While Greg had his attention on the laptop, with Luna curiously examining several items in the wreckage of the storeroom, Gwen silently sidled over to the rear door. She turned the handle carefully and slowly, trying not to make any noise. She had pulled the door open about six inches when it suddenly stopped.

It stopped because Luna had placed one hoof on it. Gwen hadn't seen or heard her approaching.

"No." Luna said quietly, and pushed the door shut. There were a few items floating in the grip of her magic, and she tapped Gwen under the chin with a radio-controlled semi truck, forcing her to lock eyes with the alicorn. "Unless you wish to be knocked out again."

Gwen returned the horse-monster's icy glare for a moment, but was distracted by the slight hissing noise coming from under Luna's hoof, which still rested on the door. When the beast dropped its leg, revealing the steel beneath, the surface was boiling and writhing. There was no discernible heat coming from the spot, but it spread rapidly, expanding outward in a roughly oval shape that left a very different type of material in its wake.

Gwen watched in amazement as the door, its frame, and part of the wall fused and changed color and texture. The new surface was gritty and a light cream color. It looked a lot like sandstone. And it kept spreading. Even the toys floating in Luna's grasp began transforming into what seemed to be wooden carvings. Gwen returned her gaze to Luna's face and was sure she saw slight confusion in her expression as well.

"Okay, Luna!” Greg called out. “Are you ready to find out if…" His voice faltered to a stop as he looked up and saw that the back half of the storeroom had changed into a wall of sandstone blocks, carved with neo-gothic arabesques.

"What the..." He shook his head in disbelief. "Would you two stop staring at each other and tell me what's going on?"

Almost all of Palo Alto had been consumed. The roads and bridges out of the Southern San Francisco peninsula were few and the damage done by the fires caused by the air battle had restricted traffic routes even further. The streets and freeways were clogged by the millions of people trying to flee the area.

When the roadway and their cars began to dissolve and change, most people panicked, got out of their vehicles, and began to run... which was probably the best course of action. The wavefront of change was traveling no faster than a sedate walk.

There were a few, however, who stayed. Some because they couldn't leave, some because their curiosity overcame their fear, and some...

A young Stanford student had slept through it all. She only awoke when the bed in her small basement apartment changed into a moss-covered boulder and the sun hit her full in the face.

"Oh god," she groaned as she sat up. "Why did I let Kara talk me into going out bar-hopping last night?" Then she got a good look at her surroundings. "Crap! Oh crap! I thought I'd made it home! Did I fall asleep in the park?"

She looked around at the peaceful forest glade. It wasn't like any park she knew. She looked down at herself. She was wearing the sweats she used to sleep in. That meant she had to have made it home at some point and changed into them. So how did she get here? And where the hell was here?

She picked a direction at random and began walking. Just before she decided that she was nowhere near her home she ran into something familiar: railroad tracks. Along the tracks in the distance she could see buildings, but she didn't recognize them and she didn't remember any dense patches of woods along the CalTrain route. She was still lost. She began walking along the tracks toward the far distant buildings.

A little while later she crossed a short stone bridge over a slowly flowing creek. Through the woods in the direction the stream went, she could see the roofs of a cluster of strangely shaped, thatched-roofed houses... like a village from a fantasy film. It was certainly like nothing she knew of in the Bay Area.

"Is this some kind of joke?" she wondered aloud. "If one of Kara's douchebag friends roofied me and then dumped me out here, I'm going to..."

She stopped in amazement. Maybe she had been drugged. And maybe the drug hadn't worn off yet. That would explain why she had just seen a bright blue pony with a green mane and tail fly up from the village and head off into the distance. But if she wasn't under the influence of some weird chemical... "Just what the hell was that thing?" she said..

She didn't expect an answer but she got one. "That's a pegasus, silly," said a chipper voice from behind her.

She turned and froze. Standing behind her was a unicorn. Its head, not counting the horn, barely came up to her chest, and it was even more colorful than the flying pony. It was orange with a mane and tail striped in two different shades of blue, and had green eyes the size of her fists."Hi!" it said happily.

The girl's sharp intake of breath made her head pulse with pain. She winced, and her automatic impulse to scream died before she could exacerbate her hangover further.

The little unicorn frowned in concern. "Are you feeling okay?"

The Secretary of State's hands shook ever so slightly as he spoke. "As General Whitson said, we've got so many foreign spy satellites overflying California, it's a wonder some of them haven't collided. Russia, China, India... even France... they can all see exactly what's going on. The problem is that they don't believe it. A major chunk of Silicon Valley transforming into primeval forest and Medieval villages? They think it's a cover-up for something else. The Russian Foreign Minister is screaming about an accidental release of a nanotech weapon and threatening us if they see any evidence that pieces of it are crossing the Pacific."

"What about China?" the President asked him.

"That's the big problem," the Secretary replied. "The Chinese have stopped talking to us altogether. General Whitson?"

The Air Force general cleared his throat before he spoke and clicked the small remote he was holding. A strategic map with lots of glowing lines appeared on the screen. "Several Chinese military satellites have moved into new orbits and eight of their Jin-class subs in the Pacific have moved off-station and are approaching first-strike launch positions."

"Then they definitely are going to attack?"

"They are definitely preparing for it. Whether or not they're just being defensive or they're crazy enough to actually start a nuclear war..." he trailed off, passing the hot potato off to the Secretary of State.

The Secretary's hands were shaking more than a little. "I... I just don't know. I think it comes down to just how frightened the Central Committee is."

"I see," said the President. "Well, I can't answer that... but I can ask a question that might give us an indication."

The men in the room were silent, waiting as the President scanned all of their faces. "Gentlemen... how frightened are we?"

"Okay, let me get this straight," Greg said to Luna. "You made this happen somehow?" He gestured at the stone that now comprised more than half of the space they were in. The room was looking more like an art nouveau cathedral by the instant. Some of the torn boxes and broken equipment had become banners and torch sconces.

Luna stared at him with her usual, unreadable expression for a moment before answering. "I don't understand, Greg. This is just the world."

"It's a different world than it was a minute ago. How did you do that?"

Luna looked at the stone wall as if she hadn't seen it before. "I... I did that? Strange... I don't remember..." She broke off suddenly, her ears swiveling toward the front of the store. "Men," she said urgently. "Men and dogs... and they're getting close."

"Okay, time to try this thing out," he said, scooping up the laptop. "Gwen, move back and give us some room."

"What are you going to do? They want you alive, but if you attack them—"

"Don't worry, Luna just needs a little growing room," he chuckled. "If you think she's impressive now, just watch this!" He typed the digit “2” into the LVL field, and hit enter.

Luna flared into a brilliant whirl of light that expanded, coalescing into the form of Nightmare Moon.

"Holy shit!" Greg had known what to expect but actually being in the same small room with a huge armored horse who had starry nebulae for a mane and tail was fairly unnerving. Her slit-pupiled eyes glowing faintly in the dim light of the storeroom didn’t help.

Greg finally tore his eyes off of his transformed creation to check on Gwen's reaction. She was flattened against one wall, as far from Nightmare Moon as possible. Her eyes were huge and her breathing was so rapid that it seemed she was on the verge of panic.

"Don't worry Agent Gwen, we'll be gone in a minute... somebody else's problem."

"G—gone?" Gwen gasped. "The back door is solid stone now, the front is where the troops are going to be in a minute, and that thing wouldn't fit through the door, anyway! Where are you going to go?"

Greg frowned a bit when the woman referred to Nightmare Moon as "that thing". He stepped to Nightmare Moon's side and stroked the powerful curve of her neck with his free hand. "You are amazing," he told her.

Nightmare Moon lowered her great head until she was looking into Greg's eyes from only inches away. "You made me this way," she said softly.

Greg made a curt gesture with his head. Nightmare Moon understood and nodded her agreement. Greg took hold of the leading edge of her right wing and pulled himself up onto her back, settling in just behind her shoulders.

"There's a third option, agent," he said, looking down on Gwen. "Nightmare Moon... let's go up!"

A brilliant glow surrounded her horn for a moment and then fountained upward. The cold energy incinerated the ceiling in a burst of light that left no debris behind.

Greg enjoyed her stupefied amazement immensely. "Goodbye, Gwen. I hope we'll get the chance to spar again sometime in the—"

"Wait!" Gwen gasped, pushing herself away from the wall. "Take me with you!"

"Huh?" It was the last thing Greg expected. The woman was clearly terrified of Nightmare Moon, and she considered him a terrorist... or worse. What the hell was she thinking?

"Listen! You need a go-between. There have been so many screw-ups, things will only get worse if you can't contact the authorities somehow. If we can talk this all out and if I can—"

"Just how are you going to make contact if you go with me?" Greg asked suspiciously.

"I don't know! But I'll think of something. If you just disappear—"

"Okay, okay! I don't have time to debate this. Nightmare Moon, can you carry us both?"

Nightmare Moon sniffed in disdain. "As Luna I could carry you both!"

"That's my girl!" Greg grinned with affection and then turned and waved to Gwen. "Well, what are you waiting for? Hop on!"

"Command, this is Air One. We have an explosion at the corner of Main and 4th Avenue. The roof of... standby one." The pilot brought his helicopter around to get a better look at the creature that had just leaped out of the gaping hole. There were two people on its back giving him some sense of scale. The black thing was a caricature of a winged unicorn and one of the persons on its back was... "Target sighted! Repeat: Target sighted! He's on the roof with a large creature and another..."

As Greg had designed her, Nightmare Moon was fast. She could outrun a car even without bothering to fly. And when she did take to the air she was even faster. Not fast enough to outrun a military aircraft, but a simple spell took care of that problem. The helicopter pilot gaped as the figures faded away, leaving the rooftop apparently empty.

The President looked up as the Secretary of State hurried back into the situation room. "Please tell me you have some good news."

"Well, sir, I do... at least it's better news. The Chinese ambassador sent this message about ten minutes ago." He handed the short note to the President.

"'For the next twenty-four hours, all ballistic missile facilities in the People's Republic will be undergoing maintenance,'" the President read. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

The Secretary picked up his remote and brought up images on the room's large screen. "These are satellite reconnaissance pictures of ICBM silos in Manchuria. The big squares are the blast doors covering the silos. They're sandwiches of concrete and steel that weigh several tons each. In order to launch the missiles, those covers are slammed aside by explosive charges and small rocket motors." The Secretary changed the view. "You see all those large vehicles? They're parked on the skid paths of the covers. They'd probably jam the covers if they tried to open them, preventing them from launching their ICBMs."

"This is a message! It means they don't want an all-out war!" General Whitson said.

"Why the hell didn't they say so instead of this nonsense about 'maintenance'?" the President asked angrily.

"Well, sir..." the Secretary said, in a slightly embarrassed tone of voice, "the Chinese aren't exactly direct at the best of times..."

The general was already calling up the map of the Pacific. "This fits in with the way those subs are behaving. Only three have continued on toward launch positions. The others are hanging back... probably as backup if the first wave fails."

"Can we stop those three?" the President asked.

"We have hunter-killer subs in pursuit, and destroyers and AEGIS cruisers are moving to intercept locations."

"But can we stop them?" the President asked sharply. He wasn't used to repeating himself.

The General looked grim. "They are undoubtedly on a hair-trigger. As soon as they detect torpedoes, anti-sub missiles, or depth charges, they'll launch. The AEGIS cruisers might account for 90 to 95% of the missiles. Considering the number carried by Jin-class subs, that leaves three to five warheads on target. So... no. We can destroy them but not soon enough to stop them."

The room went quiet.

"So if we don't contain the problem, the Chinese will," the President said finally. "Is the nuclear option our only choice?"

The general clicked his remote. "You can see the north side of the gate structure here, sir." He clicked another button on the remote and used the built-in laser pointer to indicate areas on the photo. "We managed to hit it here and here with depleted uranium shells. As you can see, the damage was minimal and it repaired itself almost immediately. It certainly didn't stop or even slow the flow of emerging creatures. We also had a near miss, only ten yards off, with some high-explosive ordinance. You can't see any visible effect on the gate because there wasn't any. The gate alone requires something more than conventional weaponry. But the worst is what we're referring to as the transformative wavefront. It must be a mass of nano-devices, tearing down and re-assembling matter on a molecular level. There's no way we know of to stop such a weapon except to blanket the infected area with a nuclear fireball. The EMP from the blast may do some damage to the creatures as well, if they are composed of the same material. Three 10-megaton air-bursts should do it, if we launch within the hour."

The room went quiet again. It stayed silent for a long time.

The President stared at the screen and said nothing.

General Whitson cleared his throat. "If we allow the infection to spread beyond the narrow confines of the San Francisco peninsula, we may never be able to—"

The President silenced him with a raised hand.

A moment later there was a chime and a small inset picture appeared on the main screen, revealing an agitated General Greenwaldt. "Mr. President?"

"Yes." The President's tone of voice shocked the men in the room who knew him well.

"Sir, I'm sorry to report that we've lost the target. And..." Greenwaldt hesitated, swallowed hard, and then continued, "…and at his last known location, the landscape is changing... changing like it is in California."

An appalled murmuring swept through the situation room.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Pres—"

The President abruptly stood. "General Whitson, I hereby order you to use nuclear weaponry to sterilize the infections in California and South Dakota. If he survives, the boy who caused this is to be shot on sight... as are all of the creatures." He turned to the Secretary of State. "Paul, send a message to the Chinese... however you think they'll best react to it. Let them know what we're going to do. Inform the Russians and NATO as well."

"Sir—"

"Your facility is deep enough to survive an atomic blast?" The President asked General Greenwaldt.

"Yes sir, it would require a deep ground-penetrator to take us out."

"Good. Get all of your troops inside and as many of the local civilians as you can. You have..." he shot a look at General Whitson.

"Thirty-five minutes, sir. That's all the time we can give them."

"Understood," Greenwaldt said.

"Gentlemen," the President said, "I want it to be known that this is solely my decision. I alone will bear the responsibility for this action."

Nightmare Moon streaked through the sky, just high enough that they could see the countryside spread out below them. It was flat and mostly treeless with a few small lakes dotted here and there. The speed they traveled at was so great that Greg and Gwen couldn't speak or move but only hang on with all their strength.

On the horizon, Greg spotted a wooded hilly area. Despite the rushing air that felt as if it was trying to strip the skin from his face, he managed to direct Nightmare Moon towards it. As soon as they had landed safely among a dense stand of trees and turned visible again, Gwen jumped off of Nightmare Moon's back and retreated to what felt like a safe distance. Greg remained on the alicorn’s back while he got his breath.

"Wow!" He gasped happily as he slid down her side. "That was incredible!"

"What now?" Gwen asked.

"We can relax for a bit and then make plans," Greg told her. "As soon as I can get some time to think, I'll come up with some way to fix all this. It'll all work out okay... you'll see."

"I sure hope so," Gwen said doubtfully.

The President sat at his desk in the Oval Office and placed the letter he had just finished writing in a drawer. He thought about walking outside but decided that that might give a Secret Service agent or a Marine guard a chance to prevent him from carrying out his plan. "Oh well," he said softly to himself, "It's not like other presidents haven't left huge messes for their successors to clean up."

He picked up the pistol from the blotter, placed the mouth of the barrel firmly under his chin, and gently squeezed the trigger.

Author's Notes:

Thanks to my heroic and long-suffering prereaders, Jordanis and WrittenWord333.

Special thanks to Fana Farouche, not only for editing, but for engendering one of the most obscure anatomical jokes ever. If you spotted it, you're ridiculously well educated… or dangerous. Or both.

The semilunar ganglion is the nerve plexus that receives the shock of a strike under the chin and causes temporary unconsciousness.

Semi. Luna. See? It's funny!

Hill. Larry. Us.

What the heck are you guys talking about?