As it turned out, Big Mac had nothing to tell. They returned to the ship, where Twilight was just preparing some rations for herself, and exchanged news from the day. Twilight had noticed the commotion on her way back from Trixie’s apartment, but had heard no details on the fire.

“So what do we do about this Shout pony?” Rainbow asked. “This… what did you say he calls himself, Octavia?”

“A loudmouth rebel,” Octavia said.

“Yeah, him. We gotta stop him.”

Octavia walked down under the deck, but reappeared a minute later with her cello, which she set up by the gunwale. Playing a small tune, she spoke. “Ordinarily, I would say that we should not. However, we are here as long as it takes Twilight to help Trixie anyway, so we may as well stick our noses in this.”

“Now that’s a surprise, comin’ from you,” Applejack said.

Octavia shrugged and played a flourish on her instrument.

“But where do we find him?” Twilight asked.

“I do not think we should search for him,” Octavia said. “Because I do not think that he is ultimately behind this. He is crass and annoying, but I never got the impression that he is malicious enough for what we witnessed.”

“Oh, crap,” Rainbow said. “I’ll bet I know who you’re thinking of.”

Octavia drew out a high note. “Perhaps it is well that Rarity is not with us after all.”

While Cork snored in the bedroom, her every grunt and breath coming through the thin walls as if she were right next to them, Rarity and Fluttershy shared the couch. For most of the night, Rarity had been in high spirits, but after Cork had gone to bed, and they were alone, her mood dipped. For all her knickknacks, Cork had nothing in her house that was of interest to them for more than a couple minutes, and they couldn’t talk too much, lest their tenant wake and overhear something. Worse still, Cork had gone to bed early, and neither of them were tired.

“It’s kind of like camping,” Fluttershy said.

“As close to camping as I’d ever like to be,” Rarity said. “Though I guess that’s silly, considering all the time I’ve been away from home now.”

Fluttershy leaned to the side to bring her wings around Rarity, who didn’t object. They stayed that way, unspeaking, listening to the crickets outside, Cork’s slumber, and the distant sounds of the city. Before long, Rarity had closed her eyes, and as she lowered her head into Fluttershy’s soft fur, wondering still whether they had made the right decision, she heard a quiet humming from within her friend’s chest.

It was nine o’ clock at night when they cruised over the complex of flats where Lacey Kisses lived and landed in the parking lot next to what Twilight recognized as her car. It was late, but Octavia reasoned that because they didn’t know when she left in the mornings, or even what days she worked, it would be better to catch her late than early.

It took them a couple minutes to find her flat, and they waited pensively at the door while Twilight knocked.

There were hoofsteps behind, a pause, and then it opened. “Back so soon?” Lacey asked, eyeing them. A head taller than them all, save Big Mac, she looked down at them with a smug, greasy grin. “Missing some of your friends, I see.”

“Cut the crap, Lacey,” Rainbow said.

“What do you know about the fire in Rose Tower this afternoon?” Octavia asked.

“I know that it happened,” Lacey said, leaning on her door with a dulcet smile. “And I know I’m not responsible, before you get too excited.”

“Yeah, right,” Twilight said. “Do you have any proof?”

“I don’t owe you a single explanation,” Lacey said. She flashed a beautiful, white smile at Big Mac. “New meat. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She offered a hoof, but Applejack batted it away.

“Not with my brother, you harlot.”

“Oh, you’re no fun.” She looked at their faces, seeing varying degrees of loathing. “You may not remember this very well, but you left me and Strawberry caught in a properly dreadful mess. Twilight.”

“Don’t even try. You deserve everything that happened to you,” Twilight said.

“Maybe I did, but everyone else who got laid off because of your actions most certainly did not.” She gave Twilight a simpering smile and patted her cheek bracingly. “It doesn’t do well to get your revenge with so much collateral damage, my love.”

“What do you know of Captain Shout?” Octavia asked loudly.

“I know he’s a fan of mine.”

“What else?”

Lacey retracted her hoof and straightened her face. “How long is this going to take?”

“As long as it needs to,” Applejack said.

She looked at them askance for just a moment. “Let’s go for a walk. That’s better than loitering on my doorstep.” Before letting them respond, she walked out and closed the door softly. “Celestia knows who’s watching.”

“Paranoid, Lacey?” Rainbow asked.

“I’m being careful. Not that I’d expect someone like you to know what that means.” They walked into the complex, keeping pace a distance away from her. “Perhaps I do owe you an explanation, if for no other reason than to get you off my flanks.”

“We’re listening,” Twilight said.

“As I said, you left me and Strawberry in a nasty spot. My company was hemorrhaging money, despite what your friend Rarity did to help, and we lost thirty percent of our staff. I took a substantial pay cut.”

“Cry me a river,” Applejack said.

“You do realize the more you interrupt, the longer you have to be with me, right?” Lacey snapped. “Or is the desire to hurl one-liners simply too much for you to deal with?”

“Let her speak,” Octavia said tiredly.

“Thank you. Now, anyway, not only was I out quite the large sum of bits, but I also had Strawberry coming after me. I had a good idea of what he was going to do, so I was able to prepare. It enabled me to strike back at him a lot more quickly than he was expecting.”

“What’s this got to do with the fire?” Rainbow asked.

“It’s all Strawberry, I know it. I’ve seen him do things like this before, though never on so large a scale.”

“You mean you’ve seen him commit acts of terrorism, and you never did anything?” Twilight asked.

“No, I mean I’ve seen him make trouble when he’s feeling threatened. It’s a diversion. He wants the media, and me, to look elsewhere so he can get his revenge unseen.”

“How do you know all this about him?” Octavia asked.

“We were business partners once. Well, white-collar criminals. That’s a kind of business.”

“You just really want us to hate you more, don’t you?” Applejack asked.

“If Captain Shout is related, he’s taking his cues from Strawberry. Probably his thug.”

“And why should we trust you, exactly?” Rainbow asked.

“Go ask Strawberry, then. I don’t care.”

“Are you trying to stop him from what he is doing?” Octavia asked.

“I’m trying to stop him from destroying my life, so in an oblique way, I guess I am.” She looked at Octavia with an analytical frown. “Let me guess. You’re thinking of helping me stop his misdeeds, for the greater good?”

“That is exactly what I am thinking.”

“Octavia, no, you can’t team up with her,” Rainbow said.

“Let the mare do what she wants,” Lacey said. “You already all know the truth about me, and this one seems sensible. You’re not going to make the same mistake twice.”

“The mistake of trusting you, you mean,” Twilight said.

“The mistake of letting me exploit you.”

“I will first confirm what you say of Strawberry,” Octavia said.

“Go for it. While you’re at it, see if you can get him to reveal his next crime. It might help if I have a little foreknowledge.”

“He won’t trust us any more than you,” Pinkie said.

“Not my problem,” Lacey said. They turned a tight U and went back to her flat. She paused at her door to look down at an empty dish.

“What’s that?” Twilight asked.

“Have you not seen a food bowl before?” She pushed the door open and leaned inside, pulling out a sack of cat food.

“You have a cat?” Rainbow asked, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “I can’t imagine you taking care of anything.”

She filled the bowl. “Maybe I like animals.” They watched her, and when she had put the bag away, she faced them. “Well? Go on, shoo. I have nothing else for you.”

“An’ a good night to you too,” Applejack grumbled.

The following morning, they spared no time in flying back to a familiar apartment complex, where they immediately found Strawberry’s room. It was just dawn, and a Monday, and they had no idea whether he would be home, or asleep. They didn’t care.

After only a couple seconds of Rainbow pounding the door, they heard him move inside. It cracked open, and his nervous, green eye regarded them through the space between wall and latched door.

“Still paranoid, partner?” Applejack asked.

“If you came to ask for more financial assistance, I’m afraid I can’t help you. Goodbye.” The door shut, and Octavia stepped to the front of the group.

“What do you know about Captain Shout?”

“Never heard of him. Should I?”

“Lacey told us about him!” Pinkie said.

The latch behind the door slid back, and he beckoned them inside without a word. His apartment was still the same, minimally decorated quarters they had seen before, and he hastened to the coffee table to snap closed a large ledger. “What are you doing with Lacey? I thought you’d have learned your lesson.” He looked at them. “Ah, I see now. Some of you did.”

“What do you know about Captain Shout?” Octavia asked.

“He’s a radio personality, I know that much.”

“We think he’s responsible for the fire in Rose Tower,” Twilight said.

“Odd,” Strawberry said. “What does this have to do with Lacey? Or me, for that matter?”

“You’re the two shadiest ponies we know. Connect the dots,” Rainbow said.

“Are you sure it’s not that we’re the only shady ponies you know?”

“So you admit to knowing about Captain Shout.”

“I didn’t say that at all.”

“You didn’t not say it.”

Strawberry looked at her dispassionately. “Is this why you’re here?”

“All right, Ah’m gonna be honest,” Applejack said. Octavia looked at her quickly, but Applejack didn’t look back. “More lies ain’t gonna help no one here. We saw the fire, suspected Lacey, an’ she told us it was you. She thinks Shout’s yer thug or somethin’.”

“So why in the world did you come here? Either she’s wrong, in which case, you waste your time, or she’s right, in which case, I have to destroy you for finding me out.”

“We need to stop him, or the pony behind him,” Octavia said.

“Besides, you wouldn’t hurt us,” Rainbow said. “We’re the Elements of Harmony. You’d be looking at a lifetime in a dungeon, at best.”

“Physical harm is not the only way to keep someone silent,” Strawberry said. “But your point is taken.”

They stood on opposite sides of his table, looking at each other carefully, appraising. Thinking of what the other knew.

“I think we have all we need,” Twilight said.

Cork woke Fluttershy and Rarity early, and after a disoriented couple seconds where they didn’t remember where they were—or who they said they were—she corralled them out of the house and over to Arch Carrier’s comparatively palatial hovel, where the rest of the town had gathered for breakfast.

Of all the ponies Cork said would be there, only two sat at the legless breakfast table: a tawny pegasus with a long, uncombed mane, and a small, pale earth pony with unseemly pink eyes. Cloud Line and Eggshell, Cork said, greeting the two with energetic hugs. Fluttershy and Rarity exchanged worried looks: Deco had said they were mystery ponies.

Slowly, the rest of the town trickled in. Deco and her deaf brother, who gave them a shy smile. Clipper in his weathered suit, who nodded curtly and sat away from Cork. Arch Carrier from the kitchen with a magically-carried cloud of food. Two ponies in matching cravats, one of whom wore a rakish, feathered hat. Lastly, Rotor, a burgundy unicorn with braided bangs that showed only a clever, cocky smile.

Eating, Rarity took control of answering everyone’s questions. Who they were, where they came from, and what they were doing in town—a question she skirted with as little detail as she could. Fluttershy remained quiet for the most part, but warmed up when Cloud Line slid over to her. It had been a long time since she had interacted with another pegasus, and was eager to have a fly with her later that afternoon.

It wasn’t long before Rotor called attention to Rarity’s disuse of her horn, which she blamed on an unfortunate travel accident. One wrong step on a patch of rocky ground, and she cracked her head and horn on a blunt tooth of stone. She received sympathy all around, and Cork asked to take a picture of it, citing personal interest.

“Is this what I think it is?” Twilight asked. It was ten in the morning, and her friends had dropped her off at Trixie’s only five minutes ago. Before getting right to work, they chatted, affording Twilight time to look around the apartment. On a varnished, teak mount, hanging alone in the corner, was a single, small, acidic red crystal caught in a firm web of straps.

“Oh, that. Globe Trotter says Manehattan’s a dangerous place nowadays, especially for anyone with a known name. So she bought me this as a little contingency.”

“May I?”

Trixie shrugged, and Twilight pulled down the pulse crystal. She turned it over before her eyes, studying the mount’s crafstponyship, the crystal’s luster. Her own face reflected back at her, feverishly gleeful in the red stone, and she brought a hoof over the woven straps, stiffest at their junctions, but loose enough to fit around a foreleg elsewhere. The original device had been designed about a century ago, ninety years prior to its larger, mechanical counterpart, but obeyed the same principle: a projectile of concentrated magic, moving at sufficient speed, was enough to deter most any attacker, at least those of flesh and blood.

Still looking into the lurid gem, she slipped it onto her own foreleg. The straps, responding to her body heat, tightened minutely, trying to adjust to the contours of her foreleg, and failing in subtle ways. It was an uncomfortable fit.

“This must already be bound to your hoof,” she said, looking at Trixie.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie may have done a little practice with it,” Trixie said, giving her mane a flighty swish. “The first pony who lived here didn’t take all their dishes with them. And there is a park right across the street.” She grinned, and for a moment, Twilight saw a glint of old mischievousness in her eyes. She smiled back, imagining the scene.

“Is Manehattan really that dangerous?”

“According to Globe Trotter. She said there’s big trouble brewing, and I think I trust her. Look at what happened yesterday.”

“Yeah. My friends were there, too.”

“Ah, that’s what they were talking about. I’m glad none of them were hurt.”

Twilight nodded absently and put the pulse crystal back, then looked at Trixie.

“What?”

“No, nothing. I’m still getting used to… you know, nice Trixie. I wasn’t ready for that comment.”

Trixie chuckled and grabbed their stack of writing supplies. “You’ll see how nice I am after I tell you my impressions of our first draft here.”

“I am going out.” Octavia stood at the ramp and looked deep into the city, expression contemplative.

“What? Alone?” Pinkie asked.

“Yes.”

“With all that’s goin’ on?” Applejack said. “Weren’t you the one arguin’ against splittin’ up in the first place?”

“I know this city,” Octavia said. “And I know where the ship is. I will be back before nightfall.”

“Not a good idea,” Rainbow said, shaking her head.

“Think of what you’d say to yourself!” Pinkie said. She adopted a deadpan voice. “The consequences of this decision are grave.”

Octavia looked her sister directly in the eye. “Fuck consequences. I am going out.”

It was hot when she had left the ship, but not twenty minutes into her lonesome walk, clouds covered the sky, and she moved through a mild drizzle. She stopped on a street corner and ran a hoof through her mane, separating the dark hairs and savoring the cool water on her scalp. Her dark fur and darker mane made heat stroke a real possibility, especially in the summer months. She was glad that they had gone to Trottingham when it was still spring.

Her own words echoed ominously in her mind. “Fuck consequences.” She was raised not to curse, and, in her line of work, such language was anathema. She was no brute. Still, it had felt good to say it. Her own tiny mark of devastation to signal her departure, and her new freedom.

She let a genuine smile out as she crossed the street with the crowd. For the first time in a long time, it felt good to be alone.

She stopped to look into a shoe store’s dark window. Ponies moved behind her unhealthy reflection, but the lights were not on. Two months, and the electricity wasn’t even fully restored, she mused. “At least my utilities would be less expensive.”

All around her, ponies moved quickly, umbrellas over their heads, some in magical unicorn grips, others on small harnesses that attached at the neck. She saw no one like her, unadorned. A hurried mare gave her a dark look as she passed.

“I will go where my hooves lead me, and something will happen,” she thought, continuing past the store and toward a small, open strip mall, a splashing fountain in the middle of its lot. She smiled again.

Somewhere in her mind, the thought of Captain Shout, and his suspected affiliation with Strawberry, rolled over. Another set of issues, and uncovered the same day they had touched down. Was nothing easy? She stopped at the fountain and dipped a hoof in the water, pausing halfway down to a spare bit. It was cold, and she did not want to walk through the mall any wetter than she already was.

“We could always refuse.” She trotted through the revolving door. “There is nothing that says we have to do anything about this. It is not our problem. Our business is with Discord and the Elements of Harmony, not this petty squabble between criminals.” She smiled courteously at a pony offering decorative glass works in a small, open stand.

“Miss! Miss Melody!”

She looked across the open area to see a young colt trotting her way. He wore a neat, pressed letterman jacket and a pair of thick sunglasses on his head. She stopped and let him come closer, and he raised the glasses to reveal a pair of searching, golden eyes.

He smiled nervously. “I saw you walking past, and I wasn’t sure it was you at first.” He laughed and ran a hoof through his stiff mane. “Wow, I can’t believe it.”

“It is always a pleasure to meet a fan,” she said, smiling politely and inclining her head.

“Is it true?”

She looked around. A few other ponies were looking their way, and one was pointing as she spoke to a friend. She walked quickly back, and the colt followed. “We can walk and talk. I do not want to draw a crowd.”

“Walking with Octavia,” he breathed to himself. “I can’t believe it.”

“Is what true?”

“Huh? Oh, what the papers are saying.”

She felt a thin crystal of ice in her heart. “What are the papers saying?”

“You don’t know? You’re traveling with the Elements of Harmony now. Like, as a guide or something. Or a friend.”

She did not immediately answer. The papers. She had not once thought about them. No one had come up to them, not for an interview, or even a photograph. “Fuck consequences.” “Yes, it is true. I have traveled more than they. I am their guide.”

He chuckled. “What was Fillydelphia like? It must have been really something to be in the middle of that tornado.”

“They know about that.”

“Not gonna lie, I envy you,” he said, looking at her. “I can’t imagine how awesome that must have been.”

“Awesome?”

“Think about it! The wind whipping your mane and tail, the height, the noise. Total sensory overload. The sight of the clouds above you, and total chaos below. I can’t imagine how cool that must have been for you.”

“You are making a mistake.”

He paused, and his face showed an instant of worry. “What do you mean?”

“That storm was one of the most horrifying times of my life. It was not ‘cool’.” She stopped and looked at him. His glasses were on. “Take those off.” He slowly lifted the sunglasses up, and she stared directly into his eyes, her own amethyst irises overpowering his youthful gold. “I was ready to die. Not get injured and survive, not be saved by someone else. I was ready to leave this world, and my friends, because I thought that I was about to. It was all I could think about in that moment.”

“Uh… oh. Well, that’s, uh—”

“Say and do as many stupid things as you possibly can right now, because, when you graduate, you will get much worse than an offended mare. Are we clear?”

“Uh, yes ma’am.”

“Get out of my sight.”

“Wait. Uh, I’m sorry. Can I please get an autograph?”

“No.” He didn’t move, and she looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Well? There is nothing for you here.”

He reluctantly walked away, looking back at her with mixtures of admiration and anger, and she only moved on when he had disappeared into the crowd of shoppers. Her mood was soured, and the sea of ponies and stores no longer interested her. Everything for her was far away behind a pane of glass, or ice, and nothing reached her. She moved in a dazed trot through noise and color. Rain buzzed outside, and her head swam with mixed feelings. She still felt residual triumph and readiness for adventure from her abrupt departure from the ship, but it was shaken.

“Never mind him. I am not the pony he thinks I am anyway.” She rounded a sweet-smelling corner where ponies ate cinnamon buns, giving the enticing store no more than a flick of her eyes. She restlessly climbed the stairs to the second level, but there was nothing there. Just a clearer view of the glass ceiling, stippled with rainwater. Thunder rumbled.

It was late evening, and the rain had slowed to a gentle mist that made the reeds and river sigh. Since breakfast, Clipper and Arch Carrier had accompanied Fluttershy and Rarity, showing them how to keep the riverside clear of weeds and how to draw and carry water. If their intent was to live there, even for a couple weeks, they needed to contribute. Any longer, and they’d need to build their own house; they couldn’t rely on Cork’s charity forever, Clipper said. And they might not want to.

As the light died away, they had moved from the riverside to the houses, just in time to find shelter from the rain. They had watched the clouds menace Manehattan, but only as it grew dark did they settle over Passage Town. While Fluttershy stayed behind to help Clipper with some light gardening, Rarity returned to Cork’s house, to dodge more questions on her own.

It was only after Cork had gone to sleep—at eight o’ clock—that Fluttershy returned, her expression a shade away from worried. “I think you should see this.”

Rarity followed her out into the damp evening. Mud squished under her hooves, and she balked at Cork’s entryway, but Fluttershy didn’t stop. Rarity wanted to call out, but something in Fluttershy’s gait suggested it would be unwise, especially considering their nosy tenant. They walked down into the glistening reeds and passed beside the river’s still waters, chasing frogs and crickets astray. Until the hovels were behind them, they marched quietly and straight, sometimes slipping where the stream’s banks were steeper. With the last of the houses behind, Fluttershy walked them to the jagged, metal pump outside town.

Cork had shown them endless pictures of it, but they were always taken from artistic angles, or with dramatic weather effects. Her favorite to show off was a solemn and dignified profile of the broken-down device, framed against powder blue sky with joyful, green grass all around, as if it were a revered monument.

In the clearing, in the rain and deep dusk, there was no drama or flair to it. Its tarnished exterior was beaded with water, its handle long gone, its connecting rod sticking out at a weak angle like the battered reeds behind them. A twisted spout sneered at them with a dewy spider web inside. On the ground, around it, was a concrete circle, grass rimming it and sinking down in a lush carpet where a large crack gave way to silky darkness beneath. Rarity walked around it, unimpressed, until she saw what had attracted Fluttershy’s interest.

Ending at the crack, approaching in a straight line, was a single trail of hoofsteps, pressed vaguely into the mud. Around the trail, only their own stood out, busy and confused. The line looked to originate from the nearest house, which, they had learned that morning, belonged to one of the mystery ponies, Cloud Line.

“Maybe Cork is right about this thing,” Fluttershy said.

“Fl—Butterfly, dear, it seems perfectly clear to me. She was here, it started to rain, so she flew back home to get out faster.”

Fluttershy crouched at the crack and bent an ear to it. “I don’t know, Madam White. Um, I mean, I’m not saying it’s a bad explanation. I just don’t know.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s not our job to find out,” Rarity said, tossing her mane and briefly activating her horn, sending a twinge of pain down the center of her skull. “Let’s head back. I’m getting cold.”

While Rainbow, Applejack, Big Mac, and Pinkie waited for Octavia to return, Twilight waited for them to pick her up. She wasn’t worried; she knew they could take care of themselves, and was having too much fun with Trixie besides.

After another lengthy conversation on magic theory over the dinner table, they took a break from their intellects to play with Trixie’s pulse crystal in the park. Twilight couldn’t keep her eyes off it for the whole day, and Trixie offered to let her try it out on some empty bottles.

Though the park outside Trixie’s apartment was not the same park where they had been attacked, Twilight found herself checking over her shoulder every few minutes. After her third missed shot in a row, preceded by two bottle-shattering direct hits, Trixie spoke up.

“Something eating you, Sparkle?”

“The last time we were here, things didn’t go so great.” Twilight stretched out her right forehoof and looked down the crystal’s edge, trying to line up her shot. She tensed at the last moment and shot a feverish, scarlet tongue of light wide of the bottle, where it splattered against the shield Trixie had erected behind. A red infection on a field of blue.

“I can imagine. Finding a way to secure the towers must have been quite the problem.”

“Yeah, you’ve got that right.” She took the pulse crystal off her hoof and floated it over to Trixie, who accepted it without comment. “You go ahead. I don’t know if I like this.”

“Is that why some of you are missing?” She squinted and tilted her head before clipping the bottle’s neck, tipping it over in a spray of fine glass.

“I’d rather not say.”

“Fair enough,” Trixie said. “And this is why you’re nervous, too?”

“I’m not nervous. I’m…” Her ears flattened at the sound of another pulse coming out of Trixie’s crystal. It was a tight sucking sound, like wind passing through a pinhole. “What am I?” She smiled at Trixie. “Don’t worry about me, Trixie. It’s just post-traumatic stress disorder. Murder isn’t easy to live with.” Her smile faltered. The thought had come quickly and naturally, the filter of her conscious mind untouched. Her mouth was suddenly dry when she went to speak again. “I… think I want to go back inside now.”

“What?” Trixie sounded disappointed.

“Sorry.”

“Let me just take a couple more shots.” She steadied herself and aimed again, and Twilight looked around, hearing—or thinking she heard—familiar voices.

When Rainbow came into view over a line of trees, she hollered at them both, throwing off Trixie’s aim. “There you are! C’mon, Twilight, let’s go.”

“Picking up your marefriend for the night, Dashie?” Trixie said, not looking up from her target.

“You’d like that, huh?”

“I’d like a lot of things.”

“Wow, smooth.”

Trixie took the shot and destroyed the bottle. “I was concentrating.” She lowered her hoof, the crystal sliding up into a smaller net along her foreleg. “There, now I can pay you all the attention you want, Dashie.”

“Never mind.”

“Same time tomorrow?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, sounds good. Get some rest,” Trixie said. She turned to Rainbow. “And you don’t get too rambunctious.”

“Like you know what that’s like,” Rainbow said, and Trixie laughed.

Back on the ship, Octavia was at her cello once again, playing a jocund piece of music that put a smile on Twilight’s face as soon as she boarded.

“You seem happy tonight,” Applejack said.

“The weather is beautiful,” Octavia replied.

“Uh…” She looked at Pinkie, who shook her head “no.” “All right. Well, Ah’m glad to see ya like this.”

Octavia didn’t speak, but increased her tempo slightly.

Pinkie dreamt clearly. It was not uncommon for her to wake with no recollection of her sleep, but at times, a dream would stick out to her. Since the night in Ponyville, where she woke up screaming, it hadn’t happened.

Attached to no body, her conscious eyes glided over wet ground. Reeds and grasses malingered to one side, empty houses to the other. Rain drenched the earth and swelled the river, hard and fast and loud, and very cold—though she felt none of it. In her head, she could hear her sister speaking, not to her. Snippets of sentences drifted up slowly with the images of the peaceful riverside settlement.

“Consequences.”

A scattered array of rounded stones in a shallow bowl of muddy water, surface turning slower than the raindrops that fell.

“Beautiful weather.”

Something wrong with the ground. A feeling of lightness, of uncertainty, she couldn’t tell. A tiny shape in the distance, suddenly important, and then, just as suddenly, right there. No transition.

“Not sleep.”

Pinkie wicked rainwater off the pump’s rusty neck with a sudden pink hoof, which, finished with its task, disappeared again. A black hole sits near its base.

“Worry.”

Through the hole, easily, and she sees well in the dark. But not for long.

“Do not be quiet.”

She takes a step.

Pinkie started awake with a snort, prompting Applejack to tighten her grip on her from behind. Before she closed her eyes again, the image of that great, dark throat filled her eyes.

She takes a step.

Octavia faces her after neither seeing nor hearing from her for years, and instead of joy or love in her eyes, Pinkie sees only sinking hope.

Something cold presses her imaginary hooves, and she falls in a controlled, instant-as-teleportation motion that drags her vision along like a smear of pale masonry in the dark, until she is face-to-face with an even greater darkness, a crack in the wall, through which she can tell is emptiness.

“Caused suffering.”

The vastness of the vault she steps into makes her pause and think. An entire city could fit in this cavern, and, distantly, she wonders whether it ever has. She crosses distances immeasurable in the dark, but knows when she is near the far wall, somewhere deep underneath the static river, perhaps under Manehattan’s outer edge. Cold, slick stone, once rough, but eroded by ancient veins of seeping water. Were there light, she might see the emptiness behind her disembodied consciousness.

“Pinkamena.”

And then, in another instant, she is elsewhere—but not really. It feels the same, like she hasn’t moved at all, but now there are trees, and ponies, and buildings. All of them sharp and distinct, but forgotten as soon as they pass from sight.

Octavia approaches from behind and stops before a shop window. Pinkie doesn’t know how she moved from the town’s edge to its middle, but doesn’t question it.

“This one is nice.” She looks past Pinkie expectantly, and her eyes are a little softer. “Do you not think so?”

And then she woke up, and stayed awake.

While Rarity slept, Fluttershy crept back outside into the wet-smelling air. Lightning skittered in the far north, but no thunder reached her. In her head, she repeated an exhausted litany: “This isn’t a good idea.” It didn’t matter. After a day of cutting reeds and hauling water, she was tired, and the fatigue made it easy for her curiosity to overcome her natural worries. Only in foggy doubt did she want to resist, and in a quiet part of her mind, there was the suggestion of a thrill of doing something she thought to be dangerous.

Approaching the pump from the same angle as before, she stopped in front of Deco and her deaf brother’s house, and took flight. Just in case someone didn’t want her being near the pump, she wanted none of her own hoofprints around it.

As she circled it, she paused in air, and almost touched down. She had to boost her wings in surprise when they brushed the mud. That evening, a single trail of prints led to the pump; at eleven o’ clock at night, a second trail, originating from the crack, led back toward Cloud Line’s house, chopping up and scrambling its precursor. She flew back to Cork’s in dark bemusement.

“Could not sleep, decided to go to Lacey’s and tell her what we learned of Strawberry. Figured you would not want to see her again, and I was bored. Remember that I can protect myself before you get angry. Octavia.” Applejack crumpled up the note and threw it into the torch’s unlit mouth. “Well, that’s just swell.”

“Anyone else got the feeling something’s a little off about her lately?” Pinkie asked.

“Off about whom?” Octavia asked, cresting the plank and sitting by the wheel.

“How long have you been out?” Big Mac asked.

“I left an hour before the dawn.”

“Well, we only just got up to find yer little note,” Applejack said. “Mighty irresponsible runnin’ off like that. Ah guess you know that.”

“I was fine yesterday.”

“That mare seems dangerous,” Big Mac said. “An’ from what Ah heard, she is.”

“She is a pony, not a demon,” Octavia said, walking a broad circle around them. “One-on-one, she was actually quite pleasant with me. Do not get me wrong: I do not trust her, and what she has done in the past is loathsome. However, she has never wronged me personally, and, in fact, was very nice today.”

“Well aren’t you special,” Rainbow said.

“What’s the news with her an’ Strawberry?” Big Mac asked.

“There is nothing to tell. We have told her nothing she did not already know—or, if we did, she has not let us know that. She is planning her next move, but also waiting for his.”

“An’ what are these moves?” Applejack asked.

“She did not say. I do not think she is sure, herself.”

Lacey Kisses, pornography actress and object of Strawberry’s considerable wrath, got off the phone with her stage manager with a whispered, breathless curse. Another pay cut.

For half a beautiful week, it had looked like she would be okay. Manipulating Rarity into a video was her smartest decision, and the one for which she still held a private self-hatred when she couldn’t sleep. However, with Strawberry’s hooves on her business information—with Twilight’s help—he had been able to strike directly at the heart of the company with a lawsuit. Whether it was successful was irrelevant. It was the publicity that mattered, and there was plenty of that. She had to admit to herself: the pony was good at what he did. Ruthlessly calculating, he seemed to pick out the most gruesome statistics to let slip in interviews. Porn of all six Elements wouldn’t save them after what he had revealed.

She put her head in her hooves and tried to clear her mind. A while ago, she had realized, but not accepted, that her job would end soon. It would be weeks, a month, maybe two if she clawed her way against the tides of downsizing and called in every favor she was owed—but it would happen, and the painful truth was, she had no idea what to do afterwards. Hers was not the only erotic media company that was sinking, though it was one of the fastest to fail, and she had little else to put on a résumé when that happened.

The conclusion she kept coming back to, and that she kept telling herself was not the only one, was that she would have to give up her chances for a legitimate profession to engage with Strawberry. She would have to shore up her remaining funds and find a way to become just as potent a criminal as he, locked in an impossibly intricate dance of lies and manipulation, with him, until one of them fell. And what then? What spoils were there for the victor? Money, she supposed, and power beyond her wildest dreams, but those were aspirations she had given up years ago.

Besides, she thought, any fool could see his was a lifestyle that would not last. Why would she join him? He was good at being circumspect, but no one could distance himself from the destruction indefinitely, especially with the Elements and their friends mucking around. It would not be long, she suspected, before something broke, and Strawberry would be found in the middle. That didn’t help her, though. His destruction would not open up new options for her to survive, at least not quickly enough that it would matter.

That was the crux of her problem. She could see only two options: join him in battle and hope for the best, or leave him alone and try to pick up the pieces of her life as they fell apart around her. Change, or persist. She wasn’t sure she could do either.

And then Octavia had visited. It was early morning, before work, and they had walked through her drowsing neighborhood and talked. Unlike her friends, Octavia hid her contempt, and hid it well. So well that Lacey had considered asking the serious, gray mare for help—though she knew it would blow up in her face the minute Octavia told her own group.

Instead, they talked about Strawberry, and what Lacey was going to do about him. In that regard, Octavia was more than willing to assist, she had said. Strawberry had become a menace, and anything to keep him from terrorizing innocent ponies was acceptable to her. Lacey kept her mouth shut while Octavia spoke, not wanting to admit that she was not even sure she wanted to do anything.

It was only when Octavia mentioned, with no small amount of irritation, how the others had asked Strawberry about his relations to Captain Shout, point-blank, that Lacey started to form an idea. “So they’re trying to become a problem for both of us,” she had said, and Octavia had nodded. She knew from past experience how Strawberry approached problems, but didn’t need it to realize his next move. It would be a bad one.

Thinking Shout a leak, he would surely arrange for an “accident.” If he decided to kill two birds with one stone, and dispatch his used-up goon in a large disaster, she would need only enough foreknowledge to send the Elements to his location. He would be saved, and if she could get him to believe he was betrayed, she would have an ally—a disposable ally. Angry and hurt, he would need only be pointed in the right direction and given the right tools, and Strawberry would suddenly be in much hotter water than he was prepared for.

Lacey, meanwhile, could stand back.

“Do you have any regrets, Trixie?” Twilight asked. Her pencil stood on its tip on a period on the page, balanced in her magic.

“Yeah, I regret not picking up milk last night. I walked back from the park and the store was right there.”

“No, I mean something serious.”

“I know. But it’s awfully early for something heavy like this, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” Twilight said reluctantly.

“Look,” Trixie said, turning on the couch to face her. “Everypony has regrets. I regret being a nag in Ponyville, and elsewhere. I regret running my mouth off in Fillydelphia and making you get involved in my stupid problems. I regret some other stuff. That’s life. Is there something you want to talk about?”

“Uh…” She thought of Vintage in Trottingham, the only stranger to whom she had revealed her painful secret. She remembered the guilt of burdening her with something she really had no business knowing about.

“I’m sure you’ve seen some nasty things,” Trixie said. “Given your position in this whole… heck, I’ll call a spade a spade. This whole war-apocalypse.”

“Yeah.”

“My advice, Twilight? Tough it out, and keep your chin up.” She offered a congenial pat on the wither. “There’s a reason you’re all Elements of Harmony, don’t forget that. Celestia trusts you to get this done, because, of all the inept, dumb, and cowardly ponies in this poor, suffering country, you actually make things happen. While ponies like me run around with our heads in the clouds—literally, for those individuals of higher elevation than us—you’re the ones bringing it back.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“You’ve done this before, just not on the same scale,” Trixie said, looking back at their script.

“Not all of it,” Twilight said. “Do I tell her? I should just blurt it out. Yeah, right.” She looked at Trixie’s face, peaceful and contemplative. All she had to think about was how to word her dialogue. “She doesn’t deserve this.” She opened her mouth to speak anyway, but stopped herself. Too much time had passed from Trixie’s attempt at ending the conversation.

After breakfast, Octavia went wandering again, with one difference from the day before: she could not shake Pinkie. Her sister insisted that she not be alone for so long, and Octavia could come up with no reason not to let her come along.

Octavia followed her hooves without a thought, and Pinkie walked beside her, chattering the whole way. They eventually came to a stop outside a trendy looking bar. Inside, everything was paneled in chrome or Formica, and smooth, glass lights and sculptures hung from above. A bartender in a suit and bow tie greeted them with a cordial, overeager smile and asked what they would have, and Pinkie paid. Octavia had forgotten, in her wandering, that she had no more liquid money.

They took a seat at the bar and drank, Pinkie a martini and Octavia a gin and tonic. It was before noon, but Octavia didn’t care. She wasn’t missing anything.

It was only a couple minutes into their drinks that Pinkie started telling Octavia of her dream. She left out Octavia’s part in it, but spoke at full volume, drawing looks from the bartender whenever she made a particularly loud exclamation. Octavia sipped her drink and listened, but did not comment until the end.

“Do you think that this has significance?”

“Well, sure! I don’t really know what it is, but it’s significant!”

“Hm.” She looked over to where the bartender was fiddling with some glasses. A radio sat on the counter, a small voice coming out of it. She looked at it, and an idea came.

“Can you turn that up?” Pinkie asked, stretching over the bar. Her drink was almost empty.

The bartender looked and smiled at them, but turned the dial until a quick, clipped voice filled their half of the bar. “—but of course this airhead nag keeps dogging me while I’m trying to get my groove on, and I’m like ‘hey, step off,’ but she just doesn’t get the damn hint! And so by that point, even if the music made my eyes want to blow out, I couldn’t enjoy any of it. Here’s the latest from Pay Attention.” His voice cut out, replaced with a rapid barrage of electronic notes.

“Who is this?” Octavia asked. She thought she knew, but wanted to be sure.

“Pay Attention,” the bartender said. “She’s a recording artist in, I think, western Applewood. Electronic music, some breakbeat stuff. Pretty good; I play her music in here sometimes, when it’s crowded.”

“No, I mean the announcer. Who was that speaking earlier?”

“Oh, him. That’s Captain Shout. He does great show reviews. Really gets to the meat of the performance and atmosphere. This is a retro review: DJ Pon-three’s last rave, also in Applewood.”

Octavia thought for a second. “I met her once.”

“How was it?” The bartender and Pinkie both leaned in a little closer to her.

“Brief. We shook hooves and exchanged mutual benign compliments of each other’s work. She seemed nice, though.”

“I’d love to meet her someday,” the bartender said, his eyes momentarily glossing over dreamily. “You need another one?”

“Yes, please!” Pinkie cried.

“Take it easy,” Octavia said. “Remember where we are.”

“Don’t worry, sis. I’m good for it!”

The bartender served Pinkie her drink and looked at Octavia, who shook her head. On the counter, Captain Shout was back, ranting about the lights in DJ Pon-three’s show.

“Do you think we should try to track him down?” Pinkie asked.

“I do not know. I have thought about it.”

“I heard he was a real jerk in real life,” the bartender said.

“That would not surprise me.” She finished her drink and thought again. She had gone too fast, and her head was buzzing slightly. “All we can hope to do in finding him is get ourselves deeper in trouble.”

“Aren’t we already in trouble?” Pinkie asked.

“We are on the edge of it.” The bartender had turned away, but she could see his ears standing up to keep listening. “And I am certain that some of you will want to stay that way.”

“You won’t, of course.”

“I need to find a way to help Lacey, but I do not know how to do that. She knows more about the situation, and Strawberry, than I do, and she is on the defensive besides. All I can think of is finding some way to stop Captain Shout, or expose Strawberry.” She glanced at the bartender, who had stopped cleaning the glasses. “I can do neither safely.”

Pinkie chuckled. “Since when do you care about that, though?”

“It is not my safety alone that would be threatened. I will not attract his attention with you all around me.”

Pinkie shrugged and drained her glass. “I dunno, Octy!”

“Octavia.”

Her smile faltered. “Octavia.”

“Good.” She stood up and paused a second longer, listening to Captain Shout’s fast-paced speech. “He annoys me.” They walked back to the door.

“Have a nice day, ladies. Stay safe,” the bartender said.

Trixie’s talent agent, Globe Trotter, was a creamy blue pegasus with a short mane and a thick country drawl. She came around noon to look over their completed script, and determined that it was good. The story Trixie and Twilight had come up with was a simple tale of betrayal and revenge. Trixie and Twilight, friends at the beginning, would go searching out a magical artifact, only for Twilight to steal it for her own selfish ends. After a fight scene and a monologue from Trixie, and plenty of special effects, the show would culminate in a battle of magic and strength, with fake thunder and lightning.

They discussed costumes, magical effects, props, and venue; Globe Trotter had her eyes on a studio close to the central park, where Twilight had cast one of the restorative spells before. After half an hour of going over potential issues with logistics, they settled on doing the show after five days of rehearsal. Trixie would be comfortable with one or two, she said, but Twilight had never been in a show before. In addition to lines, she needed to learn stage presence, delivery, and everything that came so naturally to her partner.

When Globe Trotter was gone, Twilight and Trixie headed out for lunch. Twilight was quiet. A total of six days before they could leave, if they flew away the same night they did the show. Meanwhile, Discord was getting ready to try for Canterlot again.

Big Mac had them all listening raptly as he told stories of his time in Appleloosa, some small, some fun, some serious. He told of drinking a little too much cider and accidentally offending the sheriff’s secretary, which prompted a round of laughter from all but Octavia. He told them of taking pot-shots at the train that hung off the edge outside Braeburn’s house, and toppling over when he tried to stand on his hind legs. He told them of the friendly, white cowpony who rolled into town a couple days after he did—and then Applejack stopped him.

“White cowpony? How white?”

“White as the clouds, an’ eyes as blue as the skies.”

“Unicorn?” Octavia asked.

“Eeyup. How’d you know?”

Applejack walked to the torch and turned it on, taking them up slowly. “We’ve run into this white stallion too. He calls himself Vanilla Cream.”

“He’s trouble,” Rainbow said.

“Seemed nice enough to me,” Big Mac said.

“What did he do in Appleloosa?” Octavia asked.

“Nothin’ much. Helped a couple ponies make minor repairs, wagons an’ such. Took me an’ a few friends out fer drinks. He disappeared ‘bout a week after he showed up.”

“Big bro, Ah know you ain’t the kind to believe somethin’ without seein’ it first, but you need to trust me on this,” Applejack said. “That Vanilla Cream ain’t to be trusted. Is he still in contact with ya?”

“Nope. How do you know him, anyway?”

They took turns describing their relationship with Vanilla, starting with the way he subtly encroached into their dreams before appearing. They described his admission of servitude for Discord, and his intentions of subversion, then the spell he cast on Twilight, enhancing her telekinesis, and the subsequent spell he cast, yanking them thousands of miles off course to drop them near Fillydelphia.

“We have not seen him since,” Octavia said.

They landed outside Trixie’s apartment, and Rainbow went up to collect Twilight.

“Why would he want to hang out with you?” Pinkie asked. “Did he say anything weird? You know, like ‘if you happen to meet the Elements of Harmony, do your best to sabotage them’ or something?”

“He does not want to sabotage us, though,” Octavia said.

“You can’t know that,” Applejack said.

“Well, given how much power he seems to have, if he wanted to do somethin’ seriously harmful, he would’ve by now,” Big Mac said. “Me? Ah dunno. Maybe he’s more equine than he wants you to think. Maybe he was havin’ a vacation or somethin’.”

They turned toward the apartment. They could hear Rainbow complaining loudly inside, and she came flying out the doors, Twilight strolling calmly behind.

“She tried to hug me!” Rainbow shouted.

“So?” Applejack said.

“AJ, did you not hear? Trixie tried to hug me. A hug!”

“All right, all right, no need to flip out. We’re talkin’ ‘bout some pretty serious stuff here right now.”

“Like what?”

“Yer friend Vanilla Cream tracked me down when Ah was in Appleloosa,” Big Mac said.

“Oh, really? Like, that’s weird, but serious? He’s on our side. Kind of.”

“If he is not communicating with Big Mac anymore, I do not see an issue,” Octavia said.

They climbed up over Trixie’s apartment, and Rainbow went to the edge to see it go. A tiny window flickered open, and a small bouquet of purple and blue lights came out, crackling cheerfully. She grinned in spite of herself.