“Had you come to me, this might not have happened…” Upon hearing these words, Sideralis cringed. He was not in the mood to be lectured by mysterious white alicorns or things that lurked in the dream realm. He focused his angry glare upon her, feeling more than a little petulant and rebellious.

“I tried to tell you… the gift I have to offer would have protected you… how much so remains to be seen.” The white alicorn shook her head and let out a sad sigh.

Gnawing his lip, Sideralis tried to think about what to do. This was a dream. Which took place in the dream realm. Which meant that he had some small authority here, as limited as his power was. He looked around him at all of the things that weren’t there. A pool of water. A night sky full of stars. A lush forest… and all of it was a distraction. A scene so pleasing that it disarmed him.

“What is that thing?” Sideralis asked in a low, but forceful voice.

The white alicorn looked at him, but said nothing.

“Answer me, damn you… what is that thing?” Sideralis took a step forwards and discovered, much to his dismay, just how little authority he had here. He found himself right back where he started, standing next to the shallow pool of water.

The strange creature, whatever she was, the projection, she turned her head away from Sideralis. “That is the alchemy of chaos. That smooze, as you call it, it was once harmonious creatures… ponies.” The white mare shuddered and then turned her head once more to focus upon Sideralis. “These ponies were fed nightmares, your mother’s talent corrupted and made disharmonious. These ponies were broken, made chaotic, and then they were liquified. Through the most vile sort of alchemy, the smooze was created.”

“And that is only one of them, isn’t it? There’s more?” Sideralis gritted his teeth together and looked down into the pool at himself. As he stared, the stars overhead circled in the reflection and formed a starry crown over his head.

The white alicorn, a tree spirit, nodded. “She wanted to test you. She knows that you are coming. She has seen your weakness, and while this smooze creature is the very worst of her creations, there are others that are almost every bit as awful. She is corrupting everything. Beware of the flesh warped mutants.”

“Can the smooze be stopped?” Sideralis asked.

The white alicorn stepped closer to Sideralis, a pained expression upon her face. “No, Starry One, the smooze cannot be stopped by you in your current state.”

“No more bullshit.” Sideralis lifted his head away from his distracting reflection. “I’ll come to you, but on my own terms. I have my subjects to protect… my family… that… that… thing did something awful to all of us and I plan to kill it. If you can’t give me a straight answer on how to do it, to Tartarus with you. I’m sick of games and mental head fuckery.”

“The smooze cannot be stopped, but it might be slowed,” the white alicorn said to Sideralis in a low, breathy whisper. “You have the means to deal with it, but not by yourself—”

“So tell me… no more fucking around… no more magical, mystical, mumbo jumbo bullshit! You tell me how to deal with this thing, and I will come to you. I will make Twilight see reason… just… tell me how to wreck this thing.”

The white alicorn went silent and looked thoughtful, as if it was considering Sideralis’ words. She moved closer and stood beside the blue alicorn standing beside the pool. “I don’t think this is wise… you are infected… it is worse than you know. You deal with a foe that is far, far beyond you—”

“Tell me!” Sideralis’ voice thundered through the night, the force of his utterance so powerful that it destroyed the dreamscape. He and the white alicorn now stood in an empty void, filled with nothing.

“If you come to me, I can cure you… I can restore you… you don’t understand what you face—”

“TELL ME!”

A change came over Sideralis as he drifted through the void. His pelt, blue, began to change over to a dreadful purple black. His teeth elongated, becoming fangs. His eyes suffered a profound change, becoming slitted.

The white alicorn recoiled when she saw Nightmare Star…

“There is a way to slow the smooze and remove it as a threat… but afterwards, you must come to me so that I can restore you.” The white alicorn willed herself away from the terrible nightmare creature beside her. The smooze had awoken a terrible foe.

Rage was a terrible thing, an awful thing. Rage drove creatures to extreme ends. Sideralis, very much like his mother, had rage issues. While Luna had been driven to rage from loneliness, jealousy, and despair, Sideralis was driven to rage by his helplessness and his sense of failure. Like his mother, his rage ignited something dark deep within. Unlike his mother, Sideralis was able to direct his rage upon those most deserving.

“How do I deal with the smooze?” Sideralis asked in a voice that was more animalistic growl than the spoken words of reasonable, civilised creatures.

“First off, you mustn’t go alone… being alone is a terrible thing for you.” The white alicorn looked worried as she drifted through the void beside Sideralis. “Your strength comes from your friends. I know how trite it sounds, but you must trust me.”

Sideralis nodded as his blood boiled within his veins.

“Now, I want you to pay attention as I give you a list of instructions…”

NRG (........|.)

Condition status: unknown.

Multiple failures detected.

Rebooting alicorn avenger directive.

Reboot in progress__loading available libraries.

Attempt to purge bad data__load error ⚠

New program found__Harmony__DirE/Ctive__TeMP.Patch. Load? (Y/N)

Drifting in the space between the waking world and dreams, Sideralis mentally selected yes and then waited for something to happen. He could feel something shudder through his body as he began to power up.

Compiling__Harmony__DirE/Ctive__TeMP.Patch and preparing for transfer.

Horntouch transfer system protocol enabled.

Chosen target: Mjölna

Chosen target: Creamy Stout

Preparing contact file transfer protocol

New program found__Alicorn__Hammer__Mjölna.patch. Load? (Y/N)

New program found__Alicorn__Avenger__upgrade.firewall.Stout.patch. Load? (Y/N)

Sideralis felt a hum deep within him as more of his body came online. He selected yes to both queries and a long string of techno garble flew in front of his eyes. He felt a strong urge within him to find Mjölna and Stout right away.

Reboot required. Reboot? (Y/N)

Once more, Sideralis thought yes…

Sideralis awoke in a rack. He was standing on his four hooves and his wings were held in a biostructure scaffolding, along with his body. Everything was supported by this scaffolding, including his head. As he regained his senses, he saw a tiny changeling drone inches away from his face, and Sideralis could only guess that the changeling was doing some repair work.

There was a startled cry from the little bug when it realised that Sideralis was awake. It buzzed away, it’s gossamer wings fluttering, and then gave Sideralis a sheepish smile once it had recovered.

There were things he needed to do. Sideralis realised that he was trapped within the scaffolding. Annoyed, he shook himself. There was a screech of metal and then a veritable cacophony as the scaffolding around him fell away. The changeling let out a shrill, frightened cry. Something began beeping and Sideralis’ annoyance grew. This was not how he wanted to wake up.

He pulled away from the wrecked scaffolding, flapped his wings a few times to get rid of the last remaining bits clinging to him, and then set off to fulfill his new directives. There was a fight he had to finish.

“Ouroboros!” Sideralis bellowed, his voice echoing through the repair bay. “Ouroboros, I know you can hear me! You need to stop! We need to go back! Return us to the islands at once. If that smooze creature decides to slither across the bottom of the ocean to Maredina, everything we love will die! It will devour everything there and grow bigger and bigger!”

Sideralis felt the ship lurch beneath his hooves. There was an abrupt and sudden stop. He pitched forwards, his balance still far from perfect. He wobbled about the repair bay like a newborn foal, the tiny changeling drone shrieking in terror.

After recovering, Sideralis felt something clinging to his neck. He realised it was the changeling drone, which was not much bigger than a yearling foal. He hadn’t meant to terrify the poor creature, and now he felt bad. He stood there, now still, and he could feel the tiny insectoid creature panting in terror against his neck.

“You… what is your name?” Sideralis asked. “Do you have one?”

“My name is Ratchet.” The little bug’s wings buzzed, but it did not let go of Sideralis. “I was repairing your face. One of your optical modules was damaged.”

“Well, Ratchet, I need you to be a brave little bug, because any minute now, Twilight Sparkle and Chrysalis are probably going to show up and there will be a lot of shouting—”

No sooner had Sideralis spoken did the door to the repair bay fly open and one very angry looking Twilight Sparkle come stomping into the room. On her face was a mix of worry, fear, and anger. Her nostrils flared and her eyes were wide. Behind her, Chrysalis stood with a blank expression upon her face.

“What is going on here?” Twilight demanded. “Why are you out of your rack and why is Ouroboros disobeying my every command?”

Sucking in a deep breath, Sideralis prepared to explain himself.

“And you think that I’m just going to let you go?” Twilight Sparkle gave Sideralis an angry glare. “We need time to sort all of this out and find out what is going on, but you are not returning to Isla Colibaba. Now return control of The Ouroboros back to me at once.”

“You can’t stop me,” Sideralis said in a low voice.

Twilight, bristling from Sideralis’ words, took a step forwards, a hot, angry retort right on the tip of her tongue. She looked up at Sideralis, who towered over her, her eyes narrowing, and deep within her barrel, her heart started pounding so hard that she could feel it in her ears.

Just as Twilight was about to give Sideralis a good dressing down, Chrysalis made an interjection. “That’s enough, both of you. Something is going on here and I’m not about to let you two ruin a perfectly good friendship. Twilight, back down. Sideralis, don’t make me put you in time out!”

Snarling, Twilight took a step backwards and then glared at Chrysalis, her lips protruding in a pout. After a moment, she looked back up at Sideralis. He was missing skin and pelt from his face. He was still in a terrible state. After a moment, her heart softened and her anger melted away. Her friend looked awful.

“Sideralis, how can you hope to stop this creature?” Queen Chrysalis drew herself up to her full height and a very serious expression crept over her face. “When I came and rescued you, that… thing, whatever it was, gave me and my drones quite a fight. It thrashed all of you quite soundly.”

“The Spirit of Harmony called it the alchemy of chaos,” Sideralis replied. “It messes with your head. It is a poly-parasitic creature that is capable of infecting almost anything, and the first means of infection can be visual, at least for us. It took advantage of how we C/Equines see things and uploaded the first stage of infection through our optics, taking advantage of our ability to gather data from the world around us.”

Twilight Sparkle’s breathing became quite heavy after hearing Sideralis’ words.

“It weakened our resolve and began to infect our systems on eye contact. The Spirit of Harmony says that it can be visually appealing to other living creatures. You want to touch it… you want to come close to it. It depends upon this to maximise the rate of infection.” As Sideralis stood there staring at Twilight and Chrysalis, Ratchet began repairing his face again.

“This isn’t good…” Chrysalis shook her head.

“It infected us… corrupted us. It tried to rewrite some of our programming,” Sideralis continued as Ratchet pulled out slivers of brick and mortar from his face. “It drains creatures of their hope, feeds upon their fear, drains them, depletes them, and when there is no will of their own left, they become part of the smooze.”

“So Mariposa was hoping to end this fight before it started and get… uh, um… techno-smoozes?” Twilight Sparkle’s face was now thoughtful and no trace of her previous anger was visible.

“Correct. We’re infected. All of us are sick, myself included. Things didn’t work out as planned for either side.” Sideralis let go a sigh and then tried to remember everything that the Spirit of Harmony had told him. “No plan survives contact with enemy. Mariposa's smooze wasn’t as successful as she hoped it would be, and we C/Equines weren’t as successful as you hoped we would be. The Spirit of Harmony has analysed the smooze and found a weakness. It cannot be stopped, but it can be slowed down, crippled, and then, in its crippled state, it can be dealt with. She says she doesn’t know if it can be destroyed, but we can make sure that this particular smooze is no longer a threat.”

“We’re dealing with runaway biological nanotech,” Chrysalis muttered.

“What?” Sideralis looked at the changeling queen, not understanding.

“Never you mind.” Chrysalis, who now looked afraid, stared at Sideralis through narrowed eyes. “So… what is the plan? How do we cripple this creature and deal with it?”

Taking a deep breath, Sideralis prepared to explain his plan. He cleared his throat, took another deep breath, and ignored the fact that Ratchet was spraying his face with something that smelled vinegary.

“Here’s the basic outline of the plan. We’ll need Mjölna to create a new sort of weapon, something that does extreme cold damage. The Spirit of Harmony suggested blobs of jellied nitrogen. After we have the nitrogen blob launcher, we go back and we find that smoozy motherfucker and we freeze it solid. Once we have it frozen, we smash it into pieces. We take those pieces, keep them frozen, and we put it into a tank that is rigged up to a super-cooling system. We keep the smooze frozen and unable to do anything.” Sideralis paused as he felt a peculiar sensation on the side of his face where he had smashed into the wall. His vision flickered out as Ratchet did whatever it was the little drone was doing.

“And how do we dispose of the smooze?” Twilight asked.

“I I fly up to the top of the sky, the very outermost edges of our atmosphere, and I launch that tank into the freezing vacuum of space. The smooze will stay frozen and helpless out there… it cannot function in a frozen vacuum.”

“I see,” Twilight replied.

Sideralis’ vision came back online and he could see out of that side of his face once more. “Once the smooze is dealt with, I must keep a promise. I must follow the stars…”

Author's Notes:

Wait... just wait and allow things to play out. Not everything is said and done yet.