Candy, when your father expressed his wishes to teach you how to use his laser pistol, I must admit that I had misgivings. Learning how to fight is one of the most valuable skills any of us can ever acquire in this world, but I worried that the laser pistol was not correct for you. You were neither clumsy nor slow, and I wished to teach you in all the martial styles that my mother and father taught me. I wanted to teach you that strength is overvalued in combat. After all, it takes very little pressure to puncture the skin with a sharpened blade. And with your knack for brewing, you would only need to nick your attacker before your poison crippled them.

But you were so insistent on learning how to fight like your father! At least, you were when you were younger. Do you remember the conversation we had when you were little? You called my methods “barbaric!” Ha! Your father scolded you terribly for that, but I must admit that I admired you for your strength of conviction. In the end, I admit that you and your father were right. You would have been a terrible assassin. I mean no offense, daughter, but how many times were you successful when attempting to sneak cookies from the jar in our kitchen?

Your father knew what was best for you in that regard. With how similar you are to him, I should have deferred to his judgement much earlier. He and I placed our lives in each other’s hooves times beyond counting, both on the battlefield and off, and every single time we emerged victorious. Fighting alongside your love in the wasteland is possibly the greatest joy you can have.

Dancing with him is a close second. Or rather, a different kind of “dancing” that you would be very uncomfortable reading about.

Nohta, your father was kind enough to trust me when I insisted on teaching you my ways. Overall I was not able to impart much before my illness, but what little I could pass on brought me great joy. Truly some of my happiest memories are of those simple, quiet times we shared together.

Teaching you how to move silently brought an entirely different set of problems to our life in this stable. Really, did you have to make it a point to attempt to sneak up on your father and me at every opportunity? Unfortunate as your midnight expeditions were, for a number of reasons, your growing skill was apparent. Stealth can be one of your greatest allies should you choose to develop your ability as much as you can. Trust in your ability to evade and deceive, move swiftly through the sacred shadows, and remember that noise can kill as surely as a misplaced hoof, and you will one day surpass even me.

Trouble will follow you every step of the way, and ponies who are already distrustful will point hooves of blame in your direction at every opportunity. Have faith, dear. Eventually you will find your way through the shadows, and when you do you will know the freedom that I always wanted for you.

Of course, the trouble for your father and me didn’t really start until the two of you learned to work together. Vexation and admiration mixed with equal measure on that day. Every single cookie! Removed from the jar with not even a crumb left! Moreover, you both concealed your tracks! And you came up with a fairly convincing tale to place blame on your father! Really, I must admit that sprinkling the crumbs near his side of the bed was brilliant. Even I nearly fell for your ruse.

Remember that, girls. No matter what obstacle you may face, be it a brutish thug, a collapsing building, or a simple cookie jar, you are stronger together than you are apart.

“—ta!” The last portion of my sister’s name left my throat in a desperate scream just as the alicorn’s teleportation spell ended in a spectacular display of purple magic. My hoof, still outstretched and reaching for Nohta, now pointed to nothing more than darkness. Gone were the clouds and moon above me, and gone was the expansive cityscape underneath and all around me. Instead, all I could see in the gloom beyond the alicorn’s purple magic was a uniform blanket of green. Broad fern leaves as long as my tail, hanging vines as thick as my legs, and a thick carpet of spongy clovers, mosses, and assorted grasses dominated my vision. The air was thick, humid, and hot, as if I had stepped into the showers of The Stable just at the end of a maintenance shift change. As the magic waned, my nose was assaulted with the musky scent of unchecked plant and fungal growth. It was such a complete reversal in scenery that it took me a moment to realize the lack of solid ground underneath my hooves.

I exited the spell with a tad too much elevation, falling in an awkward heap on my side and grunting as the air was knocked from my lungs. Soft blades of grass cushioned the blow as I fell to the earth, but they weren’t the blades I needed to worry about. Lily collapsed on top of me with her own grunt, and one of her wings sliced straight through the leather barding protecting my barrel. By the time she was able to react to her disorientation and pull away, her leading feather’s cutting edge had carved completely through the armor and sunk a quarter of an inch into my skin.

Lily was still apologizing—and I was still screaming in pain—when a colossal wave of energy rolled over us, expanding in every direction to create a growing ring of purple lightning that arced off of every moss-covered object in our immediate vicinity. Four dark-violet hooves thumped heavily into the moss by my head, and the alicorn’s magic fizzled with an electric tingle in the air as the teleportation spell dissipated fully. The show of arcane force by the alicorn left one thing absolutely clear: she was not to be trifled with.

I hissed through my teeth at the white-hot pain in my side, adding a red hue to the overwhelming purple glow the not-Luna was bathing our surroundings in. Swallowing back nausea as I stitched my side back together, I watched the alicorn carry her whimpering green look-alike to a nearby table covered in beakers, pipettes, flasks, heating talismans, and of course, moss. I shook my head at the confusing sight of a table in the middle of what I had assumed was a jungle or forest, and continued mending the flesh overtop my ribs. With the barest of movements from her horn, a second cloud of purple magic swept the table clean, carelessly scattering the scientific equipment and scouring the overgrowth from the steel surface. With a much gentler magical touch the purple alicorn lay her green comrade atop the table, and turned to face me with an expectant and arrogant look in her eyes.

Lily helped me to my hooves, her eyes darting all around us. “I uh… I hope that whatever you’ve got planned works, Candy.”

Staring at the cold teal eyes glaring in our direction, I gulped and nodded. “Me too.”

Still holding my laser pistol in her magic, the alicorn stated, “We have arrived. We expect you to keep your word.” The alicorn’s mane rippled in a nonexistent breeze as she enunciated her words clearly and slowly. Judging by the stilted manner in which she spoke, it was almost as if she believed I was hard of hearing, or perhaps didn’t speak Equestrian. Of course, the bluntness of her words made our situation perfectly clear. “Aid Our sister or We will kill you.”

I had so many questions. But the one that came to mind first was more important than any others. I returned the hard stare as best I could, summoning up my courage to ask, “And what of my sister?”

The alicorn was silent for so long that I began to wonder if she would answer. Eventually, she only gave me the barest hint of hope. “If you do not keep your word, then she will die first.”

Terror mixed with relief in my gut. Nohta was still alive. The alicorn was holding her as leverage over me. I nodded, holding up a hoof in a pleading gesture. “O—”

“We will tear her limb from limb before your eyes.” The alicorn cut me off with a cold, emotionless glare. “You will hear her screams. You will know she died because of you.”

“Okay! I’ll help!” Goddess, surely she knew that such a threat was unnecessary! “Just don’t hurt her, please!”

In a display of confidence I would have found foolish coming from anypony else, the alicorn floated my pistol back to me. After her threats against Nohta’s life, however, I was in no state to entertain the notion of attacking her. I fumbled to stuff the weapon back into its holster as quickly as I could while she continued.

“You have more to gain from this encounter than you have to fear.” The alicorn’s words left me immensely puzzled, but before I could inquire as to her meaning she flared a broad wing over her green sister and inclined her head in the other alicorn’s direction. “She is in pain.”

“R-Right…” My lips trembled as I tried to calm my racing heart. Cautiously inching toward the table, I nodded again. “Let’s not waste any time then.”

The green mare on the table lay on her side, shivering, her every breath ragged, strained, and raspy. The Pink Cloud had marred what had once been a beautiful face, eating through the green coat and deteriorating the skin and muscle fibers around the pseudo-goddess’ right eye. I could only imagine the pain she must have been in; the flesh around her temple had softened almost to the point of sloughing off of her face.

Her purple counterpart stared at me as I lay my hooves on the table, examining the green mare. I knew better than to attempt using my spell again; I didn’t have an inkling what had gone wrong, but I certainly didn’t want to repeat it. And with the intense stare coming at me from over the table, I didn’t believe I’d have the luxury of a second chance should I repeat the mistake again.

It was perhaps one of the oddest moments of my entire life. I was being silently judged by an alicorn that was almost the spitting image of The Goddess, while simultaneously attempting to treat another alicorn for wounds sustained from the ancient and all-consuming poison that Mother’s people had specifically engineered to kill the real Luna. And I was doing so in some great underground cavern that, despite the abysmal lack of natural light, was somehow absolutely overrun with vegetative growth.

So perhaps that will help you appreciate exactly how strange I felt when I had to ask a question I had never once uttered in my entire life. Placing a hoof on the table, I furrowed my brow and grimaced. “Err, could you tell me where it hurts?”

Adding to the surrealism, it was not the green alicorn that answered. It was the purple one. “The poison has affected her horn, head, throat, and lungs.” When I raised my eyes to question the almost-Luna, she added in a matter-of-fact tone, “It has also affected her wings and forehooves to a lesser degree. That is cause for concern. But more pressing is her silence.”

In complete opposition to the purple’s statement, the green alicorn meekly lifted a single hoof toward the purple, and managed to croak out a meager whisper, “S-Sister… I can’t… can’t hear… Don’t leave me.”

The almost-Luna took the green’s hoof in her own, and laid her wing over the green’s flank. “This one would rather die, sister.” I couldn’t make up my mind whether the purple alicorn was callous or compassionate. I gave up on trying to comprehend her, or how she could possibly know what the other alicorn was feeling, and instead focused on the task at hoof.

I had never treated anypony for exposure to Pink Cloud before, but standard procedure essentially boiled down to two steps: administer health potions and pray. I opened my packs, floating out every chem, potion, and surgical instrument I still had. After setting my scalpel, gauze, and sterilizing alcohol on the table, I floated Mother’s journal to Lily.

“Lily,” I asked, “I need you to turn to the back of the book and look for a section titled ‘Pink Kiss.’ You’ll recognize it by the little warning doodles that Mother drew.” I had to poke her with the corner of the book to wrest her anxious gaze away from the purple alicorn.

Lily fumbled with the book, flipping through the pages as she asked, “The hell is Pink Kiss?”

“One of my mother’s concoctions. A poison she derived from Pink Cloud. I…” I briefly pondered exactly how crazy I might seem to Lily if I mentioned that I only recalled the poison because of a troubling dream from a few night’s prior. Clearing my throat, I opted to gloss over a detail or two. “I believe there is only one antidote, and that antidote is our best chance at reversing any serious damage done to…” My gaze returned to the alicorn as I trailed off.

Neither of them were looking at me. The purple alicorn with the rippling mane was staring intently at her green counterpart, and the green was too busy coughing, grimacing, and writhing to notice much of anything. Her jade wings kept extending and retracting as her hooves scraped at the table’s surface.

When it was clear that Lily wasn’t going to ask me to finish my sentence, I cupped my hoof underneath the green alicorn’s mane and gently lifted her head to the potion I floated to her lips. The purple alicorn was silent and still, but the weight of her focused gaze was crushing and predatory. I felt like the proverbial mouse removing the thorn from the manticore’s paw.

I would have said nearly anything to alleviate the awkward silence. I glanced at the purple, unable to maintain eye contact for more than a moment at a time. “For what it’s worth,” I began, my ears drooping to the sides of my head, “We were just trying to escape. We didn’t know that we were leading the ghouls to you.” The purple alicorn remained silent. It was almost as if I were speaking to Luna’s statue in The Stable again, only without any of the comfort and peace I would have normally received.

Halfway through the bottle, the green alicorn convulsed, coughing up drops of blood along with most of the potion. She winced, uttering a single word as I held her head in my hooves. “Hurts…”

I reached into my packs, finding frayed cloth under my hoof. I ripped a shred of the fabric away to use as a rag, and brought it up to the injured alicorn’s muzzle to wipe away the mess. Just before I wiped her bloodstained muzzle, I caught the hard eyes of her comrade staring me down. My eyes fluttered between the green and the purple, desperately seeking a sign that I might continue. A single nod was all I got, and I wasted no time cleaning the blood off the alicorn’s lips.

Even the tender ministrations of my hooves caused the alicorn to wince and pull away. She needed Med-X, that much was certain. My magic lifted a syringe of the painkiller to the green’s neck as the almost-Luna watched me like a hawk.

I pulled the cloth away, finally catching the pink patch sewn into the fabric. I had embroidered that symbol into the lab coat myself. It was my glyph, now burnt, frayed, and bloodied. I swallowed and wet my lips as I placed the patch of cloth on the table, whispering to Lily, “How is the search coming?”

Lily’s pierced ear was bobbing up and down frantically. “I don’t know. I think I’m close? Grumpy keeps going nuts.” The sound of pages quickly flipping back and forth accompanied her confused voice. “Something about a code or—”

“Lily! Focus!” Neither of us was in a position to entertain her insane ramblings! I half-turned to face her, narrowing my eyes and raising my voice. “Time is of the essen—”

“Found it!” She shoved the opened book in my face, and my magic snatched it out of her grasp as I read.

“Dear Goddess…” I skimmed over the recipe, my mind racing. “This is more complicated than I remember. I need...” I turned to the almost-Luna, my lip quivering. “I need you to trust me.”

Her face was like carved onyx as she stared over her green companion. “No.”

“It’s not a request! Lily is chained to me by these collars, and I need to attend to her,” I yelled, gesturing to the wounded alicorn. “I need ingredients that I don’t have, or else your sister is going to die!”

The violet alicorn squinted her eyes, silent for an uncomfortable amount of time. I could only return her questioning glare with my own, drawing strength from my own personal conviction. I was right, and she knew it.

“What do you require?”

My eyes widened, and I took a breath to steady my nerves before reading from the journal. “Manticore venom. Lots of it. At least three cups.” Keep reading, Candy! Keep going! “Hagwort: four bunches. Sunflower seeds: two ounces. Queensfoil: one leaf. Ghost peppers: two of them. Horsenettle: two roots. Blastcap Mushrooms: at least four. Inkvine: one foot. Heart’s Desire: three petals. Nirnroot: three oun—”

“Candy, you’re k-killing me over h-here.” Lily’s voice, little more than a strained whimper forced through the chattering of her teeth, cut me off. I turned to find her squirming on the floor, her eyes shut tight as she winced and shivered. “Fucking… c-cold… Too m-many waves.”

I had neither the time nor the inclination to entertain whatever insane notion was going through my friend’s head. So instead of worrying about Lily’s head I shook my own and turned back to the book. “I also need Ice Iris, and-”

“Stop.” The alicorn held up a hoof, silencing me halfway through the list. “You did not mention how many ingredients you required. This task requires more than this one is capable of.”

My jaw dropped. “You… You’re just going to give up?”

The alicorn remained silent. Instead of answering me, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. A moment later her wings slowly unfurled at her sides as she lifted her horn upwards. The spiralled fluting on her horn lit up bright white as she sat, breathing heavily beside her comrade. With a final gasp she opened her eyes, and a ring of expanding light shot away from her horn to fly through the darkness.

Light exploded all around us as the room burst into activity. Another purple alicorn teleported behind her, followed by another, and another, and another… Alicorns popped into existence and crowded all around us, their teleportation spells throwing light this way and that like so many of those wild parties in The Stable I had been too busy to attend. Not all of them came alone; occasionally a blue or green would accompany the appearance of one of the many purples. I was beginning to wonder why I wasn’t seeing any other colors amongst their numbers.

Through the pulsing illumination I finally realized that we were not, in fact, in a magical cave of some sort. We were in a building that was completely overgrown with plant growth. I couldn’t actually see the walls, but I did recognize the vague shapes of ventilation shafts, water pipes, observation platforms, and rows and rows of bowl-shaped objects and tables through the fuzzy green carpet that lay overtop every surface.

By the time the twentieth alicorn managed to squeeze into the growing herd all around us, my vision was too limited to see anything else. Everywhere I looked I saw Luna’s face. And from all directions at once came that same disjointed speech from earlier, as if the alicorns were snipping random parts from their words.

“We -ave come, sis-er.”

I was so distracted that I barely noticed when Lily pressed herself up against me, her muzzle brushing against my ear as she whispered. “I really wish you had taken option three.”

“W-What?” She was thinking of that now!?

I turned to gawk at her, catching the wide eyed look of terror splayed across her face as she stared at the not-so-divine herd. She swallowed before she whispered again. “We are so fucked.”

One alicorn stood out amongst her peers. Her coat was indistinguishable from jet in the returning gloom, and just like the dark-purple alicorn that ripped me from my sister, her mane billowed like plasma behind her. She stepped forward, barely a pony-length away from the almost-Luna, and spoke in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. “You are silent, sister.” Her icy gaze turned to me, sending a chill down my spine. “Speaking aloud is… uncomfortable.”

“We believed you lost.” A dark-green mare spoke next, her voice carrying a bit more compassion than the previous alicorn. “Has the Pink Cloud harmed you, sister?”

“Yes.” The almost-Luna nodded, visibly winded from her last spellcast. “Canterlot will be dangerous, Nightseer. Be careful.”

The plasma-maned beauty nickered, dismissing the warning. “We do not fear, sister. We overcome.” Her eyes locked onto my horn, and she cocked her head as she asked. “Your message was incomplete. This one wishes to aid Us?”

Despite the frozen butterflies fluttering through my gut, I nodded, and whispered as much of a response as I could. “Y-Yes.”

The almost-Luna panted, bracing herself against the table as she stared her plasma-maned sister down. “She… She has a book. She requires ingredients.” Her wing extended in my direction, indicating Mother’s journal for all to see. “She has promised an antidote. A potion.”

“A potion?” The pseudo-goddess named Nightseer turned to me again. Goddess, her gaze was chilling! “You are part zebra.”

I wasn’t sure if it was an accusation or a simple statement of fact. I gulped as I nodded again. “I… I am.”

A long moment of silence passed, in which every eye in the herd stared directly at me. I could feel the weight of their scrutiny crushing me as I imagined all the terrible spells that were about to be cast in my direction. It was only when Nightseer narrowed her eyes and spoke that I realized I was holding my breath.

“We will allow you to prove yourself useful.” Nightseer’s wings gave a single flap, a movement carrying all the finality of a judge slamming her gavel. “Honor whatever deal you have struck with this one, sister. Return to Maripony when you are done. Your silence unnerves Us.”

Her eyes squinted as she scrutinized me further. “Leave this one behind. Zebras have no place in Unity.” I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of that, but I possessed a distinct lack of time to figure out my situation.

I rubbed my temple with a hoof, trying to wrap my head around what was going on. Before I could ask anypony to explain, Nightseer gave me even more to think about. “But she may prove beneficial to Us after We return from Canterlot.”

They… They wanted more of my help? With what? I suppose I should have just been happy that they weren’t planning on killing us, but beyond potion-making they couldn’t have known anything about me!

Two purple alicorns stepped forward to flank Nightseer, and the trio disappeared in a violent flash of lavender light. She was gone as quickly as she had arrived. Before I could even ask what Nightseer had meant with her cryptic words, a sparkling jade cloud picked Mother’s journal up from the table and levitated it in front of another green alicorn.

She scanned the text before looking over the leather backing in my direction. “You need these items to save Our sister?”

I nodded, and she stated plainly, “We will gather them. Wait here.”

I expected her to teleport away or, at the very least, turn around and walk off. Instead she stayed by my side, placid and immobile, as every other alicorn in the room burst into a flurry of activity. Three quarters of them immediately evaporated as teleportation spells fired in unison, and the few that were left calmly walked behind me to flood the tenebrous building with a deluge of light.

I gasped as a wave of bright magic washed over the foliage in the room, scouring plant matter from the surfaces as easily as I might have wiped a dirty dish clean of grease. The smell of burning flora was overpowering as the team of almost-divine gardeners set about pruning the overgrowth. What was revealed underneath all the vegetation, however, was even more magnificent.

Arcane flames swept over every surface in the building, scouring vegetation and filling the room with light. It was massive in a way I had never seen. The entire Stable could have fit inside the cavernous space two—or perhaps even three—times easily. Long metal walkways passed by rows and rows of enormous glass domes, each one as large as my stable’s cafeteria and housing a cornucopia of thriving plant growth.

As more of the great green carpet was burned away, additional details became clear. Each dome had a tall metal post with a broadened top standing in its center, supporting a system of lights and— Were those weather systems!? My jaw dropped as I recognized rainclouds in one of the domes. Another had a fine blanket of mist. Further down the rows, I saw a number of domes that had snow in them.

You must understand that I grew up in a region where the weather never changed. It was always dry, hot, and dusty. I hadn’t ever dreamed that I might see something as exotic as snow. The only reason I didn’t run right up to the dome, smush my face against the glass, and gawk at all the beauty inside was the alicorn patient lying upon the table next to me.

Still, just a momentary distraction to sate my curiosity couldn’t hurt. I took a step toward the domes, squinting my eyes to read the rusted plates underneath the glass. One snowy enclosure with an abundance of twinkling berries and fierce winds read, “Crystal Empire - Pre-Return.” Another dome, showcasing muddy brown water, lily pads, and cattails was labeled, “Froggy Bottom Bog.” Names like “The Badlands,” “Yak-Yakistan,” “Griffonstone,” “Rambling Rock Ridge,” and “Ghastly Gorge” eluded me completely, but the darkened, gnarled branches and thick vines of “Everfree Forest” brought to memory all those stories Mother used to tell long ago.

The alicorns moving through the building had split into two teams. Most of them continued forward, burning through the aggressive vegetation in a manner both organized and meticulous. The few that remained behind busied themselves with activating buttons on the consoles and terminals connected to the domes. At their touch, magical fields activated within the bio-domes with a muted thrum. In a bright flash the fruits, nuts, flowers, roots, seeds, leaves, bark, lengths of vine, mushroom caps, algae scrapes, cacti needles, and even sap from the trees were harvested and stored in labeled jars and wax-paper packages. Those domes which had been pilfered of produce pulsed with a bright white light, and before my unbelieving eyes the plants replenished their stores almost instantly. I even saw completely new growth sprout and grow to maturity within a matter of moments.

I was, in a word, flabbergasted. To make it two words, giddy. If we’re going for four, in heaven. I could practice alchemy here for weeks, years on end… The very thought nearly had me dancing on my hooftips! Especially after I had been subjected to all the atrocities zebra magic could wreak upon the world. Here was something none could find fault with! Who in their right mind would gaze upon a restorative draught as something to be abhorred? Who cared about necromancy? I had all the zebra magic I could ever want right here!

Ugh… It makes me sick to think of how ignorant and stubborn I used to be. My hypocrisy and prejudice nearly cost us everything. Luckily I have been blessed with no dearth of excellent teachers, even if their methods were somewhat unorthodox. I’m still not sure how many of them I would consider “friends,” but respect and likability are not prerequisites for each other. You don’t need to look any further than the two of us to know that.

It must be odd for you, being locked in here with me. Both of us seem to have the manticore by the tail, so to speak, and neither of us is completely sure of what to do next. I must admit that I’m flattered that you respect me so much as to be driven to this fearful stalemate. I don’t believe I can ever forgive you for what you’ve done to me, but you should know that I do respect you. And, of course, neither of us is going anywhere until we learn to work together. I can understand your caution, given my actions in the past, but I can assure you that we do share a common goal.

Still not convinced? I didn’t think it would be that easy. In fact I was specifically instructed that it wouldn’t be. Ah, well… Can you blame a girl for trying? On with the tale.

By the time I managed to break myself from my awe-induced stupor, I realized that the almost-Luna alicorn that teleported us to this place was swaying gently by the table. Whatever she had done cost her most of her considerable strength. No matter how callous these alicorns were toward us, they certainly weren’t giving up on their green sister.

Actually, that brought up a point I was curious about. Bringing the health potion back to the green alicorn’s lips, I whispered to the almost-Luna, “You must have a large family, to call so many ‘sister’ and be called so in turn.“

Her fatigued and guarded expression met my curious and hopeful gaze. We stared at each other in silence until I had to turn my attention back to the wounded green alicorn, encouraging her to drink what amount of potion she could manage. I had all but given up on any sort of conversation with the almost-Luna, but to my surprise, she finally spoke to me.

“We are the children of The Goddess.” My ears perked up as I wiped a bit of dribbled potion away from the green’s muzzle, and a moment later the purple held my undivided attention. She spoke slowly, as if she were reluctant to divulge too much information, but what she told me was astounding. “We are many. And We are one.”

“You certainly aren’t lacking for compassion toward your own kind,” I said, my hoof gently massaging the green’s shoulder to reassure her. With a start, I finally realized what the almost-Luna had told me. “Wait…” I blinked, realizing that I was about to repeat a question I had once been asked. “You said, ‘Goddess.’ Which Goddess?”

“The Great and Powerful.” Coming from the alicorn’s lips, that almost seemed to be more a title than a description. “The Goddess grants us life. The Goddess is the current of thought that flows through a sea of minds.”

I furrowed my brow. “That doesn’t exactly sound like what I know of Luna.” Quickly realizing my error, I added, “Or Celestia.”

“The Goddess is more than Celestia or Luna ever were. The royal sisters were powerful. The Goddess is powerfuller.”

“That’s not—” I caught myself before I could lapse back into my old zealous ways. Stopping myself before I corrected her, ah… exotic use of Equestrian was much easier. Taking a deep breath, I tried another tactic. “What do you mean when you say she is the ‘current of thought?’ ”

“We are many. And We are one through The Goddess.” Powerful though she may have been, this almost-Luna did not seem to have a way with words. “The Goddess is one who speaks to many. She speaks through many. She is with Us always.”

It was a bit of a leap of logic, I’ll admit, but with what I had witnessed so far and with the way she was speaking… I almost dismissed the thought as foolish, the sort of thing that I might have found in any number of Father’s fanciful sci-fi stories. But still, I couldn’t stifle my curiosity. I absentmindedly scratched my chin with a hoof and asked, “Do you mean that all of you share your thoughts with each other? Like… Like a hivemind?”

“Yes. That word will suffice. We are many. And We are one.” Her mantra was becoming rather stale, but I was a little reticent to correct a pony that could blast me to tartarus and back with a wave of her horn. I listened intently as she continued. “The Goddess is Us. We are Unity. Unity serves The Goddess.” Though somewhat circular, and almost egocentric, what she was telling me was incredible. If not for her severe demeanor and flat tone of voice, I would have taken it as a joke. Of course the fact that I was also conversing with an alicorn did lend some sincerity to the discussion…

“That’s why you refer to yourself in plural…” And if they had no need for verbal communication, perhaps they communicated through raw ideas rather than through words? I caught myself before I could dive further down the mental rabbit hole. Obviously sneaking a few of Father’s cheesy sci-fi books between studies had planted no shortage of queer notions in my head. I cleared my throat, and resumed the conversation. “So, how many of, err… you am I speaking with?”

“You only speak to this one and what remains of her small herd now. This one and her sister have been wounded. The Pink Cloud has damaged the connection to Unity.” The almost-Luna reached out to hold her sister’s hoof before looking back up to me. “This one does not like being so few in mind. But her sister suffers more. She is silent and alone.”

“I see.” In all honesty, the only thing that I truly understood was that this certainly-not-Luna was willing to go to some rather extravagant lengths to save her green look-alike. She reminded me of someone else I knew… Someone I had never been separated from by more than a few hundred feet at a time.

Nohta had always appreciated honesty. I took a deep breath, and explained to the almost-Luna, “I don’t know if Mother’s antidote will help with that. But it should help alleviate the worst of the physical damage.”

“This one understands.” Her head inclined slightly in one of her exceedingly rare displays of emotion, and she pleaded. “Do what you can.”

Violet light exploded all around us as the majority of the alicorns returned. Dozens and dozens of long segmented tails with wicked barbs floated beside them, bobbing up and down in powerful levitation fields. The alicorns approached the table as a group, unceremoniously dumping the gathered supply of manticore tails next to the table. I should take a moment to add that these tails were very freshly harvested… My imagination ran wild as I contemplated the deadly speed and efficiency of the concentrated efforts of an alicorn hunting party working toward a singular goal.

Of course, my terrified, wandering thoughts quickly returned to reality when I realized the opportunity that had just been placed at my hooves. I had only requested a few cups of venom, and the glands I had been supplied with probably held three or four times that much. With this stock, I could continue brewing all manner of exotic elixirs!

“We have acquired your items,” a dark sapphire alicorn approached behind me. She and her sisters floated their equally excessive piles of alchemical ingredients in a semi-circle all around me, stepping back and gathering together. In a brilliant flash of lavender magic, nearly every alicorn vanished from the room. The only ones left were the wounded green on the table, the almost-Luna that brought us here in the first place, the green alicorn holding my mother’s book, a single purple alicorn that stood stock-still as she stared at me, and a blue alicorn that paced back and forth across the metal grate.

The green holding Mother’s journal floated the book back into my hooves. Turning to the almost-Luna, she stated, “We are leaving three sisters here. We will protect and observe.” Gesturing to the heavy cauldron at my side, the green looked at me. “You may begin.”

I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. Not since the Dragon’s Breath had I made a potion so complex and demanding. And not since Mother’s lessons had my brewing been so intensely scrutinized by such an intimidating audience. With five alicorns all around me, I knew that a single mistake meant certain death. I skimmed over the recipe one more time, and then laid the book out on the table as I got to work.

The cauldron was massive, I could have easily fit myself in it! Possibly even one of the alicorns if they scrunched and twisted themselves up. A quick peek inside the heavy cast-iron bowl revealed a menagerie of arcane runes of every color along the lip. On the outside, matching glyphs decorated the surface. I could only guess as to the meaning of most of them, but one stood out from the others: the orange spiral that matched Mother’s fire talisman perfectly.

“Okay, so there’s the heat…” Even my voice lacked confidence. I had found one of the runes I needed, but heat alone wasn’t enough with all these dry ingredients.

The alicorns and Lily were staring at me. I shook my head and furrowed my brow, “I… I need to know which of these is wat—” A deep blue rune caught my attention. It was nothing more than a few wavy lines, but it almost seemed to… No. Surely I was imagining things. Without any other options, I raised a hoof and gently prodded the blue lines.

The corresponding glyph on the inside of the cauldron shone brightly and emitted a babbling stream of crystal clear water. I let out the breath I had been holding, and turned to the green alicorn. “Can you extract the venom from the glands? The more attention I can devote to this cauldron, the better. And the sooner I can heal your sister.” Again, she stayed silent and immobile, but the lone blue stepped forward and lit her horn. An ethereal blade materialized in mid-air, and began slashing through the tails with a level of precision and speed that would have left any surgeon impressed.

I looked back to the green again. “I also need measuring tools. The pipettes and flasks that I have are too small for these quantities.” The healthy purple alicorn gripped an entire nearby table and its store of tools in her magic, wrenching it from the floor and setting it beside me before scouring the plant growth from its surface.

“Is there anything else you require?” The green asked. I looked around. The venom glands were already being squeezed over a beaker to collect the precious liquid within them. The mounds of other ingredients were well within reach. The cauldron almost had enough water within its belly. Lily was staring at the alicorns like a nervous dove surrounded by hungry cats… Everything seemed to be in order.

“No. That will do. Just…” I looked to the green on the table, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Just try to get your sister to drink more health potions. The antidote will take some time, and health potions are her best chance until it is prepared.”

Everything was arranged in a manner so that I could keep an eye on the wounded green while I worked. As I began adding ingredients one at a time, following Mother’s instructions as diligently as I could, I realized that she was still writhing and whimpering in pain. She needed something to take her mind off of the poison.

I was shaking Heart’s Desire into the cauldron when I asked, “Um, what are your names?”

Neither the healthy alicorns nor the almost-Luna responded. The silence hung in the air before the wounded green looked into my eyes and coughed out, “Mari… gold. My name… was Marigold.” The almost-Luna placed a hoof on her green sister’s shoulder, whispering for her to conserve her strength.

I frowned sympathetically, gesturing to myself and Lily with a hoof. “I’m Candy. That’s Lily.” Lily gave a polite—if frightened—little wave, showing far too much teeth in her smile. I looked to the almost-Luna, asking again, “What’s your name?”

Her mane rippled as she turned her head in my direction, but she only spoke after an uncomfortably long silence. “Only the eldest and the very young have use for names. This one does not remember what she was called before.”

“Before?” I asked, soaking the chopped inkvine in manticore venom. The potion was turning a sickly yellow hue, but according to Mother’s book that was exactly what I wanted. I drew a sample into a small beaker, holding it up to my eyes to inspect how well the ingredients had dissolved into the solution thus far.

All thought of speaking to Marigold vanished with the next words from the almost-Luna’s lips. “Before The War.”

My eyes bulged in their sockets, and my magic winked out like a wispy cloud in a stiff breeze. The sample beaker raced to the grated floor and shattered, just like my concentration. As the liquid trickled down the drain at my hooves, I slowly turned my head to stare incredulously at the alicorn that had just blown my mind.

Lily was likewise stunned. “Wait… You remember The War?” She flapped her wings, flying to my side as her jaw threatened to scrape the floor. “The War?”

The almost-Luna continued to speak plainly, as if the juicy little morsel of information she had just revealed was no more extraordinary than yesterday’s leftover oatmeal. “This one served The Goddess before The War. This one still serves The Goddess.”

As much as I wanted to dive into pre-war history, my curiosity was nagging me for answers to another question. Through trembling lips I asked, “Who was The Goddess before The War?”

“Many,” she said.

As if I couldn’t have surmised that on my own! I stirred the cauldron’s steaming contents before inquiring, “How many?”

The almost-Luna glanced at her healthy green companion, who gave a single nod. Turning back to us, she announced, “She was four who became one. We joined Her soon after. Now We are one in Unity.”

“Four? I… I suppose I expected more.” I muttered, catching the glare of the healthy green as I sprinkled a few mushrooms into the brew. “Err, I meant no offense.”

The green’s eyes flashed, literally, as if they were backlit by two blue strobe lights. Her mane transformed before my eyes into an emerald copy of the plasma-like cloud shared by the almost-Luna and Nightseer. She opened her mouth, and her voice sliced through the darkness like an icy gale, freezing my blood even as it cut straight to the bone. “The Great and Powerful Goddess is comprised of the greatest and powerfullest minds of all time! None are Our equal! Who are you to be so bold and ignorant as to question Us?”

Was… Was that her? Was she speaking through the green? Was I always speaking to her? Did she only speak when necessary? Ugh! Alicorns are so odd! I winced and stammered, “I-I… Begging your pardon. I only seek to understand.”

The green’s nose rose primly in the air as her wings shrugged at her sides. “Hmph. Of course you seek to understand Us. Lesser beings are right in their desire to understand their betters.”

In the back of my mind, I realized that it was probably a very good thing that Nohta wasn’t by my side. Any hint of racism was usually enough to set her off, and that comment had sounded very racist. It also held far more emotion than I was getting from any of the other alicorns. Perhaps I really was speaking to their leader? Or whatever she was supposed to be called. I was still quite confused.

Her eyes narrowed. “We are perfect. What hope can you have to understand Us?” Okay… I had just struck a nerve with a being whose nature was completely alien to me. Not to mention the veritable army at her beck and call. This didn’t bode well. “At your very best, We may help you ascend to more than your lowly forms, and at your worst you are little more than beasts scurrying about for basic necessities.”

Lily, bless her, stepped between the green alicorn and myself. Given her fearful expression earlier, I had no idea how she summoned up the courage to do so. Her blue wings flared at her sides as she stared up at the gorgeous green. “Easy now. Let’s not forget who’s doing who a favor here.”

“This is no favor. This is a bargain: your lives for the life of Our child.” The green’s mane waved behind her as she glanced at the wounded alicorn. When her gaze returned to us, it felt acidic enough to eat away the iron in the cauldron. “Were it not for that, We would crush the life out of both of you for your transgressions against Us.”

“T-Transgressions?” I stammered.

“Your mind is unfit for Unity, yet you trespassed upon Us.” What was she— My spell! She was talking about my spell! Goddess, they all felt that?

I shook my head, pleading with her. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know that was going to happen!”

To my immense surprise, the almost-Luna spoke to the green in that matter-of-fact, emotionless voice of hers. “This one believes her. This one felt her pain.”

“As did The Great and Powerful Goddess.” The green flapped her wings, staring me down. “Yet We reserve judgement.” Turning, she addressed the almost-Luna. “Returning to this place displeases Us, and We have grown bored with this conversation! Carry it on in Our stead, child. You still have free rein in this land.” The green’s eyes dulled, and her gorgeous mane fell at her side in a cascade of silken strands. She blinked, looked around for a moment, and then sat by the side of the table as if nothing had happened.

A thick cloud of green fog was rising off the top of the potion. I could only imagine how difficult it must have been for Mother to gather up the fog into separate containers without the use of unicorn magic. Especially when I followed her next step and steeped the ghost peppers in the bottled green mist. The capsaicin in the little fruits interacted with the cloud and set off a thermal reaction that would have made the bottles much too hot to hold in my hooves. Not to mention the fact that she would have needed to add the peppers with her mouth… I didn’t want to know how painful that must have been.

I was so distracted with the brewing that I almost didn’t hear when Lily started asking her own questions of the alicorns. “So that was The Goddess, huh?” Lily let out a low whistle, sending me an encouraging grin. “Kinda weird that she’d show up just for us.”

The almost-Luna glanced at me before answering Lily. “This one believes that The Goddess has taken an interest in the spell used by the unicorn. And in her promise of aid through the use of a potion.”

“Her name is Candy,” Lily pointed out. “So why’d she take off in such a hurry and leave you in charge?”

“Our focus is drawn elsewhere.” As she returned her gaze to her poisoned sister, the barest hint of sorrow flashed across her face. “The Goddess has granted this one influence over her sisters. This one eases the burden on The Goddess’ attentions.”

The liquid in the cauldron let off a glittering cloud of fragrant, orange smoke when I added the infused peppers, and soon after developed a delightful shade of sapphire. Four sprigs of chopped Witchweed immediately followed, causing the sapphire shade to be replaced by ruby. Thick, goopy bubbles formed on the surface, chasing each other round and round as I stirred the mixture with my magic. I couldn’t help but wonder about the alicorn’s words, but the fumes coming off the liquid were making it hard to concentrate. Luckily, Lily wasn’t done with her just yet.

“So, what, you’re like an officer or something?” Lily was prying for as much information as she could get her hooves on. I wasn’t about to complain; after adding all the ingredients and lowering the temperature, all I had left to do was stir the simmering goop until it thickened up and turned color one last time.

The almost-Luna nodded. “Yes. This one is an elder sister. She holds sway with the younger sisters.”

I chanced a glance over at the almost-Luna, fighting off the haze in my mind enough to ask, “So… Nightseer, was it? Is she an elder? You both have similar manes.”

The almost-Luna massaged her sister’s shoulder. “She was the third to join Unity after the rebirth of The Goddess.”

“And you?” I asked, watching the bubbles in my brew clump together. Were they supposed to each be a different color?

“This one was the seventh,” The elder alicorn proclaimed. There was no joy or sorrow in her voice. No celebration or honor in proclaiming her station. Like nearly everything else she said, it came as a mere statement of fact.

Lily snorted, flapping her wings excitedly. “Does that mean she outranks you?”

The purple alicorn didn’t show any emotion when she looked at Lily, but Lily’s wings slumped back to her shoulders as if she had just been threatened. The almost-Luna spoke plainly as her mane continued to flow behind her. “Yes. But The Goddess granted this one additional strength so that this one might lead her sisters in this desert.” The elder alicorn returned her gaze to her wounded sister, “This one is responsible for many. This one has failed many.”

I almost didn’t notice the subtle tightening of her jaw as she whispered, “This one will not fail again.”

“You seem to be doing a good job to me,” I offered. It wasn’t until her eyes met mine that I saw how wrong I was. Regardless of the placidity of her face, I could see a roiling sea of emotion in her eyes. The waves were… choppy, to say the least.

“Many sisters have gone silent in this desert. This land is not worth Our time.” The elder shook her head, sending long ripples through her gorgeous mane. “The Glow is absent from this place. But the little sisters in this land are not frail. They are stronger than this one expected.” She swallowed before continuing. “And they are violent. Little sisters should not quarrel with Us. It is confusing.” I was surprised; she had actually managed to furrow her brow instead of maintaining her composure.

Confused, I asked. “Wait, ‘little sisters?’ Do you mean younger alicorns?” The antidote had finally shifted to a bright pink hue, so I rubbed my hoof along the temperature rune to kill the heat. Cocking my head to the side, I inquired further, “Why would they fight you?”

The almost-Luna shook her head. “You know them as ‘ghouls.’ Little sisters rarely fight Us elsewhere. They can be good companions in The Glow.” She looked directly at me as she said, “The glowing zebras make excellent little sisters.”

It was going to get very confusing if she kept using different terms to describe every little thing. Fortunately, there was only one possible thing she could have meant by “The Glow.” Every wastelander, stable dweller, and anyone else in Equestria would have been hard pressed to mistake a term like that for anything but radiation.

Still, the look in her eyes worried me. Not only for my sake, but for Nohta’s as well. What were these alicorns planning? Remembering how the glowing one in Coltsville had rendered me nearly useless, I cautioned her against overconfidence. “I would have thought that you’d be worried about them nullifying your magic.”

The almost-Luna’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if I had made a minor faux-pas. “We have never experienced this.”

“Y’know… now that I think about, I’ve never heard of the glowing ones doing that anywhere but here,” Lily offered. “They’re kinda rare everywhere else, though. Wouldn’t surprise me if there were just too few survivors in the rest of Equestria to spread the word.”

The elder alicorn paused to rub her sister’s shoulder again, and then asked, “Are you nearly finished?”

“Almost done,” I nodded. “This antidote is meant to be applied topically as well as ingested. It just needs to cool for a moment.” The poisoned green fluttered her eyelids and opened her mouth, but no sound escaped her lips. We were cutting it close.

I took up a syringe of Med-X and my scalpel in my magic, approaching the wounded green as I sterilized the blade. Before I could even explain myself, the scalpel was yanked out of my grip and leveled just in front of my eyes.

“What are you doing!?” The almost-Luna shouted, her voice crushing my ears against my head.

I backpedalled, feeling the scalpel’s tip brush against my eyelashes. I barely managed to stammer out a response. “I-I need to debride the affected tissue, or else she won’t heal properly! She’ll be scarred for life if I don—”

The blade twisted in front of my eye as the alicorn stated, “Our sister will bear her scars.”

My eyes flitted between the scalpel and the elder alicorn. “But—”

“She will bear her scars.” The elder repeated. “They will remind Us to be cautious.”

If I had been in control of the scalpel, I would have had a wonderful opportunity to see if I could use it to cut the tension in the air. As it was, however, I simply squeaked out, “O-Okay.” The almost-Luna turned her attention back to her sister, and the scalpel dropped to ping off the metal grate at my hooves.

My heart was still racing when I took my largest empty bottle from my packs and dunked it into the cauldron. My magic scooped up a measure of the gleaming pink gunk and slathered it across every affected bit of alicorn I saw. Marigold winced at first, but quickly relaxed as the antidote worked its magic. The potion that met her face was absorbed immediately, seeping into the softened flesh and letting off little curls of wispy green smoke. I coated her horn in the mixture as well, hoping that it would alleviate the worst of the Pink Cloud’s effects. When I had emptied my little pickle jar, I stepped back to the cauldron to refill it.

I turned back around to find Marigold stirring as the antidote kicked in. Raising herself up on one hoof, she coughed and panted, and stretched her wings experimentally. Her eyes found mine, and in a frail voice she mouthed more than said, “Thank you.”

That moment made it all worth it. She was going to be okay. I couldn’t help but smile at her when I offered the almost-Luna my refilled bottle.

“She needs to drink this.” Despite my odd patient and odder surroundings, it was easy to slip back into my practiced ways. “All of it. You can dilute it with water to make it go down easier, but the more of this antidote you can get inside of her, the better. It’s the only way to reverse the damage done to her lungs.” I helped Marigold step off the table as the other alicorns watched us. Turning back to the lone elder, I continued, “Administer it slowly at first, as you can expect some vomiting. Not to mention quite a few trips to the little filly’s room.” My tail swished as I built up steam. “And she’ll need to eat. Lots of bedrest. No strenuous activity. Plenty of clear liquids—”

“We are not foals,” She cut me off. “We know how to—”

“Well I’m very glad that you’re not, but I am a doctor!” Hmph! Honestly, who goes to a doctor just to ignore their advice? “Now hush up and listen to your doctor’s orders!” The almost-Luna blinked incredulously, shrugging her wings. And that was when I remembered I was speaking to an alicorn that had decimated a rambler ghoul—and a good portion of the roof upon which it stood—in a single blast of magic.

“Er… please,” I grinned apologetically, offering them another health potion and even more of the antidote for the road.

The elder cocked her head, declining the health potion as she took her sister under one of her beautiful wings. “This one appreciates your concern. But We have the situation under control.”

Marigold’s eyes fluttered as she glanced at the elder. “Sister… Is that… I can hear you?”

The almost-Luna squeezed the green with her wing. “We will be one again soon, sister.” I sat on my haunches as the alicorns crowded around each other. The elder stretched her wings out toward the healthy green and the lesser purple. They in turn did the same, forming a perimeter of gorgeous feathers around Marigold and the blue.

The elder sister spoke clearly to her group, lighting her horn in a brilliant display of magic. “We are taking Our sister to Whitetail Wood. We will regain Our strength there. Then We will proceed to Maripony.”

The healthy green nodded, lighting up her horn. Twin beams of emerald shot from her horn to join with the lights of the almost-Luna and the lesser purple alicorn, and the trio began to summon up an immense amount of energy. Amethyst and jade coalesced into a wide bubble around all five of the alicorns as they built up their magic.

Lily sidled up next to me, cocking her head as she asked the elder, “So uh, just to be sure… We’re cool, right?”

The elder answered, “This one does not speak for The Great and Powerful Goddess.”

“But, you’re cool with us, right?” Lily prodded, gesturing between the two of us with a hoof.

The almost-Luna contemplated Lily’s question for a moment before answering. “This one is grateful for your assistance.” Light spiralled up the fluting in the elder’s horn as she gathered strength. “She has no quarrel with you.”

I was still letting out a sigh of relief when the alicorn’s next words shattered my calm. “You have gained the attention of The Great and Powerful Goddess. We will undoubtedly see each other once again.” I wasn’t entirely sure if I wanted that attention, but the almost-Luna’s next words allayed the worst of my fears. “This one will carry the memory of your kindness to Unity.”

Well in that case, there was something rather important that we needed to work out. “What should we call you?”

She shook her head. “This one has no use for a name.”

Lily’s hoof rose in the air as she piped up, “Uh… I may have a suggestion.” Every alicorn shifted their gaze to Lily, who shrank back before nervously offering, “What about Allie? ‘Allie Corn?’ “ I tilted my head, and raised an incredulous eyebrow at Lily. She grinned apologetically and shrugged. “It’s simple. And it’s not like she cares what we call her, right?”

The elder’s eyes searched the room as she mulled that over, lighting first on her sisters, and eventually landing back on us. “ ‘Allie Corn’ will suffice,” she nodded. “She has directed another of her herd to guide your sister. Be well, Candy and…” Allie raised an eyebrow as she regarded Lily, “skittish pegasus.” And with that, the room exploded in a burst of lavender light as the entire quintuplet of alicorns vanished in an instant.

I had to shield my eyes from the intensity of the spellcast. When the last of the arcane energy had fizzled and sparked away, Lily and I were left alone in the dimly-lit building amidst an army of cauldrons and bio-domes filled with flora. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves while Lily sighed next to me.

“What am I gonna do with you?” she asked. I turned to find her expression equal parts exhausted and exasperated. “For a smart girl, you sure pull some dumb shit sometimes.”

“Well, um…” I half-winced and half-grinned, curling my tail around my hooves. “We’re still alive, right?”

Lily rolled her eyes and reached into her hat for a cigarette as she groaned.

The silence after the alicorns’ departure was nearly absolute. Irregular intervals of muffled gunfire and explosions served as the only reminder that we were still somewhere in or near Spursburg, but our proximity to the city’s center was still a mystery. All I knew for certain was that the vegetation reclaiming the cracked city streets and hanging between its crumbling buildings paled in comparison to my immediate surroundings. Given that, I could only hope that we weren’t very far from the building where Nohta and I had been separated.

“Alright. One thing at a time.” Having finally calmed down now that she wasn’t surrounded by alicorns, Lily had decided to take the opportunity to assess our current predicament. “I’ve still got a few chems under my hat, my blades, and… Actually that’s it.” Her hoof pawed at her empty holster as she sighed. “Fuck, I feel naked without a gun.”

I was busy bottling up the last few doses of the antidote in spare jars. Leaning my forehooves against the lip of the cauldron, I pointed out, “You are naked, save for the hat and bomb-collar.”

“Hey, you’re right!” she giggled, wiggling her rump. “Maybe I can seduce our way out of trouble!”

I rolled my eyes. “I still have my pistol and shotgun. We’re not totally defenseless.”

“No offense, babe, but I’ve seen you shoot.” She didn’t even have the decency to cover her smirk with a hoof. “I’m pretty sure I’m gonna be the one taking care of any scraps we get into.” I pursed my lips, sealing the last bottle with as disapproving a *clink* as I could muster. “Actually,” she continued, “lemme see that shotgun. I might be able to use it ‘til short-stack gives me back Forgiveness and The Medicine Stick.”

Slipping the bottled antidote into my packs, I furrowed my eyebrow and groaned, “Medicine Stick? You named your rifle, I take it?”

She nodded, grinning from ear to ear. “Okay, I didn’t actually give it that name. A shaman in my tribe did. I got it blessed and everything!” She waved her legs in front of herself, making odd little noises as she waggled her eyebrows, “OOOoooOOOooo! It makes bad spirits go away! OOOoooOOOooo!”

“And now you believe in ghosts…” I could feel the headache coming on. Lily’s response certainly didn’t help.

“Well, duh. Don’t you?” Her pierced ear bobbed up and down furiously as she cocked her head to the side.

“Of course not! Don’t be ridiculous!” I huffed. Reasoning that I should give her something to focus on before she went completely crazy—or drove me completely crazy—I forked over my weapon. “Here… just take the shotgun for now. I’ll keep my pistol.”

Lily immediately checked the chamber, found it empty, and let out a low whistle. “Holy shit, Candy…” Her expression went straight from silly and amused to mortified. “When was the last time you cleaned this thing?”

My ears drooped. “Err… What?”

“You’re so lucky I’m around,” she rubbed her eyes, wincing. “Babe, you gotta clean your weapons. This shotgun is in bad shape.”

She offered the weapon back, raising her eyebrows as she stared at me. “Nevermind, I think I’d be better off with my blades. You need to give this thing a thorough cleaning or you’re just asking for it to jam on you.” I stuffed the weapon back into the groove it had worked into my packs as she continued to grumble, “We’ll just add that to the list of shit we need to do. Right after taking care of us.” Her stomach let off a glorious rumble, not unlike the growls of the manticores earlier that day. “You got anything to eat? I’m fucking starving.”

“Oh Goddess…” It was my turn to sigh. “You and Nohta were carrying all the food.”

“And shorty’s probably not gonna be here for… fuck, Allie never said how far away Nohta was.” Looking around the room, Lily shrugged her wings and rubbed her chin. “Well shit. Looks like I’m gonna have to whip up some food.”

“You… can cook?” Surely I had misheard her. Confused, I pointed at her with a hoof. “You?”

Her hoof stamped the ground as she defended her ludicrous claim. “What? I cook! I cook all the time!”

“No you don’t!” I shook my head, blinking back my incredulity.

She straightened up and puffed out her chest. “Do too!”

“No you—” I caught myself, throwing up an absentminded prayer to Luna-knows who. “Goddess, are we really doing this?”

She chuckled as she raised a hoof to her chest. “You think I got this body by living off of snack-cakes?” She flared her wings and did a slow turn, showing herself off as I rolled my eyes. But she did have a point, come to think of it. Hadn’t half of my own diet since leaving The Stable been comprised of junk food? Beans and corn were one thing, but an equine body required more than the occasional decent meal for proper nutrition.

Lily wiggled her rump as she looked back at me, winking underneath the brim of her hat. “You don’t get this good-looking unless you take care of yourself, babe.”

“This coming from you?” I jabbed my hoof in her direction again. “Half your calories come from whiskey!”

“Ugh…” She visibly deflated, her bladed wingtips scratching at the floor before she turned around and groaned. “I like having a good time! What’s wrong with that?”

“With all the alcohol and chems, I’m surprised you even have a body,” I countered. “Let alone a still functioning one.”

“Geez Candy, if you’re gonna ride my flank this hard then you could at least pull on my mane while you’re at it.” My accusatory hoof beat a hasty retreat to cover my lips. Lily was back on the offensive. “Ha!” She giggled and pointed at me. “Even with blood all over your face, that cute little blush still comes through.”

My tail curled around my flank as I whispered, “You promised my sister that you would stop doing that.”

“I said I’d ease up a bit, sure. But I ain’t stopping until you tell me to, sugar.” She grinned at me a moment longer, then cleared her throat and ruffled her wings, clicking the blades against each other as she ticked off the items in our little to-do list. “Alright. We need to clean ourselves up, find food, teach you how to take care of that fucking shotgun…” She trailed off, raising her eyebrow as I shrunk back from her. She didn’t quite manage to stifle a yawn before she finished, “And after all that we’re probably gonna need sleep.”

Oh no… “Err, Lily? We only have the one bedroll.”

“We’ll frost that fridge when we get to it, sweetheart. I’m too worn out to brain on anything but the basics right now.” Trotting back up to the nearly empty cauldron, she braced against the lip with her hooves and stuck her head inside the brim. Her voice echoed off the metal as she asked, “You think we can make some soup in one of these things?”

“I don’t see why not.” My hoof rubbed my temple as I tried to stifle my exasperated grin. “We might be able to find something to tide us over for the time being.”

Her head popped up, peering at the gigantic glass domes behind us. “Yeah, I recognize some of those plants well enough to know they’re edible.” Her gaze traveled over my body as she winced. Her sickened expression only worsened when she prodded a hoof at the built up gunk on her wings. Looking back to me, she declared, “We’ll figure something out. First we need to clean ourselves off or we’re gonna smear all this gore on the food. I really don’t want to gorge on greasy ghoul gut goulash again.”

My muzzle scrunched up in a mixture of horror and disgust. “Again?”

“Funny story; I was camping with a girl a little too close to the Manehattan ruins, and we got jumped by ghouls in the middle of dinner. During all the fighting, some pieces of ghoul wound up in the soup pot.” Lily scratched at her mane, wincing at the memory. “We didn’t have any other food, and we were really hungry.”

“Despite how disgusting that sounds,” I shook my head, trying not to imagine what that must have tasted like, “it actually reminds me of something.” My magic plucked a jar from my packs, setting it down on the table next to Mother’s journal. “I might be able to brew something special with these excess ingredients.”

Lily squinted at the jar before erupting in a fit of giggles, “Oh gross! Are those eyeballs!? Haha!” Taking the jar between her hooves, she shook it up and down, cackling with glee. “They look squishy!”

A crimson cloud yanked the jar out of her grasp as I huffed, “Lily, it’s not nearly early enough for you to be acting like this.”

She turned back to me and stuck out her tongue. “Pbbt. How do you expect somepony to act whenever you pull out an old pickle jar full of eyes?” Sitting on her haunches, she scratched her fetlock against her chin and regarded me with an almost bored nod of her head. “Oh, hmm… yes. Quite the extraordinary set of peepers you have there, madame. Exquisite specimens indeed. Tell me, have they been properly seasoned with cumin and paprika, or were you planning on letting them steep in their natural juices before having them with some nice crisps?”

The jar dipped in the air as I failed to stifle a single snort of laughter. “Was that supposed to sound sophisticated?”

She shrugged nonchalantly before grinning and pointing a hoof at my chest. “Yeah, I need to work on my ‘classy’ voice. Still got a giggle out of you though.” Tapping the rim of the cauldron with her hoof, she insisted, “Let’s get a move on. I’m fucking hungry. H, to the U, to the N,R,G,Y.”

“Lily, you spelled it…” I stopped myself when I noticed the impish grin spreading across her features again. She was doing that on purpose, she simply had to be. I returned her knowing grin with my own and rolled my eyes. “Nevermind. Let’s get started.” Scanning the cavernous room, I spotted a few doors and observation windows ahead of us in the opposite direction of the ingredient domes. Gesturing toward the doors, I asked, “Do you imagine that this facility might have a washroom of some sort?”

Lily shrugged before tapping the cauldron with one of her back hooves. “Here’s hoping. Otherwise we’re gonna have to take a bath in one of these things.”

The prospect of bathing out in the open where anyone could see was not exactly my idea of a good time. Still, if Lily wanted to make soup then at the very least we needed a clean cookpot. I activated the water and heating talismans in the cauldron before we turned to walk toward the doors, hoping that a thorough rinse would do the job by the time we returned.

The alicorns hadn’t bothered to cleanse the entire building of plant life. In fact, judging by the overabundance of flora before us, they only scourged a tiny pocket of vegetation from the facility. Moss, thick and spongy, bulged and swept over the nearing wall—rolling up the surface in a beautifully pastoral set of vertical hills and valleys. Clover and ferns rustled gently as we marched forward, caressing our hooves and knees as we plodded through the lush growth. Fat, white mushrooms huddled together in the corners like packs of great lazy beasts, their caps brushing up against each other with an almost familial affection. Creeping vines stretched over doorways and wrapped around light fixtures jutting from the walls, their blooming flowers painting vivid streaks of color across the green canvas.

The serenity of the moment was a refreshing change from the intensity of the rest of the day. I had drunk my fill of fighting—or running—for my life at every turn. But still, no matter how sweet this well-deserved calm was, a bitter aftertaste lingered on.

“Lily,” my voice wavered with worry. “Do you think Nohta will be okay?”

“I’m betting short-stack is probably annoying the piss out of whichever alicorn got saddled with bringing her here.” Lily chuckled to herself before noticing my anxious features. She quickly rearranged her expression to amend her previous statement. “I mean… I’m sure she’ll be fine, Candy. She’s traveling under the protection of one of the most dangerous creatures in the wasteland.” I remained unsure of how to respond, which prompted Lily to try and reassure me once more. “Babe, I only know of two groups in the whole Wasteland that are crazy enough to fight alicorns: Steel Rangers and Hellhounds. I don’t remember ever seeing either of those in this desert, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

I had no idea what in the world a “Hellhound” was supposed to be but I knew for a fact that Lily was wrong about The Steel Rangers. They possessed very, very big guns, and I couldn’t rule out the possibility that the balefire explosion I had witnessed a few hours prior might have come from them. If they survived their encounter with Bright Eyes, of course…

We stopped in front of the wall, just next to the one of the metal doors I had spotted earlier. My gaze drifted to two of the mushrooms, huddled together against the onslaught of greenery. “I’d have felt better if they had simply teleported her here.” Rubbing my leg, I asked, “What if the alicorn she’s with is too weak to protect her?”

Lily’s hoof found my shoulder, pressing gently against the pad of barding. “Even if something out there wants to tangle with an alicorn, Nohta’s pretty good at sneaking. And it’s nighttime. I doubt anything in this city could find her if she didn’t want to be seen.”

I shied away from her touch, shaking my head. “I just… I feel so useless right now.” Before Lily could retort, I headed her off. “I know she’s capable of handling herself, Lily, but I still feel like I need to be there for her.”

“Hey. It’s been a long time since I’ve met anyone as determined as your little sis. She’s tough and ornery as all hell. I’m more worried about us right now.” Her answer didn’t really satisfy me, but I didn’t know how to delve further into the subject without repeating myself. I nodded and took a calming breath, and we turned our collective attention back to the task at hoof.

Lily scratched away at the blanket of green and nudged a button on the wall, causing the door to slide into its recess and scrape a layer of moss off of its surface. The hallway on the other side of the door was pitch-black. Lily and I stepped through the portal into the darkened corridor as I activated my PipBuck lamp, shining it this way and that in search of doors or navigation signs.

The sultry air in the hall carried a musty scent past my muzzle. I wrinkled my nose as I stepped over another cluster of the fat, white mushrooms, brushing vines and moss off the walls in my search for direction. It wasn’t long before I found exactly what I had been looking for: a map plotting out the floor plans of the facility. What I wasn’t expecting was for that map to be written both in Equestrian and Zebra runic.

“This building must be enormous,” I mused, running my hoof over the map. Each brush of my hoof wiped away years worth of crud to reveal more and more of the facility. “There are directions to a residential wing. A whole wing! And administrative offices, a robotics department, medical research labs, recreational rooms…” My eyes read the word, but I honestly couldn’t believe it. “Lily, there was a school here!”

“Back on the rooftop Allie said this place was M.A.S. and M.O.P.” Lily held up a wing and raised a single feather for each item on her list. “There’s a huge area perfect for making potions. Zebra runes on the signs. Enough lodging for hundreds…” She raised an inquisitive eyebrow as she glanced at me. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

My hoof pawed at the map. “There were families staying here. Zebra families, living and working alongside ponies.”

She nodded. “Might have been a whole tribe. Refugees from the war, most likely. Or maybe turncoats helping Equestria instead of The Empire. Whatever happened, there were a lot of them here.”

Curiosity was beginning to take over again. I turned back to her, asking, “What were the M.A.S. and M.O.P.?”

“Shit, sorry. I’m still forgetting that you don’t know this stuff.” Digging underneath her hat, she pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit up. “When Celestia hoofed the throne over to her sister, Luna made some big changes to the government. She set up a system of six ministries to help her run things, and M.A.S. and M.O.P. are two of those six.”

My brow furrowed. “Celestia was in power before Luna?”

“Yeah, for basically, like… forever.” After a long inhale and exhale, she added, “At least a thousand years while Luna was trapped in the moon, if you believe the old stories.”

My jaw dropped. “A thousand…” Luna was trapped? And for a thousand years? I had been taught… No, no matter. Trailing off, I closed my eyes and tried to clear my thoughts. There’d be time for ancient history later. I needed to know about our current predicament. “What do the acronyms stand for?”

“Ministry of Arcane Sciences and Ministry of Peace. From what I’ve heard, they were both pretty focused on tech development, but Peace was all about medical stuff while Arcane Sciences was more generalized.” Pointing at me with a wing, she continued, “Actually, I’m surprised you didn’t know at least a little bit about Peace. Didn’t you ever get curious about why you always find medicine in all those pink and yellow butterfly boxes?”

I’d been overlooking details, some subtle and others plainly obvious, all my life. And I had never even realized it until somepony simply told me face-to-face. My hoof rubbed my temple as I groaned in exasperation. “Dear Luna…”

Having made abnormally quick work of her smoke, Lily snuffed the last little bit of her cigarette out and nodded her head toward the next door. “Well whatever was going on in the past, it doesn’t matter anymore; this place is empty now. Let’s keep moving.”

Lily was forced to hack and slash at the vines covering the next door before we could force it open. Even with my magic and her blades, the going was slow and frustrating. We were both panting from exertion after shoving the steel far enough into its recess that we could squeeze through the gap.

Little tendrils of vegetation had wormed their way through the tiniest of cracks in the facility’s walls, fouling up electrical connections and bulging the steel outward. The walls were quite literally closing in around us, and though the absurd plant growth was quite alien, I otherwise felt right at home in the dark passages. I was silently reminiscing about making my way to midnight mass in my stable when a booming explosion caused the building to groan all around us.

Lily’s feathers rustled just like the leaves on the plants. “Fuck!” Her eyes darted to the ceiling and walls before she caught my worried stare.

“Lily?” I stepped closer to her, crunching stiff plant stems under my hooves, but she waved me off before I could ask what was wrong.

“I’m good. I’m good.” She took a deep breath, folding her wings. “Just the fighting outside. Let’s go.”

For the life of me, I couldn’t discern why the explosion would have bothered her. She certainly didn’t have that reaction to the grenades I had used or to the missiles and rockets The Outcasts had employed earlier. I followed behind her as she led the way deeper into the structure, noting her slinking posture and twitchy movements.

The moss-covered halls gave way to a wide-open chamber filled with wispy fog. The mist was thin enough that I could just make out the walls to our sides, but too dense for my lamp to penetrate all the way to the back of the room. A flimsy railing enclosed a shallow depression set a couple of steps down into the center of the room, allowing us to peer over the workspace. Large workstations filled with barely functional testing equipment dotted the sunken space, occasionally offering a tiny beep to the overbearing silence.

Lily and I followed the rails along the perimeter of the room, warily eyeing a trio of bulbous plants that I didn’t recognize. Each pod was at least the size of a brahmin and dominated the space between the workstations’ flickering screens near the railing. Their protuberances jutted straight up from the broad ferns at their bases so that their tops were at eye-level with us. I couldn’t suppress the thought that they looked rather like gigantic eggs nestled in thick, green nests. As curious as the pods were, neither Lily nor I wished to spend our time gawking at giant mutated cabbages. We found the next door and continued on our way.

The winding path that lead to the living quarters had fared no better than the rest of the facility. By the time we found a communal shower, we were both stomping down vines and broad leaves every few steps. Eventually the vegetation became so thick that I had to resort to holding stems and vines stiff in my magic in order to make it easier for Lily to chop through the growth. Our progress was as tiring as it was agitating, but mostly it was slow. And the hard-earned reward for our efforts was bittersweet.

The shower room was carpeted in a network of vines and more of the squat mushrooms that had burst through the tiled floor up to our knees, but at least the ceilings were high above us. As soon as she realized there was room enough to fly Lily burst into the air and made a beeline for a row of lockers in the middle of the room. I was left to follow through the fungi, and no matter how carefully I advanced, I couldn’t help but squash caps and bend stalks with every step toward the shower spigots on the far wall. And, as luck would have it, none of them worked.

My frustrated lip quivered as I turned each of the shower handles, only to be rewarded with the groan of empty pipes and short-lived gushes of foul smelling water. “I was so looking forward to a warm shower,” I whispered in defeat.

“We have shampoo!” Lily cried in elation behind me. Without any further warning, she bucked out at the lockers, creating a colossal racket that strained my ears.

Puzzled, I walked back to her and inquired, “Err, where? I don’t see any.”

“Right,” Grinning, she launched one more double buck right at the locking mechanism, “here!” Sure enough the flimsy metal buckled under her attack, and after she pried the door open with one of her blades, a bottle of Mane and Tail and Body tumbled from the locker—only slightly worse for wear.

“Okay,” I pursed my lips, gesturing to her with a hoof. “How did you know you’d find shampoo in that particular locker?”

“Grumpy told me!” Lily beamed as her pierced ear twitched and flopped.

I should have let it go. Finding shampoo in a bathroom wasn’t an altogether unlikely coincidence. Still, I needed to set the record straight once and for all. “Lily, who in Luna’s name is Grumpy?”

“My pet squirrel,” she stated matter of factly.

“You don’t have a pet squirrel,” I countered.

“Sure I do! You just can’t see him because he’s a ghost.” Goddess help me, her smug grin made me want to smack her.

“And I’m meant to take your word that your…” I searched for the right words to convey my incredulity. Waving a hoof in the air, I continued, “Your imaginary pet ”—I paused just long enough to roll my eyes—“somehow communicates to you?” Frowning, I added, “And can see through solid objects?”

“He can’t do that.” She chuckled to herself, scooping up the bottle and holding it out to me. “He walked through the door.”

I stomped a hoof, squashing a poor mushroom with my agitation. “Lily! Ghosts are not real!”

“Y’know… If you keep saying that, you’re gonna piss off all these spirits,” Lily’s eyes scanned the room all around us as I resisted the foalish urge to look behind me, though I must admit that my ears swiveled around despite myself. Raising her eyebrows in surprise, she blurted out, “And even worse, you’re gonna hurt Grumpy’s feelings! Right after he did something nice for you, too!”

I groaned into a hoof, “I give up. You really are crazy.” I plucked the bottle out of her hoof, wedging it into my packs.

She shrugged noncommittally. “It’s okay, babe. I’d be surprised if you could see him.” Nodding toward the dead shower spigots, she asked, “How’s the water?”

“Non-existent.” I raised an eyebrow, wondering if she’d catch my double-meaning. When she didn’t respond, I continued. “It looks like we’ll have to use one of the cauldrons to bathe.”

An enormous, impish grin spread across her face. “I’m looking forward to that.”

“And I’m going to ignore that comment,” I rolled my eyes once more, “out of my desire to be done with this place and its musty odor.”

Another colossal boom shook the dust from the ceiling and rattled the floor underneath our hooves. In an instant, Lily’s grin was replaced by a wide-eyed look of fear. Her wings remained flared at her sides, but her ears folded flat against her mane as she winced at the walls and ceiling.

Catching my look of concern she straightened up, cleared her throat, and nodded. “No argument there. Let’s go.”

Something obviously had her spooked, but for the life of me I couldn’t tell what was wrong. Unsure of what else I could do, I turned around and exited the shower room. As an extra precaution, I undid the clasp on my pistol holster. Nothing seemed wrong to me but if Lily was worried, then obviously I needed to be as well.

We had just returned to the larger room with the pods when she called out behind me. “Alright,” Lily plopped herself down on the moss and thick vines running along the floor. “Hold up, I need a smoke.”

I sat beside her, waiting patiently for her to pull her pack from her mane and light up. After her first exhale, I asked, “Another? Are you okay?”

“Huh?”

I chose my words carefully. “You seem… nervous.”

She smiled sheepishly, unable to maintain eye contact. “I… uh…” She paused before blurting out her excuse as quickly as possible. “I haven’t had a smoke in a while! Yeah!”

It didn’t take years of listening to nervous fillies and colts trying to weasel their way out of going to class to realize she was lying. It had hardly even been an hour since her last cigarette! Not even Corncob, our stable’s resident tobacco aficionado, had smoked as frequently as her.

As the doctor in me came out, I felt the need to say something. I held a hoof in her direction as I sternly asked, “You do realize the damage you’re doing to your lungs with—”

“For fuck’s sake, Candy! Yes! I know!” Her eyes blazed with a short-lived fury before she caught herself. “Err, sorry.”

I took a step back and a deep breath to keep my calm. Lily might have been prone to bouts of irrational behavior, true, but I couldn’t remember seeing her snap and then apologize so quickly. There was obviously a larger problem here, and it needed to be addressed. Nodding encouragingly, I replied, “Take your time.”

“This place… It’s not natural. It’s too…” She trailed off, glancing all around us. Shaking her head, she took another deep inhale and blew the smoke out beside us. “The spirits here are super pissed.”

Ugh! Again with her talk of spirits! Why would she cling to something so ridiculous?

I was in the middle of rolling my eyes when the pieces fell together. The moment that I saw the moss-ridden ceiling looming over our heads was when it finally clicked. My bottom lip fell slightly as I realized why she was so on edge.

I lowered my gaze to her anxious eyes. “Are you…” Goddess, it felt like such an absurd notion that it was hard to put to words. The mere thought that my friend—confident to a fault as she was—could be afraid of something so silly was ludicrous. I swallowed, wrinkling my brow in as sympathetic a gesture as I could manage. “Are you claustrophobic?”

“N-No!” she snapped, flaring her wings at her sides, only to recoil in panic when her bladed feathers brushed up against the wall beside us.

Her vehement denial was all the proof I needed. I was only lucky that my astonishment outweighed my amusement, and that my mouth opened in shock rather than curl into a grin. “Oh my stars, Lily! I’m so sorry! I didn’t know! Let’s hurry back.”

She swallowed, letting her eyes dart back and forth between the walls and ceiling before she nodded. “O-Okay.” She flipped her cigarette carelessly to the side. My eyes followed the little blazing cherry as it sailed through the misty darkness, and I watched as it bounced off the closest of the enormous pods in the room.

The vines at our hooves moved, curling upwards past our surprised faces to clutch hold of the pod Lily had disturbed. Vertical seams split the bulb in quarters just before the vines ripped a section of the plant’s husk away like a banana peel, revealing a quivering fleshy membrane protecting something inside the bulb. A musty, fungal odor flooded the room as the membrane stretched away, and a single hoof stretched out to land on the rim of ferns at the plant’s base.

My jaw dropped as a hideously grotesque thing stepped out of the pod, covered in reeking yellow sludge that oozed off its vaguely equine form. As the gunk dripped away from the creature’s back and shoulders, it exposed a coat of broad, glistening leaves that rustled with the monster’s every shambling movement. Wriggling, purple polyps and orange mushrooms jutted out of its left jaw, sitting just beside the stiff vines that had replaced its mane. One of its eyes had warped obscenely, bulging partly out of its ocular cavity and jiggling as orange liquid sloshed against the thin membrane that used to be its cornea. The beast’s other eye glowed like molten sapphire, rolling lazily in its socket to set me with a penetrating stare.

Despite the tropical heat in the facility, that frigid glare washed over me like ice water. I shivered as the beast stepped forward, but couldn’t back away. There was an alien animosity in that gaze: an incomprehensible horror that contained neither logic nor the barest shred of compassion. The creature’s stare held me like a vice, sending my heart plummeting into the pit of my stomach as I stood, transfixed, beside Lily.

Lily’s voice was piercing in the silence. “What in Tartarus is that!?” The monster turned toward her, exposing the bark that grew in uneven patches on the right side of its fleshy neck. I was finally able to pull my eyes away from the horrid pod creature and yank my pistol from its holster. I spared Lily a glance, seeing in her features all the pain and terror that had flooded my mind mere seconds prior.

The beast opened the asymmetrical gash that passed for its mouth, splitting what little remained of its cheeks into bloody ribbons as a writhing mass of slimy vines burst out of its toothless maw. It was a good thing that Lily and I hadn’t eaten; between the disgusting sight before me and the oppressive stench in the air I was struggling not to retch all over the mossy floor.

The vines in its mouth whipped forward with a sharp crack, wrapping around the control console and hoof-rails just beside Lily, and tensed as the pod creature dragged itself forward in an agonizingly slow, plodding gait. With every lumbering hoofstep seeds and spores were shed from the monster’s body, quickly sprouting into colorful blue flowers and red mushrooms at the creature’s hooves.

Save for her wildly bobbing ear and trembling lips, Lily still hadn’t moved. The beast was nearly on top of her before I took aim and let loose a blistering barrage of lasers. Leaves burst into flame, fungal pods popped like balloons, and flesh sizzled as I expended an entire battery in my panic-fueled fusillade. The beast turned its attention in my direction as the cold flame in its eye flared. In an instant, I felt my limbs go rigid with fear and saw my pistol thud against the undergrowth.

Lily stirred to action as soon as the creature looked in my direction. She blitzed past the beast, raking her blades along its side to prune the blanket of leaves growing there. Landing in the middle of the room, she flung her hat to the side and shook her mane furiously, spilling a dozen little inhalers and bottles against the floor.

I couldn’t look away. The creature inched forward one lumbering step at a time, but I could neither move nor concentrate. The chill in its eye had frozen my hooves in place and snuffed the spark of my magic.

Lily was busy scooping up inhalers and pill bottles as she shrieked, “CANDY! Don’t look at it! It’s got a Stare!”

“I-I… I already…” My trembling lips couldn’t muster the courage to form any more words. The pod creature’s mouth split open again, wide enough and close enough for me to see down its gullet. I didn’t know quite what I thought I was going to see, given the verdant tentacles reaching in my direction, but I know I wasn’t expecting the single blue flower that had replaced the beast’s tongue.

And I certainly wasn’t expecting to recognize that flower from Mother’s book.

I knew how incredibly dangerous that flower was, but I just couldn’t shout a warning to Lily. Instead I wracked my panic-stricken mind, dredging up every little memory I could of my past conversations to find the one poorly chosen word that would mean my doom. I was locked in place as I drowned in a sea of hasty comments and self-doubting asides, and found myself cursing just how careless I had been with my words in the past.

The vines brushed up against my cheek, curled around my neck and forelegs, coiled around my horn, and tangled themselves in my mane. The slack in the vines quickly disappeared, and I was dragged toward the monster even as it shambled ever closer. The constriction of the vines was bad enough, choking my throat and pulling strands from my mane, but the thorns in the vines were worse. A thousand tiny needles ripped, bit, and sawed their way into my flesh, leaving copious amounts of burning toxin in my veins as my blood ran in tiny rivulets down my face and neck. Goddess, it was one of most painful experiences of my life, and I couldn’t even scream!

“Grumpy! I need eyes!” Lily zoomed between the pod creature and me, her wings leaving whorls through the mist as she sliced through the vines. The cords that had wrapped around my body fell limply all around me as the creature’s head snapped backwards from the released tension, and I lost eye contact with that terrifying blue glow.

I stumbled to the side as my paralyzed muscles relaxed, and gasped for breath through clenched teeth as I fought to pluck all the vicious little thorns from my skin. The venom burned, itched, and stung maddeningly! It was as if a hundred angry little insects were burrowing through my flesh one bite at a time! With my concentration in shambles from the agony of the poison, it was a miracle that I even heard the consequences of Lily’s actions.

A moss-covered window to my side shattered as Lily rammed straight into the glass and plowed noisily into the lab equipment in the next room over. I heard wooden tables snap, glass flasks crack, and metal equipment ring before Lily’s pained groan seeped through the window. I had seen enough to know that Lily was my only chance at escaping this monster, but I wasn’t sure if she realized the danger of the flower in its maw.

I forced one eye open to see the monster’s mouth close as it puffed out its chest. Screaming, I reached out to the window, “Lily, be careful! In it’s mouth! Killing—”

A great wet blob splattered against my left foreleg, turning my warning into a scream of agony. A scorching itch crawled over my leg like a swarm of fire ants. A sharp, caustic odor assaulted my nostrils as my coat and skin around my PipBuck were singed by the green gunk. Reflex retracted my hoof to my chest as I tried to heed Lily’s warning and focus only on the creature’s legs.

Through my peripheral vision I saw the pod beast spit another glob of green that slammed into my PipBuck’s screen. The room went black as my lamp was covered in acidic goop. The only light was the glow of that terrible blue eye, and like a moth to flame my gaze went right to it. In an instant, my body went rigid as I froze in terror.
The sound of glass grinding underneath hooves preceded Lily’s harsh voice. “Grumpy! Eyes! NOW!” A rush of air blew past my side as Lily launched herself through the darkness. I heard her slam into the pod creature, knocking the blue flame several inches to the side from the force of the blow.

As the beast broke eye contact, I fell hard on my side. My bomb collar bit into the side of my neck as it absorbed the impact, and through the rush of dizziness I heard it beep angrily. I forced my eyes shut and wiped my hoof against the ferns around me, desperately trying to rid myself of the stinging liquid burning my leg.

Lily shrieked next to the monster, “Candy! We need light!”

Eyes still shut, I screamed back. “M-My lamp won’t work!”

“Use your horn!” she yelled.

My eyes shot open, and a sea of red flooded the room. But no matter how much magic I used to scrape at the gunk on my PipBuck’s screen, it wouldn’t come off. I looked back to Lily, catching sight of her kicking and slicing at the creature, and shouted, “It’s not working!”

Her face turned to me, and I saw that her eyes were squeezed shut. “What are you—” Lily’s ear flapped frantically before she ducked underneath a kick from one of the beast’s forelegs. Her ear continued its frantic motion as she shook her head and screamed back. “Your horn’s good enough! Get your- DUCK!”

I fell to the floor just as another acidic blob of goop raced over my horn, and I saw a glint of metal in the ferns. I scooped up my pistol just as Lily shouted again, “Get back!” My body obeyed before I could question her, and as I stepped backward another clump of the reeking gunk flew past my face—exactly where my horn had been.

The monster was targeting the only light source in the room: me. If it managed to connect then we… No. No, I wouldn’t let it! I was going to see my sister again! This...thing was not going to be my end!

I shook my head, grit my teeth around my pistol, and did the first sensible thing that had sprung to my mind in a long while. A layer of overglow strained my magic as I built up charge, and just as Lily yelled for me to get down my world exploded in a bright flash of crimson.

I reappeared behind the pod pony, but lightheadedness, acidic goo, and stinging venom had played havoc with my planned teleportation. I popped into existence at an oblique angle, and felt a sharp pain in my right hind hoof as I sprained my ankle on an inconveniently placed vine. As my legs crumpled underneath of me, I slipped into S.A.T.S. and queued as many shots as I could at the creature’s head.

The world slowed to a crawl as S.A.T.S. took over. I must admit to feeling some smug satisfaction as the pod pony turned directly into the laser blasts peppering its face. Every shot hit spectacularly, burning vegetation, charring flesh, and turning fungus to little more than shriveled lumps of ash. And, as luck would have it, I managed to land a shot directly in the beast’s eye.

There was only one problem: I hit the wrong eye. The bulbous sac burst in a great, gelatinous fountain of orange goop, spraying Lily and the ground around her in a torrent of liquid so putrid and sickening that I didn’t even want to imagine its composition. The pod pony reared back, shutting its other eye and howling in pain as its mouth-vines wiggled obscenely in the air. Thinking about the alien sound that came from its throat still makes me shiver.

One of the creature’s whipping vines caught Lily by the hoof, throwing her off balance in the middle of an attack. She hit the floor with a grunt, and before she could do so much as scream, the rest of the thorny vines had wrapped around her body, pinning her wings against her sides and slicing hundreds of tiny channels through her skin. She was lifted in the air, struggling against the tightly wound cords with all her strength.

She managed to free a single hoof, bracing it against the creature’s muzzle as she shrieked, “CANDY! KEEP SHOOTING!” I obeyed as best I could, but none of my shots hit anything vital. Leaves and bark charred, and flesh singed, but the beast would not turn in my direction. It was focused solely on Lily, slowly dragging her toward its open mouth. Her eyes widened as she gazed inside its maw, recognizing what lay within.

The only attack that had wounded this beast was a shot to the eye, but I couldn’t aim at that! If it looked at me then we were both done for! I reloaded as quickly as I could, and floated my pistol beside Lily as I shrieked, “I can’t aim like this!”

She screamed, her face inches from the creature’s bloody jaws, “JUST FUCKING SHOOT!”

I fired blindly in desperation, draining the charge far too quickly. Laser blasts flew wildly past the creature’s face, flying past my own mane and pelting the nearby wall with little smoking craters as my terrible aim came back in full force.

Lily was shrieking out orders, trying to guide my aim. “CANDY! AIM UP! NO, UP! TOO FAR UP, GO DOWN! FURTHER DOWN!” Lily’s head was nearly inside the creature’s mouth as she continued shouting directions. “NOW LEFT! MORE TO THE RIGHT! A LITTLE LEFT WHILE STAYING RIGHTLY!”

“LILY! MAKE UP YOUR—” With only three shots remaining in the cell, I finally struck home. Blood, sap, and more of the curious orange sludge fountained out of the creature’s face and splattered in every direction. The pod-pony roared, reaching its leg up to cover its ruined blue eye and allowing Lily to finally wriggle free of the vines.

As the beast released her, Lily fell to her hooves, extending her wings and slashing them along the creature’s bark-covered neck. One of her blades managed to slice through the grain of the wood, rending a horrific gash down the monster’s neck and causing a thin, orange liquid to gush from the wound. She leapt back before its swiping hoof could catch her, yelling, “Candy! It bleeds! If it bleeds we can kill it!”

Even as I took inspiration from her revelation, Lily wobbled on her hooves, shaking her head and groaning. “Fucking waves!” The beast took the opportunity to turn, bucking out at Lily with surprising speed. One of its bark-covered hooves caught her directly in the chest, sending her flying through the air. She crashed into the nearby catwalk, bending a section of rusted steel as easily as I might have bent a bobby-pin. The rusted metal shrieked in protest as ancient screws were stripped out of their places, and both Lily and the deformed section of railing crashed noisily to the mossy floor.

“LIly!” I ducked underneath the railing and into the shallow portion of the room, hobbling past the beast’s enraged thrashing as I made my way to where Lily fell. When I reached her she was coughing up blood and clutching her barrel.

I kept my eyes locked on the beast as I dragged Lily behind a bank of computer terminals. I cradled her head in my hooves and started healing her as quickly as possible, focusing on the internal bleeding and collapsed lung. “Lily, forget fighting it, we need to run!” I felt her eyelids flutter open as I watched the pod-pony buck its hooves against walls and windows. Now was our chance! “It can’t see us! We can escape!”

Lily feebly lifted a hoof to cover her mouth, and painted her blue fur a deep crimson as she coughed the rest of the blood out of her throat. As she pulled her hoof away to stare at the flecks of red covering it, I felt her nose wrinkle in disgust. But when her head rolled in my direction and her eyes caught mine, her expression turned to shock and pity. Her other forehoof lifted to cup my cheek as she whispered a single word. “No.”

I was still attempting to formulate an appropriate rebuttal to her illogical response when her upper lip curled into an enraged snarl. “Fuck that!” she spat, and pulled her now bloodsoaked hoof away from my cheek. It was only when I noticed her glaring at my blood on her hoof that I remembered I hadn’t yet healed my own wounds. I was still piecing two and two together when she acted before I could stop her.

She left a scarlet streak in her hair as she pulled a small syringe from her mane and plunged the needle into her foreleg. A blood red tint seeped into the edges of my vision as she growled, “This thing is fucking dead.”

I could feel heat and pressure welling up in her chest, neck, and face as her lips peeled back in a feral rage. She pushed me away, crawled back onto the ledge and grunted a simple warning, “Stay back.” Strength flooded her limbs as I did my best to heal her. I had just managed to undo the worst of her injuries when she ran her tongue along her teeth and swallowed the blood that had pooled in her mouth.

Even more so than the blood loss, the chem was making it impossible for me to concentrate. I severed the magical bond while Lily pawed at the floor like a bull and glared daggers at our assailant. Blood was still dripping from her muzzle when she rushed forward, slamming shoulder first into the monster’s chest. The force of her initial charge nearly bowled the creature over, raising it up on its hind legs as the sound of crunching bark reached my ears.

I loaded another cell into my pistol absentmindedly, completely distracted by the sight of my companion giving in to her fury. Lily was a blur of twirling feathers and flashing hooves—more animal than pony. What her wings could not slice off, her hooves pummeled and crushed. Where her pounding blows cracked bark and bruised the flesh underneath, she slashed and stabbed at the weakening body. When her mouth wasn’t busy biting the creature’s chest and neck, she was screaming gibberish insane enough to curdle my blood.

My jaw dropped as I stepped away from the fight and crunched her syringe under my hoof. A quick glance downward revealed a terrifying picture on the ruined tube: a small red outline of a rabbit. Lily had just taken Stampede. There would be no reasoning with her now.

The creature lashed out at her with its thick forelegs, catching Lily’s shoulder hard enough to send her tumbling backward. She rolled with the momentum of the blow and flared her wings to right herself, scraping moss off the floor as she dug her hooves in and slid backwards. The gust of her wings blew my mane aside as she launched herself back into the fight, slicing deeply into the underside of the monster’s jaw. It staggered to the side as orange liquid gushed from the wound, splashing over the floor and causing a multitude of colorful flowers to sprout and bloom at its hooves.

I had been appalled and intimidated by her savagery in the brothel, and I had been impressed by her skill at the spark station, but I had never seen her fight quite like this. There was purity in her ferocity. And after seeing how she had reacted to seeing my bleeding face, I quickly realized that she was doing this to protect us. To protect me…

Without the threat of the creature’s petrifying gaze, Lily was free to use her own eyes freely. She nimbly dodged most of the beast’s crushing attacks. But when it’s vicious kicks—so vaguely similar to some of the strikes I had seen Mother and Nohta employ—did connect, they had terrifying consequences.

A woody hoof smashed into Lily’s shoulder, dislocating her foreleg and sending her crashing into the sill of the window she had broken earlier. Her head smacked against the sill, and blood gushed from a cut above her right eye. She paid it little mind, however, and pushed herself up to her three working hooves before she blitzed past the pod pony’s face. Her blades raked across its muzzle and shaved off the orange mushrooms growing there. A cloud of fluorescent orange spores burst into the air as the beast roared and struck upward with its leg, catching the underside of Lily’s left wing. Her momentum carried her forward, but she landed hard on her side. Ignoring her limp wing and foreleg, Lily righted herself and stabbed forward quickly with her right wing, catching a very sensitive area between the pod creature’s back legs. The room filled with the sound of the monster’s agonized shriek as it lifted its hind legs in response.

Miraculously, Lily ducked underneath the double-buck that followed. She rushed underneath the beast and slashed a diagonal channel through its exposed underside, and narrowly dodged the mixture of viscera, fungus, and roots that spilled out of its belly. However, she failed to dodge the frantic, sweeping blow that caught her back right leg and snapped her metatarsal like a toothpick. Her leg trailed behind her at an unnatural angle while she continued her attack.

I watched in horror as Lily and the monster traded blow after brutal blow. I knew the only thing keeping Lily on her two good hooves was the Stampede. She was ignoring strikes that should have taken anypony out of any fight, yet her attacks were relentless. She never slowed or showed any recognition of the pain. She was rage incarnate, and her berserk bloodlust was insatiable.

Meanwhile, the pod creature’s strength was flagging. Its attacks grew sluggish and desperate, easily dodged by Lily even with her limited mobility. Countless slashes through its hide weeped orange fluid, speckling the ground with a rainbow of flowers.

The beast had just opened its mouth to lash out with its vines when Lily’s good forehoof smashed into the underside of its jaw. While the pod pony was still stunned from the blow, Lily carried through with the momentum of the attack to slice through the creature’s exposed throat. When the monster clutched its slit trachea, Lily ducked to its side and speared her primary feathers deep into the pit of its foreleg. A horrific gurgling noise bubbled out of the creature’s neck as it let out a death rattle and crashed stiffly against the ground like a felled tree.

I stared at Lily as she stood over the pod-pony, stabbing, stomping, and biting every bit of its dead body she could reach. Minutes passed as Lily’s unceasing brutality spread the orange goop in every direction, and before long a bed of brilliantly colored flowers had spread around the dead beast. In death, the monster looked almost… peaceful.

I clambered underneath the hoof-rails and scraped the gunk off my PipBuck’s screen. Lily slowly hobbled away from the corpse, leaving twin trails of blooms as the orange liquid dripped off her wings, and collapsed to her haunches as she braced herself against a section of railing. She was gasping for breath, bloody, bruised, and shivering.

I swallowed as I felt the adrenaline ebb away, and rushed forward to aid her. “Lily—”

Without warning, her good wing swung forward and bit loudly into the railing beside my face. Sparks flew from the metal as her blade sunk into the rusted steel inches from my eyes. I froze in place and gasped as my jaw dropped. She glared up at me, wriggling her wing in a futile effort to pull her primary feather’s blade back from the railing,. Her face twitched, shifting between exhaustion, pain, and fury, and a single hate-filled word escaped her lips. “Wait.”

I glanced anxiously at the wing struggling to free itself from the railing next to my face, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off her pitiful form. The atrocious state of Lily’s wounds demanded immediate attention. Slowly, and feeling incredibly foolish, I stepped closer. Sitting in front of her I charged my horn and prepared my spell. “Lily,” I pleaded, “please, let me take care of you.”

She stared at the floor at our hooves, shaking her head so that drops of her blood speckled the moss underneath us. Her words came out slowly between her deep and pained breaths. “Ugh… Overdid it. Don’t. Everything… still red.”

What? “But… Why wouldn’t I—”

“Get… away!” she panted, raising her head to meet my gaze. The unbridled fury I saw in her eyes sent a jolt down my spine. The muscles of her jaw clenched and tightened, and her wingblade squeaked as it slipped a fraction of an inch out of the railing.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t just sit by and allow her to suffer! Especially after what she had done for me!

My hoof snaked underneath her good foreleg, wrapping around her back and catching her by surprise. “Candy!” she gasped. “No!”

I pulled her exhausted body against my own, and whispered into her ear. “Shh… I trust you.” My other hoof wrapped around her shoulder as our bomb collars clinked against each other. Even before I activated my spell, I felt her heart racing a hundred miles an hour. It thudded against my chest like a wardrum.

As my magic washed over her my vision was tinted deep red, darker by far than my magic, and I felt my blood boil. She was right; the chem was doing awful things to my temperament. Unlike Nohta’s little experiment with Dash, this was no mere echo of the drug’s effects. I could feel a blinding hatred welling up inside of me, just waiting to be directed at the nearest victim I could find and urging me to unleash my wrath toward everyone and everything in sight. I pushed these thoughts to the back of my mind and returned my attention to my wounded bodyguard, grateful that I wasn’t under the full force of Stampede’s awful effects.

The gash above her eye was my first priority, and I stitched it together as quickly as my magic would allow. The rest of her injuries, however, would take some time. The rib that Nohta had kicked days ago was now completely broken, wracking us both with pain every time Lily drew breath. The delicate bones of her left wing had been pulverized into dozens of uneven shards. Her right hind leg had suffered a mostly clean break, but the bone had moved far too much forward, and was slicing into soft tissue. Her left shoulder had been dislodged from its socket, and there was minor fracture to her humerus. Add in a couple dozen contusions of varying severity and all the little lacerations from the thorny vines, and I certainly had my work cut out for me.

She really should have been lying down for what I was about to do, but with her good wing itching to slice my throat open, I really didn’t have the luxury of proper patient positioning. My right hoof and my telekinesis clutched Lily’s left foreleg, and in a gentle twisting motion, I popped her shoulder back into place. Save for her upright position, it was a textbook Hinnypin Maneuver.

She let out a brief sigh of relief as the limb took its proper place. A second later, both of her forelegs wrapped around my body in a crushing hug. The pressure made it difficult for me to breathe. I honestly couldn’t tell if she was trying to squeeze me to death or just show her gratitude. I hugged her tightly against my chest and buried my face in her mane. “Thank you,” I whispered into her ear. “You saved my life.”

Her rage broke, and with its passing mine faded as well. Instead, all I could feel from her was the pain of a broken and bruised body coupled with the exhaustion of severely overtaxed muscles. Even if she was silent, her body was screaming in agony.

She allowed me to continue holding her as I set about mending her wounds. I spared no energy healing her. Oftentimes I could get away with dealing with only the most severe afflictions a pony might have accrued, thereby saving my own energy, but Lily had gone all out for my sake. It simply wouldn’t do to take shortcuts; I owed her much more than that.

By the time I finished dealing with her injuries and prying her blade from the railing, she was resting all of her weight against me and breathing softly against my left ear. When I finally pulled away from her she was on the verge of sleep, brushing her cheek against my own before staring at me through half-lidded eyes. I had never noticed how full her eyelashes were before.

Her gaze was every bit as paralyzing as that of the pod-creature’s. It robbed me of breath as surely as it stripped me of my ability to turn away. But unlike the monster we had just fought, Lily’s stare didn’t chill me to to bone; instead it set my cheeks ablaze.

Her hoof found my cheek as a corner of her mouth turned up in that familiar smirk. Her breath tickled the hairs on my muzzle as she whispered, “You’re pretty.” Her flagging strength gave out completely, and the both of us nearly toppled to the floor as she slumped to the side. I only just succeeded in keeping us upright by clinging to the hoof-rail with all my might, and after a bit of maneuvering I managed to place her back against the nearby wall.

Sighing in relief that my friend was going to be okay, I lightheartedly admonished her foolishness. “Darling, you need to rest.”

A weak chuckle bubbled out of her throat as she shook her head. “Heh… Too tired to even kiss the girl…” Grinning up at me, she asked, “Wait, did you just call me ‘darling?’ “

“Err… yes,” I confessed, realizing a bit too late just what had tumbled out of my mouth. “I suppose I did.” I swallowed back my discomfort, searching the ground in vain for a suitable distraction.

Lily beat me to the punch, resting her head against the wall and fishing a pack of cigarettes from her mane. “ ‘Darling…’ Heh. I like it.”

I watched her exhausted hooves fumble with the pack for a moment before I pursed my lips and took the box in my magic. “Here. Let me help.” The shrink wrap crinkled as I opened the pack and floated a cigarette to her lips.

“Thanks, sugar.” She smiled as I held her lighter for her. Nodding sleepily, she exhaled and whispered, “I need a minute. I’m dead on my hooves right now.”

I nodded. “Of course. Take as much time as you need, Lily.” I pointed to the downed monster and its rapidly growing bed of flowers. “I’m going to see if I can recover the Killing Joke. Just let me know if you need anything.”

She shut her eyes and managed to both groan and smile around her cigarette, “I wouldn’t turn down a massage. Or a beer.”

“Yes, well I’ll be sure to let you know if I happen to find any.” With a small grin of my own, I rolled my eyes and turned toward the pod pony’s corpse.

A closely interwoven mycelium and root system had wormed its way into and over the creature’s body, covering what I had assumed to be a pony in a rudimentary but effective natural armor. It was only by peering closer at the downed animal-fungus-plant tribrid that I realized it was not originally a pony. At least, not if the black and red combat barding underneath the plant and fungal growth were to be trusted.

As I forced his mouth open with my magic, a glint of gold near the pod zebra’s breast caught my eye. Next to three chevrons and a rocker was a single name: Mganga. It sounded familiar, but in all honestly, I was more worried about collecting my prize and getting Lily back to a room with windows and a high ceiling. My magic plucked the precious blue flower from Mganga’s throat and deposited it safely inside an unbroken jar from my bags. After a moment’s thought, I pursed my lips and shut what was left of the old soldier’s eyelids. Say what you will about me, but know that I do have respect for the deceased.

Taking Lily back to the cauldron room was a bit of a tricky process. In addition to the wounds her body had sustained from the pod-creature, Lily’s chemically-induced rage had blown out most of her muscles and severely overstressed her leg and wing joints. Adding insult to injury, the chem was impeding the healing process and making it impossible for me to do any more than I already had! Lily had pulled an ace out of her sleeve in order to go all in, but now she needed to sit a hoof out.

Due to her pitiful state she was about as useful and mobile as several hundred pounds of sweaty gym socks, which is what it felt—and smelled—like was on my back as I coaxed, consoled, cajoled, and ultimately carried her back toward the cauldrons. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Lily had done her part admirably. It was up to me to see us out of our predicament.

Moving through the one door we had previously pried open required a bit of creative contortionism, however. And lots of magical tugging. Lily was no help, of course. For the majority of the trip back she was only capable of either chuckling weakly at her own helplessness or groaning in pain. I had just managed to drag her through the door when she quieted down and asked me for another smoke break.

Lying sprawled out on her back, Lily groaned around the cigarette stuck in her lips, “I feel like somepony mixed three cups of awful with two cups of tired, and then beat the dough like it owed them caps.”

I caught the ash from her smoke in my magic before it could fall on her face, and smiled encouragingly. “Yes, you do. But we’re almost back, dear.” My magic scooped up one of her forelegs just before I draped her across my back again. “Come along. You’ll feel better once we get out of these corridors.”

“First it was ‘darling.’ Now it’s ‘dear.’ “ I could hear the smirk on her lips, but chose to ignore it. I situated her across my saddlebags and floated her hat back on top of her head as she giggled, “You getting sweet on me, sugar?”

I rolled my eyes, adjusting her weight as I plodded along. “Isn’t sugar always sweet?”

“Not always,” she pointed out. “Sometimes it’s labeled wrong. Then it tastes salty.”

I couldn’t help it. The image of Lily tossing out her stetson in favor of a chef’s hat, covered in batter, and panicking over a disastrous tray of muffins just would not leave my mind. I tried to lift my PipBuck to my lips in order to conceal the snort, but it was a lost cause. “Re—” I had to bark out my words between peals of laughter. “Remind me to never eat anything you bake!”

“Oh… oh, stop!” Lily’s giggles nearly dislodged her from her perch across my back. “It tickles when you laugh!”

I craned my neck to my right, utterly failing to wipe the smile from my face as I warned her, “And you’re about to fall off if you keep wriggling!” She grinned back up at me as I continued, “You may be lighter than you look, Lily, but I can only just barely hold you up!”

I didn’t realize or appreciate it at the time, but Lily was—in her own odd way—helping me along just as much as I was assisting her. The seemingly pointless conversation was doing a wonderful job of taking my mind off of recent events. For one small pocket of time, I was neither worried about Nohta nor obsessed with Selenism. I was simply Candy Stripes: doctor. And I was exceptionally lucky that my patient was such a goofball.

She made a great show of wiggling her eyebrows as she smirked. “We could switch positions sometime. I like it when the other girl is on top.”

Still grinning, I rolled my eyes and lumbered forward again. “Hush up and enjoy the free ride.”

“Ha! That’s the spirit!” she cheered. One of her forelegs feebly jabbed at the air before plummeting back to my side. “Onward, trusty steed! Adventure and glory await us!”

“You are very lucky that I’m so grateful for your reckless actions.” I tried to sound stern, but it didn’t work. Lily could feel my chuckling. Before she could jump in with another retort, I continued, “Actually, I plan on thanking you properly as soon as I have access to those cauldrons. Killing Joke was the last ingredient I needed for one of Mother’s most impressive potions.”

“Oh yeah?” she asked. “What goodies are we talking about?”

My ears perked up with my anticipation. “It harnesses the magical energy of the Killing Joke and redirects it through use of the other ingredients in order to induce a controlled state of advanced muscular hypertrophy. The effects should be nearly instantaneous and permanent. It’s really quite exciting!”

A moment of silence passed before Lily questioned, “Do you think you can brew up a potion that explains what you just said?”

A corner of my mouth turned upward as I fought to subdue my amusement. Normally it wouldn’t be so satisfying to revel quite so overtly in being smarter than someone, but lording my intelligence over somepony as cocky as Lily was never going to get old. It’s what she deserved for being so smug.

Yes, yes I’m perfectly aware of the idiom regarding what the butter called the corn cob. They’re both yellow. You don’t have to remind me.

My smirk softened to a comfortable and genuine smile as I looked back to explain, “I’m going to make you stronger than you already are, darling.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Wait, seriously?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “Seriously.”

A filly-like grin spread across her face. “Cool.”

“My thoughts as well.” Turning my attention forward once more, I amended my previous statement. “Ah, more or less.”

Lily’s tail swished along my left side as she perked up. “Just as long as it doesn’t ruin my girlish figure. This flank may not be as nice as yours, but besides my winning personality, crazy-awesome fighting skills, cool weapons, connections to important ponies, worldly ways, and ability to drink everyone I know under the table, it’s basically all I’ve got!”

She was doing it again. The corner of my lip curled upward as I recognized the invitation to another verbal sparring match. Somehow she was managing to be absurd in just the right way, and I couldn’t help but take the bait.

“You forgot about your superb ability to boast,” I corrected her. “Or your prowess in the art of exaggeration.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty fuckin’ great, huh?” She chuckled and spit out what was left of her cigarette before finishing with, “You’re cool too. But don’t let it go to your head.”

Still grinning, I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure it will be quite the struggle, but I’ll endeavor to stay humble.” The door to the cauldron room was in sight. I could practically feel the warm bathwater already.

I could hear the smirk on her lips as she kept playing our little game. “I’m not sure if that big brain of yours leaves any room for anything else.”

My brow furrowed as I considered her statement. “I… guess I can take that as a compliment.”

Not intimidated in the slightest by my weak retort, she resorted to a tried-and-true tactic. Her injured wing fluttered weakly against my withers as she declared, “And that brain is connected to the cutest body in the San Palomino desert.”

A quick chuckle escaped my lips as I parried. “If you believe that, then you really have turned exaggeration into an artform.”

She paused for just a moment. I scarcely had time to recognize her previous statement for the feint that it was. I was still relishing the feeling of having backed my opponent into the proverbial corner when Lily’s real blow deftly slipped past my defenses and struck home.
The jovial mirth left her voice, replaced by a heartfelt and vulnerable whisper, “And you’re really nice.”

I stopped dead in my tracks and blinked back my confusion. That… That hadn’t sounded like Lily’s typical frivolity. She was supposed to say something silly, and then I was supposed to either dismiss or retort, like a tennis match played with words and wit instead of rackets and balls. That was how the game worked. But what she had just said seemed… genuine.

“L-Lily?” My right ear swiveled back, but I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t. Some part of me was too afraid of what I might have seen in her eyes.

“Fun to hang out with. Kinder than you should be. Strong when it matters. A little crazy, sure, but in a good way.” Her string of compliments was getting rather long, but I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t enjoy hearing them.

Still, I had just made a promise to try and remain humble. I gave a weak little chuckle, trying to conceal how confused I was. “You’re um… You’re starting to embarrass me.”

“Are you blushing yet?” she teased. “You’re adorable when you blush.”

“Oh! Look at that! We’re almost back!” I exclaimed, shuffling toward the doorway and my only escape route. “Just through here!”

I had expected Lily to continue her assault, or maybe to smugly bask in the warm glow of victory as I beat a hasty retreat. Instead, she sighed heavily and hung her head against my saddlebag in silence. I couldn’t quite discern why she was acting so defeated; she was typically relentless when it came to this sort of thing.

It wasn’t as if the time-out was unwanted, but… the silence was a bit uncomfortable. I had just begun to turn my head and ask her what the matter was when a faint trickle of light caught my attention. Nestled behind a wall of vines and leaves was a door. Or rather, what remained of one. The placard on the door was melted, disfigured, and tarnished almost to the point of illegibility. But there was no mistaking the title and name before me: Office of Ministry Mare Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight. That time held significance to Selenism. It belied a certain neutrality, coming twice a day, but it always signified a moment of great change. And when coupled with the fact that I heard Mizani and Lexicon discuss this mare before, I could hardly contain my curiosity.

“Wait,” I said, as if I weren’t the only one of us moving at the moment. “There’s a terminal in there.” Lily’s only response was to huff loudly. I looked back just in time to catch her rolling her eyes. “Lily?”

“Fine. Go do your thing.” She half-wriggled, half-flopped off of my back, landing with a soft thud on the leafy floor. I turned back in alarm, but she was already dragging herself to a sitting position against the wall by the time I could have helped her. She panted from the exertion of propping herself up against the wall, and glanced coolly in my direction as she gave a dismissive flap of her wing. “What? Go.”

Goddess, I was such a fool! I lifted a hoof to my temple, shaking my head and wincing. “Lily, I’m sorry! I wasn’t thinking! Here.” I turned back around and opened the door to the larger room with the cauldrons. Propping it open, I returned to the office door and began peeling vines away with my magic. “We’re almost out of these halls, dear. I promise I’ll only be a moment.”

Lily reached up and pulled her hat down over her eyes before sighing again. “Just go.”

I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I had somehow offended her, but in the end curiosity won out. I stripped the last of the vines away and stepped over the warped metal, taking care to not slice my belly or rip my damaged barding on the jagged remnants of the door.

The inside of the office was, much like everything else, covered in patches of plant growth. What I was able to make out looked rather plain and simple, and with only a few exceptions consisted of all the normal accoutrements one might expect to find in a private office. Bookshelves lined the walls, and a squat little arcane safe sat in one corner. Sitting prominently in the middle of the room was a wooden desk adorned by only three items: the terminal that had caught my eye in the first place, a small writing lamp with a purple flower growing where its lightbulb should have been, and a quirky little bonsai tree bearing miniature apples. I had to pick one of the apples and smell it just to be sure it was real.

I shook my head at such an ostensibly odd feat of agriculture and rounded the corner of the desk. In the glow of the terminal, I spied a book set in a glass case hanging from the mossy wall. I wasn’t entirely sure why anypony would want to set apart their copy of “Super Naturals” in a decorative case, or why they would believe such a common publication worthy of such praise. Regardless, it was an untarnished tome from outside The Stable, and that was enough for me to want it for my own. Unfortunately, the glass case was locked tighter than my constrictive barding, which was probably the only reason the book had escaped the ravages of the humid air and plant growth in the first place.

A quick search of the desk’s drawers provided no keys to speak of, although I did find a few bobby-pins. My thoughts immediately returned to my sister as I tried my best to imitate the poking, prodding, and wiggling motions I had witnessed her perform to open a lock. I had seen her do this sort of thing plenty of times. It couldn’t be that hard…

My lips pursed in annoyance after I snapped the first bobby-pin in two, and I was huffing and muttering under my breath by the time the fifth-and-final pin broke off in the lock. My newfound admiration for the difficulty of Nohta’s most clandestine skill was buried under my frustration as I hefted the lamp from the desk and smacked it squarely against the glass. I may not be the strongest mare in the world, but even I can break a thin sheet of glass with a blunt object!

I wrested the book free from the case with my magic and opened it, finding a small slip of paper written in immaculate script. It read simply, “Remember to always take a second look.” Finding no other oddities, I added my hard-won prize to my small collection of literature.

Finally turning my attention to the terminal itself, I was puzzled to find that a series of characters had already been typed into the password box of the login screen. After giving it a moment’s consideration, I shrugged and tapped the keypad. I had just accessed the personal terminal of one Ms. Twilight Sparkle.

So, as I’m sure you can imagine, it made absolutely perfect sense that the first entry I saw bore my name.

>Candy Stripes! Read this first!

“Oh, Goddess…” I groaned and shook my head, as if that would magically erase the entry. Before reading further I grumbled into a hoof. “You simply must be joking!” I tapped the keys again, selecting the entry and accessing the file. It opened up with a rather bizarre first line, but one that wasn’t altogether unexpected.

>No! I’m not! Now shut the fuck up and read this! I’ve got one of those pod-zebras melting down the door! The longer you bitch and moan, the longer it will take me to see you!

There was only one pony this message could be from. Glaring at the black and green screen, I asked aloud, “How are you doing this? Can you really see the future? How long ago did you type this?” Waiting for a few seconds, I noticed no change in the entry. Remembering that I was communicating via a text program, I pursed my lips and tapped the keyboard to access the next screen.

>Finally figured that out, did you? Two years ago. Now stop being such a pain in my ass! Things are finally on track, but if you get the timing wrong in the next few days then everything goes to shit! Do exactly as I say, exactly when I say it!

I snorted dismissively before tapping the key again. “First of all, how are you doing that? Secondly, why do you keep contacting me? And thirdly, why should I trust you, Psyker?” I had hoped to cut to the chase and actually learn something, but her reply halted my march of progress before it could begin.

>I swear to The Goddess that if you don’t shut up right fucking now, then I will let Nohta die.

Words. They were only green words on a black screen. But one little line had just dropped my jaw.

A hundred questions raced through my mind all at once. Nohta was in danger? Was she hurt? Did I have time to reach her? Where was she? My mouth moved, but no sound escaped. I shut my eyes, closed my jaw, and nodded in silence.

I had so many more questions… Was I helping anyone at all by trusting Psyker? Did I have any real choice in the matter? What did she want from me? Why was she going through so much trouble to maintain contact with me?

But the one question that stuck out like a sore hoof was much more alarming. Had she just said, “The Goddess?” instead of “Goddesses?”

But no matter my confusion, Psyker had just pushed the one button that could command my obedience. I had no choice but to obey. I swallowed my pride and fear, and read the next line.

>Stop worrying about your sister and focus on your own shit.

“O-Okay,” I nodded, though the agreement was hollow. Psyker had to realize I could never stop worrying about Nohta as she had asked. I clicked through the rest of the screens one at a time, not bothering to respond verbally.

>Good job with the alicorns. They’ll prove useful in a few days. You’ll know what I mean soon enough.

She had just congratulated me? Encouragement wasn’t her style. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted her approval.

>Take this opportunity to brew as many potions as you can. Especially Sweet Water, Mana Potions, and Dragon’s Breath. We’re about to need them.

>The code for the arcane safe is A-1-B-C-3. Drink the elixir you find inside it tomorrow morning. No sooner. NO FUCKING SOONER.

>You won’t have time to watch the memory orb until a few days from now, but make sure you download Twilight’s journal entries from this terminal and read them while you’re brewing potions. If you really want the truth then you’ll get it. But it won’t come from Celestia. I’ll be the one to spoon feed it to you one dose at a time. Try not to choke on it.

Ahh, there she was. I was starting to worry that she wouldn’t always be a spiteful thorn in my side.

>When Elegy finds you, listen to what he has to say. He’s the only pony in this desert that can stop us.

>His misguided sense of what is right and wrong could fuck everything up. We can’t take that chance. Kill The Bard.

My jaw dropped, again, as I read Psyker’s words. She really was instigating a war between her underlings. And now she wanted me to do her dirty work for her!

>The pod bitch is almost through the door, I have tontha asdg

Psyker had run out of time. She hadn’t even finished her message, which cast all sorts of doubt on just how well she could predict the future if she couldn’t even tell when her own life was in danger, but at that exact moment I wasn’t precisely in the right frame of mind to wonder about that. She had given me more than enough to consider with her word choice alone.

As I sat there, dumbfounded, there was one question that wouldn’t leave my mind: why would Psyker refer to The Goddesses in the singular? She had done that twice now, but it didn’t make any sense! Everyone on the surface knew the truth, including me! Psyker had even gone so far as to taunt me in her last recording, hinting at how I would learn of Celestia and alluding to how she’d be there to watch “the show,” as she put it. So there wasn’t any doubt that she knew the truth…

Was she simply toying with me? Or had she chosen her words carefully, knowing that I would ponder this exact mystery? My hoof rose to my forehead and covered my eyes while I sat still and thought.

Of all the ponies I had met, only a few of them were directly linked to Psyker in any fashion whatsoever. The one who bore the closest connection had been the twisted, sadistic cannibal that had raided and desecrated my home. It might have been the fear that had consumed me when I saw her, or perhaps all the foul odors wafting through the room, or possibly even my own actions that followed that moment, but I knew that my encounter with The Pyro was one I could never forget.

The memory of roiling, angry flames burned through my mind as I remembered the reek of death mingling with the stench of burnt flesh and the sharp odor of cleaning chemicals. The sound of insane, callous laughter echoed off the walls of my stable’s laundry room, and only quieted when The Pyro burnt her own skin. “By The Goddess,” she had said, practically salivating as the stench reached her own nostrils. The leader of one of the three raider gangs, one of Psyker’s direct underlings, had spoken like a Selenist rather than a surface pony. As memory served, she wasn’t alone.

Another memory, and another fight for my life. Bright Eyes’ relentless advance as her sea of ghouls washed over the Steel Rangers. Just before all of that horror, Star-Paladin Sandalwood had, upon hearing me refer to Luna, asked a very confusing question, “Which Goddess?” At the time, I still hadn’t realized the truth. After hearing my flummoxed and nervous response, Sandalwood had inquired further.

She had asked if we were sisters.

I shook my head as I realized this was neither the time nor the place to be contemplating such matters. Nohta was still out there somewhere, and Lily was waiting on—

A grunt by the door caught my attention and announced Lily’s presence. I looked up to see her hobbling into the room on shaking legs before teetering to the side and clutching at a nearby bookshelf for support. Her hoof slipped, and she thumped the shelf with her shoulder, jostling the books and making the ancient wood creak under her weight. She winced at the impact, and propped herself up against the shelves as she sat on her haunches.

I took a step toward her. “Lily! You shouldn’t be—”

“I’m fine,” she hissed. One of her eyes was shut in a half-scowl as she demanded, “Who are you talking to?”

“Err…” I grimaced, fearing her response. “Psyker left a note in this terminal.”

“Fuck!” She jolted upright, sucking in a pained breath as her wings flared wide. “We need to get the fuck out of—”

“Lily! Lily, she’s not here!” I had to calm her down. “Psyker said that she wrote this note two years ago.”

Seemingly convinced, or perhaps just that desperate for a bit of rest, Lily slumped against the floor and stared straight ahead. “Two years? Shit…” I walked to her side, and was just about to help her sit up when she asked, “Well? What’d the bitch say?”

The way she was glaring at me made me hesitate, but I shrugged it off. Surely she was just upset about hearing that Psyker was sending us more messages. I reached out to her, tugging at her shoulders to place her in a more stable position, and reiterated the note. “Nohta’s okay. Other than that, she had a list of directions for us.”

“So now we’re taking orders from the raider warlord we’re supposed to kill?” Lily fished another cigarette out from under her askew hat and shakily held her lighter up to the tip.

I chewed on my lip, wondering exactly how crazy I was about to sound. “Possibly? She wants us to kill The Bard.”

Lily stared down her muzzle, shocked into silence. The flame from her lighter leapt to the cigarette, consuming half of the tobacco in seconds. “Son of a bitch!” Lily yelped, shaken back to her senses. With a disgruntled grimace, she blew out the flame and tried to smoke what was left.

Scrunching up her face in confusion, she exclaimed, “What? You’re messing with me.” When I shook my head, she insisted, “He’s her number two. That doesn’t make any sense.”

I had little to go off of, and all I could imagine amounted to little more than conjecture. “Perhaps he’s no longer loyal to her? Why else would Psyker order The Outcasts to kill The Bards?”

Lily took a deep breath before fishing a Mintal out from underneath her hat and chewing on it thoughtfully. “Elegy’s gang deals in sex, chems, slaves, and information.” Her eyes lit up as she continued, “He knows something, and she doesn’t want it getting out.”

“Lily...” I knew this was going to be a hard sell, so I chose my next words carefully. “You said yourself that the pony that betrayed my caravan had to go through The Bard. If Psyker wants him dead, then we might be better off letting him live.”

Even as I said the words, I wasn’t sure if I believed them. I craved answers, and the head of a spy network seemed a fitting pony from whom to take them, but my head was swimming with too much guesswork, too much emotion, and too little calm and rational thought. Whatever my choice, I’d have to proceed carefully.

“Wait, hold up.” Lily took a long drag off her cigarette. The smoke plumed and dissipated above our heads when she blew it out. “She’s tricked me like this before. She said just the right thing to get me to fly off to the mountains while she was killing the rest of Margie’s crew.”

Lily’s brow furrowed as she spoke her concerns aloud. “Maybe she’s hoping that if we think she wants The Bard dead, we’ll let him go.” She pursed her lips as the obvious counter-argument reared its head. “But then… Why send Adamant’s crew after him in the first place?” She finished her cigarette and spat the nub across the room, not even bothering to stamp it out. Gingerly rubbing her eyes with a hoof, Lily groaned, “Ugh! Fuck Psyker and her spirits-damned mind games!”

My ears drooped as a troubling thought occurred to me. “If she has that much of a grasp on the situation, then she likely already knows what we’re going to do.”

“Fuck that,” Lily spat. “There’s no such thing as fate.”

“Hmph.” I raised an eyebrow and pursed my lips. “Before I agree with you, I’d just like to point out the absurdity of a pony who believes in ghosts disparaging some other tidbit of supernatural nonsense.”

She stared at me underneath the brim of her hat, and raised a questioning eyebrow. I gave her a nonplussed look, feeling rather like I was explaining myself to a yearling. “Lily, I am a doctor. My entire profession revolves around saving lives, so if this—” I rolled my eyes and waggled a dismissive hoof in the air as I huffed, “—fate were to be a real concept, then I’ve devoted my entire life to changing it.

“Selenism taught us to—” I caught myself a moment too late, and grimaced as the rest of my breath left my lips in a weary sigh. I was already regretting that I had brought up my faith—and all the jumbled-up emotions that came along with it—but Lily’s questioning gaze was practically begging for an explanation. I owed her that much, I was sure.

A moment of silence passed between us before I clenched my jaw and gently shook my head. “It taught us that we will struggle, and that sometimes we must seek guidance, but if we are not happy with our lot in life then it is up to us to change it.”

Slowly, the corner of her mouth turned upward into a sly grin. “Like looking for a doctor when you’ve been hurt?”

An encouraging smile graced my lips as I replied, “Or a mercenary.”

Much to my surprise, Lily gave a single bark of laughter before she was overtaken by a coughing fit. She toppled over, clutching her barrel and clenching her eyes shut as she flopped onto a bed of moss. Still smiling despite the obvious physical duress, Lily nodded appreciatively and looked up at me through one blood-red eye. “Shit, babe. That’s dark.”

Oh Goddess, had I just said that? “I, err… I just meant that—”

“Nope. Nope, you don’t get to take it back. What’s said is said.” It was as if her dour mood had never been there in the first place. She grinned up at me from the mossy floor, “You get everything you want out of here, yet? I’d really like to get out from underneath these low ceilings.”