pipes and valves connecting them. In the center of the dirt pad was a black machine, its parts continually operating and moving in near silence. Its largest moving part was a beam balanced like a seesaw and moving likewise. A slender rod descended from one end of the beam into a hole in the ground. Next to the beam was a connected flywheel that reminded the pony of ones she’d seen on the sides of a steam locomotive. Although no expert on machinery, she could at least recognize that this was some kind of pump jack.

But what was it pumping? Water? Given how dry the land looked, she could imagine the inhabitants wanting to drill for water. That answer just didn’t seem right, though. There was no settlement here, no village, no farms. If all the dirt pads were like this, there must be scores or even hundreds of wells. And what was that peculiar odor?

She flew again and went to one of the fires. It also had its own pad of barren dirt, and in the center were some pipes coming out from the ground. From the tallest of them roared a swirling mass of orange flames. Try as she might, the pony couldn’t see what substance was burning. It seemed to be nothing but an eruption of pure fire. She closed her eyes and tried to sense magic, but there was no trace of any spellwork.

As she watched the flames and felt their warmth coming through the cool night air, she considered what it all meant. She might not understand all of this, but somebody had built it here for a reason, and somebody was maintaining and operating it. There was still civilization in the world! But what kind? Who?

For days she’d wanted only to find someone she could greet, and talk to, and question. Surely she could follow these roads to their source and find people, but now that prospect suddenly seemed frightening. She had no idea what to expect. Did the world now belong to robotic beetles like the wrecked ones she’d seen? Was the world now ruled by monsters?

Well, she’d have to find out. She couldn’t just retreat back into the wilderness and live like a hermit for the rest of her life. She had to know. But she would have to be cautious. She decided that she needed to scout with care, or else her first encounter might be her last.

She flew again and followed the roads, tracing a path from smaller to larger ones, and soon to roads paved with some kind of hard surface. She dropped down to investigate and found a paving material resembling what she’d see at the ruined bridge. She hadn’t seen any traffic yet on any of these roads, but she guessed that whoever used them might not be active at night.

As dawn approached, she saw a vehicle moving down one of the roads, dust stirring in its wake. It was large, roughly the size of a train car, and moved under its own power, although there was no visible boiler or smoke stack. At the front were some remarkably bright headlights and a cab with glass windows, and in back was a load of steel pipe. The pony wanted badly to see into that cabin and learn what kind of being was the driver, but she forced down the impulse and chose patience rather than risk giving herself away too soon.

Instead, she continued soaring above the highway, heading in the direction the truck had come from. Soon she noticed the highway was joined by train tracks which ran in parallel with it.

It wasn’t long before she caught up with a train. It was strictly a freight train without any identifiable passenger cars: only a long, long series of boxcars and steel tank cars. Most of these were dark and grungy, but some were marked with strangely chaotic artwork, with bright colors starting to become visible in the growing daylight. The locomotives produced no smoke and only a smooth rumble so deep that she could almost feel it more than hear it.

After observing all of this, she matched her speed to the train and came down for a gentle landing on top of a black boxcar. Her wings had gotten quite a workout for the last few days. Now she could rest them and let the train take her to its destination, whatever that might be.

The train rumbled through the cool morning air and golden light of dawn, once in a while passing by trucks on the adjacent road. The pony crouched low and still against the roof of the boxcar, and there was nothing to indicate she’d been noticed. She hoped the train would reach a town or a village soon, but it was not to be. After a while the tracks parted ways with the highway and the train went rumbling across a seemingly endless, scrubby plain for hour after hour. Inevitably, she dozed off.

The City

A clanging bell startled her awake. The pony raised her head, blinked sleep out of her eyes, swiveled her ears to locate the noise. The train was crossing a roadway, and she caught a glimpse of red flashing lights as the the car she was riding passed through the intersection. Then she looked forward, to where the train was going, and she looked up, and she gasped in startled wonder.

There was a city ahead, and it was like nothing she’d ever seen or imagined before. It towered, it reached for the sky. It was a confused tangle of mega-architecture, as if impossibly tall skyscrapers had been packed together tightly, then connected to one another with bridges so that they formed a three-dimensional matrix. A miasma, like a brown haze, hovered around the city and trailed downwind from it. Even from this distance she could see vehicles moving on the bridges and flying through the air, zipping through the gaps between buildings. As she watched, a larger craft of some sort appeared, coming up from somewhere on the opposite side of the city, and blasted off into the sky with an echoing roar until it disappeared into the distance.

After gawping for several minutes, she turned her attention back to her immediate surroundings. The train had slowed and was pulling into a train yard, the one set of tracks split into dozens. Other trains sat idle on either side. The train she was riding ground to a halt.

She hopped off. In the claustrophobic gap between trains she stretched her legs and wings, then she started walking. Eyes and ears alert, she searched the train yard for any sign of workers. Occasional cigarette butts and bottle caps littering the ground suggested there should be some. After she’d walked some ways, her ears perked up to a high-pitched beeping sound. She followed her ears, worked her way down the line of train cars, hopped over a flat car, moved down a bit further, hopped through the open doors of an empty boxcar, and made her way close enough to the noise to see what produced it.

She crouched and peered around the corner of a train car. There was a terminal, a loading dock, and workers moving crates around on pallets. A forklift produced the annoying beeps whenever it backed up, which was often. There was a brown unicorn pony wearing a hard hat and a tie, carrying a clipboard with his magical aura, but his only function seemed to be watching and giving orders to the rest of the work force. Those workers made her furrow her brow in puzzlement, for they were human. She’d seen humans before, during her time in exile, in Lopanga. However, she’d never seen a human in Equestria before—even assuming that this was, in fact, Equestria, and that she hadn’t somehow been transported across the oceans during her time trapped in stone. That a pony was giving orders suggested this was not Lopanga. Aside from herself and a few other refugees from the Epic Pony War, she hadn’t encountered many ponies at all in Lopanga.

Furthermore, these humans looked different from the ones of Lopanga. Those she knew had skin in shades of brown, some of them very dark. These workers she now observed were far more pale than any she’d seen before. Where had they come from, she wondered?

She withdrew out of sight and thought about what to do next. Now she knew there were at least some ponies here, and there was a city. If she could get into that city, maybe she could mix with the populace without being noticed. Maybe she could learn where she was and what had happened to the world while she was trapped in stone. Maybe she could at least find out how long it had been. She had so many questions! A city like this had to have records. Surely there must be a library. If she could find that, she could research the whole history that she had missed.

She would need a disguise. Even if she wasn’t personally recognized, any alicorn waltzing into the city would attract far too much attention. In the past, when she was only a filly, she’d hidden her wings with a suitable garment. That would be a lot more difficult now, given how large her wings had grown. She peered upward at the city’s amazing towers. Being able to fly could be extremely useful in that place, she reckoned. Hiding her horn, though, presented its own difficulties. It was far longer than a normal unicorn pony’s horn, and impossible to simply tuck into a hat or some sort of poofy manestyle.

Well, she’d learned a few basics of illusion spells. Another refugee she’d met in Lopanga, a traveling stage magician, had taught her a few tricks. She learned that making an inanimate object disappear was one of the easiest illusions to cast. Her horn wasn’t quite inanimate, in the sense that it waved about when she moved her head, but still… It wouldn’t hurt to try. She closed her eyes and tried to remember how the spell went. She mumbled a bit to herself as she cast it. Then she opened her eyes and gasped. It worked! The horn that she’d gotten so used to projecting out in front of her eyes was gone.

Then she moved her head, and the spell failed. “Horsefeathers!” she cursed. It took three more tries before she got the enchantment to stick.

“Now if I can just remember to not use any magic, and if I can keep from knocking over any lamps or jabbing anyone with my invisible horn, I should be okay,” she mused. She turned her head and looked back at her body. She wished she could change everything: her eyes, her coat color, her sigil, and most of all her size. Realistically, though, she just didn’t have the skill with illusions to pull that off. She’d just have to go as she was and hope for the best.

She steeled her nerve, spread her wings and flew towards the city.

The pony glanced downward and to either side and noted the grungy industrial zone that surrounded the city: the train yard, storage tanks, warehouses. These were separated from the city itself by a concrete wall, although the wall had a number of tunnels and pipelines passing through. At regular intervals around the wall were observation towers heavily stained with rust and graffiti.

As she easily flew over the wall, she wondered what defensive value it could possibly have. Her thoughts were interrupted by a klaxon and flashing lights coming from the nearest tower, and the adjacent towers momentarily joined in sounding the alert. Doors opened in the sides of the towers and ejected dozens of flying objects.

They were smaller than ponies, much smaller than the flying vehicles the pony had seen from a distance earlier, but they buzzed and had vaguely insect-like outlines. They immediately locked on and began climbing to chase after her. Remembering the giant wasps, she panicked and began flapping madly to escape. The swarm of buzzing machines was almost on her when she did a mid-air flip and reversed direction, and dived through the middle of their formation, scattering them for a moment. Then she darted forward into the city, hoping to lose her pursuers. She ducked around a building, swooped under a bridge and glanced backward to see if she was gaining on the drones.

That moment of not watching where she was going proved costly. Something massive slammed into her body and knocked the breath out of her and twisted one wing with a jolt of pain. Instinctively she clawed at a hard, metallic surface, trying to keep from slipping and falling. Wide-eyed she stared forward—through a windshield, into a compartment where two rather horrified looking ponies stared back. She’d been hit by one of the city’s ubiquitous flying vehicles, and she was now clinging to its nosecone.

Though the cabin’s glass and the rushing wind-stream prevented her from hearing them, it looked like the ponies inside were probably screaming. She might have been doing the same, except that the breath had been knocked out of her, and her heaving chest couldn’t seem to move any air. After a few panicked seconds she began to get little gasps of the city’s rancid-smelling air, and she clambered up a little higher onto the sky-car, trying to get a foothold with her hind legs. A new siren wail caught her ears, and she looked past the rear of the craft to see another with flashing lights in pursuit.

Suddenly a staccato blast of sound, like a string of firecrackers, erupted from the pursuing vehicle, accompanied by puffs of blue-gray smoke from its nose. Glass shattered, and metal pinged as though struck by hailstones. She couldn’t see the projectiles, but the pony at once understood she was being shot at. The vehicle she was riding tilted and veered perilously close to a skyscraper.

She jumped, used her wings to guide her despite the pain, and bucked the sky-car that had fired. Her hind hooves connected with a lift pod, denting it and knocking it askew. The engine noise became a cacophony of clashing metal parts, and smoke trailed from the engine pod as the sky-car spiraled out of control. She watched in horror as it crashed into the side of a building and sent broken glass and tiles showering below.

This was a disaster; she had to get out of this place. She spun, trying to get her bearings and possibly fly back out of the city, but she was already disoriented. She picked a direction at random and flew. There were still air-cars flying everywhere. She had to sharply dodge one, and her sprained wing gave way, and she tumbled out of control.

A trained stunt flier might have been able to pull out of the tumble, but not this pony. She panicked and flailed, until she smacked into another hard surface—she never knew what—and was stunned almost senseless. Everything became hazy after that, she felt like she fell a long, long way down.

The hard impact and cold splash at the bottom snapped her at least partially conscious. Her instinct to avoid drowning kicked in, and she flailed her limbs. She went underwater for several terrifying seconds, then found herself falling once again in abject darkness.

Another impact jarred her body, and she was sliding, flushed down a chute or, more likely, a huge drain pipe. The surface was smooth, and she found nothing to get purchase on. There was no choice but to be swept along, until, finally, she tumbled out of the pipe and onto a hard surface.

The pony lay still, dizzy and hurting, panting and heaving. She was afraid to move for a while, as if the surface she was on might be unstable and dump her into the abyss. Gradually, though, she calmed and began to assess her situation.

Many parts of her body were in pain. She was in total darkness. She could hear water still rushing nearby, and a faint but nauseating chemical odor pervaded. She began to shift around a little, trying to tell if any bones were broken, but it didn’t seem so. To her great surprise, the invisibility spell had survived and was still active on her horn. She dispelled that and cast light from the tip of her horn instead.

She found herself at the edge of an underground river. It flowed through a vast space, at least three stories tall and of similar width. The cavern was artificial, all concrete and tile, but seemingly abandoned in a semi-ruined state. A gradual curve limited how far she could see up or down stream.

Well, at least she wasn’t under attack here. She rested and calmed her wits for a little while, and cast the first-aid spell on various parts of her battered body. As an alicorn she enjoyed not only unicorn and pegasus magic, but also the subtle powers of an earth pony. These included natural resilience and a strong constitution, so she should recover quickly enough. Her wing, she decided, was of most concern. Although not broken, she reckoned she ought to stay off it for a while.

When she felt she was ready, she rose to her feet. Going back up the water pipe was not a realistic option. There was plenty of room to fly up or downstream, if only her wings could be trusted, but that didn’t seem wise to attempt at this moment. Across the river, however, was a large opening. Indeed, it seemed like an entire wall was missing, except for a grid of reinforcement beams that had remained standing. Slabs of concrete with inlaid tile were jumbled in the stream, allowing her to hop from one to another until she was across the river, then she slipped through the metal beams.

She found herself in a large, yet still somehow claustrophobic, chamber filled with a complex of massive pipes, most of them around three meters in diameter, easily large enough to walk on, and jumbled at odd angles as though some earthquake had given the whole set a good shaking. She cast her ball of light into the space to get some sense of its size, causing the shadows to shift eerily as the light source moved. A dull roar, which she took to be rushing water, filtered through from somewhere out of view, and the air was heavy with mist. She began to pick her way through the chamber, but the floor was so broken that the going was slow.

Then she began encountering the eggs. Some were broken, but others were intact and about the size of a basketball. Making a guess that whatever hatched out of these was better avoided, she hopped onto the top of a pipe and walked up its shallow ascending slope.

She reached an elbow joint where the pipe turned downward. She judged distance and carefully jumped onto another pipe. For a heart-stopping moment her hooves skidded on the hard, curved metal, and her wings flared out reflexively. A sharp pain stabbed the joint of her wing, overwhelming the little first-aid cantrip. In desperation, the pony splayed her legs and fell to her belly, trying to grip the pipe with her whole body. She came to rest in an awkward, uncomfortable and undoubtedly silly-looking position, but safe.

The loss of traction had come as an unpleasant surprise. Earth pony abilities include sure-footed-ness rivaling mountain goats. She belatedly realized, however, that earth magic might not work at all when not standing upon the earth, but rather on a metal pipe suspended in the air. After catching her breath, she managed to clamber upright on her hooves once again, and she began to navigate the maze of pipes—more slowly, carefully.

A maze it was, as she found herself several times having to backtrack from dead ends, where a pipe entered the chamber wall, or turned straight up or down. As she got further out into the chamber, she could look upward and see that a waterfall spilled out of ruptured pipes. It was the source of the rushing noise she’d heard before.

She took her time, carefully picking her way across the jumble of pipes. Eventually the far end of the cavern came into view, along with some hope. There was a rectangular opening, and a metal ladder that descended down from it, into the abyss. Her path to reach it required one jump downward to a lower pipe, and one long jump across to the opening. Once she made it inside, she noted that she didn’t have to rely entirely on her mage light anymore, since there were electrical lamps strung up along the tunnel. They weren’t especially bright, and not all of them were functioning, but they were perfectly adequate for her night-sensitive eyes. With the light came a sense of relief. If maintenance crews could come here, however rarely, there had to be a way out.

The tunnel came to a T intersection. The pony paused, then used her magic to burn an arrow-shaped mark into the concrete wall, pointing backward the way she had come from. It wasn’t that she ever wanted to go back there, but at least she could try to keep track of where she’d been. The last thing she wanted was to walk in circles without knowing. She continued onward, taking the left passage.

A few more intersections followed, until she came to a metal grate that blocked the entire tunnel but also incorporated a locked gate. The pony had no patience to try and finesse the lock. Instead she turned around and gave it a hard kick with one hind foot. The snap of metal breaking was as sharp as a gunshot, and the gate flung open with a shocking clatter that echoed back and forth down the tunnels.

Well, so much for stealth.

After passing the grate, she began to see more signs of life: discarded bottles, many of them broken, along with other bits of random litter, some of which she could identify, but most of it she could not. Then there was the graffiti. Much of it was nothing more than scrawled names, illegible messages or unidentifiable symbols. Then she began to encounter more elaborate examples that glowed in neon colors. Of the few twisted shapes she could identify, skulls and dragons seemed to be popular motifs, along with slogans in stylized script, a few of which she puzzled through enough to read: “HARDCORE WILL NEVER DIE” and “INSANE IGGY REST IN FREEDOM” and, incongruously, “LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL.”

She paused for a minute to banish her light and re-cast the spell upon her horn, to make it once again invisible. She pressed onward and soon found stairs leading upward. At the base of the stairs she saw what seemed at first like a bundle of rags, but the bundle raised its head and squinted blearily up at her. It was a pale human like the ones she’d seen before. His eyes widened and he exclaimed, "Daaayum!"

The pony carefully stepped over him and climbed the stairs. A metal door was ajar, which she nudged open, and she emerged into an alleyway. Although seemingly outside of the tunnel system, high walls and structures above kept the area nearly as dark as the underground had been. She followed the alley to a more open area and looked around.

There were graffiti-covered walls, broken glass and barrels in the street, along with a few discarded pieces of construction equipment. This looked like some kind of work yard. The buildings were all made of cement or concrete blocks, painted in faded primary colors with a few wooden doors. They were mostly single story, with a few two-story buildings in the mix, and they seemed to huddle behind a wall of chain link fence that ran around the perimeter.

She was forced to pause again when she saw several more of the pale humans standing and sitting around in grungy clothes, some clutching bottles. They gave her wary glances but didn’t seem outright hostile. Stepping carefully around litter on the ground, she approached one who was engaged in burning trash, tossing items one-by-one into a metal barrel and prodding with a stick as they were consumed by the flames. He glanced up from his work, noticed her, but avoided meeting her gaze.

When it became clear that he would not speak first, she said, “Pardon me, but could you direct me to a library?”

He gave her a startled and puzzled look for an instant, but then turned to the fire again and shook his head. She noticed his face had become even more pale, and he was shaking a bit.

She softened her voice and said, “I’m sorry to have troubled you,” and she turned away. She took a few steps, and glanced back over her shoulder. The man glanced at her, and seemed for an instant as if he were about to speak, but then caution won out, and he turned to tend his fire again.

The gate leading out of the yard was wide open, so she wandered into the street. As she wandered she found that she was, indeed, in an inhabited part of this strange city. There were shops and dwellings, most of which seemed improvised from whatever building material could be scrounged up, most commonly rough lumber frames covered by corrugated metal. The inhabitants were of varied recognizable species, with humans and donkeys prevalent. All of them kept their distance.

She was the subject of curiosity, though circumspect in most cases. Many glanced furtively, then averted their gaze and took the first opportunity to slip away, into a doorway or around a corner. This behavior she was, unfortunately, familiar with. Even though presenting as a supposed pegasus, with her horn hidden, her size and appearance was intimidating.

The tension was broken by some cheers. The excited whoops and whinnies came from three ponies on a street corner who were most definitely looking her way. At least she thought they were ponies. One was orange with shocking magenta hair, one was green and had what appears to be a hat that doubled as a lava lamp, and the third was deep blue, short and stocky, eyes concealed behind dark shades. Their cheers jumbled together in her ears, unintelligible right up until they faded, and the blue pony ended with, "That'sa wicked Jefa!"

She stopped. "Excuse me?"

The scrawny orange one said, "Y-y-yooz on the Nevathink, Jefa! Yooz all overt! Swoop-a-loopin on da chop-chop-chopperoids."

The stocky blue one added, "I ain't nevah seen no punk wit them moves, Jefa."

The green one agreed. "Word! Jefa was all ricochet 'nd jumpadelic."

Orange said, "Oh, she's prodigiously acrobatastic!"

Blue said, "Word! Word! And that fuzzbox unloaded on her. But then like when Jefa went all rodeo on 'em… She was all like, eat hoof, crugger! Whack!"

The orange, fidgeting with excitement, added, "An-an-an then that skycar was like, schwoo, BOOM! And Jefa waz already gone!"

The overgrown black pony tried to keep her face neutral, but inwardly she was struck with dismay. Had she been gone for so long, locked in stone, that the whole language and way of speaking changed? How was she even going to communicate? She'd picked up enough words from their jabber to have some idea what they were talking about, though. She said, "You saw all of that?"

The blue one replied, "Yo, we done scanned you on the Nevathink." He pointed a hoof upward.

She followed with her gaze, and was dumbfounded. Mounted on the walls looming above them were what looked like signs, billboards maybe, but some of them glowed unnaturally with moving images. The scenes were chaotic, lacking context, captions or narration.

She saw a crowd of ponies standing on the pier in front of a sailing ship at night, milling aimlessly for several seconds, before the scene changed.

She saw a close-up of some plate piled with food, while multiple human hands holding chopsticks picked morsels from it.

She saw a shaky image of giant robotic beetles marching down a grubby street, while onlookers fearfully moved aside and cleared out of the area.

She saw a narrow view out of the window of some moving vehicle, while it passed a long row of other vehicles on a roadway.

She saw herself in flight, flipping and weaving through a group of robotic gremlins. This brought more cheers from the ponies around her. They pointed their hooves at the signs and laughed. One said, "You's on the Nevathink, Jefa! You got a fan club!"

"You folks like to watch me?" she asked.

The orange one said, "Oh we more than like it! Youz awesome Jefa! Yooz all flyin' an dart'n' an evadin' tha law."

Blue added, "Yeah yeah yeah! Yooz superfast an fearless!"

Green finished up with, "Yooz famous, Jefa! Yooz a sens-sens-sensation!"

She looked around. The corner was next to a sort of yard with a corrugated tin roof overhead, and improvised benches and tables, some populated by various beings. "Where am I?" she wondered.

The orange pony said, "Jefa, you's in the gutter level of the central hub, sector D."

The blue one added, "Yeah, Jefa. In the most crowdedest…"

Orange: "Stinkiest…"

Green: "Most Miserablist…"

Blue: "Residential-industrial spaceport on Earth."

"Space? Port?" she muttered. The words didn't make any sense. She shook her head. "Who is in charge? Who is the leader? I need to see them."

All three ponies burst out laughing. She waited for their mirth to subside, then the blue one said, "Jefa, you don't see Sceleste. And if you's lucky, Sceleste don't see you." He pointed again, this time away from the Nevathink. There were posters, grungy and peeling to various degrees. She gasped and reflexively raised a forehoof. The biggest poster had a crude, stylized but unmistakable portrait of Princess Celestia, royal peytral and tiara included. The artist had captured a stern expression, glaring down at the world as one whose patience is being sorely tested. At the base of the poster was one word: OBEY.

There was only one possible response to that: "Buck my life."

"What you say, Jefa?"

She took a deep breath and asked, "How long? How long has Celestia ruled?"

The three glanced at one another and exchanged shrugs. The orange one said, "Dunno, Jefa. For evah. Thass just how it's always been." He gave her a sideways glance. "What yooz lookin' for, anyways?"

"I'm looking for a library," she said.

"A say what now?" the orange one asked.

"uhh. . . A library. A place where a lot of books are kept? And ponies can come in and read them, or borrow them, you know?"

The ponies all looked at one another and shook their heads in puzzlement. She sighed, "Okay, thanks anyways." She started to turn away. But before she could take her first step, the green one grabbed her shoulder and said, "Wait up! Hold yer horses!"

"What?" She asked, looking back.

"Why's you so down-in-the-mouth?" Green asked. "Yooz need some liquid propulsion."He then gestured to a nearby tavern where several ponies were drinking and laughing. "That place looks ripe an' ready. Come on Jefa, let's go."

Iggy's Army

As the pony followed her new acquaintances into the bar, the assault on her senses was immediate and overpowering. A thumping resonated through the whole place, along with something that might possibly, loosely, be described as “music”. Holographic adverts flickered in the air, flaunting everything from futuristic gadgets to intergalactic delicacies. Creatures like she’d never seen before chattered in foreign dialects, which would in any case have been incomprehensible underneath the throbbing beat.

A quartet of creatures with luminous, segmented bodies haggled over what appeared to be an exchange of shimmering data crystals. Nearby, a cluster of varicolored and vaguely weasel-like beings, with insectile antennae sprouting from their heads, chirped and chittered while bouncing around one another in a sort of frantic dance.

The air was pungent with unfamiliar spices and the tang of synthetically aged beverages. The relentless thumping and the chatter of the crowd made it nearly impossible to think.

The pony was jostled from behind and stumbled, knocking into a high-top table and dislodging a drink. The liquid, glowing with an internal light, spilled and diffused across the surface. She turned to find a cluster of hulking, bipedal figures with gray skin like cracked leather and menacing metallic claws, their yellow eyes predatory and fixed on her.
"Blundering pony!" the largest of them rumbled, his voice gravelly and slurred.

"I—I'm truly sorry, I didn't see..." she tried.

"You think you can trample on Skarrans?" another interjected, stepping forward until his breath could be felt on the pony's face. A whiff of something sharp and metallic danced in the air between them.

Instinctively she tensed, preparing to summon the familiar comfort of her magic bubble. But the realization crashed over her that any spell cast would break her disguise and reveal her to everyone as an alicorn, and she wasn't ready for that.

Another scoffed, “These weak and stupid natives don’t even know what a Skarran is. But we can teach this one a lesson.” He scraped his metal claws together, the sound penetrating through the din of the room like fingernails on a blackboard.

The pony glanced around, searching for an escape path, but found herself boxed in. The other ponies who’d come in with her had already made themselves scarce. A pounding in her chest grew.

The creature in front lunged with a deceivingly graceful speed for his bulk, his claws aiming for her neck. She twisted out of reach, and, with the momentum of her evasion, she bucked and drove her rear hooves into his midsection. The impact resounded with a hollow thud, reverberating through the dense air and hurled the Skarran back against the bar.

Stirred into a frenzy, his companions roared and descended upon her. The pony’s eyes darted, anticipating blows, dodging. She tossed her head, catching one foe by surprise as she flipped him with her still-invisible horn. She hissed at the sharp pain of a cut from Skarran claws, but spun the alien with an off-center kick.

The pony was no pushover, but she was outnumbered and considered dropping the disguise and using her magic. That could end this fight quickly, but might raise an entirely new set of problems.

A raspy shriek was heard, very unlike the roars of the Skarrans, and a golden brown form appeared, as if out of nowhere from the pony’s perspective, and tore into one of the aliens with a sharp beak and her own talons. A griffin!

Now the pony and griffin fought side-by-side, and the aliens suddenly realized they’d bitten off more than they could chew. In what felt like mere moments, the dust settled from the brief yet intense skirmish. The antagonists beat a hasty retreat, their departure marked by a scatter of half-hearted threats and grumbled insults that did little to hide their humiliation.

The griffin turned to the pony, her eyes searching. "You alright?" she inquired, her tone suggesting both concern and a hint of respect for the pony's coolness under pressure.

The pony glanced at her injury, but although bleeding a little it seemed minor. "Yes, thank you," she nodded, acutely aware of her vulnerability had the griffin not intervened.

The griffin's keen eyes swept the room, her stature and reputation returning her to a sentinel's solitude. "Stick close. In this pit, you never know what's next."

The pony followed her new acquaintance to a quieter corner of the establishment, her mind racing with the close call and the realization that in this world, friends might be as crucial to survival as any magic she possessed.

They settled down in a booth, and the fierce griffin started conversation, saying, "You were looking kinda lost there, mare. Lucky for you I joined in, eh? I'm Heftig, by the way."

"Nice meeting you, Heftig. That's funny, I thought all griffins had names starting with a G?"

"Uh, no. Where did you get that idea? And what's your name? I bet it's some sappy pony name like Strawberry Sprinkles."

"It is not!" The pony then froze for a moment while Heftig looked expectantly. Despite all the effort she'd put into making her horn invisible, she hadn't thought of an alias. She didn't know if anyone would even remember her in this time—aside from Celestia, but that would be bad enough. Her mental gears spun. She was disguised as a pegasus. She needed a pegasus name. Lots of pegasus ponies had weather-related names. She blurted, "Cloud! I'm Cloud."

Heftig raised a skeptical brow and her eagle eye wandered to the pony's dark flank. "Cloud? As in, Black Cloud?"

"No! Haha, what? That would be silly. Uhh…" The mental gears whirred again. Pegasus ponies had the most martial history of the three tribes, and a lot of them had action names. "Strife!" she blurted. "That's me. Cloud Strife." She took a deep breath and silently congratulated herself for inventing a perfectly generic pegasus name on the spot.

Heftig raised her other eyebrow. "Well… Cloud Strife—if that is your real name, it don't matter to me nohow—I saw you on the Neverthink. That kinda spank we don't see too much of around here. If you're interested, my crew could use someone with your moves. So, I wonder what brings you to the city? Lookin' for something? Or someone?"

Cloud's eyes widened slightly at Heftig's offer. She hesitated, considering how to respond without revealing too much about her situation. "I, uh... I've been away for a very long time. This world is almost unrecognizable to me. I'm trying to understand what's happened, who's in charge now."

Heftig leaned back, her expression hardening. "Well, you're in the wrong place to get any straight answers, that's for sure. This whole stinking city is a cesspit run by gangs and crooks." She jerked her head towards the shadowy figures lurking around the bar. "There's a gang called the Iron Syndicate, they basically own the Gutter Level and squeeze protection money out of anyone trying to make an honest living down here."

Cloud frowned, her brow furrowing. "But surely there must be some proper authorities? A government, or..." She trailed off, seeing the sardonic look on the griffin's face.

"Listen, Cloud Strife..." Heftig leaned in closer, her voice lowering conspiratorially. "There's nobody coming to save us down here. The only 'authority' are the Commissars, and they're in on the Syndicate's rackets. We fend for ourselves or get ground under the Syndicate's heel."

She settled back, a fierce glint in her eye. "But me and my crew, we're not just gonna roll over. We call ourselves Iggy's Army, and we've been pushing back against the Syndicate's control of the Gutters. Guerilla hits on their operations, freeing folks from their protection rackets, that sort of thing."

Cloud was quiet for a moment, digesting this grim situation. While she'd been unconscious, turned to stone, the entire world had crumbled into a dystopian nightmare. The thought of the friendly, pastoral ponies she knew being forced into this harsh existence made her heart ache.

"I..." She looked up at Heftig, conviction burning in her eyes. "I want to help. If you'll have me, I'll join your army. I have... abilities that could be useful against these Iron Syndicate brutes."

Heftig gave a slow nod of approval. "Alright then. Let's go meet the rest of the crew, and you can show us what you've got." She slid out of the booth and started towards the exit, Cloud falling in beside her. "Welcome to the resistance, Cloud Strife."

As Heftig led Cloud through the squalid streets, relief washed over her. Finally, here was someone who seemed to understand the gravity of the situation and was willing to help. The griffin's strength and determination were evident in every step, and Cloud found herself drawn to her newfound ally.

They arrived at a nondescript doorway hidden between two towering buildings. Heftig pushed it open, revealing a dimly lit bar filled with an eclectic mix of creatures. The air was thick with the smell of stale alcohol and something sweet that Cloud couldn't identify, but there was an underlying current of camaraderie that the pony felt drawn to. Heftig said, "Aliens don't come here, or any of the grifters that leech off them."

Heftig made her way through the crowd, nodding and greeting various patrons along the way. She guided Cloud to a back room that was, apparently, reserved for her crew, several of whom were already hanging out. "Guys, this is Cloud. She's new to the area and could use a place to stay," Heftig introduced her.

The group looked up, their faces a mix of curiosity and wariness. "Woah!" one exclaimed, peering up at her looming form, twice the size of a typical pony mare. "That must be the absolute unit of a pegasus." The speaker was himself a slate-gray pegasus with a pair of goggles hanging from his neck. He wilted under the gaze of her draconic eyes. "uhh… Mean to say, glad you're gonna be on our side. I'm Nitro Peak."

"Glad to meet you, Nitro." She forced a smile, held out a hoof, and he hoof-bumped it in return. She'd learned these little gestures to help put ponies more at ease.

She took a seat, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders. These creatures may not have been her friends from the past, but they were all she had now. As they introduced themselves, she got the impression that they were all outcasts in their own right.

There was a unicorn, Topaz Gemini, sporting a white pelt and an electric-blue mane looking slightly frazzled with a white streak through it. The sigil on her hip resembled an overly complicated light bulb, which only puzzled Cloud, but she didn't get a chance to ask. When introduced she barely mumbled a response.

"And over there's Handy Walter," Heftig indicated with a talon. "Whatever's broke, he can fix it."

Cloud's gaze followed the gesture to a human wearing mechanic coveralls marked with some stains and patches, and a belt loaded with tools and wires. He lifted a mug in salute and said, "I do what I can. In a world that's constantly on the fritz, somebody's got to be the wrench. Might as well be me, right?"

Heftig gestured to the donkey sitting across from Cloud. He shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. "This is Flicker," Heftig said. "He's got a real knack for disguise. Comes in handy when we need to sneak around unnoticed."

Flicker gave a nod of acknowledgment, eyes meeting Cloud's gaze with hazel eyes of slightly mismatched hues. "Hi," he said.

Something struck a chord in Cloud's memory. She studied Flicker intently, taking in his nondescript gray-brown coat and mane. He certainly looked like any other average donkey. Knack for disguise, though? She made an intuitive leap.

"You're a changeling, aren't you?" Cloud said suddenly.

Flicker's eyes widened in surprise, and the rest of the group stared at Cloud in disbelief. "What… How did you know?" Flicker asked, releasing a burst of cold, green flames as he morphed into his true form—jet black with sharp fangs, a curved horn and insectile wings. His featureless changeling eyes were still mismatched, though, one pure blue and the other skewing green.

"I once had a changeling friend named Flitter," Cloud explained with a wistful smile. "When I heard your name, I took a guess." She shrugged.

Flicker looked thoughtful. "I didn't think anyone could see through my disguise that easily. Especially not a pony."

Heftig let out an impressed chuckle. "Well, it seems our new friend here is more perceptive than we realized. Don't underestimate this one." Then she leaned toward Cloud and told her, in a serious tone, "Flicker here is one of the best advantages we've got. But this is one secret we have to keep, you understand? Changelings are rare, and folks get all paranoid if they think one's around. You dig my rap?"

"I understand," Cloud agreed. "It was the same way where I came from. Just before I was, um, born, there was an attempted changeling invasion. When I was a little filly, I remember the fear, and the magic emerald lanterns everywhere that would shine through a changeling's disguise. After I got to know Flitter, I hoped things would get better for them, but…" She shrugged helplessly.

Heftig nodded and leaned back, satisfied. The initial alarm faded from the others' faces. If Heftig trusted this newcomer, that was enough for them.

"So, this is the gang, the regulars at least. We've got a few more members who drift in and out. This is Iggy's Army." Heftig continued, her piercing amber eyes meeting Cloud's.

"Iggy?" Cloud wondered.

"Yeah, Insane Iggy ain't with us no more, but we'll never forget him. He brought this little crew together. Ever since he fell in battle, I've tried my best to uphold his dreams." Heftig's piercing amber eyes met Cloud's dragon-like, aqua-blue eyes as she continued, "We're always looking for those with unique skills to join our cause. With the Iron Syndicate's grip tightening more every day, squeezing the people down here, we need all the help we can get. What do you say?"

Cloud considered. This ragtag group was her only lifeline in this strange new world. And helping others had always been her purpose. "I'm in," she said firmly. "Whatever you need, I'll do my best."

The others grinned and patted Cloud on the back, welcoming her into their fold. For the first time since awakening, Cloud felt a spark of hope. With new allies by her side, perhaps she could find her purpose here after all.

As the night wore on, Cloud found herself drawn to Heftig. There was something about the griffin's determination and strength that she admired. "So, Cloud," Heftig said, leaning in close. "What brings you to our little corner of the world?"

Cloud took a deep breath, hesitating for a moment before answering. She was tempted to tell Hefting everything. Heaven knew how much she wanted to talk with someone about her crazy situation. A thought held her back, though. Celestia didn't know about her, didn't know she was alive. Secrets that get out can't be pulled back. She decided to tell Heftig a carefully filtered version:

"I was caught up in some powerful magic, and I was locked in stone for a long time, I don't know how long. Maybe a thousand years," she said finally. "When I woke up, everything was different, and everyone and everything I knew was gone. I don't belong here, and I don't know how to get back to where I came from."

Heftig's beak hung open for a moment. Then she said, "For real? That's nuts!"

"I'll say," Nitro chimed in. "How did you even get turned to stone? I heard the Empress can do that."

Cloud lowered her head and said, "I'd rather not talk about that. It's all pretty raw to me, you know?"

Heftig nodded, understanding the weight of her words. "We all feel that way sometimes, Cloud. But maybe this world isn't so bad after all. We can make it better, together."

Heftig's talons clacked against the metal floor as she led Cloud through the labyrinthine passages of their converted warehouse. Pipes snaked along the walls, whispering secrets of water long since diverted. Dim lights hung from the ceiling, casting pools of light that seemed to dance away from the darkness.

"This way," Heftig said, her voice low but clear. She swept a wing towards a large door that slid open with a groan of protest.

Cloud entered behind her, eyes wide with curiosity. Inside, the vast space had been carved into zones by partitions and curtains. At one end, mats lay scattered across the floor where two griffins sparred, feathers ruffled in concentration. Their talons clinked in a rhythm of combat.

Nearby, a makeshift target range stood against one wall, pocked with the evidence of diligent practice using various projectiles and spells. "You'll need to be ready for anything," Heftig explained, watching Cloud take it all in. "Combat training is every morning. Accuracy drills follow."

Cloud nodded, absorbing the scene. Her eyes lingered on a unicorn concentrating on a target, horn aglow with focused energy. She recognized a kinship in the magical discipline required for such tasks.

Past the training areas, Heftig showed Cloud to where makeshift living quarters had been established. Bunks stacked three high occupied one corner, each offering minimal privacy with curtains drawn tight. "Rest is important," Heftig stated simply, gesturing towards the bunks. "You'll find yours there when you need it."

The tour continued through a communal kitchen where the aroma of cooking food brought comfort and familiarity. A group of various species sat together at a long table cobbled together from scavenged materials. "Food might not be fancy," Heftig said over her shoulder as they passed by, "but we make sure everyone gets their share."

Cloud glanced at the group, noticing an undercurrent of camaraderie despite the frugality of their surroundings. It was a stark contrast to the world outside where every individual seemed pitted against another for survival.

Heftig paused before an area cordoned off with heavy curtains and glanced back at Cloud. "Here's where we plan our missions," she murmured before pulling back the fabric.

Inside was a hub of activity; maps sprawled across tables and screens displayed various data points. Several individuals huddled discussing strategies with quiet intensity. "Operations are coordinated here," Heftig continued as they walked among the planners. "Information is power in this city."

Cloud noticed a screen flickering with images of Sceleste's statues and propaganda posters—reminders of who they fought against and why.

As they exited operations, Heftig pointed out other essentials: storage rooms filled with scavenged tech and supplies; workshops where tinkerers conjured up gadgets and gizmos out of scraps; and a small infirmary where healers tended to those who bore scars from their skirmishes against tyranny.

Heftig stopped before a door that looked sturdier than most. "This is my place," she said as she pushed it open to reveal an office that doubled as her quarters. The room was simple but organized; shelves held books and scrolls next to neatly stacked reports and documents. Her desk was covered in papers but lacked chaos—each stack purposeful.

"Leadership has its burdens," Heftig spoke softly as Cloud surveyed her sanctuary within this den of resistance. "Decisions weigh heavy here."

They left her office, and Heftig closed the door behind them with a resolute click. The tour neared its end as they walked back through the main hall toward where they had begun.

"And this," Heftig gestured grandly towards an open area that looked recently cleared out, "will be your training ground."

Cloud blinked in surprise as she took in what would become her personal space for honing her abilities.

"You've got much to learn about this world," Heftig continued firmly but not unkindly. Have you ever fought gnolls before?"

The pony frowned. "Not really. When I was little there was a clan of them not too far from my home, that called themselves the Diamond Dogs. They mostly stuck to themselves."

Heftig nodded and explained, "A lot of the Iron Syndicate's regular thugs what make the daily rounds and run the rackets are gnolls. Sometimes there's a minotaur to supervise them. All bipeds, which means they can use any kind of weapon pretty easily. Lucky for us they're not too bright, and they don't much like any tools more complicated than a blackjack or a Luger."

The griffin eyed Cloud speculatively. "I assume you're trained in pegasus combat. Most ponies are such little things, it's something else to stand by your side and have to look up at you. You look like a pluckin' war horse. Can't wait to see you in training."

"Ah aheh, sure. Pegasus warrior, that's me." Inwardly Cloud wondered how she'd manage in a fight without the spell-casting that she normally relied upon.

"Okay then, you can start with the crew at dawn."

The weight of what lay ahead settled on Cloud like dew on morning grass—cold but necessary for growth. She watched Heftig's face soften slightly as if sensing her thoughts.

"You're not alone here," Heftig reassured her before turning away to attend to another matter calling for her attention.

Cloud stood alone amidst the shadows and echoes of what once was just an empty warehouse but now served as home base for those daring enough to defy Sceleste's iron rule. Here was hope cobbled together by sheer willpower—fragile yet unyielding in its determination to survive another day.

Topaz's hooves clicked against the metal floor as she made her way down the dimly lit corridor until she slipped through a side door into a small, cluttered workshop. "You're late," came a raspy voice from the shadows. Topaz's ears flicked towards the sound as she picked her way carefully between piles of scrap metal and circuit boards. In the back corner, a lean changeling lounged next to a gutted old computer console, while Walter was rewiring the console's innards.

"Sorry, Flicker," Topaz replied, moving to stand beside him. "I had to review the internal security system."

Flicker's wings buzzed testily. "Not sure why we bother with that. It's topside you've got to watch for the Commissars. This about our new guest?"

Topaz nodded. "I don't trust her. She's such a giant. And that black coat, those strange eyes… That ain't no normal pony. She could be a Commissar. No, scratch that, the Commissars don't have anyone like that. She's some kind of freaky Edgelord."

Flicker made a derisive clicking sound. "No, they don't have anything like her, and I didn't get that feeling. Commissars always set my elytra itching." His tone softened slightly as he added, "Still, can't say I'm comfortable with her being here either. We know next to nothing about who or what she is."

"I think she seems nice," Walter commented without looking up from the electrical work he was absorbed in. "Didn't you see how curious she was about everything? Like it was all new to her."

Topaz scowled. "That's exactly why we can't trust her. A real resident of the lower levels would know their way around. She's an outsider."

"Maybe she has amnesia?" Flicker offered hopefully. "Got zapped by the Cube or something?"

Walter clucked his tongue. "You've been watching too many dramas, kid. The Death Cube doesn't cause amnesia, it causes ashes." He turned his attention back to the computer. "No, there's something more going on with our mysterious guest. The question is what."

Topaz reached with a hoof to nudge the changeling's shoulder. "Can't you read her mind or something?"

"I can sense emotions, not thoughts. For whatever its worth, I'm not getting any sort of Edgelord vibe from her. No matter how much she looks like one."

Topaz's ears flattened as she voiced her darkest fear. "Maybe she can hide her real feelings. What if the Empress made her? What if she's a monster meant to destroy us from within?"

Flicker's eyes widened. "You really think she could be a demon?"

"It's possible," Topaz insisted. "Dark magic is the only explanation for her unnatural appearance. We all felt that powerful aura around her."

Flicker blinked. "Uhh. Did we now?"

Walter made a noncommittal grunt. "I'll admit she seems... unique. But a demon? That's a bit much."

"Is it though?" Topaz began to pace. "We know the Empress has access to ancient magical forces beyond our understanding. What's to stop her from conjuring up a hellbeast to infiltrate and annihilate us?"

Flicker shivered. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that, Topaz. She seemed okay to me. And besides, we're a bunch of nobodies. To the Empress we're not even worth the trouble of stepping on."

Walter abruptly closed the computer panel with a sharp snap. "Enough speculation. We'll keep an eye on her, but Heftig trusts her for now, so we should too." He glanced sidelong at Topaz. "Still, discretion is wise. The less she knows, the better."

Topaz nodded reluctantly. "You're right, of course. I just hope Heftig knows what she's doing with this one." Her eyes narrowed. "And if our 'guest' proves to be more than she seems, I'll be ready."

Walter rose with a groan, joints creaking. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that. We've got enough trouble topside without bringing more down here." He gestured to the door. "Back to work, both of you. We'll watch and wait."

Flicker and Topaz headed for the exit, minds churning uneasily over the true nature of their peculiar new ally—and what it might mean for the future of their gang.

Cloud settled into a routine with the rebels of Iggy's Army over the next few days. Though she was still wary of many of the strange technologies and customs of this unfamiliar world, the camaraderie and sense of purpose she felt among the ragtag group was comforting.

Each morning she rose with the others in the drafty sleeping quarters, yawning as she shuffled past makeshift bunks cobbled together from scrap metal and torn mattresses. Breakfast was a humble affair, usually some form of protein kibble and synthetic caffeine rationed out to fuel them for morning training.

The sessions were grueling, even for Cloud's deceptively powerful physique. Under Heftig's stern guidance, the recruits dueled with weapons crafted from pipes, springs and other salvaged parts. Cloud practiced fighting in the pegasus style, with powerful strikes of wings and hooves, as well as using wing blades and lance. Despite her size and large, powerful wings, these were not well-developed skills for her. In the guise of a pegasus she couldn't demonstrate her spell-casting abilities. In addition, Cloud had to go easy on her injured wing, which was healing but still not feeling back to 100%.

She winced as she fumbled with the unwieldy polearm she had been issued, its handle bound to her body with a crude harness. Across from her, now magically transformed into a griffin (though still with mismatched eyes, Cloud noticed), Flicker effortlessly wielded a similar pike with his avian claws, the blades on each end slicing dangerously close to Cloud's legs.

"Eyes up high, rookie!" the griffin shouted, before sweeping Cloud's hooves out from under her with a swift crack of his weapon. She landed hard on her back with a whuff of air, polearm clattering to the floor.

"You fight like you've never held a real weapon before," Flicker commented, offering a clawed hand to help her up.

Cloud grimaced, rubbing at a growing bruise on her side. She'd fought her share of battles, but explaining would raise too many questions about her past. "I'm just rusty," she demurred. More training would help her adapt to this new form of combat. With time and practice, surely she could master these unusual arms.

The afternoons were devoted to learning about the technology that now permeated every aspect of society. Heftig's second-in-command, Topaz, led these lessons. To Cloud, each strange device and glowing screen was like something out of a dime novel or comic book.

She struggled through basic training on the clunky datapads they all wore, usually strapped to an arm. The unit could project images and data, track locations, communicate instantly over vast distances, and even administer first aid through small robotic appendages. Yet despite Topaz's patient guidance, Cloud found herself staring blankly as the other recruits effortlessly navigated through menus and functions.

"Is the operating system not adapting correctly to your species?" Topaz inquired. "I know it's awkward for ponies without hands or a horn, but the pad should respond to voice commands. You don't always have to rely on the stylus in your mouth."

"Oh, um, yes… that must be it," Cloud mumbled around the plastic stylus. It would have been so much easier if her present disguise didn't prevent her from using magic to manipulate the stylus, just as Topaz did. And yet, she had never seen anything remotely like these advanced gadgets. Their inner workings were as mysterious to her as the most powerful unicorn magics.

By evening, Cloud was exhausted. She picked half-heartedly at dinner, some form of processed algae cakes, too tired to muster her usual appetite. The others chatted and laughed around her, but their discussions of sports teams, the neverthink feed, and something called "memez" washed over her without comprehension.

At times, homesickness threatened to overwhelm her. She lay awake long into the night, listening to the sounds of the city outside, so unlike the woods and meadows around her old home. Everything here was harsh and unfamiliar, keeping her nerves unsettled.

Yet, when she rose the next day and saw Heftig beaming with pride in the middle of training, or Topaz patiently demonstrating how to reset the datapad for the dozenth time, or Nitro including her in the dinner conversations with a wink and a grin, she felt the faintest spark of belonging.

Nitro leaned against the wall, upright with arms crossed as he watched Cloud practice swinging the length of pipe back and forth. She considered it a ridiculous and probably useless weapon, at least when used this way. With her magic she could have turned it into a devastating projectile. With a sigh, she let the pipe drop to the floor. "I don't know if I'll ever get the hang of this," she said.

Nitro pushed off from the wall and walked over. "You're doing fine. It just takes time to get used to something so different."

He picked up the pipe and gave it a few casual twirls, rearing and using his forelegs and wings masterfully. The smooth, practiced motions highlighted just how inept Cloud still was by comparison.

"Maybe for you it's easy," Cloud said. "But I wasn't built to fight like this."

"None of us were." Nitro set the pipe back down with a hollow clang that echoed through the empty warehouse. "We've all had to learn the hard way."

Cloud studied the young pony standing across from her. Beneath his laid back demeanor, she sensed a deep well of anger and pain. She wondered what he had been through to end up here, an outcast rebel in this strange future world. "What's your story, Nitro?" she asked gently. "If you don't mind sharing, I'd like to know how you joined up with Iggy's Army."

Nitro tensed, old wounds rising to the surface. For a moment Cloud thought he might refuse to answer. But then he turned and slid down the wall into a sitting position. Cloud joined him there on the cold concrete floor.

"I grew up in the Warrens," Nitro began, naming the poorest district in the city. "My parents both worked themselves to the bone trying to scrape together enough kopins to keep food on the table. The Upper City fat cats made sure wages down here stayed gutted while prices kept rising."

He kicked idly, scuffing the floor. "We were too poor to get me a proper education or train me for a licensed trade. My only option was to start running with the local gangs doing odd jobs when I was still just a kid. Nothing major at first—keeping watch, delivering messages, that kind of thing."

Cloud listened intently, trying to imagine the hardships this young stallion had endured. Her heart ached for the innocent child he had once been.

"Eventually I worked my way up the ranks a bit," Nitro continued. "The jobs got bigger and more dangerous. Robberies, beatings, even an assassination. All for a handful of kopins tossed my way by the Iron Syndicate." The anger in his voice then was palpable. Cloud remained quiet, letting him vent his frustrations.

"The worst was when they started having me plant bombs to 'send messages' or create distractions. I must've blown up half a dozen buildings around here." He shook his head, disgusted with himself.

"I finally snapped one day when my target was a little bakery in the Warrens. My own neighbors. For the first time, I refused to follow orders. Told the Syndicate captain he could stick his bomb up his…"

Nitro trailed off, then shrugged. "Well, you can imagine how he took that. I barely escaped with my life. Went into hiding down here in the tunnels and sewers. Eventually I crossed paths with Iggy and his crew and saw a chance to use my skills for something meaningful."

He turned to Cloud then, his expression earnest. "So I get why you hate it here. This whole city—the Gutter Level especially—it grinds people down into nothing. But we can't give up. Together we can make it better."

Cloud nodded slowly. She certainly understood his motivations more clearly now. But one thing still puzzled her. "Why does nobody seem concerned about Sceleste?" she asked. "Her empire caused all this suffering in the first place."

Nitro stiffened, suddenly wary. "What does she have to do with any of this? If she knew what things are like down here, she'd put a stop to it. She's got a whole world to run, you know? She can't be everywhere. It's the Syndicates and their Council lapdogs that keep us down here struggling day to day."

Cloud frowned but said nothing more. She wished she had a changeling's emotional sense and could tell how Nitro really felt, but it was obvious she wasn't going to get anywhere by grilling him about Celestia.

Cloud sighed as she stared at the pile of rusty pipe segments and scrap metal filling the corner of the warehouse. When Heftig had asked her to sort through the junk and separate out anything useful for weapons or armor, it had seemed like a simple enough task. But now, surveying the haphazard mound, she felt overwhelmed.

With another sigh, Cloud resigned herself to the chore and stepped up to the pile. She glanced around furtively, reassuring herself that she was alone. Then she allowed her illusion spell to drop, revealing her spiraled horn. Flexing her neck muscles, she concentrated on grasping several pieces of metal at once with her telekinesis. The pipes and sheets of metal trembled, then began slowly rising into the air as Cloud's magic took hold.

Guiding the floating metal objects with care, Cloud neatly sorted them into bins along the wall labeled "Weapons," "Armor," and "Scrap." Levitating this many heavy objects would have been a tough challenge to the average unicorn, but her magical strength was exceptional. The task went much quicker than if she had been forced to physically haul each segment by hoof and mouth, as if she'd even been willing to get her mouth near the grungy junk.

Within a few minutes, Cloud had cleared over half the junk pile. As she was carefully lowering another bundle of pipes into the weapons bin, a faint skittering sound caught her attention. Her ears swiveled, homing in on the noise. Mice most likely, she thought. This old warehouse seemed to have no shortage of them.

With the last pipe deposited, Cloud resumed her work. Her earlier wariness about revealing her magic had faded. This corner of the rebel base seemed deserted at this hour, and she finally felt comfortable embracing her true abilities. As she swiftly sorted metal with her telekinesis, Cloud allowed her thoughts to wander. She felt a pang of homesickness for Equestria, the land she had known so long ago. How she missed her friends, her brother and her mother...

Cloud was so lost in reminiscence that she didn't hear the approaching steps until the last second. With a startled whinny, she dropped the metal she had been levitating, throwing up her illusion spell just as Heftig trotted into view.

"Whoa there!" Heftig said, hopping back as a shower of bolts and washers rained down. "Steady on, Cloud!"

"S-sorry!" Cloud stammered, cursing herself for letting her guard down. If Heftig had come in a few seconds sooner... "You startled me."

Heftig chuckled. "No harm done. Just thought I'd check and see how you were getting on." She surveyed the piles of sorted material. "Hey, not bad! You've made a good dent in this mess already."

Cloud managed a weak smile. "Yeah, I've been working at it. How's everything else going?"

"Oh, same old," Heftig replied with a flap of her wings. "Flicker and Topaz are still bickering over the duty roster. And I think Nitro blew himself up again... just a little."

As Heftig rambled on, Cloud tried to act casual, hoping desperately that her secret was still safe. After a few more minutes of idle chatter, Heftig left her to finish the chore. Cloud waited some moments before finally allowing herself to breathe easy. That had been close. Too close. She would have to be more careful from now on.

With slightly trembling hooves, Cloud returned to sifting junk. She no longer dared risk further use of magic. The pile of scrap seemed to have doubled in size now that she was reduced to slowly picking through it piece by piece. After an hour of mind-numbing work, she decided to take a short break.

Cloud left the warehouse floor and headed down a dingy hallway to the small bathroom shared by all the rebels. After splashing some rusty water on her face, she stared critically at her reflection in the spotted mirror. Her coat was dull and dust-covered, her mane disheveled. With a small surge of magic, she tidied herself up, smoothing her mane back into place. She'd gotten pretty good at dropping the invisibility spell from her horn and then quickly re-casting it.

Refreshed, Cloud headed back toward the warehouse. But as she passed by the door to Topaz's surveillance room, a flickering light caught her eye. Curious, she poked her head inside. The small, closet-like room was empty, the monitors glowing with scenes from around the interior of the warehouse headquarters.

Cloud paused, fascinated as always by this unfamiliar technology. It seemed like a form of scrying, but she didn't sense any magical energy whatsoever. Could clever machines really do something like this? She noted with mild alarm that one of the screens depicted the same area where she'd just been working. She reflected, it was pure luck that Topaz hadn't been here at her station watching.

Or had she? Maybe she wasn't here exactly because she'd already gone to inform others of what she'd seen. A knot of anxiety twisted in Cloud's belly, but it seemed there was nothing she could do except pray for luck—and be much more careful about her use of magic from here on out.

Elevator Ride

Cloud followed Heftig through the bustling streets while trying her best to conceal her confusion at the strange world around her. The streets were crowded with an odd mix of species—humans, donkeys, gnolls, ponies, and strange aliens she had never seen before. Towering above them were massive buildings that stretched up into the polluted sky. Strange vehicles zoomed by on elevated roads, trailing noxious fumes.

Everything was unfamiliar to Cloud, from the garish neon signs advertising products she had never heard of, to the strange languages being spoken around her. She stuck close to Heftig, not wanting to get lost.

They passed by a human aggressively hawking credit transfers. "Hey ladies, need some quick kopins? I can hook you up, no problem!" Heftig waved him off with a scowl.

Further down the street, a mixed group of donkeys and ponies were crowded around a screen displaying some kind of sport. One of them whooped and shouted "Yeah! Go team!" as the others groaned. Cloud stared, having no idea what they were watching.

Heftig led her into a shop selling used tech. Cloud tried to hide her fascination as she looked over bins of unfamiliar gadgets. She picked up a small metal rectangle studded with buttons and balanced it on a hoof as she inspected it. "What's this thing?" she asked Heftig.

Heftig chuckled. "That's an old school phone. Sorta like our datapads, but without the touch screen."

Cloud nodded, pretending she understood. She set the phone back down quickly.

They left the tech shop and Cloud followed Heftig down a narrow alley. Steam billowed up from vents in the ground and strange critters scurried away into the shadows. The alley opened up into a small market square ringed by food stalls. The smells were overwhelming to Cloud.

Heftig purchased skewers from a vendor, the scent of cooked meat heavy in the air. Greasy smoke writhed up from a sizzling grill, twisting into the murky sky. The vendor, a gruff-looking gnoll with a stained apron, presented the skewers with a curt nod.

Heftig turned and offered one to Cloud, who hesitated, her nose wrinkling at the unfamiliar and pungent aroma. "Are those chunks some kind of meat?"

"It's tunnel lice." Seeing the blank response, Heftig explained further, "Or vinegaroons. They're sort of like, uhhh… lobster-scorpion things with a long tail like a whip that sprays acid."

"Lovely," Cloud said while making a face.

"Go on, it's food," Heftig encouraged.

Cloud, not wanting to offend, gingerly accepted the skewer, sitting and clamping it firmly between her front hooves. She eyed the glistening chunks speared on the stick with suspicion—a far cry from the fresh fruits and vegetables of her agrarian past.

With a tentative nibble, Cloud's taste buds were assaulted. The skewer was smoky, savory and laced with unfamiliar seasonings. She chewed contemplatively. Then she swallowed and concluded, "I never had anything like that. Actually not bad, though."

"I know, right? For sure it beats the standard ration protein bars back at HQ." She ripped a bit of vinegaroon meat from her skewer with her beak.

They ate in companionable silence, then continued their journey. As they walked, Cloud spotted another graffiti like the one she'd seen in the tunnels, and she read it out loud: "INSANE IGGY REST IN FREEDOM. Hey, why did they call him insane?"

Heftig answered, "Humans, you know?" The only brought a blank response, so she continued, "They all have funny nicknames like that. And sometimes they get—"she tapped the side of her head with a talon—"notions. Iggy had a notion that we could all rise up against Sceleste and overthrow her." Then the griffin barked out a laugh. "Can you believe it? They don't come more crazy than that."

Cloud forced an uneasy chuckle. "Heh, wow. Yeah, that's pretty far out. I guess."

Heftig cast a sidelong glance at her companion, then shrugged and went on, "But don't get me wrong. He may have been off his gourd some ways, but he was pretty cool for a human. He had a way of pulling folk together."

They approached an intersection. Strange vehicles sped by in both directions. Heftig gave Cloud a nudge. "How's your wing feeling?"

"Uh, I guess I can make a hop with it," she answered.

"Then c'mon!" Heftig launched herself and flapped her way above the vehicles, and came to a landing on the other side of the intersection. Cloud followed without difficulty.

Heftig commented, "I know you already found out, flying without a license and a transponder is risky. The chopperoids will come right after ya. But little hops like that, we can get away with, no problemo."

Cloud nodded, wanting to ask what transponders and chopperoids were, but not really wanting to show off her ignorance.

Heftig led Cloud to a storefront with open garage bays revealing a grubby mechanic's shop within. The air was thick with the acrid scent of grease and the clanging of metal against metal. Sparks flew as one human in stained coveralls welded pieces of machinery, while others hunched over workbenches littered with tools and parts.

"Wait here a sec," Heftig said, motioning for Cloud to stay put near the entrance. The griffin sauntered over to a wiry human with a shaved head who was wiping his hands on a rag. "Hey, Genial Jeff, how's tricks?"

The man glanced up, his eyes crinkling in a smile. "Well, if it ain't Heftig. What brings you 'round these parts?"

"Oh, you know how it is," Heftig said with a shrug. "Sometimes a catbird's gotta fly the coop, spread her wings a bit."

Jeff chuckled. "I hear ya. So, what can I do ya for?"

Heftig leaned in closer, her voice lowering. "I was hopin' you might let me and my friend here take a little stroll through your back room. Maybe even let us borrow that old lift of yours."

Jeff's eyebrows raised. "The lift, huh? You're braver than me!"

"Let's just say we're lookin' to avoid the crowds, if you catch my drift."

The mechanic nodded, his expression turning serious. "I gotcha. Alright, head on back. Just make sure you don't touch nothin', yeah? I got some sensitive projects goin' on."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Heftig said with an avian grin. She waved Cloud over. "C'mon, let's get movin'."

Cloud followed Heftig through the shop, weaving between workbenches and piles of scrap metal. They passed through a door into a storeroom filled with shelves of parts and supplies. The air grew musty as they ventured further into the building, the sounds of the shop fading behind them.

They entered an area that looked like it had been abandoned for years, metal beams and panels decorated with flaking paint and rust. The space was cramped, with pipes and cables crawling along the walls. Strange creatures scurried away into the shadows as they passed. Heftig navigated the maze of rooms with ease, clearly familiar with the route. Cloud watched her hooves, trying to avoid debris and piles of grime, although her griffin companion, with much softer feet, didn't seem bothered at all.

Finally, they came to a halt in front of a rusted metal door. Heftig turned a handle with both her yellow-scaled forepaws. After a moment, the door creaked open. "Here we are," she said, stepping inside. "Our ticket to the upper levels."

Cloud hesitated for a moment before following, the door slamming shut behind her with a clang that echoed through the darkness. They had entered a small, dingy room. Piles of junk and old machinery were shoved up against the walls. At the far side of the room was an open elevator car, the kind with an iron cage around it rather than solid walls. Cloud eyed it warily. The elevator looked ancient, all exposed gears and thick cables.

"All aboard," Heftig said as she pulled open the cage door with a screech of metal. They stepped inside the rickety car. Heftig slid the door closed with a clang and pressed one of the buttons on the control panel. With a lurch, the elevator began its ascent.

After they had climbed a short distance, three walls of the elevator shaft disappeared and the cage emerged into open air, climbing up the side of the building. Cloud realized the sides of the elevator were almost completely open, with only a short railing. She approached this cautiously and peered outward. Her eyes widened.

Spread out before them was a dizzying view into the core of Spaceport City. Layers upon layers of roads and bridges crisscrossed between the buildings, disappearing into the gloomy haze. Strange vehicles zoomed. Neon lights flashed from signs and billboards. Plumes of smoke belched from pipes and vents. Faint music and voices drifted up from below.

The sights were almost too much to take in. Cloud peered down into the narrow spaces between buildings, catching glimpses of the city's gutter level—trash-filled alleys, dark doorways with shadowy figures lurking in them, exposed pipes dripping unidentifiable gunk.

Higher they climbed. Cloud's peered over the railing, downward, where people in the streets shrank to the size of ants before fading into the haze. She watched an airborne car speed past, close enough that she could have reached out and touched it from the open elevator.

The city was alien, yet enthralling. Cloud took in the scenes unfolding with fascination. Upon one of the bridges hulking, bipedal robots battled, exchanging weapons fire. Their sleek metal carapaces reflected the neon glow around them. One of the robots reared up, then transformed into some kind of high-speed cycle and scooted away.

On a towering building ahead, near one of the invisible lanes in the air where skycars streamed past, an animated advertisement played. An overly cute cartoon tiger flashed onto the screen, singing in a distorted voice that echoed eerily through the architectural canyonland as he danced and extolled the virtues of some kind of beverage called TGR FUEL. Cloud was startled when the tiger's head suddenly spun around like a top, shooting rainbow beams from its eyes.

As they ascended into the upper city, the signs and lights grew ever more numerous. A sign displayed a spherical white housing with a lens and mechanical iris in the center, and a dark gray stem trailing behind. Above this was the word VISION, and beneath was the slogan: SEE THE WORLD ANEW.

Gigantic holograms leaped between skyscrapers, accompanied by pulsing music. Cloud gawked as a pixelated alicorn galloped through the air, trailing cascades of sparks that coalesced into the words, "Experience Beyond Reality."

Other billboards were showing the chaotic, random, yet somehow fascinating clips of video that Cloud had come to recognize as the Neverthink feed. The disjointed images and sounds were like a twisted kaleidoscope into the psyche of this strange world. Faces, places, words all blurred together into an incomprehensible stream of consciousness.

Likewise there were the heavily stylized but recognizable posters of Celestia, with to-the-point captions such as OBEY and CONFORM. The alicorn's likeness gazed imperiously down upon the city streets, her visage both beautiful and terrible. It was clearly propaganda meant to intimidate the populace into submission, a constant reminder that the Empress was always watching.

Cloud's attention was drawn by movement of something huge in the distance. Peering into the gloom, she saw an enormous, black, scorpion-like creature crawling up the side of the building directly opposite them. It ascended ponderously, steadily toward some unknowable goal. Showers of glass fell each time one of its legs found a new foothold and knocked out a window.

Cloud shrank back against the elevator wall, unnerved. Just when she thought she was getting used to this bizarre world, some new wonder or horror would manifest. She glanced over at Heftig, who leaned over the railing and peered at the monster. The griffin exclaimed, "Pluck me! I had no idea tunnel lice even got that big. We could throw a barbecue for the whole gutter level with that one. Dunno how anyone would ever take it down, though."

They watched as the elevator slowly overtook the creature. Drones arrived to buzz around the giant vinegaroon. One of them fired a weapon, and the creature responded by raising and swinging its long tail. Heftig gripped the railing with her talons as she watched. "Wow!" she exclaimed. "Did you see that? There goes the acid!"

Then a loud, whining buzz approached, and Heftig suddenly shoved her pony companion downward. "Duck!" They both dropped to the floor and huddled as closely as they could behind the guard rails. Cloud risked peeking through a narrow slit between the rails. A drone hovered next to the elevator, keeping pace with it. A ruby-red light flashed out, pure, sharp and scintillating unlike anything she'd seen before. The light rapidly traced a grid pattern across the elevator, then went dark. The drone hovered for a few more seconds, then turned and flew away.

"That was a close one," Heftig said. "Pluckin' chopperoids! They're stirred up now."

At last the elevator passed the very tops of the lower buildings and continued upward. They were approaching the domain of the elite now, and the city became cleaner, more orderly. Gleaming white spires rose up around them as the elevator slowed approaching a platform near the peak of one of the tallest towers.

Heftig didn't wait for the elevator to reach the end of its track, though. She said, "We're above the no-fly zones, and this is our stop. Follow me!" Then she spread her wings and hopped over the railing and sailed into the open space, and Cloud scrambled to follow likewise.

Heftig banked and angled toward an open balcony on one of the gleaming towers. Cloud followed closely, taking in the surroundings as she flew. In contrast to the chaotic sprawl of the lower city, up here everything was pristine and orderly. The towers were smooth and white, constructed with clean lines and sweeping curves. Lush gardens filled with strange, alien foliage overflowed from rooftop planters. There were no grimy alleys or dilapidated buildings up here, just open spaces and gracefully arching walkways between the towers.

It was strange, Cloud thought. In her experience, those with wealth and power usually isolated themselves in castles or compounds, not out in the open like this. But she supposed much had changed in the ages she had slept.

They swooped lower, and Cloud could see elegantly dressed beings strolling along the walkways and through the gardens. Here ponies were dominant in numbers while other species were less represented. She stared openly at their fine clothes and jewelry as she coasted past. The inhabitants gazed back with faint curiosity but no particular alarm at the two fliers passing by.

Heftig aimed for the balcony and came in for landing with outstretched talons. She touched down lightly. Cloud followed, her hooves clopping against the smooth, white floor. This close, she could see just how pristine everything was, from the railing to the exotic potted plants that framed the balcony. Not a single scuff or speck of dirt marred the perfection.

She joined Heftig at the balcony railing and peered over. The city sprawled in all directions, towers clustering densely near the center and thinning out toward the massive circular wall she had flown over when first arriving here. The wall itself seemed like a distant line drawn across the horizon. From this height, the lower levels were obscured by haze and shadow. Wisps of smog drifted above the lower levels, but none reached up to sully the clean air where they now stood.

"Quite a view, huh?" Heftig remarked.

Cloud nodded. "It's like a different world up here."

Heftig made a sound halfway between a snort and a laugh. "You got that right. The high-ups pretend the lower levels don't even exist. Outta sight, outta mind."

Cloud looked again at the elegant beings wandering the gardens and walkways around them. She tried to imagine Princess Celestia strolling among them—the graceful alicorn of her childhood memories, not the cruel persona that had manifested later.

Heftig led the way inside through glass doors so transparent that Cloud nearly bashed them with her invisible horn before realizing they were closed. The interior space was just as plush as the balcony, with glossy white floors that reflected the ambient light from the high, arched ceilings. Strange, angular furniture and decorations were placed just so. At the far side of the room, a male griffin with spectacles sat at a glossy desk, peering at multiple floating holographic screens. He glanced up as they entered, fixing Heftig with a cool stare.

"Heftig. You're late." His clipped tone reminded Cloud of some of the more officious palace staff back in Canterlot.

Heftig shrugged, unperturbed. "I took the scenic route, gave the new recruit a tour. Cloud, this is Seax. He keeps things running around here."

Seax's gaze moved to Cloud, looking her up and down. "I see. Well then, if you'll both follow me, the others are already waiting." He dismissed the floating holograms with a wave and came out from behind the desk.

They followed Seax deeper into the tower. The décor remained stark and minimalist, with not a single personal touch anywhere. It reminded Cloud more of a museum than a home. She wondered who could live in such a place.

They entered a sitting room where two more griffins awaited, a male and female. Both wore fine business attire and an air of bored superiority. The male was speaking but cut off abruptly as Seax led Heftig and Cloud inside.

"Sorry for the delay," Seax said smoothly. "Heftig has brought her… ah, companion."

The seated griffins exchanged a look. The male said, "Yes, we were told there would be two. Please have a seat."

Heftig chose an angular chair and sprawled casually across it. After a moment, Cloud decided to simply sit on the floor next to Heftig's chair. The male griffin raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"So," he began. "Let's get straight to business, shall we?"

Heftig leaned back in her chair, assuming a relaxed posture despite the scrutiny of the other griffins. Her tail swished idly as she met their gazes.

"So, Brise, I don't need to tell you how useful some of your connections could be to our little group," she began.

The male griffin, Brise, nodded. "I have some idea what you're after. But first, perhaps introductions are in order for your companion?" He looked pointedly at Cloud.

Heftig waved a paw dismissively. "New recruit. She goes by Cloud Strife."

At the brief description, Cloud inclined her head in greeting, but said nothing. Her exotic turquoise eyes with slit pupils tracked between each griffin, assessing them cautiously.

"I see," said Brise. "Well met, Cloud." His eyes lingered on her unusual appearance—the wings, eyes, the black coat and her sheer size. "You seem… hmm… uniquely qualified. I imagine the lower city's criminal element would hesitate to cross such an imposing figure."

Cloud shifted, muscles tensing imperceptibly. Her voice was carefully neutral. "I only wish to help Heftig's cause and make this world a better place."

The flexible corners of Brise's beak curved into a thin smile. "Commendable goals." He turned his attention back to Heftig. "Now, you mentioned needing access to certain resources. I may be able to help with that."

Heftig sat forward. "Yeah? What have you got for us?"

"My family has interests in the manufacturing and distribution of specialized equipment. Law enforcement and private security, that sort of thing. Some of it inevitably goes astray, as you might imagine."

Heftig's eyes gleamed, but her tone remained nonchalant. "Anything fun find its way into the wrong talons?"

"We may be able to divert small quantities of prototype models. Non-lethal ordnance, mostly." Brice examined his polished talons. "Riot shields, stun grenades, tear gas, sticky foam. That sort of thing."

"We're not trying to stage a protest here. We need real firepower if we're gonna make any headway with the Iron Syndicate." Heftig's lion tail lashed in irritation.

Brise held up his scaled forepaws placatingly. "Try to understand, we want to avoid lethal escalation. I assure you, these non-lethals will give you a considerable advantage against the common street thugs. My friend Seax here can instruct your group in their proper use."

Seax inclined his head in confirmation.

Heftig huffed. "Fine. We'll take what we can get. But if an opportunity comes up for the real deal, I expect you featherheads to send it our way."

"Naturally, we'll keep you in mind." Brise smoothed the front of his waistcoat. "In the meantime, I believe we can come to an arrangement that is mutually beneficial."

Heftig grinned. "Love hearing that. So what's it gonna cost us?"

Brise reclined slightly, the gleam in his eye growing sharper. "We’ve had a mutually advantageous relationship with the spaceport's stakeholders for some time. And not just the spaceport itself, you understand. Deals are made with aliens on the lower levels, and goods flow between the spaceport and the rail yard. But with the Iron Syndicate no longer playing by those unspoken rules, it's becoming unsustainable. They're bad for business, our business and the city's."

Heftig's tilted her beak upward, catching the scent of opportunity. "You're looking to change the guard?”

"In essence," Brise affirmed with a nod. "The Syndicate’s grip undermines the very fabric of commerce that has made the spaceport a hub of civilization. If someone more... cooperative were to take the reins, it would benefit all parties with vested interests."

Heftig leaned forward, her talons resting coolly on the glass tabletop. "And you believe Iggy’s Army might just be the crew to step into that space?"

He nodded and elaborated further, "There’s a cycle to these things, you know. The Iron Syndicate has been on top for too long. They’ve become complacent, lazy, arrogant. They’re in decline, and they’re making a mess of everything. If there was ever a time to challenge them, this is it. Meanwhile, your group—your so-called Army—is on the rise.” Brise emphasized with a sweeping gesture, "We seek not a mere distraction, but a renaissance. A reclamation of order, facilitated by your ascension."

Heftig’s tail flicked with a predatory swiftness. "Big words, Brise. But if we do this—if we’re the ones to bring down the Syndicate—you and yours will back us? Ensure our hold on the territory is recognized?"

Brise interlocked his talons thoughtfully. "To orchestrate such a change… yes, it would necessitate our full support. With our connections we could keep the Commissars from coming down on you. A new governance under Iggy's Army would be critically advantageous in smoothing the frictions currently disrupting our operations."

"And what's it gonna take?" Heftig leaned back, one eyebrow arching.

Brise's gaze was unflinching, "Provide us with an assurance. Once the Syndicate has been supplanted and you have consolidated power, you will remember who provided the means to your rise. We expect a cooperative endeavor at the spaceport—our operations free from interference, and an understanding of priorities."

Heftig scoffed lightly, "Of course, it goes without saying. Stability is good for your business and our people alike." Extending her paw, she offered, "You got yourself a deal, Brise."

He took her paw in his, the handshake firm and calculated. "Then let's begin this venture, for a better future—a Spaceport City guided by a new hand, one we can all profit from. Let's show the Syndicate that their time at the top has come to an end."

Cloud had followed the exchange closely. Outwardly she was still, but inwardly she frowned. That was it? They were just going to hand over contraband weapons in return for a vague future commitment? Something about Brise's smooth demeanor reminded her of the aristocrats who curried favor in Canterlot. Their pleasantries hid layers of machinations. But for now, she was in no position to object or raise questions.

Brise glanced her way, as if sensing her thoughts. "Well then. I look forward to seeing how your new assets serve you, Heftig. Do let me know if any other needs arise."

Heftig stretched and stood. "You got it. We'll be in touch." She flicked her tail at Cloud. "C'mon, let's blow this joint."

Cloud rose and followed Heftig from the room. As they left, she heard Brise say, "Interesting companions you're keeping these days…"

Seax replied, "Heftig has always attracted strays. This one seems more useful than most."

Their voices faded as Cloud and Heftig made their way back to the balcony. Once outside in the open air, Heftig stretched her wings with satisfaction.

"Well, that went pretty damn smooth. Ol' Breezy came through better than I hoped." She peered over the railing at the city below. "Let's see if we can get outta here without getting spotted this time. Remember, short hops! I know where all the no-fly zones and point defense systems are. Just follow my lead, m'kay?"

She vaulted over the side, snapping her wings open to catch the wind. Cloud followed suit, glad to leave the sterile tower behind. This strange encounter gave her a bad feeling, but Heftig must know what she was doing. For now Cloud's fate was in this fierce griffin's talons.

Heftig banked left, angling away from the direct route back to headquarters. Cloud followed her lead, though she was confused about the sudden change in direction.

"Smell that?" Heftig called over the wind. "They're doing a chem dump up ahead. We'll have to go around."

Cloud sniffed the air and immediately regretted it. A harsh, acrid odor stung her nostrils even at this distance. She coughed and blinked tears from her eyes. "What is that?" she shouted back.

"Toxic waste, hazardous chemicals, you name it," Heftig replied. "They dump it down the sewer lines sometimes. They call it Gutter Level for a reason, y'know? Not exactly healthy, but the high-ups don't care what happens way down here."

Heftig and Cloud altered their course, giving the noxious plume a wide berth. They swooped lower, angling for a landing in an unfamiliar sector. The smog thickened as they descended, reducing visibility to a hazy blur. The sun had already been sinking low when they left Brise's aerie, and now it might as well be night in the lower levels of the city.

They touched down in a broad but largely empty street, made drab and moody by the amber glow of sodium streetlights and murky smog. Heftig sniffed, then dropped her beak and hissed in disgust but led on without further comment. A sparse few pedestrians hurried on their way, rarely looking up from the ground—or, in the case of bipedal humans and gnolls, glowing phones clutched in their hands. Cloud followed close behind Heftig, senses alert, past the glowing signs of storefronts.

Heftig navigated with practiced ease, avoiding contact with passerby. She came to a sudden halt at the mouth of a grimy passageway. "This way," she muttered, jerking her head toward a dimly lit stairwell.

They descended into a dank, tiled station. A battered train sat waiting, its doors hissing open to disgorge a mob of passengers. Heftig shouldered her way through them, Cloud trailing in her wake.

Inside the car, the air was tainted with smoke from cigarettes. The other passengers shied away from the intimidating pair, leaving a bubble of space around them. Heftig slouched into a seat, her sharp gaze sweeping the car. Cloud remained standing, her stance shifting as the train lurched into motion. She watched the tunnel walls blur past, streaked with graffiti and grime.

Heftig said, "C'mon, Cloud, sit down! You're taking up space."

Reluctantly, Cloud shuffled back and planted her haunches on the bench. Then she looked around the rail car slowly.

In an opposite corner, a downcast donkey in worn coveralls gnawed on a protein bar, the fur on his muzzle flecked with flakes of old paint. He was joined by a griffin, her feathers lackluster and eyes dulled from apparent long shifts at some relentless job, her claws clinking against the metal threadings in her vest pockets as she counted something silently. They both glanced up at the newcomers with a mix of curiosity and wary reserve—another pair of potential bullies or maybe allies in the endless struggle for survival. Their indifference to Heftig and Cloud spoke volumes of the weary resignation that saturated the lower levels of Spaceport City.

Near the center of the car, under a flickering light, a pack of young gnolls, mixed in gender but uniform in their hard-edged defiance, postured with exaggerated indifference. They were clothed in the neon-bright, patchwork outfits favored by the youth of the gutter level, emblazoned with garish logos and holographic strips. Several had augmented limbs that whirred and clicked softly, betraying substandard maintenance. They watched Heftig and Cloud sotto voce, their low whispers a mixture of excitement and fear, speculating about the purpose behind the muscled griffin's and the large pegasus's presence, yet not daring to make direct eye contact.

A single older gnoll sat stooped near the sliding doors, his matted fur and frayed transit uniform marking him as a porter between districts, well acquainted with the hierarchy of the city's laborers. Decorative, dimly gleaming eartags hung heavy, signifying some personal or cultural significance. His intelligent gaze lingered on the two warriors before him—an appraising look that shifted quickly to an uninterested downcast expression—as he slipped a phone from his pocket, enveloping it in both handpaws to focus on images that provided a brief escape from his surroundings.

At the far end, scarcely acknowledged and seemingly invisible, a decrepit unicorn mare huddled in the shadows, a shawl drawn tight around her scrawny form, her horn wrapped tightly in iron wire—presumably not by choice but by legal mandate to prevent magic use. It would be nearly impossible for her to remove it by herself.

The car door slid open and two black-uniformed minotaurs stepped through. Cloud sized them up. Their muscles were obvious, their bodies easily matching Cloud and Heftig by mass, but the height granted by their bipedal stance made them loom above everyone else. Angular shapes hinted at body armor worn underneath their uniforms, and each of them carried a black device, a chunky machine of some sort, by his side on a shoulder strap. Cloud had little experience with any sort of gun, so it took her a few moments to identify them as such.

As the pair moved through the car, everyone else avoided eye contact with them. Only Cloud's naive curiosity drew their attention. One of the minotaurs paused, focused his scornful gaze on her, and she shied back.

Heftig stepped forward to interpose, saying, "Alles klar, Herr Kommissar?"

The minotaur snarled, "Don't get smart with me, griffin!" His partner looked on warily, a hand resting on the grip of his subgun. The first minotaur turned his attention to Cloud again and said, "This one looks familiar. A black pegasus was recorded on security feed flying into the city without permit and evading our drones."

Heftig fixed the minotaur with an unwavering stare and said, smoothly, "Commissar, there must be some misunderstanding. My associate here is a licensed courier, just doing her job. She hasn't even been outside the walls in months. Isn't that right, Cloud?" She placed a yellow-scaled paw on Cloud's shoulder and subtly dug with her talons.

The black pony nodded and softly affirmed, "That's right."

The minotaur snorted derisively. "Let's see some ID then." He loomed over Cloud, his breath hot on her face.

Heftig smoothly interjected, "Of course, Commissar. Just a moment." She reached into a pouch at her belt and produced a small device. With a few deft taps, she brought up a display.

Cloud's heart raced, but she fought to keep her expression neutral. She thought of the training she'd been given by Topaz, and raised an arm, making the display of her data pad visible. She pulled the stylus out of its sleeve with her teeth and tapped at the screen, struggling to remember how to navigate the infuriating device. It took her a fair bit longer than Heftig, but she managed to call up the fake ID that had been made for her.

The minotaur squinted at the flickering images, his brow furrowed, and he checked a device strapped to his own wrist. After a tense moment, he grunted and waved a massive hand. "Fine. But I've got my eye on you two. No funny business."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Commissar," Heftig replied smoothly. She made a show of checking the time. "Oh, would you look at that. We'd better be on our way. Tight schedule, you understand."

The minotaur's eyes narrowed, and he put his hand on her wing. "Not so fast. There's still the matter of the processing fee."

Heftig never faltered. "Oh, sure! How forgetful of me." She tapped at her device again. "Two hundred Kopins to your account. With the department's gratitude, I'm sure."

The minotaur glanced at his own device, then nodded curtly. "Move along then. And stay out of trouble."

"Always do, Commissar. Always do." Heftig sketched a mocking salute, then jerked her head at Cloud. "Come on, we've got places to be."

As they moved down the car, away from the watchful eyes of the Commissars, Cloud let out a shaky breath. "That was too close. Thank you, Heftig. I don't know what I would've done…"

Heftig waved off her gratitude. "Don't mention it. That's why we stick together down here. Got to watch each other's backs." She glanced sidelong at Cloud. Then she added, "We got lucky. This guy was more interested in a payoff than he was in your stunt flying."

Cloud nodded, still rattled by the encounter. "Could we have fought them, if we had to?"

Heftig glanced downward, then said, "Maybe, maybe. But they had subguns, and that's when you've gotta watch yourself. And then, even if we beat 'em, we'd have the whole Commissariat coming after us, likely as not."

The rest of the ride back to HQ was quiet, but Cloud had much to think about.

Gutter Level Patrol

Nitro accompanied Cloud on a patrol around the gutter level neighborhoods near their headquarters. Heftig had described this as a see-and-be-seen mission for Cloud: she could see what the neighborhood was like, and everyone else could see what a big and badass-looking pegasus Iggy’s Army now had in the crew. This was an image the pony had spent much of her life trying to live down. However, given the world she now found herself in, she reckoned maybe it was just as well to play along.

As they walked the dingy streets, Cloud once again noted the squalid conditions. Many of the buildings they passed were run down and crumbling, with boarded up windows and peeling paint. Graffiti covered the walls, a chaotic mix of gang tags, political slogans, and nonsensical scribbles.

Trash and debris littered sidewalks and alleys. The air smelled heavily of smoke, urine and other less identifiable odors. Ponies, donkeys, gnolls, and humans crowded the sidewalks, many wearing ragged clothing and bearing dirty, unkempt coats. Several had injuries or were missing limbs. They walked with their heads down, avoiding eye contact.

Cloud was appalled. "Is it always like this here?" she asked Nitro.

He nodded grimly. "The gutter level doesn't get many resources from the city. The gangs control things down here. Folk just try to get by however they can."

As they continued on, Cloud noticed propaganda posters plastered on many surfaces. Some depicted Princess Celestia, or rather, Empress Sceleste as she was now called. Her image gazed down imperiously, with slogans like "Obey Your Empress" and "The Sun Rises and Sets With Sceleste."

Other posters depicted menacing robots, warning that "Vectra Sees All." Puzzled, Cloud asked Nitro, "Who is Vectra?"

"Vectra is the AI that controls all the drones and bots."

"AI?"

"You know, machine intelligence. Like a computer."

"Computer?" Cloud frowned, wondering what somebody working math problems could possibly have to do with drones and bots.

Nitro looked askance, wondering (not for the first time) about strange gaps in Cloud's knowledge of the world. "Vectra is the network that controls all the drones, got it?"

"Network? Uhhh, okay. If you say so," she muttered. Nitro could see she still didn't get it, but he gave up trying to explain.

Nitro led Cloud through the dimly lit streets of Spaceport City, the neon signs and flickering holograms casting an eerie glow over the crumbling facades. Cloud stuck close to the pegasus pony, her eyes darting nervously as they navigated the deserted alleys.

"Don't worry, Cloudy, I know these streets like the back of my hoof," Nitro said with a wink. "We're just making a quick stop."

He turned a corner onto a wider street and approached a small, dilapidated building with a flickering electronic sign that read: MARKET BASKET. Nitro pushed open the door, a bell jingling overhead, and ushered Cloud inside.

The interior was cramped and cluttered, shelves overflowing with an array of brightly packaged items. A chubby human female sat behind the checkout counter smoking a cigarette. Hanging in each corner was a bulging mirror providing a fish-eye reflection of the store's interior. Cloud's eyes widened as she took it all in. She wondered out loud, "How is this place even open? It's the middle of the night."

He said, "As if that matters here? Late night shopping, it's fantastic!" He pulled a shopping cart into the aisle, hopped onto the back of it and flapped his wings, propelling it forward. "Whee-ow!" he exclaimed, then pointed with a hoof toward a bin of small plastic bottles full of brightly colored liquid. "Grab a couple of those and toss 'em in!"

Cloud did so, taking a moment to glance at the labels. Apparently they contained "Fruity". Nitro pointed to more items, and soon the cart held boxes of "Chewy" and bags of "Crunchy" as well.

Cloud pointed at something she actually recognized and said, "Hey, there's bread!" The loaves were in a plastic case marked: FRESH BREAD BAKED IN STORE.

Nitro said, "They cook it round back in a little machine, right next to the toilet cleaning products. Ahh! Adds flavor and excitement."

Cloud made a face and moved along, but in a moment something else caught her eye. The machine had a transparent container, and paddles were turning inside, continually mixing some kind of colorful slush. "Whoah!" she exclaimed softly. "What is it?"

Nitro hopped off the cart and trotted over. "Wanna try a Frozo-Blam?"

Cloud watched in fascination as Nitro positioned a plastic cup that looked way too big and the machine whirred to life, dispensing a swirling mass of pink and white. Nitro inserted a thick straw and passed it to her, a grin spreading across his face.

"Go on, try it!"

Hesitantly, Cloud took the straw in her lips and drew in a mouthful of the frozen confection. Her senses were hit with slick, cloying sweetness, a burst of tart, artificial fruit flavor as thick as chlorine, and then the cold sunk in. Her eyes went wide, and she lowered the cup, squeezed her eyes shut and gasped, "Aaah! Ah! Brain freeze!"

Nitro laughed. "It'll do that, yah!" Then he said, "C'mon, give me the cart, and I'll pay for the stuff."

As they approached the checkout counter, the human clerk's eyes focused on the oversized black pegasus, then widened in fear. She dropped her cigarette into a half-empty can of energy drink and stammered, "I... I don't have the money yet. Please, just give me a few more days!"

Cloud tilted her head, confusion etched on her face. "Money? We're just here to pay for our groceries."

The clerk's gaze darted between Cloud and Nitro, her hands trembling. "You're not... you're not with the Iron Syndicate?"

Nitro shook his head, his expression serious. "No way, we're not with those goons. We're just regular customers, I swear."

The clerk let out a shaky breath, her shoulders slumping in relief. "I'm sorry, I just... when I saw her," she gestured towards Cloud, "I thought... the Syndicate, they've been coming around more often, demanding protection money. I can barely keep this place afloat as it is."

Cloud's brow furrowed, a mixture of concern and anger flashing in her eyes. "That's awful. No one should have to live in fear like that."

Nitro nodded solemnly. "The Iron Syndicate's been terrorizing folks down here for too long. Someone's gotta stand up to 'em."

The clerk rang up their purchases, her hands still shaking slightly. "Just be careful out there. The Syndicate, they don't take kindly to anyone who crosses them."

As they left the store, bags in tow, Cloud turned to Nitro. "I had no idea things were this bad. The way she looked at me... like I was some kind of monster."

Nitro placed a reassuring hoof on her shoulder. "It's not your fault, Cloudy. You saw how her nerves are shot, not that I blame her. But now you see why we gotta fight back. Folks down here, they're counting on us to make a difference."

Cloud nodded, a determined glint in her eye.

They sat outside the store and munched their snacks for a few minutes, then discarded the packaging and moved along. They passed a row of ramshackle vendor stalls constructed from scrap metal and wood. Skinny ponies hawked questionable food from steaming pots. One stall blared garish advertisements for something called "Fizzy Pop." Or maybe Fizzy Pop was a pony who owned the stand. One could never be sure with pony names.

Nitro led Cloud down a narrow alley. Trash bags and debris forced them to pick their way carefully. The alley opened up into a small courtyard with a dry fountain in the center. A mixed species group of youths loitered there.

As Nitro and Cloud entered the courtyard, the youths tensed up and stared at them warily. One of the human boys nudged his pony friend and whispered something. They seemed ready to bolt if confronted.

Nitro raised a hoof in casual greeting. "Easy now. We're just passing through."

The tension eased somewhat, though the youths continued watching them carefully as they crossed the courtyard. Cloud was saddened to see ponies and humans so young already viewing others with suspicion and mistrust.

Or then again, maybe it was just her. Huge black pegasus with dragon eyes. Yeah, that.

They left the courtyard through another alley. Partway down, they had to step over a pony sleeping on some old blankets. His ribs protruded sharply and his coat was mangy. One of his legs was made of carved wood rather than flesh. Still, he slept soundly, no doubt exhausted.

"Why does nopony help?" Cloud asked Nitro, distressed.

He sighed. "Too many need help. Not enough resources to go around. Iggy's Army does what we can, but it's not much. Not yet. That's gonna change, you'll see."

Cloud fell silent, continuing to take in the scenes around her. She noticed surveillance drones buzzing overhead between the buildings. Their cameras seemed to track her movements. She shuddered, remembering that the cameras had already recorded her chaotic entrance into the city.

They came upon a park area, if it could be called that. Mostly it was just dead grass and broken concrete. A rusted playground set stood abandoned. However, a group of foals played in the dirt with sticks and rocks, laughing and shrieking.

Nearby, a pair of elderly donkey mares sat on a bench, shelling nuts and gossiping. An old human man dozed with a patched coat pulled over his head. For a moment, it was almost like any other city park.

Nitro and Cloud sat on the edge of a crumbling planter box to rest. Cloud mulled over everything she had seen. This world she found herself in was so different from the Equestria she once knew. Could it ever be fixed?

She was about to ask Nitro's opinion when a propaganda van rolled into view. Mounted video screens glared with footage of Sceleste looking important in some palatial surroundings. Loudspeakers trumpeted, "Citizens! Report abnormal behavior to your local Commissar!"

The foals stopped playing to watch the van. Their eyes held neither fear nor awe, just a sort of weary resignation. The elders glanced up, then went back to their tasks. This was nothing new.

Cloud, however, watched with rising anger. Sceleste's influence was everywhere, even at the lowest levels of society. Her lies dominated everything.

Cloud stood abruptly. "Come on. I've seen enough for today."

Nitro nodded and they began making their way back through the alleys. Cloud tried to hold on to the image of those carefree foals playing, finding joy even in squalor. If they could cling to hope, then so could she.

Nitro and Cloud made their way back through the twisting alleys and corridors of the gutter level, retracing their steps from the patrol. The propaganda van had long since moved on, though its message still echoed in Cloud's mind. She walked with her head lowered, deep in thought.

Nitro kept glancing sideways at his brooding companion. "Hey, chin up," he said, nudging Cloud gently with a wingtip. "We'll get there. Iggy's Army is just getting started."

Cloud sighed. "I know. It just seems like so much to fix."

They turned down an especially narrow passage barely wide enough for two ponies to walk abreast. Halfway down, Nitro stopped abruptly, holding up a hoof for silence. Cloud nearly bumped into him before stopping as well. She listened, ears swiveling. At first she heard nothing but the ever-present distant din of the city. Then she picked up voices ahead, loud and aggressive. Nitro put a hoof to his lips and crept forward silently. Cloud followed his lead.

As they approached the end of the passage, the voices became clearer. A shrill, boyish voice yelled, “Nonono, leggo that’smine!” This was followed by a sharp zap, yelp and curses. Nitro's ears pricked up and he quickened his pace, gesturing for Cloud to follow.

Nitro paused at the corner, peering into a small loading area behind some shops. He ducked back and glanced grimly at Cloud, thumping the ground twice with a hoof to indicate the number of assailants. Cloud set her jaw and nodded. Together they leapt from the passage, wings flared.

The scene before them made Cloud gasp. Two gnolls clad in spiked leather armor loomed over a being that she struggled for a moment to identify. This resembled a red-orange weasel, or perhaps more like a pine marten, with large eyes and a pair of fuzzy antennae sprouting from its forehead. Cloud had seen beings like it somewhere before.

Oh, yes! It was at the first spaceport bar she’d entered, where the aliens gathered. Several of this species had been dancing there. She’d barely had time to take note of them before getting into a squabble with the Skarrens.

This one was sitting upright and protectively clutching some sort of storage case, as well as baring his adorable little teeth and growling. Laying flat on the ground nearby, twitching and smoking lightly, was a gnoll—presumably stunned by something the alien had done. The remaining two gnolls, however, looked highly antagonized, wary but in no way ready to back off.

At Nitro and Cloud's sudden appearance, the gnolls looked up in surprise. Then their muzzles split into nasty grins. "What's this, Durk?" the one pinning the alien snarled. "A couple fools looking to play hero?"

Durk chuckled grimly, flexing his clawed fingers and said, "This ain't your business, ponies. Best be on your way if you know what's good for you."

Cloud stood her ground, pawed at the ground with a hoof, tossed her head and snorted.

The gnolls laughed. "Oooh, that's a fierce one, Grak!" Durk said. He hefted a nasty looking club with spikes. "Let's teach her a lesson!"

He took a menacing step forward. Cloud partially extended her wings, which were now fitted (thanks to the efforts of Handy Walter) with traditional pegasus wing-blades. Then Nitro was there, placing himself between her and the gnolls. The alien took the opportunity to duck behind a dumpster, still clinging protectively to his package.

Nitro darted between the gnolls, using his speed and agility to avoid their clumsy attacks. Cloud could see he would need help, though. She flexed her wings, the sharpened blades glinting. With a fierce cry, she launched herself at Durk's back. Taken by surprise, he stumbled forward as her hooves impacted solidly. He whirled with a snarl, swiping with his club. Cloud pulled up short, and his swing was blocked by her invisible horn. The gnoll blinked, confused, and Cloud seized that instant to strike with a wing, scoring a slice across Durk's arm. He howled in rage and pain.

The other gnoll, Grak, seized the opening to grab Nitro in a chokehold from behind. Nitro thrashed, lashing out with his back hooves and bashing Grak's knee. With a grunt, Grak dropped him. Nitro rolled free, panting.

Cloud faced off with Durk, circling warily. He feinted left then slashed right. Cloud snapped her wings closed, trapping the blade between the razor edges. She twisted hard, wrenching the knife from Durk's grasp. It clattered to the ground behind her. Durk's eyes went wide. With a whinny, Cloud reared up and slammed both forehooves into his chest. He went down hard, the wind knocked from his lungs.

Grak lumbered toward Cloud, meaty fists swinging. She ducked and wove, avoiding the blows. As Grak overextended on a punch, she planted a hoof in his midsection. He doubled over with an "oof!" Cloud whipped both wings at his head in a scissor-like slice. Blood welled from gashes across Grak's cheeks and muzzle. Howling, he swiped a paw at Cloud's face. She reared back just in time, the claw tips grazing her jaw.

Nitro was back on his hooves. He launched himself onto Grak's back, pummeling with all four hooves. The gnoll staggered under the onslaught. With a powerful snap of her wings, Cloud knocked Grak's feet out from under him. He crashed to the pavement face-first. Nitro leapt free and the two ponies regrouped, standing over the groaning gnolls.

"Had enough yet?" Cloud demanded, wings still spread aggressively.

Durk crawled over to Grak. "This ain't over, pony!" he spat as he helped haul his companion to his feet. "You'll regret this!"

Supporting each other, the gnolls gathered up their still-groggy comrade who the alien had zapped, and they limped away down the alley. Cloud started to give pursuit, but Nitro stopped her with a wing across her chest.

"Let 'em go," he said. "They won't be back anytime soon after the thrashing we gave 'em."

Cloud reluctantly folded her wings. Her blood still pumped hard from the fight. She took a deep breath, calming herself.

With the gnolls driven away, the pair of ponies turned their attention to the alien they had rescued, who Nitro identified as a "Skiltaire." The alien poked his head up from behind the dumpster, antennae quivering as he looked around warily. Seeing the gnolls were gone, he emerged fully into the open.

The Skiltaire was positively vibrating with excitement. He scampered over to Cloud and Nitro, chattering so rapidly his words ran together into an unintelligible stream.

"Whoa there, slow down," Nitro said gently. "Take a breath."

The Skiltaire sat back on his haunches, taking a visible effort to calm himself. He drew in a deep breath through his nose, cheeks puffing out comically, then let it out in a whoosh.

"Apologies," he said in a more measured tone, though still speaking quickly. "When the shkota hits, sometimes my mouth moves faster than my brain."

He hopped back to his feet. "But by the great burrows, that was amazing! You two really gave those rocks a walloping!" The Skiltaire punctuated this statement by bouncing up and down on his toes.

"Rocks?" Cloud asked in puzzlement.

"Er, right. You'd say gnolls, yes? That's what we call them. Rock hounds. Always trying to take our shinies."

Nitro nodded. "Yeah, they have sticky paws alright. What's your name, friend?"

"Oh! I'm TikTik," the Skiltaire replied, sketching a quick bow.

"I'm Nitro, and this is my friend Cloud," Nitro returned with an informal half-bow of his own. "Happy to help. Looked like you were in a tight spot there."

"Very much so!" TikTik agreed. "I really can't thank you enough. Please, allow me to offer these small tokens."

TikTik opened the case he had been guarding so fiercely. Nestled inside the padded interior were half a dozen shiny stones in various colors. TikTik selected two of the smoother, more rounded ones and held them out, one to each of the ponies.

"These are luck pebbles," TikTik explained as Nitro and Cloud each took one. "We Skiltaire give them to friends, to symbolize our connection. Keep it close, and if you ever need aid, look to fellow pebble holders. We help each other."

Nitro and Cloud examined their gifted pebbles. Each was about the size of a large marble, polished to a glossy sheen. Nitro's was swirled orange and red, like a miniature sunrise. Cloud's was a deep ocean blue. They were beautiful in their simplicity.

"Thank you," Cloud said sincerely. "This means a lot. I'm still learning the, uh, cultural nuances here."

TikTik waved a paw. "I completely understand. Even we sometimes find humans and ponies baffling! But with open hearts, we can overcome misunderstandings."

Nitro slipped his pebble into a pouch on his utility vest and said, "We'll treasure these, TikTik. Now, will you be alright getting where you need to go?"

"Oh yes, I know my way from here." TikTik carefully closed the case. "I must deliver the remaining shinies to my contacts. There's a major match coming up."

Seeing Nitro and Cloud's puzzled looks, TikTik chuckled and explained, "Apologies, I mean a sporting event. My clan sponsors several teams. These crystals help power their gear."

TikTik slung the handle of the case over one shoulder. "I won't keep you any longer. Thank you again! Until we meet at the burrows!" With a final bow, TikTik scampered away down the alley and disappeared around a corner.

Nitro watched the Skiltaire go, then turned to Cloud with a smile and said, "Well! That was interesting."

Cloud smiled back. "It really was. I'm glad we could help the little guy. It feels good to start making real connections here." She tucked her gifted pebble securely into a pouch as well. A token of friendship, and an obligation to provide aid in return someday. She found the concept appealing.

"Let's head home," Nitro said. "Come on, we better let Heftig know what happened."

Cloud nodded and they started off down the alley. She was lost in thought, reflecting on the fight. She felt a warm afterglow. It had been a long time since she'd defended some innocent being like this. She glanced back at her sigil, the midnight blue heraldic shield emblazoned on her hip. It represented her special talent, her nature. Then a hint of melancholy seeped in as her mind wandered back to long-ago events, when her childhood friends had helped her find her talent, her meaning in life. She missed them.

Nitro seemed to sense her distracted state of mind. "You alright?" he asked. "First real scuffle is always a shock to the system."

Cloud chuckled. "It's not that. I've been in plenty of fights before. I was just woolgathering, thinking of the past. I'll be okay."

Nitro gave her shoulder a comforting nudge with his wing. "You did good back there. Kept a level head, fought smart. I'm glad you had my back."

Cloud smiled, appreciating his effort to reassure her. "Likewise, friend."

They continued on in a comfortable silence. The sounds of the city surrounded them, beginning to grow familiar and oddly reassuring now to Cloud's ears.

Topaz sat alone in the dim computer room of Iggy's Army headquarters, illuminated only by the pale glow of monitor screens. The unicorn leaned forward, intensely focused as she reviewed surveillance footage captured earlier that day. Footage skimmed by at hyper speed. Most of it was mundane—just another cycle of the ragtag rebels going about their usual routines. But something had caught Topaz's eye, making her stop the stream and replay one segment.

There was Cloud, sorting through a pile of scrap metal and mechanical parts. Nothing too unusual about that. But then she had lowered her head, and there was an odd shimmer for an instant, like a mirage, and a unicorn's horn appeared. Then it began to scintillate, and so did the pipes and other scrap material, which levitated and floated, one by one, into the bins.

Topaz watched the video, fascinated, until Cloud froze, eyes widening in alarm as footsteps echoed down the hall. The levitating items immediately settled to the floor, and Cloud's horn shimmered again into invisibility just as Heftig entered.

Topaz rewound and watched the segment again, looking for any other clues. "What in the world?" she muttered. Her mind raced, trying to make sense of what she had witnessed.

Hurriedly, Topaz transferred the footage to a mobile drive and headed out in search of Heftig. She found the griffin in her private quarters, looking over maps and plans.

"Heftig, you need to see this," Topaz said without preamble, brandishing the drive. She quickly explained what she had discovered while Heftig loaded up the video.

They watched together in silence. When it ended, Heftig slowly turned to Topaz, feathers ruffled in agitation. "Play it again," she ordered tersely.

They scrutinized the footage several more times, but it yielded no further revelations. Finally Heftig stopped the playback, leaving an image frozen on the screen, and shook her head in disbelief.

"How… How is this possible?" she muttered, beginning to pace back and forth. "Cloud is clearly using unicorn abilities. But she has passed as a pegasus this whole time. I've never seen any sign of a horn!"

Topaz nodded grimly. "Exactly. It makes no sense. And that horn is huge, it's like four or five times as long as a typical unicorn's." She lightly tapped her own stubby horn for emphasis. "I mean, it looks like… well, if Cloud was pink instead of black, she could almost pass for Empress Sceleste."

"Another alicorn," Heftig muttered. "I thought Sceleste was the only one."

"She is!" Topaz asserted. "I mean, there are fairy tales about alicorns, comic books, toys, kid stuff. Nothing real."

Heftig's yellow eyes narrowed in thought. "A changeling? Flicker could transform into an alicorn if he wanted too, why not?"

"Uhh. In theory? Maybe he could mimic that shape? But surely he would have pegged her if she was a changeling too. And I didn't see any flames when her horn appeared or disappeared, like when Flicker transforms."

"Well then. Could it be some kind of tech trickery? Some device that lets her simulate telekinesis?"

"I suppose that's possible…" Topaz said slowly. "But I've never heard of technology that advanced. And look—" she gestured to the screen "—there's no device visible. It seems like innate magic."

Heftig made a small noise of frustration. "You're right. This doesn't add up at all." She ruffled her feathers again, beginning to pace faster. "And Cloud's story has been kinda flaky from the start. I mean, turned to stone for ages? But she wouldn't talk about how that happened. There's all the basic stuff she don't know and then tries not to show it. Fighting skills but lack of experience with weapons."

"The weapons part makes sense, though," Topaz noted. "I mean, if she always fought using magic before."

"Well, Topaz, you had her pegged right from the start."

"Uhh, did I? What do you mean?"

"Edgelord. Total edgelord."

Heftig stopped pacing and turned to Topaz, deadly serious. "I think we need to consider… Cloud could be an agent sent by Sceleste: a spy or provocateur meant to infiltrate and undermine us."

Topaz's eyes widened at the implication. "You really think she was planted by the Empire?"

"It's looking more and more possible," Heftig said grimly. She began ticking points off on her talons. "She shows up out of nowhere with dubious explanations. Conceals her true nature and abilities. Evades questions about her origins. Ingratiates herself with us rather quickly." Heftig fixed Topaz with an intense stare. "This has all the hallmarks of an infiltration operation. We were fools not to see it sooner."

Topaz looked uncertain. "But to what end? I mean, she definitely hasn't acted like a provocateur. "

Heftig's expression turned calculating. "No, she hasn't. She's a quiet one. She did ask me about Iggy, though. And whenever Empress Sceleste comes up, Cloud acts all constipated. Pluck! I mean, just look at her! There's got to be a connection. Sceleste must have sent her, but why? Why mess with us?"

"Testing our loyalty?" Topaz wondered.

"To find out if we're nutzoidal like Iggy, or if we've put all that behind us and deserve… support, backing. To be the ones who push the Iron Syndicate out." Pacing again, Heftig continued musing out loud. "And when I met our new suppliers, from the upper levels, they sure gave us what I was looking for. No haggling, just handed over the keys, and kindly remember us when you're on top—with Cloud sitting there in the room. I wonder if they knew something about her that we don't?"

Topaz nodded anxiously. She hesitated before asking the critical question. "So, what's our move?"

Heftig considered for a long moment, then shook her head decisively. "We do nothing different for now. Confronting her accomplishes little, whether she's a spy or simply hiding something. Better to keep her close, let her believe the deception holds. That may work to our advantage. If she's reporting back to Empress Sceleste, we want her to paint the best possible picture."

Turning back to Topaz, Heftig said "Pass word to Nitro and Flicker too. Let's make sure she has no inkling we're onto her. But treat her like a star, and make sure she sees our gang as a rising star too. We're lean and mean, up-and-coming, a gang the Commissars can work with, and we are most definitely supporters of Empress Sceleste. Cold got to be!"

"Cold got to be!" Topaz echoed, and bumped her hoof against Heftig's scaly fist.

Cloud rose with the dawn, stretching out her wings and giving a great yawn. She had slept surprisingly well on the makeshift cot in the corner of the warehouse headquarters. The constant hum and occasional clanks from the machinery and ductwork that honeycombed the massive building had faded into comforting white noise.

As she trotted out into the main area, Cloud was taken aback to find the warehouse already a hub of activity. Rebels bustled purposefully about on various tasks or clustered in lively conversation. The atmosphere was one of eager excitement rather than the casual camaraderie of the previous days.

Cloud spotted Walter conferring with two ponies over a crate of supplies, while Nitro and Topaz seemed to be inspecting and taking inventory of a new shipment of equipment. She overheard snippets about "non-lethal alternatives" and "stun settings".

As she drew near, she noticed a workstation where an image of Princess Celestia played across the screen. The sound was muted, but a caption scrolled past, reading: "CITIZENS, YOUR EMPRESS CARES DEEPLY FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU. . ." Cloud gave it the stink eye.

Topaz noticed the reaction and moved to shut off the propaganda broadcast with a derisive snort, then turned to Cloud with a broad grin. "Hey there, Cloud Strife! Heftig told us you'd be up and at 'em early. We've got some new gear to show ya thanks to those high-level featherheads."

She gestured proudly at the array of weapons and devices laid out on the tables. Shields were easy to understand. Less familiar were the smooth, sleek metallic staves or batons with subtle status lights, control studs and blunt prongs at the business end.

Cloud tried to mask her confusion. "Wow… great! This is really something!" She paused, fumbling for more to say. "So, what do they all, um, do?"

The unicorn levitated a staff. “We’ve got quite an assortment to pick through.”

Just then, Heftig entered from across the room and strode up purposefully. The rebels nearby straightened to attention. "At ease, soldiers," rumbled the griffin. "I know we're all excited to test out the new hardware. But let's not get ahead of ourselves." She turned to Cloud with a dip of her beak.

"Cloud Strife. I'm pleased you'll be here to witness this momentous day for our Army. The first shipment of non-lethal weapons. And—" she raised a clawed finger, "—we have an expert instructor to oversee training. You remember Seax, right?"

As she referenced the other griffin, the pale-gray male raised a forepaw in acknowledgment. Seax stepped forward, picking up one of the metallic staves. "Alright folks, gather round. I know much of this gear is unfamiliar, but don't worry. I’ll walk you through them," he said. He glanced around the room. “I can see we have quite a range of species here, so we’ll have to work out what weapons are suitable to which user.”

Sitting on his leonine haunches and hefting the baton with his forepaws, he continued, "Now this beauty right here is what we call a myotron, or a stun baton. She'll deliver a nasty zap to whoever's unlucky enough to be on the receiving end." Seax toggled a switch and the end of the baton crackled menacingly with arcs of electricity. Cloud's eyes went wide but Nitro just chuckled, unfazed.

With a meaningful glance toward Cloud and Nitro the griffin explained, "Our pegasi at least don't have to worry about accidentally zapping themselves. They have natural resistance to electrical shock."

Nitro nodded in confirmation. "Yeah, we can even work with lightning. A little tickle like that baton is nothing to us."

The griffin continued, "Holding and using the staff is a different problem for a pegasus, though. You don't have paws to grip it." The griffin glanced towards Handy Walter. "I've been told your man is good at modding equipment. Given a little time, I'm sure he could disassemble one of these and turn it into a wing-mounted stunner." Walter scratched his chin, but nodded.

Seax set the baton down. "Now check out these stun grenades!" He held up a smooth metal orb. "Just pull the pin, toss it at your opponent, and bam! Flash-bang explosion with a high-voltage surprise inside. It should stop just about anything in its tracks for a minute."

“Now you’re talking!” Nitro said. “That’s tailor made for Cloud and me.”

Next Seax reached for something a bit like the stun baton, but with a hose connected to a tank. “This is something experimental from the lab, a sticky-foam gun. It fires a stream of foam that sticks to whatever it hits, then rapidly expands and hardens. It can glue arms and legs to the body, or stick people to the ground. You can carry it slung over your shoulder until needed. Try to avoid the face unless you actually want to suffocate them.” He glanced at the other griffin. “Fair warning, Heftig, you might want to steer clear of this one. If any foam splashes on wings or feathers, it’s a real nightmare. I’ll bet your human or your unicorn could use it, though.”

Topaz said, “Y’know, I’m pretty good with just casting my own spells at the bad guys. I’m not so hot with magic shields, though. I might take one of those riot shields.” She levitated one off the table, hefting it experimentally with her magic.

“Fair enough,” Seax nodded. "We also have a lot of body armor here, although again I wasn't aware of how many different species we'd have to fit it to. The panels have adjustable straps, so we should be able to make the stuff work for most of you. Heftig, if I might ask, what is the opposition armed with?"

That griffin shrugged and answered, "Most of their goons on the street are gnolls and a few minotaurs, so they can carry just about any weapon. Lucky for us, they're not too bright and don't like to use anything more complicated than a blackjack or a Luger."

"Those ain't non-lethal," Nitro noted.

"He's got a point," Heftig said. "This riot control stuff isn't going to really put the fear in those Syndicate goons. It'll be like fighting with one arm tied behind our backs."

Seax shook his head. "This armor should be effective against anything they carry. And as for the non-lethal weapons, well… Once you've disabled your foes, anything could happen to them. Am I right?"

Heftig nodded slowly. "Yeah, lots of things can happen." She flexed her claws. Like other griffins, she didn't stand as tall as Cloud, but she was more powerfully built. Griffins were, in some sense, living weapons.

"Or not," Cloud said.

The others looked to her. Heftig said, "Go on, speak your mind?"

"Well… Where I'm from we didn't… uh… We weren't brutal to defeated enemies. I wouldn't be comfortable with that."

Heftig affixed Cloud with predatory eyes and said, "You know we ain't going out there to have no tea party, right? These thugs have been terrorizing our friends and neighbors for years. I don't see why we should play any nicer than they do."

Cloud frowned but held her ground. "I get that. Really, I do. But we have to be disciplined, show some restraint. It's not just about playing nice. It's practical."

Heftig sat down on her haunches, taking a deliberately non-confrontational pose, and prompted, "How do you mean?"

Cloud glanced down, pausing a few seconds to gather her thoughts, then said, "What I mean is, every gnoll or minotaur you kill or maim is a potential feud stretching long into the future. I assume they do have clans, families somewhere, hard as that may be to imagine. Plus, that kind of thing can really sour your reputation with the locals. You don't want those friends and neighbors to start seeing us as the new terror, just like the old terror."

Murmurs of consideration rose from the rebels. Heftig rubbed her beak thoughtfully. "You make a good point. But we can't be seen as weak here. We won't last long if we are."

"We can be strong without being brutal. In fact, it's more convincing that way. You only have to keep the people intimidated and fearful if you're afraid of them rising up against you. That's the Syndicate's game."

Seax then cleared his throat and interjected, "You also won't need to worry about bystanders getting caught in your line of fire. They can be released after the fight. They won't be happy, but it's better for your community than holding funerals."

"Yes!" Cloud pointed at Seax. "That's the sort of thing I was on about."

Heftig nodded. "Okay, I'm convinced. Nobody likes a sore winner. We'll take prisoners, we'll go easy on them and see how that works out. I'm not sure exactly what we'll do with them after, but we'll figure something out."

With that policy decision settled, the group turned attention back to examining and sorting out the new equipment. Seax turned and called out, "Hey… Walter, is it? Come on over here and take a look at some of this gear. I know you can put it to good use."

Walter ambled over, eyeing the array appreciatively. "Hmm, yes, I see a lot of potential for modding here," he mused, picking up and examining each item in turn.

For her own part, Cloud poked at the so-called armor with a curious hoof. In her time armor had usually meant custom-fitted plates of metal. These appeared to be more like thick, semi-flexible material concealed in a dark, cloth pouch with many straps hanging off the sides. She wondered how it would resist a simple spear or sword thrust.

The crew spent some time discussing tactics and figuring out how to employ their new gear. Meanwhile, Heftig pulled Cloud aside as the others continued sorting through the new equipment. The griffin's expression was serious as she spoke in a low voice. "Listen, that dust-up you and Nitro had with those Iron Syndicate goons... It's set things in motion. They won't just let that slide."

Cloud frowned, her ears flicking back. "You think they'll come after us directly?"

"I think we need to take the initiative before they have a chance to retaliate." Heftig's tail lashed, betraying her agitation. "We've got a narrow window here to strike first and catch them off balance."

The disguised alicorn nodded slowly. "I understand. We'll need to move quickly then."

"Exactly." Heftig paused, seeming to consider her next words carefully. "There's something else. That Skiltaire you met... Is there any chance we could leverage that new friendship? Get access to some of their alien tech?"

Cloud's eyes widened in surprise. "I... I don't know. I mean, he seemed friendly enough, but I wouldn't feel right taking advantage like that. We did that one Skiltaire a solid favor, but that's not enough to really make alliance. It's a start toward something, maybe."

Heftig sighed, her shoulders slumping slightly. "Yeah, I get it. It was just a thought. We could really use any edge, you know?"

"I do know." Cloud placed a hoof on Heftig's shoulder. "But we'll find another way. We've got the new gear from Seax and Brise, and the element of surprise. That counts for a lot."

The griffin managed the avian counterpart of a smile, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. "You're right. We'll make do with what we have." She straightened up, squaring her shoulders. "Let's get everyone together and start hammering out a plan. Time's wasting."

Cloud perched on a ledge high above the warehouse that served as the rebel headquarters, her wings folded tightly against her sides. A fine, cold drizzle filtered down from the unseen sky, beading on her coat and wings, adding to the melancholic atmosphere.

From her vantage point, Cloud could observe the activity on the streets below. Even at this late hour, the city never truly slept. Neon signs flickered and pulsed, their garish colors reflecting off the slick, wet pavement. A strange aircraft with exhaust ports glowing like angry, orange eyes glided overhead, perhaps headed toward the spaceport that lay beyond the city's sprawling urban expanse.

Figures moved through patches of light and shadow, some hurrying to unknown destinations, others lingering in doorways or alleys. Cloud watched a group of humans huddled together under a flickering streetlight. They seemed to be negotiating something, their gestures furtive and quick. A moment later, they scattered, disappearing into the labyrinthine alleys of the lower city.

Further down the street, a fight broke out. Cloud couldn't make out the species of those involved, but she could hear the snarls and curses, the meaty thud of fists on flesh. A crowd gathered, cheering and jeering, until a harsh spotlight cut through the darkness. One of the ubiquitous police drones hovered over the scene, its metallic voice barking orders. The crowd dispersed as quickly as it had formed, leaving only the combatants to face the impassive machine.

In the distance, a train rumbled along an elevated track, the rhythmic clatter of its wheels echoing through canyons of concrete and glass. Rail cars moved in and out of view as they threaded through the three-dimensional urban maze.

High above the streets, a skyscraper's holographic billboard came to life, its immense, three-dimensional images casting an eerie glow over the surrounding buildings. The advertisement featured a larger-than-life Empress Sceleste, her salmon-pink coat gleaming, her wings spread wide. She smiled benevolently down at the city, her voice booming from hidden speakers, extolling the virtues of loyalty and obedience.

Cloud frowned, her wings twitching with unease. The sight of Sceleste, even in this holographic form, stirred up uncomfortable memories. She tore her gaze away from the billboard, focusing instead on the activity below.

A group of street performers had set up on a sheltered corner, their colorful costumes and acrobatic feats drawing a small crowd. One of the performers, a lithe young human with some sort of long-tailed furry pet by her side, juggled glowing orbs that seemed to change color as they spun through the air. Another, a donkey wearing a garish mask, played a hauntingly beautiful melody on pan pipes.

For a few minutes the music and the spectacle seemed to bring a touch of joy to the grim, rain-soaked streets. But then a drone buzzed overhead, and, as quickly as it had formed, the crowd began to disperse. Each individual hurried off into the night, their brief moment of shared wonder already forgotten.

Cloud sighed, her breath misting in the cool, damp air. There was a dark majesty to Spaceport City, a grandeur born of its sheer scale and the ceaseless activity that pulsed through its veins. But it was a beauty tainted by the misery and desperation that seemed to lurk in every corner, in every shadow.

She thought of the poverty she'd seen, the fear in the eyes of the citizens, the casual brutality of those in power. It was a far cry from the world she'd known, the world she'd fought for. But even then, there had been the war. Before she was trapped in stone, the world had already started down the path that led… here, to this.

Cloud shook her head, scattering droplets of water from her mane. It didn't matter what she remembered, or what she'd lost. What mattered was the here and now, the fight ahead. She had new allies, a new purpose. And somehow, she would find a way to bring a little light to this dark, desperate place.

Clash of Powers

An electric sign buzzed and flickered above the entrance to a bar. The establishment known as “The Rusty Wrench” had a crumbling facade and grimy windows that seemed to blend into the surrounding decay, as if the building itself was trying to avoid attention.

Outside the building, sodium lights flooded a scene with monochrome amber. A group of four gnolls had cornered a scrawny human against the graffiti-covered wall. The largest of the gnolls, a brutish creature with a ragged ear and a puckered scar across his muzzle, loomed over the cowering man. The gnoll’s rank breath washed over the human’s face as he snarled his demands.

“Listen up, Scabby Joe,” the gnoll growled. “You’ve been holding out on us. The Syndicate knows about your little side hustle, skimming off the top of our protection fees.”

Scabby Joe trembled, his hands raised in a placating gesture. “No, no, you got it all wrong, Fangmar,” he pleaded, his voice quavering. “I wouldn’t dare! I know better than to cross the Syndicate!”

The other gnolls chuckled darkly, their laughter sounding like gravel in a garbage disposal. One of them, a wiry creature with a tattered ear, stepped forward and cracked his knuckles menacingly.

“You think we’re stupid, human?” the wiry gnoll sneered. “We’ve been watching you. We know about every kopin you’ve pocketed, every deal you’ve skimmed.”

Scabby Joe’s eyes darted left and right, desperately seeking an escape route. But the gnolls had him well and truly cornered. The street was deserted at this hour, and even if anyone did pass by, they were unlikely to intervene. In this part of town, minding one’s own business was a survival skill.

Fangmar reached out with a clawed hand and grabbed Scabby Joe by the front of his shirt, lifting him off his feet and slamming him against the wall. The human’s head cracked against the concrete, and he saw stars.

“You’ve got two choices, Scabby,” Fangmar growled, his muzzle inches from the human’s face. “You can pay us what you owe, plus interest, right now. Or we can take it out of your hide.”

Scabby Joe’s hand scrabbled at his pocket, fumbling for his elmonit card. But even as he did so, he knew it was futile. He didn’t have nearly enough to cover what the gnolls were demanding. He had gambled and lost, and now he was going to pay the price.

Fangmar’s claws tightened on Scabby Joe’s shirt, and the human closed his eyes, bracing himself for the inevitable pain. But then, suddenly, there was a loud clunk. Human and gnoll alike glanced toward the ground where a grapefruit-sized orb had just landed.

“Hey! Hey, what!?” one of the gnolls managed to blurt before the grenade exploded in their faces.

The stun grenade detonated with a blinding flash and a deafening bang. Although not made to produce shrapnel, the concussion was powerful and knocked Joe and Fangmar off their feet, the big gnoll landing painfully on his tail.

Cloud dove into the fray, her wings extended. The stunner affixed to her right wing hummed with energy as she brought it up alongside the nearest gnoll’s head. The creature yelped in pain and crumpled to the ground, twitching.

Nitro darted in and out of the melee, his stunner striking with precision. He jabbed it into a gnoll’s ribs, sending the creature sprawling. Then he spun and kicked, his hind foot connected with another gnoll’s leg with a sickening crunch and put that foe on the ground.

Fangmar was just staggering to his feet when Heftig struck with a whirlwind of talons and feathers, her battle cry piercing the night air. She lashed out with her razor-sharp claws, raking them across the gnoll’s face. The creature howled, clutching at its bleeding muzzle. With his other meaty paw he grabbed for a sidearm, but Heftig instantly swatted it aside. She pinned him and growled, “That’s enough!”

Fangmar simply whined, in the gnoll’s natural way of crying uncle.

Just as it seemed the fight was winding down, two more gnolls emerged from the shadows. They were big, by gnoll standards, with muscles bulging beneath their crude armor. They carried massive clubs studded with jagged metal spikes.

“Reinforcements!” Heftig called out, her voice tight with strain as she kept her own weight on Fangmar’s back. Cloud and Nitro turned to face the new threat.

The gnolls advanced, their clubs raised. Cloud snorted and pawed the ground with a hoof, then charged at one. The gnoll seemed confused by her appearance and behavior, and he hesitated—for an instant, but it was all the opening Cloud needed. Once again she ducked her head as if to butt him, and used her long, invisible horn to hook his leg and topple him onto the ground. She tramped on him with her front hooves, then reached down with a wing and the myotron that was affixed to it. In moments he was disarmed and out of action.

She turned to find Nitro in scrimmage with the remaining gnoll. He was quick enough to dodge swings of the club, but seemed unwilling to dart in and attack. Well, if that club ever connected, it would probably be the end for Nitro.

The gnoll was battling alone now, though. Heftig slammed into him, grappled him with her arms, and then Nitro gave him a long, hard jolt from his myotron. Heftig herself got an indirect buzz from the device, but managed to hang on.

Only then did Cloud look around and see Fangmar back on his feet, staggering away toward an alley. She snorted and spread her wings, but Heftig called out, “Wait! Don’t go after him, let him go!” Cloud looked back questioningly at the griffin, who added, “He has a message to deliver to the Iron Syndicate.”

Scabby Joe, forgotten in the chaos of the fight, peeked out from behind a dumpster where he had taken cover. His eyes were wide with shock and gratitude. “Thank you,” he stammered, his voice shaking. “I thought I was a goner for sure.”

Heftig turned to the human, her eyes narrowed, and said, “Don’t think this makes us friends, Scabby Joe. We know all about your little arrangement with the Syndicate.”

Joe’s pale face went even paler. He raised his hands defensively. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just trying to get by, same as anyone else.”

Heftig snorted. “Save it! We’ve been watching you, Scabby Joe.”

Joe’s shoulders slumped. “Look, I didn’t have a choice. You know how it is down here. If you don’t play ball with the Syndicate, they’ll crush you.”

Nitro said, “And how did that work out? You were about to get crushed anyhow. I heard what was said.”

Joe just shook his head sullenly.

Cloud stepped forward, her eyes hard. “There’s always a choice. You could have stood up to them, like we do.”

Joe laughed bitterly. “Stand up to them? With what? I’m not a fighter like you lot. I’m just a small-time hustler trying to keep my head above water.”

Heftig sighed. “We’re not going to turn you in, Scabby Joe. But consider this a warning. The Syndicate’s days are numbered. When the time comes, you’d better be on the right side.” She jerked her head towards the mouth of the alley. “Now get out of here. And think hard about your life choices.”

Joe didn’t need to be told twice. He scurried away, disappearing into the shadows of the street.

Heftig turned her attention to the defeated gnolls. They lay in various states of unconsciousness and injury, groaning and twitching. “Tie them up,” she ordered. “We’ll load them on the truck and take them back to base for questioning. I want to know the Syndicate’s layout.”

As the weary but victorious rebels made their way back to their hidden headquarters, the adrenaline of the fight slowly ebbed, replaced by a sense of camaraderie and accomplishment. They had struck a blow against the Iron Syndicate, and though it was a small victory in the grand scheme of things, it was a victory nonetheless.

Soon thereafter, inside the converted warehouse that served as their base, the mood was jubilant. Rebels clapped each other on the back, sharing grins and recounting moments from the skirmish. Someone had broken out a stash of moonshine, and the potent liquor flowed freely.

In the midst of the celebration, Heftig climbed atop a crate and raised her voice. “Listen up, you lot!” The chatter died down as all eyes turned to the griffin. “We did good tonight. We showed those Syndicate scum that they can’t push us around. That we’re not afraid to stand up for what’s right.”

Cheers and raised glasses met her words. Heftig waited for the noise to subside before continuing. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This was just one battle. The war’s far from over. The Syndicate’s not going to take this lying down. They’ll be out for blood now.”

A few rebels shifted uneasily, but most looked determined. They knew the risks when they signed up for this fight.

Heftig’s gaze found Cloud in the crowd. “And let’s hear it for our newest recruit. Cloud, you were a force out there tonight. You’ve got some serious skills.”

Cloud felt her face grow warm as the rebels around her whooped and cheered. She wasn’t used to this kind of attention or praise. In her old life, she had always been the odd one out, the object of suspicion. As soon as the noise piped down, she countered, “Hey, we caught ‘em by surprise, and that first grenade did a lot of the heavy lifting. That was a perfect toss, Nitro!”

That brought more cheers. Nitro leaned and slipped a wing around Cloud’s barrel, grinning. “Thank you, Ma’am! We make a good team, huh?”

Cloud laughed, a bit nervously. Nitro was overtly flirting, and that was something she was very much not accustomed to. She said, “I’m just doing my part. We’re all in this together, right?”

Heftig nodded, a fierce light in her eyes. “Damn right we are. And together, we’re going to take down the Syndicate and anyone else who tries to keep us under their boot. For Iggy!”

“For Iggy!” the rebels echoed, their voices ringing out in the cavernous space.

As the cheers died down and the celebration resumed, Cloud felt a sense of purpose and belonging. She had found her place, her cause. And she would fight for it with everything she had.

The air buzzed with tense excitement as Cloud Strife joined the rebels in reviewing their plans one final time. Heftig sat upright at the head of the table, gesturing emphatically as she described the coordinated attacks they would unleash against the Iron Syndicate.

“Alright team, this is it,” Heftig said, meeting each of their gazes. “We hit them hard and fast in locations across the Gutter Level. Their ill-gotten gains become the people’s gains.”

The rebels nodded, faces set with determination. Cloud noticed Flicker’s wings fluttering nervously beneath his cloak while Topaz absently spun several throwing stars, sparkling with magic, in an orbit around her horn.

“Cloud, Nitro, you’re on the west side taking out stash house Gamma,” Heftig continued. “Flicker and Topaz will handle target Beta to the east. Wildheart, Briar and I will draw the bulk of resistance at Alpha. We strike in thirty minutes.”

The teams dispersed to grab their weapons and supplies. Cloud double checked the charge on the myotron that Handy Walter had rigged to clip onto a wing. This could be employed much like normal pegasus wing-blades, but with less bloodshed. Nitro checked his own identical stunner and satchel of grenades.

“Ready, Cloud?” he asked.

She nodded. “Let’s do this.”

Minutes later they slipped into the dingy streets, keeping to the shadows as they made their way toward the stash house. Cloud scanned the facade of the decaying apartment building, senses alert for any sign of guards. At Nitro’s signal, they burst through a side door into a dim hallway. Booted footsteps pounded above them.

“Upstairs,” Cloud hissed.

Nitro nodded and got a grenade out of his satchel, pulled the pin, and swatted it up the stairwell with his wing. There were a few clunks as it disappeared from view, then a canine bark of alarm. Then, BLAM! The rickety building shook, and plaster debris rained down from the ceiling.

Cloud unfurled her wings and launched skyward, slamming into a half-stunned gnoll emerging from the stairwell. She pinned him with a hoof and zapped him with her stunner before he could react. Nitro charged past, then Cloud was right behind him.

Bursting into the room, they found it fairly wrecked by the grenade blast, full of acrid haze, windows blown out, furniture overturned and debris scattered, and a bloodied gnoll who was moaning a little but not really conscious.

“This is what we’re after,” Nitro said, gesturing with his wing toward a battered cabinet. “The meds! There’s folks who need this stuff.” He started to move toward them, but a muffled clomping noise gave him pause.

“More company,” Cloud said grimly, taking up a defensive stance.

The door burst open and a massive bull minotaur charged in, spiked club raised high. Cloud dove aside as the club whooshed past her head, pulverizing a crate where she had stood moments before. She reared and lashed out with front hooves, slamming the minotaur into the wall. He rebounded quickly, eyes blazing with fury as he swung at her again.

Cloud darted away from the blows, leading him around the room. As the bull pursued her, Nitro moved in from behind and jabbed his stunner into the minotaur’s back. With a sizzling burst of electricity, the bipedal bull convulsed, bellowing, and dropped his club, but then whirled trying to grab at Nitro.

That left Cloud behind him, so she lowered her head and threaded her horn between the minotaur’s legs, then flexed her neck and lifted him. She charged forward past Nitro and heaved the minotaur through the window, dumping him out of the building.

Cloud and Nitro both peered out the window, down into the alley. After a few moments Cloud concluded, “I don’t think he’s getting up.”

“Whew, that was close,” Nitro said. He looked back to his partner appraisingly. “Wow, it really took some power for you to shove that big guy out the window!”

“Haha, yeah! I don’t know what got into me,” she answered dismissively. Of course, she thought, he doesn’t know I’m really an alicorn.

“Well, c’mon, let’s gather up the stuff.” They started rifling through the cabinet and other boxes that had been scattered around the room in the chaos, picking out medical supplies that the Syndicate had been hoarding. They packed these into a couple of black gym bags.

They were finishing up their search when they heard the wail of sirens approaching. Exchanging a worried glance, they rushed to grab the gym bags. Cloud looked out the window and spotted a squad of Commissars swarming toward the building. She extended a wing in front of Nitro to forestall him. “Not this way! Out the other side!” she asserted.

“Time to fly!” he yelled. He leapt out the same window the Minotaur had gone out. Cloud was right behind, and the two winged ponies rocketed away.

Tension hung heavy in the air at Iggy’s Army headquarters as the rebels gathered around Heftig. Her usual swagger was gone, replaced by a grim expression. “Word on the street is the Iron Syndicate’s out for blood,” she said, her voice low. “They’re massing forces to hit us back hard for the raids.”

Nervous glances flitted between the assembled rebels. Flicker’s wings buzzed with agitation while Topaz’s tail flicked anxiously.

“Maybe...” Heftig began, then paused, as if wrestling with the words. “Maybe we played this wrong. Went too soft on ‘em. Now they think we’re weak.”

Nitro frowned. “You think they’re gonna come at us with everything they’ve got?”

“I’d bet on it,” Heftig said darkly. “Gnolls, minotaurs, the whole Syndicate. We bloodied their snouts but left ‘em standing. They’ll want to make an example of us.”

Silence fell as the weight of Heftig’s prediction settled over the crew like a shroud. Cloud glanced around at her newfound comrades, seeing the unease written on their faces. She stepped forward, drawing their attention, and said, “Hey, we’ve won every battle so far. Isn’t this all going to plan?”

Heftig whirled to face Cloud, eyes blazing. “You don’t get it. The Syndicate won’t show restraint like we have. You don’t know these streets like I do! The Iron Syndicate lives and dies by ruthlessness. If we don’t match it, we’re done for.”

“I understand that,” Cloud said gently. “But there’s no point in second-guessing now. There’s an old saying: You go to war with the army you’ve got. So, we’ll fight the Iron Syndicate with this crew, with these weapons, and with the tactics that we’ve trained for. And we’ll win. Won’t we?”

Heftig met Cloud’s gaze, a flicker of her old fire returning. “You’re right,” she said slowly. “We can’t lose our nerve now. We stick to the plan.”

“Exactly,” Cloud agreed. “We fortify HQ, stay alert, and trust in each other. We’ve got this.”

Nods and murmurs of assent rippled through the group. Heftig’s confidence visibly returned as she straightened up, squaring her shoulders. “You heard Cloud,” she barked. “Let’s get this place ready for anything the Syndicate throws our way. Topaz, Nitro, start reinforcing the entrances. Walter, I want traps rigged on all approaches. Flicker, get our eyes and ears out there. The Syndicate so much as sneezes, I wanna know about it. Move!”

The rebels scattered to their tasks with renewed energy and determination. As Cloud watched them work, a fierce pride swelled in her chest. Come what may, Iggy’s Army would stand united.

Cloud sat alone on a stack of crates in the warehouse, absentmindedly turning a stunner over in her hooves. Work was still underway to fortify the gang’s HQ against the anticipated assault, but the initial burst of activity had settled down to a more sustainable pace, with crew members taking breaks as needed.

“Hey.” Cloud glanced up to see Nitro approaching, his expression grim. “Mind if I join you?”

Cloud nodded, scooting over to make room. Nitro settled down beside her with a heavy sigh. “Crazy day, huh?” he said. When Cloud didn’t respond, he followed her gaze to the weapon in her hooves. “Ah. Having doubts?”

Cloud hesitated. “I just wonder sometimes if there’s a better way. I know the Syndicate needs to be stopped, but...” She trailed off.

Nitro was quiet for a moment. “I get it. I used to run with them, remember? Did some things I regret.” He paused. “But Iggy showed me there’s always hope, even in the darkest times. That’s why we can’t give up.”

Cloud considered his words. “Back where I’m from, we resolved conflicts with understanding, not violence. At least until…” She stopped herself, not wanting to reveal too much.

Nitro studied her. “Well, wherever you’re from, it sounds nice. But this is our reality.” He gestured around them. “Sometimes you have to get your hooves dirty so folks like Heftig can keep dreaming of something better.”

Cloud met his earnest gaze, moved by his empathy. In that moment, she was reminded that every creature here was just trying to survive in Sceleste’s harsh world, in whatever way they knew how. “You’re right,” she said finally. “I can’t lose hope. If I do, then what was the point of any of this?”

Nitro grinned and nudged her shoulder. “There’s the Cloud I know. Welcome back.”

Cloud smiled faintly. “Thanks, Nitro.”

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, watching the other rebels work. Flicker and Topaz were welding metal plates across the warehouse windows while Handy Walter placed traps and alarms. Heftig then came by and had a brief discussion with Flicker. Looking unhappy, the changeling left the work and disappeared toward the back hall.

Heftig then approached Cloud and Nitro.

“Something up with Flicker,” Nitro asked.

Heftig said, “I told him to get out of here and go to ground. He’s too valuable to risk in the battle. Even if he didn’t get hurt, there’s too many folks around already that know about him.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Nitro reluctantly agreed.

“Maybe you two could take his place and help over there with the barricades?”

“Wilco!” Nitro stood and stretched. “Well, c’mon! Those barricades won’t build themselves.” He nudged Cloud lightly.

She rose to her hooves, feeling reinvigorated. As they moved to rejoin the others, a question occurred to her. “Nitro, do you really think we can win against the Syndicate? Against Sceleste?” she asked quietly.

He glanced back, eyes widening with alarm. “Uh, what? Hey, we’re not fighting against Sceleste. I’m sure the Empress would be totally backing us if she knew what was really going on down here, don’t you think?”

Once again Cloud looked aggrieved, as he’d noticed before whenever the topic of Sceleste came up. She said, “I’ve been out of circulation for a long time. But the state of the world she rules over doesn’t give me much reason to suspect she’s changed her ways.”

Nitro fidgeted. “But you, uh… I mean, I just figured a pony like you might have, you know, connections with the Empire.”

Cloud narrowed her eyes. “I’ve got history with Celestia, or Sceleste as you call her, if that’s what you mean. But I’d rather not get into that now.”

Nitro’s brow furrowed in thought. “I just… Y’know what? Maybe I better just keep my nose out of it. I grew up down here with the gangs; that’s what I know. Anything to do with the Empire is out of my league. So let’s take one thing at a time, eh?”

Cloud considered this, then nodded firmly. “You’re right. We’ve got a fight coming up.”

Nitro nodded back, and he raised a hoof. “Let’s do this.” They hoof-bumped, then he trotted off to help Topaz, who, despite her magic, was struggling to lift a large metal beam.

The Hammer Falls

The stillness of the night was shattered by the roar of engines and screech of tires as a convoy of vehicles surrounded the warehouse headquarters of Iggy's Army. Armed gnolls and minotaurs poured out, weapons brandished with savage glee.

But it was the dragon that presented a new threat. Though not a large specimen among dragons, it was easily a head taller than any of the minotaur bulls when it stood upright on its hind legs. Its gray scales were like brushed steel, its eyes red-orange with vertical pupils, and wisps of smoke escaped from its long and toothy muzzle.

Inside, the alarm was spread quickly. "To arms!" Heftig bellowed, rallying the rebels.

Caught sleeping, Cloud jolted awake, flailed for a moment before getting on her feet, then struggled into her armor, fitted her stunner and joined the others rushing to barricade doors and windows. Before they could fully secure the entrances, syndicate enforcers started firing shots into the building, smashing windows and lobbing crude explosives inside.

"Take cover!" Topaz yelled amid the blasts and bullets. The rebels ducked behind makeshift barriers as shards of glass and wood flew.

At one of the warehouse's loading bays a roll-up door suddenly glowed red, then bright orange and disintegrated in a burst of dragon fire. The improvised barricade meant to reinforce the door was dispatched just as easily. Pressing the attack, syndicate goons swarmed through the breaches, firing pistols and swinging spiked clubs.

The battle raged, with the Iron Syndicate's initial shock tactics giving them the upper hand. Iggy's Army found themselves facing a terrifying new foe in the form of the dragon, its presence alone causing many to falter. "Where did they even get a dragon?" Topaz wondered out loud.

The dragon, with a voice like grinding stone, taunted them. "You'll all burn, fools!" It breathed gouts of flame, setting parts of the warehouse ablaze and forcing the defenders to scatter. Several of Topaz's throwing stars bounced off its scaly hide, but the dragon seemed not to notice.

Cloud tried to dart in and attack with a stunner, but a blast of fire breath forced her to turn aside, then she was brutally swatted away by its tail. Heftig grabbed her and pulled her back a safe distance.

Nitro, spotting his chance, yelled out, "Throwing grenade!" He lobbed it directly at the dragon's feet, where it exploded with a bright flash and a deafening bang and knocked the dragon back a couple of meters.

The dragon roared in irritation, momentarily blinded and disoriented. "Dung! That won't save you!" it bellowed, shaking its head to clear the spots from its vision.

"Heftig, we need to focus our attacks on the dragon!" Cloud shouted, picking herself up and rejoining the fray.

Heftig nodded and rallied the rebels. "Concentrate fire on the dragon! Walter, hit it with foam to slow it down!"

Handy Walter wielded the sticky foam gun with surprising skill, aiming a stream of the cream-colored substance at the dragon's legs and belly. The foam expanded on contact, hardening and restricting its movements.

The dragon growled in frustration, flailing. "What kind of trick is this? This won't stop me!" it snarled, trying to pull through the foam with raw strength, but it was slowed.

"Topaz! Hit the dragon with spells!" Cloud shouted over the chaos.

Topaz, with a determined look, conjured a unique spell she had developed over years of hazardous work. Her horn glowed electric blue as she called out, "Circuit Bind!"

Shimmering electrical circuits materialized in the air, darting and weaving around the dragon like serpents. With a flick of her horn, the circuits snapped tight around the dragon's limbs, glowing with an ethereal blue light. The beast roared, smoke curling from its nostrils as the circuits sent jolts of electricity through its massive body, causing it to flinch and shudder.

The dragon struggled, its movements growing sluggish and disjointed. When it tried to breathe fire, the circuits tightened, sending even stronger jolts that made its breath sputter and falter.

Topaz grinned fiercely. "Let's see how you handle a short-circuit, big guy!"

As the rebels concentrated their efforts on the dragon, the Iron Syndicate thugs continued their relentless assault. A few defenders were struck by bullets on their body armor, leaving painful welts but thankfully not penetrating. The rebels returned fire with their own weapons, slowly whittling down the attackers' numbers.

Handy Walter continued to wield the sticky foam gun, waving its stream almost like a magic wand, and some of the thugs appeared quite fearful of the bizarre weapon they'd never seen before. However, its ammunition canisters were limited, and he would have to make every shot count.

Cloud leapt into the fray, her stunner crackling as she engaged the syndicate enforcers in close quarters combat. Her agility and skill allowed her to evade most of their attacks while delivering precise strikes of her own. Nearby, Nitro and Heftig fought back-to-back, their teamwork and determination keeping the enemy at bay.

Despite the rebels' valiant efforts, the Iron Syndicate's numbers seemed endless. For every thug that fell, two more seemed to take their place. The dragon, though tired and wounded by the electrical attacks, eventually struggled free from the foam, its roars and flames adding to the chaos of the battle.

Cloud darted out from cover and stunned two thugs before a club grazed her shoulder. Hissing in pain, she spun and bucked the attacker back. "Fall back to the central room!" she shouted to the others.

The rebels retreated as instructed, defending the hallway against the invaders. A minotaur thug charged Nitro, who rolled aside and zapped him with his stunner. The minotaur staggered but kept coming, forcing Nitro to continuously shock him until he finally collapsed.

Reaching the central room, the rebels took up positions behind stacked crates and machinery. Heftig barked orders, directing their defense as the enemy pressed their assault. Cloud and Nitro flapped up to the catwalk. Although the warehouse had a number of internal partition walls, there was no real ceiling. Instead there was a high roof with exposed ductwork, conduits and a metal catwalk from which much of the building's interior could be observed. From here they could track intruders and lob grenades freely.

A gnoll charged in ahead of his squad firing a pistol, most of the shots going wild, but Briar yelped with pain and lost his footing. Topaz dragged the earth pony to safety then returned fire with a magical bolt, her aim precise as always.

From their loft Cloud and Nitro lobbed stun grenades strategically, disrupting the attacks of the invaders. Nitro scramble down the catwalk and dropped a grenade on some gnolls that tried to get behind Heftig. "I've got your six, boss!" she called to the griffin.

"Appreciated!" Heftig replied, jabbing her weapon at another foe.

Some attackers tried to fire weapons or throw crude projectiles upward at the catwalk, but their aim was terrible. Aside from Topaz's magic, Cloud reflected, standards of marksmanship were atrocious on both sides of this battle. She was sorely tempted to drop her pegasus disguise and unleash her own spells, but things didn't seem that desperate just yet.

The initial frenzied assault started to wane as the rebels held their ground, felling more syndicate attackers with stunners and gas pellets. However, ammunition was dwindling.

"We can't keep this up forever," Nitro said worriedly. "We need a plan."

Cloud surveyed the room, eyes settling on a suspended cargo platform. "Nitro, help me lower that platform on top of the doorway to block them. Heftig, have everyone fall back to the sleeping quarters and barricade it—we'll make our stand there."

Heftig nodded. "You heard her, move it!" The rebels disengaged and retreated further while Nitro and Cloud lowered the platform, barricading the doorway. They rejoined the others in the sleeping area just as a fresh wave of attackers reached it, pounding against the closed metal door.

"Here they come again," Topaz said, taking aim at the doorway with Heftig and Walter, who by this time had dropped his empty foam gun and taken a pistol from a downed gnoll. The pounding stopped as muffled voices could be heard outside.

Suddenly a thunderous crash came as the syndicate thugs rammed the door with a makeshift battering ram, deforming it. A second crash followed and the hinges started giving way.

"Brace yourselves!" Heftig shouted. At the third crash, the door burst open and enforcers poured in, opening fire indiscriminately. The rebels returned fire, dropping several while taking cover behind bunks. Walter yelped as a shot grazed his leg. Topaz pulled him to safety and continued firing, dropping two more foes.

An enforcer targeted Nitro, forcing him to dive and roll to avoid the barrage. Coming up behind his attacker, Nitro zapped him with his stunner, then battered with his hooves for good measure. "Scratch one more!" he called out.

The rebel's accurate fire kept the attackers at bay, but they were out of grenades. Even Cloud's stunner had become weak, its battery running down. Heftig picked up a club dropped by one of the attackers and flung it back at an enforcer, knocking his weapon away. Cloud battered two more with her wings while kicking a third back through the doorway.

"Fall back to the showers!" Cloud instructed. As the rebels disengaged, Topaz telekinetically dumped bunks and debris to barricade the doorway. The rebels took up positions in the shower room, listening to the syndicate thugs struggling to get through.

"Nice work Cloud, but we're down to our last few shots here," Heftig said.

Cloud nodded grimly. "When they break through, we go hoof-and-claw and use whatever we can as weapons. Fight smart—target their weapons first. We can still win this!"

The rebels tensed as the barricade started to give way. With a final crash, the enforcers burst into the shower room with a roar. Dodging gunfire, Cloud closed into melee range and disarmed one thug, yanking his weapon away with her teeth, then battered and zapped another with a wing-stunner. Around her, the other rebels followed suit, grappling enemies and turning their weapons against them.

Heftig clawed the face of a minotaur enforcer then wrenched away his heavy club, using it to bash other attackers. Nearby, Topaz magically plucked a pistol from one attacker and fire it back at them, while Walter, sitting on the floor with his injured leg stretched before him, emptied his own pistol at another.

The Iron Syndicate had enough. Their numbers finally depleted, they began to pull back, and their retreating forces took most, but not all, of their fallen with them.

Soon the rebels stood panting amidst the carnage. They were battered and worn, but victorious.

"We… We did it!" Nitro exclaimed.

"You all fought bravely today," Heftig said proudly. She turned to Cloud. "And you proved yourself a warrior—and a leader."

Cloud smiled wearily. "We all stood together. That's what it took." Her smile faded as she looked around, though.

They'd survived, but there were more than a few injuries among the crew. Briar's bullet had been stopped by armor, though it left a nasty bruise. Some others were in no condition to fight anymore. Walter's leg injury didn't look too serious, but it was bleeding and needed attention. Topaz was already casting basic first-aid spells of the sort that most unicorns could do. I should do that too, Cloud thought to herself. Yet, she'd made it this far without revealing that she was an alicorn, or her true identity.

Her indecision was resolved when Heftig said, "We've got some fires burning, thanks to that plucking dragon. Everybody who's able, let's get on that now! It'll be a pyrrhic victory if our HQ burns down."

Cloud nodded and moved to join the impromptu fire brigade.

When the fires were extinguished and the battered gang were binding their wounds and securing the Iron Syndicate gnolls who'd been left behind, Heftig strutted. "We've broken their power tonight," she asserted. "After this, you better believe the toughs, like those gnolls, will see which way the wind is blowing, and they'll start defecting to us. We'll only grow stronger, and the Iron Syndicate will fall apart. Pretty soon we'll be running the lower levels. Iggy's Army will be running the rackets down here, and raking in the kopins."

A few ragged cheers went up, but then Cloud said, "Wait, what? What do you mean, we'll be running the rackets?"

Heftig looked at her and shrugged. "What did you think all this was for?"

Cloud took a step closer and said, "I thought we were going to get the Iron Syndicate off the people's backs, not take their place as the new crime lords."

The griffin seemed taken aback for a moment. "What, you mean out of the goodness of our hearts? Risk our necks and take our lumps for a warm fuzzy feeling and the gratitude of the gutter trash? That don't pay the bills, hon!"

For a moment Cloud gawped, staring as though seeing Heftig for the first time. "What about…? What about the Empire? What about Sceleste?"

Heftig waved her arm dismissively. "Empress Sceleste ain't got nothing to worry about. We'll see the Commissars get their cut from the take, and nobody causes trouble with the spaceport and the aliens. That's all Sceleste cares about down here, and we'll see that she gets it."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this. What about Insane Iggy? He wanted to rise up against Sceleste."

Heftig squawked a laugh. "Yah, and that's why he was called insane, I already told you that." She took a couple of steps closer to Cloud and said, in a softer tone, "Kid… It's clear to me that your mama never explained to you the basic facts of life." The griffin held up a pair of talons and went on, "There's two kinds of people in this world. There's givers, and there's takers. Takers get the honey, and givers sing the blues. That's how things work in the real world, not in fairy tales, you dig?"

The unicorn, Topaz, chimed in, "And we're all sick and tired of being givers and singing the blues. That's why we're here."

Cloud glanced around the room for a moment, trying to reconcile the comradery she'd known with this group and her own fundamental misunderstanding of their motives. "What about your friends and neighbors? Remember them?"

Heftig chuckled. "After this, everybody's gonna want to be our friends. You just wait and see!" But during this moment her ears perked up, and she frowned, puzzled, and looked up toward the ceiling. "What's that buzzing?"

The others paused what they were doing and followed her gaze, looking at the ceiling. "Those sound like chopperoids," Nitro opined. "Lots of 'em."

"Let's get some eyes up there!" Heftig growled.

"On it!" Nitro said, and flapped his way up to a high window and peered out into the darkness. He called down, "It's pretty murky out there, but I can hear 'em for sure. Are they trying to keep anyone from flying outta here? Wait, there's something else going on!"

After a few moments a faint mechanical sound was heard, but it quickly grew louder. It sounded like dozens of giant shears or scissors continually working.

Heftig took a reflexive step back. "No! It can't be. They wouldn't… Why would they bring those things?"

Cloud had never heard any sound like this before. "What things?" she wondered.

"Those sound like the Empire's destroyer beetle drones," Heftig clarified. "I've seen them before, and I hoped I never would again. Get ready, everyone! If they're here, they intend to wipe us out."

The buzzing sound of the chopperoids hovering outside was punctuated by the shearing of metal as the destroyer beetle drones began cutting through the exterior walls of the warehouse. Shrieking noises of rending metal echoed as the drones started carving large holes to breach the building.

"Get back!" Heftig yelled. "We need to fall back to the living quarters, it's the most defensible spot!"

The rebels retreated, doing their best to avoid falling debris as more chunks of the outer walls were sliced free and crashed inward.

When the first drones broke through they immediately oriented on the nearest obvious target: Heftig. Two drones charged straight toward the griffin. She raised her shock stick but the crackling tip glanced off the drone's armor plating without any effect.

"Weapons are useless against these things!" Topaz cried while hitting the drones with a spell that seemed to merely disorient them for a few precious seconds.

Cloud was just getting her first good look at these machines, aside from the one she'd seen out in the wilderness in a ruined state. They were glossy black, shaped like a rhinoceros beetle with horn-like spikes jutting forward, faceted blue eyes and a grille that looked like a shark's mouth. Most menacing of all, however, were the metal blades like scythes that served as their front and middle pairs of legs.

More drones poured into the warehouse even as others continued cutting new breaches in the walls. The rebel's few remaining weapons, already badly depleted by the Iron Syndicate's assault, proved utterly ineffective. The drones shrugged off every attack.

One of the beetles scuttled toward Cloud with chilling speed. She backpedaled and instinctively lowered her head, aiming her invisible horn at the machine.

"Look out!" Nitro yelled. The pegasus tackled Cloud, knocking them both out of the path of the oncoming drone. It's scythe-legs instead slashed into a storage shelf, slashing and spilling fluid from large storage jugs.

Cloud looked up to see a drone looming over her, ready to impale her on its forward spikes. She thrust out her hoof instinctively, and a shimmering magenta-colored magical shield materialized, deflecting the drone's killing blow.

The drone reared back as if in surprise at the magical defense. Cloud got to her feet, horn now visible and sizzling with magical aura, and shouted "Get behind me!"

The rebels retreated to cluster behind Cloud as she expanded the magical shield to create a barrier protecting the whole group. Two drones charged forward but rebounded off the shimmering, magenta shield.

"It's about damn time!" Heftig exclaimed when she saw the exposed alicorn's horn sparkling fiercely with magical aura.

That was not the reaction Cloud had expected, but she had no chance to question it. "We'll talk about it later, let's just focus on getting out of this alive!" Cloud responded. Although the shield held for now, keeping it large enough to protect everyone while maintaining it against the repeated impacts was testing her magic.

More drones poured into the warehouse, two dozen or more now. Cloud winced each time the beetles slammed against her shield.

When a momentary lull came, Nitro said, "I think if we fall back to the sleeping quarters we can barricade the doors. That might hold them off."

Cloud thought that was very unlikely to hold them off, but she dropped the shield and they all sprinted toward the living area. She threw up another shield across their rear just as a trio of destroyer beetles trampled after them.

The group shoved furniture up against the flimsy doors of the sleeping quarters, then piled mattresses and other debris to try and barricade themselves in—using much of the same debris that they'd blocked the Syndicate with earlier. This time Cloud reinforced it with another shield.

They heard the drones approaching. The barricade began to shake as the destroyer beetles started hacking into it from the other side. Then they started to appear at the top of the barricade, climbing over the walls and each other to get past the obstacle. Cloud and Topaz both gave telekinetic shoves to push them back.

Cloud gritted her teeth as the impacts on the barricade grew stronger. As soon as the first drones broke through she would need to be ready.

With a final crunch of splintering wood, the first beetle drone broke through the barricade. Cloud immediately erected a shimmering magical barrier, and the drone rebounded off it, scythes clawing angrily. Two more forced their way inside, but Cloud's shield held them at bay.

The drones scuttled back and forth, seeking a way around the magical obstacle. Behind her, Cloud heard Heftig growl, "Alright boys and girls, looks like we've got no choice but to fight our way out of this one. Grab any makeshift weapons you can find!"

As the rebels frantically searched for pipes, boards, or any junk they could use to defend themselves, Cloud racked her brain trying to formulate a plan. Her shield could only hold out so long, and then they would be overwhelmed.

She was struck by inspiration. The next time a destroyer beetle charged forward, instead of just blocking it, Cloud focused her magic and grabbed the drone telekinetically. With a grunt of effort she hurled the beetle back into two others that were trying to advance. The drones collapsed in a heap of flailing metal legs.

"Hey, not bad!" Topaz said. "Keep that up and we might just get out of this mess."

Bolstered, Cloud began striking out more aggressively with her telekinesis, seizing drones and bashing them together or flinging them against the walls. The rebels cheered her efforts. Cloud found that by focusing on one drone at a time, she could manipulate it much more easily.

"Alright, let's push forward while she's got 'em distracted," Heftig ordered. Gripping their makeshift weapons, the rebels advanced behind Cloud as she continued bashing drones left and right with her magic.

Soon they had cleared a path back into the central warehouse. But with the walls breached, more drones were flooding inside. Cloud couldn't possibly grab them all. As she deflected two more beetles, she spotted a metal pipe lying nearby. On instinct she magically snatched it up and hurled it, spearing clear through the drone's body. With a loud electronic "SQUEEEEE!" the bot veered off course, crashing into its counterpart. The dying robot inadvertently speared its comrade with its blades, and in a moment both machines burst at their seams with internal explosions.

"Hey, nice shot!" Nitro cheered. And yet, the flaming junk had hardly hit the floor when more beetle drones started climbing over it.

Cloud began grabbing any loose debris she could find to magically fling at the drones: chunks of concrete, twisted metal, even splintered sections of furniture. Each projectile she launched damaged or distracted the drones enough for the rebels to slowly fight their way toward the exits.

Cloud suddenly called out, "New plan! We're going to the junk room." She turned and used her magical shield like a giant bulldozer, smashing a path through the flimsy partition walls and ranks of beetle drones. Nobody argued. They raced into the path Cloud had cleared.

She'd left herself open to drones attacking from her flank, though. One of them slashed with a scythe, and she didn't dodge quite in time to avoid a gash. Her reflexive kick smashed the drone's metal shell and flung it back with a loud "SQUEEEEE!" before it burst apart.

She magically twisted a scythe-leg off the wrecked beetle and whirled it around, severing limbs of two more drones and buried it in the head of another, then released the weapon and made a mighty leap over them to catch up with her friends. Flailing beetle legs nicked her flanks and wings, but couldn't stop her.

Flapping to a landing in the junk room, she found the rest of her comrades backed into a tight group surrounded by robotic beetles, which had taken to scuttling around them in a circular pattern: one rank running clockwise and the other counterclockwise.

"Nice going," said Heftig with a dose of sarcasm. "We had an escape route, but we're cut off now. Trapped like rats!" She glanced upward wistfully, perhaps thinking of flying. However, even if she'd been willing to abandon non-flying friends to their fate, it didn't look like an option. Chopperoids had already infiltrated the building through the walls that the beetles had torn open, and now were buzzing around the upper parts of the warehouse. These didn't carry any weapons as such, but their rotor blades were sharpened metal. Flying through the swarm of drones would be like flying into a blender.

On some mysterious cue, all the destroyer beetle drones stopped, turned to face inward toward the defenders, and rose up on their hind legs so that their scythe blades were free to strike.

Cloud snorted and scuffed the ground with her hoof. Several large steel pipes sparkled with magenta glow and levitated.

A pipe launched forward with cannon force, spearing two drones like a shish kebab. "SQUEEEEE!" They toppled, limbs flailing helplessly.

Another pipe flew. "SQUEEEEE!"

Another. "SQUEEEEE!" Triple beetle skewer!

Despite their losses, the remaining beetles surged forward, blades swinging to attack. There were cries of shock and pain from the crew as some of those blows connected, including one that grazed Cloud's flank.

"No!" she shouted, and formed a sudden expanding shield that flung back the attackers, buying a respite for a few seconds. She made good use of the time, as she now levitated a large piece of metal from the junk pile. Upon coming free, it turned out to be a 1.4 meter circular sawmill blade. Cloud used her magic to fling it toward the enemy. It rang like a gong as it bisected a destroyer beetle drone. To Cloud's perception it almost seemed as though the robot's halves were falling apart in slow motion, and thick, black oil gushed like blood out of severed hose lines.

"Oohhh!" Cloud breathed, starry eyed as she contemplated the blade floating before her. "Where have you been, darling?"

Grinning maniacally, Cloud sent the blade spinning around the room like a frisbee from Hell, cutting through beetle after beetle. The top halves tumbled away, emitting the now-familiar piercing SQUEEEEE while the bottom halves gushed fountains of black oil before collapsing.

While this was happening, flying chopperoids swooped down to harass the group, their rotors cutting like lawnmower blades. These drones, however, were smaller and more delicate than the beetles, and Cloud's companions held their own against them. Any solid piece of junk could be used as a crude shield to deflect the spinning blades.

"We need to move that way," Heftig pointed.

"You got it!" Cloud acknowledged. She fell into a pattern, alternating between big shoves with her shield to throw the beetles back, then attacking with the saw while they were disoriented. The rest of the group advanced step by step, fending off chopperoids as they went. Topaz by now had figured out which of her spells were most effective, and disabled a number of beetles long enough for her comrades to slip by.

The numbers of beetles were dwindling, though the remaining ones climbed over their own casualties to attack as aggressively as ever

After intense minutes of struggle, the group finally reached a collapsed section of wall that led outside. Panting and feeling dizzy as her magic reserves ran low, Cloud maintained her magical shield behind them as the rebels slipped out into the alley. They could hear the buzzing of chopperoids patrolling nearby. Glints of red and blue lights flashed in the distance; their glare was visible down every street.

"We've got to get off the streets, the Commissars have this whole block surrounded," Topaz said.

"I know where we're going," Nitro said. "Follow me!"

The pegasus led them down a winding route through back alleys and tunnels. Cloud cast a cloak of darkness above the alleys, foiling any view from above, while Topaz cast her own magic light, just enough for the group to see where they were going.

At last they reached an alcove with a doorway and stairs leading down, much like the one where Cloud had first climbed up from the tunnels. One by one they slipped into the darkness, descending deep underground. Only when they were sure they had escaped pursuit did the group stop to catch their breath and take a head count of who'd made it out.

Cloud looked around at the battered and beaten group, and then closed her eyes and collapsed in a heap and knew no more.

Epilogue

From her throne the pink alicorn, Empress Eris Sceleste, gazed down scornfully upon a huddled group of gnolls. They whined, tails between their legs. One managed to yip, “Please, Empress! We’ve delivered as much crystal as we can from the mines, but it’s impossible to meet your quotas. Especially when food shipments coming to our camp are so sparse.”

The alicorn retorted. “Impossible? Who do you lazy canines think you are, to tell me what is or is not possible? Those crystals are a critical power resource. I’ve been told your kind have a special talent for digging. You’ll use that talent in my service and find a way to meet those quotas—or else!”

Another gnoll clenched his fists and yapped, “You monster, you can’t…”

He was grabbed, almost tackled, by the elder gnoll who blurted in a panicked voice, “I’m sorry, Empress! The pup is young and foolish. Please forgive his outburst!”

Sceleste glared, stone-faced, for a few long seconds, then golden light erupted from her horn, along with the distinctive sound of casting a magic spell. The light leapt out from the horn to the young gnoll, then flashed blindingly bright, and the older gnoll was knocked back. When his vision cleared he saw an incredibly detailed and lifelike marble statue where the younger one had been standing a moment earlier.

Sceleste said, “Perhaps the young one will learn respect in the future. Now return to your work, and don’t dawdle. Your quotas have been increased by ten percent.”

The older gnoll wept as his two remaining companions guided him away.

As they departed, a cloaked pony approached and then bowed in the quadrupedal fashion, stretching his forelegs before him and lowering his head. Then he stood and said, “A message for you, Empress! Vectra has new intelligence that it believes you may wish to review.”

The alicorn rolled her eyes. “Intelligence briefings, how I loath them! What could Vectra possibly have found that it can’t handle on its own?”

“I was only told that it involves an alicorn, Ma’am.”

Sceleste’s ears perked up. “An alicorn? It’s been ages since any foolish wizard attempted to create another alicorn to challenge me. I thought the required spells were erased from history. Perhaps I should take a look.”

Soon Sceleste followed her cloaked messenger down a bare, sterile corridor, most unlike the rest of her sumptuous palace. Her long tail swished impatiently as they approached a pair of enormous doors appearing as featureless plates of brushed stainless steel. The doors slid apart silently to admit them.

The chamber beyond was a pentagon in shape, with most of the illumination coming from five panels arranged around the perimeter of the ceiling. In the center was a circular dais with a massive silver orb hovering above it. Facing the dais was an equally massive, curved viewscreen that filled the bulk of the two walls opposite from the entrance.

Sitting upon the central dais was an equine form, a shape much like Sceleste herself, including wings and a horn, but with a body made of high-polish metal plates fitted together almost seamlessly. Its face was featureless save for a pair of camera eyes. Concentric circles of green could be seen in the depths of the lenses, but otherwise these appeared dull and inactive. The metal alicorn was as unmoving as any statue.

Sceleste ignored it and simply spoke into the room, saying, “Vectra, what is this so-called intelligence you wanted me to review?”

The silver orb pulsed with light that matched the cadence of its preternaturally calm and even voice. “Yes, Empress. I have identified an anomaly that may be of interest to you.”

The big viewscreen lit up, displaying aerial footage of an urban zone. It zoomed in on a particular neighborhood. The voice intoned, “This surveillance captures what appears to be an alicorn near the spaceport.”

The view switched to grainy drone footage following a battle taking place in some sort of ruined warehouse. A contingent of destroyer beetle drones were fighting with a motley assortment of creatures. Most notable was the large, black alicorn among them, casting powerful shields and kinetic attacks.

Sceleste’s eyes widened in surprise. She stepped closer to the screen, peering intently as if hoping to see through some trickery. “Impossible! It can’t be… Play it again, Vectra!” The footage replayed. Then Sceleste asked, “Do you have any better images of it?”

The video scrubbed, stopped on a still image and zoomed in. “This is the best I can extract,” Vectra said. This time the sigil on the alicorn’s hip was visible: a midnight blue heater shield with a subtle metallic flash across it.

Sceleste sucked air through her teeth and then growled. “No doubt about it, that is an alicorn, and one I recognize from long ago. That is Nyx, the little upstart my sister Luna tried to replace me with, all those eons ago! I remember turning that wretched creature to stone.”

Vectra intoned, “Unknown magics may have freed Nyx from her petrified state after a prolonged period. However, her actions appear erratic and confused in the surveillance footage. She is likely still acclimating to this era.”

Sceleste waved a dismissive hoof. “Gah! Nyx was never a real threat to me even at the height of her powers, and that was before I gained dominion over this entire world. Now she’s merely an anachronism, a relic out of her time. An annoyance at most.”

Vectra was silent, awaiting orders.

After pondering for a few seconds, Sceleste continued, “However, she might provide some amusement. Have your drones keep close watch on her. Dispatch any resources you need to monitor her movements. I want to know exactly what she is up to.”

“By your command, Empress. She will not escape my notice. Losers or conquerors, all flash past on my silver screen,” the orb intoned.

Sceleste nodded, satisfied. As she turned to depart, the massive metal doors swung open once more. The alicorn’s laughter echoed through the corridors beyond.

“Oh, little Nyx. You have no idea what you’ve awakened into.”