It’d been three weeks since Rainbow Dash had escaped Sombra’s clutches and prevented a massive ambush of the EUP.

In those three weeks, they’d accomplished more than they had in the past three years.

The battle in the valley hadn’t been some colossal, hitherto-unheard-of success. A success, yes, but perhaps not as big of one as they’d liked; Sombra’s new helmet designs had proved… troublesome. So, no, not a huge success. That was, until they kept advancing. Towns that still had free-willed ponies threw open their gates for them. Any resistance they met was small and unorganized. Their supply lines weren’t even touched. Eventually, speculation trickled down through the ranks from the top brass: Sombra supposedly hadn’t even considered the possibility of failure for his surprise attack.

All his subsequent plans had depended on the EUP getting thoroughly smashed and nearly annihilated, not still united and strong. He’d assumed his attack would go flawlessly, and all his subsequent deployments were based on that. His forces were spread thin, waiting for reinforcements that would never come. He’d withdrawn his ponies from areas of vital importance, leaving them wide open for an army that wasn’t supposed to be there. His generals were scattered haphazardly around the battlefront, trying to give orders to armies a fraction the size of what they’d been expecting. His army as a whole was flat-out brittle: it might put up a good resistance, but a good, solid hit, and it’d shatter.

Sombra was many things. Evidently, a tactical genius was not one of them.

With little resistance, they had advanced. And advanced. And advanced. And advanced. And now they were camped out not too far from the Crystal Empire itself; Dash could see the Crystal Palace poking its way above some distant hills behind Sombra’s shield. With the ease of their advance, some soldiers had been taken from this army and shuttled behind Sombra’s line, cutting off his supply on other fronts, weakening him all the more. By now, the question was no longer if Sombra would be defeated, but when. No estimate put it at more than a month. The smart money was on a week.

Celestia wasn’t just bullrushing the Empire, though. She was being methodical, working on completely surrounding it. Sombra may have had a special place in the space where his heart should have been for the Empire, but if he had a chance, he’d flee, and they’d need to chase him down all over again. Celestia was making sure that wasn’t an option for him.

So Dash and the Wonderbolts were assisting in closing the last gap: a snowbound town several miles southeast-east of the Empire, Warmblood. Well, “town” might be stretching it; “re-education camp” was the official term, while “brainwashing facility” was the one bandied about by the rank and file. And some officers, too, for that matter. There really wasn’t any whitewashing it: the place had been set up a week or so after Sombra’s return to be a place where ponies were turned into Sombra’s soldiers en masse. Dash could still feel the sick, clammy residue of the magic crawling through the stones, trying to work its way into her head. But it was too weak to influence even the drunkest pony, much less one who was alert and had thrown off a more focused attempt at brainwashing three weeks ago.

This close to the end of the war, morale was high. So the Wonderbolts and the landbound ponies they were assisting, a small contingent of the Rock Corp, had decided to have a little contest: whichever side freed the most ponies from Sombra’s helmets won first dibs at dinner that night. It was fair; they had the same numbers, and the Wonderbolts were faster, baseline, but the Rock Corp were strong enough to buck through walls without injury and make shortcuts, something the Wonderbolts couldn’t do, while the mess of interiors limited the Wonderbolts’ flying. Any death on either side was inexcusable; given size of Warmblood, there were too few ponies in too large a space to dogpile anyone, as long as they stuck to at least pairs.

Dash wasn’t sure what the Wonderbolts’ overall score was. But she and Thunderlane were sitting comfortably at five, and were currently stalking number six.

Number six was a unicorn, which meant she had ranged capabilities. She was holed up in a warehouse, its windows still intact somehow. Dash and Thunderlane weren’t sure where, exactly, she was, but she had good aim and made them keep their heads down. They’d leapfrogged their way to within ten feet of the entrance, but there was a shield blocking entry that neither of them liked the look of. Poking it wouldn’t be the best idea, even if they could get that close. They were hunked down in the snow behind some rubble that had probably once been another building, but had since been flattened. Whenever one of them stuck a hair outside their cover, the unicorn would sling a barrage of magic at them, and they’d duck, and they wouldn’t be able to figure out where she was. They’d been here a while, and they weren’t planning on retreating anytime soon.

Thunderlane pulled a small mirror from the collar of his uniform. He’d added them on so he wouldn’t have to turn his head all the way around to look behind him. Dash had thought it’d been a stupid idea — did it really take that long to turn around? No, it did not — but now, she was grateful for them. His back against the wall, Thunderlane tilted the mirror so he could get a good view of the warehouse front without either of them getting themselves shot at. He turned it back and forth, hmming and hahing to himself. After several moments, he passed the mirror to Dash. “Right corner, upper floor. You see it?”

Dash tilted the mirror and saw it. One of the windows was open, just enough for a pony to sneak in. She couldn’t see the unicorn, though. “What about it?”

“That’s our way in,” said Thunderlane, retrieving the mirror and putting it back. “See, I’m thinking that she-” He nodded towards the door. “-isn’t the only one in there, and that’s why she’s defending it so much. And if there’re others inside, a breaking window will alert them. I distract the uni, you get in through the open window, sneak attack anypony else in there, take out the unicorn, boom, problem solved.”

“Why me?”

“‘Cause you’re the fastest thing alive. You’ve got a better chance of making it than me.”

Dash was almost convinced. Almost. She raised an eyebrow skeptically.

Thunderlane swallowed. “And if we beat the Rockies, I’ll fight for you to go first among the Wonderbolts at dinner tonight?”

The “almost” was gone. Dash flashed a devil-may-care grin. “Deal. Just say when.” She began flapping her wings, warming them up for a quick hop.

“Right.” Thunderlane picked a large rock from the rubble. He bounced it a few times on his hoof, nodded, then flattened himself against the wall. “Aaaaand… when.” He tossed the rock over the wall, straight towards the door, and stuck his head out the left side.

The magic came again, but it was far more spread out; the unicorn was acting reflexively, firing at anything that moved instead of aiming. Half a second after the bolts came flying, right when the unicorn was most distracted, Dash sprinted toward the right corner, flapping her wings for extra speed, kicking up miniature flurries in her wake.

Her metal wing was doing fine. Better than fine. Ever since she’d escaped Sombra’s grasp, it hadn’t itched in the slightest, and felt about as natural as a metal wing could feel. It even worked better; it didn’t groan, it wasn’t stiff, she could feel the wind with it… It was almost like she’d never lost a wing, except this one didn’t tire as easily. If she was a bit crazier, she’d saw her other one off and get that one replaced, too. But she wasn’t crazy, so she knew that was a stupid, stupid idea.

She made the run easily. No magic came flying her way; evidently, the unicorn hadn’t noticed her. She glanced back at the wall, at Thunderlane, but he was sitting up (although keeping his head down) and grinning. He passed his foreleg in front of his face twice: I’m okay. Dash smiled and returned the gesture, then looked up. The window above was open plenty wide. A few good flaps took her up to peek in; no one nearby. She hoisted herself through.

The dark magic was stronger inside the warehouse, sticky sweet and cloying, and Dash fought against her gag reflex, even though it was still too low to affect her. Machinery in various states of disrepair was scattered around the floor; from the looks of things, helmets had been made here. Most of it was dusty, some of it was not. Dash was on a catwalk that ran around the second floor of the warehouse, not much more than an observation point except for where it connected to the main office. Helmeted ponies sat on the warehouse floor, staring at the door where the unicorn was defending it. There were three of them.

Plus another one patrolling the catwalk. He walked slowly, with a mechanical, far-too-rhythmic pace that made Dash’s skin crawl. His back was to her; he’d passed the window shortly before Dash had peeked in. His helmet was one of the easier ones; it could’ve been one exceptionally hard nut to crack, but a few bracers shaped awkwardly to let the head in meant you could just squeeze the helmet in just the right way, and it’d pop. She’d mastered this design in two practice runs. Easy peasy.

Dash caught up with the stallion and, before he could react, squeezed. The helmet crumpled like a tin can, pulling apart at the seams. The stallion froze mid-stride. Dash quickly clamped a hoof over his mouth. “Listen,” she whispered, “stay quiet. Don’t let them hear you.” She pointed at the ponies below.

The stallion nodded and made the “my lips are sealed” gesture. Dash nodded back and released him. Belly to the floor, she crawled along the catwalk to a better position. The ponies never noticed her; they were too focused on the door. A massive downside of mind control: those you controlled tended to filter out things “unimportant” to following your orders. Once she was behind them, Dash silently dropped to the floor and went to work.

These ponies had the same kind of helmet as the first one; it was almost too easy. Squeeze, pop, “Quiet!”, next. There was no effort, no risk. Dash simply went from one to another, and nopony looked twice. By the time she reached the unicorn, Dash was practically bored.

As the unicorn stammered her thanks, Dash yelled out to Thunderlane, “Clear!”

Thunderlane popped up from behind the debris. “Clear? Shnazziness! What’s our score?”

“Score? Oh! Um…” One on the catwalk, three below, one unicorn, I entered with five… “Ten!”

“Ten?!”

“Ten! One zero!”

“Ten!” Thunderlane laughed and headed for the warehouse. “Double shnazziness!”

At the same time he reached the front entrance, the rear door was kicked down. “All right, bucketheads,” yelled Spitfire, “why don’t-” She stopped and looked around at the distinct lack of bucketheads and the mass of no-longer-bucketheads. “Welp! That was easy!” she said. “And of course it’d be you who’d do something like this, Dash.”

Dash puffed herself up, but just a little. “Thunderlane helped. But it was mostly me.”

Thunderlane opened his mouth to protest, then muttered, “Yeah, it was.”

“We’ve got way more points than the Rockies,” said Spitfire. “The town’s all but cleared out, so Clementine’s conceded. We’re heading back to camp and the Rockies’re doing mop-up. No casualties, either side.”

“We won already?” said Thunderlane. “But you haven’t even counted Dash’s and my points yet! We got ten!”

Flitter, Spitfire’s partner, smirked. “Spitfire and I got nineteen.”

“…You’re good.”

“I’ll stay back a bit,” said Dash. She looked up at the office. “There’s one last thing I want to check out. Just in case.”

“Alright. See you back at camp. Everypony else, follow me.”

As Spitfire led everyone out, Dash flapped onto the catwalk, just outside the door. Compared to the rest of the warehouse, it wasn’t that bad of a position to hold. Relatively small, few entrances, limited visibility from the floor while having lots of visibility to the floor… It’d be the perfect place for someone to hide. Someone to hide, though; there wasn’t enough space for a lot of other ponies.

Dash tried the door. Locked. Yeah, someone was probably hiding in there. The door had no windows, so she did a little aerial recon near the observation windows. Nothing was piled up inside the door; she’d be fine. A quick buck knocked the door down. Dash started coughing; dust filled the air, and it got everywhere.

Once she’d almost cleared her system, Dash said, “Hey. I know you’re in here. Your friends have been defeated. Come on out, and I won’t hurt you.” She wouldn’t hurt them either way, but then the buckethead wouldn’t come out, either. Dash wasn’t talking because she expected a response; she was talking because she wanted the pony inside here to act. It was an easy trick, talking to make a buckethead do something stupid. The unicorns said it was something about stimulus that made them react due to a magical compulsion to do something in response to something else. But whatever. Talking would make the pony react.

Dash listened hard. She heard it behind her and a little to the left: a quiet, hoof-on-tile clip-clopping. But it was too quiet; a pony would make more noise than that. Maybe it was a unicorn trying to muffle themselves. Not a very good job, but you couldn’t expect one while a pony was brainwashed.

Dash kept talking, pretended she hadn’t heard anything. “Last chance.” She went a little slack, ready to roll with any attack that came. “Come out or I’ll-”

It came from the side, and it hit a lot softer than an attack had any right to; Dash was barely staggered. She turned to face her attacker and was confronted with a filly.

A helmeted filly.

The use of foals in his army was one of Sombra’s more darkly brilliant moves. On the one hoof, it’d cause all sorts of agitation in Equestria. He was using foals? The son of a gelding! He needs to be stopped! But on the other, the moment you encountered one on the battlefield, you’d be in trouble; the foal was attacking you, but you couldn’t attack it, because, well, it was a foal. What kind of pony could attack a foal, even in that situation? It was the worst kind of conundrum, one you had to solve quickly before you were dead. Anytime Sombra wanted to damage morale, he’d send out the foals.

But it’d proved a double-edged sword. The big problem was that foals simply weren’t as strong as adult ponies. You could stick the helmet on an adult and get more fight for the same amount of effort. If you put a helmet on a foal anyway, some ponies would just grab the foal and drag them back to camp to be de-helmeted without any risk of dying. Dash had heard stories of ponies who would march onto the battlefield, march back to camp with all the foals they could carry, then going back and doing it all over again. Those sorts of things recovered lost morale and then some.

The filly jumped to her feet and attacked again, laying down a blistering flurry of blows on Dash’s face. Well, she tried to be blistering. Dash didn’t react at all. She’d had a wing amputated. She’d nearly lost an eye. She’d broken both back legs from bucking an enemy too hard. She’d gotten a chunk of flesh ripped from one of her ears. A single filly slapping her a lot wouldn’t do much.

She planted a hoof on the filly’s head and pushed her away. The filly kept swinging with her front hooves, but they were far too short to hit her. “Hold still,” grunted Dash. “I’m trying to help you.” It wouldn’t do much good, not with the helmet on. But she said it anyway. Maybe, deep down, some free part of the filly’s brain would make her slow down. And if it didn’t, oh well. This was hardly a life-threatening situation.

Dash squinted at the helmet. It looked haphazardly knocked together, cobbled from scrap in a hurry. Sombra’s designs had once been sleek and smooth and menacing. This one was blocky and uneven and actually kind of pitiful, if she was being honest with herself. The old helmets were horrendous monstrosities in function, true, but at least they had style in their looks. This one… didn’t. It looked like a schoolfilly’s papier-mâché project, only with less imagination and skill.

Unfortunately, this also meant that Dash didn’t know how to hit it to make it come off. It’d be trivial to take the filly back to camp and have the smiths remove it, but she wanted one more de-helmeting in this competition, even if it didn’t mean anything by now. She wanted to do it herself. With the filly still flailing helplessly, Dash looked around at the helmet, trying to see any weak points. She wasn’t anything resembling a smith, but this thing was so crude, she might see something.

To her inexperienced eyes, it looked less like the helmet had a weak point and more like it was made of weak points. Might as well try it. She tentatively poked at one outwardly-sticking piece of metal. It budged a little. Dash pushed harder, and it snapped off completely. She poked at another piece. It budged. She pushed. It snapped. Poke, budge, push, snap. Poke, budge, push, snap. Lather, rinse, repeat. She wasn’t breaking the helmet, she was flat-out dismantling it, piece by piece. The construction was shoddy enough that it wasn’t even screwed together properly. The entire helmet was brittle, through and through.

As Dash worked, the filly’s flails slowed, and soon stopped completely. Dash let her put her front hooves back on the ground. “H-hello?” she asked from inside the helmet. “W-what’s going on?” Her voice was timid, small, quavering. Dash could barely hear her through the metal.

“Calm down,” said Dash. “And hold still. I’m getting you out.” Another piece of metal snapped off. “You’re gonna be all right.”

“W-where’s my mom?” The filly was on the verge of crying. “I w-want my m-mom. My head h-hurts.”

“Don’t worry,” said Dash. Snap. “We’ll find her.” A month ago, it would’ve been a pipedream. There was too much going on, Sombra’s forces and the EUP spread too wide. Now, though, Dash actually thought they had a chance. The last few towns had been taken with next to no casualties on either side; the chance that they could find this filly’s mother was actually quite high.

“I’m s-scared.” The filly was talking for the sake of talking. It kept her mind off what was going on. Dash hadn’t been a filly in ages, but she could almost imagine what was going through her head. Stuck here with her mom (What about her dad? Dash didn’t want to think about that.), right next to Sombra’s domain, possibly seeing her friends marched off, brainwashed herself, and now she had a helmet encasing her head like a trap, with a stranger being the only one to get it off. It was amazing the kid was holding up as well as she was. Of course, she was also lucky bucketheads didn’t remember their time as bucketheads. If she remembered what she did, she’d be inconsolable. And she wouldn’t be the only one. Not by a long shot.

“I’m scared too, kiddo.” Not entirely true, but it’d make the kid feel better. Snap snap. “But we’ll be fine.” That was true. “What’s your name?”

“B-beryllia.”

“Beryllia? I like it.” Dash really did. It rolled off the tongue. Snap. “You can call me Dash.”

“What’s g-going on, Dash?” Beryllia’s voice was just a little bit steadier. Dash could hear it. She was turning into quite the trooper.

“Sombra did some bad things to you.” Snap. “You know who Sombra is, right?”

“A very b-bad pony. Mom said.”

“Yes. Very bad. One of the worst.” Snap snap. “Well, I’m fixing what he did to you.” Snap. One of Beryllia’s eyes was uncovered. Dash crouched down, looked her in the eye. Her eye was watery, but she still wasn’t crying. “I’m almost done. You’re gonna be okay.”

Beryllia blinked and nodded a little. “O-okay.”

“You’re doing great,” said Dash with a smile. “Keep it together just a little longer.” She stood back up. Snap.

Beryllia sniffed. But she didn’t cry.

Snap. And that did it; the helmet fell apart, fully exposing Beryllia. She was a Crystal Pony, a bit lanky, and very, very grimy. She was thin; Dash couldn’t quite see her ribs, but it didn’t take much imagination to do so. Her mane was unkempt, greasy, uneven. It looked like, rather than getting neatly cut with scissors, any excess had been hacked off with a blunt knife. She had a short, scraggly ponytail, still with a formerly-sparkly ribbon tied in it.

“Hey there,” Dash said. “You okay?”

Beryllia blinked a few tears from her eyes. “N-no.” She wrapped her legs around one of Dash’s and began bawling. “I’m s-scared, I’m hungry, I’m t-tired, I’m cold, and my head hurts. I want my mom, I want some food-”

“Do you want a balloon?”

With Beryllia clinging to her, it was all Dash could do to keep from jumping. Pinkamena had this really annoying habit of popping up when you least expected her. And when in the camp, she always seemed to zero in on particularly unhappy ponies like she had some kind of radar. How it was working in the middle of a battlefield was anypony’s guess. Anyway, Pinkamena was suddenly standing right next to Dash and Beryllia, a goofy smile on her face, and holding a long uninflated balloon. Even the layers of dirt she was coated with and a profusely-bleeding cut on her cheek couldn’t suppress her pep.

Beryllia sniffed and looked up at Pinkamena. “What?”

“Balloons! Everypony likes balloons! And don’t you try to deny it, Dashie, I’ve seen the way you look at them. Look!” In a matter of seconds, Pinkamena had inflated the balloon and tied it up into a shape. “It’s Celestia!”

Considering the material she had to work with, Pinkamena’s balloon-Celestia was crazy good. Most of the shape was pretty basic, but a few tugs in the right places had inflated them in ways that could only be Celestia’s tail and mane. Pinkamena handed the balloon to Beryllia. “You can keep it, if you want.”

“Th-thanks.” Beryllia unwrapped herself from Dash’s leg and looked at the balloon. “It’s nice.” She hugged it. “But I still want my mom.”

“Of course you do,” said Pinkamena, rubbing Beryllia’s mane. “As much as I’d like to think otherwise, balloons aren’t the answer to all of life’s problems. So we’re gonna get back to camp. We’re gonna find your mom. We’re gonna get some good food in that tummy of yours. We’re gonna get you cleaned up. And I’m gonna bake you cupcakes to celebrate! You like cupcakes, don’t you? Of course you do! Even more ponies like cupcakes than like balloons!”

Dash cleared her throat. “Doesn’t everypony like balloons?”

“Yes! And even more ponies like cupcakes! It’s the miracle of cupcakes, Dash, don’t question it.”

Well, they were cupcakes. Dash didn’t question it.

Beryllia squeezed the balloon a little more. “C-cupcakes sound nice,” she said.

Pinkamena grinned, plucked Beryllia from the floor, and dropped her on her back. “Then let’s go get you back to camp!” she said as she left the warehouse. “My cupcakes aren’t just nice, they’re the bestest cupcakes around! And not just because they’re the only cupcakes around. What kind do you like?”

“Chocolate.”

“Okie-dokie! One dozen chocolate cupcakes coming up! …Eventually.”

“Promise?”

“Pinkie Promise! Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!”

Dash had once seen Pinkamena smash a helmet with a thrown rock at a distance of a hundred yards. She’d seen her punch through walls, carve her way through fortifications with nothing but her bare hooves. She’d kicked ponies’ ribcages in, crushed them beneath avalanches, collapsed buildings on top of them.

“Hey! Is there a pony here named Chalcedona missing a filly named Beryllia? Because she’s so cute, I got second dibs!”

Dash wasn’t sure war-Pinkamena and peace-Pinkamena weren’t two different ponies in one body.

They were at the refugee… It’d been a pen, once, but its capacity had quickly overflowed. There were hundreds of them here already, all recovered from Sombra’s forces, and the number grew daily. There was a scattering of unicorns, pegasi, and earth ponies, but ninety-five percent of them were Crystal Ponies. Some of them tried to join the EUP, and while Dash appreciated the sentiment, there just wasn’t enough time left in the war for them to get anything out of it.

Most of them were getting shuttled away from the front lines. Sombra hadn’t thought to destroy the railroads, so they could move a lot of ponies quickly with trains. But even that took time; once trains left, they had to come back, and that took a day or two. The refugees were left with nothing to do; some of them took up support positions in the camp, cooking and cleaning and laundering and what have you, but there were only so many of those positions available.

So Dash and Pinkamena had spent the better part of two hours wandering the camp, trying to find Beryllia’s mom, Chalcedona. Thus far, they hadn’t had any luck, but the camp was a big place. They could’ve missed her, or they could’ve not been in the place where she was, or (incredibly unlikely) she could’ve already gotten on a train and left. But even without finding her mom, Beryllia was a lot calmer, even if she was hugging her balloon Celestia a lot. The camp was busy and noisy, but at least it wasn’t scary.

“I repeat!” Pinkamena bellowed above the din. “Is there anypony here named Chalcedona? I’ve got a filly named-”

“Beryllia!”

A Crystal Pony forced her way out of the crowd and practically dive-tackled Pinkamena. “Mom!” Beryllia yelled. She jumped off of Pinkamena’s back and hugged the mare — Chalcedona — tightly. She was crying again, but they were happy tears.

“Oh, sweetie,” whispered Chalcedona, hugging back, “I missed you so much, I was so worried when they took you from me, I… are you okay?”

“I am now,” said Beryllia. “Dash saved me and brought me to you.”

“Dash…” For the first time, Chalcedona truly looked at Pinkamena and Dash. She gave a nod of thanks to Pinkamena, but when she saw Dash, her eyes went wide.

News of Dash’s escape had spread like wildfire among the EUP, and in two days, a propagandist had asked for permission to tell Dash’s story to the rest of Equestria. One of the biggest issue with Sombra, she’d said, was that he seemed unstoppable. His war machine just kept rolling, and once he got that helmet on you, you were a part of it. Period. Then along came Dash, who got helmeted, only to shake it off and escape. And if she could do it, why couldn’t anypony else? With that, Sombra’s advance was no longer a certainty. It’d give a glimmer of hope to all the ponies at home.

Dash had agreed. She’d told her story, talked about how she’d escaped, and by the next week, she was a household name all across Equestria. Not just because of her throwing off the brainwashing, but also because of her escape. Nopony had heard of speed like that, not even from Celestia. (The Princess herself declined to comment.) It was like something from an ancient legend, where it took the enemy many mares to bring her down, she shook off their control attempts like it was nothing, and flew like the wind to help her friends.

Aside from Celestia and Sombra, Dash was arguably the most famous pony in Equestria.

She’d started getting salutes from other soldiers, even ones who weren’t in the Wonderbolts or who outranked her. When she went to the mess to get her meals, her servings seemed to be a little bit larger than the norm. Crowds parted slightly to let her wiggle through. It was subtle, but noticeable, and it made her feel good. Technically, the only thing Dash had gotten from up top was a Medal of Valor and a pat on the back. But she’d gotten a pat on the back from everyone up top. It wasn’t a promotion, but it felt a lot better than one.

“You… you’re Rainbow Dash,” Chalcedona said quietly.

“The one and only,” Dash said with a grin.

“Thank you,” Chalcedona whispered. “Thank you. I, I don’t know how can repay y-”

Rainbow Dash held up a hoof. “Ma’am, I’m just doing my job. You don’t need to repay me for anything.”

“B-but I- Thank you.” Chalcedona turned to Pinkamena. “And I’m sorry, but who are you? It’s just that, well, she's Rainbow Dash.” She jerked her head at Dash.

“Call me Pinkie Pie,” said Pinkamena. “And that’s no problemo, Dashie is one of the bestest ponies in the EUP!” She pulled Dash close and noogied her.

Grinning slightly, Dash wiggled quarterheartedly. “Please stop, Pinkamena.”

“Even if she’s too uptight to call me Pinkie.” Pinkamena released Dash and turned to Beryllia, her face ultra-serious. “No, don’t let me forget those cupcakes, alright? I Pinkie Promised. That’s serious business.” She nodded sagely.

Beryllia nodded vigorously. “Okay,” she said.

“Cupcakes?” asked Chalcedona. She looked down at Beryllia and frowned. “Beryllia, did you-”

“She seemed scared, so I promised to make her cupcakes,” said Pinkamena. “Cupcakes always cheer me up.”

Chalcedona chewed her lip for a moment. “I suppose that’s okay,” she said eventually, “as long we have some actual dinner first. Are you hungry, Beryllia?”

Beryllia nodded again. “Yeah. And my head hurts.”

“Alright, honey,” said Chalcedona, stroking Beryllia’s mane. “Come on. Let’s get you some food. Good food, not cupcakes. Yet. And once you’ve eaten, we’ll find a doctor.” She said “Thank you.” to Dash and Pinkamena one last time and began pushing back into the crowd.

“See you!” Pinkamena yelled. “Don’t forget the cupcakes!”

Once the mother and daughter had vanished, Dash said, “Speaking of, you and I should get dinner, too.”

“You go on,” said Pinkamena, waving her away. “I’ve got cupcakes to bake! If I can take back control of one of the ovens from Sliced Bread, at least. Don’t worry, I’ll make you one, too.” She began bouncing away.

“Wait!” said Dash. “One more thing. Back in Warmblood, where’d you get the balloon?”

Pinkamena smiled and pulled back a flap on her uniform. Several rows of balloons of multiple types and colors were tied in, just waiting to be inflated, along with a bunch of strings. “I always keep balloons stashed in my uniform,” she said, replacing the flap. “In case of battlefield balloon emergency.”

“Battlefield balloon emergency,” Dash said flatly. “And when do you think we’d run into one?”

“Uh, just now?” Pinkamena said, pointing at Beryllia. “Duh.”

“…You’re crazy, Pinkamena,” Dash said with a smile.

“No. Wrong ponies are crazy, Dashie. I’m eccentric! And for like the bazillionth time, it’s Pinkie.”

“Whatever you say, Pinkamena.”

“You said I’d go first among the Wonderbolts.”

“I said I’d argue for it! I never said it’d actually happen! Besides, I didn’t know how far ahead we were.”

“You said I’d go first.”

“Oh, come on, Dash, don’t be like this,” groaned Thunderlane.

Dash decided to stop teasing Thunderlane. “Fine. But I’m going before you.”

“If it’ll get you quiet.”

Dinner that night was soup. Cheese and parsley. Simple, but this far north, it was soup-eating weather (even with pegasi keeping the snow away as best they could), it was just the right temperature, and it tasted divine. Dash couldn’t get enough of it, and neither could Thunderlane. None of the Wonderbolts could. None of the Rock Corp could. Nopony could. There was enough for everypony to have seconds, and then a little bit more, but after that, it was first-come, first-served.

Dash and Thunderlane were lucky enough to each get a third helping, albeit small ones. They ate these bowls a lot more slowly, finally feeling like they were getting full and just enjoying the taste.

Dash swallowed her soup. “Nice job today. Lucky you had those mirrors.”

“Lucky?” Thunderlane mumbled through a full mouth. “That’s their point. So I can see things without looking directly at them.”

“They still look stupid.”

“If it’s stupid but it works, it isn’t stupid. And those mirrors work.”

Dash slurped up a little more soup. “I still don’t see what the big deal is with turning your head. It doesn’t take that long.”

“Time has nothing to do with it,” said Thunderlane, jabbing a hoof at her. “It’s the difference between getting a blow to the face and getting one to the back of the head. Besides, you’re one to talk, with that mane.” He reached over the table and give it a flick. “It’s so long, it’s practically blinding, and how do you fit it all in your uniform?”

“Skillfully.”

“Bah-dum. Tish.”

“Laugh it up, why don’t you.” Dash licked the last few dregs from her bowl. “Seriously, though, good job today. That tornado, that was good.”

“Got the idea from you, actually. Back when we had to do the rainwater thing at Ponyville years ago. I figured, why not try a tornado here?” Thunderlane shrugged. “And really, you’re the one who did good. Five ponies in one warehouse, all by yourself?”

“That was easy. They barely paid attention to me. Mind-control tunnel vision, you know?”

“Pfft. Sure. You’re better at stealth than you think. I don’t think I could do something like that.”

“Sure you could.”

“Do you also have a bridge to sell me? Manehattan, cheap?”

Dash leaned over the table a little. “No, really, you could. Bucketheads don’t have any peripheral vision. The mind control doesn’t let them, even if the helmets allow it. It’s great for armies, but that kind of generalized mind control just gets you all sorts of trouble in individuals.”

Thunderlane thought on that for a while, staring into his empty soup bowl and flicking his tail. Eventually, he looked up and asked, “So is that a yes or no on the bridge?”

“That’s a no, but just for you.” Dash glanced away from the camp, over towards the Crystal Palace. A dark gray shield, Sombra’s last defense, pulsed over it. She couldn’t see its base, but she knew the shield extended over the whole of the Crystal Empire. Most unicorns didn’t want to get near it; they complained of headaches and an unnatural chill in their bones. It was strong, withstanding most assaults, but it wouldn’t last forever. Sometimes, when the unicorns hit especially hard, it’d collapse. But it always went back up in a few seconds. Sombra was a persistent bastard. “So. How long ‘til you think we’re in there?” She nodded at the Palace. “I’m guessing week and a half, max.”

“Really? More than a week?” asked Thunderlane. “I’m saying five or six days. Sombra’s gonna collapse eventually.”

“He can swap off with his generals. After all, they’re all in there, and he’s still got, what, four left? Five?”

“Five or six, I think,” said Thunderlane. He tapped his hooves on the table to count. “But you think he’ll withstand our siege that long? Seriously, Celestia herself is coming to help us tomorrow. You know, the alicorn who moves the sun and moon on her own.”

“Sombra’s not going to go down easy. He’ll probably do his best to keep it up just to spite us.”

“What makes you say that?”

Dash shrugged. “It’s what I’d do.”

“Yeah, but you’re Rainbow Dash. He’s Sombra. Or are you saying there’s no difference between him and you?”

“There might not be…” Dash said with a grin.

Thunderlane placed a hoof in front of his mouth and muffled his voice. “*khhkt* Over. Code red. We have a code red. Rainbow Dash is actually Sombra. Also, changelings are zombie Luna’s foals, applesauce comes from sauce made of liquefied Apple family members, Blueblood is an earth pony wearing an ice cream cone for a hat, and Captain Armor isn’t an extremely sexy stallion. *khhkt* Over.”

Dash chuckled. “You should meet Pinkamena Pie sometime. You’d get along great.”

“Who’s she?”

“The pink one in the hospital tent all the time? Crazy upbeat? Tells jokes so bad you can’t help but laugh at them? Baker?”

“Right,” said Thunderlane with a nod. “That one. Yeah, I can see that. You know her?”

“Yeah. A few months ago, she-”

Somepony tapped her on the shoulder. Dash swiveled around. A pegasus decked in the uniform of a courier was standing behind her, looking nervous. “Excuse me,” the courier said. “Rainbow Dash?”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

“There’s an envoy here from Sombra. A general. They specifically asked for you.”