Five stared at the Grand Magus, and he stared back at her. Things had gone from bad to worse. First, there had been Proctor, who as it turned out was extremely annoying, and now, of all the beings in Equestria to encounter, Five had found the Grand Magus of Draconia. A being that could probably defeat Thebe in a fair fight, trying to stare down an Order-wielding chiropteran who could not even defeat an equidroid with a dog whistle. The situation, as such, was rather grim.

The only thing Five could do was to keep her composure and try to make herself appear vastly more powerful than she was, despite the level of fear she was experiencing. Weirdly, it seemed to be working, especially the bluff about the bombs.

The Grand Magus turned toward Rainbow Dash.

“Remember what I said,” he growled. “Watch you back. And front. And sides. And I will be back.”

A rune of green fire appeared beneath him, burning through the pavers of the monument. There was then a powerful implosion and a flash of flame, and he was gone, leaving behind only a charred circle of ancient lettering.

“Spike!” cried Rainbow Dash.

“Relax,” said Twilight_Proctor. “He just engaged a teleportation spell.”

“Obviously,” said Five.

“Five, that was Spike!”

“My,” said Proctor_Shy. “He has grown, hasn’t he?”

“And who the hay are you?” said Rainbow Dash. “And why do you sound like Fluttershy?”

“Silly!” said Pinkie_Proctor, wrapping Rainbow Dash in a massive and bone-crushing mechanical hug. “I’m you- -but only exactly one sixth of the time!”

“Complicated,” sighed Five. “Uhg. But why, Ms. Dash, was the Grand Magus just here?! And his real name is ‘Spike’? That’s a terrible name.”

“Hey!” said Rainbow Dash, hovering closer to Five. “He’s my friend! One of the last friends I’ve got! And he didn’t seem to like you very much.” She crossed her hooves and looked suspiciously at Five.

“Yeah, Five,” said Pinkie_Proctor. “He didn’t seem to like you very much.”

“Of course not,” said Five. “He and I…or we…do not get along. He doubts our methods.”

“You mean killing ponies? I doubt that too.”

“Wait,” said Proctor_Rarity. “You kill ponies? Oh! So very uncouth!”

“Okay, now that was definitely Rarity,” said Rainbow Dash, confused.

“You kill ponies too!” said Five, beginning to get a headache. “And you already know I- -never mind. Never mind. The Grand Magus- -‘Spike’- -is the ruler of Draconia. Which is about twenty dragons. So he is neutral.”

“Which is a bad thing?”

“Of course it’s a bad thing. Probably. I don’t know. I’ve never actually met him.”

“You’ve never met him?!”

“Of course not. I’m not a dragon.”

“Ahm plum confused.”

“Was that…Five, what is this thing?”

“That’s it,” said Five, turning around tersely. “No. I’m not doing this. Proctor. This is what I pay you for. Talk sense into her.”

“Um, you don’t pay me,” said Proctor_Dash.

“Wait…was that one me? I do not sound like that.”

“Ahctually, Dash…”

Rainbow Dash was terribly confused. In her own time, the most advanced forms of technology had been clocks and loud engines. Now a mechanical pony was trying to explain something about personality emulation algorithms and overarching-memory frameworks. All in Twilight Sparkle’s voice, of course- -and, even weirder, sounding exactly like her in incomprehensibility.

“So, wait,” said Rainbow Dash, floating over the equipony- -which was apparently named ‘Proctor’ for some reason. “Can you…repeat that again? In Equestrian?”

“Caseo enim solus,” said Pinkie_Proctor. Hearing Pinkie’s voice coming from a machine was beyond strange- -especially since, although it did not expressly say so, Rainbow Dash had come to perceive Proctor as male. “Oops. That was Demonic. Check yourself, might have summoned a scamp or something.”

He actually did check the surrounding area without slowing his gait, which, as Pinkie_Proctor, had become a bounding jump that really did release a realistic squeaking sound effect. He continued, though, his gait slowing to a rapid trot and his voice switching to that of Applejack. “What Ah mean, sugarcube, is that Ah am a right powerful computational devahce that has the stored personality cahnstructs and generahsed memorehs of your friends.”

“So…like a ghost?”

“EEP!” cried Proctor_Shy, ducking down and covering his head with his metal hooves. “Please don’t say that- -I’ll be afraid of myself!”

“Um…sorry?”

“I think that’s her line, actually,” said Proctor_Rarity.

Rainbow Dash turned to Five, who was leading them ever deeper through the city in search of Gell. “Five,” she said, annoyed. “Did you think this would make me happy?”

“Do I look like I care about your happiness, Ms. Dash?” retorted Five. “I just wanted the core. It’s worth a ton of bits- -but there is. A robot. Attached to it.”

“I thought you said they didn’t like to be called robots.”

“AI’s technically don’t,” said Twilight_Proctor. “But I am not an AI. I am a rogue viral node. Due to a kind of mind-body dichotomy- -of course, assuming I have a mind, which is actually debatable- -I am a robot.”

“An egghead robot.”

Proctor looked up at Rainbow Dash. “I suppose I am. Hold on.” The light in his head changed from violet to blue. As it did, a set of ports on his sides shifted, exposing the things inside him that allowed him to use magic- -which, he had explained, was not really magic but something eggheadish- -and projected a pair of wings.

The translucent wings resolved into opaque blue ones, and Proctor flapped them rapidly. With some difficulty, he was able to rise off the ground.

“This is just- -this is so cool,” he said in Rainbow Dash’s voice. “I mean…do you even know? Of course you do. Wow, this is weird, but- -it’s you! The real Rainbow Dash! I have your memories- -or an overview of them. Your career, your personal life, your pet, house, favorite drink- -I know them all! For all of them, but you’re the only one still here! I mean- -you’re Rainbow Dash! This is so cool!”

Rainbow Dash tried to smile, but doing so was a bit difficult. She was facing a flying chunk of metal with a face that looked like a brass and steel skull with a pair of unblinking, unshifting blue-green orbs that she was beginning to doubt were actually eyes, speaking to her in her own voice- -with her own personality, or something sort of close to it. Her pride tingled at having a fan, but having this particular fan severely aggravated her sensitivity to the already incomprehensible future that she found herself in.

“Um…yeah,” she said. “Maybe we…”

“Could have a race some time?” despite the excitement in his voice, his eyes still stayed chillingly cold. “A race? Please!”

He leaned closer, and Rainbow Dash moved backward. The light above Proctor’s eye shifted to pink.

“What’s the matter?” he said in Pinkie Pie’s voice. “Never talked to yourself?”

Almost as soon as he said it, his wings dissipated and he collapsed onto his back on the ground. He kicked his legs in the air, as if unable to turn himself over. “Oopsie. Don’t worry, though. Not hurt. No need to call the Proctoroligist!”

“Here,” said Rainbow Dash, helping him up. To her surprise, he was immensely heavy.

“Celestia’s busy eyebrows!” she grunted. “How heavy are you?”

“Well,” said Twilight_Proctor, “My internal core is a tungsten-uranium alloy, so…about eight hundred kilograms.”

“Gell weighs more,” said Five from ahead of them.

“I heard that!” called a familiar voice from farther down the dirty, heavily darkened street.

“Gell!” said Rainbow Dash, looking up and leaving Proctor to fall back over onto his back. She rushed over to stand beside Five, and was not at all surprised to see Gell surrounded by several suggestively clad mares of various sizes, shapes and colors smiling and leaning on her- -with two nestled snugly on her back, their sock-clad legs falling over her neck like a scarf.

Rainbow Dash could not help but shudder slightly. She wondered if Gell really had done what she thought Gell had done- -and from how tired many of the mares looked, she had an inkling.

“I don’t actually way that much, girls,” she said.

“It’s okay, Blunty,” said one of them, dressed in a highly translucent black dress and a saddle, nuzzling against Gell’s legs. “We know its all muscle.”

“And horns,” said one of the ones on top of her, rubbing one of Gell’s long horn with her stocking-clad hoof, causing Gell to shiver slightly.

“Well, some might say that I’m…a bit horny.”

The mares laughed.

“You disgust me,” said Five as Proctor caught up to them.

“Ladies,” said Gell, gesturing toward Five. “This is An. My daughter.”

“Blunty! You didn’t tell us you had a daughter!”

“She’s so cute!”

“So that means you did it with a stallion?”

“Of course not,” said Gell. “She’s adopted. Very adopted.”

“Ohhh! You’re so strong, but so maternal!”

“We love you Blunty!”

“Blunty is sexiest pony!”

“Oh, girls,” said Gell, hugging the ones that she could reach. “You’re all so good to me. Unlike someponies.”

“Well, be excusing me if I am actually doing work,” said Five. “I’ll have you know that…”

Rainbow Dash watched as Fives head jerked back suddenly. For a split second, Rainbow Dash saw Five’s eyes glass over and diverge, and a line of blood drip form the hole that had almost magically appeared in her forehead. Then Five collapsed limply into a heap.

Gell was the first to react. “Get behind me!” she shouted, throwing the mares surrounding her to one side of her. There was a sound of something, like small explosions, and metal hitting metal, and Rainbow Dash realized that Gell was being shot.

Proctor, likewise, projected a shield of translucent light, which promptly shattered, leaving him to cower as Proctor_Shy as a hail of bullets impacted his metal body. Rainbow Dash saw all this, but did not know what to do. She just froze.

Then, as the bullets raced toward her and her mind crystalized into accepting that she was getting exactly what she truly wanted, a powerful force hit her from one side, pulling her out of the sky and knocking her to one side, into a crowded alley filled with now panicking ponies.

The wing had been knocked out of her, and Rainbow Dash found herself momentarily stunned.

“What’s happening?” she said, and looked up. She found herself staring into the yellow eyes of a gray unicorn stallion- -or at least one of them. The other seemed to be looking at something else.

“Take this,” he said, passing Rainbow Dash a small card. “And fly!”

He released her, just as a pair of heavily armed, armored ponies dropped down into the alley. Rainbow Dash could see that one was a griffon, and the other an earth pony- -both masked and carrying large weapons.

“The Angel calls!” shouted the gray unicorn. Rainbow Dash watched as members of the crowd looked toward him, surprised but knowing. Ponies of every type suddenly stepped forward, clogging the alley instantly, blocking the two soldiers from entering.

“Go!” cried the unicorn.

Rainbow Dash did as she was told, rushing into the sky. As she did, she barely managed to dodge another surge of bullets from below, where a black equidroid was standing on a nearby building alongside a pony in a darker version of the same armor that the other two was wearing.

The griffon and earth pony stepped back from the crowd. The griffon spread his wings and pushed back the crowd, and the earth pony activated the device on his back. The pair burst into the air, taking flight in hot pursuit.

Rainbow Dash was terrified, more terrified than she had been in a long, long time- -but she found herself smiling.

“Oh yea?!” she called back to them. “You think you can pace a Wonderbolt? Let’s see you try!”

She spread her wings and pulled her legs back into proper formation, and let the chase begin.

Gell ignored the bullets impacting her skin and armor and drew her pistol- -if it could even be called that, considering its size. She pointed it upward at her target and fired several times, its characteristic clank filling the air as the three-inch wide bullets tore through the concrete of the platform where the attackers were standing. She was pretty sure that she winged one of them, but the bullets had been coming from more than one source. Before she could get a proper lock, though, they retreated.

“Are any of you hurt?” she said, turning to her harem.

“No,” said one of them, the only one who had not broken down in fear. “But…” She looked over at Anhelios’s body. “You daughter…I think she’s dead!”

“Yeah,” said Gell. “She is. For now.”

Gell turned her attention toward the only pony that was not feeing the area- -the strange equidroid that had seemed to have been following Rainbow Dash. At first, it was cowering in fear, even shaking- -but then it stood up and inspected its side, which had been heavily pitted by the gunfire.

“Oh dear,” it said, drawing its hoof to its head in a dramatic gesture. “I’ve been- -dented! This simply won’t do!” A hard-light construct appeared at its side, passing over its damaged left side rapidly and slowly restoring the shape and finish of its armor.

“Um…what are you supposed to be?” asked Gell.

“Thaht doesn’t matter,” it said, its voice changing and hard-light construct vanishing suddenly. “Whahyd they leave? Why didn’t they finish the job?”

“They’re not after us,” said Gell, realizing what was going on. “Its Dashie!” she turned to her side, looking down the long alley between two buildings, just in time to see a distant rainbow contrail. “They were just distracting us, they’re going after her!”

The equidroid held out its hoof. “Ahm gonna need a gun,” it said.

The target twisted in the air, accelerating with the precision of a trained airpony. Gelton would have been impressed by her speed alone, but her agility was also a sight to behold. The way she ducked around buildings, skimming near the surface, or drew herself through tiny gaps without her wings even scraping the walls, or the way she turned and claimed and rolled at such incredibly speed- -it was flying of the highest quality.

Gelton, of course, had spent over half his life as a griffon mercenary, as had his father and mother, and their fathers and mothers, all the way back to his ancestor Gilda the Dweebslayer, who had fought in the Choggoth War. Flying was in his blood, and his instincts drove him forward, his talons craving the blood of that beautiful rainbow flyer.

Even Rocket was managing to keep up, even if his flight style usually consisted of ramming through airships and communication lines rather than dexterously avoiding him. Of course, such could be expected from a pony who’s special talent was for strapping an extremely powerful repulsion pack to his back and expecting to somehow not die.

“Keep back off the target,” said Gelton through his transmitter.

“Keep back? Keep back he says- -how the hay is she flying like that? Nopony flies like that!”

“Got a bead!” Gelton raised his machine rifle, engaging the autolock. He pulled the trigger and a stream of bullets lit by periotic tracers flew through the sky. The target seemed to somehow feel them coming and dove directly downward, falling through a tiny port into the level below.

Gelton and Rocket followed her, dropping into the next level, another vast cityscape of towers extending from the flat planar ceiling as well as the ground thousands of feet below. Without the dome levels providing light, the air was darker and navigation more difficult, but far from impossible. Gelton simply switched to night vision and accelerated.

“This is Gelton coming in in subsection A-G over Cross Street. Air Slicer and Night Witch, deploy now, position the target in Class Circle Eight!”

The other members of his squad obeyed. A Pegasus and a unicorn with magical wings shot into the air, driving the target to the left. Gelton and Rocket followed the pattern, manipulating her position.

“I have a lock,” said Rocket. “Prepared to fire payload.”

“Hold,” said Gelton. “We’ve almost got her…”

Just as he predicted, she was herded directly toward the area, as a sheep by dogs in the ancient times.

“Now!” he said. “Sharpshooter! Take her wing!”

On top of one of the towers, lit by pale artificial light, an invisible unicorn decloaked, startling several passerbies. Rainbow Dash was already in her crosshairs, and the trajectories and angle of her bullet already planned.

Sharphooter took a breath. She knew this was wrong. For the first time in her life, she was going to kill a pony who she knew personally, one who she knew to be a good and kind pony. She also knew that it was her fault. She had been the one to submit the report- -and the Company had responded in the way it always responded. Sharpshooter had been temporarily reassigned for “just one more” job in her original occupation.

Sharpshooter was only glad that Mountain was not present to see what she was about to do. She pulled the trigger, and felt the surge of power through her gun as the magically reinforced, hyper-dense bullet came from her gun, and from her will, toward her target, bringing Rainbow Dash guaranteed death.

Rainbow Dash was panting heavily, beating her wings as fast as they would go, stopping only to spread them wide for her maneuvers. She watched the strange word, this city lit by dots of light, pour around her as she traveled through it- -and she realized that city flying as amazing. Everything seemed to be moving faster than before. Everything, that is, except the ponies that were pursuing her.

The first two had been joined by a second pair. One, to Rainbow Dash’s perhaps inappropriate relief, was a Pegasus, dressed in light armor splashed with orange, and the other a unicorn suspended from a set of black, angular wings that did not seem to actually attach anywhere on her body.

As they surrounded her, though, Rainbow Dash had seen her chance to show them what flying really meant. The lower part of the city was densely packed, but there seemed to be one area of it that consisted of a large circle, off which several long, straight, wide streets passed. That was Rainbow Dash’s chance.

Then, suddenly, she heard a voice. A strange one, one that she had never heard before, but one that sounded so very familiar.

“Incoming projectile,” he said, sounding vaguely bemused. “Three-thirty, twenty two degrees. Deflect it now!”

Rainbow Dash responded instinctively, not even fully realizing what “projectile” meant. She raised her left wing, tilting in the air, and cried out in pain as the golden feathers within it suddenly poured out of her wing, extending from an inch to nearly a foot in length, as though they had been imbedded deep within her wing the whole time.

She felt something impact her wing, and saw a set of golden sparks jet from the golden feathers and the air seem to shift as whatever was about to hit her bounce off. It was redirected backward to where the four were approaching her, and she watched as it struck the griffon. One of his wings was immediately torn off, and he spiraled out of control into one of the buildings.

That was horrible, in its own way, even though Rainbow Dash did not understand what had just happened. She turned back to her flightpath, though. She was running out of flight space, and if she was going to pull off her best stunt, she needed to move quickly.

Rainbow Dash pulled her legs toward her body, leveled her flight, and actually started to put effort into her flying.

Gelton smashed into the side of a building with enough force to shatter his left front leg. The pain was immense, but he ignored it. Instead, he extended the mechanical claws of his remaining legs into the building, tearing into its glass and metal surface and slowing his fall.

He looked at his back in horror, and nearly vomited. He had seen the telemetry of the bullet displayed on his visor, and seen the bullet itself- -and then seen it deflected. It had taken his wing, his precious wing. With an excruciating clarity, he knew that even with a prosthetic, his days of flight were now over.

With unparalleled rage in his heart, he looked up at his target, the one who had just taken everything that mattered to him away. As he did, his eyes widened. He saw the air around her distorting as she accelerated to over quadruple her previous speed, angled at one of the long access streets to Class Circle. As Gelton watched, the air suddenly recoiled onto itself, imploding and then tearing open into a massive circular rainbow.

“A sonic rainboom,” he whispered, knowing fully well that his target was flying unenhanced, but being unable to believe what he was seeing. His mind took a moment to clear. “Rocket, Night Witch, this is on you now! Kill her! Tear off her wings! Make that whore suffer!”

“Right,” said Rocket, and Night Witch clicked her acknowledgement.

Above, still in pursuit, Rocket engaged an internal system within his repulsion drive that connected all but two of his flight stabilizer crystals to the main drive, and then overcharged them. He shot forward, his pace accelerating rapidly until the air around him collapsed into a circular explosion of pale blue and violet. While it was true that he no longer actually had control of his flight, he very seldom got a chance to fly all out, especially in a city, and was laughing like a madman and only vaguely aware of the pool of urine that had formed in his flight suit.

Night Witch, meanwhile, pressed against her collar, causing the shielding to mechanically separate and the ring of red-runed enhancement metal within to clamp around her neck she felt the surge of power and madness pour into her body, and her black projected wings suddenly ignited with streaks of red magic, and she accelerated in pace with Rocket, herself releasing a ring of black and red light as her mind turned to uncontrollable thoughts of sadistic violence and perverse, bloody revelry.

Farther above them, Sharpshooter smiled. Never before was she so glad to have failed to execute a target.

Rainbow Dash rushed forward through above the city streets, watching the skyscrapers fly beside her. Below, she saw the blur of ponies who had stopped their endless walking and looked up toward the ceiling, watching in awe at Rainbow Dash’s luminescent multicolored contrail.

Even at that speed, she accelerated further, unable to stop will to go even faster. The new feathers on her wings were long but incredibly light, and although strange felt incredibly natural as she drove herself through the dark and smoggy air.

The air rushed by her, and for once she felt truly alive- -until a blast of several red-tinged streaks of magic blasted past her, forcing her into a maddeningly tight emergency corkscrew. As Rainbow Dash turned in the air, bracing herself against the g-forces of the turn, she looked between her legs and saw that the armored unicorn that had been chacing her was somehow gaining, her four blade-like stationary wings tinted with red, with the remnants of her own rainboom far behind her, its red and black mixing with Rainbow Dash’s multicolored one- -and another that was blue and violet.

Something suddenly struck Rainbow Dash’s side, and she was knocked dangerously close to protrusions on a nearby building, her downforce against the glass shattering several windows. She recovered, but barely- -and saw the earth pony beside her, an incredible plume of machine- derived magic pouring out of the backpack device that allowed him to fly. He twisted on his side, and Rainbow Dash barely managed to dodge a blast of several lasers.

She maneuvered herself around him, barely avoiding another blast of magic from the unicorn behind her. She did not know how they were keeping pace with her; she had expected to outfly them, bet on it, even. In entering the channel of the street, Rainbow Dash had trapped herself; the only gaps in the buildings were too small for her to get into, and would have been nearly impossible even with a non-Mach-speed turn. Diving, likewise, was impossible, as was a sudden stop; no doubt the slower Pegasus that was tailing her was bringing up the rear, preparing to pounce if she tried to follow the channel backward.

Which only left one option. Rainbow Dash scanned the roof of the superstructure. As it became increasingly difficult to avoid their attacks, she finally found what she was looking for: a tiny whole through a construction zone.

Rainbow Dash cringed. Even from a distance, she could tell that it was only a foot wide. There was no way she could fit, even if she could hit it. In her mind, though, she felt confident. She remembered the feather Five had taken from her, and she understood that it was sharp- -and she somehow understood just how sharp and durable they truly were.

Rainbow Dash suddenly pulled up, just as the rocket-propelled pony tried to ram her. As she did, she began a tight barrel roll, accelerating her spin until her eyes swelled with blood and the world turned red. As she did, she closed them and guided herself from memory, following her arc with her mind until just before she reached the tiny hole. When she was finally there, she lifted her wings and lowered her head, putting them in front of her.

The metal and concrete in her path disintegrated, torn asunder by the incorruptible gold metal of her feathers. Her momentum slowed vastly, and she pulled her wings closer to her, accelerating the spin. For a moment she wondered if she would make it- -and then felt herself burst through into the upper level.

She spread her wings and hovered for a moment, knowing that even if the ponies behind her were fast, there was no way they could hit that hole with such accuracy.

Then, as she watched, the street erupted into an explosion of black and red. Ponies were thrown through the air in all directions, and Rainbow Dash moved to save as many as she could, setting them down safely just before the rocket pony flashed through, flying vertically and making a wide loop. The unicorn followed through as well, stopping suddenly and turning violently, as if in defiance of g-force.

“Flaming road apples,” swore Rainbow Dash, accelerating once more, flying at more maneuverable speeds through the city, trying to lose the pair, but she might as well have been trying to escape her own tail. Worse, she was beginning to see figures moving below, wearing the same armor as her pursuers, and carrying guns.

Suddenly, a light appeared from the top of one of the nearby buildings. Rainbow Dash looked up, and her eyes focused. Her vision was excellent, and even at the great distance, she saw Proctor, perched on the ledge, holding some kind of massive device that looked like it was holding a star in its end, or some other light that was blindingly bright and force Rainbow Dash to look away. She did not know what was going on, but she instinctively knew that she needed to go toward the light.

Five stood up slowly. Or, perhaps, she had always been standing, but was now somehow waking up- -or falling asleep. She did not know what sleep felt like, but she had always imagined it as being just another version of waking up, except instead of into a world ruled by cruel fate and pain, into one filled with the pure happiness of eternal void.

Exactly where she was, though, was not clear. The ground was hard, perhaps made of some kind of crystal. Above her, the sky was black, but she could still see the remnants of pure-black clouds moving rapidly in the frigid high-atmospheric air. Her body felt heavy, and cold, but it was somehow pleasant.

For a moment, Five was finally calm. In this place, she did not need to think, or even breathe. There was no life, and no Five, and no true consciousness. She was finally alone.

Then the solitude was slowly taken from her.

“No!” she cried in anger as several figures stepped out of darkness, surrounding her. At first Five did not know what was happening, or why anypony had dared to intrude on her self. Then the figures resolved, and she understood.

There were four of them. Each one, although subtly different in mane style and cutie mark, were all identical. Five knew that she was identical to them as well. She, like them, was just a copy of the first.

Five looked at the identical set of ponies, instantly knowing their order. She saw the First, looking so much younger than the others, her hair cut neatly and her eyes filled with barely hardened innocence, betraying the fact that she had lived by far the longest of all of them.

Beside that one stood an identical one, her hair pushed back into several long braids. Her eyes were partially narrowed in a bored expression, and her fluffy, bat-like ears bore two earrings each- -three of which Five now wore in her right ear.

The next was somewhat hunched and smiling, clothed in strange amulets and ornamentation and something like a dress. She wore two of the earrings, the third through her eyebrow. Her tongue poked through her smiling mouth, as though she were making fun of Five.

The last of them stood tall and proudly, her body still covered in the armor that she had worn in life, her hair cut short to accommodate the black helmet that she held under one hoof, her expressionless face staring forward, her eyes seeming to look far into the distance.

“Great,” said Five. “I finally get a traumatic brain injury adequate to give me some sleep, and you four arrive to bother me…”

They did not respond. They just continued to watch.

“You know,” said Five. “While you’re here…if you even are…I just want to say: I hate you all. You screwed me over. Each and every one of you. I would threaten to kill you, but I already murdered one of you. And so on. I guess that’s just how this sick parody of life operates.”

They looked up at her, each one’s expression vaguely changing as if in response. They only looked for a moment, though. Their attention turned toward one direction, to the side of Five. Five turned, and saw a light. Something small, not like the others- -and her eyes widened.

“NO!” she screamed. “Not yet! I’m not done!”

She opened her eyes and looked at the corroded buildings around her. Her head ached incredibly, and she felt nauseous, as though she had just tried to eat a mint-flavored candy. She stood shakily, like a newborn foal, brushing away the citations that had been pinned to her body for improper corpse disposal, as well as the advertisements that had been plastered to her.

Exactly what had happened was still unclear- -although her brain had been repaired enough to restore her near-perpetual consciousness, it was still only marginally functional. She tried to ask herself how long she had been out, but Five found that she was unable to speak.

“Derrrr!” she cried. “Drain bramage!” It was essentially all she could say.

A light near her caught her eye, and she instinctively looked up. On top of a nearby building, she saw Proctor standing in the light of a highly condensed, star-like orb of light. He also seemed to be holding a weapon that was almost as large as he was.

Something clicked in Five’s mind, and her brain damage suddenly vanished.

“Sweet mother of Faust!” she cried. “Who gave that idiot a singularity generator?!”

“Winter wrap up, winter wrap up,” muttered Proctor as he focused the firearm on his target. He watched as ten-foot wide orb of light at the end of the device lurched and shrunk slightly, growing brighter.

“This thing takes forever to warm up,” said Proctor_Dash. It was true, but it made sense- -the orb of light partially enclosed by the end of the rifle was actually a small star. Stars took a few moments to reach critical mass, and Proctor tried to stay patient.

In the distance, he saw his target, as well as Rainbow Dash approaching him at high speed. Behind her, Proctor saw an enhanced unicorn using a potent flight spell, as well as an earth pony who was very nearly overheating his repulsor pack.

“I do believe that should be enough,” said Proctor_Rarity.

“Allrahght,” said Proctor_Jack. “This is ah precision piece of equipment, now, ahnd real hagh-tech. So it would be for thah best if we had Twahlight fire it…”

“Nopony hurts my friends,” said Proctor_Dash.

The star finished loading, and suddenly collapsed inward, its light brightening for just a moment to a brilliant surge of white before all that remained was a pea-sized black object rotating rapidly in the end of the rifle, pouring off two potent streams of white energy from its poles. It roared like a can of devils as air was sucked into it, further adding to its mass and its power.

“Alright!” said Pinkie_Proctor. “Say hello to mah PARTY CANNON!”

Rainbow Dash watched as the light suddenly vanished, and Proctor was left holding what looked like a ridiculously large gun. For a moment, she thought that it had somehow misfired. Then she felt the air around her distort, as though something extremely loud and heavy were moving by her. She thought for just a moment that she saw a contrail from a projectile as it passed through the air.

She turned back, expecting it to hit one of the ponies behind her, but it seemed to have gone past them.

“You missed!” she screamed, turning toward Proctor, who was probably within earshot. Even though Proctor had no lips or cheeks, Rainbow Dash somehow knew that he was smiling.

There was a sound from behind her, and Rainbow Dash turned in time to see the rocket pony approaching her release a barrage of missiles from his back. They ignited and flew toward her, their trajectory changing as they sought her body heat.

Then, in the distance, she saw a strange light. It was subtle at first- -but then ballooned to an impossible size, covering miles of the city in a fraction of a second. Rainbow Dash was forced to look away; even the reflected light from the buildings around her was blinding.

What happened next took her to a moment to comprehend. She was defintly flying forward, at high speed, but somehow she stopped moving. Then, paradoxically, she started moving backward. Rainbow Dash looked between her legs, squinting against the light, and was vageully aware that the impossible column of light behind her was shrinking. To her horror, she saw that the missiles coming toward her were sucked backward, falling through the air past the pony who had fired them, who was now trapped in mid-air, just as Rainbow Dash and the unicorn were.

Rainbow Dash knew that if she went where those missiles were going, something bad would happen- -and she turned her head toward Proctor and strained as powerful as she could against the impossible suction.

It was no use, though. As the unicorn and rocket pony struggled, the suction suddenly increased and pulled them backward into the light. Rainbow Dash began to lose control, and her backward descent accelerated.

Then something appeared below her, a gray shape moving quickly and slamming into her side.

Five grabbed Rainbow Dash out of the air, putting her foreleg around the pony. With Rainbow Dash’s momentum shifted and her wings impaired, the singularity implosion began to pull them both toward it. Five momentarily wondered if a quantum singularity would be able to kill her permanently, but with what she knew about that particular gun, she decided that she would rather not find out.

Her own wings were relatively weak, so she folded them behind her back. Instead, she extended one of her gauntlets. Blue sparks formed around it and part of the metal on the building in the distance, the magnetic domains of the iron alloys in each suddenly becoming perfectly ordered. The magnetic force was strong enough to draw her forward suddenly.

Five’s hoof slammed into the building, and her heavy grasping claws dug into the steel, holding her in place just as the secondary stage of the singularity began. The implosion accelerated drastically, and Five was pulled backward with such force that Five was forced to engage the explosive barbed spikes on the inside of her gauntlet. She winced as the metal pierced her skin and bone, nailing her to the gauntlet.

Even that was not enough. The force of the implosion was too strong, and her magnetic field lost its hold. For a moment, she felt herself falling through space, Rainbow Dash screaming, stilly surrounded with her other leg. She only fell a few seconds before the pair of them were wrapped in a hard-light construct, the same kind that were adhering Proctor to the top of the building as he watched his handiwork in the distance, the light of the implosion reflecting in his blue-green glass-like eyes.

Five turned, just as the implosion was reaching its final stages. Even she was forced to gasp at the wreckage. A ten-mile wide hole had been cut out of the city; the levels were clearly visible from the side, and the upper dome levels had even been partially removed, reviling the black sky outside and the hole where the sun had once been. It had just disappeared, consumed by the singularity. Five tried to calculate how many ponies had probably just been erased, but she had no idea.

“Oops,” said Proctor_Shy, letting Five and Rainbow Dash down on the building next to him. “That was…a bit more energetic than expected. Sorry.”