"Of course they couldn't." She was indignant. "Alex, I've shown you what's in those field generators. Until we invented the Pionizer a few years back, the only place to get the material for the gravity lens from was the world's largest particle accelerators. Over half our budget went into expanding and running them. If you think antimatter might've gone missing-"

Lonely Day shook her head, though she knew Taylor wouldn't be able to see. "Have any of your historians got a look at these uniforms?"

"Y-Yeah. They have."

Archive didn't need a team of historians or a computer system to know what the uniforms were. She spoke the language too, so much as anyone could learn a language from books. She told Taylor the name of the rogue nation whose uniforms they were looking at anyway, as her way of making sure the engineer knew that she knew. "Is it possible the HPI wasn't the only group to be in contact with Equestria?"

"You talked with the Equestrian monarchs. Would they have lied?"

"No." Alex didn't need to hesitate. "But there were other forces in Equestria with the power to travel between worlds. Odium proved that."

She stepped up to the tank, clearing her throat. When she spoke, she didn't use English. "Whom do you serve?"

As she expected, the use of their tongue drew the attention of the tank's occupants at once. All turned to stare at her. Only their necks moved, often in ways that human necks were not meant to bend. She shivered at the cracking sounds they made. She barely recognized the words. Yet she was Archive, all things human were her unique domain. Even the partially human.

"A greater master than yours, subhuman animal." The words were badly mangled by their mouths. Yet they all spoke together, one unearthly chorus. "Release my servants, and I will not destroy your friend. I am not interested in you. Yet if you interfere, I will make her suffer."

"What do they say?" Blacklight watched, showing little sign of discomfort at the alien presence of these beings.

"I think they're threatening you."

Blacklight laughed. "Let them threaten. No changeling has ever bowed to Abbadon."

"Those... Those things used to be human. If you can free a pony, can you free them?"

For the first time, Alex saw Blacklight hesitate with fear. "I... am not certain. Abbadon grow stronger the more followers they have. If this one has festered for twenty years, it might be beyond my power."

"I will help you." Archive touched the queen's side with one hoof.

The queen hesitated, then nodded. "It may not be possible. The dead behind us indicate there may be nothing left to save."

"Why not?"

Riley shrugged. "I can't explain it. It's just the way I feel."

More of those buried memories then. Alex knew better than to enquire further. "Do we need to touch one of them? I bet if we tried to open the container..."

"I'm more concerned with what would happen if we succeeded. The others might slay the first we free. I could not prevent it and attempt to free the creature at the same time."

"Good point. Taylor, we need to get one of them out. Can your drones do that?"

"Absolutely. It'll be a delicate business though. We might have to kill more of them. You two should get clear."

Blacklight shook her head. "Day can retreat. I will hold them down, and your machines can extract one."

The chorus spoke again, though Archive alone could understand. "Your attempt will fail. These are mine, animal. Take one of mine from me, and I will claim one of yours."

She couldn't glare at all of them, but she tried anyway. "No part of me is yours, creature. I killed your brother and I will kill you too."

They laughed. All of them. "I would have helped you. Fools dream themselves gods, Archive. I am no fool. Nor do I threaten; I promise. Free my servants and they will go their way. The empty ones took a few from me, but I took the animals living here from you. I call the scales balanced. Return these to me, remove the bindings from my animals, and you may return to your barn in peace."

"No." Archive's eyes flashed. "Are you ready Blacklight? Taylor?"

The captured monsters only laughed.

Yet for all the anger she expected, they barely resisted. The queen's green magic kept them all firmly paralyzed, save for the occasional wiggle of a tentacle. Taylor's drones released their grip on the lid even as one of the largest extended an arm about one of the creatures, gripping it securely and hauling it up and out. It clung to the edges, making a sickly sticking sound as it was extracted. Alex nearly heaved when she heard it.

One of the other drones laid out a tarp on the soil. They drove stakes deep into the ground, and with tight cable they bound down the creature. It struggled, but even with the strange flexibility it posessed its struggles were in vain. Only when the container was secure again did Blacklight release her magic.

The creatures instantly went wild. They flung themselves madly against every joint of the container, thrashing with little respect for their own safety. Sickly crunching sounds came from inside, yet they seemed to neither notice nor care.

"We have to work quickly." Archive took her gun, but she didn't prepare to fire it. Instead she took it backwards, using one corner of the barrel to draw in the sand. Alex had been clumsy with her hooves once; she didn't shake at all as she wrote the runes.

Blacklight watched her, fascinated. "What is that?"

"I read the Equestrian books," she explained. "All of them. I'm not a unicorn, but you don't need to be to draw runes. I'm still... a little shaky on the structure, but I'm pretty sure this will keep its power tenuous. It shouldn't be able to put too much of its power through at once. Don't smear the marks."

Within a minute, she'd finished drawing. Of course, Archive was no unicorn. A unicorn would use its horn and natural magic to empower the spell. She didn't have a horn, so she had to use something else. "Keeper of Earth," she whispered in her mind. "I need magic for this spell."

"You need your own horn," came the immediate response. "I'm no spirit, to be called up at a whim. Just because you're my favorite doesn't mean you can take advantage of my consideration whenever you want."

"You will help this time though, won't you?"

The female voice, deeper than the deepest well, hesitated only a moment. "Yes. Use blood. A drop will be sufficient."

She slid her knife out of the vest, puncturing the skin of one leg with the shallowest possible pressure. She ignored the brief stab of pain, holding the knife in her mouth until the drop fell onto the runes.

They came blazing to brilliant life, flickering with emerald energy. The chirping of crickets, the faint breeze whistling through the ruins, all faded to near-silence to listen to the spell as Archive read it. Rather, as the spell read her. As she read, the shapes of her runes pulsed and shifted, changing into a single circle that surrounded the tarp. She felt the strength of the earth flooding into her body again, the blood of the planet itself.

It didn't take long. Once the circle was complete, the searing light died into a faint glow. "Don't break it," she said as she stepped carefully over the edge. "Anything that does will end the spell."

"I know enough about pony magic to know that." Blacklight's wings buzzed in momentary irritation, yet still she was careful with her steps.

Both inside, Archive rested her hoof on the shoulder of the queen even as she lowered her horn towards the monstrosity on the floor. When it touched, the world shifted.

Archive felt as the queen probed a mind that seemed nothing but eternal emptiness. This being was in far worse shape than any pony, even one of the equestrians whose service had been a lifetime.

She didn't get to find out if they would discover anything. Didn't, because that was when she heard the screaming.

Utterly human screams, without a trace of corruption on them. Taylor Gamble's screams.

Blacklight noticed them too, because she pulled her horn away, looking immediately skyward. Without a word, the wings of all her drones began to buzz. Alex could see it too, distant flashes in the sky. Were those explosions?

"Wait!" She increased the pressure on Blacklight's shoulder. "Take me!"

The queen didn't argue. Alex felt a pair of drones surround her, one on either side. Their hooves dug into her shoulders and their wings began to hum. She lifted off the ground surrounded by the cloud of changelings.

The mechanical drones remained stupidly where they were, even those few that circled in the air. Whatever changes were taking place above them, they did not react.

Archive realized then Blacklight hadn't been the friend the inhuman presence had meant to take away.

Even at a distance, Lonely Day could see flashes of light from above, feel her body shake as something massive screamed and bellowed. Her pony ears pointed right at it, forcing her to hear the unearthly grinding sound coming from above and getting louder as the drones buzzed her upward.

Yet even with the goggles, she could make out little of specifics at this distance. She could do nothing but hang limply in the air and pray to God that Riley wouldn't lose concentration and drop her accidentally.

She didn't. Instead they shot through the sky faster than she could've imagined possible. How long could the drones keep up this kind of performance? She wished she could help, wished she could've given them some of the strength the earth loaned her, but just now she couldn't reach it either.

She saw the shape long before she could clearly discern what she was looking at. It seemed like a squid, semitransparent and pulsing, with tentacles long enough to wrap around the length of the ship. It was also floating in the clouds as though they were an ocean and it were not a mile high.

The colossal creature wrapped itself about the Albatross as though intent on snapping it in two. Perhaps it was trying, given the apparent damage. Two of the ship's engines, the two along the smaller wing just past the monster, had stopped working, causing the aircraft to wobble erratically in the sky. Yet for all that, its other six engines seemed to be compensating.

Why wasn't it trying to pull away? Couldn't the Albatross move at supersonic speeds, or at least very near to them? Why wasn't Taylor trying to get away? Alex had heard a great deal of suffering in twenty years. Felt a great deal herself, particularly connected to little Cody. Yet never in her life had she heard screaming so agonized, so barely human as she heard now. The sufferers of all Hell could not produce a sound more wretched if they all shouted together.

Blacklight answered her unasked question. "The anti-magic field is nearly down! The monster has overwhelmed it! The thing must have suffered terrible pain – but it clearly doesn't care about itself!" Alex looked, and saw the Albatross wasn't rolling over and passively taking this assault. A dozen point-defense turrets were all firing on the creature, their inline magnetic accelerator cannons firing round after round into its soft hide. Where they pierced it, gaping wounds formed, sometimes meters across. Yet as glowing ichor poured out, the being merely twisted tighter. It would crush the Albatross or die trying.

It would not have the opportunity today. The drones holding her remained where they were, but the rest surged forward, with a screaming Blacklight at their head. She didn't bother with her rifle, though the drones did. While they fired ineffectual small arms, her horn glowed vibrant green, searing the side of the monster.

It wasn't much, not with the Albatross's own defenses firing as rapidly as they could. Yet the difference seemed to be significant. The monster wailed, bellowing like colliding automobiles, and its grip slackened. A huge opening appeared in its body as bright green light pierced it completely through, filling the air with the stench of burning tires and sulfur.

The Albatross listed, as the monster broke free and began to fall in slow motion. As it did, new turrets pivoted and fired, switching to explosive rounds as the monstrous thing dropped to a safe distance. Little but charred slime was left when it finally struck the earth far below.

Alex didn't scream to talk to Queen Riley, not with a drone still holding her. "Don't get too close, Blacklight! If the CPNFG fails, the radiation will kill you. Have your drones take me in and I'll see what I can do from the inside!" That wasn't entirely a true statement. The radiation would kill her as surely as it would kill Blacklight. She'd just get better. The changeling queen, on the other hand...

“The monster tore a hole. I'll leave you in there. Be careful not to touch the edges." The drones surged forward, bearing her with them. Sure enough, as she rounded the other side of the Albatross there was indeed a gaping hole, exposed wires sparking and fiber optic cables flashing from gaps in the armor and interior plates.

It was a miracle the Albatross was still airborne. Yet it had already corrected for the sudden lack of mass, and seemed to be listing less without the monster constricting it. The dead engines hadn't recovered as she neared the hole, and didn't turn back on even when she was close enough to see the edges of the armor, still molten and bubbling with something from what she presumed had been the monster's beak. She hoped she would never find out.

As soon as her hooves hit the metal of the dark cargo bay, Blacklight's drones released her and surged up through the gap, their wings blasting cold air at her as they went. She didn't wave.

Instead she fought to ignore the sounds coming from her headset, which had faded to a sound of gurgling and hacking coughs. Taylor had screamed until her throat could take no more, and she had lost her voice. Alex had seen footage of humans suffering thaumic exposure before. If what she remembered was right, and it usually was, it could take hours to die.

Yet maybe today that would be to their advantage. The cargo area had largely gone dark, though if she continued far enough she could find the flashing of emergency lights and a few live consoles. She wondered to herself if she was being blasted with lethal nuclear radiation with every step, wondered if she would share Taylor's agonizing death.

She hammered on the console with one hoof until it lit up, then took the stylus hanging beside it into her mouth in order to actually manipulate it.

Alex had read the operations manual for the Albatross, so she knew exactly what to do. She found her way to the reactor's status display, and learned that it was functioning normally. The CPNFG reported a fault with the auxiliary power and a switch to emergency supplies. It was running at levels just high enough to keep the reactor's radiation from flooding into the ship and killing her.

How high was thaumic field penetration? The entire ship, all except the reactor. Taylor's lifesigns in the cockpit were still there, though her icon was no longer green. She probed, and found her status had been changed to "diseased, pending incineration," even though she was still breathing, still had a heartbeat. It disturbed Alex even more to note that command authority had been switched temporarily to herself. The only humanitarian measure Taylor had been offered appeared in an error next to her name. "Crewman not armored; euthanasia not available."

The Albatross had already received instructions. Even as she stood there, it was piloting itself to the nearest patch of clear ground, lowering itself as delicately and slowly as it could. HPI engineers were "36-48 hours away."

She didn't waste time calling anyone in the HPI to argue with them. She already knew there was nothing human medicine could do for someone exposed to the thaumic field. Whatever the monster Charybdis had done tonight, no human or pony doctor would be able to bring her back.

Except I can, came a voice in her head, very faint. Archive could banish the presence if she had wanted to. She didn't yet. You've seen my servants, they are human. Remove this ship's defenses, and I can offer her salvation. If she accepts, she will live again to serve. Service is better than the end of all pleasure that comes with death. I am kinder than oblivion.

"Go to hell!" Archive strengthened the barriers about her mind, casting the hostile presence out. It would have been difficult if the spirit's host was near, yet it clearly wasn't. For all she knew, it might not even be on the continent.

Archive called upon her memory of the maintenance manual. The CPNFG needed more power, that was the first priority. Once she put a stop to any further thaumic exposure for Taylor she could worry about how to actually save the woman.

It took her less than five minutes. The CPNFG itself was a modular unit, made to accept power in a number of different ways. All it really took was taking the thickest power cable aboard and dragging it through the airship until she could plug it into one of the main power distribution net's central access points. She didn't even electrocute herself, though her last memories of electrocution were so very fond.

The cable grew almost instantly warm to the touch, and far away several alarms stopped blaring. She felt the icy chill of the magic shield with relief. Funny how often that seemed to happen around the Umbral.

Of course, Alex's task had only just begun. She didn't bother actually heading into the cockpit, potentially exposing the unprotected Taylor to more of her own thaumic radiation if the cable or the power network decided to fail on her.

After twenty years, much of the satellite network was nonfunctional. Coverage decreased by the year, and nobody was putting replacements into orbit. Nobody could.

The HPI satellite network had been constructed with this in mind, designed with enough redundancy to keep working (to some degree) for a century. The Iridium civilian satellite phone network? Less so. That was why messengers and coded radio messages had taken over. There was word of laying some sort of signaling cable between colonies, but thus far nothing had materialized.

Still, a few ponies had access to the HPI's network for emergency communications, and she was one of them. She was calling one of the others right now. The console rang and rang and rang, before a much-distorted face appeared on the other end.

Sunset Shimmer looked exactly as Alex remembered her. Like Alex herself, she never seemed to change. "Lonely Day?" She seemed confused. "What's wrong?"

Alex fought to keep the fear and desperation from her voice. It would not make communication easier over the much-delayed connection. "Sunset, thank God! I need your help... one of my friends... Taylor Gamble, you remember her? Something attacked us and took down her magic shield for a little while. It's back up now, but... she's dying!"

Sunset looked down on the other end, growing solemn. "I have seen it happen. Lonely Day, we never figured out how to treat magic poisoning in humans. I can't help her. Do not stand near her; your magic will just make her pain worse!"

Archive rolled her eyes. "You can help, Sunset! You helped write the Universal Preservation Spell! If four Alicorns can change a whole planet, then one Alicorn can change one human!"

She looked away from the camera, frowning deeply. "It is... It is possible. It would depend on how much exposure she had. I might be able to derive those parts of the spell from my copy. It's been decades since I helped, Day. My attempt might kill her."

"If you do nothing, she dies for sure!" She couldn't help herself; Alex screamed. "I'm sure she'd want us to do everything we could. The HPI can't heal her, the computer tried to tell her suit to kill her, but thank God she wasn't wearing it."

Sunset nodded. "Alright Day; tell me where to find you." She did, using every conceivable way she knew. Archive didn't know much about teleportation, but she did understand that knowledge of the destination was critical. She'd never actually seen an Earth unicorn successfully teleport, not even Joseph. Sunset Shimmer was an Alicorn though, not beholden to the weaknesses of the lesser species. Space warped and twisted in her hooves when she wanted it to.

With her new "acting commander" status, Alex lowered the CPNFG field strength until it was only big enough to contain the cockpit and the reactor. Hopefully that would keep her oversized extension cord from melting as long as possible, as well as making teleportation possible for her Alicorn friend.

A drone buzzed through the gaping hole in the ceiling, landing beside her with a light thud. It spoke with Blacklight's voice, albeit weaker and higher. "Is it safe to return? You don't appear to be dying."

"Sorta." Alex kept well back from the center of the room, gesturing for the drone to do the same. There was no telling where Sunset was going to appear, but she wanted to be as far away from the center as she could. "It's safe, but it might not stay that way. We're hovering until Sunset Shimmer gets here, then we're going to set down and wait for repairs. You could meet us on the ground. There's no reason to put yourself in danger. Unless you can treat a human who's been exposed to magic, there's nothing for you to do."

"Would that I could." The drone lifted off and buzzed out the opening, leaving Lonely Day alone.

A few minutes passed. Then, in a flash of brilliant light, Sunset Shimmer arrived. It wasn't like the flash of ordinary unicorn teleportation. Alex felt momentarily warmed by actual sunlight on her coat, her ears pressing down in the thunderclap of displaced air as the Alicorn took shape in the space in front of her.

Thaumic exposure alarms blared and flashed, though they didn't last long. With the field area so much reduced, it could handle a teleport so close. She just hoped the power cable could. Day ran to embrace her friend, tears filling her eyes as her limbs lost their strength. There were two ponies in all the world that got to see her when she wasn't being strong, and this was one of them. "S-Sunset! I... thanks for interrupting whatever you were... Taylor's such a good friend... it's my fault this is happening to her. I should've listened-"

The Alicorn silenced her with a hoof. "Later Day. Every second counts; take me to her."

Alex did, though not before instructing the computer to resume its downward course. The sooner the reactor was shut down, the safer they would be. Fat lot of good it would do to bring Sunset Shimmer here to save Taylor only for her to die of mundane radiation poisoning instead.

Once they were moving, Alex willed her eyes clear and drew on her strength again. The Earth had none to give her at altitude, but that was fine. Knowing her friend needed her was strength enough for Archive that she needed no magic.

Sunset Shimmer stopped her when they hit the edge of the field, a few meters outside the cockpit's airlock doors. "Bring her to me, Alex. Drag her out into the space in front of me, but not until I'm ready. Having an Alicorn near her is going to do great harm. The spell must be ready for her the instant she leaves that shield." A shimmering field of magic turned Alex to face her and look up into her face, quite firmly. "Day; this might kill her. I can't promise it will work. I can't promise it won't kill her faster than whatever she's suffering now. It might be more painful, it might go grotesquely wrong. I know she'll be in no state to decide for herself. Are you willing to agree on her behalf?

Lonely Day did not hesitate. She knew Taylor, better than any other living human. Really, she knew very few who wouldn't choose becoming a pony over extinction. In that moment, she didn't fail to realize she was standing in Luna and Celestia's hooves. She nodded, and made the exact decision they had. "Do it."

Sunset Shimmer did not hesitate further, but released Alex and gestured vaguely for her to step away. She did, passing through that invisible point in the air where the thaumic shield began. With her own stress burning so high, she hardly even noticed.

The door opened with a hiss of air pressure. What she found inside was far worse than any of the horrors she had found on Earth. Alex had seen videos of thaumic poisoning and hadn't been able to watch for long. She saw that agony now in the face of one of her friends.

Taylor's whole body had tensed and bent, nearly all of her in tension. Where muscles opposed, limbs twitched and spasmed violently. She had bitten something in her mouth, because blood mixed with the drool that pooled there. In her thrashing she had probably torn tendons, because hands and feet twisted in ways they had never meant to. Where Alex saw skin, red splotches of exploded capillaries made her look almost spotted, though in a few places the explosions had been severe enough to pierce the skin.

Taylor Gamble had no energy left to thrash anymore, so she only twitched. Alex caught her eye, as wide as if she'd had those drops eye doctors had used before the Event, irises consumed by black. Like her skin, the sclera around her eyes were splotched with blood. Taylor had been dragging her way towards a medkit mounted on the floor. She hadn't made it.

Alex darted past it, tugging it off the wall with her mouth and dumping out its contents on the floor. In her perfect memory, she called up the image of the strongest painkillers she knew, and found one ready-to-inject trauma syringe.

She used the scissors to cut away Taylor's uniform from the back, and found the right part of the spine. Needle in, plunger down, and Taylor started to relax almost instantly.

Lonely Day could hear faint moaning, as pitiful as any sound could be. If Taylor was trying to say anything, it was utterly lost. Lost, because that was when Sunset Shimmer started to sing.

No, she wasn't quite singing. She was casting her spell. Alex could feel none of the energy building for a spell, not within the shielded area. Yet even within it, she couldn't help but turn around to listen.

In two decades, Joseph had become one of, if not the most skilled unicorn in all the world. Comparing this to Joseph's magic was like putting Starry Night beside a toddler's crayon scribblings. The world itself stilled as she sang, the thrumming reactor quieting to silence and the wind from far behind them vanishing entirely. She spoke not in words Alex could understand, and yet some deeper part of her didn't need to understand to know what she was saying.

It was a song that told a story of defiance. The universe through its actions had judged humanity unworthy. Sunset Shimmer sang furious rage against the darkness, refusal to accept the judgement, then pleading for an alternative. She fell silent.

Archive heard no voice in answer, yet voice there was all the same. The wind rushed back in, harmonizing with the grinding of the ventilator and the hum of the reactor and even Taylor's agonized moans. Together they formed sounds answering back in the same tongue, or at least Archive imagined they did.

Nothing could survive beyond its time, said the power in that night. Humanity was no exception for her friendship, just as she would be no exception when her time came. The death at the end of a fulfilled life was no cause for mourning, but celebrating.

Was it just part of the spell? Alex didn't know, but she couldn't take her eyes from the Alicorn. Her horn burned with sunlight, sunlight that shone past the thaumic field pure and orange and warm. Her eyes burned white from within, bright enough that she could use it to judge the edge of the CPNFG's field.

Sunset sang again, a begging and pleading voice. What if it was humanity's nature that died, not humans themselves? Could a man or woman live that was something else?

Another silence. Again, an answering voice came without a speaker. Nature itself was the reply, though it was not the nature Archive knew. This one was far older, perhaps by billions of years. The voice was grudging, but it consented in the end. Humanity's people could live on into the new galaxy, so long as humanity died. Entropy would still come for them, what was this short delay to an eternal?

Without knowing how she knew it, Archive felt the spell was nearly over. She bent down, forcing herself to ignore the iron-harsh smell of blood as she took Taylor's collar in her mouth and started dragging her across the floor. She had no help from her earth-pony nature, so had to drag a middle-aged human adult with main strength. She rolled Taylor over first, so her face wouldn't be dragged along rough metal. Even so, even with as careful as she could be, she knew she was opening up new wounds on the uneven metal meant to be easy to grip when wearing armor. Tears streamed down her eyes, tears of agony and sympathy, but she forced herself on.

She hesitated at the edge for Sunset to say the final word, then tugged one final time. She knew she had gone far enough, because Taylor started to scream again, thrashing and wailing in new agony.

It didn't last. The spell struck like a laser wide enough to swallow her and Alex and the rest of the ship beside. It struck the anti-thaumic field in a single instant of liquid light, splashing around it and vanishing through the walls. There was no prolonged transformation, no series of mutations culminating in an Equestrian body. When the light was gone, so was Taylor Gamble.