The next day, I got up early, made a quick breakfast, and immediately went to the stakeout tree. I’d chosen to go with the camo athletic outfit to help me blend in with the forest a bit, and with things being unusually warm, it was also quite comfortable to wear.

While I was watching and waiting for Rarity to come out, I realized that the camo athletic outfit likely wasn’t the best choice for being stealthy in the Everfree. It may have covered some of my legs and most of my chest, but it also left my arms, midriff, and most of my legs visible, not to mention my golden hair and the Ember Celica. I wanted to go back home and change to something that covered more of me, but I couldn’t since Rarity could potentially leave while I was gone.

As the minutes turned into hours, I began to worry less about my visibility, as multiple ponies went past the tree without seeming to notice me. The peytral wearing ones seemed especially oblivious, or they just didn’t know how to look up.

Eventually, one pony did join me. “Heya Yang.” It was Rainbow. “What’s up?”

I kept my gaze on the boutique. “I’m waiting for Rarity to come out so I can find out where she’s getting the peytrals from.”

“Ah, those things. I’ve had to put in some serious overtime because of those things. I only see somepony in the sky with one for, like, a day before they glide down to the ground and stay there. The few weather pegasi I have left are just as overworked and tired as I am. At least I’m done for the day now.”

“You? Tired?”

“Hey, as awesome as I am, it can happen. Still, with the limited wings I’ve got now, we’ve had to start prioritizing certain parts of Ponyville. The farms are at the top of that list, and we haven’t been able to do much more than that.”

“Well, I’m not complaining about the warm temperatures.”

“Because that’s impossible,” Rainbow snarked.

“Yeah, I guess that’s true. Oh, shh shh.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rainbow look the same way I was. Moments later, Rarity came out of the boutique, moving just as mechanically and looking as glassy eyed as others with the peytrals were. She walked around to the side of the boutique, hooked herself up to an empty cart, and began walking in the direction of the tree Rainbow and I were in.

As Rarity approached the area, clearly going on a path a distance from the tree, Rainbow whispered “What now, Yang?”

I watched Rarity pass by before jumping out. “I’ll follow on foot. You follow from above.” Before Rainbow had any chance to protest, I dashed along after the fashionista. After catching up to her, it was easy enough to just walk behind her. She didn’t seem to notice my presence, not even turning her ears in my direction.

It didn’t take long to get into the Everfree. Rarity stayed on a well used path, going deeper and deeper until the path turned into a more recently made one, if the bits of beaten greenery in the path were any indicator.

As she continued along the new path, I took to the trees with a single leap and leapt from branch to branch. I was fairly confident in the decision to go that way partly due to how close the branches were to each other, making leaps fairly easy.

Eventually, Rarity came to a stop at an equinoid rock formation. It looked kind of like an alicorn, though there appeared to be major damage to what was left of the horn, the wings looked more like they were jammed up than broken, and there was more damage around where the leg joints were, exposing various pistons, cables, and other mechanical parts. The whole thing looked like it was about 30 feet tall or so at the head, which had three parallel glowing blue lines on each side of the head, running from the base of the ear to where the eyes would be, then down to the side of the muzzle. Unlike a minor rock formation next to it, there were no signs of any plants growing on or in it.

Rarity turned around and backed the cart up to it, and to my surprise, the rock formation lifted up a foreleg before dropping a number of peytrals, all neatly lined up, into the cart. After the foreleg was back on the ground, a burst of what looked like steam came from all the damaged joints. As soon as the blue lines on the head faded and turned off, Rarity started leaving.

Part of me wanted to go ahead and punch the thing, but at the same time, I knew that I had no idea where in the forest I was, and Rarity was my only immediate lead out. After taking one last look at the equinoid thing, I turned around and followed Rarity.

Along the way, Rainbow came down and whisper shouted, “Yang, what was that thing?”

I kept going after Rarity. “Later,” I responded in a normal whisper. We kept following Rarity along the path in silence for a bit. After the newer path met up with the well worn one, I turned back to Rainbow. “Hey, we need to grab one of those things.”

“Why?”

“So Twilight can analyze one.” I started moving again and explained what I had in mind. “I have a plan to knock Rarity out so we can grab one or two of them. You drop in from the side and start up as much of a conversation as you can. I’ll come in from the other side and-”

“Got ‘em for ya.” Rainbow was holding two of the peytrals in her forelegs.

“I’ll bonk. . Her. . . Head.” I looked between Rainbow and the peytrals for a second. “You know, it was a stupid plan anyways. I couldn’t hurt her like that.”

“No, you couldn’t. So, are we done here?”

I considered things for a moment. “Yeah, I guess we are. Can I have the peytrals?”

“Sure.” Rainbow let me take the peytrals. “Need a ride to the castle?”

I considered the offer for a few seconds before shrugging. “Eh, I won’t say no.” After I adjusted my grip on the peytrals, I eased my way onto Rainbow’s back. After we broke through the treetops, she oriented herself and started casually flying towards the castle. “You know, this is still weird for me.”

“It’s not that weird for me. I’ve given Scoots plenty of rides on my back before, so I’m cool with it. You are heavier than her though, and you also make more wind resistance with the way you sit up like that.”

I considered Rainbow’s points for a moment. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Anyways, how do you want to make your entrance to the castle? Do you want me to just drop you off at the entrance or one of the balconies?”

“That sounds good to me.”

“Which one?”

“Any of them.” Soon, we were circling around the castle. “Wait a moment, Rainbow.”

Rainbow came to a stop. “What?”

“There’s a noble petitioning Twilight.” The unicorn mare had gold fur, a well groomed silver mane, and bronze eyes. Her dress covered up her tail and cutie mark though. I still recognized her as one of the 28 that hated me

“Dramatic entrance?”

“Normally, I’d say no, but I’m feeling a bit vengeful for some reason. Those nobles are a bigger pain than my fights.”

Rainbow and I started making plans after moving out of sight of the courtroom.

Getting bucked through a window, while not the worst thing my aura had taken by far, was still not pleasant.

“And don’t you ever forget it, Yang!” Rainbow flew off as I got up and ran to the window, still clutching the peytrals.

“I said I was sorry!” I called out after the ‘fleeing’ Rainbow Dash, who was on a nearby balcony. “Come on, please?” After waiting a few seconds, I ‘gave up’ with a sigh and turned around. “Oh, hello. Sorry for the interruption. Just a quarrel between friends.”

“What about?” the gold mare asked, sounding more inquisitive than a casual observer would be.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” Technically, it was true.

“Yang, what’s going on?” Twilight asked. “Lady Gold Leaf was making a case for orphanage funding increases.”

“Ah. I do apologize, but I think you need to see this.” I held up the peytrals I’d gotten for her. “And I have information.”

“Ooh, those look nice,” Gold leaf almost sang.

“No, you can’t have one of them,” Twilight said. “And no, you can’t have both of them either. I asked Yang to retrieve them for me, and as such, they are property of the crown. If you really want one, you can go to Carousel Boutique.” She turned her attention to me. “Yang, please take those peytrals to one of the conference rooms. I will be with you as soon as I can.”

“Alright.” As I left the room, I could hear Twilight muttering something as she fixed the broken glass with her magic before continuing with Gold Leaf.

I went into the same conference room I’d gone into the previous day with Twilight. Rainbow was already there, sitting in one of the chairs like a boss. “How did it go?”

“Gold Leaf wanted one of these peytrals. Maybe both.” I tossed them onto the table. “Apparently, she was making a case to increase orphanage funding.”

“As usual.”

“As usual?” I took a seat and let Rainbow talk.

“Yeah. She’s all about orphanages and helping foals. Supposedly.” The tone of Rainbow’s voice made it clear that wasn’t true.

“She isn’t, is she?”

“She’s about as interested in helping foals as I am in fashion.”

“So, not at all?”

“No, not that little interest. My fashion interest is more of an, oh, how do I put this?” Rainbow tapped her head in thought for a bit. “Observational thing? I’m interested in it, but only from the outside looking in or something like that.”

“Ah, I get what you’re saying. So, she likes to watch foals?”

“No, not at all. She sees them more as a means to her wealth. Everypony knows it. I know it, the nobles know it, and everypony who’s read a few stories about her knows it. I bet you never had to deal with anyone like that where you’re from.”

“Personally, no. That being said, I’ve heard of politicians and others who aim for bigger and far worse things than making themselves wealthy.”

“Like what?”

I was about to answer when Twilight came in. “Sorry that took so long. Gold Leaf started ranting about you towards the end, Yang. Oh, hi Rainbow. Did you and Yang sort out whatever issues you had?”

“Oh yeah, we’re cool now,” Rainbow said, sounding very chill.

“That’s good. So, you have information?”

I began the recollection. “Rarity went into the Everfree with a cart. Rainbow and I followed her in and she went down a well worn path before turning onto a new path. She stopped at this really tall, damaged stone robot pony thing. Its legs were damaged in multiple places, the wings looked like they wouldn’t work, the horn was damaged, and it had these blue lines along its face like this.” I traced the lines along Rainbow’s head for Twilight, who was writing down some notes. “It held a forehoof over Rarity’s cart and dumped the peytrals in there.”

“Mhmm. And I’m going to guess Rainbow snagged these for you?”

“Easily,” Rainbow boasted.

“Yeah, she did,” I concurred. I decided not to tell Twilight about my plan to knock Rarity out. “So, what now?”

“I’ll do a basic scan on one of these,” Twilight said. She picked up one of the peytrals with her magic and appeared to just be looking at it intensely. After a couple minutes, she set it down. “There’s a number of high power enchantments on this thing, most of which are only activated when it’s being worn.”

“Really?”

“The one that isn’t activated when worn is a simple durability enchantment. However, there’s almost enough power in it to be able to withstand one of Yang’s rainnuke shells.”

“That’s tough,” Rainbow commented. “What else is in there?”

“The other enchantments include high power adhesion, comfort, lightening, minor forgetfulness, limited mind reading, and a faulty slow acting mind control enchantment.”

“Faulty?” I was rather curious about that, as it seemed to work fine on those who wore it.

“The matrices in that enchantment are partially incomplete. To be more specific, the matrices for flight and spell casting are barely there, the basic locomotion matrix is missing some critical components, and the ones for behavior control, while there, are degraded to the point of being effectively useless.”

“Translation from egghead, please?” Rainbow asked.

“It can’t make pegasi fly and it can’t make unicorns cast spells, the rigid legs and stilted walking are the only way it can make ponies move, and it can only make ponies act like incredibly bad caricatures at best.”

“Anything else in there?”

“Let’s see, there’s a release component, but it apparently needs a specific signal.”

“Can you mimic the signal or figure out what it is?”

“One moment.” Twilight picked up the peytral in her magic again and inspected it the same way she had previously.

“Think she’ll find anything?” Rainbow asked.

“I hope she does” I answered.

A minute later, Twilight set the peytral back down. “There is a way to unlock the peytrals, but it needs a two part signal, and both have to be received at the exact same time.”

“Can you do it?”

Twilight sighed. “Unfortunately, no. Aside from the difficulty of sending two signals at once, only one of them is magical. The other isn’t magical, so I can’t trick it at all. On top of that, that’s all my scans have been able to reveal about that. No frequencies, patterns, or duration hints at all.

“There was something I was able to pick out that was interesting though: a number, likely some kind of identification. The number on this one is 0007734.” Twilight picked up the other one and did her scans on it. “This one is identical in every way, except its number is 8675309. The numbers are, I presume, randomized since these two were from the same batch and are that different from each other.”

“They were right next to each other in the cart,” Rainbow added.

“Definitely random. I can pick out something else in there, but it’s behind that double password thing, and I can’t make it out.”

“So where does that leave us?” I asked. “Is there anything we can do?”

“No, there isn’t. Short of going out and fighting that thing you saw, anyways. That being said, we shouldn’t just rush out there since I can’t discern what those things are behind the dual signal barrier. For all we know, it could be a death spell.”

“Are you just saying we do nothing?” Rainbow nearly shouted.

“No, we can do something. We can use the local newspaper to spread news about what we’ve learned about the peytrals and advise everypony not to get one. If that thing wants to control the populace so badly, then we can lure it out by preventing anypony else from becoming a victim to it.”

“That sounds good. What about the weather though? There are some showers that are supposed to happen in the next week and I don’t have enough wings to make it happen.”

“I can send a letter out to Celestia and Luna requesting weather aid and explaining what’s happening with the peytrals.”

“Do it,” I firmly and quickly said. “In fact, why haven’t Celestia and Luna been informed yet?”

“Last time I jumped to a conclusion, it didn’t exactly end well. I haven’t really been able to ask about anything either, since there’s been an increase in petitioners recently as well. But, now that I have a better idea of what’s happening, I can send the letter with full confidence in its contents.”

“How about all three of us sign it? It would add some weight to the message.”

“Good idea. Let’s write.” With a burst of magic, a scroll, inkwell, and quill were suddenly in Twilight’s magic.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I have recently learned of something terrible happening in Ponyville, and it’s not the usual wackiness either. If anything, there’s been a relative lack of wackiness, as the ponies of Ponyville have started wearing identical stone peytrals and have been moving mechanically, like puppets. Pegasi and unicorns, however, don’t fly or cast spells; this will be explained further down.

Thanks to a joint effort between Yang and Rainbow Dash, we were able to grab two of the peytrals and analyze them. What we found was surprising, as, save for an identification number, the two peytrals are completely identical. The enchantments in them are worrisome though. The enchantments include high level durability and adhesion, selective forgetfulness, comfort, lightening, minor mind reading, and faulty mind control. It is the faulty mind control that makes the ponies wearing them move mechanically, and keeps the pegasi and unicorns from flying and casting respectively.

We also found a dual password lock in place in it. However, we can’t get past it, because it’s both inactive due to not being worn, and one of the passcodes is strictly non-magical. On top of that, both passwords have to be used at the same time.

Stemming from the problems with the peytrals is another one that’s struck Ponyville: the weather. A significant portion of the Ponyville weather team under Rainbow has the peytrals on, and have been unable to perform their jobs due to the bad mind control they’re under the effects of. We need any weather pegasi you can spare, especially ones that can already work well as teams.

If you have any insights on this, please let us know.

Sincerely,
-Twilight Sparkle
-Rainbow Dash
-Yang Xiao Long

Once the letter was sent off, I spared a glance to the balled up drafts that had been discarded in the corner. Twilight cleaned them up in a flash by teleporting them to somewhere else. “So, I guess we just wait then?” I asked.

“There isn’t much else we really can do right now” Twilight said. “Who wants to play some War Time Strategy?”

“Sounds good to me. Rainbow?”

“Sure, but-” Rainbow’s stomach loudly made itself known that it was empty at that moment. “-yeah, that. I’m hungry.”

Twilight’s stomach joined in. “Same here. What sounds good to you?”

“Carne Den.”

“That does sound good.”

I looked between the two mares. “Okay, I’ll cook something for us at my place. Let’s walk and talk.”

As soon as we got to the Carne Den, I sent Twilight and Rainbow upstairs to my room while I went straight to the kitchen to start on their meals. “How have things been today, Gavan?” I asked the head chef as I started going through the familiar motions of cooking.

“Extremely slow” Gavan reported while I started cutting vegetables. “Sylvia and I have actually sent some of the staff home early, it’s so slow.”

“That’s a first.”

“We’re pretty sure it has to do with the peytrals.”

“Same here.” During the walk over, Rainbow, Twilight, and I had decided to keep quiet on the peytral research until Celestia and Luna gave their input and opinions. “If it’s slow enough, you can close early tonight. Eleven at the earliest, maybe ten-thirty if it’s really, really slow. Let Gilda and Sylvia know.”

“I’ll get on it right away.” Gavan left the kitchen and I was left alone with nobody but Silver.

“So, Silver,” I started as I got some meat started. “You’ve really gotten used to meat, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, I have” Silver said as he stood by while I cooked. “It’s still not something I’d go for immediately, but I do like it on occasion.”

“What meat do you usually go for when you do?”

“Grilled chicken breast fillet. Usually, I cut it up and mix it into a salad. Nothing special, really, although it isn’t the one from the menu.”

“Funny you should mention that. I was going to make that for myself, but now I’m curious about how yours tastes. I’m guessing it doesn’t have any grass or flowers in it?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Care to whip one up for me?”

“Sure thing.” Silver set to work immediately on a salad as per my polite request and I was able to focus more on Rainbow and Twilight’s meals. I could have made all three, but Silver’s non-menu version sounded like it would be interesting to try at the least.

I went into my room carrying all three meals. Twilight and Rainbow were sitting on the floor over a game of War Time Strategy, not too far in and with a side already set up for me. “Food’s here!”

“Sweet!” Rainbow dashed over and got her bacon cheeseburger, loaded with all the garnishes and a drizzle of barbecue sauce with a side of fries.

“Thanks, Yang.” Twilight levitated her regular loaded baked potato and side salad over to her.

“You’re welcome.” I sat down at my side of the game board and looked things over. Nobody had made any advances, but my forces weren’t built up at all. I still had a decent chance of winning.

Our meals were half done (Silver’s salad was pretty good) when a scroll appeared in front of Twilight and fell onto the game board, lightly messing up the positions of the pieces. After a moment of us staring at it, Twilight said, “Let’s call it a heavenly geologic event that messed up the field.”

“Okay,” Rainbow and I said at the same time. “What’s it say?” I asked.

Twilight picked up the scroll, slightly messing up mine and Rainbow’s forces a bit more, then read it out loud. “Dear Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, and Yang Xiao Long: We are coming over. We’re going to teleport over as soon as you let us know where to teleport to. From, Celestia and Luna.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“It is a lot shorter than usual. It has to be urgent. I’ll let them know where we are.” Twilight quickly wrote down where we were and sent the scroll back to Celestia and Luna.

Seconds later, the diarchs teleported in. Luna appeared next to my bed while Celestia apparently misjudged her teleport and appeared a few inches above the game board. When she landed, the impact scattered both mine and Rainbow’s forces while Twilight’s, somehow, stayed mostly together.

Rainbow and I levelled equally harsh glares of disapprovement at Twilight, who just gave a sheepish smile. “Uh, call it divine intervention?”

“We’re so teaming up against you next time,” Rainbow said.

“On to more important matters,” Luna interjected, casting a privacy spell on the room. “It took us some time to recall, but we think we might know what your problem is. First though, your letter seemed a bit short on details. Where are these peytrals coming from?”

I promptly answered. “Rarity’s been giving them out, and she gets them from a big stone pony thing in the Everfree. It looks like it took quite a beating at some point though. Damage at the leg joints, damaged horn, and the wings looked more jammed up than broken. It also had these sets of glowing blue lines going down its face instead of eyes.”

Celestia and Luna looked at each other for a bit before Celestia spoke. “That sounds like a machine from an age long past. I suppose it’s time for a history lesson, isn’t it?”

“History lesson?” Rainbow asked with a hint of dread in her voice.

“Be assured, Rainbow Dash, that you may learn things here that you may consider awesome,” Luna said. “Celestia knows what I did during that era.”

All eyes turned to Celestia, and she spoke. “Thousands of years ago, long before the time of the Three Tribes, there were ponies. Unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies, and the two of us. During this time, Equestria was a technological marvel. If there was a task, there was a machine to make it easier or just do it for you. Machines, like what you seem to have seen, took many of the more tedious and less pleasant tasks.”

Luna took over. “Back then, we moved the sun and moon as we do now, but we were also more free to do what we wanted. Celestia was quite the party mare, and I liked to tinker with things. The golems all had their roots in my work, some more closely than others.”

“So what happened?” Twilight asked.

“Something went wrong,” I predicted.

“Many things started to go wrong,” Luna continued. “Systems which had worked and been diligently maintained for over a century started breaking down for some reason. We had to start fighting the machines that started attacking our ponies.”

“There was one that put up quite a bit more of a fight than the others,” Celestia said. “It was fighting like its existence depended on it, which wasn’t far off. It got to the point where I decided to just end the fight and sealed it away.”

“The fight destroyed most of what was left of the area, and left a few deep gouges in the ground. The only thing to survive, aside from Celestia and I, was a few stairs.”

“The ones near the rope bridge to the Castle of You Two?” Pinkie asked.

“The same, though we did touch them up a bit when we got back. We even went down them one day for a walk, and that was when we found a crack in the wall and investigated. Imagine our surprise when we found out that the tree of harmony was basically living in our basement.”

Celestia picked it back up. “Discord apparently knew about the tree and elements, but he either couldn’t or didn’t do anything about them. I’m sure you can figure out the major events that happened from there on.”

Silence hung in the air for a bit before Rainbow broke it. “So, ponies used to be masters of technology?”

“Essentially, yes.”

“. . .I’ve got so many ideas now.”

“Write them down,” Twilight suggested. “Who knows, you could maybe even write a book with those elements.”

“Write a book? Come on Twi, you know that’s not my speed.”

“What if you come up with a pen name? Like, oh, say, Iris Drake?”

Rainbow levelled a glare at Twilight. “You’re really trying to get me to write something, aren’t you?”

“Ever since you got hooked on Daring Do. And, come to think of it, I haven’t seen any fiction books here with a technological theme to them. In fact, Celestia, why haven’t I seen or heard anything about this period of history before? Is it deep in the restricted halls? Is there some kind of vault you haven’t told me about?”

“The few books that there are on that time period are available to the public in the Canterlot Library,” Celestia answered. “It’s simply that nopony actually bothers to check them out or read them.”

“Wait, wait, I do remember reading about something like that now. I thought it was just misplaced fiction, but you’re telling me it was real?”

“I don’t know which books you read, but it could have been, yes.”

“I believe we are getting off topic” Luna interjected. “As interesting as the past may be, we have to deal with this rogue warden golem now. We need a strategy.”

“Well, I have figured that, if it’s trying to spread the peytrals to as many ponies as it can, then we can lure it out by informing and advising everypony not to get one,” Twilight said. “Yang, you’re from a technologic place, right?”

“Nothing like what was described, but yeah,” I answered.

“How would a story like this go?”

I thought back to the many pieces of media on technologic futures and such I’d seen in one form or another. “Let’s see, rogue machine seeking to control the populace, or just something seeking control. The best way to do that is to damage those it’s seeking to control, get its attention that way.”

“But it probably knows that anything we do won’t be serious, as we want our friends to be okay and would have trouble hurting them.”

“Yeah, that is a problem. The next thing we can do, since we know where it is, is to go after it directly.”

“I know where it is” Rainbow said. “It’s not hard to see the thing from the air, after all.”

“There’s nothing stopping it from bringing the controlled populace into the forest to complicate things though,” Luna said. “What we need is some way to corral everypony and keep them away from the fight.”

Twilight thought the idea over a bit. “Doing that could also be just what we need to lure it out. If it can’t move its victims around, then it would have to come out to free them. But with how many there are, it could just coordinate and break through by force.”

“We can magically reinforce whatever barrier we use for the corral as well” Celestia said. “With a combination of good engineering and reinforcement and durability enchantments, it will hold.”

“I can help Applejack build it,” I offered. “I’m perfect for that since I can withstand the warmer temperatures easily.”

“Since this is a crisis, even though it’s a quiet one, I can allot emergency crown funds for this project. I just have to convince the treasury, which shouldn’t be too hard.”

“If we do that and spread the word via the newspaper, then we should be able to lure it out easily enough” Twilight added.

“Ooh, we could get that golem thing out faster by knocking Rarity out and confiscating the peytrals!” Rainbow suggested. I gave her a look and shook my head.

“I’ve been thinking about how to word the newspaper article for a bit, and I think I have a good first draft in mind. I should have it out tomorrow, or in a couple days at the latest. I’ll also get Applejack up to speed on what’s going on and what we need done. After that, we can start the roundup and get this golem out in the open and, if negotiations don’t work, we fight it.”

“How long is that going to take?”

“If I start my part of the plan as soon as we’re done here, I could get the notice out in the paper tomorrow. If Celestia convinces the treasury to allocate funds tonight, then we can get started tomorrow on construction. Even if it’s just Yang and Applejack working on it, depending on the design, it should be done on the day they start, possibly a couple days later at the most. Celestia, Luna, what do you think?”

The Canterlot alicorns had a distant look for just a moment. “I think it’s time to raise the moon and lower the sun, sister” Luna said.

“So it is” Celestia agreed. As their horns lit up, I could feel the raw power they had fill the room. It only lasted a few seconds, but when it ended, I found myself taking a few deep breaths, like I’d just gotten off an intense roller coaster. “Twilight, I believe there is one thing that Luna and I must take care of before we return to Canterlot.”

“There is, sister?”

“It’s time for dinner.”

Luna turned to me. “Yang, would you be so kind as to make dinner for us?”

I raised an eyebrow, not sure whether to charge them as guests or host them as friends. A glance at the ruined game board gave me an idea. “Sure, but you’ll have to play a game of War Time Strategy. Twilight nuked the last game.”

“Yeah, she did” Rainbow concurred. “Dropping an alicorn on the gameboard isn’t in the rules. Yang, let’s team up.”

“Then the three of us will team up” Celestia said. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Heck yeah!”

“Luna, Celestia, what do you want for supper?” I asked, ready to finally relax, even if only for a bit.

“Twilight?”

“Yes, Celestia?”

“How did the three of us lose to those two? We had the number and terrain advantages.”

“It’s rather simple, Princess” Rainbow said, clearly full of pride, more so than I was. “Humans, while rather squishy in the game, are just awesome.”

“That last battle in Neighenna was the real turning point though,” I pointed out. “From the top of the mountain, it was clear that humans lacked the speed to arrive in time, and the pegasi lacked the armaments to fight.”

“But together, they became so much better. The speed of the pegasi gliding down the mountainside and the gear that the humans had moving at those speeds was awesome! I can just imagine it now.”

Celestia gave Twilight a pointed look. “You made the human species for this game yourself, right?”

“It’s balanced on paper, and has gone through a few changes to what Yang played as tonight,” Twilight said in defense. “If it’s any consolation, we did still take out a significant amount of their forces before going down, so we at least brought their victory down to a pyrrhic one.”

“But a loss is a loss, you three” I pointed out. “And we did make bets, after all.”

Luna sighed. “I guess I’ll go do dishes for the night.” She picked up the dishes that were in the room with her magic and left to go take care of them and any others from regular business.

Twilight sighed. “I guess I’ll go forgive all your late fees, Rainbow.” With a flash, she teleported out of the room.

Celestia sighed. “Here’s a thousand bits, from my own money.” With a flash, she teleported out of the room, leaving two bags of bits behind.

As Rainbow and I counted out the bits, I found myself wishing that there were five bit coins available, and berating myself for yet again missing a chance to bring it up with the Princesses.

“I’m glad I don’t have to wear a maid outfit for a day now” Rainbow said during the counting.

“Same here,” I said. “I still don’t really like wearing dresses, or anything with a skirt, really. A maid outfit would make me really uncomfortable.” I suddenly remembered something. “Oh, we need to collect from Twilight for bringing the peytrals to her for study.”

“We can do that tomorrow. I think I’ll just take my bits and go home for the night.”

“Good night then, Rainbow.”

“G’night, Yang.” Rainbow picked up her bag, opened the window, and flew off into the dark.

After I picked up the game and put it back in its box, I changed out of my camo athletic clothes and into my robe. With everything that had happened, I decided to call it an early night.

Author's Notes:

And with that, this arc is halfway done.

On a scale of 'A mile away' to 'Spanish inquisition', how much of the revealed past did you see coming? I'm going to bet it's going to lean more towards the Spanish inquisition side.