A weepy-eyed Rainbow Dash sniffled and said, “Twilight never gave up. She just took charge of her own ending. What will we do with her? It feels wrong to just leave her here. We hafta do something. I have to make up for what asshole me did to her.”

“Rainbow—” Daring Do started to say something, but then fell silent. After a moment of thoughtful consideration, she nodded. “We have to do something. Vinyl, I know this is dreadful to ask of you, but do you think you can burn her?”

Upon hearing this, Vinyl shrank back, shivered, and then leaned up against Tarnish’s leg. Tarnish too, shivered, and he felt like throwing up. As awful as it was, something had to be done with the body. Leaving it here, allowing it to just rot away, that felt all kinds of wrong. Beside him, he saw a dour grimace appear on Vinyl’s muzzle, and then the albino unicorn offered a slow, hesitant nod.

With Twilight’s final deathcare sorted out, Tarnish, the survivor that he was, focused on the dirty business of living. He rummaged through Twilight’s satchel, not knowing what he might find. There were ration bars, bricks wrapped in foil. They appeared to be standard-issue guard rations. There was a container of ink and finding this caused his breath to catch in the back of this throat in the worst way. Even when facing oblivion, Twilight kept some ink around.

Then, he very nearly dropped the satchel when he thought of Spike. This pain was almost too much to bear. Without the rainboom, there would be no Spike. How it must have pained Twilight to have lost her most trusted, closest, dearest friend. Consummate survivor though he was, his heart pained him far too greatly to continue searching Twilight’s satchel.

“Steady on, Tarnish. Stiff upper lip.” Daring Do’s voice was starchy, but threatened to crack. “Get this out of your system now. The last thing we need is you falling apart later. Have a good cry. Grieve a bit. Do whatever you need to do. Just don’t bottle it in. We don’t need you to slip into another… violent state of denial.”

Trembling, he reminded himself that for every crackpot maniac that attempted to make the world go dark, there was a hero ready to do right. Then, much against his will, he thought about Princess Celestia’s spiel about how normal ponies ascribed hero as a mental illness. She might have a point, Princess Celestia. He himself had done some crazy, crazy things, like chop a corrupted crown in half and engage the enemy in a violent state of utter denial.

Not to mention what he was doing right now, at this very moment, grieving for a Twilight Sparkle that was not his own. A scowl stretched over his muzzle, a tight rictus of stoic solemnity that made him appear much older than he truly was. So too, did his eyes transform, and for but a second, it appeared as though Tarnished Teapot was somehow a pony of two distinct faces.

Farewell, Hopebringer.

“Did you just say something?”

It took a moment for Tarnish to snap out of his near-fugue and with a crackly twist of his neck, he looked over at Daring Do, who was giving him a burning stare. After blinking a few times, he replied, “No. I don’t recall saying anything.”

No sooner than he had spoken did he see her lips press into a tight, pinched line.

“Can I have the journal?” Rainbow asked, her voice raspier than usual. “Please? I’d like to be the one who gives it to Twilight. Plus, I’d like to read it, if I can get a chance.”

“I can’t think of a better pony to keep it safe,” Tarnish replied.

“Thanks, Big Guy.”

After a brief nod of acknowledgment, Tarnish said, “Let us do what must be done.”

Fueled by Vinyl’s magic, Twilight’s body burned with terrific rapidity. Tarnish, surrounded by his friends on both sides, had flames reflecting in his eyes as he watched. Together, they stood in the middle of the residential courtyard, near the fountain, a solemn honour guard for the fallen princess.

They had no flowers, nothing to offer in passing, other than their shared respects.

Of all of them, Rainbow Dash took it the worst, and Tarnish suspected that he knew why. The idea that she might be loyal to an unjust ruler for the sake of loyalty no-doubt shook her to her core. There was much he wanted to say, to ask, to discuss, but now was not the time. Rainbow had been wounded from this though, he was certain of that. This would leave scars, the hidden sort of scars that could not be seen.

The flames roared, crackled, and popped. Spine rigid, Tarnish allowed no reaction to the stench of burning hair and putrescent flesh. It was awful, but he made himself endure it out of respect for Twilight’s struggle. Not every battle ended in a win; this was a lesson that he himself had learned the hard way. Victory was never guaranteed or assured, and this painful moment was a reminder that good did not always triumph.

As the flames swirled, danced, and rose ever-higher, Rainbow took a cautious step closer, bowed her head, and in a low, pained voice she whispered, “Goodbye, friend.”

With Tarnish in the lead, the companions walked down a street that appeared like any other. There were buildings on both sides, all of them in various states of ruin. As Tarnish strolled, Vinyl walked abreast with him, studying the strange gun, the weird, odd pistol. The street was more than wide enough for all of them to walk side by side, and after what they had endured, this was comforting somehow.

“Webs.”

Daring Do’s word of caution brought the companions to a halt. Sure enough, in a window, there were webs—and bones could be seen on the ground. Tarnish, squinting, had a look around, eyeballing the ancient buildings with empty, glassless windows. For some reason, he was reminded of some toothless maw, in some vague, undefinable way.

“Worse than webs.” Rainbow, her head low, her ears folded back, pointed with her wing.

Sure enough, that was worse. Tarnish saw a dessicated roamer wrapped in webbing, suspended from an upper balcony rail. A roamer was no small creature, they were darn-near pony sized, and Tarnish, the always observant naturalist, drew one conclusion: if a spider could eat a pony-sized dog-monster—he shuddered so hard that his teeth clacked together.

“Tarnish… you’re Spider’s Bane. I need you to promise me that I won’t be spider-food.”

“I’ll do my best,” he replied.

“That’s not as reassuring as I had hoped.” Loping along in a furtive crouch, Rainbow sidled just a little bit closer to Daring Do.

“I am reminded of the time I had to fight the spidergators—”

“Shut up!” Rainbow’s ears snapped forwards with an aggressive tilt. “I know! I was there! And that’s exactly what I am thinking of right now and spiders give me the willies!”

Ahead, Tarnish saw what he knew to be the metro station. The workers of Skyreach commuted to their jobs, wherever those might be in this immense complex. Several mountains had been hollowed out, and extensive excavations had been done far, far underground. The fact that this place was large enough to require a metro was not lost on him.

“It’s two stations over.” Aware that his words made his companions uncomfortable, Tarnish cringed a bit. “Two stations. I don’t know how far. If we stick together, we should be fine. Daring, Rainbow, we’re going to depend on your ears. You have the best hearing. Try to keep the chit-chat to a minimum. I know we pride ourselves on our witty banter, but we need to hear trouble before it happens.”

The two pegasi exchanged a glance with one another before nodding.

“Vinyl, you have that weird gun sorted out? Will it be of any use to us?”

In response, Vinyl pulled out her slate and began writing. After a moment, she held it up for Tarnish to see.

It is some kind of flechette gun. I’ve never seen anything like it. Compressed air. The ammo should be recoverable. Maybe. Where did Twilight get this? It is advanced.

Faced with a new mystery, Tarnish shook his head, as he had no idea how to answer. Vinyl was already writing a new message on her slate, and Tarnish waited for her to finish. She was taking her time, which meant that she was thinking about what she had to say. Tarnish, too, was thinking. How did a Twilight from another when and where end up here, in Skyreach, with a strange gun of such advanced design that it impressed Vinyl?

I can’t even tell what kind of material this thing is made from. It’s not metal. There’s no metal at all. I don’t think it is plastic. It is almost as if it was made of some kind of glass, or something, but that can’t be, because glass might shatter with pressure. It taps like ceramic, but has the feel of some kind of polymer.

Yet again, Tarnish had no idea what Vinyl was talking about, so he changed the subject just a bit. “Is it operational? How much ammo do we have?”

Vinyl was quick to scribble out a response on her slate, so quick in fact that she wrote incomplete words. 2 mags. 1 w/ 18 other w/ 20.

In a moment of grim realisation, Tarnish thought about how one of those rounds ended Twilight’s life. The other was perhaps spent on a roamer. His emotions ejected themselves in the form of a ragged sigh and with his back sagging, he turned to look at the ruined metro station entrance. It had been a nice place once, but time, and whatever ruinous violence took place here had taken its toll.

Above him, the blue sky flickered for a moment, turned a bit yellow-green, and then after a few more flickers, restored itself to a pleasant shade of blue. Reality Fabrication awaited and he was quite apprehensive about going there. He said nothing to his companions, but he knew it was a place of immense danger. If they somehow survived the trip there, then navigated the laboratories, they would still have to face whatever waited below. He only had vague notions to go by, like clouded memories or dreams that one couldn’t quite remember.

“That’s a police station.” Daring Do pointed with her extended primaries. “It’s funny how little things change. But that is most certainly a police station. Look at it.”

Tarnish nodded. “We should have a quick look inside. I doubt we’ll find anything useful, but you never know.”

“Agreed. Way to show initiative, Mister Teapot.”

For reasons unknown to him, he found himself blushing and when he tried to reply, a wordless stammer came out instead. Frustrated by inability to communicate, he shrugged and gave up. Hefting his wrench, he went right for the door of what surely had to be a police station, a door that had somehow survived all these many centuries.

The door had been opened recently. Tarnish eyeballed the disturbed dust and found dark brown stains on the stone. Right away, without question, he knew that he was looking at dried blood—dried blood that had been here for a while, but not too long. He thought about what he had read in Twilight’s journal, about complex magic causing nosebleeds.

Had this place somehow remained locked over these many centuries, even with the despoilers who had invaded?

Neck bent, his head down low to the floor, Tarnish spotted the faint shape of a hoofprint in the dust. Then he found another. Lifting his head, he studied the heavy steel door and had himself a good look at the lock, which had no dust around it at all. Something had disturbed it, perhaps a spell or telekinesis.

Reaching out with his hoof, his big wrench at the ready, Tarnish pushed the door open.

Inside was a place that wasn’t ransacked. There was a desk, an immense, imposing thing made from stone. A thick layer of dust covered every surface and not much remained. It was as if it had just been abandoned one day. A partially-rotted wooden chair could be found behind the desk, and even though it had collapsed, the fact that it still existed was surprising. It should have decayed into nothingness by now.

Somepony had been here recently, and her hoofprints could be seen all over the floor. She had searched this place. What did she find? What might they find. Vinyl, her horn blazing, cast some sort of spell that made the hoofprints in the dust glow with a pulsating, throbbing light. Then, in utter silence, Vinyl followed the hoofprints over to a door in the back of the room.

This door too, had recently been opened, and quick inspection revealed more dark brown stains on the floor. With Vinyl right beside him, he pushed the door open and then peered down the narrow hallway. More doors awaited, doors to offices, but Tarnish ignored them and focused on the vault-like door at the end of the hallway. This door was slightly ajar, and he had no doubt that it had been opened only recently.

Oval shaped, made from steel, this was the sort of door one had when one wanted to keep valuables safe, or keep dangerous things away from others. Twilight had no doubt found this door, and being the clever mare that she was, opened it to see if anything useful remained inside.

And much to Tarnish’s surprise, there was.

A rack with the curious guns could be seen, nine of them in total, with one missing—the one that Vinyl was holding now. Beneath the guns, on the shelf just below, there were boxes of ammunition, one of which had been opened. Right away, Vinyl began ransacking the supplies and Tarnish wondered just how much they could carry, as they were already heavy, loaded down with gear.

Guns and Tarnish just didn’t agree for the most part, and he wasn’t a good shot—unless of course he was shooting somepony in the ass at point blank range. He rather liked his wrench though, which had odd, unexplainable properties to it, such as the fact that it was quite heavy, until telekinesis flowed along it and then it became feather-light. It was effortless to heft around. For whatever weird reason though, hitting something with it brought the full weight and force of the object to bear.

“This crate at the bottom… Vinyl, can you open it? It’s a lockbox, so surely there must be something useful in there.” Daring Do wedged herself into the narrow space so that she too, might have a better look around.

Vinyl, who was cramming boxes of ammunition into her bags, took a moment to fulfil Daring’s request. The lock, a simple mechanical one, made a muffled clunk and released. She lifted the lid, just as eager as Daring to find what was inside, and then the two of them both reacted to the emptiness they had discovered. Why lock an empty box?

When Daring groaned from disappointment, Vinyl returned to stuffing as many boxes of ammunition into her bags as equinely possible. Rainbow Dash also stuffed herself in, and the four companions were packed tight in the narrow hallway together. Vinyl, having ran out of room, began packing boxes into her companion’s bags in a reckless bid to be as well armed as possible.

When the last box was stashed away, Vinyl sighed with relief.

Author's Notes:

Soon: spiders.