Far on the periphery of Alliance space, the blockade of enemy alien ships started to weaken. One by one they pulled away, their formations continually readjusting to become thinner and thinner until nearly none were left. Rather than squander this boon, the Alliance vessels on the other side began to move forward, penetrating the neutral zone and expanding Alliance territory into the areas where the blockade had become the weakest. None of these were especially strategic locations, but for the Alliance, any territory expansion was tactically positive. In the process, though, their own defensive perimeter began to disperse and become increasingly disorganized.

Their fortune did not last long. Alliance long-range telescopes quickly began to sound warnings throughout the border, indicating that something was approaching- -and approaching fast. The various humans manning the post were initially confused, wondering how something so big could be moving so fast, and where it had come from, aside from the darkspace that sat just beyond the Sol system.

Knowing what was going on at the Citadel, the alarm was sounded throughout the fleet that a Reaper invasion may be imminent. By the time this information got to the various ships, though, it was too late. The Crimson Horizon did not even slow as it crossed their borders, obliterating several battleships unfortunate enough to be caught in its path.

The remaining ships were far too slow to keep up with it until it slowed down at the border of the Sol system. As it did, Sunset Shimmer stood in the emptiness of the bridge, her drones surrounding her as they jockeyed for interface positions on the curved walls and ceiling.

As anticipated, the Alliance ships took offense to her presence. They attacked. Sunset Shimmer watched violently as their projectiles impacted her dimensional shield. She felt every blow, but compared to the Reapers, they were nothing more than dull, distant thuds on the outside of her shell.

“Why?” she asked, knowing that no one apart from herself would hear. “Why would you even bother?”

She raised her hand, and closed her fist. A wave of biotic energy poured out from the Crimson Horizon in every direction. The smallest of the ships attempted to avoid it, but none succeeded. On impact, the Alliance ships were knocked back and their surfaces erupted in powerful but silent explosions as their primitive mass cores detonated.

“So primitive,” said Sunset Shimmer as she pushed the Crimson Horizon forward, crushing the insignificant and disabled starships in her path. “You have not even begun to evolve.”

Her guns erupted, eliminating the stragglers who were still desperately trying to regroup. Slowly, Sunset Shimmer turned around and walked to her chair. She sat down, propping her chin on her hand as she watched the planet called Earth approach.

It was not a pretty world, and Sunset could not fathom why Starswirl had chosen this obscure and pointless rock. Still, she knew it was the correct location. The response of the Key of Korviliath confirmed it as it slowly vibrated, as if trying to draw nearer to the machine that it was a part of.

Sunset lowed, taking up orbit in the upper atmosphere. With a sudden surge of energy, she pulled apart the planet’s debris field, only to retract it around herself, reconstructing and molding it into a spherical outer shell. As she did, an especially large orbiting satellite came into her peripheral perception: a sphereoid the size of a small planet with a long extension pointing downward from its body.

Upon seeing it, Sunset smiled. “Yes,” she said. “That will do nicely.”

She reached out and began to pull the Crucible toward herself, allowing it to pass through her shields. The Crimson Horizon shifted as it approached, folding open and extending its internal components to interface- -and to allow the drones inside to eliminate anything alive onboard that might interfere.

Sunset Shimmer shivered as it connected to her body, and in her central computer opened the schematic she had taken from the Citadel. “Oh yes,” she said. “This WILL do…”

Completing the connection between the Crucible and her body in its entirety would take time, even with the schematics. That was acceptable, and at the same time agonizing. Sunset was so close. She wanted so desperately to complete her mission, but at the same time knew that every step in her plan needed to be perfect in execution.

So, as she began construction, she directed her attention toward the planet below. It only took a moment of scanning before she found the signal. It was weak, and detecting it would have been possible without the resonance of the Key, even for her- -but it was there.

Sunset took a breath, and her gravity centrifuges began to hum to life. She smiled.

“Let’s pop the cork.”

At approximately the time Sunset Shimmer and the Crimson Horizon had entered the periphery of the Sol system, Starlight was walking through the upper floor of the Planetary Defense compound. She was nervous, and even afraid. It was a combination of emotions that she was all-too familiar with, but one that she had not felt in a long time. It had been how she had felt when she was weak and new to the world- -and despite everything she had sacrificed for her strength, she knew that compared to Sunset Shimmer, she was small and weak once again. For now.

As she paced, though, she eventually noticed that Flurry Heart was standing on the far end of the same level, staring out a dirty window. At first, Starlight did not want to approach her. She was too busy mentally preparing herself for what she would need to do- -but after several more passes, she realized that something was wrong.

Even then, Starlight contemplated going back downstairs to talk to Jack or Maria or to make sure that Zedok was recovering as well as the latter claimed, but instead she found herself walking to the filly’s side.

At first, she said nothing. They just looked out at the view together. It was hardly scenic. From the upper level of the compound, it was possible to see the thick outer wall that secured the base. Beyond that, it appeared that there had once bene a city. It had since been flattened almost completely, save for a few corroding fragments of buildings that had somehow managed to remain standing as a ghostly reminder of whatever civilization had once existed there. The road- -which had at one time been paved- -was clear of rubble but marked by two long, thick tiretracks made by the precinct’s beat up mako. Bordering it were several above-ground pipelines that followed the road for its duration to the factories beyond. In the distance, Starlight watched a wendigo pull a piece from a battered and rusted tank. It paused and looked at to them as though it was cognizant of their presence, and then scampered into the shadows on all fours with the component in its mouth.

“It isn’t supposed to be like this,” said Flurry Heart at last.

“What isn’t?” asked Starlight.

“War,” said Flurry Heart. “I don’t understand. Everything…everything is dead.”

“That’s what war does.”

“No,” said Flurry Heart, shaking her head angrily. “You don’t understand. War is supposed to be glorious, epic, the sort of thing we sing songs about. With Heroes like Sunburst slaying the evil enemies and protecting the righteous Empire. You take a planet, and conquer it, and then return home to parades and cheering. But this…”

“This is what it looks like from below, I guess,” said Starlight.

“But how? What happened to do this? Something…something must have gone wrong. They couldn’t have done it right. They must have failed somewhere.”

“That’s not how it works,” said Starlight. “I wasn’t there, but Jack was. From what she says, the Reapers came to kill. That’s it. They wanted everyone dead. Nobody could stop them, not at first. They tried, and barely made it out alive. So many planets ended up like this one.”

“Then the Reapers…were they good?”

“No.”

“They were evil, then?”

“No. They were just Reapers.”

“But that doesn’t make SENSE!” snapped Flurry Heart, stamping her foot into the ground. “It just doesn’t…”

“Do you want to hear a story?” asked Starlight.

“A story?” Flurry Heart seemed confused. “What kind of story?”

“One Jack told me. About when she was a lot younger.” Starlight pointed. “She fought in that War, you know.”

“She did?”

Starlight nodded. “But before that, she was a teacher.”

“Her? She doesn’t seem like that type.”

“Well, there was a time when she was a lot less mean. She was training biotics. What you would call wizards. Teaching them how to use their abilities. They weren’t much older than you, actually.”

“You mean like the way Sunburst taught me?”

Starlight nodded.

“But then…where are they now?”

“Dead,” said Starlight. “They died in the War. There were so few humans left that they sent children to fight on the front lines. The Reapers killed them, and she watched them die. There was nothing she could do to stop it.”

“That…that’s terrible! Why would you tell me a story like that?”

“I can do one better,” said Chrysalis, approaching from Flurry Heart’s other side. She was still maintaining a child version of Jack’s form, and barely stood as tall as Starlight’s head. “Tell me, child, have you ever seen the changeling homeworld?”

“No,” admitted Flurry Heart. “Sunburst never let me go that far into that sector.”

“And he had good reason to.” Chrysalis put her hand on the window. “It looks a lot like this. Or nearly so. Except there is no destruction. A hive built for billions of changelings, and it’s all empty. All silent. No motion, no life. Just an empty planet.”

“What…what happened?”

“War. No…you couldn’t even call it that. More like slaughter. You were not born yet. You would not remember the events, but I do. I can’t ever forget.”

“It was Cadence, wasn’t it?” said Starlight.

Chrysalis nodded, and then shook her head. “No. Cadence was the instrument of our doom, but I cannot lie. The cause was mine and mine alone. I attempted to gain power through subterfuge and deception, and I challenged a god. I failed, and for my crimes, she exterminated my people.”

“No,” said Flurry Heart. “That’s not possible. There’s no record of a war- -”

“Because there wasn’t one. There was no time. No ships, no bombing, no weapons. They just died. All at once. The entire planet. I watched my children fall. They just…dropped. And then, like that, I was alone. Alone on a planet with billions upon billions of my dead children.”

“But- -you were evil. You brought that upon yourself by betraying my Mother.”

“I did,” said Chrysalis. “But did they?”

Flurry Heart’s eyes widened as she realized what Chrysalis meant and the magnitude of the genocide dawned on her. She suddenly seemed on the verge of tears.

“That is what Sunburst meant. Why he didn’t want you to become a soldier,” said Starlight. “He was trying to warn you. Because if you become like him, you will have to make decisions. Hard ones, the kind that end a lot of lives. And he didn’t want to force that life onto you.”

“She is correct,” said Chrysalis. “If you intend to enter a war, you need to be prepared for the consequences, and be prepared to lose so much of what you love.”

Chrysalis seemed to be addressing her warning to Flurry Heart, but instead she was looking directly into Starlight’s eyes.

One level down, Jack and James were sitting at a makeshift bar in a largely empty cafeteria. It was not a large room, but the size of it seemed to indicate that the facility was intended to have a much larger human population. As far as Jack could tell, though, the only human present was James, which resulted in most of the tables being covered in a thin layer of dust.

“Here,” said James, handing Jack a plastic container. “You’ve got to try this.”

Jack picked up the container but then recoiled at the horrible smell emanating from it. “Holy crap! What the hell is that stuff?”

“Rations,” said James, laughing as he took the container and started shoveling whatever it was into his mouth. “Best food in the whole Alliance fleet down here for the PD.”

“It smells like roadkill.”

“Because part of it is.”

Jack hoped he was joking. Seeming to notice her displeasure, James stood up from his stool and walked behind the bar. “Don’t tell Maria I have this,” he said, reaching down into the bar below and pulling out a dusty and scratched bottle of brown fluid. “Scavenging without a permit is super illegal, but sometimes you find really good stuff in the ruins.” His expression fell as he started to pour the liquor. “About as often as you find things you really wish you hadn’t.”

“If you ever find my legs, let me know,” said Jack, taking a shot.

“Starting to miss those tattoos, eh?”

“Starting to miss being able to walk without horrible pain.”

“Oh,” said James, returning to his seat and sipping his own alcohol. They were both silent for a long, awkward moment before James spoke. “You know, I didn’t think I’d ever see you of all people on this godforsaken rock.”

“Neither did I. Second time I’ve ever been to Earth, and I can’t help but feel like it’s going to end like the first did.”

“The first time didn’t end that bad. We won.”

“No. The Alliance won. Or the Citadel. Or if you listen to the cow-eyed historians, the ‘whole galaxy’ won. But we lost.”

“You miss him.”

“Eat shit.”

“Yeah,” said James. “I do to. But not like you do. I didn’t know him for all that long, but damn…he was one impressive son of a bitch.”

“You should have seen him in bed.”

“Frankly, I wish I had. Except that you probably would have blown my head off. And then decapitated me.”

“I almost punched out Tali once for something just like that.”

“Really? Tali?” James laughed, but his laughter quickly trailed off. “Yeah…she was hot. We all knew it. You know what happened to her, though? After what happened on Rannoch, when they lost? Goddamn…the geth didn’t even let her die properly…”

“I’d rather not think about it,” said Jack, taking a swig directly from the bottle and passing it to James. “There’s a hell of a lot of things I’d rather not think about.”

James took the bottle. “Yeah. I can drink to that.”

They continued to sit in silence, although this time far less awkward- -when Jack suddenly shot off her stool.

“What the hell?” said James, confused. “Jack’ what’s wrong?”

“She’s here,” she said. “She’s here!”

As if to punctuate her realization, the ground suddenly started to shake. The tremor was not trivial, but bordered on the apocalyptic. Every object started moving, and Jack heard the whiskey bottle shattered against the concrete floor. James clung to the bar, but Jack was already moving.

She burst through the door to the outside just before the others did. When she looked up in the sky, she felt her breath catch, as though she had lost the ability to breath. It was just like that day a quarter of a century before.

The clouds of the sky had been disrupted, separating into a clear circle that revealed a distant object. It looked like a second moon, but Jack could feel the familiar presence emanating from it, and she watched as several beams from its hull pulled disproportionately massive chunks of soil and rock from the earth below.

“What are you all…” Maria’s sentence was silenced by another seismic wave, and her artificial eyes widened as she looked up. “Oh hell no. You weren’t kidding!”

Starlight teleported to Jack’s side. “So you do believe me.”

“I do now.”

“Commander!” cried William. “We’re detecting seismic disturbances on- -”

“I can feel the seismic disturbances, William!” Maria turned back to the compound, her expression deadly serious. “This is a code Black.”

“A Code Black? But that’s impossible. There’s never been- -”

Sirens suddenly started wailing in the distance, echoing off the now fully collapsed buildings around the base.

“Impossible, he says. You! All of you! The planet is losing geological stability! This is a total evacuation! Everybody off!”

Jack looked down at Starlight, who’s eyes were locked on the ship overhead.

“So, what’s our plan?”

“I need to go,” said Starlight.

“You mean we need to go.”

Starlight shook her head. “No. You need to get to safety. She only wants to see me.”

“Star,” said Jack, “wait, you’re not- -”

“You would just try to stop.”

There was a blue flash, and Jack shielded her eyes. When she lowered her arms, Starlight was gone. She had teleported. Alone.