“Masquerade! Paper faces on parade …
Masquerade! Hide your face, so the world will never find you!
Masquerade! Every face a different shade ...
Masquerade! Look around - there's another mask behind you!
Flash of mauve, splash of puce ...
Fool and king, ghoul and ghost ...
Green and black, queen and priest ...
Trace of rouge, face of beast ...
Faces ... take your turn, take a ride
on the merry-go-round ... in an inhuman race …”
‘Masquerade’, from The Phantom Of The Opera

“I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
Harriet Tubman

Manehatten, the Solar Empire. One week ago.

The Salle de Chevaux was Manehattan’s premier house of music. Designed by the renowned Gallopican architect Marque Brillante, it was not even half a century old, and yet since its dedication had borne the mare’s share of Equestria’s great premiere events. There was something to Brillante’s design, not merely architecturally splendid but acoustically perfect, that had won it the acclaim of all of Equus.

That was before the war, of course. Tonight a special performance had been arranged, allegedly as a fundraiser for colts and fillies orphaned by Equestria’s ‘Righteous Crusade’ against Earth, and it was only right and proper that Brillante’s grandson should be among the guests. Even if said grandson was in disguise, and attending under an assumed name.

Dressed in a fitted tuxedo, his mane and tail expertly groomed to conceal their usual curls, Cheese Sandwich struggled to hide his sneer as he approached the opera house along the waterfront boulevard. Despite his troubled childhood, he had always appreciated a trip to ‘Grand-Père's Salle’ with his parents, and had shared in some of those gala premieres. He had witnessed first hand Tchaiklopsky’s ‘Couronne de Platine’, as performed by the Stalliongrad Ballet in their first international tour, and sat entranced as Horns Millions conducted the Canterlot Symphony through a sublime arrangement of Gustav Hoist’s ‘Winds Suite’ that had reduced the audience to tears.

Tonight’s event, by comparison, was an insult. If art was considered food for thought, then the scheduled performance could be compared to the finest dinner plates being used to serve formless, offensively tasteless slop. The merest glimpse at the banner strung across the Salle’s facade told the discerning connoisseur all they needed to know…

“Performed in full, my flank!” he heard a society mare snort. “The entire allure of La Sirene is that it is unfinished! The Maestro died before he could complete the work! This is just another crass reinterpretation, no different than any other!”

Well, it wasn’t quite the same, but Cheese felt his heart go out to the stranger, glad that someone shared his feelings on the matter. Poochini, perhaps the greatest operatic composer ever gifted to Equus, had laboured on La Sirene for the final five years of his life. What should have been a simple operetta had bloomed into a three hour opus, as if the canine artist had been trying to pour his very soul into the piece. Tragically, Poochini died with the final twenty minutes of the score committed to nothing but his memory, and the libretto containing no words for the truncated fourth act.

As a mark of respect for the masterly old dog, in over a hundred years nopony had ever tried to complete the score or even compose lyrics to be set to the fourth act. Instead an entire artform had developed around interpreting the mysteries of the piece, with each director crafting their own vision of how to conclude the narrative, with nothing as their guide beyond the talents of their ballet and Poochini’s stunning orchestrations. It was perhaps the greatest oxymoron - an opera that for its final thirty minutes contained no singing.

Now, somepony well-placed within Canterlot claimed to have ‘discovered’ Poochini’s secret diaries, and from them assembled what was allegedly the ‘definitive’ ending to La Sirene. It was an act of such tasteless arrogance that it could make anypony’s head spin, and, from a certain point of view, one could say that it was a nail in the coffin for yet another bastion of expression. From what he had gathered through the Equestrian Resistance, Cheese had some extremely dark suspicions as to what form that ending would take, and who might have commissioned it…

‘Figures that of all the unfinished works the Palace’s propaganda bureau could have mutilated, they’d choose the one that wasn’t composed by a pony…’

But he wasn’t here tonight just to commiserate poor old Poochini. A member of the Resistance close to Chairpony Harshwhinny was in attendance, and Cheese had been ordered to meet with her in order to be briefed on his latest assignment rather than waste time detouring to Canterlot. Meeting at the opera might have seemed melodramatic, but the mare in question maintained a public cover as a member of Equestria’s cultural intelligentsia, and this was the one opening she had to meet with him, while the performance was underway.

“Ah, yes, Monsieur Fromage,” genuflected the ticket clerk when Cheese presented himself. It was a Newfoal. Cheese couldn’t stand the things. He’d get called a galloping racist for saying it in public, but he simply couldn’t understand how nopony else suppressed a shudder when these things, these golems made from humans reduced him to a minority in his home. “Your party has reserved seating in Box 9. Madame Pommel and her guests have already arrived. Please, allow me to…”

“That will not be necessary,” Cheese replied, keeping his tone frosty and aloof, allowing a little touch of his Gallopican heritage to slip through into his accent. “We are quite familiar with this establishment’s seating arrangements. Merci.”

Trotting readily up the stairs, his feigned disdain was nothing compared the chilly aura that clung to the pony who received him in Box 9. There was something wrong with the mare, though ‘wrong’ didn’t seem to cover it anymore. It was as if something essential had been scooped out of her, just like with the Newfoals, except here nopony had shown the decency to put anything else in or pick up the pieces.

“Coco,” he nodded by way of greeting.

“You’re late, Cheese,” she answered, enunciating each word as crisply as a morning frost. “We were scheduled to meet half an hour ago.”

Coco Pommel was publically in a state of mourning after the ‘tragic’ and ‘unexpected’ death of her friend and employer Suri Polomare, but in Cheese’s estimation, funereal black simply made the once-timid seamstress look all the more like the ice-cold assassin he had helped mould her into. Flanking her were the twins publically known as the Flim-Flam brothers, who Cheese knew as two of the better ‘demolitions’ specialists within the Resistance Directorates.

‘How did we come to this?’ he wondered, just for a moment.

Then his weary eyes drifted across the stalls, briefly alighting on the occupants of Box 5, and the sight drove all doubts away.

‘Oh Father, my Father...’ he thought to himself, a terrible stillness settling in his stomach. Then he forced himself to harden, to take that chill and channel it through his very being. For justice, vengeance and family.

“I’m just in time for the overture, actually,” he replied firmly, drawing the quilted door shut behind him and slipping a small talisman from one of his tuxedo’s hidden pockets. Hooping it over the doorknob not only sealed the entrance to the box, but created a one-way bubble around it that dampened outgoing sound waves, in effect muting them. “How goes the tune-up?”

“Well, for what it’s worth we’ll get decent production standards,” Coco sniffed. “Suri’s contributions to the costuming department might have been phoned in, but the mares and stallions in the orchestra are professionals.”

“Well, at least someone present cares for the integrity of art,” Cheese shrugged as he took his place and produced a pair of opera glasses from his jacket pocket.

“Take a look at this,” Coco murred, not making eye contact as she hoofed him a copy of the playbill.

“I thought you were all about getting the job done with minimum fuss?” Cheese snorted. “Why waste time discussing the show?”

“Because we’d draw more attention by leaving now than if we stayed,” she said, before slipping him the barest hint of a smile. “And because you’re one of the few ponies who I can actually discuss Celly’s abuse of the arts with on equal terms.”

“What’s she done now?” he sighed, glancing to where she was holding open the back page of the playbill, where upcoming performances were advertised. He felt his expression fall, and let out a weary sigh. “Great, ’The Winds Suite’… another masterpiece blacklisted.”

The page in question had formerly read as followed:

Now however, a black ‘CANCELLED’ had been rudely stamped over the elegant advertisement. ‘By Order of the Ministry of Arts and Culture’ was printed beneath in smaller letters.

Cheese could not hide his disgust and disappointment. It wasn’t the first work to be blacklisted by that hideous ministry, and certainly wouldn’t be the last. Their first action, or at least the first one he’d noticed, had been to ban somepony’s adaptation of a human play, by Oscar Wilde. That was back in the early days, of course, when Celestia still maintained the illusion that free speech was allowed.

Shame, too. The play had been hilarious. “Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth!”

That cancellation had been during the chaos of the ‘Hand-In-Hoof Riots’ and the ‘Great Battleship Strike’, and the Ministry justified it’s censorship on the grounds that the play was inciting public unrest. Many more had followed, the excuses for the suppression of creative works becoming more and more transparent. Nowadays, the only evidence you’d have of many works’ existence was through the samizdats - Cheese didn’t bother learning why they called it that - smuggled and circulated under-the-radar, but the price for owning any such tract was steep, to say the least.

“She’s killing us…” he said darkly, as the lights dimmed for the opening movement. “Little by little, she’s excising everything in the Equestria psyche that could object against her.”

Little snips and cuts, reducing the scope of thought, tramelling the mindset of a nation. With surgical precision, Celestia and her Ministries were reshaping the pony paradigm into an idealised shape, that shape being a drooling, hapless, obliviously happy idiot that could be pointed at a threat and turned loose, until it stopped being a threat.

The humans had a word for that process: lobotomy. Except now those four little syllables had become an indelible part of Equestria’s lexicon as well, along with such other wonderful little words like ‘samizdat’, and ‘reeducation’, and ‘rendition’...

... and ‘Resistance’, with a capital R.

Thoughts along those lines occupied the better part of Cheese’s thoughts until the interval, as he let the splendour of Poochini’s masterpiece wash over him. He had to admit, the direction was excellent, as was the delicacy of the ballet and the artistry of the production.

‘That’s one thing we’ve always done better than mankind,’ he thought wistfully. ‘Say what you want of their amazing works, but nothing can beat ponykind when it comes to stage production.’

And it was true. He’d seen human plays and productions work miracles with dry-ice, lighting rigs, sound effects and all the mise-en-scene of the theatre, but it was something else altogether to see Pony Magic on the stage. The last aria before the curtain came down was an excellent example, with the weary and drunken old Starswirl reclaiming his pride and prowess in a storm of magical light, pegasi ballerinas twirling overhead like angels.

During the interval, he finally broached the subject of their meeting, and Coco honoured him with a brittle little smile.

“You know we’re coming into the endgame, don’t you?” she said, the magic charm and the hubbub of milling ponies masking their every word. “Earth is at the tipping point. Once the Barrier makes contact with North America, it’s going to consume their hoarded military resources like a forest fire.”

It was a grim, but honest summation. Cheese knew full well that no-one was even close to finding a way to sabotage the Barrier, not even after years of research. With Europe overrun and the southern half of Africa isolated except to air and sea travel, the remaining population was clustering in the eastern half of Asia, Australasia, various Pacific islands, and the Americas. It was a refugee situation approaching critical mass, like a spot about to burst, and all it would take would be for the Barrier to squeeze a little extra…

“... Unless a miracle comes their way, Earth will fall within the year,” Coco continued bluntly. "Though that's a conservative estimate. The chaos stirred up might just destroy the PHL by the end of summer. Say what you will about all we've stolen, they've got more ponypower that can be dedicated to slowing the barrier. If they fall, the time mankind has left will probably be cut in half."

'Within the year?! Faust almighty,' Cheese realized. It was appalling to think that things had gotten that desperate, and that fighting a delaying action was their best hope left. In the first year of the Resistance, as partisans, disaffected workers, artists, and students had rallied together, he'd dreamt of shattering the Barrier and maybe going back to something like before the war, before the Changeling Purges...

Seeing a third of a world die and being powerless to stop it, watching friends suffering fates worse than death, suffering as his home mutated into a repressive cesspit, and witnessing atrocity after atrocity labeled as justice was hell on anyone's idealism.

“And once she’s got her victory there, Celly will turn her enslaved thralls onto Equestria. Any sentient species that remains, like the zebras or griffons, will presumably get ponified as soon as the potion can be resequenced. Projections are that the Human-Newfoal population will have risen to five billion by the time the Barrier reaches the Pacific, and if that wave floods over our own borders, we’ll all drown beneath them. We can’t fight those kind of numbers, and worse yet, we can’t recruit from them. Their foals have shown promise, as they seem to be functional ponies, but by the time they’re of recruiting age, they'll be so indoctrinated that we’ll harvest a trickle at best. And by then, well..."

Her voice trailed off. No matter how few remnants had been left of Coco after Suri's tutelage in business and the Resistance’s tutorage in skullduggery had hollowed her spirit out, even she couldn't stomach the thought of what would happen to Equestria after the Barrier fell. Infrastructure for food supply, already stretched far enough that the breaking point was a distant memory, would disintegrate under the weight. With no humans to rally against, Celestia would tighten the noose around natural-born ponies for not being pony enough, and send their battle-hardened troops against Zebrica or Griffonstone, and it would be a massacre.

Before long, they wouldn't live in anything vaguely resembling Equestria.

The reports made for grim reading: Cheese skimmed them whenever he needed incentive to stay awake, staving off sleep with the threat of nightmares.

“So what’s my part in this?” he asked. “Madame Chairpony must have something in mind if she’s ordered the two of us to meet up so indelicately. What’s the sitch?”

“She’s authorising you to activate one of your sleeper agents,” Coco nodded. “Maud Pie. That little introvert’s research into runic magic is bleeding out on the cutting edge of the field, and you know full well that Maud has promised us a, a… what did she call it again?”

“A Hail Mary pass,” Cheese murmured. “A saving throw in the final minutes of the play.” He shifted his weight in the seat, and jabbed an interrogative hoof at the fashionmare. “But Maud is claiming a miracle among miracles - she promised us the ability to unmake Celestia’s magical artefacts.”

“You don’t seem to have that much faith in her,” Coco observed.

“I want to believe she could do it,” Cheese said. “The damn mare’s worked on this sort of thing nonstop, almost since the Crystal War ended. I'd almost swear her Cutie Mark's warped to fit that. But I know this: she doesn’t tell us everything she knows, and her first and only loyalty is to rescuing Pinky Pie.” He threw up his hooves. “And even discussing this is useless unless we possessed one of those artifacts!”

“Au contraire…” Coco smirked. She beckoned to Flim, who nodded and reverently eased a rolled-up scroll from his saddlebag, tied up in red ribbon. Taking it in her hooves, she peeled back one corner, allowing Cheese a glimpse of what was printed upon its surface.

He felt his complexion turn pallid, felt his heart slow, as he reached out and dragged a disbelieving hoof across the document. The cracked parchment sparked where he made contact, resisting all damage, his hoof not so much as leaving a crease.

“It’s... It's.... the Charter of the Guard…” he whispered, rubbing at his face to try and restore some semblance of colour to it. “The root of Celestia’s control over the EUP.”

This was it, this was the abominable bucking scrap of parchment that had caused so much suffering, turned kindly guards into sadistic, twisted monsters. He was touching that which had been the cause of more Newfoals than he wanted to consider, caused strikebreakings that had left ponies dead or crippled in the streets.

And yet, despite being indestructible, it was here. In their hooves. The power that they held at this very moment was overwhelming. Almost intoxicating.

Coco rolled the scroll back up with a prideful smirk. “Yes it is… and if your little Miz Pie can destroy this, we might win. Unless you think it’s too risky for her-”

“She’s the only one with that kind of edge on runic application,” Cheese said, trying to gather his thoughts. “Even Zecora is building on the foundation Maud has laid.”

He tried to rationalise: the charter was in their hooves. He didn’t know what had transpired to acquire it, or how many potential friends in Resistance cells had died for it. In fact it was probably best to not dwell on it.

He looked up, gimlet eyes staring into Coco’s empty pits. “This is too hot to entrust to a courier, I’ll deliver it to her myself. And not a word of this gets to the PHL, or anypony within five degrees of separation of any of their identified moles. I don’t want to think about what they’d do if they could wield this kind of power. That… thing... in their R&D is bad enough.”

“Good thinking,” she nodded primly. “So, when Maud unmakes this, every trueborn soul under arms will be freed in one stroke. Freed, and very angry at what our saintly Queen did to them. The Court is still planning how to best exploit it, but Madame Harshwhinny is vetting submitted plans...”

Cheese wasn’t listening, and instead was applying his aptitude for engineering by running numbers: the greater part of the Salvation Army was built on the back of Newfoals nowadays, but the key positions in the Officer Corps were still natural born Equestrians, as was the entirety of the General Staff. Bound by Celestia’s Geis or not, organising and directed an army required a flexibility of thought simply not found in a Newfoal...

Nepenthe took a step back off of the overgrown railroad siding and blinked calmly as the steel frame of the huge Canadian Pacific locomotive howled past, turbocharger screaming, motor spinning up to full power. Wheels, suspension arms and brake-blocks blurred by, scant inches from the tip of her muzzle, but she didn’t even flinch. Her mane flicked in the slipstream as the train accelerated, but her eyes and ears were alert, examining the passing consist. Behind the locomotive was the burnt-out hulk of another engine (a smaller cousin to the beast in front), then something that looked like a concrete slab on a rolling chassis, and finally a pair of cabooses.

As the second of the twinned vehicles skidded past her smiling lips, she felt something tug at her inside, and smiled. The Eternal Sun had delivered unto her exactly what she needed to complete her duty, the tools required to make the Pretty Private Paradigm the standard template of all Newfoals.

Totem Proles!

She had felt the same tug minutes after she had been reborn in Truro, and now she felt it again. Regardless of what else was on that train, it was carrying Totem Proles. Bad enough that the intelligence downloaded into her at birth indicated that the humans already possessed one, but a shipment of this magnitude couldn’t be allowed to fall into their filthy hands. Not when they could better serve Earth and Equestria in her own hooves...

It was perfect. But instead of springing into pursuit she took a steadying breath and allowed herself a moment to plan out the appropriate course.

‘Mere Newfoals only react…’ she thought to herself, with a trill of pride. ‘But a Pretty Private acts, using her wit and discretion to draw upon the full abilities of her forces.’

She turned, and felt her pride redouble when she saw that her Pretty Private acolytes, the new-fledged troops under the command of herself and her sisters, had formed themselves into neat ranks, bright and smiling and sharp as knives. Adoration shone in their eyes, and their weapons and armour glinted in the morning light.

They weren’t ‘true’ brothers and sisters though, their first exposure to the Potion having scrambled enough core synapses to leave them incapable of platforming a complete reformatting. However they could now at least show initiative and individuality in their approach to a given task, much as she had been prior to her ‘awakening’ in the wee hours of this morning.

They were flawed, but in Nepenthe’s eyes, they were still beautiful.

‘But how best to deploy them?’ she thought. The appropriate military knowledge was all there in her mind, preloaded and ready for the using. There was strategy, which was the objective, the goal - we must obtain that train’s cargo - and then there was the means to the goal, tactics - we must either board or incapacitate said train.

And, pleasantly - something seemed to cackle, it’s laugh echoing in the wide empty space of the back of her brain - she found there were no longer any limitations hardwired into her. No constraints to what she could do to claim and exploit that train’s stolen cargo. There was only a directive, and she could take any path she chose to get to it...

“Trimurti,” she sang out after a moment’s pause, turning to her firstborn sister. “Split yourself up…”

“Aye-aye!” came the huge mare’s chirped reply, and with a minor flash-bang, Trimurti divided into three separate ponies, each representing a distinct pony tribe.

“Pathos, Logos,” Nepenthe ordered, pointing at the fiery pegasus and the analytical unicorn components. “Each of you take a unit and harass that train. Make use of every resource we’ve scavenged from the prison, but don’t waste our troops unnecessarily. Let them demonstrate the capabilities of even a flawed squad of Pretty Privates.”

Her eyes flicked to the third of Trimurti’s nascent selves, an earthpony. “Ethos, stay with me and act as a relay between myself and your other parts.”

The three shards of a single psyche saluted smartly, and broke the better part of the forces to hand in two. With Pathos leading them, the available pegasi immediately took off into the sky, banking away north and out of sight, while Logos galloped away at the head of a regimented column of ‘ground-pounders’.

That left Ethos, Nepenthe herself, and their youngest sister, the blind geomancer Harvest, standing on the siding. Newspeak, their resident mesmerist, was overseeing the bulk of the new recruits back at Dorchester Penitentiary.

“Alright girls!” Nepenthe beamed, turning her head into the far end of the railroad spur, towards the sound of savage barking. “Let’s go get what we came for.”

Meanwhile…

Diamond Mint Jewelup cowered in the cab of #8888, the diesel locomotive that had been procured for her by the Ponies for Ethical Treatment of Newfoals. Beyond the windshield, something inequine made a twisted, guttural snarl that sounded like cries of pain, fear and anger layered all over each other, sending her heart racing with each primal cry. She didn’t want to face the horrors that produced such sounds, she just knew she had to get going. Whatever it was, it wasn’t friendly.

“Come on!” she screamed, fear compounding with adrenaline as she pounded her hooves on the circuit breakers on the rear bulkhead. “Why won’t you start?! By her Unconquered Sun, why?! Won’t?! You?! START?!”

That had been the crux of her plan as she fled Dorchester Prison, the erstwhile ‘Camp Rebirth’. Get to #8888, escape to safety, and report that a creature calling itself Nepenthe was doing unspeakable things to innocent Newfoals (and not-so-innocent trueborn Equestrians).

Despite the sounds of dogs on her tail, she had made it to the siding just in time to see a different train to her own pulling out. Dodging around it, she had gotten to #8888, half-buried in the undergrowth, locked herself in the cab and set about starting the locomotive…

...which obstinately refused to turn over!

Again she depressed the ‘Engine Run’ button, but instead of a powerful roar, all she heard was a strangled metallic bleat as the motor struggled to start. Panicked, she scuttled across the cab, examining all the readouts and gauges.

“Battery charge, fine…” she read aloud, “Motor, primed…” Her railroad knowledge was rudimentary, learned from a Newfoal who hadn’t even driven the same class of machine, but she had memorised every detail she could find regarding the operation of this ‘SD-40’ type of locomotive and was sure she had done it all right.

Then, fumbling her way along, she came to one of the internal fuel gauges.

Empty.

Cold fear clamping around her spine she tapped at the glass to unstick the needle, knowing deep in the pit of her stomach that even if she could, it wouldn’t move. It remained obstinately buried at ‘0 Gallons’.

“How?!” she wailed. She’d taken delivery of it fair and square, confirmed with her own eyes the amount of fuel in the tank, how could it have-

Her senses sharpened for the briefest of moments, and for that fraction of a second, she heard the other train rumbling in the distance.

‘Humans, Diamond Mint realized. ‘The humans on that other train stole my fuel!’

And then she realised that the sounds, the awful snarls from beyond the cab, had stopped…

*Knock Knock*

It was a hoof tapping on the door.

Oh no. Suddenly terrified, Jewelup backed up into the nook formed by 8888’s control stand, and curled up into a ball, trying to hide herself.

There was another *Knock Knock*, the sharp tang of keratin against metal, and this time it was accompanied by a melodic voice.

“Milady Jewelup. It’s Nepenthe. Would you please come out and speak to us? Pretty please for a Pretty Private?”

It was hard to tell if Nepenthe was mocking her or not. Jewelup would swear she saw frost creeping over the windows as she pleaded.

Jewelup caught her breath, forced herself to be still. How long could the door hold out against these monsters… a few minutes, or mere seconds? But if she could get the locomotive’s handbrake off, and then telekinetically punt against the railbed, she might be able to slow-roll to safety...

In her panicked and somewhat hopeless attempts to devise an escape plan, she completely forgot several salient facts:

A: Nepenthe’s Pretty Privates contained among their ranks an Earth Pony mare who could bend plantlife to her will.

B: The locomotive that was her current hiding-place was half-shrouded in trees, bushes, weeds, and assorted other manners of undergrowth. Not to mention, the weeds had grown up between the railroad ties, so even if she’d gotten 8888 moving, something would have stopped it.

C: While she might be hidden from the line-of-sight of the cab’s front-door, there was also the back-door leading out onto the rear catwalk, the very back door that was less than three feet from where she was curled up on 8888’s deadman’s pedal.

D: Yeah, this wasn’t going to end well.

No, all she heard was a soft rustling sound, and then the ‘prang’ of rending metal as the locomotive’s back door was ripped off its hinges and hurled clattering down the catwalk into the brush. Jewelup had just enough time to see this, to gasp, before thick green trunks of ivy writhed in through the opening and lassoed one of her legs. It tightened, pulled, and before she could scream or telekinetically grab hold of something, she was hauled out of the cab and tossed bodily forward, arcing over 8888’s roof and plummeting towards the rails that reached out from under its rusted cowcatcher…

A field of silver-grey magic caught her, and she found herself suspended in front of Nepenthe. The self-proclaimed ‘Pretty Private’ had already replaced those parts of her armour with which she had anointed Jewelup last night, and had even embellished her armoured cuirass with a badge-of-rank: Captain.

But it wasn’t these little details that caught Jewelup’s horrified attention. No, that privilege went to the dogs. Dorchester Penitentiary, like all human prisons, had a kennel of guard-dogs assigned to patrol the facility and hunt down escapees. That was all nice and legal, under human and pony law alike.

But even the depravities that humans called ordinances forbade the breeding of the wolfdogs such as those that Dorchester’s staff had reared in the kennels to put the fear of primitive human gods into violent convicts interned during the war. They had been a terrifying sight (and sound) during her time at the prison, their various admixtures of animal content and the savagery fostered from training, abandonment, starvation and cannibalism combining to serve up a prime dish of canid wrath bundled in fur. Their initial upbringing in the prison’s atmosphere had already left them rowdy and near-uncontrollable. Evidently, this had been the assessment of the humans that ran the facility, who had left them behind when the penitentiary had been evacuated. Nature, nurture, and several weeks confinement had done the rest, winnowing the pool down so that only the six largest, fiercest and most aggressive animals had survived long enough for the ponies to take occupancy of the prison. Some were larger than the others, some had heavier fur or sleeker builds, and yet they were all somewhere in that unnerving hinterland between barbarism and domestication… rather like humans, in Jewelup’s eyes.

Oh, oh how that comparison now came back to haunt her, with irony slathered on top. Now, now the wolfdogs were even worse.

Now they were half-pony!

She wasn’t sure what kind of black alchemy had been employed to do it, but somehow or other, Nepenthe’s unit of witches had clearly fused the six remaining dogs with Newfoals. They now had the build of ponies, but with clawed paws instead of hooves. Pelt had fused with mane to create a shaggy, colorful mass that was neither canine or equine, while the clear light of sentience blazed in their gleaming, pony-sized eyes.

Neither bitch nor mare, and both at the same time. As Jewelup stared and quivered, one of them drew back its lips in what was clearly both a smirk and a snarl, revealing a maw of needle-sharp incisors. It growled softly as it did, a muted purr that contained all the threat and promise of a morning in the wilderness, of thunder before the rain and the roar that heralded an avalanche.

“They’re wonderful, aren’t they?” beamed Nepenthe, seeing where her captive’s attention lay. “I’m so proud of what Harvest achieved, of the creativity she showed in making something new…”

Something new…

“They can’t speak unfortunately, but they understand languages just perfectly, and Harvest can speak through them… ” Nepenthe continued. “All the benefits of an equine physique, combined with nascent human intelligence and the enhanced senses and metabolism of a creature designed by nature as an endurance hunter. Perfect scouts and trackers, as you saw.”

Oh, Jewelup had seen, and heard. These animals had chased her all the way from the prison, and it was only sheer terror that had given her the stamina needed to reach 8888 before she was overtaken.

Something new… against her best instincts she felt a thrill of pride. In all her time trying to bring out the best in Newfoals, she had never seen an act of imagination or creativity on this scale. And yet, she would’ve given almost anything not to be on the receiving end of that achievement.

“Six hounds…” Nepenthe concluded, pausing to scratch one behind the ears. “Enough for each of my sisters and myself to share, with one to spares.”

She stopped and looked straight at Jewelup, her smile widening until it threatened to push past her cheeks, almost wider than the Newfoal’s head, wide enough it looked like it could swallow her... “All of my sisters.”

And in that moment, terrified and trapped, Jewelup finally understood humanity’s fear and rejection of salvation, and screamed in fear as this thing far above a Newfoal called Nepenthe reached for her face…

“We have such wonderful things to show you.”

“Move it up,” motioned Verity, and moving from the cover of the caboose Tess shoved Maddy up and onto the rolling flattop of the slug unit coupled in the middle of the moving train. The mare, carrying a gagged Prism Flash - his legs and wings tied under her barrel - was already ahead of them aboard 1810, and once they reached her, Verity moved up again, pushing to the burned-out locomotive’s cab and checking around, gun-saddle armed and un-safetied. Tess had her Baretta out as well, checking on all sides of the moving train until once again Verity indicated that it was safe for them to proceed. Then, with her body hunched over to shield Maddy, the two of them scuttled forward along the catwalk.

At last, they reached the head-end of the train, 9782’s cab. Lighting had locked the door, and was perched on the engineer’s seat, staring forward with wings spread in rigid terror. It took six or seven knocks before she turned and noticed them peering in from behind.

“What was that?” Tess gasped as they tumbled in, making sure to lock the door again behind them, before evicting Lightning Dust from the engineer’s seat and reining in the throttle as they approached the junction, the convergence between the spur and the main-line.

“Nepenthe…” Lightning whispered, her wings drooping, and Maddy made a terrified little squeak. Tess saw Verity tense up at the mention of the name, pausing in the midst of shackling Prism Flash to the conductor’s seat.

“OK, so who is Nepenthe?” asked the Welsh youth. “Some kind of Newfoal?”

“Oh, you have no fucking idea…” Verity said aloud. “If a Newfoal was completely bugfuck insane, well more than usual, and programmed to actually be competent as opposed to the usual ‘clog-a-gun-with-bodies version 4.5’ OS.”

“Then why did they break off the pursuit?” Tess pointed back. “They just let us roll by. Come on, we’re not the first to get a train out of Newfoal territory… even those guys in 1810 got as far as Truro.”

She wasn’t sure just who she was trying to reassure. It wasn’t working on her, that was for certain. And she couldn’t help but remember that the taskforce who brought the 1810 and its cargo into Truro all died...

“They didn’t have this thing on their tail!” Verity yelled.

“They were chasing a mare,” Lightning put forward. “It was when I saw her coming that I set us rolling, like you said I should. Nepenthe came afterwards… but she wasn’t alone.”

She turned a serious glare at Verity. “You’ve seen her in action?”

A hesitant nod. Lightning swallowed, and in that pause Tess held up a frustrated hand. “Okay, enlighten me here. What’s so terrifying about one ‘competent’ Newfoal? I mean, you hear rumors about a few real freaks, like Imperial Creed, Quickblade, even Reaper, but what makes this mare any more awful than the average-”

Abruptly, the absurdity of what she’d said struck her. 'Oh, it’s just a lobotomized abomination made from the innocent, stuck in a horrible living death. Nothing terrifying about it.'

“-victim,” she finished lamely. She saw Lightning and Verity exchange hesitant glances, and looked away, focusing her attention on negotiating the last curve and the s-bend switch that would return them to the main line. They were near the coast now, running along a beltline of pine-littered marshes that separated an ocean inlet from the inland hills, everything painted white by last night’s fall of snow. Signal towers rose like stripped trees beside the line, their lights dark and unilluminated.

Out of reflex, she picked up the cab radio, checked that she had the right frequency for the Canadian National dispatch network, and held down on the ‘transmit’ key.

“Train CPX-9782, transmitting in the blind,” she said dully. “I am returning to the main line from the Dorchester Cape Spur, heading northbound to Moncton. Please copy.”

She released the key on the handheld mouthpiece, and the radio chirped, awaiting an answer. But nobody had replied any of her hails last night, and she didn’t expect to hear anything now. And as expected, all she got was silence.

She glanced into her cabside mirror to check back down the train, and found it obscured with snowy slush. Frustrated, she made a hand gesture, and Verity, interpreting it correctly, unlocked the back door and stepped onto the catwalk.

“You’re clear…” she said at last. “The entire train is off the siding.”

“Roger that.” Safely on the main, Tess quickly opened up the throttle, and 9782 accelerated, shuddering as her cowcatcher sundered each drift of snow that had smothered the rails. The track stretched out clear towards the horizon, and free to look away for a moment she turned back towards her ‘crew’. Verity had rejoined them, and she and Lightning were having a silent conversation, while the pegasus kept a comforting hold on Maddy.

“I mean, this Nepenthe is just one Newfoal,” Tess said aloud, as if trying to convince them of something she did not believe. Her hand clenched over the throttle. “Just one Newfoal, how bad could…”

Everyone in the cab stared at one another, except for Prism Flash, who let off a gagged burst of near-crazed laughter. She almost felt sorry for him. It hadn’t been a good day to be him…

But then, it hadn’t been a good day for anyone lately. So fuck him.

“It’s not just any Newfoal,” Verity said. “That thing… that might be the most dangerous Newfoal I’ve ever seen. It conjured a fucking ball of ponification potion out of odds and ends, it survived a goddamn homemade RPG at point blank-oh no.” Had Verity been human, her face would have gone pale, but Tess could see a slight, pale discoloration around the fur of her face. “Kraber was right - those rumors you hear, about ponies like ‘Sylvia the Reaper’, I didn’t want to believe the stories, but now...”

“Sylvia,” Maddy whimpered. “Rio’s friend Sylvia? Kraber the Killer, Rio said he took Sylvia away.”

Tess saw the ten-year old look up at Verity, challenge in her eyes.

“I’m not going to apologise for knowing him, and that doesn’t matter now,” Verity said calmly. “The important thing is that he won in a straight-up fight with a Super-newfoal,...”

“How did he beat it?” Lightning asked, like Tess apparently floundering and lost.

“He had PHL armor, about five guns, a unicorn, and shield disruptor grenades,” Verity said. “Meanwhile, we have a rifle from an assault saddle, two shotguns, a Beretta… and we’re a child, a girl that can barely be convinced to pull the trigger, and somepony that might well be a madmare. On top of that we’re outgunned, and we’re a huge target thanks to the cargo and Miss Dust here…”

She paused and smirked. “But you do have me, and I’m pretty good at slaughtering Newfoals if I do say so myself.”

Tess saw her reach over and tousle Maddy’s hair. “You’re not alone, kiddo.”

“Nepenthe’s not alone either. There were other ponies with her, in identical armour, and she was leading them…” Lightning Dust said, tightening her hold on Maddy, her eyes furtive. “Back in the city she called herself a Pretty Private, and now I think she’s making more of them, more soldiers like her.”

A dreadful silence fell. Tess looked slowly between each of their faces, seeing rage and fear in equal measure. Even Prism Flash was clearly affected, teeth clenched tight around his gag and eyes sunken.

“An army of Newfoal supersoldiers,” Verity spat. “Well, that’s something new. Fuck.”

“...ssscherwaitz…” hissed the radio, a garbled burst of static cutting short any contribution Tess could have made to the conversion. “...come in train 9…...his is Canad…….patcher at Monc....”

Suddenly energized Tess grabbed the radio and clutched it like it was a votive symbol. “Hello? Hello, this is train CPX-9782, copy. We’re receiving you but the signal is weak.”

“Adjust frequen...fearance from the Barrie….”

Fingers trembling, she tapped at the radio’s bandwidth adjuster, three ponies and a child watching on in hushed silence.

“Hello,” she said, trying again. “This is train CPX-9782, transmitting in the blind. Do you receive us, over?”

“Copy 9782,” came the reply after an agonising moment’s silence. It was a male voice, young yet hoarse, punctuated with the harsh bursts of what sounded like a smoker’s cough. “This is the Canadian National dispatch office in Moncton --koff-koff---. We’ve been tracking your progress since you left Truro. Sorry for leaving on your own for so long but *koff* we were having a hard time getting through the radio interference coming off the Barrier. Stand by for Advance Forecast.”

Verity was at Tess’s side in a second, producing a map of eastern Canada from out of her saddlebag and spreading it out on the floor. Faint concentric marks radiated inland across it from the Atlantic, projecting the expected advance of the barrier, each line marked with a figure that corresponded to the distance in miles from CERN, the epicentre of the advancing front. Quickly the dispatcher parsed off a figure, and with a pen clenched between her teeth, Verity attempted to highlight the corresponding ring. Her grip was shaky, not made any easier by the motion of the locomotive…

...then Maddy reached forward and, hesitantly, beckoned for the pen. Blinking, Verity passed it to her, and lying down on the map like a kid doodling on scrap paper, the ten-year old silently traced a neat line along an arc, and passed the sheet up to Tess.

“Thanks”, both she and the mare muttered. Maddy made no reply, instead returning to Lightning Dust’s embrace, clutching to the pegasus as if she was a life preserver. Sharing a brief glance with one another the engineer and the militamare turned their attention to the map.

“Halifax hasn’t been consumed yet?” Tess asked, seeking clarification.

“That is correct, but Truro *koff* was further east, and went down about an hour ago. Halifax will fall later today, but with the railroad out of town now severed *koff*, no more trains will be following you.”

“Wait, what?” Tess said, suddenly realising something. “I know the Grand Continental ripped off behind us in Truro, but there were over a dozen trains scheduled to follow us on out of the city, one of them must have gotten out. We shored up on the Dorchester Cape spur last night partly so that following traffic wouldn’t run head-first into our ass-end and-”

“-there isn’t!”

Tess’s words stumbled to a halt. Her speech had sped up as she spoke, words tumbling out of her as her voice ran away from her thoughts.

“There is nothing else following you,” the dispatcher repeated. “No other engineer or conductor has called in *koff*, no dispatch orders have been sent, and my control board shows that all the track-circuits on the main line between you and the Barrier are reporting ‘unoccupied’. There’s probably nobody around for miles.”

How that man could remain calm, Tess had no idea.

“But this was the FIRST train out of Halifax!” she insisted.

“And it’s also the last! --koff-- You’re it, 9782. You’re the last train. Now, please confirm your destination and desired route.”

Tess didn’t answer. Her mouth was clenched shut, but in her mind...

“9782, copy.”

...in her mind Tess was screaming. Visions of the railyard back at Halifax, of the supply and evacuation trains, of Paul Labiche and Colonel Hex, and the awful realisation that they were all now trapped on the rump of Nova Scotia, unable to escape…

...and the fact that she would be trapped with them, if she hadn’t annoyed Paul to the point that he showed her onto Jean’s engine in order to be rid of her.

“9782, I repeat, copy!”

Her shoulders shook, and she wasn’t sure if it was with relief or despair. She dropped the radio handset in order to press her hands to her face, and it fell against the face of the control desk, bobbing on its coiled wire.

Her breath coming hot and ragged, she heard Verity fumble the headset in her hooves, and carefully speak into it.

“Moncton dispatch, we copy. Our destination is Montreal, and we need the most direct line there. Please route us…”

“...via Pacific Junction, the Napadogan Subdivision, and Quebec City,” crackled the radio inside 8888’s cab. Nepenthe, curled up cat-like in the engineer’s seat, listened thoughtfully and made a careful note on a pad she was levitating beside her.

Then she sat and listened again, nonchalantly twirling and clicking the pen in her magic.

“What’s the nature of your cargo?” asked the dispatcher. An incisive male that one. She scribbled another note, tore it from the pad and passed it to an attending Pretty Private, a pegasus mare, who immediately saluted, sprang through the open cab window, spread her wings and took off north.

After a long silence she heard the mare, the pony-that-was-not-a-pony, answer. “Our cargo is classified, under orders of the PHL and UN joint command, authorised by Colonel Ambrose Hex.”

Hearing her voice, Nepenthe suppressed a slight shudder.

“Copy, 9782.”

Was it possible that she ‘feared’ that little freak, the one called Verity? The one whose very spit was dangerous, possibly even toxic to her work, to her Purpose? If that mare-that-wasn’t-a-mare was too involved, things could get very dangerous indeed… and Queen Celestia would never see her lovely work, her Pretty Private Paradigm.

Mind turning towards that Purpose, she glanced down at the floor of 8888’s cab. There lay Diamond-Mint Jewelup, the aqua unicorn spasming occasionally, eyes wide and glowing with magic. The tiara on her brow had been inscribed with runic symbols, and they blazed with light, as did the gemstone mounted upon the centre of the golden helm, the gem which had transformed itself from a ruby into a lustrous amethyst.

‘Just the same colour as Ponification Potion…’ Nepenthe thought to herself. ‘Such a beautiful, rich plum purple…’

And of course, it made absolute sense that the gem should take on that particular colour. Ponification Potion was, after all, just a medium for the actual spell. Oh, it was incredibly advanced, and incorporated a number of medical ingredients, various sedatives, puratives, hallucinogens and what-not, but those were all in service to the actual Ponfication spell matrix.

Which was, in essence, runic. And with her mind gloriously slaved to a being that was the very essence of the spell matrix, Nepenthe could think, see and speak in runic. The magic of transmutation, of reality itself, was an intrinsic part of her very being. She’d already created modified versions of the Potion with that magic, had seen her sisters perform their own incredible feats, and now she was taking it to the next step.

‘For the Pretty Private Paradigm to become the standard template for the Empire’s forces, it must also be applied to native-born ponies…’

And that required a test subject, to which Jewelup had volunteered herself for by trying to escape. Now the Ponification matrix, carved into the tiara, was scanning her DNA, identifying the gene markers that would need to be targeted to turn a Pony into a Pretty Private.

It was a staggeringly simple solution, one culled from Nepenthe’s own human experiences. Mankind’s computer hackers called it a ‘blunt force attack’, and she could not for the life of her comprehend why nopony else had ever attempted it. Ponies were immune to the basic iterations of the Ponification spell, that was true, but this would change all that...

Jewelup cried out briefly, voice howling, and Nepenthe dropped the pen and pad and dropped down to cradle and hold the unicorn. She felt no animosity to the mare for having tried to escape, in fact she felt…

She felt…oh, she felt…

Nepenthe smiled a touch wider, and though she could not see it, an outside observer would have seen that this time the smile reached her eyes. She wasn’t sure what the warm, velvety feeling coiling in her stomach was, but she knew that she felt a deep debt of gratitude to Jewelup for what had happened last night, for the PETN representative’s words had given her the chance to evolve, both herself and the Pretty Privates. Jewelup’s words had set her free from the chains of Flash Sentry’s lesser command, and allowed her to coil herself gloriously in the chains of her Queen, and of her Purpose.

Whatever happened, she wanted the best for Jewelup. And although it might scare her a little, she was sure the lovely mare would absolutely adore what being a Pretty Private would do for her life. She’d craved confidence and power, for comfort and family. Now she was going to get all of that, and more.

Jewelup began to thrash again, and Nepenthe telekinetically drew one of her swords and transmuted it into a baton that she jammed into her other mare’s mouth to prevent her biting her tongue in two.

“There, there, she soothed,” holding Jewelup tight to her and stroking her mane with one hoof. “You’re almost there milady, you’re almost family…”

“9782,” the radio crackled again. “Please confirm the number of souls aboard?”

“Five,” came Verity Carter’s immediate reply. “Two ponies and three humans, including one prisoner-of-war and one child.”

Nepenthe’s ears perked up at that. Speaking of family...

“Maddy,” she whispered aloud.

Lightning watched in silence as Verity continued to liaise with the dispatcher, feeling Maddy’s tiny arms wrapped tight around her.

“You’ve civilians onboard? Do they have military protection?”

“They’ve got me”, answered Verity, standing with her forehooves resting on the control desk. “And I’m not leaving them… copy Moncton?”

“I copy 9782. Maintain radio contact, call in when you reach Painsec Junction, on approach to Moncton. Over and out.”

“Over and out…” Verity replied, before twirling the handset cord on her hoof and slinging it back into its cradle. There was a bounce to her step that had not been there yesterday. A chill crept across Lightning’s wings as she saw the woman-turned-mare silently repeat the words ‘I won’t abandon them’ to herself, before Verity focused her attention on the silent Tess, who was staring forward along the railroad with a million-mile gaze.

“Hey, you’re going to be okay, right?” she said by way of comfort. “Heck, you’re not the only railroader I’ve seen pull through harsh troubles. There’s this guy in the PHL called Johnny C, and he’s done some crazy stunts…on steam engines!”

“Steam engines?” Tess muttered, and Lightning saw a corner of her mouth twitch, her gaze briefly lift. “What kind?”

Verity rolled off into her story, hoisting herself up to perch on the edge of the control desk, back against the windscreen and hindlegs dangling.

“It was a two-eight-something,” she said. “He called it a Mogul.”

“2-8-0,” hummed Tess, pushing her fringe back and wiping her eyes. “Freight engine.”

“Yeah, whatever. The point is John-boy used it to steal a totem-prole from an Imperial science team. That’s the only prole that we’ve come into possession of before today. He never shut up about it. But hey, we get this load to Montreal, then we’re the Big Damn Heroes, and Johnny C will be buying US drinks next time I see him. Plus the extra he owes me already.”

“That’ll be good,” Tess laughed faintly. “I only turned the legal drinking age in the US this year. But back home, I was drinking Dad under the table soon as I turned 17.”

“Well, I’ve got a line to some home-brewed moonshine that’s proof enough that 82’ here would probably burn it in her motor,” Verity laughed, giving the engineer a friendly hoof to the shoulder. “You drive, I shoot, and we’ll put your stomach to the test as soon as we get the chance.”

Her gestures were broad, expressive, her passion evident. Lightning didn’t have many friends, but the attitude she was seeing was very much like some of the lessons taught in flight school, about offering a lifeline to ponies in distress and never letting go.

It was heartwarming, it was touching and inspiring.

But it WASN’T Verity, not the true Verity who would have abandoned them to chase after her own mission, and it was all Lightning’s fault.

‘But that’s a good thing, right?’ she thought to herself. ‘I didn’t mean to change her memories of that night her marefriend abandoned her, but it’s all good if it means she lends her strength to keeping the train safe. Nobody got hurt, right?’

But it felt like a lie. Even as she sat, and comforted Maddy, who was looking uneasily towards the trussed Prism Flash, all Lightning could see was the shade of the human mare who had come to comfort Verity on the night she was dumped, who had brought her a coat to keep off the rain…

...who Lightning had unwittingly scrubbed from that memory, replacing her with a vision of herself, guised as Verity’s marefriend ‘Astrid’, decked out like a superhero and humbly repentant.

Should she confess? Should she keep a secret?

“She’s a nice pony…” someone whispered, and she realised it was Maddy, who was looking across the cab towards Verity, who was now laughing with Tess over some private joke.

Lightning looked down at the girl in her care, and saw the light of sincerity in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, that I was so rude last night,” Maddy added, ducking her head. “Just please, don’t leave me alone. I don’t want Rio… to find me.”

That cinched it. Lightning tightened her jaw. She might have hurt Verity, violated her mind, but if it guaranteed Maddy’s safety, she’d keep what she did a secret until they were all safely away from this madness.

Maybe, tonight, she could try and repair some of the damage-

SCR-PLATT!

Everyone froze as the engineer’s side window, the one that had been replaced with a sheet of Perspex, suddenly bloomed with purple goop. A shadow flitted over the windscreen.

“Hit the deck!” Verity bellowed, and hooking Tess with a hoof she threw the two of them to the ground. Lightning followed suit, dragging the cowering Maddy down the short flight of steps into the locomotive’s nose corridor, hidden from the windows.

“No!” Tess yelled. “The deadman’s switch! I’ve got to keep resetting the system or the brakes come on!”

“What?” seethed Verity, and Lightning saw Tess roll her eyes in frustration.

“Locomotives are equipped with a system that detects if the driver has died at the throttle or fallen asleep! I have to hit a ‘reset’ button every few seconds, or 82 assumes she’s running without anyone at the wheel and slams us into Full Emergency! I’ve got to stay close to the controls!”

Scuttling on her hands and knees, she scrambled back into the cab. Lightning and Verity shared a glance.

“Well, she’s got a point…”

“Don’t do anything stupid like sitting in the chair!” Verity called around the corner. “Bunch yourself into the footwell under the desk and reach up to do whatever it is you have to do!”

“Got it!”

“Well, at least she’s not cracking up on us any more,” muttered Verity, who was now struggling with her saddle. “Help me undo these straps would you.”

An extra pair of hooves made quick work of the job, breaking Verity’s saddle quickly down and freeing up the actual firearms.

“Now, how to get a shot off on them…” she muttered, before looking up at the ceiling. Lightning followed her gaze, and saw an access panel and hatch that had been crudely set into the steel, leading up onto the nose.

“Lightning,” Verity said firmly. “I’m going to need to stand on your shoulders…”

“And coming round, not quite awake, sleepy and relaxed and obedient…”

Jewelup blinked languidly, obeying the Voice that guided her, emerging out of what had seemed like an inky comforter. She breathed slowly, not thinking much of anything, a lazy smile curling round her lips.

The mare facing her was smiling too, a half-lidded, drifting smile that seemed as bright and fragile as a rainbow. Jewelup’s eyes were locked to that empty, smiling face… so empty.

“Can you hear me?” asked a voice, the beautiful voice that had woken her.

“Yessss…” she breathed.

“What’s your name?” the voiced cooed.

“Diamond,” she sighed. “Diamond Mint Jewelup.”

“And what’s your job? Who do you work for?”

“Pet-un. The Ponies… for ethical treatment, of Newfoals,” the words came to her slowly, still ready to hoof, but heavy and difficult to grasp. “I liaise with the Sal… the Sal… the Salvation Army.”

“Well done Minty. Good girl…”

A shiver rushed through her at those words, and she felt ‘something’ on her back twitch. That was odd. She lifted a hoof to check-

“Freeze, Minty.”

-her hoof stopped mid air. She held her breath, not even blinking, waiting.

“Put the hoof down.”

She did as she was told, feeling a languorous warmth flow through her as she complied. Once again the words “Good Girl” were spoken, and she trembled, a giddy little rush cascading through her. A hoof, not her own, gently stroked her mane. The mare facing her, the indistinct, blurry mare, now had a little blush colouring her cheeks.

“Tell me about yourself Minty. What are you?”

“Pony… blue pony… unicorn.”

“Who’s your closest surviving relative.”

“L-Lyra… Lyra Heartstrings… my mother’s nie… my cousin.”

“Is your cousin a Good Mare, Minty?”

“...”

“No, no she’s not,” the voice said for her. “She’s been very bad. She’s done awful things.”

The unfamiliar mare’s smile slipped. Jewelup felt sad for her, felt sad herself.

“You’ve been a Bad Girl too, Minty,” the voice added, conversationally. “You ran away, didn’t you?”

“-ss-” she said, a terrible shame suddenly suffusing her. She felt awful, cold, worthless. The other mare looked ready to cry. She knew she’d been bad, because she’d been told so. But when she tried to remember why she’d ran away, the memories slipped through her hooves like sugarspun clouds.

“But we know you want to be a Good Girl Minty, so we’re helping you… helping you to be a Good Girl.”

Her knees should have buckled at the shivvers those words (those ‘triggers’ part of her observed), but she couldn’t, because she was standing at parade rest, and wasn’t allowed to move, had been ordered to stand here, before she woke…

“Do you see the mare in front of you, Minty?” asked the voice, and this time the abstract part of her thoughts leant it a name… Nepenthe.

“-ss-”

“Describe her to me. Look closely and tell me what kind of mare she is.”

Jewelup blinked, and now that she had permission, found she could look away from those vacant, happy eyes. Her own eyes felt heavy, sluggish, but obeying Nepenthe’s orders she slowly piloted them across the other mare.

“Pegasus…” she spoke, finding it hard to lift her voice above a whisper, but not caring. She described a tall, elegant, athletic mare with deep, dark sapphires for eyes, a champagne-coloured coat, and a mane that seemed to rear forward over her head like a cresting wave, a frothy burst of pink-and-lilac. Part of it, at the back, had been tied up in a perky bun by a pretty little red ribbon. Her tail was tied up too, in matching fashion.

“What is this mare wearing, Minty?”

Armour. The pegasus was clearly a soldier mare, because she was dressed in grey plate armour, trimmed in royal blue. A plum-purple cape rested between her wings, which were broad and strong. On her brow sat a silver tiara, the amethyst stone in its centre complementing her mane.

“This mare is comfortable with herself, isn’t she Minty?” Nepenthe instructed. “See how her body and her armour fit perfectly together, see the powerful muscle in her limbs and wings. And look at how happy she is Minty, at how she knows there’s nothing she need fear, that nothing can ever hurt her.”

“Yes,” Minty sighed dreamily, feeling a subtle ache in her heart. The other mare seemed so confident, so poised and at peace. Everything she wasn’t.

“Well done”, Nepenthe purred in her ear. “She’s not royal, Minty, but she serves royalty. She’s a soldier, a priestess, an angel of grace and judgement, a demi-goddess who bends knee only to the Highest throne. Isn’t she amazing, Minty?”

Yes, yes she was. The hoof was back, gently rubbing and massaging her mane. Minty let out a vacant giggle: it tickled.

“Drink her in Minty, absorb everything she is. Look at her Posing, wings out-further, further-there see? Look at her getting ready to Buck, turn a little-perfect, see all that strength. See her ready to dance, to fight, to fly. Happy and serene and hot. Stunning, beautiful, the lust of stallions and envy of mares. A mare who can have anything, anypony she desires, everything she craves, because she’s a Good Girl, a Very Good Girl, and Very Good Girls get very good rewards for their service.”

The hoof came back, stroking the back of her neck.

“Do you see it, Minty? Do you see this wonderful mare?”

“Yes… yes I see her.”

“Good Girl… Good Girl…” Nepenthe cooed, and then, when Minty’s squeals and giggles of reward had died down, she gave a new order. “Minty, touch your horn.”

Minty obeyed, and whipping her hoof up she touched-

-nothing. Like a confused foal she pawed at her forehead, feeling only fur and flesh. The amazing mare she had been studying was copying her, mimicking her actions perfectly.

“It’s a mirror, Minty. Do you see?”

“-ss-” Minty whispered, and now her words had an undercurrent of dread.

“Which means that the wonderful mare is you. Pose, Minty.”

Minty obeyed, and now she understood, drawing herself up into the proud posture that had been implanted into her while she slept, head held high, wings flared, a confident smile on her face.

“Good Girl,” Nepenthe repeated, and now she stepped into view, coming up from behind her and carefully embracing her from behind. Minty squeaked softly as the words triggered another little rush, saw her wings strain with excitement, saw Nepenthe run a careful hoof along them.

“A beautiful strong mare, with beautiful strong wings. Wings that can help her fly, far away and high above the judging eyes and petty fears, a mare that can stamp out all those whispered comparisons to Lyra Heartstrings, a mare so powerful that she could stomp out the very memory of Lyra Heartstrings…” Nepenthe rested her head against Minty’s shoulder, and slowly, as if swimming through molasses, the new muscles strange and yet intimately familiar, Minty curled one wing around her in a hug.

They stared together into the mirror, drowning in what they had become. Minty whimpered, in fear and excitement.

“Aren’t these mares amazing, aren’t they beautiful, aren’t they above what they once were,” the unicorn repeated, and Minty felt those sentiments sink through her ears and into her thoughts. The purple gem on her tiara glittered brightly.

“This is what it means to be a Pretty Private. Aren’t they Good Girls…”

“Yes…” Minty answered, flushing.

“Do you want to remain that Good Girl?”

“Yes!”

“Is every Pretty Private a Good Girl?”

“YES!”

“Are you a Pretty Private?”

“...”

Nepenthe waited, patiently.

“Yes.”

Minty saw Nepenthe smiling in the mirror, a soft, joyous smile, saw her lean in and peck her cheek in a single kiss.

“Well done Jewelup. Good Girl. And now, Wake Up.”

Jewelup blinked, as the fog that had clouded her thoughts rushed away. She nearly toppled forward on her suddenly-weak limbs, but caught herself with an instinctive flutter of her wings. Feeling them working between her shoulders, she nearly passed out with shock, but instead turned and stared at Nepenthe.

--commander--leader--sister--

She should have screamed, would have screamed. And yet she didn’t. She was horrified, flushed with rage at what had been done to her, yet she was In Control of herself.

--discipline--grace--awareness--

She blinked, seeing the world come into focus. There was something off about her eyesight, everything seemed sharper now. They were back in her room at the prison, and glancing through the window she saw dozens of armoured Newfoals at work in the exercise yard, saw with vision so refined that she could identify and distinguish each pony as they drilled, salvaged, built...

‘Pegasus eyesight…’ she realised. Pausing, gathering a deep breath, she pawed in mid air and reached for the floor. Her hooves made contact with the carpet, and she composed herself. Calm came with unnatural ease, because despite everything seeming WRONG, her body felt like a natural fit, as if she had lived in its skin her entire life.

She heard a *tinkle* of magic, and sensed something hurling towards her through the air.

--danger--fight--act---

As if a switch had been flicked she spun herself around, caught the projectile in one wing, and still twirling, hurled it at the nearest wall. Then she stopped, and stared, seeing six-feet of javelin shaft embedded into the solid stone.

At last, she turned on the grinning Nepenthe, and saw they now stood at the same eye-level. Jewelup whetted her lips, frowned, and pointed out onto the exercise yard.

“What did you do to them?” she demanded.

Nepenthe turned towards the window. Jewelup blinked. Subconsciously, she had expected the action to be that of a Newfoal, where the head alone turned, the rest of the body remaining motionless. Nepenthe however was fluid and gracile, swinging her entire barrel around in the action.

“We did exactly what you wanted…” she said at last, eyes narrowed with satisfaction as she looked out over the yard.

“What I wanted?” Jewelup repeated in disbelief.

“Oh yes,” Nepenthe turned back. "You wanted a better Newfoal. But we're as far removed from the average Newfoal as Queen Celestia was from you. You asked for a better Newfoal, Minty. And here. We. Are."

Jewelup looked from those smiling grey eyes to the milling ponies in the yard below. Then she looked towards the mirror that had been set up in one corner of the room, examining herself. She flexed a leg, flapped her wings experimentally, ran a hoof calmly over her forehead to confirm her horn had been excised from her existence so thoroughly as to suggest she was born of pure Cloudsdale stock.

“Alright then… so what did you do to me?”

“As I said…” suddenly Nepenthe was in her face, eye to eye with her. “Nothing that you didn’t want…”

Want… pressed this close to the Newf -- to her captain -- Jewelup felt a sudden pang. Last night’s sex had been wonderful. She’d been nursing a yearning, and Nepenthe had given her what she wanted.

Now, she yearned again, but felt none of the fear or hesitation that had defined her then…

This time, she just reached out, grabbed Nepenthe by the shoulders, and took what she wanted.

The kiss that followed was deep, passionate and earnest, two mares hugging one another tightly as hoof, feather and magic explored, probed and felt.

As she bit lightly onto Nepenthe’s lip, Jewelup’s eye flickered open, landing on the mirror. She’d turned away slightly in the process of tangling with the unicorn, presenting her flank to the glass.

She blinked, and broke off from the kiss, Nepenthe’s sweet, euphoric taste tingling on her tongue, and peered deep into the glass, searching for something. Something was amiss…

...and then she realised that her horn was not the only thing that had vanished. Where once the purest expression of her being had glittered on her flank, now there was just a smooth expanse of fur. Her cutie-mark was gone.

Her cutie-mark… what was it again? Dimly, in the back of her mind, she visualised three sparkling gems, but the image felt distant and faint.

And then she snorted, with a touch of sadness, but also relief. Those gems had been Jewelup’s cutie-mark, and she was… no longer Jewelup. The academic part of her cautioned that this was conditioning and hormones speaking, but the fact was, she had hated herself - always in Lyra’s shadow, always the lesser mare, caught in the trap of teaching, always suffering the slings and arrows of selfish brats.

Not anymore. She still felt those old drives, to teach, share and educate, but now she felt no fear, just a confidence grounded in calm certainty. Nothing could hurt her anymore, not as she now was.

She was new-born, new-foaled, with a fresh, unknown destiny ahead of her, a new life to discover. Bright and shining as a sword, as elegant and lean as the curve of a sabre.

She smiled, first in relief, then with utter joy. And the smile grew and grew, until it filled her mind with radiance, purpose, and the certainty of Her cause. Everyone would share in this chance to start again, to rise over their past demons, to become new-foaled.

For Earth, for Equestria, in the name of Queen Celes -- in the name of the Unconquered Sun!

“Is something wrong, Jewelup?” Nepenthe asked softly, laying a hoof on her shoulder.

“No, not Jewelup,” the mare said, shaking her head, mane dancing prettily around her face in the mirror. “Not anymore. Call me… Sabrage...”

She licked her lips, turned and laughed, snapping off a crisp salute. “Hi there! Pretty Private Liaison Officer Sabrage reporting for duty! My sword is sworn to you, my Captain.”

She saw Nepenthe’s own ever-present smile flicker briefly, a touch of something regretful glistening in her eyes. Then it faded, and the unicorn pulled Sabrage into a hug. “Welcome to the corps, sister…”

“Thank you…” Sabrage whispered as she planted a series of soft, fluttering kisses down the back of her sister-Captain’s neck. “Thank you so much…”

A phial of potion shot through the air, narrowly missing Verity’s head, which was peeking up through the hatch set into the top of 9782’s shaking nose. Standing awkwardly atop Lightning Dust’s shoulders, she hoisted one of her rifles and steadied it in her hooves.

It was an alien experience, trying to fire from the hoof. In the past, she’d always found the idea of using her innate tactile magic to manipulate objects as somewhat disgusting. Now however, now she had no choice, and in truth, hefting the sights to her eyes and setting the gun’s stock firmly into her shoulder, it felt right and natural.

She swept the sky, waiting for the pegasus who had hurled that phial to sweep back into view-

-there-

She brought the barrel around, let out a breath, steadied her arm and - and gaped.

!!SCRASH!!

The moment’s hesitation nearly bought her a flask of potion to her face, the glass container hurtling down out of the sky, wrapped in a shimmering field of magic. She ducked just in time, and the flash shattered itself harmlessly on the edge of the locomotive’s frame, splattering potion over the snow that flanked the railroad.

Cursing herself, this time she focused on taking the shot, and feeling the magic in her hooves ‘grip’ the trigger with a kind of tactile tingle, she loosed an armour-piercing round into the sky.

It flew straight and true, puncturing straight through the barrel of the pegasus mare she had fired on, dropping the pony from the sky as surely as if it's wings had been cut… but it also brought down a unicorn, a lightly-armoured stallion who had been strapped into a hang-glider towed behind the pegasus, the same unicorn who had used magic to guide and stabilize the hurled potion-flask that she had nearly caught with her muzzle.

Verity watched them fall, the weight of the shot pegasus pulling the glider down in a death-spin. The unicorn however had some skills of his own, because he managed to pull the glider out of the spin and line it up for a belly-landing in the snow.

Wanting to see more, not believing her own eyes, she hauled herself completely through the hatch and sprawled on 9782’s leading hood. Two stainless-steel truck exhausts had been welded flat against the steel of the nose awning, and getting a grip on one she stuck her head out past the edge of the cab and peered down the length of the speeding train, eyes narrowed as she tried to make out the crashed glider through the powdery snow thrown up by the wheels…

‘Oh shit!’

The railroad ran close to a highway here, steel and asphalt winding their way hand-in-hand across the marshes, pinned between the hills and a tidal arm of the Petitcodiac River. The glider had come down onto a berm beside the highway, and as the unicorn dragged himself from the wreckage, vehicles came hurtling up the road to aid them.

Verity grabbed the pair of binoculars that hung around her neck, checked to make sure the skies were clear, and held the lenses up to her eyes, squinting.

The unicorn wasn’t just rescuing himself, but was hauling the pegasus mare from the snow and laying her out in a recovery position. The vehicles coming up the highway were human in origin, cars, trucks and four-by-fours, but while some were being driven under their own power, others were being hauled by mares and stallions. The first to arrive was clearly a triage unit, because it immediately discharged lightly-armoured ponies who wore red-cross/pink-heart armbands, ponies who immediately surrounded the shot pegasus, one of them levitating a human first-aid kit, another carrying what looked like a portable defibrillator...

Stunned, Verity spun the focus-dials, and as the train threw itself round a corner and blocked the scene from sight, she confirmed with her own eyes that every single one of them sported a rictus-grin.

She let the binos fall, and they bounced against 9782’s oxide-red hull, still secured around her neck.

Newfoals. The hang-glider had stunned her - never before in the war had the armies of Equestria attempted such initiative, combining the strengths of horn and wing in a single package - but the sight of the support column chasing along the highway had knocked her mindset clear out of the ballgame.

There was a name for it, Combined Warfare. For the first time ever, Newfoals, not just ponies but Newfoals (!) were practicing combined warfare… and scavenging human materials… and performing battlefield medicine on one of their own.

No! This wasn’t right! Newfoals were brain-dead cannon-fodder, meatsacks only good for hurling at enemy lines in mass numbers, until they either broke through by sheer numbers or clogged the barrel of every gun with their bullet-ridden corpses.

She suddenly felt like a George A. Romero zombie survivalist thrown into the world of 28 Days Later, confronted with quick-footed, rage-crazed fiends, not just shambling corpses. She knew how to fight ponies, and she knew how to fight Newfoals…

But these… she didn’t know how to fight these things…

Something wheeled in the sky and she lifted her eyes, feeling a new dread beat over her, seeing dozens more pegasai-hauled hang-gliders filling the skies. Then her eyes slid down to 9782’s windscreen, and she peered through into the cab, making eye-contact with Tess, who was peeking cautiously over the lip of the control desk.

Verity Carter felt her resolve harden. She’d promised to protect these people, to not abandon them the way her mother had, not just by rejecting her humanity and becoming the stallion New Bloom, but the way she’d failed to show her face when her daughter needed her most, on that Halloween night long-ago…

’...wait, that’s not right. Didn’t Astrid show up instead? But how could mom and I have then gone home and talked about her past...’

She shook her head, and focused herself. Right now she was on this train, and there were ponies that needed killing. And to do that, she’d have to apply the same rule they appeared to be living by. Improvise.

She ducked back through the hatch and, ignoring Lightning Dust, jumped into the cab space.

“They’re coming after us along the highway, and they’ve got cars and trucks! How long until the railroad leaves the road and goes cross-country?”

Still crouched on the floor, Tess reached up and snatched the Barrier Forecast Map from where it had been left spread-out on the control desk.

“Uh, this isn’t as detailed as my other maps but… that road peters out once it links up with the Trans-Canada Highway. Once under the highway we’ll have about five miles of woodland before we hit the outskirts of Moncton, and then it's a twenty-mile dash across town before we strike out into the wilds.”

Just as Verity moved to curse, the radio crackled.

“Moncton *koff*, Moncton calling 9782, pick up immediately!”

Tess snatched up the handset. “9782 here Moncton, we copy.”

The line dissolved into a heavy burst of coughs and splutters before the unseen dispatcher got his wits together.

“9782, we show the section behind you as occupied *koff*, have you lost part of your train?”

Verity saw Tess glance out the back door and check the locomotive’s dashboard. “Negative Moncton, we’re running fully-fitted. The brakes would have come on if I snapped off part of my consist.”

There was a long silence. Then the dispatcher’s voice came back, breathing heavily in between gasped words.

“Copy… 9782… that uh… that blip on our screen has --koff!-- started moving. Ah… 9782, go faster!”

“What?” Verity demanded as she saw the pallor leave Tess’s face. “What does that mean?”

The youth looked her fearfully in the eye as further flasks of potion began to shoot past the windows, some smashing onto the roof above their heads.

“It means another train is following us!”

8888 rumbled smoothly, the motor purring as diesel scavenged from the prison’s backup generator system flowed through its fuel-lines.

With Sabrage at her side, Nepenthe trotted down the road from the prison, smiling widely as the locomotive drew up neatly at the grade crossing in the fields below what might once have been called ‘Downtown Dorchester’. Behind them flowed a column of Newfoals, bearing on pallets and trolleys everything that could be scavenged from the prison. All of it went onto a number of flatbeds marshalled behind the locomotive, condemned carriages and boxcars that had been hauled out of the Dorchester Cape spur and stripped of their bodywork, leaving just the floors and the rolling chassis.

With all eyes on her, the Captain of the Pretty Privates jumped onto the locomotive’s running board, and pointed north.

“Load them up and roll them out! Let’s raise the curtain on the next act!”

The siren and the mage were locked in combat, the ballet and orchestra whirling and rising in tempo with their hoofbeats. As Starswirl and Adagio unleashed their full magical power, the audience gathered in the Salle des Chevaux tensed themselves, knowing full well that this was the moment, that they were approaching the point where Poochini died, where his final opera should be all rights end…

Cheese gritted his teeth, thoughts torn between what was unfolding onstage, and what was transpiring inside the box he shared with Coco Pommel and the Flim-Flam brothers.

The Charter of the Guard. Somehow, the Equestrian Resistance had stolen the enchanted oath that bound all sworn members of the EUP to the explicit will of the Solar Tyrant. And now it had been entrusted to him, with the express goal of destroying it…

’This would mean burning my bridges with the PHL, revealing my true allegiances by activating my sleeper agents. The consequences will be dire, for all sides. If the attempt to destroy the Charter fails, then the backlash of the betrayal I set in motion might cost us the whole war, and worse…’

...his eyes flickered across the auditorium to Box 5, which was occupied by a single stallion, attended to by a cadre of nurses. Cheese felt his eyes tingle, and fought back unexpected tears.

‘Father…’

‘Iron’ Kreme Brulee had seen better days. The troubled and yet galvanised stallion who had launched the Great Equestrian was now a shadow of himself, barely alive and yet denied death. What sat in the box looked like pieces of leather stitched into pony form, rheumed eyes gazing through cateracts over the tawdry show defiling the stage built by his own father, Cheese’s grand-pere Marque Brillante.

‘We were never close,’ Cheese admitted to himself. ‘Not with how different we were. But you were never a bad stallion or an unkind father… you just had a different path planned out for me, compared to that which I wanted to tread.’

Engineering was in the family line, and Cheese admitted he had some gift for mechanics and artificing, evidenced by the spectacular constructs that were once an integral part of his long-gone parties. But those skills were always in service to his true passion, which was to make ponies laugh, laugh honestly and gleefully…

...ironic then that he should end up a spy, cloaked in lies and falsehoods. And yet it was far better a fate than what had befallen his father: Kreme Brulee was one of Equestria’s most brilliant engineers, and too much of value to the war effort for the state to lose. And Equestria was oh so good at taking others and repurposing them for their needs nowadays...

So, despite the perversion of his dreams, despite his loathing of war and a certain warmongering alicorn, despite seeing his ‘Great Babe’ recommissioned as a warship, despite the loss of his wife and the estrangement of his son, despite wanting nothing more than release and peace, Kreme Brulee was not allowed to die. Vast amounts of magic had been expended to keep his mind active and inventive, at the cost of his physical form. Squadrons of medics stood on hand 24/7 to ensure he didn’t kick the bucket unexpectedly…

...and worst of all, he had been sworn into the EUP as a reserve in the Engineering Battalions, thus enslaving his very will through the same Geis that bound every other member of the armed forces. And then he had been compelled to invent, for his mind to race every second to create concepts that would bring ruination to humanity, and even his beloved home. There would be no rest, no sanctuary in his own mind. As long as he had an ounce of creativity left, he’d be left alive… no, not left alive. Pickled. Prolonged.

So much for being a Great Equestrian...

Cheese’s hooves gripped tightly onto the scroll in his hooves, just as the orchestra cut loose with an unfamiliar, invasive burst of brass, the bombastic fanfare completely at odds with the impassioned and subtle scoring that defined Poochini’s masterwork. His gaze flicked back to the stage, and he sneered as the actor playing Starswirl hefted a hoof and began to sing an ode, a proud aria calling upon a supreme power to lend him aid in this undecided fight…

...an ode to Celestia.

As the act wound to its conclusion, Cheese’s stomach twisted in rage and disgust. He had expected the ‘completed’ finale to be something tasteless and patriotic, but this was beyond the pale. Old Poochini would be spinning in his grave fast enough to generate current if he could see this travesty!

No, now his magnum opus on the clash of personalities, on the value of self-respect and perseverance in the face of overwhelming odds, the work that had challenged and intrigued performers and audiences for decades with its mysteries, had become nothing more than a puff-piece for the Solar Empire.

“Disgusting,” he heard Coco whisper, twenty minutes into the ‘new’ material. It was at that point that Celestia herself, represented by a divine light shining down from above the stage (heavens forbid that the High Queen herself by sullied through being portrayed by some mortal actress), manifested to directly intervene in resolving the fight, calling on Adagio and her henchmares to lay down their arms and swear fealty to her.

“...and go forth, in my name,
to a realm thou knowest not,
a place that knowest not harmony,
but which in time’s fullness must.”

And in return the Sirens cried out that they would, that they would be her spies and agents in ‘The New World’, laying the groundwork for the glory to come.

If anything, Cheese gripped the Charter of the Guard even harder, as if through sheer will alone he could cancel out the magicks that protected it.

And then, suddenly, Coco reached over and rested a hoof on his. The dark-eyed mare shared a brief moment of emotion with him, nodding in agreement.

“We can end this,” she said, softly. “We can bring it all down and ensure tonight’s performance is a one-night stand.”

As the profanely sycophantic words being sung below tried to crowd out Cheese’s thoughts, he felt the fires of his indignation burn brighter.

“My grandfather’s stage has been sullied with this filth,” he spat. “Please, burn it down.”

“All right,” Coco’s lips curled into a smirk, one that for once had a touch of equinity in it. “Flim, Flam, work your magic.”

The two silent brothers slipped out of the box, and for a few minutes nothing happened. Cheese and Coco sat without a word, watching the denouement of the narrative play out.

Then, just as Starswirl launched into another Godawful piece giving thanks to Celestia for her intervention, swearing his magic to her service, the building’s magical intercom crackled. The orchestra cut off abruptly, the actors stumbling mid-step, before-

“AUUUAAAAAAAARGHHHHH!”

-the sound system squealed and popped, segueing into the scream of a human caught in the throes of ponification. All throughout the theater, natural-born couples held each other, shadows of horrified doubt making themselves shown as they were forced to endure the fear in that poor human's voice. Cheese’s eye however was on the Newfoals attendants going about their work in the aisles… was he imagining it or did their smiles suddenly seem… pained? Regretful?

And then, rising like a lark ascendant over the scream, there was a voice.

“I’ve...I’ve been allowed to uphold my right of Final Words...” Lyra Heartstrings spoke from beyond the grave. “...a chance to justify myself, as either a martyr to humanity, or a traitor to equinity...and so I’d like to borrow from the words of a great human, Charlie Chaplin...”

Cheese lifted an eyebrow at Coco and clopped his hooves silently together.

“A statement from the traitor mare?” he said, both of them fully aware that Lyra hardly possessed as much good standing among the Resistance as she did the PHL. The repeated news of humans, ponies, and others wanting to canonize her as a saint and/or worship her had not helped.

“Flim and Flam call it ‘showbusiness’,” she replied drolly. “Lyra apparently gives better copy than Lady Harshwhinny.”

"I will admit that Harshwhinny has all the dramatic and theatrical sense of one of Maud's rocks," Cheese conceded. Well, whatever else could be said about Coco, she knew how to choose cronies with style.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be a martyr or a traitor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to subvert or conquer anyone anywhere. I should like to help everyone - if possible – Pony, Human - biped - quadruped.”

"HEARTSTRINGS!" somepony screamed, infuriated at the mere sound of the mare dubbed ‘Anti-Citizen #1’ within the empire. “WHO DID THIS!”

!!CRASH!!

As if answering his enraged cry, a massive spotlight marked ‘Celestia One’ plummeted out of the stage rigging, smashing itself across the magical wards that shielded the actors and audience.

“Fear and greed have poisoned our souls, barricaded borders with hateful barriers, and marched us into misery and bloodshed. We say our ‘enemy’ has developed speed, and so we shut ourselves in. Their machinery which could give abundance has inspired our fear. Our war with Sombra has made us cynical. Their history has made them sometimes hard and unkind…”

Lyra’s words continued to resonate, Marque Brillante’s architectural acoustics amplifying them gorgeously, as a cascade of flaming lamp oil burst out of the wrecked housing, a burning wave that immediately set the walls of the stage ablaze. As if the building itself was relieved at this development (though Cheese suspected some flimflammery at work), the safety-curtain immediately jammed itself as it began to descend, giving the oil enough time to drip into the orchestra-pit, spreading the fire beyond the confines of the stage and into the actual auditorium.

Before the first voice had even drawn breath to scream, the fire-alarms rang into life, while magically-charmed doors concealed within the walls swung open, revealing wide and copious fire-escapes leading directly out onto the streets. Cheese smiled grimly. No ponies would die here tonight, and it would be a fitting final testimony to his grandfather’s architectural genius. If the Salle de Chevaux was to die tonight, then it would go down swinging…

...and Lyra would be its swansong performance, the Mare herself already ascending towards the climax of her final speech, cribbed from the Great Dictator.

“Ponies! Newfoals! Humans! Don’t give yourselves to brutes – the Queen who despises you - enslaved you - who regiments your lives - tells you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drills you - diets you - treats you like animals, uses you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to this unnatural Beast – a machine mare, with a machine mind and a machine heart! You are not machines! You are not weapons! You are living beings! You have the love of others in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural. Guardsponies! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!”

The opened doors had another effect. As ponies fled, air flooded in, feeding the flames, and within seconds the wards failed under the heat, allowing the fire to drop onto the swiftly-abandoned stage, flames licking immediately across the set, salivating oil in anticipation of the meal to come…

As Cheese and Coco made their own escape, feining panic, he slipped a parting glance of triumph at the stage, and to his satisfaction saw the orchestra conductor hurling the ‘completed’ score for La Sirene into the devouring flames. Savouring the moment, and feeling nothing but pride for having saved the theatre from having to host further travesties, Cheese’s eyes rose to Box 5, and he took further heart from what he witnessed there. Old Kreme Brulee might have lost his family, freedom, and much of his mind, but clearly there was something still at work behind his eyes…

...because for a fleeting instant, Cheese saw his father gazing upon the wreck of his own father’s stage, and realised that the old colt was smiling at this small victory, at this ruination of another attempt to pollute the arts.

Then the moment had passed, and as Kreme’s attendants wheeled him away, Cheese trotted after Coco out onto the streets, where the howl of approaching sirens commingled with the synthetic cries of the hastily-evacuated game arcade next door to the theatre, a place where dozens of colts and fillies were usually engaged chasing the high-scores on games ‘inspired’ by the war for Earth: Salvation Army, Equestrian Liberator and Righteous Crusade.

Even as fire-hoses came to bear, the flames leapt from the blazing cinema to the arcade, and Cheese felt another moment of serenity. All might not be right with the world, but tonight at least, some justice had been done.

“Bonnie, can you hear me?” Lyra’s ghost spoke, grief and love suffusing her words. “Whatever happens, look on Bonnie! The clouds are lifting! The sun is breaking through! We are coming out of the darkness into the light! We are coming into a new world; a kind new world, where we’ll rise above hate, greed, and brutality. Our souls have been given wings and at last are beginning to fly. Flying into the rainbow. Into the light of hope! Into the future! The glorious future! That belongs to you, to me, and to all of us. Look on Bonnie, look on! I love you!”

“I’ll mobilise immediately,” Cheese nodded as Lyra’s final words died away in the flames, accepting the mission placed (literally) into his hooves. “But I can’t activate Maud - she’s too much of a risk, too highly placed to slip away unnoticed.”

“Do what you have to do,” Coco demurred, vanishing into the crowds as if she were a never-present ghost. “We’ll be watching, Cheese.”

Not bothering to search for her, Cheese nodded and trotted away. There was much he had to do. He didn’t dare use Maud, but he had contacts in PHL R&D, the little enclave run by Colonel Hex.

“All I have to do is message Astrid,” he murmured. “And she can put me in touch with Hex. I need Maud’s research, but I don’t need Maud.”

It would not even be a week before he regretted that decision.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Author's Notes:

Well, it's been nine months, but at last we have a new chapter. Consider this piece a sort of recap, reesetablishing the characters and laying the groundwork for what is to come.

As Nepenthe said, we're now raising the curtain on the second act, and things are about to get explosive!