Ghosts of War

Chapters

Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Final Chapter
Chapter 1
Chapter 6

Chapter 2

There was a fire burning merrily in the Golden Oaks reading room's fireplace when I got back, and the smell of wood smoke was chasing out the leftover scent of Pinkie's herbal bath. Twilight was levitating another log onto the fire as I stepped in, now thankfully divested of my heavy luggage, her expression brightened visibly as I stepped into the room.

“Hey Jasper, welcome back, did you find your new place ok?”

“Yeah,” I answered as I pulled up one of the easy chairs, “Ponyville isn't really big enough for me to get lost in.”

“True enough, it's really nothing like Canterlot.” I couldn't help but agree with the sentiment. The bustling royal capitol was a cultural hub and a center for diplomatic delegations. Despite it's close proximity to the city Ponyville was barely a speck in comparison.

“It has a lot of charm though,” I settled into the plush chair across from my friend with relish, “and most importantly: it's peaceful.”

Twilight scoffed as she settled into her own seat, “I wouldn't go that far, you try babysitting the Cutie Mark Crusaders and just see how 'peaceful' you feel.”

“Who?”

“Oh, these three fillies who are trying to get their Cutie Marks as fast as possibe. Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo,” Twilight counted off, “and Applebloom.”

“Huh... I don't suppose that last one is related to your friend Applejack?” I asked, suddenly sure that I now knew the name of the foal in the locket picture.

“That's right, not very subtle is it?” She laughed, “ just be glad you weren't here for the family reunion, it would put you off apples for weeks.”

We shared a laugh that trailed off into the night culminating with the both of us staring into the slowly burning logs. There was a lot of unspoken time between us, even though we'd been close friends in Academy together I felt like the war had caused a massive divide. I just hoped I could struggle over it and find some sense of normality again, here in Ponyville seemed like a good place for that to begin.

Twilight broke the silence with a cough, her expression had become something more somber. “So, it was really bad wasn't it?”

I didn't waste my breath asking what she meant, I just nodded.

“I”m sorry, I feel like a foal that's just found out the tooth fairy isn't real,” I knew that self-deprecating look on her face, but I let her continue, I knew she had to get it out. “The war never crossed far past the eastern Equestrian coast so I guess us ponies in the middle never felt much beyond the economic repercussions.”

“With their primary raiding tactic essentially neutered the griffons were pushed into a prolonged affair to try and seize the land they wanted.”

I could see the beginnings of impotent frustration on her face, she was angry. Maybe angry over the deaths, or the war, or her own lack of knowledge even. Twilight always had been an empathetic pony, kind and more than a little naïve.

“But why didn't they just stop? Economically, logistically, even ethically, the whole war made no sense from the griffon side!” Barely suppressed emotion rattled behind her words, I'd wondered the same thing dozens of times in that hellhole of a bunker. I gave her the answer I'd eventually come up with.

“Pride.”

My succinct answer almost visibly deflated her, she stared back at me disbelievingly.

“The whole war?” she asked, not wanting to accept it. I didn't blame her accepting that a bloody 3-year war had mostly been the product of stubborn pride didn't have great things to say about anypony.

“I doubt it started that way,” my own musings found a voice as I talked to Twilight, it was comforting, but then I was always pretty comfortable around her. “It started with the bunkers, we thought they'd give up, but the griffons are a proud martial folk and didn't. Then they tried to move inward, but found only attrition and strike squads pushing them back. That act wounded their pride yet again. So, they dug in and tried to take an early beachhead, but they'd waited too long and our defenses were too strong. By the time all was said and done we had been fighting long enough that mutual hate was enough to fuel the rest of the war. At that point we all had something to avenge and nothing but blood would see that put to rest.”

“But... that's just...”

“Horrible, I know, but the griffons don't have the advantage of an immortal ruler like we do.”

Twilight gave me an odd look before comprehension dawned.

“Which means: They're more prone to thinking short term,” she filled in with a small smile to which I nodded.

Twilight was always in a better mood after she figured out a puzzle or a leap of logic. That, of course, had been the point of my phrasing; it had given her something else to think about as well as a logical explanation for a terrible act.

“So...” I settled into a more comfortable position as I wondered how to broach the subject I knew would come up. “Are we going to talk about what you really wanted to ask? About why it took me three extra years to...”

Twilight's face fell but she nodded.

“I know who your mentor is, you have to know where I spent those years right?”

Another nod. I let out a sigh and took the plunge.

“Canterlot Sanitarium.”

To her credit she didn't flinch or even look uncomfortable, just sad and a little worried. At least it wasn't pity, Celestia knew I'd had more than my share of that. I didn't wait for her to ask, I knew what she wanted to hear so I told her.

“I didn't end the war on good terms, especially after Bunker Bridge. My whole world was red with blood and I think, in some ways, I never really came back from some of those last few battles. Long story short I had... I guess you could call it a breakdown. I don't even really remember most of my time in the loony bin to be honest. All I know is that I gradually got more lucid until they deemed me 'fit to reenter society'.”

“You look ok from where I'm sitting,” Twilight remarked shyly.

No poker face whatsoever.

“Twilight...”

The tone of my voice made Twilight's face go scarlet with embarrassment and she turned away.

“Oh, wow uh, Jasper, I-” she stammered trying to salvage something of her intentions, I was just as lost on how back out of the awkward mire I'd dropped us into. “I'm so sorry, I just... endless night, that was really just...”

I chuckled, I couldn't help it. Her awkward flailing was actually one of her most endearing aspects. She managed to make it look adorable rather than pathetic which was a rare feat.

“You're... are you... that wasn't funny! Are you laughing at me?” her voice accusatory.

“No, of course not,” I answered, completely straight-faced.

“Liar.”

“Pipsqueak.”

“Loser.”

“Nerd.”

“Numbskull.”

“Know-it-all.”

We stared death at each other for a good minute before one of her facial muscles tweaked. That was the pebble that began the avalanche and with glacial inevitability smiles started to edge onto our faces. Then came the stifled snorts of laughter, the hitching chuckles, and by the end of it we were both out of chairs holding each other up as we howled with laughter. It was absurd and foalish and completely unwarranted but by the Sun it felt good to laugh like a normal colt again. Eventually we mastered ourselves, laying on the floor gasping for breath and riding out the last peals of laughter that were left over.

“Oh, it has been way too long since I've done that.”

“What?” she asked between breaths, “laughed?”

I shrugged agreed, “I guess, not a lot of laughs to be had in the bunkers or the bin y'know?”

“Yeah... I guess there wouldn't be huh?”

Twilight was up first and gave me a helping hoof up as well. I was about to open my mouth to thank her but in the moments between getting onto my hooves and looking up at her she had crossed the small distance and wrapped her forelegs around me in a desperate hug. I stood there dumbly for a moment trying to decide what was happening until I realized she was shaking. Ever so slightly shivering in my embrace, and there was a warm wetness leaking onto my shoulder.

Twilight was very quietly crying into my mane.

“H-hey, what's wrong?”

“I-I'm s-sorry, I just... I'm a mess. I was so worried all the time for so long. Ever since you were sent to the war I wondered what would happen if I lost you. Then when Celestia said you survived but you were in solitary in the Sanitarium, I thought I'd lost you in a way that was worse.”

I didn't deny that, I would rather be dead on the battlefield then locked in a padded cell in a state of psychosis.

“T-then she said you were improving and it felt like I'd started breathing again for the first time in five years, I asked her about you every time we talked and...”

“Yeah, she said you were concerned, I had no idea that I was-”

She pulled away so she could glare at me with tear-stained eyes that were going a little red. Some mare's can cry with dignity and grace, make it look good so to speak. Twilight was not one of them, on her it just looked like hurt, and I hated that.

“What? You had no idea that you were what?” she rasped through small sobs, “that you were the first pony to ever stand up for me? That you were my only friend outside of the ivory tower I was stuck in for half of my life? That you were the only pony to treat me like I was... normal?”

She let out a ragged breath as the fight left her, I pulled her back into me and she sagged against my chest.

“I was just... I couldn't imagine my first friendship ending in insanity or death, it would've been just too cruel.”

“It didn't though, I'm here, I'm back, and I'm sane. At least, as sane as I ever was.”

Twilight laughed a little harshly, “I did wonder about that sometimes considering some of the pranks you pulled on Luster.”

“Oh night, you remember that vacuous little puff?”

“Of course I do, I also remember you opening a mud-hole in the road every time a carriage passed her on the street just to ruin her outfit.”

“Yeah, as I recall she ended up hugging the wall every time she went out after a couple of weeks.”

“She deserved it though after some of those beatings her cronies gave you.”

“I was fine.”

“You were a walking bruise.”

I scoffed and tousled her mane again since it had finally returned to normal which, of course, could not be allowed. Eschewing the chairs we opted instead to sit side-by-side in front of the fireplace, enjoying the comforting familiarity of being near each other again. I felt her head droop against my shoulder and for a moment I thought she had fallen asleep. When I turned to look at her though I saw that she was just leaning against me, staring with half-lidded eyes into the firelight.

“Hey Jasper?”

“Mhm?”

“W-what would do you think of... us?”

The directness of the question struck me between the eyeballs. Fortunately she was patient, which was good because I had to think long and hard about my answer. Although it wasn't an unfair question, it was still a loaded one, I mean we weren't that far apart in age, we were good friends and got along well, and if I said I didn't find her attractive I would be forced to conclude that I had in fact died in the war because only a dead colt would think that.

All of that was true but still...

“I honestly don't know yet,” I said softly, turning to rest my chin gently on her head. “I really don't think I'm that stable yet to be honest. I know I seem fine but trust me, up here...” I prodded my head with a hoof for emphasis, “it's still a rattlesnake's nest of problems.” That was the understatement of the year, too bad I couldn't really tell her about the worst ones... literally.

I felt her nod at my answer though. She was disappointed but, unless I missed my guess completely, not entirely surprised. After all, Twilight had an intellect brighter than the morning star and she wasn't totally naïve. I couldn't ask her to wait but on the other hoof I had no right to tell her what to do at all. History has shown that she is infinitely better at making decisions than I am.

“You're a lot more confident than when I left you Twi,” I remarked as the atmosphere eased a little, “the old you would never have had the gumption to ask that question.”

Twilight giggled lightly in response, a pleasant tinkling sound that made me think of a forest spring.

“Well, I've had more than a little help, my friends have been good for me.”

Noticing that her mane was calming down again I tousled it again, eliciting a playful growl from the mare it belonged to.

“Good, I'm glad of that, and I'm sorry I couldn't give you the answer you wanted.”

“Don't be, I'm glad you were honest with me,” Twilight replied with a lightly dismissive shake of her head. “I should have known better anyway, considering how many psych textbooks I've read.”

“You can't always break those things down cerebrally half-pint.”

“Try and stop me.”

“Uh, no I'm good.”

We shared another laugh, controlled this time but freeing nonetheless. I had forgotten how good it felt to be at peace, when I'd been younger I'd never known how good I'd had it. Now that I've seen the world at its ugliest I gained a new appreciation for harmony. I could understand now, just a little bit, why the Princesses would go so far to protect it.

Even now I could feel the scratching in my mind. My memories and skills, garnered over the course of three years of brutal combat, placed behind a seal as high and mighty as the walls of Canterlot. I could hear the indistinct susurration elicited from that unholy fragment. With an effort I pushed it away, it's time was done now and I had no desire to revisit it.

“Are you ok?” Twilight's voice was concerned, I realized I had drifted off for a moment. Lost in the shadowed memories that were hidden from me.

“Yeah, I'm fine, just tired, I think I'll hit the sack,” I fought down a yawn, realizing as I spoke how true my words were. “Thank you, for the company and the conversation.”

“Anytime old friend,” she leaned in and gave me a chaste peck on the cheek. My face warmed slightly at the show affection.

I said I wasn't ready to date, I said nothing about kisses from beautiful mares, I am a still a stallion after all.

“'Good night half-pint.”

“Are you ever going to stop calling me that?” Twilight moaned as she walked me to the door.

“Not as long as I can do this...” I mussed her mane on last time before sprinting out laughing into the night just barely ahead of three deftly hurled quills and an empty scroll-case.

I woke up to, no joke, the sound of bird song. I couldn't remember the last time I'd woken up to something that pleasant. Usually I was waking up the sound of an orderly pounding on my door with the morning's medication in hoof. I opened my eyes, immediately snapping them shut again as light streamed in. The sun was barely up but years of training didn't fade easily and I was up with the dawn as usual. I carefully made my bed before taking my daily pill I'd been given a generous supply of, I pulled all the clothing I'd need for the day out and set them up before I left the room. The army had instilled a sense of order and discipline into me that I didn't even think about anymore and the routine was comforting in it's own way.

The home that the crown had provided for me wasn't lavish, it was a three room cottage with a small bedroom, a smaller kitchen, and a respectable living area. Outside was a modest garden which I intended to make use of. The one upside to earth magic is being able to do the slow stuff. I mean sure, throwing around telekinesis and fireballs and whatnot is neat but there's probably only a hooffull of ponies who can make things grow the way I can. Even earth ponies can't make a tree bear fruit unless it's in season. I, on the other hoof, can make an apple tree bear oranges which I was expressly informed would be a bad idea here in Ponyville given its apple-driven economy. Unfortunately I had far more important, and far less pleasant, things to do today than gardening. A simple breakfast and several cups of coffee later I was out the door with the directions Twilight had written up for me tucked into one of my many greatcoat's pockets. Her writing was as crisp and clear as always and saw me on the correct path within moments, I didn't even need to head through town, which was actually fine by me, the mist of the early morning hadn't even begun to burn off yet.

I'd been walking for about a mile alongside the small river that coasted the edge of Ponyville when I heard a wordless tune carried on the wind. There didn't seem to be any active rhyme or rhythm to it but that wasn't important. The important part was that the voice producing it was clearer and purer and polished crystal. Without thinking about it I moved closer, there was something almost hypnotic about the music and the way it drew me in was so subtle I didn't notice I'd been changing direction until I'd made my way up one of the rolling hills by the bank. I saw the singer sitting beneath a wide tree with all manner of forest animals, large and small, flocking around her. She had a butter-yellow coat and a long pink mane that came down like a waterfall to her pool at the ground she was resting upon. Nopony else was around but her and I, along with a veritable legion of cuddly forest animals and one very large bear. As suddenly I'd noticed it, the song stopped and I snapped back to reality, with a shock I realized I was nearly to the tree myself. The yellow pegasus was staring at me with equal parts abject fear and mortified embarrassment.

“O-oh my... I didn't know anypony was out here.. I mean, nopony is ever out this far this early, I mean... uhm...” she stammered for a while until she noticed the reactions of the animals around her. There were only two reactions to speak of. The large animals all had their hackles up and were looking at me like I was a threat, while the smaller ones scurried for safety behind the larger ones or the pegasus herself. Suddenly her attention was on the animals rather than me and her demeanor changed to a more comforting one.

“Hey now, what's wrong little ones, I'm sure he didn't mean to startle us,” she cooed, referring to even the massive bear as 'little one' which, surprisingly, but her voice seemed to soothe it. Eventually she turned back to me once the creatures returned to a wary state rather than actively hostile. “I'm so sorry, usually their much better behaved.”

“Don't worry about, I just heard somepony singing and I...” I looked for a way to say it that didn't make me look like a total creep, “I guess I felt... drawn by it, it's strange I know.”

She shook her head at my last words though, “uhm, not really, but...”

“But?”

“Well, that's how I always bring out the animals on nice mornings like this,” she said in a voice like velvet, “but it's never happened to another pony before.”

I won't lie, that made me a little uncomfortable. The idea that the trick this mare uses to call up animals worked just as well on me wasn't exactly the highlight of my year.

“So it is weird, just... weirder than I thought.”

She nodded, her face drifting idly behind her voluminous bangs as if she were hiding. That was when I really registered her features. She wasn't just pretty, she was gorgeous, with large expressive eyes that sparkled with a sort of untouched innocence that even Twilight lacked. She had a small, pert mouth and delicate cheekbones that I was sure would make her smile a hell of a dazzler. This wasn't just a mare, this was one capital 'L' of a Lady.

At that point I realized I was staring and she had fully retreated into her hair. Which made me feel like a cretin. To be honest I didn't really feel like I even belonged near her. I was a soldier, I'd committed terrible acts of violence that never seemed as near as they did right now as I stood next to somepony who was most probably my polar opposite in every way.

“U-uhm, are you ok sir?”

“Oh, uh... yeah, just thinking I should really get out of your hair. Sorry I bothered you miss,” with that I moved away, turning back to my path.

“W-wait,” came her small voice, I looked back to see her peeking out from behind her bangs at me. “My name... it's Fluttershy.”

I blinked for a moment, searching my mind for the reason that her name seemed familiar.

'You'll probably be the closest thing to a neighbor my friend Fluttershy has ever had'

Twilight's words came back to me and I cursed myself for a foal for not recognizing the yellow mare from her description. To be fair I hadn't really imagined her being so... well, in the corps had a name for that fillies that looked like she did.

A knock-out.

“I've actually heard of you before,” I mentioned off-hoof as her identity came back to me, somehow that sent her into even more of a panic.

“H-huh?!”

“Oh, no, I'm sorry I just... damn it,” I planted a hoof into my face as I tried to work the words out around my flailing tongue. “My name is Jasper, I'm an old friend of Twilight Sparkle's, she's sent me a few letters about you and her other friends.”

Instantly Fluttershy's demeanor shifted from panic to completely pleasant and it was at that point that I realized I had been totally correct: She really did have one hell of a smile.

“Oh! You're a friend of Twilight's? I'm so glad to meet you! I didn't know she had any other friends. Oh my that sounded awful... Uhm, pleased to meet you Mister Shale,” she moved forward, demurely offering a hoof. Without thinking I took it gently in my scarred right hoof and brought my head down to plant a small kiss on it; a painfully traditional greeting, but one that was drilled into all Equestrian Royal Army officers for formal occasions.

Which this really wasn't.

Fluttershy let out a small sound like a mouse being trodden on and I looked up in time to see her go scarlet to the tips of her ears.

“Ah, I'm sorry... I'm a former officer and... it's a habit.” Fluttershy gently withdrew her hoof as I apologized, and stared resolutely at the ground with wide eyes.

“I-it's ok...”she nervously pawed at the soft earth with a hoof as her blush died down. “You have very good manners, it just surprised me.”

We stood with a sort of awkward silence hanging between us for a moment.

“Ahem, well, I'm sorry again for interrupting your morning, Miss Fluttershy, but I have an errand to run at Sweet Apple Acres so I should be going.”

“O-oh, ok, uhm, you said you lived nearby though?”

I turned back to her as I began to make my exit and nodded.

“Well, if it's not too much trouble, you could come by for tea some time, I don't get many visitors out here and, well, the company would be... nice.”

Tea. Just tea then?

“Uhm, yeah, that actually sounds..."I back-pedaled, remembering my manners "what I mean is, I'd love to Miss Fluttershy.”

She squeaked as I accepted, I think a part of her didn't expect me to actually agree, but she smiled bashfully. “O-ok then, uhm, have a safe walk, Mister Shale.”

“Please, call me Jasper.”

“Oh, well, alright... good morning then... Jasper.”

I inclined my head in a small bow, today was turning out much better than I had anticipated, I had the feeling, though, that it wouldn't last. Mostly, for the reasons that brought me to the farmstead of the Apple Family.

Chapter 3

In the flashback, half way through, the silver color denotes the entire squad speaking at once. You'll get it when you get there.

The view of the sun rising over the great fields of apple trees covering Sweet Apple Acres was one that etched itself firmly into my mind. That kind of wholesome and pastoral peace was exactly what I had fought so hard to protect, I think it did my soul good to see a real and physical representation of everything I'd bled for, as grim as it sounds. I stood on the overlooking hill and dallied for a moment, letting the brisk morning air fill my nostrils with the clean smell of good earth and hard labor.

I think the professors may have been right all along, I really should have been born an earth pony.

I had a greater purpose here than admiring the view, however intoxicating it might have been, and below me I saw the form of a heavy-set red stallion moving over the fields dragging a large plow behind him. As I approached I realized that this pony could only be the colt from the photograph, several years and a few hundred pounds more muscle later. I knew his name from the information the Princess had granted me access to, just basic public records, anything more would have been bordering the illegal and our ruler was far too dedicated to the law to approach that line.

I came down the hill at a canter, he glanced up at me a few times but I made no attempt to approach subtly, I had the feeling this fellow would appreciate directness, rather than discretion. When I finally got within earshot I called out to him.

“Am I addressing James Apple?”

The large red colt stopped his plowing and let me approach before answering in a drawling baritone that reminded me of a distant thunderstorm.

“Eeyup, but James was mah Grandaddy's name sir, ya'll can call me Big Macintosh, seein' as e'erypony else in Ponyville does.”

He spoke the way a mountain moves, slow and deliberately without a single wasted breath or word. I nodded and approached to offer my hoof, “My name is Jasper Shale, former Captain in the Equestrian Royal Army, 141st.”

Mac gave me a short nod and strong hoofshake. “Mah daddy al'ays said: don't trust nopony what won't shake on his name, ya'll seem trustworthy, so what can ah do ya for?”

“Actually I have business with your family, an promise I made to an old comrade, sorry but, could you tell me if this looks familiar to you?” I reached into my greatcoat and drew out the locket, as I let it fall to its full length I felt, rather than saw, the breath hitch in Mac's chest.

“Ah do sir, now ya'll better have a good answer fer me'n'mine as ta why ya'll have mah daddy's necklace.”

I nodded solemnly and explained, thankful that I had retained the presence of mind to beg Princess Celestia to spare me this one memory, if only so I could tell it to these good folks.

The smell of gunsmoke and the fumes of war filled the air around me and it tasted like necter on my tongue, my heavy, grey, greatcoat was a welcome presence on the battlefield, and a battlefield this city had certainly become. A year had passed since the events of the Bunker and my new unit, the 109th, formed from the tattered remains of my old regiment as a special operations group which had entered the bombed out carcass of Baltimare. A year ago it had been a lively city of culture and trade, now it was a ruin, and all because of those warmongering featherheads.

+Move out, run silent.+

I gave the order, clipped and simple as I'd been conditioned, no extraneous noise was needed, not even a 'yes sir', my troopers heard my orders and knew their roles. I had taken my five best and most trusted specialists with me into the city to ferret out the bases from which the Griffons had been dividing the local warband into raiding parties and conducting operations. According to my intel; three seperate squads had entered the area and subsequently been lost, with their fates unknown. They were assumed to be dead or, at best, captured.

Their words not mine since, if I'd been giving the briefing, I'd have said, 'If their lucky, they're KIA.” Nopony wants to see what the Griffons do to their PoW's. A crackle followed by two short clicks, meaning Starlight Charmer, came through the comcryst in my ear.

+Report, Charmer.+

+Sir, I have a living return from the building two blocks down, second level, east side.+

+Numbers?+

+Nine, two are faint and fading. Possible PoW's from the missing-+

+Yes, Charmer, I'm aware, approach vector?.+

+Treasure and I can joint-teleport the team into the room below them.+

+Risk of reveal?+

+Minimal, Treasure and I can bring us in silent, Sir.+

+Do it.+

Gentle Treasure and Starlight Charmer were my two finest unicorn operatives, but while Treasure could work veils like nopony's business, Charmer was probably the best scanner I'd ever met. Nothing got by her, and her exacting, perfectionist nature made her 'returns' all the more reliable. It helped that they worked together well, they spent most of their time in each others company and syncronicity was key to joint magical efforts. For example: a joint-teleport, using one unicorn to provide the power for the spell while the other aimed and translocated the party. There was barely a whisper of noise as the soot-stained alleyway we'd been hiding in while Charmer conducted her fifteenth scan of the day melted away and reformed into a burnt out dining hall, probably a hotel of some kind. Thankfully the comcryst picked up much softer sounds, allowing us to communicate unimpeded without raising our voices or giving our positions away. Most soldiers only used them during combat ops, I drilled our team mercilessly to use them at all times while on duty. If the enemy can't see you or hear you, then they can't get the drop on you. I made a squad check as soon as we cleared the teleport.

+Squad, sound off.+

+Gentle Treasure, aye.+

+Strong Boulder, aye.+

+Honey Withers, aye.+

+Starlight Charmer, aye.+

+Lightning Dasher, aye.+

+Squad is aye, Captain.+

+On my signal I'll blow the bottom out from under them. Lightning, close in while they're disoriented and take out any soldiers on the edge of our attack range.+

+Aye sir.+

+Charmer and Treasure, drop us in at the northeast corner of the room. Honey Withers, you and Strong, charge in and bring down whoever's closest, I'll engage the commander.+

+Aye sir.+

+Aye sir, and the PoW's?+

+Not our concern until after the Griffons are dead. Charmer and Treasure, once you've recovered provide Withers and Boulder with covering fire.+

+Aye sir.+

+Everyone's heard their role, I won't repeat it. Get in, get out, leave nothing with a beak still moving.+

A chorus of 'Aye Sir's came over the comcryst and I reached over my shoulder, gripping the mouth-bit to draw my weapon, a S-shaped metallic haft terminating in a curved crescent blade.

+Death has come for these featherheads, let's take them to the door.+

+Aye Captain.+

With a manifestation of power I released a bass drum-beat of magic into the ceiling above us, and that was when all hell broke loose.

The ceiling of the broken-down building immediately caved, releasing a torrent of dust, along with a mess of cloying, rotted carpeting and shattered timbers in a hail around us.

I barely had a chance to see it, or hear the shouts and screams of surprise from our victims.

Almost as soon as the ceiling cracked there was a snap of displaced air, a short range teleportation dropping us in the most stable corner I'd left of the room. The dust cleared in a surge of wind from Lightning Dasher, who spread his wings and launched himself into the furthest Griffon, a poor schmuck who didn't even has his weapon, a native Griffonari talwar, out of it's scabbard. Withers rushed out next, the cream-colored earth pony mare tackling a baffled Griffon soldier down and through the hole, a dull crack told me they'd landed with her hooves on his head. Boulder was right behind her, his massive bronze frame easily picking up two of the feathery bastards and pinning them to the floor, a crackling sound, like campfire embers, came from their wings as Strong Boulder brutally stomped the Griffons' pride and joy into so much bonemeal. After a moment, effervescent bolts of light began flying over head, strong enough to discourage but not so powerful as to bring the building down on our heads.

I told you I had picked the best.

The chaos, though, was all for one reason: when everything went fetlocks up the leader would always have to move in to rally his troops, and I was not disappointed. Within moments of our attack a larger, more 'regal' Griffon stepped in and began shouting what I presumed were orders in their sibilant language. I adjusted my grip on the bit of my scythe and moved like a storm of metal, slowing only for one poor sod, maybe a adjutant to the leader, who had the bad judgment to get in my way.

snicker-snack

An arm went flying, still gripping the sword he'd feebly been able to draw but not use. Arterial warmth sprayed out, dampening my coat and sinking in with no noticeable change. I felt the surge of elation in my mind, the thrill of taking a life, the brave little soldier would bleed out in moments, or seconds more likely with that kind of loss. He'd bought his leader time though, the Griffon commander snapped out his decorated talwar and deflected my next attacks and, credit where credit is due, the featherhead was quite the swords-griffon. The darkness and dust was disturbed only by our fight, sparks flew from the force of our attacks as blue Griffonari iron met Equestrian steel.

His mistake was already in the making though, even as I attacked I began slowly and methodically revealing a pattern to his eyes, a master like him would anticipate when my defenses would be at their weakest, which was just what I wanted. I swung high, judging the timing of his parry which came right as I expected, I pulled back out of the feint and dropped low, throwing him off by the sudden cessation of attack, and another bass 'thoom' sounded, blowing the floor out from under him.

Griffons hate the ground, they see it's unruly surface as unreliable, so when the ground is disturbed, the Griffon will naturally take to the air. The commander was no different, and he flew upwards.

Right into my descending scythe-blade.

With a surge of magic I caused the blade to vibrate horrendously, it let out a banshee's wail as the metal strained against itself. The screaming edge sliced through the shocked Griffon commander with the sound of vellum being torn in half, causing another wave of viscera, organs, and bone to spill across the floor as what remained the the offending commander dropped from his ill-timed attempt to fly.

My blades vibration softened to a falsetto hum, then to still silence. The battle was over in a matter of moments, I didn't bother looking around, I just spoke into the comcryst.

+Squad, sound off.+

A range of replies answered followed by the usual 'Squad is Aye, Captain' from Charmer.

+Seven more souls for the maw of Tartarus, courtesy of the 109th. Good work soldiers.+

+Aye Sir!+

+Charmer, scan for bogeys around our immediate vicinity, I'll see to the PoW's, if there's anything left of them.+

+Aye sir.+

The room just beyond our impromptu battleground was little more than a disused bedroom, the prisoners however, were simple enough to find though, and for good reason.

They had been nailed to the wall and used for target practice.

I moved to the nearest, a mare, in her early twenties maybe, not much older or younger than me. I pressed my hoof to her neck.

+This one is gone.+

I spoke into the comcryst as I moved the the other, an older stallion, large and heavy set, with broad shoulders and the kind of muscle that only comes from a lifetime of physical labor. His hardy constitution helped, I didn't even need to check his vitals to tell he was still alive, unfortunately it was only barely. With a simple effort of concentration I extracted the pitons that were keeping him affixed to the wall, as well as the stub-bladed knives embedded in his chest. He coughed up blood and mucus as Treasure caught him with her telekinesis and lowered him gently to the floor.

+Sir, can we...?+

+This one is on his way out, gather their tags and secure their belongings, we'll leave them with HQ when we transfer to our next OZ.+

“W-wait...” the soldiers voice was barely a whisper and it was obvious that it took a herculean effort to make even that much sound. Even in those days, with my heart hardened by the fires of war and atrocity, I felt admiration for him, such strength was rare. So in the spirit of that I turned back to him and honored him by speaking outside my comcryst, an unusual act for me.

“You're strong, what drives you I wonder?”

“Please... c-can ya'll... deliver this to... mah family?” with an effort he drew out a locket attached to a necklace from around his neck. A small golden apple flecked with his blood.

“HQ will see all of your belongings shipped to your next of-”

“No, p-please, ah want... ah need ya... to tell'em, they'll want ta know.”

“Tell them what?” I was growing weary of him, and yet, something kept me from turning away.

“Tell them... that ah love them... that they were mah last thoughts... p-please.”

I stared down at him, I suppose I knew now what drove him; Family. Some part of me itched at that, anger and jealousy, beneath the my 'special training'. Some part of me, my old self I imagined at the time, ached. So despite the ice surrounding my heart in those bloody years I nodded.

“T-thank you... sir.”

“Don't, who are they?”

“...”

“Hey! I can't deliver it if you don't... blast it.”

+Something the matter sir?+

+Damn fool died without telling me his name. What do the tags say, Withers?+

+I don't know, they seem to be missing, along with all of their supplies, sir.+

+Sun-damned featherheads will steal anything, fine, no matter, he's dead now, so he won't care one way or the other. Gather up the squad, we're moving on, there are still two more warbands in the area, according to the intel.+

+Aye sir.+

I told him everything, leaving out some of the grislier parts as well as my own initial disregard for the task. To be fair I can honestly say that that wasn't really me. It was a part of me that was severed, and for good reason, even if I couldn't remember what the reason was anymore.

“I'm sorry to be the one to bring you this news, but he begged me to return this to you myself, I promised.”

A shadow had fallen over the heavy stallion's face. I could see the controlled rage tensing in the set of his shoulders and the fire in his eyes. He nodded though, and said, “Eeyup, tha' was daddy's way. Al'ays do it yerself.”

“He told me to tell you his thoughts were of all you, at the end.”

“Ah see,” Mac said through gritted teeth, “ah can't thank ya enough Captain, fer bein' with'm at the end. An' fer bringin' this here necklace back to us.”

“No, you don't need to thank me," I passed him the necklace which he stoically took. "It was my honor, from one soldier to another, he deserved to come home, I'm just sorry it took so long.”

Mac nodded solemnly. “Ah'm sorry but ya'll will hafta 'scuse me, the rest'a the family'll be about soon.”

“Should I...?”

Mac shook his head, “Nnope, ah'm sorry again Captain but ah'm gonna hafta ask ya ta let me handle the rest'a this, ya'll've done more'n enough.”

I acquiesced, bowing my head in silence, “for what it's worth, I'm sorry I didn't get there sooner.”

“E'erypony's gotta go sometime so thank'ya kindly again Captain, fer all the trouble you've gone to ta bring us this little bit'a peace.”

“I'm living in Ponyville now, if you or any of the family want to talk I'm in the far cottage on the edge of town, about a half-mile out from the Everfree.”

“Ah'm sure mah sister will want ta talk ta ya, sorry in advance, if she just barges in on ya'll, she ain't the subtlest pony aroun'.” Mac wore a tired smile, and I nodded, returning it.

“Then I'll say 'Good Morning' to you, and be on my way.”

“Eeyup, G'morning then, Captain.”

We parted on good terms, or maybe cordial would be better description. A part of me was relieved in the extreme to have finally passed that burden on, but now I found myself wondering what else to do.

“I think, that I'm going to take a nap,” I said softly to myself as I made my way back up the direction I'd come from.

I followed my path to the tall tree by the river where I'd met Fluttershy earlier that morning, she was long gone now, as I'd expected, but the peaceful nature of the location had, fortunately, remained. I curled up against the tree and allowed the softly gurgling sound of the river, and the quiet breath of the wind in the leaves above me, lull me into a more comfortable rest that I'd known in years.

At least until the dreams came.

All the world was dark.

I couldn't breathe, there was so much death.

I was running, hard and fast with my breath coming in labored gasps, my chest burned with exhaustion and my legs with exertion. I was running but I knew it wasn't fast enough.

The restless dead. Soldiers, citizens, enemy combatants... all tearing their way out of the ground beneath me, grasping at my hooves as I passed them.

“I'm sorry! Please! Leave me be!” I shouted as I stumbled and galloped away from them. But there was no end to the dead... to those who pursued me... to those whom I had killed.

Abomination

Desecrator

DEFILER

The voices struck me like a hammer-blow, send me careening into the ground. I looked up only to realize I was surrounded by faces, dead faces that were rotten and mangled by untold violence. I struggled, backing away as I begged,“I didn't know! It wasn't me! PLEASE!” I pleaded, “PLEASE JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!”

They leaned in, their empty, ravaged faces moaning and whispering accusations into my mind. The hooves of the dead seized me, the ground cracked beneath me.

“No... NO PLEASE!”

Corrupter

“Please! SOMEPONY HELP ME!”

MURDERER

“I DIDN'T KNOW! PLEASE! PLEASE JUST-”

“-LEAVE ME ALONE!” I roared as I emerged from the nightmare, songbirds erupted from the tree, startled from their nests by my shout. For a moment it was all I could to still the rampant tattoo of my heart beating against my ribcage, to remind myself that the dead only haunted me in my dreams. The sun shone brightly overhead, it was almost noon, I was startled to realize that I had slept for nearly five hours, then again, I hadn't slept well the night before. The thought of approaching the Apple family and telling my story had me crawling up the walls, as it were and with that finally done my body had just slumped into exhaustion.

I rose in a cold sweat and shook the last terrors of the dream off, it was the same dream I'd had almost every night since I'd left the asylum. I'd had it more than a few times inside there too, although some of the drugs they'd had me on had mercifully dulled the edge of the dreams and on those nights my sleep was less troubled. Even though the day had gotten very hot, very quickly, I barely felt it. I briefly wondered if this was how all the survivors of the war felt.

Like they were haunted by the dead.

I doubted it, Princess Celestia had placed a suppression upon my memories but I'd gathered enough hints to know I'd done some terrible things during the war. The suppression spell wasn't for my mental well-being however, that she had made clear in no uncertain terms. She refused to go into detail but, apparently, somewhere in my mind was knowledge so poisonous that it actually posed a threat to the kingdom.

I supposed I was fortunate that the Princess was a merciful soul; anypony else probably would have just left me locked up for the rest of my natural life. I didn't know what I had done that was so terrible that it warranted a spell of forgetfulness from the Princess of the Sun herself, but it must have been bad. All I did know was that after Bunker-Bridge the survivors of the 141st were taken somewhere and something had been done to our minds. Apparently my mind in particular was special though, it contained something that caused all of this. A part of me wanted to know so badly it was a constant itch but...

“Leave well enough alone, Captain Shale, that is the lone term of our agreement for your release: Leave. Well enough. Alone.”

The words of the Princess came back to me as though she were still towering over me. I, like most citizens, had viewed her as something between benevolent goddess and a mother figure, but the deadly resolve and unspoken threat in her words was something I'd never imagined I would hear. Even just the memory of it was... unsettling.

That, more than anything else, had made me think that I must have done something terrible.

The chuckling river below me drew my thoughts from those dark places though and reminded me of the sweat that had begun to cake into my coat. One thing I certainly loved about being done with the war: bathing regularly.

I cantered down the slight hill and waded out into the river, it was brisk, cool, and felt wonderful. I knelt down and let the clean water wash away the remnants of the bad dreams, a few quick scrubs left me feeling as good as new, or as close as I could get.

A tiny sound interrupted my musings as I emerged from the river and in an instant the hairs on the back of my neck went up and I itched for my weapon, but just as quickly I pushed that response down. The war was over and we were at peace, there was no need for that anymore, or so I told myself. Instead I listened closer for the source of the noise.

-Sniff-sniffle-

It sounded like... somepony crying?

-Sniffle-

I approached cautiously, clearing a wall of reeds, a little further down the bank was a tiny filly whose coat was a light, almost pale olive color with a mane the shade of fresh apples tied back with a red bow. I knew her appearance well, she was the tiny foal in the picture, some six years later of course.

“Are you... Apple Bloom?” I asked tentatively, the filly started with a shock and nearly fell over. “it's ok, I'm not going to hurt you.”

“W-who are ya?”

“My name is Jasper, Jasper Shale, I'm new in town.”

“Shale... a-are you the one tha'..." another sniffle interrupted her words as she fought to maintain her composure, "Ya'll brought home poppa's necklace?” I gave a somber nod to her question and she relaxed a little, evidently deciding she could trust me with that sort of snap judgment only a foal could have. “T-thanks, ah guess, -sniffle-”

“Anything I can do?”

“D-did you know mah poppa very well Mister?”

The question came a little out of the blue, a part of me wanted to dismiss it, to tell her I'd never known him, that I'd found him by chance and how I hadn't even gotten a chance to have a whole conversation with him before he expired on the floor of a bombed-out second floor hotel room. I hadn't even know his name, but...

“A little bit, I met him before he passed, why?”

Fresh tears sprang up and Apple Bloom began to sob.

“B-because... Big Mac... he told us all what 'appened, an' Applejack, mah sister, she started ta cry, and Granny cried, even Mac cried an' I ain't never seen 'im cry.”

“And you're crying too, it's ok to cry when you lose someone Apple Bloom.”

“a-ah know tha'... but I ain't cryin' cuz I lost nopony... ah'm cryin' cuz... cuz...”

I had a bad feeling in my gut that I already knew the answer, she was crying because...

“...cuz ah can't e'en remember him, he's mah poppa an' ah can't even remember what he looked like,” Apple Bloom choked out with a bitterness that didn't fit with a filly her age, “'side from some ol' photo's Granny took... ah can't even remember his voice. D-...does that make me a bad filly, Mister?”

Her eyes were wide and filled with pain, unsure and begging for somepony, anypony, to give an answer to her. My hatred for that terrible war redoubled on itself, seeing her like that. Besides, if anypony knew how she felt, it was me.

“Listen to me Apple Bloom, you. Are not. A bad filly. You hear me?” my tone brooked no argument, and she nodded. “You're not the only one that can't remember your folks.”

She sniffled and I handed her a hoofkerchief, which she used liberally before asking, “Y-ya'll can't remember your poppa neither?”

I shook my head as I sat down beside her, “Or my mom, I'm an orphan. I was raised in the Canterlot Orphanage until I was fifteen, when I was accepted into the Canterlot Academy of Magic on a provisional scholarship.”

“S-so you didn't 'ave any brothers'r sisters neither?” her eyes were wide with disbelief, I suppose coming from a family as large and venerable as the Apple family instilled a certain expectation. The idea of an orphan must have been completely foreign to her.

I shook my head again, “Nope, no siblings, no parents, whoever left me at the orphanage didn't even leave me with a name.”

A sudden warm pressure around my midriff startled me out of my melancholy thoughts and I looked down to discover Apple Bloom had wrapped her tiny forelegs around my chest in a tight hug. I reached out to push her way on reflex but stopped at the last moment, instead putting my hoof on her head and tousling her mane the same way I'd always done to Twilight since I'd met her, in some ways little Apple Bloom reminded me of her. I wondered idly if this was what I felt like to have a kid sister, to have somepony that you had to protect no matter what.

A picture of Twilight flashed through my mind unbidden and I realized with a start that I already had somepony who fit that description. I shook the feelings off and came back to present as Apple Bloom backed away and wiped her eyes with the back of her hoof.

“Hey now, I'm supposed to be the one cheering you up kid.”

“Ah know, but ya'll sounded so sad, ah didn't know there were ponies who didn't have families.”

“Yeah, there are, more now that the war took so many parents, but the Princesses do a good job of taking care of everypony. I guess that Princess Celestia is a little bit like everyponies mom, y'know?”

Apple Bloom nodded enthusiastically and for a second I envied her that unique ability of the young to bounce back from anything in moments. All it took was somepony looking out for them.

“Well, I was just about to head in to town and I wouldn't feel right leaving you here, how about I get you a cupcake at Sugarcube Corner? I hear they're pretty good.”

Apple Bloom gasped and her eyes went wide and, I swear, actually sparkled. 'Ya'll've NEVER had one'a Pinkie's cupcakes?!”

“I did say that I was new in town.”

“W-well yeah, but... we jus' gotta go now!”

I laughed, and lifted the little filly on to my back, she weighed almost nothing, besides which I decided that I could spare the extra weight, after all, my heart was feeling lighter than it had in years.

Chapter 4

The bakery called Sugarcube Corner certainly lived up to its name. The entire building looked like a tower of pastries haphazardly piled on top of each other and the smells wafting out of the open windows were absolutely divine. I suddenly had a new appreciation for Pinkie Pie's offer to eat there for free at any time, but I was determined not to take advantage of her generosity. Still, with Apple Bloom sitting happily on my back and the scent of fresh cakes and muffins drifting through my nostrils, I decided that indulging on occasion wouldn't hurt.

A bell jingled merrily as I pushed the door open and stepped in, I was greeting by a light-hearted: “Welcome to Sugarcube Corner! How may I- OH! Jasper!” Pinkie was standing behind the counter and her face lit up the moment I entered. “And Apple Bloom too? Wow, you sure have a way with the ladies Mister Shale.”

Apple Bloom blushed furiously and clambered off my back, Pinkie and I both shared a good natured laugh though that dispelled any awkwardness.

“Mister Shale offered to get me a cupcake Pinkie when ah was sad, he's awful nice!”

Pinkie nodded cheerfully, “he sure is! Did you know he saved my sisters life during the war?”

Apple Blooms eyes went wide and she stared at me, “Is tha' true Mister Shale?” she asked, awe coloring her voice. I shuffled a little nervously, but nodded.

“Technically it was my entire regiment, I was just one soldier.”

“Tha's still amazin'!”

“A-anyways, Miss Pie, I keep hearing how amazing your bakery is, I haven't had a chance at many sweets since the war, got any suggestions?”

“OF COURSE!” she nearly blew out my eardrums before swiftly disappearing into the kitchen, leaving me rubbing my ears, Apple Bloom just giggled. Clearly Pinkie Pie was the kind of pony one simply acclimated to over time.

Pinkie returned bearing a tray on her back, three cupcakes that were the most startling shade of viridian I'd ever seen were sitting on it.

“Wow, gotta say, I've never seen a pastry that was quite that... shade... before.”

“Yup! I just finished them!”

“These wouldn't happen to be those... joke cupcakes, would they?”

Pinkie blushed a little before shaking her head, “Nope, uh, I still have a few kinks to work out with that recipe.”

“Like turning invisible?”

“Or polka dots.”

“Ya'll can turn somepony into dots?” Apple Bloom looked thoroughly confused.

“HA! Wowie, that would be weird, but no, the cupcake can sometimes make big blue dots on your coat.”

Apple Bloom's eyes went wide again and I could see the wheels turning in her head, what came out of her mouth, though, was entirely priceless.

“CAN YOU MAKE A CUPCAKE THAT'LL GIVE ME A CUTIE MARK!?”

Pinkie and I stared at the tiny filly for a moment before dropping to the floor, for some reason I found that utterly hilarious. Something told me this was an issue that had plagued the youngest member of the Apple family for quite a while. I got my breath back before Pinkie did though, and when I did I realized something. The pink pony's laughter was one of the most pure and infectious sounds I'd ever heard, even though I'd just finished busting a gut I couldn't help but smile widely as she continued to roll on the floor laughing. It was like all the shadows on the world temporarily vanished in the face of her laughter, it was so carefree and clear that it didn't just make you want to laugh with her, it made you happier just hearing it.

Pinkie finally got her own breath back though and stood up, fortunately she'd managed to bump the tray she'd been carrying on to the counter before she lost her hooves, and passed around a cupcake to each of us. As Apple Bloom bit into hers Pinkie answered the excitable filly's question.

“Nope, 'fraid I can't Apple Bloom, the one that makes polka dots is just a prank cupcake, that's all.”

“Awwww...” her disappointment was palpable but it vanished just as quickly as it appeared as she took another bite of the cake. Curious, I turned to my own and took a healthy piece out of it.

“Holy Celestia,” the words came out sounding more like 'horry cerresshia' around the utterly indefinable perfection that was taking up residence on my taste buds. The cake was moist and soft, not so much that it would fall apart, but just enough that it melted in my mouth. The icing wasn't too sweet either, it was fruity, almost juicy, and it tasted like...

“Is that pear?” I said around my chewing.

“Yup! Don't tell AJ though!”

“If it means I get to keep eating these, I'd be happy to never talk again.”

“Toldja Pinkie was the best baker aroun'!” Apple Bloom chirped, having already devoured her cake.

“No exaggeration there, this whole place yours?”

Pinkie laughed but shook her head, “Nope, it belongs to the Cakes, but they're out at a baking convention in Trottingham for a few weeks so I'm looking after the place.”

“Where're the twins?” Apple Bloom looked around and a, past the smell of baked goods, I did detect the faint scent of baby powder and that indefinable smell that seems to sink into any house where little foals live.

“Oh, they went with them, I offered to watch them too but Mister and Missus Cake said they couldn't justify leaving both the twins and the shop in my hooves.”

“That does sound like it would be quite a hooffull,” I tried to imagine Pinkie babysitting for foals and, curiously, it seemed to fit. Despite her bouncy and irreverant demeanor the side of her that she'd shown him when he'd first met her proved that there was mare with strong convictions buried under all the pink and fluff.

The bell to the shop jingled again as another customer entered, a mare with a coat that was the untarnished white of freshly fallen snow and an elegant coiffure of vibrant indigo. She held herself with the prim propriety of a noblemare that reminded me of Luster Rose, but where Rose was cruel and mercurial, this mares eyes glimmered with an friendly light.

'RARITY!” Pinkie cried out as she hopped over and embraced the mare in a tight hug which, to my surprise, the mare returned with equal gusto. Clearly the two were very good...

Wait, Rarity?

I recalled the name from Twilight's letters, Rarity was another one of her friends and something of a rising star in the fashion world. I'd heard she'd made outfits for some of the biggest names in the industry including Sapphire Shores.

“Pinkie, darling, it's so good to see you, I feel like I haven't been out of my shop in weeks!” her voice was high and proper, a refined Manehattan accent softened her words and made them pleasantly sibilant.

“Yup! You here for your usual?”

“You know me too well darling, make it a double and... Oh my, are you going to introduce me to this dashing fellow Pinkie, or must I introduce myself?”

She'd finally noticed me as Pinkie hopped behind the counter and drew out a small take-away box. At first I thought she was actually put off, but Pinkie laughed it off and I heard the playful banter behind their words. Very good friends, I decided.

“Oh! I'm sorry! This is Captain Jasper Shale, Jasper this is my friend-”

“Juliet Rarity, an absolute pleasure to meet you Mister Shale, or is it Captain?” she held out a hoof which, once again, I bowed and placed a light kiss upon. But where with Fluttershy I'd been embarrassed at the accidental reflex, this time it felt entirely warranted.

“Just Jasper is fine, ma'am.”

“Oh my, it's so good to meet somepony with proper manners.”

“Why'd ya'll kiss her hoof Mister Shale?” Apple Bloom piped up from between my hooves, I grasped for a good explanation but fortunately Rarity came to the rescue.

“Oh, hello there Apple Bloom. Well, the hoof-kiss is a respectful and traditional way for a gentlecolt to greet a lady, although I'm sad to say it has fallen out of practice except amongst nobles lately.”

“Uh, ah think ah get it...”

“It's ok, I highly doubt it will ever come up, but when you get older you'll appreciate it.”

“Ugh, ah hate those 'when yer older' things, Applejack says tha' all the time.”

“Well, in this case darling it's quite true.”

“Awww... ok...”

I tousled Apple Blooms mane again and she giggled, “don't sweat it kid, she's right, you'll figure it out eventually.”

“So, Mister Shale, what brings you out here to Ponyville?” Rarity had made her way over to a one of the small tables and gestured for me to join her.

“Ah, well, I moved into the cottage on the edge of town actually.”

“Oh my, so you're here to stay then?”

“For a while, yeah, the war did a number on me and the uh... it was advised that I spend some quiet time in the country for my health.”

“Well, Ponyville is certainly a peaceful town, for the most part anyway, and it's always nice to see new faces.”

“Here ya go Rarity!” Pinkie placed a large drink at the table in front of the white mare, it smelled vaguely of coffee with a hint of chocolate, cherry, and raspberry coming off of it.

“Oh, thank you darling, I fear I hitting withdrawals, I've been so wrapped up in my last set of orders that I haven't had a chance to pick one of these up in days.”

“Hey Mister Shale, ah gotta go back home now... ah'm sure AJ an' the others're worried 'bout me.”

I nodded, “do want me to walk you back?” Apple Bloom shook her head though.

“Nah, ah'm fine, ah'll see ya aroun' though righ'?”

“Sure will, stay safe kid.”

Apple Bloom grinned and dashed out the door.

“What was that about? If I may ask.”

“Oh, well... it's just some unfinished business I had form the war, you're friends with Applejack right?”

“Well, yes, she's one of my closest friends in fact.”

“It's not really my place to say then, it's family business.”

“Do you know the Apple family then?” Rarity might have been a kind soul but I knew the sound of somepony fishing for gossip.

“Like I said...”

“Of course dear, I'm sorry, really my curiosity gets the better of me sometimes.”

“Don't worry about it ma'am.”

“Please, call me Rarity.”

I laughed but answered, “Only if you agree to stop calling me 'Mister', just Jasper is fine, that goes for you too Pinkie.”

“Okey dokey lokey!”

“Very well, Jasper it is then.”

We passed the time afterwords with pleasant small talk, interrupted occasionally by the small but regular stream of customers, as Rarity enjoyed her beverage. The lightheartedness of it was nice actually. After all the weight of renewing friendships, fulfilling old promises, and cheering up sad fillies, the normality of conversation was a welcome change. I also found Rarity to be possessed of both a sharp mind and a quick wit, she was also well read in the latest news. She was as good of a conversationalist as I could have hoped for in fact, and to my relief it wasn't just gossip, the number of things she had genuine interest in gave us a lot of ground to cover. It turned out she wasn't just a successful fashionista, but had interest in all kinds of artistic endeavors.

Before I knew it hours had passed. We only noticed though, because Rarity looked up at the clock and gasped.

“Oh my! It's been nearly four hours! I must get back to my shop, I'm so sorry to cut our conversation short Mister Shale, ah, Jasper, another time perhaps?”

“It'd be my pleasure Miss Rarity,” I answered honestly.

“Excellent, well then, I will bid you adieu.” I bowed slightly as she departed in a rush, I made for the door too but was stopped by a Pink hoof on my shoulder.

“Uhm... Jasper, I was wondering if I could ask you a favor...” Pinkies voice had a strangely subdued quality to it that seemed entirely out of place coming from her mouth.

“Uh, sure, is everything ok?”

“Y-yeah, I just... Octavia won't ever talk about it but... I was hoping you could tell me...”

I had a feeling this would come up, fortunately that memory was among those sealed behind the suppression. Whatever Celestia had wanted to tuck away, it had only happened after Bunker Bridge. Still I wasn't exactly in a hurry to remember the horrific battle.

“Are you sure you want to hear about? Most of it is just bloodshed and tears, tight quarters fighting is brutal.”

A part of me hoped she would say 'no' but I couldn't bring myself to deny her outright. Pinkie obviously loved her sister a great deal and I was sure not knowing the details of what she'd gone through was a weight on her shoulders. Besides, the doctors said that talking about this stuff was helpful, even if it always left a bad taste in my mouth.

Pinkie nodded her assent, her eyes determined.

I sighed, and moved over to the table, Pinkie cantered over to the door and closed it, turning a 'CLOSED' sign around, and drew the curtains.

“Well... things went hooves up almost from the get-go, none of us were prepared for the ferocity with which the Griffons attack the bunker, and the Captain, along with the lieutenant went down during the first wave. After that, well, the manure really hit the fan...”

“WHAT?! What did you just say Private?” Second Lieutenant Charmer voice was shrill with disbelief, and panic, as she seized the comms soldier by his lapels and shook him.

“T-t-the Lieutenant Colonel is d-dead ma'am, a-along with Captain Rocky and his first Lieutenant... t-the command squadron is destroyed, o-one hundred percent casualties.”

Starlight Charmer rocked back on her flank as her normally chartreuse green coat turned a much paler shade, her eyes wide with abject fear. “What the buck were all of those idiots doing in one place anyway?! W-what about second company Captain Haystack?”

“N-no official word...”

Charmer glared at him from behind a fringe of her normally immaculate blue mane that had fallen out of place, “so what's the unofficial word then PRIVATE?!”

The soldier shivered in his boots, “T-the word around second c-company is that... that the Captain fled the field after his lieutenant was reported KIA.”

We all went rigid at his words.

Desertion.

Our chain of command was in tatters, lieutenant colonel and one captain dead, the other a coward. There were three second lieutenants per platoon but they were as fresh out of boot camp as the privates, and none of them had proper officer training. Even worse, the newly christened, and now apparently freshly doomed, 141st Regiment was facing an experienced Griffonari warband led by a brutal combat veteran called Phaestus, intel had nicknamed him 'The Berserker'.

“Comm traffic from the command squadron said t-that Phaestus was here, right before it went de... uh... silent.”

“Great... just... just bucking great... what hay are we supposed to do now?!”

Everyone looked cowed and scared, I was to, but I was more concerned for the civilians. We were supposed to be protecting them but we couldn't even get our own troop together.

“Uhm... shouldn't you give us some orders?” to my everlasting surprise it was my own voice that spoke up. The silence that responded was absolutely deafening.

“W-well... uh...” Charmer's response didn't exactly fill me with confidence, but I'd started the the first pebble rolling and the avalanche wasn't far behind.

“Yeah, you're still our lieutenant, what are your orders?” somepony asked from the crowd.

“Yeah! What do we do?”

“Tell us what to do!”

“What are your orders ma'am?”

“Orders?”

“Tell us!”

“I DON'T KNOW!” Charmer shrieked, panic had completely shredded her sensibilites. The collected and confident mare I'd been serving under had disintegrated into a tear-stained civilian barely able to keep her bodily functions from going out of control. “I-I... I don't know... I just...”

That's when I saw it dawn on everyponies faces, the fact that we were going to die. Our leadership was gone, our regiment was splintered down to the bone. The enemy might have been fighting on our turf but they were seasoned combat specialists and we were fresh out of boot camp. The feeling of panic and despondency that fell over our platoon was palpable.

“But the civilians... We can't just let them die.”

Me again. Why couldn't I just keep my tartarus-damned mouth shut? Then I noticed everypony staring at me. All of them.

Oh Buck.

They thought I had an idea.

Well buck it, we're gonna die anyway right?

“P...Private Dasher, where are the civies?”

The coal-maned, storm-grey pegasus jumped as I addressed him, “In the dorms s-sir.” He called me sir, we were the same sun-damned rank and he was calling me sir. Dear Celestia look down and spit.

“W-well... get them all together, take them to the main mess, it should be big enough for everyone with room to spare.”

“Aye sir!”

I seized him by the tail as he began to take off, “And bring all the mattresses, blankets, and pillows from the rooms that you can carry, ok? Get the civilians to help, if they want someplace to sleep they'll need to.”

“Aye!” Dasher fulfilled his namesake and took out like lightning down the hall.

“You, Private... Treasure?” an earth pony mare with an off-white coat and sapphire eyes nodded, “Get on the comms and tell every other platoon, anyone who can hear us, to rendevous in the mess, we need to get everyone together otherwise they'll pick us off. It's just like a game of Castles, if all of our troops are divided we won't get anything done.”

“R-right away sir!” she leapt on the comms and began broadcasting on all general channels.

“Sergeant Boulder, you said you worked on a farm right? You good with a hammer?”

“Damn right I am sir,” he answered, thumping his dirt-brown chest with a massive hoof, relief filling his voice.

“Good, go to the mess and start constructing a barricade out of whatever we have, tables, chairs, pots, pans, whatever you can lay hooves on, grab whoever you need to help you and go!”

Strong Boulder nodded briskly and grabbed a couple of his buddies I'd seen him hit the bars with, golden-yellow coated mare named Honey Withers as well as a white pegasus who I was pretty sure was called Cloud Zephyr, and they ran off in the direction of the mess hall.

I walked over to Charmer, who was quietly sitting in a corner away from the hubub I'd created. “Second Lieutenant, ma'am, do you-”

“Don't call me that.”

Her words were so quiet that I barely heard them.

“W-what ma'am?”

“Lieutenant, don't call me lieutenant, I should never have gotten the position,” she laughed bitterly in a voice full of self-reproach, “look at me... I'm a mess. My first real job as an officer and I have a full blown panic attack. I swore that I wouldn't be this way, that I wasn't going to be one of those cowards who only got their position because of their parents.”

“W-what do you mean, ma'am?”

“My mother is a court official, she pulled strings to get me a commission out of boot camp even though my scores weren't that good.”

I tried to find something to say to her that would cheer her up, at least I did until I realised we'd been standing there for a good two minutes while the Griffons were getting closer and my patience rapidly dropped to zero. “Oh for buck sake will you stop whining!” I shouted, and she froze rigid, staring at me.

“Do you have the key to the armory?” I barked the question at her, and she nodded rapidly.

“Good, we're gonna break out the long-arcs.”

“The what?” Pinkie interrupted.

“Long-arcs, they're ranged weaponry developed about a decade ago, they have a long metal barrel with a wooden stock that latches to your foreleg. The name is short for 'Long Range Arcane Weaponry.”

“Wow, bet Granpappy Pie wouldn't have minded one of those during the turf wars.”

“Yeah, they're powerful, not much staying power though. They fire concentrated bolts of energy and they're powered by these little purple gems, each one is only good for four shots though, but a unicorn can refill them.”

“Cool... so you never ran out of firepower!”

I sighed, and shook my head, “I'm sure that's what R&D thought when they made them, but as usual it was different in practice.”

“Why?”

“Because refilling just one gem caused enough magical exhaustion to knock out a regular unicorn.”

“Oh... so how many did you have?”

Charmer and I stood in the armory she'd just unlocked and I tried to figure out in my head how we could possibly make this work.

Two hundred gems. Forty long-arcs and two hundred gems. I knew that we'd run through that amount of ammo within a days. Even assuming we could refill a couple of gems a day it would never be enough. Not to mention nopony in the regiment had actually been trained with them yet aside from a few of the officers who came from noble houses that owned one.

Well, it wasn't as though I expected to survive this.

“Charmer, figure out who has the best eyes and hand them a long-arc, I have pretty decent aim myself so I'll take one.”

“M-me too sir.”

“Dammit Charmer, I'm not even an officer, you're the one who-”

Charmer stuck a hoof in my mouth and said, “With all due respect sir, shut up, you're the one who made a plan and got everyone moving, not me. So that makes you an officer in my book, got it?”

I nodded silently and she backed away, looking a little ashamed.

“I-I'm sorry, Shale, I just... I had hoped that I would be better than this and... and I'm not, I guess I'm not handling it that discovery very well.”

“Don't sweat it, we'll get through this, I promise.”

Now if only I actually believed that.

“Alright, grab a trolley and pile them on, dole out five gems per user, tell them not to fire unless they know they'll make a hit. We need to make these things count, ok?”

“Aye sir.”

We ran back to the armory, fortunately it seemed like the other platoons were making a fighting retreat back to the mess. Once they had a goal they'd fallen together in typical army fashion and started working doggedly towards it. Within hours the main mess, as well as the adjoining rooms, had become a screaming din of activity, civilians, mostly stallions and mares, were crammed together with soldiers and technicians. Fortunately the number of ponies who hadn't been able to evacuate before the attacks began was relatively small, and the vast majority of the littles ones, who had been given first priority, had been taken out of the city on transport barges up the river. It was our job to hold that river and all the necessary supplies here in the bunker, so far we weren't exactly doing a stellar job of it.

As I made my way through the bustle my attention was drawn by raised voices from the central part of the mess that the officers had claimed as a sort of de facto command post. A voice was shouting down somepony, the answering voice was recognizable as my own lieutenant, Starlight Chamer.

“You mean you're not the one who issued the order to fall back? Well who did?”

“One of m-my men, Jasper Shale, it was his idea.”

“Jasper... wait, isn't he a private? A grunt? You're letting a grunt call the shots?!” I cleared the morass of ponys to see a heavy-set earth stallion, looming over my commanding officer, frustration clearly written over his bellicose features. I knew him, or knew of him at least, he was a belligerent noble's son named Brick Brawn, a bully and unpopular except with his little circle of sycophants. “Well, if you're not the one in charge I sure as hay am not taking orders from a private, from here on out I'm in charge, got that?”

The men from his unit cheered but the rest of the group, civilians included, looked less than pleased by his declaration. I was among them, I had no desire to lead anypony but Brick was the last pony this place needed.

“Excuse me sir but I need to speak with my lieutenant,” I interrupted the argument and walked past Lieutenant Brick to Charmers side.

“Huh, hey, you're Jasper right?” he prodded a hoof none too gently into my side and I grimaced, I had very little patience for bullies at the best of time and now was as far from 'best' as I was going to get.

“Ma'am, is everything ok?” I asked Charmer, deliberately ignoring the arrogant plod who was growing visibly more frustrated at my reaction.

“Y-yeah, I'm fine, just having a discu-”

“Don't ignore me, Grunt, I'm your commanding officer and if I speak you better speak back. Do you got that ya little f-” his words were cut off by the butt of a long-arc coming down on his head. He dropped like a sack filled with his namesake and the room went dead silent as we all stared at the pony who'd dropped him. She was an earth mare, a little shorter than the average with a forest-green coat and a dirty brown mane.

“Wow that guy was annoying, I've been wanting to do that since I first heard him talk,” she grinned in playful malice and I found myself returning the smile.

“Thanks, uh...”

“Summer Withers, I'm Honey's older sister, good to meet ya Captain,” she held out a hoof and I shook it cautiously.

“Uh, good to meet you to Summer, but I'm a private.”

“Yeah, maybe on the books.” Summer hooked the long-arc into the brace on her back as she nudged Brick's prone form way, “but right now the manure has hit certifiably hit the fan and you're the colt with plan. That makes you the Captain, whether you like it or not.”

Not good. This was getting way out of hoof. I looked around, desperate for some kind of support but all I saw in the troops and civilians around me was... oh damn...

It was hope.

They were all looking at me like I was going to save them and I had no idea what to do. I silently cursed Summer for her big mouth and her brash manner.

“W-well...” I stammered, trying to find a way out, anything that could put me back in the comfortable position of taking orders. I didn't want this responsibility, I wasn't an officer, I was a private. A line soldier. I was just... just a...

A grunt.

Brick's words came back to me in a rush. For a moment, just a moment, I wanted to prove him wrong, to prove all the bullies and professors who had ever said I wouldn't amount to anything but a substandard unicorn, that I could do something right. Something meaningful. I felt a warm pressure of a hoof on my shoulder and looked back, Charmer was smiling with the same hopeful look in her eyes as the others.

Celestia help me.

I took a deep breath and nodded.

“Fine then, from here on out, you can call me 'Captain Shale', anyone who has a problem with me can step outside and discuss it with the Griffons that are on our doorstep, otherwise, let's get moving and show those featherheads what's what!”

The cheer that rose from the mess hall was deafening for all the right reasons, and I felt something stir in my chest. I was doing the right thing, I knew it, this was where I was meant to be.

Chapter 5

Pinkie stared at me from across the table with wide eyes as I told her how the entire debacle at Bunker Bridge started. The deaths and desertions, the fear and panic.

All of it.

Then she grimaced at me.

“You lied to me, Mister Shale,” she said flatly. I felt a slight chill go down my spine as I tried to figure out what she meant.

“Uhm... I... how?”

“You said you were just one soldier, that you weren't the one who saved my sister, but that's not true. You pulled everypony together, you were the one who made sure all the civilians got put in a place were the other soldiers could keep them safe.”

“O-oh... I guess I did,” to be honest I hadn't really been thinking of it that way. “To be perfectly honest Pinkie, I was flying by the seat of my flank, I had no idea what I was doing. I was just trying my best to keep as many ponies safe as I could. If I hadn't stepped up I'm sure somepony else would have.”

“No!” she countered, “I don't think that's true, you said everypony was afraid, even that meanie pants Brick only tried to take over after you'd done all the hard work getting everypony together!”

“There were hundreds of other soldiers there, I couldn't have been the only one, Pinkie.” I refused to believe that nopony would have tried to help. I couldn't imagine a bunker full of soldiers just sitting with their hooves up their fundaments waiting to die.

Pinkie rubbed her chin in a manner that made me imagine gears turning in her head before finally saying, “I just... I think that being able to inspire ponies the way you did isn't a very common thing.”

“Maybe, maybe not, all I know is what happened, I can't know what would have happened if I'd kept my mouth shut.” Or maybe I didn't want to. For all I knew somepony else would have kept more soldiers alive.

“So... what happened next?”

“Next? Next, ponies started to die.”

A shout of warning from the direction of the barricade broke the mood of the hour.

“Attack! The Griffons are coming!” the sound was punctuated by the crack-crack sounds of the long-arcs firing.

“P-platoon one! With me! Number two, hold in reserve, everypony else, secure the civilians!” I shouted as I galloped towards the barricade. The Griffons were here; fear gripped my heart but it was the stymied by the analytical part of my brain telling me that it couldn't be a full scale attack. No commander was dumb enough to commit a total attack on a defended outpost without gathering information on its capabilities.

I was right, fortunately, five of my soldiers (and wasn't that a novel idea) were taking careful aim with the long-arcs through the small gaps that Strong Boulder and his crew had thoughtfully left in the barricade. I peered carefully over the wall, which was constructed out of surprisingly sturdy materials. Piled up concrete blocks left over from the hasty construction of the bunker were reinforced by wooden tables that had been sawed apart to form a five foot thick wall over where some of our basic issue sandbags had been placed.

From what I could see the Griffons were charging suicidally down the forty foot hallway, trying to avoid the shots and make it to the barricade. It almost looked like they were competing to see who got further before dying. I shuddered at the callous cruelty that must be a defining feature of Phaestus, to knowingly send dozens of his warriors to die on our makeshift wall just to get our measure. I could already barely see the floor of the hallway for all the feathered corpses.

What was he thinking? I mused, Surely there were better ways to determine our capability than to sacrifice all these warriors. Even for a psychopath like Phaestus this is absurd.

A few shots went wide, chipping away the hardened concrete of the bunker, I seized the soldier who'd fired them by the shoulder, “Take the time to aim soldier, we haven't got the ammunition to waste you hear me?”

He nodded frantically as he cracked off his last round and the spent gem rolled out of the chamber. He carefully pocketed it and slipped in a new one before taking aim again, more carefully this time I was pleased to see.

Charmer approached me, carefully, moving fearfully towards the barricade, I called out 'Switch!' as they expended the last of their ammunition and the soldiers from my platoon took up position smoothly. The sounds of long-arc fire never missed a beat.

“What are our numbers looking like Charmer?” the not-so-subtle crack-crack underpinned my words as we sheltered behind the wood and concrete.

“Uhm, there are about six hundred civilians, but the main mess and the adjoining rooms can fit over a thousand comfortably, more if we squeeze.” She consulted a few more papers, “and we have three hundred and fifty-six soldiers from the assorted platoons sir, as well as some from second company but we haven't had any word from the rest of them.”

I nodded grimly, “I hate to say it but we have to assume the Griffons caught them the same way they caught the command squadron.”

Her eyes turned into dinner plates, “B-but Sha- C-Captain, that's almost half our number!”

“Intel said the Griffon contingent numbered almost fifteen hundred right? We were outnumbered from the get-go. Command counted on them being to prissy or careful to enter the bunker and they were dead wrong.” I countered angrily, remembering the idiotic confidence the Lieutenant Colonel had had during the briefing. “This is all because they didn't count on the blitz tactics that Phaestus employed. In short, they caught us spread out with our heads in the sand and our flanks in the air. I'm surprised there are this many of us left.”

I could see tremors of terror shaking my unofficial second in command in her greatcoat, I cursed myself for being so grim. I was a leader now, I was supposed to be optimistic.

“H-hey, look, we got off to a bad start, a real bad start,” which didn't help her mood at all, “but look, we're all here; we've got a plan, defenses, and all our troops in one place. All we have to do is hold out and wait for support.” That helped a little, she visibly relaxed as I projected a level of confidence into my voice that I was certainly not feeling. “Go ask Honey what the status with the comms is, I want to know right away if we hear from the other platoons.” she nodded and dashed off, the fear was still in her but giving her a task had put that fear to work for her.

These ponies needed a leader. I was not a leader. Unfortunately I was all they had so I had to fake it for their sake, even if it meant a lot of panic and terror being bottled up. I idly imagined what I'd be like by the end of this whole debacle, assuming that I got out of it at all which seemed wildly optimistic at this stage.

“These featherheads are really determined,” one of the long-arc'rs muttered as he cracked off another shot. “What are they even trying to do?”

“Who knows, probably just crazy,” another one answered.

“I'm not so sure...” I joined them at the wall.

“What do you mean Cap'?”

The affectionate shortening of my ad hoc title caught me by surprise. I could hardly believe how fast they'd accepted me. I supposed that if I were in their position though, I'd just be happy we weren't running around headless anymore.

“Phaestus isn't an idiot, he took out almost all of our leadership in his opening move, we don't even know where nearly half our regiment even is.” I didn't want to admit to the line soldiers that I was pretty much counting them as dead. “So why is he just throwing his warriors at us? It doesn't fit.”

“No clue Cap', sorry.”

“Switch out!” I called as the last of the rounds were expended and the first line took back their positions.

I saw the soldier I'd admonished earlier taking much more careful shots. His accuracy had improved considerably. I made a mental note to talk to the ponies that were now, unfortunately, under my command one-on-one more often, it seemed to work well.

At least we're keeping them out.

That thought was the one passing idly through my head when my world turned into noise and fire.

Everything happened at once, there was a shout and another distinct crack-crack, and behind that the squawk of a Griffon warrior. My mind registered the sound, thinking that it sounded too close to the barricade just as a small object flew over the wall and landed no more than a few hooves away from me.

“GRENADE!”

Somepony screamed and time seemed to slow down as I saw the tiny, gray, rune-covered metal sphere strike the ground and roll. Then I was struck by something heavy, throwing me to the ground right before a deafening explosion ripped through the air and I was struck by flying debris, as well as something wet and sticky. The disorientation seemed to last for minutes although it couldn't have been more than a hoofful of seconds at most. My ears were ringing painfully but soon I could make out screams and sobs of pain around me, I was surrounded smoke and the sickly rich smell of blood filled my nostrils.

I staggered to my hooves, “Is everypony alright?!” I yelled but it sounded muffled and distorted, I knew it was just my ears re-adjusting after the explosion though. Frankly, I was amazed I was still alive, much less able to stand. I'd seen examples of grenades before in military history class as well as some practical demonstrations in boot camp. The Griffonari alchemists made them out of volatile chemicals and packed them into balls of pig-iron. They were deadly forces of destruction, and at that range I should have been dead. That was when I saw the reason for why I wasn't. For a second my brain couldn't accurately reconcile what I was seeing.

Absurdly, the thought of; 'I don't remember the floor being painted red,' crossed my mind right before logic brutally asserted itself.

The floor was covered in the blood and gory remains of a pony, the tiny fragments I'd been stepping on were probably equal parts bone chips and destroyed concrete. I lifted my hoof in shock, I could discern some staining on it but my coat, somehow, seemed untouched. At least, it did until I brought it to my nose.

As it turned out, blood just doesn't show up on my coat very well. It was just the right shade.

My stomach heaved and I lost everything I'd eaten that day on the floor. Somepony had pushed me away and thrown themselves on the grenade, it was the only reason we all weren't absolutely dead. I looked around frantically, for some reason it was insanely important to me to know who had done it. I counted out the long-arc'rs and my heart kicked as I realized the only one missing was the colt I'd spoken to about his aim.

Rage flared up, bright and red behind my eyes, I drew my short blade from within my coat and dashed towards now-battered barricade. It was clear to me now, that maniac Phaestus hadn't just been testing our defensive range, he'd been sending suicide bombers at us. He probably heard me shouting orders and had been timing his troops runs to coincide with my soldiers reloading or switching out, to give them the best chance.

I stepped beyond the barricade just as the first Griffon reached it, I emerged from the smoke and reacted without thought, driving the blade into the soft flesh between the warriors ribs. He hitched and went slack as I jerked the blade violently from his torso. As I pulled my blade free I could see second warrior, a female, descending on me for a beheading stroke, her curved talwar pulled back. I would have been dead if I hadn't been a unicorn. A dull thump of bass sounded as the Griffon I'd just skewered was kicked up into the air, smashing into his diving comrade and bearing her to the ground. I rose up on my hind legs and brought my hooves down with a bone-jarring Crunch. I felt her skull cave just as two more charged in, I was ready for them, I was ready to kill the murdering bastards, even if I went down with them.

Two sharp reports from long-arcs interrupted their charge though, dropping them to the ground. They'd been so focused on me that they hadn't noticed the second line take up position and aim. To be fair to the Griffons, neither had I.

I roared, rage still pumping hot through my veins. An oncoming Griffon entered my sight, a perfect target, without thought I did something I'd never been able to do properly before. I released my grip on my short blade and for a split second it fell from my mouth before my magic it caught it in a field of vibrations and sent it hurtling into the left eye of the charging Griffon. I marched forward again, yanking the red and gray-stained blade unceremoniously from the dead creature's socket.

“PHAESTUS YOU SICK COWARD! COME OUT HERE!” I roared my challenge at the top of my lungs, the charge had stopped, no more Griffons were coming down the hallway.

“WELL?! WHERE ARE YOU?!”

“Captain! Please come back behind the barrica-”

Summer Wither's had was trying to pull me back but I fought her, I don't know why, I was just so angry. Suddenly, I caught a glimpse of movement, a flash of motion from the far end of the hallway and a tiny object hurtling towards me. Summer cried out and froze in terror. I knew I had seconds before the tragedy repeated itself; another sun-damned grenade, I thought and the notion reignited my hate, I roared again, and a ripple of tectonic force split the air in front of me in a cone, catching the tiny sphere and rebounding it back down the hall. It struck the floor with another deafening detonation. I heard screams and howls of pain from what I presumed were soldiers who got caught on the edges of it.

I wanted revenge for the pony who'd taken the grenade for me and I had gotten it, or at least a small measure of it. It was only as I reached the barricade that I realized something that stopped me in my tracks.

I never asked him his name.

Pinkie looked a little ill as I finished the first part of my story. I couldn't blame her, it got real bad pretty quickly.

“I didn't sleep at all that night, but then, I don't think any of us got a good night's sleep while we were in that deathtrap.”

“I... I guess I see why Octavia never wanted to talk about it...” Pinkie's hair had gone almost flat, a stark contrast to her usually fluffy mane.

“It's just one of those things you can't really describe. Words just... don't do it justice, you know?”

Pinkie nodded, I had a feeling she probably got the gist of it better than most ponies might. She seemed to have a pretty vivid imagination, I guessed that at that moment it wasn't her favorite aspect of herself though. I stretched out and cracked my neck and shoulders, we had been sitting and talking for hours and it was getting dark outside.

Pinkie Pie got up and moved into the kitchen, she came back to two steaming mugs of what smelled like cocoa, “So what happened after that?” she asked as she sat back down and scooted my own mug over to me.

“After that we regrouped, repaired the barricade, and did our best to refill our ammunition,” I ticked off the list, even now, years later, the little things came back as clear as day. “Summer and Honey had the idea that probably saved us all, they had all the unicorns amongst the civilians refilling the gems. After all, none of them were soldiers, and this way we could keep our own magic in reserve for the hairier moments.”

“Is that where the stuff about the civilians working with the soldiers started?”

I nodded, “yeah, after that more and more civilians wanted to help. Eventually the soldiers that were off barricade and patrol duty started up a militia. They gave the civies basic training, drilled them in simple combat maneuvers, tactics, how to take orders, all that stuff.”

“Wowie... everypony?” I nodded again.

“Everypony that could, did. In situations where survival is on the line the barriers between civilian and soldier get blurred. Even the most sheltered pony in that hole figured out pretty quick that even ponies who aren't soldiers can still get killed by them.”

She went quiet for a few minutes, apparently mulling something over in her head before finally meeting my eyes again.

“Uhm... Jasper?”

I felt a question coming on that had been on Pinkie's mind for awhile. I figured there was more to this than just knowing what happened in the bunker.

“W-... uhm... what did my sister do?”

That was a fair question, I supposed, “Hmmm, what was her name again? Octavia?”

The pink pony's head bobbed up and down, “her stage name is Octavia Philharmonica, but her real last name is Pie. She's a gray earth pony with a black mane, she wears a little bow tie around her neck while she's performing.”

Pinkie's description brought her face came back to me in a rush of memory and emotion.

A gray mare stood next to the medic, both wearing surgical masks, hooves covered in blood as they frantically tried to save the dying soldier. Her eyes wide with fear and tears barely held in check, handing tool after tool to the doctor. Tiny spots of blood stained the incongruous collar and bow tie she wore.

A high voice redolent with grief could be heard over the stuttering gasps of the dying soldier: “Summer! Oh Celestia, Summer! Please don't die! PLEASE!”

“-sper? Jasper are you ok?” Pinkie's voice snapped me out of the memory. It had been so real, the rusty smell of old blood that eventually sank into the very stone of the bunker was fresh in my nose.

“Y-yeah... I'm fine, I remember your sister, she was a medical assistant to the regiment's senior combat medic. She helped save a few lives herself.”

For some reason she seemed unsurprised, Pinkie nodded in an understanding manner. I didn't really want to go in to the details of the things her sister had dealt with since battlefield wounds could get ugly on the best days and that month wasn't exactly chock full of 'best days'.

“You knew?”

Pinkie shuffled a little uncomfortably but shook her head.

“I just... thought it might be something like that. After Bunker Bridge Octy came to visit, she said she was putting down her Cello for a while because she wanted to go back to school... for a medical degree.”

“That... doesn't sound too bad,” we could always use more good Doctors and Nurses after all but Pinkie shook her head again, her eyes were downcast and sorrowful.

“You don't understand. Octy's cutie mark is a treble clef, music is her special talent, she loves it more than anything. For her to say that she's gonna 'Put down her Cello' is like me saying I'm gonna stop partying and making sweets for a while!”

“I see, I don't know what to tell you Pinkie, war changes people. I'm glad she didn't have to endure more than she did but your sister probably saw the readers digest version of the worst that war can offer.”

“I know... I just... I wanted to know why. I feel terrible for going behind Octy's back though. I thought maybe it would help but...” Pinkie's expression was heartbreaking, I knew the look though. She was trying so hard to understand, but she couldn't relate to it. It was her sister too, which I'm sure only exacerbated the issue.

We sat at the table quietly while Pinkie fought back tears, I wished I had some kind of comfort for her.

“S-so what happened after that...?”

I opened my mouth to continue my story but for some reason the words wouldn't come. The smell of blood, the memory of my... my soldier lying on the concrete bleeding her last kept interrupting everything in my mind.

“I'm sorry Pinkie... but I'm not really in the mood to remember any more of that place. Another time, maybe.”

I could see the disappoint on her face, but I had told the truth. Every memory brought me closer to what Celestia had told me to leave alone. Not only that but the memories themselves were bad enough that I knew the dreams waiting for me tonight would probably be worse than usual.

“It's getting late now, I should probably go.”

Pinkie nodded and stood with me, as I turned to leave she intercepted me and wrapped me in a tight hug.

“T-thank you... for everything. I really... needed to hear that stuff. I'm really sorry I had to ask though,” the regret and self-reproach in her voice was strong, I returned the hug though.

“You're just worried about your family, no shame in that Miss Pie,” I countered with a dry smile, Pinkie brightened a little and nodded.

“Hey Mister, I told you, call me Pinkie.”

“Right, sorry Pinkie, goodnight then.”

“G'night Captain.”

At those familiar words my breath caught in my lungs. For a moment I wasn't looking at the baker, Pinkie Pie, from the open doorway of Sugarcube Corner. Instead I was back in the Bunker, it was nighttime and I was lying in my bunk, and the words were coming from the beautiful, green-coated, brown-maned mare sharing that bed with me.

G'night Captain.

I left the small shop with my head wrapped in a fog of memories. Haunted by the dead and all the ponies I sacrificed to end that sun-damned war. Before I knew it I was back at the door to my cottage. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and a shiver went down my spine.

The door was cracked open.

With a hiss I drew a metal haft from the holster in my coat, from the ridge running down the center a curved crescent of metal snapped out with an audible ~click~. I pushed the door wide and stepped in to the lightless interior. I swept my gaze left and right, taking in the entrance, it was clear. I stepped through, cautiously, my ears perked for any extraneous sound in what should be a silent and empty cottage on the edge of town. A quick glance in the kitchen told me it was empty, the case was the same for the living room and the bathroom. All that was left was my own bedroom.

I moved silently down the hall, old habits coming back to me even after three years of disuse. The bedroom door, like the front door, was slightly ajar. Somepony was in there, possibly an assassin from the Griffon Empire, I'd made no friends over there. I'd put enough folks in the ground that the list of possible threats was far from short.

Then a playful voice came from the room, a voice I'd told myself over half a decade ago that I would never hear again.

“You coming in Captain? Or do I have to come get you?”

The scythe dropped from my mouth with a deafening clatter. I didn't even bother to retrieve it, I stepped over my weapon and pushed the door open fully. With a small effort of magic I ignited the glowglobe in the corner, illuminating the room. Sitting comfortably on my bed was a mare, her coat the color of a forest in the season of her namesake and her mane a mess of bronze locks. Scars riddled her body, one massive one dominated her chest though, a furless slice of scar tissue that went down to the bone. An absolutely fatal wound, without a hope of survival. She had been no exception to that.

“Hey Captain, long time no see.”

I worked my jaw for a minute before letting the name I'd never thought I would be able to say again without a pang of sorrow and loss pass my lips in a dry breath.

“...Summer?”

Chapter 7

The look on Twilight's face when Celestia voiced Silver Twist's ultimate crime couldn't be accurately described in words. It was like the Princess had told her that the sun wasn't real, or that the world was actually flat, she looked shaken to her very foundations. I didn't need to guess why either. To Twilight, magic was life, it was pure and absolute. It was the primal force of vitality and beauty, and Silver Twist had taken it and used it to violate one of the most sacred laws of the natural world.

The classic way that most ponies think of the walking dead is what they seen in media and literature. Faceless, mindless corpses torn from their graves to walk the planet and extinguish life wherever they found it. An unsettling premise to be sure, which was why horror authors and screenwriters found it to be such a easy target. After all, most cultures had very different concepts of fear, but there was no culture in the world that didn't view the dead with some form of solemn respect.

If only the truth was so kind as fiction.

“H-... how...” Twilight's jawed worked helplessly as she tried to wrap her formidable mind around the concept of what Celestia claimed that Silver Twist was guilty of. I didn't blame her, she respected scholarly talent, and Silver was most certainly a genius. It wasn't that she didn't believe her teacher, it was that she didn't want to believe that a pony of that kind of intellect could fall so far.

“I'm sorry, Twilight, I had hoped that this would not come to pass but...” she took a contemplative sip of her tea before continuing. Twilight was waiting with bated breath, desperate for some kind of explanation. “First of all you both deserve the truth as to why I agreed to place Jasper here,” she must have seen the look of confusion that passed my face because even as the question formed in my mind she raised a hoof to forestall any words. “I know you requested the location, that only made it easier, but this was the place you were going to go no matter what, the reason twofold. If Silver Twist did make a move on you, you would have ready allies in the form of my student and her friends. Moreover, they are not simple ponies, you have been long absent from the world Jasper, Twilight and her friends, in the time you were incarcerated, were chosen and attuned to the Elements of Harmony.”

All the cogs clicked into place at Celestia's words. The Elements of Harmony were the most famous set of artifacts in all of Equestrian history, nopony grew up without hearing the old mares tale of the Mare in the Moon. I'd heard that the truth of the matter was that the Mare was actually Luna and the Elements of Harmony had purged her of the darkness that had corrupted her, but I had not idea that Twilight, little Twilight, had been in the epicenter of that. Of course it made sense, if danger came to Ponyville because of my presence, the Elements of Harmony could easily turn it aside, and if I became that danger then they would be in a position to do what Celestia had not.

“The Elements were your safety net,”I voiced the notion even as it formed in my mind. Celestia nodded somewhat guitily.

“I'm afraid so, I'm sorry Twilight, to have employed the Elements like this, but Silver Twist is a criminal who must be brought to justice.” If Twilight had felt betrayed by her mentor she deserved an award for her poker face because she just nodded solemnly.

“I understand Princess, he... I can't let somepony like that...” I could see the furious workings of her mind plainly on her face. Twilight was as far from a violent soul as a pony could get but I knew Silver Twist offended her down to her soul.

“I agree,” my voice interrupted Twilight's frustrated stammering, she nodded gratefully in my direction.

“Then we're in agreement, I-”

“Uhm, Princess, I'm sorry but... I need to know something,” I was a little astonished at how easily Twilight cut off her mentor and ruler. But then, anytime Twilight's mind kicked into research mode propriety usually got thrown to the wind.

Celestia smiled graciously, inviting her to continue, a part of me envied how Twilight was doted on by her teacher.

“... How? How does he do it? Every text I've ever read that mentions it, and there aren't many, say that it's should theoretically be possible but that nopony has ever done it. That all attempts have met with, sometimes catastrophic, failure.”

Celestia nodded, “In truth, even I have only a limited understanding,” Twilight's eyes widened at that, even I was surprised. I imagine that, like Twilight, I had simply assumed that there was no mystery of the arcane that our Princess didn't know. “Fortunately,” she continued somewhat grimly, “we happen to have an expert on our hooves.”

“W-what? Who?!” I admit, I was more than a little curious to hear who had unlocked secrets even the Princess wasn't privy to.

So you could probably imagine my surprise when she pointed to me.

“What?” the words sort of dumbly fell out of my mouth and I looked behind me, half expecting to find that somepony else had entered the Library while we were engrossed in our discussion. “W-wait... me?”

Celestia nodded gravely, “I'm afraid this will not be pleasant, Captain Shale, but I'm need to unlock certain sections of memory. The process will... force you to relive them. I'm sorry, it will most likely be unspeakable. I know that, somehow, Silver Twist used his mastery of mind magic to forcibly implant the arcane mnemonics needed to raise the dead into your mind, essentially force-feeding you the ability to cast a certain spell. That means you will intimately know how it works, and if possible, how to stop it.”

Twilight's face was ashen, “T-the Mnemonic Graft? That's illegal... almost all mind magic is proscribed magic but... the Graft was outlawed because of the sheer damage it could do... and he did that to Jasper?!”

I felt sick to my stomach, hearing what Twist had done to me, knowing what he put into my mind. I could feel the dull throb in my brain as the seal began actively repelling me from remembering. There was something else bothering me though, “Princess, I have to ask one thing, there are other unicorns who are a lot more powerful than me, I'm sure Twist was one of them, so why did he have to implant it?” It seemed pointless to me, for Twist to risk such a dangerous, not to mention illegal, procedure on a unicorn who was, magically speaking, far weaker than him.

Celestia looked thoughtful for a moment, “I can only conjecture at this point, so understand that nothing that I say is set in stone.” I nodded, eager for any answers at all that might explain. “You are a very rare breed of unicorn, not only capable of, but thriving on, channeling your magic via the earth. That's a very unusual affinity, and I believe that whatever magic that raises the dead would be closely tied to the earth. After all, no matter what means a culture takes to honor their dead, the remains always return to the earth one way or another. And since the Graft force-feeds a spell into your aura, it smooths the process if the spell in question is of a like affinity to the unicorn learning it. Based on that I would further conjecture that you are probably the only one who even could have survived the Graft.” Hearing her talk was like listening to a practiced lecturer, everything she said made sense and it was essentially just guesswork built upon yet more guesswork. I suppose that's probably what made her such a great teacher though. No wonder Twilight was so powerful, even on a subject Celestia professed to know next to nothing about, her she erudition makes up for it.

She broke through my wall of thought as I was digesting her words with a calm voice. “Before we go any further though, know that I cannot ask you to do this, Jasper, nor can I order you to, I have done too much to you already and my conscience will not stand for it... but we do need to know this information. All the same, if you do not want to risk the potential trauma to your psyche, I will understand, and I will think no less of you.”

“No!” we both turned at Twilight's exclamation, “No... Princess... he can't do this! That spell could... it could kill him. Or change him... do you think I don't know why it was proscribed!? Victims of the Graft suffered numerous mental disorders; neuroses, schizophrenia, even complete psychotic breaks, we can't do that do him.”

I won't lie, the notion of losing my mind chilled me to the bone, but Celestia placed a comforting hoof on her student.

“Jasper already underwent the process, Twilight, if there were damage of that nature then not even my suppression spell could stop it from surfacing. Your friend is stronger than you give him credit for, he emerged from the process, at least relatively speaking, undamaged. Still, I do not want to downplay the effect, using the Graft to implant even simple spells is extraordinarily painful, I can't even imagine how horrifying having a spell of such power and complexity as would be needed to raise the dead would be to have forced upon you. Make no mistake, if you allow me to unlock the memory, you will feel every moment of it.”

The almost-funereal tone to her voice left no room for me to imagine anything but horrors. Still, now I knew one thing: that the dead didn't just haunt me in dreams because of trauma. Celestia didn't say it but I knew that if that psychopath put the spell in my mind, then I had most likely used it at some point. Probably more than once, so maybe I deserved to relive that experience, now that I knew what I had done.

Mother forgive me, I nodded.

“I'll do it, Princess,” she gave me a look that carried a millennium of sympathy, sorrow, and gratitude as I spoke those words.

“Give me a moment to prepare the spell then, I'll be upstairs, Twilight, he'll have to use your bed, it will best if we can keep him as comfortable as possible while he processes the memory.”

“O-ok,” she sniffled a little, I knew she was fighting back tears, “sure, anything you need Princess.”

“Very well then, I'll call you up when I'm ready,” we both nodded, and she left us, I wondered how long it would take her to forgive herself for what she was about to do. Or if she ever would.

As soon as she was out of sight Twilight nearly collapsed to the floor. Whatever effort it had taken to stay stoic in front of her teacher had obviously abandoned her, I caught her as she dropped and we walked over to the easy-chairs we'd occupied only a few nights before. It felt like weeks had passed since then.

“Are you going to be ok?” I asked softly as I lowered her to the chair, she scoffed bitterly.

“Sure, I'll be fine, I'm not the one who...” small trickles of tears slipped out of her eyes, “please... don't do this Jasper... you've done enough, I can't... I already thought I lost you once I can't do that again.”

The open plea in her voice was like a physical weight but all I could do was shake my head.

“I'm sorry Twi', but I have to, even if it's a risk, I'm still a soldier and-”

“No! You're not! The war is OVER! It's been over for years! Why do you still have to do this?! Why do you still have to sacrifice everything?! It's not...” she took a deep breath, on the verge of hyperventilating before finally letting the air out and burying her muzzle in my shoulder, her waterworks staining my coat. “...It's not fair, I just found you again.” her words were muffled against my fur, I wrapped my foreleg around her and held her close while she wept. It was all I could do.

“You're wrong Twi', the war isn't over yet, not to Silver Twist, and while he's still fighting it, I have to fight him.”

She curled into me, her grip was so tight it almost hurt.

“I wish I could stop fighting, Twi', I really do, but that's what I am now. I'm a soldier and soldiers have to fight for something.” I stilled remembered the faces of each and every pony who died defending Bunker Bridge. The ones who died defending the poor folks who had nothing to do with the war. They gave their lives for a better world, not a world where some maniac can violate the laws of nature at a whim. “It's my duty to make you safe, to make all the ponies in Equestria safe, maybe that job will never be done, but I have to keep fighting.”

“So what?” she sobbed angrily into my coat, “does that mean you'll never stop fighting? It's not fair! You have to come back someday, you can't just...”

I stroked her mane as gently as I could, since I didn't have any words to refute her with.

“You can't just leave me alone to go die somewhere...” she whimpered.

Maybe that's all I deserve. I didn't say it out loud, but I felt it. Somewhere deep inside I knew I'd done terrible things. Even if I wasn't in my right mind, even if I had some psycho doctor playing puppet with my grey matter. The blood of the dead was still on my hooves, and I had to put that right.

One way or another.

Celestia's dulcet voice broke through the tense atmosphere of the library, “I'm ready to begin Jasper, we need to start now though, Doctor Twist will be making his next move soon I'm sure of it.”

“I'll be right up Princess,” I answered, my throat was raw and there was a bitter taste in my mouth, I needed to finish this though.

I broke away from Twilight, she wouldn't meet my eyes though, so I just tousled her mane one more time and turned to make my way up the stairs. She caught the lapels of my greatcoat as I passed her and without warning pulled me into a kiss that tasted like fire and rich wine, sweet and vibrant with an undertone of hunger, of need. Her lips were as soft as velvet, probably untouched by any other colt. If this was her first kiss I couldn't tell, it set off fireworks in my head. For a moment all I could sense was Twilight; her scent of lilacs and lavender, an undefinable sweetness clinging to her lips, the heat of her breath, in that moment my whole world disappeared.

Murderer

Time restarted again as our lips parted, Twilight wore the saddest smile I'd ever seen, a small upturn on her lips and reflection of tears unspent in her eyes.

“You...”

She pushed a hoof onto my mouth and shook her head, “No, don't ruin it, just go okay?”

I opened my mouth to tell her to stay away from me, to stop thinking about me, that I was no good for her, or any of a thousand other reasons for her to pick somepony, anypony else. I didn't though, I had the distinct impression she already knew what I was going to say anyway, so it didn't really matter. Instead I just nodded.

“I'll be waiting for you when you get back, okay?” her voice was soft, and heavy with concern and worry, but the tears were gone.

“You probably shouldn't be,” I answered back as I stepped up onto the staircase.

“Too bad, numbskull.”

“Pipsqueak.”

“Loser.”

The silence settled so entirely that I almost missed her next whispered words.

“...just come back, ok?”

“No worries there, half-pint.”

Twilight sniffed back the build-up in her throat, “So stop stalling then, my teacher's waiting, so go fight or whatever.”

“Yessir, Captain Twilight, sir” I sketched a mock salute and she giggled a little, it was a dry, sad laugh, but there was a spark of genuine humor in it. I had to fight, maybe for her, maybe for everypony who bled out on the cold concrete of Bunker Bridge. Whatever the case, I still had to fight.

I ascended the stairs and saw Celestia sitting ominously beside Twilight bed, the covers and pillows still haphazardly mussed about from its owner's apparently restless sleep.

“I'm ready, Princess.”

A grave look passed over Celestia's eyes. “Somehow I doubt that, Captain Shale, but regardless it must be done. Thank you again for your sacrifice.”

I gave her a silent nod. I wiped my hooves on a small mat and deposited my greatcoat on the nightstand before curling up on the still-warm sheets of the bed. Celestia rose and bowed her head, gently touching the tip of her alabaster horn to the crown of my head.

“Brace yourself Captain,” were the last words I heard before a flare of light and pain sent my consciousness hurtling into the dark.

The darkness was absolute, it was as if every single one of my senses had been silenced simultaneously. I saw nothing, felt nothing, heard nothing. There was no taste in my mouth and it felt as though my nose was clogged with gauze. The only sensation was a dull hum or vibration, I felt it in my bones and muscles. Slowly, however, a dull glow seemed to take up residence behind my eyes, there as like somewhere, and the hum became a pulsation, with measured drops and rises, I tried to open my mouth and pain shot through my body like someone had run a live wire through my jaw. A dull voice came through the fog of insensibility, but it sounded like it was far off.

“...nother failure, nurse, bring me another one, love.”

A feminine voice responded.

“But doctor, there are-” her words were cut off by the sounds of a hoof striking flesh, each answering word followed by another blow.

“BRING. ME. ANOTHER. SPECIMEN!”

“Y-yes sir.”

I forced my eyelids open with a monumental effort, the only light was some distance away. I could feel that I was lying on a gurney of some kind. I tried to move but thick straps kept me secured, I began to panic but the soldier part of my brain clamped down on that hard. There would be a time for fear later, right now I needed to know where I was. I mentally backtracked, trying to piece together why I had ended up here.

I remembered the fight to escape the deathtrap and join up with our reinforcements that were being held at bay at the tunnel entrance. I'd made the radical decision to break from our defensive position and launch a counter-offensive against the distracted Griffon forces. The plan was to catch our attackers between my own meager force from within and the relief troops from without, breaking their line of defense by forcing them to fight on two fronts. It was a suicide run, I knew, but were almost out of water and we'd been out of food for over a day in spite of rationing, there were just too many people. The commander of the reinforcements said breaking in might take as long as a week and I knew we didn't have that long. So rather than risk waiting, and in the process weakening ourselves from malnutrition and dehydration, I gave the order to break camp and charge the enemy while we still had our strength.

In spite of the near-fatal levels of danger such an action would impose on us not a single soldier disagreed. We were all sick and tired of fighting off wave after wave of Griffons. We were sick of losing our friends to attrition warfare. We wanted, or needed, to be able to fight back ourselves and now was the time to do that.

The rest became a jumble of blood-soaked yells and shouts, brutal tight-quarters fighting, but we made it. I couldn't recall what happened, I know we escaped the tunnels but...

My thoughts were interrupted by the clip-clop of hooves on cold concrete and a jerking movement told me that whoever it was moving the gurney.

“W-where... am I?” I croaked through dry lips. There was no answer as the dull light fixtures passed by over head, not a one of them stronger than a small candle. I tried to speak again by the rasp of my voice stole all meaning from the words. Finally the light became stronger, then too strong, I was wheeled underneath a harsh and scornful sun that forced to me to shut my eyes as tight as possible. It didn't help, the light leaked in through the thin membrane of my eyelids, the pain was piercing and maddening for all of its relative harmlessness.

“Ah, good, strong and healthy, a soldier?” It was the male voice, the 'doctor', up close I could hear the small nuances in it that made my spine tingle. It was high and aristocratic, a voice that held the polish of years of high society. It was on the wrong side of pleasant too, where the voice became unnerving. “Hand me his charts nurse, I want to see what I am dealing with... ah, excellent physicality, shows high quality of leadership; good, good, this means his will to live is strong, he will need that. And... Ah! Most excellent, an earth-type affinity, how rare, this specimen might be the most viable of all.”

“W-who...?” I finally managed through the pain.

“Hmm? Oh, it talks, wonderful. Nurse, attach the electrodes and prep an IV of Methohexitol, we do not want the specimen becoming agitated during the procedure.” His voice was so clinical and cold it made ice creep into my heart. Whoever it was didn't even seem to consider me as sentient, I was like a lab rat, no, more like an interesting microbe on a petri dish.

“O-of course Doctor Twist, 1% for induction?” the feminine voice asked as cold pads were affixed to parts of my head.

“Make it 1.3, love, he's a strong one.”

“Y-yes sir.”

Finally the speaker loomed over me, I opened my eyes in an effort to glimpse his features. What I saw was almost surprising, a rather handsome stallion with a light beige coat and a silver mane grown long and fashionably braided to remain out of his eyes; eyes that were the color of slate, dead and uncaring. A shiver ran up my back and settled in the back of my throat as a sick sensation. I realized that even my analogy to a microbe was wrong, the truth of the matter was that I might as well have been a cadaver.

I felt a dull pinch and throb of muted pain in my right arm, I turned in time to see a nurse with a white coat taping down the IV needle she'd just attached to me. Almost immediately I felt my senses beginning to dull, sleep gripped my eyelids like lead weights.

The last words I heard before the pain began were the mad doctor's:

“This is going to be so much fun...”

Chapter 8

The pain was indescribable.

Do not struggle, your mind is like clay to me and I shall mold it to my will.

A... A voice?

Strong. Very good.

It was like my mind was on fire, like my whole world was tearing itself apart from the inside out and trying to put itself back together in some alien configuration.

It is meaningless, you will bend to my will.

Square blocks into circular holes.

With the pain, though, came other things. Images, sensations, words that burned themselves into my mind like a red-hot branding iron.

Your mind accepts the knowledge readily, there is a deep darkness in this you.

New ideas and terrible knowledge filled my head.

Now we begin in earnest.

The cold voice of the doctor echoed in my head in a voice like a scholar lecturing his students.

Death is an illusion. A mere word to describe the separation of the material from the ephemeral. In layponies terms, the body and soul.

I cried out, maybe out loud, I don't know. There was so much pain it blurred the lines of what was real. The voice fed knowledge into me, I didn't just hear it, I understood it.

Many have tried to return motion to the bodies of the dead. Impossible.

Others have tried to resurrect the dead. Closer, but still Impossible.

Why though? Why is it impossible? This is the question we should be asking.

I felt the world pulse beneath me as the information settled into its new and violently carved niche inside my mind. The agony was behind words, it had gone from the sharp and terrible pain of a hot knife to the deep thrumming violence of gangrene.

I knew it on an instinctual level.

This knowledge was poison.

So simple.

We seek to return the dead via the medium of the body. This is the 'why' of the matter.

Why is it impossible? Because we are starting at the finish line and sprinting towards the start.

Instead we need to begin with the soul and work back from there.

I prayed and wept in my mind. I understood. I knew everything he wanted me to know, no matter how much I tried to distance myself from the knowledge. Small wonder he was insane, how could anypony know how to do what it was he wanted me to do and stay sane? Twist wasn't just animating the dead, he was doing no less than raping the natural order of life.

How unique is a soul? Impossibly unique! Every single experience shaped in a perfectly distinct way by the individual's views and perceptions.

And the body is tailored to the soul.

The audacity of those previous attempts is astounding!

To try and animate a body without a governing soul, or to try and call up an elemental spirit to puppet such a solitary machine!

Of course it would be impossible! Only the true soul of the body can govern its movements, so to animate the dead...

I woke up screaming.

Specters and revenants crawled across my skin like a spiders, eyes open and weeping blood, accusing me of atrocities I didn't remember but couldn't help but imagine. More memories flared like sunbursts in my mind. Shapeless, nameless things that moaned and begged to be released, chained to my will by a thousand shining eyes.

“JASPER SNAP OUT OF IT!”

In an instant it was over. The faint echoes of mental agony still lingered on my body, I was covered in a cold sweat and shivering, but the haunted dead were gone. I was in a bed, Twilight's bed, standing over me was the mare herself, looking pale and terrified. The Princess stood over me and panic welled in my chest.

“Jasper, are you alright? I can have you in Ponyville General in a moment if not.” The concern in Celestia's voice was real, but the high timbre of Doctor Twists voice kept echoing in my ears. “Jasper?”

I couldn't concentrate, my mind was running at a million miles an hour. Visions of death and gruesome experiments danced behind my eyeballs.

“CAPTAIN SHALE STAND AT ATTENTION!”

I stumbled gracelessly out of the bed as drilled in reflex kicked in at the lizard-brain level. In a moment I was standing at attention like a private caught out of bunk after hours by a sergeant.

A bemused smile played over the Princess's lips and a relaxed, the panic dying down as logic and the truth of my surroundings asserted itself.

“Military types... It works every time. Now then, Captain, are you alright?”

I swallowed several times as I tried to work up a response. “Y-Yes ma'am, your Majesty, I mean.”

“At ease soldier, I just want to make certain that your heart won't leap out of your chest from fear, now, are you alright or do you need a doctor?”

“I... uhm, I'm ok, you were right, by the way,” Celestia looked at me quizzically. “I-I had no idea.”

“Ah, I was afraid of that,” she answered, her voice tinged with self-reproach.

“Jasper, you're... still you right?” Twilight asked in a small voice, she looked hopeful and frightened in equal measure. That more than anything calmed my jangling nerves, and in answer I reached out and tousled her mane. She stared out from beneath wildly misplaced locks before letting out a long breath and nearly dropping to the floor in relief, she looked like she'd been holding tense for hours. Hell, I had no idea how long I'd been under so for all I knew she had been.

“I'm so glad... I was worried, after what the Princess said, that... that...”

“I'm still here half-pint, don't worry.” I pulled her into a tight hug which she returned, although for her it was more like she was holding on to something that was about to slip away.

The cultured voice of the Princess broke into the moment with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

“As much as I hate to puncture this moment, there is still business to attend to,” I swallowed dryly as I pulled away and nodded, “Jasper, I need to know what you remembered.”

I opened my mouth to tell her about it, about the pain, the words, the voice, I reached the memories and...

Nothing. It wasn't like before, where trying to remember just brought pain from being repelled by the suppression. This time it was more like a dream I was trying to remember, only half-real and fading away with every tick of the clock-hands.

“Jasper? What's wrong?” worry coloring her voice.

“N-nothing, it's just... I... I don't remember.”

They both stared at me, Twilight looked worried again but the Princess, strangely enough, just looked sad.

“Princess? What happened? I thought you lifted the seal so Jasper would remember, was that all for nothing?!” I'd never heard Twilight raise her voice before, I didn't even realize she was capable of doing so to her mentor. She revered Celestia but now, she was actually angry.

And the Princess actually looked abashed.

“I was afraid something like this might happen.” Celestia's voice was soft but firm, “I have asked too much of you, Jasper Shale, and for that I am sorry.”

“What do you mean exactly?” I tasted hot copper on my tongue, fear was starting to ebb away as anger took its place. “What did you think might happen that you didn't feel the need to mention?”

“The trauma was too much for your mind. It seems that without the nightmarish mental conditioning that Doctor Twist put you through, your mind simply couldn't handle the pain and horror of the experience, and so it repressed the memory.”

“So what?” I nearly shouted before curbing myself, forcibly reminding myself that I almost yelled at my Princess and Goddess. Can't you just go in and get it? Isn't that what we just did?”

She shook her head vehemently, “No, not at all, all I did was loosen the bonds on an artificial seal, this is entirely your own mind at work, if I were to casually take the information it could leave you scarred for life, possibly insane.”

My mouth went dry again at the thought.

“I refuse to risk your mental well-being any longer, I will have to simply wait until Twist makes his next move and hope I can catch him in it.” She turned to leave more gracefully than she entered, Twilight and I followed her out the door, as she spread her wings she turned back to me. “Jasper, thank you, for everything you've done, I thank you.”

I nod, shame and hatred burning in my chest as I swallowed her explanation. Life-saving information that she needed was locked behind one of the doors in my brain and she couldn't get it for one reason and one reason only.

Because I was too weak.

It was early in the afternoon as I walked along the riverbank that ran past my house. After the events at the library I hadn't wanted to go back in and risk exposing Twilight to the dark mood that was brewing inside me. Instead I'd gave some excuse about needing to rest and fled back to my cottage with my tail between my legs.

Goddess, I'm such a coward. The thought burned in my mind for ferociously than any phantom memory, yet no matter how hard I reached I couldn't seem to grasp what I wanted. I wasn't fooling anypony though, for as hard as I reached a tiny part of my heart knew the truth.

The truth is that I don't want to remember what he made me see.

I stopped and stared hard into my distorted reflection in the water. Princess Celestia needed me to look into the darkness inside me to help catch one of the worst criminals ever born, but I that meant I had to take a good hard look at what I became during the war. Was I so afraid of what I was going to see in that mirror that my own subconscious was trying to reject it?

Was I really that far gone? The thought stuck maliciously and I felt my mood grow darker. In a fit of anger I let out a surge of magic, cracking the earth beneath me and destroying my reflection in the river. A small squeak of fear sounded from behind me.

“Who's there!?” I turned, rust-red light limning my horn, ready to bury whoever was sneaking up on me. Instead I ended up menacing Fluttershy who froze solid, eyes wide and wings clamped tight to her sides.

“O-oh, oh Miss Fluttershy I... I'm so sorry, you uh... you caught me at a really bad time,” I stumbled over my own tongue trying to explain before giving up. “I... I'm just going to go, I'm sorry for scaring you.” I turned away, cursing myself for a violent bastard.

“W-wait...” her voice was slight but clear, I considered just pretending I hadn't heard her and continuing on but decided I'd been rude enough as it was, so I turned back. “Are you... uhm... alright?”

I opened my mouth to reassure her but nothing came out, I was a terrible liar anyway.

“No, Miss Fluttershy, no I am not, it's uh... let's just say it's been a rough couple of days.”

She relaxed a little at my candid words and even let a shadow of her glowing smile drift onto her lips.

“Well, I was just about to head back home and make myself some tea, won't you join me?”

Something about her was inherently calming, her words, her mannerisms, even for a warhorse like me who was on guard around everypony. Around her it was like the whole world got a little more peaceful. So I nodded silently in answer to her invitation.

The walk took ten minutes at most , it was little wonder she'd come upon him, Twilight hadn't been joking when she said her friend lived on the edge of the Everfree. In fact, depending on what map you're consulting, she might actually live in the Everfree. She also hadn't been joking when she said I was her only neighbor, there was nothing but grass, tree's, and a few lovingly tended gardens surrounding a idyllic cottage. She unlocked the door and stepped over the threshold, inviting me in with a smile. I followed respectfully behind her, as I entered the thought struck me that this was so much more than a mere house.

It was a home.

In construction it wasn't too distant from how my own cottage was built, the changes were in the small details. Shelves covered in books and knick-knacks, there were a couple of well-worn couch by the window with a coffee table in front of it littered with dog-eared books. The smell of home cooking seemed to have sunk into the very wood that made up the floor and ceiling. There were also no less than a dozen food dishes scattered hither and thither around the floor, I marked their positions so I wouldn't step in one accidentally.

“Please, make yourself at home, you can put your jacket on the rack there,” she gestured to a hand-carved coat rack.

“Thanks,” I muttered softly as I took in the surroundings, and suppressed a pang of envy in my heart.

She gave me a curious look but didn't say anything, instead she went into the kitchen and soon the sound of water running kettles clinking drifted into the living room. I swept my worn greatcoat off and hung it, unlatched my shoes, and settled onto the cushions of a couch. A few moments later Fluttershy returned bearing a tray with a kettle that smelled of strong and fragrant tea, along with a few sandwiches and cups.

“Thank you for your hospitality, Miss Fluttershy, your home is beautiful,” the words came out awkwardly, but she gave me a wide smile all the same.

“That's very kind of you,” she responded as she poured tea into the two cups, her manners and etiquette were flawless.

“So... how long has it been since you moved here?” I asked, honestly curious. She froze at my question though and I realized I must have accidentally managed to stumble onto a poor subject. “S-sorry, I guess that was...”

“How did you know?” she lifted the tea to her lips and took a delicate sip, testing the heat. Her wide cyan eyes observing me critically.

I shrugged and took a sip as well, savoring the spice and floral flavor of the beverage. “I grew up in Canterlot, attended the Academy of Magic, your skill at etiquette would make most of the nobles' daughters that I met there look like country rubes.”

She laughed softly, but there was a strange undercurrent to her tone. “I was born in Manehatten.” I could understand that, I'd only spent a few weeks there during a field trip but it was pretty classy place.

“So how does somepony go from living in Manehatten, and not badly off unless I miss my guess completely, to living out here in... well no offense but, in the middle of nowhere?” Fluttershy fiddled with her teacup in an anxious manner at my question, I raised a hoof in a placating manner. “Of course, I understand if you don't want to talk about it, after all you hardly know me and I don't want to impose.”

“I moved here when I was very young, after I, uhm, dropped out of Flight School in Cloudsdale,” she answered suddenly.

“You do seem more comfortable on your hooves than most pegasi I've met, I must say.”

Another laugh slipped past her lips, I decided it was quite the most lovely sound I'd ever heard. “Only Rainbow Dash knows that, because we were the same year in Flight School.”

I nodded, not wanting to press her, it was obviously an uncomfortable subject.

“So, uhm, if you don't mind me asking...” she trailed off but the concern on her face was apparent, “are you ok, Captain? Uhm, not like... at the river, I mean just mean that... you've had this look on your face since you came in. Like you were sad or... upset?”

I snorted derisively, at myself of course, I had a pretty good poker face even if I was a bad liar, but this mare could see right through me. “I just... I guess this kind of house, this home, is the sort of one I'd always dreamed of growing up in.”

“Oh... I see... You said you grew up in Canterlot right? Where was it?”

I took another sip before setting the cup down, “Canterlot Orphanage, in the lower east quarter.”

“O-oh... I'm sorry,” a chastised look crossed her face that made me regret bringing the subject up at all.

I waved a hoof dismissively in an attempt to wave off the somber mood that was starting to descend. “It's ok, it wasn't a bad life, I guess it's just that... I dunno, I think every orphan can't help but wonder what it would be like to have a family, you know? Your own home...” I snorted again, this time in humor as I remembered the communal bunkers. “Your own room, I mean, talk about zero privacy.”

“Of course... I'm sorry though, I didn't know you were an orphan.”

I shrugged as I took a bite out of the sandwich, fresh, crisp, cucumber. “My parents didn't want me, or couldn't support me, I guess. It's sad but it happens.”

“So... you don't know...?” she ventured cautiously, it was an old subject, but not an uncommon one.

“Nope, I was left there as a foal, not even out of diapers, the caretakers said I couldn't have been more than a couple months old. Some of them were even afraid I wouldn't make it.”

Her eyes grew wide and teary as I casually chewed through the rest of my sandwich. I kicked myself mentally, the fact was that even though it was sad, it didn't really bother me. In some ways I thought I was luckier than the ones who did remember their parents. I never had anyone to miss like they did.

“I... I'm an orphan too.”

I looked up, surprised at the admission. “But you said you were raised in Manehatten.”

Fluttershy nodded, “by a foster family, they were wealthy but... couldn't conceive, they wanted a pretty daughter and... I fit the bill. I barely remember the orphanage I was left at, I got adopted when I was three.”

“Huh, no kidding?” True there was no shortage of orphans in the world, the various wars and occasionally economic lapses saw to that, not to mention the universal constant of bad parents. “Small world I guess. At least you got adopted into a good home though right?”

The sound of porcelain cracking split the air like a miniature bolt of lightning, I saw Fluttershy staring down at the broken teacup in her hooves, the delicate material shattered where her grip had become too tight.

“Miss Fluttershy? Are you ok?” clearly I'd been far from the mark with my last comment.

She shook her head as if she was waking up from a daze and stared mournfully at the broken cup, “Oh dear, I'm so sorry, I just...” hooves trembling she set the shattered cup down and began carefully cleaning the shards up, cautious not to cut herself on them.

“Let me guess, not such a good home?” I didn't want to bring it up but clearly it was something weighing on her. Besides that I had to admit, I was more than a little curious. She was an orphan like me, she'd gotten what most of us dreamt of, adoption into a wealthy home. So what had gone wrong?

For a moment she stood completely still, eventually she nodded though and it seemed to restart the rest of her body as she finished cleaning.

“F-Father wasn't a kind stallion, he was very... difficult to please, and M-Mother was distant, I think she was afraid of him too. He didn't accept failure very well.” I winced, I'd heard occasional stories about that kind of thing happening, rarely ended pleasantly.

“You don't have to go into it if you don't want, I understand,” I put a comforting hoof on her shoulder and her angelic features relaxed a little.

For a moment she looked pensive, almost worried, but some steel slipped into her features and she shook her head. “No, it's ok, I... I want to talk about it, e-even my friends don't know the story, I've always just... wanted to leave it behind. I know they wouldn't judge me or anything but... I also know that they wouldn't understand really, since they all have family. To Applejack, family is everything, Rainbow has seven siblings, Rarity and Pinkie have their sisters and parents, Twilight has her big brother and her mom and dad...”

“Yeah, being an orphan is just one of those things right?” she nodded, understanding my meaning perfectly. Nopony who's lived with a family all their lives could know what it's like to be without them. Even if you live apart from them, you get letters or visits, or you spend a few minutes a day thinking about them, even if you don't realize it. Having that part of life just not be there is like coming from a whole different world. All the advice you might have gotten, the lessons you would have learned, an orphan has to do it all on their own. “So... you foster parents weren't exactly the parents of the year?”

She shook her head, a far away look in her eyes. “When I was little I was like an ornament they would display at parties and gatherings, Mother was in charge of teaching me, she would instruct me in etiquette and manners until I could do them in my sleep. I was supposed to be the perfect daughter.”

“That sounds... pretty godawful actually, obviously the lessons took though, so what happened?”

Fluttershy laughed again but it was a sour, bitter noise.

“I grew up.”

“W-what? You're beautiful, how could growing up be something bad?”

She blushed furiously, but a genuine smile slipped onto her face. “T-thank you, Captain, you're very kind... but... uhm... you could say I went through an... awkward phase.”

“Awkward how?”

“My growth spurt started and I was... all legs and knees? I got clumsy and I'd freeze up or stutter terribly...”

“Oh, I see...” and I did, I known enough of my friends from the orphanage who grew up that way, usually they came out of it pretty good looking though. Apply that to a strict household though and it was a recipe for disaster.

“To Father, that was a failure, so he would punish me anytime I did something wrong.”

My heart chilled at her words. Somehow I doubted she meant he'd send her to her room.

“Eventually he... When I was fourteen I was supposed to be sent to Flight School, mandatory for pegasi, I was so relieved but...”

“Your father didn't approve?”

“He said I was ugly, hideous, that he didn't want me going out and shaming his household,” her words were bitter with bad memories and she tensed as if she were about to be struck. “S-so one night... I did the one brave thing I'd ever done in my life. I ran away from that horrible house and caught the first train out to Canterlot where the transport was taking new pegasi and I never looked back.”

I refilled my own cup of tea and pressed it into her shaking hooves, she smiled gratefully and took a long drink. When she set it down her nerves, and hooves, were considerably more steady.

"You're right, that was brave."

“Thank you, Capt-, that is, thank you Jasper.”

“So you do remember my name,” I said, a laugh hiding behind my reproachful words.

Fluttershy nodded shyly, "Yes, I'm sorry, and thank you for listening, I actually feel a little lighter, I think I've been carrying those memories around like a weight for too long.”

I hear that. The thought rung resentfully in my head.

“So... if you don't mind me asking, why were you down by the river? You seemed... very upset.” I had to admire Fluttershy's talent for diplomatic understatement if nothing else.

I nodded though, “I just... there's something I can't remember, and I really need to remember it.”

“Oh my... do you know why you, uhm, can't remember it?”

“Because... I don't want to.” I even surprised myself at my frank admission, but Fluttershy just nodded understandingly.

“It was a bad memory?”

“The worst.”

“Oh my, was it... about the war?”

I nodded solemnly, “Yeah, but... what I tell you, it doesn't leave this room.” Her eyebrows shot up at the sudden severity in my voice but she nodded, making an odd gesture with her hoof that ended with the appendage placed over her eye. I took it as some kind of oath from around here.

So with her promise in mind I took a deep breath, and told her everything I remembered. About the war, the battle under the bridge, the deaths of my friends, even my time in the sanitarium and being place under the memory suppression seal. Everything. I held off on the gory details as much as I could, but in some places those were the only details I had to give. But in spite of all the terrible choices I had to make, she never once looked at me with judgment in her eyes. During my explanation I wondered, more than once, if this was what the religious types felt like when they went to confessional. Either way, every word that passed my lips took a pound of weight with it and by the end, several hours and kettles of tea later, we were sitting quietly on the couch watching the sun set through her living room window.

“I... can't even imagine what it's like to have so much time missing...” her voice was soft with sympathy, not pity, but genuine sympathy. “I'm sorry I can't help you.”

I shook my head, amazed at the depths of kindness this mare was capable of, if I hadn't met her myself I'd say that there had to be something wrong with her but if that was the case then I couldn't see it, not from where I was sitting,

“You have helped, you were right, it does feel better, getting it out. Having somepony to listen to it all without feeling like I'm condemning myself. I just... wish I could remember what the Princess needs me to remember.”

She graced me with another one of those beatific smiles of hers, “It's ok, I'm sure the Princess wouldn't want you to be hurt, especially after everything you've gone through.”

“But that's just it!” I nearly shouted, before dialing it back “it's just that... that's my job. I'm a soldier, I fight to keep other ponies safe, to keep their homes and foals safe, even if I have to get hurt.”

Fluttershy nodded somberly, “I see... well if that's the case then, I'm sure you'll be able to remember eventually. We haven't known each other long but... I feel like you're the kind of pony who would do what was needed no matter the cost to himself.”

I let out a sigh and leaned back into the soft warmth of the couch before nodding.

“Yeah... whatever it...-” the answer hit me like a freight train all at once, “Whatever it takes!” I exclaimed, my mood rising as a plan took form in my mind. “Fluttershy, thank you, I think I have a plan and... well... it's not going to be pretty but I think it'll work.”

Her smile was radiant.

“Good, I knew you would.” She squeaked in embarrassment as I wrapped her in a hug before rushing to the door and pulling on my coat.

“I have to run back home but can you get a message to Twilight? Tell her to meet me at the town hall?” Fluttershy nodded absently and I grinned, feeling more upbeat than I had in days. I finally had a plan, even if it was an abysmally bad one, I knew in my bones that I was on the right track. “Thanks, I owe you 'Shy.”

I galloped out the door towards my cottage, I would need some old implements as foci for the spell I would need since I still couldn't remember the how-to and what-fors of it. Either way, I'd know something by the end of the night.

“Assuming I can find a graveyard, that is.”

Chapter 9

The sun was well below the horizon by the time Twilight came galloping into the square in front of Ponyville's town hall. By that point the weight of what I was about to do had begun to set in, if I got it wrong then I was dead in the water. If I got it right and went too far then...

“Jasper! I... huff huff... got Fluttershy's message a few... huff... minutes ago,” only as she started speaking did I realize how red in the face and short of breath she was.

“Twi', the Library is less than a mile from here, I thought you said you got fifth place in the running of the leaves one year!”

Her cheeks went a shade darker and she laughed guiltily. “Uhm, yeah... that was kind of the last time I did much in the way of strenuous exercise...”

“That was almost two years ago Twilight.”

“A-anyway! What's this big plan you've got for jogging your memory?”

“Classy segue, Twi',” I chuckled and tousled her hair again turning it into a slightly sweaty mop from underneath which she glowered menacingly. “The plan, as you said, is simple. Step one, we go to the nearest graveyard.”

“Oh, that's a good start actually,” the gears had begun visibly turning as the logic centers of her brain began to kick in. “After all, the whole deal with raiiii-... er... the spell is centered around the thaumatic energies of the deceased.”

I planted a hoof squarely onto my muzzle, “You almost blurted out a national secret about highly illegal magic in the literal middle of town didn't you?”

“Uhm... maybe?”

“No wonder you never got recruited into enya,” I muttered.

“For your information the 'E.N.I.A'” she painstakingly pronounced, “offered me a position as a lead researcher into magical phenomena,” Twilight remarked, putting on a haughty air with her nose raised high.

“And you turned it down because...?”

Her cheeks, which had begun to return to their normal lavender, flared red again.

“Because I didn't think I'd be able to keep all the secrets...”

“That's what I thought half-pint,” I laughed as I pulled her into a one-armed hug. She grumbled a little but I could tell by how she leaned into it that she wasn't harboring any harsh feelings.

“Right, so... you said the graveyard was step one? Well the local burial grounds are just on the outskirts of town, opposite end of your cottage though.”

“Perfect, let's go then,” I steeled myself for what I was about to do. It flew in the face of everything I stood for but it was necessary, Celestia needed to know and I... I had to know that I could do what was needed when the chips were down.

“If you don't mind me asking, uhm...” I knew the question was coming, and I didn't exactly relish telling her what I planned to do when I got there, fortunately she surprised me by asking something completely different. “What were you doing at Fluttershy's?”

“Huh?” the question had caught me off guard but, in hindsight it wasn't unfair, I hadn't even mentioned that I'd met her friend. “Well, I was out by the river that flows near the Everfree's border getting my thoughts together when she found me. Apparently I wasn't far from her home, and she invited me in for tea since she said that I 'looked upset'.”

Twilight let out a curious sigh but followed it up with a girlish giggle, “Yeah, that sounds like Fluttershy alright, she is the element of kindness after all.”

“I believe it... heh, wow...”

Twilight's brow furrowed at my response, “What? What's 'wow'?”

“Oh, nothing just... I knew you were going to go on to great things, even back in the Academy you know, but... The Elements of Harmony, you're a legend out of myth Twi', your name is going to be remembered for millennia. Foals are going to read about you and your friends in history books.” Twilight didn't respond for a while, her face had taken on an indefinable complexion. “Hey, you ok half-pint?”

“...yeah... I guess I just never really thought about it before,” Twilight's eyes grew distant as she looked in the direction of her home where, I assumed, her own element sat waiting. “The Elements of Harmony are a big deal, I know that, but, I guess it just seemed like a part of my life until you put it in that... perspective.”

“Oh, sorry... I guess only just realized it myself, besides, it's easier to see from the outside.”

She nodded vacantly, as though a sudden gulf had opened up between her thoughts and her body.

I coughed into my hoof, more to break the awkward silence that was growing than anything, and it brought Twilight's attention back to the present. “So, back to matter at hoof, talking to Fluttershy got me thinking; she said that I seemed like the kind of pony who would do anything, no matter the cost to myself, and it made me ask myself how far I'd go to get what we needed.”

“O-ok, so?” she looked almost unhappy but gestured for me to continue before I could comment on it.

“I realized I'd go as far as I had to...” I said sternly as we approached the clearly marked ironwork gate. The smell of turned earth and mist hung over the graveyard as I contemplated the gravity of my next actions. “So with that in mind, I'm going to try and raise the dead.”

Twilight's jaw fell open in disbelief.

“W-wait, you can't! That's an offense punishable by exile or life imprisonment!” Panic quickly replacing her originally eager demeanor.

“I know that Twi' but unfortunately I'm out of options, either I jog my memory by force or I call it quits here and now-”

“Then quit!” her voice echoed in the stillness of the dusk and a for a moment the silence was absolute.

“Quit?” the thought would be laughable if it didn't make me so angry. “How could I quit? After seeing what that power did to my... to Summer. How can I quit knowing what I must have done to countless ponies?” I turned back to face her, a nameless brick of emotion having taken up residence in my chest. “How could you even think I could quit and just let something like that go?”

She backed away and, only for a fraction of a second, a flicker of real fear crossed her familiar features.

Fear of me.

That brick of emotion turned to iron. She was afraid of me, even if it only showed on her face for an instant. Keeping my face completely neutral I turned away from her. “I see,” I said evenly, keeping my eyes forward, “it was a mistake to ask you here, Twilight, you should go home, I'll let you know how it went.”

“B-but Jasper, you can't do this, it's ille-”

I seized the iron gate of the boneyard and ripped it open, the sound of wrenching metal cutting her words off.

“No, Twilight, I've come too far to quit,” the words came out low and harsh. “So if you're not going to help, just go home.”

“Jas-”

“GO HOME!” I nearly roared, in the corner of my eye I saw her stagger back a few steps in shock, looking as if I'd physically struck her. The ghost of fear and betrayal lingered in her eyes.

Pain flickered in my chest at her reaction and I instantly regretted it, I turned to say so but as I did there was a dull popping sound and only a faint shimmer of lavender sparkles remained behind me.

“You're a tactless beast, Jasper Shale,” I muttered angrily and I shouldered past the ruined mess of iron and into the graveyard. “But you've come too far to stop now.”

The night, normally comforting in its stillness, was almost oppressive as I moved deeper and deeper into the graveyard. It was larger than one might reasonably expect for such a small town, especially since it wasn't settled too long ago by generational standards. The reason for that was simple: Ponyville was situated on the corpse of another town, one that had been swallowed by war a long time ago. The actual details of the war and even the enemy that was fought was lost to history, only the sisters likely remembered it now, but the dead remember everything. Mausoleums and crypts jutted out from the earth like aged monoliths of a forgotten eon, the names and dates long ago claimed by exposure to the elements. I passed through the most recent portion of the graveyard, unwilling to conduct my little experiment in a place where the dead still had family to remember them, the older parts were far more expansive anyway.

I chose a small burial plot with a little less than a dozen headstones, it was obvious that theu had once had been exquisitely carved but weather and the passage of time had worn them all down to misshapen stumps. I pulled the tool I'd taken from my cottage out from it's holding strap inside of my greatcoat, my scythe. The cold steel weapon shone in the cold moonlight, I fancied that I could still smell the blood of all the lives that had been extinguished on the edge of its blade.

With a heavy heart I hefted the weapon and regarded an engraving on the bar grip, something that I doubt even the Princesses had noticed when they returned my personal effects to me. At the base of the metal haft a series of letters were inscribed.

CDXXVII

To most it would be gibberish, but to an academic, or to somepony who had taken the Ancient Pony Cultures class, it might be recognizable as Roanan numerals. Not that knowing that would necessarily tell anypony anything important, but I knew what they signified. When I got it back the day I left the asylum I saw them and, for a very brief moment, I was consumed by despair.

It was my kill count.

Four hundred and twenty-seven souls had been reaped on the edge of this scythe, sent to the Black Stallion's doorstep ahead of schedule. I had never heard of anypony having such a high number of listed kills, but that wasn't what bothered me the most. What bothered me was that whoever I had been before my memory was erased had been so methodical that he not only recalled the exact number I had killed, but had bothered to keep a continuing record of them as a cold numerical count. Like it was some kind of competition.

That meant that, in total, I had personally killed almost an entire regiment worth of enemy combatants in bloody melee. Contrary to what the Princesses might have thought what I claimed my weapon and chose to keep it; it wasn't out of nostalgia. I kept the blasted thing out of respect for the lives it had taken, throwing it away would have felt like an affront to the dead and I felt that I had enough trouble with them already.

It was also the reason that I had bothered to retrieve it and bring it along tonight. Powerful magics usually required some kind of focus to channel the energy through, and if anything had a deep connection with death, it was this damned weapon.

I found a comfortable spot between some of the older headstones and sat down on the cold, hard dirt. I carefully measured my breathing, putting the episode with Twilight out of my mind with some difficulty. I would have to deal with the fallout of the eventually but right now I had more pressing concerns. I felt the pulse of the earth below me, an omnipresent background hum that no one else seemed to notice. When I asked my old professor, Iron Curtain, the only other earth attuned pony I'd ever known, he told me that unicorns like him and I could distantly feel the currents of magic that flowed through the earth; ley-lines he called them.

My mind was steady as a rock, my body as still as a mountain, and with a deep breath I reached out with my magic. I felt the familiar, dull, ruddy red glow suffused my horn and filtered deep into the earth. The hum of the earth entered my bones, every place I had felt the world's pulse at was different, here it was like an ethereal and wordless song. Deep thrums of memory pounded like a headache, the age of this place was mighty indeed. I let the first breath out through my mouth, and took a second, deeper one, and pressed further, I felt the mouldering bodies beneath me. Countless dead from countless generations, writhing with the etheric song of the earth as worms and grubs squirmed within their rotting rib-cages and collapsing skulls.

But where to begin?

Why is it impossible?

That voice... it was familiar, resonant and firm, the taste of academia colored the vowels. Why is 'what' impossible though.

Deeper. I need to go deeper.

Static began to fill my ears as the power of the earth felt my intrusion, the graveyard mist closed around my body like a cold and stifling cloak.

Because we are starting at the finish line and sprinting towards the start.

That voice again, it's... it's His, I know it is. I can't remember his face or his form but I know that voice. Even though it shouldn't be familiar to me it is and it fills me with rage. What does he mean though? 'Sprinting towards the start?' what does that...

I'm reaching for the bodies, I thought impassively as I threaded my mind through the damp earth, so that means I need to reach... where? The animating spirit first? But what...

And the body is tailored to the soul.

“No...” the word escaped my lips in a deathly whisper, his voice was like a hammer in my mind, they kept coming and I couldn't stop the knowledge from flooding in.

To try and animate a body without a governing soul, or to try and call up an elemental spirit to puppet such a solitary machine!

“Nonononononono,” the words were leaving my mouth in a stream, my connection broke with a jarring Snap! in my mind, but I barely noticed the migraine-like throb of pain that accompanied such a crude breach.

“Only the true soul of the body... can govern its movements.” I muttered, “I have to call back the soul of the dead to occupy their own rotting flesh? Oh Goddesses... Twist, you sick son of a bitch... what have you done?”

“Only what had to be done, Number One-Oh-Nine,” the voice was rich and cultured, the voice I had heard in my head.

“Twist...” I whipped around my horn glowing effusively, straining for a target.

From behind one of the mausoleums the Doctor stepped out into the wan light of the moon. I staggered as the memories unlocked by the Princess earlier came crashing violently into my mind, I heaved my dinner onto the ground my body recalled the sheer bloody anguish of his 'process'. Doctor Silvious H. Twist was just as I remembered him though, tall and austere, his spotless lab coat fluttering around him in the light twilit breeze, with his mane of braided starlight still pinned pack and burnished gray coat as immaculately kept as ever.

“I. Am going. To kill you!” I roared, all semblance of control gone as I my horn lit with radiant crimson power.

“No.”

My body fell slack, my horn's light winking out like a star cast from the heavens.

“W-what?” I mumbled helplessly from the rot-strewn dirt of the graveyard.

“I said, 'No',” he enunciated, as if to a particularly thick foal, “you will not kill me, in fact, you will not lay a hoof, horn, nay even a single hair of your tail upon my illustrious form.”

“W-what?” my brain was staggering drunkenly in my own skull, my body wouldn't obey its owner, I could feel my hooves but they defied my commands to move. My magic had never felt further away.

His voice dropped an octave, taking on a strange tonal quality and as he moved closer his eyes flickered inequinely. “You know, you were my finest experiment, my magnum opus,” he looked almost... sad, he trotted over to where I lay prone and brushed several strands of my mane from my eyes. “Really, you were the only one my process ever succeeded on, I have never felt such joy as when you awoke, whole and undamaged, from the transition. So much of my life came to fruition at that moment, why, it was almost as though I had gained a son.” I worked my mouth, trying to respond, there were no words in Equuish to convey how sick that idea made me.

“Truly, I am a scientist at heart, logic prevails of emotion in all things, but when I lost you, Number One-Oh-Nine, I felt true despair, and true hatred for she who took you from me.”

“H-ha...te... you...” I spat from between motionless lips, his only response was to smile warmly.

“You see? Such strength, tempered and forged in the fires of war, even disabled entirely you are able to spit defiance, futile though it may be of course,” he cracked his neck viciously and for a moment one of his eyes swam with darkness so absolute it was like looking into the abyss. “I am so proud of you my boy.”

Bile and rage burned hot in my veins, every molecule of my body ached to fight, I had never felt so powerless, not even when I was strapped to that table in Twist's operating room. I was unbound, unfettered, and yet I could do nothing.

“So very proud, you know, I never considered myself one to wax paternal,” he lifted me, almost tenderly, into the air on a cushion of telekinetic force, “I suppose it's true then, what they say, you never stop learning.”

“S-Summ...er,” I choked out he raised an eyebrow and rolled his eyes slowly, as if trying to recall where he'd heard the name.

“Ah Summer!” he exclaimed, brightening considerably as he began to move my prone form alongside himself as he cantered towards the graveyard exit. “Yes, Miss Withers, your luscious little filly, did you like her? I brought her back just for you, you know.”

The thought chilled me to the core, she had endured being torn from her eternal rest simply because she had loved me? No, because I had loved her.

“It was quite a bit of work, the process of resurrection is so damnably slow and, if I am being honest, imperfect, without you around, my boy,” the doctor lamented plaintively. “Fortunately your brothers and sisters are still around, they miss you so, Number One-Oh-Nine, after all you were the eldest, they look up to you.”

Brothers and sisters? The thought made me want to vomit, Does that mean I'm the one who... Oh Goddesses...

“...and of course there's the matter of your relationship with Miss Withers, not that she isn't lovely but... an earth pony? Really?” I had drifted away from the madpony's blathering until he mentioned Summer again, I noticed we had actually turned away from the graveyard gate and were moving into a different section of it. “I mean, I truly admire their work ethic and knack for,” he grimaced as he spat the word “non-magical innovation, but, in the end, it's all just to make up for their unfortunately deficiencies isn't it? They crudely ape what we unicorns can do by will alone. I've observed your interaction with that lovely lavender filly, don't you think she would make a much better mate? I mean, what if your foals were born hornless? The scandal...” tears of shame and rage had actually begun to leak out of my eyes at this point, I was so utterly helpless that I couldn't even shake with anger.

“W-w...hy?” the fight leaked from my limbs, there was no point anymore.

“Hmm? Well her magical power is obvious, and she clearly has-”

“N-no... w...hy... c-ca...n't I...” every syllable was a monumental effort, I watched, repulsed by the sick parody of paternal pride that the bastard almost glowed with.

“Why can't you move?” Doctor Twist filled in pleasantly as we came to a stop in front of a massive stone doorway to a particularly large mausoleum. He nickered playfully, “Truly your strength of will never ceases to impress. Well my boy, I think I'll let you figure that one out. Sufficed to say, you cannot disobey me, nor can you harm me.”

“STOP!” the last voice in the world I wanted to hear cut through the still air as Twilight galloped into view wearing an ornate tiara bearing the her cutie mark.

“Tw...i...light... damn...it” I croaked out, I wanted to kick and scream, to tell her to run, to leave me and go alert Celestia. Not that she would even if I was able, I wouldn't either.

“Oh?” If anything Twist sounded more curious than worried, a mistake that gave me a little hope, more than one had underestimated the raw power that filly commanded to their own peril. “Is that the Element of Magic herself I see?” he drew back and made an exaggerated bow, “I'm honored.”

“Let him go Doctor Twist, and give yourself up,” even had I been able to move I couldn't have face-hoofed hard enough. Did she actually think that would work?

He hummed for a moment before say, “Ah, no, I don't think I will,” without warning a strobing crackle of lightning leapt from his horn. It was a sign of true mastery, for not even a a moment of physical preparation to be needed to cast such a powerful offensive spell.

Twilight was no push-over either though, at the speed of thought she caught the dancing energy in the tines of her crown, and sent it hurtling back.

Right into me.

Ow.

Twilight gasped, horrified, and I realized I'd been an idiot to hold out any hope. Twilight might have more power but Twist was a genius, an intellectual prodigy of the highest order, he knew she wouldn't be caught off guard by his spell, but he also knew that he didn't need to strike her with lightning to hurt her. So he tossed her the bolt and then caught it on the rebound by interposing my prone form between him and it.

For kicks.

“Oh... Oh Goddess, Jasper I'm so sorry, I should've...” her eyes began to shine white as she turned her gaze back to Twist, “You will pay for that, Doctor.” This time she spat the title like an invective. Whatever respect she had possessed for his work or hope she'd had of a peaceful resolution had clearly evaporated. I honestly wasn't sure how well that boded for me.

“Child, I've had longer than you can imagine to perfect my talents,” Twist rudely tossed me aside and began circling Twilight like a hungry timberwolf. “I am a finely honed machine whereas you are, not to be dismissive of your considerable talent, more like a malfunctioning cannon.”

Bolts of pure white force leapt from Twilight's horn, dozens of them, and hurtled towards Twist only to be caught and redirected lazily into the ground around him, tearing up the earth without so much as dirtying his jacket. Overglow wrapped around her horn as arcs of light followed them, but he caught each one on his horn and set them lazily into the sky. Another force missile, this one humming audibly with the contained energy, flew at him and I actually saw him grimace slightly as he was forced to handle the massive quantity of power. I realized even he couldn't redirect or control that, what he could do however, and what he did, was transmute the sound to light, releasing a massive photon flash that would have blinded me if I hadn't seen it coming. When the light faded yet another layer of overglow had wrapped itself around Twilight's horn and she screamed in frustration as a massive arc of unfettered lighting tore the air between the her and the Doctor, with a grunt of real effort he caught it on his horn, dissipating the energies but visibly straining against the onslaught of power.

After almost full minute Twilight sagged, the arc vanished with a whisper, “Well, my dear, I must say, I underestimated you, you're sheer power is truly remarkable, too bad your tactics aren't as... developed,” Twist grinned, a sheen of sweat showing on a face full of victory.

I think Twist and I both noticed it at the same time. Twilight hadn't cast a spell in almost a minute but...

The overglow was still shining around her horn.

She grinned, exhausted and wordless, then dropped the two-ton cenotaph she had ripped out of the ground then levitated behind and over the Doctor, straight onto his head with a wet Crunch.

I stared, stunned beyond words as Twilight dropped to the ground, the glow fading into a dull aura as she gasped for breath.

She had actually done it though. Clearly the Doctor wasn't the only one who had underestimated the lavender mare, and in that moment I had no question whatsoever as to why she was Celestia's chosen protege.

“Twilight!” voices, a few of which I recognized called out from somewhere behind us. Out of the mist came running all five of Twilight's friends, each of them wearing a bejeweled necklace.

A orange-cream mare I hadn't met but whom I recognized from the photo of her younger self cantered up to Twilight and leaned down to help her to her hooves.

“Are ya a'right sugarcube? Ya had us worried sick what with all tha' lightnin' ya'll were tossin' about.”

“I'm fine Applejack, just winded, I haven't had to expend that much power all at once since I left Canterlot,” Twilight answered wryly as she got to her hooves, her knees still shaking a little.

“Well you could've at least left something for us!” a cyan pegasus with a prismatic mane flew up looking miffed, “how you could you keep all the fun for yourself egghead?”

“You're right rainbow, I'm sorry, the next time a psychotic war criminal unicorn is trying to kidnap one of my friends I'll make sure to wait til you get here,” the pair laughed as Rarity approached along with Pinkie and Fluttershy.

“I, for one, am more concerned that you could have gotten hurt darling, really,” Rarity admonished a bashful looking Twilight, “what would you have done if he had wised up to your little floating rock trick before you had the angle right?

“Oh c'mon Rarity! Nopony is smarter than Twilight!” Pinkie danced up on to two hooves, throwing mock punches, “She had'im on the ropes the whole time!”

“I-I'm just glad everypony is safe...” Fluttershy had made her way over to me and drawn out a small travel medical kit, “are you alright Jasper?”

The entire time they had been congratulating Twilight I'd been vainly trying to get their attention, of course that was limited to wide eyes and inaudible gasps which prevented me from delivering my warning.

I was still paralyzed.

Fluttershy squeaked and staggered back as the cenotaph rumbled and began to slowly rise from where it had fallen on, and crushed, the Doctor.

“No... that's not possible,” I heard Twilight whisper to herself, Twist, it seemed, disagreed.

The sounds of viscous snaps and cracks, like joints popping back into place, came from beneath the massive stone monument as a cold and hate-filled voice echoed from the shadows.

“What... a clever... girl...” two utterly inequine eyes peered out eyes peered out, on the right was an orb molten gold flecked with sapphire and split like the eye of a serpent, while the other was a bright, pupilless vermillion.

“Quick, girls! The Elements!” Twilight shouted, the six bearers immediately gathered together and were wrapped in a false dawn of light. Each one rose in turn as their necklaces shone with inner power, culminating in the tiara crowning Twilight's brow as her eyes shot open, light from within by a solar flare.

Light erupted from their combined powers in a stream of multi-hued light. The unfiltered power of harmony made visible, it was everything that ponykind had been taught to aspire to and was exemplified by the mares before me. By my friends. It was the closest to divine that mortal ponies could touch.

So why?

Why was it so painful?

Chapter 10

Ok, so sorry for the lateness of my update, I lost my internet connection for almost a week that turned out to be my motherboard wheezing its last. I had to get a new board and processor, but fear not! I've been diligently writing when I've been able to between being sick and having my computer shut down at random times. I'll have the next chapter up tomorrow, on my oath!

Ponyville General Hospital, despite being located in what most might consider to be something of a backwater, was actually one of the best equipped medical facilities in central Equestria. Part of the reason stemmed from it's proximity to the nation's capitol of Canterlot, the other less public reason was that Ponyville was the home of the Elements of Harmony and Celestia prioritized their good health. Not that anypony dared to second-guess that decision of course, to the ponies of Equestria the Elements were symbols to aspire to as well as living examples that anypony can exemplify the six great virtues. They were the saviors of the moon, the enders of chaos, the guardians of Canterlot itself during the invasion of the Changeling army that nearly toppled the great kingdom, these six mares even rescued the semi-mythical Crystal Empire.

The six mares were less than at their best though, at the moment, as they all stood around a single hospital bed occupied by a single stallion. Terrible burns patched and scored his rust-colored coat, the the doctors were frankly baffled as to the source however as the burns seemed to have occurred from the inside out somehow. Sitting closest to the stallion's head was a lavender unicorn mare, her eyes red and puffy from crying as she stroked the comatose patient's mane out of his eyes despite the fact that every time she removed her hoof the charcoal hair would droop right back to where it had been.

“C'mon sugarcube, the Princess'll be here lickity-split, ah promise, she'll know what ta do,” Applejack put a comforting hoof on her friend's shoulder. Twilight just nodded silently, not saying a word, the room was deathly silent save for the beep-beep or the EEG machine hooked up to the patient, not even the Element of Laughter could muster a smile.

None of them could get his screams out of their ears.

“He'll be ok Twi', I mean heck, a tough guy like that? No way he'll go down,” Rainbow chided playfully, her heart wasn't in it though, Twilight smiled a little though, nodding.

“Yeah, he is tough, it's just...” the tears started to make a comeback before she was swallowed in a hug from Fluttershy, Twilight buried her face in her friends soft, pink mane, “T-the last thing we did was fight, and I just left...” her voice cracked around her words. “I just left him alone to do what was probably one of the hardest things he'd ever done. What kind of friend does that?”

“What happened darling?” Rarity brushed Twilight's bangs away from her eyes as she emerged from Fluttershy's hug, “just talk to us.”

Twilight shook her head, “I can't... it's about the whole security thing, what he was about to do... it was to help the Princess, it was just... a really scary idea,” she admitted a little lamely. “I mean, I knew he wasn't going to actually do it, just go as far as he needed to to find out how it was done, but the thought of him even considering it... it shook me really badly. I always looked up to him, he was like my brother after Shiny went off to basic, he looked out for me, took care of me in the Academy.”

“Well, ah'd say he sounds like a stand up kinda guy, ah mean, 'specially after what'e did fer mah kin, ah jus' wish I'd gotten a chance ta meet'im b'fore-” Pinky stuck a hoof in her too-honest friend's mouth before she got a chance to go into that particular crevasse.

“AJ! You're still gonna meet him!” Pinkie admonished in a motherly tone, “Jasper is gonna be just fine.”

“O-oh, well yeah, o'course, ah just meant, y'know...”

“Girls, it's ok,” Twilight broke into the awkward conversation, “We just have to wait for the Princess to get here, I... I know she'll be able to help.”

“Of course she will darling,” Rarity pulled out a handkerchief from seemingly nowhere and proceeded to clean up Twilight's tear-stained face gently. “Until then though, you need to get some rest, she'll be here as soon as she's raised the sun, after all, our brave soldier isn't going anywhere. At least go get some tea from the break room. Pinkie, please make sure she gets something to eat too ok?” The pink pony nodded with a grateful smile, “Rainbow, I know you have to get to work soon and don't think I don't know you didn't get any sleep tonight.”

“Y-yeah well, won't be the first all-nighter I've pulled,” said with a noncommittal shrug, “it's an easy day anyway, I'll be back as soon as I finish up the morning cloudbreaks.”

“And?”

“And a nap...”

“Good, Fluttershy, can you...” Rarity began before stopping at Fluttershy's apologetic expression, “oh I suppose you have to feed your animals don't you?” the gentle mare nodded silently, “Well, fortunately I finished most of my outstanding orders last evening, I'll stay here and wait for the Princess.”

“Thank you, Rarity,” Twilight said, pulling her immaculate friend into a hug,

“Anytime darling, don't you worry.”

“Alrigh' well, ah gotta get back ta the farm and finish up the mornin' chores,” Applejack tipped her hat a little tiredly, “apple trees wait fer nopony as they say. Be back in a jiffy though.”

“Applejack, I hate to be a bother but, can you pick up Sweetie Belle and bring her to the farmhouse? It is a school day after all and somepony has to walk her to school, I'd feel better if she was with Apple Bloom and your brother.”

Applejack grinned and nodded, “Ah sure can sugarcube, no problem at all.”

The girls cleared out to their respective tasks, eventually leaving Rarity alone in the room even as the light of dawn began to filter through the curtains. Taking a deep breath and relishing the sudden quiet and calm Rarity took up Twilight's vacated seat and softly let the dam she'd kept up since Jasper had been wounded, and subsequently admitted to the ER, crack and fall.

Tears poured silently down her face as she smoothed his ruffled mane and needlessly straightened the bandages out that covered his terrible and mysterious wounds.

“You're an awful, awful stallion, you know that Mister Shale?” she whispered morosely, “you promised you'd spend another afternoon with me, and yet here you are standing me up.” She let the tears go freely, not even bothering the kerchief she still held in her hoof. “You had better awaken soon, you brute, or... well, as the saying goes, 'No fury like a mare scorned' isn't it? You're quite fortunate I'm the Element of Generosity, else I might not...” she hiccuped and a fresh sob rolled through her bringing with it new, hot tears, “...I might not be willing to give you another chance. After all, Juliet Rarity never gets stood up, is that clear?” casting a furtive glance over her shoulder, Rarity leaned in a placed a small, warm kiss on his forehead.

“He's certainly a step up from Blueblood.”

Rarity nearly shot into the air before remembering herself, taking a deep breath, and turning to face the Princess Celestia, who had appeared at the doorway and was wearing a maternal, if somewhat mischievous, smile.

The look on her face disarmed any panic the alabaster mare had, allowing her mind to catch up to the comment. Rarity huffed daintily, “I will admit; that night was something a shameful chapter in my life, you can't blame a lady for pursuing a fillyhood dream though, a prince in a castle might be cliché but, unlike Blueblood himself, it has a certain romantic charm to it.”

Celestia chuckled softly and nodded, “it certainly does, Miss Rarity, although I doubt you need me to tell you that you'll probably end up crossing horns with my student over this one,” she gestured wryly to the fitfully sleeping captain. “Good stallions are hard to find.”

Rarity blushed lightly and somewhat guiltily, but nodded, “I'm aware, your majesty, I've agonized over it actually. She's known him for so long and I don't want to step in the way but, at the same time...”

“Well, I don't take sides in these sorts of things, the heart will go where the heart please after all,” the Princess admitted. “And that aside, what kind of teacher would I be if I shielded my student from the every day lessons of life?”

“T-that's... good to know,” Rarity said with a sigh of relief, since seeing Twilight's reactions around Jasper she had wondered if pursuing her interest would end up netting her a one way ticket to the moon.

Celestia reached out with her magic and pulled the cover away, revealing Jasper's bandaged form, and looked him over with a critical eye. With a regretful sigh she replaced the cover and shook her head causing Rarity's heart and hopes to drop like a stone.

“You... you can't do anything for him, can you?” she said, although her tone made it more of a statement than a question, Rarity knew the answer already.

“No, I'm afraid not...” Celestia admitted in a sorrowful voice, “this magic is as unwholesome as it is terrible, there is a reason I banned the practice of the blacker arts centuries ago.”

“Princess!” Twilight's startled voice sounded from the doorway. Rarity thanked her stars that her back was turned and quickly used the handkerchief to clean the tears from her face, making herself presentable again.

“Good morning, Twilight, Pinkie Pie,” she pulled her student into a familial embrace, “it's lovely to see you both again, I'm sorry it isn't under better circumstances.”

“Is there anything you can do Princess? Please tell me you can help him!” Twilight pleaded, but Celestia could only shake her head again. Twilight fell back on her flanks, the fight visibly draining from her.

“I'm sorry Twilight but this magic is as alien to my own as it is to the doctors here in the hospital, however...” Twilight's head shot up again, hopeful. “I believe I know of somepony who might have some insight to this.”

“You do!?” Twilight smiled for the first time that morning as Celestia nodded.

“Yes, and so do you, as a matter of fact,” she answered cryptically.

The brown-cloaked figure entered the hospital under a cloud of slight suspicion, despite most of the populace having grown relatively used to her presence in the marketplace over the years. A heavy brown satchel clicked and clanked on her back as she made her way towards the room where the Element's and the Princess were waiting for her.

“Zecora!” Twilight cried out as soon as she caught a glimpse of her striped friend entering the room, the Pinkie and Rarity moved in with her as the lavender mare clicked hooves with the forest-dwelling zebra, who smiled in return at her friends.

“Twilight, while you are a sight for sore eyes, if I said you looked well I would be telling you lies,” she rhymed as she doffed her cloak and satchel.

Twilight laughed but nodded in agreement, “Yeah, I'm kind of a mess huh?”

“Just a bit I am glad you are well though, the same cannot be said for this fellow,” Zecora nodded gravely to the injured Jasper, “I brought all that I could carry from home, but I am not sure of what there is to be done.”

“If you could at the very least tell us what kind of power wrought this damage, Miss Zecora, I would be most grateful,” Celestia answered as she pulled away the bandages gently, revealing the sickeningly scorched flesh. It looked as though steam and bubbled up from beneath the skin, searing the flesh black.

Looking over the scorch marks and damaged flesh, Zecora carefully sprinkled an odd-smelling pink dust over them to no effect. Undeterred, she repeated the process with a blue dust, then a white, and finally poured a few droplets of clear liquid upon one of the wounds. Instantly, upon touching the wound, the water turned black and hissed violently causing Zecora to shout wordlessly in fright and back away.

“Zecora! What happened? What does that mean?” Twilight nearly pounced on the wide-eyed zebra.

“I- I am not certain what this could mean, such a reaction I have never seen,” she murmured, Zecora's face was etched with fear and worry as pushed herself to her hooves and carefully approached her patient. Despite the somewhat fearsome reaction, the liquid seemed to cleanse the wound, turning it from black to a raw, but healthy pink.

“Z-Zecora! You did it!” Twilight exclaimed, something like genuine optimism entering her voice for the first time since the entire graveyard debacle.

“Yes, so it would seem my dearest friends, but this is a means as opposed to an end. My potion can cleanse his wound it is true, but as to why it works I have nary a clue.”

Celestia narrowed her eyes as she lifted the mostly-full vial that Zecora had drawn from and sniffed it, then immediately backing her face away from the pungent odor and floating it back wearing a pensive expression.

“Miss Zecora, am I right in my guess as to what that vial contains?” Zecora met the Princess's gaze evenly and nodded. “Sun Water... I had thought the practice lost,” Celestia's eyes took on a distant quality as if gazing into a different time altogether. After a moment she snapped out of it to the curious stares of Twilight and company, save for Zecora who was more thoroughly examining the wounds while consulting an unsavory looking tome.

“Sun Water?” there were few aspects of her mentor's magic that Twilight didn't know about, being a voracious reader and bibliophile as well as the personal student to the Princess of the Sun. The fact that there appeared to be some facet she not only was unfamiliar with but hadn't even heard of didn't sit well with her.

“It is an ancient magic,” Celestia began, her eyes dropping to stare into the glimmering water, “one that uses an long-forgotten, or so I had thought, alchemical process to capture the pure magic of the sun, the nature of the ritual is intensely specific, it can only be performed on certain days of the year and under exacting circumstances.”

Zecora emerged from her studies with a light nod, “on summer's longest and hottest day, at the fires zenith I must lay, a bowel of purest water clean, to catch the mystic light within.”

Twilight puzzled over the words, “Longest and hottest... the day of the Summer Sun Celebration! So you capture the light of the afternoon sun?” The zebra mystic nodded silently as she went back to her work.

“I had thought that to be the case, though the specifics are still unknown to me, to be honest I'm not even sure anypony but a Zebra could work the ritual,” Celestia mused, eliciting a disappointed look from her student. “Zebricans have a very peculiar and specific form of innate magic all their own,” she explained, "not unlike pegasi and earth ponies. Tell me, Zecora, is there anything you can do? Anything at all?”

The Zebrican alchemist closed the tome thoughtfully and was silent for a few minutes as though considering something. “Perhaps I can at that, Princess, this magic is an unholy mess, I do not know if what I find, will bring back Captain Shale's mind.”

Twilight took Zecora's hooves in her's and met her gaze pleadingly, “I know, but anything at all, please, can you try?”

Zecora nodded with a sagely smile.

The girls sat around the dinner table of Applejack's farmhouse, it was early in the afternoon, hours after the discussion with Celestia and Zecora over the particulars involved in testing Shale's condition. In the end it was simply decided to give Zecora the time and space she needed to perform her experiments, and wait for the results, something the scientist in Twilight could appreciate, but the friend and sister in her did not.

Twilight opened her mouth but no words came out, Dash and Pinkie looked up expectantly, probably hoping somepony would break the silence that had spread over the six after they'd made it back inside. Finally she spoke the words that had been weighing heavily on her since the events at the graveyard.

“I-is it terrible of me... that I... that I'm glad he was a monster? And not... a pony?” Twilight didn't meet any of her friends eyes. Shame from thinking it washed through her every time the ugly idea surfaced in her mind, but no amount of denial changed what she knew to be true. “Oh... What am I saying? That's horrible.”

Her eyes dropped down again, on the verge of tears, regretting that she had said anything at all. Then she felt a soft pressure on her hoof, Twilight looked up, half-expecting to see Fluttershy's pastel yellow coat or Rarity's alabaster white. Instead it was Pinkie's hoof, a small and sad smile that didn't look like it belonged on the normally vivacious pink pony.

“It's ok Twilight, I don't... like seeing another pony being able to do that to somepony else either,” she admitted freely. Pinkie had, as usual in her own way, hit the nail on the head.

A few droplets fell from Twilight's eyes, “When the Princess told me what he was doing all I could think of was, 'How could somepony even consider that? How could anypony ever do that to somepony else, that's monstrous!'.” the words poured from her mouth, confessing all the dark thoughts that had plagued her since the events in the Library, “and it was monstrous! So when... when the Princess asked Jasper to remember how it was done I just lost it, I was actually relieved when he couldn't remember, even though I knew we needed him to. I was just so relieved that he didn't know how to do such a horrible thing... and then he was determined to learn how it was done anyway. I thought I didn't want him to but he was planning to... to 'do whatever was necessary' to fulfill his duty. I should have supported him, instead I... I abandoned him.”

“Aw, c'mon darlin'” Applejack had moved around to put a comforting hoof over Twilight's shoulder, “you were scared, tha's ok, nuthin' wrong with bein' scared, ya'll came back didn't ya?”

Twilight scoffed bitterly, “Yes, I did, but why do you think I asked you all to bring the elements? I had no idea Twist was there or that he would try and ponynap Jasper.”

“O-oh... I just, uhm, assumed... so why did you?” Fluttershy finally piped up, curiosity and worry overcoming her shyness. Twilight opened her mouth to answer, to find a way to say it without sounding...

“To stop Jasper by force.”

Rainbow's voice cut through the conversation like a hot blade, it wasn't worried, or sympathetic like the others either.

She was angry.

“All this time, Twilight, I thought you'd called us up there to save him!” she stomped across the floor, backing Twilight into the corner of the kitchen, a fire burning in her voice. “But you were gonna try and use the Elements against Jasper the whole time! THE WHOLE TIME! How...” they were almost muzzle to muzzle, Twilight's eyes were wide with shame and not a little fear, Dash huffed softly and back up, taking a calming breath.

“How could you Twilight?”

“Dash I-”

“Shut it, I need to get some air?” she made it as far as the door before turning her head back to the cowed lavender unicorn, “Twi', I'm not... we're still friends but, that's just... not cool y'know?” she pushed the door open a little harder than necessary and took to the sky, the snap of the sound barrier and the rattling windows told them all she'd just rainboom'd her way across Ponyville.

“Twi', ah know ya meant well,” Applejack nestled up next to the shaking librarian, “but Dashie's got a point, that ain't what the Element's're for, ya'll know that. Ah know ya'll were scared though, ah forgive ya, e'en though ah oughta be right mad considerin' what ah owe that stallion. Ah know ya'll were just worried about 'im.”

Twilight buried herself in Applejack's sandy mane and let out a muffled sob, AJ wrapped a leg around her and let her cry softly. “Shush naow, it'll be a'right, Dashie ain't one ta hold'a grudge, 'specially with a friend. She's the Element'a Loyalty though, that probably hit a nerve.”

“I should say so,” Rarity's voice came across disturbingly cool, her manner even more so. “I think... I should probably excuse myself before I say something I regret, but Twilight...” the thoroughly unhappy mare lifted her face from where she'd buried herself to look Rarity in the eyes. Twilight knew she'd made a mistake, she was willing to face the consequences, and the fashionista's eyes softened when she saw the determination there. With a long-suffering sigh Rarity trotted over and tousled Twilight's hair. Her previously harsh reprimand died on her lips, instead a much softer voice said, “I'm disappointed in you Twilight, I really am, but... I forgive you too.”

“T-thank you, Rarity, I'm so sorry girls, I really am...” she laughed a little less bitterly than before, “you'd think I'd have learned that lesson after Discord's little trick.”

Fluttershy grinned widely as the tension dissipated, shortly before she was bodily lifted by Pinkie and carried over to the other four with a shout of “GROUP HUG!”

Applejack gasped around the tight embrace, “Uh, P-Pinkie, ya'll might wanna wait fer Dashie, all things considered.”

“I know! But I was so afraid that Rarity and Twilight would fight that when they made up and Rarity forgave her I was so so so excited! Especially since they're both in-” two apple fritters suddenly found their way forcefully into Pinkie's mouth, crammed there by a white hoof.

“Thank you Pinkie, darling, but I really do need to go and, if I'm right, so do you. The Cakes need their cashier and baker and you've taken the entire morning off.”

With a giant gulp the fritters vanished and Pinkie licked crumbs from her lips before nodding, “Oh! Right! I hope the Cakes aren't mad, I told them I'd be gone though so it should be fine. Well, gotta go!”

“Thank Celestia for Attention Deficit,” Rarity mumbled as she also made to leave, she was stopped by a lavender hoof on her shoulder.

“Wait, Rarity, AJ, Fluttershy, I need your help girls, Pinkie's and Rainbow's too when we track them down.”

Applejack crooked and eye brow, “what's on yer mind sugarcube?”

“You're all right, I should have done better by Jasper, I should have trust him and helped him, now he's... he's injured and it's probably my fault. That means I've got to help Celestia in his place.”

Rarity met her friend's eyes evenly, as if searching for something, before nodding. Fluttershy, in an uncharacteristic show of determination, also nodded firmly. AJ shrugged and nodded as well, “Ah did say ah owed him a debt, an' an Apple always pays their debts.”

“Good, now, before you girls got there I heard Twist talking to Jasper. They weren't leaving the graveyard, instead Twist was dragging him somewhere deeper in. I didn't think anything of it at the time but, now that it comes to it, he must have been going somewhere.”

“Uhm... does that mean we have to go back into the cemetery?” Fluttershy piped in fearfully and Twilight nodded, “...at night?” voice rising an octave and dropping in volume.

“Well, I guess not necessarily.”

Fluttershy sighed with apparent relief.

“But it might be best considering those were the original circumstances.”

-Squeak-

“Wait, ah'm not sure what ya'll're gettin' at Twi', what exactly are we looking fer?”

Rarity chimed in as she connected the dots, “You think he has a safe house, or a lab of some kind around or near the cemetery, don't you?” Twilight nodded silently.

“Woah now, ah ain't sure ah wanna go waltzin' inta some mad scientist's lair, no offense ta yer own basement Twi'. Don'tcha think this is somethin' we should tell Luna? Or Celestia?”

“What do we tell them? That I have a hunch? I need to give them more than that and besides...” her eyes gravitated towards a window that looked out towards Ponyville proper, and the hospital. “I need to find it myself... for Jasper. Besides, I'm not exactly unqualified you know.”

“W-well, if that's what we have to do then, uhm, I guess we should do it, right?” Rarity, Applejack, and Twilight all turned to stare at Fluttershy as if she'd grown a horn and announced herself as the newest Princess.

“Well, I suppose if Fluttershy is championing Twilight's plan then, crazy or not, it's going to happen, hm?” Rarity said sardonically.

“Ah reckon so.”

Twilight beamed at her friends for a moment before taking a deep breath and steeling herself. “Thanks girls, all of you, now let's let Rainbow and Pinkie know, and we'll all meet at the Cemetery gates at five sharp, ok?”

An orange, yellow, and alabaster head each nodded in agreement.

Chapter 11

“Am I... drowning? Dead? Yes, that's it, I'm already dead, right?” the thought crossed my mind as quick as a whisper. There was no pain, only a dull and thudding pulsation in the distance. Such a great distance it was too, like the chasm between life and death.

Or heaven and hell.

The luxury of death is not yours to take, stripling.

A cold, harsh voice with all the emotion of a frozen straight razor brought the floating darkness I seemed to be suspended inside of into sharp relief.

“W-who?” I bent my head upwards, or was it downwards? Was I suspended? Or lying prone? I decided I was lying down and in a snap of perspective I was. On my stomach or my back though? And why? Had a grenade gone off again? Deciding I was on my stomach I pushed myself up, only to be knocked to the floor by a rough blow to the head. The clipped trotting of hooves around me told me I was not alone.

Who am I? You do not have the right to ask such a thing, stripling.

“W-why do you keep calling me that?” I asked harshly, blossoms of pain erupted through my torso, I was sure I had a broken rib. Or three.

It is what you are, stripling, a greenhorn and a foal with no power and no understanding. Or are you not? Prove me wrong? Tell me my name.

“I... I don't know your name, that's why I asked!” I coughed as I tried to stand again, bracing myself for another blow which didn't come. I thanked sweet Celestia for small favors. “Where are we?”

Where... an inaccurate question, stripling, rather you should ask, 'why' are we?

I raised an eyebrow as I tracked the voice in the darkness, I could barely see beyond my own muzzle in the absolute black of wherever it was we were. Or whyever, I mused sardonically to myself.

“Do you get your rocks off on being cryptic or were you just raised by zebras?” I asked into the black, twitching my ears to and fro, trying to get an angle on him.

Why. Tell me why we are, why are we... 'we', stripling. Tell me that, no... TELL ME MY NAME!

The last four words came in a throat-rending roar that would have cowed an ursa major, I flattened my ears as the aural assault nearly deafened me. I turned around to see a stallion, his coat stained irrevocably with what must have been layers of caked, dried, black, and rotting blood. Dull, hard, and impossibly jaded eyes peered out from beneath filth and sin.

Am I the reaper from the myths of old nightfall? When the foals would run beneath their mothers skirts at the advent of dusk?

He advanced violently, the animal stink of his, or its, flesh was overpowering. Somehow he spoke without moving his mouth, I did not dare to guess what passed for a maw beneath the caked on effluence.

Am I Garm? The wolfhound, guardian at Helheim's gates? Tell me. Tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me.

Every word brought him closer and closer, so close I could pick out the flecks of maddened froth on his lips and the glisten of madness behind the hard glowing-red orbs.

“I don't know your name I-” pain surged through my mind, a vortex of swirling colors and chaos that brought with it blades and lightning dancing across nerves exposed blindly to the cruel air. “I don't... I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!”

The specter's unvoice had fallen to a deadly whisper as it circled me like a predator.

You know my name, stripling, I can hear it... whispering and weeping in the sores of your violated mind. I can hear it... but it will not whisper to me. It whispers only in your ear, yet you do not hear it! Tell me. TELL ME WHAT IT SAYS!

The darkness closed in, eclipsing the figure despite his closeness to me. Even his ragged stench dissipated for which I was astonishingly grateful. There were no sounds anymore, not the cold unvoice of the specter nor the sense-blast mysterious pain that accompanied his words.

A presence appeared at the edge of my perception, it was not an image, I could not see it but, sweet Goddess, I could feel it. The hate, the abject and undying hate the simply bled from the thing shocked me back on my hooves.

Then there was another. Then another and another and another, until it seemed I could feel them beyond the walls of imagination. They were legion, without number and they all stared, silently, at me. Hating me without thought or reason. They were each like to the one beside them and all to the stallion were coated in a battlefield worth of gore, gristle, and arterial blood.

As one they spoke in a voice like an approaching thunderhead and my mind broke like a fractured mirror at their words.

WHO ARE WE. WHY ARE WE. ANSWER US.

ANSWER US!

Twilight had been busy preparing for the long night ahead of her when the warning came, one of the royal guards set to watch over Captain Shale as he rested in his room at Ponyville General galloped to the door and nearly knocked it from its hinges with the crashing force of his clamoring. The door limned in mulberry light and wrenched open to reveal a panicked Twilight Sparkle staring into what appeared to be an equally panicked guardspony.

“Lady Sparkle, come quick, the patient, that is, the Captain, he-”

What color remained in Twilight's features drained away, “No... he can't be... d-de-” the guardspony cut her off with a quick shake of his head that brought the breath and color back to her face as she sank to the ground in relief.

“No, Lady Sparkle, quite the opposite, he's awake!”

“WHAT?!” she leapt to her hooves with a shriek, “H-how?! Did Zecora... what happened?!”

“Please, Lady Sparkle, the Night Princess is on her way here with a contingent of her Nocturnae to track the Captain but you must-”

“W-woah, wait, wait, wait, back up... 'track'? What do you mean track?” the pair were almost galloping through the dimming streets of Ponyville, the squat white form of Ponyville General rising looming in the distance.

“The Captain, ma'am, when he woke up he went crazy, knocked out the two nurses and the orderly who tried to hold him down,” the color was beginning to once again leak from Twilight's face at the guard's description, unfortunately he wasn't done. “Damn near brought the whole wing down on itself taking out poor Ironshod, the guardspony on duty at the time, then he just up and vanished in all the chaos! No casualties, thank Celestia.”

Twilight let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding in. If he hadn't killed anypony, and she knew full well how capable he was at it, then he must still possess a modicum of control. Maybe, just maybe, his madness could be reigned in. Twilight cursed herself for a foal for never asking the particulars of why Jasper had been confined into solitary at Canterlot Sanitarium. Of course, given that that was where ponies who were a danger to others were generally kept, and the events that had just occurred, she decided that she could hazard a guess.

“Any idea where he's gone? Any tracks or... or traces?” Twilight asked hurriedly, her hyper-organized mind already tracing the possible routes the errant Captain could have taken to escape from the authorities.

“No ma'am, Lady Sparkle, none at all, even if the Captain has gone off his rocker he clearly still remembers his training, he's covered his tracks damn well, if he hadn't nearly killed one of my men I'd say it was impressive.”

“Celestia look down and spit,” Twilight's panic and anger combined to bring out one of the rare curses in her not-inconsiderable arsenal of profanity. Reading did have it's side-effects. Of course, she thought blithely, he would cover his tracks. For the first time she cursed her friends mastery of combat and guerrilla tactics, knowing neither she nor any of her friends had the skills to track him down, especially not with a head start.

“Ok, the other Elements, where are they?” her questioned answered itself as she saw her four of her five friends look pensive and worried in front of the door to Ponyville General while Rainbow was flying circles above the hospital itself. “Nevermind, Rainbow!” Twilight called out as she joined her friends, “come down! Please!”

The cyan pegasus looked down at the shout and veered, killing her velocity and rapidly giving up altitude as she made one more circle around the hospital before coming to a skidding halt in front of her worried friend.

“I can't see him, and I have no idea which direction he went, but if I were him I'd head towards the Everfree. Trained soldier could survive there and we'd never find him, dunno how long he'll stay in-” Rainbow's rambling report was cut off by the lavender unicorn running forward and pulling her into a tight hug. “Uh... T-Twi', you ok?”

“No, no I'm not ok, not at all. One of my oldest friends might be stranded out in the middle of nowhere, out of his mind and violent. I've made mistake after mistake all because I was too scared to accept the truth, and worst of all, I betrayed the trust of my five best friends last night. So no, I'm not ok.”

Dash let out a slow breath and wrapped her forelegs around Twilight, returning the hug. “Hey, c'mon egghead, I told you we were still friends, I'm not going anywhere and besides...” She pulled away and turned Twilight around to view the damaged wing of the hospital, “I hate to admit it but it looks like you might've been right.”

Twilight shook her head, tossing her mane around, “It doesn't matter if I was right or wrong, I should have been up front with you all, I needed to say that before we do any more of this together, before we try and help Jasper. Please, will you forgive me?”

One of Dash's eyebrows scootched upwards an inch, “Seriously, now? Of all times? Girl, you're crazy...” Twilight's ears flattened against her head and she looked hurt. Then Rainbow gave her a friendly, if sudden, headbutt, wearing a cocky grin, “but yeah, I forgive you.”

Twilight let out a soft sigh of relief, she had hoped but... she knew her betrayal of her loyalty to Jasper had cut Rainbow Dash on a level the others hadn't felt. Especially since Twilight had almost made her an unknowing party to that betrayal, she wouldn't have blamed the weather pegasus if she'd stayed mad.

“So egghead, where do we start?”

A resonant voice answered for her.

“Thou shouldst start by apprising us of the situation, Element Bearers,” Princess Luna had appeared in almost total silence, she was flanked by two ponies on each side of her, each one hidden with a black cloak utterly devoid of mark save for one. The symbol of an eye opening from the well of a crescent moon.

The Nocturnae.

The mysterious agents of the the Night Princess in the time before old nightfall when Nightmare Moon had attempted to overthrow her sister over the course of a single, endless night. Even after her sister's banishment Celestia had kept them around, their skill and training in the arts of subterfuge, divination, and tracking had made them one of the finest anti-crime forces in Equestria.

“Princess Luna, it's good to see you again,” Twilight bowed at a leg, the other five were quick to follow.

“Indeed, Twilight Sparkle, tis good to see thee once more,” the Princess answered with a charming smile. “Verily, I wish t'were under more benign circumstance, I would greatly like to continue our conversation concerning Zebrican Astrology.”

“Oh yes! It's fascinating! I especially love the rich myth culture and...” a sharp prod from one of her friends brought her out of her oncoming tanget. “Ahem, right, to business. The guardspony over there,” Twilight gestured to her guide, “can you give you exact timings, or the next best thing, but the overview is this: Captain Shale woke up and violently assaulted his caretakers in a bid to escape. He knocked Guard Ironshod unconscious and according the damage it appears he made... liberal use of his earth magic in his escape. The ensuing chaos gave him suitable cover to flee.”

“I see, I thank thee Twilight Sparkle, for thy succinct description, I shall have one of my associates question the guard and acquire specifics, but the overview will give us focal points to gravitate to.” Princess Luna flicked her shimmering tail lightly, a silent command to one of her attendants who broke off to question the guard. “Am I correct in stating that the Captain covered his tracks sufficiently to avoid immediate pursuit?”

“Yes Princess.”

“I feared as much, according to my sister he was quite fearsome on the battlefield, a master of stealth tactics, as well as hit and run. I hear he even improved on some of my own methods.”

“Really how did-” the nature of her wording brought the question back with a resounding -snap-, “wait, your methods? What do you mean?”

Princess Luna raised a perfect eyebrow, “Surely thou dost not believe that I, one of the rulers of Equestria, have never seen war. Before I was banished my sister and I fought many wars to establish our co-rulership over the land.” The six Element Bears stared in rapt attention as the younger of the immortal sisters casually described the unthinkable, ponies actively fighting and denying the Princesses. “Many pony tribes opposed our rule at first, ethenarchs and tribal despots who wished to maintain their own rule,” Luna described as she made her way into the wrecked wing of the hospital, followed by six enraptured ponies. “It took nearly two centuries to unite the land and while my sister was a most popular general, preferring to lead from the front with her sun-lance, I, as thou hast surely guessed, favored the cover of the night for stealth operations. I do not think it too bold of me to say that my tactics were nearly flawless, to think that somepony improved upon them beggars comprehension.”

“Wow... I had no idea there even was an age like that,” Twilight's mouth hung open in wonder as Princess Luna cooly examined the wreckage. “There's very little knowledge left about the age before... well, Nightmare Moon.”

Luna flinched but nodded, “Yes, We... that is, I did a great deal of damage to the world when I fell, tis the way of power, the more one has of it the more one's successes and failures are magnified, and my sister and I wield great power.” Her eyes became distant with far off memories for a brief moment before snapping back to the present. “Reminiscing is not my intention this evening though, I must track down the Captain and extract an explanation from him for this...” she gestured over the strewn rubble, “and if need be, return him to his cell in the Sanitarium.”

“Please, Princess... no, Luna, I'm begging you, as a friend, let me try to help him first,” Twilight met the Goddess's gaze shakily and for a moment the Princess was taken aback by the fierce determination in her eyes. However, she slowly nodded, “I see, betimes I forget how truly wondrous mortal ponies can become when driven, and terrible as well. I trust you, Twilight Sparkle, do what must be done, but I shall give thee only until the fall of next night, then it is to me that this duty comes. At any rate, I must gather my attendants and form a plan of action, the extra day will be a boon to us.”

Twilight gave her Princess a grateful smile, one mirrored on the faces of the five mares behind her. “Thank you Princess, you won't regret it. I have a plan too, I think that Twist has a safe-house somewhere near the Ponyville Cemetery and I think he intended to bring Jasper there last night, if I can find it I might be able to find out what drove Jasper to this and, I hope, how to bring him around.”

At the mention of the safe-house Luna's eyes narrowed, “Why hast thou not brought this before us before now, if thou hast a suspicion.”

Twilight shook her head though, “Not really a suspicion, more of a hunch. I hadn't even considered it until this afternoon anyway and I don't have a shred of proof either way, but it feels right, and...” she looked over at Pinkie who gave her a knowing wink, “I've learned to trust my feelings, even if I don't know why I get them.”

The Princess regarded her sisters student thoughtfully before smiling, “I too believe that intuition is a powerful tool, but thou art correct, I cannot commit the limited numbers of the Nocturnae on a hunch, even be that I might wish to. If thou dost uncover some foul bastion belonging to the war criminal Silver Twist we might yet gain a hoof over him.”

Twilight opened her mouth to thank the Princess again but was interrupted, yet again, by another voice from behind. Applejack's country drawl hit on something even Twilight hadn't noticed, “Uhm, pardon mah hearin' yer highness and maybe ah'm mistaken, but ya'll're talkin' like ol' Twist is still... well... alive. An' uh... last ah saw'o him, he weren't exactly a spring chicken.”

“If Twist is truly among dead then I would count us deeply fortunate, however I do not believe he is,” Princess Luna stated plainly, eliciting gasps from Twilight and a few of the others.

“W-what do you mean? How could he possibly still... I mean he took the full force of the Elements of Harmony! He was a SMEAR!” Twilight nearly shouted the last word as she tried to wrap her mind around a pony coming back from something like that.

“Indeed he was,” Luna answered proudly, “and according to sister that would be the first battle against him that did not end in at least a dozen casualties. However, according to our records, Silver Twist, since being declared a war criminal part way through the Griffon Wars, has been reported killed no less than four times.”

All six friends stared aghast at the Princess who herself look more than a little disgusted at the idea.

“Uhm... I'm sorry but I have got to ask,” Rainbow Dash flew forward, “How the HAY is he supposed to have pulled that off?!”

Princess Luna turned away from the question, looking both uncomfortable and troubled. “That... my little ponies, is something for my sister to answer should she choose to. If it as I believe then it is a form of proscribed magic forbidden by my sister years ago.”

“But, and pardon if this is breaching protocol, aren't you and Princess Celestia equal in power? Legally speaking I mean,” Rarity spoke up, her tone one more of curiosity than anything else.

“Ah, yes that is true, it is a balance we decided upon when we began our rule, you see, there were many forms of forbidden magic employed in the dark ages before Celestia and I united Equestria, but sometimes we disagreed on what should be forbidden or not.” This was news to Twilight, who had always thought the sisters agreed on almost everything. “So when we took up the diurnal thrones one of our first royal decree's, and our very first Joint Decree, was that if one Sister declared something proscribed then only she could repeal it and the other had to abide by the ruling.”

“Hmm, that does make a great deal of sense actually,” Rarity mused.

“Uhm, Princess, sorry but we should probably get going, it's getting dark and I'd like as much time as possible to try and retrace the Doctor's steps,” Twilight said before sketching a deep bow again. Luna inclined her graceful head to each of the mares in turn. “I do have one more question though, before we leave...”

“If it is within my scope I shall answer it.”

“If he was declared a war criminal before the war even ended, then why was Jasper allowed to keep fighting until the end of the war?” Twilight's curiosity demanded an answer.

Luna gave a slight shake of her head, “I asked sister the same question, I shall repeat her answer to you: 'because the war was as chaotic as I have ever seen it and the Doctor's schemes were so many that, by the time we unraveled the thread which lead to the Captain, the war had already ended.' I did not ask how many bodies the Doctor left in his wake to keep such secrets for so long, I did not want to know and neither should you, but to forestall my sister in such an endeavor, the price must have been unimaginable.”

Twilight's features hardened at the answer but she nodded, “somehow, I thought that might be the answer, thank you, Princess Luna, for everything, I promise we'll bring back something useful.”

Luna smiled cryptically, “that I do not doubt in the slightest.”

Dusk had fallen in earnest by the time the six friends arrived at the creaking gates of the cemetery. The wrought-iron gates still hung open where they had been violently wrenched apart the night before. The memory of her last exchange with Jasper sat like a brick in the pit of Twilight's stomach as she viewed the mess, her brain forcing her to relive the memory.

GO HOME TWILIGHT!

Twilight shivered but steeled herself, she had to make up for her mistake, not matter the cost. She chuckled a little grimly to herself as she remembered Jasper making the same oath concerning his own need to do what must be done.

“A'right Twilight, what's the plan here? Ah'm assumin' ya got one unless ya'll wanna turn over e'ry grave'n headstone in the place.” Her expression told Twilight exactly what she thought of that idea and Twilight thought she could hear Fluttershy in the corner dry heaving at the very thought.

Fortunately Twilight did in fact have a plan, and not a bad one. “Ok, I spent this morning running augury spells over the graveyard from the library, I figured out where Jasper began his ritual, so we'll start there. From that point we should be able to track exactly what direction Twist came from and what direction they were headed when I interrupted them!”

Applejack tapped her chin with a hoof thoughtfully before shrugging, “Y'know, that actually sounds like it'd work, let's git'r'done!”

“I really hate that line of yours, AJ,” Rainbow grumbled as she drifted past.

“Aw don't be such a stuck up, Dashie,” Applejack said with a dry chuckle as she slapped a hoof firmly across Rainbow Dash's cutie mark eliciting a high squeal and causing her wings to seize up, bringing the flighty pegasus to the ground with a dull thump. Applejack laughed uproariously as she passed furiously blushing cyan mare.

“You're gonna pay for that one cowmare,” Rainbow called out as she dusted herself and caught up at a hover, Applejack still suffering fits of giggles. “Me'n Pinkie'll prank you good so watch yourself from now on!”

“Ah believe it sugarcube, bring it on,” Rainbow and AJ matched challenging glares that brought the whole train to a stop halfway into the cemetery. Twilight was just wondering how to break them apart when...

“D'ya think they're finally gonna kiss?” Pinkie asked in a stage whisper to Rarity and Fluttershy that was deafening in the graveyard stillness.

The atmosphere went from tense to awkward in ten seconds flat as both competitive mares went through several fascinating color changes ranging from pale to crimson all while sputtering in embarrassment as they both turned to Pinkie to argue loudly which, in the nature of such things, managed to make neither of their words intelligible.

Twilight came to the rescue with a loud 'Harrumph', drawing the attention of the arguing Elements.

“Girls, we have a job to do, please,” the seriousness of her tone changed the atmosphere considerably, even Pinkie had the good grace to look a little ashamed of the part she had played in distracting everypony. “Alright, we're here, let's get to work,” Twilight turned away from them, gesturing around the small burial plot they had arrived in. “Applejack, look around for tracks, it hasn't been long and I can't imagine this place sees a lot of hoof traffic, everypony else, spread out and look for anything out of place... and for the love of Celestia try not to obliterate the crime scene.”

“What're ya'll gonna be doin' Twi'?” Applejack asked in a quiet voice, it was as if the cemetery begrudged their noisome presence.

“Now that I know where he started I'm going to try and rebuild what happened her through divination spells, they're not really my strong-suit though...” Twilight lamented honestly.

“What... divination? Ain't that like fortune tellin' or... ah dunno, future stuff?” Applejack had her muzzle almost touching the ground as she spoke, for all the world looking like her pet dog Winona tracking a treat. The comparison struck Twilight as absurdly funny for a moment, forcing her to stifle a fit of giggles before mastering herself enough to answer.

“Uhm, heh, well, that's the common picture but it actually covers a wide range of spells having to do with 'Sight Beyond Sight', that is, seeing without physically using your senses.” Applejack raised an eyebrow and Twilight saw this was probably going over the farmer's head a little. “Uh... it's like closing your eyes and listening for something far away, but with your mind instead of your ears. Divination does cover precognition, the fortune telling and futuresight you mentioned, but it also covers what I'm about to do, which is looking into the past, or postcognition.”

“Uh, ah guess that makes... some kinda sense?” Applejack shrugged apologetically as she skirted around an unused and empty grave. “Sorry sugarcube, ya'll know this magical stuff ain't mah cup'a tea.”

Blowing a frustrated breath from between her lips a notion suddenly occurred to Twilight and she smiled, “Ok, I got it, you're an earth pony so you know the earth, all around us even here, is alive right?”

“Huh? Well o'course the earth is alive, tha's what bein' a farmer's all about,” Applejack answered, confusion as to where this point was headed clear on her face.

“Well, since the earth is alive it remembers what happened from place to place, little echoes of events, and big events leave bigger marks, just like it's easier to remember a really exciting event rather than a dull day,” Twilight explained, falling into total lecture mode.

The dawning comprehension in Applejack's gave Twilight a flush a pride, the Princess had always remarked that she would make an excellent teacher herself someday and the idea of being one who passed knowledge on to younger generations was greatly appealing.

“So... what ya'll were sayin' about seein' the past, postcognition? Tha's just... like askin' the earth ta remember somethin' that ya'll weren't around to see fer yerself?”

“Exactly!” Twilight beamed and Applejack smiled along with her, actually pleased with herself for grasping something magical in nature that she generally had no understanding of.

“Ok, that actually makes a heap'a sense in a way, ah think ah'll letcha get to it then while I look fer the tracks belongin' ta that mad scientist o'yours.”

Twilight nodded and, remembering the patterns revealed by her day spent performing tracing and augury spells, found her hooves planted in the almost imperceptible indents left by the red stallion who had occupied their very same space the night before.

“Ok Jasper, let's see what happened,” Twilight muttered under her breath. With a light surge of power Twilight traced along the mnemonic lines of her mind, plucking out the chords of the spell to reveal to her the shadows of the past.

Chapter 12

The gargant hum of memory shook Twilight to her bones. The spell of postcognition was not a difficult one, nor was it even particularly complicated, and she wasn't even sure if other unicorns who used it perceived it the same way she did. It was fair to say, however, that she never felt quite so small and insignificant as when she used the simple spell and was brought face to muzzle, with the collective genius loci of Equestria. The incessant murmuring of memories old beyond reckoning, instinctively she knew that even as she and her friends were barely eyeblinks in the immortal lifespans of entities like Celestia and Luna that those so-called eternals were but whispers in the endless age of the world's soul.

She was not going far though, less than the span of a breath. The shadows of time slowly rewound, the mists of the morning returned as the sun retreated across the sky and dove back beneath the horizon, revealing the Luna's moon emerging from where it had sunk just that morning.

A few more hours, the thought passed through the mind of the lavender sorceress as she turned back the clock, searching for the face of her friend as well as hated visage of her enemy whom she now knew was most likely still alive. Or whatever passed for 'alive' in a case like his.

Finally the shadows coalesced together, revealing the scene she sought. Jasper, his head silently tilted upward, whorls of dark magical energy churning about his body as he desperately sought out the answers that had eluded his mind. Twilight saw the moment where he clearly came upon the knowledge he sought, the horror and sorrow on his face could have been born of nothing else. The scholarly part of her that reached for all knowledge out of pure curiosity wanted to know, however, even had her teacher not specifically forbade research in the matter, the look on Jasper's face would have been all the reason she needed to avoid it.

Then He came out of the shadows, unfortunately the simplistic replay spell lacked an auditory component, and even the visuals were misty and distorted. Twilight cursed her lack of skill, making a silent promise to practice up on her divinitory magics the next chance she got. She knew that certain members of the Nocturnae were so skilled that they could essentially relive the experience in full detail, gleaning minute facts that even the one who lived the experience had not noticed at the time.

Twilight scrunched her face in reproach, reflecting on how useful that kind of skill would be in a place like this. Not that she wanted to steal away such a skill from Princess Luna at a time like this, as she had freely admitted, for all she knew this exchange would lead to a absolute dead end.

Words were exchanged, well, words came from Twist, hateful glares were the majority of Jasper's contribution to the conversation, not that Twilight could blame him. She saw the beginnings of his strange paralysis as he began to charge the mad Doctor only to be dropped slack to the ground by a single world from the stallion's mouth. Twilight watched closely as it occurred and, try as she might, all she could make out from her admittedly limited lip-reading skill was the word: 'No'.

Does the Doctor has some kind of subliminal conditioning built into Jasper? The thought was deeply unsettling, doubly so because it seemed more than possible.

Twist continued to monologue while deftly seizing her friend and dragging him roughly across the ground in a vaguely easterly direction. Then they left the zone of the spell and the mists parted, all possible information gleaned, she even had a direction for Applejack to start in on. As Twilight came out of her trance she opened her mouth to call out to Applejack, only to see her standing right on the path she'd intended to point out, wearing a wry smile on her freckled face.

“Ya'll know ah've been trackin' lost hogs n' cattle since ah was filly righ'? Ah don' need no hocus-pocus to pick up day-old tracks on muddy ground.”

The rest of the girls were just standing around grinning, Twilight had been holding them up with her spell, she knew it too. She didn't regret it though, she'd wanted to see how it all had played out before she'd arrived, the tracking had always been nothing more than a convenient excuse.

“Yeah I know, alright, let's go find us a lair, girls.”

The darkness had closed in hard since I'd escaped from the hospital, the endless pounding, yelling, and screaming in my mind hadn't made the feat any easier. Years of brutal practice put back into use covered my tracks behind me with almost insulting ease, the guards never had a chance. The blood-soaked banshees howling in my psyche screamed to just kill them and be done with it, that we never would have left an enemy behind us in the days of the war.

But they weren't enemies, right? I was sure at the time but now... mere hours after the event my mind began to crack and fracture as I staggered towards my destination.

I couldn't be sure now, had I left an enemy behind me or not? I had killed so many, so very many. I could taste the molded mouth grip of my weapon mixed with the metallic hint of blood, I'd bitten through my lip. It taste good, the blood, it had been too long since I'd fought, since the fire in my breast ignited with the cold fury of mortal combat.

The stink of decay was in my nostrils, I'd come here before, and now I was here again. Drawn here by the endless screams for blood and vengeance and most of all... answers.

Why are we?

I intended to answer that question, maybe for the specters in my skull or maybe just for myself but either way I was going to find answers. I retraced my steps, seeking the path I'd taken, and eventually the path I'd been dragged along, covering my hoofsteps as I went with practiced skill, nopony needs to follow me here. This is something I had to do by myself.

What time was it?

The night was falling, my careful trek and the time spent covering my tracks had brought me here over the course of hours. Or maybe I'd just been wandering about, lost in the haze of red mist that hung across my eyes. I could hear wordless howls echoing up from the dirt beneath my hooves, I wondered how it was possible anypony couldn't they were deafening in place, the pain was almost unbearable as I staggered towards one of the most audible sources.

A stone crypt whose owner's name had been weathered away by decades, or possibly centuries, of neglect. Yet there was something strange... I reached out with my mind, my magic, I felt the dull hum of fresh warding spells and mechanisms that folded over each other like clockwork gears. On impulse I reached out, depressing an innocuous-looking stone that sat to the side of the crypt entrance, and it sunk into the ground with a grinding of mechanical levers.

The door was pulled a hoof deeper into the crypt before sliding dustily out of my path to reveal a stairwell.

The screams were a pandaemoniac hurricane erupting from the well of blackness laid bear before me. I knew instinctively that this was a place no mortal pony was meant to venture, but the howls of red hot rage and suffering beckoned me forward all the same. Undeterred, I took a step onto the mouldering stone and let the dark swallow me whole.

Two more hours had passed, the walk through the graveyard to where they'd found Twist and Shale had been short but once they reached the point even Twilight couldn't help but flinch at the sheer number of decrepit mausoleums that that towered up out of the decay-ridden earth. Two hours of poking, prodding, and searching had turned up nothing, without the light-globes that Twilight had brought with her the search would've been over after the first hour, as the last light of evening vanished over the horizon leaving the six in a cloak of darkness.

Fluttershy was coping surprisingly well in Twilight's opinion, in fact, the determination on her face was almost unsettling, as if this were a personal matter which, considering whose life was probably on the line here, gave Twilight an unwelcome twinge of jealousy.

She hated herself a little bit for the feeling, especially after having wronged her friends the night before, but she couldn't shake the feeling. Determined to put that thinking aside she shoved those thoughts to a dark corner of her mind where she would deal with them later. Finding Silver Twist's safe-house, assuming it actually existed which Twilight was positive of despite having no evidence of it, was the primary concern.

“Anything girls?” She called out after the second hour came to a close, five weary and frustrated noises told her they hadn't been any more successful than she had. Pinkie had even tried to make a game out of it at first but the grim atmosphere of the graveyard made the attempt seem almost perverse and she had given up. This wasn't a place for the Element of Laughter, clearly.

“Wait, I think I got something here,” Rainbow's voice called out, sparking a tiny light of hope in Twilight's heart. The friends gathered up in front of a crypt that looked, more or less, like all the others. Maybe an especially weathered example, probably one of the earliest crypts built by a wealthy family of old Ponyville.

“What is it? What did you find?” Twilight got the first there and found Rainbow examining the stone with a critical eye that seemed out of place on her usually carefree face.

Rainbow was acting oddly, she had on ear pressed to the stone and occasionally flapped a wing or muttered to herself as she moved along the aged stone.

“Can you guys hear that?” she asked without looking at her five friends who were beginning to give her odd looks.

“Uhm, what exactly are we supposed ta be listenin' fer?” Applejack moved alongside the cyan pegasus and matched her position, pressing an ear to the doorway. “Sorry sugarcube but all ah hear is... well... rock.”

“No, I mean the air current, can't you- ugh, nevermind,” Rainbow huffed as she searched for whatever it was she was searching for, leaving Applejack looking confused. “What I wouldn't give for another pegasus' opinion on this one.”

“uhm... I can... if you don't mind I mean...” Rainbow rose from her position and gave Fluttershy a flat stare.

“Oh, right... uhm, no offense girl but, you're not exactly weather pony material...”

“O-oh,” Fluttershy's face fell, looking absolutely dejected as she vanished behind her bangs. The sound of Rainbow's face-hoof echoed slightly in the graveyard stillness.

“Oh geez, uh, hey, 'Shy, I didn't mean it like that... I'd be happy if you'd give it a listen ok? I just... I keep almost hearing something I feel like it's coming from around this crypt. Like air currents or something,” she described as Fluttershy emerged from her hair looking somewhat hopeful and trotted over to the door and pressed a pastel ear against it.

Fluttershy began moving along door in the same scooting motions Rainbow had before pulling away and nodding. “I hear it, it's really faint but... there's something behind here.”

“Ah, darling I think that's the case with all these crypts, and I'd imagine I can guess what's behind them,” Rarity pointed out a touch dryly.

Rainbow shook her head though, “Fluttershy means there's something more, I felt it too, it's a pegasus thing, we can feel air currents moving around us, it's part of how we fly, and there's a definite current coming up from this place.”

“So... what does that mean exactly?” Twilight asked, her brow furrowed.

“It means,” Rainbow said as she turned to the offending doorway with a cocky grin, “that there's a really big space behind this door, and probably another exit that's letting air in through.”

“Big like...”

“Big like a safe-house,” Rainbow confirmed.

“Ok then, stand back,” Twilight commanded, her voice hardening.

“Uhm... why?” Fluttershy squeaked, already backpedaling.

Twilight's horn began to glow with a bright mulberry light, “Silver Twist probably put up some defenses, we don't have time to figure out all the mechanisms needed to safely get past them so I'm doing the next best thing.”

“Which is...?” Pinkie piped up.

“Ah think she means she's gonna huff'n'puff'n blow the crypt door down,” Applejack said, her voice colored by discomfort. “An' ah gotta say, ah'm not sure how ah feel about that considerin' it's a restin' place.”

Sweat had begun to trickly down Twilight's forehead as she focused her power, “Applejack, I don't even want to think about what a war criminal like Twist has been doing down there, so something tells me the dead won't be holding any grudges about scrubbing this place clean of his filth.”

The orange cowmare grimaced but nodded, unable to find any fault in that line of logic.

“Alright girls, hang on to your manes,” Twilight warned them, they all backed up, diving behind whatever nearby pieces of strewn stonework looked sturdiest.

The lavender prodigy of magic took a firm telekinetic grip on the crypt as a whole, knowing that what she was about to do should be well within her abilities, especially after her duel with Twist the night before.

Still, she'd never just ripped something apart before.

The sound of stone screaming as it was forcibly wrenched apart split the air like prolonged crash of thunder and with a resounding SNAP of power the wards on Twist's safe-house expired violently, the anchor they had been placed on annihilated as Twilight Sparkle grasped the crypt itself and violently ripped it in half, revealing a gaping stairwell leading deep underground.

“Jackpot,” Rainbow remarked as she swept up to it in a flurry of cyan feathers only to stagger back from it with a stricken expression on her face. “Holy Celestia, that smell!” Dash's hoof was pressed against her nose in a vain attempt to mitigate the charnel stench rising from the shadowed stairwell, even as she approached again, far more gingerly this time, her eyes began to water.

Fluttershy was next up since Twilight was still catching her breath from the exertion of her mighty feat of magic. The pastel pegasus' face went pale and her eyes grew wide with horror as she encountered the same horrendous smell that Rainbow had. It wasn't the ancient decay of a long-mouldering crypt, nor was it even the stink of an open grave.

No, this was the smell of sin.

The metallic cloying stink of rotten blood spilled in quantities too large to consider, behind that was the corrupted rotten smell of diseased flesh. There was no rhyme or reason for such a smell, rather, it combined to give the inescapable impression of madness and murder.

Rainbow, Fluttershy, Applejack, and even Rarity after a moment of hesitation stepped up alongside Twilight, staring down in to the stinking abyss. To Twilight's surprise the only one holding back, the one she'd been sure would be able to laugh off anything was the only one who hadn't stepped a single hoof forward. Twilight looked back towards Pinkie and felt a chill run up her spine at what she saw.

Her normally vivaciously pink friend's coat had become drab and muted, the colors were washed out of her mane and tail as well which, unlike their normal cotton-candy form, were drab, limp sheets of pale hair. Pinkie's eyes had gone wide with something akin to dread as she stared past her five friends and into the stairwell like it was a gaping, hungry maw of some loathsome beast.

“P-Pinkie? Are you ok?” Twilight stepped closer to her friend nervously, she'd never seen Pinkie like this, not even when she'd been upset over the whole secret party incident. “W-Whats wrong?”

“I don't want to go down there Twilight.”

Pinkie's voice was so soft and quiet it was like she and Fluttershy had swapped personalities when Twilight wasn't looking.

“I know Pinks, but we've got to,” Rainbow said, flapping up next to her fellow prankster. “We need to know what's down there, believe me, I don't wanna go anymore than you.”

But Pinkie shook her head violently, backing away a few more steps.

“No... that's not... I have a bad feeling Twilight, real bad, like, super-duper-whammy bad,” now that sent a shudder of worry through Twilight, everypony in Ponyville, even the empirically concerned Twilight Sparkle, knew to trust Pinkie's vaunted Pinkie Sense. “My chest is all pinchy, and my heart is twitchy-witchy, it kind of hurts... I... the last time it was this bad was...”

Twilight knew instinctively before her friend said it.

Pinkie said it anyway though, “the day the war started.” Twilight heard a sharp intake of breath from Applejack.

“Something really bad is down there Twilight... I don't want to go, I don't want any of us to go, it'll... I mean something...” tears of fear sprang up in her eyes as she grabbed Twilight by the shoulders, “something really really terrible is down there, Twilight!”

Her features falling sorrowfully, Twilight nodded, “I know Pinkie, I don't need your Pinkie Sense to tell me that, but... I have to find out what happened down there. If you don't want to go...”

Pinkie's eyes suddenly hardened, “No! If you're going then I'm going! No way no how are you going anywhere without auntie Pinkie Pie watching your back!”

Twilight hugged Pinkie fiercely, “thank you, Pinkie, I... I really need to do this.”

“I know...” she whispered back, “I just... hope things don't go too badly.”

Have you ever imagined what it might look like if a pony were to raise a house of worship dedicated to the veneration of insanity? If I had needed further proof that Silver Twist was utterly out of his mind then this... place, would have cinched it.

The worst part, however, was not the obvious profanity of unholy fane I was standing in, it was the smell of the gore or the chill sensation of perversity that pervaded the entire complex. It was the fact that here, in this place at the center of it, Twist had raped the very laws of reality with depictions of chaotic angles shearing geometry into bite-size chunks that made my mind bleed as I stared up at the infinitely twisting ceiling. Logically I knew that it couldn't be more than twenty hooves above me, assuming that there were no other floors, but to my eyes it seemed to rise and expand like a tower until it vanished into the merciful darkness.

An almight CRACK broke me out of my reverie, something I was momentarily grateful for. Even the voices stopped screaming for a while. Until I heard the voices, not the ones who endlessly asked me inane questions of their own existence, but familiar voices, friendly voices.

My...

The pain throbbed like never before, casting me down to the ground like I'd been struck by a sledgehammer. I could feel the evil stirring all around me. That was when I realized what I was hearing, what I had always been hearing through the walls of Celestia's memory suppression. I knew because I could feel it... them... him... waking up.

What could I do though? I knew I had to stop my... my friends. I had to save them.

By any means necessary.

For whatever it was worth the six mares got used to the stench that rose from the stairwell which seemed unsuitably long for a crypt. Perfect for a safe-house though of course which fit Twilight's theory.

“Alright girls, keep an eye out,” Twilight cautioned as they came to the entrance at the bottom of the stairs, the door was open, curiously. “We don't know if the Doctor had any help.”

“Ah'll keep an eye a the rear Twi', ya'll got any spells what let us see in the dark though?” Applejack ventured as she moved to the back of the group, past a washed out Pinkie and a jumpy but determined Fluttershy.

“Uhm, no, I don't, why?”

Applejack responded dryly, “Cuz ya'll're lightin' us up like a jack'o'lantern on Nightmare Night with that there light spell o'yours.”

“O-oh... well, no helping it, we've got to have light right?” Twilight answered meekly as Applejack's warning played out in her head.

“Ah reckon we do, jus'... be careful up there sugarcube.”

The hallways were stained with the must of long years of unkempt maintenance though not nearly as many as it should have been since this crypt shouldn't be have been opened in at least a century. Somepony had been through here in at least the last decade and cleaned it out good, the majority of the floorspace was clean and clear if a bit dusty.

“So... where do we go now? I mean... if you know...” Fluttershy's meek voice came through loud and clear for once in the sepulchral silence of the hall.

“I don't know Fluttershy, we're looking for a study, maybe a lab of some kind, Twist was a scientist after all,” Twilight answered without looking back, her horn illuminating everything in a ghostly purplish glow.

“Well, let's do try and find it quickly, this place is completely uncouth,” Rarity answered, a hint of a whine in her voice.

Rainbow Dash chuckled out loud, “We're twenty feet under a graveyard in the lair of the genuine mad scientist and your first complaint is about the décor? Classic.”

“Well, excuse me miss prism-mane if my sense of style is a permanent facet of my personality,” Rarity huffed back before shooting her friend a good-natured smile.

“Ah'm sorry but could ya'll maybe be a bit quieter?” Applejack spoke softly as she trotted backwards, keeping her eye on the darkness before her. “Ah ain't buyin' that this place is empty, an' ya'll are gonna bring down every critter in this place a'fore long.”

“Rarity and Rainbow's ears flattened a little, “Sorry AJ, just... trying to lighten the mood y'know? This place gives me the heebie jeebies,” Rainbow answered, softening her usually boisterous voice.

“Agreed, my apologies, I wasn't thinking.”

“Ah don' need any apologies, ah jus' want all'o'us to get outa here ok. Pinkie's warning ain't sittin' well with me,” Applejack said, saying out loud what most of them had been thinking since Pinkie's ominous prediction.

“Girls, you should come look at this,” Twilight's voice broke through the conversation from ahead, bringing the five mares up next to her.

She was standing in a wide archway easily large enough to allow the six mares to stand abreast and stair into the massive antechamber in front of them. It was constructed like a chapel or temple, with row after row of moldering pews set up, divided by a central aisle. The entire area was constructed out of some kind of black stone, it was smooth as obsidian but had a depth to it that made the supporting pillars seem to swirl with an inner malevolence. None of them could properly see the top of the chapel but it curved like a peaked gable rooftop, an old architectural style only seen in Canterlot and a few places in Fillydelphia anymore. At the head of the central path dividing the interior was a preacher's lectern upon which rested what looked like a large book, behind that was an altar that glistened in the ghostly half-light put off by Twilight's horn.

“U-uhm...” all six had been standing speechless at the unnerving chamber when Fluttershy spoke up. “Isn't it... too big?”

“Huh?” Twilight tore her gaze from the chapel to look at Fluttershy, “what do you mean too big?”

“I mean... uhm... isn't the ceiling a little too... high?”

Twilight furrowed her brow, as she looked around the room, it was incredibly large of course, massive really, almost as big as the Temple of the Sun and Moon in Canterlot. The comparison struck an odd chord in the lavender mare and a sneaking suspicion crept up formlessly in the back of her mind.

“N-no way...” she muttered as she frantically began looked back and forth, her mind churning out mental calculations on width, volume, heights and other measurements. “This isn't possible,” Twilight said, so softly that it was mostly to herself.

“I'd ask if something is wrong, darling, but that describes this entire room so... is something specific about it bothering you?” Rarity asked stepping forward and shuddering as she took in the black and

“Yes, Rarity, something is bothering a lot, this...” she swept her hoof to encompass the entirety of the chapel, “doesn't any of this look familiar?”

“Uhm, ah'll admit, somethin' about it is ticklin', but Ah jus' figured it looked like most churches do, y'know?” Applejack answered, the others bobbing their heads in agreement except Pinkie was making herself as small as possible.

“Of course it does, because all of the churches are based off the original one, the one in Canterlot!” Twilight hissed, nearly shouting but, remembering Applejack's warning, holding her voice down.

“Ok, so what's the big deal?” Rainbow asked in confusion.

“The 'Big Deal' is that this isn't just based off of the Temple of the Sun and Moon, it IS the Temple of the Sun and Moon.”

The silence was deafening, interrupted by a single cough from the orange cream cowmare.

“Ya'll are gonna hafta explain that one Twi'.”

Twilight planted a hoof squarely onto her face, “this room, this entire room is an exactly perfect architectural duplicate of the main chamber of the Temple in Canterlot. An EXACT. COPY!”

That sent that the five other mares back on their hooves. None of them were exactly fervent church-goers, Celestia never having been one to play up her own divinity, on occasion even denying it. It didn't change the fact that the idea of some mad doctor pony building a corrupt copy of their Princess's Temple beneath a graveyard was more than a little unnerving.

“Why the hay would somepony do that? I mean, I know the Doc is a nutbar but...” Rainbow trailed off as she looked around the chamber with renewed discomfort. “This is just... like, capital 'C' Crazy.”

“It's not crazy, Rainbow, it's rather brilliant actually,” Rarity answered, shocking them all, even Twilight who had been opening her mouth to explain stared stunned at the alabaster fashionista. “What? Just because I'm not a graduate of the Academy doesn't mean I don't know a thing about magic, I am a designer after all, and this place... now I know why I dislike it so much. It's built to channel magic, and not the good kind I'd wager.”

Twilight nodded darkly in agreement.

“You're right Rarity, when I said it was an exact copy that wasn't exactly right, it's off just enough to change the alignment of the architecture towards...” Twilight swirled her hoof around a few times searching for the word before settling on, “...darkness.”

“So it's built ta make evil magic... what... evil'er?” Applejack asked incredulously.

A cold, harsh voice from the entrance interrupted them.

“No, it's built to make it stronger, by an order of magnitude.”

The six Elements stared open-mouthed at the filthy and stained but unmistakable rust-coated unicorn standing in the archway. He seemed distracted, almost not even noticing the six mares who were working their mouths in a manner akin to a displaced trout.

“The Master used it to amplify his magic, to do what before he could not without his star pupil,” the dirt and blood-stained Jasper continued. “Working wonders of black magic not seen since old nightfall when Luna lost her mind.”

“J-Jasper?” Twilight was the first to recover and stepped forward, meeting his gaze and expecting the same storm-grey eyes she'd known most of her life. Instead she saw eyes that were as cold as northern ice, the same color but utterly without remorse or mercy. “Jasper... what-”

“Jasper?” he asked solemnly, all emotion fled from his face, “Yes... maybe I am... is that my name?” He seemed to be asking the air around him and, horrifyingly, some kind of unwholesome whispers answered him. “Maybe... maybe maybe maybe- NO!” his sudden roar took them all by surprise, his emotionless face no twisted with rage, confusion, and hatred.

“No, no, no, no, no... this isn't... you are not 'we', that means...” Jasper's lips peeled back to reveal his teeth in a shark's grin. “That means it's time to kill again.”

Jasper's eyes flashed to arterial crimson as he drew out a balanced steel scythe.

Chapter 13

Twilight Starla Sparkle.

She is the first and only daughter of House Sparkle and protege to the Princess of the Sun. From her place of study in Ponyville she is entirely unaware that her name is spoken with nearly the same reverence as the Princesses themselves. To many ponies of Equestria, the magical power of Twilight Sparkle is almost as legendary as the powers of the Elements of Harmony.

These opinion are not without validity either.

At seven years of age Twilight was levitating herself by accident, a power few unicorns are ever even able to learn much less master. At the age of ten she was mastering the art of translocation, that is, teleporting herself as well as other objects by magic. At twelve she was accepted into the Academy in Canterlot, the premier school of magic in all of Equestria, the youngest any unicorn has ever been accepted into the school before and since. From there her powers blossomed until few doubted that she would one day become Headmistress of the Academy herself as nopony in living memory, save perhaps a few remembered by the immortal Princesses, had ever been as powerful as she.

You're being told this not as a boast but as context so that you might understand the limitations of raw power in the face of greater combat experience.

For example: a pony who lived and breath combat, insanity, and death for six blood-soaked years.

A burst of crimson force thrummed up from the stone beneath the hooves of the six elements, blowing out brittle stone shards like shotgun pellets and scattering the six friends in all directions as the bloody stallion dashed through the middle of the ruin, getting in range to bring the blade of the scythe down, cutting lethally towards Twilight's neck where she lay prone.

With a panicked scream Twilight rolled, the blade burying itself an inch into the stone. Not missing a beat Jasper released the weapon, moving with the momentum of the blow and pivoted on a hoof to bring a solid buck into Twilight's face right between her wide, frightened eyes.

She dropped with a dull thud.

Snatching the blade from where it was buried he turned to face the others, Fluttershy screamed as she met his bleak, unfeeling gaze and turned in the opposite direction, running frantically down an attached hallway which drove deeper into the complex.

“NO! Fluttershy!” Pinkie cried as the butter-yellow pegasus vanished down the path. She only hesitated a second before running off in pursuit.

Applejack was on her hooves almost as Twilight dropped.

“YA DAMN'D LUNATIC!” she screamed, running towards him to deliver a bone-breaking buck.

Jasper whipped around bring the scythe hissing through the air, but Applejack had been ready for it. She stopped on a bit, spinning in place to scrape her long golden tail against his red eyes and making him flinch away out of reflex. The flinch lasted only a split second but it was just long enough for a life-time apple-bucker to deliver two back hooves right into his chest. Applejack bit down on a yell as she felt his blade bite shallowly into her flank but the force of her attack had lifted him off his hooves and sent him hurtling through the air, preventing him from following through with it.

Incredibly, he was back on his hooves even as Applejack spun down and readied to charge him, blood and foam dripping from his lips. He rolled the blade oddly in his mouth for a moment, prompting Applejack to crouch and ready herself to leap out of the way of what ever attack he threw at her next. A good strategy had he been aiming at her.

With a snap of his head and surge of magic Jasper sent the blade spinning at Rainbow Dash, catching the cyan pegasus who'd been watching Applejack, horrified at the bloody cut right above her cutie mark, completely off-guard. Dash screamed as the blade punctured her left wing and stuck fast, dragging her helplessly to the ground as she cried out.

Unable to stop herself Applejack took her eyes off of Jasper to glance at Rainbow Dash, laying on the ground bleeding badly from the wound as Rarity rushed to her side and began delicately extracting the weapon. It was only a moment but it was enough to open Applejack to an attack as Jasper closed the distance like a bolt of lightning and spinning low to snatch the orange earth pony's hooves out from beneath her.

Jasper loomed over her, death in his eyes as he raised a single shod hoof over Applejack's head.

“I bring death to the bootlicks of the Princess Tyrants, little mare,” he hissed as he brought the blow down.

A flash of purple light stopped it inches from the orange mare's face, throwing the rust-red unicorn off of Applejack and impacting him violently into the nearby wall. Twilight had finally staggered to her hooves, a concussion ringing loudly in her skull as her horn glowed balefully, she gasped out loud at what she saw stagger up to it's hooves.

It was Jasper, only... not. Where her bolt of force had struck him there was a shredded mess of tattered flesh hanging from a bloody skull, a single eye glowing inequinely with hatred stared out from deep within the socket.

Jasper hacked up blood as he peeled out of the wall, leaving behind the flesh of his back to reveal muscle cruelly splay open. It was as though he was rotting from the inside out. “Oh, my my, that hurt...” he whispered, hacking another blackened gobbet of blood onto the floor. Rarity's horn glowed from where she hunched protectively over Rainbow Dash's bleeding form, glaring fearfully at the specter mocking them.

“It will all be over soon...” he muttered, “soon... yes, it will be gone and we can sleep,” Jasper's eyes lidded heavily as though he were struggling to remain conscious, “and you will sleep... with us.” With the sound of cracking stone and red flare of energy Jasper vanished.

“Oh Goddess,” Twilight whispered as she forced herself to move and ignore the nausea and and vertigo that came with quickly standing upright. “Rainbow, Applejack, are you girls ok?”

Applejack pulled herself up, grimacing at the burning pain in her flank left by the cold blade, but nodded, “yeah, ah'm a'riht, Dash ain't though, we gotta get'r to Ponyville General an' quick.”

“No, oh Dash,” Twilight moaned softly as she surveyed her friend's wound, “your wing...”

Teeth clenched tight in pain Rainbow still managed a cocky sort of half-smirk, “hey, don't sweat it egghead, I've hurt myself worse during practice and Flight Camp.”

“Twilight,” Rarity met her friend's eyes with a hard gaze, “you've got to get Rainbow out of here, right now. Teleport her to Ponyville General and get her treatment, otherwise...” she trailed off but the look on her face spoke volumes. Rarity was no medic but she knew the anatomy of all pony types intricately, after all, you can't make dresses without knowing what kind of body they'll be sitting on, and the wound to Rainbow's wing was not a light one.

“I... I don't know if I can take us all in my condition,” she admitted with a dark scowl, “And where are Pinkie and Fluttershy?!” the sudden realization that not all of her friends were in the room hit Twilight like a cold pail of water.

Applejack answered, “after ya'll went down Fluttershy... she panicked and ran, Pinkie went after'er.”

“No! We can't go then we can't-” Rarity nearly stuck her hoof into Twilight's mouth, her face was uncharacteristically harsh.

“No, you're right, we can't, but you have to,” her voice was as hard as dragon-scales, “you teleport yourself and Rainbow to the hospital, Applejack and I will find out wayward friends.”

Twilight shook visibly as every emotion screamed at her not to abandon her friends but it was no use, the analytical part of her mind knew perfectly well that Rarity's plan was the only viable one. Without it Rainbow might lose her wing to infection or gangrene down here, or worse, she might actually die. Twilight cursed herself again for lacking any real medical spells beyond healing up cuts and scrapes, she'd simply didn't know the right sequence for healing something as intricate as a pegasus wing properly.

Twilight swallowed hard but nodded, “F-fine, I'll be back with Luna and every guard we can muster, just... please girls...” Twilight pulled her friends into a hug, “just don't do anything reckless until I get back ok?”

“No promises sugarcube,” Applejack remarked as she pulled away, “an' Rainbow, ya'll better not wuss out on the next Iron Pony on account o'this, ya'hear?”

Rainbow Dash scoffed, “ow, ow, don't make me laugh ya hayseed, I'll whip your orange but same as every year.”

“Uh oh, better hurry Twilight, she's getting' delusional,” the smile on Applejack's face was small and unsteady, but real, her next words were softer as she nuzzled Dash's cheek while Twilight built up the power for the longer-range teleport. “Ya'll take care o'yerself sugarcube, ya got that?”

Rainbow's cheeks colored but she nodded silently, grimacing as more pain shot through her wing and up her back, drawing a wince from Applejack.

“I'll be back girls, quick as a flash,” Twilight said, with iron in her voice, then she and the wounded cyan pegasus vanished in a near-blinding flash of mulberry light. The two mare's stared at the after-images of where their friends had been for a moment before turning to the hallway they'd seen Fluttershy vanish down several minutes ago.

“Alright, darling, time to get to work,” Rarity muttered, drawing a chuckle from the cowmare.

“FLUTTERSHY COME BACK!” Pinkie's shouts echoed down the sepulchral halls with a deafening sort of finality. At least it was slightly lit, a few dim but functional glowbulbs still hung from the ceiling here and there providing barely enough illumination to move by. Pinkie was frightened for her friend; the pastel pegasus had lost her nerve entirely at the sight of whatever that thing had been and the pink pony had turned to pursue her, not willing to allow her friend to become lost in a graveyard labyrinth. Every so often Pinkie passed an off-shooting hallway, unable to know for sure if Fluttershy had kept running straight all she could do was follow her gut instinct.

Of one thing, though, Pinkie Pie was absolutely sure of, whatever that thing had not been it sure as sugar wasn't Jasper. Oh sure it had looked like him, a lot like him if she forced herself to admit it, but it wasn't him, not really. She even knew it wasn't some foalish 'oh it can't be him, it just can't!' feeling either. No, it was that part of her that told her when the sky would start falling or the doors would be opening, that told her unequivocally that that thing was not Captain Jasper Shale.

“Besides,” Pinkie muttered as she tore down the hall frantically looking for some sign of her shy friend, “it... it just can't be him.”

Pinkie very nearly didn't see the brown and musty door at all, but some twinge in her flank told her to stop immediately and, so, stop she did with a screeching halt. The door was an old wooden number, not intricate but clearly carved with care, the work of a carpenter that knew their craft well. More importantly it was just ever-so-slightly ajar.

It opened with a loud creaking speaking of long-rusted hinges, behind that sound though Pinkie's keen ears picked up a terrified, and quickly muffled, squeak.

“Fluttershy? Is that you?” Pinkie whispered softly into the room, it was too dark to make out any details but she could tell that it wasn't very big.

“P-Pinkie?” Fluttershy's mellifluous voice was tiny, weak, and a little disbelieving, but Pinkie let out a sigh of relief as she heard the voice and pushed the door the rest of the way open. The gentle mare was huddled in the corner of a dark room, inside which was a once-opulent bed that had seen far better days along with a nightstand to it's left and a desk at the opposite end.

“Hey silly-filly, you ran off into the dark and made auntie Pinkie come all the way out to bring you back,” Pinkie playfully admonished as she wrapped her hooves around the shaking mare. “C'mon, Twilight and the others have probably gotten that meanie-head already, we should go back.”

Fluttershy sobbed loudly into Pinkie's frizzy mane in response, causing Pinkie to tighten the hug gently. The pastel mare shook and cried for almost a full minute before getting a hold of herself and pulling out of Pinkie's mane, eyes red and puffy with a few strands of pink hair plastered stubbornly to her face by tears.

“I'm sorry...” her voice was almost silent, not the low and demure softness of her usual timbre but cracked by the constant crying and dulled by something sounding like shame. “I'm such a coward... I couldn't... as soon as I saw him hurt Twilight and...”

“Hey, c'mon silly, you're no coward, you faced down a dragon!” Pinkie encouraged her but she only grew more unhappy.

“D-different, that was different,” she muttered grimly. “That wasn't... it wasn't another pony, it wasn't... Jasper.”

Pinkie grimaced, “you're right, it wasn't Jasper,” Fluttershy's brow furrowed slightly but Pinkie held up a hoof, “no, trust auntie Pinkie, that thingy back there, whatever it was it wasn't Jasper.”

“I just, I should have stayed, helped, or... done something, but I ran and left my friends with a monster,” she was shaking again, “I'm just... a bad pony, a bad friend and-”

“Ha!” Pinkie laughed out loud drawing a high squeak of surprise from the butter-yellow pegasus, cutting off her self-deprecating tirade. “You're the kindest most nicest pony in the wide wide world of Equestria Flutters, you're the opposite of a bad pony, you just got scared, and there's nothing wrong with getting scared. Just because you got scared and ran from a scythe-wielding crazy-pony doesn't make you a coward, actually it probably just makes you smarter than most of us,” Pinkie said musingly. “Anyways, it doesn't make you bad or a coward, we're your friends, we want you to be safe but... next time, just run behind us ok? Otherwise I'll hafta come find you again and it was kind of a long run and, well...” Pinkie poked her soft belly, “I think I've been eating too many sweets.”

Fluttershy giggled, drawing a wide smile from Pinkie, “See? Just giggle at the ghostie!” They shared a warm grin and were getting ready to go back down the dark hallway when the slow, methodical clip-clop of hoofsteps starting coming up down the hall.

Fluttershy's eyes went wide and she paled, “N-no, h-he couldn't have... our... f-frie-”

The pink pony shook her head though, “huh-uh, no way,” she hissed softly, “he's coming from up the hall, we came from the other direction.

“S-so it isn't...” Pinkie shrugged in response, unable to give Fluttershy anything more than she already knew.

Then the voice came. It was male but it dripped with venom and insanity, tripping between octaves like a badly tuned trumpet. “I smell you little softlings, come out now... I'm hungry and thirsty and oh-so-lonely.” Pinkie and Fluttershy clamped their mouths shut, barely even breathing as the voice drew closer to the open doorway, Pinkie panicked, cursing herself for not closing it and praying to Celestia that whoever it was didn't have good eyesight in the dimness. “I want to taste your skin, I want to cut it and watch the red water run fast and hot.”

…

clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop

…

clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop

…

“I want you little softlings. I need to feel you die, it hurts so much, won't you help me?” his voice became high, pained, and plaintive, “won't you please let me feel you die?”

…

clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop

…

A large, dark figure stood in the doorway, a heavy-set stallion whose eyes glowed almost crimson set into an almost emaciated face, small scars criss-crossed his flesh like patchwork, making him look like a corpse that had been badly sewn together.

Pinkie silently mouthed the word that was passing through both her mind and the mind of the mare behind her.

Jasper

Or what he might look like he he'd been scarred, beaten, and starved for several weeks. The bed was large enough that Pinkie thought it might hide them from his view, they shrunk in on themselves, trying to become smaller by sheer effort in the hope he, or it, would simply pass them by. They didn't move, they didn't breathe, they just waited, listening and praying to the Goddesses for some tiny favor.

…

clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop clip-clop

The sound of hoofsteps slowly faded, eventually vanishing, only then did the two let out two long, slow breaths, shakes of terror and giddiness running down their bodies at the close encounter they'd had. Neither of them had gotten a terribly close look at it, not enough to be entirely sure of what they'd seen anyway, and in all honesty, neither had really wanted to get a good look at it.

After a five solid minutes of waiting, breathing, listening, and waiting again, Pinkie rose unsteadily to her hooves from where she and Fluttershy had been crouching, hidden behind the banisters and bedclothes.

“Ok 'Shy, I'm gonna go first, you stay behind me,” her voice was barely above a whisper, but elicited a slow nod from her friend, and carefully they crept forward, keeping low and quiet. The door was still open and one of the hallway glowbulbs had begun flickering, taking another step down it's inexorable path to failure, casting shadows over the walls.

Pinkie slunk to the door, quiet as a mouse for one of the first times in her life, then rose up slowly and began to peek around the corner of the door.

Fluttershy's scream of “NO DON'T!” would have come a split second too late, but Pinkie 'knew' before she knew, as an icy shiver shot up her spine and a tight pinch in her clamped down on her chest.

In a panic Pinkie threw herself to the floor, narrowly avoiding a flashing crescent of steel carving the air where her head had just been and burying itself halfway into the wooden door frame. Pinkie scrabbled at the stone floor, desperately getting her hooves under her she tore into the room, looking back just long enough to see not-Jasper yank the scythe's cruel blade out.

Fluttershy had huddled deeper into the far corner of the dilapidated space, tears of panic and terror in her wide eyes as she stared, unable to take her eyes off of the red revenant grinning maniacally at them around a mouthful of deadly steel.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry little soft things, I want to cut. To cut and cut and cut until you're all nothing but little giblets,” he murmured. Not-Jasper's eyes had that dull, manic quality of an asylum inmate on an upper as he advanced.

“Fluttershy,” Pinkie whispered, thanking Celestia and Luna for the small mercy of his slow advance. “I'm going to distract him ok? You need to run when I do, get out and go back, get help alright?”

Finally Fluttershy turned to stare, horrified, into Pinkie's calm veneer. The terror in her eyes was impossible to hide but she wasn't going to watch her friend get... cut into giblets. The pale mare shook tried to shake her head, to say no but the words wouldn't come out, her throat was choked with panic.

Pinkie didn't give her the chance anyway.

“GO NOW!” Pinkie yelled, as she hurtled herself low at not-Jasper's hooves, her instincts guiding her every movement. Never before had she felt so attuned to her strange ability to sense events before they happened, but she liked to believe that it was because she needed it, no, because Fluttershy needed it, at this moment more than ever. Diving beneath the curving blade she felt a sharp bite right at the base of her tail as he nicked her, barely a scratch but frighteningly real, with a primal yell Pinkie shouldered brutally into the larger stallion's legs, toppling him over but throwing herself prone. She could hear him recovering behind her, getting to his hooves far faster than she could, with a heave she pulled herself to the other end of the room where a musty desk sat mouldering in the dark. Panicking, she knew he was turning to face Fluttershy and, unwilling to allow her gently friend to be harmed, she ripped out one of the drawers which was thankfully unlocked, and hurled it where her instinct said he must be.

A loud fleshy impact followed by a roar of rage and pain told her she'd been right.

Not-Jasper charged out of the dark but Pinkie was already moving and screaming for Fluttershy to run, diving to the side she yelled out as the blade bit in again, this time more deeply, on her flank, carving a bloody scar through the cutie mark on her right flank. Remembering Applejack and the few times she'd helped the orange mare on her farm Pinkie landed on her front hooves, but rather than pushing further forward she coiled her pink body like a spring until her knees were flush with her ears, then piston'd out to catch the unsuspecting stallion directly in the muzzle. The almost satisfying crunch of bone and teeth fracturing beneath of her hooves gave her hope even as it sickened her.

He backed up, whining painfully around his broken muzzle as Pinkie dropped back to her hooves, her back legs shaking with the effort and she swore to Celestia that she'd exercise a little more if she got out of this. He looked staggered glaring at the offending pink pony.

A pony whose heart lifted on wings the moment she heard the sound of voices from the hall, her friends' voices, Applejack and Rarity for sure.

That moment of distraction cost her more than she could have dreamed as not-Jasper sprang forward, all semblance of his feigned weakness vanishing in a blink.

Shivering back.

The scythe swung down in a slim arc.

Pinchy heart.

He was too fast, the thought crossed Pinkie's mind, she knew she couldn't move in time.

Dry mouth.

An explosion of air and force from the side of the room and a hard impact.

Empty lungs.

THUNK

…

Pinkie looked up from where something had thrown her to the ground, had he over-swung and clubbed her instead?

Drip-drip... drip...

Fresh blood began spattering the floor running in rivulets down the pastel yellow leg, stained her coat a dark, ruddy brown. Sound seemed to drain away from the world as Pinkie took in Fluttershy, standing protectively over her, forelegs flung wide, and a small, curved barb of bloody steel protruding out from her back.

From behind the not-Jasper came a flare of red light knocking the maniac to the floor, all of it strangely soundless to Pinkie. Then the noise returned with the sound of shredding flesh and cracking bone as a heavy figure carved brutally through the maniac's body, filling the small room with the stench of gore and offal.

Standing over the not-Jasper's ruined corpse was...

Another Jasper?

Fluttershy's body began to teeter and Pinkie found her voice again.

“FLUTTERSHY!” the scream tore itself from her throat and she lunged forward to catch her friend whose skewered form had finally lost its strength and began and tumble backwards.

The gentle pegasus coughed, spitting up blood from deep in her throat, it was a small, pathetic, wet sound. She worked her mouth wordlessly but the blade had punctured her lung, bring up only bubbles of blood.

“No, no, no, no, no...” Pinkie muttered over her quiet friend who was slowly bleeding out in her arms.

“Pinkie, give her here,” Jasper voice was collected and strong, the command in it drawing her gaze up but only tightening her grip on her slowly dying friend.

“W-what happened Jasper? Why did... what as...? What happened?” confusion and panic was chief in Pinkie's mind, that and the fact that the voices of her friends were getting closer.

“You have to trust me Pinkie, please, I can help.”

“What can you do?” her voice was an open plea.

“I can save her, I...” with a sad smile he moved his hoof in a cross over his heart, then out like a wing, then up to his eye, “I promise, ok?”

Pinkie hiccuped through her tears, but nodded, and Jasper took Fluttershy's prone form in his arms.

“Fluttershy, this is going to hurt, a lot, but it'll keep you alive until we reach the hospital, is that ok?” he explained, she nodded and worked her mouth again but only succeeded in drawing up more red bubbles as she tried to pull air into ruined lungs. She managed to mouth the words out as Jasper's horn began to glow a sickly red, the energy played over her like shadow puppets, rising and roving over her blood-stained yellow coat.

I don't want to die.

Chapter 14

“I don't like this Princess, I really don't, they're his memories and... it just feels wrong.”

Twilight? That's her voice, she sound sad or... scared? What's wrong?

“I know, my faithful student, but this is the only way, it's time you knew what you and your friends are going up against. In truth I should have warned you before but I still hoped to protect you all, what happened with Fluttershy proves that this is going to involve all of you though.”

Princess Celestia, of course, but... Fluttershy, she lived right? I think so, I remember casting the spell, I remember the Night Princess arriving several moments later and taking her to the hospital with the others.

“He's been down here for weeks though Princess, is this... really necessary?”

Weeks? Down where?

“I know you believe that he wasn't responsible for the injuries of your friends, and I believe you; Rarity, Pinkamena, and Applejack all reported the same thing, that Jasper stood over what looked like a brutalized clone of himself. It is, after all, hard to doubt the word of the Element of Honesty.”

That's right, the mausoleum, that foalish girl... she came down there, she found the secret darkness that Silver Twist had hidden away all those years ago.

“I didn't think it was him even before that Princess,” oh bless, she sounds so indignant, “you don't know him like I do, nothing about that... that thing was like Jasper, the way he moved, the way he spoke, none of his usual habits of inflections. It was almost like somepony made a poor copy of him and all they got was the general shape correct.”

Leave it to Twilight, my little egghead, to notice those kinds of things even as she's getting her purple noggin concussed by a psychotic clone.

“As I said, I am aware of that fact, Twilight.”

“Then why keep in chained in the dungeon like this? It wasn't his fault! He didn't do anything! He even saved Fluttershy!”

Saved. I can't say I agree with that term for what I did, more like 'preserved'. What I did to Fluttershy will be with her for the remainder of her natural life assuming she recovers.

“Yes, I am also, painfully, aware that he 'saved' Fluttershy, although I can not say that that is the word I would use.”

The Princess's voice became tight and angry, her words matching up eerily with my thoughts, clearly she recognized the lengths I went to to ensure that Fluttershy would survive her grievous wounds.

“What do you mean Princess?”

“You were there at Ponyville General when my sister arrived with your friend of course, you heard her screams, correct?”

“Y-yes.”

“Did you read the doctor's report?”

“N-no.”

“Here, read it.”

I shuddered, I could only imagine what a medical professional would have though of the absolut atrocity I'd inflicted on poor Fluttershy, I didn't regret it though, her last unspoken words still echoed in my ears. 'I don't want to die.'

“Uhm, ok, let's see... Patient Name: Emilé Fluttershy, blood type, coat color, blah blah blah, uhm... ok here we go. 'It is...' oh sun...

'It is the opinion of this doctor that the patient should be dead, there is no physical or metaphysical reason within my area of knowledge that could possibly allow for Miss Fluttershy to have survived such a fatal blow for more than a moment. Severe damage was done to the heart and lungs with over a pint and a half of blood lost, the shock alone would be a death sentence for any pony. Defying all reasoning her heart continues to pump in a manner which I can only call 'impossible', the right and left ventricles were nearly severed along the interventricular groove and yet both continue to act as though the damage did not exist. The major veins within the groove were damage beyond any hope of timely repair, during the two and a half hour surgery we expected the patient to die at any moment, but she did not. The patient did, however, continue to scream in agony as we stitched her heart back together, using advanced medical spells to bind the severed veins and repair the musculature of the heart. She is currently in a medically induced coma to allow for faster healing although it is unknown as to when or even if she will ever awaken, the trauma done to her central nervous system is beyond my knowledge.

Personal note: three of my nurses quit last night after the surgery without giving notice. I don't blame them, I'm sending them notices telling them that I'll give them glowing reviews for their next job assuming they can ever set foot in a hospital again.'

Twilight, I'm so sorry, please forgive me, I did what I had to do.

“What Captain Shale did in that place did indeed save Fluttershy's life, but he did so through terrible and forbidden powers.”

“What... what did he do to her Princess?”

I felt a sharp pain in my heart, her voice was laced with hurt and betrayal, as well as fear. She was afraid of me, of what I had done. She should be.

“In short? He denied her the ability to die.”

Silence. I could almost see Twilight's jaw working unintelligibly. What the Princess said was, in all fairness, totally accurate.

“To describe it simply, he used his magic to rivet, stitch, and nail Fluttershy's soul into her body so strongly that not even death itself could pry her free of it, forcing her body to continue functioning long after it should have failed due to massive trauma.”

The sound of retching. I don't blame her, what I'd done was monstrous, forbidden except in the most radical of magical circles hundreds of years ago. The ultimate 'gray magic'.

“Now you see why we must go into his mind. See his memories, it's time to understand.”

My memories? But-

“But how? I thought you said you sealed them away, and that even you couldn't read his mind because of that conditioning spell that Silver Twist placed on him.”

“That is quite so, which is why you are here. You see he guarded Shale's mind against my own but, my faithful student, and I am so sorry to bring this to you, but he did not guard against yours.”

Even in the null void that I seemed to hang in I could feel my blood run cold.

“P-Princess, do you mean you want me to... are you asking me to violate my friend's mind?”

I can only imagine the pain Twilight was going through, having learned of my atrocity at the same time that her beloved teacher asks her to commit her very own.

“I am, Twilight, and I am sorry but I am not asking.”

More silence.

“...”

“Of course, your majesty, as you command.”

Her voice was cold and entirely devoid of the warmth of love and respect that normally tinged every word when she spoke to, or even about, her mentor. It hurt me even here, I could only imagine the pain the Princess felt. Goddess, will Twist make monsters out of us all before this is all over? Then my mind became filled with lavender-colored pain and light as my closest friend tore the walls around my mind down and let the tortured memories flow forth.

The stink of the shelled out landscape was an omnipresent factor on a battlefield, especially on in a swamp. This particular Luna-damned shit hole was called LaCroix, Prench for The Cross I'd heard and in my opinion it fit, after all, somepony had to have designed this island as a form of torture because there was no way nature was this much of a bitch. The tents kept having to be set up since the ground was moist enough that no amount of nails or pitons would secure the ropes and canvas in place for more than a few hours. Not to mention to constant biting insects that made sleeping an absolute nightmare, not that I slept but I imagined it would be Tartarus on Equestria for those who did. I was making my way to the command tent where I would give yet another overview of the situation which, in a word, was twigged. The Griffons had the advantage of flying over the brutal terrain but the constant mist and sparse but serviceable tree cover made attacking from the sky impossible. Likewise, we ground-pounding ponies had to deal with pitfalls, quicksand, gators, venomous snakes and insects, and all other manner of environmental hazards that made traversing the land en masse a non-option. The meeting went as such followed by loud bluster and arguing from the central command goof-ups who'd sent us here in the first place.

I didn't blame them since the land was, without a doubt, a vital and strategic location for the Griffons. If they could secure it as a beachhead for the war then we'd be bucked because there was no way we'd be able to dig them out short of just torching the entire island which I was beginning to consider as an option out of sheer annoyance. It was several miles off the coast of south-eastern Equestria and, if the Griffons got a hold of it it would mean a secure supply line from Gryfa straight to our shores, meaning the war would likely drag on for another several years. So yes, I agreed entirely with central command that this shit hole had to be held at all costs. What I wanted was for them to stop sending me armored vehicles and artillery that inevitably ended up treads-deep in the muck and useless within an hour of arrival, and start sending me guerrilla-trained operatives that I could actually use before I just said 'buck it' and sent the requisition guys into the fight.

The tent was stifling because it was edging into the tropical storm season meaning cloying heat and sweat mixed with torrential rains and malaria.

Hurray.

Around me was a group of uncomfortable and slightly overweight pencil pushers from the Manehatten requisition station since the station in Baltimare got wiped out along with the city during the first months of the war and had yet to rebuild.

“Captain Shale, I sympathize with your position but we can't issue more troops,” Quick Note, a skinny, gray-coated stallion with a pale blonde mane said nasally, “the tropical weather is becoming increasingly dangerous and our flight teams are needed to maintain the weather over Equestria proper, we simply don't have enough pegasi to secure a supply route to you.”

“So what, I'm supposed to hold the island with piss, vinegar, and gumption? You sent me half a regiment of heavy armor that sunk into the mud three weeks ago!” I slammed a rust-coated hoof into the table, cracking the poor quality wood.

“It was a clerical error, the environmental factors hadn't been accounted for and the bureaucracy jumped the gun.”

“Jumped the gun?” I felt a dry, humorless chuckle roll out, “no, Mr. Note, telling a mare you love her on the second date is jumping the gun, this was sheer incompetence and I will have all of your heads on pikes when I end this campaign is that clear?!”

Quick Note went pale and backed up away from me, his hangers-on looked equally cowed.

“Cap, c'mon, they're just a bunch of bureaucrats,” Starlight had sidled up and I felt my pulse slow. “The Doc is waiting for you, he says he might have an idea.”

“The Doc? Ugh, fine, you lot, get out my sight and back to your tents,” I ordered, although as part of the civilian support corps they weren't technically under my command, still, unless they had a death wish nopony defied my orders. “Let's go see what old Silver sawbones has under his fetlocks this time.”

His tent stood apart from the rest of ours, it was larger to accommodate all of the medical equipment he needed to perform his duties which generally involved sewing my crew back together after a particularly hectic fight. Silver Twist was a little creepy but he'd saved my life and the lives of everypony in my platoon at least twice, I trusted him with my life. I pushed the tent flap aside and- Static-pain-voices-commands-YESMASTERISHALLOBEY

I laughed as a griffon marksman shot a stinging round at me, slicing a hot red line across my flank, I responded with a bolt from my long arc, blowing his brains out the back of his feathered head.

“Another one for me Starlight, what's your count?” I shouted across the battlefield din as I ejected the dull gray marble that was my latest empty crystal. Starlight snapped it up in a hoof and slid it into her pouch, 'waste not' as they say, my second had become fastidious on that since the battle at Bunker Bridge where every single supply had to be stretched to the maximum length.

“I'm at thirteen, damn feathery goons are getting slippery,” she remarked.

I laughed as I lined up another one, “high and dry,” a grim smile snuck onto my face as my long-arc snapped an energy blast that annihilated my targets left wing.

“Why are we out here again Captain?” she shouted as she put another Griffon soldier down, his body sliding into the muck only to vanish beneath the goop seconds later. Her question gave me pause, a twinge of pain slid across my brain like cold slime, 'why were we out here?'

Fill the field with the dead, the next conjunction is nearly upon us.

I couldn't remember, it was... my idea? Or Twist's? I know I spoke to him but...

“Captain? You ok?” Starlight glanced worriedly in my direction as she ejected a spent crystal and slapped another one into place.

With a feeling like my brain sliding back into place I blinked away the momentary confusion, “I'm fine Charmer, we're here because the Griffons are mounting an offensive and it's our job to put as many of these featherbrains in the ground as we can.”

“So what, we're just here to kill them? I know they're encamped but-”

“Are you questioning my orders soldier?” my tone was low and without any inflection but I saw Starlight freeze up before shaking her head vigorously.

“N-No sir, never.”

I turned away from her and sighted down the ironsights of my long-arc, I'd put over two dozen griffons down, the other thirty soldiers I'd brought with me had kill counts less than Starlight's but notable nonetheless, I made a habit of only having the best with me. The griffons were taken by surprise by our broad daylight attack, the twin efforts of Starlight and Treasure had put all thirty of us into a defensible position on dry land near their camp. The attack had begun without mercy, tearing apart their patrols with kill zones and overwatches, every twitch of a feather put several snaps of long-arc fire into the offending featherhead. It was bold, brutal, and completely unexpected; up until now we'd played a slow and careful game, advancing by inches and only after soaking the swamp with litres of blood, every hoofstep bought and paid for to advance our line. The Griffons knew we were going to push them off of the island eventually, they didn't have the resources or the training for a protracted combat affair while it was a form of combat we ponies excelled at. They were determined to make us bleed for the effort though, hopefully weakening us enough here to make taking a different location easier.

I had decided to disabuse the buck out of that particular notion. The command crew had been skeptical or outright defiant of my plan for a bold blitzkrieg tactic, uprooting and entire camp of Griffons by sneaking up to the very edge of their patrols under the cover of night which our pegasi scouts, lead by Lightning Dasher, had kindly marked out for us. Once there we'd wait until the dawn when the guard would just begin to change, passing the time by triangulating the exact teleport coordinates to drop into the safe drop zone, then do a mass teleport. It worked like a charm, we caught the two entire guard shifts in a kill zone, sweeping down the tired night guard and catching the still-drowsy dawn guard with their trousers down.

Then the fight really began, troops flooded out as we peppered their camp with long-arc shots, mortar fire, and fragmentation grenades. I'd lost two ponies to sniper fire and the fight had been hectic for a good hour past the rising of Celestia's sun, not a bad ratio considering almost a hundred and fifty griffons were dead and the rest were in a full route. I grinned, knowing they'd be back, Griffonari honor would demand they reclaim their lost ground from such a humiliating defeat. This was just setup, this was the big plan, play on their idiot pride and make this field a killing ground for the remaining Griffon forces on the island.

The afternoon sun filtered down as my small troop began fortifying the position, there was no way the griffons would be able to mount a counterattack from any of their other island camps for several hours at the very least, or more likely not until the next day, but it didn't pay to get sloppy. I made perimeter checks every half hour, walking around our newly claimed territory as our forces slowly trickled in with their massive kitbags, readying for the major offensive that our scryers told us were already in the works.

“I'm so proud of you, my boy, this was excellent work!” Silver Twist's vaguely aristocratic voice seemed out of place on the battlefield but I was still glad to hear it as he sidled up next to me during my fourth check. “You took the initiative on this one, really showed those Manehatten pencil pushers what-for.”

I grinned, latching my notched long-arc into the holding loop on my back and locked my hoof around his in a soldiers grip. “Hey Twist, what're you doing out of your tent? They finally let you see daylight?” He laughed dryly, but I nearly did a double-take as I saw several cloaked ponies carrying most of his gear as well as his medical tent. “Wait, Doc Twist, you're not setting up out here are you? This is the front lines and you're-”

“I'm a doctor and this is where I'm needed most,” he poked me roughly in the chest as he took on an admonishing tone. “If I were afraid of a few explosion and some gunfire I'd have set up a comfy practice in Las Pegasus or somewhere else far away from this stinking little shit hole, wouldn't you think?”

“I... I know but-”

“No buts, this is where I'm needed if we're going to finally push these featherbrains off our island.”

I grinned, nopony but Twist dared interrupt me while I was talking and Twist had just done it twice. It was his way, and he'd brought me back from death's door after Bunker Bridge, he'd been my surgeon, my doctor, my physical therapist... he'd put me back on the battlefield in just under a month when everypony else had been ready to write me and my whole unit off. We'd become the Revenants, the Red 109th, and we had a reputation for invincibility. In truth though it was the Doctor who had given us that reputation, he'd performed medical miracles with a scalpel, some general anesthesia, and duct tape, keeping us alive and kicking despite the fact that not a single mother's son of us hadn't had our ticket punched at least once only to be pulled back from the edge. I should have been dead a dozen times since Bunker Bridge but every time, there was Twist with his medical bag, standing over me with that strange smile as he stitched and patched me up, and always with the same words.

'I'm so proud of you, my boy.'

It made my chest tighten a little every time I heard the words, maybe it was just what was left of little orphan Jasper but I imagined sometimes that that was the kind of thing a father would say.

“Ok, but I'm leaving Lightning Dasher and Honey Withers with you,” he grimaced but shrugged his assent. “Hey, you're our resident miracle worker, can't have a stray mortar round falling on your head while your hoof deep in some poor bastard's guts.”

“I guess that would probably void my medical license, hm?” he quipped as he began helping his assistants set up. I chuckled, turning to respond but my eyes met a pair of strange eyes, gold and vermillion and... “there is work to be done come nightfall Number 109.”

Static-pain-voices-commands-YESMASTERISHALLOBEY

Night had fallen and the soldiers enjoyed the welcome chill in the air after the day's heat, the darkness was absolute, broken only by a few magic lanterns scattered here and there. I stood at the edge of the perimeter, my hooves and coat caked in mud.

I was suffering a moment of cognitive dissonance as I suddenly couldn't remember how I'd gotten there or what I'd done all day. I... I'd been walking with Silver Twist, discussing the day and... and then he'd said something to me. I couldn't remember it though, something about having a job to do, needing to...

I felt reached into my greatcoat and pulled out a shimmering gemstone, an amethyst of the purest quality and it was easily the size of my entire hoof. A deep and unsettling light poured out from within, there was something inside it but... but...

It is not yet time.

It wasn't time to use it, I had orders to use it only once the battle had commenced and... that's right: after I talked to Twist I went out of the camp, I'd been reconnoitering out in the swamps, tracking enemy movements, and they were beginning to gather in force and I needed to warn the camp to ready themselves for the attack. I reached the camp, looking for familiar faces, I saw Charmer talking to a unicorn from the 41st infantry, they'd come in alongside us, and I saw Dasher and Withers over by the Doctor's tent but... nopony else. In fact it seemed like the entire battlegroup was made up of the 41st, that irked me a little since this was my operation. I had a feeling that it was somepony in the Manehatten command staff who was miffed that I'd gone ahead with my so-called suicide run that they'd been so opposed to and come out smelling like roses.

Metaphorically anyway.

There was nothing I could do this late in the game now though, but somepony would be neck deep in pony pies when I got a hold of them for hedging out my company. The command tent was off to the side and draped in camouflage on my advice after Knock Shod, the commanding officer of the 41st, almost got a mortar dropped on his puffed blue mane after he'd brushed off the idea. After that he'd been more than happy to adopt any and all of my suggestions, he was a nice guy really but not at all command material, I figured some rich pops had put him in the position hoping to garner a little wartime glory for the family name. Shod knew it too, he just wanted to survive the war and go back home, a fairly common desire with which I had a hard time sympathizing.

“Really?” I'd asked him one night as we kicked back some well aged Wild Pegasus whiskey after a rather long-winded defense against a sizable Griffon warband, he'd looked at me strangely in response.

“What? You want this war to last forever?” he'd asked, openly appalled at the idea.

I shrugged, “No, of course not, but still, I think there's something kind of charming about the sound of bullets and mortar shells flying past.”

He shook his head in disbelief before laughing and slugging back another glass, “Captain Shale, you're insane, you know that?”

“It has been said, Captain Shod, it has been said.”

We'd shared a good laugh and a decent rapport ever since and he always took my tactical suggestions into account, they kept a lot of his men alive and I knew they respected him for it. So I pushed into the tent's single expansive room trailing mud and gunk. On sight Captain Shod stood up from where he'd been crouched over a half-accurate map of the surrounding area.

“Captain Shale, what news and... why all the mud?” I looked at my coat distastefully.

“I've been reconnoitering out in brush, watching for signs of Griffon activity, their massing right now, I think they're readying for their first strike,” his green coat became a shade paler as I spoke, “we might have an hour, probably less to be honest though.”

“R-Right, ready the troops, I'll be out in a moment!” he shouted, his voice breaking only a little.

“Aye sir,” I sketched a mock salute and smiled easily, we were the rank so it was unnecessary but he always saluted me anyway and I always returned the gesture. He relaxed a little at it and returned the salute in sincerity.

“Celestia go with you Shale.”

“And you, Knock Shod.”

I rushed out of the command tent, barking orders to the few sergeants and lieutenant's I recognized to start forming the battle and skirmish lines and to pass the word along. We didn't want to sound any kind of loud alarm, the idea was to trick the Griffons into staging their attack on us while they thought we were unready. It would've worked too if they hadn't pulled their own fast one on us as soon as our battle lines were formed.

The ground fell out from under us as tunnels and holes split open beneath us and massive grey-coated beasts wearing thick pelt armor and pot-shaped helmets, bearing vicious pikes and cleavers as they began mincing our forces.

“DIAMOND DOGS!” I roared over the commotion as I leveled my long-arc from my position in the back ranks and took a shot at one only to have the blast daze it as it pinged off of it's crude but clearly effective helmet.

How the buck did those things burrow through the a damn SWAMP?!” a soldier yelled from beside me, taking shot after shot at the creatures. The blasts did little more than annoy them, made as they were for precision shooting which, on a Dog, meant the head, and with the head covered their tough hides and meaty bodies absorbed the worst of the hits.

“Plenty of both swampland and Dog clans in Gryfa, and gems grow everywhere,” I barked as I placed a shot between under the neck-guard of one of the Dogs and was rewarded with a spurt of arterial crimson. “It must be a swamp clan!”

“Luna-damn it,” he swore as he took another shot at a closing Dog, the blast throwing it off a bit but failing to interrupt his charge. A single blast from my long-arc to its kneecap took care of that though, tripping it to the ground where another soldier galloped up, sticking the beast with a bayonet through its brutish heart.

The soldier died as sniper fire from the unseen Griffon forces took his head off in a blast of gore, I had no time to search for the shooter, I was too busy keeping the Diamond Dogs from overrunning my position. I ducked behind a sand bag as another shot blew the head off of yet another soldier near me, a grim part of my was glad my soldiers had been hedged out, this was one massive clusterbuck from start to finish.

“Charge them down!” I roared as I snapped off the last two blasts from my long-arc into the face of a charging Dog, the first pinging harmlessly off of its helmet but the second tore through the beast's eye. I pulled my scythe from its holster and swept in low beneath pike wielded by a particularly large and dim looking specimen and cut the leg out from under the stunned Dog, inadvertently showering myself with blood. Several soldiers joined me, eschewing the suddenly less effective long-arcs for their swords or, failing that, bayonets or even their bare hooves.

It was the only option, we might be buried neck deep in stinking Dogs but, ironically, the massive bulk of the beasts gave us ample cover, spoiling any sniper shots from the distance. After a few minutes of bloody melee I heard several crowing Griffon battlecries rise from the distant mist, we'd finally frustrated them enough to draw them out.

“Collapse together troops!” I spat between crimson sweeps, “fall into formation! The featherheads cometh!” I laughed around the mouth-grip as I buried the blade into the neck of distracted Dog and backpedaled, I could see winged shapes sweeping over us through the mist. A dozen particularly scarred and ferocious specimens of the griffon attack force landed, spinning spiked chains and drawing talwars as they readied for some good old-fashioned bloodshed.

At least they were until the ground exploded for the second time. At first I thought it was more Diamond Dogs until the first pieces of stinging shrapnel punched through my greatcoat, shredding the troops around me; Pony, Dog, and Griffon alike all were blown away, hot metal eviscerating flesh of friend and foe.

“LANDMINES!” somepony screamed over the torrent of noise and pain, I scrabbled backwards out of the killing ground.

'How the buck had we not noticed an entire minefield?' I thought angrily as I pulled back, hissing in pain as more shrapnel bit through the thick and spell-hardened material of my coat. 'Impossible, we'd come through this way, I'd come through here, nopony was that lucky. I... I'd just finished reconnoitering out here right? I couldn't have missed a whole Luna-damned minefield.'

There is work to be done before nightfall, Number 109.

Twist's voice echoed in my skull like a hammer as I staggered around moaning soldiers from both sides bleeding their last into the swampland before it claimed their corpses. Somepony seized me by the shoulders as I dragged myself out of the field and vomited on the muck and mud, I nearly took his head off before realizing it was Knock Shod.

“Shale! We've got to get out, this operation is fragged, we just lost half our forces and the Griffons are still nearly at full strength!” panic was rich and made his voice two octaves too high, enough to piss me off royally. I drove a hoof into his face, dropping him to the ground in bewilderment.

“Coward! I wouldn't give up a used latrine to those dirty feathered barbarians,” I roared, he backed away with raw fear in his eyes. I could feel a poisonous boil of hatred coming to the surface, the amethyst seemed to burn in my coat pocket, I drew it out and touched it to my horn, drawing the knowledge and power that had been burned into the gem into my mind. “I sure as hell am not giving them an inch of this sun-forsaken shit hole!”

I turned back to the ruined and still exploding minefield, the screams of the 41st infantry rang in my ears as I reached out with my magic and the earth groaning with pain and power as dozens of souls washed out of ruined bodies all out once. Those souls were what I needed, I wasn't going to fail, I wasn't going to lose this ground, even if the dead had to rise back up and drive the invaders away themselves.

Arcane words that I was only half-conscious of spilled from my lips and I was suddenly limned in a searing red aura tinged with an unwholesome greenish glow. Like a tidal wave it washed over the battlefield and I felt them, corpses lying atop corpses, over two hundred bodies from the surface of the swamp to the lower muck. My rage spilled across the veil, snapping out into the darkness and dragging hundreds of souls kicking and screaming back into the mortal coil, brutally ratcheting them into their ruined bodies and chaining them to my will.

“Now,” I spoke in a voice alien to my ears, it didn't faze me in the least, “I command you to kill and kill until no life remains. Go out and destroy them all, you risen dead, and fulfill the will of a God.”

The screaming dead clawed out from the swamp to the horror of every onlooker and charged down the Griffon lines. I turned to face Knock Shod whose mouth hung open in a silent scream that would never be voiced as Silver Twist rose from behind his body, an empty syringe floating in his telekinetic grip, Lightning Dasher and Honey Withers standing blank-eyed on either side of him. He grinned paternally as he pocketed the empty tool and placed a hoof on my shoulder.

“I'm so proud of you my boy.”

Chapter 15

For thirty-six days and nights I hung from a stone wall in the deepest dungeons of Canterlot, my only visitors were the occasional unicorn interrogation units that Celestia sent down when she needed to extract or verify some specific detail or other from my memories. After being forced into reliving that first memory I'd been placed on lockdown and thrown into the most secure cell ever created in the history of ponydom, a cell made for a very specific pony before her exile, a cell crafted to hold a goddess. The memory still played itself over in my mind, especially the final parts, the feeling of violating all of those souls at once was at once a vile abomination that made me re-experience my last two meals more than a few times, and a euphoric rush the likes of which I'd never known. Twilight hadn't been down to see me since, I'd only gotten a brief glimpse of her as I woke from that horrible nightmare memory to see the stricken look on her face as she was escorted away.

It seemed like every night I dreamed of blood-stained corpses pulling themselves out of shallow graves to drag the living back down with them, or of malicious and heterochromatic eyes staring at me with an alien light burning behind them.

Comparatively, tonight's dream was relatively pleasant, if a bit lonely and cold. I stood in the ruins of a once great castle, all around me I could see the markings royalty when they weren't overrun by vines, tree roots, or occasionally just fully grown tree's. Clearly it was a place that hadn't seen habitation for many generations though, an bright full moon shone down on me, illuminating the entirety of the former audience chamber I stood in.

No corpses.

No blood for once either.

So I waited patiently for the other horseshoe to drop which thankfully took no time at all.

A small and almost dainty cough interrupted my train of thought from behind me. I turned, half expecting a nightmare version of Doctor Twist (not that he needed much help) and was instead rewarded by the thoroughly unwelcome sight of the Night Princess.

“Luna, that's perfect,” I remarked dryly, drawing a raised eyebrow form the Princess at the tone I was taking, her reaction failed to faze me. “And here I was just thinking to myself, 'Jasper old boy, you're not getting interrogated enough during the day, wouldn't it be nice if they extended them into my very dreams?'”

“Thou art less respectful than I recall, Captain Shale,” Luna noted as she approached me, I didn't bother bowing.

“Well, after spending over a month pissing and shitting into a bucket while chained to a wall and being interrogated every other day with intrusive memory probes, one does tend to lose respect for the crown.” My voice practically dripped with sarcasm and not a tiny amount of the bile I'd been building up over the many weeks of my incarceration.

Luna actually flinched and a part of me kicked myself for my callousness, after all as far as I knew Luna herself had nothing to do with my imprisonment.

“Yes... we are... that is to say, I am very sorry for your treatment, my sister of late has been... irritable,” I would've used a much different word to describe the state of her elder sister but I doubted it was appropriate for royal company so I remained silent. “We... I only learned recently of the nature of thy imprisonment and have argued endlessly with my sister for thy release, or at least better treatment, since then.”

“Somehow I gather you're not here to inform me that I've been upgraded to the penthouse suite?” I asked rhetorically and Luna's ears flattened against her head.

“Not... as such, no.”

“Well, I suppose I could do with the company at least,” I sighed plainly as I began wandering about the dream-castle. “So where are we?”

Luna brightened as she looked around nostalgically, “this was my home, in the days when Equestria was young and bright with promise. It was from this bastion that we fought Discord's armies of chaos, defied the demonic King Sombra, and held the light of a unified pony civilization up for all to see.” The pride was evident in her voice as she swept her hoof across the ruined court. “Alas, it is also home to many painful memories for my sister, banishing me to the moon for a millennium was the hardest ordeal she has ever suffered and... I fear the memories of our brighter times here were too much for her.”

“I think can relate, a little, to that,” I remarked as I wandered about the room, taking a closer look at the many examples of classical architecture before me. “I'm guessing she wasn't the only one who wanted a new beginning though.”

“No, thou art correct, the ponies of Equestria were greatly shaken by our... my betrayal,” she twisted her muzzle as though the word tasted bitter in her mouth. “Our sister moved away from this place to found Canterlot and a create seat of power that would endure for the whole of my imprisonment. She did so as much for the sake of her and her subjects as she did for me.”

“For you? How so?” I asked, curiosity piqued at her choice of words.

“Celestia knew that would need to find the Element bearers who would eventually save me from my own inner darkness, to do so she needed a stable kingdom from which to observe her subjects.”

“I see, clever girl then, she really does have a long view of things doesn't she?” I could almost admire her.

Luna nodded though, continuing unabated, “indeed, as it is her, and our, way. She is the sun, constant and eternal thus she see's further but is prone to ignore what is close at hoof.”

“And that would make you her opposing number,” I guessed.

A thoughtful look crossed the Night Princess's face before answering, “yes and no, I am not her opposite, merely the other side to her coin. I am the moon, I wax and wane, and so as I change each night it is as though I am born anew with each passing cycle.”

“I'm surprised it was your sister the public latched on to then,” I noted, meeting her eyes sincerely for the first time that night, “I feel like you're more relatable to be honest, Princess Luna.”

She actually blushed softly at that which surprised me at first, to have such a mortal reaction, but it fell in line with her description of herself. I also highly doubted that, considering her past, she received that compliment very often.

“Thank you, thou art kind Sir Jasper, and I see we are back to 'Princess Luna' now, is that right?” her tone turned wry and I returned the smile.

“I suppose so since, as you said, it wasn't your fault I'm here, it would be kind of unfair to take out my frustrations on you, especially considering that you're taking the time to come visit me.”

“About that, I'm not exactly here to visit, per se,” her face took on a much more serious cast as she moved towards the ruin of her former throne. “I have brought thy mind hither because it is the one place which my sister's mind is least likely to venture, a place where we may speak freely.”

“And... what would you like to speak about?” my suspicion was rising to uncomfortable levels.

Princess Luna sighed, there was a weight on her that only grew as she spoke. “Treason,” she said simply, I backed away, worrying for a moment that I was about to witness yet another rise of the infamous Nightmare Moon. Luna seemed to catch my gaze though, “not for my sake but for thine,for thy escape. Even now thine friends, the Elements of Harmony, are working their way through the castle to free thee, I am supporting them as best I am able.”

Helping me... escape? “That's insane, tell them to get out, to abort, this operation would nuts even for me! I'm in the most secure place in the castle!”

Luna gave me a tired grin, “why dost thou think I needs must enter your dreams to inform thee of this? Even I cannot break thee out without drawing the ire of my sister.”

“Wait, so how...?” Luna silenced me with a hoof.

“I have been inside thine memories, I have seen much of what thou hast, so please forgive me but I called in a couple of favors on thy behalf.” That enigmatic smile again, my cutie mark was itching like crazy.

“Why?”

Luna grimaced and swept her gaze away from me and over the ruins. “Because I fear my sister is losing herself as I once did.” I won't lie, the idea of a Celestia flavored Nightmare Moon chilled me to the bone. “She is becoming obsessed with capturing Twist, 'Tia feels he is connected to a very old foe of ours, one whom we thought defeated long ago, one whose name was seared from the annals of history, so great was his threat.”

“Then... shouldn't you be on her side? No offense but it seems like it's something you two would agree on,” I pointed out.

The Princess of the Night shook her graceful head, “I am different from my sister, I have had a thousand years of solitude to come to terms with my past and our old enemies, and a thousand years to learn patience while my sister has spent her time building a kingdom from the ground up. That is not all though, I feel that, by moving with this kind of single-minded aggression, we are playing right into his hooves, if indeed the threat is as my sister believes which, as the saying goes, 'I am not sold on'.”

I nodded, “I assume you brought that up? I guess it didn't go well.”

Luna grimaced again, “thou art correct, when I pointed out that it might very well be in her mind and that perhaps some patience should be exercised she grew... quite angry.”

“I detect a hint of understatement.”

Luna gave a tired smile, “the Princess of the Sun, when angered, is quite fearsome.”

“And yet here you are, courting her rage on a whole new level, Princess Luna,” I spoke plainly as I settled down onto the cold stone, the ability to just 'sit' having been denied to me for over a month. “And since I notice you've been dodging my question I have to ask once again, why?”

Another weary grin, but Princess Luna nodded appreciatively at my tone, “because I believe that, whoever Twist truly is, he is counting on Celestia to keep you locked up, the Elements locked down, and me locked away, in an attempt to deny him targets.”

“And thou, ugh, now I'm doing it, and you believe otherwise?” I hated to admit it but it seemed like a sound strategy.

The Princess nodded though, “yes, because whatever 'Tia believes, I truly think that the Elements of Harmony grievously wounded Twist at the graveyard and I believe that he is using her paranoia and fear against her to give himself time to recover.”

I hadn't considered that, I'd seen him shrug off a two ton block of concrete to the noggin though, still, I could count the things I knew about how the Elements worked on one hoof, so maybe Luna had a point.

“Ok, that still doesn't address the manticore in the room.” Luna raised a single perfect eyebrow, “where exactly to you expect me to go? I don't know if you noticed but Celestia is pretty popular, so if she calls me a fugitive then I'll be on the run from every pony from here to Gryfa.”

Damn that mysterious smile of hers, it was beginning to get annoying. “That, my little pony, has been taken care of, you see I've spoken with my niece and she happens to agree with me and has offered to give thee sanctuary.”

“You niece... wait, Cadence? As in the 'wife of Celestia's Captain of the Guard' Cadence?” Luna shrugged and nodded. “You can't be serious, how am I supposed to get to the Crystal Empire anyway?”

“That has been arranged, once every month the train makes a night run up to the Empire to receive a shipment of rare crystal moonflowers, they're a powerful component to many spells and only bloom during the full moon...” With a conspiratorial grin she turned her head up to view the sky. “Which just so happens to be tonight.”

I grinned, “So I'm going to be rescued by a bunch of amateurs from the most secure cell in Canterlot with help from a traitor... no make that two traitor Princesses, all under a time limit to reach a midnight train departure to gain sanctuary at the capitol of Equestria's closest ally.” Luna took a thoughtful expression before nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah, you're all insane. Oh well, I guess if I'm gonna go out then I might as well go out crazy.”

“I'm glad you agree,” Luna replied without a hint of sarcasm.

“One last question,” the Princess nodded for me to continue, “why the Crystal Empire? I mean, it's not that I don't appreciate the offer of asylum but don't you think that kind of political tension is, well, dangerous right now? I could always just hide in the wastelands south of Dodge or something.”

“The reasons are two-fold, for one there is no place in Equestria where my sister cannot find you, the rays of the sun itself are her eyes. The second is... complicated; Twist employs a form of magic that traps the soul in a state of limbo, not dead but not truly alive with free will either, an undying state in other words, does that sound similar to any recent events you've heard of Captain Shale?”

Not being a particularly smart pony it took my brain a moment to catch what she was getting at, but the glowglobe clicked on eventually. “King Sombra...” I muttered, remembering the articles concerning the immortal king of the Crystal Empire and how the efforts of the Elements of Harmony defeated him once and for all.

Luna nodded, “indeed, I pointed it out to my sister but she is of the opinion that his magic was his own and unconnected, since none of the searches of the Empire's many libraries have turned up even a hint of the magical theory used by Twist. Also because the Crystal Empire didn't even technically exist until well after the war ended. And it cannot be said, of course, that Sombra was not a unicorn of singular magical genius, this we know, but I believe that such like soul magic cannot be a coincidence. It is my belief that the late King Sombra possessed some kind of secret knowledge, to contain one's soul to the mortal realm without a physical vessel speaks of a degree of mastery most terrible. If Twist somehow came into possession of such proscribed knowledge then it would explain his unnatural mastery of the loathsome arts.”

“And you think your sister's search teams in the Crystal Empire missed something?” I ventured to which the Princess nodded, “and you want me, or us, to find it.”

“I hope that if we can find a clue as to how King Sombra maintained his power then we might have an idea as to how to finally end the threat of Silver Twist once and for all.”

It was crazy, no doubt, but behind the insanity a real seed of an actual plan was present, if we could pull this off... “Well, count me in then, let the jailbreak commence!”

Luna grinned in that infuriatingly mysterious manner she was prone to as I felt the dream world around me slip away into the ether.

“...ell? is he awake? We don't have much time left, the window between patrols that Luna gave us is closing.” Twilight's voice, full of concern and a hint of panic.

“Don't worry your pretty purple flank, Sparkles, we're what you might call experts at extracting the captain from sticky situations.” That voice, no way, it was impossible.

My eyes snapped open and were filled with three surprised but familiar mares, Twilight stood behind the first two looked worried and casting furtive glances back at the open cell doorway. The other two, both unicorns, one with a well kept chartreuse green coat and the other a curious off-white that made her seem a little ghostly in the half-light of the cell, grinned at me.

“Treasure, Charmer, what the hay are you...” I was interrupted by a loud click as I dropped from the wall to the floor, my limbs aching horrendously. Starlight shoved an open healing potion into my mouth as Gentle Treasure drew back her torque and pins she'd used to unlatch me and stowed them in a saddlebag.

“Drink up, Captain, we're gonna need you walking if we're gonna get out of this place,” I gulped back the ruby-colored liquid and felt the pain in my body recede to acceptable levels, meaning I could at least stand without my limbs dislocating themselves.

Without another word I pulled the two mares into a crushing hug that left both blushing and shocked as I pulled away, Treasure had gone red as a beet and Charmer had gone rigid with surprise. I laughed, a good, healthy sound, as my friends, my comrades, mastered themselves.

“Hot damn it is good to see you girls again, Treasure, Charmer,” I briefly saluted both as I said their names, provoking a reflexive return salute from them. “Nopony would tell me what happened to the rest of my soldiers after I was locked up, I was afraid that...”

Still slightly flushed, Gentle Treasure smirked, speaking in her softly proper accent, “no sir, not us, Charmer and I were given psych evals and judged fit for discharge, we've been living in Trottingham near my parents since the war.”

I blinked, a little surprised, “wait, so you two were just fine? No psychotic breaks or...” the two shook their heads sadly. “Well, that's good, much better than me I guess, so... living together huh?” I grinned in mock lechery.

“S-Sir! That's completely out of line!” Starlight hissed, drawing laughter from both of us.

“Oh shut it Charmer, I knew you two were sneaking off to make googly-eyes at each other between missions for years,” I said, drawing startled squeaks from both of them, they were wearing looks like I'd caught them in bed together. I waved a hoof dismissively, “fraternization is against regulations but I figured you two deserved some happiness, somepony sure as hell did, so I kept quiet, even covered for you a few times. Dasher was the only other one who figured it out, we still have a bet going for who's on top.” They both sputtered wordlessly, I'd missed these girls more than I'd known.

“O-oh... well...” Starlight stammered before being interrupted by a loud 'harrumph' from the corner.

“As much as I'd love to hear about the 'good old days' Jasper, we are in the middle of jailbreak,” Twilight pointed out a touch frantically, “and we're about to lose our window, the patrol will be coming through in two minutes and twenty-two seconds... twenty-one, twenty-”

“Right, sorry about that, so what's the plan?”

Twilight grinned mischievously, “simple, we go up.”

We were barely out of the dungeon, about three minutes after I was freed from my shackles, when the alarm sounded, Twilight was a little impressed, she apparently had thought that her illusion of me being in place wouldn't fool them even for a second. It gave us thirty extra seconds of running as Treasure kept us under a sight veil and Charmer worked in concert with her muffling the sound of our running hoofsteps.

“There! That staircase leads to the upper quarters, mostly empty since they're only for visiting dignitaries and showing off to schoolcolts and fillies.” Twilight pointed at an otherwise innocuous looking door extruding slightly from the hallway wall. I would've run right by it making me glad once again for Luna's forethought in placing Twilight in this operation, she really did know Canterlot Castle like the back of her hoof. Quietly snapping the door open Twilight went first, stepping into a tight spiral staircase that angled sharply upwards. “This one is mostly used by servants, it's not really fit for nobles and, well, you know nobility, the best help is neither seen nor heard.” She spoke in a low whisper, the smaller the sound the easier it was for Starlight to muffle it into obscurity, as we ascended to the upper levels.

“So, we're actually doing this,” I said softly, still not really getting my head around the plan. “Pinkie has a hot air balloon waiting for us?”

“Sort of, it's right around the other side of the mountain on a ledge, Rainbow Dash, Rarity and Applejack are helping her keep it in place.”

“That still doesn't excuse the fact that we're trying to escape in a hot air balloon.”

“It was the one thing we figured they'd never expect ok?” she hissed as we reached the end of the staircase and were faced by another doorway, this one was locked from the other side so Treasure scooted past to ply her trade. “While they're busy searching the lower levels and castle grounds we'll have a short window of freedom before they think to look up.”

“And what about the skyguard? Y'know, since they fly too,” I pointed out dryly as a small muffled click told me Treasure had successfully popped yet another lock.

Gentle Treasure answered for Twilight, “simple, we turn the balloon invisible.”

I sat back on my flanks so I could stick both forehooves into my ears and thoroughly clean them out. “I'm sorry,” I deadpanned, “I must have had a piece of bat-shit stuck in my ear, what was that you said?”

“It sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is, Jasper,” Twilight explained as we edged around another corner, it seemed that Twilight had been correct when she said that this area was more empty than most wings. “A hot air balloon like Pinkie's doesn't have much in the way of moving parts, it flies by exploiting a loop hole in the laws of thermodynamics. So with that in mind, it's really no more complex than turning us invisible right now, except it's a lot bigger and takes a lot more power, which I can easily provide.”

When she explained it like that it didn't seem so strange, I only got about half of what Twilight had actually said but I'd grasped the gist of it.

“What about the engine? Isn't there a heater to control the air temperature in the balloon?” I asked, at this point I assumed Twilight had thought of that since she'd clearly thought of everything else. I was actually starting to seriously think that this plan would actually work.

“Of course we had to remove it,” Twilight answered as she peeked down another hallway, “but Rarity can produce a pocket of hot air in the balloon with her magic, heating up air is pretty trivial. She won't be able to keep it up for long but we just need her to hold it long enough to drop near the train station, then we stow away on board.”

I had to admit, I actually felt a little bad thinking about Twilight and her friends as amateurs, sure they didn't have all the combat op experience I did but they weren't stupid, they knew how much of a risk they were taking. Twilight, and presumably Princess Luna, had addressed everything I could pick out as being an issue, sure it still had its risks but they were well within what I would have though of as acceptable parameters back in my captaincy with the 109th.

“This might actually happen,” I chuckled softly as Twilight pointed out yet another small staircase. Another servants passage which was locked as usual but it was barely even an obstacle to Treasure who made the lock sing for her in a matter of seconds.

“Of course it will, I wouldn't be doing this unless I knew it would work,” Twilight answered a little smugly, of course at this point I figured she had the right. “Now hush, we're almost there and I don't know if the skyguard left any of their number on the high towers.”

We slunk up the last stairwell as quietly as we could, Charmer's muffling spell combining to make us entirely silent. Once we were at the doorway leading out to the towers I held up a hoof, immediately provoking a reflexive 'stop' action for my two former squadmates, Twilight on the other hoof almost ran head-first into Treasure's rump. I made a few hoof signals to Charmer who nodded, our squad's old battle-cant for when speaking was too risky. In short I'd told her to cease her current spell to run a scan, fortunately Twilight was smart enough to keep quiet, clearly seeing that there was something happening that required absolute silence.

There was a dull hum of static as Charmer's muffling spell fell away, with the concentration on that spell no longer taken up it she closed her eyes and I felt a soft and familiar whisper of power form her as she extended her senses into a short range scan.

After a minute of silence and meditation she came back to us, another hum of static shivered through the air as her silence spell resumed.

“Any returns?” I asked quietly, she shook her head.

“We're clear, Captain.”

“Then move out,” I said evenly, moving aside to allow Treasure room to manipulate the lock on the door. I glanced back and caught Twilight looking at me with the strangest expression on her face, as soon as our eyes locked though she made a small 'eep' sound and looked away, her face coloring slightly.

“Something wrong Twi'?” I moved back beside her so my whispers wouldn't exceed Charmer's silence threshold.

“No it's just... I felt like I was saw you like you were during the war for a second there and, I don't know, I just suddenly felt like an outsider.” She looked a little uncomfortable, absent-mindedly scuffing the floor with her hoof as she spoke.

I tousled her mane softly, understanding her expression now, “look, Twi', us three?” I gestured to myself, Charmer, and Treasure who was swearing under her breath at the troublesome lock, “along with Dasher, Boulder, and Honey; we've walked into more life and death situations than I care to recall. They trust me with their lives and I trust them with mine because if we didn't we'd all have been dead years ago.”

“I know that, I mean intellectually I know that,” she scrunched her face in frustration, “but it just... feels like there's a part of you I'll never know.”

“Trust me half-pint, that's not really a bad thing,” I said dryly, remembering the last moments of that memory I'd spent the last month reliving in my nightmares.

A soft click and a small sound of triumph from Treasure told me she'd finally triumphed over her latest mechanical foe. “Ready to go ladies?” she snarked as she popped the door open.

“What about the gentlecolts?” I asked wryly as I approached the door.

She smirked, “well if I see any I'll be sure to address them.”

“Stop flirting with my marefriend and let's get you out of here, Captain,” Charmer said, her straight face doing nothing to conceal the humor in her voice. “We're almost home free.”

We stepped out onto the tower balcony and for a moment I just breathed the fresh air, savoring my first taste of freedom in over a month. It's strange, the little things that we take for granted, things like being able to breathe freely, or being able to move around and stretch our legs. Even in the loony bin I'd been given time to take walks once I'd become more or less lucid, albeit under supervision.

“How long til our ride is here?” I whispered to Twilight, she answered by pulling a small pocket-watch from her saddlebag and examining the little device.

“We've got a few minutes, if everything is on schedule they should already be on their way.”

“Excellent, since I have something of a bone to pick.”

A cold and hatefully familiar voice spoke from the shadows, I turned just in time to see Charmer and Treasure, their eyes terribly blank, fire stunning arcs of energy at Twilight and I from their horns, dropping us to the ground twitching as our muscles spasmed numbly.

Twist stepped out of the veil he'd been under, he'd been waiting here for us, he'd known all along where we'd end up.

“D-damn... you bastard...” I growled, forcing my mouth to work around my twitching jaw muscles. “W-when did you... to them...” I looked up at my squadmates who just stared dumbly ahead like automatons.

“Oh them? Since the war my dear boy, of course,” he answered, his tone infernally paternal as he approached where I lay prone on the ground.

“But... the interrogators...”

“I'm no amateur, my boy,” Twist said softly, “my work is near undetectable, the only reason you were discovered was because, simply put, even I can't implant a hundred and fifty years worth of proscribed magical theory and advanced spell mnemonics into a mind without leaving some marks.” He gestured back to Treasure and Charmer, “these two however, I simply implanted a number of very subtle conditioning spells into their minds and motor functions. They're nothing more than sleep-walking foals until I say otherwise.” Damn him he looked almost proud.

Actually, now that I looked at him, he seemed lesser than before, wan and pale. Well, paler than usual anyway. The last time I'd seen Silver Twist he'd been full-bodied and, while not really muscular, lean and healthy. Now he looked like he was afflicted with some kind of disease, his coat was slightly patchy, and there were bags beneath his eyes that he hadn't had before.

Luna had been right, the Elements really had taken something out of him.

Not that it mattered one single ounce, I was still reeling from the shock spell I'd been hit with, my body twitching and spasming helplessly to the point that I couldn't do more than shift my hoof an inch or two.

“Oh my boy, you should know how this pains me. You're like a son to me, a wayward son true but I know you will make me proud again,” Twist brushed an errant hair from my eyes. “Of course, this necessitates removing a number of... obstacles, such as this meddlesome Element,” Twist turned a positively wither glare to where I presumed Twilight laid equally out of sorts. “Good-bye, Miss Sparkle...”

My eyes widened, realizing what he was about to do.

“...give my regards to the rocks below.”

No no no no no no no no no.

Gentle Treasure moved out of my sight and I heard the muffled cry of Twilight's feeble protests as she was dragged slowly to the balcony's edge.

This can't happen, my mind screamed, I cannot let this happen. Not again, I won't lose another one, NOT ANOTHER ONE!

I reached for the well of power within me, my muscles wouldn't obey, my central nervous system was haywire with errant electrical discharges.

None of that matter to me. Not here and not now. I knew what to do, after all, after all I was practically an expert. I'd relived the experience enough times to remember exactly how it felt to seize control of atrophied bodies and skeletal forms, forcing animation and movement to them by force of will alone.

If I could do it to the dead, why not the living?

Time seemed to slow as my body burned with power, I touched that faintly luminescent core of sickly energy in my mind and look inwards. I saw it, flowing through every inch of my skin, muscle, and bone. The power of a star caged in living flesh.

The soul... no, MY soul.

Now move, I commanded, and I felt a small palpitation move through my body followed by searing pain, forget the pain and MOVE! And my soul moved giving my flesh absolutely no choice but to move with it, it was like I'd filled every inch of my body with fish-hooks and was dragging it along.

Too bucking bad, I seized the fishing line and heaved on it.

I very nearly blacked out from the howling wall of lightning and fire that passed through my flesh, I wondered if this was what I'd forced all of those hundreds of Ponies, Griffons, and Dogs to feel when I'd gripped their dead bodies and chained them to my control, forcing them to kill. If so then this pain was no less than I deserved.

A scream tore from my throat as gripped my soul in my own magical field, and pulled myself to my hooves like a self-manipulating marionette, “TWIST!” The psychotic doctor spun around at the sound and the look of absolute shock on his usually self-assured features was worth every pin and needle of agony piercing my body at that moment. “GET OFF MY MARE!” I dipped deep into the well of my soul and drew out a coiled lance of green light, unleashing it like stroke of noiseless thunder that nonetheless had a physical presence to it straight into Twist's chest.

A hole the size of my head bored through his chest and out of his shoulder nearly decapitating him, the force carried him through the balcony railing and several hooves beyond before he could order his little puppets to strike me down. Treasure and Charmer went slack simultaneously and dropped to the ground in boneless heaps. I dragged on the fishing line again and threw myself to the balcony edge just as Treasure's grip on Twilight went slack. My hooves curled around hers and, with a twitch of power and a barb of agony, I locked them in place. Her eyes were full of panic and fear, I could feel blood pouring from my nose, even my eyes were tinging red, it felt like my body was trying to tear itself apart.

It didn't matter, I only had to live long enough to save her. Just a few more seconds, I prayed, just a few... more... I dragged the line again, gasping a the fresh wave of torment, and pulled her up to the balcony.

There... she's safe... that's...

I could see Treasure and Charmer stirring, their movements natural and organic, they were free of Twist's insane control, at least for now. Good, they can keep them... keep her... safe...

I let the spell go and my body went slack as well, I could see a pool of blood slowly expanding out from my body over the balcony out of cracks in my skin. I couldn't move, but it didn't matter.

I saw Twilight starting to shift around shakily, as weak as a foal but alive and well, she was saying something, maybe shouting, but I couldn't hear it, my vision had gone gray and my hearing had deserted me completely. As blackness closed around me I wondered idly just where an abomination like me would go when I died.

Chapter 16

A gentle breeze swept across my skin, stirring me to wakefulness and banishing the dream of agony I'd been trapped inside of back into the void of forgetfulness. I was resting my head on something soft and a sweet, familiar scent filled my nose. The sun dappled warmly across my back and I could feel grass beneath me wherever it was I had apparently chosen to lay my head. I soft murr of sound from beneath my chin drew my attention, bringing me back to the waking world fully as I shifted to see what I'd fallen asleep on.

A bronze-colored mane fell loosely around the gentle snoring form of a familiar earth pony mare. Something about her shook the cobwebs in my brain loose; a viridian coat... a name drifted through my mind as her eyes fluttered open.

“Summer?” my mind was still foggy, but I remembered her, the scent of windswept leaves, the scent of her namesake season to me. I remembered the comfort of holding her in my hooves as we drifted off to sleep each night, a small bright star in a field of darkness and blood.

“Hey lovey, you're finally awake?” she smiled, then looked around with a confused expression before wiping a tiny stream of drool that had started to slip from her muzzle as she snored. Grimacing she remarked, “well that's attractive, I guess I fell asleep waiting for you to get up ya great red lump.” Summer nuzzled into my neck in a way that sent a pleasant shiver of excitement down my spine.

“Where... are we? And I feel like I've been... somewhere else for a long time,” the memories were still distant, I remembered shapes and sounds, noise and pain.

Summer silenced my protests with a soft kiss and I certainly didn't need to be told twice, I returned the affection gratefully, drinking in the taste of her breath for the first time in what felt like ages. We finally parted to breathe and I nuzzled my nose against hers, drawing and delighted giggle from the beautiful mare.

I pulled her back into the crook of my neck, settling back into a resting position comfortably as she laughed again, this time with long suffering tolerance. “Planning on going back to sleep again?” she asked wryly, I grunted something vaguely affirmative. “You lazy lump, I swear you wouldn't even get out of bed if it weren't for me.”

I grunted again, this time in protest as she slowly lifted herself up and I followed, grudgingly pulling myself to my hooves. I looked out over the verdant green valley we stood in, we were on a hill beneath a tall tree like an oak or maybe a maple. Summer rolled her shoulders, drawing a few pops as she stretched out and yawned like a great cat.

“I love this place, it's so beautiful,” Summer said as she moved in closer and leaned against me. It did seem terribly familiar to me as well, I couldn't put a hoof on it though. “It's too bad what happened to it, it would've been a nice place to bring our foals, if we'd had any I mean.”

As she spoke I saw the scene before me flicker for a moment, the blue skies turning a scorched gray, the plant life dead and ashen, and corpses were strewn about the valley and hillsides like autumn leaves. Then as fast as it came it was gone, the green hills and burbling creeks back where they belonged.

“W-what happened?” I turned back to Summer, “what was that?”

She frowned, nuzzling closer to me as the wind dropped a few degrees, “some bleed-over I think, I guess I can't remember what this place used to be like without you remembering what you turned it into. I'm a little glad I didn't see it that way, you know?”

Memories flashed and rattled in my head at her words.

A Griffon warrior stood, massive and commanding, wearing plated barding over his chest and legs. Wickedly serrated blades were attached to his wings, and he brandished a massive falchion before him.

His bass voice resounded with contempt,“so you're the pony who's kept my forces at bay for so long hm? The red general, my troops call you, did you know that?” he sneered as he approached.

Was our first taste of free air in a month supposed to be our last as well? The thought left a bitter taste in the back of my throat as dozens of Griffonari raiders surrounded us, after leaving the Mess Hall that we'd been holed up in for over thirty days at the news of support I'd decided split our forces into three groups. Obviously it wasn't safe to move hundreds of civies all in one big group so I'd had Dasher and Starlight take a two of our newly formed platoons along a third of the civilians towards one exit; Boulder, Treasure, and Honey had taken another third of the civies and a few more platoons, then Summer and I took the remainder and made our way down the last passage. The idea was that, since the griffon forces had been bled out fighting us and were now dealing with the new reinforcements, this would be our ideal time to escape and dividing our attempts would cause the Griffons to split even more. I didn't say the final part out loud though: that it also increased the chance of at least a few of us surviving the death-trap.

But of course I would be the one to run head long into the remaining elements of the Griffon command along with the inglorious Phaestus himself. I could practically smell the bloodlust on him and he stank of violence and hate.

So I spat at his feet. “Red General, huh? I like it. I guess all that's left is to shove your own wings up your arse and get out of here then.” A ragged cheer came up from trooper and civilian alike, Summer grinned cockily at my words. I had projected every ounce of feigned confidence into my voice that I could, fortunately I'd had plenty of practice over the course of the month.

“You're so hot right now,” Summer laughed and despite the dire circumstances I couldn't help but return the grin.

“What, does that mean I look like shit the rest of the time?” I inquired, raising an eyebrow in mock hurt.

Summer shrugged, “well I didn't want to say anything but-”

“ENOUGH!” Phaestus roared, furious at suddenly being ignored, “I'll spill your guts across the ground little General, advance!”

The griffons surged forward in a feathered tide punctuated by the snapping of long arcs thinning their ranks. The last thing I heard before battle was joined was the firearms clattering to the ground, abandoned as my men drew their blades for close combat, and Summer's own yell of defiance mixed with my own.

And then I was back, a fertile valley replacing visions of the blood-soaked walkway of concrete that lay along the edge of the Winding River, Summer stared up at me with sadness tinting her eyes.

“What... what happened?” I gasped, tasting bile in the back of my throat.

Summer sighed softly, nuzzling into my mane as I clung almost desperately to her. “Terrible things were done, Shale, some them worse than others, most of them by you... or to you.”

I pulled away from Summer at her words, staring first at her then across the fertile landscape.

“Summer, where are we?”

She sighed wearily before trotting over to the hill's edge to stare out over the valley, a sad smile adorning her face. “We're in Shining Valley, a beautiful piece of land nestled in the great hills that lay to the north of Baltimare a few dozen miles south of Manehatten. In the final year of the war the Griffons became more and more savage, finally gaining ground on merit of their sheer brutality. Led by the berserker Phaestus, the Griffons seized Shining Valley by cutting a river of blood across the skies in a mad rush nopony had expected.”

“I... I remember that, I was furious, I...” the memories started to filter in, slowly at first but soon in greater force.

“Yes, you were. You flew into a rage when you learned that he had in fact survived the wound you gave him outside the death-trap along the river's edge two and a half years ago.”

The battle was ferocious, the civilians huddled together weeping or shaking pitifully as my soldiers held the line against the attacking Griffon forces, I'd never been more proud of them. At the time however I could only recognize blind panic as I drew my mouth-blade and desperately parried strike after lightning-swift strike from the enormous Griffon warlord in front of me. Summer fought at my side, her own blade deftly parrying his razorwings, keeping them from cutting my legs out from under me and leaving me open to a killing blow. I would have died five times in the first thirty seconds of the fight if it weren't for her skill.

“Can you not fight alone little General?” Phaestus mocked as his right wingblade was parried for the sixth time by Summers curved sword. “I'm disappointed in you.”

I released a dazzling snap of red light and a telekinetic thrust into Phaestus' face as he spoke, and though he parried my spell with the ringing blue steel of his weapon I was following just behind the flash of light which opened a tiny avenue of attack, I slid my blade through... Only to have it deflected at the last moment by his wingblade.

Fortunately that had been the plan. For a month Summer and I had fought side by side, unwilling to leave each others presence during a fight lest one of us he brought down. Maybe not the most tactical idea and certainly not the actions of a true commander but, as I've repeatedly pointed out, I was nopony's commander by choice. Through testing in constant battle she and I had built up a natural and unspoken rapport, we moved in each others blind spots perfectly, covering and reinforcing every attack the other made and defending every blow that came sideways. I couldn't count how many times she had saved my life in the past thirty days but it was likely no fewer than I had saved hers.. Not being aware of any of that, it's understandable that Phaestus was caught completely off his guard when Summer, ducking low and suddenly hidden from our enemy's view by his own wing, sent two powerful hooves directly into the berserker General's right kneecaps, collapsing it inward with a shriek of pain.

If I'd thought he was fast before, then seeing the reason for which Phaestus received his colorful sobriquet taught me the grave error of my assumption.

The psychotic General's eyes glazed red as he roared out his pain, swinging his blade in wild and savage arcs. It was all I could do to deflect the blows and each strike cut a chip out of my weapon's blade even as he knocked me back a hoofstep with every attack. Within seconds he would breach the line where Summer and I held it, then the slaughter would begin. Soldiers and civilians alike would drown in a bloodbath and everything I fought for would be for nothing. There were no openings, his speed seemed to redouble with every blow. I couldn't even avoid them, cuts opened on my flesh despite my best efforts, non-lethal and shallow but they bled, and with each passing second I received more. If he didn't kill me in one sweep he'd still kill me by inches as my body slowly gave out from losing blood out a hundred random cuts. Every single one of his swings came faster than the last it seemed, I knew that neither Summer nor I could even hope to make an attack without being left gutted on the floor by the battle-maddened warrior.

Summer knew it too, and she was always the stronger one.

Phaestus' blade crashed down on my own for what felt like the thousandth time, my mouth was numb and bleed, and several of my teeth were cracked. In that moment I registered a viridian blur to my left. With the practice born from days of tandem combat I moved with her, trailing just in her shadow as she drew a red line of pain along Phaestus' sword arm. He lashed out opening just enough of a hole in his wild swing to allow me to bury my blade in his throat and send him staggering backwards into his own slack-jawed troops with an arterial spray from what I knew would be a lethal wound. My whole front was drenched from head to hoof in blood, some of it my own while some of it was his.

The rest was...

“No, please,” my mind ached, I could see the images dancing hatefully on the edge of my mind, “don't make make see it again, I don't... I don't want...”

“You have to, Jasper,” Summer's voice was cold and solemn, her eyes unwavering.

My own voice came out soaked in tears and weaker than I'd ever heard it, “please...” I begged, “don't make me watch you die again.”

Phaestus was dragged back choking on his own blood by his soldiers who, shocked at seeing their normally invincible leader brought low, seemed to have lost their spine completely. In the distance I began hearing the distinctive cracks of long-arc fire and in moments we were joined by more and more soldiers, my soldiers, Strong Boulder and Honey Withers were leading them with Gentle Treasure not far behind. They must have seen me as they advanced because a minute later they had moved to my side.

I had eyes for none of it though, all I could see was the mare I loved gasping her last breaths out on the cold concrete by the river, a ragged tear opening her torso up from neck to navel. She twitched and spasmed as her blood spilled out in a flood while our remaining medic and his gray-coated civilian nurse with the incongruous bow-tie desperately tried to close the wound, applying our last couple of healing potions and salves, they and I both knew it was a fight that was destined to be lost.

“No... Goddesses, please,” I walked dumbly toward her, numb at the sight. “It's not fair,” tears began to fall hot and fast as I knelt in the expanding pool of her life as it ebbed quickly away, “we were out, we... we'd finally...” the words wouldn't come, all I could see was the future we'd never have. The future that had been stolen by a hate-fueled Griffon berserker. I thought I could hear Honey crying out desperately, screaming for her sister, begging her not to die.

“It's...” Summer hacked between breaths, I marveled at her strength, “It's... ok... ya dumb buck...” every word cost her something vital, but I didn't try and silence her, these last few moments belonged to her. “We all... would... have died... you... saved us...”

I shook my head, “I'm just a stupid grunt, Summer, I...”

“Shut... up... i-i-idgit...” she gasped around a crimson-flecked chuckle. She was slipping away by the moment, even with the medics doing everything they could. He was crying too, both of them were, I realized that, as I'd dropped to Summer's side, we'd been surrounded by civilians and soldiers alike, all of them paying their last silent respects or just crying softly while they watched one of their heroes die.

The nurse deftly wrapped magical mending bandages around Summer's torso, fighting tooth and hoof to stave off the pale pony for a few more precious seconds. Despite being an earth pony she moved her hooves with a sureness and agility that defied her lack of magical arts.

“You... we all owe you... our lives... Captain. Thank you...” I leaned down to nuzzle gently under her chin before kissing her firmly on the lips. It tasted like blood.

“I love you, Summer Withers,” I whispered in her ear.

There was no response. Summer's eyes flickered, turning flat and dull as her final breath escaped her throat. My Summer was dead and gone and I felt a part of me go with her, all it left in its wake was a numb sensation of loss coupled with a blinding hatred for the bastard who had taken her life.

Tears were falling from my eyes onto the ashen waste of the hill I stood on, Summer stood by my side, leaning against me. “It wasn't fair, Summer,” I said softly, nuzzling against her mane, desperately drinking in her scent like it was air to a drowning pony. “I loved you so much and... then you were gone.”

“That's what happens in life, ponies die, it happens all the time,” she responded, her voice low and a little uneven.

“It doesn't have to,” I hissed, “I can make it stop, I can...” her eyes had turned hard and angry, I balked at what I'd almost said.

“No. You. Can't.” Summer's voice was like granite, “you can't and you shouldn't, nopony should ever have that kind of power. So don't you dare go making my death meaningless by dragging my soul back with you, do you hear me, Captain?”

Sun-damn it all to the moon. I nodded, and like a cloud passing out from in front of the sun her smile returned. “I'm sorry, but you had to see it, to hear it, to know that it was something that had to happen.”

“What am I supposed to do without you though?” my voice was gray, I felt empty and hollow, it was too much.

Summer shrugged, “you live. That's an order, Captain. None of that half-life horseshit you've been moping around in either; find another mare, settle down, have a dozen foals, grow old and break a hip. That lavender sweetheart seems awful smitten.”

“You're a cruel mare, Summer Withers, you know that?” I was exhausted but somehow I managed a tired smile. “Not yet though, I have work to do and an insane silver doctor to put in the ground for good before I do any 'living'.”

“For the right reasons though, Jasper,” she prodded my chest with a hoof, “do it for the right reasons, don't become another vengeful ghost from that awful war. Do it for the right reasons.” I nodded, “Now, you've got to go back, we've held up this limbo long enough.”

“You never did tell me where we are,” I pointed out, but I could feel the realm around me starting to fade out, physical sensations began to bleed back into my body; pain, exhaustion, and weakness being foremost.

Infuriatingly, Summer just shrugged again before speaking from what sounded like an expanding distance, “call it an apology by way of a favor from a certain somepony, I'm sure she'd like to explain it herself eventually.” I laughed at that, though it was a half-choked sound, “Oh and Jasper?” I turned my head up at her fading voice, her physical form was already beyond my sight but her words echoed across the gulf all the same.

“I love you too.”

Then the world turned white and everything fell away into the void once more.

Chapter 17

There are times that I fantasize, briefly mind you, that one day I'll be cut some kind of a break, that I'll wake up after a full night's rest rather than once every hour or so, sweat-soaked and panting from my latest night terror. That there will come a time when pain isn't the bog standard by which I judge how well my week has been and that I might even come to associate my life with something other than trauma and madness.

This was not that day.

I have a lot of bad memories centered around waking up in unfamiliar places, it bothers me a great deal more than most. Now here I am, once again, waking up in a place I've never seen before though on the plus side I had to admit it's far nicer than some places I've fallen asleep. The room was, in a word, plush. The large banister bed in which I awoke had the smell of laundered sheets, bright sunlight streamed in through the window, a tray of food was left on the full stocked writing desk to my immediate left and to my right was a pitcher of water with a number of crystal drinking glasses. I could only see out of my right eye though I noted that this was due to most of my body being swathed in bandages and though my body ached badly I at least felt relatively well rested.

All in all I probably should have felt that my panic was entirely unwarranted after a minute of observing my surroundings. And yet... something, or rather a great number of things, felt somehow off. Looking at the room had the surreal feeling of looking a caricature of somepony you know particularly well, you recognize it but at the same time there is so much wrong that it becomes disturbing. I learned years ago to trust me sense of paranoia to tell me when something is wrong and it was running haywire every time I shifted my gaze over my new bedchambers.

Ok, Jasper, I detached myself from my panic and sought to take in my surroundings the same as any battlefield, find what's out of place, it's here, you can almost...

There was a stink wafting from the desk, the food was spoiled, it had to have been sitting out for at least a day. My bandages itched badly telling me they hadn't been changed in at least as long though probably longer. The sheets of the bed were soaked with more sweat than a single night and they smelled musty, like the bedclothes in an overloaded hospital where little things like changing sheets had to give way to more important actions. A light coat of dust had settled over everything as well, if I had to ballpark it I'd say nopony but I had been in these chambers in, at the very least, a day and a half, though I was willing to give it at least two.

That begged the obvious question: “Where the buck is everypony?” my words echoed around the still air of the room. It sent shivers up my spine, not because it was in itself eerie, but because the tonal distortions gave the distinctly unpleasant impression of place that had no life at all. Not in the way of a mausoleum, where only the dead are kept, because even there the process of decay furthers the natural cycle of life and death. This was different, it felt sterile... empty.

My body groaned, cracked, and popped as I moved for the first time in, if my estimate was correct, almost forty-eight hours. I dropped to the floor with an unceremonious thud as my legs refused to take my weight, I did my best to rise by using the bedside as a crutch. A small tinkling chime caught my attention as I finally made it to an upright position, I looked around blearily for the source which fortunately was nearby.

A tiny crystalline sphere sat behind the pitcher of water.

I grabbed it in a telekinetic sheathe and lifted it closer so I could examine it, I'd never seen anything like it before but if I was where I thought I was, in the Crystal Empire, then it's conceivable that they might have magical methods completely different from Equestria's.

It chimed again, I assumed it was set to do so at certain intervals to alert whomever owned it in some way but... I focused on the matrix with my magic, feeling the tiny lines of magical energy racing through the crystal veins. There was something else there though, something just below the surf-

Static buzzed and hissed from the tiny sphere and suddenly I was looking at a grayscale image of Twilight Sparkle shuffling uneasily from hoof to hoof as I realized with no little surprise that she was in this very room. A recording device then, I decided; I could hear the sounds of pitched battle coming from the window, shouts and yells that were as familiar to me as my own voice, and somepony was speaking to Twilight from outside the visual range of the crystal. The sound was distorted and filled with static as well making it difficult to catch some of the words that were being said.

“I know ...*static*... lejack, just give me a minute.”

“We ain't go ...*static*... ute sugarcube, say what ya gotta say and let's git!”

“O-ok, here we go. Jasper, if you're w ...*static*... this it means we lost. First thing's first, Silver Twist is here and he has an army, oh go...*static*...es, there's so many of them, the Crystal Empire's mili ...*static*... n't up to full strength yet and it looks... bad. I'm so sorry Jasper, I ...*static*... for sure we'd be safe here, nopony could have ...*static*... the kind of resources Twist had access to. It's like half of the Griffon War just ...*static*... up out of the ground and marched to our doorstep! I... I'm scared, Jasper, but if you're seeing this then we still have hope. After I finish this recording I'm going to sequester ...*static*... room and everything in it sideways into ...*static*... pocket dimension, I figured out how Sombra did it and I... I think it'll work. There ...*static*... some... kinks I guess, but they shouldn't be a problem since you're... that is... I'm so sorry, Jasper. You'll have to find you're own ...*static*... out of the dimension, but there ...*static*... always an exit. Twist might be able to find the doorway ...*static*... the pocket dimension but he won't be ...*static*... to get in. But... he ...*static*... send something else in instead, be careful, I've warded the door to your room so... even if he does you should ...*static*... safe in there. I can't really explain how it works or how to get ...*static*... of the spell easily, it's all advanced metamagical theory ...*static*... tesseract physics, sorry. Zecora is here, we met up with her on the train, she treated your wounds but... oh goddesses, ...*static*... didn't want to believe it. What ...*static*... Twist did to you was... was...”

“Outta time sugarcube! Let's ...*static*... here!”

“Ok, Ok! Look, one last thing; it's Twist, there's something wrong with him, it's ...*static*... he's falling apart or something. I can only imagine the ...*static*... he must have done to himself. There might be a chance to end him once and for all. The girls and I ...*static*... safe, there's a royal, uhm, panic room I guess. Cadence is ...*static*... us there now. I hope it holds... I think it will since ...*static*... will be looking for you, not us. Sun watch over you Jasper, I... I l-”

“NOW TWI'!”

The message cut out after that and I set the now-dark crystal back where I'd found it on the dresser. I should have been feeling panic but instead... instead all I felt was mix of anger and elation.

Finally. Finally we were at this point, finally we could finish it. I'd forced that hateful bastards hooves too many times and now he was at his wit's end. It was an all or nothing push with every ounce of strength and his disposal. It was almost a relief to know that the guile and backstabbing was done, all Silver Twist could do now was wait for me to come to him.

Now it was my turn.

I poured myself several glasses of water, I hadn't realized how thirsty I was but every swallow served to remind me of my time spent sleeping. After the pitcher was empty and searched the room thoroughly, rifling through the wardrobe and desk drawers yielded my various personal effects including my greatcoat (freshly laundered) as well as my scythe and my long-arc. I had no doubt that, assuming what Twilight said was true concerning the good Doctor, I would have some nasty customers waiting for me outside of Twilight's little warding spell.

“I can't have them waiting all day for me though can I?” I muttered cheerfully as I worked, I'm not sure what it said about my state of mental well-being that the thought of discovering whatever horror Twist had sic'd on me and putting it down served only to put a smile on my face. Speaking of which...

I sought out a mirror, or at least a section of crystal reflective enough to serve as one to find the knot so I could begin unraveling the infuriatingly itchy bandages. Every section removed revealed a new part of my thin network of scars, it was as though I was a doll that had burst every single seam only to be sewn back together. Finally I reached my face, it wasn't exactly my favorite part of my body, I'd always thought I looked a little homely to be honest, but I grimaced with each fresh scar that was shown, then I pulled the largest mass from over my left eye. I dropped the bundle in shock as I peeled it away, I was staring, still with only my one good eye, as a tangled mass of scars radiating out of a brutalized eye socket.

The damage was so horrendous I doubted I could be effectively healed even with the direct intervention of one of the Princesses. This wasn't just a single wound, it was dozens of smaller one localized over one small portion of flesh, obliterating my eye in the process. It didn't matter though, more accurately I couldn't allow it matter at the moment, there a too much at stake for me to spend time losing my mind over my missing eye. Instead I just grabbed some of the cleanest looking bandages and wrapped it back up and went back to clearing out the room of anything useful.

Along with my weaponry I had a few extra energy crystals for the long-arc, not enough for a pitched battle by any means but I was only one pony so that kind of fight wasn't really in the cards anyway. I slid a crystal into the chamber with a 'snap' and was rewarded by the low hum of the weapon readying the charge. I holstered it into the back-strap and loosened my scythe in its clasp inside my coat. I was ready, or ready as I was going to be as I lifted a hoof to the door and pushed, feeling the complex ward give way with ease, it having been made to keep things out rather than in.

I'm not sure what I expected beyond the doorway, more ghostly emptiness? Scattered blood and viscera from the inhabitants? More spectral nightmares coming to drag me away? What I did not expected was the familiar blue flash of a Griffonari talwar cutting the air, years of honed reflexes were the only thing that pulled my head back enough that the attack was allowed to leave only a shallow cut on my chest. Had I been a split-second slower my head would have rolled.

A seasoned Griffon elite stood before me, scarred and grim with the talwar held level in my direction. My scythe was out and ready in with a snap of metal, the act was so innate that even I hadn't noticed I'd drawn it until a moment after I'd done so. This Griffon warrior was skilled, there was not a single extraneous movement in his form, he was waiting, watching, and... somehow he seemed almost familiar. That was impossible of course as any Griffon I'd be able to identify on sight would never have left my presence alive. That fact didn't stay the nagging sensation that I'd met this soldier before.

“Do you remember me then?” he growled, his voice was thick and burred with a heavy accent. I narrowed my eyes at him, he still hadn't made a move, he was waiting for my answer.

So I looked back, searching my once-sealed memories for his face. It was difficult, even without the seal the memories were haze of violence and blood. His voice tickled the edges of recollection though, as did the scarring on his face, along with the wide and badly-healed gash on his chest. I made a note not to admire the toughness of a fellow who could bounce back from a wound like that. But the face... his face, it was...

“Loctes,” I muttered, even knowing that it was impossible. But I remembered Twilight's words from the sphere, something about half of the Griffon Wars being up and about. I cursed Twist again for his depraved magics. The name drew a satisfied nod from the Griffon warrior though. Loctes had been the chief adjutant to General Phaestus during the Battle of Shining Valley and I'd had to face him in combat before reaching Phaestus himself. I recalled how vicious of a warrior he'd been. More importantly, I also recalled spilling his insides all over the battlefield with a single, eviscerating slash. “So he brought you back too?”

“Clearly,” the Griffon sneered, “now that you recall, I'll give you the death you gave me three years ago, Red General.”

Loctes' blade became a blur of feints and slashes, cutting nicks and tears into the cloth of my greatcoat with every swing. I knew his style though; it was fast but predictable if one was quick enough to react, almost textbook in its perfection with no room for improvisation. He was truly disciple of the sword arts. A upward cut slid off of the blunt side of my scythe and I turned with the momentum of his attack to roll away from the wall he'd pushed me against. I sent a bolt of red energy at him, harmless in truth but he dodged anyway. I curled away from his counter-strike and slashed at his exposed side. I felt the tip penetrate his flesh but it stopped cold as he caught the crook where the blade met the haft with his own weapon. A single swing pulled it out, a small trickle of blood leaking from where my attack struck, barely a flesh wound but it was the first blood of the battle and the anger from the proud warrior was palpable. Loctes attacked with renewed fury, but with that fury came sloppiness as his anger got the better of him.

Exactly like last time.

The scarred Griffon barked a harsh laugh as my flank bumped against the hallway wall and Loctes surged at me in a wild overhead cleave. I knew he would too, it was the same fight as in Shining Valley. The wound drew first blood and the same overconfident strike would spell his downfall. The only difference is that instead of kicked off against one of my own soldiers that I'd backed into and opening his belly up as I passed beneath him, it was the wall. The sound of guts spilling over the carpet and the sickly stink of formaldehyde mixed with exotic spices filled the air.

“D-damn...” he choked as he propped himself up against the wall, the greenish energy slowly leaking form his body. “Am I... really just a ghost? Just... repeating myself?”

“Maybe,” I flicked the blood from the blade and sheathed it. “I think we both are, a little.”

He laughed bitterly past a wash of rotten of blood, “I'm not the one he sent, you know, there's another who's waiting for you.”

I scowled, here I'd been hoping I could search in peace.”Who?”

Loctes laughed again, provoking another, weaker, flood of the poisonous-looking slurry. “Who do you think, little General?” He turned to look over his shoulder at me, his golden beak stained black with toxic blood. My face had gone pale at his words though, which I suspect was exactly what he'd wanted to see because he slumped over with a decrepit laugh. “He waits... in the false... throne room... little General.” I could hear the unwholesome animating force fleeing his body. Loctes was strong, much stronger than Summer had been when I'd ended her on the floor of my cottage. “Do not... keep... him... w...a...i...t...-” a noxious breath wheezed out of his throat as he finally passed for what I prayed was the last time.

I knew the way instinctively, I could feel him, a soul rife with hate and violence echoing down the halls like a siren's song. I walked unmolested down the empty and lifeless halls, the dull hum of power in the air resonated with the crystals creating an almost soporific effect as I tread the unfamiliar ways. Thoughts of battles past and dead enemies haunted my mind, more so than usual.

“Damn you Twist, will I be fighting this sun-forsaken war forever?” I muttered under my breath, more tired than angry. “Will I ever know peace?”

“Hey Captain, do you think we'll ever know peace?” Lightning Dasher asked idly as we stood overlooking the beautiful green valley below, marred as it was by the enemy's cook-fires and blackened sections of forest.

“Peace?” I responded in a low voice, “not so long as that bastard still breathes we won't.”

The news had come at a bad time, most of the army's forces were deployed over the network of islands when it had arrived. A warband of Griffon elites were cutting a bloody, kamikaze swathe through the skies lead by a seemingly unkillable warrior. Two regiments of Pegasi Skyguard had been utterly wiped out in the resulting blitz over a stretch of the eastern shoreline between Manehatten and Fillydelphia called Hills End Beach. The Griffon forces had taken refuge in one of the great valleys in the mainland just west of the beach, hence the name. Over three hundred soldiers on the enemy side had fallen according to the AAR, but over twice that in pegasi had fallen alongside them. Nopony had been ready for the sheer violence of the Griffon's charge, it was suicidal and had caught our mainland defense force completely off guard.

The 109th had been pulled off the line for the time being and were under review for 'overly violent methods of warfare' when the call to arms came. There were no other forces that could be called upon to face the threat without leaving primary targets like Manehatten crucially weakened. Of course it became a non-issue when the description of the leader was circulated: A massive, scarred griffon warlord clad in heavy scored plate barding, serrated blades on his wings, and a huge falchion. He also had what appeared to be a brutal scar on his throat, as if somepony had nearly cut it out.

Dasher sighed and looked out over the valley with me, his eyes far sharper than my own as was common with Pegasi. “We're outnumbered, ya know that right Captain?” his voice wasn't worried or admonishing, just a statement. We'd been in too many scrapes for him to question my judgment in tactical matters.

“I know, I'm going to even the playing field a little, don't worry.” Dasher scowled at that, he knew what I meant and he didn't like it. My magic gave him the 'heebie jeebies' as he put it, but it didn't matter, despite the devastating losses they'd suffered over the Hills End Beach. “Besides, outnumbered or not, this is our fight, you know that, if it's him then it's up to us. For Summer.” Lightning flinched but immediately his features steeled.

“Aye sir, that it is, for Summer,” all trace of doubt was gone, I'd done my job so I turned away from him and looked back down, levitating a pair of binoculars up to get a better view. There were just around two hundred and fifty Griffon's down there, the problem was that they were all Griffonari Janissaries: fanatical warriors, each and every one of them was a battle-hardened veteran worth two or even three of our own soldiers. They worshipped war like it was a god and the battlemaster was their prophet.

“I you are here...” I hissed venomously as I glared at the largest nest of campfires, “...then I will end you once and for all, I swear it.”

The day came to end and I hadn't moved. The rest of the 109th had, however, they surrounded me at the hilltop looking down over the campsites that had gone dark. It meant nothing to us, the terrain itself meant nothing since it was all about to change.

“You're sure this will work Doctor?” I asked quietly, the mares and stallions under my command were doing last minute prep as I consulted with Silver Twist. “This is... further than we've ever gone.”

“You can do it my boy, you're the best, no doubt,” he answered in that same faintly aristocratic tone, warmed just slightly with a paternal kind of pride. “You just have to do as I said, and you'll have your revenge.” His voice echoed strangely in my mind, but he was right, I was sure of it. I just had to do as he'd instructed, us the charm he'd given me and the spell inside of it, and everything would turn in our favor.

“Alright, get back then, and let Treasure and Charmer know that I'm ready to start,” Twist nodded curtly and turned to follow my orders. Moments later I was joined by the two unicorn mares I trusted most, their eyes had a curious flatness to them.

“We're ready to begin,” was all they said, I put it down to pre-spell jitters, they'd never used one of the Doctor's (Master's) charms before.

“Ok,” I pulled out the hoof-sized sphere of jet that the Doctor had given me, it seemed darker than even it should be, as if the light around it were extinguished simply by its presence. “Follow my lead.”

I floated the gem out between us as Starlight Charmer, Gentle Treasure, and I all surrounded it, standing equidistant from each other so as not to disrupt the flow of energy between us. As one we touch our horns to the gem and began.

Pain flared and I heard them both cry out, neither of them broke the ritual though, that would have been disastrous. Two unicorns enacting a spell was common in combat situations, one to provide the framework for the spell, the other to provide the power. Three was far less common and only necessary for the most complicated of battlefield spells. The spell itself was shaped by me, I was the only one with the necessary experience and attunement to perfectly wield the magic, Treasure controlled the spatial flux of the spell, ensuring that it had the proper width and volume, and Starlight aligned the spell so that not only did it hit the right amount of area, but the right location.

In this case, the target was the entire valley.

Doctor Twist theorized a curious phenomenon in nature that he called the 'Genius Loci', or the Spirit of the Land. The idea that swathes of land had a sort of spirit all its own that ensured harmony between the flora and fauna, and allowed the magic of the world to flow freely. In a sense, it was the soul of the land itself. Numerous time Doctor Twist had proven that some controlling force existed in nature but nopony had ever taken it seriously, his detractors laughed the idea off as mere fancy while even his proponents saw little point in the fact even if it were true.

Of course, they had never thought to try and enslave the soul of a valley to the will of a single pony before.

I felt the unholy reaches of the spell spill out into the land, usually it was like trying to control a river, this was like trying to reign in the tide. Yet I did it, I let the power ebb and flow, eroding the bonds that the valley's genius loci had with its precious valley. I could hear the earth scream in protest as I poured the soul's equivalent of acid over a part of it. A fierce pride flared in my breast, not even the land itself could escape my grasp as I sent hook after chain after barb into the pseudo-flesh the spiritual presence. The valley shook and trembled, avalanches tearing themselves from the mountainsides as they're governing power was ripped and torn from where it rested. The earth began to seize horrendously, some trees withered and died in an instant while others tore up their roots and collapsed as if uprooted by some giant and invisible grip.

Suddenly I could feel them, all the life in the valley; all the scurrying rodents and frightened beasts, the Griffons too, their alien claws that didn't belong in on the dirt of this valley. I could feel their fear, so I reached out through the animating force I'd chained to my magic and willed the earth become swamp. The Griffons' campsites sank along with weapons and armor, even the odd unlucky soldier who wasn't quick enough. They took to the air but it mattered little, the winds were mind as well. I stirred up a powerful wind from the mountains and the spirit screamed in agony as I ripped it downwards, catching the Griffons utterly off guard as the sky itself turned against them. The were carried wildly through the air, some slamming fatally into trees or outcropping rocks, others driven into the ground with the force of a hammer. I felt their bones crack and their death rattles choke from their dying throats as they were battered and slain by the hoof of an angry god.

The land screamed again and again as I slew them in their dozens, those that tried to escape found themselves hurled about unforgivingly by rogue cyclones and hurricane force winds. Some sought shelter in caves only to discover unnaturally enraged beasts and sudden terrible avalanches. Some even tried to set about burning the forests themselves by fanning their campfires out of control only for the trees to uproot themselves and sweep their camps and soldiers with fiery death of their own making. And through it all the land continued to scream.

Finally the screaming became a weak wail, then a moan, and then finally silence as I felt the land itself die, the entity finally expiring in my mystical grip. With it's governing entity brutalized and slain the land simply died beneath under my hooves; in an instant the trees became husks, the rivers began to stagnate, and even the stone turned brittle and lifeless. My trance ended and I looked around only to find Treasure and Charmer unconscious at my hooves, bleeding from their eyes and muzzles.

I casually stepped over their prone forms and regarded my blank-eyed brigade of warriors, Silver Twist was grinning manically at its head.

“I'm so proud of you my boy.”

I matched his smile as I turned and gave the order.

“Slaughter them.”

I shuddered at the memory, what had I been that I had been capable of that. More to the point what kind of unicorn was capable of that kind of power, that kind of magic? Silver Twist was a genius without a doubt, but... I had no words to describe what kind of being it would take to envision such a spell. The death of the land itself. I couldn't think of a more horrifying alternative to Harmony.

Before I knew it I stood before the vast crystalline double doors that could only lead to the throne room. They were curiously similar to the Canterlot throne room and I wonders vaguely whether the these ones imitated those, or vice versa. Regardless I allowed my moribund memories to fall to the wayside and with a grunt of effort, heaved the heavy doors open.

And there he was, just as I remembered him. Although now he was clean, rather than flecked with mud, filth, and blood from his fallen warriors. He stood grasping the hilt of his blue steel falchion, its wicked driven a half-inch into the crystal floor, the brutal scar on his throat pulsed with each breath as he waited patiently for me to close the distance.

“Jasper, you received my message then?” his voice was a raspy, bass rumble, the accent cleaner and more clipped than Loctes'. “I'm glad.”

“Glad? By the sun and stars Phaestus, how many times do I have to kill you?” I spat and to my surprise he was struck by a look of... sorrow?

“Far too many, old friend.”

“Friend? FRIEND?! You killed my friends! How dare you call me that,” the hate was palpable now but it was all coming from me. Phaestus, on the other hoof, just smiled wanly.

“Who knows me better than you, little General? Who do I consider my equal? It is a sorry day, I suppose, when the closest friend you can count is your worst enemy though, I suppose.”

“What do you want with me? Didn't you come to fight me again?” Now I'll admit, I was curious, this wasn't the Berserker I knew, this was a shadow of that fierce warrior. “What... happened to you?”

Phaestus sighed deeply, casting his eyes up to stare into the sky through the clear crystal dome through which clear sunlight filtered through. In a voice that sounded stretched thin, and decades older than his years, Phaestus replied, “I am tired, Jasper, I am... so very tired.”

“Then quit,” I deadpanned, “stop fighting, it's not like you...” a thought struck me, a memory of servitude, “...you can't... can you?”

“Can you?” I stopped cold, ready to refute him, but the retort died in my throat. What had I done since I'd arrived? Fought? Killed? I'd been free for less than a week before dragging the war to Ponyville. It's true that I could blame Celestia for her plans, or Twist for his psychotic experiments. In the end however, I chose to fight.

“So, now what?” the fires in my heart were becoming embers, the truth was I was just as tired as he seemed to be. Neither of us wanted to fight any longer, I never imagined it but I could see, in his eyes, the desire for it all to simply end. “Do we just... dance the same routine? Is that all we are? Just ghosts repeating our last actions until we fade away?”

“Not if I can help it,” there was a tiny clink of shattered gems as Phaestus pulled his blade out of the floor, I tensed for the coming storm. “I have a favor to ask of you Jasper. Or rather, a favor to ask of the Red General.” I crooked an eyebrow as I shifted my withers, loosening the coiled scythe in its sheathe. “Kill me, this one last time, and leave me here.”

I stared hard at the aged warlord for a moment before asking, “why?”

“Because I am sick and tired of war,” that statement more than any other struck me as impossible for a soldier who once bore the sobriquet of Berserker, he continued though, speaking in that same wan and raspy voice. “I once believed that war was the ultimate expression of power and life, that it was a glorious thing to be raised up on a pedestal and aspired to, but no longer. After six years of unending, sleepless, undying bloodshed... I have found that I all truly want is some peace. I know, little General, that I do not deserve it, that I am an unforgivable monster. I asked your traitorous Doctor Twist for this unholy life so I could continue to fight, but I was so very wrong, and I have suffered for it since then, unable to rest, my soul in agony every waking moment. Please, I beg of you, end me.”

His words were spoken with the broken sincerity of one who has reached the end of his line, I could hear the jaded desperation in his voice and, cruelly, a part of me wanted to ask: why should I? Why should I give you rest after what you've done?

For the right reasons, Jasper. Do it for the right reasons.

“Fine.”

Phaestus blinked in surprise, I think he honestly expected me to spit on his request out of spite, and to be fair I had been sorely tempted to, but there were others who thought better than me and they deserved better. The Griffon battlemaster bowed his head in a strangely humble gesture that seemed at odds with his posture, “T-thank you, and I am sorry but I cannot make this simple, Twist controls my actions, once we begin I will try to destroy you with everything that I am.”

I smirked, “well it wasn't enough the last two times, so that shouldn't be an issue.”

Phaestus gave a choking but genuine laugh, “I suppose that is true... and... Jasper?” His tone gave me pause as I gripped the mouth-grip of my scythe and drew it out, snapping the blade into place, I met his eyes with a questioning look. “I have had sleepless years of pain to reflect on the war and... I need you to know something...” he took a deep breath as he leveled his blade towards me in that familiar stance, “I am sorry, for the girl, I truly am.”

Whatever it was I expected him to say it wasn't that, I nearly dropped my blade and only years of combat experience kept my grip strong. What could I say to that? How should I respond to something so completely unlooked-for? I wanted to hate him, in that moment, more than ever, I wanted my old, simple hatred back. It was gone though, all I could do instead was wonder just how many of his friends I had coldly slaughtered, whether on the stained concrete outside of the Winding River Bunker, or in the brutal hellscape I'd made of Shining Valley.

So I shrugged and met his feral yellow eyes, I could not and would not ever forgive the bastard for taking Summer away from me, but the message I sent was as clear as day.

'It was war.'

Then the world blurred as he moved like lightning with a brutal cleaving sideswipe, seeking to part me from my lower jaw. I made as if to parry, swinging my scythe to meet his blade only to vanish in a flash of rusty red light and reappear to his immediate left, continuing the momentum of my 'parry' into a severing attack on his left leg. There was a spark and the ring of metal as his wingblade caught my ruse. Following the flow of his swing Phaestus whipped around, sweeping his falchion like a golf club in a swing that would have bisected me. I caught him by surprise by hooking the curve of my scythe around the offending wingblade that had spoiled my surprise attack and pulling myself forward in a reckless charge, spearing my horn through his wing and drawing a roar of pain and frustration form my opponent. With a flick of his massive feathered wing Phaestus sent me flying and as suddenly as I was in the air, he was too, screeching a cry of war as thrust his curved blade at me. Desperately I tried to twist in the air with a telekinetic push to the right, knowing I didn't have the time to concentrate on a midair teleport and managed to avoid the brunt of his attack, but I hissed in pain as he opened up a bleeding scar on my left side. I landed hard along Phaestus who dropped to the ground as well, we both were breathing raggedly, me from my foot-and-a-half shallow slice and him from his punctured wing which had clearly been overtaxed by his wild assault as it twitched and shuddered with pain.

“You've improved... little General...” he rasped as he fell back into his stance, albeit a little more shakily than before. I didn't give him the opportunity to regain his footing and collapsed a section of crystal floor beneath his feet, throwing his balance off further, wildly he attempted to raise a defense but I wasn't charging him. Instead I'd rolled the bit of my scythe in my mouth so that was reversed and out of my way as I pulled up my charged and loaded long-arc from my back, the familiar snapping crackle of the firearm discharged, blowing a hole through his left wing. I cursed my newly annihilated depth perception effusively as I tossed the weapon aside, Phaestus already recovering his peerless balance and lowering his center for a wild charge.

I should dodge, move out of his way. That's what my brain told me, my mind was screaming to evade the almost-certain death that remaining in place would bring.

But my instinct said stay.

Take aim.

Level the weapon.

Phaestus flourished his blade before him as he stepped into his rushing assault, obscuring his body with spinning blue steel and spoiling any possible aim at his vitals. That didn't matter though, because I wasn't aiming at him.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Fire.

There was a snapping crack of energy and the blast shot true this time, colliding with the hilt of his blade mid-flourish, blowing off claw-like fingers and sending the finely artificed blade clattering away. Phaestus suddenly found his momentum changed, his charge broken as he staggered through the pain and surprise. I was already upon him though, he had yet to arrest the force of his movement and I used it as I rushed forward to spear the barrel of the long-arc through his belly and up into his ribcage with a wrenching crack of bone and flesh, I felt the stock fracture under the immense weight of the Griffon warrior. Rotten blood spilled from Phaestus' beak in a stream that was cut off by a single brutal swing from my scythe as I buried it deep in his old wound, the blow nearly severing his head as I felt the tip scrape and slice into vertebrae.

Green light spilled out from the wound and my old enemy seemed to visibly deflate, the fight going out of his body as the animating force of his soul escaped through the wound I'd dealt him. There was a faint whisper of a smile lingering around the edges where his mouth met his beak, and a look of profound contentment on his features.

“It's time to sleep, you old featherhead, the war is over,” I intoned solemnly as I gently pulled the blade from his throat. He nodded vaguely and slumped to the floor, my ruined firearm still lodged in his chest. With a grunt of effort Phaestus lifted his remaining claw and pointed towards the throne, gesturing at the seat with all the meager energy he could spare. I furrowed my brow, “what? What is it?”

“...E...ex-...” he choked through another spill of black ichor, but I understood what he was getting at.

“The way out? It's there?” he nodded weakly and gave me another ghost of a grin.

“...T-tha...nk... y...ou...” the final words of one of the most reviled war leaders of the last decade escaped in a hiss as he thanked his killer for ending his life. Phaestus' scarred and muscular form went slack with death for what would be the last time, I would make damn sure of it.

I cleaned the blade of my scythe but left the long-arc where it lay, it was ruined and the crystal in it was barely a shot from empty. There was no reason to defile his corpse any more than it already was and I was content to let his remains rot away in this empty pocket of reality for the rest of time. I made my way towards the throne and sure enough, if I looked at it from just the right angle, there was what appeared to be a tiny tear in space with a wan light filtering out.

“Time to end this,” I muttered to all the dead who would listen, and I stepped into the light.

Final Chapter

The real throne room was a sight less perfect than the one I'd left, I could smell smoke from burning buildings and the true version of the observation dome was cracked, sending showers of translucent crystal across the floor. There was no flash or sound to herald my arrival, which was good because it caught the three guards that Twist had left in the room with their flanks in the air. Coupled with the element of surprise I easily dispatched them, reopening their killing wounds with ease, after fighting Phaestus on his terms I found their movements to be painfully slow.

Now if only Twilight had mentioned where in this blasted castle the 'royal panic room' was I might actually be able to get somewhere.

Then it hit me, the side dimension spell that Twilight had cast; she said she had learned it from studying how Sombra did it. If he could create a pocket dimension to hide things in then, at least in my opinion, that would make for an insanely secure saferoom.

The only problem was how to actually get into it and that would require something I knew it didn't have time for, but I didn't really see another alternative.

Research.

I cut a quiet swathe through the emptiest corridors I could find, returning the undead soldiers to their repose with as much silence as possible before secreting their bodies away in places where they wouldn't be noticed for at least a day or so. As I entered the royal library dragging a lean Griffon corpse that was leaking a steady trail of the now-familiar black ichor across the floor it struck me that I should probably make some kind of note as to where I'd stashed them all. I chuckled somewhat grimly at the thought of the crystal ponies working in the castle after all this was over finding some very unpleasant surprises over the next couple of weeks.

The library was a vast place, similar to the Canterlot Archives although I'd only visited the location itself twice and never in a capacity to wander around as I would have liked. Stacks upon stacks of books were set into crystal shelves with care, only a faint layer of dust existing in a few places told me that, in better times, this room was cared for diligently.

I wasn't sightseeing though, I knew there had to be a transcription of the events which led to the final defeat of King Sombra, even if it was just in the form of an AAR or whatever equivalent combat reports the Crystal Empire had.

Fortunately the indexing system was easy enough to find and even easier to use. At one of the desks was a clearly labeled next of dozens upon dozens of gems similar to the sphere Twilight had left for me in my room, but faceted rather than perfectly round. The help desk called the mem-crystals, apparently they stored simple data in the crystalline matrices of the gems which a tiny amount of concentration could bring out. Even Pegasi and Earth ponies could use them which was even more impressive. While the unorthodox index was helpful in and of itself the sheer volume of works in the library made the point more than a little moot, and after nearly an our of painstakingly sifting through mem-crystal after mem-crystal I still hadn't found what I was looking for. What I had found was over a dozen treatises on the Empire in its heyday, several hundred notices from Equestria's government of over a millenium ago condemning Sombra's practice of slavery, even a few signed by the diarchs themselves, and a number of sealed records that only royal authority could unlock. I prayed silently that the information I needed wasn't in one of the sealed sections as I pushed through more and more data, eventually my effort was rewarded, it was an in-depth report on the return of the Empire and the ultimate destruction of whatever remained of King Sombra.

“Ok, let's see here: 'Here follows the account of-'” I blinked in surprise at the name before laughing quietly. Of course she would be the one to write the account, she wouldn't trust anypony else to be thorough enough. “Well, let's hope you're as detailed as usual:

'...the account of Twilight Starla Sparkle, student of the Solar Diarch, first daughter of House Sparkle, and Element of Magic; concerning the return of the Crystal Empire and the defeat of King Sombra...' Ok Twi' I don't need to know the whole... wow eight hundred pages?” I shook my head in disbelief, reflecting that I had in fact hoped she would be detailed. This might be a little too detailed though, in my opinion, and I resolved to have a long discussion with her about the merits of being succinct. “Ok, well, let's just skip ahead...”

After another half-hour laboriously muddling through the verbal diarrhea that made up the majority Twilight's report I finally reached the end. I found myself astonished at the patience this implied in her teacher since there was no good reason I could think of to include an entire thesis on the cultural significance of the Crystal Faire in an After Action Report. I was about to give in to despair, or at least a solid round of colorful obscenities, when I noticed some appendices, one of which was labeled as: Concerning the Dimensional Magic of the late King Sombra.

Jackpot.

The nature of the late King's magic is of great interest to me in that it represents a school of magic hitherto unknown in the Equestrian curriculum. After great consideration I have decided the likeliest reason for this is that the magic itself is highly dangerous or inherently harmful, certainly King Sombra was not a good example of the art's safety. Despite this I believe the matter worth studying on a purely academic basis, especially considering the many spells that King Sombra left 'hanging' in the crystal matrices of the castle walls and infrastructure. As mentioned on page six hundred and forty seven of my above Account I found no less than two separate pocket dimensions mirroring our own that were accessible only to a unicorn and only by casting the accessing spell while in the throes of hatred or anger.

Bingo, hatred and anger, fortunately I had no dearth of either of those emotions when it came to the good Doctor and his pet abominations. Thanks to Twilight's overly verbose nature it still took an extra twenty minutes to track down her description of the accessing spell itself which, of course, was recorded in minute detail to the point that after reading it I probably could have cast it in my sleep. As wordy as she is I think Twi' would make an excellent teacher, assuming she could detach herself from the textbook long enough to teach an actual lesson.

The idle fancy made me smile a little, I enjoyed the thought of Twilight as a teacher not only because of how well it fit, but because it could really happen.

But only if I stopped Twist, here and now.

That thought put the iron back in my spine and I turned away from the memcrysts, after breaking the one containing the access spell, to make my way back to the throne room. I turned over the arcane mnemonics of the accessing spell in my mind, over all it wasn't terribly difficult or time-consuming, which I was grateful for since I'd burnt a great deal of time already. I forced myself to move slowly though, mindful that my new-found knowledge would amount to precisely zip if I ended up trotting headfirst into a dozen undead guards. Fortunately I only had to add a few more corpses to the various hiding spots on my way to the throne room, most of the halls were as empty as I'd left them which struck me as a little odd.

Hadn't Twilight said that Twist was here in force? That 'half of the Griffon Wars' had gotten up to follow him? I wanted to chalk it up to the Crystal Empire's army putting up a better fight than they'd expected but something about it just didn't sit right with me. Not that it mattered of course, I only had one real goal.

Find Twist. Kill Twist.

I stopped just outside the double doors leading into the throne room, a cold tightness had settled into my chest that made me incredibly wary. Not because it was an unfamiliar sensation, but because it was the feeling I'd gotten moments before I'd been forced to 'save' Fluttershy.

From myself.

I had a sick feeling that I knew what was behind that door, but I pushed it open anyway.

“Hello, brother of mine,” his voice was ragged and cold, lacking any real emotional inflection. I glared across the room at him, at myself. He wasn't a perfect match, it was like staring into a mirror that was cracked, stained, and pitted from age. His coat was duller than mine and criss-crossed with scars, half of his left ear was missing, and two eyes like cold embers met my own gaze from beneath a grimy coal-black mane.

“Last time I checked I didn't have any brothers,” I remarked casually as I strode into the throne room, seemingly unimpressed by the presence of my almost-clone. “And if I did they wouldn't be half as ugly as you.”

Not-Me grinned humorlessly and nickered, “Twist knows where your friends area, Brother of mine, we knew you would come here eventually after escaping the purple bitch's neat little ward.”

“Watch your tongue or I'll cut it out, 'brother of mine',” he bared his teeth in a wider smile that didn't even come close to his eyes. “I have to ask though, what are you?”

He grimaced as if disappointed, “you mean you still don't know? How disappointing.”

We were circling each other now, it was eerie how he matched my movements perfectly and without thought, like he really was me. I quashed that notion, now was not the time for an existential crisis. Besides, I knew I would have to deal with him before I tried contacting Twilight and the others. Not that I would have it any other way, I had fully intended to deal with this abomination eventually, and now seemed as good of a time as any.

“You're me, sort of, I get that much, but how?”

He nickered again, an almost sarcastic sound. “Magic,” he deadpanned.

We moved like synchronized lightning, one moment we were standing across from each other and the next there was a hiss of drawn steel and a spark of metal on metal and our scythes, twin identical scythes, were slammed against each other.

Then, just as fast as it had occurred we parted, backed away and glaring at each other through the same fringe of mussed black mane. As one we returned our weapons to their sheathes.

“Good to know you haven't gotten too rusty, brother of mine.”

“I have to ask, we're... practically the same pony, that's obvious,” he rolled his eyes slightly in a disturbingly familiar fashion, but nodded, “so why, in Celestia and Luna's name, are you helping that psychopath?” the last several words came out heavy with anger and hatred. Not for him, or even for Twist, but for the idea that a small part of me could possibly be willing to align myself with that evil son of a bitch.

His face became an impassive wall, but he was me, and I knew that look all too well. And he knew that I knew.

“I don't have a choice, little brother of mine.”

“Horseshit, I could fight him off and you're me,” I challenged, stepping forward. For once my almost-clone didn't match me. “You can defy him, I know you can because I know I can.”

“You're in a better position than me to fight his influence, you're-” he choked, as if something was preventing him from speaking, “empty gods I hate that. Look, you're different, that's all.”

“Tell me!” I shouted, his eyes flashed dangerously and another clash ensued.

Tempered steel met tempered steel as our blades met over and over, the same moves canceling each other out as we mirrored each others movements like dancers. Where our attacks clashed they rebounded, where one found an opening so too did the other. When we parted we both had three new and matching cuts, shallow but painful, to show for it.

“You're an ungrateful wretch, a pathetic shadow!” he roared and for once I could see real emotion in him, anger and loss boiling to the surface like air out of hot pitch.

“You're the shadow, whatever you are you were made from me and so help me I will put you down before you help that evil waste of air and flesh for one second longer!”

He blinked, looking honestly surprised, then began laughing. It was a cold and bitter sound that made the my hackles rise. “You can't know how strange it is to hear that. It really makes me wonder where I went wrong...” he looked almost wistful, “I wonder how everything... could have gone so very wrong.”

“What in the flaming sun are you talking about?” but he just shook his head slowly.

“No, you're right, I am just a shadow, and the dawn is coming,” he turned back to me with fire in his gaze, “let's end this.”

A brief glare of sunlight flashed across the room and we moved, synchronized and deadly as blade met blade over and over again. Neither of us gave ground nor gave up a single drop of blood this time as we matched each other blow for blow. It was like fighting my reflection in more ways than one, and neither of us were making any ground. I had to end him, to kill him, it was the only way to ensure that my friends would be safe, but he was just as good as I was. Maybe even a tiny bit better.

“Enough.”

Both of us froze in our tracks, hate boiled up from my core at the sound of the voice that I knew so well. Try as I might though I couldn't move and, unless I missed my guess, neither could he, because he looked as mad as I was.

Silver Twist, or what was left of him, strode into the room flanked by several zombie ponies, these ones looked glassy-eyed and had clearly seen better days. Twist was in like company though, there was a ragged mass of scar tissue where my blast had obliterated his chest on the high tower of Canterlot Castle. Black ichorous energy bled from a dozen smaller wounds and his eyes were that unsettling heterochromatic shade of flecked gold and vermillion. The most startling addition though was a pair of skeletal wings rising out from his back, the bones were all that were present though covered in ropy strands of that black viscous fluid. There was a snap and a crunch as one of the zombie ponies suddenly fell apart without warning, from its body came a brackish mist that flowed into Twist's battered form and I saw some of the smaller cuts heal up. I guess I knew what the majority of his army was doing now.

“I am quite finished being generous, and more than finished being patient,” his voice was a hollow echo that seemed to reverberate with the very air. “You're like an insolent child whom, no matter how much I punish, never learns his lesson.” With a flick of one of his wings there came a breath of foul-smelling air, suddenly both I and my almost-clone were struck with the force of a sledgehammer and sent hurtling into a wall. I felt a few ribs crack under the impact before I hit the floor. “But worry not, for I am a forgiving father the prodigal son shall be welcomed home after due punishment is exacted.”

That's when he began to speak, not words really, he was uttering infinitely sharp knives made from morphemes and phonemes that cut and seared into my core being. It felt like he was trying to cut away parts of my soul.

Then it struck me, that was exactly what he was trying to do.

I tried to move, but despite the majority of his attention being on the unholy act he was performing I still wasn't strong enough to resist him. I struggled against his will but it was like trying to move underwater while covered in thick iron chains.

It felt hopeless but I kept fidgeting, pushing and pressing against the cage of power he'd placed my will inside of as I searched for some tiny weakness while mind-wrenching agony soared through me. I needed some point of-

And then I could move, it was like I'd slipped through a gap in the bars. Miraculously it seemed that Twist hadn't noticed that I'd breached his control, I glanced over and saw a dim glow around my almost-clone's horn and a grim smile etching his face.

Yeah, he was me alright.

Twist's eye's were snapped shut in concentration but the agony was a distant thing now that I had a purpose, I could try to attack him but that would just be stupid. The moment he realized I wasn't under his control again I'd be bucked since I had the feeling the same trick wouldn't work twice. I turned the spell I'd just learned over in my mind again and knew that what I was about to do was insanely risky. Not just to myself but to all of my friends.

It was the only way though, because if Twist managed to make me like my almost-clone then I wouldn't be able to disobey him. I'd open the way into the safe room for him and they'd be in an even worse situation. At least this way there was a chance of survival.

I activated the accessing spell, emptying out my deepest reserves as I poured all of my magic into it. I thought of anger and hate, I filled my mind with images of Loctes, Phaestus as he was, but most of all with Silver Twist.

There was an explosion of energy and for a moment the agony ceased as Twist snapped out of his reverie in shock. I was exhausted, Twist was furious, and I was fairly certain he was about to murder me out of sheer pique from being interrupted when a cannon-like blast of magic formed from the three-fold colors of lavender, opalescent, and bright pink slammed into him, the force of the power disintegrating his little undead batteries.

Where before there had been only empty space there was now seven ponies; Cadence, Rarity, and Twilight stood at the fore, their horns glowing brightly, behind them stood Rainbow Dash, Pinkie, Applejack, and Zecora, along with Gentle Treasure and Starlight Charmer bound in magic-stealing crystal chains.

The two unicorns and the alicorn Princess stood ready for another joint attack as a form staggered up from the smokey ruin of the wall that Twist had struck when the spell blew him away. The shape was larger though, and indistinct as I stepped out, all pretense of 'Silver Twist' was gone, in his place was a jet-black and male alicorn, skinless and drenched in black, ichorous blood. Bone showed through flesh from several ancient-looking but brutal wounds. Cadence looked like somepony had run her through with a blade.

“Oh... mother of us all... it's you,” she whispered, the room carried the sound along with the grave tone it was uttered in.

“Cadence? What's wrong? Who is that?” Twilight turned to her old foal-sitter with a worried expression. A dark and sonorous chuckle met Twilight's words though, it seemed that despite his apparently horrific state the being before us was still quite capable.

“I suppose the farce is spent now, hm?” Those terrible eyes flashed insanely as he moved out of the smoke, “it's good to see you again my dear. It's been far too long.”

Cadence visibly swallowed and she staggered back, the glow around her horn faltering. “I... you're supposed to be dead.”

Twist, or whatever his name actually was, shook his head, “No, what I was supposed to be... WAS KING!” he roared, the room seemed to jump up several degree's. Cadence looked rattled but at those words she stood up a little taller.

“No, you're insane and you had to be dealt with, my aunts wouldn't let you inflict your horrors on this world, and neither will I... Father.”

Even my almost-clone's mouth fell open slightly at that word.

Father

Suddenly I felt a lot more okay with being an orphan.

Twilight didn't handle it quite so well, as soon as she got her voice back she shouted, “FATHER?! Wait, this... thing? This is your dad?” Cadence grimaced but nodded.

“You knew I was Celestia's niece and I'm not related to Luna, so...” she trailed off and not-Twist gave another cold but oddly mellifluous bass laugh.

Between the banter and words I panicked, we were played out, I was weak as a newborn foal, my other half wasn't much better off. Cadence was clearly shaken and if this thing was on the same scale as the divine Princesses then I didn't rate our odds as much higher than basement level at this point.

Twitch

Movement caught my eye from my other half, my almost-clone was inching towards me, using the appearance of the remaining Elements of Harmony and the Princess of Love as a distraction. It was true, the dark alicorn that rose from Silver Twist's form seemed to have already counted us out. I couldn't really contradict that either but I prayed to Luna that he had a plan.

Inch by inch he moved towards me, we weren't far apart to begin with but the tension was thick enough to cut with a blade and it made the seconds feel like hours. Like at any second that thing could look over at us and end our lives in a flash of light and pain. I had no doubt that that was a very real possibility too.

“Hey, stripling,” the rough voice of my almost-clone cut through my panicked thoughts as Cadence's father moved in on the group, closing in on his erstwhile daughter.

“What?”

“We can beat him, but only if you do exactly as I say,” his eyes were sharp and bright, there was anger and fire in him that I hadn't seen during our fight. He wanted out, he wanted this to end, and he was willing to pay whatever cost was asked in order to see that happen.

“Yes sir, Captain sir,” he grinned wryly and for a moment he wasn't my almost-clone anymore, he was my mirror image. It was eerie but it felt like were became attuned to each other in that moment.

“Call up a spark of magic, just a tiny one, I'll do the rest,” his tone was deadly serious, it brooked no argument and certainly no buck-ups. I swallowed heavily and nodded.

I reached into myself and lightly brushed the well of power that lay within me, within all unicorns, and drew out the barest mote of power, suspending it at the tip of my horn like a tiny red star. He closed his eyes in concentration and I could feel a tidal force building up, slow, almost glacial in its size and intensity. So gradual that it was almost undetectable but no less mighty for its pace. The moments stretched but luck was with us, I didn't know what his plan was but at this point it was just about all we had.

Without warning there was as snap of energy from his horn as he synchronized his power to mine. I'd performed plenty of synchronized spells in my time as a soldier but I'd always known the spell in question, this was more like I was along for the ride.

I'm not sure what I expected his plan to be like but this was far from it; the pain was beyond the pale. It felt like I'd been immersed in a sea of fire, caught by an infernal riptide and dragged hither and thither without a thought of breathing. I felt like I was being crushed and broken at the same time I was exhilarated by the sheer immensity of the power being wielded.

It was sheer sensory overload; so much so that it was almost a relief when everything went black as I felt my heart give out and my soul break from the confines of my mortal body.

Blackness was all that awaited me, I'll admit, a part of me was hoping to return to that green valley. To find myself waking up with the familiar warmth of Summer wrapped in my hooves. This was different though, I wasn't straddling the line of life and death anymore, rather, I had crossed it.

I wasn't alone either.

“So, it worked,” Almost, as I'd come to think of him, was waiting for me, and beside him was the twitching lunatic I'd bisected in the mausoleum.

“What in tartarus is that freak doing here?” I hissed, remembering all too well what he'd done to my friends.

“Don't be so harsh, he's one of us you know, or more accurately, a part of us,” Almost said softly. “It's not his fault he's insane, after all.”

Lunatic twinged and spasmed, he looked like somepony had hooked up a low-voltage shock collar to him and was occasionally hitting the breaker too hard. “Can't see, can't hear,” he mumbled, “too many voices, too many of us, too many of we, why are we 'we'? I don't know...”

“What did you just say?” the voices from my nightmares came back to haunt me at those words, they had roared the same question in a hundred voices.

“He is asking the question that plagues us, you as well though that damage is buried very deep,” Almost explained.

“But why is he asking it? I don't understand.” This was beginning to get infuriating, I was in the dark and I hated that, I hated not knowing something that my gut told me was crucial to my survival. “What is 'we'?”

Almost's smile was grim and humorless, “'We' is us, and you, and me, and him. That is 'we', three souls that were once one. You and I, and yes, even him,” Almost gestured in an off-hoof manner to Lunatic. “We are one, or we were supposed to be until that bastard Twist decided he didn't want any liabilities in his prize creation.”

“What... wait, we're...” I tried to wrap my head around what he was saying and was failing spectacularly. Putting a dead soul back in its body was one thing but... cutting a soul up like an apple on a chopping board? That was...

Almost just nodded though, “yes, he is not Jasper Shale and neither are you... not even I am truly Jasper Shale. We're all a fragment of his personality; his life and his memories are shared between us. Your 'nervous breakdown' that resulted in your hospital stay was the near-fatal trauma of being severed from a fundamentally whole psyche, and I'm sorry to say that it last a great deal longer than three years.”

I stepped back from him, from both of them, his words rang strangely in my mind. “What... do you mean 'longer'? I was in the hospital since the war ended. My service record states I was on active duty til after the Battle of Shining Valley.”

“The last great offensive in the war, the Griffon defeat in Shining Valley broke the back of their army. Tell me though, do you remember when the break occurred?” His question caught me off guard, it seemed like such a simple question but in reality I had never really thought about it. I didn't like thinking about the war even during its quiet periods and the last months of the war were one bloodbath after another. “Do you remember what caused it? What broke you? What exactly happened?”

“I...” I tried, Goddess I felt like my mind was prying itself apart trying to dig up the answer, but no matter how far back I thought I... “I can't remember.”

“Because there was no breakdown. You had been insane since you were created by Twist to house my weaknesses, my mortality, all the good and honest parts of me that were an obvious liability for Twist's horrendously unethical experiments.” I staggered backwards, shaking my head as my mind failed to supply the words I needed to deny what Almost, no, what Jasper was telling me. “You're a vessel, for all the weak parts of me Twist decided to excise, just like he is a vessel for all the mental trauma I underwent during the war. All the little insanities that would have left my a psychopathic mess were siphoned into him to keep me at top combat effectiveness.”

I finally found my voice and tried desperately to punch a hole in his theory. “But how did I get to the hospital, you can't tell me Twist checked me in for my good health.” My voice had more venom than my twin probably deserved but he simply shook his head in an oddly mirror-like motion.

“When the Diarchs discovered Twist's treachery and experiments they declared him a war criminal and raided all of his holdings. He was forced to flee to his subsidiary safehouses, taking only what he could manage in a hurry, and that didn't include a comatose vessel hooked up to a half dozen medical devices.” I'd never known how I'd ended up in the hospital myself, I'd never asked, I'd hadn't wanted to know the state they'd found me in or what I'd done to warrant incarceration in an insane asylum's solitary ward. “They found you and moved you to the hospital, Twist tried to recover you on several occasions but his resources had taken a severe hit. He was forced to wait, and hope that they either let their guard down, or that you somehow became coherent enough to leave on your own.”

I crumpled to the floor, defeated, I couldn't handle it. I wasn't real, I was just a shadow, I was the 'Almost', not him. I was just... a poor facsimile made for the convenience of a madpony's experiments.

“I know what your thinking, and it's not true,” Jasper said softly, his tone had taken on a more soothing quality. “You're more than just a dumping ground, maybe once that's all you were but believe me, I've been with Twist this entire time and I know that even he was shocked that you recovered.”

I lifted my head to stare into my own eyes, they were darker and filled with memories of anguish, but they were still, hauntingly, mine.

“You've become more than a vessel, you have your own mind. Twist theorized that somehow your soul repaired itself, in a sense it 'regrew' the severed portions.”

“How is that even possible?” I gaped.

Jasper shrugged, “I don't know, but personally I think it might be what someponies call a miracle.”

I was silent, letting the words sink in, I wasn't real, I wasn't... really Jasper Shale, but... I was something. That was enough for now. “What do we do, I don't think you brought me just to traumatize me.”

Jasper nickered humorlessly. “No, we have a chance, all three of us are attuned to each other. I've been learning more and more soul magic courtesy of that psychotic alicorn out there and I think we're strong enough to beat him.”

“Ok, I know he's wounded but this is still an alicorn we're talking about right? He's on the same scale as the Diurnal Sisters,” I pointed out dryly.

“I know, but we have an advantage over him.” This I had to hear, “remember when I said he theorized that you regrew your lost portions of your soul?” I nodded, “well the thing is, we're still all part of the same soul, and now, we've probably got three times as much. I think that my skill is enough to... to stitch us back together.”

“Yes...” Lunatic finally spoke up startling both of us a little, “'we' must become 'I' again, please, make us whole.”

“You see?” Jasper pointed to Lunatic firmly, “he's completely twigged and even he can feel it, we're meant to be whole. I think that if we were it would make us strong enough to end him for good, at least... it would give us a shot.”

I considered it, what he was proposing was stitching all of us, including the psychopathic parts of us, into one magnified soul. I had recovered enough memory of Twist's soul magic to know it was at least theoretically sound, our souls all resonated with the same harmony, it was like each of us was a separate melody that had always intended to be played as one complete whole. And yet...

“What will happen to us?” the question that I had to ask was also the one I had the distinct feeling that I didn't want the answer to.

Jasper looked grim, “I don't know but... you were driven insane for almost six years by being severed from me. Mashing all of us together into one collective, all of our separate minds and unique souls we've developed over the past three years becoming one again? Frankly, it will probably be worse than the original spell that broke us in the first place.”

Somehow I'd already known that.

“Do we have a chance? If we don't do this is there even a shadow of a chance that we'll beat him?” I asked, plainly meeting my own eyes.

“Not even a whisper,” he answered with torturous finality.

“Then do it.”

Jasper Shale, my progenitor, nodded, “thank you, for being the best part of me, and for surviving.”

I could only return the nod as power surged up from him, then from Lunatic, and then finally from me. In one cataclysmic surge of light and pain, three souls merged to become one.

“...Sorry my dearest daughter, but with you as Princess the magic of the Crystal Palace no longer recognizes me as its rightful sovereign, that means you're an obstacle,” the voice of the dark alicorn filtered in with a hateful glee in its voice. “Fortunately the lines of succession are clear, if you die then rulership passes to the next blood kin. Which, oh my, just happens to be me.”

“Father, you won't succeed, you'll-”

All words were drowned out in a singular blast of power and light as our unified souls finally emerged, together in one battle-scarred body.

Twist, our voice echoed wordlessly across the ether, cutting into the minds of those around us like a blade. I felt a twinge of guilt somewhere in one of my souls as I saw the pain our new voice was inflicting on my friends, but the other parts of me continued unhindered. You are a broken excuse for a God, Twist, and you will be so until the end of your life. That end comes NOW!

The creature that I'd known as Silver Twist roared its disbelief and defiance, I could see our reflection mirrored in a thousand times and thousand crystal facets, we rose like a grim reaper, cloaked in red light with a curved and scythe-like horn emerging from our skull. We towered a head over Twist and all three of us found similar humor in the absurdity of such a powerful being forced to stretch his head up just to look us in the eye.

Somehow I had the feeling that the true Jasper Shale, the one I'd been cut from the cloth of, had severely underestimated the magnitude of power produced by three conjoined souls.

“No, no no no no... this isn't... THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE!” he was shaking, a mighty near-godlike entity who had seen millennia pass, who had literally shaped the hills and mountains, was quaking in fear.

Possible? You are blind with obsession, Silver Twist.

“That's not my name!” he hissed, “I am Borealis! Lord of the Horizon! I am a GOD! I. AM.-”

I didn't get to hear what he thought he was. In all honesty a part of me, I'm not even sure which one, felt a little cheated. Twist had been fear incarnate for me for so long, he'd been my personaly boogeypony, my nightmare.

Now he was just pathetic.

You are no God. With a surge a power I gripped his immortal soul in vice of energy. You're just another monster that goes bump in the night. And I am the new morning.

With one last rending scream Twist, or rather Borealis, wrenched apart as we shredded his soul like parchment, his body detonated with the power of our will, drenching the room in the blood and viscera of a dead God.

Silence reigned supreme in the newly baptised throne room of the Crystal Palace for several minutes. I could feel a searing pain creeping inexorably up the crudely stitched wounds of our new-bound soul.

A small voice broke the intense quietude, weak but familiar to two of us.

“Oh Goddesses, Jasper? Is... is that you?” Twilight, blood leaking faintly from her ears and nose, was staggering closer. “Jasper?”

We turned to face her, sadness well up in us, from where I'm not sure, maybe from all of us. We knew we were about to lose more than we'd already given. With an effort we quieted our voice, making it bearable to the others.

Yes, and no. Jasper Shale is us, and we are Jasper Shale. But the one you knew is gone, unified into us. Our words were true, we tried to soften them but tears formed in her eyes. The pain was growing more intense, we knew we didn't have much longer, no mortal pony was intended to hold such power for long. Or ever. Soon we too shall fade, we... I... am sorry... Twilight.

Twilight reached out with a single hoof but hissed in pain and withdrew it as our fiery aura stung her. That, perhaps more than anything, hurt us all. We were about to suffer whatever consequences were coming to us for our hubris, necessary though it may have been, in dabbling where mortals shouldn't tread.

“Where are you going? Why... are you fading?” Twilight voice was a plea, the rest could only gaze fearfully at us as we conversed.

Our power carries a price, we wield the power to slay Gods, now we must pay for that power. I... am sorry.

“Will you die?”

I... we don't know, perhaps we will. Nopony had ever walked the road we, I, was now on. I know she wanted answers, but this was all I could give.

“Jasper... back in Canterlot, on the tower, when Twist was about to kill me you... you called me your mare.” I remembered it, we all did, I had never been more afraid than I had been at that moment. The thought of losing Twilight was unbearable. “I just... need to know if you meant it?” the look on her face was a hopeful as it was tragic.

I did.

Tears came to her like a dam breaking, “Then... I'll save you, I'll find a way, I swear I will.”

I shook my head.

We... I do not doubt that you could, half-pint. She laughed a little. But if I die, then you cannot, or else you will risk becoming like Borealis. Obsessed with life after death. I'm sorry.

“You can't ask me to do that Jasper, you selfish selfish colt, I just got you back!” she cried, “I... I'll bring you back! I-”

No. My unvoice rose in volume and made her flinch, I softened it again. No, Twilight, you mustn't.

The pain was becoming unbearable, all three of us were writhing in it, we had to release the power within us, it needed escape and it couldn't happen here, for all we knew it would wipe the Crystal Empire from the face of Equestria for good this time.

I have to go now. The power produced by our soul is building to critical levels, I will keep you safe, I promise.

“JASPER! JASPER WA-” We didn't wait, we couldn't. If we did then it would be a temptation to remain just a second longer, then another, then another. If we... if I waited then it might destroy them, and countless others. So we teleported away, flashing up into the stratosphere, so high up that air was practically non-existent. It mattered not at all, we were beyond such things.

Princess Cadence, I projected my thoughts miles downward with less than a breath's effort, raise the Crystal Empire's forcefield now!

Her own powers would be insufficient to project her thoughts to us so we could only pray she did as I asked. Thoughts filled our mind, memories; not of war and violence, or blood and loss, but the memories of one of our number that were peaceful. Memories of sharing tea with a pastel yellow unicorn and finding comfort in shared pain. Memories of cupcakes and coco with a grateful pink mare as she cried for her sister's pain. Memories of fireside talks and bringing closure to ponies who missed their loved ones dearly.

Fine memories for a dying stallion to dwell upon.

Finding a small contented place in our heart we let out a tranquil sigh, then released the building power that was searing us apart and laid the last ghost of a terrible war to rest.

Ponies would talk for years about that singular moment when a second sun lit the skies of Equestria from Baltimare to Las Pegasus.

Chapter 1

Just for reference, my story assumes that ponies have equivalent lifespans to human beings. The ages of the Mane Six are as follows:

Rarity & Fluttershy: 24, Applejack & Rainbow Dash: 23 ½, Twilight & Pinkie: 23.

Feel free to comment and thumb up/down, I love getting feedback on my work.

I stepped off of the train and took a long, slow, breath of clean air.

My first breath of Ponyville.

Well, that's not totally accurate, it's my first breath since the war began and ended. As a foal I'd visited here a few times. I remembered it being very scenic, one of the three reasons I had readily agreed when I was informed that this was where I'd be 'rehabilitating' at. The other two were far more personal reasons, the first of which being that I would get to see an old friend of mine from before the war. It was early autumn so I could still feel the slight chill in the air, enough to make me glad of the army-issue greatcoat I was wearing. One of the many pockets carried the second reason, a promise I'd made on a battlefield far from here.

From where I was standing I could see a sign straining to be held up which read: Jasper Shale, my name, and it was being held aloft by a small, green and purple dragon, well, dragonling really. I recognized him by description but I'd never actually met him, still, I hefted my gunny sack onto my back and cantered over.

“You must be Spike right?” I got a weird look from him but I assumed I was correct since there couldn't be that many dragon hatchlings in pony territory.

“Uh, yeah... y'know when Twilight told me what your name was I, uh...”

“Expected an earth pony?” I filled in, readily familiar with that particular assumption. I was, in point of fact, a unicorn. Not much of one anymore, but a unicorn nonetheless.

“Yeah, well, the color makes sense at least,” he said, giving me the once over. It was a little odd, but then 'odd' tended to describe everything about Twilight Sparkle, I didn't see why her familiar would be any different. Of course he was right though, my coat was the color of my namesake stone, a rusty red tone.

“So, I thought that Twilight would be meeting me here herself,” I asked as we turned to leave the station.

Spike started snickering, “She was, but our friend Pinkie Pie sort of turned invisible this morning, Twilight's been trying to figure out why before she pranks the whole town to death.”

Pinkie Pie, the name was familiar. If I remembered it right then that was the 'party pony' of Ponyville; famous for both her baking skills and her talent at throwing parties for any reason at all.

“You should've seen her face when he realized she wouldn't be able to meet you at the station: totally devastated,” Spike said with another small laugh. “Although I'm not sure it wasn't just because she would have to rewrite her schedule for the whole day now.”

I nodded, “that sounds like her, tell me she's loosened up a little though, I always told her she needed to get out and have more fun.”

“Oh yeah, making some friends really helped I think,” Spike answered. I could tell he had probably worried about many of the same things I had. “So you've known Twilight for a while huh?”

“I met her when she was twelve, when she enrolled in the Academy, taking classes while her mentor was fulfilling her royal duties.”

“Ah, guess that's why we never met, Twilight wasn't allowed to bring me to school with her,” Spike replied.

“Yeah, I was fifteen but in the same grade as her,” I laughed, recalling Twilight's sheer power and prodigious talent. “A lot of unicorns were offended that they were in the same grade as a kid but I didn't care, I wasn't exactly popular anyway.”

“Why?” I loathed explaining this part but he looked so damned curious. Oh well, it would probably come up eventually.

“Because I kind of sucked at magic,” I answered.

“Woah, how did you get into the Academy then?”

“Because the only magic I could cast was earth magic,” Spike looked at me oddly, not that I blamed him, Unicorn magic wasn't well known beyond, well, Unicorns, so I gave it some thought before trying to explain. “Earth magic is really rare because it's not the element unicorns are usually associated with, we're usually along the lines of water or fire, and sometimes air. Having a specific talent for earth magic is almost unheard of.”

“So is that what your cutie mark means?” Spike asked, pointing out the ruby-red crescent adorning my flank.

“Uhm, yeah, let's go with that,” I had no desire to go into the details of that particular bombshell. Not that I could tell much anyway.

“So they only let you into the Academy because you could cast earth magic?”

Ouch.

“Uh, yeah... basically right. I never had much talent with it, I always preferred working with my hooves which got me made fun of a lot.”

“That sounds familiar, Twilight got a lot of flak too.”

“Well that's kind of how we met, actually...”

As usual, class had been a disaster, fortunately I was on a free period and since I always got bullied out of the cafeteria I was sitting beneath a tree eating my sandwich. A peaceful endeavor that was being ruined by a lot of noise coming from behind me.

“Hey, twerp, who the hay even let you in here huh?” A proper-looking white unicorn mare was poking the smaller purple unicorn filly who'd been busted up to Academy grade at a record-breaking twelve years old. Something that had caused no amount of sore feelings in upperclassponies and newbies alike.

“U-uhm... m-my teacher said-”

She was interrupted by a rough shove backwards, triggering a round of guffaws from the unicorns two flunkies. I figured either they hung around her for her looks, her money, or both. They certainly added nothing to the décor. The unicorn in the middle, though, was Luster Rose, daughter of a high-ranked aristocrat and possessing more than enough ego for her entire family.

“I don't really care what any of those stuffy professors said, you're clearly too young to be here so I think you should drop out.” The picturesque smile never left Rose's lips which made it seem all the more poisonous. Her final words made the blood drain from the filly's face.

“D-d-d-drop out?” she stammered.

“That's right, unless you want to spend all your days like- AUGH!” a low bass thump sounded from beneath Rose right before a small pit about two feet deep opened underneath her, dumping her unceremoniously on her flank.

I couldn't help snickering, which was a terrible idea. Why? Easy, because when something humiliating happens to a bully in any school setting it's the ones who laugh that always get beat up. Whether they were at any kind of fault or not is immaterial but, at least in this case, I totally was. I also totally got my flank beat like a drum by two burly unicorns and a puffed up, muddy, prima donna. They left when it got boring which wasn't all that long because bullies get bored easily if they realize you're not gonna yell or cry. I picked myself up off the ground, nursing a limp, a couple of bruised ribs, and a real beauty of a black eye intending to go take care of them in the little colts room but I turned when I heard a small sniffling sound behind me and. To my surprise I saw the young purple filly the bullies had been harassing, she was hiding behind a tree looking at me with the biggest, saddest eyes I'd ever seen. To be honest I'd assumed she'd run off as soon as Rose and her cronies looked my way because, well to be fair that's what I'd have probably done in her place, especially at her age.

“A-are you ok?” she asked through a hiccup.

I nodded, wincing as I did so. “I'm fine, I'm used to it,” I said, brushing it off. The last thing this poor girl needed was to be associated with a loser like me.

“T-thank you uhm, Jasper isn't it?” I turned, not sure I'd heard her right. To my knowledge no one had ever thanked me for anything. The professors barely trusted me to open a book without hurting myself and I didn't have any friends, so the fact that she knew my name was surprising. I mean, it's true that I had about three different classes with her but nopony bothered remembering my name. Ever.

“Uhm, you're welcome, you're Twilight right?”

She nodded enthusiastically, “That's right! Twilight Sparkle!”

“Well, it's nice to meet you Twilight Sparkle.”

“...After that she hung around me all the time, she was probably the only reason I even passed Magical Theory and Practical Levitation too.”

“Huh... Twilight never told me that story...” he looked a little despondent, and I could guess why. This little guy had been Twilight's constant companion since she was tiny. Not knowing something about her was probably unsettling.

I rustled his surprisingly soft head-spikes. “Yeah well... between you and me I can probably guess why, you can't breathe a word of this to Twilight though,” I said meeting his reptilian eyes. He stared expectantly at me so I continued. “I think... it's because she was ashamed.”

“What?” Spike interjected, “what would she be ashamed of?”

“Whenever she'd get picked on I'd always do something to piss the bullies off more just so they'd target me instead of her. I can't stand seeing a filly getting bullied, much less the only pony in the Academy who actually bothered remembering my name and liked hanging out with me.” I admitted, I'd never said it out loud but it sounded right in my head. “Besides, I wouldn't be too thrilled to tell everyone about the time a pony got his flank well and truly kicked in my place either.”

Spike nodded slowly, “yeah, that does sound like Twilight, she'd probably feel pretty bad about it. She's hates it when anypony gets hurt.”

“Right, like I said, not a word.”

Spike mimed zipping his lips with a finger and we shared a grin just as we came up to the Library. I could hear Twilight speaking even before Spike opened the door for me.

“...can't believe you tried to make cupcakes with Poison Joke, Pinkie. Seriously, for somepony who once had it turn her tongue two sizes too big you would think you'd know better than to eat it.”

“I just wondered what it would taste like...” came a voice like sugar-coated innocence.

A very odd smell wafted into the center room from what looked like a reading room, or maybe a guest room. I sat my bag down next to Spike who has chuckling to himself.

“What's a Poison Joke?” I had to ask.

Spike snorted before explaining, “It's kind of like Poison Oak, except instead of getting itchy it plays a prank on you.”

“And somepony tried to bake it into a pastry?” I asked in utter disbelief that anypony could be that reckless.

“Well, that's Pinkie Pie for you.”

At that moment Twilight stepped out of the guest room, her front hooves with covered in what looked like bubbles. As soon as she saw me her face lit up like Celestia's sun.

“JASPER!” Twilight charged me down, ending in a ruthless hug that left my ribs creaking.

I coughed some precious air back into my lungs as I returned the hug, “hey there half-pint, it's good to see....” I trailed off, Twilight had begun poking my back experimentally from her hugging position, “...you?”

“O-oh, sorry, uhm, you put on a lot of muscle since I last saw you,” she said, wearing her trademark embarrassed smile that she always had on anytime she was caught doing something 'scientifically necessary but socially awkward', as she would put it. I used to joke that that was the way the Academy's professors generally liked to describe me.

“Yeah well, It's been what? Six years? Besides, being in a war will do that to a colt,” I remarked grimly, I smiled to cover it over though.

The war, those were not good memories.

I shook them off, but I could see that mention of it had left Twilight wondering what to say next. The poor mare had absolutely no poker face whatsoever, I made a mental note to challenge her to a card game sometime in the future.

“Hey, don't sweat it half-pint, I'm in one piece after all and...” damn that's not where I wanted to go at all but I finished the thought anyway, “and that's a lot more than a lot of ponies can say.”

“R-right, sorry I've gotta finish scrubbing down Pinkie, wanna come?”

“Beg your pardon?” At my words Twilight clapped her hooves over her mouth and blushed bright red and I couldn't help but start roaring with laughter, it was good to know that some things hadn't changed one bit.

“N-no I mean... oh wow that, uh, wow, way to go Twilight,” As she began talking to herself, Spike filled in her meaning.

“Remember how I said it was like Poison Oak? Well Poison Joke can only be cured by an herbal bath,” he said past his snickering.

“Oh,” I said past my laughter, “well that makes more sense then, sure.”

We walked into the room where a vivaciously pink pony was sitting neck deep a tub building an unfeasibly large and intricate castle out of bubbles. It even had minarets and a little flag. I stared, my gasts having been thoroughly flabbered by the sight.

“That is not possible,” I pointed at the tiny, bubble-model of Canterlot Castle.

Spike just patted my side, “Like I said, that's Pinkie Pie for you, better get used to it.”

I shook my head which only succeeded in dropping my too-long coal-colored mane into my face, I huffed a few strands out of my eyes and brushed the rest back. As soon as I had remarked on the castle though the pony called Pinkie turned to face me. I actually watched her eyes slowly get too big for her head.

“OMIGOSH! You're NEW!” she practically shrieked, a primal impulse caused my ears to flatten. For some I was suddenly very afraid. I saw Twilight plant a hoof onto her face and sigh before clearing her throat.

“Uh, Pinkie, I'd like you to meet an very good friend of mine, Jasper Shale. Jasper, this is Pinkie Pie.” Once Twilight had finished the introductions Pinkie hopped out of the tub and, no joke, hovered in mid-air while she puffed the water out of her coat before dropping down to the floor. Then she walked over wearing a wide grin and held out a hoof.

I shook it tentatively, as I did her face became a lot calmer.

“You're a soldier huh?”

That was a curve ball I hadn't been expecting, so much so that I couldn't do anything but nod silently.

“I thought so, you shake hooves like my grandpappy.”

That's when Twilight stepped in, “Wait, you had family in the military?”

Pinkie nodded enthusiastically, “Yup, Grandpappy Pie fought in the turf wars with the Diamond Dogs that ended up founding Dodge City.”

“Wow, I had no idea, I thought you're whole family were rock farmers,” Twilight admitted.

“Well we are, but the family farm was kind of on the border back then so grandpappy got pulled in, he even made First Lieutenant.” Then the bright-eyed mare turned back to me, “I guess you fought in the Griffon Wars huh?”

I nodded, my mood turning a bit somber, “Captain by the end of the war, formerly 141st Infantry Regiment, honorable discharge.”

Her brow furrowed at my words and she began tapping her hoof to her chin, “141st... 141st... oh...” her face fell and lost some of it color. I had a sinking feeling that the granddaughter of an officer might have followed the events of the war pretty thoroughly.

“Yeah, Bunker-Bridge,” I said, and she nodded solemnly. For all of her apparent ecstatic energy I could tell that she was truly a good-hearted pony.

“What are you two talking about?” Twilight finally asked in exasperation. I remembered how much she hated not knowing things so this was probably getting on her nerves. She also looked a little wary, from what little I'd seen of Miss Pie I sincerely doubted that she wore a serious expression very often.

“You don't know?!” Pinkie asked, sounding genuinely shocked, but Twilight just shook her head.

I snorted a dry chuckle, “Twilight doesn't usually follow military stuff. Military History was the only thing you ever asked me for help on in Academy remember?”

Twilight grimaced, nodding reluctantly. Pinkie didn't change her expression much though, she turned back to me with a questioning look in her eye.

“So... I heard that your regiment...?”

“A hundred and nine souls walked away from the Bridge.”

“Wait, isn't a regiment a pretty large military unit?” Twilight asked uneasily, death had never been a topic she had handled very well.

“My regiment consisted of six hundred soldiers when the battle started.”

The look on Twilight's face wasn't one I'd had any desire to see, it was also a look I'll probably carry to my grave. It was a mixture of horror, pity, and shock, all flavored with simple disbelief. I wasn't put off by it, for a sheltered student of the magical arts the concept of nearly five hundred ponies dying over the course of four blood-stained weeks was almost unthinkable. Not that I expected anyone who hadn't seen something like that to really understand. To her credit, Pinkie Pie just looked sad. She trotted over and wrapped me in a tight hug that smelled like a bakery on a bright and sunny Tuesday. To my surprise, I hugged her back. I felt a tightness in my chest, the memories of that nightmarish month were as fresh now as they had been at the end of the battle almost six years ago.

“Wait, I do remember hearing about Bunker-Bridge in the news, it wasn't too long after you'd been drafted right?” Twilight asked, a new concern coloring her voice.

I nodded my assent, “I spent five weeks in boot camp then got shunted off to the newly formed 141st assigned to the Baltimare garrison. The bunker that had been built into and beneath the Winding River Bridge near the city.”

“The bunkers, I remember those from my Architectural Studies class, they were built to store anything of value that the Griffons might target right?” Twilight added in.

“Correct, see Griffons have a nasty tactic for wars: they pack light and come over in swarms, then they form warbands and raiding parties to steal supplies from the enemy. Basically griffons live off of their foes. So military command set up massive underground bunkers on the east coast to store refugees as well as the majority of any vulnerable resources.”

Twilight nodded, grasping the tactic quickly, “So if the Griffons wanted to eat they would have to fight on the ground.”

“Underground actually, only problem was that the tight spaces made weapons fire and combat... an ordeal.”

Pinkie nodded at that but Twilight just cocked her head in that way that silently communicated how she didn't really get what was just said. I took a deep breath and tried to figure out a way to explain the problem without sounding like a psychopath. I knew why I had to though, she thought like Command did, it was all a numbers game in her mind, it didn't help that the plan looked perfect on paper too. They overlooked some of the realities of war though, one risk of riding a desk for too long.

“Basically, the tight quarters meant it was really easy to accidentally hit your friend. Command was hoping that the bunker would discourage any attacks at all, they didn't actually think that the Griffons would drop to their claws and fight on the ground.” And why should they have? Griffons considered fighting in the air as the only true method of combat, ground warfare was dishonorable and weak to them.

“But it didn't work?” Twilight ventured.

I gave a smile that was positively arid as I answered her, “Let's just say that there was a reason for the nickname all the soldiers gave the bunkers.”

“Death-traps,” Pinkie filled in. I was surprised, there weren't many outside the rank and file that called them that.

“You're surprisingly well-informed, Miss Pie.”

Pinkie nodded again, “My older sister, Octavia, is a musician. She and her ensemble were in Baltimare playing a set when the sirens sounded. She says she still has nightmares about it sometimes.”

“She was one of the refugees,” the matter suddenly cleared up immensely. The fighting had been brutal, some of the refugees had even helped fight off the attacking griffons. There had been a sort of silent camaraderie that formed up. Some refugees tended the wounded as ad hoc nurses to the few medical personnel who were still alive, others manned the barricades alongside veterans and rookies alike.

“I remember the report now,” Twilight said, her voice had become much subdued, “not a single civilian died during the battle, right?”

I was about to answer but Pinkie cut me off. “That's right, and that's why...” she turned back to me as she trailed off, “...that's why you're never paying a single bit if you ever come to Sugarcube Corner! The only reason my big sister is still alive is because of you and your friends.”

There were barely contained tears straining behind the defiant pink mare's eyes. I had the impression that she never got this worked up and this serious at the same time. I wanted to protest, to say that I didn't do anything I wasn't supposed to, but I knew the look in her eyes. The life of her family was priceless; so saying that the act of saving her sisters life, even indirectly, was nothing? That would have been unacceptable.

So, grudgingly, I gave a small nod of agreement. Pinkie just sniffled, took a deep breath, and gave me another, gentler hug.

“Thank you.”

“Any time,” I answered, feeling just a little bit like a soldier again.

Twilight had a strange look on her face but she smiled when I met her eyes. She hadn't known how bad I'd had it in those early days and I knew it was eating at her. We'd probably end up talking about it later tonight. Tomorrow, though, I had an errand to run.

“So, thanks for making me uninvisible Twilight!” Pinkie said brightly, her mood turning back to its normal state, “I've gotta foalsit Pumpkin and Pound tonight though so I gotta get going, ok?”

“I turned you 'Vi-si-ble,” Twilight grinned and handed a small, foul-smelling jar to her friend. “This is a mixture of the herbal bath salts you'll need in case you try anymore crazy recipes ok?”

“What? You're not going to tell me to never do it again?” Pinkie said with real surprise in her voice.

Twilight shrugged, “It's not like it's actually poisonous, besides, maybe you'll make some kind of fantastic cake with it or something.”

“Heehee, ok, I'll be more careful next time, seeya!” Pinkie waved enthusiastically as she departed, leaving Twilight and I alone, Spike having gone to his room long before. The silence became deafening without Pinkie. I knew that Twilight was itching to ask me about the war and all the things that had happened to me but, on the other hoof, she knew that I had no desire to relive those experiences. We remained quiet for long time until...

“So.”

Came the awkward words as we both attempted to break the ice simultaneously. Twilight blushed and I laughed softly.

“We can talk about it tonight, ok?” I promised, Twilight just nodded happily.

“Ok, I'm just... I'm really happy to see you again Jasper,” she said, her cheeks colored adorably. I pulled her into a less bone-breaking hug and tousled her mane.

“I'm glad to see you too half-pint.”

Twilight pulled away, her mane sticking up every which way. It was like the worst sort of bed-head mated with hat-mane and had a foal. It was terribly cute as well.

“So where are you staying?” Twilight asked, I knew she'd offer me the guest room without a second thought if I needed lodgings, fortunately that wasn't the case.

“The crown provided me with a small home on the edge of town, about a half-mile out near the Everfree.”

Twilight grinned, “Oh, so you'll probably be the closest thing to a neighbor my friend Fluttershy has ever had.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Fluttershy, that super-shy pegasus who can barely work up the gumption to fly, lives in the Everfree?”

Twilight laughed, it was a nice sound, hearty and honest. “Almost, she lives right on the edge and maintains an animal refuge. The mayor pays her a stipend to keep the relatively wild animals on the forest edge controlled. My friend Applejack also has her on retainer since she's probably one of the best vets in the area.”

At that name the tiny weight in my coat pocket suddenly felt like a lead shot dragging me down.

“That reminds me, I have some business to take care of in the morning,” I say as we step out into the library's main room and I heft up my gunny sack. “I'm gonna drop this stuff off but I'll be back. Can you tell me how to get to Sweet Apple Acres for tomorrow though?”

Twilights right eyebrow scooted upwards an inch but, thankfully, she didn't inquire further. “Sure, let me just go grab a quill and some parchment so I can write them down.”

I nod as she went back into the smaller room. Once she was gone I reached a hoof into the pocket and drew out the tiny weight that had been on my mind for the three years since the war's end. It was a slim iron necklace with a locket attached to it that was cast in the shape of a small golden apple.

It had taken a stroke of luck and some serious pressing to figure out who the ponies in the picture contained within were. The stallion who had begged me with his dying breath to deliver it back to his family hadn't been able to pass that on. Other reasons had prevented me from immediately acting on his request. I cracked it open, inside was a faded picture of a handsome young colt with a red coat, an even younger orange filly in her teens, and between them was another, tinier filly who could only have been a few years old at most.

“Sweet Apple Acres, huh?” I muttered as I snapped the clasp closed and returned the tiny golden apple to its pocket. “This isn't gonna to be easy.”

Chapter 6

Holy early chapter batman! Hurrah for sleep deprivation, if anyone catches any major mistakes (I know that there have to be some) feel free to post them in the comments section below or send me a PM!

I stared dumbfounded at her and, for a moment, I imagined that she was just as I remembered her. Flawless and kind, eyes that sparkled with compassion and mischief, a smile never far from her lips or a laugh from her voice.

But she wasn't, she was different. Her coat was pale, no longer the rich forest viridian I remembered, it looked washed out and stale. Summer's bronze mane was the same eerie combination of familiar and dissimilar, it was messy and unkempt as usual, but in a way that seemed more slovenly than coquettish. She wasn't the same, there was something very... no... inherently wrong with her.

“Heh, you never change, Captain. I think you had that same gobsmacked look on your face after we spent our first night together,” her voice was the same but different, much like her appearance. It had a strange tonal quality I couldn't place, but one that I was sure was alien from My Summer's real voice.

“Who... who are you,” anger had its grip on my throat as I cursed myself for a foal for leaving my weapon behind. I couldn't very well retrieve without being entirely obvious so I began moving towards my wardrobe, never losing my gaze on her so it seemed like I was just taking her measure.

“Oh come on, that's just mean Captain,” she slunk off of the bed in a sultry fashion and slid closer to me. A curious smell followed her that I didn't recognize, it wasn't the scent of windswept leaves I'd always associated with her though. “I come all the way out to this little backwater and you say you don't even remember me?” It hurt, seeing her but knowing it was a lie, that it had to be a lie. Whoever was responsible for this would suffer, I would make sure of it. “What? Did the sun-witch take those memories of me away from you in the name of 'national security' too? That's just too cruel.”

Her casual mention of my memory seal rocked me back on my hooves, nopony should know about that, only the Princesses, Celestia and her sister Luna, I wasn't even sure the Princess Cadence knew about me.

“You're not Summer,” I hissed biliously, “Summer died in Bunker Bridge, in the final push out of that hell hole. I saw her die.”

She moved sinuously around me, brushing her fetlocks against mine in the way she used to during operations when she wanted to subtly, but affectionately, remind me of her presence. As if I was ever unaware of it.

“Oh, yes... I do seem to recall something about that, something about two blade nearly cutting my ribcage in half I think. It certainly sparks a memory or two,” her voice was positively caustic.

“Then you know there's no way I'd actually buy that you're her,” I said flatly, “I buried her, I mourned her, I...”

“YOU WHAT?” Without warning, Summer's voice became hollow and hateful, behind her eyes I could see a lambent glow behind her eyes, pain blossomed in my mind as memories tried to surge to the surface. “You... What...?” suddenly all reason and understanding, “Hmmm... Lover?” I shivered as she traced her muzzle up my neck, “You buried me...” she mocked as she pranced away from me, “you mouuuuurned me?” she draped herself dramatically across the foot of my bed, before snapping back up and glaring insidiously into my eyes. “And then what!? You moved on? On to your little book-loving skank? Or maybe that prissy fashionista? Or that shy, pretty little creature you met this morning?” she clipped her hooves against the floor as she counted out my new friends, Twilight's friends. “Or maybe you spent all day railing that pink little number in the bakery,” her words slithered venomously out her mouth.

“Who. Are. You,” her words were getting under my skin, slicing and writing, and my head was pounding, I just wanted to make her go away.

“I'm your one true love my dear,” she said oh-so-pleasantly, “Or did you forget all the plans we made as well? Of course you didn't, after all, didn't we talk about getting a little cottage in the country, just for us?”

My anger fell away like a molted snakeskin. We had talked about getting a little cottage, even getting married once all that hell was over with. And it was true, I'd specifically requested this little cottage rather than one closer in town because it was so close to what she and I had talked about. But what rocked me to my core was that nopony could know about that, it was impossible for anypony but Summer and I, we'd been entirely alone that night.

“How could you possibly know that?” I'd stopped inching towards the wardrobe out of shock, and my voice came out as a whisper.

“Because, stupid, it really is me,” that was my Summer's voice, that 'honest to the point of bordering on insubordination' confidence delivered with a straight face. She even looked a little bit hurt.

My throat choked and my eyes burned with unspent tears. I couldn't accept this, the dead couldn't get up and walk again. It was impossible, utterly and absolutely, it couldn't be...

Why. The Hell. Did my head hurt so sun-damned much?

Summer closed the distance between us, nonthreatening, and without any malice in her eyes or movements. She pulled herself close to me a tight embrace and, Celestia help me, I returned it, entirely desperate to believe that the mare I loved was back in my arms.

“Jasper...” her voice was husky with longing and sadness, “please... it's me.”

Then she pressed her lips against mine, a heated hunger driving behind them, I matched the hunger and need with three long years of sorrow and guilt, assuaged in an instant.

Except there was something wrong.

I tasted ash and blood.

My eyes snapped open, the smell suddenly struck me like a warhammer swung at my skull. That faint smell that hung around her was chemical. It was formaldehyde, methanol, and synthetic dyes.

In other words: Embalming Fluid.

I broke the sickening embrace, seized the thing in front of me by the foreleg, and pivoted, swinging her, no, IT, into the wall behind me. She screeched with an unholy fervor, the lambent corps-light lit behind her eyes. The pain in my head was torture but I pushed it was as she came at me. I was too close to the wardrobe though, I swung the heavy oak door open as she approached and I heard a sickening crack as it intercepted her charge and dropped her to the ground. I reached in, drew out the long, loaded instrument, slammed the door shut, and pinned her head to the floor with the barrel of the long-arc.

The report of the firearm in the tiny room was deafening.

I let our a shuddering breath. She was dead, but walking, moving, even talking. Hell, she wasn't just talking, she had been reminiscing. It had seemed so real, how could...?

The corpse twitched.

“Impossible” I muttered, pulling the long-arc out of the gory mess I'd made of its brainpan. The entire left hemisphere of her skull and scalp was a ruin, bronze strands hanging by loose and bloody flesh, the stench of embalmed flesh and organs filled the room. It must have spoken volumes that my stomach was only mildly unsettled.

It stood on shaky hooves as I rapidly seized a corner of bedsheet and unclogged the gristle that had been caught in the barrel.

“How... dare you... shoot me...” it hissed, it's voice completely inequine now, there wasn't even a hint of mortality. It was a type of voice I'd grown accustomed to though. The voice of a vengeful specter. “I LOVED YOU!” it screamed balefully, in a voice that echoed with unnatural strength, as though it was coming from across a great distance.

“I loved you too, Summer,” I whispered, another Crack-Crack sent an arcane bolt tearing through her left foreleg knee, dropping to her to the ground.

She shrieked like a banshee, dragging herself bodily across the floor and leaving a smear of rotten blood behind her.

Crack-Crack

Her right knee exploded, eliciting another howl. Not of pain but of the kind of manifold rage you'd expect from an animal, or a daemon. Still she advanced on two obliterated limbs, pushing herself forward with her back legs and desperately scrabbling with the splintered bones of her front.

I waited, taking aim, for the moment to fire, I knew where to put the next shot. Somehow I knew.

She reared up, her face lit with lambent balefire, an unearthly green in the darkness of the night.

Crack-Crack

Summer froze, what was left of her face twisted in pain and betrayal, she looked down at the gaping hole I'd shot through the brutalized scar tissue on her chest. I could almost see the unwelcome power leaking out through from her body.

With a curious sound like a sigh she collapsed, and her body began to rapidly decay. In moments there was nothing left but a viscous black tar to prove anything happened at all. A part of me wished it had just gone away completely and I could collapse, wake up the next morning, and pretend it was some kind of horrific delusion my sadistic subconscious had whipped together.

Then I saw the note.

It was a small bar of ceramic that must have been lodged inside her body. Disgusted, I still fished it out of the mess, gingerly, wondering if it was some foul focus for whatever had brought that specter to my doorstep. It looked like a fragment of pottery, on one side were inscribed runes, they seemed to writhe and twist on their own as I looked at them. I turned away, not because they were vile, although they were, but because for some reason they were also achingly familiar.

I turned the piece over, on the other side was a message is common Equuish: Welcome Back Number 109.

Celestia's sun was barely emerging on the horizon by the time I found myself on the doorstep of the Golden Oaks Library. I caught a glimpse of myself in a few windows on my way here, I knew I looked like something hell had spat up after a bad night of even worse drinks. I'd spent the hours following the fight in my bedroom mechanically cleaning up the viscous foulness that the corpse-Summer had left on my floor after she/it had finally given up the ghost. I kept wondering if she would just show up again, after all, can you really kill something that's already dead? Those ideas teetered my mind on the edge of insanity and a part of me prayed that I was just relapsing into madness, and that I'd be shipped back off to Canterlot Sanitarium as a case study for PTSD of the most severe kind.

If only.

The small bar of ceramic mocked me with its silent and continued existence. Proof incontrovertible that something had happened. Something beyond the laws of sanity and nature.

Welcome Back Number 109

For some reason that moniker stuck to the back of my mind. Everytime I thought of it another blossom of pain would nearly blind me. Eventually I had to run on the assumption that whatever it was was related to the war, and per force, the memories which Celestia had walled up behind the suppression ward that kept whatever secret

After I'd cleaned the floor and laundered the sheets, an act that seemed incredibly important at the time although I imagine it was my minds way of trying to erase what had happened insomuch as it could, I had sat at the dinner table and thought long and hard about my next action. Eventually I decided that I was too far out of my depth, I was a soldier, not a scientist, or a scholar of magical lore, so I did what any good soldier was supposed to do in that situation. I drafted a report to my immediate superior. In this case, to Princess Celestia.

For the eyes of the Princesses only:

My Soveriegn, I've recently encountered something I'd long since thought impossible. This night last I encountered a member of my old regiment, Summer Withers, elder sister to Honey Withers, and my second-in-command during the events at Bunker Bridge. If you read the AAR for the operation, you'll know that her name was listed among those killed in the final assault. I can personally attest to this, as her manner of death at the claws of the Griffon General Phaestus directly preserved my own life. I also observed her funeral and interment in her family crypt in Trottingham in person.

Accordingly I need to know if it's possible to truly raise a pony from the dead. The entity in question possessed knowledge that nopony but I and Summer were privy to, nor could they have known. It led me to conclude that, even if it was not actually Sergeant Withers, it at least possessed a semblance of her memories.

During the conversation she mentioned numerous points that caused me a great deal of physical pain. I believe this was the effect of your suppression actively preventing me from remembering the points she was referring to.

Ever your servant,

Former Captain, Jasper Shale, 109th

I had considered sending along with the standard post but the letter would, at the fastest, reach her by tomorrow, and I needed the Princess to know ASAP. That and the mailpony didn't seem like the most reliable sort, she was pleasant enough and very friendly but I also saw her attempt to put the mornings newspaper in my mailbox the day before. She missed it three times before finally giving in and setting it on top of the box.

So it was that, in the wee hours of the morning, I found myself hammering on the door to the library, praying that Twilight had gotten out of her habit of sleeping like a sedated log.

She hadn't.

After four minutes of knocking a bleary-eye dragonling opened the door and glared out.

“Jasper?” His expression changed to one of concern when he saw the state I was in, my greatcoat haphazardly thrown on, my main askew with fleks of black tar still peppering my coat where it emerged from my jacket.

“Spike, I need to talk to Twilight, fast, please I heard she sent regular messages to her mentor and I need her to send on ASAP,” my words stuttered out in a rush as Spike backed up, letting me into the cluttered library.

“Uh, sorry about the mess, Twilight was reshelving fiction and... got a little carried aw- Wait, a message?” Spike finally caught up to my ranting and, mysteriously, actually grinned. “You're in luck then, Twilight isn't the one who sends them, I do. My dragonfire can send messages straight to the Princess herself!” he seemed overy proud though at that exact moment I would've personally sung his praises from the highest rooftops.

“That's perfect, please, send this to the Princess!” I pulled out the message I'd hastily written several hours ago and handed it off to the little dragon. With a flare of green energy that reminded me sickeningly of the energy that had bled from my dead comrade's eyes the message vanished.

“There you go, it usually takes her a few hours to respond though so how about I make a cup of coffee? You uh, well, kind of look like sh-”

Without warning the light from the sun that was filtering in the window went from pleasantly ambient to utterly blinding in the space of seconds, I tasted ozone for a brief second that I used to seize Spike and hurl ourselves behind the nearby couch. It was followed by a sound reminiscent of a massive tree being struck by lightning as the air in the library was violently displaced, which itself was accompanied by the shattering of glass. I recognized the effects, it was an unfettered, long-distance teleportation spell. It seemed that my warning and request for aid had not fallen on deaf ears, I idly wished for a moment that the military had been so prompt six years ago.

As the light and noise subsided I heard a high pitched squeal from upstairs and a dull thump, most likely Twilight being unpleasantly awoken by the clamour. In the midst of all the chaos stood the resplendent alicorn to whom I had sworn my devotion and allegiance.

Princess Celestia, the Goddess of the Sun.

“Jasper, come out, we must speak,” her voice, unlike her entrance was almost mellifluous, light and pleasant with a maternal warmth to it. I stepped out amidst the wreckage in time to see the Princess idly cleaning up the mess her entrance had made, seemingly without even thinking about it. A soft golden glow reshaped the windows, repositioned the furniture, and, I noted with amusement, finished alphabetizing the fiction section.

I bowed low and Spike did the same, “Princess,” I said without lifting my head, “everything in the letter I sent was absolutely true, and I need to know what to do next. I...”

I felt her approach me, more than saw or heard it. Unable to resist I looked up and for just a second, all my trauma, fear, and panic, subsided. Her presence was more than material, Celestia was lit from within by the light of the sun, not the physical light, but the light it represented. The warmth of comfort and succor, the vital and pure energy that gave life to the world around us.

“Calm yourself, Captain, I know what you say is truth. I-”

“P-P-P-PRINCESS?!” Twilight's voice split the air from the middle of the staircase, the purple unicorn was staring, mortified, at the mentor's unexpected visit. She also had the spectacularly adorable case of bed head I'd seen in years.

Celestia giggled in an almost fillyish manner, “Oh, hello my faithful student, I'm so sorry I woke you up, haste was the order of the morning I'm afraid,” her genuinely apologetic tone reminded me why she was the ruler. Not because of her power of presence, but because more than anything, she truly cared for each and every subject from the depths of her heart.

“N-no! Not at all! I just.. Oh... uhm... I just wish I'd had known, I could have cleaned up or... or... OMIGOSHILOOKAWFULPLEASEWAITASECOND!”

Twilight vanished in a pop and a flash of mulberry colored light For several moments Spike, the Princess, and I listened to her flailing helplessly in the upstairs bathroom before turning and meeting each others eyes and bursting out in peals of laughter. For all of the seriousness of this meeting, it seemed Twilight had, albeit inadvertently, disarmed much of the tension.

Out of silence I voiced the question that had been on my mind since that thing had attacked me in my bedroom.

“Was she real?” I asked soberly, darkening the atmosphere just as quickly as Twilight had lightened it. Celestia regarded me thoughtfully for a moment before answering.

“Yes, she was, I'm sorry Jasper.”

I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood as a wash of unidentifiable emotions pulsed through me, “You know, Princess, I had almost hoped that I was just going crazy again...”

She nodded gracefully, although I couldn't imagine her doing anything that wouldn't involve that descriptor. “I understand, in truth, I think it would have been easier if that had been the case but...”

“But what, Princess?”

“Before my student returns I need to ask something of you, something very important,” the severe expression on my face stilled my any response on my tongue. “I to ask you to forgive me.”

Whatever I'd been expecting it hadn't been that.

“B-beg your pardon, Princess, but what am I forgiving? Most rulers would have either had me quietly 'disposed of' or kept me locked in the bin for the rest of my natural life. You personally ensured that my memories would harm nopony and let me out so I could live my life.”

Celestia shook her elegant head in denial, “No, that is what you saw, but the reasons I had were far less altruistic. I let you go for one reason, because you were the only living pony I knew of whose presence would be able to draw one of the worst war criminals in our history out into the open again.”

I had to let the gears of my mind process that for a minute before muttering, “I... I was bait?”

Celestia nodded but forestalled my immediate response by raising her hoof, “I promise I will explain, my little pony, I swear this to you, but... I also need you to know how sorry I am that I had to use you like this. After all you have done for the crown you deserved so much better.”

A large part of me wanted to rage at her, that I had been used like a carrot on a stick to draw somepony out of hiding was more than a little humiliating, especially since I'd had no idea what kind of danger I was walking in to. Another part of my brain reminded me of something more important though. My oaths. My duty. My loyalty.

I cleared the bile from my throat before quietly giving her my answer.

“I, Jasper Shale, do vow upon the sun and the moon, upon the diurnal crown, that I shall uphold the laws of the Equestria, that I shall enter the field of battle with faith in the knowledge that I fight for every free pony in this realm. I, Jasper Shale, do pledge my life, my oath, and if need be, my death, to the defense of this nation, this I so swear.”

My oath of service, one that was sworn by each and every private on the day of their official induction in to the Royal Army of Equestria. It was also one that was repeated on the eve of a great battle, to remind everypony why that fought.

“My oath still stands to this day your Majesty, and I am still you loyal soldier, there was never anything to forgive.”

The Princess let out a breath of relief, and it looked as if a weight had been lifted off of her, I had the feeling she'd been holding that breath ever since she'd decided to use me to tempt her real quarry into making a move. A small fragment of my heart was still a little angry but I had enough experience with the insanely hard decisions that leaders had to make that the sympathy for her choice outweighed it.

With a sweep one vast wing she pulled me in to a close embrace, “Thank you, Captain Shale, you're a credit to the crown, I wish every soldier had your sense of loyalty.”

“Uhm, Princess?” Twilight's clearly confused tone sounded from somewhere to the Princess's side. With an embarrassed cough I pulled away and Celestia turned to regard her pupil.

“Yes, I'm sorry Twilight, I had some... personal matters to resolve with the Captain, I'm pleased to say they ended well.”

“Uh, yeah, I could see that, Oh! Spike! Please get-”

“Already on it Twi', keep your saddle on,” Spike answered from the kitchen, I hadn't even realized he'd left. In a moment her emerged carrying a tray, with a steaming pot of what smelled like Earl Grey tea, and four bowls of oatmeal topped with fruit, cream, and honey. It looked mouthwateringly delicious.

“Wow, that uh.. that looks amazing Spike.”

The little dragon grinned proudly, “Finally, someone who appreciates good cooking!”

“Hey, I appreciate it Spike!” Twilight countered as she scooped up a bowl and spoon.

“Yeah, when you aren't ears-deep in a book while you're eating, which is, like, all the time.”

They continued their bickering with the ease of friendly familiarity that reminded me of the nights I'd spent shooting the breeze with my comrades in arms.

Celestia interrupted the activity though, “I'm sorry, Captain, my faithful student, Spike, but we need to speak, and quickly, there is a grave matter at hoof that I need to bring you all up to speed on.”

Twilight and Spike ceased their little argument immediately, Celestia's voice carried a solemnity that instantly gave her the floor. A good quality in a leader, I mused as I nodded, waiting on her explanation.

“I will start at the beginning, then, this all started with a Doctor, now the most hunted war criminal in Equestria, named Silver Twist.”

Twilight gasped softly, “S-Silver Twist? Since when is he a war criminal? He's a celebrated scholar!”

Celestia answered in a regretful voice, “It has been kept a secret, he is, even now, being pursued by my sisters special operations team: The Nocturnae.”

“But why?”

Celestia looked pensive at Twilight's question and for a second I was sure she wasn't going to answer, but then she looked around suspiciously, and with a breath of magical, closed and sealed every single one of the doors and windows in the Library.

“What I tell you never leaves this room, not even the other Elements must know the truth, at least for now, are we clear?” The deadly timbre of the Princess's voice made clear in no uncertain terms what kind of damage could be done if we didn't adhere to her order, all three of us nodded soberly.

“The reason that Silver Twist was deemed a war criminal, is for his use of several Class A forbidden spells and incantations. Specifically, the raising of the dead.”