Ships fell around them like leaves. Laser-guided missiles required little power from the ship to coordinate, and there was not a shot that did not result in a kill. Even so the Fury vibrated with every passing second, as they were shaken violently about by the cannons of hundreds of ships. With each shot the thaumaturgic shield came into being, deflecting the projectiles slightly away from the trajectory needed to impact the ship. Of course Chance could not watch this happen, not when she was absolutely intent on the repairs to the power grid. She did not need to watch anything to be able to tell that they hadn't been killed yet. They weren't plummeting down from altitude onto the army beneath, and that meant their defenses were still holding.

The shaking around them abruptly ended, along with the regular explosions. Only the roar of the engines remained, along with their rapid breathing. There was no time for relief, though. Almost the instant they were through, the pegasus passenger turned away from the shield. A thin layer of sweat covered her body and there were signs of exhaustion about her, but she seemed not to notice these things. "Second Chance," she said, in a very different voice than the one she had been using up until that moment. "Have you mastered precision teleportation with passengers based on non-sensory sympathetic connections?"

How many non-unicorns could even ask that question? How many could do it in Celestia's voice? But then, how many pegasi could actively target their shielding spell faster than the cannonballs flying at them? She could almost hear Celestia's words from several days ago. 'It will be my flagship.' She bowed. Apple Bloom, either making the same deduction or merely not wanting to look foolish by standing out, imitated her, though she didn't drop the wrench that was still in her mouth.

The pegasus nudged her back onto her hooves with one wing. "Answer the question, Chance. Ceremony can wait."

She nodded, though her lack of confidence was obvious as she did. "With Truth's help I can. Doing the calculations, I mean. Through my Neuroboost. For some reason we can't get it to work unless I'm touching him. That means it's one-way, since he's too big to bring. Also can't jump across Equestria like Twilight can... Maybe a kilometer?"

"We won't need nearly so large a distance." She directed her attention to Apple Bloom. "Prepare as quickly as you can. We will probably have to fight. If we cannot kill the guard before it activates the bomb, everypony in Seaddle will die."

Both engineers rushed into action, informing Scootaloo of their intention and warning her about the unrepaired damage. Second Chance helped Apple Bloom don the shoulder-harness that housed the rifle, connecting its tracking systems to her implants by radio and securing it with tight straps. For herself she just tossed one of the low-caliber sidearms into the bag that held her tools. It wasn't as though she expected to need it, when they were fighting beside Celestia.

"Why do you need me to teleport us?" she asked, as they hurried back into the room that held Truth. "If you know where the bomb is, couldn't you just rip that whole part of the building off and banish it to the moon?"

The pegasus Chance no longer believed to be a pegasus shook her head definitively. "Alicorn magic can be detected at ranges of several kilometers. If I were building a bomb, I would incorporate that into the automatic failsafes. Even if it doesn't, their army certainly has the means. Should my magic be detected here, our enemy would know I am no longer in the Everfree and we would forfeit our advantage."

Many leaders wouldn't explain their reasoning to inferiors, even when it was good. As little as Chance knew Princess Celestia, she had never known her for that sort of princess. It was okay to ask questions. Generally speaking, asking would help you want to obey even more. In this case, that line of reasoning seemed to be enough for Apple Bloom to realize exactly what was going on. Confusion and fear was replaced with awe and respect, and her movements became more formal, stiff.

'You act just like your sister around royalty,' Chance said privately, trying to provoke a smile. It might've worked, had they not all been painfully conscious of just how many lives were in their hooves now. Out loud, Chance asked. "Who's taking care of the other bomb?" Twilight was the only other pony who knew enough to identify and disarm an explosive made by human techniques, and if Alicorn magic could be detected...

"The Ares Division has provided men for the task. Admiral Colven assured me they were the most competent men she had."

Chance nodded, relaxing a little. It was a shame the Ares Division didn't have armored air transport, or else they could have taken care of this bomb too. "Have you been hearing all this, Truth?"

As usual, Truth showed a remarkable lack of comprehension when it came to the proper emotions for any given situation. He sounded amused. "I'm several orders of magnitude more intelligent than you are, Chance. Knowing when to listen to your thoughts is hardly difficult."

'Wiseass,' she thought, as loudly as possible, though she wasn't about to say it around the Princess. Instead, she said, "Good." She turned. "Can you give him the location information? I don't know how to translate coordinates into locations very well; places I can't see are really hard for me."

“Sunny Skies” nodded and spoke directly to Truth, rattling off a long string of numbers and letters. She spoke for nearly thirty seconds straight, and it took nearly that long for Chance to recognize what she was hearing as one of the many standard compression algorithms used by human computers. Her Neuroboost began decompressing it, and pages of data flooded her mind. A GPS coordinate accurate to the inch, description of the building, the motion of the planet as it moved in its unsteady orbit. Chance's eyes grew wide at the implications for Celestia's intelligence, and she suddenly felt like a filly again. How could she make the slightest difference in this war with players like this on the field?

"Are you ready, Chance?" Truth's voice was more gentle now. "Scootaloo plans on passing the building and making a full circuit of the city. We'll pick you up on the return pass, and then seal in the atmosphere and fly as high as the levitation spell will allow. Should be plenty high to escape the blockade without getting shot at again. But you have to act quickly, before the changeling on the bomb realises why we're here. The defense spells aren't rated for nuclear explosions, and the armor isn't either."

"Right, sorry." Chance extended a hoof, resting it against the cool metallic surface of the cube. She gestured, and her companions moved in close, almost close enough to touch. "Go easy on my head, Truth. I can't afford a migraine if I'm the only one who can use magic when we get inside."

"Unicorn magic." Apple Bloom forced a smile as she raised a hoof. "Don't forget who you're gunnin' with. Sister of one of the strongest ponies in Equestria."

Truth didn't give her a chance to reply, as Chance abruptly felt his presence flooding along the radio connection to her implant, briefly supplanting her own thought patterns. It was as though a mighty hand had reached into her mind and squeezed, forcing it to conform to some strange and unnatural shape. Her horn began to glow with a spell she had not consciously imagined, though she could also see the patterns as though they were her own. The diagram was immensely complex, complete right down to the mitigation for air displacement that would make the teleport dead silent. In far less time than it naturally took Chance to ready the energy for a spell, there was a flash of light from all around them, and the cabin of the Fury vanished.

They were in a large empty stairwell, of the sort common to Equestria's tallest buildings. Chance swayed a little as she felt the magical strength abruptly ripped from her, though with Apple Bloom's help she managed not to fall over. Just because Truth was better at optimizing the costs of any spell did not mean that the spells were free. She inhaled several times, until her head had stopped spinning and she didn't need to lean on her friend anymore.

In front of them was a partially open door leading to a room that was almost completely dark. Chance remained still long enough to put together a simple night-vision spell, one that would have been easy for her under any other circumstances. After such a large bit of magic, even a tiny spell nearly knocked her off her hooves again. Still, ponies had awful night vision, and she wasn't about to run blindly into a room with a nuclear bomb waiting inside.

The spell revealed a large office space of sorts, with cubicles and typewriters and filing cabinets and electric lighting. The blinds were all closed, and thick cloth had been hung to keep out any light that might bleed through between the slats. At the far end of the room was a conference table, and upon the table rested the bomb. It was about the size of a pony lying down, a cylinder of metal and wires and pipes. Wires ran from the side of the bomb to the alert form of what was almost a changeling.

It was the same basic shape of a changeling, with reddish fluid seeping out between the plates of its chitinous armor. Its eyes were cloudy, as though nearly or completely blind. One of its legs was shriveled and seeping pus, as though it were dying of some unseen infection. The whole room smelled faintly of rot, and she could see several other bodies at its feet. At least three other such creatures, and one pony, all partially eaten.

She forced her eyes from that grizzly sight and back to the explosive, tracking each of the wires and building a mental map of the circuitry. She didn't have to do it alone, not with Truth close enough to be connected to her personal Mesh network. He took the visual information and extrapolated for what she couldn't see, helping Chance construct the function of each wire and tube. The whole process took perhaps thirty seconds, and when it was done she proceeded to push the door closed as quietly as she could. The battle outside, however distant, made it easy not to be heard.

"One of the changeling-monsters," she whispered, her voice as hushed as as she could make it. "Several other dead ones. The bomb looks functional, and it's wired with a dead-man switch to one of the monster's back hooves. Truth and I think the pressure sensor would take about two seconds to trigger the bomb. Once that happens, Truth thinks we have half a second before critical mass. We can't just kill it, not unless we can trip that switch within a few seconds."

"What about magic?" Sunny Skies asked. "If Apple Bloom killed it with the human weapon, could you apply pressure to keep the switch activated?"

Ordinarily Chance would have answered in the affirmative without thinking about it. Under the circumstances, she felt as though one more spell might make her head explode. Still, it seemed more likely to succeed than any of the other plans they might try in a situation like this. "Probably. It would help if you could let the sunlight in. We'll need light to disarm the bomb once we kill the guard either way."

"I can take care of the light. There might be other guards in the building: I'll handle them while you two disarm the bomb."

Chance looked to Apple Bloom, trying to look as supportive as possible. It was a great deal of weight to put onto their shoulders. Either one of them might cause the deaths of millions. At least the enemy would lose a good chunk of their army. She transferred the visual data from her eyes to Apple Bloom's implant, giving her an overlay of the positions of everything in the room. She slowly opened the door again, just a crack, and everything was as they had left it. She focused her eyes on the sensor under the pseudo-changeling's hoof, ready to enact a simple pressure spell.

Everything happened at once. A light "pop" from the silenced matter accelerator rifle, followed by an explosion of fluids from the monster's head. It began to keel over backward, releasing the hoof from the sensor it was resting on. Chance forced what little magic she had out through her horn, pressing down on the sensor so it was never lifted. Sunny Skies burst into the room, slamming the door open and spreading her wings open wide. She pumped vigorously, with greater strength and precision than even Rainbow Dash could manage. The windows all around the room exploded outward in unison, carrying the blinds and heavy cloth with them and flooding the room with sunlight.

The monster fell, but even as it did the ruins of two others began to rise, seeming not to realize they were half eaten. They rose in spite of their injuries, standing on three limbs in one case and two in another, trailing ichor and gnashing broken teeth. Chance dropped to the ground, straining with the effort of keeping the sensor down. Firing her handgun was out of the question. The formerly-intact monster rose to its hooves, not seeming to notice its head was missing. Forgetting completely about the bomb, what was left of it shambled towards them too, its neck lolling limply to one side and still spurting blood. Apple Bloom whimpered, backing up a pace or so until she hit the wall of the stairwell, leaving Chance exposed to the onslaught. Chance closed her eyes, shivering all over. It was the only way she could keep her concentration together enough to keep the spell going.

The pony pretending to be a pegasus charged forward with a cry of fury, her hooves impacting the leading creature and bucking it clear out one of the open windows. Chance didn't watch, but she did hear Apple Bloom's gun begin to bark again. Only then did she open her eyes.

The battle was over. Celestia had crossed the room and rested a hoof on the sensor. There was one dead monster on the floor, its body shattered into half a dozen pieces by Apple Bloom's rifle. The other two were gone completely, vanished without a trace. "Quickly, Chance. Their army is advancing again, along with all their ships. They're disregarding the anti-air cannons. I suspect they discovered the death of their guard using the hive-mind. We must disarm this bomb and leave Seaddle immediately."

Chance blinked, letting all her spells fade. She wouldn't be doing any magic for a few hours after this. "O-okay. Apple Bloom, let's get this done." The ponies advanced quickly, both looking pointedly away from the corpse of the pony on the ground. Chance was glad that hadn't reanimated as well.

They worked quickly, disconnecting those sensors that might trigger the bomb and short-circuiting the dead-man switch. It took less than a minute, and they were not interrupted. "We can move it," Chance announced, dropping a tool from her mouth back into her saddle-bag. "If we're trying to get out as fast as possible, we could always dismantle it later."

"Get away from the wall," Celestia commanded, retreating a few steps herself. Chance and Apple Bloom both obeyed, though Chance had no idea what she might be trying to do. She wasn't going to be able to blow out the wall like she had done with the windows, was she? There was no way that was possible. Chance already couldn't figure out how she had done the thing with the glass without magic.

The answer came in the form of an explosion next to the table, ripping a chunk of wall about three ponies long right out of the building. The room shook and hot air blasted them, but other than an uncomfortable ringing in their ears there were no other signs there had just been an explosion. No doubt a carefully-placed implosion charge, pulling everything out towards the opening instead of showering them with shrapnel. It was impressive targeting work.

The Fury pulled alongside the opening, mere inches from the side of the building. Without a word between them all three ponies galloped for it. Sweetie Belle was already standing on the deck, and with obvious strain she levitated the nuclear device off the table and into the open air. The three ponies cleared the gap with a leap, landing on the deck just as Sweetie Belle lowered the nuke down near a set of cargo rings. The ship began to rise, though not so fast that they couldn't move.

"Help me tie this down!" Sweetie Belle shouted over the roar. Apple Bloom obeyed, about the time Pip nudged Chance in the side.

"You look like you just fought a dragon! Let me help you below! Scootaloo says we're going to go up higher than the air!" Chance was in no place to argue, and with his help she was able to make it back into Truth's room, where she dropped onto the ground and lost consciousness almost instantly.

"I really don't see the point of all this!" Charles tried to pull away, tried to struggle, but it seemed the cloud could only support him if he positioned his weight in a specific way. Instead of dragging himself out of the mare's clutches, he only managed to dig himself into the cloud, trapping himself still further. Every time he struggled made him want to struggle less, since he wasn't sure at what point he would drop entirely out the bottom of the cloud.

This was not a very pleasant morning for Charles. The sun was well up in the sky by the time Rainbow Dash woke him, but so far as Charles was concerned he hadn't been asleep at all. Who had designed these bodies, anyway? He would leave some angry emails in the designer's inbox about this stupid groggy feeling. He was feeling hungry too, to say nothing about a few less pleasant bodily processes he had thankfully finished with for the time being.

Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't had to deal with the realities of being biological all at once. At least in those awful dreams he had never lived long enough to experience anything like hunger or thirst, and whenever he came back his body was in perfect health. As it was, being struck with all those things at once seemed very similar to the way his body had been broken before, only worse. No wonder his people had evolved past having biological bodies so long ago.

"Because if you don't do it every day, you won't be able to fly!" Rainbow insisted, exasperated. "Preening is supposed to be relaxing, stupid! If you would stop struggling, you would see!"

But he didn't stop struggling. When Rainbow Dash had explained what he had to do, he had laughed at her. When she had insisted that she hadn't been joking, he had tried to run away and she had pounced on him like a cat. "Why? My wings were functioning yesterday, why would they suddenly not be working today?"

She had wanted to teach him to do it himself, but had only got so far as showing Charles there was a squishy organ under each wing that secreted an oily fluid when pressure was applied. He had been so revolted that he had nearly vomited right there. Somehow the thought of someone else doing it for him almost made it worse. What was the human equivalent of this, clipping somebody's fingernails? He wasn't happy, that was for sure. "Chicken. You walk right into a dozen goblins with only one working leg, but you're afraid of basic wing care? Like a scared little filly."

He stopped struggling. "That's... not entirely fair. You grew up doing this; I've only had wings for a day. I bet you'd have just as much trouble if your body died and you were uploaded to a server."

"I don't know what that means, but so long as you stop struggling, then sure." She lowered her head. "Don't thrash around, okay? This is delicate work! I've got to get the broken old feathers free, but if you twitch I might get a live one instead. That hurts. I've already done mine, and I expect you to watch. I'm only gonna show you once."

"Fine." Charles sighed, pulling one of his wings in front of him so he could better see what Dash was going to do with it. "I still don't see why a machine couldn't do this for me."

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "Maybe it could. When we win the war, you can become an inventor and make one. For now, just shut up and watch, okay?"

Charles relaxed gradually. At first the sensations were strange and uncomfortable, but as she continued he began to be bothered less and less. As with most tasks, Rainbow used her mouth, explaining while she worked. She removed broken feathers, and ensured that none of the healthy ones were out of place. She rubbed oil on the dry-looking ones, explaining to his great relief that special shampoos and waxes were made for that purpose back in Equestria, such as the one the military used that could protect feathers from dryness and moisture for weeks when properly applied.

"I wish you had some now," he had said, almost wistfully. "This is such a waste of time."

"It is not!" She looked up, glaring. "Take care of your wings, and they'll take care of you." There was something rote about those words, as though she were repeating the words of some child's rhyme. "It's no fair... If you hated flying this much, why did you end up a pegasus? You should be the one with a fake wing, not me."

"Believe me, I would trade you if I could. Most good prosthesis come with a user's manual. Not to mention there aren't ever software patches and upgrades when you're running wetware."

She blinked. "Did Discord scramble your brain?"

"I only wish." He sighed. "So what's the plan? Are we just going to try and cross the Atlantic? I'm not sure what sort of speeds we can sustain, but that's a long trip at any speed Earth birds could sustain."

"I guess 'Atlantic' is what you call an ocean?" She shook her head. "We can't cross without food. About a week, if we set a good pace and the weather's good. Water we can get from the clouds, but food we've got to carry. We need really dense energy... they make these sugary crackers for long flights, but I haven't got any. So unless you've got food in that pack..."

"Sorry. There are useful medical supplies, but that's mostly it. Dried meat would be great if we could eat it." His companion wrinkled her nose in disgust, but he went on before she had a chance to say anything. "I know! Ponies can't eat meat, that's fine. We'll just have to find something else. Fruit, maybe? We could slice it and dry it out in the sun. If it's only the energy we want, we don't need to fly with all that water-weight. Really, we would be better off dumping most of these supplies before we fly. Keep the bag and the gun, but... We'll just have to hope we don't get hurt on the flight. Just got to make sure we put one of those cortical recorders in my head first." If nothing else, he could always ask somebody to shoot him when they got back to Equestria.

"Most of the other stuff you grabbed won't help us much. Tools for repairing prosthesis mostly, an emergency power cell... we've only got one prosthesis between us, and it should have enough power to run for weeks before charging. We could top it off once before we ditch everything, maybe."

Rainbow Dash was finished with the preening. She stuck her face into the midst of the cloud and squeezed. Strangely, the cloud seemed to compress right there. She swished it around in her mouth and spat. The taste of wings wasn't a pleasant one, apparently. She raised the wing, twisting it in the air. "You mean this thing needs to charge? Like a battery? Another reason why building metal wings is stupid."

"Well you talk to the federation when this is over, then, and have them grow you a new one. You know, the same way they grow their meat? Your wing can be in a tank next to the chicken they're going to feed their soldiers. Then when it's finished, they'll use drugs to put you to sleep and sew it right onto your body where the old one used to be. Of course, you'll have to be on the Nanophage for life, or else your immune system will reject the graft and you'll die. And because organics can't do anything right, they'll probably graft a chicken breast to your back instead of a wing, and fry the wing up for dinner."

She kicked him. Not hard, but enough that he stumbled, sliding a little into the cloud like slushy snow. "You don't have to be a jerk about it. You're just trying to make it sound as gross as you can so I'll want to keep the metal one."

He shrugged, climbing unsteadily to his hooves and stretching. Each step was tentative on the soft structure of the cloud. This was just water-vapor, after all. It shouldn't hold up a moth, much less a horse. "I'm trying to help you evolve, Rainbow Dash. Bodies are weak. They grow old, and they break. Prosthetics don't. No need to eat, no sleeping, no sickness, no getting feeble and slow. Best part is, you don't have to give up any of your old senses. You can still feel, smell, see, hear... And taste, if you're into that. Think about it: never have to read a book when you can download the whole thing right in. Never have to take a class when you can just use the knowledge somebody else already learned. It's the next information revolution, like the printing press!"

"Whatever." She kicked him again, although this time the gesture was less forceful. It was almost friendly, but not quite. "Let's get flying. Keep your eyes open for food. We should be able to get to the ocean before it gets dark."

Charles nodded, spreading his wings in preparation for takeoff. "A-alright. I suppose I was going to have to use these again eventually."

They flew.

"You know you don't have to do this, Applejack." Twilight rested as comfortably as she could on one of the many sofas in her castle's library. Stacks of human datapads and holoprojectors had been shoved into a corner to make room for their refreshments. It seemed almost sinful to Twilight to have something as loud as a going away party in her library, but the alternative had been the great hall. Since that part of the castle was always open to visitors, that would have meant making their private affair open to the whole village, something she very much did not want to do.

There was only one thing missing from the party: Pinkie Pie. The catering had all arrived, along with subdued decorations, but one of Pinkie Pie's party assistants had set them all up and not been able to tell them where Pinkie Pie actually was. It was a little troubling to Twilight, who imagined the pink pony hiding in every cupcake and in every open space on the bookshelves, ready to jump out and spoil the somber occasion with her party cannon.

Rarity interrupted Twilight's thoughts, sipping demurely at a levitating cup of tea. "Have you considered the impact your leaving will have on your grandmother, Applejack dear? If your elder brother is enlisting as well and Apple Bloom is off with the crusaders, who will be watching her?"

Fluttershy squeaked something, hiding her face behind a slice of whatever sweet things she was eating. It took a great deal of prompting for her to speak loud enough for all of them to hear. In all the years Twilight had known her, Fluttershy had changed very little. "I'm taking care of her!" She blinked, looking around and withdrawing into her chair with a quiet squeak none of them could make out.

Applejack nodded. "Big Mac an’ I helped furnish Fluttershy's spare room. Ah reckon we'll be able to get old Granny moved in tonight, after we meet with 'em but before we're up and gone." She looked into the faces of her friends one by one, not hiding how hurt she was. But then, Applejack never hid much of anything. "Look, Granny Smith means more to us than anypony, and we know that the way things are goin' she may not be around for us when we get back."

Twilight privately agreed, though she wasn't nearly as compulsively honest as her friend so didn't actually say so. Poor Granny Smith slept away most days, and her memory was so spotty she rarely recognized anypony but Big Mac correctly anymore. While she had still been coherent she had refused Apple Bloom's insistence she use the human-made Nanophage, even with the promises Chance had made about longevity. Applejack had supported her decision, and they were all living with the consequences.

"But the way ah see it, nothin’ else matters if we can't save Equestria. Lots ah other ponies got relatives too, and they need somepony to protect 'em. Ah reckon this joint operation with the humans is the best shot we got ah puttin' an end to this war real quick. You told me they were askin' fer earth ponies. You ain't gonna find two ponies better fer the job than mah big brother and me. How else are we gonna show them humans we are worth fightin' for if we can't find ponies to show them we know how tah fight? We'll do so great ah reckon they'll be hollerin' for ponies all over their army before the week is out."

"You sure you don't want somepony else to do it?" Twilight asked again, frowning. "There are plenty of volunteers for the responsibility, plenty of other ponies who would be happy to go. You could stay."

Applejack shook her head. "Everypony's gonna have to lend a hoof with this, Twilight. If ah don't go now, things might get worse before they get better. For all we know, we won't be able to stop 'em before they get back here to Ponyville." She stood up, striking a hoof loudly on the ground. "Ah ain't gonna let that happen. Nopony's gonna talk me out of it."

"That's very noble of you, dear." Rarity turned to look at Fluttershy. "And you too. Granny Smith deserves to be with somepony she knows, if all her family is away fighting. You say the word and I'll drop everything to help with anything you need." Fluttershy nodded, and Rarity turned back to Applejack. "What about the farm? Who will be taking care of it while you're gone? Tending the orchards and all that... associated hard labor."

Applejack walked back to the refreshment table and refilled her sweet tea before she answered, returning with the cup in her mouth and setting it down on a table beside her. On ice, Twilight knew it was her favorite drink. Pinkie Pie really had thought of everything for this farewell... Except being here. This was so unlike her that Twilight was beginning to worry.

"Mah brother an’ I hired a few cousins to come in and do the work, to make sure the farm was in peak condition fer when we got back. I was actually hopin' you might check up on 'em now an’ then. Make sure they're earning their bits. Them trees don't take kindly teh being neglected."

"Consider it done." Rarity nodded again, though there was real concern on her face now. When she spoke, it was a little more quietly, as though there were sensitive ears who might overhear. Spike alone leaned in close to listen, though he was already sitting next to her. "If you needed any help managing the bits, I would be happy to assist in that department as well."

As Twilight had predicted, Applejack's face darkened immediately with the mention of money. While she was an excellent farmer and a wonderful salespony, she hardly knew what to do with the bits you actually put in her hooves. No matter how good the crops had been, it always seemed like the family was barely scraping by. At least, that was how it used to be.

She didn't get upset this time, though. As a matter of fact, she looked a little proud. "Ah appreciate it, but ah think we'll manage. The farm's finances is all settled now." Maybe if she were anypony else she would have left it at that, but Applejack wasn't one to stay quiet about anything. Twilight was blushing before she had even started talking again. "Ever since ah turned over mah finances to Twilight here, we've been doin' just fine. What did you call that new-fangled thing you up an' worked out fer us?"

"A trust fund," she explained, avoiding Applejack's eyes. Of course, it hadn't been very hard. A few good years and Applejack's carefully managed bits were already making almost as much as the farm did. Paying a few cousins to run the place for a few months wouldn't even scratch the bits Applejack had now. But then, Applejack didn't really know that. She refused to listen whenever Twilight tried to tell her how much money she had. She wouldn't hear of expanding the farm, wouldn't hear of buying more property. That was for "rich folk," and she wanted no part of it.

"Right, that. There's more than enough fer compensation for the labor and to keep the farm runnin'. It's all been taken care-" A series of strange faint noises at the door interrupted Applejack, as though someone were fumbling with the doorknob and not managing to get it open. No small wonder, since most of the doorknobs in Equestria were only there to be gripped in the teeth to close the doors.

"Pinkie Pie, no doubt." Rarity glanced over her shoulder towards the door. "I never knew her to be truant to a party. Brace yourselves, she's probably going to try and make up for it with something loud and obnoxious." As it turned out, Rarity was only half right. It was Pinkie Pie.

Not that Twilight could tell at first. The shape that came through the door was a pony, or at least it resembled one. Armor plates covered her body so completely there was no opening for her tail, gray and glittering. There was a bright red symbol on the barrel, printed onto either side. Various bits were raised from the armor, tools or weapons perhaps. It was hard to tell what human machines were when you weren't looking closely, since they made everything so small and similar-looking.

The occupants of the room stared in open shock at the figure, and the room was dead silent except for the click of metal horseshoes on the crystal floor. The strange pony stopped by the table, and twitched slightly to one side. Sensing some sort of command, the helmet began to retract, collapsing in several segments and folding itself away into the neck-segments. Up close, it was clear the armor was a little thicker than what the humans wore, almost like what the Solar and Lunar Guard wore.

Only once the helmet was gone did they all see Pinkie's smiling face, grinning as wide as ever. Her mane had been tightly woven into a bun on her back, though it didn't look big enough to have all that frizzy pink fur. How much had she had to cut? "Hey everypony! I hope I didn't miss the whole party!" Then, as though nothing in the world had ever changed, she bounced her way to the refreshment table and came back with a plate heavily laden with sugary snacks. She plopped herself down on one of the comfortable reading chairs, which sagged visibly under her significantly-increased mass.

"Pinkie dear, you simply must explain this crime against fashion!" Her eyes took in the armor, and the disgust was almost visible. "It's so... Medieval. Draconian, even. Nightmare Night is months away!"

Twilight wished she could think that this was just another of Pinkie's pranks. A strange one perhaps, and maybe a little tactless. But she knew full well it wasn't. She had heard the whine of servos and watched the complicated mechanical action needed to retract the helmet and sensed no magic. Still, she wasn't about to make it easier for Pinkie by explaining for her. It hurt. At least Applejack had warned her of her intentions the moment she had decided to volunteer.

"This isn't a costume, silly!" Pinkie Pie answered, with a mouth full of frosting. "It's armor! Or... Vanguard Nuclear Paramedical Armor. Something really long and hard to remember!" She twisted her body, so that the symbol on the side faced Applejack. Twilight recognized it now: a red cross with the twisting asklepian etched faintly into the center. "Yours is just like this, only... without the medical part. Oh! And more guns! Pretty sure it had more guns." She took another huge bite of the cake, managing to slide the entire rest of the slice down at once.

"Mine only has one of those, but it can still do all the other neat things! Check this out!" She twitched again, differently than the last time. As though she had flipped a switch, the surface of the armor began to shimmer. It seemed as though she had suddenly become transparent, and had become a floating head and a plate of treats. Rarity gasped and Fluttershy whimpered, but Twilight only nodded. It wasn't as though the illusion did anything to conceal Pinkie Pie's magical signature. She could still feel her in the room. Besides, she could still see the armor if she really looked.

Pinkie didn't leave the illusion on long, and just as swiftly as she had "vanished" the rest of her reappeared, complete with the bright red medical symbol on her armor. The other ponies in the room visibly relaxed, and Pinkie Pie went back to eating.

Applejack spoke up, voice quieter than usual. "What made you join up, Pinkie?"

The party pony seemed to consider the question for a moment as she chewed. "Welllll... with a war and everything, I've been trying to think of what I could do to make things better for everypony. First, I thought I could plan this biiiiiiiiiiiiig party, the biggest party in history! We could invite the dragons and everypony would have so much fun they wouldn't want to hurt each other anymore! Except... I don't know where any of the dragons live, so where would I send the invitations? Plus, I was reading in a book once that goblins can't read, so none of them would be able to come, and that wouldn't be much of a party. So I tried to think of something else. It took me almost all night! Thinking about it, I realized that some of the happiest I've ever seen anypony was when I was working as an EMT."

Of course, that remark didn't surprise anyone. Event planning wasn't profitable all the time, so Pinkie needed a day job. Twilight had never needed her help, but from what she had seen of Pinkie at work it was like another pony entirely, all concentration and flat mane. Pinkie Pie went on, speaking faster and faster with every sentence. "And it makes sense! What's a better reason to smile than getting back something you lost?" She blinked, and her voice became quieter, a little of the bounce gone. "Because of me, ponies who wouldn't have will get to come home. There won't be as many orphans."

There was a long silence. Twilight glanced briefly at the spot beside her on the couch, where Rainbow Dash should've been sitting. She sniffed, wiped a tear away with one of her forelegs, and managed to collect herself enough to speak. "I'm glad you thought this through, Pinkie. Joining with the humans is no different than joining the Solar or Lunar Guard. You're giving up your freedom. You’ve agreed to obey orders and do lots of hard work. You won't be able to leave to throw parties whenever you want." Of course Twilight had told all of that to Applejack, but it hadn't made a difference with her either. Applejack came from a long line of military ponies, and she sure wasn't the sort of pony to be lecturing about the importance of hard work.

Applejack smiled. "Ah can't think a’ anypony else I'd rather have along, Pinkie. If yer docterin' is anywhere as good as your parties, I'm sure Big Mac and I will make it back just fine."