The airship hummed loudly as it hovered over the clouds below. The air was cold and thin, and the wind stiff, but the storms seemed to be trapped below it the swirling bank of dark clouds. Brown took a deep breath, smelling the exhaust and engine ionization that the airship was dumping into the upper atmosphere. Neither the cold nor the thin air bothered him; his woolen body was protected from both. Although he could not recall Exmoor, he understood that it was cold- -cold, and very beautiful. He wondered if the Commander would take him there one day, so that he might see it.

The dark sky itself was blank and clear, and so peaceful. Behind the airship, however, a number of lights trailed. In the dim high-horizon light, it was possible for Brown to see the hundreds of Pegasi who had indexed themselves into the airship’s gravity wake, trailing behind it in the warm air produced by its thermal sinks. They had come from all across the land, from regions where Pegasi still remembered the old ways. Where they had truly come from, Brown did not know. Nor did he know where they were going, and he did not wonder.

There was a roaring from the air around them, and a rainbow-colored contrail appeared near Brown, spiraling rapidly around the airship. It passed him quickly, but aft, he could see Rainbow Dash racing ahead with several other Pegasi, all of them except her struggling against the strong wind and distortions that clung to the edge of the airship.

When they reached their goal, Rainbow Dash spread her wings and fell backward away from the other, returning to the Pegasus V and nearly colliding with them before gracefully turning over in the air and sliding into the formation. There was some cheering from behind audible over the roar of the engines and high-atmospheric wind.

A pony approached Brown from the side and put his hoofs on the railing, leaning of the edge. Brown did not think too much of it- -he could not take his eyes off Rainbow Dash.

“She is impressive, isn’t she?” said the stranger.

“For a Pegasus, I suppose,” he replied. In truth, he was impressed with her. He had been watching her fly for over an hour. Much of the time, she would stay with the other Pegasi in the gravity wake, but every few minutes she would race forward and perform some kind of daring athletic feat, sometimes with others and sometimes alone. Brown had come to admire her athleticism and poise, and the way she moved with such precision and grace. He had even held his breath in anticipation as she had rounded the ship and closed her wings around her, darting through a foot-wide hole in the ship’s scalding heat sink before spreading her wings on the other side unharmed.

He was still not sure if she was a soldier, or if she truly had been. Her behavior was more that of a performer than anything else- -but nonetheless, Brown liked watching. As he watched, though, he began to doubt exactly how much she needed protecting, even as he was overcome with a strangely paradoxical urge to ensure her safety.

“You have a thing for her, don’t you?”

“Hardly,” said Brown, still watching Rainbow Dash from a distance, her face illuminated by the lights that the Pegasi’s carts held. “Besides. I believe I may have insulted her. Badly. She hates me.”

“Hey,” said the stranger. “You look like a gambling pony. Or a gamble. Do you want to make a bet?”

“I have no money,” said Brown.

“Well, you might get money eventually? Get paid? Or something similar?”

“Yes, I suppose.”

“Okay then. Three bits says she dies before the end of this story.”

Brown turned sharply toward the pony at his side, and found his face oddly close to that of a green unicorn. The unicorn, however, did not have a short spiraling horn but rather a bifurcated, antler-like horn. He also bore a long crescent scar down one side of his body.

“Why would you say something like that? Am I to take that as a threat?”

The green pony just stared, smiling widely.

“Hey, who are you talking to?” said a voice behind Brown. He turned rapidly and came once again face-to-face with the green pony, now behind him. Upon seeing this, he turned rapidly to where the green pony had just been, and found him gone. When he looked the other direction once again, he found himself alone.

“What the…well,” he said, sitting down on the cold floor. “I believe I may be hallucinating.”

Five leaned against the wall to one of the inner rooms of the airship. This room was one of several minor mechanical rooms, or would have been back when the military would have been using this airship almost a century ago. The torpedo tubes had long since been removed; they now used the space to store brooms.

From within the room, she could hear repeated thumping, as well as repeated moaning.

“Oh! Yes! Right there!” cried a female voice from inside the room. That was promptly followed by one much louder thump. “No, wait!” cried the voice. “I’m going to- -I’m gonna- -EEEEEE- -eeeee- -EEEEEeeeeeEEEE!”

There was a sound of liquid sloshing against the floor. Five was thoroughly disgusted thinking about those fluids, and pulled the glass capillary tube she was holding out from behind her eye. She applied several droplets of the blood onto a pregnancy test, and watched the results. They were not good- -but not positive either. Regardless she resolved to increase chemotherapy.

The mare within the room continued to squeal for nearly a minute. Then, panting. “Oh- -I’m so sorry! I got it on your face!”

“It’s okay,” said Gell from within the room. “I really do like your flavor.”

“Oh you!” There were some sounds of motions inside. “If only my husband could do what you can! But I didn’t finish you…”

To Five, that was obvious. Gell could almost never finish without a castration involved- -unless her grandmother was involved. That was a set of memories that Five tried to avoid thinking about. Lobotomizing herself repeatedly had not improved the situation.

The door opened, and a highly disheveled Pegasus mare stepped out. She was covered in sweat, and her wings were as extended as they possibly could be and in need of a thorough preening. She was wearing a uniform for the airship company, though, so Five assumed that she needed to get back to work.

“Ex- -excuse me,” she said, blushing as she pushed past Five, zipping up the front of her vest.

Gell followed her out. She herself was sliding her armor back on and licking her face.

“You make me sick,” said Five.

“An,” said Gell, listening. “You were lurking? Creeping? Is my little baby finally growing up into a cuddly-wuddly pervert?”

“Again, sickening.”

Gell pointed at the stream of blood coming from behind Five’s eye. “Did you…did you just retro-orbital bleed yourself?”

“Did you just have relations with a married mare?”

“Um, An…do I need to define ‘demon’ for you again?”

“Not the point,” said Five.

Gell hitched the straps to her armor and stepped out of the room. “Might want to get a mopping in there,” she said, closing the door.

“I’m not doing it,” said Five, who joined her through the narrow and musty-smelling hallway.

“So what are you doing?” said Gell. “I figured you would be back in the basement.”

“I’ve done what I can. That is not the point. I stopped at the station.”

“And? You came to me?”

“Something interesting has happened.”

“Not as interesting as Gap Spanner back then- -blessings, she was flexible.”

“More so, even. Or not. Eew. Bad images.”

“Well then, what? I don’t have all day,” said Gell. “There is a nap that must be taken now.”

“Close to two hundred cities have ceased to exist.”

Gell stopped. “Wait, what?”

“Gone. Eradicated. All communication lost. According to the broadcasts, leveled.”

“Leveled…by what?”

“The unicorns detected a magic surge. And the golems, it seems, have survived. They march.”

“You mean…Thebe?”

“That I do.”

“So, what? Thebe just went postal on the world?” Gell paused. “Well, I suppose it was bound to happen eventually…but what does this matter to us?”

“It means she is planning an all-out war on Equestria,” said Five. “A rather one-sided war. I don’t know why. But it means that she will be distracted. We have a better chance of taking Twilight Sparkle if Thebe is distracted.”

“So…she just wiped away, what, several billion ponies, and now you want to break into her house?”

“I doubt she lives in a house,” said Five. She actually did not know where Thebe lived- -nopony knew. Nopony, it seemed, knew anything about Thebe, aside from the fact that she was an alicorn.

“It doesn’t matter if she lives in Discord’s left ear- -I’m not going anywhere near her.”

“So you say.”

“Is this just part of your whole deathwish thing?”

“Do you think Thebe really could kill me? Permanently?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?” She paused. “Why are you even bothering to tell me this, anyway?”

“It’s useful intelligence.”

“Um, no, it isn’t. I don’t care what Thebe does any more than she cares what I do. I can’t believe you came all the way here to tell me about golems that we will probably never even see.”

“I came with two pieces of information.”

“Well, the second had better be that you finally decided to fillet that fluffy slave you bought, because I am starving.”

“No,” said Five, telepathically scanning the area for anything alive and visually scanning it for any cameras. All she found were several rather large and surprisingly intelligent cockroaches beneath the floorboards. “The other thing is immediate. I saw them loading something onto the vessel.”

“You mean aside from the illegal guns?”

“Yes.”

“And what exactly was it?”

“I did not see closely. It was well hidden, and well guarded. But it looked like a high-containment stasis chamber.”

“How big?”

“Large,” said Five.

“And you tell me this second?”

“Well, yes.”

“And just what do you think is in that box?”

“Probably nothing to be concerned about,” said Five.

“Then why do I suddenly have a really bad feeling about it?”

Five did not know why, but she was having a similar feeling. In her mind, she visualized the pod she had seen on the station- -a hard, sealed, white container, not unlike a large coffin, supported by gravity stabilizers and pushed by several white-clad ponies. Beside it stood several guards that were well armed, yet bore no insignias. The box was sealed well, and she doubted that she could have reached into it with her shadow’s power, even if there had been a mind within. It was also clearly expensive- -meaning its owner had money, and yet was shipping it on a barely skyworthy freighter.

Suddenly, Five shivered, and not because of the cold air.

Five and Gell returned to their shipping crate and Brown, now joined by Philomena who nestled herself in his fluff, returned to watching Rainbow Dash laugh and play with the Pegasi gypsies trailing behind the humming freight vessel. Higher above them, however, in an isolated section of the ship, two armed unicorn guards stood watch outside a metal door.

Behind that door was what had once been the ship’s infirmary, back when it had cruised the skies as a proud military cruiser. Now it was used as just another room to contain cargo. Because of its size, it would normally be stacked with boxes and crates of various sorts. Now, however, at the request of a client who had paid quite well, it was empty, save for one container and the pony who sat beside it.

Downy Rest shifted in her chair, smoothing her white dress and cap in her chair and flexing her wings. Once again, she checked the vital meters connected to the stasis chamber. Nothing had changed in the two and a half minutes since she had checked before. Blood pressure was strange, but stable, and blood oxygen was good. His pulse was slow, as to be expected; the pod was suppressing almost all of his biological function to slow the progression of the disease.

She reached her hoof and ran it over the angular white surface of the chamber. It was so flat and smooth, but so much like a coffin. Seeing him like that made her want to weep, but she knew that it was her duty to remain strong. More than anything, though, she longed to open it, to see him, to hold his hoof and tell him that it would be okay.

Of them all, though- -the nurses, resting in their beds, and the guards outside- -she was the only one who had actually seen master Pocket in his current state. Only she knew how the disease had ravaged his body. For anypony beside her to see would simply be unthinkable- -the damage it would do to the Pocket family’s reputation would be devastating. To know that Linty Pocket, the son of the famed Deep Pocket, had been reduced to such a state- -the scandal would be incomprehensible.

Preventing Scandal, of course, was one of Downy Rest’s primary duties. It was one of the primary reasons she had been sent out with master Pocket. To watch over him, and to care for him, as she had always done. Her family had been bred by the Pockets for countless generations so serve as maids and nannies. Downy Rest’s traits had proven adequate to be assigned to Linty Pocket. At age twelve, she had been handed him as a foal. She had raised him, cared for him, and watched him grow into a fine stallion.

She had begged him to stay at the manor. He could receive all his training there, she knew, and prepare to take the reins of their family when the time came. A bride had even been chosen for him, a fine but mildly inbred socialite from the Rich family. Linty had been different, though. He had wanted to travel, to attend college in a faraway place, to just live like a normal pony.
Downy Rest had gone with him, because she would always go with him. She loved him. At first, it had been like a mother loving a child- -but as time passed, it had grown to be more than that. So much more.

Then the disease had come. Ponies had been brought in from distant lands, all with an ailment that nopony understood. Pocket had volunteered to help treat them, but in the end, he had only contracted what they had. He had become infected. Upon hearing this, Deep Pocket had ordered his son recalled to the manor, to receive the best treatment that could be afforded him. As the only child of the Pockets, his survival was crucial. Of course, transporting the infected had been declared illegal. The entire city had been placed under quarantine. The only way out had been to smuggle him away, to get him back to his family on this decrepit smuggling ship.

The lights flickered. Downy rest reached for a tissue and once again wiped her eyes. She was trying to hold back the tears, and when she was around her subordinates, she could- -but when she was alone, she could not hold them back. Knowing that he was in that box, his vital signs medically suppressed, his body a shadow of its formal self- -it was almost too much for her. More than anything, she wished it had been her instead.

The consistent beeping of the machines changed slightly. The difference was subtle, but it attracted Downy Rest’s attention. She stood up and looked at the machine. At first she wondered if it had been an artifact of some sort, but then she saw it again. The heartrate monitor was reading increased pulse.

Downy Rest pressed her hoof against the controls, adjusting the display. A hologram appeared, showing the waveforms coming from the pulse. She had spent enough time helping Linty study to know that the output was strange, but also that it was oddly healthy. Either way, though, he was mostly frozen- -it should not have been increasing.

An alarm suddenly went off. A hologram popped up, displaying brain scans from within the pod. The heart rate accelerated rapidly as Downy Rest tried to read them. Then she gasped- -they indicated neural activity, but more than that. He was in pain.

“No,” said Downy Rest. “No- -master Pocket, please! You need to stay asleep!”

She increased the suppression systems that kept the pod contained, but they hardly seemed to help. There was not much she could do.

Her mind was racing, and she did the only thing she could think to do. She leaned over the container, embracing it as though it were her master. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Don’t worry, Linty, I’m here!” She squeezed it tighter, and as her tears covered the white surface, she started to sing. The song was a lullaby- -one that had been given to her at the breeding farm, but one that Linty had loved so much. When he was scared, or sick, she would sing it. At first she had hated the song- -but the look in his eyes when she started singing, to when they often closed when it was finished; that had made her love it.

The heart rate monitor slowed, and she smiled. She moved her hoof across the casket, and pressed her cheek against it. “Don’t worry. Don’t worry, Linty. It will get better. I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you…”

Almost as soon as she had finished saying it, the container shook with a sudden surge of force. A five-fingered hand burst through the center, and a five-fingered hand grasped Downy Rest’s head.

“Linty?” she said in surprise.

The hand closed, and her head was crushed by the force, the pulp of her brain and fragments of her skull pouring out from between the fingers. Her blood spilled across the white of the casket, and her body and wings convulsed for a moment as the life left her.

The stasis chamber exploded in a violent burst of fragments that tore into the walls of the room. From within, the tall bipedal figure stood, still holding the remnants of a Pegasus by its cervical vertebrae. It looked down with its sightless eyes, and it laughed as it tossed the corpse away. All around it, the explosion of glass and metal stopped, and they shifted under his control. Then they returned to him, pulling bits of the walls with him, encasing his body in a new shell- -a correct and perfect shell, save for the mark on his white-armored shoulder that he found he could not remove.

The metal door burst open on the other side of the room, and the two unicorns from outside burst in. The creature saw the terror on their faces as they looked into the pair of sightless, glowing eyes that he had assembled over his vestigial face. They raised their weapons and their magic, and Linty was aware of the irony. They were now raising their weapons against the one who they had been hired to protect.

They never had a chance to fire. Two tendrils of flexible material extended from Linty’s body, penetrating both of their heads. One of them was killed instantly, but the other seemed to be marginally alive as Linty pulled him inward, tearing apart his body on a molecular level to continue repairs to his own. He watched as the unicorn attempted to scream. The suffering of lesser creatures made Linty happy, because he now saw the truth: they were inferior in all ways, and deserved nothing but suffering for their weakness.

He then turned his attention to the ship around him. He was vaguely aware that he was flying, supported by some kind of primitive machine. This was, in its own way, fortunate. He had been unable to build his armor properly with the materials he had at hand.

So he placed his hand out over him, and reached deeper into the ship, into the parts of it that his magic forced him to understand. Then he began to pull it apart.

“And then she said: if you get in!” said Rainbow Dash.

The Pegasi around her burst out laughing, one of them so hard that he nearly dropped out of his gravity well and into the wake of the airship far ahead of them. Rainbow Dash took another large sip from the bottle of rainbow gin, and passed it to the next nearest Pegasus.

Far ahead of them, the transport vessel continued to trundle onward through the dark sky far above the clouds. It was lit by numerous lights on its surface, most of them a sickly, industrial orange color. Rainbow Dash was extremely glad that she was not on it. Not only was the airsickness a severe problem, but she enjoyed flying with the formation of nomadic Pegasi. For the first time in a long time, she actually felt happy.

The air around them, though thin, was warm, and the flying was easy. Rainbow Dash knew that it was warm because of the ship ahead’s exhaust, but was not sure why she felt so light when she was behind it. The others could not really explain it either, but they seemed to have learned from experience that travelling behind the airships made long-distance flying easier. One old stallion even told a story of how he had once fallen asleep in the wake of an aircraft carrier one evening and awoken halfway across Equestria without needing to beat his wings even once- -and with the way Rainbow Dash felt in the wake of even this small freighter, she did not doubt it.

At times, though, she had gotten bored. She had ventured outside of the wake, to where the air had the crisp chill of high skies and where the wind was strong and exhilarating. When the others had seen her flying, some had joined them- -and she had outpaced them all. She had performed stunts for them, and raced with some of others. They had seen her fly, and they all knew the name Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash herself was not sure if they truly understood that she was the real Rainbow Dash, but she got the impression from them that they simply accepted that fact, as if on some level they knew.

Above all, Rainbow Dash was relieved to find that there were at least some Pegasi in Equestria who could still fly. Those in the cities, she learned, had largely forgotten, considering flight a useless and pointless skill- -but those from the wilds and from the settlements in the clouds, they still remembered. These were true Pegasi, their mannerisms steeped in the old ways that were dying out even in Rainbow Dash’s time. They told the stories of the ancient ponies, of Pegasus and Icarus and Pandora, and even the whispered tales of what had become of Commander Firestorm in ancient times, and the curse that Celestia had given her for her crimes.

They had many stories of their own, of course. Of great flight exploits and journeys to distant lands, and stories of so many wars, told with a smile as their eyes misted with the thought of fallen comrades. As they flew ahead to lands unknown, they told stories.

“Hey,” said a rather drunk and smiling stallion, flying up beside Rainbow Dash. He was a roan color, and named Roam. “You are- -HIC- -so impressive, Rainbow Dash. I think…I think I love you. Do you have a- -HIC- -coltfriend?”

Rainbow Dash blushed, and as she did, Roam’s wife, Wherever, descended from above him and gave him a sharp kick between the wings. He dropped out of the stream and into a lower level, where several of his friend caught him and laughed. As he did, he dropped the bottle he was holding, and his wife caught it.

“If you’re going to flirt, then you can take the consequences!” said Wherever. She turned to Rainbow Dash. “Sorry about that. He’s as bit light on taking his liquor.” She took a sip from the bottle of gin and passed it to the next pony. “But really, you are impressive. A pony like you is rare, and we’re already a dying breed.” She sighed, and then smiled mischievously. “You should get married, before you get too old. I have a son about your age, if you’re interested.”

Rainbow Dash blushed and sputtered, but as the others laughed, she realized that Wherever had not been serious.

“Very funny,” she said, rolling in the air. “But I don’t know if any stallion can handle this.”

“Hey,” said a female bat pony floating beside her Pegasus husband, her dragon-like eyes staring out into the distance at the vehicle ahead of them. One thing that Rainbow Dash had noticed was that there were a surprising number of bat ponies among the Pegasi. Not a lot, but several, and they were invariably married to a member of the tribe. Rainbow Dash had not initially understood why, until she had seen a bat stallion up close. “There’s some sort of brown thing watching us.” She squinted. “What even is that?”

“That’s Brown,” muttered Rainbow Dash. “He’s in charge of ‘protecting’ me. Like I need that- -he’s just watching because he was ordered to. If he could fly, he would probably just pull me back onto that ship.”

“Is it…a pony?”

“I…actually, I don’t know.”

“I knew this stallion once,” said an old stallion, floating into the conversation. “He was so hairy…once, a guy hired us to catch this sheep- -”

All the nearby Pegasi around them groaned.

“Not that story again,” said one of them.

Some of them laughed, and a pair of fillies flew by over them, laughing as they chased each other. Rainbow Dash looked up at them, at first absentmindedly- -but then her flight instincts noticed something strange.

She moved quickly without thinking as they dropped out of the air, catching them as the other Pegasi also dropped several feet in the air, fluttering their wings rapidly to correct themselves.

“What happened?” cried Wherever.

Her answer was answered almost immediately a sudden percussive blast filled the air around them. Rainbow Dash looked toward the source, and saw a surge of flame billowing out of the side of the freighter ahead. Its lights flickered and went out as it started to list to one side. Something had gone wrong.

Rainbow Dash felt a sudden surge of fear pass through her body, which rapidly resolved into a surge of adrenaline- -a call for action. She handed the frightened fillies to the nearest of the ponies around her, and raced forward.

“What are you doing?” cried one of the ponies behind her. “We have to get out of here- -if that thing goes up, we- -”

“There are ponies on that ship!” cried Rainbow Dash. “We have to help them!” The Pegasi looked at each other, confused, but did not move forward. “Come on,” yelled Rainbow Dash. “Are you really Pegasi, or was that all talk back there?”

They frowned in anger, but Rainbow Dash knew that it was not directed at her.

“Right,” said the old stallion, the one who had started a story about a hairy pony and a sheep. “I’ll dance a jig at the gates of Tartarus before somepony can claim I’m a coward.”

The others nodded, and the most able-bodied of them moved forward. They flew toward Rainbow Dash, but not past her, and she smiled. Then she turned and led them into the burning, falling airship.

The ship tilted to the side, and continued to burn. Most of its reactor was gone, as well as the entire cooling system, and it was dropping altitude quickly, almost resisting as it fell. The creature that walked through the halls did not care, though. Even as the ship tilted in the air, he remained upright, having realized that the gravity that had for so long bound him to the land below was little more than an illusion.

The halls around him were tight and small, too small for his corrected body to pass through unhindered. So, as he moved, he tore them apart. Tubes and wires burst around him, pouring fuel and coolant into the hallways and further contributing to the fires that were raging throughout the dying airship.

As he walked, a pony ran by him. She was on fire, and screaming as she burned. Linty did not stop, but he made one quick motion with a bladed finger and bisected the pony. He watched as she fell, suddenly distracted from the flames by losing half her body, and then died. Linty found this enjoyable, because he knew that lesser creatures deserved punishment.

He ruminated on this thought, and came to the conclusion that their crime of inferiority was due to one simple factor: they were different. Anything different was inherently flawed, disgusting, and dangerous. This was even true of the others of his own kind, who he knew of without ever meeting. He remembered that somehow, he had once loved a pony named Downy Rest. He could not remember why. Now all that was left to love were the machines, the designs of which filled his mind as he marched.

It would have been easy for him to destroy such a primitive piece of half-technology as this vessel, to consume its contents and add them to the Machine that the others were building and that he would soon be building as well. It would simply be a matter of a thought, to extend his consciousness outside of his body, beyond the worthless organic vestige that he held within his true body. He would know the machines, and understand the, and break the bindings that linked them- -and then swallow them into the plane where the parts to build things were stored.

He had, however, sensed something unusual. There were two anomalies on this vessel, ones he had sensed even when he was finishing recovering from his defective form in stasis. One held Order, but was not a Choggoth. The other signal smelled strongly of Chaos. Linty had no qualms with allowing the ship to fall slowly, and to let the defective beings aboard it suffer in the fire and within their own fear- -and he knew that he needed to investigate the beckoning call of Chaos.

Suddenly, the hallway widened, and Linty became aware that he had just burst through a door. His magic scanned the area around him. He found himself in a large room at the front of the airship, one with a wall made entirely out of plates of transparent plastic, some of which were patched with gray tape. Through it, Linty could see the rapidly approaching storm clouds that he was beginning to descend into.

The room was filled with chairs, and appeared to be the bridge. The noise of his entry caused the pony in the center to stand up and look wildly around the room. He was green, with a strange antler-like horn.

“We’re down, lads!” he cried. As he did, all the other ponies at their stations stood up and began to gallop around the room in a panic, screaming and crying. It took Linty a moment to realized that they were all copies of the same pony.

He moved forward rapidly, grasping the one from the captain’s chair by the neck. He produced an extension from one of his arms and his mind immediately constructed an infection vector. All in one swift motion, he slammed the spike into the center of the green pony’s chest- -only to find that instead of holding a pony, he was holding an effigy made of pure butter.

The vector could not infect butter, so Linty dropped the statue.

“Poor choice of words?” said the green pony, now standing in the shadows across the room. His eyes narrowed, and he smiled. “How about ‘oh the humanity’, then?”

Linty spoke in his native language, and was surprised to hear it expressed audibly. As he did, he realized why: without knowing it, he had walked into a Chaos field. The green “pony” was hardly even a pony at all.

“Therenoth alit von clurnein,” he heard himself say.

“Eesh,” said the pony. “You’re brains are scrambled worse than I expected. And coming from me, that’s statistically significant.” He put his hoof to his mouth and whispered. “At least, only if you’re p-value involves peeing soup!”

“Sirev, nock althen Varii!”

“Duh,” said the pony. “I am the spirit of Chaos. Eyes of the Thoughth and all. And I would hardly call you a Chaos user. You don’t seem to understand a bit of it, and I have bit a lot of it. No creativity at all.” He shook his head. “I mean, right now, I could turn you into a newt. A newt! At least until you get that ticker clicking. But you…” He sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Nos.”

“Um, niet. I know what you are. I know what you are planning, and how Thebe cannot stop it. How she failed to stop it. Or will fail. And I know what it does. But…” From somewhere behind him, he drew out a device- -a chair leg, it seemed, wrapped in barbed wire. “Until then…how about I show you Celestia’s favorite interrogation technique?”

Linty stepped forward. In part because he felt threatened by even the thought of a pony knowing their plans- -and in part because he found he was not aware of the plans himself.

“I also know that the second half of this story is not nearly as well thought out. And that Discord secretly hordes his wife’s panties. And what exactly those ‘eyes’ in your skull are for. And- -”

The Chaos field was suddenly disrupted, and space itself distorted, causing Linty to step back. The pony’s eyes widened as a figure clad in yellow appeared from the shadows behind him. It reached forward with one long-fingered hand and placed it on the pony’s shoulder.

The green pony’s eyes widened. “Oh poopies,” he said. Then he turned his attention to Linty. “Gotta go in a second no more time for airship references you can suck my coxswain!”

Space distorted again, and both of the Chaos users were gone. The field they had produced collapsed, and Linty found his final question falling silent in the air. He paused for just a moment, and then turned his attention back to the sinking airship, and to the storm now outside the windows. Then he began walking.

The vessel shuddered, and the starboard section dropped several feet. One of the Pegasi cried out as he was rolled off into the stream of wind beside it. Rainbow Dash saw him spread his wings as he was whipped through the air into the distance.

“Rainbow!” cried one of the Pegasi that had managed to stay attached, a badly burned unicorn over his shoulder. “The storm! If we get lower, we won’t be able to fly out!”

Rainbow Dash looked at the edge of the ship. Beyond it, the sky had become almost black. In the eternal darkness, it was impossible to see exactly how strong the storm was, but it felt strong. It sounded like a horde of windegos pouring through the air around them, the clouds sometimes being lit by the glow of lightning.

“Do you have everypony you can carry?”

“Yes!” called another Pegasus, barely dodging a falling piece of debris from above.

“Then go!”

“Not without you!”

“No! You can’t fly in the storm- -I can.”

“You’re insane! That’s an uncontrolled ice tempest! You would be torn apart!”

“Go! I still have friends on this ship!”

The other Pegasi seemed to understand, and were all too willing to leave- -even though they all hesitated at the thought of leaving her alone. They did, however, rising through the dark clouds and intense, swirling winds. Had they waited just a minute longer, the ship would have sunk too deep for them to escape, especially carrying the wounded.

Rainbow Dash could feel the frigid air against her wings, and even stabilizing herself against the tilt of the ship was difficult. She was confident that she would be able to pull herself through the storm- -she was, after all, the best flyer in Equestrian history since Pegasus himself- -but she was still filled with an instinctive fear.

“Five!” she cried out through the air and the fire of the failing airship. “Come on, Five! Gell! Brown…Proctor, even!”

There was no response, and she moved along the deck of the ship rapidly, avoiding the fires and trying to take shelter in the lee produced by the ship against the ice storms. Lightning flashed again, and this time it struck the vessel itself. Rainbow Dash was nearly thrown back by the explosive force of the instant thunder, and the ship momentarily lost what little power it had left and suddenly dropped several feet before the engines hummed back to life.

In the silence before the engines struggled back to life, however, Rainbow Dash heard a voice. She looked to her left into one of the narrow hallways, past the flames and smoke. She paused, listening- -and confirmed what she had feared. There was definitely somepony trapped in there.

“Hold on!” she called. Without hesitation, or even thinking, she pushed through the door and into the smoky internal hallways. All around her, there was a sound of the ship rending itself apart. As a Pegasus, she was not familiar with airship design, but she knew that it would not hold for much longer. If the engines did not give out, the superstructure would.

She paused, listening through the breaking metal and the sound of the fire.

“And yet the memory is clear,” said the voice. “I recall it- -I did love her.”

The voice sounded strange, and Rainbow Dash blinked. Her head heart listening to it. Even stranger, though, was that it did not seem panicked at all. It seemed only to be ruminating, as though it were walking through a calming fall field instead of five minutes from falling to Equestria below.

“Hold on!” cried Rainbow Dash, coughing through the smoke. The hallways were thin, but without the wind, she would still be able to fly. She spread her wings and accelerated through the narrow passage.

“And yet,” said the voice, “I cannot remember why, or to what end. I love, and I love endlessly…but how can one love another? Another is…hated. Love and hate, hate and love…are they truly one and the same?”

As Rainbow Dash accelerated toward the voice, a hologram appeared before her, projected by her outstretched robotic arm. She glanced at it, and saw a warning indicating “dangerous radiation levels”. Rainbow Dash did not know what radiation was, but she knew that it had been what had given Applejack cancer- -but she ignored the danger. There was a pony in need, and she was the only one that could help him.

She burst through a wall of fire, closing her wings around herself to protect her face. Once she passed through, she found herself in a large room filled with burning, broken equipment. Both the floor and the ceiling had been torn apart, but she was not sure how. It did not look like the kind of damage that torsion or tension on the ship’s hull would cause, especially this far in.

The air felt warm, and as Rainbow Dash looked down into the sink-hole torn through the floor, she saw why. Aside from the fire, something had been exposed in the center- -something that was now reducing itself to a pool of blue-flaming liquid. Whatever machine that had been, she reasoned, was responsible for the heavy “radiation”.

“But what he said holds,” said the voice. “My goal…is it built of love, or hate?”

Rainbow Dash turned toward the voice, expecting to see a pony, perhaps one pinned under some debris, perhaps even driven insane, maybe even by whatever this “radiation” was. When her eyes met with the owner of the voice, however, she felt her body freeze.

It was not a pony at all. It was something else, something strange that she could not recognize. A tall, thin thing that stood on two legs, its body clad in white and gray armor. It was large, but narrow; she had to look up to see its face- -and when she did, she felt a sudden surge of sickness and an urge to fly away. In its head were a pair of glowing, white eyes.

It did not seem to be looking toward her, however. It had instead extended one long-fingered hand over the opened floor, and pieces of whatever was below were rising to its grasp, swirling around its body and pulling themselves into open portions of its armor.

Then it turned, and the two glowing eyes fell on Rainbow Dash. Its armor immediately shifted, sealing itself, and it lowered its arm. For a moment, they only looked at each other- -and then it started moving toward her.

Rainbow Dash pulled backward, preparing to run- -or, as she preferred to think about it, perform a “tactical retreat”. The place she came through, however, was now engulfed in flame. She could not get back through.

Before she could search out another way to escape, she suddenly stopped. Not voluntarily, but because she was being held. She looked around herself, and saw that there was a weak corona of white light suspending her in space. This creature, she realized, was using magic- -which made no sense. It had no horn.

As the paradox worked its way into her mind, she felt the magic change, grasping her tighter, pouring over. It felt strange, as though every part of her, both inside and outside, was being pulled upon.

Then it stopped. The magic released.

“Schematic is recognized,” said the creature. “Aurasus detected. Unidentified Aurasus: are you translating?”

“Trans- -translating? Translating what?” Somehow, she already knew, though. The creature had no mouth, or not a real one anyway. When it spoke, it was speaking through some alternate source, as source that made her eye and the ends of her golden feathers hurt. “Yes…yes I am.”

“Then please explain. I don’t understand. When the first came, he scanned the world. None of our children...none had survived. This made me…sad.”

“I don’t- -oh, my head- -I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who are you? What are you?”

“Your genetic code shows signs of degradation. Attempting to repair vector.” It raised its hand toward Rainbow Dash, and for some reason she felt drawn toward it, to the golden glow that seemed to be surrounding its fingers.

Before she could be touched, though, there was another sound of rending metal, and the ceiling tore open. She saw a shipping crate start to fall, and cried out. There was nowhere to run, but she ducked regardless, as if doing so would actually do anything to prevent her from being crushed.

There was no crushing, however. Rainbow Dash looked up to see the creature before her supporting the falling crate. It must have weighted several tons, and yet he was still able to hold it with almost comical ease.

“I will protect the Aurasus. I will protect our children,” it said, as emotionlessly as it said everything else.

Before Rainbow Dash could even properly thank it, she once again felt magic surrounding her. This time, though, it was different. She was not so much saturated in it as covered by a thin, hard sheet of blue-green.

“I believe,” said Twilight’s voice, “that the proper term here is- -YOINK!”

Rainbow Dash was suddenly jerked backward, away from the creature. As she was, several more beams of Proctor’s pseudo-magic lifted some of the firearms that were spilling out of the crate that the creature was holding and rapidly unloaded them into its body- -which, Rainbow Dash realized, had absolutely no effect.

“Proctor!” said Rainbow Dash. “How did you- -”

“The same way I’m going to get us out,” said Twilight_Proctor, quickly. “Which, I think, might compromise the structural integrity of what’s left of this vessel.”

“Might?!”

“Um, will.”

The projectors in Proctor’s sides surged, and a narrow, flat beam of hard-light poured out from behind him into the wall. Then, with a force that shook the entire ship, he separated it into two planes- -tearing a whole through the entire inside of the ship.

Then Rainbow Dash felt herself moving, being dragged through the opening by a pair of metal hooves. The creature she had seen receded into the distance, and she watched as the shipping crate and all its contents were torn apart into individual components and vanished. It followed her as she left, its luminescent eyes watching- -and yet, somehow, Rainbow Dash knew that the creature was blind.

Proctor finally pulled Rainbow Dash onto the deck outside, and attempted to seal the hole he had created- -and failed. It was growing much larger, actually, even after his hard-light dissipated. The airship had started to tear itself in half, using Proctor’s gap as a breaking point.

“There you are,” said Five as Rainbow Dash was set down next to her.

“Five!” said Rainbow Dash. “Where were you- -”

“No time now,” said Gell. “Thing crashing- -fire, breaking, pain. Time to go.”

“Right!” said Proctor_Dash, extending his hard-light wings and bounding to the railing. The ship had fallen below the main portion of the storm, and the ground was no distantly visible. As Proctor looked down, his wings suddenly clamped to his sides.

“Eep,” said Proctor_Shy.

“Come on!” said Gell. “You even have wings!”

“Yes, but- -that’s too far! Flutershy had problems with heights- -and performance anxiety!”

“By all that takes it in the plot,” said Gell, picking up Proctor. “Wow. You are heavy.” She stepped over the rail.

“WAIT! You don’t have wiiiiiinnnnggggsss…”

Proctor_Shy’s voice trailed off as he was carried over the edge by Gell.

“Is she- -”

“Demon. Equidroid. Not damaged by sudden impacts.”

“Oh,” said Rainbow Dash. She fluttered her wings and lifted herself into the air. “I can take you down, too- -”

“No need,” said Five, spreading her own wings. “I already have these.”

“Oh,” said Rainbow Dash. “I keep forgetting that.”

They both passed over the side, and Rainbow Dash looked back once more, fully expecting to see a pair of strange eye standing at the railing, watching. There were none, though. Instead, she focused on her descend through the blowing snow. It was not easy, but she had been trained well for landings in rough weather.

Beside her, Five was descending rapidly. Her leathery wings produced an entirely different set of aerodynamics, but she seemed to be faring well, even if she was more falling than flying. From above, a streak of light dropped through the snow, and Philomena swirled through the air as she joined Five in her descent.

Snowstorms were their own type of challenge. There was almost no visibility, and the ground was the same color as the sky. Without landing lights, a landing was actually somewhat dangerous- -but Five seemed to know what she was doing. Rainbow Dash fell into formation with Five, into the wingpony position that she was so familiar with.

Philomena swooped forward, and then up. Five descended against the snowy ground, her hoofs crushing into the snow. Rainbow Dash landed beside her. She was not sure where they were; it was impossible to see much of anything beside the snow pouring through the air. There was almost no light, save for an almost imperceptible luminescence of the snow and from Philomena, who was circling around them.

“Gell,” said Five, annoyed. “Where are you?”

“Down here,” said Gell. Rainbow Dash followed the voice, and found Gell hauling Proctor out of a large crater.

“How did you get down there?” asked Rainbow Dash, reaching down to help Gell out.

“Two and a half tons of demon pony and four tons of robot hitting the snow? Yeah. Holes happen.”

Rainbow Dash finished “helping” Gell out of the hole, and Gell set Proctor down onto the snow. Something felt strange, though. Rainbow Dash looked around, wondering if perhaps there was some familiarity to this bleak and frozen landscape. Then she remembered: it was not the landscape that concerned her, but something that was missing.

“Brown!” she cried. “Where is Brown?!”

“Probably burned up on that wreck,” said Five, pointing upward to the flaming and fragmenting glow high in the clouds above them. “No real loss.”

“I have to go back!” cried Rainbow Dash, spreading her wings. “Maybe the Pegasi- -”

Before she could finish her sentence, something appeared through the snow above, something flaming and falling quickly. It hit the ground near them with a loud thump and a puff of snow, imbedding itself in a snow dune thirty feet from them.

Other debris was falling, but Rainbow Dash raced toward that one particular piece. She was holding her breath, not sure what she was going to find- -but knowing that it would almost certainly not be good.

She landed in the snow and looked down into the hole that had formed. In the center of it was a slightly charred fluffy brown sphere. As Rainbow Dash watched, the sphere uncurled. Brown’s head appeared on one end.

“Hmm,” he said. “It appears that I am indeed fireproof. Mostly.”

“Brown,” said Rainbow Dash. “Are you okay, I mean, you just fell like- -seven hundred, eight hundred feet- -”

“Yeah, and so did I,” said Gell, walking over.

“You’re a demon,” said Rainbow Dash. “He’s just a pony.”

“Just indeed,” said Brown, extinguishing the parts of his fur that were still burning and climbing out of the hole. “Even if my bone density is eight times that of you far weaker ponies.”

“Hey!” said Rainbow Dash. “Who are you calling weak?”

Brown’s eyes widened, as if Rainbow Dash’s reaction had been unexpected. “It’s not that you can help with your genetic weakness. If you had durable bones, you would be too heavy to fly.”

“I’m about to show you a durable bone.”

Proctor_Dash, who had mostly sunk in the snow dune, snorted loudly. It was an odd sound coming from a pony that had no real mouth, nose, or respiratory system, but Rainbow Dash knew what that sound meant, and she blushed profusely.

“Move, now!” said Brown suddenly. He moved rapidly, his body extending as he sprung forward. Rainbow Dash did not have a chance to dodge, and she was pushed backward into the snow.

“What the buck! Get off me, you brown colored- -” before she could think of a word to call him, she saw a large, flaming chunk of airship land where she had been standing.

“Move!” ordered Brown.

More pieces were falling around them, and Rainbow Dash started to fly back to where Five was standing and calmly watching the debris fall from outside its range. Brown and Gell both followed, with Brown moving surprisingly quickly through the snow in a series of leaps. They were followed by Proctor, who pranced slowly, the debris deflected by the hard-light surface that he had projected over himself.

Above them, the airship had finally broken apart. With the engines completely failed, the pieces fell rapidly and forward, driven by the inertia of its course. Even through the s now, it was possible to see the fiery main body of the wreck descending in sharp arc into the distance, and to hear the deafening explosions as whatever was in it finally detonated.

“Wow,” said Pinkie_Proctor. “Why do they always make airships out of the most flammable possible material?”

Rainbow Dash did not answer. Instead, she looked at the still flaming debris field before them. It had been an impressive sight to watch it come down, but it had been horrible. She knew fully well that the Pegasus nomads had not been able to get everypony out, and that so many must have died in the fires early on. A great many ponies had just died, and she had not been able to save them. Ponies, and one other creature- -one that was not a pony.

Then one of the pieces of debris moved. It was thrown aside and into the distance like a toy. Through the snow, Rainbow Dash saw the silhouette of a tall figure rise. Then the light of two glowing eyes cut through the snowstorm.

“What is that?” said Five, suddenly seeming agitated. “Gell, what is that thing?”

“I have no idea,” said Gell, taking a defensive stance in front of Rainbow Dash, joined by Brown.

“I don’t like this,” said Five. She reached around her body, preparing to draw her gun if it was needed.

The creature stood still for a moment, and then it began walking toward them- -or, as Rainbow Dash knew, toward her.

“Now, ah don’t mean to be any kind ah worriwort, here,” said Proctor_Jack, “but whatever that thing there is, it’s leakin energy worse than the farm septic tanhk. So ahm gonna go over here…”

“Or…” said Proctor_Dash, rubbing his hooves together.

“Don’t,” said Five, her voice harsh and serious. “Do not engage. Protect Rainbow Dash.”

“I don’t think- -I don’t think it wants to hurt me,” said Rainbow Dash, although the others seemed unconvinced.

The creature came into visual view, the wind and snow pouring around its body. It walked strangely, as though it were not familiar with its body- -but it moved quickly. Then it paused, and stared down at Rainbow Dash.

“You will not hurt her!” said Brown, his fur bristling.

The creature ignored him. It said nothing. Instead, it simply started moving again, walking past them. It did not look back, and within seconds it had faded from sight into the blizzard. When it was gone, Rainbow Dash realized just how fast her heart was pounding.

“What the There?” demanded Gell. “I mean, what the There was that thing?”

“I think it is what took down the airship,” said Rainbow Dash.

“Um, hey,” said Twilight_Proctor. “Did you guys notice that it didn’t leave any footprints?”

They all looked down, save for Five, who was looking into the distance. Indeed, the creature had left no footprints, as though it were weightless.

“Five, what’s wrong?” said Gell.

“Nothing,” said Five, returning to the group. “No time to worry about…that. Our present situation demands more immediate action to resolve pressing threats.”

“More pressing than that?” asked Proctor_Jack.

Five pointed at Rainbow Dash. “Your wings.”

Rainbow Dash looked down to where Five was pointed, and she saw that her wings were shaking badly. In fact, her whole body was. In her fear, she had not noticed how cold it was.

“That’s not good,” said Gell.

“I’m fine,” said Rainbow Dash, trying to control the shaking. The roaring wind was not helping. Her hooves and the tips of her wings were already starting to hurt. Every breath she took made her snout hurt and her throat taste like blood.

“No, you are not,” said Five. “The current temperature is well below freezing. And by freezing, I mean the freezing point of blood. Unprotected, you will not survive long.”

“I’ve dealt with worse,” said Rainbow Dash, pumping her wings. Flight, however, proved difficult- -not only because of the spreading numbness of her wings, but because of the strong wind.

“Brown,” said Five. “Handle this.”

“Yes, Commander.”

Rainbow Dash felt herself being picked up from behind

“Hey!” she cried, resisting as Brown placed her onto his back. Upon contact with his thick fur, though, she almost seemed to sink into it. The feelings of coldness started to vanish, and Rainbow Dash was surprised by how warm he was- -and by how small his body actually was. It had not been possible for her to tell before, because of all his fluff, but now that her legs were on his sides and she was on his back, she could feel the part of him that was pony instead of hair. He was barely half the size of a normal pony.

“I don’t like this,” said Rainbow Dash. She tried to pull herself out, but the fluff was surprisingly adhesive, as if every hair were holding her in place.

“I don’t either,” said Gell.

“It’s better than dying,” said Five.

“What about you?” asked Proctor_Dash. “You’re an organic too.”

“This body is already doomed. No reason to bother protecting it. My larger concern is to where exactly we are.” She held up one of her hooves and looked down at a hologram that appeared from her gauntlet. “And that did not help. Too much atmospheric interference.”

A sound filled the air around them, something like a distant whiney that came from no particular direction. All of them looked up, as though they would be able to see the source of the long, somber note that filled the snowy air.

“Sky-brothers,” said Brown, his expression hardening. Rainbow Dash felt his body tense. Even though he was small, he was surprisingly muscular.

“Widnigos,” said Five. She closed her hologram and stamped her hoof into the ground. “My day just keeps getting better and better, does it not?”

“Windigos are a misunderstood creature,” said Proctor_Shy. “However…we should probably go.”

“And, ideally, not that way,” said Gell, pointing in the direction that the bipedal creature had gone.

“Agreed,” said Five.