Propped up in his rack, Sideralis was enduring the long healing process. The whole of his body was covered in thick green mesh to help him regrow his organics. A new optic assembly had been installed on the left side of his face to speed up the healing process. Strange tubes and crystalline fibres protruded from different places on his body.

He was not alone in his rack room. Ratchet buzzed around, overseeing everything, and the little drone now had a direct connection to Sideralis’ diagnostics systems. Twilight Sparkle paced to and fro, scowling, her face pinched with worry. Queen Chrysalis sat on a cushion she had brought, reading the projected screen of a crystal computer, frowning at whatever data she was studying.

“We never made you to endure such abuse,” Queen Chrysalis said, breaking the silence. She cleared her throat and the crystal cluster she held went dim, it’s projection vanishing. “Sideralis, we made you to fight changelings of different varieties. For that purpose, you and your fellow C/Equines were ideal. Perfect warriors. The six of you could have took on thousands at a time with very little done to you in the way of harm. You were all perfect war machines.”

Twilight Sparkle, hearing Chrysalis’ words, stopped pacing, turned her head, and looked over at Sideralis, who had Ratchet buzzing around his head. For a moment, Twilight looked as though she was about to say something, but she remained silent. A sad expression crept over her face, but it didn’t last long. Her sorrow was replaced by fury, it came on hard and fast.

“The recent engagements however…” Chrysalis’ words hung heavy in the air like spoken bowling balls ready to come crashing down so that everything could be knocked over in some dramatic fashion. “The initial data isn’t good. Sideralis, when your head was smashed into the wall, each impact measured several tons worth of force. Your body was made to take abuse, but not that much abuse. All of our hard work almost came to and end right there. It’s scary.”

“The fleshed warped mutants changed things,” Twilight said.

“Surely, some good has come out of all of the information collected.” Sideralis spoke without his mouth moving, his voice coming out of his nostrils and sounding funny. His jaw hinge on the left side was being repaired and all movement had been disabled.

Heaving a sigh, Chrysalis nodded. “Doctor Gizmo says that if we completely rebuild your wings, give them greater extensions, and add more power to the emitters that give you the magic that you use to fly, he thinks we can raise your payload to five hundred pounds or more.”

“Five hundred pounds total isn’t too bad,” Sideralis said.

“No,” Chrysalis shook her head, “no, five hundred pounds per wing. You carried a little over 400 pounds of smooze, nitrogen, and metal up to the top of the atmosphere and you did fine. Even in your damaged state. In a near perfect state, whole of body, without all of the critical failures, flayed skin, and with your wings in good condition, you could have carried a whole lot more. You’ve greatly exceeded our expectations and estimates. All of you C/Equines have.”

“The hopes and dreams of an entire nation was put into your creation.” Twilight’s wings twitched and her ears drooped down as she spoke. “Our desire to go home was poured into you. Our hopes, our dreams, every good thing we are, it was all a part of your creation.” Twilight drew in a shuddering breath. “And our wrath. Our fury. That was poured into you as well. We put so much into you… but now, everything has changed. Queen Mariposa has been busy. The flesh warped mutants alone are enough to give me pause, but this smooze ooze… how does anypony… or anything fight that? I must confess, I have trouble seeing the world winning.”

“So we’re in trouble,” Chrysalis said in response to Twilight’s words. “We’re the plucky survivors of a nightmare end of the world scenario. We’ll be fine, because we’re cute, cuddly, and do adorable things.”

“Speak for yourself, bug.” Twilight leveled a hard stare at Chrysalis.

“Ouch. Pastel pony princess is a real pretentious, patronising prick.” The changeling queen narrowed one eye and squinted at Twilight. Sensing that Twilight was in one of those moods, Chrysalis changed the subject. “We have survivors. Isla Colibaba wasn’t a total loss. The foals we recovered are healthy enough and they haven’t been in the Unity Web for too long. Our alicorn prince now has a hilarious cutie mark that we can all laugh at. We have a greater understanding of our enemy. We know that Mariposa has been busy.”

“And all we can do now is hope that the Spirit of Harmony has some kind of solution that can prevent the end of the world.” Twilight sat down upon the floor with a huff, and then let out a cry. Standing back up, shaking her rump around, she looked down and saw that she had sat down in some kind of sticky goo that had been on the floor.

Queen Chrysalis laughed.

“There is nothing funny about my cutie mark,” Sideralis said in a low, nasal voice.

“Oh come on, it’s hilarious,” Chrysalis retorted. “Alicorns… the great and noble creatures. Alicorn of the sun, alicorn of the moon, an alicorn of love, and an alicorn of magic… as if that wasn’t enough self righteousness, now, we have you, Sideralis, the Starry One, the alicorn of waking up in time for breakfast.”

“Hey,” Sideralis said in protest, “we didn’t lose one foal… I was able to wake them all.”

“Chrysalis, don’t be a tease. Sideralis’ mark might mean more than any of us realise. The stars are used to measure the passing of time… they are a celestial clock of sorts that can be used to measure chronological events. There may be a deeper meaning or he may yet have hidden talents.”

“Hidden talents that are more likely to manifest if I keep teasing him and motivating him to prove me wrong,” Chrysalis replied in a perfect blend of sarcasm and affection. A sly grin spread over Chrysalis’ face. “Speaking of hidden talents, we really need to study his tail twitches. When those happen, the magical readings go right off the charts. The only thing we have to compare it to are some odd earth pony readings, but those are relatively weak. Sort of like the pegasus wing reading we did when we discovered the magic fields emanating from Sideralis’ natural wings back when he still had them. When he broke atmosphere, the sorry remains of his tail twitched a whole bunch of times and we got some really weird readings. I wish we knew what happened up there.”

“So much needs studying… who knows where we’ll find our next best weapon of war.” Twilight, her horn glowing, made a valiant effort to clean the sticky goop off of her backside using her magic.

“I fell asleep… or passed out,” Sideralis said, responding to Chrysalis’ words. “I dreamt of my mother.”

“And the smooze got launched into space. We picked up all kinds of weird gravitational fluctuations and The Ouroboros’ sensors said that the moon was emitting weird energies. It’s gonna throw the tides out of whack.” Chrysalis shook her head. “I don’t even know how to begin reading that data.”

Both Chrysalis and Twilight looked at the door when it opened and a changeling drone came into the room. The drone was small, about the same size as Ratchet, but instead of being a repair drone, she was purposed as a messenger. She wasted no time and got right to the point.

“A fleet approaches,” she reported as her tiny wings buzzed. “A collection of ships. We’re being hailed and it sounds very urgent!”

“Who is hailing us?” Twilight asked, worried about further infections.

“Captain Spitfire of the Phoenix Rising.” The little drone flew closer to Twilight’s head. “Do you want me to set up a relay?”

Scowling, realising that the infection had probably already traveled along the attempt to communicate, Twilight nodded, feeling more than a little hopeless and crushed. She prepared herself, getting herself sorted out, hoping to present a good image to Spitfire. Morale was important.

The little communications drone’s horn glowed and a beam of energy shot out, connected to the wall, and the whole room thrummed with magic. After a few seconds, a projected image of Spitfire appeared, the image generated from the tiny drone’s curled horn.

“Twilight, I am so relieved to see you… I’ve been trying to contact you for a while now.”

Drawing herself up to her full height, Twilight nodded. “We had to go silent… I’ll explain later. Spitfire, what is going on? What are you doing out here with us?”

“IT’S GONE, TWILIGHT, EVERYTHING IS GONE!” Spitfire shouted in a ragged voice, speaking with so much volume that her projection crackled with static.

“Slow down… what’s gone?” Twilight asked.

“Everything,” Spitfire said, succumbing to her emotions. “All of it. It’s all gone.”

The first thing that Spitfire did upon entering the room was throw up when she saw Sideralis. The pegasus mare, a hardened individual, could not stand the sight of Sideralis in his current state. She stood, sides heaving, her wide, frantic eyes locked upon the cybernetic alicorn resting in his rack.

Queen Chrysalis, all of her previous sarcasm now gone, picked up Spitfire, plopped her down upon a cushion, conjured up a drink of water, and tried to make the mare comfortable as Twilight cast a spell that removed the puddle of sick that lay in front of the doorway.

“I need you to tell me everything that’s happened,” Twilight said in a quiet voice of command as she moved near where Spitfire was now laying sprawled out on Chrysalis’ cushion. She noted Spitfire’s bloodshot and frantic looking eyes. The fear and the panic.

Spitfire drank down some water, glanced over at Sideralis, gagged, and then jerked her head away, unable to bear the gruesome sight. She drank some more, coughed, and then looked Twilight in the eye.

“Not too long after you left, we got hit by a swarm. Early detection saw them coming. General Thunderclap mobilised to save the city. We took every ship in the harbour that we could spare and we loaded as many ponies and Saddle Arabians as we could, Twilight… we had to flee… the swarm was huge… bigger than anything we’ve ever seen.”

A grim expression spread over Twilight’s face.

“It’s all gone, Twilight…” Spitfire shook her head.

“Maredina is no more?” Chrysalis asked in a low voice. “What of King Stag and Queen Acherontia?”

“King Stag and Queen Acherontia used powerful magic together… I don’t understand what took place, but King Stag along with a whole bunch of his drones and Queen Acherontia’s drones were transmuted into an airship. Afterwards, Queen Acherontia mobilised what was left of her army and said she would buy us time to escape. We can’t seem to contact her.”

“And General Thunderclap?” Twilight asked, her eyes closed, her head hanging low.

“We can’t get in touch with him either.” Spitfire coughed again and shook her head. “Everypony is acting crazy and weird. I’m sorry, I can’t keep my shit together. I guess it’s the stress… I’m sorry… I’m not a very good soldier right now.

“She’s infected,” Sideralis said in a low voice. “My heads up display says she has smooze infection.”

Twilight took a step backwards, sighed, and then let out a low, wordless whine.

“I have what?” Spitfire asked.

“Nevermind,” Twilight replied. “At least for right now. I promise I’ll explain everything later.” Twilight looked Spitfire in the eye. “How many, Spitfire? How many were saved?”

Spitfire’s ears stood up and her lips moved. She tried to speak, choked, and then let out a shudder. After a moment, she managed to say, “I’m sorry, Twilight, I failed you… I’m so sorry.”

“How many?” Twilight asked again, her voice soft, but full of pain and worry.

“We don’t know the actual number yet. About twenty thousand or so. There was so much chaos and panic… When King Stag and the drones became an airship, it wasn’t exactly finished inside. He needed time to grow things and recover from the transformation. About twenty thousand was all we could manage…” Spitfire choked and her words became sobs.

“Out of a city of several hundred thousand,” Queen Chrysalis said, shaking her head.

Twilight, still in control of herself, standing with her eyes closed, began to calculate the algebra of survival. “Captain Spitfire, if you could tell me how many ships you escaped with, that would be very helpful.”

“Fifty… three…” Spitfire sobbed.

Wincing, Twilight Sparkle’s tail swished from side to side as she stood there, taking everything in. Fifty three ships and about twenty thousand ponies. Fifty four ships and about twenty one thousand with The Ouroboros. Equestria had once been a nation, it had then become a city of survivors, and now, Equestria was a fleet. A grim sense of resolve took over Twilight. She remembered the hurried escape from Equestria with far fewer ponies and just one ship. But that one ship was joined by others. Others had survived. Others had escaped, and they had come together. There was still hope. Others might be coming.

Or they might not.

“We need to figure out how to find the Spirit of Harmony,” Twilight said. “Our first priority is finding some means of a cure for this infection. She is likely our best hope. We need to get a headcount of the survivors. We’ll need to distribute them over the available ships and if we can, we need to help King Stag become more habitable. I want the fleet brought together to maximise the available love for our bioships. As of right now, this moment, I am the supreme authority of this fleet. I expect my commands to be followed. We are in dire circumstances.”

“Floating creatures made of eyeballs… I saw them… nightmares come to life… I swear, I’m telling the truth… hundreds, maybe thousands of them attacked the city…” Spitfire’s face contorted with pain and she covered her eyes with her front hooves.

“The population of these isles is strangely absent,” Queen Chrysalis said. “I wonder if the army was created here and shipped off to Maredina to attack. I think Isla Colibaba was used as a staging ground.”

Twilight nodded, but said nothing.

“They flew in over the ocean along with an army of infested changelings. There were so many… too many. I’ve never seen numbers like these before.” Spitfire curled up into a fetal position on the cushion and lay there whimpering. “Saddle Arabia is lost to us I think.”

Sideralis, thinking of everything that the Spirit of Harmony had told him, felt his heart grow heavy as he said, “When Discord was at his worst, almost the entirety of the pony tribes were lost to madness and sickness. We nearly met our end. Entire generations succumbed to his magic. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna could not save them all. When Discord was defeated, the Royal Pony Sisters had to raise several thousand foals… that was almost all that was left after Discord’s rampage. We had to rebuild from almost nothing. We did it then, and we can do it now.”

“Sideralis?” Twilight looked at the cybernetic alicorn resting in his rack and wondered how he knew all of this. She was still stunned from Spitfire’s report and this hit her like a suckerpunch.

“Discord messed them up too badly for them to be saved,” Sideralis said in a low, nasal voice. “Many of the ponies had resorted to cannibalism. They were warped. Insane. For a time, all was thought lost. Celestia and Luna found the Elements of Harmony and they struck down Discord. When everything was said and done, they had to put down the sick ones. They had to end the suffering of those afflicted by Discord’s chaos. The sisters suffered as they had to do the unthinkable, but they did their duty. They ended the pain and the suffering of those touched by chaos who could not be saved. Afterwards, they went into the wilds, searching, hoping, trying to find survivors. They found a few, but not many. They found foals though, feral foals. Celestia and Luna raised them as if those foals were their own.”

“Ugh.” Queen Chrysalis shook her head. “That’s pretty bad.”

“All hope was not lost though.” Sideralis paused and listened to the sounds of Spitfire sobbing for a moment, wishing he could go to her and comfort her. “Celestia and Luna endured with those foals. After a time, more ponies came, driven by a cruel winter. They came from a land across the sea and crossed over ice into the new land, the land we now call Equestria. The survivors, both the foals and the ponies who had made the crossing, all formed a new kingdom and so began the new era, the thousand years or so that led us to the troublesome times we face right now.”

“So Celestia and Luna… acted as mothers… to an army of orphans?” Twilight asked.

It took Sideralis a moment to reply, but reply he did. “Just as we might, Twilight Sparkle… I do not know what lies ahead, but there are always two alicorns when the world needs them. Hope is not lost. The old world must pass away so the new world can begin. The endless cycle must continue. We are a part of that. We must survive this and somehow rebuild, just as Celestia and Luna once did.” Sideralis said nothing about the fact that Twilight wasn’t quite an alicorn, but hoped that she was close enough.

“Princess I Can’t Possibly Do Anything Wrong and Princess Loudmouth didn’t have an army of changelings helping them,” Queen Chrysalis said. “We’ll be fine… I think. But I gotta admit, things look pretty bleak right now.”

Reaching down, Twilight stroked the sobbing pegasus curled up on a cushion, and as she did so, her eyes narrowed. A hard look crept over Twilight’s face. “Whatever it takes to survive… we’ll get through this together.”

Author's Notes:

I bet there are a ton of questions.

Good!