Gell attempted to push her way through the trees, following An deeper into the forest. She was not happy- -in part, because she was extremely tired and hungry. More than anything, she craved sustenance- -not the putrid excrement that ponies called “food”, but real food. As in meat. She salivated as she thought of how it would taste to devour the freshest cuts of mutton or beef.

The forest also annoyed her. She did not like walking through trees and mud, simply because she was no adapted for it. Tartarus was a rocky, empty place. Demons were not meant to fit through tight spaces or to stand in any sort of liquid that they could potentially sink in.

An had no trouble with the trees- -in part because she could fly, and also because she had inherited her mother’s agility, which allowed her to move rapidly between the trees, even if she was weighed down with heavy scanning equipment.

“Where are we going?” demanded Gell.

“Toward the signal,” said An, not bothering to look back. Her voice was exactly the same as each of her predecessors; even after five incarnations, Gell still had not gotten used to that feature- -or the fact that they all looked identical. Looking at Five was like looking at so many dead friends.

“I know,” said Gell. “I mean geographically.”

“Outside Ponyville by ten miles.”

“Ten miles? By Satin, mare, are you trying to kill me?”

“Are you saying you are unable to walk?”

“No. Just that I don’t like to.” She grunted as she tried to pass through a pair of trees, only to find the gap to be too narrow, trapping her. “Satin bless it- -I hate trees!” She slammed her hoof into one of the trees, shattering its truck and sending its shards flying backward.

“Trees are good,” said An, stopping to turn herself and orient herself to the large and convoluted hologram that was projected in front of her. The mobile scanning dish on her back swiveled and creaked. “Trees make oxygen. Do not hurt the trees.”

“Demons don’t ‘breathe’. And I will hurt what I please.”

“I don’t actually care,” said An, walking in a slightly different direction.

Gell smiled. “An, I haven’t seen you this excited in years.”

“This is…well, I cannot say it is what I live for, but I do enjoy this sort of thing.”

“Really.” Gell sighed. Generations of serving at the side of soldiers, mages, and conquerors, she was now helping a filly with a science project. “Are you sure you can’t direct some of that will into, you know, your job?”

“And what job would that be?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Gell sarcastically. “Like, just maybe, protecting Equestria from evil, perhaps?”

“A demon telling me to fight evil,” said An, smiling, looking back toward Gell with her big, blue eyes. “That amuses me.”

“It was a serious question.”

An turned back to her work, still smiling, pausing only to use her bizarre mechanical claws to adjust something. “It is called moral relativism. There is really no difference between good and evil, except that falsely derived from perspective. Fighting the evil of one does evil unto another.”

“You are so, so unlike your mother,” said Gell. “It is refreshing, really- -and unbelievably infuriating.”

Gell felt something on her head, and felt Philomena landing and promptly crawling under the neck-fringe of her armor. That could only mean one thing.

“An, it had better not rain while I am out here.”

An passed through the trees, flying over a hedgerow and into an oddly clear spot in the forest. It appeared artificial in nature. The rusted remnants of a tower nearby seemed to indicate that it may once have been a place for docking airships, or a runway of sorts. It was now heavily over grown with trees and shrubs, but at least they were small and the ground was dry and rocky.

“Some atmospheric disturbance may be expected,” said An. She turned around an approached Gell, taking down a piece of equipment from her back- -not the whole thing, but the interface for it. She plugged it into her own equipment. She walked in circles for a moment, allowing the cord to trail behind her, and then pointed at a spot on the ground. “Here,” she said. “Or somewhere within a mile of here.”

“What? What is so critical about this Satin-forsaken spot?”

“A disturbance,” said An, stepping back, motioning for Gell to do the same.

“That is what you keep saying, but it’s not helpful. It’s like walking into a butcher’s shop and asking for meat…delicious meat…”

“Oscillations,” said An, as excitedly as she could. “Or, more appropriately, reactive resonance. A few hours ago, I detected a surge in Order.”

“Order? Does anypony use Order magic anymore?”

“Nopony ever did, save for me and, well, mes. I doubt even Thebe knows how. But that’s not the point.”

“A sudden spike in a rare form of magic doesn’t matter?”

“Of course not. Well, maybe on a global scale, but no to me. The point is that Order is delicate. A change creates a ripple effect through the entire Forest, producing changes on a variable scale that are incalculable.”

“Where did you even learn these word? I sure as There didn’t teach you.”

“One of the results of this,” said An, sounding somewhat annoyed, “is that things happen. Distortions, disruptions, changes.”

“And you just walked over to one of these ‘distortions’?”

“Yes,” said An, checking her gauntlet hologram again and turning back to watch the spot she had chosen. “Who knows what could happen?”

“Then why are we the only ones here? Wouldn’t Thebe kind of be interested in this sort of thing?”

“She has better things to do than to deal with meteorological disturbances.”

“Meteorological?! You dragged me all the way out here to see weather?” Several chilling droplets splashed onto her head, and she heard the sound of thunder in the distance. “And not it is raining. You know how much I loathe water. There is no water in Tartarus, you know, because the stuff is evil.”

“It is not evil. It is wet.”

The rain came down harder, soaking Gell thoroughly. An did not seem to mind, even as the water saturated her already close-cut blue main and fluffy blue tail. Gell, however, was extremely displeased, as was Philomena, who twisted deeper against her armor trying to hide from the droplets.

“Come on, An,” said Gell. “I’m going to- -”

“Look!” said An, pointing. Gell did, and to her surprise, she actually saw something. She had been expecting something more in line with the abstract, meaningless junk that An usually appreciated- -but this time, she actually saw space starting to bend.

“An,” said Gell, nervously. “When you say you don’t know what will happen…”

An typed furiously on her holo-pad, trying to do calculations as rapidly as possible. “No idea,” she giggled. An giggling was an absolutely terrifying sound. “It could curdle the air itself, or open a hole to the Beyond and suck us out- -or just collapse with the force of a neutron bomb!”

“Um, two of those things are bad, An…”

The universe suddenly shifted in that localized spot, the air itself seeming to pull backward into itself as a strange light poured through the heavy rain.

“Come on,” said An. “Come on, please be something valuable and- -”

There was a tremendous exploxion that knocked An backward into Gell, and the universe tore open- -not on the ground, where An had been looking, but above, forming a portal. Gell never had a chance to see what was on the other side, because it snapped closed almost as soon as it opened. Something shot out so fast that it saturated both of them in a rainbow cloud, and whatever came out left a long rainbow contrail behind it as it rocketed down the clear runway into the distance.

The disturbance closed as quickly as it started. An slowly looked up at Gell, and Gell down at her. Then they both slowly turned to the distance where the rainbow-trailing object had gone.

“Shall we retrieve it?” asked An, although they both already knew the answer.

Five followed the trail of charred earth, Gell following close behind her. Whatever had come out of the distortion had been ejected at several times the speed of sound, but in the excitement Five had hardly noticed her eardrums rupturing. They had since repaired, and the rain had washed away the blood that had dribbled out of her ears- -but it also seemed to have quenched the fires that followed the unidentified object, making the trail somewhat difficult to follow.

“How far do you think it could have gone?” asked Gel. Five looked back at her; the demon looked nearly comical- -and dangerously angry- -with her present wetness. Five felt bad for forcing this on her, but actually found it strange that Gell had not already left. That was usually something she did.

“Not far,” said Five, stepping over a fragment of charred metal. “It had a rapidly decaying trajectory. Even if it didn’t, it would just imbed itself in a hill somewhere.”

“Oh, look!” said Gell, suddenly pointing and running forward. Five was confused; she had not gained a perfect understanding of its decent, but she knew that it would still be several hundred feet away. As she looked, however, she saw that something was, indeed, lying in their path.

She approached it cautiously, but Gell did not. Ignoring the rain, the pink demon ran to it and picked it up. “Score,” she said, than, turning to An, defensively, “mine!”

Five looked up at the piece of debris, and, to her mild surprise, saw that it was not a piece of metal as she expected. It was the pale blue severed leg of a pony.

“Finally,” said Gell, turning the ragged, red end of the leg toward her face and shoving it into her mouth, tearing pieces of its flesh out and swallowing them greedily. “Ohhhh…so meaty….”

“Don’t eat that,” said Five, examining a short, blood-spattered tree near where the limb had landed. “You have no idea where it’s been.”

Gell pointed to her wet, blood-stained face. “Does this look like the expression of a pony who cares?”

“No,” said Five, walking past her and continuing to follow the trail of burned grass- -and now blood. She wondered why they had found a leg; it seemed a strange object to locate in the wilderness- -especially a blue leg.

Gell followed behind an, the sound of the bones crunching in her several rows of teeth as she enjoyed her meal. It was an annoying sound, but at least it meant that Gell was finally getting fed. For some reason, the only food she would accept was meat- -and even then, generally only meat from sentient creatures.

“I have always wondered,” said Five, meandering along the trail, looking for things that might have fallen out of the object- -despite finding a leg, she was still under the impression that it was some kind of machine. Any pony traveling at that speed would have lost far more than a leg; Five assumed that it had been left from one of the many pony-eating monsters that inhabited the Forest, perhaps dragged from the mining colony forty miles to the south. “What does pony taste like?”

“You want some?” asked Gell, offering the remainder of the limb. She had already eaten half of it.

“No,” said An.

“More for me,” said Gell, taking another large bite. “And actually, it varies.”

“How so?”

“You’ll never believe me, but it actually depends on the cutie mark.”

“You mean the special talent.”

“Yeah. Changes the flavor…I mean, wingers, earties, and one-horns already have distinct flavors, but the mark- -it gives it a whole new dimension. Ponies are, by far, my favorite meat.”

“And how does that one taste?”

Gell took another bite and actually took the time to savor it. “Hmm…a bit like chicken, so this was from a Pegasus. Gamy means probably an athlete. Petite little muscles, though, so probably a female. Shame. An athlete like this would have had an excellent rump.”

Five wondered if Gell would have preferred the rump for food or for other purposes. “And the talent?”

“Spicy, undertones of fruit.”

“What kind of a talent tastes like that?”

“No idea. But it isn’t a bad combination.”

It sounded disgusting to Five, but then again, all food did. She turned her attention back to the trail, and reassessed her initial assessment of the nature of the object. They had reached the point where it had begun to impact, and the ground was stained with blood and bits of skin, as well as blue feathers. Something organic and fleshy had clearly been drawn across the ground at high speed and been torn apart by the impact.

Five followed the trail further, taking her time. The rain was still pouring, a result of the spatial distortion, and lightning was flashing through the sky, illuminating the otherwise dark forest around them, and the trail through it of low brush. She was extremely curious as to what she had just witnessed- -but wanted to savor the feeling of exploration. That, and if something had come through, there was no way to know from where. If it turned out to be alive, in all likelihood, her and Gell would need to do another extermination.

After several minutes, the rain began to slow, and Five reached the point of impact. The object had been driven across the ground horizontally for close to forty feet before finally coming to a stop in a pile of stone and dirt that it had gathered on its landing.

Five moved close and examined it, trying to make sense of the wreckage. She quickly determined that the impossible had, indeed, occurred: the object was- -or rather had been- -a pony. Gell had also been surprisingly correct. Based on the surprisingly intact body, she was female and a Pegasus, although he wings had been shattered by the impact. One of her sides had been completely torn away, removing both legs, but her torso was surprisingly intact. She appeared to be wearing some kind of protective garment, which had been badly damaged on her impact. The shell she wore was sparking and leaking fluid from several engines that resembled a kind of extremely primitive repulsor drive.

“Ohhhh,” moaned Gell. “Look at that- -at least half of it is still good. Maybe I can make jerky- -no, bacon. Nothing like good filly bacon…”

Five only partially listened to Gell babble as her eyes looked over the shattered remains of the mare- -until they froze on her mane. The parts of it that were poking out from beneath her helmet were rainbow colored. Five’s eyes darted to the mare’s tail, and found that it was also rainbow colored- -and then to her cutie mark, something that had miraculously survived. It was a cloud with a rainbow-colored lightning bold emerging from it.

“Gell…” said Five, interrupting Gell’s increasingly lustful list of things she was going to do to the mare. She herself was interrupted when the mare suddenly gasped and coughed, expelling rainwater and blood from her badly damaged mouth.

“Twi…light,” she whispered, trying to move but crying out weakly when she became aware that virtually every bone in her body had been broken. “Oh…Celestia, it hurts, it hurts so much…”

“Did she just talk,” said Gell, suddenly stopping and grimacing in anger. “Satin bless it! Well, then again…An, she’s not going to recover out here. Snap her neck and give her to me.”

Five reached out and grabbed the mare’s head in her claw, forcibly lifting it as she cried out in pain. The face plate on the helmet was badly cracked, but it had at least protected the part of her head that held a brain- -hopefully. Five and the mare momentarily stared into each other’s eyes- -Five’s cold blue meeting the mare’s terrified violet irises. Her face had been mostly crushed, and her jaw hung askew. The humane thing to do would, indeed, have been to have simply given her a little twist and finished her. Five, however, was not known for being humane.

“Gell,” she said. “You were the one bothering me about my ‘job’. I think I am going to make a conscious effort to preserve this one. Could you go to the pocket and fetch a medical kit?”

“What?” cried Gell. “Now you are listening to me? When there is food right there?”

“I will explain later, but I need to act quickly. I need to stabilize her. Get the kit. Now.”

“Ooh, fiery. Finally growing a pair, maybe? Fine. But you owe me a meal.”

Five took the handle out of her pocket and gave it to Gell, who opened the door to the Pocket and disappeared inside.

“Twilight,” said the damaged mare, her head falling slack in Five’s grasp. “Help me…my wings…”

“I am not Twilight Sparkle,” said Five, the instinctive part of her mind confirming what she logically only suspected and knew to be truly impossible. “But if you are truly strong, perhaps I can save you. If not…well, you can join your friends.”

“Wonder…bolts…” said the mare, before lapsing into total unconsciousness.