I don't trust a mare that doesn't have something strange going on about her, 'cause that means she's hiding it from you.

“Back in Seaddle, again,” I sighed as our group passed through the town’s front entrance, “I don’t know about anypony else, but I think we could stand to linger here for about a week,” sure, the valley was in peril, and there was still a good bit to get done before any of us could truly rest, but it wasn’t like everything was going to come crashing down around our ears any time soon. Besides, recent events in Santa Mara had left me more mentally exhausted than I could remember being in months.

I needed a vacation.

“I’m not going to argue,” Foxglove said as she idly stretched out her tired leg muscles.

“I didn’t even know a pony could get bunions on their hooves, but here we are,” Starlight Glimmer added, stepping rather gingerly.

Yatima mumbled something from where she was splayed across Arginine’s back, but I hadn’t quite been able to make it out. Ramparts chuckled at whatever it was and craned his head up to nuzzle the mare, eliciting a faint smile. Then he nuzzled the colt snoozing on his own back, “Let’s get you mares to the apartment,” the stallion sighed, cringing slightly, “then I’ll need to report back to my commander and see how much trouble I’m in.”

This prompted a concerned look from Foxglove and myself, “do you want me to come with you?” I offered. It was at least possible that a good word put in on his behalf from The Wonderbolt might help avoid any serious reprimands he might be in for.

He shook his head, “nah, I’ll be okay. Besides, I’ve got a lot of intel that I can given them about Old Reino and that Steel Ranger attack on McMaren,” then he frowned slightly and rubbed the back of his head, “though...this might be ‘goodbye’. I’m not seeing any way I’ll be given leave to travel with you any more. I mean, I’ll ask, but I’m an officer in Her Majesty’s Guard, and a Courser besides; I have obligations, you know?”

I nodded, “no worries, Ramparts, we understand,” I walked up to the stallion and extended my hoof, “it was great having you along. You have my pipbuck tag. If you’re ever in a bind, don’t hesitate to call in a little air support, eh?”

The brown earth pony bumped my offered hoof with his own and rolled his eyes, “no offense, but it won’t do my career any favors if I have to keep getting bailed out by a little filly. If it happens a third time, command might wonder why they don’t just go and give you command of my squad…”

I grinned at the stallion and watched him pass off his young son to Foxglove, who was all too happy to carry the little burden the rest of the way to the apartment. The others said their own goodbyes and we allowed the stallion to depart. It was hard to see him go like that. Though I hadn’t set out with any intention to collect the menagerie of ponies that were traveling with me, it had felt nice to have so many others around me. Still, I had quite a few more companions yet at my side, so I doubted that I was going to be feeling lonely any time soon.

Of course, standing inside the now very cramped feeling apartment served to remind me that there were advantages to having a much smaller entourage. This place had been cozy when it had been just me and Jackboot. Five full grown ponies and a young colt made the little one-room domicile nearly claustrophobic! Fortunately, there wasn’t a need for us all to remain in there for very long. Yatima would stay of course, resting with her child. After all, the place was basically hers as far as I was concerned. I’d tracked down our landlord and informed him of the change in residency. Not that he cared all that much who was using the room as long as the caps came in on time.

To that end, I’d contributed enough to extend Yatima’s lease out to a full year before she needed to worry about things. It was amazing how much spending capital I had on me now that I’d given up drinking…

Arginine was elected to stay with the zebra mare while the rest of us went out. None of us needed him for anything at the moment, and we all felt better not leaving Yatima and her foal alone in a city she was unfamiliar with. Foxglove headed off for the market to pawn off our loot and buy what tools and parts she’d need to conduct long overdo servicing on our equipment.

That left Starlight and I to make our report to Prime Minister Ebony Song. He probably wasn’t going to be super thrilled that we hadn’t actually come back with the weapons that he’d sent us to find, but I figured that providing the Republic with their coordinates should be the next best thing. I had Starlight with me in case it took extra persuasion to get him to part with the computer that they’d stolen from the Steel Rangers. After all, the pink unicorn mare had actually met Princess Luna in a bygone era; who better to be able to bargain with the NLR’s ruler?

“An old opera house, eh?” Starlight remarked as we approached the Republic’s principle government building, and the official residence of Princess Luna, “why didn’t they try and use the city’s old capitol building?”
I nodded, “from what I understand, it doesn’t exist anymore. It got burned to the ground during some war between whatever groups existed before there was even a Commonwealth.”

“So the world already just blew up because of a war, and ponies still didn’t see any reason to not fight anymore?” The pink mare sighed, dejected, “maybe we are hopeless.”

“Maybe,” I shrugged, “but I’m hoping we’re all just slow learners, like me,” I offered the older mare a reassuring smile, but it achieved very limited results. She still wasn’t handling seeing all of this devastation well. For me, this was how the world had always looked. Starlight kept seeing a mockery of the golden age of prosperity that ponykind had once known.
Sort of like I’d felt when I went back to my family’s destroyed ranch. A place so full of warm feelings and happy memories, transformed into a burnt and blood-soaked abattoir of death. Just multiplied about a million times for her, I supposed, “we’re rebuilding though,” I pointed out, gesturing to the bustling city around us, however tattered it might look, “some day the Wasteland might look like the world you remember.”

“Maybe,” Starlight uttered in a tone that brimmed with doubt.

“Come on,” I urged, nudging the pink unicorn, “let’s go rescue a foal. Today’s a good day to make the Wasteland a slightly less shitty place for somepony,” that at least seemed to cheer her up. Marginally. So I added, “who knows, maybe we’ll get pointed in the direction of your daughter!”

Starlight winced and looked away.

Okay, bad call, Windfall. I cringed and thought up a way to salvage the misstep, but was headed off by the other mare speaking again, “I know you mean well. Thank you. I’d just...it really hurts to think about it, okay?”

I nodded and firmly buttoned up my lips, lest I accidently say something else to put the mood off further.

We approached the guards standing watch at the front door, and I found myself wondering if I maybe should have brought Ramparts along to expedite this. We weren’t here during the normally scheduled petitioning hours, so there was the possibility that we might be turned away without even being let inside. I was hoping that I could at least get them to pass word to Ebony Song that I was back. He’d want to see me, certainly.

“This place isn’t open to the public right now, citizen,” the first guard, an older unicorn mare said in an iron tone, “come back in the morning.”

I opened my mouth to make my case, but found myself cut off by the younger earth pony stallion at her side, “sarge, that’s the Wonderbolt!” he said in equal parts awe and surprise. I felt myself shifting to stand a little taller, a smile tugging at my lips. I suppose there was something to wearing a flashy costume after all! I could see why the Wonderbolts of old must have done it.

The uniformed mare did not seem to be nearly as impressed by me as her cohort was though, and merely snorted, “and? We’re still not open to the public. The last I checked, the Wonderbolt is a member of the ‘public’.”

A frown replaced my grin, but it didn’t seem like all was lost quite yet as the other guard spoke up, “didn’t the captain say we’re supposed to contact the Prime Minister if she arrives?”

The unicorn glared at the younger pony, “so then contact him!” the stallion cowered briefly before cantering through the door, leaving Starlight and I alone with the gruff unicorn mare, who resumed glaring at us.
I cleared my throat and glanced around idly, “we’ll just...wait here.”

“You do that.”

Starlight and I waited in uncomfortable silence for what felt like a much longer period of time that it had probably been until the stallion returned, “I’m to escort the two of you to the Prime Minister’s residence right away,” he managed to get out between pants, “he’s eager to see you, Wonderbolt.”

The pink unicorn mare and I exchanged glances and she looked to the opera house while I spoke to the guards again, “I was really hoping to see both Ebony Song and Princess Luna,” I began, “is there any way he can meet us here?”

His face blanked for a moment as he fumbled to craft a reply, “well, I, um…” It was his superior who delivered the answer though, and rather gruffly, at that, “Her Royal Highness has retired for the day,” she insisted in what was very nearly a growl, flashing a brief glare at her subordinate before looking back at us, “the private here will take you to see the Prime Minister. He will pass on any concerns that are worth taking up the Princess’ valuable time.

“End of discussion,” she added with a curled lip as she spied Starlight about to form a complaint of her own.

I frowned, but didn’t see much of a point in arguing, “fine,” I motioned to the stallion with my wing, “let’s get going then,” I could also see the protest perched upon Starlight’s lips. I could even sympathize. She was so close, after all, to seeing the first familiar face―indeed, the last one left to her―since awakening in the Wasteland, “he’ll get us an audience when he hears what we have to say,” I added loud enough to be heard by all; to both reassure Starlight and as a way to shoot a barb at the obstinate guardsmare. It earned me a final parting glare, which I took as a small victory.

“Sorry about the sergeant back there,” our escort offered once we’d left earshot. He, at least, seemed to be a much more approachable sort, “a lot of the ponies who show up to get some time with the Princess can be pretty pushy. So, naturally, you have to be ready to push back. Hard.”

Starlight perked up, looking at our escort, “wait, you mean that Luna actually does see ponies?”

The guard furrowed his brow, “of course she does. She holds Court five days a week, for nearly half the day. Hundreds of ponies bring her their problems every week,” he narrowed his eyes slightly at the mare, “are you new to Seaddle or something?”

A sharp laugh escaped from my mouth, “ha! More like ‘old’ to Seaddle!” I enjoyed a hearty chuckle, only later noticing the unamused glare from Starlight, and the confusion from the guard, “sorry,” I smiled sheepishly, “that was funnier in my head.”

“Right…”

“Suffice to say,” the pink unicorn said, looking back to the guard, “I’m not familiar with the area. It’s...been a while.”

“Ah! Well, I guess you do look kind of old,” I noticed the mare narrow her cyan eyes crticially at the stallion, but he’d turned away by then and didn’t notice, “so you might have left before she returned…” he thought for a moment, “not quite twenty years ago, but close. It’s a good time to come back though!” he added, grinning at her briefly, “she’s making great strides to rebuild the valley and restore Equestria!”

“You don’t say,” Starlight said as she regarded the dilapidated buildings around her.

“Mmh-hmm! Once we finally kick those fucking tin mules out of Neighvada, the world will be fixed in no time.”

Anypony who’d spent more than a week around Seaddle, listening to the Princess’ daily broadcasts would have recognized that rhetoric. It was the theme of nearly all of her speeches: beat back the Steel Rangers, and the restoration of Equestria would follow soon after. Once upon a time, I’d been about as much of a believer in that narrative as this guard was now. However, Jackboot had been ever the cynic, and a bit of that had rubbed off on me. I couldn’t exactly put a hoof on anything concrete, but something about those grand promises rang hollow with me these days.

Of course I was still hoping in the back of my mind that I was wrong, and that Princess Luna would be able to deliver on a restored Equestria. I just...well, I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high. The Wasteland had a tendency to shit all over anypony who got optimistic about the future.

Indeed, Starlight was looking even more skeptical than I was right now. Curious, I let us drop back a little further behind the stallion escorting us and leaned in close to the mare, “something wrong?”

The mare frowned, “I don’t know. I did know Princess Luna though. At least, I knew the way she ruled when Princess Celestia stepped down.

“She never held Court like her sister did, not that I ever heard about anyway. If you weren’t a Ministry Mare or a part of her little circle of advisors, nopony got time with her. I didn’t even get time with her, and I was just a couple steps from being a Ministry Mare myself!”

“Well, I mean, she doesn’t have any ministries anymore,” I pointed out, “so maybe she changed the way she does things.”

“Maybe,” it was clear that the unicorn wasn’t convinced though, “I’m kind of surprised she didn’t make some more ministries…”

Funnily enough, Starlight seemed to actually be put at ease when we arrived at the Prime Minister’s private estate. It probably helped her to think of Ebony Song as a surrogate Ministry Mare...er, stallion. Something about her demeanor certainly shifted the moment we were ushered into the stallion’s study.

The pony that we had been brought to see was currently lounging on a sofa that looked to be in surprisingly good condition, given its age. A glass of wine was hovering beside him, which he set down once he caught sight of us, “ah, Miss Windfall, or do you prefer to be called ‘The Wonderbolt’, as that...delightful mare on the radio dubs you?” his smile seemed a bit strained now. Probably because a lot of ponies were tuning in to listen to Homily when he’d rather they keep giving the broadcasts of Princess Luna their undivided attention, “you have good news, I presume?”

I felt my gaze narrow slightly. How had he managed to make my pseudonym sound like he was mocking me? Whatever, “I’ve got the coordinates for the cache you’re looking for,” I confirmed, earning a very satisfied smile from the stallion, “I’ve even managed to reach an agreement with the Steel Rangers: they’ll withdraw from the valley,” this, Ebony Song had clearly not expected to hear. I took some small measure of satisfaction in seeing the look of genuine surprise rob the arrogant stallion of his composure, if only briefly. My own smile grew a bit more as I delivered what I knew would really catch him off guard, “all they want in return is for you to give up the computer you stole from them.”

However, it wasn’t surprise that crossed the Prime Minister’s face for that brief fraction of a second before he composed himself. It had been fear. There had been an instant of terror on the stallion’s face, which he quickly hid behind a snarl, “absolutely not!” he spat, glaring at me, “that equipment is vital to the security of Her Majesty’s Republic!”

“It’s a computer with a foal inside of it!” It was Starlight who had spoken up now, matching Ebony Song’s reproachful stare with her own piercing blue eyes, “does Princess Luna even know what it is you’ve got? Because if it’s the Luna that I know, she’d never stand for it! She loved foals; she treasured them like every colt and filly of the princedom was her own! She’d never condone those computers, ever!”

That surprise was back again as Ebony Song seemed to finally take notice of the mare that I’d brought with me. I suppose there was no reason for him to have really given Starlight a second look before. I was the one in flashy blue barding with metal wing covers. Standing next to me, the pink unicorn mare looked rather plain and uninteresting.

The Prime Minister noticed her now though, and he once again composed himself as he addressed her, “and who are you, that presumes to know Her Royal Majesty so well, exactly?”

“My name is Starlight Glimmer, and I used to work for the Ministry of Arcane Science, under Ministry Mare Twilight Sparkle,” that was the first time I’d ever heard her use the long dead ministry mare’s name without half gagging while she said it, “and I assure you I know quite a bit about Princess Luna from before the war.”

There was that fear again. Brief, but evident. This time though, the Prime Minister didn’t seem to manage a complete recovery of his demeanor like he had before. Indeed, he was looking rather pale for a pony that had a complexion as dark as his, “I see,” he said, swallowing back a lump in his throat, “that’s a rather...fantastic tale, I hope you realize. You’ll pardon my skepticism.”

“Let me speak with Princess Luna and I’ll prove who I am. Then I’ll tell her all about what you took from the Rangers and she’ll make you give it up herself, I guarantee it.”

“Her Majesty’s time is valuable,” Ebony Song began, “I will, of course, see where you can be worked into a meeting, but it could be quite some time. In the meantime, I’d like the coordinates for that cache, if you don’t mind.”

“Meeting with the Princess first,” I growled at the stallion, “then you get your weapons. This will end the war, and without anypony else having to die, Republican or Ranger. How is that not worth giving up one computer?”

The Prime Minister’s expression was become more flustered as he looked between the two of us, “as I said: it is vital to the Republic. It cannot be given up! Now, give me the coordinates. The Steel Rangers are still abiding by that little ‘truce’ you arranged,” why did he not sound very thankful for that? “Which means they can be taken by surprise and beaten swiftly; but only with those weapons.

“The same weapons that you require the Republic to use against that stable who have been raiding merchant caravans, I’ll remind you. You are putting innocent pony’s lives at risk by refusing to do your duty as a Republic citizen!”

“If this is all so important and ‘time sensitive’, then why do we have to wait for a meeting with Princess Luna?” Starlight demanded, “are you telling me she’s too busy for a five minute talk about national security?”

“She―I―that’s―Give me the coordinates, now!” the Prime Minister finally snapped. Behind me, I could hear booted hooves clattering along the floors outside as ponies came to investigate the reason for the shouting, “or you will be held for treason!”

“Treason?” both Starlight and I balked in unison.

“How the fuck are we committing treason?” I demanded.

“You conspired with the enemy without Her Highness’ permission, in an effort to deprive Her Republic of valuable military hardware, for one thing,” the dark stallion retorted acidly, “and that’s on top of your current failure to hand over the weapons Princess Luna needs to win the war! You will surrender them this instant!”

“The fuck I will!” I snarled at the unicorn. My attention was diverted just then as the doors behind Starlight and I burst open, allowing four Republic Guardponies to spill into the room.

“They are traitors to the Republic!” Ebony Song screamed before anypony else could say a word, “seize them!”

Oh, horseapples.

“Seize this!” Starlight spat a second before the room was bathed in cyan brilliance. When the glare cleared and I could see once again, I discovered that the two of us were now standing in the small apartment where we’d left Yatima, little Baraka, and Arginine. Of which the two adult ponies were gaping at us in surprise while the little foal snoozed.

I blinked away the last of my disorientation, thankful to the pink mare that she had bypassed the two of us needing to fight our way out of there. I had little doubt that we could have, but I didn’t want to turn Seaddle into a war zone anytime soon. Or, really, ever.

“Did...did we really just become enemies of the state?” I asked, still a little in shock by how quickly that had all managed to go downhill. What was going on with the Prime Minister that he didn’t want us to speak with Princess Luna? Dozens of ponies saw her every day!

“It certainly looks that way,” Starlight said under her breath, “I really don’t like that stallion.”

“So,” Arginine piped up, looking between the two of us, “I take it your meeting with the Princess was a rousing success then?”

Both of us turned our heads in unison to glower at the larger unicorn stallion. He was unphased by our wordless opinion of the quality of his ill-timed humor, “we didn’t even make it that far,” I grunted as I started packing my saddlebags, “and now it looks like we might have to leave.”

“Leave? What’s going on?” Yatima asked in a tone that was more than a little concerned.

I glanced at the striped mare and her young colt. The trip from Santa Mara to Seaddle had been rough enough for them. Travel like that wasn’t something that should be subjected to a new mother and her infant child. Would it be safe to leave her here though? The Lancers had used her to get to me, after all. I doubted very much right now that Ebony Song wouldn’t stoop to those same depths of depravity.

Though, I realized, I did have allies here too. Ponies who owed me favors, and who I knew weren’t complete scumbags, “it’s looking like most of us are going to have to leave, yeah,” I looked back at Arginine, “do you remember how to get to the Galician’s house?” he nodded, “take Yatima there. Tell Summer Glade and Endo that the Wonderbolt is calling in a favor: I want them to get her, and her foal, to New Reino,” again I thought, racking my brain for additional names that I knew I could count on.

I looked at Yatima, “when you get to New Reino, go to the Flash in the Pan Casino. Find the manager there, her name is Double Pitch. I have an account with the casino that should have some money in it. It’s not a whole lot, but I’ll send you more when I can. Tell her you’re making a withdrawal against my account, and give her the pass-phrase: ‘home on the range’. I’ll write it down for you,” I turned to do just that, and saw that Starlight had already scribbled out my list of instructions with the names and places underlined, passing it to the zebra mare. She had just finished slinging her colt on her back, and took the instructions in her uncertain hooves. I stepped up and cupped my wings around the mare, “you’ll be fine. I promise, and I’m sorry for doing this to you,” I pulled back slightly, “I’ll let Ramparts know where he can find you.”

My gaze went to Arginine, who had set about packing the striped mare’s bags and now had them draped across his own back, “get her there safe, then make your way out of the city. Meet on the south side of the Ruins.”

“You are leaving as well?”

There was almost the next best thing to concern in the stallion’s voice, prompting a smile from myself, “we’re going to find Foxglove first...” I glanced back at the pink unicorn, who nodded in confirmation of the plan, “...and then we’re going to arrange our own audience with Princess Luna,” I received another nod from Starlight, as well as a wry smile. My gaze returned to Arginine, “who knows, maybe we can fix this whole mess before it gets out of hoof,” I thought for a moment and rolled my eyes, “further out of hoof, anyway.”

“Very well. Miss Yatima?” the two equines, who made quite the odd pairing, slipped out of the apartment and into the fading twilight as night approached.

I opened my mouth to suggest to Starlight where we should start looking for our other unicorn companion, but found myself interrupted by a burst from my pipbuck, “Windfall, are you there?” Ramparts’ voice crackled through the speaker, “I just heard a guard-wide broadcast that said there was a bolo out on The Wonderbolt for ‘Crimes Against the State’. You’ve been here an hour! What did you do?!”

I didn’t manage to suppress the amused snort that the stallion’s equal parts impressed and exasperated tone elicited. Admittedly, even I was pretty amazed that I’d somehow found a way to flip my standing with the Republic from ‘celebrated hero’ to ‘public enemy number one’ in the course of a two minute talk with one pony. I only hoped that an equally brief conversation with Luna was all it would take to undo the damage…

“We had a talk with the Prime Minister,” I replied into my pipbuck, “we told him the Rangers wanted their computer back. He didn’t like that. He demanded the coordinates for the cache, and we told him ‘not without the computer’. Then he called us ‘traitors’ and sicked the guards on us.

“So how’s your day going?”

“Oh, you know, just mourning the fiery end of my otherwise illustrious career. Thanks for that, by the way,” the stallion grumbled, “Where’s Yatima?”

“Yatima’s safe, and she’s going to stay that way,” I assured him, “and why would your career be affected by me being a criminal?”

“It’s not like I made it a secret to my commander who I was going to be traveling with. And Miss Neighvada’s been telling half the valley about the Republic soldier traveling with The Wonderbolt,” he pointed out. Oh. Right. I really shouldn’t have messed around with that ‘taking sole credit’ stuff, “nopony’s officially looking for me yet to ask me about you, but it’s only a matter of time before Prime Minister Ebony Song finds out who your friends are and comes after me.

“What’s your plan for dealing with this?”

“We’re going to speak directly with the Princess,” I informed him, “we’ll explain things to her, and get everything worked out,” a thought occurred to me, “in fact, it might help to have you with us. You’re part of her elite forces or something, right? You’d be able to throw a little of your weight around and get past the palace guards,” and I would take no small amount of pleasure in seeing that gruff unicorn mare taken down a peg by a superior officer.

“Well, I guess I may as well abuse my rank a little while I still have it,” the stallion muttered with a resigned sigh, “this better work out. I don’t want to be standing around in the middle of the most heavily protected building in the heart of the Republic if we still need to run when this goes south.”

You and me both, I thought acidly. I was good, but I didn’t for a moment think I was ‘fight off an immortal alicorn goddess’ good, “Relax, worse cast scenario, Starlight blips us right out of there. Right?” I asked, grinning at the pink mare, who frowned and grunted, idly rubbing her horn.

“Don’t expect to get far,” she warned in a stern tone, “I’ve burned out twice in as many weeks. I’m going to do genuine harm to my horn if I keep pushing myself like this…”

“Like I said: worst case scenario,” I pointed out, “I mean, you’re sure that Princess Luna will see reason, right?”

The mare gave a curt nod, “she cares very deeply about foals; she always has. That should be all that matters when we tell her how those computers work.”

“Good,” I turned back to my pipbuck, “we’re going to collect Foxglove. Meet us in front of the palace.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” there was a brief burst of static as the stallion ended his transmission.

“I don’t suppose you’ve thought about how you’re going to be able to make it through the city,” Starlight asked, gesturing at my quite recognizable barding, “if word’s already spread through the guard, how long will it be before the general public finds out you’re a wanted mare?”

I frowned and looked down at myself. She had a point. Even if I didn’t think that the whole city would forget all of Homily’s broadcasts and turn on me in an instant, all it would really take is for a few ‘loyal citizens of Her Majesty’s Republic’ to report me to the guard. The simplest answer was to shuck my signature colors and just go out there as Windfall. Ponies didn’t know the Wonderbolt was just some pegasus filly―save for a chosen few, at least.

The downside there was that it meant that if something did go wrong and I was discovered, I’d be without my armor, my weapons, or the Gale Force. That was a heck of a handicap to place on myself, given the circumstances.

Then a thought occurred to me and and started rummaging through my saddlebags. I found what I was looking for and pulled out the prototype holographic projection device. If I remembered correctly, Foxglove had once told me how she used the device to get Jackboot out of Republic custody by disguising herself as a guard to gain access. I could so no reason why that same strategy couldn’t work for me too. Though, I suspected that just trying to pass the lot of us off as a group of NLR soldiers wouldn’t work. Fellow soldiers or not, they probably wouldn’t just let us in to see Princess Luna without a really good reason, or at the very least authorization from somepony important.

Like, say, the Prime Minister...

“Hey, Starlight, you’re good with magic, right?”

The pink unicorn mare glanced over at me, “I haven’t come across a spell yet that I couldn’t cast. Why?”

“How about illusions? Could you create an illusion of Ebony Song?”

Starlight Glimmer rolled her eyes, which was immediately followed by a cyan glow illuminating her horn. An instant later, a third occupant appeared in the small apartment, who bore an uncanny resemblance to the dark unicorn stallion. My lips spread into a smile as the plan began to come together in my head.

“This isn’t going to work,” I heard Foxglove’s voice say, coming from the direction of a set of black lips that belonged to a stallion.

“It’ll be fine,” I assured her in a low whisper as we approached the opera house, “just let Ramparts do all the talking while you just stand there and look really annoyed.”

“I am really annoyed,” the mare/stallion growled, glaring briefly at me, “seriously, how exactly did you manage to get branded a traitor to the Republic in less than an hour?”

“Ha! That’s what I said,” Ramparts chuckled sardonically from up ahead.

“Not helping,” I growled at the earth pony, “and it wasn’t my fault; I already told you that.”

“Uh huh. Right,” Foxglove/Ebony Song replied, not bothering to hide her doubt as to the veracity of my claim. Fine, whatever. I didn’t need her believe me, I just needed her to keep quiet while wearing the holographic harness. I had been a little concerned with how reliable its projection would be, considering that Foxglove had been forced to make do with taking and uploading photos of Starlight’s projected illusion in lieu of the real thing. However, it seemed to be creating a convincing enough disguise.

It was good enough that it allowed me to walk in public without being charged down by any of the other Republic guards around the city. The Wonderbolt might now be a wanted mare, but seeing her in the custody of both the Prime Minister and a couple of uniformed military personnel suggested to everypony that the matter had been taken care of. The best part was that nopony felt compelled to call up to the real Ebony Song and tell him that I’d been ‘captured’, since ‘he’ was standing right next to me!

“Alright, everpony quiet,” Ramparts warned. We all buttoned our lips and adopted suitably bland expressions as the guards at the front entrance to Princess Luna’s palace took note of us. In the dim light that was provided by a few scattered floodlight which served to illuminate the guard post, I could see the expressions of the guards shift quickly from bored curiosity to genuine surprise.

“Prime Minister!” the gruff unicorn mare from earlier exclaimed, straightening up reflexively. Then she caught sight of me, and I saw her features noticeably hardened, but she said nothing. Instead, she kept her attention on the pony who helped their alicorn monarch to run her government, “our apologies, sir, but nopony called ahead to let us know you were coming.”

She seemed a little surprised to see that it was not Ebony Song, but the officer leading the band, who replied, “that’s because this is a meeting that never happened,” the brown earth pony stallion very nearly growled at the unicorn mare, “no calls, no records. Is that understood, sergeant?”

“I―” the mare began, glancing between the lieutenant and the Prime Minister, who issued a solemn looking nod of confirmation. The guard swallowed and nodded her own understanding, “yes, sir. Understood, sir,” she took a step back and snapped a salute at the group, a movement that was mirrored by the other guard sharing the post with her.

Ramparts stepped forwards and held the door open for the rest of us, and we passed through in silence. Only when the door was closed and we were well inside of the opera house’s lobby did I allow myself to breathe a sigh of relief. The plan had worked. We were inside the palace. Now all that was left to do was confront Princess Luna and get Starlight to convince her to give up the computer that had been stolen from the Steel Rangers. Starlight was certain that would be no trouble at all for her to do, so I wasn’t feeling particularly worried about it either. Right now, we just needed to concentrate on tracking down where the princess was.

“I don’t suppose you know where the princess’ personal quarters are?” I asked out resident guardspony. To which he frowned and shook his head. I sighed and took the lead of the group, “well, there’s only so many rooms in this place. We’ll start with the throne room,” if nothing else, once we got close enough I’d be able to pick up a blip on my pipbuck that would help to guide us.

The four of us entered the throne room and began to slowly advance towards the far end, where the large throne of state, and the smaller chair reserved for the Prime Minister were located. The large, cavernous, room which had once been the main performance hall of the building was bathed in darkness. The only sources of light were the lamps on Ramparts’ and my pipbucks, and the glows of Starlight’s and Foxglove’s horns. The competing rays of illumination splashed the walls with dancing shadows that made it hard to track what was movement and what was just a trick of the light. As a result, I found my gaze rooted firmly to my Eyes Forward Sparkle.

“Whoa, contact!” I said, freezing in my tracks as I spied the blip. Everypony around me came to a halt as well and looked at me, save for Ramparts, who was similarly staring off into the distance with unfocused eyes at something that only he could see. As quickly as it appeared, the blip quivered, darted off to the side in the blink of an eye, and then vanished from view.

The crimson blip.

I swallowed and started to very carefully scan the room, turning my head from side to side. Ramparts was doing the same, “I don’t suppose that there’s some sort of palace security system you forgot to mention?” I asked the stallion in a hushed whisper.

“I’m not part of the palace detail,” he replied in a tone that betrayed his own tense demeanor at being faced with an unknown threat, “there could be a hundred hidden turrets lining the walls for all I know!”

“That level of security would require a lot more power than I saw running into the building,” Foxglove remarked in a deceptively conversational tone that quivered ever so slightly, “and I’m not hearing any generators running that would make up for the power deficit.”

“I’m pretty sure we’d have been gunned down by now anyway, if that was the case,” I pointed out.

“Great,” Starlight grumbled, “so we’re probably going to die, we just don’t know how yet…”

“There!” Ramparts exclaimed, jabbing a hoof into the darkness. I whipped around as well and, sure enough, spotted the crimson hashmark. I flexed my wings and tensed up my hooves in preparation to take to the air the moment we were attacked, but I was keenly aware of the disadvantage that I was at. Our light sources didn’t quite make it all the way to the far wall, so I couldn’t quite make out anything to actually engage.

Just as before, the blip darted off to the side and was gone, “it’s behind us,” I hissed, spinning around and catching the blip once more.

“It couldn’t have gotten past us,” Ramparts growled past the trigger bit in his mouth. Then a thought occurred to him and her crouched down on his haunches, raising the barrels of his rifles at a steep angle, “it’s above us!”

All our eyes immediately went up to the ceiling. I felt myself cringing as I contemplated how, while engaging an invisible opponent was undesirable enough, having to fight a flying enemy that I couldn’t see would be downright unsavory! Besides, flight was supposed to be my thing. The things that I fought weren’t allowed to fly too!

“BWAA HA HA HA HAAA!”

The deep, gleeful, cackling of a mare seemed to come from everywhere all at once, echoing throughout the spacious throne room. I felt it resonate down in my very bones with its volume, and all concerns that it might be heard by the guards outside were lost as the blip vanished once more, spurring us to scan our surroundings for the spectral source of the laughter.

“Well….that was a might unsettling,” Ramparts swallowed.

Understatement of the year, right there, I thought even as I fought down my own trepidation and forced myself to confront our antagonizer. Whoever she was, they weren’t staying in place for very long anymore, continuously darting from one location to another, and if there was a pattern to their movements, I hadn’t picked up on it yet. Eventually, I gave up, exasperated and just yelled out. I didn’t need to see this mystery mare to talk to her.

“I’m The Wonderbolt, and I demand an audience with Princess Luna!” I called out to the blip.

The was no immediate response, as the blip continued to flash across my vision intermittently. The the reverberating echo that drilled right into your eardrums returned, “YOU HAVE INVADED THE REALM OF THE RIGHTFUL RULER OF EQUESTRIA!”

Okay, so maybe ‘demand’ have been a poor choice of words on my part, I thought with a wince. Diplomacy had not been high on Jackboot’s list of educational topics, “alright, my bad,” I said in a slightly less aggressive tone. In fairness, I had come into another pony’s house uninvited. Perhaps deference was indeed in order, “I...humbly request an audience with Her, um, Majesty, to discuss an important matter, uh, concerning the Steel Rangers?”

“Then an audience you shall have,” all of our eyes riveted in the direction of the vacant thrones. Only, the largest among them was not vacant any longer. Seated upon it was a pony whose size put Pritchel, Arginine, and Star Paladin Hoplite all to shame. The slender onyx figure, so dark in color that it seemed to actually absorb light, was easily taller than three typical ponies stacked upon one another. Her brilliant baby blue eyes glowed around slitted pupils which glared, unblinking, down at at us. Flowing down around her, billowing in a breeze that seemed to exist only for it, was a mane of deep blue, speckled with pinpricks of white light. Silver armor, polished to a mirror finish, adorned her figure, adding to her regal splendor, despite its apparent simplicity, “what do you seek from Your Princess?

“Speak,” the Princess who ruled over the New Lunar Republic commanded, “and pray that you make this worth Our attention,” the last was said in a tone that, in no small way, made clear that she was not interested in wasting her moments on frivolous matters.

I found that my throat had gone suddenly very dry. Here was the pony that I had specifically come here to speak with, and I couldn’t even find my voice. Admittedly, I now found that I hadn’t really prepared myself for this confrontation. Nothing about what I had seen in the posters hung around the city, or heard on the daily broadcasts, had left within me the sense of...foreboding that seeing Princess Luna in real life filled me with. My mind raced back over the scattered descriptions that I’d picked up from ponies who’d had an audience with her, and I still couldn’t conjure up an image of this mare with them in mind.

Movement beside me caught my attention briefly, and I noticed that Ramparts had bent his foreleg to the princess in supplication. His face had paled noticeably, and the concern was evident. This was his monarch, the pony whom he had served for all of his adult life, and now he was facing the prospect that he might have pissed her off. How could he not be worried, and more than a little apologetic?

Foxglove wasn’t quite all the way to bowing yet, but even through her projected disguise I could sense her fear. She was as aware of the stories of the princess’ defeat of the White Hooves as I was, and similarly knew that the alicorn was immortal. How could anypony hope to fight a force like that if things went sideways? Besides, Foxglove was kind of in the middle of pretending to be the princess’ premier advisor. She probably wasn’t going to appreciate that very much.

Honestly, it was Starlight’s expression that surprised me the most. She was a mare who had seen Princess Luna more than any of us had, and had claimed to even be familiar with the alicorn goddess’ personality. If that was the case, then why did she look so puzzled right now? She should have been the most composed of all of us!

This was not good…

“Well?” Princess Luna asked, her low, rumbling, words rolling over the throne room and sending a tingling sensation right up through the bones in my legs, “I said: speak!”

I swallowed back the lump of fear in my throat. It looked like none of the others were in any state to address the alicorn, and this had all been my idea, so…

“Princess, Your Majesty-Highness...ness,” the jet mare narrowed her pupils even further at me, “I’m here representing, well, um...me. And also the Steel Rangers, kind of,” I should have written down some talking points or something, “you see, some ponies in your Republic took something from them, and they want it back, and that’s why there’s a war…” I winced. Of course Princess Luna knew why her Republic was at war with the Rangers, you dummy! “Anyway,” I quickly added, beneath a glower that was growing more intense, “what you might not be aware of, is that the computer that was taken from them is powered by a foal,” I studied the princess’ features very carefully now. Starlight had been emphatic that Luna detested harm being brought to young ponies, which meant I should start seeing a more positive reaction from here on out.

“I recently found out that the Rangers didn’t know about that,” I said, feeling myself growing a little more confident now, having not been struck dead by a bolt from the alicorn quite yet, “and I have assurances from one of their Star Paladins that they don’t want the computer back anymore. But they also don’t want the Republic to have it either,” now for the hard part, “so I’m asking you to give up the computer, Your Highness. If you do that, the Rangers will leave, and the war will be over, and maybe we can even still help the filly or colt inside of it,” I quickly whisked away the memories of what had ended up happening the last time I’d tried to help without fully knowing what I was doing.

Princess Luna regarded me in silence for a long while, and I felt myself begin to grow nervous again. I’d expected her to be surprised and revolted at the revelation that the computer her Republic possessed had a young pony at its heart. From everything that Starlight had informed us, that should have been the princess’ reaction. That hadn’t been the case.

There’s been the faintest hint of surprise at the news, yes, but it seemed more like Luna had been surprised that I knew about it, than something that she, herself, had been unaware of. I was getting a sickening feeling that Starlight Glimmer might have been off in her appraisal of the situation after all. If that was the case, then we were all in a lot of trouble…

The darkness around us was lifted suddenly as every light in the ceiling burst suddenly to life, blinding me temporarily.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” my hackles shot straight up into the air as I and everypony else, save for Starlight, whirled around. The pink unicorn kept her gaze riveted upon Princess Luna instead of the group of new arrivals that had just stepped into the room. At the head of which was Prime Minister Ebony Song.

“Oh, horseapples,” I groaned, blinking away the last of the disorientation brought on by the unexpected illumination. It looked like the jig was up. Flanked to either side of the dark unicorn stallion were a quartet of armed guardsponies who looked just as unhappy to see us as as the Prime Minister himself was. I immediately began to edge closer to Starlight, as did Ramparts and Foxglove. We’d be needing a timely teleport any moment now, followed by beating a hasty retreat out of the city.

I could only have wished that the pink unicorn mare who represented our best chance at an expeditious escape was paying any amount of attention to our predicament. However, she seemed quite insistent on ignoring the reinforcements that had arrived and focusing on Princess Luna, who was still simply sitting in silence, staring at us.

Ebony Song seemed to notice this as well, and chuckled, “don’t look to ‘Her Highness’ for aide, you’ll find she’s of little help once her script has reached its end.”

“Script?” I asked, blankly, glancing briefly back at the seated monarch before returning my attention to the armed ponies once more, “what are you talking about?”

Ebony Song’s smile broadened and he looked past us at the princess, “oh, Your Highness? An audience, if you please?”

“Then an audience you shall have,” Princess Luna replied in a similar fashion to how she had spoken to us. No...not similar. Identical, down to the inflection of the individual words, to how she had spoken to us, “what do you seek from Your Princess? Speak, and pray that you make this worth Our attention.”

I looked between the princess on her throne and the Prime Minister standing with his armed escort, “I...don’t understand…” only I was starting to.

So was Foxglove, “the computer…”

“...is Princess Luna,” Ebony Song nodded as he completed the revelation that my disguised companion was just having. The stallion regarded his doppleganger with amusement, “my, I am a smart pony, aren’t I? No matter who I actually am…” taking the hint, and seeing no reason to try and maintain the charade any longer, Foxglove terminated her holographic projection and revealed her identity. Ebony Song chuckled again, “imagine my surprise when my staff was contacted to inquire why no warning of my visit to to the palace had been given? Very clever,” he reached out his hoof, “I think our technicians should like to take a closer look at this technology, now that we have a disposable example of it. I suspect our spies could make great use of it.”

Surrounded, outgunned, and our best means of escape was still seemingly unaware of the array of guns being trained on us. I was forced to nod to Foxglove as she glanced at me to confirm that we were, indeed, going to give up the projector. It had proven a flop in the long run anyway.

“There isn’t a Princess Luna, is there?” I asked in a hushed tone, looking back up at the Prime Minister.

“As best I know, the real Princess Luna and her sister Celestia are together in the heavens looking down on this world,” Ebony Song shrugged, “and have no plans to return in our lifetimes. But the ruse was a convenient means of retaining power when my last elected term neared its end. Chancellors come and go, but regally appointed heads of state…” he permitted himself a mirthful laugh, “those last a lifetime!”

“You set all of this up so you could stay in power?” I asked, curling my lip up in a sneer at the Prime Minister, “this whole war with the Rangers? All those ponies who died, fighting a war you caused, just so you could get a title?”

“Ha!” Ebony Song scoffed with a dismissive wave of his hoof, “you’re young and naive. Too young to remember the infighting in the old Senate. The political stagnation. The ‘quid pro quo’ politicking that lined the pockets of the ruling class―and there was a ‘ruling class’, little filly―while the common pony suffered beneath them.

“You don’t remember that Seaddle used to be the premier trade hub for slaves in the days of the Old Commonwealth, do you? Of course not,” he snorted, “or the craft guilds who forbade anypony from opening a business without paying an exorbitant fee to the guild leaders? Leaders who also happened to be constantly elected to the Senate?

“I didn’t do this for a title,” Ebony Song sneered, “I did this to fix a rotten abomination of a country! I brought freedom to ponies! Prosperity! The New Lunar Republic is a beacon in this blighted Wasteland! The spiritual heir to all that Old Equestria once was, and it’s all thanks to me!”

For a brief moment, I did waiver. I looked around me to Ramparts and Foxglove, seeking confirmation of what the Prime minister had just said. Of course, neither of them would have known much better than I did, would they? Foxglove had been living in a stable when all of this was happening, and Ramparts would have been a teenager, at the oldest. For all any of us knew, Ebony Song was telling the complete and honest truth.

Not that I was willing to believe that everything a pony who deceived a whole country like he was doing said was the truth. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d created anything approaching a ‘perfect’ society, and I knew enough to dispute that, “no slavery, huh? And all of those ‘indentured servants’ working in the homes of wealthy ponies, I suppose they’re never exploited? Those young ‘maids’ aren’t abused by their masters?” venom coated my words as I recalled what had happened to Golden Vision, so long ago.

“And you still haven’t told me how life is so much better when ponies are dying every day in this war you started. How it’s a good thing that White Hooves are roaming the Republic, butchering farmers and traders from one side to the other, without a single Republic guardspony in sight! Whole caravans are vanishing in the night, but you’re not doing anything about it because you’re too busy playing second fiddle to a robot that’s powered by a foal!” I screamed, jabbing a hoof in the direction of the still motionless Princess Luna.

Ebony Song snorted dismissively, “you’re overreacting. Those foals are little more than biological hardware. There’s nothing there to save or help.”

“You’re wrong,” I snapped at the stallion, “I know for a fact that they’re still aware inside there. I’ve seen it!”
For the briefest of moments, there was a spark of worry behind the stallion’s eyes. Worry that I might have been right. It had vanished an instant later though, replaced by a cold self-assuredness borne from decades of stroking his own ego vicariously through the adoration that the robot he controlled received from the Republic. If the citizens of the Republic adored Princess Luna, and he was the one controlling her, then it meant that it was really him whom they adored. A pony so loved by a whole nation could do no wrong, now could they?

“Very well then,” Ebony Song sneered, his lips curling up in a cruel smile, “by all means, convince the foal inside to spare your lives,” he locked his eyes on Princess Luna, “Your Highness? Kill the intruders.”

Our collective attentions immediately whipped back around to the imposing black alicorn seated on her throne. The menacing blue eyes flashed crimson and her lips pulled back, revealing a toothy grin full of sharp fangs. Then she rose up on her haunches and flared her massive wings, bellowing out across the room, “OUR NAME IS NIGHTMARE MOON, PRINCESS OF THE ETERNAL NIGHT! LOOK UPON YOUR DOOM, PUNY MORTALS, AND DESPAIR!”

“Horseapples!” I inhaled a moment before flexing my forelegs and vaulting into the air just as a black shape darted through where I had just been. Ramparts and Foxglove were likewise scrambling to escape. Starlight had remained exactly where she was, only moving her head to track the quickly moving alicorn. I groaned internally, willing the pink unicorn to get out of whatever daze she was in and get with the program. This wasn’t a fight that I wanted to spend distracted by having to constantly save her life.

If there was a bright side, it was that Ebony Song and the four guards that he’d brought with him did indeed seem perfectly content to simply stand on the sidelines and watch the fight unfold. The Prime Minister seemed to be completely confident in Princess Luna’s ability to dispatch us all on her own. Given her lauded performance against a host of White Hooves, that was probably an accurate assessment.

I saw Ramparts take the trigger bit in his mouth and bring his rifles to bare...but then he hesitated. I could see the conflict in his eyes. This was his princess, the ruler of his Republic. The revelations of the last few minutes were working overtime to compete with decades of belief and conditioning, and it wasn’t an internal battle that was going to resolve itself easily. It certainly didn’t help that Princess Luna looked nothing like any robot that I’d ever seen!

Foxglove didn’t have those same reservations as the earth pony lieutenant, but neither did she possess his same level of martial acumen. Her rifle was out and firing, but most of her shots went wide as she tried to track the soaring alicorn. Those few that managed to connect with their target whistled harmlessly away with a metallic ping; probably as a result of an impact with her polished armored barding.

Princess Luna’s glowing eyes locked their focus on the violet mechanic, and I saw a pinprick of light form at the peak of her long jet horn. I felt my heart catch in my throat and sprang into action.

“No!” I screamed, darting at the alicorn in an attempt to strike her head with my hoof and divert the magical beam that was being charged. At the last moment, and without even seeming to glance in my direction, Luna juked out of the path of my attack. I sailed harmlessly on past her, flailing wildly in an effort to redirect my course for a second attempt. It was too little too late. A crimson ray of death streaked along the ground towards the stunned unicorn.

Ramparts might not have been shooting, but at least he hadn’t been completely paralyzed either. His brown form tackled Foxglove out of the path of Luna’s attack at the last moment, sending both of them tumbling across the floor, landing a few feet from the smoldering charred line left by the magical assault.

“Luna!” I cried out to the alicorn―or what I now knew to be at least an extension of the computer being powered by a foal, not unlike the roboponies in the Ministry of Awesome bunker beneath McMaren, “er―whoever you are in there! Stop! We want to help you! Please!”

Whether I was getting through to the little pony inside the computer was a matter of some debate, but I certainly got the alicorn’s attention. Her glowing eyes diverted from Ramparts and Foxglove, locking onto me instead. I cringed and looped away as another crimson lance pierced through the air where I’d just been. It tracked me for several seconds before cutting off again, leaving winding curves of destruction along the ceiling and walls. Fortunately, I managed to keep from getting myself singed, but only just.

The onyx flyer pulled her lips back in a sneer and opened her mouth. I was expecting another shouted taunt at those ear-splitting volumes of hers. It turned out that I was close to correct.

It was hard to describe the sensation really. It was like I was hit everywhere at once by an invisible force. Foxglove would explain to me later that it had been a concentrated pressure wave of air, and not any sort of spell. Luna had turned her booming voice up to eleven and slammed me with a shout so powerful that the noise itself had become a wall of force. The result was that it stunned me, disrupted the air currents enough to send me tumbling to the ground, and pretty much ruptured my eardrums completely. I would pass the rest of this fight in silence.

Somehow I managed to keep enough of my wits about me to flare my wings and engage the Gale Force’s hover talismans before I hit the floor. However, I was still recovering from the blast to my senses. It would still be several more seconds before I was even cognizant of the fact that I’d lost my hearing. My first indication that I was even in trouble again was catching a pink shape out of the corner of my eye as Starlight interposed herself, defiantly, between me and Luna.

Her helmet was off for some reason, and tears were streaming down her cheeks. She was yelling something up at the alicorn bearing down on us, but I couldn’t make it out, of course. More movement from across the room revealed that my other two companions were back on their hooves too, and once more bringing their weapons to bear on our attacker. Yet, even as he turned to face the alicorn assaulting us, it was clear that Ramparts was still very much on the fence about all of this. Could ha bring himself to actually shoot Princess Luna?

Would it even matter, against an immortal goddess?

A crimson ray of energy raked across the shimmering magical barrier of energy that Starlight had summoned to protect the two of us. I saw her wince as her horn flared briefly and then went dim, the shield spell dissipating almost immediately. It seemed that her horn still wasn’t fully recovered from having been pushed to its limits in the past couple weeks. She tried to muster up another spell to defend us, but couldn’t manifest it quite soon enough.

Princess Luna rocketed towards us. Silently, I saw the pink unicorn swept aside as the much larger alicorn collided with her. While I heard nothing, I did still feel the convulsions of the building through the floor as the pair slammed against the far wall. Foxglove’s mouth was moving as she screamed something, floating her rifle up and firing. A flick of the princess’ wing sent a powerful gust of wind back at the violet mechanic, pitching her off her hooves. Ramparts, still yet unable to bring himself to fire, rushed to her aid once more.

My head was still swimming, and my hearing had yet to return, but I knew I had to do something or Starlight was a goner. I struggled to my hooves, silently cursing my unsteady steps. It was hard to get my balance. Flying wasn’t an option in this state; I’d just end up careening right into the ground. Clumsily, I clambered to my hooves and charged the alicorn. Not that I had any clear notion of what I’d do to stop her when I got there. How did you stop a goddess?

I screamed what I hoped was at least a half coherent rendition of Luna’s name. It was hard to tell what I was yelling, or how loud I was yelling it. Not that either the alicorn or the pink unicorn she had pinned against the wall were paying me any attention anyway. Starlight was saying something too. It was impressive that she was even still conscious after taking a hit like that. I supposed that she was tougher than she looked.

Despite all of my focused efforts, I didn’t actually manage to make it all the way to them without stumbling and losing my balance. It was just too hard to keep everything level. Like a newborn, I tripped over my own hooves and clattered to the floor. Desperately, I pawed at the ground, trying to get back up, even knowing that there was simply no way that I’d get there quickly enough to stop Princess Luna was cutting Starlight in half with another blast from her horn.

Except...maybe I would; because Princess Luna wasn’t moving anymore. She was holding completely still, her piercing blue eyes locked onto the face of the pink unicorn mare. I paused as well, panting heavily there on the floor as I beheld the soundless sight of Luna and Starlight looking at one another. Had...had the alicorn recognized one of her former subjects after all?

I’d have paid good bits to know exactly what Starlight had said to Luna to finally trigger that recognition. Because, right before my disbelieving eyes, I saw the alicorn begin to slowly pull back from her target, allowing the unicorn to slump painfully to the ground. Luna’s horn remained inert. For the moment, anyway. I looked around me, remembering that the alicorn wasn’t the only threat present. However, it seemed that Ebony Song and his guards were just as taken aback by what was going on as I was, and they at least had the benefit of hearing what was going on.

Somepony was tapping at my shoulder. I just about leaped right out of my barding, whirling around to find that Foxglove was at my side, floating out a healing potion and pointing at her ear. I took off my helmet and reached up to touch the side of my head, noting the thin smear of blood that was on my hoof when I examined it. I took the offered healing potion and drank it down. A second later, I winced as the first sounds I heard again were the snapping and popping of my eardrums knitting themselves back together again. My, what an unpleasant experience…

“...Mommy?”

Nopony was moving anymore. Every single body in the room was as still as a statue, all of our eyes locked upon the alicorn. It had been the barest whisper of a word, but it resonated like a drum inside of me. I’d heard something very much like in just over a week ago after all, in an old bunker...from a little filly trapped in a neverending torment.

Though none of us seemed to have been caught by surprise more than Starlight, who was now staring high up at the jet facade with eyes so wide that they seemed to take up half her face. Her lips quivered wordlessly for a few moments, and I thought that I’d lost my hearing again. Then she swallowed and tried again to speak. This time, a fearful whisper escaped, “Moonbeam…?”

I blinked. I recognized that name. Moonbeam was the name of Starlight’s filly. So then why…?

The gears in my brain, rusty from years of neglect and atrophy, slowly began to turn as they started to put all of the pieces together. Moonbeam, Starlight’s daughter, had been a young foal when the bombs fell, and had been a part of a program being run by the Ministry of Awesome that had merged the deficient brains of afflicted foals with computer programs to try and help them become whole ponies again.

To me, knowing what I did now, that didn’t sound a whole lot different from hooking a foal up to a computer, like the MoA had been doing as a part of the project that landed poor little Trellis in that bunker. In fact...hadn’t Hoplite said that what they’d recovered―and subsequently had stolen by the Republic―had been been just one such computer?

So, if the Rangers had recovered one of those POSEIDON-foal-computer-things, and the Republic took it from them, and Princess Luna was that foal-powered-computer that the republic took...

Starlight Glimmer’s filly was the foal that had been used in the computer that the Republic stole from the Steel Rangers.

Moonbeam was Princess Luna.

As powerful of a revelation as that little whispered word had triggered within my own head, it had completely broken Starlight. She all but collapsed right there on the floor. Grief, elation, despair; all of those emotions and more battled within her as she was confronted by the bittersweet reunion that she had been hoping for; only to now wish that it had never happened. Not like this.

Luna flickered.

My eyes tore themselves away from the weeping Starlight Glimmer to once more regard the Republic’s ruler. Again, I saw her onyx body distort and vanish for a brief moment. Her piercing pale eyes were alternating between their usual slitted pupils and opaque black orbs as well. The third time her body vanished, it didn’t return; and the true form of Princess Luna was laid bare for all of us to see.

She was a robopony all right, but unlike any of the malfunctioning wretches that a pony might be unfortunate enough to run into in the Wasteland. Though, I noted that she also didn’t look as though she had been constructed as...deliberately? As I would have expected for the supposed culmination of an ancient Ministry project.

Whatever her initial appearance might have been, her stature had not been an illusion. This mechanical equine was every inch as tall and slender as Princess Luna had been when she’d first appeared, seated on her throne. Which already made her very different from nearly every other robopony I’d ever encountered in the Wasteland, save for those construction bots beneath Old Reino, of course. However, I did notice a lot of features about her construction that I recognized, interestingly enough.

I, of all ponies, couldn’t help but have my eyes drawn to her wings, and their interlocking metal pinions, and the pair of squat thrusters mounted onto her spine just above them. It had been scaled up, obviously, but there were too many similarities in both design and construction for there to be any doubt that Princess Luna’s flight was the product of a Gale Force rig of her own. Nor was it the only feature I recognized. The broad diamond mounted in the robopony’s chest that was the same cut and placement as the jewel that powered the holographic rig couldn’t be a coincidence either. Even less so, now that I recalled one of the pre-loaded disguises that Foxglove had discovered in the device that we’d had when we employed it to rescue Jackboot.

And I was sure that I still had that little plastic whistle in my bags that had been so absurdly loud, and yet had produced what I now found to be suspiciously familiar phrases.

All of those things had been linked my one common theme: The Ministry of Awesome. The same group that had commissioned the secret computers with foals at their cores. The group which had overseen the treatment, in part with the Ministry of Peace, of Starlight’s foal, only to betray that trust and use her like this. Thousands of duplicates of the technology integrated into the robpony standing before us had been funneled to one specific remote location.

I was suddenly very curious to see what we would find there…

“What’s going on?” Ebony Song’s frustrated voice boomed through the room, finally disrupting the silence which had hung over everypony, “I ordered you to kill them!” his dark form pushed past his own protection detail as he strode up to stand right in front of the mechanical monarch, “I am the pony that activated you; you will obey my commands! Resume attack protocols, now!”

The metallic form twitched. In an instant, the projection of the armored jet alicorn reasserted itself and the head turned it’s baleful pale glare upon us. I looked to Starlight, who had managed to halt her attack previously, but it was immediately obvious that she wasn’t in any state to do anything at the moment. Ramparts and Foxglove had been disarmed, not that I would have expected their weapons to prove particularly effective anyway. Nor did I have anything on me that I trusted to do the job.

Well, at least in terms of firearms. I did have one other thing to work with though: knowledge.

Stand back everypony, the stupid little filly that thinks she can fix the whole Wasteland is going to use her smarts! Make your peace with the goddesses quickly, we may not have long to live…

“You don’t have to listen to him, Moonbeam!” I called out, stepping up right beside the Prime Minister, and ignoring his pointedly furious glare, “I don’t know what he told you, but he’s not with the Ministry of Awesome, or the old Equestrian government, or anything like that. He’s not your master, or your owner, or anypony you need to care about!”
I jabbed my leg at the pink unicorn nearby who had finally started stave off her sobbing enough to get back up onto quivering limbs and resume looking up at her daughter, “the only pony in the room―in the whole world―you need to listen to is her. It’s really her, Moonbeam. I promise you she’s your ma.

“Now, I know,” I felt my own words threaten to fail me as I recalled how I’d failed this so spectacularly the first time, but I was determined for there not to be a second strike, “that you’re just part of a larger machine, and that you feel like it’s the thing in control―ah!” I gasped and flipped up into the air just in time to avoid a crimson bolt of destructive energy that struck the ground where I’d just been standing. I flared my wings, maneuvering to put some distance between myself and the lethal princess who seemed to have settled on making the talkative pony her first target.

I suppose that was all well and good, honestly. It meant that I didn’t have to worry about anypony else while I kept trying to talk her down, “I know you’re still in there, Moonbeam!” I yelled even as I looped around another line of destruction that carved its way through the air, “I know you can hear me!

“You’re in control, Moonbeam! Not the machine!” at least, I was really hoping that was the case. Admittedly, the young foal in the MoA bunker hadn’t seemed like they’d been able to pull a whole lot of punches. They’d managed to slip me their deactivation code though, so I knew that the foals inside those things were at least conscious of what was going on, and capable of thinking for themselves, independent of whatever program was running.

That meant that their brain was still theirs. Yeah, the computer was supposed to be using part of it to do whatever, but it wasn’t in complete control. I’d already seen Luna stop once, if only briefly. It could happen again. I had to believe it could happen again, “take control, Moonbeam! Tell that computer to go fuck itself and take back what’s yours―flaming horseapples!”

The talismans in my Gale Force rig worked overtime to bring me to a stop mid-air as that crimson death ray of Luna’s swept through the air right in front of me. I managed to just narrowly avoid being sliced in half, but only at the cost of my agility. Which meant that it was impossible to avoid being tackled back down to the floor by the disguised robopony. She may have looked like an alicorn made up of flesh and blood, but that holographic projection didn’t do anything to hide the sensation of being slammed by what was probably somewhere north of a ton of steel and motors.

The reinforced alloys of my gale force rig managed to withstand the collision with the floor of the opera house, and I was particularly glad for the helmet, but my barding did little to stave off the worst of the shock I sustained from such an impact. I was down for the count, and I knew it. That I was even still conscious was a minor miracle, honestly. My head swimming from the blow, I gazed listlessly up into the midnight black face of Princess Luna, only barely registering the growing scarlet glow as her horn charged up to deliver the final blow.

A brilliant flare of light filled my world, and I was certain that I’d been killed.

Then it faded away, leaving me to blink at the spots in my vision that had been left behind. Foxglove was kneeling at my side, offering another healing potion. I gulped it down and craned my head around in an effort to learn what had happened.

Princess Luna was a few yards away. Pinned beneath her, where I had just been a few seconds ago, was the pink form of Starlight Glimmer. A pale sheen of light hovering just between her and the princess faded away, leaving the two staring at each other. Once again, the image of the black alicorn flickered, but it didn’t vanish as it had before.

“I’m sorry,” I heard the unicorn mare say, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know what they were doing to you. If I had...I would have stopped them. I’d have burned Rainbow Dash’s whole ministry to the ground if I’d known.

“I’m sorry, Moonbeam,” she reached up with a hoof and gently touched the cheek of the faux alicorn, “I’m so sorry…”

In an act that once more stunned everypony present, Starlight Glimmer lurched up and took the larger robotic alicorn into a hug, her forelimbs wrapped tightly around the long neck, and her head buried in the holographic starscape that was Luna’s mane. The robopony, much to my relief, didn’t seize upon this unguarded moment to slay the unicorn. Instead, and much to my great relief, Luna seemed to actually lean into the embrace.

“...Mommy…”

Again, and I hoped very much for the last time, the illusion fell away, leaving Starlight holding on tightly to the steel construction that lay beneath.

“Kill her!” Ebony song screamed once more, “I order you to kill her!”

My, he certainly did become frazzled pretty quickly the moment things weren’t going the way he wanted them to, didn’t he? I idly wondered if he was going to declare her an ‘enemy of the state’ too…

“No,” that same tiny little voice replied. It didn’t stay tiny for long though, “I won’t,” slowly, and careful not to inadvertently harm the relatively small unicorn mare beneath her, the robopony rose back up onto its hooves. Only, this time, it’s hard black eyes fell onto the Prime Minister and his guards, “and you can’t make me. You’re a bad pony, and you tell me to do bad things.

“I don’t like you.”

Well, there’s four words you don’t want to hear directed at you by a half ton of towering lethal war-bot!

Ebony Song must have been of a similar mind, because he was wilting back towards the room’s exit. I wasn’t entirely sure that he was even aware that he was doing it. Though, as much of a colossal ponce as I’d recently learned that he really was deep down, I couldn’t think of a reason to doubt that he fully intended to run away with his tail tucked between his legs. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the sort to just let things end well for us either, “you’ve got guns,” he snapped at the Republic guards that he’d brought with him, “use them! Kill the traitors!”

“What about the robot?” the older unicorn mare I recognized from the front door asked.

“It’s just a machine,” the stallion spat, holding up the rig that Foxglove had given up, “we can set up another fake with this; but they can’t be allowed to leave and reveal what they know,” and, with that, he was out the door and gone, leaving us to his loyal soldiers.

Ramparts, it would seem, had little issue with confronting his fellow guardsponies. But he was the only one of our group who was in what could generously be called ‘fighting shape’. I’d taken a beating that needed more help than a healing potion was going to be able to provide in the next second. Starlight wasn’t a reliable shot, even at close range, and the wisps of smoke coming from her horn suggested she was at her limit where magic was concerned as well. Foxglove had her rifle up, but it was plain to see on her face that she wasn’t liking the odds of putting her bolt-action rifle up against the automatic weapons of those four guards. I could hardly blame her.

It wasn’t looking good for us.

Admittedly, I had forgotten to factor in Princess Luna―er, Moonbeam.

The robo-alicorn hadn’t taken any damage at all during our exchange, after all, so she was still quite serviceable. She caught on quick for a filly too, and charged the line of Republic guardponies immediately. Credit where it was due: those ponies weren’t anywhere near the wilting lilies that Ebony Song was. Honestly, now that I thought about it, I had yet to meet a soldier in the Republic who did shy away from danger. I supposed that decades of fighting ponies decked out in power armor and advanced weapons made for troops that were built of stern stuff.

Only two of the guards focused upon dealing the rampaging robot. The others turned their weapons on us, apparently quite confident that their companions could handle their former ‘ruler’. I swept up my metal wing covers, shielding myself and Foxglove. Starlight sprinted to Ramparts’ side and provided him with the best protective magical barrier that she could manage even as the earth pony returned fire upon his former comrades-in-arms.

The opera house was soon filled with flying lead, glowing tracers, and clouds of splintered wood as floor and furniture were both chewed away by stray rounds. Each impact on the alloyed shell encapsulating my wings reverberated through my bones. I flared my wings, and flexed my hooves, sweeping up Foxglove and dragging her to better cover from the hailstorm of bullets. Starlight and Ramparts were falling back as well, the pink mare’s face a testament to the strain that she was under trying to keep the both of them protected from the enemy. Perhaps I should have brought RG with us after all…

The only one of us that was giving a good account of themselves, honestly, was Moonbeam. Though, I suppose that should have been expected of the large robot that had clearly be designed for fighting. Most of the rounds that struck her cylindrical neck and torso did so at such an oblique angle that they were deflected away. Those few rounds that did manage to penetrate didn’t seem to find anything vital though, thanks in part to the robot’s shear size.

Asking a foal to absorb all of the damage, no matter how resilient she might be, didn’t exactly sit well with me though. Not when I was supposed to be the hero, “stay low, get to the others,” I hissed at Foxglove just before I donned my helmet once more. Before the violet mechanic could protest, I was airborne and winging my way into the fray.

Moonbeam’s horn flared, and whipped out a crimson bolt, striking one of the guards squarely in her chest. They pitched back, their armor a smoldering wreck, and didn’t get back up. The pony next to the fallen mare scrambled out of the way, maintaining their fire on the robo-alicorn. Their point of aim wasn’t arbitrary though. Heavy automatic rifle rounds found the mounting brackets of one of Moonbeam’s thrusters and managed to strike home. I had to twirl in the air in order to just avoid being struck by the turbine as it tore free of its mount and zipped through the air. Unbalanced, and under-thrust, the large mechapony tumbled to the floor, gouging a deep rut into the floorboards before finally coming to a stop.

“Moonbeam!”

I ignored Starlight’s aggrieved cry and concentrated on my own chosen target. I could best help the alicorn by eliminating the threats. I chose a surly looking earth pony stallion, sweeping in low as he noticed my approach and swung around to track me with his battle-saddle. I splayed my wings, bounding up in a flip, just above the stream of traces that he directed at me. I arced up and over, twirling around as I reached the zenith of my path. My compact .45 was in my mouth, and three shots were queued up in SATS.

Two wasted themselves on the thick ceramic plates lining his spine, but the third snuck through the kevlar weave just above her clavicle. The stallion cried out and tried to spin around fast enough to engage me once more, but a tactically-timed burst from my Gale Force was all it took to close the distance between us. In less than a heartbeat, I was draped over his back.

I wrapped my wings around in front of his neck…

...then twitched my fetlocks to reverse the thrust of my rig’s turbines.

Those alloyed blades were very sharp. He might not even have felt them as I jerked backwards off of him.
I was honestly trying not to think about it too much as I instead focused on lining up shots on my next target. I had to wait for the geyser of blood from the stump that had once been where the stallion’s head was attached to fall away before I could take proper aim as the unicorn mare on the other side. She’d seen what I’d done to her companion, and seemed none-to-pleased. The surly republic mare’s horn glowed as she whipped her combat shotgun around and unloaded in my direction.

Once more, my wings took the brunt of the impacts, but I could feel errant pellets sneaking through gaps in my barding on their way to burrow into my flesh. Frustrated, and knowing that I wasn’t going to get an opening, I flicked a hoof and jetted away to get a better angle at another pass. There were only two of the guards left now, half as many as there had been. Our side, on the other hoof, seemed to be doing much better. I might have some minor wounds, but everypony else didn’t look to be badly hurt.

Starlight was laying on the floor, clutching at her head and writhing, though, I noticed. At first, I thought that she might have been shot, but then I caught sight of her blackened horn. She was burned out again, and badly this time. Foxglove was doing what she could, being a fellow unicorn who certainly knew a lot more about managing that sort of thing that either Ramparts or myself did. The brown earth pony was providing covering fire for both of them.

Nor was Moonbeam out of the fight entirely either. She’d gotten back up onto her mechanical legs and was tussling with the fourth remaining soldier. He was moving around quickly though, and the alicorn was having difficulty striking him with the beams from her horn. I winced as I noticed that he had apparently continued to be selective of his targets. One of Moonbeam’s legs wasn’t moving quite right, and I could see a joint smoldering even as the tracers from his rifles focused themselves on her left flank.

I wasn’t the only pony who’d noticed the current disposition of our opposed forces either. The unicorn mare sneered at the sight that she beheld as she took several careful steps back to avoid Ramparts’ own fire, “fuck this!”

The aura of magic surrounding her horn brightened as she brought up a second weapon, snatched from the corpse of the first of their number to fall at the onset of the battle. It consisted of little more than a broad tube with a truncated rifle stock and an absurdly tall rear sight aperture. The mare’s lips curled back in a menacing grin as she directed the new weapon at the hobbled robopony.

“Moonbeam!”

My warning came just as the Republic mare’s grenade launcher belched forth its ordinacne with a hollow sounding “thwump!” Even for a sophisticate battle-bot, there wasn’t nearly enough time to react. The alicorn’s head turned just in time to see the danger. She tried to bring up one of the alloyed wings to shield herself, but it wasn’t enough. The grenade struck and detonated.

I winced, covering myself reflexively with my own wing coverings, feeling the explosion reverberate through my teeth as the concussion wave hit me. I didn’t go deaf again, but my ears were ringing a bit as a result of being so close to the contained blast. When I looked again, I felt my gut grow cold.

Most of the steel plating on Moonbeam’s right side had been peeled away by the blast, exposing a lattice of wires and actuators that lined her interior. One of her wings had been sheared completely off, and none of the limbs on that side of her body were functioning smoothly. Her neck and head were still moving, offering anemic little bolts of crimson energy that were significantly dimmer and less potent than they had been.

She was in a bad way; a very bad way.

Meanwhile, that mare had broken the grenade launcher open just in front of the stock and was loading a second round into the tube. I rolled onto my hooves and prepared to launch myself at her before she could finish off the mechanical alicorn. There was still a chance that I could get there in time to save her. Once we dealt with these last two guards, then maybe Foxglove could work her miracles on the robopony and get her in good enough shape for us to make an escape.

However, before I could attack, I heard a voice crackling over my pipbuck’s speaker, “door. Behind the throne. Get to it. Now!” I hesitated, wondering if I’d even actually heard the voice, or if that blast had done a number on my head as well as my hearing. Then I caught the briefest of glances from the alicorn robot’s eyes before she was once more focused on staving off the pair of guards confronting her.

She was telling us to run, and to leave her behind to do it. Could I really do that? I could save her, I know I could. Once these two guards were dealt with, we’d have time to regroup and plan an escape for all of us…

That was when I noticed the additional red blips appearing on my Eyes Forward Sparkle. I suppose that it would have been too much to hope that absolutely nopony in all of Seaddle hadn’t heard all of the gunshots and the outright explosion just now. Reinforcements were forthcoming, and none of us wanted to be here when they arrived. We really wouldn’t have time to fix up Moonbeam’s body enough to get her mobile, and we’d find ourselves cornered all over again if we even tried.

The alicorn knew that too. That was why she was telling us to leave.

This little filly was going to sacrifice herself for our sakes.

No. I wasn’t going to let that happen. My family reunion had been sadistically short, I wasn’t going to let Starlight’s be too! I was going to―

“Go! I’ll meet you in the back!”

I―wait, what? How was she going to…

“Windfall! We’ve got to go, now!” Ramparts was yelling as he covered Starlight and Foxglove’s retreat towards the thrones. He’d heard the massage as well, it seemed, and he could see just as well as I could how dire our situation was about to become. In fact, as he was very likely still wired into whatever communications network the Republic used, I was pretty confident he had a perfect grasp of exactly how many other soldiers were coming for us.

It still felt wrong, but I somehow managed to force myself to withdraw with my friends. Not that I was making a quiet departure though. I emptied the rest of my pistol’s magazine at the pair of soldiers, scoring at least one more hit, though not a lethal one. I ducked behind the throne for cover with the others, and that was when I noticed that there was indeed a small wooden door leading to what would once have been the backstage area of the opera house. Foxglove had it open and was struggling to push Starlight through it.

“We can’t just leave her!” Starlight was screaming. I had to force myself to swallow back my own mounting sympathetic grief. I’d said something very similar when Foxglove came to drag me out of the White Hoof camp. Though, things weren’t quite the same as they had been back then. Unlike my mother, Moonbeam was still very much alive at the moment, and could hypothetically be saved.

We’d just have to sacrifice our freedom and/or our lives to do it when we were confronted by the soon-to-be-arriving Republic forces converging on the palace. Moonbeam didn’t want that for her mother. She wanted us gone from here before it was too late.

“Please, help her!” the pink mare continued to plead, still fighting against Foxglove.

I exchanged glances with Ramparts. I was willing―ready, even―to make a heroic last stand, even if it cost me my life. It was reckless, and would have been unreservedly stupid of me to do so, of course; but it felt like a very ‘Wonderbolt’ thing to do. Fortunately, I had Ramparts here with me to act as an anchor against my impulsiveness, and the stallion shook his head solemnly. He was right. Moonbeam was right. We couldn’t stay here.

My ear twitched. Startled, I peeked around the sturdy throne to glance at the robopony and the pair of Republic guards. They were closing in to finally make the kill, and it was quite obvious that there was nothing that Moonbeam would be able to do to stop it. That hadn’t been what I was checking though. What had drawn my attention was a sound that I had taken to be the onset of a predictable affliction of tinnitus. Nopony got as close to as many explosions as I did without developing hearing problems even at an early age, after all.

Except, I had just now become aware that the ever tone that was ever increasing in pitch and volume wasn’t coming from inside my own ears. It had an exterior source, and it was one that I recognized. I’d heard it once before, around the time that the Ministry of Arcane Science hub in Old Reino had blown up. That had been the result of a very special type of high-output reactor, of the type that had also been employed in several construction robots beneath the city.

Now that sound was coming from Moonbeam.

My eyes went wide, “uh oh.”

Ramparts had his head cocked too, looking quizzical, “do you hear something?”

“Remember Old Reino?” I asked, inching closer to the doorway and the struggling unicorns.

“Yeah. Why―oh. Oh, shit!”

The pair of us bolted for the door, our combined body weights finally managing to do what Foxglove hadn’t been able to and pushing Starlight all the way through the door. All four of us collapsed on the other side with a chorus of grunts and groans. Ramparts and I scrambled to our hooves and grabbed up the other mares as well, in an effort to seek out the ultimate exit from this structure. I didn’t know exactly how big of an explosion we were ultimately looking at here, but the last one I’d seen had leveled most of a city block. It was probably a good idea for us to at least not be inside this building when Moonbeam detonated.

I raised up my left foreleg and activated my pipbuck’s light once more to illuminate the dark interior of the antichamber that we’d just entered in an effort to locate our best hope of escape.

“To your right. Stairs. Hurry!”

Ramparts and I looked at each other once more as both of our pipbucks barked the terse commands, uttered with a filly’s voice. I fluttered on ahead while the Courser helped Foxglove with the as-yet-still distressed Starlight. The stairs leading down to the basement of the opera house were not hard to locate, and the four of us were down them in short order.

I touched down on the concrete floor just as our next set of instructions were broadcast to us, “Far wall. Hatch on the floor. You have ten seconds!”

Sure enough, my light revealed a rust-covered iron hatch that had been built into the floor of the basement. Ramparts managed to pull it open without much difficulty, and with a lot less noise than I would have expected from something so ancient. What was also quite unexpected was the light sprouting forth from the steep and narrow metal starwell that the hatch revealed. Knowing that time was against us, we slipped down the stairs, the brown stallion taking up the rear to seal the metal portal behind us.

Not two seconds after he’d closed it, there was a booming explosion that shook the earth, and even momentarily disrupted the lighting that now surrounded us. The bunker we were in seemed to have been built of some pretty sturdy stuff though, and nothing really seemed to give way. I stood there, staring up at the sealed hatch, for several long moments as my mind finished processing what had just happened.

Princess Luna hadn’t been real. She’d just been a puppet; one that had been manipulated all along by Ebony Song in his selfish little quest to retain power beyond what his former elected position would have allowed. Now she was gone and, along with her, any real hope of gaining the martial support of the New Lunar Republic against Arginine’s stable. Of course, those were just the broad ramifications of the last thirty minutes.

Closer to home was Starlight Glimmer, and her all too familiar bittersweet reunion with her long lost daughter. She wasn’t fighting Foxglove anymore in some vain hope of saving the robopony from destruction. There was nothing but dust remaining, after all. Instead, she was simply sobbing into the violet unicorn’s chest, while simultaneously threatening to inflict upon the lot of us a whole slew of rather heinous curses in retaliation for leaving Moonbeam behind.

I wanted to go over there and comfort her too, but I thought better of it. I was the ‘leader’, after all, and thus the one who had ultimately been ‘responsible’ for leaving Moonbeam behind to sacrifice herself for our benefit. She didn’t want to hear any hollow-sounding platitudes from me. I should know. It wasn’t like I’d been in much of a mood to hear anything that Foxglove had to say after my mother died.

Besides, my time was better spent thinking ahead to our next move. Which meant learning a lot more about where we currently were. The short answer was that we were in some sort of old maintenance access tunnel for utilities and such. The narrow confines were lined with electrical conduits and water pipes, making this place feel even more cramped. On the bright side, that meant that we weren’t trapped. There was absolutely another way out of here. In fact, there were probably a lot of other ways out of here, and some of them might even lead outside the settlement and into the Ruins, meaning we wouldn’t have to worry about evading Republic soldiers any time soon.

Though, it was pretty clear that we weren’t the first ponies to be down this way recently. I noticed―It Was Under ‘E’!―that some of the electrical wiring looked a lot more recent and haphazard than the rest. It led from the ceiling near the hatch, down the hall a few yards, and into a room that was set into the corridor. More light was coming from inside.

Along with a single amber blip.

Not sure what to expect, and still more than a little wary after what had happened above, I loaded a fresh magazine into my pistol and slowly crept down the passageway. I very carefully peaked my head around the doorframe and peered inside. My eyes widened as I beheld the source of the blip. I’d seen one of these before too, or something every similar, in the bunker beneath Camp McMaren, though this chassis was not styled after a pegasus; it was a unicorn, curled up and laying on the floor of the tiny little workshop that looked to have once served as a tool repositaory of sorts for long dead utility workers.

As if alerted by my presence, the dark ‘eyes’ of the robopony flickered to life, showing a rosy pink light that contracted around a pair of black pupils. The head looked up, locking its eyes upon me. It didn’t say anything at first. It turned its head to regard its chest. That was when I noticed that the bundle of wires that I’d been tracking had snaked along the floor of this room, and ran right up into this robopony. A second later, there was a clicking sound and a coupling detached, ejecting the wires from the automaton’s chest.

Only then did the robopony rise. It wasn’t much larger than I was really. About the size of a smaller full grown pony. It’s contours were decidedly delicate and feminine in nature, not that I figured robots actually had a gender. I kept my pistol at the ready as it looked back to me once more.

Then it spoke. This surprised me far less than the voice that it spoke with, “Is..is Mommy okay?” Moonbeam asked.

The pistol fell from my mouth as my jaw went slack.

Foot Note:...

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