Octavia did not get the airship. She crept back to Photo Finish’s house when everyone else was asleep, and, finding herself locked out, spent the night in damp grass, caught between fitful sleep and frigid waking.

It was Vinyl who found her the following morning. She appeared to have not slept either, and the two of them entered Photo’s house without a word between them, where they found everyone at the breakfast table, talking quietly. Photo was absent.

“Where the heck have you been?” Twilight asked. Her eyes were rimmed in red, and she drooped at the table.

“Found her on the lawn,” Vinyl said.

“You spent the night outside?” Rarity asked. “You could have knocked. We would have let you in.”

“I saw no reason,” Octavia said.

They all exchanged looks, but no one commented.

“Well, I was able to talk with Applejack last night,” Twilight said. “I must have spent three hours on that radio with her.”

Octavia sat on the floor while Vinyl went to the kitchen. “What did you discover?”

“It’s extremely complicated, that much is clear. Moreover, everything appears to be there deliberately.”

“So there is a design to his plan.”

“Looks like it. There’s a lot of possession and propulsion magic inside the dam, mostly on things like pistons and gate mechanisms. I know it sounds crazy, but it looks like movement could be the goal here.”

“Movement?”

“Is the thing not always in a kind of motion?” Whooves asked. “Much like a body. Much like the world, one might say.”

“Gross bodily movement,” Twilight said. “Pretty much all of these pistons and gates are positioned near the foundation. Now, the foundation is all reinforced concrete, so Applejack can’t access it, but if that concrete were to be separated from the dam in some way, the dam could conceivably drag itself along.”

“Bull hockey,” Rainbow said.

“Is that your first conclusion?” Rarity asked.

“My eleventh, actually,” Twilight said, rubbing her eyes. “Applejack and I were talking about it until she fell asleep. Trust me, I think it’s preposterous too, but I have to admit that it’s the most Discord plan.”

“A love of the spectacular,” Whooves said, “and a perfect way of disposing of the entire city, if it’s true. A big if, I hope.”

“What other ideas did you have?” Octavia asked.

“It could be part of an elaborate water pumping system, and Applejack did find a lot of pumps and pipes down there too. I’m not sure I think it is, though.”

“That sounds reasonable enough to me,” Rarity said.

“Yeah, but the pumps are all facing the wrong way. They’re facing the river in the back, not the reservoir. Wouldn’t he want to use something like that as a kind of offensive tactic?”

“Like a big fire hose,” Big Mac said.

“Exactly.”

“They could be there to keep water from spilling out and obscuring his view of the front,” Fluttershy said.

“Mm, maybe. I don’t know. I’m going to spend all day making a list of questions, so I can dial in on this. Last night was a little more slapdash than I’d have liked.”

“While you are doing that, what else will be happening?” Octavia asked. “Is anyone going up the river again?”

“There’s no point,” Rainbow said. “We got what we needed. Right?”

“Quite enough,” Fluttershy said.

“So we are staying here, again, all day,” Octavia said.

“Sure looks like it,” Whooves said, shrugging. Then, seeing Octavia’s face, he sobered. “I’m sure we can find something to do, though.”

“Do what you will. I am going outside. I need to figure something out.”

“Let me come with ya,” Big Mac said, standing.

“I am not leaving yet, if you are thinking of joining me.”

“Let me come anyway.”

“Very well.” At the front door, she stopped and gave everyone a final, inscrutable look.

When they were gone, Vinyl spoke up. “If you weren’t all cursed, I’d offer something to do. Involves going into town, though.”

“What is it?” Twilight asked.

“I have a show tomorrow night, and I need to get my gear.”

“A final show before embarking on the epic quest,” Whooves said. “Not only do you have a heart of gold, but enough romance to melt a heart of ice.”

“Easy, doc.”

“Ah, but is that not the challenge? To be easy in a time like this—”

“You can feel free to interrupt him,” Rarity said. “He doesn’t mind.”

“Talk about taking the words out of my mouth, Miss Rarity!” Whooves said. “Why, it may be rather silly, but I actually value such directness in a pony’s speech. It shows me the error of my own ways, and lets me mend them, much like—oop! Much like I ought to now, no?”

“How can you be so wound up this early in the morning?” Rainbow asked irritably.

“Twilight,” Vinyl said. Twilight leaned in to hear her over Rainbow’s continuing complaints. “Could I use your horn for a moment? I have some supplies in the other room I need to set up.”

Twilight got up and went with her to one of Photo Finish’s anterooms, an arched, colorfully carpeted vault, dominated by a large screen TV and two shelves of movies, outstretched like wings. Vinyl closed the door and dimmed the lights, and Twilight froze before remembering her eye condition. She removed her goggles and set them on a nearby end table.

“Sorry about this. That was a lie; I wanted to talk with you.”

“You don’t have to make up anything to get me alone,” Twilight said. “I don’t mind, and the others wouldn’t either.”

Vinyl nodded. Her electric blue mane looked sullen and violent in the lessened light, her white fur unhealthy, and her red eyes dark and unfeeling. Twilight was reminded of one of Rarity’s mannequins.

“So what’s the problem? If you’re having second thoughts about coming with us, you don’t have to. We understand.”

“That’s not the problem. Kind of wish it was.”

“What do you mean?”

Vinyl’s horn lit up briefly, pink. “I didn’t want to say this earlier, ‘cause I didn’t want you to take me on as a kind of charity. Let’s just say…” She paused for a while, thinking. “Guess I mean, I took a big risk asking to come with you.”

Twilight looked at her blankly.

“I have a lot of friends here, and I had to sever ties with them so I could come along. I… did that a couple nights ago.”

Twilight’s blank look melted into shock, then disappointment. “Vinyl, you didn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t want to have baggage, in case you accepted me.” Her horn glowed again, longer. “In case you wanted to go—or even had to go—soon, I didn’t want to hold you up. Had to be ready immediately.”

“You could have asked us when we meant to leave.”

“But you don’t know either.”

The statement made Twilight stop. Vinyl was right, but hearing it stated so bluntly, and by a near stranger, made her uncomfortable. “Yes, I suppose so,” she said softly.

“I don’t regret my decision, but I kind of do. I’m sure you know the feeling. I know it’s the right thing, but now that it’s done, I’m looking back.”

Outside, there was a chorus of laughter.

“This might surprise you, but I really don’t know that feeling well,” Twilight said. “At least, not how you describe it. It’s like this.” She considered her words, and whether to tell them to a stranger. “Until I became an Element of Harmony, I didn’t have many friends, so I never had to decide between them and the right thing to do. Heck, staying with my friends then probably was the right thing to do. After I got the Element, though, that option kind of vanished. You know, when there’s trouble that only us Elements can handle, we don’t have much of a choice.”

“You could choose to—well, I suppose you wouldn’t, though.”

“Exactly. I never had as open a choice as you did, or any of the ponies who joined us. I think about it sometimes, and I realized a while ago that they’re a lot braver than I am. I was compelled from the beginning, and you weren’t.”

Dark blue seeped from her horn. “You can’t say that.”

“Isn’t it true? You just said you chose to sever connections with your friends.”

“Doesn’t mean I wasn’t compelled. Just means I wasn’t compelled the same as you.”

“Okay, true. So, well, what drove you to this, then? And now you’re looking back on it…”

“It’s just my conscience, Twilight,” Vinyl said.

“Nothing more?”

Vinyl studied her face for a minute, her unseemly eyes feeling each contour of her expression, reading her. “Do you regret being an Element of Harmony?”

Twilight did not flinch, but she could feel the repulsion inside her, instinctive to having her own embarrassing thoughts voiced. It was a thought that kept her up at nights, sometimes, and one she buried in the daytime. It was not regret exactly, but close. She was happy with her friends, and she loved her closeness to the princess, but she had to admit to herself that she sometimes wished the mantle had passed to another.

“Is that true?” Vinyl asked.

“Maybe.”

“I’m sorry if I hit a nerve.”

Twilight nodded.

“I did. Sorry about that.”

“So you also made it so that we couldn’t refuse you in good conscience.”

“That’s why—”

“Now that I know what you did, I can’t very well have second thoughts.”

Vinyl frowned. “You’re wondering why I’m telling you this now, instead of after we’ve left, when it would be safer.”

“I might put it differently, but you’ve got it.”

“I didn’t want to wait so long to talk.” Her voice was smaller, for her, and more demure.

“Okay.” Twilight looked at her, then away. “That’s respectable.”

“What’s the matter?”

“You’ve been with us for only a couple days now, and you’ve already lied about something pretty big.” She exhaled through her nose. “We’ve met ponies like that before, and it’s really messed us up.”

“I see.”

“But, of course, we can’t refuse to take you now, can we? You saw to that, or, at least, you say so.”

“I wanted to make the transition as smoothly as possible.”

“You know, that’s awfully entitled of you, to assume we’d pick you up if it was easy for us,” Twilight said.

Vinyl’s horn glowed. “You might be right. Didn’t feel entitled, though.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

Vinyl nodded after a while. “Think I see what I did wrong.”

“Do you?”

“Didn’t consider your situation enough. I assumed being in the right place at the right time would be fine, and you’re saying it isn’t.”

“I don’t mean to sound cruel, Vinyl, but it’s for the best I get this on the table now.” She took a deep breath. “We don’t owe you anything, and we also don’t need you. I’m sorry to have to say this, but not all of us are going to feel obliged to validate the risk you took. I’m not sure if I do.”

“Oh.”

Twilight let her wait for a reply, watching her confidence slowly diminish. “You didn’t know that, did you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll bet you have some sort of idealized idea of who we are. That we’re the nicest ponies in Equestria, the most competent, and always happy to get involved in other ponies’ problems. Is that right?”

Vinyl looked at her, horn glowing a bright sea green. “I’ll admit that. But aren’t you the literal embodiments of friendship?”

Twilight paused. “In a way, but that doesn’t make us pushovers. We’re out here to stop Discord and get the country back together, not get sidetracked by things other ponies can handle—no offense. That’s one lesson we learned the hard way, one of many.”

“I see. I think.”

“Is there anything else on your mind, since you’ve got me here?”

Vinyl shook her head. “Don’t trouble yourself.”

Big Mac helped Octavia practice magic behind Photo Finish’s house. Not wanting to damage her lawn, and not having anything else nearby, she used Big Mac, levitating him, pushing him around, and wrapping him in a weak shield. When she was satisfied, she said so, and the two of them set off across the yard, out the gate, and down the narrow street. Houses lost power at both sides as they walked.

“Yer gonna get the ship, right? That’s the plan?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You don’t mind if Ah come along?”

“At first, I did, but I realized that I do not know how to pilot it, and you do.”

“Glad to be of some use to you.”

She looked at him while a perplexed pony exited her house nearby, looking for the source of the sudden electricity loss. “You sound unhappy about something.”

He rolled his eyes and offered a weak smile.

“If it is about last night, you have my apologies. I get irritable when I am idle, and the lack of sleep does not help.”

“We should keep movin’. Don’t want these ponies to black out fer too long.”

“Yes, you are right.” She trotted ahead, and they soon put the neighborhood behind them. The Bright Road was in sight across a distant ribbon of freeway bending into the distance, and they quickly realized that they would be unable to take a taxi. The instant they appeared at a stoplight, it would go out, and traffic would jam up around them. They would need to proceed on hoof.

“How many ponies you think know it’s us?” Big Mac asked as they passed a gated community. There was a line of trees in a median in the road, through which they could see a much larger thoroughfare that would connect to the freeway and take them near The Bright Road.

“I do not know. I would like to believe that there are few, if any, but I do not think Discord would leave it at that. The phone call from Vanilla has me worried as well.”

“Ah, right. Forgot ‘bout that.”

“Even if ponies know of the curse, we have a slight advantage of not being as well known as the Elements. We will not be spotted as quickly—or so I hope.”

“What if we are?”

“I do not know. We will worry about that if it happens.”

They entered the larger road and crossed into the less residential section of Applewood. Houses and apartments faded behind them as hotels and restaurants appeared, always on their side. They branched away from the freeway as soon as they could, and moved into one of the city’s main arteries. Big Mac noticed a significant number of ponies in cars or pulling carts turn their heads to see Octavia. As predicted, the traffic lights went out long before she and Big Mac reached them, and it was not long before they were passing familiar vehicles, which had been reduced to crawls or standstills.

When they saw the first police officer directing traffic, Octavia stopped, but Big Mac nudged her forward. “They’ll be thinkin’ it’s the Elements, not us. Just don’t act suspicious,” he mumbled.

They were able to enter The Bright Road without incident, but the tension was clear as day in the way Octavia moved. As they walked, she snapped her head left, right, and back in a near constant attempt to survey the city, and fidgeted whenever they stopped. Big Mac wanted to say something to calm her down, but could not imagine the words to do so, so he maintained his silence.

In the daytime, The Bright Road felt just as new to him as it had on their first night. Every building, even blacked out, shone with reflective glass and bright paint. Water was everywhere, in pools, fountains, and artificial rivers to run next to certain side streets, doubling the cluttered skyline in a way he had not noticed before. Signs and sculptures, too, filled the smaller spaces between buildings, all but the largest and flashiest going unnoticed by passers-by. When they had to stop again, he was able to study a pair of small stone minotaurs guarding a grassy path to a large, shady patio behind a café.

“There it is,” Octavia said. She pointed up and away at the top of a distant hotel. Far off, but clearly visible, there stood the dignified, dark blue domino that they had only spent a couple hours inside. “We should be able to reach it soon.”

He nodded and led them across the street, where they ascended a staircase to a walkway over a huge, jammed intersection. Octavia looked longingly at the hotel at the end of their path as they went down another set of stairs.

They walked quietly down The Bright Road in Apogee’s general direction. The hotels were laid out unevenly along the road, and it was not a straight walk to their destination. It had taken them nearly three hours to walk the distance from Photo Finish’s house, and they were growing weary and hungry. Traffic hardly moved, even with police directing it at some, but not all, junctures, and ponies around them milled around and tried to carry on with their lives as best they could amid the confusion. Several times, they heard the names of their friends, but never their own.

It was four o’ clock when they came down from the final walkway to face the Apogee. The familiar sound of confused ponies filled the outer courtyard and entrance, and Octavia led them past the front doors to a smaller side entrance, where they stopped. There were no ponies nearby to overhear them, and she sat against a concrete plant box.

“We need a plan. I did not want to discuss it amidst the pedestrians,” she said.

“A plan,” he echoed.

“You know how to get the ship moving. You do, right?”

“Eeyup. Which means you’ll need to distract anyone who might wanna stop us.”

“But I cannot go somewhere where you will be unable to later reach me.”

“If you can get whoever’s usually watchin’ the ships out of there fer long enough, you can come runnin’ back to me when Ah’m ‘bout ready to take off. Timin’ that’ll be tricky, though.”

“How long does it take to get the ship ready to take off?”

“Mmm, Ah don’t know. Depends on how much hot air’s still in the balloon. We’ve been away fer a while; Ah might need to inflate it first.”

“That is a long time. I do not think I can create a diversion that will last that long. Not a safe one, at least.”

Big Mac turned to look at a pair of ponies inside, looking out at them. “Let’s get inside before we draw attention. Maybe scopin’ out the lot will help.”

Octavia said nothing, but followed him into the hotel, down the unlit corridor, through a dead casino, and over to a large, carpeted staircase. They went to the third floor and took a curving path around a large, central bar that, though dark, still had a few patrons. The shops and convenience stores were all nearly empty, though scattered ponies still wandered in places. They eventually found a long, narrow hallway that took them out of the hotel and over the grounds to an airship lot, connected to the one they had used.

No ponies guarded the unlocked doors, and they were able to walk out to the steadily darkening concrete unhindered. All around, airships of vastly differing sizes and models waited for their owners, painting the flat lot with confused, thorny shadows. Some had their balloons down, others remained in position in various states of deflation. At the lot’s edge, landing lights stood dead on thick stems, while overhead floodlights stared down blindly.

A wide bridge connected the two lots, and they crossed, Big Mac nodding a greeting to an official walking the other way. He could feel Octavia’s tension as she moved beside him. They traversed its perimeter all the way around, and then a little farther, until they were certain they had seen the entire lot. Their ship was not there.

They looked at each other, each trying to read the other’s face for signs of comprehension. “So, now what?” Big Mac asked at last.

“I am sure that we can ask someone where it is.” She looked around. “Though I do not see anywhere we might find them.”

It took them half an hour to find a location to ask about their ship. Reentering Apogee from their position, they were not in a familiar area, and had to circle back, all the while navigating increasing darkness inside as the sun went farther down. By the time they had proven their identities, it was nearly sundown, and they were still no closer to achieving their ship. It was registered under the Elements of Harmony, with Twilight’s signature; neither Big Mac nor Octavia could prove that they had any association with the six heroes of Equestria, and so they went wandering again, dejected.

“And we cannot call them at Photo Finish’s house,” Octavia said. They were alone in a casino, searching for a solution. “That would require electricity.”

“We just need to think ‘bout this a little,” Big Mac said, sitting down at a lightless bit slot. “What do we know?”

“We know that we cannot see our own ship.”

“We also know that it’s been moved somewhere. Why might it be moved?”

“Perhaps we broke some sort of regulation without knowing it.”

“Ah’d think Twilight would be notified of that. Though, if they don’t know how to reach her…”

“It is not easy to move an airship,” Octavia said. “I cannot imagine that it is far.”

“Could someone have stolen it?”

“Perhaps, but I do not think that happened. We would have seen more guards if a theft had taken place recently.”

“So it’s either hidden, or…”

“What else?”

“Discord might have teleported it,” he said in a low voice.

She sighed. “Yes, that is a possibility as well. If he did, then we will have to return. We are in no position to do anything about it now.”

“No use worryin’ ‘bout it.”

“Exactly.” She magically pulled a slot machine’s lever, to no effect. “These hotels extend underground as well; I do not know whether you know that. They do not go far, but there is space to hold security, and, I believe, impounded vehicles.”

“That’s just cars an’ carriages, though, right?”

“Usually. It is not common that an airship needs to be impounded—that I know of, at least.”

“Mm, but this ain’t a common situation.”

“That is what I was going to say.” She frowned and tilted slightly in her seat, and Big Mac followed her eyes. A lone pony was loitering in a dying sunbeam through a towering window, facing away from them. “We need to move. It is fortunate that no one has figured us out yet, but we cannot rely on that.”

They went through the casino to exit on the far side, avoiding the stranger in the sunbeam, and Octavia took them to a side door, barred with a heavy rod.

“I believe that this will take us below. Keep watch while I open it.”

Big Mac stood apart from her and slowly scanned the emptiness around them, listening to Octavia’s exertions and the door’s protests. She was attempting to prize the bar free, but it was locked onto the door handle. He watched, rapt, as her magic released the bar and coalesced around the hinges. Octavia herself stood perfectly still and stiff, and she wore an intense look, which she directed at the door, as if trying to stare it down. Eventually, the hinges cried out and then bent back on themselves, and the door swung open, its bar wobbling in place. They went in, and she replaced the door, trying to pull it in as tightly as she could.

Save for the merest hair of light that came in from around the door, they were in complete dark. Cold air welled up from below, but Big Mac felt distinctly exposed. When Octavia activated her gray light, he saw why: they stood in an empty, stone stairwell, its top and bottom both invisible. A dead bulb glinted in Octavia’s light like a suspicious eye, disturbed at the sole sound of their hoofsteps moving into the hotel’s lower section.

He counted three stories until they reached the bottom, and a large, metal door, which no one had bothered to bar or lock. Big Mac blinked quickly as Octavia’s light went out.

“What’s wrong?”

“We are not supposed to be here,” she whispered. “And we do not know who might be down here already. I do not want to give away our presence.”

“Ah can’t see anythin’, though.”

“I think we will need to move blindly for a time.”

“Ah don’t like that idea one bit, Miss Octavia.”

“We cannot be seen.” Her tone was final, and with it, she pushed the door open, exposing them to another wall of cold air. They stood with the door open for nearly a minute, listening, trying to penetrate the darkness. They were underground, he could tell, where the blackout was total.

She turned toward him, groping with a hoof. When she found him, she drew him closer. “Grab my tail. We will move slowly.”

“Mm.” He took her tail in a loose grip in his mouth, and they moved into the new room. He tried to use her confidence, or the appearance of it, to help his own, but could not; the darkness was simply too total to be put out of mind. No light made it down to them, and no energy remained in the countless overhead lights. One might look for them for days and not find them, he thought. They might look for the way out for days and never find that either.

He felt her take a step up, and bumped his front hoof on a concrete lip. Carefully stepping onto what he imagined was a curb, he closed his eyes experimentally. It made him feel no better.

Octavia stopped, and he held his breath. Her tail in his mouth was coarse and greasy, and he wanted to spit it out, but dared not. Then, he heard what had made her halt. Hoofsteps moved steadily and far away, unhurried. They listened to the sound move, never pausing or wavering, and never coming nearer. Briefly, it was muffled, as if the pony had stepped behind something.

He tugged at her tail, hoping the gesture would convey what he desperately wanted to ask: “what now?” She made no response, which he interpreted as the answer he least wanted, but had expected from her: “we wait.”

He lost track of time, and did not know how long they had been sitting defenseless in the darkness when the hoofsteps quickened. Without warning, they broke into a gallop, still far from them, still never coming closer. For a time, he sat, muscles tensed, telling himself unsuccessfully that if the pony wanted to do anything to them, it would have already. Eventually, he could distinguish the runner’s labored breathing as it continued to gallop, which became panting, and then cut off entirely. The hoofsteps were gone, accompanied by no catching of breath, and no skid of a sudden stop.

Ten minutes later, to his mind, Octavia started moving again, taking them within touching distance of a wall at all times. He could feel them sloping downwards into an even colder section of the vast garage he imagined.

They stopped again at a cold, metal guardrail, and then Octavia spoke. “I am going to give us some light, just a little.”

It was as if he had jumped out of bed and immediately stuck his head out the window to see the sunrise. His eyes contracted painfully as a low halo of gray light opened around Octavia’s head, and he could see her face screwing up in similar shock. When it had passed, they looked at their surroundings, but there was not much to see. They stood on a sidewalk, nearly thirty feet away from a closed door, its only marking a fading black circle near the top. A scattered few cars and carriages filled parking spaces in their view, each one a lonely shroud of angles and lines half swallowed by darkness, like sunken ships, placidly awaiting decay.

“How many levels?” he whispered.

“I do not know, but I have an idea. Our airship cannot have moved here on its own, nor through conventional entrances. If we can find a large door, or a set of rails that it could have ridden on, I think we will find it.”

“How are we gonna get it out once we find it? No electricity means no bringin’ it back the way it came in.”

“I know. We will have to improvise something when we get there, I think.” She pulled her tail away. “You can release me now.”

He nodded gratefully, and she led them back up the slope, toward the garage’s top level. He had thought that the light would make him feel better, but, as they walked deeper and deeper into the darkness, he felt even more afraid. Octavia’s earlier worries suddenly made painful, perfect sense: they stuck out to anyone in the garage, and they would never see someone approaching. They were as easy to track as the running pony from earlier, and he found himself swinging his head wildly around, expecting someone to step out from behind a concrete pillar or an abandoned carriage.

“Here we are,” Octavia said, making him jump. She brought them parallel to a metal rail embedded in the floor, swooping down a different ramp and leading up into more shadow. He tried to imagine where they were in relation to the hotel’s foundation, and found that he could not.

They walked uphill for a minute and leveled out, and there it was. Their ship, its balloon disconnected to lie limp over one side like a blackened fruit, sat on a slightly elevated concrete square, the rail running underneath its middle. Keeping their distance, she led them around it first, checking for guards. When she was satisfied that they were still alone, she stepped onto the concrete platform and looked up. The plank was retracted, and there was no way to board.

“I will need to turn off my light to do this, Big Mac.” Without waiting for a response, she extinguished her light, and the immensity of the darkness pressed down on him again. She sighed, and he backed away, clueless as to what she was planning.

With a brilliant flash of light and a crackle that made his fur stand up, she was gone, a twin flash calling his attention to the ship’s deck. She did not reactivate her light, and he could hear her fumbling for the mechanism to lower the plank.

When he heard it meet the floor, he looked in what he thought was her direction. “Light, please? Ah don’t wanna climb this thing blind.”

“Yes, of course.” The familiar, weak light appeared, and he got on with her. The ship looked as it had when they left it, and a quick inspection below showed that it had not been used since then.

“So how do we get out?” he asked.

She sighed. “I do not know. I am still trying to come up with something, and will welcome any ideas you have.”

They stood together on the deck, again in darkness, thinking. She was so quiet, he sometimes lost her breath in the empty space, at which time he would shift his weight to just remind himself that sound still carried under the hotel.

“We moved uphill to get here,” Octavia said, making Big Mac jump. “It is not a complete plan, but we might improve our situation if we can get this platform to slide back down.”

“We’ll alert anyone nearby,” Big Mac said.

“Yes, that is true.”

“Let’s check below first, an’ at least see what’s down there. Bein’ at the other end of this rail might not be worth the effort.”

“I agree.” Her light came on, and he squinted and turned away. “Can you begin refilling the balloon? I do not want it full, but maybe halfway. I will find the rail’s end while you work.”

“Ah don’t like us splittin’ up, Miss Octavia.”

“You will have the light from the torch, and I have magic. We will not have a hard time finding each other in this.”

He thought over her words, and nodded.

“Good.” She helped him move the balloon into place, and then left him with the torch. He watched her dot of light retreat into the darkness, so much smaller from far away. It resembled a lone firefly on a moonless night, and soon it was gone. He fumbled for the switch to activate the torch, then lowered his ears and closed his eyes in preparation for the assault of noise and light. The torch roared and hissed into the cavernous balloon above, and he lowered himself in a half crouch, embarrassed at his own fear.

To his relief, Octavia returned before he shut off the torch. At the end of the rail, which moved straight for a while, and down, but never back uphill, there was a large doorway, behind which she had seen a wide uphill tunnel, and, more importantly, other light. If they could get the airship up the tunnel, they could conceivably take off from ground level.

She waited at the wheel while he finished with the balloon, and then they took several minutes to let their eyes adjust to the darkness again. It was important, Octavia said, so that they could see well in her comparatively meager light when they needed it.

When they were ready, he took his place at the wheel, not for steering, which would be useless on the ground, but to look out and ahead. “Miss Octavia,” he said, realizing something, “how exactly are we gonna move this? Yer not expectin’ to push it with magic, are ya?”

“That was the plan,” Octavia said from the ramp. “Why?”

“Do you think you can? That’s a lot of magic, an’ a lot of weight to push with it.”

“Well, Big Macintosh, it seems to me that I will have no other option.”

“Ah got an idea, of sorts. It’ll save yer magic.”

“What is it?” She sounded reluctant.

“We’re chained to this platform. Let’s just let our turbines push us instead.”

“That will be too loud.”

“But it’ll be quick. Quicker, anyway. Least until we get to yer tunnel. Ah might have some trouble with that.”

“If we do it your way, then I will be available to deal with any obstacles,” Octavia said thoughtfully.

“Obstacles?”

“I am expecting to destroy that door at the bottom.”

He narrowed his eyes, though, of course, she couldn’t see it. “Yeah, that too.”

“Very well. That does sound preferable. However, we must, as you said, be quick about it. The instant this begins making noise, we will have every authority within earshot upon us, and it will not end well.”

Octavia went below to check the chains, and Big Mac ran his hooves over the ship’s simple controls. She returned and cast her light in a wide beam, half over the controls and half over the ship’s front.

“Ready?” he asked.

“We will need to take off as quickly as possible once we are free of this garage. Perhaps you should fill the balloon more.”

“You can do it while I steer her.”

Octavia nodded and went to the torch, and Big Mac hesitantly touched the switch to activate the turbines. Out in the open, their noise seemed negligible, but, underground and steeped in cold silence, he knew they would sound like Tartarus itself tearing open.

“I am ready,” Octavia said. He recognized her tone; she was choosing to express her impatience tactfully.

“Hope I knew what I was talking about,” he thought, pulling the switch. The engine below hummed, then growled, then rattled to life, and the turbines at the sides and end all came to life at the same time, filling the air with the awesome, reverberating sound of awoken machinery. The chains rattled and battered the side of the ship, but they did not move forward. After a minute, he turned the engines off.

“Well, that is it. I will try to push,” Octavia said.

“Check to see if there’s somethin’ holdin’ us up,” Big Mac said. “Look at the rails, see if there’s a lock or somethin’.” His ears were up, straining to hear in the darkness, enhanced as Octavia went down again. His fevered imagination conjured hoofsteps and distant voices, and he trotted to the gunwale to look out, not sure what he was looking for.

“There is something,” she said. “One moment.” More sounds of abused metal, and the ship swayed in place as its platform juddered. “Try now.”

She came aboard as he turned on the engines, and he immediately felt the difference. Even locked down with chains, there was a fluid looseness in the minor movements that had not existed earlier, as if every minute shift had been amplified in the stifling interim between attempts.

They slid forward, and Big Mac could not help a small cry of delight. At last, he felt that something was happening, that their journey was coming to an end. The engines shook for a second, and he kept his gaze steady out into the darkness, so steady that the first mote of light stirred no reaction within. It was only when the one was joined by several others that he looked to Octavia, who was looking the other way.

“Someone’s out there,” he said quietly.

She whipped around, her eyes intense enough to make him flinch. She took his spot at the rail and cursed.

“What are we gonna do?”

“I think I have an idea.”

“Yer not gonna blow ‘em up, are ya?”

“I would not do that.” She held up a hoof for his next question. “I need quiet. This is a spell that I have not practiced very much.”

“Teleportin’?”

“Quiet.”

He backed away while she settled her forehooves on the gunwale, fixing the approaching dots of light with her icy stare. He could see the concentration on her face even in the dim light she radiated, implacable, almost angry. It was nothing new, but, as with all things, the darkness gave it a new and unexpectedly powerful cast of sinister power.

“Avert your eyes,” she said.

He kept his eyes fixed on her, recognizing the tone of her voice before the words. “Huh?”

She did not respond, but the garage was suddenly ablaze in white light. His eyes seemed to curl in on themselves, and he fell to the floor in pain. No sound escaped him, but others shouted out, and hooves scrambled nearby. He rolled over, his vision a sea of shifting blotches of dark color. He heard Octavia curse him and race to the other side of the deck.

Then, he was aware of another sound, persisting just under the engine’s thrumming. He was reminded of sheets rustling, though slightly faster and more constant, and then, rolling over again, he knew what it was he heard: fire.

He sprang to his hooves, but his vision was still empty, and he was able to catch only a single acrid taste of smoke before being bodily slammed back to the floor. Hooves raced by his head, and he decided to stay down.

“Damn it, damn it, damn it,” Octavia was muttering. She did not stay still, but his sense of hearing was not precise enough to determine her position. He could smell the smoke, and heard her cough.

She continued murmuring to herself far away, and he twitched at the sound of splintering wood with her grunt of exertion. Hooves on the deck, shuffling, and then another splitting noise, with the added sound of nails being prized free. Something hard hit the concrete below, and Octavia galloped to the ship’s front.

“Out of the way! Out of the way now!”

They tipped down in a way that made him queasy, and he knew that they were on the downhill portion of the rail. Fire whipped nearby, for a moment drowning out the engines and turbines, and then there were more shrill cries below.

They leveled off with a sickening lurch forward and a heavy jangle of chains, and Octavia was back with another sharp rap. He could see her outline, and the shapeless glare of growing fire that seemed almost to cocoon her, and saw her lash out at what he assumed was the gunwale. She was trying to kick the flaming portions off, so they could not spread to the rest of the ship.

The ship lurched to one side and he fell again, Octavia’s silhouette diving into the rail with a shout of alarm. Their platform squalled, and wood groaned, and Big Mac could only freeze, half-blind and sure they were to tumble over. The moment of weightlessness extended out, and his body instinctively tensed to brace itself for the long fall off.

“Damn it,” Octavia breathed. “Big Mac, I need your help.”

He swiveled his head in her direction, his vision returning slowly. He could make out the awkward, dark shape of their balloon over her glowing head, and, on his other side, the embers embedded in the gunwale. He shakily stood, balanced himself on the slanting deck, and kicked the damaged rail away.

“Big Mac!”

“What?”

“We are stuck. Get down and pull us back.”

He stammered and looked past her. The glow of her magic rose up from behind, and she stood, leaning strangely on the torch. He could just see her angry eyes.

“Get!”

Not responding, he lowered the ramp, paused, turned around, and deactivated the engines. His vision was nearly back, and enough for him to clumsily negotiate the angle at which they were stuck. On the platform, he looked up and saw what she meant. They had taken a turn too quickly and leaned over, nearly capsizing as he had feared. Octavia had unthinkingly grabbed for a piece of ship to hold on to, managing a chunk of its hull, giving a large circle of wood siding a shimmering, gray scale; above, their balloon pressed inward dangerously, caught on a corner of lower ceiling.

He ran for a chain, stretched too taut to comfortably grab. The ship groaned again, and Octavia said something quietly above him. He heard his own name, but nothing else.

Sparing a look back for the ponies Octavia had shouted at during their descent, and seeing no one, he brought up a foreleg and looped it around the chain, its links large enough for him to get a secure, but painful, grip.

“Ready?”

“Do not let it crush you,” came her reply.

He licked his lips and pulled, easily at first, testing the weight and his own resistance to the pain he knew was to come, and then steadily increased the pressure. The ship groaned again, and he thought he could see it move. He paused, took a breath, and pulled again. A hot band of tight pain encircled his leg, and he knew he would likely lose some fur, if not skin, in the sudden escape when the ship tilted back his way.

“Ah wish Twilight was here,” he said, and gave one more pull, faster than he knew he should. Pain throbbed once, more intense and spreading farther along his limb, but he got the desired effect: the ship leaned over him, slowly at first, and then with a quick, wrenching sound.

He had felled enough trees to know how to escape being crushed, and hardly felt the fur tear free as he dashed back and to the side, nearly stumbling off the platform as he did so. Octavia grunted above, and the magic dissipated. Dust and air blew into his eyes, and he did not think of how close he may have been to being injured.

“Come back up,” Octavia said.

He rolled his eyes, but did not say anything as he boarded and turned the propellers back on. They coughed to life, and they were soon moving again, though listing to one side.

“We are near the tunnel I mentioned.”

“What in the world happened? Where did the fire come from?”

“It was my fault. I tried to disorient the ponies approaching us—which is why I told you to avert your eyes, by the way.”

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

“But, apparently, I cannot produce a simple flash spell. I made light, but also heat. It was a stupid, careless mistake; Twilight has warned me about it before.”

“But we’re okay now,” he said, looking cautiously over the rail.

“There is the door.”

He turned back to see only shadow, then the outline of a large sliding door.

“Miss Octavia, Ah can’t stop us fast enough to not hit that.”

She looked at him sidelong, and, sighing, walked to the front of the ship. “This is ridiculous.”

“Sorry.”

“Not you. I advise you not look directly at what I am about to do.”

He turned resolutely away, confident he knew what she was planning. The ship was vibrating, more strongly, he thought, than before. Its imperfect balance on the platform made each propellor’s revolution send an individual shiver through the deck, which multiplied further with the first explosion, as if the ship itself were afraid of how quickly they had lost control. Metal and wood shattered, and he fell to his knees, head down. A second explosion echoed quickly, and then a third, for which he heard a rain of displaced stone, some on the deck.

This ship shook and slammed to a halt, and Octavia cursed once more. “Turn off the propellers again, Big Macintosh.”

He did as she said, then joined her at the front. Most of the doorway had been blown outwards, forming a funnel of jutting scaffolding and broken beams. They had enough of an entrance to push through, but their progress immediately beyond was hindered. Debris covered the ground before them, some pieces larger than him, and he thought he could see a bend in the track where a block had fallen.

Octavia simply stared at the mess she had made, and Big Mac turned around to dancing lights in the distance. Flashlight beams skittered across the ground far off, and one slid over his face, not stopping. The ponies were too far away to see them clearly, but he knew it would not be long before they were close enough.

“Miss Octavia?”

She looked where he pointed. He expected another curse, but she only looked back at him. “I am open to any ideas you have. Quickly, please.”

“Well… shoot, Ah don’t s’pose you can hop down there an’ clear off that junk right quick, could ya?”

“We are right in the doorway. Moving the debris past us will take too long.”

The approaching ponies’ voices manifested out of the darkness, the words inaudible, but their tones clear.

“That did not take long,” Octavia said.

“How much magic do ya have left?”

“Some. I am more out of practice than anything. What is your idea?”

“Can we just keep blastin’ our way through?”

“Celestia almighty,” she mumbled, closing her eyes.

“It’s all Ah got.”

She squared her shoulders and beckoned him to turn the propellers on again. Nothing more was said. One moment, he was bracing himself for the avalanche of sound, and the next, it was upon him. The same weak shield she had practiced on him that afternoon glinted and faded away at the first piece of masonry to hit it, and the flashlight beams jumped to them. Multiple voices shouted for them to stop, one announced itself as Applewood police.

“We will need to fly away more or less immediately,” she called back to him.

He nodded, not knowing what to say. Broken concrete poured down with each rocking explosion, and sparks flew as metal and deactivated wiring was torn apart. The ferocity of her magic, applied in the one way with which she had any skill, made him nervous. He could feel each blast as a punch in the chest and two smaller concussive touches on his eyes. The sound, amplified in the massive garage, left his ears ringing, so that each successive blast was less incredible, and all the more astonishing for its tactile power. Soon, he was watching the scratched and ruined walls mark their ascent, an agonizing climb at a slightly steeper angle than the tunnel, and waiting for the balloon to burst. He did not think she had kept it in mind when demolishing their path.

Voices screamed at them to stop again, and, a second later, a small teardrop of light whizzed past them. Octavia did not look back, but he did. In a dome of magical light below, police officers crowded the destroyed doorway. He recognized the pulse crystals on some of their hooves, and ducked, hearing only the words “or we will use these!”

“Miss Octavia!”

“Shut up,” she snapped, and tore another chunk of masonry off the ceiling. It fell before them, missing by a foot, and then slid down to grind against their bottom. They were driving up into the ceiling, their balloon scraping past shards of concrete and twisted, broken girders, while more magical lights zipped past them.

“They cannot do anything,” she said, pausing. “They have no angle to hit us, and they will not want to destroy the ship.” She looked down and cursed, her voice sharp. Four small pops rocketed off, and they bucked upwards; she had broken the chains they had forgotten to remove.

The balloon scraped against an unseen detail in the ceiling, and Octavia drowned it out with another explosion. The air was getting warm in their shaft, and he could hear each spell propagate through the structure above. He could not imagine what the ponies above were experiencing, if they had not already evacuated.

The exit was in sight, and Big Mac moved uncertainly to the torch, knowing that, though they floated up against the tunnel’s ceiling, they would not have enough lift to get far off the ground in the open.

“Angle those spells higher,” he called. “Ah’m turnin’ her on.”

Octavia did not respond, but peppered the ceiling with a smaller burst of explosions, sending dust and gravel down onto the deck. The lights had stopped passing them, just as she said they would, but he did not make himself any larger a target than he could help. Behind, there was no threat anymore, but he could see the red and blue whir of lights waiting for them.

With a resounding crack, Octavia wrenched a tremendous piece of masonry away and held it before them briefly, then tossed it up the rest of the tunnel, where it spun gracefully and then fell with a crunch of stone on asphalt. Pausing only momentarily, she threw up another explosion; he watched it bend and split the bulky, metal webwork that had not yet pierced their balloon.

Voices came down to them, ordering them to stop, and Octavia spared a cold, determined look at Big Mac. “Do not fail me now,” he imagined her saying. He nodded, wishing he had stayed behind.

The night was nearly upon them, and he could see a congregation of dead edifices in wan starlight, streaked with police lights and, in the distance, hotel faces streaked with spotlights from above.

“Stop immediately!” a bullhorn cried, and Octavia responded with another explosion, sending the large piece of stone she had earlier left at their exit spinning in another direction. The voice crackled, and threatened to shoot. She ducked her head down and shattered another portion of ceiling.

When their bowsprit pierced the air and freed itself from the shadow he had become accustomed to, Big Mac could only stare in astonished fear at the number of police that waited for them. Cars, carriages, and loose ponies with riot gear and pulse crystals covered the parking lot in front of them, and a pair of vibrant, red and blue airships circled above, their own turbines nearly masked under Octavia’s ruckus.

Shots from at least ten different pulse crystals spread upwards to them, but deflected off another shield. In the split second that it was active, Big Mac saw that she had only put it around the balloon.

He half stood, half crouched at the back, hoping he could not be seen, but knowing he was in just as clear sight as Octavia. He shot a furtive look back to see them clearing the tunnel, but felt no joy, not even as they began rising into the air. Octavia’s shields were not good, and he could see her breathing heavily as she slumped on the gunwale’s inside edge, eyes on the balloon. With each shield that was broken, she flinched, closed her eyes for a second, and conjured another, to be broken almost immediately after. The effect was nearly like that of the spinning police lights, steady and quick as an orchestration. Almost whimsical; in his head, he took note of it.

He looked around swiftly, searching for an escape. Their only chance, he thought, was to somehow rise above the police, but what then? They could not float endlessly away, nor could they hide from the searchlights; they would need to land sometime, and their curse would keep their location even clearer than the huge, stolen ship they were attached to.

Something dark and shiny leapt into his vision, and he, unthinking, turned the ship in its direction. It was an impulse, an instinctual attraction to anything other than the lights and angry ponies. A shadowy band of water curved under an ornate bridge between Apogee and a smaller, neighboring hotel to become a star-shaped pool off the street.

Magic pinged off their shields, and Octavia made a small noise between pain and exertion with each iteration of her feeble shield. He, meanwhile, no longer with nothing to do, traversed the deck with his head down to turn off the ship and be in place to vent the balloon, a position that forced him to stay near the side, allowing him a clear view of the chaos that he could only hear seconds ago.

He glanced at Octavia, who looked back with a dead glare and sweat standing on her brow. She closed her eyes, and another shield flashed up, to be shattered a second later.

“We’re gonna crash into that pool over there,” he said, edging closer to her. “As soon as we do, hop out an’ swim with me. We can double back, or send Twilight to pick it up when it’s impounded.”

“I cannot swim,” she said, eyes closed.

He stood up briefly, gauging their distance to the pool, and then yanked a cord near the balloon’s tether. His ears strained for the hiss of escaping air, but he could not make it out in the rest of the chaos. What he could feel, painfully clearly, was the soft jolt as they lost what little elevation they had.

“I will try, though.”

“Ah can carry you,” he said. “Ah hope so, anyway.”

While the magic shots continued flying, igniting darkened windows all around them like tiny comets, or fireworks that did not explode, they banged into a white fence and scraped across its top, dragging a portion of it with them and furrowing the lawn. Again, someone shouted for them to stop, one more voice in the catastrophic patchwork.

“Ready?” he asked, coming closer to her. “Ya better get ready.”

She got to her hooves, and he watched a shot go into the balloon, leaving a tiny ring of scorched fabric in its wake.

They tipped to one side, grinding against a statue, and the propellers jangled in place. The water was cool and black, empty of ponies, not a swimming pool at all, he saw. Spouts and pipes adorned the sides, and a large, tiered structure sat just under the water in the middle, for shooting colorful fountains for a gawking audience.

They brushed the surface, slowed, and then splashed to a halt, white foam chewing at their bottom. He did not need to guide Octavia; she took a last look at the sidewalk, where the police cars had moved, then up at the sky, where the airships were looking for a vantage from which to spear them with light again, and let herself fall over the side. Big Mac followed with only a moment of hesitation, hitting the water in a graceless ball.

The temperature took his breath away, and he felt like coiled steel under the water, until he was able to claw to the surface and get air. Octavia struggled just under his midsection, her hooves parting the water like leaves on a current, and he dove down to get her over his back. She was light, but not as light as he would have liked, and he had to paddle aggressively and immediately to keep them both above water. The darkness around them was complete, still, but he knew it would not stay so for long. The water would return to calm, and the police would spot them making their escape.

“Octavia,” he managed, his head dipping down briefly to give his eyes and ears another cold shock, “splashes. Hide us.”

She was dead weight on his back, but it was no sooner than he had managed his request than a litany of smaller explosions sent geysers of water up over their heads, putting them in perpetual rainfall that stung the top of his head, somehow colder than the water that surrounded the rest of his body.

Flashlights and spotlights pinned the ship in the water, and voices demanded that they come out unarmed. Big Mac paddled gamely toward the far sidewalk, only ten feet away, and unwatched. He looked rapidly in the direction of the police to see how much longer they had, and his head slipped under again. Octavia sputtered and struggled, and pounded his back when he brought her up again.

“Do not do that,” she hissed in his ear.

When they reached the far side, he swam alongside it until she was able to get off and help him up. She wasted no time; as soon as they were out, she ran for the closest hedge and forced herself half in and half behind it. The police on the other side were looking around in a small, disorganized knot, and he, again without thinking, turned and started down the sidewalk, forcing himself to hold a casual pace.

“Looking for a unicorn, looking for a unicorn,” he thought to himself; he had realized it in the water. “Don’t run. Walk normal, blend into the first crowd you see. Find Octavia later.” Flashlights roved over the sidewalk and the few nearby ponies, some of whom gave him strange looks, but nothing else. He did not stop, though his heart did as the light crossed his side, and he allowed himself to follow another pony down a side path, up to an unlit shop off the hotel’s side.

The flashlight moved on, but still he did not hurry. He would wait until there was a wall between him and his pursuers, and then he would do what he could to dry off and reclaim Octavia.

Just outside Pinkie’s Pies, a pastel pink confectionary with one confused, despondent cashier attending its darkness, he did not hesitate to reach into the trash and rummage for things to dry himself. Napkins, wrapping paper, and a spare newspaper, its headline decrying the strange, moving blackout from days before: he used them all, and emerged onto the street from the other side with only a slight drip, something he contented himself he could explain as having bumped into a stranger and getting a drink spilled on him. The other airships had landed, and police were covering the deck of theirs, still cautious, but quieter. The demands had stopped, and the lights had all converged.

He passed within a few feet of a parked police car and followed the bridge’s curve to Octavia’s bush, where he, watching the other edge fervently, helped her to stand back up. She walked with him, down the sidewalk, away from the pond, away from their ship.

It was one in the morning, and everyone was in bed except Twilight, who sat by the radio and scratched notes and ideas into a notebook she had liberated from one of Photo Finish’s desks. She felt she was coming nearer to an idea of what Discord wanted with the dam, but progress was slow. For every new question, Applejack needed to retreat into the dam, sometimes to come back out minutes later only to ask for clarification.

Someone knocked on the door, and Twilight muttered a quick “be right back” to the radio. She dragged herself to the front door and let in Big Mac and Octavia, she with damp fur, and both of them looking defeated and exhausted. Big Mac simply slumped against the kitchen counter, and Octavia took a seat on the couch, her eyes drooping but not closing.

“Where in the world were you?” Twilight asked.

“What’s goin’ on?” Applejack’s voice sounded. “Who’s there, Twi?”

“Big Mac and Octavia just got back. They’ve been gone all day.”

“We went to go get the airship back,” Octavia said quietly.

“From the hotel?” Applejack asked.

“I didn’t see it out there,” Twilight said.

“It was not a success,” Octavia said. “I am sorry.”

“Uh…” Twilight looked at her, then Big Mac, and then at the radio. “Sorry, hang on. Applejack, can you investigate those sand filters for me, please? I need to know their relative position between the foundation and the main generators.”

“Yeah, Ah can try,” Applejack said, and the radio went quiet.

“What did you do?”

“We went to the hotel, as I said I wanted to, blackout or no blackout,” Octavia said. “The ship was not where we left it. After some searching, we located it in an underground impound lot, but getting it out proved… difficult.”

“I don’t like how you’re making that sound.”

“The airship is currently in police custody. I hate that I am thrusting this onto you, but you need to go get it. It is under your name.”

“Actually, it’s under all of our names,” Twilight said. “When the Astras signed it over to me, I put all of us on the title.”

“Not us, apparently.”

“Did you sign each of our names to it, or did you put ‘Elements of Harmony’?” Big Mac asked.

Twilight paused. “Oh, crap, I’m sorry, Octavia. So you probably got into trouble trying to take it back. Is that why you’re all wet?”

“It is I who am sorry, Twilight,” Octavia said. “And yes. We had to make a quick escape, and that involved being in the water. Big Mac saved my life then.”

“Think nothin’ of it,” Big Mac said.

“I apologize for earlier, when I vented my impatience. I acted rashly, and put both myself and Big Macintosh in danger as a consequence, as well as inconvenienced you.”

Twilight smoothed her mane, secretly agreeing with the apology. “It’s okay, Octavia. I understand where you’re coming from. Ugh, where’s the police station?”

“We do not know.”

“Yeah, I realized that as soon as I asked. You wouldn’t know; you were running from them.” She looked at the radio. “You’re safe now, right? No one’s going to knock on the door later and try to arrest you?”

“As Big Mac pointed out, the police will be looking for unicorns.”

“Good.” She looked at the radio again, expecting Applejack to cut in with a response. “Why don’t you two get some rest? I’ll be up a while longer, and I can deal with the ship tomorrow.”

“I believe I shall,” Octavia said. She went to a different room, but Big Mac simply let himself slide to the floor and fall asleep on the kitchen. He did not stir when Applejack came back, nor when Twilight finally replaced the radio to its spot two hours later.

Whooves and Vinyl traveled together into the city, across The Bright Road, into a tight bank of apartments and squeezed houses, where he helped her gather up crates of electronic equipment and decorations and load them into the scratched, silver carriage she kept outside.

“Not one for driving the mechanical beast, Vinyl?” he asked, running a hoof over the carriage’s green trim.

“Don’t trust my eyes enough,” she said. The day was overcast, but she still wore her goggles. He could see himself in them.

“And where’s the lucky stallions who get to pull this treasure chest once it’s loaded up?”

“On the way already. I use a pull service.”

“Ah, very good, very good. You know, I once worked part-time for a carriage pulling service. Dreadful hours, but you never get so intimate an acquaintance with your city as when conveying the wealthy and lazy to and fro. I’ve often thought that this germ of youthful experience is the cause of my well-documented wanderlust. I dare say you know a thing or two about that, no?”

She giggled. “I might.”

“You needn’t let an old windbag like me take up all the valuable real estate in a conversation,” he said. “Why, I don’t mind letting the old ears stand to attention a bit more than usual.”

“Sorry.” Her single word was so light, it could have been a sigh of wind. “It’s not personal. Habit.”

“A habit of quiescence? Such a fate!”

“Ponies lose patience,” she said, lifting a square container and slotting it between two larger cases. “There’s politeness, and there’s stopping a whole conversation to hear one mare. I wouldn’t want to do it if the roles were reversed.”

“But you can’t resign yourself to such a pitiful existence! Never let yourself keep mum for the mere convenience of others.” He laughed. “I’m sure Octavia can tell you all about it.”

She tapped a hoof on one of her cases. “Music, doc. I speak with my music.”

“Oh hoh!” He rested his own hoof on the black case, admiring its shape. “Yes, and lights, and activity, and a smile on that face of yours.”

“Sure.”

He followed her back to her apartment room on the ground floor. “Maybe not so much tonight, though? You seem preoccupied.”

“It’ll be a pretty personal show.”

“Pardon?”

She gave him a smile and repeated herself, her horn glowing a soft yellow as she did.

“Ah, yes, I suppose so. The last hurrah.”

“More than that.” She stopped at the doorway, looked down the street. “One more trip should do it.”

“What is this show of yours, if it’s more than a sentimental goodbye to the city you love?”

“Last time I’ll see some friends. Former friends.”

“Former?”

She grabbed a bundle of cables and coiled them loosely around her neck. “I cut ties with them so I could come with you. I think we’re good to go.” They went back outside, and she locked the door.

For a moment, Whooves was quiet, and she looked at him, surprised. “Do the others know?”

“Twilight.” She sat down beside the carriage and gestured for him to get in. She watched the end of the street, waiting for the stallions to pull her to The Moon Shot, where she would perform in six hours. Whooves settled in to his seat with a sigh of contentment, and, for a moment, her worries lifted. Seeing him comfortable and carefree—or seemingly so, for it was hard to tell with him—was soothing. It told her she had done at least one thing right in the past few days.

The feeling did not last, and she was sullen and direct when the pull service finally came. She directed them to the bar and paid, sparing no amiable chitchat as she often had in the past.

When the sun had nearly set, and Vinyl had her setup how she liked it, The Moon Shot was full of young, energetic ponies, as it had been the night she met the Elements of Harmony. Whooves had fallen in with a trio of strange mares, and the four of them sat in a corner booth close to Vinyl. She could turn her head and get an encouraging smile from the doctor, and she could turn it the other way and see the slouched forms of two of her former friends, there to offer their bitter support.

Vinyl had made her intentions known to eight ponies in total, one of whom, she knew, had been planning on asking her on a date. That pony was not present.

Ursa Major, a dark purple unicorn from the glacial city of Snowdrift, who had made a name for himself by expressing his joyful zeal for life in walls of textured beats and electric soundscapes, was the only of the two to give Vinyl a nod of recognition. He had understood her choice, but disagreed strongly. She was not surprised to see him at her final show.

A light brown reed of an earth pony with a snapping voice and a taste for the psychedelic side of music, stage name Doggy, stretched out on the other side of the booth in a position Vinyl had seen many times before. Affected contentment, a stretch designed to communicate maximum comfort and relaxation, which Vinyl knew was at war with the serious, stressful attention to detail that filled Doggy’s head. She had voiced her objections to Vinyl’s plan with the most venom, and the most hurt.

The senior bartender, a pony who frequently gave Vinyl a discount on drinks, asked her when she would be ready to perform, and Vinyl gave her setup a last look. She nodded and flashed a bead of pink on her horn tip, and the bartender smiled and clapped her on the wither.

She didn’t look at anyone, not Whooves and his new friends, who vibrated in their seats with laughter and drink, and not at Ursa Major and Doggy, who she suddenly wished hadn’t shown up.

The lights dimmed, the TVs were turned down, and Vinyl began. Unlike many of her friends, she had never settled on one particular style of music. Half the time, in expression or pursuit of her own tranquil worldview, she played longer, more melodic music, designed to sweep listeners away and fill the room with a soft atmosphere of her own making. At other times, often when remembering her younger, confused days, she would play a harder and faster brand of music that was popular with the Equestrian youth. For those shows, she was often stunned to find herself the oldest pony there: not yet thirty, but too old to chop herself up in the rave scene, had she still wanted to.

Her last show, perhaps in her life, perhaps in several months, or perhaps that week, started with the soft twinkling of notes sprinkled over cut up vocal samples and a soothing, swelling ambience. She frequently sampled from old documentaries and radio commercials, things that formed the sonic backdrop of her youth. Nostalgia was not the end goal, as it was with one of her other friends, but an expected and welcome side effect to her music.

She took note of the faces in the crowd, seeing pleasure on most and puzzlement on several more. The first song was the easiest. From where she sat, she needed only to activate sample loops with the right timing; most of her energy could be focused on the light show.

From her horn there emerged twin fans of color that swept up and down the bar, catching ponies’ drinks briefly and making them shine like stars. Her light shows were never the same twice, for she never rehearsed them all the way through. The majority of her tricks were well practiced, and suited for specific sections of her songs, but she was certain to always leave areas for herself to improvise. It kept her sharp, and kept her from potentially losing track of her own show.

She cut in a soft backbeat that would continue on after the first song had passed, and she nodded her head in time, activating another set of samples in quick succession.

She had grown up in a dark corner of Equestria in a settlement between two freezing rivers, runoff from the glacier sixty miles away. Her town, and the hundreds like it, all along the rivers, had sprung up to capitalize on the recently discovered wealth of natural resources and gemstones. There, the first thing she learned was that hers was a world of growth and need. No one prospered in the freezing wilderness south of Snowdrift, and only the lucky acquired the materials to leave and prosper elsewhere. In absence of parental guidance, but not love, she was chastised by the bitter winds and waters, and uplifted by the hardy weeds and flowers that pushed through black earth.

Crossing the bar one more time with her colorful fans, which had multiplied to five by the time the song was over, she formed a polychromatic cone that floated up into the rafters and turned lazily to the much faster, lighter beat of her next song, something meant to bridge the gap between her earlier, more ambient sound, something to show that she could bring energy as well. Her cone was not an easy trick to do, and she had to keep careful watch of its edges, lest the colors form a diluted rainbow; that was not the look she wanted. She kept it turning, sometimes dramatically shifting the position of colored bands inside, but keeping all within a tight cone. Later, when the show was near its end, she would use the same shape, but with her horn strobing the colors. Correctly timed omissions from the overall shape would turn her cone into a twisting corkscrew, and a quiet audience into an awestruck one.

She had thought it cruel irony when she was younger, that her eyes should be so sensitive to the same light it was her obvious talent to produce. In her area of Equestria, healthcare was not a high priority, not when more than eighty percent of the ponies that lived there intended to put the shanty towns behind them in a year or two, so there were no clear solutions to her eye problem. She wore sunglasses everywhere she went, which helped, but she had no way to block any light from the top or sides. She would grow up to associate memories of home with pain and discomfort.

Her parents were among the fortunate enough to leave wealthy, but not until after Vinyl was old enough to have left on her own. It did not feel like abandonment at the time; in that area of Equestria, ponies struck out on their own frequently, disenfranchised with toiling in riverbeds and panning for gold, to try to find their destinies in Snowdrift, which was colder, harsher, and still more dangerous. The journey, sixty miles on hoof and completely alone, would inspire her first album, entitled “X Marks the Spot.” It sold thirty million copies in the first year.

She smiled and let her cone break apart into lively swirls of color that crossed the floor and walls as her song broke down and lost the trimmings of vocal samples that she had steadily been adding for the past couple minutes. It was an easy point in the show, the first of not many more, and she took the opportunity to glance at Ursa Major and Doggy, who watched without enthusiasm.

Vinyl’s lights faltered, but no one would have been able to notice with the way they were jittering around the bar. She fixed her smile and brought the lights back together into a small sphere on the tip of her horn, before dimming it and starting the next song, a jaunty, whirling synth beat over some sharp snares.

Her cue was simple, a quick triple on the high hat that would tell her to bring her light back out in a spider of slender, white threads, which she would then rove over the bar and patrons. She was so ready for it that she let her light shoot out when she knew the cue would play, but faltered a second time at the sound she wanted least to hear: silence.

As if in a dream, her composure total and a smile affixed stupidly to her face, she scanned her setup for the problem. Something had come loose, she figured.

Then, the soft uproar. Ponies did not shout or cry out, but simply turned to each other and looked around, questions filling the air. Vinyl looked out as well, and did not immediately recognize what was happening. The bar lights had gone out, as had the TVs, as had the unnatural light from the street outside. Her own equipment was as lifeless as the cases it had been transported in.

In the bar, someone called out “the Elements of Harmony,” and she realized what had happened. The blackout, the curse, Discord’s enforced darkness, had returned.

“Who could possibly have come, though?” she heard Whooves say. The three mares he was with were assaulting him with questions in young, nasal voices, their tones threatening to tip over into panic. On the other side of her stage, she could hear Doggy cursing a blue streak.

Not giving any regard to her ruined show, Vinyl left the stage and illuminated the bar with a calming, white light, just as she had days earlier. She approached Whooves and grabbed him by the foreleg, giving the mares an apologetic smile as she did so.

“Pon-three! What is the meaning of this?” a sharp voice accused. She was making for the exit, but turned in time to see Doggy shoving her way through the confused crowd, her face pinched and angry.

“Outside,” Vinyl said, knowing neither of them would hear it. She made it out to the sidewalk, positioning herself by the window so she could still keep The Moon Shot mostly lit.

“What’s going on?” Doggy demanded. She scowled, then looked at Whooves. “Pleasure to meet you. Pon-three, what is this?”

“It’s a really long story,” Vinyl breathed. “It has to do… what is that?”

They both looked around, and Vinyl pointed to the nearly invisible trail of smoke rising a street away.

“Shit,” Doggy said, her indignation gone in an instant. “Vinyl, I know—”

“Doc, fill her in,” Vinyl said, and took off at a gallop towards the smoke. She heard Doggy shout “dammit” behind her, and Whooves beginning what she knew would become a verbal tug of war with her friend, and then the milieu of voices that so well resembled the catastrophic symphony of alarm on the night of The Crumbling.

She rounded the corner and dashed across the street, moving between stopped cars and pedestrians running the other way. The Magic Bowl, a restaurant where she had once been cornered into signing fifty autographs, glowed from within, a dull but powerful orange, tinged with soot and alive with contorting shadows. Through dark windows, she could make out the source of a terrible sound, a throng of ponies panicking and trying to escape all at once.

While a smaller crowd had managed to form outside, closer to the back, most remained inside, immobilized by the sheer size and intensity of their numbers. Smoke strung itself from the roof, but she could see—or thought she could see—a dense ceiling of it near the tops of the windows. She could feel the heat where she stood on the opposite sidewalk, not difficult to withstand.

In her experience volunteering for cleanup and rescue crews, she had seen plenty of fire aftermaths, and a few fires fought from a distance, but she had never set hoof near a flaming building. She paused, glanced down the street, and realized that the fire department would not arrive until it was too late; with no electricity, they would only receive the phone call when the fire was visible from several blocks away.

She galloped to the restaurant, trying to find a way to help. She could not imagine that her light would be of any use, and she was unable to speak loudly enough to order the ponies.

Inside, something cracked, and she looked in the window to see a curtain of sparks toward the back, framing the frantic diners in dark, inarticulate, jagged shadow, like broken reflections of themselves. The crowd had blended into one seething whole, pushing with groaning force toward the front while the back got hotter. Smoke poured out of an ajar door, a toxic brown that completely obscured what was behind it, save for occasional thorns of fire that reached outwards.

She had little other skill with her horn, just enough to lift her gear or heat up a lunch, but tried to punch a hole through the window. Her magic was unresponsive, and she closed her eyes and dashed away, one glimpse of her reflection filling her with disgust at her own ineptitude.

She shoved past the crying, yelling ponies that had managed an escape and rounded the building. The back entrance was flung open, and she could see fire curling around the black shapes of kitchen implements, almost filling the room. In her haste, she had stepped close enough to singe her fur, and backed up nearly ten feet before she could study the interior without pain.

The crowd was not visible from her angle, but she could hear them, their screams having risen in pitch. Inside, a light bulb popped, and she saw the small cluster of sparks fall to the floor, orange and unctuous in its reflection of the flames. On the stove, a blackening pot was smoking.

She ran back around, following the sidewalk to the front, where a few more ponies had made it out, and several were pressed against the front door, trying to find purchase but unable to move enough to actually escape.

Then, her idea came. Flashing her horn like a camera, she got a bystander’s attention, and, leaning into her ear to speak, gave her instruction. While the bystander spread it to others, Vinyl raced to the front door, and, lowering her head to give her horn the best angle she could, put her concentration into a familiar, but infrequently used pattern of thought. The sound, and the heat, made her back up a step, but she did not look at the ponies inside. The view would ruin her focus; she knew she could easily panic with the rest of them.

White light flashed out of her horn twice, both times so strong inside her head that she felt physically weakened. It was bright enough to temporarily blind, and she looked up quickly, first seeing the ponies nearer the back and middle, still stirring with terror. She froze and tried to ready the spell again, not knowing what else to do, but then noticed the ponies at the front, blinking dumbly and moving with a slightly slower sense of urgency.

She felt no relief, only trembling determination as she raced to the front door and tried to pull it open. The glass shattered with her wrenching motion, but the door came open in her hooves, and ponies collapsed out onto the sidewalk. The escapees ran forward to help the crowd out, as she had told them, and she held herself at the door, leaning away from it with one hoof painfully out to keep it in place. The fire was advancing through the restaurant, catching tables and booths, and she could feel the incredible heat stifling her lungs, still clear of the smoke she could see in a swirling, undulating ocean on the ceiling.

Ponies streamed out of the restaurant steadily, some taking to the air, some huddling on the sidewalk in thickening groups. Distantly, sirens moved, and Vinyl finally gave up holding the door and retreated, hoping it would stay as it was. She ran down the sidewalk, ignoring the pain in her legs and in her eyes—the goggles were strong, but not strong enough to withstand looking directly at the fire—and hoping to spot the fire truck or ambulance, so she might direct it to The Magic Bowl.

She did not, and wound up running to Whooves and Doggy, exactly where she had left them and still talking animatedly. At her approach, both ponies’ jaws dropped.

The conclusion, though strange, and inappropriate, seemed clear to Vinyl: she, Whooves, or possibly both of them had been incorporated into Discord’s curse. Seeing the soot and singes on Vinyl’s usually flawless off-white coat, Doggy had bullied her and Whooves into her own car and driven them to a hospital, which lost power before they could arrive. They wove through traffic jams, searching for a place to get help, but the blackout followed their car flawlessly, until Whooves directed them to the river, where they were able to inexpertly soak Vinyl’s first-degree burns in cold water. She could see the smoke in a dissipating tower from where she reclined between her companions, Doggy shooting angry, questioning looks at Whooves whenever she thought Vinyl wasn’t looking.

When it was midnight, they got Vinyl back into Doggy’s car, her leg and chest wrapped in cool cloths, and headed back into the city, dragging darkness with them. There wasn’t much traffic, so they moved fast enough that most lights did not stay out for more than a minute.

Doggy brought them back to The Moon Shot, where all of Vinyl’s setup remained where it was; apparently, her set had tried to play the rest of itself after she was gone, but, with no one to control the effects of samples, it was just an incomplete, mildly interesting soundtrack to the night.

Ursa Major met them there and helped pack Vinyl’s equipment into her carriage, for which he traveled outside the cursed area to call a pull service and have everything brought back to her apartment. Doggy dropped them off at Photo Finish’s house without question.