As soon as the door was opened, a rush of air saturated with the scent of chemicals greeted Rainbow Dash. She coughed, not recalling Five’s workshop smelling quite like that before. Despite the acrid aroma, she entered the room.

Inside, the room was dark, save for a light on the far side of the room. Rainbow Dash passed through the disorder racks of supplies and artifacts, all of them now looking so threatening instead of whimsical in the dim light. When she reached the other side, she found Five sitting on a stool over her workbench, attempting to repair a badly melted piece of scanning equipment.

“What do you want?” she asked. Her tone was the same as it ever was, and as she swiveled in her chair, Rainbow Dash saw that Five’s facial expression was normal. Five showed no signs of pain or distress at Gell’s death.

The other thing Rainbow Dash noticed was the set of tubes leading into Five’s arm, connected to a bag of greenish fluid.

“What is that?” asked Rainbow Dash, pointing.

Five looked up at it. “Intravenous sodium dichromate and radium hypochlorite.”

“You mean like…vitamins?”

“Yes,” said Five. “Vitamins. Although you might desire to stand back a few feet.”

Rainbow Dash put the bottle she was carrying onto the table. “Here’s some more. Thought you might need it.”

“Vodka?” sighed Five. “I can’t drink that. Go ahead and have it for yourself.”

“I tried,” said Rainbow Dash. “Boy did I try…but it just made me throw up everywhere.”

They stood in silence for a moment, and then Five took the bottle. She bit the top off and chugged most of it- -far more than any pony should have been able to and remain stable.

“You didn’t even go to the funeral,” said Rainbow Dash.

“I see no need to.” Five removed something from a drawer under the table and pressed it onto the desk with a metallic click. Rainbow Dash saw that it was the ring that had been found in Gell’s ashes. “I got what I needed from her.”

“But…Gell didn’t have pierced ears…”

“It was not in her ear.”

Rainbow Dash did not bother to ask where it actually had been. Instead, took back the vodka bottle and tried to drink from it again- -but the smell alone made her to nauseous to even take a sip. She wanted it- -even needed it, to stop the pain- -but it eluded her so cruelly.

“Brown is really torn up about it,” said Rainbow Dash, setting down the bottle. “I mean, he’s not showing it, but I can tell. He’s taking it really hard.” It had actually been Brown who had insisted on preparing the funeral, and though Rainbow Dash had not seen him cry, she knew that he wanted to. Gell had been a friend to both of them.

“I know exactly how Brown is feeling,” said Five. “I simply do not share his feelings. I feel nothing out of the ordinary.” She smiled. “Well…perhaps a bit better than normal.”

“How can you say that?!” cried Rainbow Dash, suddenly. “She was your friend! She died saving you!”

Five suddenly frowned. “It was not me she was saving,” she snapped. “And Bluntforce Gelding was never my friend. She was nothing more than a family heirloom.”

“But she raised you!”

Five laughed- -but not with any humor. “You weren’t there,” she said. “You just believed what she told you. A duration of almost two years passed before she found me.”

“So…you were just a foal.”

“No,” said Five. “I force-grew myself in a matter of days, just like I force-grew Brown in a matter of seconds. If anything, it was Blackest Night who raised me. She equipped me with the knowledge I needed. Not Gell.”

“But you still stayed with her.”

“Because I could not escape her. She was bound to me by a contract. Just as I think she bound herself to you.”

“But I never signed a contract with her.”

“Demons don’t have a concept of consent. She would have generated it herself for herself. She liked you. She never liked me.”

“That’s not true. I know it isn’t.”

“Wasn’t,” said Five. “She does not believe anything now. Because she’s dead. But no. Her contract was not with me specifically. It was with Anhelios. Her only goal was to ensure that I died promptly and on time. Then she would take my daughter and repeat the cycle.”

“Five, do you even hear what you’re saying?”

“Of course. My only regret is that it was Thebe that eliminated her instead of me.” Five consumed the rest of the bottle of alcohol, and still showed no signs of drunkenness. Rainbow Dash doubted that Five could get drunk, and she was beginning to doubt that the chemicals being pumped into Five’s blood were actually vitamins.

“In fact, you are being rather arrogant,” said Five.

“Me?!”

“Chastising me because I do not feel the same way you do. Frankly: you do not know what I am, or the reasons why I do as I do. My emotions are mine and mine alone. You have no right to comment.” She looked up at Rainbow Dash, her eyes reflecting in the light. “Now. Did you come here to insult me, or do you have something important to say?”

“In fact, I do,” said Rainbow Dash, now angry- -and only partially at Five. “When we were in that factory, I saw something?”

“I’m sure you witnessed plenty.”

“No.” Even though that was true, but Five’s destructive capacity paled in comparison to the pain of losing Gell. “I saw a changeling.”

“That is unusual,” said Five, setting down the device she was repairing and wiping the oil from her claws. “But not impossible. Relations between Equestria and the Hive have been normalized since the reign of Chrysalis the Great. There are some in the armed forces- -though usually as spies.”

“That’s not the weird part. He said something to me.”

“She. Changelings are sterile females aside from during some rare cases.”

“Five, what does the name ‘Vale’ mean?”

Five’s eyes narrowed. “It doesn’t mean anything,” she said.

“The changeling said that ‘Vale was waiting for me’ or something.”

“Vale is not a ‘she’,” said Five, using a small screwdriver to adjust her gauntlet claws. “Vale is not a real thing- -it is an ideal.”

“An ideal? How could an ideal want to see me?”

“It would not. ‘Vale’ is a mythological figure associated with nature-worship. A kind of fictional goddess, worshipped by eco-terrorists throughout Equestria.”

“Eco-terrorists?”

“Fools who reject the bounty that technology has given us. Protesting city expansion, meat, the Wasteland. Pointless, useless things. They are a waste of space, but more a nuisance than elsewise.”

“I don’t think so,” said Rainbow Dash. She reached into her hair and pulled out a small business card. “I met some in 616. They gave me this.” She looked down at it, and felt her face contort into a frown. “That’s strange…”

“What?” said Five, plucking the card from Rainbow Dash’s hoof.

“The coordinates,” said Rainbow Dash. “It had a set of coordinates, but they’re different now.”

“Are you sure you did not simply forget them?”

“I’m a Wonderbolt. I never forget a set of coordinates.”

“You were a Wonderbolt. Not anymore. Because they disbanded.”

“Yeah…thanks for reminding me…”

Five turned the card over in her claw, reading it. “Where did you say you got this?”

“A unicorn gave it to me. Tallish, grey, maybe a little pink. Yellow eyes…looking two different directions.”

“Do you know the Muffin Mare?”

“What?”

“Never mind. Equestria has…well, had…several hundred billion ponies. I don’t know them all. Obviously. Even if derpism is a comparatively rare trait.” With her free hoof, Five pulled something from the back of her workbench. Rainbow Dash Recognized it as a highly beat-up looking microscope.

Five set the card on the desk near where she had been working as she leaned over to plug in the microscope. Rainbow Dash saw the needle on the scanning device that Five had been repairing suddenly jump.

“Is that normal?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Five, flatly. She flipped on the microscope and placed the card on the stage. For a few moments, she stared through the eyepieces and twisted the adjustment knobs. “Take a look,” she finally said, rolling her stool away.

Rainbow Dash leaned in and put her eyes to the microscope. It took her a moment to focus her eyes, but then she saw what Five had focused it on. Crawling over the fragment of paper were a number of tiny, multicolored insects.

“What are they?” asked Rainbow Dash. She had never liked bugs- -but the way they moved in formation was almost mesmerizing.

“Light mites,” said Five. “The ink is made from them. It is the manner of hippie-type biotech stuff the Vale love. That’s how the coordinates changed.”

“But why would they do that? I mean, I why not just keep the coordinates the same?”

“Do you recall the first set?” Five pushed a keypad across the table.

“Yes.” Rainbow Dash slowly clicked them in- -something that was not at all easy with hooves.

A device on the table projected a hologram into the center of the room, and Rainbow Dash saw that it was a map. She immediately recalled the map in the Castle of Frienship, and felt sad- -even though the contents of this map were incredibly different from what the old map had looked like. Equestria had changed substantially in the past five hundred years.

Five opened her own hologram and entered the coordinates that were currently on the card. Both sets of coordinates appeared, and the map shifted rapidly as Five cross referenced the data.

“I know what it is,” said Five, suddenly. A red line appeared over the map, and the map expanded upward so that included several hundred cloud-based cities. “It’s Cloudsdale,” she said. “The largest mobile weather factory in existence. That’s why the coordinates keep changing. The city is currently returning to base.”

“Cloudsdale,” said Rainbow Dash, suddenly exited. That, at least, was something she recognized. She had grown up there, and remembered the bright white clouds and stunning Classical architecture- -as well as the epic racetracks. “I know that place!”

“And it is the perfect place for a trap.”

“Trap? Why? I mean, it’s Cloudsdale.”

“Because it is completely depopulated. There are no workers or residents. The factory is purely automated.”

“Wait- -automated? But it was, like, the most important Pegasus city!”

“Not since three hundred years ago. Everypony there moved to Cirruscuse ages ago. Just automation now. Not even AI’s.” Five pulled the card of the microscope and passed it to Rainbow Dash. “I don’t know why they would want you. But a warning: stay away from them. Despite their uselessness, they are dangerous.”

“And if I want to go?”

“Do you really want to risk Brown losing two friends?”

“No,” said Rainbow Dash. “I wasn’t intending on going. Not right now, anyway. But I will if I want to.”

“Fine,” said Five, turning back to her repairs. “Do what you will. I don’t care anymore.”

Five listened as Rainbow Dash paused, and then walked out of the room. Five continued to pretend to analyze her equipment until she heard the door close behind her.

“I know you are there,” she said. “I can smell you.”

The shadows just feet away from where Rainbow Dash had been standing distorted slightly, and Five saw the glint of silver metal out of the corner of her eye. Shining Armor approached her from behind, and then carefully set the dirt-encrusted skull of the Element of Generosity on the table beside her.
“Excellent,” said Five, picking it up and examining it. “I hope it was not too much trouble?”

“I killed a gargoyle,” said Shining Armor, “but otherwise, no. Their defense spells were not designed to detect the undead. I was able to get in without a problem.”

Five admired the skull, so white and pure- -even though Rarity had been the one of the Six with the second most tortured life of them all. It was perfectly symmetrical and beautifully preserved.

“And how are you feeling?” said Five, almost sarcastically as she looked up at Shining Armor.

“I murdered the mare I loved and will exist for all eternity knowing that fact. My sister died in grief alone because I spent my last moments exterminating the citizens who trusted me. I just defiled the grave of one of my closest friends. All that, and I will be half-alive for all eternity. I feel terrible.”

“I thought you didn’t have emotions anymore.”

“No. It still hurts. Every second, and every time I remember her…it just hurts more quietly. And that’s actually worse sometimes.” He looked down expressionlessly at Five. “I heard we lost Bluntforce.”

“We did,” said Five. “So we won’t have to worry about her interfering.”

“What got her?”

“Thebe.”

Shining Armor’s eyes narrowed, and Five saw a glint of emotion in his long-dead face. “Of course. At least her soul can take solace in the fact that I will avenge her.”

“Demons don’t have souls. But…”

“What?”

“I destroyed the golem that took her. I don’t know why I bothered, but I did. Before it went, however, it spoke to me.”

“It spoke? How?”

“As though it were whispering into my mind. It said ‘you have taken something of mine. Now I take something of yours.’”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“No, you are not. Besides, I have not lost anything. I will, however, have to advance my plans more quickly than I had hoped.”

“But the Element of Kindness was destroyed,” said Shining Armor. “Unless…” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t like you, Five,” he said. “I can never tell just how much you know.”

“From your perspective, that doesn’t matter. You just need to serve as the Element of Magic. Leave the construction of the machine to me…and everything that goes with it.”