" ‘Cause she knows that it’d be tragic if those evil robots win. I know she can beat them."

It has been an entire year since the war began. There was a group running away from the battle, the one called the Peace Corps. Under the guide of Fluttershy, the group managed to take the youngsters and the ponies who didn’t want to get involved in war far from the battlefield. At the moment, they were hidden in the forest around Hollow Shades, a small town at Northwest of Fillydelphia.

Hollow Shades had been bombed twice. The first time was under a Shadowbolts’ attack. The second time was during a fierce battle between both sides, the center of the town was completely destroyed that day. Some of the surviving population escaped to the mountains, others to Hayseed Swamps or to another place where they thought they wouldn’t be reached by war.

One of the Peace Corps goal was protecting as may ponies as possible. After failing in arguing with both of the rulers, Fluttershy decided there was nothing else to do but resist what was coming. She divided the large group into several smaller ones, so they could escape the battles a bit more easily. Bon-Bon and Lyra took their group to Appleloosa, trying to find any other pony who could need some help. Time “Whooves” Turner took his to the Northeast, assuring they would be safer near Unicorn Range.

Most of the ponies were scared, some ones barely ate and others just stared through a window or a hole in the wall, like their souls were gone. Even the youngest ones seemed to have no hope. Fluttershy did what she could to calm them down; she wished one of her friends was with her so she could make them all laugh… But she was gone now.

Nevertheless, there was one pony who was not scared at all. In the mornings, she was the first one up; sometimes she spent the first couple of hours chatting with Fluttershy or the pony guarding the house or building they were taking shelter. At first, she was the only filly happy enough to go outside and play, flying around like everything was ok. Other youngsters joined her with time. However, one day Hollow Shades was attacked again.

Nopony expected another attack, since the town’s population was already gone. By the looks of it, some aerial squad had located the town and decided to tear down the ruins. The bombardment didn’t last long because the squad apparently received some call from another place, so they threw two more explosive charges over the town’s library and disappeared right away. A lot of other building had collapsed but, fortunately, Fluttershy’s group was hidden under Hollow Shades’ hall. They had discovered a basement beneath the ruins, so they took it as shelter.

“Calm… calm down, please…” A really nervous Fluttershy spoke to the children “We’re all ok, it’s over now… D-don’t worry.” She started counting everypony in there. Some of them had left the building to look for some food on the rest of the ruins, but she didn’t know if they had all come back “Leafy Wind? Where are you? Leaf- Oh, there you are. Candlespark?”

“I’m behind you, Miss Fluttershy.”

“O-ok… Hazelnut? Has anyone seen Hazelnut?”

“Over here!” Somepony answered from the corner of the basement. He was taking care of a couple crying colts who had got really scared. The yellow pegasus noded.

“Good… Everypony’s here. No, wait…” She carefully looked everypony one by one. “Alula? Where’s Alula?” Everyone looked around, trying to find her “Alula!”

“I think I saw her leaving the basement a couple hours ago.” a light blue filly said.

“Did you see where she went? Did you?!”

“N-no… I-I’m so sorry, Miss Fluttershy!”

“Oh dear… Oh no… She’s just a filly!” The pegasus flustered and trotted back and forth for a couple moments “We… we have to find her! Hazelnut, Twinkleshine! If… if you don’t mind… would you come with me?!” Even in an emergency, she was terribly shy. Both ponies, a green earth stallion and an ivory unicorn mare, ran behind Fluttershy, who left the shelter in a wink. The rest of the adults remained at the place to take care of the foals.

The light blue filly who had spoken with Fluttershy stood still, watching the elders as they ran away. She sighed. Alula was a great friend, she really liked her. Yeah, she was weird most of the times, but she made her smile almost every day; when she felt like she couldn’t handle the situation anymore. She thought it was kind of her fault for not going with her. “Come on, Candle!” She had said to her “I’ll show you something you’ll love!” But Candlespark had refused to leave the basement.

Was she ok? Candlespark wished so. If she had gone with her, would both of them be alright? Or would both be hurt? …Or worse? She could see her. Candlespark suddenly imagined Alula, roaming amongst the ruins of a large place, looking for an exit. She could imagine her saying “Hello? What happened? Who’s there?” The unicorn wished with all of her heart, her pegasus friend to be fine… Or hurt. But alive. That would be enough. Alula then trotted back to where she was and started to pick up things, piling them up. The unicorn doubted. She wondered why she was imagining that. She tried to erase that silly thought off her mind, but she just couldn’t. It was like she wasn’t thinking about it, but actually seeing it.

“Candlespark?” Somepony asked her. However, that voice seemed to come from far away and not next to her, where the blonde filly was standing “What are you doing?”

When Candlespark opened her eyes, she felt some sort of warmth over her forehead. There was a flaming spark on the tip of her horn. She realized she was not imagining her friend. She had, somehow, found her. Candlespark suddenly dashed through the basement door, making two of the remaining adults go after her.

“I know!” She shouted to the ponies. She met Fluttershy a couple buildings in front of the town hall and Twinkleshine and Hazelnut a bit further. “I know where she is!” Dubious, they all followed Candlespark to the border of the town, to a building that was barely standing, since it had been bombarded several times. That day, the last bomb had torn the west and south walls, completely blocking the entrance.

“Why she would be at the library?”

“I don’t know, but she’s here!” Candlespark answered, hastily. She reached the ruins and started to dig “Alula! Alula, we’re here!” She didn’t notice, but the rest of the ponies, except for Fluttershy, seriously doubted of her and they just stood still for a while, watching the blue filly and the yellow pegasus lifting rocks and throwing them away, trying to clear the way. “Alula?! Alula!”

“Ahm heh!” A voice answered from beyond the rocks. At that point, the four other ponies hurried to help Fluttershy and Candlespark.

“What?”

“I said I’m here! I was looking for… something on the lower levels of the library and then the door was like… Boom! Gone! Just rocks… Then I went down again saying ‘Hey, I could pick a couple more meanwhile’ and when I reached the door again and… Oh, oh! Still rocks! Then I heard you, Candle and then…”

While Alula was telling her library adventure, the stallions of the small group had removed enough rocks for the filly to pass through. With a little help of Fluttershy and Twinkleshine, Alula finally escaped the ruins. She was carrying a big bag with her mouth. Candlespark thought that was the reason of her speaking weird the first time.

“That was cool! How did you know I was here?” The young pegasus said. Everypony seemed to share the curiosity.

“I… I don’t know… I thought of you and then… Then I just saw you in there like I was… watching you…”

“Weeeeiiird~” Alula said, happily.

“Look, Candlespark!” The yellow pegasus pointed at the unicorn’s pot. She turned her head to find out she was not a blank flank anymore. “Looks like you’ve found what makes you special!”

The filly could not speak. She was so surprised seeing her brand new Cutie Mark, she had completely stopped, with her muzzle wide open. The Mark consisted in a flaming candle placed over a tray.

“Oh, no! No my present’s gonna be like nothing!” Alula said, sadly “It’s your birthday today, so I thought about making you a cake, but since I don’t have the ingredients I searched lots and lots of cake books in the library. If you can’t eat them, at least you can see them!” She emptied the bag at Candlespark’s hooves, revealing not less than twenty cookbooks, all of them about cakes and pastries.

The unicorn smiled with a couple of tears on her eyes. She hadn’t had cake since the beginning of the war, and she had told Alula once how much she missed cakes. Fluttershy seemed a lot more calmed. She grinned and caressed both fillies with her wings. She remembered even in hard times, one or two smiles can save the day.

“And what does that Cutie Mark mean?” The vanilla filly asked when they all began walking.

“Maybe” Fluttershy spoke “it means you can find ponies. I mean… that sounds really simple, but maybe… ehm… It’s finding them when no one else can. When everything’s dark and silent and nopony can see… You’d be like a candle, lighting the way.”

——————————

A light blue stallion wearing a blue officer suit, which looked too formal for him, entered the room.

“We’re here, we’re here! Sorry of the delay, I stopped for some snacks…”

“As you always do.” A mare with a yellow coat and a flame-like orange mane was right behind him. There were an unusually large number of ponies in that room.

In front of everypony, there were the Rulers: Celestia and Luna. The rest of the ponies were sitting around the table, each of them had a similar reason for being there. They were all remarked ponies from the War, either from the battlefield or back, at the strategy. Applejack, the best leader and fighter Luna had, was at the far left —Her brother would have been at her side, but he refused to go—. Soarin, who had lost his right wing fighting the Shadowbolts, and Spitfire, the ferocious current Wonderbolts’ Captain, who had just arrived, sat next to the hat mare. Some ponies would get surprised by the present of the next pony, a blonde mare called Derpy Doo, who worked in Celestia’s side as an explosive expert, though nopony actually knows where she learnt about that. Sitting aside her, there was Twilight Sparkle, Celestia’s best magical engineer. Next to her, there was an aquamarine unicorn from the former Peace Corps and the medical units. Fluttershy was supposed to be there, but Lyra Heartstrings was on the seat on her behalf. The next seat was reserved to Rarity, but another unicorn was using it, a dark grey coated stallion with violet mane called Bright Fate, Luna’s second best magician. Sitting next was the recently healed leader of the Shadowbolts, the pegasus with the dark red mane called Cloudstrike. The two last seats were taken by two pegasi: the first one was a white stallion with bright red mane called Rain Catcher; the second one was a black mare with light blue mane called Evening Star. They were the current Captains of each Ruler’s Royal Guard. While the Wonderbolts and the Shadowbolts were the main air force, the fastest squads, the Guards were the heavier, stronger part of the army. The main body of the attack.

Celestia sighed. It was not meant to be that way. Nothing was meant to be that way. Not even twelve years in the past ponies. Not even at that moment. She had no right to take the good life, the peace and the hope out of those ponies. But, she thought, it was necessary.

“Thank you for coming.” The Sun Ruler began “Some of you witnessed the recent threat our land had received. Other had just heard about it. It may sound quite strange and hard to believe but I can assure you this menace is true. Maqyas…” She stopped for a couple seconds “Maqyas was a powerful being a long time ago and even after he was… punished for his crimes and banished to the deepest part of our land, he seems to have gained even more power than before.”

Luna sat quietly, since she knew very little about her uncle. She was facing the ponies, but her eyes were firmly looking at Celestia’s every gesture. Her sister didn’t want to tell the whole story, Luna was almost convinced of that. But given the situation, she didn’t dare to ask more about Maqyas. Or at least not at that moment.

“Twilight Sparkle, can you tell us something about the machinery Maqyas used to attack Ponyville?” Celestia asked, softly.

“Of course, Empress” The Mayor took a large piece of scroll out of her bag with her magic and unrolled it over the table. There was an incredibly accurate draw of the robot. The ones who didn’t see it in person tried to hide a giggle, but the serious look at everypony else’s face made them shut up. “The… robot was made up of an internal main metal skeleton” She followed the lines and parts of the draw with a stick she had taken out from her bag “It apparently took all of its energy from what I called the core. Right now it’s on its way to Rarity, the best gemstone specialist I know, for further analysis.”

“Why can’t you analyze it?” Rain Catcher asked.

“Well… The core, located in the center of the main frame, was a really really strange crystal. From my knowledge, I could tell that piece was not big enough for conserving the amount of energy needed to move by itself. And since Rarity is quite an expert with crystals and gems, I thought she could figure it out. What I did found about the core is that it has a high magic resist. If it’s deeply manipulated with magic or if somepony tries to handle it while still connected to the machine, the core will continuously drain that pony’s magic and energy. I don’t know what its limits are…”

“Well, that’s what we don’t know” Bright Fate said, alternately looking at Twilight and the scroll “What is what we actually know?”

“Like I said, the whole energy the robot needs to move is taken from the core. If it’s removed, the machine falls. The energy is conducted to the limbs through cables. However, the limbs themselves move with pistons and gears, so, even if we don’t take the core out of it, we can still defeat it if we prevent those parts from moving. The bad news is almost every part of the robot is covered by a thick layer of metal with a slight amount of magic resist.”

“What does that mean? Unicorn magic will do nothing to it?” Soarin said.

“Not exactly. If a unicorn tries to disassemble it using magic, it’s not gonna work that well. But, if that unicorn tries to handle the robot very shallowly, you would be able to fight it. I tried and succeeded in stopping its arm with no magic draining. That’s what it means. On the other hands, the weakest points in the structure are the joints. Since the robot was very agile, it needed to have quick movement limbs, so a layer of metal on the joints would unnecessarily slow it down.”

“So, we can take the core out or shoot at the joints, right?”

“Practically, yes” This time, it was Spitfire who answered “But that guy is really hard, even at the joints or the legs, which weren’t as protected as the rest of the body.”

“Correct. And… there’s another thing. Here’s more of the robot structure” Twilight took another scroll and unrolled it over the first one. That draw was almost the same as the previous one, but it had a lot of empty spaces “These voids are not mistakes. Even if I’ve only analyze it roughly, I realized… this is not concluded.”

“Not concluded?” Luna asked with a noticeable face of concern “What… what does that mean?”

“These spaces were apparently design to… hold things. To carry tools or…”

“Weapons” Celestia finished the sentence. Twilight nodded. “Maqyas is planning to arm these things with even more harmful pieces. Is that correct, Twilight Sparkle?”

“Yes, Empress. Or at least theoretically.”

“Of course” Soarin said, rubbing his chin with his right hoof “If he, as Your Highness said, was just showing and advance of what’s comin’, he wouldn’t have showed us his whole power. We have to take this” he pointed at the robot’s plans “as a minimal threat. We will see this just as the smallest and weakest of his army.”

“Army? Ya’ say there’ll be more of this comin’ up?” Applejack asked nervously.

“Well… We can only suppose so…”

“There’s… another thing.” Twilight said after a while. It was what she had in mind for the whole trip to Canterlot, it was what really bothered her. “The robot came from underground. That means he could have already set all of his army under Equestria.”

“You mean…” Lyra spoke for the first time “There could be more of these things beneath Ponyville? Right now?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Twilight Sparkle” The white alicorn stood up. “We have three months to build and prepare an entire army. We have fought in the past and we all lost, because we fought against each other. But now we will battle for our own future.”

“Are you sure, Empress?” Evening Star said, with an almost imperceptible grin on her muzzle “After all… You still want to march towards war?” she made a gesture with a hoof as she said that.

“Would you please shut the buck up?”

“Why don’t you make me, Catch?” she turned her sight really slow to Rain Catcher, who seemed was going to jump over her and start hitting her face.

“QUIET”

Celestia’s voice made them both stood still and regain their composure.

“I… I truly sorry, Your Highness” the stallion said with an honest bow of his head, though her words were not that honest.

“Yeah, yeah. Pardon.” Luna’s Captain said with another gesture of her hoof.

“Please. This is not time to argue. We must smooth things over and support each other.” the Lunar Leader said. She looked back at her sister. There was something in her she didn’t like.

——————————

“Are we there yet?”

“Please, don’t start with those again.”

“With what?”

“With those ‘are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? No. Are we there yet? No.’ games.”

The trip was taking near five hours, with Alula taking a rest just once. Turns out Mrs. Rarity was not at Manehatten, but in Baltimare; so we saved around two more hours. Alula had been talking about everything she saw. EVERYTHING. I had the nerves ready to explode a couple of tmes because of her. We saw the first buildings in the city a minute later.

“See? We’re already here. Finally.” I sighed. I guided my pegasus companion through the city up to the place I was looking for: the Three-feathers hotel. We landed in front of it. Apparently, Miss Sparkle had casted a very powerful gravity spell on the Tendershift, so the passenger could stand on the chariot unworried about the wind or the movement speed. I stepped out of the vehicle while Alula started to unfasten the strips of the yoke.

“Aw! It’s nice to set my hooves on the ground again!” Alula said with her really loud voice “My wingies are getting tired!”

“You can rest here” I told her, taking the package with my magic “I’ll come back in a while”

“Hay, no! I’ll go with ya’!”

“Fine…”

By the looks of it, Alula was thinking the same thing as me. The place was not near the social level I knew Mrs. Rarity would visit. Not even enter nor standing in. Yeah, it was a nice hotel, but a cheap one. The receptionist mare just nodded when I told her I had a package for one of the guests. She waved her hoof without interrupting her reading —a trashy magazine—.

“Hey… Why do you think that Rarity mare would be here? I mean… Isn’t she one of those I’m-too-rich-for-cheap-hotels kind of pony?”

I didn’t answer that. The hotel had just four floors and looked kind of empty but it was really clean. Not super-luxury clean, but nicely cleaned. We walked upstairs to the room 52, where I knew Mrs. Rarity was staying. I thought it was strange not to see any other tenant in there. When we arrived at the place, I stood still for nearly a minute, looking at the door.

What was I doing? I was sent there by my mentor looking for one of the ponies who would save Equestria? Was that it? I shook my head. That was… stupid. Then again, it was hilarious. Did Miss Sparkle honestly think I would find her friends and make some sort of super meeting where they planned how to bring that evil Maqyas down? I thought we could just leave. I could tell Miss Sparkle I couldn’t find Mrs. Rarity or the other ones. I could tell them they were all dead. I could…

“HEY! RARITY! ARE YOU THERE?” Alula shouted while knocking on the door several times. We heard nothing after that. But I was glad my friend had interrupted me, so I didn’t do any of the things I was thinking. I guess “We have something for yooouuu~!”

“Qui êtes-vous? Qu’est-ce que vous voulez?” a male voice came from inside. I was about to answer him, but Alula spoke before me. Again.

“WUT? Excusez-us! We don’t speak fancy!”

“Please, sir.” I said “We have an urgent package for Mrs. Rarity! It’s really, really important.”

“Oh, no, I know who you are!” a familiar voice responded. Her soft speaking somehow calmed my heart and made Alula smile. “You are one of those despicable paparazzi who just want to get a shot of my belly. But that’s not going to happen, so go away!”

“Her belly? And what’s a ‘papapizza’?” Alula tilted her head.

I knew Mrs. Rarity was a famous pony out there in the big cities, but… her belly? A picture of her belly?

“Mrs. Rarity… I… I don’t know what you mean; I’m here because Miss Twilight Sparkle sent me. She has a very important message for you.” I kind of felt dumb for speaking to a hotel door. I could hear Mrs. Rarity sigh.

“Well, congratulations! It’s the first time you use the name of a friend for one of your tricks. I’m NOT going to fall for that.”

We could hear the stallion’s voice saying something like “Maybe it’s true”. Then I thought of something: we didn’t have anything that confirmed our authenticity. Perhaps Miss Sparkle should have given me some kind of code for Mrs. Rarity to understand. If she refused to open the door, our entire quest would fail. And that would be five hours full of Alula’s talk wasted.

“WHAT? A trick? How dare you say we are some kind of potatopizzas!” Alula hit the door with her forehead a couple times “Listen, ma’am! If you don’t want to listen to us, that’s ok! Then, you’ll live your entire life thinking ‘Was that an actual package from Twilight? What if she’s dead now and I will never see her again? I should have opened the door to those awesomely cute ponies that other day!’ Then you’ll sit down on your super-duper-fancy-diamond-covered penthouse and cry over your delicious hot cocoa while remembering that-”

“STOP! For crying out loud, please stop!” I guess nopony can resist Alula’s talking powers “Honey, would you please let them in?”

“Are you sure? After all the effort of hiding you?”

Mrs. Rarity should have nodded, because we heard a couple of clicks and then the door opened. When I saw him I knew I had seen Mrs. Rarity’s husband before. He was with Miss Fluttershy’s group when we first left Ponyville, twelve years ago. It was a brown stallion with dark brown mane and calmed blue eyes. If my memory didn’t fail me, his Cutie Mark was an hourglass. I honestly never thought of him like someone Mrs. Rarity would marry.

“Yes, I know what you are thinking.” Mrs. Rarity was lying down on a bed behind a pink semi-transparent curtain “Why is such a refined pony as the famous fashion designer Rarity doing in a hotel like this?” The room had no fancy ornaments. In fact, there were no decorations besides the hotel's.

"Yeah! Wow, how did you know?"

"Please, Alula..."

"Are you really here in behalf of Twilight Sparkle?" Mrs. Rarity seemed to forgot the first question. We approached the bed while the unicorn moved the curtain a bit aside. Her mane was shorter than I remembered, but it was perfectly combed as I expected "What do you have for me, dear?"

I was carrying the package with my magic, so I carefully place it on the bed, trying not to sneak over the fragile fabric that separated us. I explained everything that had happened at Ponyville and how the Empress and Miss Luna were planning how to battle that new evil. She remained silent during my speech and a minute after it. Alula glanced around the room and then watched Mrs. Rarity's husband making some beverage.

"It is true? Everything that you said... Is that actually happening?" she finally said. She had opened the package, but I looked away, since my mentor had told me to not look at it. "Fine. Fine, I'll analyze it. Then I'll meet Twilight."

"I hope you don't regret it, sweetheart" the stallion said, taking to her the hot cocoa he had been preparing. "You actually bothered in erasing your traces when coming all the way here."

"Yes, I know, Timey, but... It's Twilight. She... They all need me." her husband had moved the curtain almost completely, so we could see Mrs. Rarity's body.

"Was she that fat before?" Alula whispered to me, looking at the mare's belly.

"Hey! I heard that!" she took a sip of her chocolate; then she caressed her abdomen "And I'm not fat. This is why I'm hiding from the media! They all want pictures and pictures and...! Don't get me wrong, I love the photos, but... This is too private for all those photography sessions! Don't you think, Candlespark?"

I couldn't speak. She was as beautiful as always, but there was something... different with her body. She had a large bump on her belly: Mrs. Rarity was pregnant.

Author's Note

Oh, boy, it's me again! Do you want the truth? I thought no one was actually reading this, so I just stopped writing. Yeah, I know u__u But... I'm back! I'll keep on making this until the very end of it :D

Thanks to everybrony who's reading this~ If you find something wrong with this, you don't like something or even if you love something I wrote, please tell me in the comments. If I see comments, I'll now you're still reading this! Buh-bye!

My girlfriend didn't like Rarity married with Dr. Whooves. What do you think about that couple?
Initial quote by Dave Fridmann, Wayne Coyne, Steven Drozd and Michael Ivins ("Yoshimi battles the pink robots part 1")