The primary chamber was packed to bursting, ponies all making final preparations, bustling as the raised wooden stage in the center made an arena of the place. From different levels of the room, tunnels winding throughout the headquarters, mares and stallions all watched.

The six mares, the princess and the human soldier stood on the steps of the stage, watching as General Smolder stepped up.

There was silence.

“I know,” he began, “the fear in all of you. No pony in Equestria has faced what you have and will face for thousands of years, if ever. There is the real and true likelihood that some of us might not return here. Maybe even none of us.

“I for one, want for none of us to return here. That these caverns, this sanctuary against the tyranny and horror strangling our world will be derelict and unnecessary, that we can return to our country and our homes under the banner of sun and moon!

“Tomorrow looks a million years off from now, but by then, I say we will have our world back! We have waited! We have listened! And we have learned! We face powers never felt before, but with Celestia as my witness, we have the means to beat it back to the craggy tomb it climbed out of!”

A flurry of hooves around the room punched the air.

“YOU have the means! And so does the stallion to your left, and the mare behind you! Let it not be forgotten, that before the fall of our revered rulers, we were set to beat them hooves-down! With no warning, we repelled an otherworldly attack, sent them limping back behind their lines! What are their odds now that we’re prepared?!”

Indiscernible howls of nervous vigor erupted from around the room. Twilight had to admit to herself, the diminutive stallion was even giving her comfort.

“I say that battle never ended! I say we’re here, regrouped, and ready to push them ever back to the scrapyard! And Mandeville himself?”

The crowd fidgeted as they appeared to be scooting closer, like children eager to hear the exciting bits of their bedtime story.

“We’ll show him how different we are,” Smolder said, snout turning up. “We won’t kill him, won’t force him into slave labor. We won’t threaten all that he loves.

“We’ll do as we do! We’ll present him a fair trial, we’ll exemplify all that makes us Equestrians! Because after all, if we don’t believe in Equestria, how can we ever bring it back?!”

The hollering of the crowd turned deafening, but even so, Twilight caught Fluttershy’s eyes as her mouth hung open blankly. Glancing up towards Smolder, Twilight could see her cheeks reddening as she started to smile.

Twilight felt a nudge from behind as Cadance motioned for them to ascend the steps as Smolder stepped down.

Passing Fluttershy, he paused on his way down before growling, “What can I say kid, it was a good line.”

“Thank you, General Smolder!” Cadance projected to the crowd. “You make an excellent point, and like you, I believe we not only can win, but will win!”

The crowd roared their approval again, a building chant of “PRIN-CESS, PRIN-CESS!” penetrating the din until it was all they could hear until the last alicorn held up a hoof for silence. All she got really, was a mild buzzing to replace the thunderous cries.

“But bear in mind, my brave friends, that our triumph comes not from the fires of battle but from the mists of confusion. Make no mistake, you will be fighting for your lives, and it is in the interest of you and your comrades to disable as many of the enemy’s forces as you can. Victory, however, will come from within.

“I will be taking this small team inside of Mandeville’s fortress, to retrieve the Elements of Harmony, the true means of victory! It will be your duty to draw their forces out, disable as many of their defenses as possible and distract them from the presence of the infiltration team.”

By now, silence had truly fallen, and all attention was centered on Cadance.

“All I can ask of anypony here, is to look out for your brothers and sisters under Equestria. Fight bravely, but do not throw your lives away either. The important thing is to outlast. Remember your training, remember who you fight for, and remember: you are not alone.

“My aunt, Princess Celestia, believed so much in the power laden in the Magic of Friendship. I believe in it too. I believe our bonds make us stronger than a bunch of machines, and the puppet master pulling their strings. What can empower us more than to have something, or somepony to fight for? What friend has he in this world?

“Equestria is yours. He’s just squatting in it.”

She then gave Etherea a nod, and the others stood with Cadance on the platform. Half a dozen cloaked mages joined Etherea, encircling them. Etherea’s horn shone blindingly, a bright, circular rune forming beneath the group. The other mages followed suit, firing rays of magic into the air, to twist and meet in the center just above their heads in a cage of light.

“Good luck,” Etherea said above the great thrumming noise of the magic coalescing around them.

Before any of them could say anything, the circle contracted, taking them all with it in a pillar of light that exploded like a lightbulb. Electricity arced across the platform, leaving scorch marks everywhere on the creaking, rattling wood.

Rainbow watched her friends vanish, sitting beside the Wonderbolts near the back of the room.

“Bye guys,” she muttered, not taking her eyes off the spot they’d stood mere moments before.

“Alright Bolts, that’s our cue,” Spitfire ordered, the team filing out of the room at a brisk pace. “Buck up, Rainbow Dash, it’s go-time.”

Rainbow lagged behind as they cantered down the hall outside the main chamber.

“It’ll be us at the head of the pack,” Spitfire told them. “Our fastest fliers are gonna be made into heavy-hitters. That’ll be Fleetfoot, Misty, Rapidfire and Dash.”

Rainbow’s cheeks reddened in spite of herself, jaw going momentarily slack. “Wha— uh, ‘heavy hitters?’ ”

“Etherea talked it over with me,” Spitfire answered. “You’ll be joining some of the other ponies in ‘Tandem’ formations. Basically, you’ll be flying with a unicorn strapped to your gut.”

Rainbow Dash reeled. “Whoa whoa whoa, hold it! How am I supposed to fly at my best with another pony slung underneath me?”

“I dunno,” Soarin chuckled, “how did you? You took on the SHADEs before with that human on your back.”

“Yeah, and I barely made it outta that!”

Spitfire stopped and turned around. “Dash, you’ve got speed and maneuverability coming out of your ears. If we sacrifice some of that for a little more firepower, you’ll be a juggernaut on the battlefield.

“Don’t worry, you won’t think it’s dead-weight after your ‘gunner’s’ saved your flank from spotters you never saw coming. Now come on, the other Resistance forces are meeting at Rambling Rock.”

Her wings spread as she proceeded into a gallop. “Time for a little gauntlet-run!”

Rainbow smiled. “Just like Ghastly Gorge back home!”

One by one the team took off, blowing past scaffolds and through the winding labyrinth on their way to the outside. A process that usually took the better part of an hour was being conquered in minutes as Rainbow flew through trickling water falls, past treacherous crystal formations and around blind curves with her fellow teammates.

At last, the pale moonlight appeared as a beacon at the end of the tunnels, and they burst out into the night before coming to a stop on a great stone tower amidst the rocky landscape.

“Now we have only to wait,” Fire Streak commented, stretching each wing experimentally.

“Great, looks like we’re in for some fog,” Fleetfoot commented.

“Yes to the second,” Spitfire said, eyeing the rolling mist north of them before grinning, “but no to the first.”

She then took off towards the bank of fog, the others following her lead. Rainbow flew forward, brows knit together, until she’d burst through the first layer of mist and into—

Rainbow gasped at what she was seeing. Just behind the rolling fog were dozens upon dozens of pegasi, fanning the fog forward in what she recognized to be classic weather-team formations. Behind them, massive cloud-structures towered over everything. It would have looked like a massive stormfront, were the clouds not light-looking and had clear doors, windows and even stairs cut into them. Clouds were bridged by bridges made of clouds.

Rainbow Dash was home.

“Ah, Captain Spitfire,” Rainbow heard over her earpiece, an older voice, calm and wizened, “good of you to join us up here. You’re cleared for landing.”

“Copy that, Admiral,” Spitfire replied, “I extend your fleet the same; Rambling Rock Ridge is clear.”

“Admiral?” Rainbow repeated. “Like, Admiral Nimbus?”

“Affirmative,” Spitfire said, switching to their channel.

The team circled Cloudsdale, and Rainbow noticed the great city wasn’t alone. Airships of all sizes trailed behind it silently, from personal yachts and skiffs to the more militarized corsairs and destroyers, all flying low even before they drifted down towards the canyon floor.

“Y’know, this fight’s gonna be weird,” Rainbow said.

“What makes you say that?” Soarin asked.

“Both sides’ll have home-turf advantage.”

The harsh, brilliant light finally faded from Twilight’s eyes as they burst into the arrival site from the cavern base. Her first feeling about this new place was how very cold and damp the air felt. Gravel shifted beneath her hooves, and a mild yet icy breeze pulled at her from behind.

“Yes!” a low female voice said at last. Something about it tugged at the corner of her mind. “It worked! So you’re the infiltration team?”

Cadance cleared her throat, only for Rarity to make a girlish squeal. “Why, y-you’re that mare from Zecora’s, aren’t you?!”

“Wait,” Twilight said, finally opening her eyes in full. “Plumeria?”

“Whoa,” the violet unicorn exclaimed, her tangle of reddish hair bobbing in the breeze, “you are the team being sent in? Twilight the librarian and her Ponyville pals? Whoa, hold it! Aren’t you dead?!”

“Um, well… yeah— I mean no, that was a misunderstanding.”

“And,” Plumeria paused, staring up at Corey, “isn’t that Mandeville?!”

“Hmm?” Corey intoned, eyes bulging a moment. “I’m human, if that’s what you mean, but I’m not freaking Mandeville. The only thing we share is a species.”

“Really,” Plumeria said, staring. “I didn’t know more of you had crossed over.”

Twilight could only stare. The mare she had left so distraught boarding the express in Ponyville was transformed. She wore a grey vest lined everywhere with pockets and pouches, but what she wore was second to what else Twilight noticed about her.

A red streak ran over her cheek, with seared flecks in the coat surrounding it, as though something small had struck and exploded in her face. Twilight couldn’t help but inwardly squirm at the distinct chip taken off the top of her horn. Clearly she couldn’t do magic in that condition, though it wouldn’t necessarily be permanent.

But the strangest thing was seeing the abuse she’d taken, and then noting how she carried herself as she walked off into a nearby tunnel, beckoning them on.

This wasn’t the same mare who cried on her shoulder back at Zecora’s home in the forest. She looked eager, energetic, with a smirk that exuded confidence without looking smug in the way that was typical of Rainbow Dash.

Therefore as they followed lit, railed tunnels glimmering with various metals, it was incumbent upon her to ask, “What… happened to you?”

“Well,” Plumeria answered, “you happened, I guess.”

Twilight blinked. “I happened?”

“Yeah! I dunno, when I heard about what happened after all you did, I left the train early and warned Stalliongrad. Filled ‘em in on what’s all happened and tried to get ponies to help fight back. We got sorta steamrolled…”

Plumeria idly rubbed the tip of her horn, which let off an errant green spark.

“But then we all got in contact with the real resistance and tried making ourselves useful. Especially me. I got taken out of the fight pretty early, but I still tried whatever I could. It’s still my responsibility that so much of this happened.

“Hopefully that’s all paid off today. Stalliongrad is so close to Mandeville’s fortress, I figured it might eventually have some interchanges with our mines underground. We covered a ton of them, and I think we have a way in.”

“You’ve done admirably,” Cadance said, “How far have we to go?”

“Hard to say,” Plumeria answered. “The region we’ve marked is about an eight-hour trip, and that’s without—”

“Eight hours?!” Fluttershy squeaked, checking a watch in her saddlebag. “But it’s already eight at night!”

“We’ll only have half an hour before the fleet arrives!” Twilight added, completing her thought.

“But that was the point,” Cadance told them. “The attack is a decoy, remember? We want to get inside just before they arrive, and then Mandeville’s forces will be drawn out, clearing our path to CAIRO and the Elements.”

“I…” Twilight trailed off, stopping in her tracks to consider. “I guess, but I say we get there sooner so we have more time to figure out our path! I’ll teleport us after every corner. Plumeria, just point the way after every—”

Plumeria shook her head. “No can do. These mines are dangerous enough without concussive magical bursts. Miners are expressly forbidden to use any magic outside of levitation in here. We have minecarts in places to pick up the pace, but it’ll be a lot safer to—”

“Woo hoo! Minecart rides!” Pinkie whooped, coming up from behind them, shoving a small train of carts they had passed. “Last one down’s a parasprite!”

With that, she hopped into the front cart, picking up speed on the track and racing out of sight with an echoing call.

“Breaks!” Plumeria shouted after her, before jumping into her own cart. “Breaks! Apply the breaks!”

Following their guide’s lead, the others followed suit into the dark and the dank.

Rambling Rock Ridge was bustling with activity. With Coudsdale’s lower layers moored on the ground, ponies from the Canterlot chapter of the resistance were finally emerging from the caverns, laden with supplies. Pegasus guards stationed at the loading areas looked to be inspecting every item brought on, but in reality, Dash knew they were assuring contact with it.

Unicorns might have believed themselves the unique magic users, but the other types had their own subtler ways.

Not everything in a pegasus’ home was made of cloud, after all. It couldn’t be, that would be downright silly. But with the right, willful touch of a pegasus, most any object could inherit what some referred to as “nephrotangibility,” (and Rainbow referred to as “not falling through clouds”).

Within reason, of course. Some things were just too big or dense, in which case the touch was applied to supports beneath the objects instead. All the same, it wasn’t permanent, and a “monthly handling” was a wise practice to prevent one’s sofa from vanishing one night only to be found the next day embedded in a poor earth pony’s thatch.

Therefore, boarding the city-turned-flagship was a slower practice. Etherea’s mages, meanwhile, were applying the cloud-walking spell to all non-pegasi boarding. It was only temporary, but the outcome would be well decided by the time it started wearing off.

“Admiral,” Smolder said, addressing the white-coated, grey-maned Nimbus as he stepped down from the loading platform.

“General,” Nimbus acknowledged, surveying the steady stream of ponies and equipment. “It’s good to see your chapter in good condition. We’re going to need every asset we can afford, plus the ones we can’t. It’s all or nothing now.”

Smolder grunted affirmatively. “Did you receive that request for the light corsairs?”

“Yes, though we’re all a bit skeptical. We’ve tried using cannons against the machines before. They just don’t have the force behind them to penetrate the larger units, and everything else is too fast. They’re dead weight, Smolder. I’d sooner spend that carry-weight on cider barrels.”

The old admiral scarcely blinked as he awaited Smolder’s retort.

Smolder smirked. “Easy there, old friend, you’re not even hiding that curiosity. I suppose you don’t think much of our chances?”

Nimbus exhaled, eyes drifting downward. “Like you, I think we’re as prepared as we can be. There will be no better time to act. But that doesn’t mean the deck is stacked in our favor. Quite the opposite. We’ve put a lot of stock into your infiltrators, Smolder. I hope they’re the right pick.

“So what’s this you’re loading onto my airships then?”

Smolder turned. “Analyst Moondancer?”

The mare in question strode up behind him, several ponies rolling a trio of covered silvery cylinders on wheels behind her. “Reporting, sir! Shall I explain the prototypes?”

Smolder nodded, allowing her to uncover one of the cannons, barrels twice as thick as a pony body and half the length of the corsairs.

“Specialist Webber helped me with the overall design of these weapons. I had remembered his insistence that replicating human technology was unwise, but also how differently our means of achieving certain effects really were.

“This was evident in the use of magnetic spells during the Fall of Canterlot. Humans simply haven’t the means to generate magnetism at such potency without heavy equipment. I posed to him the concept of a cannon that launched its projectile not with combustive force, but magnetic repulsion.

“He had a ready term for such a thing. ‘Railgun.’ ”

Nimbus sighed. “So you’re saying humans can already do this? I don’t follow.”

“Th-that’s just it, sir,” Moondancer stammered. “Their version has the kinetic power to lethally strike a target thousands of miles away! If this were at all comparable we could punch holes deep enough to cripple even the worst things Mandeville can throw at us!”

“And how do we know it’s comparable?”

“Well, our small scale tests have been,” Moondancer began, hesitating, “promising.”

A voice rose amongst the ponies hauling the guns. “She obliterated my pet cactus through three concrete walls! Why?! Jim never stuck nopony, never!”

“Nopony asked, Agave!” Smolder snapped.

Moondancer cleared her throat. “It turns out that human means of producing powerful repulsion pale in practicality compared to our own. It won’t be as good as their best, but it needn’t be. I doubt our craft would handle the recoil anyway.

“You see, the shell is repulsed down the barrel with one push. A unicorn uses the magnetic spell on the back plate, and other repulsing plates further down magnify its velocity. Traditional guns use spiral grooves to stabilize the flight path, but ideally the shell won’t even touch the barrel. Frictionless release!”

She hauled out a great, head-sized cone-shaped hunk of metal with her magic, its tapered end more lustrous by far than its back.

“The shell itself is just iron, as are the repulsors. As a basis for all magnetism, we figured it might enhance the overall effect. And the titanium tip should counter the softness with penetrative forc—”

“That’s fine, save your pitch,” the admiral said, waving her down. “Very well. We’ll give your toys their shot, but we’ll also be using them to deploy ground troops. I don’t want those ships to turn into sitting ducks when these weapons blow up in somepony’s face.

“If that’s all, I need to confer with Etherea as well. If you would excuse me.”

With that, the admiral shuffled away, sparing nary a backwards glance. Moondancer was left with a parted mouth and the slightest cross in her brow.

Smolder brazenly stared sideways at her as she did so, eyelids sagging. “Hmm. Yeah, I know that feeling. Offer him the world on a platter and he’ll just tell you to carry on.

“Don’t be offended, kid. He’s always been like that. Expects the best of his command at all times, and when he doesn’t get it he lets you know, but that stallion’s got a face that could beat a rock at poker. Never seen him raise his voice. If he thinks you messed up, he delegates admonishment to your immediate superiors. Point is, he’s onboard. Now you’ve just gotta make sure these things were worth it.”

“Yes sir.”

“Bolts, some of you are being matched today with a few of the best the League of Mages have to offer us.”

Spitfire was with her team just outside the weather factory, which was loudly churning out the smokescreen hiding them from immediate view. So close to the source of the humid front that perspiration found itself on Rainbow’s brow. She was glad the uniforms breathed like they did.

“Rapidfire, you’ve been assigned tandem with Candescent Spark. Fleetfoot, you’re with Chantilly Lace.”

The turquoise mare in question almost visibly squirmed. “You’re telling me I could ride the lightning to goner-town strapped to some fey priss?”

“Not every pony’s name matches their talent,” Rainbow chimed in. “A friend of mi— A pony I know has a little sister, and she clearly doesn’t have the family touch.”

Spitfire nodded. “I’ve been over their records. You can take it from me that these mages were hoof-picked for the job.

“Rainbow, your tandem will be Towering Gambrel. He’s not as big as he sounds,” she added for good measure. “Fire Streak, you’re last with Esoteric Tangent. Touch jumpy, but she’s been a serious asset to Etherea.

“Take care of them and they’ll take care of you,” she finished, looking each of them in the eye.

“The other free-flying pegasi will be looking to all of us as lieutenants, so keep in mind that others will be following your lead. Call your play before you try something solo. A lot of these ponies were civvies a month ago, and they’re not gonna be able to keep up if you try losing a SHADE through some tangled maze. If you have to break off, let them know.”

“Uh, hey,” Rainbow began, tentatively raising a hoof.

“Yes Dash?”

“Any time we get too close to Mandeville’s base, that ‘radar’ thing Corey mentioned sees us coming. I mean, the hot weather’s supposed to make us hard to see, but I think it’s gonna be tough to sneak all of Cloudsdale in close enough for a surprise attack with that thing watchin’ the whole time.”

Spitfire hummed affirmatively. “We suspected how the radar works before now, but your buddy Corey confirmed it for us.

“It scans the air for solid objects inside its line of sight and gives Mandeville an image of what’s in it. It’s limited to what it can see though, and it filters out objects on the ground as false-positives.”

“So, stay low, or stay behind some tall cover,” Misty Fly offered.

“That’s the sum of it,” Spitfire agreed. “We keep just above the trees in the shadow of the Craggy Mountain range as we approach. A canyon further west opens up between the mountains into the valley containing Mandeville’s base. The plan is to squeeze our forces through it, and then gun it the rest of the way to get as close to the base as possible, before the real heat starts coming down. As soon as the fortress is visible, it’s a full charge.”

“A charge? Is that the best plan we have?” the navy and blue-maned stallion, Wave Chill said. “I’d have thought we’d split, at least flank them for a pincer maneuver.”

“Against a usual enemy, you’d be right,” Spitfire told him, “but we’re hitting the seat of power. We have to be turtled-up if we want our defenses to be worth anything.”

“I think that’s his point though,” Fire Streak offered. “Our fleet is too small for a direct assault. You never attack your enemy at his strongest point.”

“And you never divide your main force on the battlefield,” Spitfire retorted, eyebrows lowering. “Remember, this is only a diversion. We draw them out to us so the infiltrators can sneak in and do the real damage. Don’t forget, this is about misdirection.

“At any rate, we can still do some damage if we focus our attack. Sparkle noted that the northern wall has a hallway running along it that’s just glass. It might be possible to breach the fortress that way. From there, we blast anything that looks important. Rainbow Dash is the only one here that’s seen inside the structure beyond the confines of the prisoner zones, so we’ll defer to her lead once inside. It might just help us get out of this alive. Once inside, we’ll see about busting that prison open and get us some reinforcements.”

The frizzy blue-maned High Winds raised her hoof. “It’s such a blatant attack... What are the odds they’ll figure out we’re putting them on?”

Spitfire sighed. “I couldn’t tell you. Our saving grace, I guess, is we might just look desperate enough for him to buy it.”

“What’s that, Twilight?” Fluttershy asked, indicating the small, green ball of light she had conjured to bob alongside them.

“It’s a canary spell,” she told her. “Mines like these sometimes hit pockets of natural gases. You can smell some of them, but others you can’t. If we’re travelling unmapped sections, we don’t want to run into some and all pass out in a cave.”

“That’s clever,” Fluttershy commented, beaming. “I wonder why it’s called a canary spell.”

Twilight was very nearly interrupted from answering by an orange hoof around her shoulders, and a rapid shake of its owner’s head.

They caught up with Pinkie and Plumeria after nearly a half hour of following the cart tracks. The party pony herself had narrowly been prevented from falling down a mineshaft and being lost forever, and it had taken them nearly as long to calm Plumeria’s hysterical form as it had to reach her in the first place.

Hours of walking, turning corners Plumeria indicated on her map, and playing ‘I Spy’ per Pinkie’s suggestion defined the long walk through the mines. Naturally, there were numerous instances of the same items retrending before Applejack finally put the kibosh on the whole thing.

At one corner, they decided to break, exhaustion catching up to them. Among them, Corey was the only one breathing easily.

“Hey Corey,” Applejack called, “what gives? You’ve got two legs less than us, and you’re standing there fit as a fiddle.”

“I’m not surprised, myself,” Rarity remarked unconsciously, before catching Twilight’s stare and turning red.

Corey sat against the cavern wall. “It’s how we’re built. All in the hips.”

Rarity giggled musically.

“No, seriously,” Corey said. “We’re utter shit at sprinting, but we can keep walking forever. Back in the paleolithic times, it was how we could hunt anything down. We chase it, it runs a few hundred yards, and we press on till it’s too tired to run anymore. Stamina is the one thing we’ve got outside of cranial space. And opposable thumbs.”

“And an army of robots,” Pinkie added.

“Pinkie, I’m pretty sure that falls under…” Twilight stopped herself mid-correction, before hearing Plumeria mutter under her breath as she surveyed her map.

“That can’t be right. So that would put us a level down… but that can’t be.”

“What can’t be?” Twilight asked.

Plumeria jumped, the paper crinkling loudly as she tucked it towards her. “Oh! Well. That minecart ramps down, with the entrances to different levels branching off as it descends. Each level is structured the same, more or less, and I thought I’d taken the second-lowest level, but that can’t be.”

Cadance leaned in over the map “Why not?”

“That level is marked to have been stripped bare of mineral veins along these corridors. In fact, all the bottom five are to this point. And yet, there’s iron and quartz here still. Obvious iron and quartz.”

They looked around. As she said, pink and blue glimmered dimly at them from walls marbled with rusty looking rock.

“But that would leave the lowest level, and that can’t be,” Plumeria said again.

“Why can’t it be?” Rarity demanded.

“Because we’re not underwater.” She received a few puzzled looks before elaborating. “When they opened this level, they only mined for so long. They thought they just had an aquifer, but near the end of the dig they struck the side of an underwater lake.

“The rock around her looks rusty enough, but that water couldn’t just disappear! It flooded the whole level!”

Twilight smiled. And then she smiled a little harder. “I have a hunch. And if I’m right…

“Breaks over, team! Let’s go!” she cried, hopping up and urging them all forward.

Plumeria raced after her. “Hold on, you don’t know where you’re going!”

In moments however, they had organized into a directed stampede, winding around corners as Plumeria called them.

“Left!” she ordered. “Left here!”

Twilight did so, still heading the group, before finding the ground and the mine fall away from her.

The others heard her shriek, grinding to a halt before the grand chasm as the walls opened up before them.

“Twilight, I’m coming!” Cadance vowed, before the unicorn herself wheezed up into view wreathed in a magenta glow.

“I’m... okay!” she panted, putting down in front of them. “More… than okay, actually. Look… at this!”

Taking a moment to survey it all at last, they peered into near darkness at thousands of yards of scarred and weathered stone, the shapes of lone stalactites looming over what was otherwise a ruin.

Below were most familiar piles of shattered stone, sprinkled by the black, red and shiny white of less matte or natural materials. The roar and shimmer of water accompanied it, leaving the piles as islands in a great underground archipelago.

It should have been pitch black, save for light coming from cracks in the ceiling above. Cracks that were all too ordered and regular.

“This is all lookin’ a mite familiar, ain’t it?” Applejack breathed.

“Is it?” Cadance inquired, not taking her eyes off the vista.

Twilight nodded. “Yes. This explains what happened to your lake, Plumeria. Mandeville’s facility was pretty busted-up when it first got here, half buried in all the rock it dislodged. Those earthquakes you felt were his machines shoving all of that down into spaces further underground. I guess now we know what he was shoving into.”

“But that would’ve displaced the water,” Corey said, staring at the smooth cavern walls eroded by the lake. “It should have risen, not lowered.”

Twilight shrugged, kicking a stone into the dark pools below. “Maybe it did, for a while. I know for a fact that there was more debris than we’re seeing here, so all that pressure could have forced open a chamber even further down. That would explain where it all went.”

“Dears, this is all very fascinating,” Rarity began, “but I believe we’ve a job to be doing?”

“Yeah.” Corey checked his watch. “And we’ve got about an hour to do it. Find your elements, shutdown CAIRO. What’s our entry point?”

Above them, the steely structure sat upon the uneven rocky surface on massive pistons and shock absorbers, coils the width of a pony depressed by the weight of the entire facility above.

The space over the lake, however, was bare of them, and even opened in spaces as earthmover drones continued to pitch dirt and rock into the hole.

“This is as far as I go,” Plumeria told them, staring up into the structure ruefully. “I’ll be no good in a fight, but I hope getting you here has been enough.”

Twilight turned on the unicorn and pulled her into a sudden hug. “It has. You’ve done more than you know.”

“We can take it from here,” Corey agreed, before he and most of the infiltrators besides Cadance glowed mauve, drifting steadily towards the gap in the superstructure. “Or at least I fervently hope so.”

Upon reaching the top of the tiles, they scanned the area around them. Prefab buildings of iron ran north to south, portholes glowing white hot along the sides. Some of the earthmovers were fitted with a swiss army knife of attachments, sifting and cleaning the contents of their buckets before dumping them onto conveyor belts feeding the prefabs. Where one might have expected smoke to billow ran pipes, up, up, up into the facility above.

“Looks like Mandeville thought likewise ‘bout the land beneath his hooves,” Applejack suggested. “This is a mine.”

“Will,” Fluttershy said, pausing, “those diggers tell him we’re here?”

Corey considered. “I don’t think so, they’re industrial drones, not security. They’re not likely programmed to ‘see’ the way the other drones do. They just scan the area for obstructions. If we get in their way, they’ll just move around us like we’re obstacles.”

“This place.” Cadance whispered as they landed on the facility floor, craning her neck to see the endless structures stretch on before them in every direction. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever imagined.”

“Is it me,” Twilight began, “or does it seem even bigger than before?”

Corey took his binoculars and switched through several vision modes as he scanned his surroundings as well. “Mandeville’s had time to unearth this whole thing since we were here last. You’re just seeing it for what it’s always been.”

The lot of them said nothing for a time, the echoes of distant machinery clanging, hissing and grinding in the distance. Various klaxons and the whooping of warning alarms emitted from parts unknown, signaling nonexistent human workers to keep clear.

“Well, here we are, y’all,” Applejack said, as the looked upon the vastness with thrill and despair. “Where do we go first?”

Twilight engaged her compass spell, the glowing arrow twisting in the direction she faced.

“We should focus on finding the Elements first, and if Mandeville discovered them himself, —and he must have— he might have recognized their importance. The most likely place he’d keep them then, that we’re aware of, is his own quarters.”

Cadance took a step back, swooning as if she’d looked over the edge of a sheer cliff. “Tossed into this labyrinth and you want to go looking for the minotaur?”

Rarity gave a false laugh. “I don’t suppose there’s a less direct avenue than facing our most dire enemy head-on?”

Twilight shook her head. “It won’t be head-on if we can surprise him.”

She started galloping forward, the others following her north out of surprise.

“Mandeville doesn’t know we’re coming, and I know for a fact that he doesn’t always wear that gauntlet.”

Corey sprinted forward to match her, dodging an earthmover as it ground past. “How do you even know where you’re going?! He probably moved the thing so you couldn’t tell us where he hid!”

Twilight pressed her eyes closed. “That’s a chance we’ll have to take! It’s the only place I know about for sure! We’re not gonna find that storage bank again in all this, and we don’t know where CAIRO is!”

Finally catching up to her, Corey put a hand to her chest and pressed back, stepping awkwardly backwards as they came to a stop. “Not necessarily.”

“Huh?” she intoned, as Corey held out his binoculars.

Captain Spitfire ascended the steps of the Cloudsdale town hall, passing the Greco-Romane pillars and through the great doors to the bustling command center.

Being part city and part airship, the town hall was situated at the very top so as to function as the bridge of the “vessel.” It was a thing that greatly appealed to Spitfire, and to pegasi heritage dating to before Equestria’s founding, that the elected politicians required additional backgrounds in naval and weather-managing skills. A suit with nothing but oratory chops couldn’t run a place like Cloudsdale for very long. Ironic though the verbiage was, the nature of Cloudsdale forced its leaders to be very down to earth.

With a few flaps she negotiated the short trip up the spiral stairs, past the helm, and before Nimbus, who addressed her before she was quite within view.

“Captain, I suppose our flying fighters are prepared?”

Spitfire swiftly saluted with her left wing. “Briefed, sir. Prepared? How could they be?”

“Hmm.” Nimbus closed his eyes. “Humility in grasping the scale of an enemy draws a fuzzy parallel with planning to fail in the face of them. But I can trust you know the difference?”

The captain took the most imperceptible of breaths. “Yes, Dadmiral.”

“Sorry?”

Spitfire flushed red. “I— yes sir.”

“Good. Also, as Admiral, I must ask that you address me as such.”

He stepped squarely before her, stone-face. And then a smirk broke through. “But as your father… I kinda like ‘Dadmiral.’ ”

Spitfire sighed, betraying a smile and nothing more.

Nimbus’ voice lowered, as he continued looking at her. “If there’s even a chance they can make it through this, they will. Because you’re leading them. I know that.”

She stood stock still, before replying, “I’m the Wonderbolts’ captain. By rights, the best in Equestria. Optimal outcomes are what I do.”

“I know,” he told her. “I just figured you might want to hear somepony say it out loud. Go now, Captain. Lead your team.”

“Yes sir,” Spitfire said, taking a lingering look at the Admiral before turning to leave the bridge.

He watched her until she was out of sight, staring at the place she’d been. “Give the signal, helmsmare. Set a course for the canyon. We’re moving out.”

“So,” Twilight began, staring down Corey’s binoculars through the endless hall at a bulkhead the width of a barn, “the omega designation is applied to anything related to base operations. But that can mean just about anything in here, couldn’t it?”

The false-color image she saw painted the bulkhead with a giant glowing square patch of broken pixels and three small squares in all corners but one, in green-tinted light. The binoculars pulled up a “Ω” symbol in the corner of her vision upon seeing it.

Pulling away to see with her own eyes, the symbol vanished.

Corey nodded, taking a few steps forward. “That’s what we’re meant to think, but it wouldn’t make sense with how these symbols are used.”

He turned the dial on his binoculars as the ponies watched him. “This facility is too dynamic, too full of moving parts and mechanical traffic for the drones to be following a digital map. They need to act dynamically too, with guides to hint where everything is. They follow every waypoint they cross until it leads them where they’re being sent.”

He began walking toward the bulkhead with purpose. “The symbol is a QR scanning code, and it can only be seen on a particular ultraviolet frequency. Easy enough to guess if you have the tools and the time. And I did.”

Applejack raced forward to match him. “Well hold on, now! If that symbol marks everything here, why are we followin’ it?”

Corey vaulted over a cluster of pipes and cables. “The redundancy just doesn’t wash! If that symbol should be appearing everywhere, it wouldn’t appear anywhere. These are going somewhere specific. Somewhere that even this place deems important enough to define the whole base.”

“CAIRO,” Rarity breathed.

Applejack nodded frantically. “Has to be!”

“Okay,” Cadance sighed calmingly. “So we have a heading that could make life easier on the fleet. But what about the Elements? Will CAIRO respond to being threatened for their location?”

“Not likely,” Corey scoffed. “CAIRO’s a machine built for his master. He’d probably withhold anything that could jeopardize Mandeville’s safety, at gunpoint. Not like it cares if it lives or dies.”

“Uh… I…” Twilight muttered, before ultimately stepping forward. “I think it could work better than you might think.”

Corey popped an eyebrow and stared her in the face. “I’m all ears.”

She looked to each of them in turn. “I’ve spent time with CAIRO. I don’t think he’s so mindless. I’ve heard it straight from him, he doesn’t want to do these things, but he still feels an obligation—”

“Yeah,” Corey punctuated, walking towards the first marker, “it’s called code, Twilight. He’s compelled to learn, but his programming locks him into submitting to Mandeville.”

Twilight caught up quickly, walking backwards as the others made to follow them. “No, CAIRO said himself that he’d secretly overridden his blocks. He can do as he pleases. He chooses to do what Mandeville says. He says he’s grateful.”

“Ooh doggies,” Applejack remarked, leering at the constantly shifting traffic of crates and tiles above them, “that’s a weird lot of feelings for somethin’ without nerves.”

Corey sighed. “Did it ever occur to you that Mandeville is a computer genius? Maybe CAIRO did break through some of the safeguards set for him. But what better way could you have of enforcing obedience than to give something the illusion of freedom, and then convince it that listening to them was their idea in the first place?”

“I don’t know,” Cadance said. “You might think something clever and manipulative enough to pull that off could have rallied more of Equestria to support him.”

“It’s a machine in a clinically kept system. Mandeville doesn’t have to be great shakes as an orator to blind it to whatever strings he’s pulling.”

Twilight stopped in front of Corey and opened her mouth to speak, but paused.

“He doesn’t want to hurt us. We might reason with him. It’s worth a shot.”

Corey made to retort, when Rarity approached her. “Twilight, dear? Even say you’re correct… what makes you believe he won’t choose Mandeville over us every time? You know, when the chips are down, so to speak?”

Twilight sighed. “I’m hoping not to present him an ‘us or him’ choice. He doesn’t want either of us to lose. Maybe he’ll agree Adrian needs help.”

“One way or the other, it’s our best bet,” Corey told them. “Let’s move.”

Twilight staggered a moment as the others marched past her, until Rarity was within earshot.

“You only took his side because of that ‘private study session’ you had last night.”

“Twilight, you wound me,” Rarity said with a pout, pleasantly flushed. “I’m not so petty as that.”

Together they followed the ground floor to the marker. Past grinding machinery and belching exhaust, they traversed the hot, sweaty underbelly. Gouts of steam regularly hissed from pipes overhead, as glowing ducts distorted the thick air with a haze of heat, casting a yellow glow over the steam and hall at large.

As they neared the marker and a fork in the path, Fluttershy commented, “I-I don’t remember it looking like this before.”

Corey nodded. “Kinda expect Freddy Kreuger to round the bend any moment, don’t ya?”

“Who?” said Cadance.

“Nothing. My guess is he kept all the forges, smelting and mining operations in the lowest sections. We never saw this before because it was buried. We also had a guess that geothermal power complimented his reactors. His island sat on an extinct volcano, but there was enough seismic activity that he could make use of it.”

“Well hey now,” Applejack said, “we came up on one a’ those forges the first time, pretty high up as I recollect. It weren’t new either, it was built for humans to work in, before it was made all auto-nonymous like.”

“Mandeville was probably making do,” Corey offered. “He didn’t have access to his latest designs, buried as they were, so he scrambled whatever he could use. Which means they were probably manufacturing outmoded parts for outmoded models.”

“So,” Cadance began, pausing as she moved, “what we’ve been fighting aren’t even his best?”

“No no,” Corey said with a humorless chuckle, “it’s not that bad. He’s had plenty in stock to work with. Admittedly, he hasn’t had access to his dry-dock and shipyards till now, but that’ll be useless without a nearby body of water. We just haven’t faced anything he’s dreamed-up since he got here. So far he’s only adapted to Equestrian warfare in two real game-changing ways. Anti-magic…”

“And the Bridge,” Twilight finished darkly.

Corey nodded as she looked him in the eye. “And I don’t need to remind any of you of how bad it can be when he changes up.”

A silence followed, before Rarity piped in, “Well then. We’ll just keep our eyes peeled for anything odd. Smashing.”

Flipping out a mirror, Corey angled both forks as they came to the marker. Satisfied, he checked his binoculars down both sides, before settling on the right. “Ladies, I do think we’re onto something. Next marker across the way.”

And so they continued, this hall given a dynamic ceiling in the form of perpendicular tracks carrying cargo containers. One by one they came to a stop on one wall of their hallway, through high-up passages cut into them. A loud industrial tone would sound from a speaker in the walls, and the container would grind on its way across and out. Gradually, Pinkie made her way to the front of the pack, walking backwards.

“Sayyyyyy,” she began, leaning in conspiratorially, “anypony else think we shoulda’ run into something by now? My Pinkie Sense has been suspiciously quiet.”

“ ‘Suspiciously quiet?’ ” Twilight asked. “I thought Pinkie Sense was an early-warning system. You’re saying a lack of impending danger is a sign of impending danger?”

Pinkie nodded quickly, still stone-faced. “It’s dramatically convenient like that, Twilight. I can’t sense everything that’s coming, that wouldn’t be any fun.”

“I thought you didn’t control it!” Twilight growled.

“I don’t!” Pinkie said, eyes wide.

“Pinkie Sense?” Corey whispered, before leaning in towards Rarity as Twilight fumed, muttering darkly under her breath. “Is it worth asking?”

“I’d just go with it, dear.”

“This place is so huge,” Cadance said, “probably he’s only guarding the most likely places for intrusion, if he expects anypony would dare sneak in here at all. I’d still keep a watch for patrols though. Sending a routine security sweep is what I’d do with a space like this.”

At that moment, Corey made an incomprehensible sound, before spreading his arms out and skittering backwards.

“Back! Back! Back!” he ordered, ducking as he moved.

“What?” Twilight demanded.

“See for yourself,” he said, getting to his hands and knees. “Keep low.”

Literally crawling, they approached the lip of what quickly became a steep ramp. Waiting beyond was a sobering sight.

“A goddamn battalion,” Corey said, eyeing the two-hundred yard gap between them and the next set of structures, and those occupying it. Dozens of CID packed like sardines on miniature steel barges, standing stock-still beside launching platforms for Spotters and whole quadrants dedicated to SHADEs and tanks in consistent proportion. All of them sat silent, unmoving.

“So, Pinkie,” Twilight grumbled, “where was your Pinkie Sense on that one?”

As soon as she asked, the party pony’s left eyelid blinked rapidly, before she twisted her neck ninety-degrees to an echoing joint-cracking noise.

“Whoa, there it is!” she said, correcting herself. “Watch out for blind-corners and/or drops and rises.”

“Of course.” Twilight sighed, rolling her eyes. “So what do we do? They don’t look active. I think they might be shut off.”

“Or in a low-power standby mode,” Corey suggested, “waiting for some kind of stimulus to come online. In which case, if we’re crossing and nudge one, we’re gonna get greased into peppered steak.”

Cadance’s brow furrowed. “They’re all facing that archway. Where does that lead?”

Corey pondered as they shifted focus to the right, where a massive archway lead on into darkness. “That’s gotta be the old entrance to his harbor, which means all this is the slipway where he launched ships from. It can’t possibly still work, there’s no water.”

“We’re wasting time, y’all,” Applejack interjected. “Corey, is the next marker across all that?”

“Yes, and it’ll take too long to go around. We’ll lose our bearings anyway.”

“Well we’re not going through,” Twilight told them. “We need to get past while being the least visible we can make ourselves.”

Twilight looked up at a passing container, watching it stop before banking left, up and over the slipway. Twilight smiled.

“And I’ve got just the way.”

A small effort later, and the doors to one of the containers above flew open, revealing innumerable sacks of concrete mix packed to bursting.

“No room,” Fluttershy noted.

“Well, I’ll make some then,” Twilight said, lifting a stack as the container grinded across.

A single burst of a klaxon made Twilight nearly drop the entire load as the line halted, a green light on the carrying mechanism above the container switching to an angry red.

CAIRO spoke through speakers beside the light. “Weight discrepancy detected in load. Recalibrating to detect cargo ejection in three… two…”

Twilight’s mind scrambled as she stuffed the sacks back in and shut the door on the container, whose mechanism glowed green before continuing down the line once more.

“Fuck a duck,” Corey sighed, to a sudden increase in stares, and a particularly horrified one from Fluttershy. “Nevermind, not literally!

Corey rounded back on the containers, huffing loudly. “So we’re gonna have to Indiana Jones this? Because that didn’t work out so well when he did it.”

“Only get so many shots too,” Applejack said, eyeing the containers like they were mountains. “before CAIRO sees something’s rotten enough to check out, personal-like.”

“So to be clear,” Cadance began, taking a breath, “we have to pick a container, dump our weight in material out of it, and cram ourselves in. All with a window of about eight seconds.”

Twilight winced as she considered. “Assuming the material’s weight to volume ratio isn’t so disparate from ours. And I get the feeling the threshold for the proper weight checks for an upper value too, so we need to be as precise as we can manage.”

Rarity blanched. “Dear, if you’re asking me to flaunt my powder room scale-measurements to the entirety of Equestria, then tread with some caution.”

“That won’t be necessary, Rarity,” Twilight said, mind buzzing. “We’re pretty average-size build for young mares, so each of us are roughly twenty-five point six kilograms. Fluttershy, pegasi have two extra appendages, so that’s a plus one per wing, with a twenty-five percent minus due to the hollow bones, so let’s tie you off at an even twenty. Applejack, your athleticism is sure to have increased muscle mass, so I’d wager a plus two at an overall twenty-eight...”

“T-Twenty,” Applejack stammered, face reddening as her eyes bore into the ground, “twenty-nine.”

“This is gonna take a while,” Corey sighed.

Rainbow sat in a vigil alongside her fellow fliers aboard Cloudsdale, the early-morning chill beating into her as they began funneling into the canyons. She didn’t even feel it anymore, sensation deadened by the cold itself. It was something a high-altitude flier had to accept as a fact of life and just push past. Perched on the edge of the clouds, saving their wings, she and the Wonderbolts sat at the “prow” of the city-turned-dreadnaught, backed by a number of huddled and shivering rookies.

Though in many cases, the shivering rookie was the unicorn in front of them. Towering Gambrel, a slighter light-grey stallion with amber eyes sat in front of her, leaving her to sit and plant all four hooves on the ground awkwardly behind him. Strapped to her underside, the enthusiastic mage had all but taken over land-based locomotion for them, which was bad enough in itself.

The Wonderbolts were disciplined and professional in the extreme, but even she’d have felt the radiating waves of wrongness if she were the unicorn mare strapped underneath Fire Streak’s weight. Esoteric Tangent was ice-blue with a sea-green ponytail, and exceedingly tiny for one chosen for her skills. She hung tandem beneath Fire Streak like a stuffed animal. At least the harnesses were padded to separate them.

“A mixed bag of morale,” Towering Gambrel said, smirking at her out the corner of his eyes. “Some of ‘em are terrified, but see no other choice. Some just want to take the fight to Mandeville again.”

“Which are you, blunderbuss?” she asked, hoping she sounded more wry than insulting.

“Ha!” he barked. “Latter, albatross. I was on the frontlines at Canterlot, I won’t freeze-up on you. Saw you in action, pretty sure. Took out that Landscaper, right?”

Rainbow tentative smile grew wider. “Oh good. I was afraid you’d be some stiff or something. Yeah, that was me. Sorry, I… don’t think I saw you, though.”

“That’s okay,” he laughed. “You’ll see me up close this time.”

Receiving an easy elbow to the ribs, she laughed herself. “Ha! Right.”

“Don’t worry newbies, you won’t be flying in this,” Spitfire projected, pacing before them, “when we get to the other side we’re pumping the valley with hot, humid air. For those of you who weren’t paying attention at briefing —and Celestia-alive, pal, what do you think you’re doing here if you didn’t— the temps’ll equalize the air around you with the heat a’ your core, mightily confusing your average gloomy-gears MA drone.”

While Cloudsdale moved as a single unit, it was of course comprised of clouds. Bridges to various districts detached as they entered the tight winding canyons. The sky traffic nearly formed a scrum as gas bags and propellers drifted below and overhead, the air filling with the creaks and groans of twisting rudders and taut rope.

“Get your shakes out now,” Spitfire ordered, “because war lies on the other side of this.”

“So combine that with all our gear, and that rounds to about two-hundred-and-seventy kilograms,” Twilight finished, to an audience of varying expression.

“Did you have to criticize my diet?” Pinkie asked, looking sour, cheeks far pinker than usual.

“I didn’t mean to, Pinkie, but you,” Twilight paused, staring into the middle distance, “eat a lot of sugar.”

“Okay okay okay!” Corey blurted, looking at his watch. “Are we ready to try this now? The fleet will be on their approach any minute!”

“Right, okay!”

With that, she began opening passing containers. She’d had to estimate the group’s weight in her head, but now that she had a number, she could feel for it as she searched the containers.

The first only had a few machine parts worth double their weight. The next few held less than the entire party, in the form of packing styrofoam. Nothing being protected by it; Mandeville was merely transporting styrofoam.

The last contained identical cubes of tough black plastic, and with a gesture, she made her move. A quarter of the cubes tipped out, clacking heavily onto the floor as CAIRO protested. “Weight discrepancy detected in load.”

In a flurry of movement, Twilight seized the group and floated them to a stop in the door of the container.

“Recalibrating to detect cargo ejection in three… two…”

With a gasp, Twilight considered, grabbing one of the discarded cubes and breaking it in half with sheer arcane force. She dropped it back in with them, smiling sheepishly at the others as CAIRO’s countdown ended.

They held their breath a moment, stock still, before a positive tone came across the speaker as the mechanism light turned green.

“Here we go,” Cadance sighed, as the container slowly turned to cross the slipway.

Cloudsdale began rounding the bend, all of it hidden behind a mask of fog but the very front, where Rainbow Dash sat as sentries with the rest of the Wonderbolts. At last, rather than more canyon wall, the Everfree valley spread out before them. Even in the distance, the grey monolith sat prominently in the darkness, dug out of the mountainside. Now, only its south and east walls were hidden against the remains of the mountain it once occupied, a vast clearing running around it like a moat of earth.

Spitfire herself blew into a whistle around her neck, and as more and more airships poked through the fog, each of them sounded to herald the sight.

Churning noises behind them indicated the start of pumps in the weather factory, belching humid air in all directions. Admiral Nimbus’ voice came over their ear-peices.

“All craft are reporting to have cleared the canyon. Capital craft, throttle to maximum speed and cross that distance; maintain medium range from the fortress. All others stay close until the order is given. Stay low.”

Rainbow watched on, feeling the clouds beneath her hooves shift as all of Cloudsdale drifted into its full speed, the distant facility growing larger as they crept forward in near silence. As they neared, the facility’s scale became more and more apparent, individual tiles becoming noticeable on what before had seemed a solid dark mass.

Near the halfway point, one of the larger airships spoke over the comms. “Admiral, this is the Orion: our scouts are noticing clearings on the forest floor, covered in metal plating. It could be some kind of landing pad or bunker. A few of them are big enough to land our largest craft, excluding the city. No sign of enemy forces.”

“I want a few scout craft to hang back and watch those zones for movement, but keep your distance. Until we’re sure what those are, assume them as hostile assets.

“All wings… deploy.”

And with that, Rainbow, Spitfire, and all fighters that could defy the pull of gravity vaulted off their respective transports and surged towards the fortress. Some brought chunks of cloud with them as they sped. A flock of hundreds, all following the blue and yellow team blazing the trail forward.

“All wings, assume attack formation,” Spitfire ordered. “Mages, time to fill this sky.”

The various unicorns on Cloudsdale and tandem with pegasi cast spells onto every pony they could reach. Splitting off into doubles, triples and beyond, the apparition spells began flooding the sky with decoy ponies until they appeared an unstoppable force.

“If Celestia could see us now,” Rainbow heard Towering Gambrel whisper below her, as she watched half a dozen doppelgangers maintain a respectable distance from them. With hints of the red dawn growing in the distance, Rainbow couldn’t help but wish it were true.

Through the gap in the container doors, the infiltration team saw the strobing flashes of a great yellow LED light spinning about the room outside like a small, hyperactive lighthouse beacon. The light was followed by a pair of deep “whoop!” sounds, before they could hear machinery warming up beneath them.

“What’s going on out there?!” Fluttershy demanded quietly, as Twilight cracked the door further open.

Beneath, the steel barges, upon which the drone forces sat began moving down the slipway one by one on tracks, like pieces in a giant slide-puzzle. What she couldn’t see was where they were all heading.

“Corey, the mirror!” she whispered.

“Right here.”

Angling the tiny looking-glass around the door, she could just see one of the barges of CID vanish out of sight down the black archway.

“I don’t know where they’re going,” Twilight said, “but I have a hunch where they’ll end up.”

“Ooh!” Pinkie whined, pulling down on her own ears. “Can’t this thing go any faster?!”

“For the love of Luna, look at the size of that…”

“Don’t get spooked, Soarin,” Spitfire ordered. “Keep your head, keep your life.”

The Mandeville Arms facility loomed before Rainbow and the pegasus fighters as they advanced, thus far unchallenged. Surely Mandeville couldn’t be this inept—

A blaring warning alarm echoed across the forest as they neared the excavation zone, followed by CAIRO’s voice.

“This is a RESTRICTED AREA. Trespass is punishable with indefinite detention. Surrender immediately. Any resistance will be met with lethal force.”

“Analyst Moondancer,” General Smolder growled over the comms, “would you give them our rebuttal?”

Indeed, the three railgun-armed corsairs turned broadside, taking aim.

“FIRE!” Moondancer cried, before her voice was utterly drowned-out by the blare of the long cannons ripping through the air. The recoil caused the three airships to pitch sideways, the air bags acting pivot while the ship underneath swung a clear forty-five degrees like a pendulum, its occupants scrambling to keep a foothold on the deck.

The projectiles themselves plowed into the side of the facility, a clear ten foot radius on the wall buckling at every impact, shearing the dynamic tiles off and leaving glowing red punctures in the monolithic building.

There was a second of silence as components in the wall fell noisily off in the aftermath, before a triumphant war-cry built throughout the fleet. Rainbow found even herself distracted by the spectacle as they continued forward, before something vast and pink began expanding, surging towards them with shocking speed.

“All wings, break right, break right!” Spitfire shouted, as their fighting force broke over the obstruction like a wave over the breakwater.

“Admiral, this is the Orion! We have movement from the clearings! Enemy forces deploying in earnest! They’re flanking us!”

“An ambush. All craft, assume phalanx formation,” Nimbus ordered.

“Ambush?!” Smolder cried. “They couldn’t have known we were coming.”

“They’re machines, General; they could lie in wait as long as they wanted until somepony came. You can’t win a staring contest against a foe that can’t blink.

“Etherea, what do we have on the nature of this force field surrounding the structure?”

“I’m not sure, Admiral,” she answered. “The only thing I can compare it to is… oh dear.”

A trifecta of blasts and the following screech and clamor of metal on metal echoed overhead. Twilight felt the metal of their container rattle deeply.

“Sounds like the party’s here,” Corey said, just before the container’s movement was slowly arrested, the sound of the line above winding down.

“Nah,” Pinkie said, rubbing her chin in critical contemplation, “I think that was just an explosion. I can see how you’d think that sounded like a standard-issue party cannon, or a party cannon deluxe, but something about it just doesn’t squeal ‘FUN!’ to me.”

“Oh, come on!” Twilight moaned. “Now what?”

Mere moments later, Twilight found herself blinded in a fuschia glow, slammed up against the container beside her friends. The wind knocked-out of her, the pressure mounted till she was certain it would surely crush her.

“No!” Cadance shrieked. “Hold on!”

A blue glow surrounded them, and the touch alone seemed to release Twilight and the others from the force, which charged beyond them and seemed to vanish.

The moment of release was short lived, as the sensation of gravity left them all for but a moment, brought back with a crash as the container crunched down onto the slipway below. Twilight fought back to a standing position amongst the plastic blocks, her friends following suit.

“What the fuck!” Corey groaned, helping Rarity out from the pile of blocks.

Pinkies head popped out from the blocks seemingly unfazed. "See, that was a bit more like it, but—"

“Shining Armor!” Cadance whispered. “I could feel it, that was Shining Armor’s shield! He’s here!”

“His shield?” Fluttershy asked. “Turned against us?”

“Forced to protect Mandeville, I’ll bet,” Twilight offered. “It nearly blasted us out like the changelings! What stopped it?”

Cadance stared at her own hoof. “It didn’t affect me. Then I grabbed you. It… it must have recognized me.”

“And not me?” Twilight said, almost offended. “What am I, chopped alfalfa?”

“Well I’m sorry, Twilight, I don’t know—”

“Hey, guys? Guys?!”

“Beggin’ pardon, Pinkie, but enough a’ the party jargon. This is—”

“I think our cover’s blown.”

Indeed, just outside stirred the squads of remaining drones, including a number of CID crushed beneath their container flailing to find purchase.

“Hold tight, y’all!” Applejack cried, before kicking three plastic cubes towards the CID closest to them with her prototype boots, each of which were bowled over. As the others fired, she hopped into the air, planting both boots against the side of the container, slamming its occupants against it again as it spun one-hundred-eighty degrees, leaving the open end facing their goal as rounds pounded the steel shelter.

Swooning, Twilight stumbled to the exit. “U-Up and over the side! I’ll cover us!”

Grabbing hold of the container, she hauled it up the slope to the other side of the slipway. The group piled out, over the lip and just out of sight of advancing CID forces, though it seemed they weren’t alone.

The howl of jet engines marked the waking of a SHADE, while a lone tank rumbled forward. Corey rolled into a prone position, hollering for them to follow suit.

None too soon, as the SHADE’s twin cannons began chewing apart the walls around them as it hovered. The tank’s main cannon fired into the slope, the concussion alone blasting them back with the force of a bull. Twilight could barely think in such a terrifying circumstance.

“They’re pinning us down!” Corey shouted. “They’ll continue with suppressing fire till the CID can double-back!”

“I’ll distract them, and give you and Rarity an opening!” Twilight said, galloping off to the left with the container in her grasp as a shield, barely in view of the drones.

“Twilight NO!” Cadance shrieked.

“WAIT! DAMNIT!” Corey yelled, as the SHADE began pivoting to track its new target. The twin cannons roared, just missing Twilight, tearing apart everything behind her.

Corey raised his AA12 over the lip and fired grenade rounds blindly down into the slipway, blasting advancing CID to pieces and drawing half of their attention. Rarity followed, pelting the SHADE with arrows, the projectiles glancing and sticking but never quite penetrating into the black dome serving as the drone’s eyes and brain.

Cadance began her own offensive, magical rays obliterating the carrier mechanisms of other hanging containers, which fell and flattened CID, blocking the view of others. One came down directly onto the SHADE, which sunk and rolled to account for the excess weight before finally shaking it off the side of its right wing, and into yet more CID.

The tank, meanwhile, had taken to tracking Twilight. A round of its main cannon smashed into the container she carried, blowing it open raggedly and slamming it into her. Little lights popped in her eyes as she was bowled over ten feet on the cold steel plating. Her shoulder ached terribly, and she felt something warm and wet trickle from her temple. She struggled to get up.

“Twily, I’m coming!” Cadance cried, straining as she seized the remnants of the container and hurled it at the tank. The impact barely fazed the treaded behemoth, but bent its barrel up and to its left. Its retaliatory blast fired accordingly, smack into the fuselage of the hovering SHADE. The craft’s engines seized almost immediately as it dropped from the sky, a dead flaming hulk slamming dully onto the slipway below.

“Twilight!” Cadance shouted, running along the lip to her with the others in pursuit. “Are you hurt?”

“I think,” Twilight groaned touching a hoof to her head and examining the redness smeared onto it. Cadance’s horn glowed as she touched it to the cut. Corey brought up the rear, firing a burst over the side at the remaining CID.

“We gotta get going guys,” he told them, ducking low. “They’re down, but not out.”

“She got hit really hard,” Fluttershy said, “I think she could have a concussion.”

“I’ll carry her till she’s good enough to walk,” Cadance offered. “For now, let’s—”

The sound of a roaring gas turbine engine cut her off as the tank rolled itself up the ramp of the slipway, crushing a container beneath its treads. Its brakes hissed as it came to a stop, the ruined turret turning to find them.

“Go! Go go!” Corey shouted, as they ran down steel corridors towards the marker.

“Enemy air support, deploying from the lower-west wall!”

Rainbow traced the perimeter of the shield, spotting dozens of SHADES launching from the very hangar that served as their escape previously.

“Try to tag ‘em on their way out,” Spitfire ordered. “We can at least bunch ‘em up.”

“Moondancer,” Nimbus said, “I want another volley into that shield, and then back off. If range isn’t an issue with that weapon, then it’s pointless to have you away from the fleet. You’re likely to get rather popular out there. Any three mages in range, let’s have some protection on those corsairs. More than that and we make them a clear target.”

“Sir!” Moondancer acknowledged, before three more deafening shots pummeled the shield, its energy rippling angrily across the surface.

“Not bad, but it’s gonna take more than that,” Smolder commented, before Moondancer shouted.

“SHADEs coming in, fangs out! Turn! Turn ! Turn!”

The railgun-carrying corsairs twisted too slowly to show the incoming craft their narrowest sides. The three SHADEs roared to strafe them in formation. Water shields from mages barely dulled the impact of one SHADE’s twin cannons on Moondancer’s airship, wood splintering, one line attaching the underslung gondola to the gasbag being severed and leaving the whole thing to slightly list. A volley of missiles from the others was almost entirely repelled by the heat-ray’s and single lightning strike of the onboard mages. All but one.

The last slammed into the bow of the leftmost corsair, which never stood a chance. Flaming planks and splinters aided the fireball in piercing the gas envelope, leaving the barely recognizable stern to tumble into the trees below, the empty canvas bag fluttering like the tail of a kite as they fell. The watching pegasi couldn’t even see a soul onboard to save from the fall. In finality, the railgun was blasted off the deck, slammed into the dirt below with a hollow sound like a great bell.

“Oh Celestia,” Moondancer gasped, “Admiral, we just lost the Crimson Sky, and our helmsmare was hit!”

“We saw it. Just steer towards us, we’ll guide you to the center of the fleet. You must remain calm, Analyst.”

“Boss, spotters on their six!” Gambrel bellowed over the constant noise. “Looks like they need an escort!”

“I’ll get in close!” Dash told him, winding around past the fleeing corsairs, to spear the swarm of pursuers. The spotters pounded Gambrel’s water shield with fire as Rainbow corkscrewed towards them, successfully drawing fire away from Moondancer’s ships.

“Alright Blunderbuss, let’m have it!”

With only a white-hot arc over his horn as warning, Towering Gambrel unleashed a sustained lightning strike into the swarm. Unit after unit when silent upon contact with it, falling suddenly in an arc towards the forest floor. Still more were downed or damaged as the current jumped from spotter to spotter.

“That oughta keep the road clear for them,” Rainbow said as they came to the outer edge of the group. “What’s next on… the…”

Rainbow rounded towards the fleet, and what she saw made her blanch.

The black dots of spotters filled the sky like a locust plague, two dozen SHADEs sweeping the sky and making strafing runs from afar. The more proximate threat of the spotters obfuscated the SHADE’s distant strikes, catching a number of targets off their guard. Two of the yachts and the destroyer, Capricorn, were already on fire. Rainbow watched as a cruiser’s hydrogen-filled gas envelope rippled in line from a pair of SHADE cannons, ripping along it just prior to the candescence of the gas.

The resulting detonation was enough to flash-blind anypony looking at it, if only for a few precious seconds. Meanwhile, magical duplicates were vanishing into multicolored smoke everywhere as the drones trained their weapons with deadly precision, their casters constantly working to repopulate the decoys as they were eliminated with abandon. Now and then, their fire resulted in a very real pony dropping lifelessly from the sky.

And all the while, forces below were striking up at them, catching every living thing in a devastating crossfire.

“Hurry up you guys,” she muttered to herself, before a SHADE’s shadow passed overhead. Rainbow watched it for only a moment, before beginning the chase.

Author's Notes:

Yeah, this took unacceptably long. I'd actually hoped to have more for this chapter, but I figured splitting this up was better than making people wait that much longer. So this doesn't end where I wanted the chapter to end, but it'll be fine. I'm starting to anticipate just how much more I can fill a chapter with small events before reaching the point I intended.

Also... DAMN, that finale! Got my work cut out for me! O_O

Definitely kicked me into writing overdrive, let me tell you.