Starfall

by Chaotic Dreams

Chapters

• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five

Chapter One

Rainbow Dash was still a filly when she experienced her first starfall. She’d been playing at the park with her father, trying to outrace him and still too young to understand he was letting her win. Even now, she remembered those times fondly, the times before everything else. The park was a small, relatively flat stretch of clouds near the family’s villa. Play structures had been woven out of cloudstuff for the neighborhood foals, seesaws and merry-go-rounds and swingsets. Prism trees, the only sort of flora capable of growing on clouds, dotted the area and provided many a young pegasus a safe place to practice liftoff, the cottony clouds below catching them should they fall.

The trees began as a full column of rainbow at the trunk and split into seven branches of color further up, splitting into variations and shades and hues of color from then on out. Rainbow had loved them, using them as obstacles around which to weave in her make-believe adventures with her father, fighting imaginary sky pirates and fictional batpony scouts sent from the Moon. Even now, so many years later, she wondered if she would have preferred that the scouts had remained fictional.

She’d heard the stories for as long as she could remember. Everypony had. The variations were constant throughout Equestria, but the common thread was that almost a thousand years ago, Princess Celestia had banished the Goddess of Darkness and her tainted minions to the Moon, never to return. Although return may have been impossible, this did not stop the umbral deity from her eternal vengeance against the world that had rejected her.

That evening, though, the violets and auburns of dusk were fast approaching, and the shadows of the prism trees grew long in the park. Rainbow Dash pestered her father for one last race.

“I don’t know, champ,” he had wheezed, pretending to be out of breath from so many crushing defeats. “I don’t have your youthful energy.”

“Come on, daddy, just one more!” she had pleaded. “Please! Pretty please! Please times a million-zillion-forever!”

Her father had looked up to the blackening night sky, seeing the first stars sparkle out of the vanishing azure. He hadn’t seemed worried that night. She had later learned that the last starfall in this part of Equestria had happened when he was still a teenager. However, when he looked to the skies, simply to point out that it was dark and it was bedtime for his little rainbow, his eyes widened. His body went rigid.

“What’s wrong, daddy?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking up at the sky. “Wow! The stars are moving!”

It was then that the sirens began. All throughout the city, pegasus squads were taking giant, hollow dragon horns from royal guard stations and flying them up over the buildings, blowing into them. A slow rise and fall of countless somber, urgent notes permeated the cloud city.

“What’s that sound, daddy?” Rainbow Dash questioned, sounding worried that her father had yet to respond. “It makes my ears hurt.”

Wordlessly, her father grabbed her and spread his wings, dashing out into the open expanse of the park, breaking free of the miniature, artificially made forest of prism trees. Their villa was just a few blocks away. He could make it in time, the sirens had to have been blown in time. She’d never seen him fly so fast in her life.

She was crying. She held on tightly to her father, but she was terrified did not know why. The wind ripped away any questions of what was happening. Her father zoomed through the neighborhood far faster than he’d led her to believe he could do just a short while earlier.

Some shift, some jostle of her father readjusting his method of carrying her, had angled Rainbow Dash just enough to allow her to see the night sky. The moving stars had been thin, short streaks of light when she’d first spotted them. Now, they were longer, fatter, and she could make out faint details of flickering flames and tiny, shining satellites flying off of them like loose feathers from a rapidly beating wing.

The first starfall in decades had come to Cloudsdale. Pegasi wearing the golden armor of the Royal Guard flocked through the streets, calling for everypony to get inside as they checked alleyways and marketplaces and plazas for any stray soul unable to reach a shelter in time. Large cannons built of magically hardened rainbows swivelled and turned upwards at the edges of the city, firing bolts of lightning at the falling lights in the sky. The starspire, the tallest tower at the heart of the city, crackled with electricity as it pumped power into the city’s defenses. Lights were going out in the villa windows as Rainbow Dash and her father sped past them, all electricity reallocated to a much more pressing purpose.

Rainbow Dash closed her eyes tightly, her ears ringing with the sounds of the sirens, the thunderous booms of the cannons. The lightning bolts were so bright they shone through the backs of her eyelids. She took a hesitant peep just in time to see one connect with a falling light. It was so much closer than earlier, no longer a fat streak, but now a giant ball of flame like a miniature mockery of the sun. The thunderbolt skewered it through its heart, and it burst apart into countless shards. Rainbow Dash later remembered realizing for the first time that the falling objects weren’t stars at all, but rocks. Crystalline insides and dark, smoldering chunks spattered through the sky, as well as what looked like shells of metal.

There were far more falling rocks than cannons. Many of them missed the city entirely, it being such a small target on a huge map. Others did strike, shooting straight through the cloudstuff and hard light constructs or bursting on their own when they were within range.

Rainbow Dash had never been so terrified in her life, but she smiled through the tears when the family’s villa came in sight. They had almost made it when a rumble shook throughout their section of Cloudsdale, a blinding blast of light illuminating a district a short ways over. Rainbow Dash’s father stumbled, nearly dropping her, but managed to pull her tighter to him and keep going.

They were inside the house, going into the basement hidden within the cloudy heart of the city. Their standard issue panic box was sitting in a corner, and not until then had Rainbow Dash ever known its purpose. Old toys she had grown out of and countless bric-a-brac from throughout her father’s life littered the basement, much of it covering or in the way of the box. He had shoved it away as quickly as he could and stuffed them both inside. It was cramped inside the hard-light box, all composed of a bright, discomforting red, but with the door closed and her father holding her close, Rainbow Dash felt safe for the first time since she’d seen her father start to panic.

“It’ll be alright, champ,” her father had whispered to her. “We’re safe in here, don’t worry.”

She was still crying, but she hugged him tightly, and he whispered soft reassurances to her until she drifted off to sleep.

She woke up to a sharp, unnatural tearing sound. Bleary-eyed but instantly frightened once more, she was jostled to the ground when something roughly pulled her father from the panic box. Tumbling to the ground, she looked up to see her father grappling with a figure from nightmare.

Vaguely pony-shaped, it had a shining shell as dark as night, punctuated by curves and spikes. Bat-like wings were tipped with metallic blades, as were its hooves. Even its head was encased in metal, a black visor in place of its eyes. That was far from the worst thing about it, though. The very shadows on the wall seemed to writhe in time with its movements, rearing back when Rainbow Dash’s father pushed it away.

It stumbled to the floor, heavier and less coordinated in its metal casing. It was speaking something, barking in an alien tongue that stung Rainbow’s ears to hear.

“Get out!” her father had shouted. “Leave us alone!”

He picked up an old bat, leftover from his days as a college athlete, and brandished it menacingly at the intruder. The metal-shelled, pony-shaped thing held its front  hooves in the air and moved them in gentle, slow circles, as if in a sign of supplication. It backed away carefully, but did not leave. In fact, it stood between them and the staircase leading upstairs.

Its voice crackled again, a sharp, unnatural whining sound permeating its harsh syllables. It punctuated its words very forcefully, but fumbled, uncertain.

“Give,” it said in highly accented Equestrian. “Low. All. Teeth.”

Rainbow Dash’s father looked more confused than ever, but he did not let his eyes waver from the creature for an instant, his bat still at the ready.

“What do you want?” he demanded. “What are you trying to say?”

“Low-All-Tee,” it said. “Give.”

“Get back!” her father threatened once more, clearly uncertain what to do. He would strike if it got too close, but it didn’t advance, nor did it leave.

“Give,” it repeated. “Loyalty.”

“I’ll never be loyal to you,” Rainbow’s father snarled.

“No,” it insisted. “I not need you. Need loyalty. Give loyalty!”

It turned its head, metallic horns gleaming in the paltry light from the lone bolt-bulb in the basement. Its eyeless visor gave nothing away, but it was pointed directly at Rainbow Dash, showing herself her own terrified, tear-streaked face.

“Loyalty!” the monster shouted gruffly, pointing a bladed hoof at her. “Give!”

Rainbow’s father glanced back at his daughter. In the fraction of a second he let his focus waver, the thing was upon him, striking forward with lightning speed it hadn’t portrayed earlier, crackles of dark-blue electricity dancing across its form. It left a blur behind it, a three-dimensional shadow.

Her father’s eyes widened as he saw his filly, realizing at last what it was the invader wanted. By the time he was turning his head back to the monster, it was too late. It was upon him, slicing into his throat with those bladed hooves. Her father’s body spasmed as the electrical discharge flooded into him, steaming blood spraying, splattering the floor of the basement, the metal shell of the attacker, the horrified face of Rainbow Dash.

Her father fell to the ground, still alive, but quickly becoming less so every moment.

“Stay... Away...” he wheezed.

“Daddy!” Rainbow Dash screamed.

“Loyalty,” said the monster. It had turned its attention to her, and was addressing her directly.

It advanced on her next. It rose its bladed hoof, already crackling with electricity once more. It brought its hoof down, and she closed her eyes.

The basement lit up like lightning and boomed like thunder. The only dark spot in it all was the form of the monster, a Lunar eclipse in front of the Sun. Rainbow Dash was howling, sobbing as she never had in her life. Her body felt only searing agony, but her soul was far, far worse.

“It’s okay, it’s over, you’re safe,” whispered a gruff voice that was clearly trying very hard to be soft. A strong foreleg scooped up the weeping filly. Though she no longer cared, she felt the soft fur of a stallion rather than the metal of whatever that pony-shaped darkness had been. “I’m taking you to a doctor. Don’t worry, you’ll make it. You’re strong, I can tell.”

Rainbow Dash curled up into a ball, not caring if whoever had her dropped her. He didn’t.

Half-opening her eyes, she saw a pony wearing the golden armor of the Royal Guard, his wings the feathery pegasus variety rather than leathery like those of a bat. He was carrying her up the stairs, out of the basement. Another pegasus guard was still down there, setting down what looked like a smoking thunder gun, still crackling with yellow electricity. He and the guard holding her must have barged into the basement right as that thing had come for her.

But not soon enough.

The pony-shaped monstrosity lay crumpled on the floor, dark smoke seeping from between cracks in its dark armor. Rainbow Dash could see burnt fur underneath. Beyond him was her father, still lying in a pool of his own blood. His eyes were open, but they did not move.

She closed her eyes again, shut them so tight she hoped they would never again open.

The guard handed her off to somepony else outside. She could hear the voices of lots of ponies, some of which she recognized as those of neighbors, some of which she didn’t. She didn’t look to be sure.

“Celestia’s Mane,” she heard the new pony curse as he set her down on what felt like an extra-fluffy cloud. Rainbow’s father would have bit his tongue to hear such language in her vicinity. “What happened to her?”

“One of the Fallen got to her,” she heard the guard telling the new pony. “He probably wanted to do worse, but my partner got him first. Not soon enough, though. The Fallen took out her father.”

“Celestia’s Mane,” the new pony repeated, albeit it more softly this time. What he said next was closer, sounding directed at her. “I am so sorry, child. Nopony should have to go through what you’ve just experienced. My name is Doctor Rain, and I’m getting you to the hospital as soon as possible.”

Hospital? Whatever for? Her father was dead. She felt horrible, but that thing had killed him. Like the guard said, it had probably wanted to do the same to her, but it hadn’t had the chance.

“You’re going to be fine,” Doctor Rain promised. She felt movement, as if he was pushing the cloud on which she was lying. “You’re going to live. I just wish that... I wish so many things.”

She blinked open her eyes, tentatively.

He smiled down at her sadly, but looked back up, and didn’t make eye contact for the rest of the trip. She closed her eyes again.

The cloud was the most comfortable thing Rainbow Dash had ever felt. After what she’d just experienced, she never thought she’d sleep again, but she was suddenly feeling so very, very tired, past the point of all exhaustion any race in the park could have caused, and soon darkness took hold.

By the time she woke up, she was lying on a new extra-fluffy cloud in a stark room. A nurse was sitting by her bedside, and seemed rather relieved that she had woken up. She explained as carefully as she could that Rainbow Dash had been taken to the hospital. A lot of ponies had been hurt that night, but the Royal Guard had everything under control again. Princess Celestia herself was already on her way to assess the damage done to Cloudsdale. The nurse assured Rainbow Dash that another starfall would never hurt her or the city like this ever again. The mayor had sent messenger hawks all throughout Cloudsdale, declaring a state of emergency and martial law—whatever that meant—so that the city could build itself back up and make its defenses even bigger and better. They hadn’t been used in decades, after all, but he had assured everypony that they were never be lacking again.

Rainbow said nothing the whole time. She didn’t have the heart to so much as move her head. All she did was blink.

The nurse wound down her explanation when it became clear that Rainbow Dash wasn’t responding.

“You poor dear,” she said. “I’m so, so sorry.”

They kept apologizing. Why? No amount of apologies could bring her father back.

“We were able to save your life from the blood loss,” the nurse spoke at last after a few tense moments of silence. “But I’m afraid we couldn’t save your wing.”

What...?

Rainbow Dash had hardly the strength to form cognizant thought. As far as she was concerned, life was some sort of strange, surreal dream, and she was caught between sleeping and waking. What did it matter if... But even so, it couldn’t...

She turned her head. Where one of her wings had been, there was now only a bandaged stump.

. . .

TEN YEARS LATER

. . .

Rainbow Dash looked over the belongings she decided were worth taking with her. There weren’t many. An old photograph of her and Dad, the frame cracked slightly. The small sack full of bits she’d managed to swipe from her mother’s dresser when she was in another one of her drunken binges. And, finally, the bat.

She lifted it in her hooves, feeling its heft and weight. It was decades old, made of genuine Everfree wood rather than the synthetic stuff they used now, not that she’d ever played in any school sports. She’d attended enough games, though, and though the new bats may have sent the balls flying further, they didn’t have the same satisfying thwack sound when the Everfree bat made forceful contact with something hard. She’d hit enough bottles, cans, fence posts, and trees to know.

The bat wouldn’t fit in the sack, an old tablecloth she’d also swiped when her mother wasn’t looking, but it would make the perfect stick on which to hang the wrapped cloth. Rainbow Dash stuffed the bits and picture into the center of the cloth and haphazardly did her best to wrap and tie it around the end of the bat, double-knotting it so it wouldn’t slip.

She took a final look around her room. An unmade bed, a desk covered in homework papers marked up in red, a chair with a backpack that was falling apart, and a closet full of clothes that hadn’t been washed in who knew how long, not that she ever wore them anyway. They were all hand-me-downs from her mother.

Rainbow Dash thought of saying something spiteful to the place, but couldn’t think of anything she deemed worthily clever, so simply turned off the light and left. She creeped downstairs, thankful that the cloud-villa she shared with her mother didn’t creak like so many wooden structures did in Ponyville.

As predicted, Firefly was still snoring loudly on the couch, two or three bottles knocked over on the floor. The crystal-vision was turned on, but tuned to a dead channel. Nothing but white noise and static snow blared from the old set.

Rainbow also almost considered waking her mother. Not to say goodbye, but to tell her... Well, she didn’t really know. Good riddance? That she hated her guts? Thank you for putting up with me, even though you never seemed to care and did a horrible job?

Once again, Rainbow Dash thought better of it and said nothing. She opened the door to the front of the cloud villa and stepped outside, spreading her wings.

One was still the feathery, flesh-and-blood wing with which she had been born, sky-blue like the rest of her. The light of the setting sun shone through the paper-thin lenses of the other, a series of imitation feathers woven of hardened rainbow light. They were all attached to a lightweight metal frame, which itself was grafted to the muscles beneath her skin, specially enchanted so as not to cause irritation.

The faux-wing had been a gift from an anonymous benefactor, and it was the latest model of several. She’d been receiving new models every time she had a growth spurt, but this last one had come with the notice that it’d be the last she’d ever need.

Rainbow stepped off the edge of the villa and drifted slowly down to ground level, alighting on the dusty pathway that wound out of the outskirts of Ponyville and towards a larger, main road just a short trot beyond.

She turned towards Ponyville. There was an old inn there where she might spend the night for a single bit, but her mother might call the police, and that’s likely the first place they’d look. Besides, she didn’t want to stay in Ponyville a moment longer than was necessary. Like her home on its outskirts, the town held too many bitter memories. The high school, where the other ponies had avoided her like the plague—not that she’d tried to associate with them much after the first few times—calling her things like ‘Fake Wing’ and ‘Jinx.’ A few of them honestly believed she had been tainted by her encounter with the batpony soldier during the starfall, the moment that had irrevocably ruined her life forever, taking her father away and shoving her into the life of a mother who didn’t want her and who she didn’t want in return.

There had been a few sympathetic souls, but they were few and far between, and Rainbow could never tell if they were being genuine or just setting her up for another prank. Either that or, worse, they saw her as an object of pity.

No, she would not go into Ponyville. Not now, not ever again.

Instead, Rainbow Dash turned towards the open road and set off at a brisk trot, her bat and paltry sack of possessions slung across her back. She thought of flying, but decided against it. The magical panels that allowed it movement were mostly solar-powered, so she’d only get a few dozen yards in before the sun set and grounded her again.

. . .

Firefly didn’t realize her daughter had left until the following evening, having woken late and assumed Rainbow Dash had gone to school and then stayed late afterwards, or perhaps wandered about Ponyville as she sometimes did. When Rainbow Dash didn’t return, even several hours after sunset, Firefly began to panic. She’d sent the family messenger hawk to fetch the police, but by the time they arrived, there wasn’t much they could do. They left as quickly as they could, telling Firefly that her daughter was probably spending the night at a friend or family member’s and that she must have let it slip her mind.

She had yelled at them that Rainbow Dash had no friends and no local relatives, but they had left anyway.

Firefly had rifled through her daughter’s room, through her own room, and through the mail. Rainbow Dash’s room was much the same as ever: sparse and unkempt. Firefly’s own room was about the same, albeit far more unkempt. Her secret hiding place had been untouched, still full of what precious few bits had come in this month that she hadn’t already spent on alcohol.

The mail was where she received her first clue. Firefly thought that her daughter might have left a note, but found nothing of the sort. Instead, though, she found an extra note attached to a new shipment of bits from the government, a shipment she hadn’t been expecting for a few weeks more.

The notes was even more curious. It read,

Dear Mrs. Firefly,

Please find enclosed an advance on your usual funds. This amount should be more than sufficient to cover the costs of travel for two by train to Canterlot. You and your daughter are required immediately at the behest of Her Majesty Princess Celestia herself. Accommodations have been prepared for you both at the Fancy Pants Luxury Hotel & Suites, where our agents shall expect the two of you in three day’s time. Once the proper procedures have been completed and assessments made, you and Rainbow Dash shall receive an audience with the Princess.

Failure to comply will result in an immediate visit from our agents and termination of our monthly fund transfers. Furthermore, should you not attend, Rainbow Dash shall be removed from your care and placed under the protection of the Crown.

We cannot overstate the importance of this meeting. The very fate of Equestria may depend on it.

Sincerely and urgently,

Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Chapter Two

Rainbow Dash wiped the sweat from her brow, debating whether or not she should unwrap the tablecloth carrying her things and use it as a way of blocking the sun. She had run out of bits a few days earlier, and so all she’d have to carry with her would be the picture. She decided against it for now, opting to shade her head as best she could with her natural wing. The sunlight streamed through the prosthetic, tinting it myriad rainbow colors.

Around her, the seemingly endless farmsteads of Equestria’s heartland stretched out to all horizons. She could make out a few farmhouses and barns in the distance, but for the most part it was fields and fields of crops. She supposed she at least wouldn’t go hungry, but it wasn’t exactly like the sorts of crops on display here were going to go down easy without any cleaning up or proper preparation, neither of which she knew how to do.

Her meals at Firefly’s had consisted mostly of prepackaged foodstuffs bought from the Ponyville grocer. She’d never thought she’d think this, but her stomach grumbled at the memory of the mass-produced generic brands.

Even the pegasi cloud villas dotting the sky above were few and far between. From what she’d gathered from the one town she’d passed through, most pegasi out here were either crop dusters or provided rainwater for the farmlands. There wasn’t a whole lot one could do out here beyond farming.

“What I wouldn’t give for an arcade or a pizza joint,” Rainbow Dash murmured to herself. “Or even better, two-in-one.”

The Ponyville Pizzeria, one of the few places of which she had any fond memories back in that hick town, had had an eclectic collection of titles. She’d even managed to play a few games with the other schoolkids now and then, when they were feeling generous enough and didn’t think any of their cooler friends were around to see.

That’s probably the one thing I’ll miss most, Rainbow Dash thought to herself. Pizza and video games.

Her stomach rumbled again.

“You shut up,” she growled at it. “We’re not near anywhere with food worth eating, and we won’t be for Celestia knows how long, so just deal with it.”

Once again, Rainbow Dash was faced with the frightening prospect of where exactly she might end up. When she’d left Firefly’s, it had been because she’d had enough and just wanted to be gone, no matter where going away took her. Now that that step was out of the way, though, she wondered if anyplace would ever really feel like home ever again. What if some new town or even city turned out to be just as dreary and alienating as Ponyville? What if the sort of life she’d had was the best she was ever going to get?

Rainbow Dash shook her head, refusing to dwell on that. As long as she kept putting one hoof in front of the other, everything would be fine. She believed that. She had to believe it.

Every once in a while, a few earth ponies from the nearby farms would gallop by, pulling wagons full of produce towards whatever passed for a town in this part of the country. She’d stick out her hoof, not really expecting them to pick up hitchhikers, and every time she’d been right. A few would even shout things like, “You got wings, don’t ya? Why don’t you use ‘em?”

She would if she could. The sun may have been up, but when she’d flown yesterday and a storm blew up unexpectedly, she’d been sent tumbling to the ground. Rainbow Dash glanced with a wince at her unnaturally bent prosthetic. It looked fixable, if anypony knew what they were doing, but she certainly didn’t. She didn’t think any hospital for miles would have any idea how to fix it either, not that she could pay them anyway.

Thus, she walked.

A few hours later, the sun was directly overhead, beating down without mercy. Her good wing felt hot and almost painful from having been used as an impromptu umbrella almost from the moment she woke up beside the road that morning. Sighing, Rainbow Dash lowered it, feeling her muscles experience a stretch of relief. That didn’t solve her sun problem, though, or the fact that she hadn’t had a drink in hours, not since she’d snuck a few gulps from a farmstead water pump.

“Is it really worth it?” Rainbow Dash asked herself as she looked around at the few farmhouses. If Firefly had sent out an alert, then Rainbow Dash’s face could be all over milk cartons everywhere by now. Asking for help could just get her recognized and sent back to the one place she never wanted to see again.

Her stomach grumbled again, however, and her throat continued to feel unpleasantly hot.

Hoping she wasn’t making a huge mistake, Rainbow Dash turned to the nearest farm. Mostly, the crops out here were sprawling fields of wheat, corn, or any number of other things that required a lot of care and knowhow to make worth eating. However, it seemed she’d stumbled across something that required far less preparation.

Rainbow Dash licked her lips, hardly believing her luck. Maybe she didn’t need to ask for help after all. Who would notice if she nicked a few apples, just enough to stuff her sack full and be on her way?

Checking to make sure nopony else was in sight, Rainbow hopped the fence and landed on what looked to be a rather large apple orchard. These were the only trees she’d seen for miles, and the blessed feeling of walking under their shade was almost as good as the prospect of picking a few of their delectable-looking fruit.

Rainbow double-checked again, but still, nopony seemed to be around. There was an old farmhouse and a barn a few hundred yards into the orchard, connected to the main road by a winding dirt driveway. She couldn’t spy any wagons; perhaps whoever lived here had gone off to market?

Finding a cluster of trees that seemed to offer the best obscuration from the farmhouse, Rainbow Dash spread her wings and, flapping naturally with one and with the other as best she could, she climbed up the trunk and nestled herself in the crook at the top. The bark was hard and scratchy, but a few packed leaves too care of that. She wedged her bat and sack in some nearby branches, picked a few apples, had a long overdue meal, and breathed her first sigh of contentment since she left.

Maybe this life on the road wouldn’t be so bad after all. The sunlight streamed through tiny windows between the leafy branches overhead, creating a gentle, green aura, but most of the area was well-shielded from the harsh heat of the sun. Before she knew it, Rainbow Dash blinked her eyes a few times, yawned, and settled in to sleep.

. . .

Rainbow Dash awoke to a pounding head, a tightness in her chest, and a hazy blur of lights and hissed whispers. She shook her head, trying to dispel the bleariness in her eyes, but that only made the ringing in her ears all the worse.

“Bad apples,” she murmured.

“What in tarnation?” asked a young mare’s voice with a deep, country drawl. Rainbow Dash’s vision was swimming, but blobs of oranges and browns and greens were slowly coming into focus as she looked up. The colors matched with each other, snapping into place to form a mare about her own age, though far more solidly built and, from the looks of it, much stronger. She had an orange coat, leafy-green eyes, and was wearing an old-fashioned cowgirl’s hat atop her shaggy blonde mane.

The mare was staring at Rainbow Dash with her brow furrowed, her lids lowered. She stomped the ground, hard, drawing Rainbow’s attention to the fact that she was wearing rubber boots several sizes too large for her.

“Do Ah need to repeat mahself?” the mare demanded. “What in tarnation?”

Rainbow Dash shook her head once more, the ringing mostly gone, as she opened her mouth to speak. She had been about to apologize for stealing the apples and intent on explaining her runaway situation as best she could, but her voice caught in her throat. It was hard to breathe. A quick look down at herself revealed why.

She was bound to the trunk of an apple tree, the biggest and thickest she’d seen in the orchard, and probably in her life. Thick vines kept her back straight against the bark, her prosthetic awkwardly sticking out and her good wing uncomfortably stuffed beneath the bindings.

Rainbow’s eyes widened, and her breathing came more quickly. She began to struggle, coughing and trying to demand release, but the bindings were too tight. She looked around wildly. This wasn’t the tree in which she’d fallen asleep, or even the same part of the orchard. The farmhouse was a short way off in front of her, and she appeared to be in a rough circle of the oddest-looking apple trees she’d ever seen.

The one against which she was bound had oddly reddish bark, its leaves a strange, almost autumnal shade of yellow-orange. The apples were humongous, ripe green globes. Beyond and to either side of the cowgirl mare were two equally-oddly colored trees that were almost, but not quite, as large as the one to which Rainbow Dash was lashed. Directly behind the cowgirl mare was a withered, small, yet seemingly incredibly ancient-looking tree, its bark and prune-like apples a youthful green despite its crooked and weathered appearance.

“Ah said,” the cowgirl mare spoke menacingly. “What in tarnation?”

Rainbow Dash tried to speak, to shout, but it was too hard to breathe, and her panic certainly wasn’t helping. She felt lightheaded, threatening to pass out.

“Gosh-darn it,” the cowgirl mare snarled. “First she goes snoopin’ around and stealin’ our apples, and then don’t have no common courtesy to answer a simple question!”

Rainbow glared at the mare. Had she knocked Rainbow on the head to keep the pegasus unconscious when she caught trespasser, and then tied her up here in the back of the house, where nopony was likely to see or hear her? Why hadn’t she just thrown Rainbow Dash out onto the street?

“What’s that?” the cowgirl mare asked, not looking at Rainbow but at the tree behind her. “Oh, that might be it. Sure, loosen her up a bit.”

Huh?

Air came flooding back into Rainbow’s lungs as the vines amazingly, yet impossibly, loosened themselves around her. Just enough to allow her room to breathe, but still too tight to allow her to escape, no matter how much she struggled.

“Let me out!” Rainbow shouted. “Help! Some crazy pony has me as prisoner!”

“Quiet!” the other mare demanded, smashing her booted hoof once more on the ground. Rainbow noticed that it didn’t quite sound like a boot or a hoof when it struck. “Ah ain’t no crazy pony! You done trespassed on mah property, stole mah apples, and ya’ think you’re the victim?”

“Stealing is wrong, yeah, I get it, yadda, yadda, yadda,” Rainbow Dash said, rolling her eyes and trying to sound more nonchalant than she felt. “But not all of us have property or a house or a warm bed or food, so I figured you could spare some!”

“Why you good fer nothin’—”

The mare stopped her sentence abruptly, perking her ears up once more.

“Aw, really?” she whined, turning around to face the three apple trees behind her. “Come on, Granny Smith, if she wanted charity, she shoulda’ used her manners and asked us proper at the farmhouse instead of stealin’!”

“You talk to apples?” Rainbow asked, raising an eyebrow and feeling that nervousness wellinig in the pit of her stomach. Hopefully this wasn’t the only pony living on this farm. If she was... Well, Rainbow had heard plenty of stories about what crazy ponies could do. The horror stories ponies had whispered about the rumors of what went on at the asylum just outside Ponyville were the stuff of local legend.

“Ah do not talk to apples!” the mare spat. “Er, I guess I talk to Apples... But it’s not the same thing!”

Rainbow’s ears drooped. This was bad, and she feared it could get a lot worse. Craning her neck, she could see a pitchfork leaning against the farmhouse, right next to a suspiciously sharp-looking shovel. And then, there was the patch of freshly dug dirt nearby.

Rainbow’s eyes widened all the further, and her heart started racing all over again. She was on the verge of hyperventilation.

“Don’t kill me!” she pleaded. “I’m sorry I took your apples, just let me go, I won’t tell anypony about you, I swear!”

“Kill ya’?” the mare said. “Why in tarnation would Ah kill ya’? What’s that, Mama? You too? Well, if you and Granny and Daddy all agree, Ah ain’t gonna argue with ya’. Let her loose, Big Mac.”

The vines loosened and unwound themselves from Rainbow Dash, letting her fall to the ground. The vines retracted, pulling themselves back into the leafy expanse in the branches far above. Since when did apple trees have vines, much less respond to pony speech? What was going on?!

“A’course, mah family and Ah would appreciate it if ya’ did keep silent ‘bout this place,” the mare said, offering Rainbow Dash a booted hoof to help her up. “Sorry Ah acted so harshly. If ya' really was desperate fer food, Ah suppose we could surely spare a few apples.”

Rainbow looked up with a glare, spreading her wings as best she could. Her good wing was sore, and the prosthetic was even more bent than it had been.

“I’ll be leaving now,” Rainbow said. “Good luck with being crazy, and whatever else is going on here!”

She picked herself up and turned to trot away.

“Now wait just a gosh-darn minute, the least—” the mare said, putting a booted hoof on Rainbow Dash’s shoulder. Rainbow pulled away, and inadvertently pulled the boot with her. It plopped to the ground, and Rainbow glanced back, only to scream all over again. This mare wasn’t just crazy, it seemed. She wasn’t even a pony.

The mare’s head and torso were perfectly normal, but her suddenly bare foreleg shifted from a coat of pony fur into hard, gnarled, grooved bark the further down the leg Rainbow’s terrified eyes looked, seeing the whole thing terminate in a wriggling, writhing mass of twisting vine-like roots.

Rainbow stumbled backwards.

“Ah can explain,” the mare said hastily. “Please don’t—”

Rainbow picked herself up as quickly as she could and turned to gallop. Something snagged her tail, lifting her up in the air and setting her gently down in the center of the ring of strange apple trees. Upside-down, Rainbow saw the mare’s tree-like foreleg had grown out into a full branch, its finger-like roots curled around Rainbow’s tail. The moment Rainbow fell to the ground, more roots burst from the earth and ensnared her, holding her still.

“Get away from me!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “I’ll fight you! Let me out of here and—”

“Fer the love of Celestia on high, would ya’ please shut up fer one gosh-darn minute?” the mare huffed. “Ah don’t know what you’re all uppity about, bein’ you have that there fake wing. Ah’m not so different.”

Rainbow Dash tried to calm her breathing, but the trees made no further move to attack her. The mare’s branch was retracting back to its former length, and she stuffed it awkwardly back into her oversized boot.

“My wing was torn off by a batpony soldier when I was a filly,” Rainbow Dash said, not seeing the similarity in the slightest. “This is a prosthetic. Some rich doctor made it for me. How are you... Are you a tree, or a pony?”

The mare smiled sadly.

“Both, Ah suppose,” she said. “Ah’ll explain everythin’, if ya' swear yourself to secrecy. Then, and only then, Ah’ll send ya’ on your merry way. Deal?”

Rainbow Dash didn’t see many alternative options, but she’d be lying if she told herself her curiosity wasn’t dying to know. She nodded, holding out a hoof.

“Deal,” she said.

The mare smiled genuinely and shook Rainbow’s hoof with her boot. Rainbow tried not to shudder at the sensation of the roots behind the rubber.

“Ah’m Applejack, by the way,” the mare introduced herself.

“Rainbow Dash.”

“Nice ta’ meet ya’, Rainbow.”

“You too,” Rainbow said, trying to sound convincing.

“A whole long time ago, mah family had an orchard on the outskirts of a little town way east of here called Ponyville,” Applejack explained.

Seeing the glint of recognition in Rainbow’s eyes, she asked, “Ya’ heard of it?”

“I’m running away from it,” Rainbow replied. “My mom lives there. I hope I never go back.”

Applejack looked a tad curious herself, but didn’t press the issue.

“Mah family had lived on that apple orchard fer generations,” she went on. “Before that, the Apple family was always travellin’ across Equestria , lookin’ fer the best place to grow apples. It wasn’t easy. They say the starfalls were more frequent long ago.”

Rainbow Dash did shudder at the mention of those cursed events.

“Sorry,” Applejack said, seeing Rainbow’s discomfort. “Ya’ mentioned you’d had a run in with a batpony soldier. My condolences.”

“Thanks,” Rainbow Dash said, nodding with a small smile.

“Eventually, the Apples had found the fertile soil outside Ponyville,” Applejack continued. “It bein’ so close to the magic of the Everfree Forest made it the best place we’d ever found to grow apples. The Apple family set up shop and stayed there for ages, passing the farm along from parent to foal, over and over.

“We never planned to leave,” she said. “But one night, a long time before I was born, a starfall happened right in Ponyville. The whole place was ablaze. It weren’t enough that them darn batpony soldiers went round killin’ and burnin’ the place, they spread that white dust of theirs, that stuff what makes plants die.”

Rainbow Dash nodded, remembering the lessons from school about moondust. Apparently, when the Lunar forces targeted farmlands, they spread as much dust as they were able to bring with them in an attempt to damage the surface’s crop supply.

“Our family’s farm, Sweet Apple Acres, was ruined,” Applejack said. “We shoulda’ just up and left fer a new place to grow apples, but mah grandma was a stubborn mare.”

Rainbow Dash could’ve sworn she saw the withered old apple tree behind Applejack shake more than the wind should have permitted.

“She went into the Everfree Forest to try and find a way to make its magic turn the soil fertile again,” Applejack said. “She went deep, deep into the woods, and came across... Somethin’. Ah don’t rightly know what it was, because she won’t never tell me.”

“She’s still alive?” Rainbow asked.

“Sure is,” Applejack said. “Mah grandma, Granny Smith, she made some sort of deal with whatever that thing was, that spirit of the Everfree. The land became fertile again overnight. Every farm near Ponyville was ruined, but Sweet Apple Acres stayed in business. The town depended on us. We were richer than any farmpony has probably ever been, then or since.

“But the deal,” Applejack sighed. “Came with a cost. It started slow-like at first. Granny Smith hardly noticed it for a good long while, but she started spendin’ longer and longer in the sun. It made her feel good, she said. Made her feel young. She got slower, too. The family grew up and aged around her. New blood came, married into the Apples. My parents, my big brother, they noticed strange things goin’ on with Granny Smith, but they figured she was just gettin’ old.

“One night, Granny didn’t come home from her walk,” Applejack continued. “They searched the whole farm, but they didn’t find her till the next mornin’. She was out in one of the fields, and her hooves were stuck in the soil. She spoke real slow-like, and could hardly move. Said she couldn’t pull herself out. Mah Mama and Papa and big brother tried their best to pull her out, but Granny Smith howled in pain. She said to leave her alone, to let her drink in the soil and sun. They stayed with her as best they could, takin’ turns. But Granny Smith just got worse and worse.

Rainbow Dash blinked, giving the withered old apple tree a weary glance.

“She started sproutin’ leaves,” Applejack went on. “Then we figured out what was happenin’. Her skin hardened like bark, and she grew and twisted. Before too long, she was just another apple tree in the orchard.”

Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened, looking at the withered tree fearfully now.

“Yeah...” Applejack said, smiling sadly once more. “Say hello to Granny Smith.”

“H-hello,” Rainbow said.

One of the branches moved, bending unnaturally in what might have been wave.

Rainbow Dash flinched.

“Don’t worry none, she won’t hurt ya’,” Applejack promised. “It wasn’t too long after that the other Apples noticed they was feelin’ strange too. They couldn’t rightly stay in Ponyville. The townsfolk might be after their blood if they ever found out what happened, or simply think the Apple family ran off one day and cut down the trees they’d become. So, they sold the land and moved way out here, where nopony would bother us.”

“So... These trees...” Rainbow said, shaking a bit as she looked down at the roots holding her and then at the trees all around. “They’re your family?”

“Eeyup,” Applejack answered. “It got slower after Granny Smith, but it didn’t stop. Mama and Papa had me just before they started turnin’. Ah only remember bits and pieces of ‘em before they became like this. Mah brother Big Macintosh raised me as best he could, before he turned too. Someday, Ah’ll also turn. It’ll probably take a few years, but it’s slowly creepin’ on me even now, as you’ve seen.”

“How do you live like this?” Rainbow asked, aghast.

“Ah handle the family business fer the most part,” Applejack responded. “Ah send a messenger hawk into town when we have a harvest to sell, and locals come round to sell it for us, givin’ us a share of the profit. We don’t need much to live; we got most of what we need right here.”

“No, I mean, knowing that someday...” Rainbow Dash said, looking back at the trees. “I mean, no offense, Mister and Misses Trees, but...”

Rainbow could have sworn she heard gentle chuckling as the breeze blew through the leaves.

“It’s all Ah’ve ever known,” Applejack said. “Ah knew Ah’d turn from the moment Ah was old enough to understand. It’s just life. The Apple family will still carry on, in a way. Just a few years ago, Mama bore a seed. Ah planted it in that there patch of fresh dirt over yonder, and it grew into mah baby sister. Sorta’ like turnin’, but in reverse. Ah reckon she’ll turn back herself when she gets old enough, but Ah’ll look after Apple Bloom just like Big Mac looked after me. All the Apple family's got is one another.”

The roots slithered away from Rainbow Dash, releasing her. She stood up, rubbing the sore spots where the roots had stuck tight, but she was unharmed. Though she wasn’t quite sure what she felt towards Applejack now, it certainly wasn’t the terrible fear it had been. If anything, most ironically, it was a form of pity.

“So you’ll keep this a secret?” Applejack asked pleadingly.

Rainbow Dash nodded, pantomiming zipping her mouth shut.

“Thank ya’ kindly,” Applejack said. “Say, ya’ said ya' was on the road. Why don’t ya’ spend the night? Ah can send a messenger hawk in the mornin’ and have the locals bring ya’ into town with the next apple shipment.”

“That would be... Amazing,” Rainbow Dash said. “You’d really be okay with that?”

“Sure, why not?” Applejack said, motioning for Rainbow to follow her. The mare who wasn’t quite a mare lead Rainbow Dash inside. The house was surprisingly more full of bric-a-brac than Rainbow had expected, most of it very, very old, and almost all of it undusted, but it had a sort of rustic, homey feel.

“Ya’ can sleep in mah room,” Applejack said, gesturing upstairs. “Ah don’t use it no more. Mind you don’t wake Apple Bloom, though.”

Rainbow nodded and thanked her, feeling... Odd. This sort of trusting openness, this honesty, was new to her.

Rainbow Dash trotted upstairs and found Applejack’s room easily enough, plopping down on the bed. It felt amazingly comfortable, even moreso than a cloud. Exhausted in mind as well as body, she quickly drifted off to sleep.

. . .

Rainbow Dash awoke to a harsh, urgent knocking sound. Shaking as much of the sleep-funk from her brain as she could, she slid groggily out of bed and opened the door to the bedroom. Nopony was there, but the knocking persisted. She trotted downstairs, passing the only other door upstairs from where she could hear a filly’s gentle snoring.

“Applejack?” Rainbow called out, to no response. She looked out the back window as the persistent knocking continued, but the half-tree mare was nowhere in sight, not even in the circle of her fully-tree elder family.

Not knowing what else to do, Rainbow Dash walked to the front door and peered out the peephole. She saw nopony, just the apple orchard on either side of a dirt road driveway.

She opened the door.

“What’s going on?” she asked, poking her head out.

Two ponies she hadn’t seen, both wearing dark, silken suits emblazoned with the insignia of the crown, stepped inwards from where they must have been hiding on either side of the door. Both large, powerful stallions, they grabbed her and hauled her inside, setting her down roughly even as she struggled and called out.

“Rainbow Dash,” said one without emotion. She glared up at him from where she’d been placed on the floor, rubbing her sore behind. “We are most glad we’ve found you.”

“I’m not going back with you!” she shouted.

“We’re afraid that’s not up for negotiation,” said the other, equally stoic.

Rainbow Dash made a break for it, but they caught her, holding on to her tightly.

“I’m not going back to Firefly!” Rainbow snarled, still fighting furiously.

“We’re not taking you back to your mother,” said the first, stopping her fighting instantly.

“You’re not?”

“No,” he affirmed. “We’ve been sent to collect you by direct order of Her Majesty Princess Celestia herself. We’ve already lost too much time looking for you. We need to return to Canterlot immediately. The very fate of Equestria depends on it. Depends on you.”

Chapter Three

“What are you talking about?” Rainbow Dash demanded. The second agent extended his hoof in a silent offer to help her up, but she slapped it away and stood on her own. “Are you just telling me this so I’ll go back?”

“We don’t have much time to explain,” the first agent said. “But no, we can assure you that this has nothing to do with your mother.”

“I’m not going anywhere until you prove it,” Rainbow snorted, narrowing her gaze.

“We don’t have time for this,” said the second agent, turning to the first. They were both solidly built stallions, one a pegasus and the other a unicorn. Rainbow reasoned that she could outrun them for a while, maybe hide somewhere in the apple orchard if it came to that, but she had no idea how fast the pegasus was in flight or what mystical tricks the unicorn might use on her. “I can make this quick and easy.”

Rainbow Dash took a nervous step backwards, watching the unicorn’s horn begin to glow.

“That won’t be necessary,” said the other agent. “Not yet. Rainbow Dash, we understand your concern. We’ve both read your report and we know that Firefly was... Not what you had hoped for in a parent. We know she’s a drunk, we know she was occasionally physically violent, and we know that she squandered most of the support funds we mailed to your household for her own selfish needs.”

“Were you spying on us?” Rainbow asked, sounding disgusted. Her expression quickly turned to confusion, however. “Support funds?”

“Yes,” said the unicorn agent. “Spying is part of our job.”

“Where did you think Firefly acquired the funds to keep your home and support you both, as little as she did, when she never worked a job?” asked the pegasus agent.

“I thought it was Dad’s life insurance or something,” Rainbow admitted.

“That ran out years ago,” the pegasus continued. “Her Majesty’s Secret Service has been providing what help we can, as anonymously as we could. Under normal circumstances, you would have been placed in child protective services as soon as we saw how Firefly was raising you, or rather, how she was not. But the stakes were too high.”

“You’re not making any sense,” Rainbow said, stomping a hoof. “I’m not going with you. If Princess Celestia and your stupid agency cared so much, then why’d you leave me with Mom? What stakes would involve a crippled pegasus?”

“Sir, permission to pacify?” the unicorn agent asked, pawing the dusty carpet with his hoof as he glanced out the window. His horn sparkled once more.

“Permission denied,” the pegasus said. “Rainbow Dash, this would be hard to explain, even to adult ponies. This is a matter of national security, and we need you to come with us. Besides, do you really want to spend the rest of your life on the road? If you help us, the agency can guarantee you a generous thanks on behalf of Her Majesty herself. We could give you your own home, a monthly allowance for living expenses, almost anything, but only if we leave now.”

Rainbow eyed the agents warily. She opened her mouth, but thought better of it. They were right on one thing; she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life penniless and on the run. Some of the things they said did make sense, at least. They must be telling the truth if they knew so much about her, although she still couldn’t imagine why anyone, least of all the highest powers in the land, would care about one miserable, wayward young mare.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”

“Excellent,” said the pegasus. “Please, follow us. You may address me as Agent Alpha. My partner is Agent Beta.”

Rainbow Dash made a show of rolling her eyes as she followed them outside, muttering “Real creative.”

The sun was still in its mid morning crawl. A gentle breeze alleviated some of the sweltering heat of the previous day, but it still promised to be quite hot. Rainbow wasn’t looking forward to another slog under the sun, and so she was quite relieved to see a surprisingly nondescript carriage resting in the Apple family’s dirt driveway.

“You will be riding with Agent Beta,” Alpha informed her. “I’ll be pulling the carriage back to Canterlot.”

Rainbow Dash nodded vaguely. Her mind was hard at work, puzzling why in the world the crown would want anything to do with her. Her eyes widened, though, when she realized she’d forgotten something rather important.

“Wait,” she said, stopping in her tracks. “My bat! Applejack probably still has it; wait right here, I need to get something before we leave.”

“There’s really no time,” Agent Alpha said. “We can send somepony back for your belongings later if absolutely necessary, but every moment we waste here is another moment our mission could be compromised.”

“It’ll just take a second—”

“Rainbow Dash,” Agent Alpha said sternly. “We need to leave, now. The reason we’re in such a hurry is because we believe you may be in danger.”

“You guys don’t understand,” she pleaded. “This was my dad’s bat. That and a picture are all I have to remember him by.”

“I’m detecting movement,” Agent Beta said. Rainbow followed his gaze into the depths of the apple orchard, where something was darting from tree to tree in an unnaturally fluid series of movements.

“Pacify the target,” Agent Alpha said. “We leave now.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened as Beta’s horn ignited, and the world seemed to melt, like the colors running on a painting. Something hard rose up to meet her, and she hit it and broke through into an all-consuming blackness.

. . .

Rainbow awoke to a face full of cold, sticky wetness. She spluttered, flailing wildly as the world slowly resumed its normal shapes and colors.

“Calm down there, partner,” Applejack chuckled.

Rainbow blinked her eyes, wiping the juice off her face. A little seeped into her mouth, revealing it to be apple cider. Applejack stood before her with a now-empty pitcher, her boots noticeably absent and her tree-like legs on full display.

“What happened?” Rainbow asked, looking around. She didn’t appear to have moved positions, but the sun was slightly higher in the sky, nearing noon. Upon hearing some muffled yet vaguely familiar voices, she looked up to see the agents wrapped hoof-to-mouth in vines, dangling from the nearest apple trees.

“The trees told me some fellas were kidnappin’ ya’, so Ah came as fast as Ah could,” Applejack said. “The unicorn tried blastin’ me with his fancy magic, but he didn’t expect the trees to turn on him. Who are these fellers, anyhow? Ya’ know ‘em?”

“Sort of,” Rainbow Dash said slowly, looking at the struggling agents with a mixture of empathetic pity, satisfaction, and a worry that the two of them were in for a world of trouble when the agents finally freed themselves. “They said they’re secret agents from Canterlot, and they wanted to take me to see Princess Celestia.”

Applejack cocked her head, eyes wide and blank for a split-moment, before she burst out laughing.

“Good one,” she cackled. “Next you’ll have me believin’ you’re some long lost princess yourself or some such tomfoolery.”

Rainbow looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking her head.

“That’s definitely not true,” she affirmed. “But I think these guys really are from the government...”

Applejack’s laughter slowly died down, petering out into a nervous chuckle.

“Come on, now,” she said, giving Rainbow a playful jab. Friendly or not, nothing would ever make Rainbow used to those wriggling root-like appendages. “Don’t scare me like that. If the government ever found out about us Apples, our cover’d be blown sky-high!”

Rainbow Dash smiled nervously, rubbing the back of her head.

“Oh, Celestia’s Mane,” Applejack cursed, glancing back at the writhing, bound agents. “What have Ah done...”

“Let’s just put them down nice and slow, and I’m sure we can explain this,” Rainbow suggested. “...Probably. And we might want to hurry. They said somepony might be after me. I don’t know who or why; maybe my Mom thought she could get child support back if she tracked me down with a second-rate bounty hunter or something.”

“Ah hope for both our sakes’ you’re right about this,” Applejack said, gulping. She looked back to the trees and they gently lowered and unwound their vines, dropping the agents on the ground. They both gasped for breath for a few moments, eyes darting every-which-way. Beta looked like he was ready to murder somepony.

“H-hey there, Mr. Alpha and Mr. Beta,” Rainbow Dash said tentatively. “So, funny story—”

Beta managed to stand up first, stretching with a remarkable hastiness. He proceeded to march over to Alpha and stood on his wings.

“Checkerboard, what in Celestia’s name are you doing?” Alpha grunted, only for Beta, or Checkerboard, or whatever his name was, to bash his head downwards, his horn smashing into the pegasus’ skull.

Rainbow and Applejack gasped. The trees shot out their vines, but Beta’s horn ignited, blasting a spew of fire over Alpha. The vines instantly jerked back as the pegasus screamed and writhed, trying to throw his partner off. The unicorn stood firm. The fire was burning into Alpha’s flesh, blackening and crackling his fur with a sickening series of pops and hisses, but Beta remained untouched. Out of the corner of her eye, Rainbow Dash could have sworn the smoke from the fire formed and unformed into what looked like moaning faces.

“We need to get out of here!” Rainbow said, about-facing and setting off at a gallop, checking to thankfully see Applejack right behind her.

A burst of fire shot past them both to strike an apple tree a few yards away, sending it up in flame unnaturally fast. Applejack cried out in pain.

“You’re not going anywhere, Loyalty,” Beta said. The two mares turned to see the unicorn stepping off of his immolated partner, now lying still. Blood still coated the unicorn’s horn from where it had bashed Alpha’s skull, and it looked the faintest bit cracked. Rainbow Dash didn’t know too much about unicorns, but she knew enough to realize that Alpha should be writhing in pain himself now from such a key injury. Instead, he walked calmly forward, his eyes having become blank and dull. “I’ve waited too long to find you. You hid from me for years in the mists of that Aberration around Ponyville, and you almost slipped past me when you fled. You almost got away again, but not this time.”

There was an uneasy reverberation beneath the unicorn’s voice, a subtle sonic disturbance that Rainbow wouldn’t have noticed unless it sounded familiar. It sent a tremor through her stomach, making her legs wobble. Dark visions flashed in her mind.

“W-who are you?” Rainbow demanded as she and Applejack backed away slowly. “What are you talking about? What do you want?”

“I had to put up with that stuffy pegasus and his pathetic values for far too long,” Beta continued, seemingly oblivious. “But he was the tracker, and I needed him. I had been planning to kill you in the carriage and then slip away when that solar scum wasn’t looking, pinning the blame on him. But you, pony-plant-abomination, you had to ruin everything!”

Rainbow’s eyes narrowed as a glint of recognition flashed in her mind. Beta’s shadow... It wasn’t that of a unicorn. Flickering against the blaze of the tree behind the mares, Beta’s shadow stretched long across the grass, lacking any sort of horn. Instead, two large, bat-like wings were spread to either side.

“You’re a batpony,” Rainbow gasped. “But, how?!”

“I suppose I’ve put up with this disgusting body for long enough as well,” Beta snarled with an exaggerated, unnatural smile.

The shadow grew darker, far darker than the nearly midday sun should have allowed. It burbled and rose, peeling itself off the ground, flowing out to acquire and harden into dimension and mass. By the time the darkness had fully solidified, it had become a full batpony mare with a midnight-blue coat covered in scars. Its eyes were a milky white, almost entirely devoid of irises.

Beta shuddered and crumpled to the ground, coughing. Rainbow noted that his shadow had returned to normal.

“What... Where...” the unicorn wheezed, trying weakly to stand. The batpony placed a hoof on his head and forced it back down into the dirt. The only armor she seemed to be wearing were a set of bladed hoof-guards. They crackled with dark blue electricity. Beta, the real Beta, spasmed and lay still.

“No, no, no, no...” Rainbow Dash whimpered, still backing away slowly. She felt like she may vomit. “Get back! Stay away!”

“Not this time, Loyalty,” the batpony hissed, the harsh Lunar accent subtly coming out in her true voice. “I’ve waited too long.”

“She’s not a unicorn no more, she can’t make fire!” Applejack shouted.

The batpony quirked an eyebrow, only for a vine to shoot towards her from behind and wrap itself around her, raising her into the air.

“Run!” Applejack commanded, and Rainbow was only too happy to comply.

Applejack gasped, coughing as Rainbow heard another electrical discharge behind them.

“The trees ain’t gonna keep her busy fer long,” Applejack wheezed, sounding pained. “Them blades of hers is too sharp!”

“We have to hide, or get out of here, or something!” Rainbow said, nearly stumbling.

They were back.

After all these years, they had come for her again.

“She’d find us in the house eventually and Ah don’t wanna let her get close to mah family, especially Applebloom” Applejack said as they galloped past the farmhouse and into the part of the orchard on the other side. “Our best bet is to hide in the cornfields next door. She said she wasn’t a tracker, right?”

Rainbow Dash nodded, her breath more ragged than this sprinting should have made it.

A shadow fell across them both from above, a rapidly dwindling shadow with flapping, spiked wings. Rainbow Dash risked a glance up, just in time to see the batpony swooping down with her hoof-claws outstretched and sparking.

Rainbow ducked, making the batpony overshoot. She landed ungracefully in a skid of dirt on the grass, nearly crashing into a tree.

“You can’t escape me forever, Loyalty!” the batpony shouted.

“Stop calling me that!” Rainbow shouted back.

“In fact, why don’t we put that to the test?” the batpony said, once again seemingly oblivious to what Dash had said. “If you’re truly Loyalty, you’d never abandon somepony who risked her life to save you. Let’s see if you can resist stopping your friend from slitting her own throat!”

The batpony galloped forwards. Applejack and Rainbow jumped to the side, but the batpony veered towards Applejack, leaping at and then into her shadow.

Applejack froze as she looked at Rainbow Dash, terrified. Rainbow’s eyes widened.

“No, no!” Rainbow yelled, racing over to Applejack. “You’re the first nice pony I’ve ever met, I am not letting—”

Applejack shuddered, convulsing. Her tree-stump hoof rose to her neck, forming a series of sharp, hard wooden spikes... Only for Applejack to stomp them back down into the dirt.

“Get out of me!” Applejack shouted.

Her shadow shimmered, stretching and splitting off from her as it popped out to resume the form of the batpony, giving Applejack her own shadow back. The batpony rolled over a few times, shaking.

“She couldn’t possess you,” Rainbow breathed. “That’s amazing!”

Applejack looked over at the shaking form of the batpony, who seemed to be in what looked like some sort of seizure, making unintelligible sounds.

“Is she... Did we stop her?” Applejack queried.

The batpony’s mumbles raised in volume and pitch, until Rainbow could make them out as raucous laughter.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” the batpony chortled madly. “How lucky can a mare get?”

“Whatever she’s happy about, I doubt it’s good,” Rainbow said. “Come on, Applejack.”

“No, no, no,” the batpony said, standing up slowly. “This requires the big guns. I’m not letting Loyalty and Honesty slip me by.”

The batpony leapt into the air again, climbing high, but she didn’t dive down. Instead, she circled Applejack and Rainbow as they ran towards the cornfields. Even after they’d hopped into the cornfields, the batpony continued to circle them, but did not swoop down.

“We’re not losing her,” Rainbow hissed as the two mares crawled low through the corn, although she was beginning to wonder why they even bothered. The batpony hadn’t moved the slightest bit lower since she’d taken flight.

“Why is she callin’ you ‘Loyalty’?” Applejack asked, stopping and standing up. Rainbow was about to voice her protest, but Applejack merely said, “If we ain’t lost her by now, we ain’t gonna lose her. Might as well rest up while we try and figure out what she’s doin’.”

Rainbow couldn’t argue with that, and so she sat up and took a deep breath as well.

“I don’t know,” Rainbow admitted. “The batpony soldier who cut off my wing when I was a filly called me that too, but I don’t know anything about it. I didn’t think it meant anything, but now, I’m wondering if that pegasus agent could have brought me to somepony who did know what it means.”

“She called me ‘Honesty’, too,” Applejack mused, thinking aloud. “Ah don’t understand it. Ah suppose Ah try to be truthful, but Ah don’t see why that’d make her wanna kill me!”

Rainbow nodded, thankful in a strange way that at least somepony else was just as confused as she happened to be.

After about a quarter of an hour, Applejack stood up, stretched, and motioned for Rainbow to follow her as she trotted back in the direction of her orchard.

“If Ah’m gonna die, Ah wanna do it in a place Ah feel comfortable,” Applejack reasoned. “Besides, if we can’t lose her, I can fight better in the orchard than in a cornfield.”

Rainbow figured it was as good a logic as any.

As they passed back into the Apple farmstead, though, the sunlight wavered oddly, almost as if it was dimming. Rainbow looked up, expecting to see the batpony momentarily in front of the sun, or a passing cloud, but saw neither. Instead, what she saw made her quite involuntarily wet herself.

Something was indeed passing in front of the sun, but it was far larger than either a stray wisp of cloud or a pony. A dark speck, like a granule of sand held at eye level in front of the solar disc, was rapidly falling towards them both. As it passed out of the path of the sun, Rainbow could see it was forming a long streak of rock and fire and what looked like a steaming combination of the two.

It was far, far smaller than a starfall, being a single meteoric shard, but it was falling straight towards them all the same.

“Ah heard about this,” Applejack gulped, thankfully not so much as mentioning Rainbow Dash’s accident in an act that the pegasus supremely appreciated. “Ah read articles in the newspaper and books and such what said the ponies on the Moon have giant rocks floatin’ all around the world, like outpost islands away from a big continent. Ah read they use ‘em to spy on parts of the world where the Moon can’t see so good.

“Whatever Honesty and Loyalty mean,” Applejack continued. “They must be awful important for them Moon ponies to want to send down a lonely rock to kill us. On the bright side, Ah guess they can’t spy on this patch of farms until they find another rock floatin’ out there in the wild yonder. On the bad side...”

“We’re dead,” Rainbow Dash said quietly. She realized with a numb feeling that she would have said it whether or not Applejack had explained it to her.

Applejack nodded, punching Rainbow Dash playfully on the shoulder once more. The wriggling roots didn’t make her shudder quite like they had earlier.

“Well, we can’t fight no batallion of batpony soldiers,” Applejack said. “Ah reckon that by the time enough Royal Guard ponies get here from the neighboring towns, we’ll be long dead. Want to say goodbye to mah family with me?”

“I’d like that,” Rainbow said, tears welling in her eyes. “I’d like that a lot.”

This was not the end Rainbow had been expecting to her life. Even if in the scenarios she feared most, of wandering Equestria broken and homeless until she died starving and alone or, worse, trapped back at home with Firefly, she had always expected her life to last longer than her teenage years.

“What a crummy life,” Rainbow Dash spat sourly as she followed Applejack back to the circle of Apple trees behind the farmhouse. “The batponies kill the one good parent I had and took my wing when I was a filly, and I spend the rest of the time growing up with somepony who only keeps me around so she can splurge the child support money on booze.”

“Ah’m sorry, Rainbow Dash,” Applejack said. “Ah really am. For what it’s worse, it was nice to meet ya’.”

“It was nice to meet you, too,” Rainbow Dash said, smiling genuinely for the first time in a long while. “If this doesn’t sound weird, since I know we just met and all, I think you’re the first real friend I’ve ever had.”

“Same here, partner,” Applejack said, smiling in turn.

They reached the center of the circle of trees and sat down next to each other. Applejack whispered something to the tree she had addressed as Papa earlier, and it reached ones of its branches into a window in the back of the farmhouse. It pulled out a tiny yellow-and-red filly that Rainbow assumed must have been Applebloom, setting her gently next to Applejack. The filly was fast asleep, the relocation not having stirred her in the slightest. Applejack lay down next to her, holding her close. She didn’t seem to have the will to wake her, and Rainbow didn’t blame her.

Rainbow Dash was also happy to see her bat and sack in the circle of trees, and she scooped them up, holding them close. She pulled out the photograph of she and her father, showing it to Applejack.

“He looks like he cared about you a whole lot,” Applejack commented. In the photo, Rainbow’s father was indeed giving his filly daughter an affectionate noogie and looking down at her with a big, goofy, proud smile.

“He sure did,” Rainbow agreed. “He was awesome. I wish you could have met him.”

“It would have been an honor,” Applejack agreed.

Rainbow took one long, last look at the photograph and slid it back into the sack, tying it tightly on her bat and holding it close. She joined Applejack in looking up. The falling rock was breaking apart now in spurts of flame and dust, sending smaller fragments rocketing down in fiery spirals into nearby fields. There would doubtless be a few fields at least partially on fire by the time the Royal Guard arrived.

Specks even smaller than the broken fragments were shooting off of the rock now as well, spiralling out in long, lazy circles, trying their best to slow their descent rather than accelerate it. The batpony soldiers would likely be upon them in a few minutes.

I could think of worst places to die, Rainbow thought to herself. With the pleasant breeze and the gentle sway of the orchard trees, it was a beautiful place.

There was a momentary ripple in the air, like a wavering heat-haze as that beautiful place lit up with a flash of explosive force. Rainbow Dash was sent flying backwards, as was Applejack. Rainbow’s ears were ringing, and she opened her eyes to see she’d been blown into the large red tree that Applejack had addressed as her big brother. Rainbow felt numb all over, and was only vaguely surprised to see read streaks on her flesh. Her prosthetic wing had completely shattered, leaving only a badly bent frame of metal sticking out from her back, shards of hardened rainbow light littering the grass.

But what had struck them? The batpony soldiers were still a minute or two from touching down. In fact, looking up, Rainbow saw them diving down faster than she had expected, as if the batponies were trying to reach them in a hurry when before there had been none.

The world was eerily silent and seemed to almost move in a surreal slow motion. Blinking a few times more, Rainbow looked over to see Applejack picking herself up off the ground where she’d landed, sap oozing from cuts in her tree-legs. Back to the center of the tree circle, though, Rainbow Dash saw the last thing she’d ever expected to see.

A violet unicorn mare, about her own age, was standing in a circle of singed grass in a daze. She wobbled on her legs, nearly stumbling as she took a few steps to the left, and then to the right. The unicorn shook her head and looked up at Rainbow Dash and Applejack, shouting something at them, but though her mouth moved, Rainbow heard nothing. The word had gone mute.

The unicorn looked up once more, seeing the batpony soldiers that were almost upon them all. She looked back at Rainbow, mouthing something as her horn ignited, her eyes clenched shut as she concentrated with all her might. There was something odd about her horn, Rainbow realized, but in Rainbow’s own dazed state, she couldn’t quite make out what it was.

She read the unicorn’s lips as best she could as her magic grew brighter and brighter.

I’m sorry.

The world exploded in a wash of magic and light, only to wink out into darkness.

Chapter Four

Rainbow Dash had heard about teleportation, but she’d never thought she’d actually get to see it. Something seemed fundamentally off about it, as if it were cheating, something against the rules of the universe. She didn’t understand how something could be allowed to travel from Point A to Point B instantaneously, without travelling through the space in between. Speed became irrelevant, as did space and, perhaps, even time. She knew few unicorns were capable of pulling it off due to the extreme magical aptitude required to make use of it, and so thus far, her only exposure to it had been playing the unicorn mage fighter in an old two-player arcade cabinet back in Ponyville.

In the video game, the unicorn mage used teleportation to get behind her opponent and open them up for an attack if the other player didn’t about-face their own character and activate their block in time. It happened in just a few frames, and in the world of the game, it looked like the unicorn mage had only moved a few feet.

One moment she was there, and then she wasn’t. It seemed to be the magical equivalent of opening a door and walking through it before closing it behind oneself. Rainbow Dash sincerely wished that had been the sort of experience she had undergone when facing her first teleport.

Instead, when the odd violet unicorn had appeared and then disappeared once again, taking Rainbow and Applejack with her, they hadn’t reappeared somewhere else instantly so much as witnessed themselves floating away from the place in which they had just been. Or rather, the place they had just been floated away from them, as if reality were melting and swirling down a drain. The teleportation hadn’t taken them through a door, but through a hallway.

A long, dark, bleak, infinite void of nothingness. Rainbow Dash would have screamed had she a mouth to do so, but nothing existed out here save for one’s own consciousness. The magical translocation may have lasted no time at all, or lasted an eternity, but the world did at last come rushing back around them. Reality plucked them from the void, the resurgence of existence like a painful smack, as if they were children who had wondered out at night only for their mother to take them back home and give them a stern reprimand.

Walls spun themselves out of nothing and reassembled all around them, high, ornate columns holding up a vaulted ceiling with a skylight. The early afternoon sun streamed down into a large study lined with bookshelves, the book titles appearing to write themselves on the spines as Rainbow Dash exited out of nonexistence and once again took on the form of flesh and blood.

Her eyes were bulging, and she struggled for air. She felt like she was suffocating. The air had reappeared inside her lungs as soon as her lungs had reappeared, but the mere afterimage of that total nothingness told some primal part of her brain that there was no air at all. She kicked and flailed for a few moments before her more conscious mind took hold of the situation. She caught breath that was already there, and finally, she responded in the most rational way somepony could to such an experience.

She vomited.

“My books!” exclaimed a new voice, that of a young mare. Wiping the bile from her snout and breathing haggardly, Rainbow Dash raised weary, bloodshot eyes up to see the violet unicorn. She saw why the unicorn’s horn was so strange now, and under normal circumstances she would have been frightened all over again, but she was past the point of caring.

The unicorn pushed Rainbow out of the way, standing over where the pegasus had vomited over a stack of books, and her horn sparked as if in an attempt to levitate the gunk off of the tomes. Her horn, her humongous, twisted, pockmarked, spiky, swirling, nightmare of twisted bone that jutted from a scar-like fissure in the unicorn’s forehead. It was far larger than any unicorn horn Rainbow had ever seen, being easily longer than its owner’s head and looking quite heavy. Nevertheless, the unicorn moved about with practiced ease.

Her horn’s sparks died. She tried again, but nothing happened.

“Celestia’s Mane,” the unicorn cursed. “I burnt out again. She’s going to give me such a scolding when she finds out what I’ve done. I shouldn’t have been spying on you all in the first place, I know, but I couldn’t resist, and when I saw the meteor falling, I had to do something!”

“Where’s mah family?” Applejack’s voice inquired. Rainbow looked over to see the half-tree mare standing on legs less wobbly than Rainbow’s entire body felt, looking around the study with a furrowed brow. “Applebloom’s here, but where’s the rest?”

Rainbow spotted the little yellow-and-red filly lying down by Applejack’s root-like hooves, her head raised as she yawned and blinked open her eyes.

“Where are we, Applejack?” the filly inquired sleepily.

“There were other ponies there?!” the unicorn gasped. “I’m so sorry! I’ll ask the Princess to send the Royal Guard over as soon as possible. I mean, they should already be on their way, but I didn’t see anypony else in the scrying glass, so I thought it was just you three...”

“You left them there?” Applejack asked flatly.

“I’m so, so sorry!” the unicorn pleaded. “I’d go back if I could, but my horn burnt out, and it’ll take a few hours to recharge... Where they inside the house? Maybe they’ll stay hidden until the Royal Guard can stop the batpony soldiers...”

“They were the trees!” Applejack shouted, stomping her thick wooden hoof onto the ground and shaking the piles of books nearby, sending some toppling over. Rainbow noted that Applejack’s roots had sharpened into spikes once again. “Those batponies are gonna burn the whole orchard!”

“Where’s Mama and Papa?” Applebloom asked. “And Big Macintosh and Granny Smith?”

“The trees?” the unicorn echoed. “The Princess can make sure the Starfall Survival Fund makes a donation to your farm. We can give you lots of new trees.”

Tears welled in Applejack’s eyes. Her whole body was trembling, and dark-red mushrooms and odd plants with spiny green teeth were growing out of her tree-trunk legs.

“Wait, wait,” Rainbow said, stepping between them both. Her stomach did a somersault, but she fought it down. “You were spying on us? Then didn’t you hear the whole thing about Applejack’s family and the curse?”

“The scrying glass only projects images, not sounds,” the unicorn said. “It’s like a crystal-vision without any volume.”

She gestured to what Rainbow had mistaken to be a table a little ways off in the center of the study. It was a large, flat, glass disc raised on curved metal stands. Rainbow peered at it, and the disc lit up, images of mountainscapes and beaches and forests and canyons all swirling together.

“I wasn’t supposed to be using it at all,” the unicorn said. “It’s off-limits, but when I heard the lunar forces were searching for one particular pony, I had to do my own research. It took me ages to find you. Even the Princess couldn’t figure out where you were, but I used a magical algorhythm of my own design, and—”

“You left mah family behind to die!” Applejack shouted, lunging at the unicorn.

Rainbow kept between them, catching Applejack and trying her best to hold the mare back, which wasn’t easy. Applejack was far larger and stronger, and though Rainbow Dash was lithe with taut, wiry muscle, she was far smaller and her hollow bones were no match for whatever magical wood Applejack was slowly becoming.

“She didn’t know!” Rainbow shouted back. “It was a mistake, a misunderstanding! She would have saved them if she’d known, but if she hadn’t saved us, we’d be dead too. So would Applebloom.”

That stopped Applejack. Her body went rigid, and she let Rainbow Dash set her down gently. Silent tears were still streaming down her face, and she shook gently, but she was still.

“Ah need some time alone with Applebloom,” Applejack whispered.

Rainbow nodded, and did something she hadn’t done to another pony since she lost her own father. She leaned down to where her first real friend was lying, gently crying on the floor, and hugged her as tight as she could. It took a moment, but Applejack hugged her back.

“Come get me when you need me,” Rainbow whispered, and Applejack nodded.

Standing back up, Rainbow nodded at the unicorn, who lead them out of the study, quietly closing the doors behind them. Beyond was a large and long hallway that eventually curved down into a set of stairs. The entire place looked incredibly well-maintained. A perfectly clean scarlet carpet covered the floor. Paintings of unicorns in strange, antique robes lined the walls, and even a few old yet shiningly polished suits of armor stood on either side of a few other doors. It looked like the home of somepony incredibly wealthy.

“Um, I’m sorry, about whatever I—” the unicorn stammered.

“It’s okay,” Rainbow said. “And thank you. If you hadn’t saved us, we’d be dead too. Applejack’s really hurting right now, and I get that, I’ve been there, but I think she knows that too. She’s glad you saved Applebloom, and I’m sure you’ve earned her thanks for that.”

The unicorn bit her lip, still glancing back at the doors to the study, before she turned back to Rainbow and stuck out her hoof.

“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” she greeted. “I wish we could have met under better circumstances, Rainbow Dash.”

“You know my name?” Rainbow said, shaking the offered hoof.

“I’m not supposed to know it, but yes,” Twilight said. “I’ve been sneaking peeks at the the reports the agency brings to the Princess. They don’t know much, but they do know the lunar forces are targeting you specifically for some reason, and have been for years. Something to do with a codename they use over and over. The Princess seems to recognize it, but she won’t tell me what it means.”

“Loyalty?” Rainbow guessed.

“That’s it!” Twilight agreed. “Do you know what it means?”

“No idea,” Rainbow admitted. “You keep mentioning the Princess. Are you talking about Princess Celestia?”

“Yes,” Twilight said proudly. “I’m her personal student. She’s educating me in the magical arts.”

“That’s neat,” Rainbow said, meaning it. She frowned, remembering something. “You said that doohickey of yours that spied on us couldn’t hear sound, right?”

Twilight nodded.

“I think this thing might be bigger than just me,” Rainbow said. “When it was just one batpony, before the meteor fell, she called Applejack ‘Honesty’.”

“Princess Celestia will have to know about this at once,” Twilight said, her eyes widening. “This is a major development! One moment, let me find Agent Gamma, he’ll know—”

“Wait!” Rainbow hissed, placing her hoof over Twilight’s mouth. “How long have you been watching us? What did you see?”

“There was a lot of magical interference, so things kept going in and out,” Twilight said. “The scrying glass is a bird’s eye view, so even when things were mostly clear, the trees obscured a lot. Why do you ask?”

Rainbow looked about surreptitiously, keeping her voice low.

“This is going to sound freaky, because it is,” she whispered. “That first batpony, the one who called down the meteor, she was possessing one of the agents you guys sent.”

“What?!” Twilight gasped. “But, that’s not possible! Batponies have access to umbral magics, certainly, but only the highest and darkest of unicorn mages are capable of enthrallment.”

“She was... Inside his shadow, or something,” Rainbow said. “It was disturbing.”

Twilight was silent for a moment.

“If what you’re saying is true,” Twilight said. “And I have no reason to believe you’d lie, then there’s no way of knowing who in the agency has been... Compromised. The batponies could have spies hidden all over Equestria, taking over anypony, and we’d never even know it!”

Rainbow nodded grimly.

“But the Princess, we can tell her,” Twilight said. “She’ll know what to do, she always does.”

“Where is she now?”

“Just one moment,” Twilight said, smiling nervously, almost cringing. “I am so in for it... Spike!”

One of the doors down the hall opened, a long shadow cast out of it, covered in spikes, with fingers that ended in long, sharp claws. Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened as she backed away nervously. She breathed a sigh of relief as a creature half her size wandered out sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

“I was taking a nap!” the diminutive being said.

“This is important, Spike!” Twilight said, trotting over to the creature and meeting it halfway. Rainbow followed, never having seen anything quite like it, or at least, not in this small a size. Dragons flew around Cloudsdale fairly frequently, the thunder cannons always carefully tracking them, just in case. Luckily, there hadn’t been a dragon attack on Cloudsdale in decades, but something that huge and powerful was not to be trifled with lightly. This little pipsqueak, however, looked more like a scaly stuffed toy than anything that could immolate entire cities.

“Who’s the new girl?” the tiny dragon asked, looking up at Rainbow. “And what’s up with...”

He trailed off awkwardly, eyeing the shattered, bent, and broken remnants of Rainbow’s prosthetic wing. She angled herself away, hiding it as best she could.

“Sorry, touchy subject,” he said. “What is it now, Twi?”

“I’ll explain everything later,” Twilight said. “But you need to send a letter to Princess Celestia, right now. Tell her it’s an emergency.”

“Is everything okay?” Spike asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Did you set fire to the study again? Or raise the dead? You know Princess Celestia said never to look at the Neponomicon!”

“Spike!” Twilight said, stomping a hoof. “This is deadly serious! It’s a matter of national security. The entire fate of the world could hang in the balance.”

“Fine, fine,” Spike said, yawning. “I’ll go get the quill and parchment.”

He shuffled off back the way he’d come, seemingly in no hurry whatsoever.

“You have a baby dragon?” Rainbow said, even more impressed now than she had been when learning Twilight’s title. “That’s wicked.”

“I assure you, he’s quite benign,” Twilight said, walking back towards the other end of the hall, Rainbow trotting alongside her.

“What?”

“He’s not wicked at all,” Twilight assured.

“It’s a figure of speech,” Rainbow chuckled, leaving Twilight looking thoroughly confused.

They trotted up to the floor-to-ceiling window at the end of the hall, where the sun was now slightly lower in the afternoon sky. Twilight looked up at it and sighed.

“She’s really going to be furious,” she murmured.

They sat for a few minutes more in silence. It might have been awkward, but after the day she’d had, Rainbow was honestly grateful for a few moments in which her life wasn’t in mortal peril. The sun was warm, and despite everything that had happened, for the first time in a long while, Rainbow felt relatively content.

After a few minutes had passed, though, Rainbow caught Twilight glancing at her shattered prosthetic wing.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Rainbow said. “I’ll have to get a doctor to take it out. Hopefully I can get a new one. By the way, what’s with your horn?”

Twilight looked sheepish, though whether from being caught staring or being asked about her horn, Rainbow couldn’t tell. Before Twilight could answer, though, the sun quickly grew warmer, and brighter as well. The gleam it shown on the carpet beyond them grew to blinding levels, and Rainbow had to shield her eyes when she turned, following the unnaturally luminous sunbeams. The light rose up and coalesced into a towering equine form, hardening and darkening, but only slightly, into a most impressive figure.

Rainbow Dash had seen plenty of pictures of Princess Celestia, of her towering ivory countenance, of her moving, ethereal mane and tail that seemed to be like semi-liquid rainbows, forever generating and then fading.

None of them compared to the real thing.

“What is it, Twilight?” the Princess asked in a surprisingly soft voice for one so imposing. “Is it your horn?”

“No, Princess,” Twilight said, bowing. She nudged Rainbow, who hastily bowed too. “There’s been a bit of a... Situation...”

“Who is...” Princess Celestia trailed off, looking over Rainbow. Her eyes narrowed, and Rainbow flinched, shrinking back. “Do not fret, my child. I have no wrath for you.”

Twilight gulped as Celestia’s gaze turned to her.

“You, however, my faithful student...”

. . .

Rainbow had her ear pressed up against the door to the room where the Princess had led Twilight. Rainbow very quickly realized this was unnecessary.

“I cannot believe you would be so rash and foolish!” Celestia bellowed. Rainbow almost bit her tongue as she fell back from the door. “You have not only endangered your own life, but the lives of countless others as well. Do you have any idea what would have happened if your tunnel broke, even for an instant? The force could have damaged reality in that area for years! You could have pulled ponies into the void, and they wouldn’t have been protected. It sounds like you were barely able to protect the ponies you took with you. You’re lucky you didn’t turn them inside out. I told you, Twilight, spells of that caliber are not to be used unless you have fully mastered them.”

What in the world was the Princess talking about? And... Turned them inside out? Had that been a real possibility?

“And that’s not even mentioning the scrying glass,” Celestia sighed. “You do realize why I told you never to use it without me, don’t you? You don’t know how to properly shield it yet. It’s a two-way catalyst, Twilight. If you can see out, then the lunar forces—anypony who knew what to look for—could have hijacked it and fed you false information, or worse, used it to spy back on you and the palace! If a powerful enough person got to it, they could even use it to enter the palace, bypassing all our defenses!”

Twilight was silent.

“You did save those three poor mares,” Celestia conceded after a few tense moments. “Your heart was in the right place. But my dear, dear child, if you ever try a stunt like that again... If something were to happen to you... I don’t think I’d ever be able to forgive myself.”

The clip-clopping of hooves approached the door.

Rainbow barely managed to dash out of the way, assuming a position leaning against a wall, trying her best to look disinterested and none the wiser.

“It is impolite to eavesdrop, young mare,” Celestia said, not so much as looking at Rainbow as she headed towards Twilight’s study. The doors opened in front of her, glowing with her horn’s golden aura, warm and bright as the sun.

Rainbow Dash bit her lip and followed, wondering if she should apologize or if doing so would just make things worse. Applejack and Applebloom were still where she had left them, sleeping fitfully, leaning against one another.

Princess Celestia frowned as she saw them, then gave a small smile. She leaned down her horn to Applejack’s legs, gently prodding them. Then, wordlessly, she levitated a blanket from a nearby corner of the room and carefully draped it across the two sleeping forms.

The Princess exited, extending a wing to sweep Rainbow along with her, magically closing the doors behind them.

“What was that about?” Rainbow asked when they were back in the hallway.

“I was seeing if I could reverse the curse,” the Princess answered. “I cannot.”

“Huh?” Rainbow said, cocking her head. “But... Aren’t you supposed to be able to do pretty much anything?”

“Hardly,” Celestia chuckled. “I am fire, and I am the Sun. The Sun can either nurture the natural order of life with its warmth, or burn it with fire, but it cannot directly meddle with the workings of life. All I could do would be to kill those parts of your friend that are cursed or accelerate her changes.”

“Do you know what did that to her?” Rainbow asked as the Princess set off again. Rainbow had to trot briskly to keep up with her long-legged stride. “She said her grandmother made a deal with something in the Everfree forest, and then they all started to turn into trees.”

“Unfortunately, I am well acquainted with the source of her enchantment,” Celestia said. “It is not something easily dealt with. It would be best for you to leave it alone.”

“There’s nothing you could do to stop it?”

“No,” Celestia said as they entered the other room, where Twilight sat sulking. “Only that which placed the curse may lift it, and it would not do so unless it were allowed to place a new, more powerful curse in exchange. You may spare that poor mare and her sister their fates, but you would merely be making things all the worse for somepony else. The best thing that can be done is to leave well enough alone.”

Princess Celestia sat in the center of the room, which looked to be Twilight’s bedroom. However, aside from the presence of a bed and some other basic necessities, it looked like a smaller version of the study. Twilight herself was sitting in a corner, continuing to sulk.

Celestia rolled her eyes with a playful smile as she extended her wing, pulling Twilight closer. Twilight looked up, revealing that she had been crying.

“Are you still mad at me?” Twilight asked with a choking sob.

“I was never mad at you, child,” Celestia said softly. “I was mad for you. I was afraid of losing you.”

Twilight wiped her eyes and looked up, smiling waveringly.

Rainbow half-smiled as well, giving a sad glance back towards Twilight’s study.

“I suppose we should get down to it,” Celestia said. “Twilight, how much of this do you know?”

Twilight told the Princess all she had told Rainbow Dash, as well as all that Rainbow Dash had told her.

“I thought as much,” Celestia said, nuzzling Twilight gently. It almost seemed like motherly affection. Perhaps it was; Rainbow had never heard of the Princess having any children. Perhaps immortal beings couldn’t do so. “You always were too curious for your own good.”

Celestia turned to face Rainbow.

“I know from the reports that you are Rainbow Dash and, as far as we can tell, the mare whom our enemies on the Moon know as ‘Loyalty’,” the Princess said. “Although it sounds like the reports may no longer be as trustworthy as we had once hoped. We do have one leg up, though, in that ‘Honesty’ is now safe with us as well.”

“Do you know what all of this means?” Rainbow asked. “I’ve been dying to know. Uh, pun not intended.”

Princess Celestia chuckled.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you all, as it concerns you perhaps more than anypony else in Equestria,” she said. “You’ll have to fill in your friend when she and her sister are done recovering.

“What do you know of the origin of the war with the Moon,” Celestia asked. “As well as the source of the starfalls?”

“I know!” Twilight said quickly. “Almost a thousand years ago, the Goddess of Darkness made war on Equestria, and you used six magical artifacts to defeat her and banish she and her followers to the Moon.”

“Correct,” Celestia said, nodding. Rainbow was following along so far; every foal in school learned this early enough. “Do you know what those artifacts were?”

“The historical records never specify,” Twilight answered, almost as quickly as the first time. “Though I’ve been working on some theories, since you never tell me when I ask. I’m guessing you combined the magical essences of the lost Crystal Heart, the—”

“Good guesses, I’m sure,” Celestia cut her off. “But no. The artifacts were not physical constructs. In a way, I called them ‘artifacts’ to lead ponies astray. I was afraid that if the truth was known, ponies might seek out these powers for themselves, harming those who wielded them.”

“Those who wielded them?” Twilight echoed. “I don’t understand.”

“The ‘artifacts’ were, in actuality, qualities of character,” the Princess went on. “They are known as the Elements of Harmony. Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Loyalty, and finally, the elusive sixth quality that bound them all together—Magic.”

“Magic?” Twilight said, her eyes lighting up.

“Yes, Twilight,” Celestia said. “These qualities, these primal forces, are an integral part of ponykind. They have always existed, and always will exist. When I first used them, they were between hosts, dormant. I drew them from the ether, calling upon them in a time of need. I was fortunate enough that they saw my cause as worthy enough to answer. When they are not flowing through the tides of time, however, they reside in physical hosts, ponies who exemplify them best. I kept this a secret, out of fear that unscrupulous souls would seek out possible hosts and exploit their power for their own selfish ends.

“But our enemy, the leader of the lunar forces, the dread Nightmare Moon,” Celestia went on. “She is nearly as old as I am. She learned the secrets of the Elements around the same time I did, and she has remembered that information all these many long centuries in her exile. It seems that now that the Elements have resurfaced in hosts, she is seeking them out to destroy them lest they be called upon to defeat her upon her return.”

“Hosts?” Rainbow echoed.

“Return?!” Twilight gasped.

“Yes,” Celestia said, looking out the window. The sun was still above its eventide descent, and the Moon was far from rising, but she seemed to be looking at something other than the here and now. “The powers of the Elements are fickle. They fluctuate with the ages, and now that they have changed form once again, their original hold on Nightmare Moon is fading. The moment she can break free of her bonds, she will do so, and return to Equestria in an attempt to conquer and rule it.”

“But, you used the Elements to defeat her before, right?” Twilight said. “Couldn’t you just do so again.”

Celestia shook her head.

“I called upon them when they were incorporeal,” she said. “But now that they have taken physical form, they are bound by physical laws. They are more limited, but in the ways they can still act, they are more powerful than they ever were when adrift in the ether. Furthermore, they will now only answer to their chosen hosts.”

“You mean,” Rainbow Dash said slowly, trying to comprehend all this. “I’m a host for some sort of magical spirit-thing?”

“That is exactly what I mean, yes,” Celestia agreed. “In time, you could grow to harness and use this power. I would have been happy to train you, but all six Elements are needed to activate their full potential. Alone, you would be powerless against Nightmare Moon. That is why we hid you away with your mother after the batponies found you, although I haven’t the slightest idea how Nightmare Moon discovered which ponies were the modern hosts. I apologize, but I must admit we used you as bait, Rainbow. We always watched and planned to protect you and your mother in case of an attack, but we had hoped to draw out the would-be assassins and question them for information. Strangely, though, no attack ever came. It seems Nightmare Moon completely lost track of you whilst you resided in Ponyville. Or perhaps, somehow, she knew of our plan and stayed away, biding her time. Whatever the case, something kept her forces away.”

“That’s right,” Rainbow said, remembering something. “The batpony who attacked us, she said something about ‘while I hid in the mists of the Aberration’ back in Ponyville, or something. Do you know what that means?”

Celestia looked pale. She murmured something to herself, something Rainbow couldn’t make out. The Princess glanced out the window sharply, but seemed vaguely reassured that something was still there. Rainbow craned her neck, but all she could see out the window were a number of statues in a hedge maze.

“I know what it means,” Celestia said. “But I don’t know how that would be possible. It seems we shall have to drop by Ponyville ourselves and find out.”

Chapter Five

Rainbow Dash was really not looking forward to her second teleportation. According to what she’d overheard from Princess Celestia, the first had been even worse than she’d initially thought, and that was certainly saying something. She still didn’t understand quite how it worked, but none of the fancy magical words the Princess had thrown around when scolding Twilight had made her feel any better about the situation.

Rainbow would have begged to simply fly to their destination if her prosthetic hadn’t been completely shattered. In fact, at Celestia’s behest, the Royal Physician had personally removed what was left of the now useless frame of metal and hardened light-shards. He’d used an anaesthetic spell, and so the process had been painless. Even now, Rainbow’s bare shoulder was a tad numb. It felt... Odd to be missing a wing, even a false one.

The Princess had promised to have a new prosthetic fashioned for Rainbow when they returned from their errand, but there was no time to waste. Celestia had insisted that Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and even Applejack accompany her on her excursion, although Rainbow still couldn’t figure out why. Most frustratingly, the Princess was being rather secretive about the whole ordeal, something that Twilight informed Rainbow was rather the norm for Celestia.

And so, taking a deep breath, Rainbow closed her eyes as she, Twilight, and Applejack stood near the Princess in the hallway outside Twilight’s study. Applebloom waved goodbye to her sister, her eyes still bloodshot from crying. At least Spike was there to look after the diminutive filly, and Celestia had personally promised that there was no way the lunar forces could have possessed a dragon.

She’s been wrong before, Rainbow thought miserably as she felt the magic of Celestia’s horn wash over all of them. Let’s hope she’s right about this one.

With her eyes closed, Rainbow didn’t have to watch the horrible melting away of the world around her, but she still did have to feel the cold nothingness of losing her physical form all over again. She would never get used to it no matter how long she lived.

Thankfully, at least, the ponies’ jaunt through the void was much shorter this time. Rainbow idly wondered in that screaming silence if physical distance still had some sort of sway over one’s journey through non-physical space. After all, they were only journeying a short way from Canterlot. Even given the current circumstances, though, it was the last place Rainbow had ever wanted to visit.

They were going to Ponyville.

The sensation of self was blessedly returning, existence washing back around them.

And then...

Greetings and salutations, Rainbow Dash. Welcome to my home away from home! But what’s this? You don’t have an invitation ? For shame, showing up unannounced. If you want to visit me, then I expect you to schedule an appointment like everypony else. I’ll trust you to find the door on your own.

What?

The cessation of self returned, quickly eroding all reality. A flash of warmth, a burning sensation like the hottest fire imaginable, flared up in that unspace, but the void returned and claimed them all, forcing them back into itself.

Reality came crashing back like a wave. It engulfed Rainbow Dash, like a smack in the face, sending her tumbling over backward, head over hooves until she finally landed upside down. She gasped, fighting down her panicked urge to hyperventilate, telling herself over and over that there was plenty of air in her lungs and that she was not, in fact, suffocating. It still took a few moments for her brain to catch up to her assertions.

Reality was back, but with physicality came pain. Rainbow’s body ached all over.

She struggled to her hooves, looking around to see Twilight and Applejack in similar states, rubbing sore bruises from where they too had popped out of the void and tumbled along the ground. Only Princess Celestia stood unharmed, but Rainbow Dash flinched to look at her all the same. The Princess’s eyes were narrowed, and her mane and tail shimmered and flowed with sharp, jagged, irregular motions. She looked positively furious, to a degree that made her response to Twilight’s disobedience seem like a minor annoyance.

“This isn’t possible!” Celestia declared. The grass in a circle immediately around the Princess wavered in a heat-haze before bursting into flame. The fire burnt itself out almost as quickly as it had begun, leaving a dark, ashen circle, but Celestia still looked enraged. “That... Monster!”

“Princess Celestia, what’s wrong?” Twilight asked, walking over to her mentor, but not getting too close. From Twilight’s wariness, Rainbow guessed she’d never seen her teacher quite this angry. “Your magical calculations are always perfect, I don’t understand—”

“Quiet,” Celestia commanded, and Twilight complied. The Princess sat down, slowing her breathing, her mane and tail slowly returning to normal. “I apologize, my little ponies. I wish you didn’t have to see me lose my temper. This predicament simply... Complicates things.”

Rainbow Dash took a closer look around, revealing that they were on a dirt road just a few hundred yards outside Ponyville. Farmland surrounded them on either side, with a few random cottages popping up every so often before the cluster of old-fashioned buildings in Ponyville proper. All in all, they’d hardly missed their destination by that much. A short walk certainly wouldn’t kill them.

Princess Celestia took a final deep, slow breathe as she stood, setting off at a trot into town. The others tried their best to keep up, but it wasn’t easy.

“If my fears are confirmed, I will tell you what happened,” Celestia said as they neared the outskirts of town after several moments of silence. “But if my hopes are rewarded, we will never speak of this again. Is that clear?”

Rainbow nodded, smiling nervously. The Princess had seemed so nice earlier; what had made her so angry? Surely even an immortal being could mess up a magic spell now and then.

But, wait a moment...

Rainbow shook her head, uncertain. The jumble of thoughts she’d had in the void were only now sorting themselves out now that they had a brain to properly organize things, and something came slowly back to the forefront, something that even she suspected shouldn’t be possible.

“When we were in there, in that in-between place,” Rainbow said slowly. “Did you all hear a voice?”

“Come to think of it,” Twilight spoke.

“Not now,” Celestia said. “And, hopefully, never again.”

The young mares remained silent the rest of the journey. It was an easy task for Rainbow, as she was lost in her own thoughts as they wandered through the streets of downtown Ponyville. Too many memories came flooding back at every familiar landmark. There was the fountain where she’d been dunked as a filly when she’d first moved to Ponyville, the other foals mocking her for her single real wing. There, the old arcade where she’d spent many countless hours, quite a few of them more enjoyable than the rest of her time in Ponyville, but all too many others of them rather lonely.

There were even a few ponies Rainbow recognized. The stragglers from the high school, the youths who smoked behind the convenience store or the more academically inclined-students leaving the library hewn from a tree. Rainbow Dash did her best to not meet their gaze, and to her surprise, not a one called her out. She had always been a bit of a loner, but surely even ponies who had never much cared for her would at least notice her presence?

Rainbow looked around curiously. In fact, none of the ponies, be they students from the high school or other ponies wandering about in the dusk, were paying any attention to the four mares. She glanced back at Twilight and Applejack, who were also looking about a tad nervously. Twilight kept rubbing her horn, while Applejack’s tree-legs were sprouting flowers the same color as her coat, as if in an attempt to hide her abnormality as best she could.

Still, however, nopony paid them any mind. Not even Princess Celestia.

Rainbow glanced up at the Princess, whose horn was faintly glowing, emitting the barest of golden auras. When the group trotted past a store window, Rainbow saw why. They didn’t cast a reflection. Even their shadows were curiously absent.

Rainbow smiled. This was rather nice. She was walking through the town that had made most of her foalhood and teenage years miserable, and yet now, nopony who used to torment her could even notice her. She’d have to ask the Princess if she could borrow such an enchantment after all this was over. Whether they were invisible or simply impossible to acknowledge at all, Rainbow quickly decided she preferred this to wading through masses of ponies who acted like their very noticing her was an offense to them.

However, it did take a good while to find out where they were going. Princess Celestia herself didn’t seem to be entirely certain, but she kept following some sort of path all the same. A turn here, another there, a backtrack here and a long walk over a bridge. The Princess never glanced at street signs, seemingly following a trail only she could see.

At long last, they arrived at a building on the far side of town. Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened as they approached. It was a blocky, three-story structure made of stone, looking for all the world like a miniature hospital. Rainbow had heard urban legends and tall tales about this place for as long as she’d lived in Ponyville, and even now, she wasn’t certain which were true and which were fiction.

“Of course he’d choose a place like this,” Celestia muttered to herself as they walked inside, passing under the name of the facility above the front entranceway, a sign that read, ‘Ponyville Institute for the Mentally Ill.’

The inside was a lot less intimidating than Rainbow had thought it would have been. In fact, it looked for all the world just like the waiting room at Ponyville lone physician’s office. Posters in frames on the wall described various forms of mental illness and ways to treat them, medical magazines a few years out of date covered the glass tables, and a single mare in a nurse’s outfit was writing something with a quill at the front desk.

“We’re here to see a patient,” Princess Celestia said to the nurse, who looked up at them with a friendly yet weary expression. She didn’t so much as blink when she looked at Celestia.

“Of course, ma’am,” the nurse said. “Which patient?”

“May I see your list?”

“We don’t usually give out that information, ma’am,” the nurse said. Celestia’s horn glowed a bit brighter. “It’s a part of patient confidentiality, and... Um... Well, I suppose we could make one exception.”

Twilight looked aghast as the nurse handed a medical chart to the Princess, who ignored Twilight’s expression and flipped through the chart as she levitated it in front of her.

“Excellent, thank you,” Celestia said, returning the chart.

“Anytime, ma’am,” the nurse said, shaking her head and looking a bit puzzled. “Oh, hello, ma’am. Are you here to see a patient?”

“No, we were just leaving,” Celestia responded. The nurse went back to her work and the Princess led the mares into the hallway leading back.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight hissed. “You told me mind-magic was only to be used as a last resort!”

“I’m sorry, Twilight, but I’m afraid it might have just come to that.”

Rainbow gulped. Just who or what were they going to see in this asylum? Perhaps not all of those rumors about this place had been quite as exaggerated as she’d hoped.

The group reached the end of the hallway and entered a door labelled, ‘Senior Counselors Only,’ descending the spiral staircase beyond. Down, deep down below the asylum, they at last came to another door. This one was thick and metal, with a rather large lock. More framed posters adorned the walls, but these seemed to be intended only for the medical staff. Rainbow Dash scanned one as Celestia magically unlocked the door.

“Do not accept any gifts from Patient Zero,” Rainbow read. “Do not make any deals with Patient Zero. Do not, under any circumstances, play any games with Patient Zero.”

Rainbow gulped again as she followed the Princess and the others inside. She was both relieved and thoroughly disappointed by what she saw within.

Though most of the room was separated from them by a large, thick sheet of glass with seemingly no door or method of getting anything from one side to the other, most of the room appeared just like an ordinary patient’s room. A simple bed with white sheets and pillows rested in the corner. There was a toilet, a sink, a chair, and a number of books. Rainbow noted they all appeared to be for children, the open pages displaying brightly colored pictures.

Speaking of pictures, there were also countless hand-drawn pictures adorning the walls. Crayons in various states of use covered half-finished products on the floor. The pictures themselves were fairly simple, being crude, childlike illustrations of countrysides, sunsets, castles, and forests. Stick-figure ponies and animals, all with happy faces, were playing ball, or running with each other, or having picnics.

There was also nopony in the room.

“Um...” Rainbow Dash said. “Are we missing something?”

“I certainly hope so,” Celestia replied.

However, the Princess’s face quickly fell, just as the young mares’ gasped and took tentative steps backwards. The beings in the drawings were moving. Stick figures suddenly tossed moving balls back and forth between pictures. The sun gave off shiny rays of light. They could even hear whispers, giggles that were growing steadily louder.

“Friends!” said a high-pitched, squeaky voice from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “Friends! Friends! Friends! FRIENDS!”

Things began leaking from the pictures. Lakes spilled water into the room, leaves from trees blew out from the paper, taking on corporeal form and texture, and one of the stick ponies, drawn entirely in pink crayon, leapt out and popped into being.

She appeared roughly the same age as the other young mares, though the childlike gleam in her eyes held nothing of the hardship and weariness Rainbow saw every time she looked in a mirror. Her coat, her voluminously fluffy mane and tail, everything but her eyes were a bright pink. Her eyes were bright blue.

“Friends!” she shouted again as she bounced over to the glass screen and pressed her face against it. “Friends!”

“How could you?” Celestia said, apparently speaking to the pink pony. “How are you even doing this?”

“Friends?” the pony said, cocking her head, but never losing her smile.

“Get out of her!” Celestia demanded. “This is unacceptable!”

“Friends...?” the pink pony said, frowning for the first time.

“I said get out!” Celestia roared.

The pink pony took a few frightened steps back from the glass, her lip quavering. Her eyes were watering.

“F...friends...” she said chokingly.

Tears spewed forth from the pony’s eyes in incredible and impossible volume, spouting like twin fountains. The tears pooled on the floor of the room, quickly filling up the whole space with water. The mare still cried behind the glass, now completely submerged, only bubbles trickling from her eyes.

“What in tarnation?!” Applejack gasped.

“It’s like her crazy happens for real!” Rainbow said, taking a few more nervous steps backwards herself. “Should we be worried about that glass breaking?”

“If he wanted to escape, he could do so at any moment,” Celestia sighed. “He’s choosing to stay in there, toying with us. Mocking me.”

“He?” Twilight echoed. The pink pony was very clearly a mare.

The water started to drop, swirling around and swishing and splashing down a drain that Rainbow could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago. The pink pony was sopping wet, her once-fluffy mane and tail now straight, slick curtains. They covered her eyes, giving off a most disconcerting appearance.

“Friends,” the pony said, peering out from behind her curtain of mane. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face caked in what looked like clotted gore. Her teeth were suddenly sharp and unnaturally long, dripping a black ooze. Bits of yellow were fading into being in the whites of her eyes, her irises reddening. “FRIENDS!”

She leapt at the glass, clawing at it. Cracks began to appear.

“We need to get out of here!” Rainbow said, turning and preparing to bolt. The metal door into the viewing area slammed shut in front of her. Rust appeared all over it, a sickly grime spreading out from the door and creeping along the walls, ceiling, and floor. “We’re trapped!”

“No, Rainbow Dash,” Celestia sighed. “We’re a captive audience.”

The pink mare shook her head, spewing water out of her mane and tail as they instantly fluffed back up to normal proportions. Her face had returned to normal, but her eyes were now entirely yellow-and-red. She fell to the ground, laughing uproariously.

“You should see your faces!” said a voice from the pony’s mouth, although it was not that of the mare they had just heard. It was far older, masculine, and with a touch of an echo. “Priceless!”

“What are you?” Twilight asked.

“I’m the shouldn’t-be,” the voice answered. “I’m everytime your quill nub broke when you wrote a report, Twilight Sparkle. I’m the unpicked apples rotting in the burnt ruin that used to be your orchard, Applejack. I’m the torn muscles of your missing wing, Rainbow Dash. I am aberrant. I am error. I am the gospel of wrong. I am planets smashing into one another without direction or purpose, stars exploding, reality decaying. I am the slow, inevitable, hilarious death of the universe.

“You can call me Discord,” finished the pony-that-was-not-a-pony. “Though this delightfully mad host of mine is called Pinkie Pie. At least, that’s what her family called her before I moved in and turned them all into rock-golems. They still make a living farming rocks, or so I hear, but now that they’re made of rocks themselves, they can hear the rocks screaming in agony as they till the fields!”

Celestia was silent for a long moment. Her horn glowed dangerously bright.

“Really, Celly?” said Discord, or Pinkie Pie, or whoever or whatever it was. “You’d take out your solar wrath on an innocent little mare? Where’s the fun in that? No challenge, just a burnt, red smear on the surface of the earth in the grand scheme of things. Who would notice? Who would care? After all, it’ll only be a few billion years before your sun burns itself out and casts the world into eternal darkness anyway!”

“How are you doing this, Discord?” Celestia asked.

“Easy,” Discord replied. “All those many centuries of starfalls instilled fear and strife into your precious little ponies. Eventually, it opened a crack in my prison, just enough to allow the smallest sliver of my spirit to seep out. Lacking any physical form, I grabbed ahold of the closet vessel that could accommodate me. Even better, she turns out to be Laughter! How lucky can the manifestation of entropy get?”

“So she is Laughter, after all,” Celestia said. “Where is this Pinkie Pie, herself?”

“She’s still in here,” Discord said. “Hold for a moment, let me get her on the line.”

The un-pony blinked, her eyes replaced with the static snow of a dead crystal-vision channel. It opened its mouth a few times, each time emitting a mechanical beeping noise that no biological vocal cords could have ever produced.

When it blinked once more, its eyes had returned to bright blue. She looked around confusedly for a moment.

“Where...” she said, her voice back to its high-pitched squeakiness. “The asylum, right, I remember this place. But, where are Mommy and Daddy and my sisters? Are they still alive? It’s so fuzzy, I can’t remember...”

She looked up pleadingly, finally seeing the group, as if for the first time.

“You!” she said, looking at Princess Celestia. “You’re the big leader pony, right? Please, get this thing out of my head, I can’t take it anymore! Nothing makes sense. I used to like not making sense, but now, not making sense becomes real, and it hurts everypony around me. I just want out... I just want to go home to my family...”

“I’ll... Do everything I can,” Celestia said sadly.

“You will?” the mare, Pinkie Pie, said with a desperate hope. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

She began to cough, shaking her head, and when she looked up again, Discord’s eyes had returned.

“Isn’t she just a barrel of fun?” he laughed. “When I finally break out for real, I think I’ll keep her. She’s fun to have around.”

“Princess Celestia, what is going on?” Twilight asked. “What is that thing?”

“Thing?” Discord said, sounding offended. “I’ll have you know I’m a cosmic horror of the highest magnitude, and I deserve to be addressed as such. Who are you to judge me, Twilight Sparkle? After all, I never turned my parents into potted plants forever!”

Twilight gasped, her jaw dropping. Tears filled her eyes, streaming down her face.

“H-how did you know that?” Twilight asked.

Rainbow looked at Twilight in confusion. She’d done what?

“It was an accident!” Twilight hissed, seeing Rainbow’s look. “It was my entrance exam into the magical academy. A starfall happened at the same time. Canterlot is protected by a magical force field, but the horrible sound it made hitting the barrier, it scared me so much. My magic went into overdrive, and I couldn’t control it.”

“Why cry about it?” Discord asked. “Who needs self control? You got out of having to listen to your parents, didn’t you? You got your brother to hate you, so you don’t have to worry about him cramping your style either. You even got that cool, twisted horn out of it. Sure, it’ll keep growing and growing, and there’s nothing physicians can do about it, and it’ll eventually grow into your brain and kill you, but what a neat way to go!”

“Shut up!” Twilight shouted. Her horn sparked dangerously.

“Enough, Discord,” Celestia said firmly. “You know why we’re here. We need the Element of Laughter.”

“Yeah, sure, great,” Discord said. “Not really feeling like sharing. Why don’t you come back in about a thousand years? Or, better yet, why don’t we ask what Nightmare Moon thinks when she finally touches down? I’m sure I could broker the Element of Laughter for a good deal on ending my sentence early...”

“...What do you want?” Celestia asked quietly.

“What was that?”

“I said,” Celestia spoke louder. “What do you want?”

“Now we’re talking!” Discord laughed. “I never really cared for eternal darkness anyway. It’d be much more fun to mess with you for eternity than her. But what to ask for? Ooh, the opportunities are so endless, so tempting... For starters, I want my freedom.”

Celestia looked away for a moment.

“Come on, Celly,” Discord prompted. “It’s either good ol’ Nightmare Moon or me. One or the other. You can surrender to a Goddess of Darkness who wants to rule the world in eternal night, and slowly kill it without any light to live by, or you can live with me! You know I’m not into the whole destroying-the-world thing. I just like to mess with it a little.”

“Fine,” Celestia said. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Excellent!” Discord said. “We’ll work out my other demands later. As of now, you have my vote. I’ll give control back to Pinkie Pie here. Just know that our essences have been mingled for so long that I’m still going to be here for a while, so there may be a few... Side effects. Have fun, and don’t let her die! I want her alive when I’m free!”

Discord’s eyes rolled back in Pinkie Pie’s head. She shook herself, and when she looked at the group again, her eyes were back to normal.

“Is... He gone?” she asked trepidatiously.

“For the most part,” Celestia said. “He agreed to let you control yourself, but he’s still there, waiting. I’m so, so sorry, my child.”

Tears welled in Pinkie Pie’s eyes, but she was smiling.

“Thank you,” she said. “That’s the best news I’ve heard in... Forever!”

Celestia’s horn glowed, and the glass screen disappeared. Pinkie Pie took a hesitant step out, then bounced out the door and up the stairs. The group followed, Celestia’s horn still glowing faintly and preventing anypony from seeing them leave.

“We now know why Ponyville was shielded magically from both Nightmare Moon and myself,” the Princess said. “And, for the time being, he’s on our side.”

“But what is he?” Twilight persisted.

“I’ll explain everything back at the palace,” Celestia promised. “Would you please fetch Pinkie Pie? I’ll teleport us back now that Discord had lifted his interference.”

Twilight nodded, trotting after Pinkie Pie, who had bounced over to the fountain in front of the asylum as soon as they had all exited the facility. She had jumped in, making a huge splash. Additionally, the water seemed to have turned into chocolate milk.

“So that’s three of six, right?” Rainbow Dash asked the Princess. “Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and me?”

“Four of six,” Celestia responded. “I have long suspected Twilight as being the Element of Magic. It seems I was correct. The look Discord gave her confirms it.”

“Then there’s only two left,” Rainbow said. She smiled, feeling something approaching happiness for the first time in a long time. With all six of them, if what Celestia was implying was true, they’d beat Nightmare Moon easily when she returned. How hard would it be to find two other ponies possessed by magical spirits? “We’re almost done, right?”

Celestia was silent.

Rainbow looked up to her, wondering why, only to see something that made her stomach want to vomit all over again. Sirens were even now beginning their low, loud, mournful screeches across Ponyville and, likely, all of Equestria.

The entire night sky was full of shooting stars.