“A friend came to see me on one of the evenings of the last week – he thinks it was on Monday, August 3rd. We were standing at a window of my room in the Foreign Office. It was getting dusk, and the lamps were being lit in the space below on which we were looking. My friend recalls that I remarked on this with the words: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.’”
– Sir Edward Grey, Twenty-Five Years 1892–1916

Hollow One, North Atlantic Ocean. November 16th, 2024 CE.

Behind the Barrier, in the middle of the ocean where the currents met, stood Hollow One.

Rising from the turbulent waters of the North Atlantic, it stood tall as a marvel of engineering, where Saddle Mareabian artisanship met the technology of the Crystal Realm. It had been established in a miraculously short two years, a base for the future invasion of the North American continent. The silhouette of the base was dominated by the superstructure that lay in the middle, a combination of metal and wood built following the expertise of Saddle Mareabian engineers, designed as such to withstand the unpredictable weather of the planet, harkening back to the desert, wind-swept architecture of their homeland, but with material provided by the Solar Empire.

The central structure was one of six – the main structure lay in the center of five others, arranged to resemble the Elements of Harmony if one had a bird’s eye view, connected to one another by a tram system. The Saddle Mareabian-built superstructure and the decks atop some of them lay atop robust crystal pillars that plunged deep into the Atlantic, and anchored it to the ocean floor.

Atop the decks, the base filled a multitude of roles, from supply and repair, and many a times it had served as refuge for airships retreating from skirmishes in the Atlantic. At any given time, five thousand Equestrians, Saddle Mareabians, zebras and hippogriffs staffed the facility, keeping it running for airships making their transit between Europe and the North American front. In certain times, it could certainly hold more than twice that number as well.

And it was this grand sight, dimly lit by crystal lamps, that greeted Scootaloo and company aboard their sky-boat. Their sky-boat was a far cry from the Great Equestrian that had left Hollow One only a few hours ago. But they would be welcome, nonetheless.

“Look alive, Whistle,” Scootaloo said breathlessly. “We’re here.”

Whistle’s smile lit up the night, like it always had.

With a hail from platform crew-members, tethers were thrown at them, and the sky-boat gently pulled down to a rest atop one of the auxiliary decks. All around them, airships and sky-boats, both coming from and to Europe, lay in wait.

Scootaloo and Breeze hopped off the airship, Whistle carried gently by the two of them. They were met by a half dozen of the base staff. Equestrians, horses, and zebras alike.

One stood to meet Scootaloo at the head of the group, carrying a lantern in hoof.

“Halt!” cried the lead officer. He was an orange-colored stallion, a Saddle Mareabian like many who formed the majority of the base staff. “State your business.”

“Starstruck, Cadet, 1st Wonderbolts, Ponyville Group,” Scootaloo answered rapidly. “Our temporary lead is Captain Sparks Timber, 15th Fillydelphia, and he’s still aboard the boat. He’ll fill you in.” She nodded at Breeze and Whistle. “We’ve got wounded, please, get this cadet to the infirmary.”

Two zebras emerged from the group to join the hippogriff medic, bringing in stretchers.

She exchanged a hopeful glance with Whistle, and the little pegasus gave her a last smile before she and her bearers disappeared into the superstructure, past the doorway.

“You came from Boston?” said the Saddle Mareabian. “We’ve had a lot on our plate. They say the battle’s lost.”

“We did. The battle… I… I don’t know.” said Scootaloo. She shook her head. “Look, none of that matters right now. Is… is the Lady Archmage here?”

It was a foolish question. Of course not. Otherwise Twilight would be here to greet them. If she even was alive.

“She’s already en route to Canterlot, Cadet,” said the officer. “Got teleported here, by Captain Armor. You missed her by an hour.”

Scootaloo’s ears drooped, and she bit back a cry of frustration.

‘Wait… if she made it out, then–’

Her question was answered soon, by the two newcomers who emerged from the nearest door.

“Terramar,” Scootaloo whispered. Then she broke into a relieved smile. “Rainbow– Captain!”

“Starstruck,” greeted Rainbow Dash. “Good to s– OOF!”

Her words were interrupted, when Scootaloo almost tackled her to the floor. The Saddle Mareabian shot them a judgmental look.

“S-sorry, you wouldn’t believe what we’ve been through,” Scootaloo said sheepishly. Though the Wonderbolt Captain rolled her eyes, she simply gave Scootaloo’s mane a ruffle.

“You look like you’ve been through Tartarus,” Terramar added, and Scootaloo nodded. “You okay, Starstruck?”

“Yeah, you okay, Scoot?” said Dash. “Did you get the package out…?”

She trailed off, and both her and Terramar looked at something behind her – and a loud thud from behind gave Scootaloo the answer she needed. She glanced behind, seeing Sparks Timber and Green Sprout, who stood tall besides the large crate holding Discord.

“Yeah. We did.”

Boston, USA.

Luna took a breath, closing her eyes as she slumped onto her haunches upon the snowy grass – a patch of parkland that hadn’t been taken up by a tent for the Reavers’ camp, in what Major Bauer had told her was called the Boston Public Gardens. Just how long had she been here? She didn’t even have a clear idea of time any longer. What could be hours felt like weeks.

And she had never felt so tired.

‘I used to know time like the back of my wing,’ she thought. ‘I could feel seconds passing, as the time came to raise the Moon. I was attuned to the world, attuned to everything, and no matter the danger, nothing was beyond my control.’

But this battle had drained her. Fighting for Twilight’s and Spike’s souls had exhausted her. Losing one of those fights… had drained her even more. So many defeats, even as this battle would be celebrated as a victory.

‘Twilight…’ she thought, keeping her eyes closed.

“Penny for your thoughts?” a voice asked. Luna turned, frowning, to see Samantha Yarrow staring at her. She wore no helmet, and her hair was loose and dishevelled.

“‘Penny’?” Luna repeated. “Is that anything like a ‘bitty’?”

“Kind of?” Yarrow said. She sat down next to Luna, snow crunching beneath her. “It’s just… you look troubled, or I would guess you do.”

Luna nodded slowly, a slight frown furrowing her face. ‘When did I become so transparent? I am a Princess. I cannot show my fear. Never in times like these.’

Pushing that worrying thought aside, she smiled serenely.

“I am somewhat concerned, ” Luna said after a moment. Vulnerable she may be, but honesty remained essential. She took a breath. “About Spike... About… everything. There are many questions in need of answering… Far too many.”

“I couldn’t begin to imagine,” Yarrow said. She took a small flask from her hip-belt and took a long drink. “I was just talking to Major Bauer, UNAC’s main guy on the ground here. For the record… if we Reavers can help you in any way, you have our support.”

Luna wanted to thank her immediately for her offer, but something stopped her. Colonel Reiner’s words about the unreliability of the HLF sprung to mind.

“And do you speak for all your comrades in the Human Liberation Front?” she asked.

Yarrow finished her swig and lowered the flask, a studiously neutral expression on her face. “Take it Reiner told you his tuppence about us. Yeah?”

“He… briefly spoke of you, yes,” Luna replied cautiously.

Yarrow smirked, though there was no real humor in it. “I see. Well, suffice to say, we’re not quite what he and the rest of the damn UNAC thinks we are.” She looked up at Luna. “When I say ‘we’, I mean ‘we’. Our resources are at your disposal, Princess. You’ve earned that much.”

Luna offered a small smile. “I am grateful for the trust you place in me.” She took a deep breath. “But as I said, I do have… questions. Do you know anyone who could answer them, whether from your group or the PHL?”

“Depends what the questions are about,” Yarrow replied. “I know a man– well, sometimes he’s a man– who was brilliant at answering questions, but he’s not been around here for a while. Something about ‘bad atmosphere, needed to go back and tweak something’.”

Luna had no idea how to process that remark. “A man? What kind of a man?”

“A scholar of sorts, with a particular fixation on the souls of the dead,” Yarrow remarked. “In fact, if I may tell the truth, Princess Luna, when we saw you and that Discord guy appear in the heavens above this city, my first thought was that our man had wrought something… Until I remembered you’re not dead. Merely petrified.”

Her easy tone got Luna to wince. “Could you please not say this so casually?” she said. “Losing Discord to the Imperials may yet undo what good I accomplished here. Doubly so, I regret, with him alive rather than dead.”

“Right. I forgot. They got you good, didn’t they?” Yarrow said sympathetically. “I am sorry. But now you see why I find that, somehow, I can believe your wild story.”

“And do you have any idea where your… man, might have gone to?”

“Through the looking-glass, I expect,” Yarrow said with a chuckle. “He always was a card.”

“This does trouble me...” Luna said. “I’m not sure what trust I’d place in those who fixate upon the souls of the dead. Necromancy is considered a dark art of the highest order by my people. Father Kontagion has been remembered by many names, but merely the memory of the Lord of Tambelon brings nightmares that even I struggle to ward away.”

As it was, just thinking about Kontagion’s doom-laden words at the Concordia Maxima made Luna almost shudder. Celestia had taken a gamble by calling upon that creature.

“Then chalk this up to cultural differences, Your Highness,” Yarrow commented. “I’m a Reaver. We’ve reopened the book on old myths, and many of these crazy motherfuckers go into battle whole-heartedly believing their souls are destined for the warrior-heaven of Valhalla.”

And Luna had to wonder if souls which so delighted in war that they saw eternity of carnage as not only inevitable, but desirable, were not already souls of the lost.

“Well, the afterlife is a question I have pondered, but with no clear answer,” Luna said simply. “And it will be milennia before I see it for myself. If I survive this war…”

“But mankind hasn’t got anywhere near that much time,” Yarrow replied gravely. “And so, neither do we. So what were your questions?”

However, Luna was contemplating how some questions could not be asked of Yarrow. Rather, they were meant for the other woman she’d met in the naval yard.

Maxine Radwick, the sister of Alexander Reiner.

“Well, there are my immediate concerns, of course,” Luna said truthfully. “Spike, to begin with. We can help him, I’m sure of it. I only need the right space for it.”

Yarrow eyed her. “You’re thinking of taking the dragon back with you. To where you came from.”

“Yes,” Luna said. “And yet I have so much still to do here first.”

“Princess Luna,” said Yarrow. “Pardon me for interrupting, but… if you think you can break the hold on that dragon’s mind… would we be any closer to putting an end to Newfoals?”

The subtle plea in the human’s tone did not evade Luna, who paused to look at her. Really look, taking in the unfamiliar features, her eyes ringed by all-too-familiar shadows.

“I’m sorry, but it’s too early for me to tell…” said Luna. “The chains binding Spike are woeful, yet nothing unknown. There are many on Equus who’d seek to control dragons, with perverse enchantments or old forbidden words of power…”

She turned her gaze away.

“Alas, the mystery of this serum is absolute to me. Reiner hadn’t the words for it, and…” Luna couldn’t help shuddering as she thought of puppets. “To delve further, I should have to start by examining one of those creatures…”

“Ah, yes,” Yarrow said, nodding slowly. Her expression lightened. “Fortunately... there is this other guy I know. He’s still around, and he’s got… some knowledge of the topic. I know he’d be very interested in dragons, too. If I dial him now, his ship should get here by dawn.”

Luna’s heart missed a beat. This was a stroke of good fortune.

“I would be grateful, Samantha Yarrow,” Luna said, calming herself. A small smile crept on her face. “But much as I am experienced in diplomacy, too many of these questions would, forgive me, merely waylay me. There are a few questions left that only I can seek the answer to.”

“Oh?”

“Yes,” nodded Luna. “All I request, Commander… is a map.”

“A map?” said Yarrow. “Of where?”

“This country?” Luna said evasively. “I am unfamiliar with its layout.”

“Alright,” Yarrow said, getting to her feet. Luna followed suit. “I can get you a map. I won’t ask what you want one for.” She paused. “Yet how about the other alicorn? Lady Cadance, isn’t it? Could she fill in for you?”

“Princess Cadance,” Luna replied, thinking about it. “It’s a fine thought. She came to me when I needed her most, and holds her own at diplomacy. I could always brief her on what we need. It would not be the first time I’ve delegated to her.”

“That sounds good,” Yarrow said. “Well, my offer remains standing. ‘Sides, if I know old Romero, he’ll be sailing up here by himself. Just as a heads-up, though. The guy’s… a character.”

“A… ‘character’?” Luna repeated, frowning.

Yarrow winced. “I trust him with my life. But… well, I guess you’ll see. Or not.”

Winter on Earth was unlike any place she’d ever been to before, Cadance realized. The pegasi-controlled winter, cold as it were, remained warm at its heart, a warmth that radiated the strongest every Hearthswarming, when all was quiet save for Reindeer bells. And, far off in the Frozen North, where the winter raged on, even then Cadance could feel and breathe the inherent magic that flowed within them. An ancient and primal form, untamed, yet tied with Equestria.

On Equus, the Gildedale earthponies who’d raised her taught her their ways, as best they could. For she was a child of no tribe, too lithe to be an earthpony, wings too fragile for flight, and no horn to speak of.

Then came Prismia, then her ascension, and the magic that permeated Equus revealed itself entirely to her.

There was no such warmth here. Here, in the early morning hours, she stood outside this tent, between two searchlights erected by the staff. She felt no connection to the earth beneath her, the winds that blew, nor did she feel the planet’s magical flow.

She bit back a shiver, amidst the falling snow. Though she might be disconnected from the earth she stood on, the people were another matter entirely. Much like she had at the train station, with Major Bauer, Cadance allowed herself to sift through the love that flowed from the tents.

It was peculiar, how it felt. Whereas on Equus, she had taken for granted the connection between love and magic, here the love was more raw, untouched… much like the world they lived on. And yet, it was love, all the same, and Cadance found its touch equally soothing.

Something crept in, permeating the flow of emotions. Something familiar, as if it was her own thoughts. A feeling of love once held, then lost to the bitter cold.

Cadance’s heart skipped a beat when, a few paces away, she saw the newest arrival, standing in the snow. At first, it didn’t even seem as if the newcomer had recognized her.

Then their eyes met.

“Oh! H-hello!” Cadance greeted brightly, waving a hoof.

Lady Cadance – Cadenza, she thought. It felt fitting of her more reserved demeanor, this wan mirror image of hers – remained impassive to her greeting. Until she gave the tiniest of nods. Only then did Cadance felt compelled to trot over.

Cadance offered a forehoof, and a friendly smile.

“Morning,” Lady Cadenza said gruffly, standing there. She wore a green vest, and a beige coat that covered her wings. The vest was embroidered with a golden lyre on its lapel. But it was clothing that valued function over appearance, and suddenly Cadance felt very self-conscious of the glittering Crystal Realm armor she wore.

Then she saw the lines under Cadenza’s eyes, and her thinning, faded mane, and the palor of her rosey coat. Seeing her counterpart was akin to seeing a washed-out photograph of herself. On closer look, beholding this Cadance was not like looking into a mirror at all.

She retracted her forehoof, faking a cough.

“How was your trip?”

Her counterpart stared back. “Could’ve arrived sooner,” she said plainly. “Needed a boost… But I hear you’ve come from a lot further away.”

“I guess, yeah...” replied Cadance.

A cold breeze caused her to ruffle her wings. At this, it crossed Cadance’s mind that she could not see the other Cadance’s wings under the beige coat.

“So... what do they call you, then?” Lady Cadenza asked, her eyes darting from her wings, to her armored chest. Cadance’s armor was emblazoned with the sigil of the Crystal Heart. “Not everyday you get to meet… yourself, and yet, I don’t have a clue what to call you.”

“Just Cadance is fine,” she replied. Now her counterpart’s gaze landed on her wings. “I mean we’re… you know.”

“I see,” said Cadenza simply. She looked away.

A pregnant pause followed. Cadance kept her wings close to her barrel. Then, before she could change the discussion, Cadenza cleared her throat.

“They told me you fought on the Great Equestrian,” Cadenza said quietly. She looked out into the darkened skies. “Before you fell.”

“I did. On both accounts,” Cadance said. A hint of shame seeped into her tone. “It didn’t… it did not work out. I wasn’t prepared for Shining–”

The moment her words left her mouth, she regretted them, as Cadenza immediately shot her a virulent glare.

“You saw him?” she whispered. Her glare softened, her stern expression unraveled. For the first time since she’d seen her counterpart, Cadance felt the love within her heart flare out, past the icy facade.

“... I did,” Cadance replied, nodding. “I saw him on board.”

She paused.

“He had someone with him.”

The chill that she had when she glimpsed… whatever that thing was that followed her – Cadenza’s – husband, returned. Such twisted, tainted, revolting love, it sickened her to the core.

But then she paused.

‘She was his wife…’ she remembered. Alex’s stories were disjointed and weren’t at all clear, but Aunt Luna had told her about how Shining Armor had betrayed her trust and come so close to turning her...

“And… you didn’t get him back.”

The interruption snapped Cadance out of her train of thought.

“I… I didn’t,” she admitted. “He caught me off guard.”

Lady Cadenza shook her head.

“Then we won’t get him back, ever, will we?” said Cadenza coldly. “If even you couldn’t get him, then… then what hope do I have.”

“That isn’t true–”

“Don’t. Don’t give me that,” Cadenza said quickly, almost in a snarl. “I could not even fly here... let alone teleport without someone else doing it for me... so don’t…”

Her words trailed off, and she blinked back tears. She was looking at Cadance’s wings.

“How’d you do it? I… Did you… did you win the Crystal War?”

“Huh?” Cadance said blankly. “Oh, um… well, we never went to war. Shining Armor threw me at the Crystal Heart, and Sombra was… defeated.”

Her voice died down in her throat when she saw the angry glare from Lady Cadenza. For a moment, Cadance thought it might have been the matter-of-fact tone she had used.

“Of course you did,” said Lady Cadenza bitterly. “They told you, haven’t they?”

All Cadance could reply with was a confused stare.

“Well? I see it in your eyes,” the pegacorn said harshly. “I’m not the pony you think I am. And I never have been.”

With quivering lips, she jabbed her chestplate, and Cadance recoiled from the touch.

“Say it, then,” she said tersely. “A failure. That’s what they all think of me, after they’ve seen you swoop down and break the shield. And you’re everything I should have been.”

Though the tension remained in the air, Cadance steeled herself. Gently, she pushed Cadenza's forehoof away. And took a deep breath.

“I’m... I’m so sorry.”

Lady Cadenza blinked away unspilled tears. “What for?” she choked out. “You’re… you’re everything I’m not.”

Cadance shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry all this happened to you. It’s... It's too much for anyone to bear, and I can't imagine how it must’ve felt.”

Without any hesitation, she moved closer to her counterpart and welcomed her in her embrace.

“We’ll get him back,” she said softly. “Aunt Luna told me that… she got to Twilight, you see? She was close but, it wasn’t enough. Given time, maybe she could have.”

Pulling away from the embrace, she held Cadenza’s hoof in hers.

“If we have that chance, maybe love can win again.”

Hearing this, Lady Cadenza let go of her forehoof, and sighed. But the look that she affixed was not unkind.

“You’re just so… so…” said Cadenza, almost in awe. “... Naive.”

“Maybe… Is that so bad?”

“No,” came the reply. Cadenza’s gaze was that of longing. “I’m… I’m sorry, I got carried away there, but… you don’t know what we’ve been through, you’ve experienced none of it. I hope you never have to. And yet you’re so eager to help.”

“That’s okay, I… yeah, I understand. They said you were a helper as well,” Cadance remarked. “Someone to sooth when no-one else would.”

“I suppose,” said Lady Cadenza. “Pray I won’t ever have to receive you, you or anyone else from whatever miracle place you come from.”

“Why is that?”

Cadenza shook her head.

“War changes people,” she said wistfully. “You saw Shining, and you think it’s obvious. But it isn’t always that simple, because the change is in everywhere, in everyone, and it’s rarely for the better.”

She laid a forehoof on Cadance’s chest, just above her heart.

“I don’t know about getting Shining back, and if we do, that’s… that’s everything I’ve ever wished for. You might be the best chance we all have for it… But don’t… lose yourself.”

The love that flowed out of Cadenza softened, into something that it should have been… and Cadance couldn’t help but smile, softly – a smile awkwardly mirrored by Cadenza.

Before either of them could continue, though, there was a commotion at the camp’s entrance. The two of them turned their gazes there. Just in time to see the Princess of Dreams set foot in the Reavers’ camp.

“Aunt Luna,” they both said, at the same time, as they trotted over to her.

“Cadance,” said Luna. She looked at Cadenza. “And Cadance.”

“How was it?” asked Cadance.

“It went well,” said Luna. She shook her head. “But the matter is not yet done. We have much left to discuss.”

Though she held her head up high, her mane billowing in the wind, and still proudly clad in her black armor, something was off.

She had lost some of her color, from the time Cadance last saw her. A few locks of her mane, just over her forehead, once starry and enchanted, looked drained and not at all magical. A baby blue to contrast her old midnight-blue shade.

‘Oh, please be okay, Auntie…’

“Cadance, I need to speak to you,” Luna said plainly. She glanced at Lady Cadenza. “You are welcome to join us, Lady Cadance.”

Her counterpart shook her head.

“I’m afraid I must decline, Aunt– Princess,” said Cadenza. “I’ll need to speak to the others first. This may take a while, and everyone’s confused… I advise you get some rest.”

Cadance met Luna’s eye.

“That is kind of you,” Luna said. “But I hope you understand if Princess Cadance and I each take our turns slumbering.”

The pegacorn stared between the both of them. With a quiet nod, she departed back into the outskirts of the human camp, into falling snow. Awaiting her was a bipedal silhouette in armor. Cadance recognized Major Bauer.

Through the slit of his visor, she saw him look at Cadenza, then turn his eyes towards her. Even from this distance, Princess Cadance could tell when she sensed bright-eyed wonder. That, and perhaps silent begging that the world wasn’t going wholly mad.

She merely inclined her head at him, as a princess does to a knight.

“Cadance?” she heard her aunt whisper. “I’m afraid I cannot stay.”

Luna’s unexpected statement wrenched Cadance’s gaze away from the retreating backs of her counterpart and the human warrior.

“... What do you mean?”

“Oh, I will stay the night, not to worry,” Luna clarified gravely. “But I believe there are more answers to be had. And those answers may lie in Alexander Reiner’s hometown. In my absence, I will need you to help negotiate the terms, as needed.”

Cadance goggled at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“Wait, this wasn’t part of the plan! Heck, I wasn’t even supposed to be here! And you and Celestia never said anything about going to Reiner’s hometown– How would you even–”

“That was before I found someone,” Luna said. “Reiner has a sister. And she’s here, in Boston… I know what you wanted to ask me, how could I find my way about, without a guide? Maxine Radwick shall be that guide. But Cadance, there is no-one here I trust more than you. My finesse has never been with sorting matters of the Night Court. You… I believe that you are up to this task.”

Cadance looked up at her, biting her lower lip. She thought about meeting Major Bauer, and how she’d explained only what needed to be explained. That she was not the Lady Cadance they knew, but something like a reflection of her. A reflection from an Equestria which was maybe the Equestria to let Harmony truly shine bright again.

Then, she nodded, slowly.

New York City, USA.

“I gotta be straight with you, Cadance,” said Vinyl Scratch. “I don’t know what I expected.”

“Who was expecting anything from tonight, Scratch?” said Spitfire. “Two alicorns, one of whom should be a statue, and another who shouldn’t even be one. No offense, Cadance.”

“None taken…” came the reply from the plasma-screen.

Uncomfortably, Cheerilee leaned back in her seat, her eyes still fixed on Lady Cadance. Not two hours ago, she’d been looking at this same face, it seemed, projected from Boston by Major Bauer’s shoulder-camera. Now Bauer stood at guard behind Cadance, and the PHL High Command’s war-room was receiving a much crisper image, courtesy of the Great Equestrian’s retreat and the Lady Cadance’s personal iPad.

“Cadance,” Cheerilee said, faltering for a beginning. “You’re saying they confirmed the intel from Major Bauer? We’re talking here about… some sort of manifestation?”

Bauer remained in the image’s background, arms behind his back and knees spread. Under the rules of jurisdiction, the leader of the Teutonic Knights should have reported this directly to UNAC. Yet again, Cheerilee privately thanked him for bending the rules, hoping it wouldn’t have repercussions later on.

“I’m seeing double,” remarked Pineapple Nectar.

“Shut up, Pina,” Spitfire said. “But this… this other Cadance, Your Ladyship… So she can… Y’know. Fly?”

“I think that’s less important,” Lady Cadance said promptly, “than the question of just where she came from in the first place. She, and Princess Luna.”

“If this were only Luna, I’d have said the Night Princess has broken loose,” commented Gladmane. “But none of my guys in Equestria mentioned anything of the sort.”

Moondancer, as often, looked thoughtful.

“If I may.”

Cheerilee turned to her. “What? What is it?”

“It’s like this, you see,” Moondancer said, trailing a forehoof along the table. “According to the reports, when Princess Luna– if that’s who she is– initially showed up in Boston, she had a companion whose appearance closely matched Discord’s description. Now, we see her with Cadance. A Cadance who’s an alicorn. Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”

Vinyl lifted her sunglasses. Her eyebags appeared more sunken than ever – hard party animal that she’d been, the sleeplessness of the war had taken its toll, and even joining strengths with Moondancer, the strain of teleporting Cadance to Boston had cost her.

Still, she reacted energetically to what had been said.

“‘Strange’? Hah, that’s too mild a word! You got a theory, Dancer?”

“Well, it’s just a theory,” nodded Moondancer. “Now, I’m sure our Lady Cadance has learnt how to identify a Changeling impostor… Slim as the chances are we’re dealing with a Changeling. But… how do we know this isn’t Discord?”

“I hadn’t thought of that...” said Vinyl.

Around her, and even on the screen, Cheerilee felt the temperature in the room go colder.

Gladmane glanced at Pina, who shrugged. He looked at Moondancer. “I have to say, Dame Moondancer,” he said. “That’s reasoning worthy of a con artist.”

“Nothing but process of elimination,” Moondancer said modestly.

“Ahem,” Pina interrupted with a cough. “Interesting theory, yes. But, one problem. Why would Discord show up as himself in the first place?”

There was a pause as everyone contemplated her words.

It was an arresting event to see Moondancer and Pineapple Nectar express opposing views. While the bookworm’s intellect was well-known to the High Command, the peculiar, laconic mare showed another kind of intelligence – one which hinted at an abstract and clinical disdain for the world.

“Even so,” Spitfire said, “mayhap it sounds paranoid, but Dancer’s got a point. Discord’s a tricky one to pin down…”

“Really?” Pina said, deadpan. “Someone completely unexpected shows up after we’ve seen the man behind the curtain? What idiot would fall for that trick? Mister Gladmane,” she told the big earthpony, “you must agree, yes? Even Rainbow Dash would know her own father.”

He blinked. “Um, yeah, but… Why’d you pick such a specific example?”

“Oh, nothing,” Pina stroked her prosthetic forehoof, smiling. “Just wanted to say that anyone so cretinous deserves a knife in their back.” She stared at Spitfire. “It will be our backs if we think like that. Nothing makes one so gullible as paranoia.”

“Bah,” Vinyl cut in. “If the war’s proven anything, it’s the enemy of our enemy doesn’t mean they’re our friend.” Her gaze went to Cadance and Bauer on the screen. “And right now, I’m real worried about a honkin’ great dragon falling into the Reavers’ hands.”

Imploringly, Moondancer glanced towards Cheerilee.

Cheerilee tapped her iPad. “There will be other strange bedfellows for us to worry about,” she informed her colleagues. “Half an hour ago, Chairman Vanderbilt sent me a message. Apparently, he’s given Admiral Chirkov the go-ahead that Commodore Romero be granted safe passage into Boston waters.”

A chorus of groans and protests rattled the table. As usual, only Pina and Moondancer looked like they were taking unwelcome news in stride.

“Oh, by Lyra’s mane, not that guy,” Spitfire moaned, head in her forehooves. “They used to call the Wonderbolts glorified performers… But what’s that next to him and the floating circus he calls a flotilla?”

“Complete with a freakshow,” Gladmane agreed darkly. “I shudder to think about it…”

On the screen, Cadance said nothing, but behind her, Bauer was scowling.

And while Pina’s response was comparatively sober, it was no less acid. Or perhaps more acid than usual, even.

“I know circuses and freaks,” she commented, her eyes somber. “But there’s a word for a man who has warships and answers to no government. Pirate? Too romantic. I’d say warlord, yes.”

“Fucking HLF,” spat Vinyl.

“Well, like it or not,” Cadance said from the screen, “though my double may have accosted Major Bauer, it’s the HLF who got to Luna and the dragon first.”

“Do the Reavers have anyone who can tend to a dragon, Lady Cadance?” Moondancer said curiously. “Actually… We didn’t get a good look at the dragon from the Major’s shoulder-cam. But he looks familiar, somehow…”

This appeared to trouble Cadance.

“I… I don’t know,” she replied. “I haven’t seen him yet…”

“It’s Spike.”

Even the onscreen Cadance looked at the one who’d spoken.

Since getting called back from the UN, Amethyst Star – who unlike her father held no seat at this table, and Time Turner was still absent, trying to placate the Security Council – after having been grilled for what she knew of the mysterious entity who’d communicated through Bonbon, had retreated to a corner with her, holding the exhausted Bonbon in a comforting embrace… She’d remained silent, until now.

Bonbon gibbered, and Amethyst leaned to whisper soothingly into her ear.

“... Spike?” Cheerilee repeated. “Wait, you don’t mean… Twilight’s little assistant in Ponyville?”

“Who gave her permission to speak?” Vinyl interrupted angrily. “You’ve been keeping secrets from us, Amethyst. You and Cadance. How do you know the dragon’s Spike? What, anything else you’d still like to share?”

Amethyst stood up, gently releasing Bonbon. Who remained seated, rocking back and forth, lost in her own world. Amethyst, however, glared at the High Command.

She walked around the circular table, until she stood behind the chair next to Cheerilee’s. The chair that faced the door. There were three empty chairs in the room tonight. But this was the one chair always kept empty.

Amethyst folded her forelimbs upon the top.

“A dragon with Twilight. Who else could it be?” she told them. “If you’d just stopped and thought, instead of fretting and assuming the worst, you’d have concluded the same thing. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Squatting here in the dark, squabbling over whether this person’s who they say they are… Over whose help you want or don’t want… ”

She rubbed the back of the seat, into which was etched the seal of a golden lyre.

“I know… there are days when it seems humans hardly give us a reason to help them, and the HLF, in particular, have given us many such days. But if the humans had stayed stuck in the place we are now, the Tyrant would already have won.”

Her words, though spoken softly, rang clear and true.

No response came forth immediately. Ironically, when it did, it came from the only one who could not see the engraved lyre from her vantage point.

“Amethyst’s right,” Cadance said. “We’ve all been making fools of ourselves… And I ought to have guessed that was Spike. We’ve become so fearful of deception and self-interest, we’ve pulled the wool over our own eyes.”

Pina just shook her head, but everyone else muttered assent.

“Miss Cherry,” Bauer pitched in. “Though I am not on your council, I’d like to say a word. As a soldier, I have a duty to always stand on guard. But as a human being, I’ll add my voice in favor of Miss Star’s wisdom.”

“Although, discretion is the better part of valor,” Moondancer added mildly.

Cadance nodded at her. “That’s fair enough, Dancer. But sometimes, one must step out. Hopefully, into the light.”

This got Cheerilee thinking.

“So, these apparitions… Luna, Discord… this alicorn Cadance… the weird voice talking through Bonbon… They’re all connected to Alex vanishing into that portal?”

“Apparently,” said Cadance. “Whatever happened at the JFK portal-station, Colonel Reiner got thrust into a… different Equestria.”

Moondancer frowned. “I find it hard to attribute that to sheer luck,” she said, eyeing Amethyst. “If this is true… There must be some other power at work, we just don’t know about it yet.”

Amethyst, for her part, said nothing.

“Commandant. I’ve a feeling the Princesses plan to stay with the Reavers, close to… Spike. What would you have me do?”

Cheerilee cleared her throat.

“This night has worn us all,” she said. “And though soldiers may be practiced at staying awake past their limits, we must approach this new development with clear heads. I shall notify Time Turner that he, as it were, must get the Security Council prepared for a meeting in the morning. In the meantime, all our Boston safehouses are down… If the Major will be so kind, return with him to the UNAC base in Fenway.”

“The Teutonic Knights will be happy to provide shelter to the PHL,” said Bauer.

“Good. But please, do keep an eye out for our… visitors, and their hosts.”

Boston, USA.
– Seven hours later

“Auntie, wake up.”

From a sleep that wasn’t as restful as it should have been, filled with abandoned libraries, the wails of specters behind their shelves and corridors of blood, Luna groaned her way back into the waking world.

The face of Cadance, scarcely any more rested, greeted her.

“Cadance?” whispered Luna. “Are we…”

“Still on Earth,” Cadance whispered back. “Yes. Luna, Commander Yarrow was here just now. It’s… it’s the human leaders. It’s UNAC. I don’t think they’ll… they’ll hold out much longer. They need answers.”

“And we need ours, too.”

Luna stood up within the large tent. They’d spent the night here on mattresses, she and Cadance, divested of their suits of armor, which had been stored into their respective null-spaces, ready to be summoned anew if needed. The inside of the tent, lit by floodlights, illuminated its third occupant. The great purple dragon that lay motionless in his deep slumber. They had secured an all-access permission to find refuge in this specific tent. And though Spike had been a mutual enemy during the battle, Commander Yarrow hadn’t argued. This was the Reaver tent she’d set aside for Equusites.

The dragon was kept heavily sedated, from what Luna understood, by several times the dose required for a full-grown elephant. With the initial stages of the spell upon his mind dissolved, however, his rest was more than well-earned.

She pressed a hoof against his snout, tracing his scales, avoiding the wounds he had sustained. The Reaver camp’s medic, a man called Avery, had done his best, but Luna only trusted those within Equestria to truly understand.

“Are you okay?” asked Cadance. “You were coughing blood earlier…”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” said Luna. “Nothing I can't deal with by myself for now.”

An alicorn’s natural regeneration had been a blessing, and neither she nor her sister had ever been struck by truly debilitating ailments. And, if Cadance had told the truth, neither had the newer, younger alicorn.

“Tell me. Now that you’ve slept on it… What did you make of Lady Cadance?” Luna asked, stalling.

The younger alicorn bit her lower lip, nervous and shaky.

“She’s… willing to talk, so there's that,” Cadance said. “But she’s… heartbroken, you see. She misses him. Shining Armor. And I saw him on board…”

“He hurt you, didn’t he?”

“Not as much as he’s hurt my other self…” Cadance said quietly. “I don’t know what happened. It was like, he didn’t even care that it was me. Or her. He, and Twilight… like they hated me “

“Hm, I presume years of war haven’t been kind to what they think of Lady Cadance.”

“I suppose so… but it’s still not him. Shining would never– I just, I don’t understand. Why?”

She choked on her last words, and Luna laid a comforting wing on her, sharing her forlorn look. She’d told Cadance about how she’d embarked on a trek in Twilight’s mind, how she’d come so close to setting her free, before a stray bullet ended that chance once and for all.

Now she only felt Cadance’s pain.

“I know it isn’t, and I am sorry you had to witness it. But he is not the first, nor shall he be the last to behave this way.”

She pressed Cadance’s head against her neck in a familial embrace, and they stood there for a moment that stretched on, with only the gentle breathing of Spike to break the silence.

”Theirs is not our world, much as I like to think it should be,” Luna said quietly. “In that Equestria, there was no triumph at your Wedding… no redemption of Discord…”

“... And no Spike the Brave and Glorious,” Cadance whispered mournfully. She walked away from Luna, and nuzzled Spike’s snout affectionately. “Oh, Spike… what did they do to you…”

Luna had only heard snippets of the Realm’s return. Celestia had insisted on Twilight to undertake the quest, with the rest of the Bearers. And though all was almost lost to the Dark King, Cadance had informed them of how Spike, the little drake that could, had been the one to truly save the Realm. The title Brave and Glorious, bestowed upon him by the crystalponies, must have been his finest hour.

Her gaze turned from the slumbering dragon to Cadance. The Crystal Princess come again, the first new alicorn in generations, Luna remembered. A pegacorn, raised by earthponies, born to her lost bloodline, a bloodline that had disappeared with Princess Amore many centuries ago.

And Celestia wished another to join Cadance, in a plan she’d only shared with her dear sister...

‘Wait… my sister’s plan…’ she realized. ‘The Archmage wasn’t… an alicorn…’

Luna sighed. Yet another future lost, she presumed, gone in the wake of the Imperial years.

“Things are not as clear-cut as they should be,” said Luna. “But… and I am not so sure this is a promise I can keep, but I promise that… whatever the answers are, we shall find them. And it begins here, Cadance.”

She nudged Cadance, and her niece, her descendant, looked at her.

“Come,” said Luna. “We must let him rest.”

Cadance nodded, before turning to embrace Spike, one last time. He remained motionless, his breathing shallow and labored.

‘No… we shall make it right...’

A simple promise, Luna mused, but one not so easily fulfilled. Yet something else tugged at Luna’s troubled mind. Alexander Reiner…

Or, to be precise, his own estranged sister.

The night before, Maxine Radwick had departed from this camp with Major Bauer, Lady Cadenza and all troops who were not of the Reavers. Just as Reiner had explained as part of his last words before Luna had departed with Discord for Earth, the Major and his Teutonic Knight had a camp further West, Fenway Park.

Jumbled as her thoughts were, Luna tried not to dwell on Discord. As they stepped outside, she pulled out the map Yarrow had presented her.

While Cadance watched curiously, Luna unfolded and scrutinized its contents one more time. North America, a broad landmass, fragmenting to the North into a dozen lakes and islands. It put her oddly in mind of a squat, lopsided tree crowned by pine-needles. Tracing national and regional outlines, Luna’s eye drifted down to a point South. There, a small town, in a place called Texas.

The Princess of the Night folded the map back up. Closing her eyes, she let her mind expand. Dawn had yet to break on these shores. Luna reached out with her mind – and sensed this world’s Moon.

Alien, unfamiliar, no friend of hers. But recognizably a Moon. This night had been the night of a Full Moon. Breathing in slowly, breathing out, Luna let the Moon’s touch envelop her. And as it was back home, the Moon was a mirror to the world, and from behind that mirror, Princess Luna’s eyes beheld the world.

For the first time, an alicorn of Equestria saw Earth from above.

Alike to the world from whence she’d came, a blue-green pearl hanging in the void of space. But this pearl was tainted. It was from this elevated vantage point that Luna saw in the East, how there advanced an inexorable wall, of a sickly color that drained all others in its wake. Fighting back faintness, Luna tore her gaze away from this sight of what her fallen sister had wrought.

Her eyes searched, sliding along silvery rays of light the Moon took from the Sun, and gifted back to the world below. This was what her exile had been. To look upon the world from afar, beholding its magnificence, yet seeing only a surface unbroken in its smoothness, never to marvel at the myriad little existences that swarmed and multiplied underneath, anymore than mortal eyes see these in a drop of water.

Her mind aligned the world below with the pictures on the map, and calculated.

‘If the numbers do not lie... ’

A simple triangulation would do the trick. Luna opened her eyes.

“Are you alright?” Cadance asked. “You seemed… faraway…”

“Yes... Miles, in fact,” Luna replied distantly. She looked at her niece. “One request I must make of you, above all. You must bring Spike back. Whatever their demands, this is ours. Allow us to bring Spike home, and we ask no more in return. Our mission is to set right what was wrong, and this is the first step. Can you promise me that, Cadance?”

Though Cadance seemed nonplussed at Luna’s sudden remoteness, she dutifully answered. “Okay... I promise. And about Discord…”

Luna cut her off with a glare.

“No,” she said. “Not yet, Cadance. Not until we have made ourselves known to these people. I’ve let too much slip already. I do not wish to completely throw them off balance. We shall inform them when the time is right.”

Cadance nodded.

“Right… Before we come back in, though– your mane, Auntie?” she finally asked. “It’s… it’s a little off-color.”

Luna’s forehoof followed where Cadance pointed. With a tug, pulled a single strand from the tuft of mane that hung over her forehead. She saw that it was indeed a shade lighter than her usual midnight blue.

“So it is,” she said quietly. “This is the least of my worry, Cadance, much less yours. Now… They have waited long enough… Let us swiftly travel to Fenway Park. And I shall pick up Maxine Radwick, though I may have to coax her assistance after the fact…”

The trip from New York to Boston had taken a little over four hours, not counting the time it had taken to arrange for a UN-affiliated humvee to bring a war correspondent into a newly-reheated war zone. Positively late by pre-war standards, but these days, time was something no-one really had anymore, least of whom Hanne Adler. And here she sat next to her dear partner, being driven across the desolate, snow-covered battleground that was now Boston. Yet it was by a stroke of luck for Hanne that who else should have boarded her vehicle, but for Stephan Bauer himself – better known as the Knight of Germania.

So far, she’d had the courtesy not to pester the borderline legendary soldier, and she and Dieter had merely exchanged glances and a shake of the hand with Major Bauer.

That was ten minutes ago, once the humvee had arrived at Longwood Station. Now, entering Boston proper, even at this distance and with her middling knowledge of the town’s landmarks, Hanne felt a sudden chill to see something had happened to the John Hancock Tower. Half the face had been shorn off the tower, exposing the metallic skeleton beneath its reflective surface. It unnerved her to see evidence the Imperial assault had extended this far inland. But she did not dare ask Bauer about it, and this made her fidget in her seat.

Seeing light on the horizon, she checked her watch. It was close to nine o’clock in the morning.

In war, one would often latch unto the symbol of hope that stood for their cause. For Germany, that symbol was Stephan Bauer, the knight without a homeland, whose valiant efforts symbolized the will of the German people to endure.

Here, in the humvee, his features and exhausted expression made him look like any ordinary man. Even his signature armor – a modern version of the knights of old – was nowhere on his person, and he was now clad in a simple, standard-issue Bundeswehr uniform.

Bauer had come to greet them on their way to the rendezvous point, and didn’t say much. Military confidentiality was still an issue. Any other time, Hanne would have been clamoring for a chance to talk to the man. Yet here she sat, her camera in her lap, feeling giddy as a schoolgirl on the inside, looking aloof as ever on the outside.

Leave it to Dieter to open his mouth and greet the man so easily.

“So,” he said. “Long night?”

Hanne poked her partner. She could have glared at him. Bauer, meanwhile, was snapped out of his thoughts to look at them both through the rear-view mirror. Hanne knew soldiers were so often hardened that they’d think such a question… insensitive. Unless they found some dark humor in it.

Thankfully, Major Bauer seemed to belong to the latter category.

“You could say that,” he said casually. “What about you two there?”

Before Dieter could blurt out another question, Hanne intervened. “Yeah, same old, same old. UNAC meetings are, in the end, just meetings. But what else is there to do?”

“Got lucky with that call, huh?” Bauer said. “You missed most of it.”

“Can’t get every shot, Major Bauer,” Hanne lamented. Her shoulders relaxed, a little. “That’s what Kahoku Sanderson says as well. But we take what we can get. I, ah, believe the fabled Knight of Germania himself was in the thick of things?”

Bauer groaned. “Please don’t call me that,” he said. “Just Major Bauer. It takes forever to get the damned media to lose the nickname.”

“My bad,” said Hanne, and Dieter laughed.

“Her regret is that she didn’t give you the nickname herself, you see–” said Dieter, before Hanne jabbed an elbow into his ribs.

“Then you are fine in my book,” said Bauer, ignoring Dieter’s pained yelp. “Everybody remembers your Barrier photograph, Miss Adler. Whereas I’d hate to end up being remembered by such a… tacky moniker.”

Hanne blinked. “Like I said, Major. We take what we can get at this point. It was a lucky shot, but I’ll take it if it means a little more for the history books.”

“That’s the spirit,” said Bauer. “Everything counts– hold up, we got a checkpoint.”

The humvee’s pace slowed and Hanne saw more soldiers outside. She readied her pass, but her gaze trailed as Major Bauer, leaning past the driver, spoke to the Teutonic Knight patrolman who was manning the checkpoint.

Hanne made out the tall, crumbling structures that dotted the Boston landscape. It was hard to believe that the city, mere hours ago, had been the site of a battle. Now it was but a ghost town, from what she could surmise.

She hadn’t managed to call Kahoku Sanderson again. The last she’d heard from her was to meet in some outpost, one Hanne felt sure they were heading to now. Her colleague had simply mentioned that she 'had to be there’.

But Hanne was still keen on taking the best of pictures – quite unlike the photograph she’d just retrieved on instinct from her jacket, held in her hand. She looked down at it.

It was a faded polaroid, one of a few copies she’d given to her circle of friends back in university. She’d convinced them to indulge her hobby – what good was a polaroid these days, they’d obviously thought. And it wasn’t the best of shots, either, in Hanner’s professional opinion. But there was no question how much it really meant for her, especially in the wake of the Conversion War.

There were a few people in that precious shot, and she remembered them all quite well. But only two remained, apart from her, and their time to pass would come.

Jan… Ana… And next to her, Dieter.

Who else could she still lose...

At last, the clearance was given, and the jeep continued in its trek, each of its occupants from Major Bauer to Hanne herself travelling in silence. Or at least, the jeep continued, until it came to a halt shortly after at Fenway Park.

When Hanne looked out the window, she was met by a familiar sight.

Kahoku, her hands in her pockets. In contrast to the destruction Hanne saw surrounding her, her fellow reporter was smiling. Nor did the smile leave the Hawaiian’s face as Hanne and Dieter exited the humvee, followed by Bauer.

“What took you so long?” she said casually, accepting a handshake.

“Not our best time,” Dieter said. “Had a few delays.”

“Of course,” Hanne shrugged, letting go of Kahoku’s hand. “Traffic these days, you know.”

Kahoku chuckled wryly. “One way to put it,” she said. “But, well, let’s just say that this is going to be worth your time. Promise.”

Bauer, who’d been observing both journalists, cleared his throat. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, indicating the large tent at the center of the camp. “I’m expected elsewhere. Our welcome amongst the Reavers relies on maintaining good relations.”

He left then, seemingly deeming the matter cut and dry. Hanne opened her mouth, but was interrupted when her partner tapped her shoulder.

“Hey, Hanne?” Dieter said. “Look who’s here.”

She followed where he pointed, and was met by a crushing hug from someone a full head shorter than she was. It knocked the wind out of Hanne, and she staggered. But all annoyances evaporated when she met the large, warm eyes of Anastasia Bjorgman.

“Ana?” she whispered. “Ana! What the f– you’re alive?”

Her best friend laughed. Despite the layer of dust covering her, Ana looked almost as typically cheerful as she’d been when Hanne first met her, many years ago in their university days.

“Yeah, of course I am!” she exclaimed, rubbing the back of her head coyly. Her hair, Hanne saw, was also much shorter than it had been last time she’d called. “Goodness, took you guys quite a while to get here. I’d have thought you weren’t coming! Kahoku promised, you know.”

“On your behalf,” Kahoku added.

“Right,” said Hanne flatly. She reached out to brush away one of Ana’s remaining bangs. “Ana, what’d you do to your hair?”

“Oh, that? Eh-heh, well… you know. Regulations.”

But Hanne frowned. She hadn’t taken Ana for a combat agent at all, as her letters had only made mention of working in the PHL-aligned branch of Boston’s pharmaceutics sector. Biotechnology and pharmaceutics, this was one of the industries Boston had been known for prior to the war. And the war had lent it new significance.

“Regulations?” repeated Hanne. “Was zum Teufel? After Indonesia, you were supposed to be with R&D, not sent back to field duty, Ana. What's all this?”

Ana shrugged wryly. “Eh… call it downsizing.”

This drew something that was more grimace than smile from Dieter.

“But, in all seriousness, look around you,” said Ana, her hand tracing their surroundings. “Even with weeks to prepare, the evacuation took ages, they needed the manpower and… well, even Amethyst Star doesn’t have the clout to prevent a reassignment to the frontlines.”

“Damn,” Dieter said. “That’s a shame.”

“I know, right? Well… they didn’t expect the Empire to push so boldly. So we found ourselves caught in the battle, and off to the frontlines I went…”

‘Ana, why’d you ever tell them about your shooting range performance, you goof…’

Hanne couldn’t tear her gaze off her new haircut. It simply wasn’t Ana.

A memory flashed by of the pair of them fooling around in their university days, sneaking in and out of classes. Hanne’s smile turned wicked.

“Very well, and… Okay, Kahoku?” said Hanne. “I really should tell you sometime about how Bjorkman and I went sneaking around campus and f–”

And then Ana stepped on her foot, hard. Dieter, like the charming, loyal man he was, burst out laughing, and even Kahoku suppressed a smirk.

“Okay, okay I get it, don’t bring it up,” Hanne said hurriedly, cringing through the pain that shot through her foot. “You still need to explain a few things…” Her glare fell on her partner. “People are watching, Dieter.”

She was right. All around them, the various UNAC and HLF soldiers had turned their eyes on them, shaking their heads at what amounted to a bunch of schoolchildren. Including another fellow, who fast approached them. He stood level with Hanne, and clad in the kevlar-plated armor of a Teutonic Knight. He had sharp features, and with a glare that could match her own. Hanne quickly stood up to meet him eye-to-eye.

“Ah, yes, the Englishman,” said Hanne coolly. The man nodded. “Hope she isn’t a handful.”

Thomas Harwood shrugged. “It varies,” he said primly. Ana laughed, and Hanne chuckled. “She’s still the same ray of sunshine.”

“And then some,” Hanne quipped, and Ana nudged her. “You know what I mean.”

“See, about that–” Ana had begun to say, but she was interrupted by a growing murmur from the large tent.

Hanne stood stiffly, coolly watching the people that streamed out of the tent. First she noticed Samantha Yarrow, leader of the Reavers. Personally, Hanne did not much trust the HLF. But Sam Yarrow was someone else entirely. At this moment, Yarrow walked in hushed conversation with Major Bauer.

They turned, revealing a third figure behind them, and Hanne gasped when her eyes fell upon the mare.

“Lady Cadance?” Hanne asked aloud, puzzled. “What the… but you were…”

The camp had fallen silent – even Dieter and Ana kept quiet, equally mystified, as the rose-colored alicorn drew up to them. And then ‘Cadance’ unfurled her wings. Her fully-formed wings, graceful and angelic in their beauty.

“Welcome,” said the alicorn.

“... Mein Gott,” Hanne said, before finding her voice. “And the… the dark alicorn? Where’s she? Where is Luna?”

Cadance shook her head. “She’s… a little busy elsewhere. Come, I’ll explain.”

Jarden, Texas, USA.

A flash of blue light appeared, then dispersed.

Based on where the morning light shone dimly through the clouds, it was barely past ten o’clock, when Luna set hoof upon solid ground once more. And barely past ten o’clock when Maxine Radwick, for lack of a better word, was even less pleased with her.

“Where are we?!”

“Jarden, your hometown,” said Luna calmly. “Or the outskirts, anyway. I took the liberty of finding it on a map, and teleporting here was trivial, even with my limited mana reserves. I merely needed to find the Moon and–”

“You took me to Jarden?” Radwick repeated. “Do you have any idea how far this is!”

“Why, yes,” answered Luna. “We are approximately– where are you going?”

“Somewhere that isn’t with you,” hissed Radwick, stomping off.

They were on a hillside. In the Winter, the local Sun’s light remain dimmed, but there were lights not so far away, down below in the morning mist, an erratic collection of shapes and colors at the bottom of the hill, scarcely concealed by squat trees – sycamores, if Luna recalled correctly. She wasn’t the Princess most attuned to the land.

She followed Radwick downhill, silently. With her keen eyesight, she squinted to see where the human was heading. It was a group of metallic structures on wheels, which might have been mobile homes, at a stop in a grass field. Despite the early hour, there was activity. The scent of perspiration and alcohol reached her senses, and on top of that, the place was loud, a cacophony of laughter, chanting and screeching music all mixed together.

If Luna lost Radwick in that fray, it’d be hard to find her again without being spotted.

“Wait, wait!” shouted Luna. She flew over and landed on the grass, blocking Radwick’s way. The woman’s green eyes narrowed harshly. “Please, I have my own reasons to bring us both here.”

“Well?” Radwick said, glaring. She crossed her arms, and her shoulders relaxed, just a little. “Spit it out. We don’t have all day.”

Luna drew a sharp breath. “I wish to see what you all hold dear.”

Radwick blinked.

“What?”

“Aye. I only wish to see what humanity treasures most. And I only have what Alexander Reiner told me– your hometown.”

Luna sighed, deeply.

“I apologize, Miss Radwick. But I know pain. And I thought you may need the reprieve, too. If it is your superiors you worry about, I’m prepared to take full responsibility... I do apologize, truly, for abducting you. Now… please. Please, make me understand, just what it is humanity is fighting so hard to keep.”

“So you took me back to my hometown, just for that?” Radwick said curtly. “You don’t do things by half, do you?”

“No, I suppose not,” Luna admitted. “I prefer a direct approach. Both by deeds, and by words.”

Radwick snorted. “Words,” she said. “You ponies were always full of pretty words. Your actions wouldn’t really line up.” She paused, thinking. “You know, if you’d ‘ported right into town, they’d likely have picked up the spike, and you wouldn’t be my problem any longer. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t turn you in.”

Luna, for a brief moment, pondered if she should remind Radwick or not about the battle they had just lived through, mere hours ago.

She shrugged.

“Wouldn’t they wonder how you left the battle, Miss Radwick?” she asked. “I could just as easily bring you back, just like that.”

It was a bold-faced lie. Even had she tried, Luna wouldn’t have been able to teleport a hoofball field away, not in her current state. She’d exhausted her last mana with this jump.

“But I need answers. Your brother didn’t want to believe it at first, either, but we’re sure there’s some old connection between your family and Equestria. And I promise, this will provide us both a reprieve from our troubles.”

Radwick stared at her stone-facedly for a long, long time. Then she turned.

As Luna was about to give a resigned sigh, however, she heard the woman speak, without looking back.

“You want to meet my Dad,” Radwick said quietly, moving a few steps towards the camp, hands in her pockets. “He still lives here. In Jarden, I mean. Not this madhouse.” She nodded towards the gaudily lit, noise-bursting camp. “He’s pretty chill about ponies.”

Luna advanced gingerly. “What about your mother?”

“Don’t,” snapped Radwick. “Just don’t. You won’t find Mom here, anyway. She… left. Not even Dad knows where.”

Luna looked at the woman’s back, up and down. She was tense, fists almost clenching.

“Very well,” Luna said. “I won’t pry, if it is your wish.”

Radwick chuckled mirthlessly. “Besides, doubt you’ll get very far. The town’s a fortress, you need special clearance to visit, if you’re a tourist. Dunno how you’ll even get past the gates.”

“You’re a citizen, surely?” Luna said thoughtfully. “And Colonel Reiner’s sister. I’d expected there might be setbacks. I was hoping you could help me.”

Radwick turned around. “Oh, really,” she said. “Why aren’t I surprised? You did want to use me for something, after all. But you’re not exactly the most inconspicuous of ponies, you know. Half the guys want to shoot down the first alicorn they see.”

Luna tapped her chin. It didn’t take too long, of course, for an idea to hatch. A simple trick, one that Galatea reminded her still existed for all three of them, when the grey alicorn had assumed her disguise as a… grey earthpony.

‘Always the unassuming one.’

Celestia, meanwhile, had once spent an entire day in Ponyville in the guise of a pegasus, and by all accounts it had been a fun outing. One that had only ended when Twilight remembered, from a glance at an old storybook, what color her mane had been in youth.

Personally, Luna preferred the versatility of a unicorn.

So it was, her horn glowed bright, her aura enveloping her. Her mane and tail, once midnight blue and flowing, shortened to half their original length, and now inert as any normal pony’s should be. Her blue coat, too, shifted to a light azure shade.

And now she stood before Radwick in her youthful form, the very same form she’d had when she was freed by the Bearers of Harmony. Only her cyan eyes and mark remained intact, her wings having disappeared under the glamour.

With the glamour, came the rush of vigor.

“I haven’t felt so… invigorated in days!” she exclaimed. “Tell me, tell me, how do I look?”

Radwick looked her up and down, then scoffed. “Would I care?”

“Come now, Miss Radwick,” said Luna lightly. “I did say this would be a reprieve. “And now, before you stands... uh, Claire de Lune, yes. Claire de Lune, former Canterlot aristocrat, and a fervent admirer of Colonel Reiner.”

Radwick shook her head. “Claire de Lune?”

“A fancier way of saying Moonlight, but I like the name. Sounds very posh, doesn’t it?”

“Right. You still look like yourself. But light blue.”

“The mane changes everything, first off,” said Luna. Now, the once conspicuous light blue tuft hanging on her forehead blended in with the rest of her mane. “But you’re right. There must be something else I can do...”

She cleared her throat. Then, she vocalized, tuning up her pitch with each ‘ah’ she said. And, with a wide smirk, she began to sing.

“Tend the burdens your heart carries, come along and join the fun!” she sang, tapping her hooves upon the grass. Radwick raised an eyebrow at the display. “Loosen up, forget your worries, dance with me, the night is young…”

She let out a high-pitched giggle.

“Ah, it worked, then,” said Luna. “Sorry. But to be so young again… my, I couldn’t resist.”

“I can tell,” said Radwick flatly.

“Oh, you remind me of Starswhirl. He wasn’t amused by that song either,” said Luna cheerfully. She flicked her head gracefully, beaming. “Now I am truly Claire de Lune. And I feel that I have much to see.”

Boston, USA.

“Alright, everyone,” Cadance said primly. “Let’s start over from the beginning.”

She put on her best smile, and stood up. Before her were Major Bauer, Lady Cadenza, and a few more people whose names she did not know. Her counterpart sat opposite her, facing a black device on the table. The pliable, two-piece device reminded Cadance vaguely of a pocket mirror, but oversized and providing no reflection. Its upraised ‘mirror’ half, in fact a screen, had been opaque until Cadenza tapped a button on the lower half, which consisted of an unusually flat keyboard.

Cadenza had rapidly explained this ‘laptop’ functioned by storing memory in silicon, much like crystal infused by the mystical arts. Meanwhile, the screen – or ‘monitor’ – actually wove images using a combination of liquid crystals and light. When asked what power made this possible, Cadenza reiterated a fact Cadance had briefly gleaned off of Reiner, that due to different physical laws, Earth was surrounded by a magnetic field, trapping lightning in quantities the Kirin could only have dreamt of harvesting.

It was remarkable. But the device’s appearance also made Cadance a little uncomfortable, reminding her of the ansible, that uncanny typewriter which had delivered the words condemning Redheart to death… Heavens, had that only been a day ago? She wondered how Luna was coping with it….

On the screen was the face of Commandant Cheerilee, looking expectant of her.

A few more laptops were brought in. They were laid on the table, their black screens facing her. Soon enough, Cadance was welcomed with new faces.

One by one, their names were read out. The reader, she observed, was a middle-aged man in the room with them, his receding hairline hidden beneath his winter cap, and a downtrodden, haggard look beneath the pair of glasses that hung precariously off his sharp nose. Only his formal two-piece informed Cadance of his rank. Director of UNAC-PHL Intelligence, whatever that meant. His light, measured voice added to the image, she supposed.

Reynardine was his name, as introduced by Cadenza. And so he spoke, introducing others.

“Peter Vanderbilt, UNAC Council Leader.”

“Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations.”

“Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China.”

“Jean-Luc Mélenchon, President of the Republic of France.”

“Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation.”

“Sajid Javid, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.”

Finally, Reynardine moved to present the last man on a screen. He, Cadance remembered, had been mentioned several times by Reiner. He was a homely-looking man, whom she thought Shining or Blueblood would have felt made for a nice presence at a bar evening.

“Jack Davis, President of the United States of America.”

With the last of the UN leaders introduced, silence fell.

‘Okay, Cadance. Breathe in, and out. You got this… You got this.’

So she began, talking into a microphone that had been given her, on a stand.

“My name is Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, though Cadance is fine.” she said. A pause, as the humans’ scribes took notes on their notebooks and thin black pads. “I am the reigning Crystal Princess, ruler of the sovereign Crystal Realm.”

Another pause. She looked at Major Bauer, to her side. He gave her an encouraging nod. She cleared her throat again.

“I stand here as an envoy for my Aunts Celestia and Luna, reigning Diarchs of Equestria. An Equestria that has not known war in centuries. And this Equestria has an alliance is in the making. An alliance that will stand against your enemy, hand in hoof.”

A pause, and static crackled from her microphone. She gave a nod to one of the two most prominent men whose screens flanked Cheerilee’s. This one was to Cadance’s left on the table. Antonio Guterres.

“If I may, ” spoke Guterres. “According to our records, Princess Luna is not at present ruling by her sister’s side. Her attempted defection was halted in Iceland by Queen Celestia… the same night you yourself defected, Lady Cadance.”

“Yes, Secretary-General,” replied Cadance. “In their Equestria. But in ours, Princess Luna rules in equal measure to her sister. And I am not the same Cadance. Anymore than my Aunt Celestia is the same Tyrant you fight.”

“Another Equestria...” said Mélenchon, a bespectacled, elderly man. “Forgive me, Your Highness, but you must understand how… surreal this all seems. We have questions.”

“I concur,” added Peter Vanderbilt. “If you would…?”

Cadance nodded stiffly. Xi Jinping steepled his hands, but said nothing.

“Is Colonel Reiner alive?” asked Vanderbilt. His voice was gravelly, yet clear.

“He is,” said Cadance. “Hurt, but alive. He arrived nearly two weeks ago, by our count. We’ve been treating him as best we can.”

“Alive, after two weeks?” Vanderbilt said incredulously. “How is that possible? All the evidence we have shows humans cannot survive in the Equusite biosphere much longer than three days. The thaumaturgic environment is too rich for us to adapt.”

“I don’t know what’s up with that,” Cadance admitted. “But it doesn’t at all seem the case with Colonel Reiner and my Equestria. Maybe… maybe it isn’t the environment. Maybe something in the Equestria you know is toxic to humans…”

“Tell us your story, Princess,” said Guterres.

And so it began, indeed. A story that had been told to others before the council which sat here. A story of a man who’d found his way to Equestria. How Equestria had listened to his story, and called upon allies from far and wide. How an entire world had heard Reiner’s plea for help.

After a time, Cadance reached the story’s end. Or rather, its midpoint.

“It was decided that my Aunt Luna was to be the envoy, along with Lord Discord,” said Cadance. “Princess Celestia thought she shouldn’t come to Earth yet.”

“Yes… how wise of her,” said Vladimir Putin. The President of the Russian Federation, Cadance thought, had a higher-pitched voice than what his shrewd, calculating appearance implied. He narrowed his eyes. “Yet sending someone as… important as you are to treat with us, seems equally unwise.”

“Things didn’t go exactly as planned, Mister President,” said Cadance. “Aunt Luna has her own… task now, and I speak on her behalf.”

“Excuse me, Princess Cadance,” said Sajid Javid. “But, if I may?”

“Proceed, Prime Minister,” said Cadance.

“You may be unfamiliar with the state of matters on Earth...” he began.

Cadance raised a forehoof. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Colonel Reiner has given us a rundown of your world’s politics, Prime Minister,” she said quickly. “Enough for us to understand.”

“I see,” said Javid. “In any case, our questions remain. You claim to be from another Equestria. But… what sets you apart?”

“Fifteen years separate us from our counterparts, Prime Minister,” replied Cadance. “We’re still not entirely sure where we really diverged, but Aunt Luna has observed that the Crystal War never happened to our Equestria.”

“How peculiar,” said Vladimir Putin. “Fifteen years…”

“Indeed,” Cadance agreed. “Enough time for things to be… drastically different.”

Xi Jinping inclined his head.

“How different?” he asked, in a language different from the others’. “If I may ask, Princess.” Then someone from his end of the call repeated the words – at the same time Cadance instinctively replied in his language.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Mister President,” she said hurriedly, consciously switching back to the former language. “I meant… There’s been no war. No Co-Harmony Sphere. No Empire. And... ” She couldn’t help but hesitate. “No madness of Queen Celestia…”

Jinping narrowed his eyes. He had a squint that, weirdly, made Cadance think of a bear.

“I see you have a Gift of Tongues, Princess Cadance. Interesting…” the President of China told her silkily. “Yet to our knowledge, Colonel Reiner is quite fluent in Modern Equish. I assume he communicated with you in that the whole time?”

“You know, I never really thought about that…” Cadance said slowly, wondering if here was a net she was being drawn into. “But… from what I know of the Gift, I could only be talking in words you recognize, if enough of my people can read your language… Such as how the deep magical bond works. Yet this is my first time on this world…”

Before any of the assembled leaders could speak, Cheerilee spoke aloud.

“Then we are to take this as a good sign,” the PHL’s leader stated, a gleam in her eye. “Because what it means, Princess, is you’ve attuned to the souls of thousands of Equestrians stranded half a world away in China… Likely the hundreds of thousands of Equestrians here on Earth.”

A new feeling had come upon the tent. Cadance looked towards Cadenza. And she saw that Cadenza, wryly, was smiling.

“What do you wish to offer, Princess?” said Cheerilee.

Cadance steeled herself. “Anything we can. We are… we’re still negotiating terms with the other nations of Equus, that is true–”

“Is a military option on the table?” asked Putin suddenly. Jinping nodded.

“Yes, you said it yourself. You have no experience with war,” said Jinping coolly. “What could you possibly offer us?”

“We offer you Equestria’s help, and others’ too. Food, medicine…”

Her eyes looked from left to right, taking in the sight of everyone within the tent. Then she noticed two of the scribes in the corner. Kahoku Sanderson, the journalist from earlier, and by her side, her colleague Hanne Adler, someone Sanderson had mentioned to be very, very interested in humanity’s legacy.

“... Preservation,” she finished. “Alexander Reiner spoke of a world close to starvation. Your people, President Jinping, he said they were afraid for the Barrier’s arrival, As are yours, President Davis.”

Both men fixated her with a curious stare.

“A few billion people is a… huge number, that is true. But, you will have the support of a brave new world. I can promise you that whatever happens, your culture, your humanity will be preserved to some extent on our world.”

That statement drew murmurs from all around.

“This is… this is encouraging,” said Jinping plainly.

“And Alexander Reiner, Princess? When can we anticipate his… return?” asked Mélenchon. “The Barrier is already within viewing range of Boston. Negotiations need to happen swiftly.”

“As soon as he recovers, President Mélenchon,” said Cadance. “I’m aware that… right now, these are simply words from me, but I guarantee he will come back to you. And my Equestria will have already arranged for… well, an open diplomatic channel between worlds. Reiner has been a tremendous help in preparing us for that.”

“I suppose that is fair,” answered Mélenchon.

“Princess Cadance, you’ve spoken much of what you can do,” said Davis. “But what can we do for you?”

There. The opening, for what her aunt had tasked her to do.

“We need the dragon,” she said. “We need Spike. He is an innocent soul, twisted by the Solar Empire, yet my Aunt Luna believes she may break the Imperial conditioning… That is the one thing she asked for. The dragon she defeated.”

The mention of Spike drew uncomfortable mutters. Their memories of Spike’s scorching of the PHL safehouses did not escape Cadance’s notice.

“That might be… complicated,” Davis told her. “Especially since the dragon, so we’ve been informed by Major Bauer, is not in our custody, or the PHL’s. The last thing we want is getting the HLF mixed into this.”

Lady Cadenza stepped in. “And yet I’d vouch for this, Mister President,” she said. “I know that my younger self is telling the truth. I knew Spike when he was just a kid. It’s quite simply not in his nature, what happened here.”

“Children do not remain innocent forever,” Putin said, unmoved and seemingly unfazed to see both Cadances at once, “if they ever were innocent to begin with. And you should know what war does to people, Lady Cadance.”

“But I believe this may go deeper than that,” Cadenza pressed on. “The Newfoals, the Geas… What you should know, sir, is that the Empire has many ways of beguiling people into doing its bidding.”

Guterres spoke again. “It certainly poses a greater moral dilemma than usual in war, when the enemy uses literal thralls to fight…”

“Regardless,” Davis interrupted. “The fact remains, the dragon is not ours to hand over, Princess Cadance. While we sooner wouldn’t see him kept by the HLF, believe me, we wouldn’t, handing him to you would first mean negotiating with them.”

A weight descended upon Cadance. She bit back an urge to retort.

… Why, but why, did everything have to be so political?

“And what if I went to the HLF directly?” Cadance asked tiredly. “I’ve met them already.”

“Your Highness,” said Davis, “whatever their name, the HLF are not the officially-designated representatives of humanity. We are.”

Cadance leaned closer to the microphone, and spoke very carefully.

“Sir,” she said. “And sirs. With all due respect, my Aunt and I came here offering help, not to any one part of humanity, but to all humanity. And maybe you’ll think this makes us naïve or idealistic. Trust me, when I look at the size of this enterprise, I cannot fool myself into believing it’s ever possible to save everyone. But your personal disputes shouldn’t keep us from trying! Even if it’s by chance, my Aunt seems to have got into Commander Yarrow’s good graces. Please, I ask you to let me make use of that.”

Cheerilee coughed for attention.

“This seems fair enough, gentlemen,” she said. “This is no guarantee… but maybe, in this unexpected and unhoped-for option, we’ll find answers we can’t elsewhere. Here stands an Equestrian Princess who is neither of the Solar Empire, nor the Equestrian Resistance, nor the PHL… I say we let her stand for herself, and show us if she can do what we can’t.”

The five human leaders were in thought, seemingly waiting to see who’d speak first.

“I agree with the Commandant,” said Davis. Mélenchon also nodded, and so did Javid, albeit a little reluctantly. Putin looked like he held back a jab, as did Jinping.

‘That’s right… Reiner mentioned it didn’t he? Something… something about Russia and China having institutions to ‘rival’ the PHL… Using griffon expats, huh?’

“In any case, Princess Cadance?” said Cheerilee. “I think we’ll have plenty to discuss once things are a little less hectic. The PHL would be happy to help.”

“Are you sure you want to place such important matters in your care, Madam Commandant?” Putin said suddenly. “Such a responsibility should lie in mankind’s hands.”

“No, Mister President,” Cheerilee replied placidly. “The Ponies for Human Life will be honored to accept said responsibility. Lyra Heartstrings’ dream is still alive and well. And we’ll take any chance we can get to see that dream fulfilled. She made a promise to help mankind, long ago. That’s a promise we intend to keep, no matter what.”

“You speak of hope in these times,” Putin replied coldly.

“And hope lives. It is here. Look with your eyes. She sits there, the Crystal Princess Reborn. And we have hope, more than we’ve had in years.”

The statement wasn’t so much directed at her, Cadance realized, so much as it was directed towards everyone else in the room as well. Their love, repressed for so long, had begun to flow. Grief and despair made way for the tiniest sliver of hope that rose from their ranks.

Cadance’s mind went out, and her heart went too, to Stephan Bauer, to this careworn Cheerilee, to Starfall and Blank Canvas, Alicia and Daniel… To Hanne Adler, to Kahoku Sanderson, and that strawberry-blonde-haired young woman who’d been with them, her love as pure as the Reindeer’s. Even to Samantha Yarrow and those strange, archaic-themed warriors of hers.

All flowed freely. All was welcome.

“And if we can keep that promise,” Cheerilee continued. “with bandages and books, moreso than bullets… that’ll be all for the better.”

At first, there was a tense silence that followed. Then Stephan Bauer stepped forward. He wore no armor, but his words were steely and proud.

“For the Golden Lyre,” he spoke, softly, but clearly.

Discreet as it was, Cadance felt the love flow so smoothly and freely, gentle and tender and happier than it had been in years. She held back a laugh. So many around the tent remained with faces as if carved of rock, like the man Reynardine or several of the leaders on the screens, but others had smiles evidently tugging at their lips.

Her eyes met the mare opposite her. Herself. The little lost pegacorn who’d found her place in the world so many years ago.

Lady Cadenza smiled gently.

“For the Golden Lyre.”

With the love all around her, love for each other, for people, and for the hope that come anew, Cadance smiled serenely. Perhaps it was her presence here, after all.

“I thank you, Princess Cadance,” said Cheerilee. “You stand before us as what we could have been. What Equestria should be. And we will be honored to accept your terms.”

Cadance met her eyes with Cheerilee’s. And she smiled.

“As we shall, too.”

Vanderbilt coughed with sober meaningfulness.

“Princess Cadance,” he said. “You said you were forming an alliance of your own. Is there an official statement to be expected on their behalf?”

“They are awaiting the outcome of our negotiations here, Council Leader,” said Cadance. “But it will come soon.”

“Then it’s settled,” Vanderbilt said evenly. “The PHL will handle diplomatic overtures from hereon. I’ll expect to hear from you again, Princess. For we still have much to discuss, of course, regarding certain matters.”

“That we will, Council Leader,” said Cadance, nodding. “That we will…”

Jarden, USA.

Jarden was a nice little place, Luna decided.

The souvenir shop had been an interesting visit, for PHL memorabilia was the main attraction, the golden lyre an ubiquitous sight. Business was booming, or as booming as it could get during wartime, and even in these quiet morning hours, there were a few shoppers to be seen while Luna acquired her disguise.

Explaining her presence to the shopkeeper, she mused, hadn’t been much of a challenge at all.

“Thank you!” she said loudly, waving to the elderly shopkeeper. “Have a great day!”

“You could have just kept quiet and nothing would’ve been different,” said Maxine flatly, as they left the store. “I’m sure you’re proud of your… getup, but– Christ, you didn’t need to announce your fancy name.”

Luna pondered it for a moment.

“I suppose I was being rather theatrical,” she said, tapping her chin. “But I like theatrical, and it probably cheered him up.”

She spun around once, beaming.

“How do I look?”

The souvenir shop, thankfully, had just what she needed. A pair of sunglasses and a button-up, rose-patterned shirt, both made for a pony’s build, completed her eccentric outlook. Then she affixed a small, lyre-shaped pin to her shirt.

‘I’m really getting the hang of modern times,’ she thought happily. ‘Take that, Tia…’

“Like a tourist,” said Maxine, matter-of-factly. She shook her head.“You didn’t seem this… out there, earlier...”

“I used to be the Bearer of Laughter, you know?” Luna said whimsically. “Sooo, you could say that I’m just in my… Element.” She giggled. “Right! Onwards to your family home, then? What kind of bond do you have with Alex, Maxine?”

She took off her new pair of sunglasses.

“Sibling rivalry perhaps? I can relate,” she said, as she hummed and began to sing again. “I was just the second born sister, who most of the town ignores! Like a button, like a horseshoe, like a mare who’s bad at metaphors!”

“Stop,” Maxine hissed. “I don’t wanna talk about it, least of all to someone who breaks into song every few seconds.”

“Okay, okay,” Luna said quickly, tapping her hooves on the sidewalk as she looked around. “Sorry… sorry… um, where is it, anyway?”

In Boston, Luna had found no time to behold the architecture, at night and in the heat of battle. And too much else had taken up her attention shortly before she’d left Cadance to negotiate. Her eye had caught a hazy impression of a world of brick and cement, many of the buildings a lean five storeys high, the landscape occasionally punctuated by structures of glass and steel – nothing too dissimilar from the streets she’d walked in Alexander Reiner’s uneasy mind.

Where Boston was a city, Jarden was a town further South, in warmer climes.

Already at this hour, crowds milled upon the sidewalk, pressing close to the series of squat, two-storey buildings, from which jutted sunshades above the entrances – looking back from where she’d just exited, Luna was curious to note the architectural style here favored arches, over windows as well as the door, and longer, lower buildings.

A black car drove by and Luna had to stop and stare. While naturally she had seen horseless carriages in her time, for such vehicles to be so ubiquitous they could be owned by a person of modest salary, ran contrary to everything she knew, including the new Equestria she’d stepped into a few years ago. Yet to her trained eye, even aside from these modern conveniences, the town just looked young. Younger than Ponyville. And oddly, although her time in Boston had been sparse, her feelings told her the place wasn’t much older.

Alexander Reiner had explained humans could trace back their civilization’s history to almost ten-thousand years, which was many times older than Equestria’s recorded histories. But he hadn’t mentioned he came from a country so young. Luna felt her lips pull back. Here was a nation in its infancy, and yet, another nation that resembled her own had decreed it would die, one of the last of human cultures. It was not right.

She returned her gaze to Maxine, tilting her head. The woman sighed.

“Just… follow me,” said Maxine. “And don’t look at the cameras.”

They moved with a brisk walk, keeping pace with one another.

Boston, USA.

It was a few hours later that Cadance ended up back on Boston’s streets. After searching, she found a human soldier, a woman wearing a massive set of greenish brown armor and a small tag on her left chestplate. Over the woman’s back was slung a large, streamlined-looking weapon not dissimilar from some of the fancier-looking firearms Cadance had seen being carried around, and a helmet was clipped to her belt.

“Hello again, Commander Yarrow,” she said by way of greeting.

“Your Highness,” Yarrow replied politely. The woman threw a slightly awkward salute. “Samantha Yarrow, HLF ID 003-2113, reporting for duty.”

Again, Cadance noted the similarity to a Trottingham accent with a twinge of amusement, which was accentuated by Yarrow’s mock-formality.

“So how did it go?” asked Yarrow.

Cadance swallowed, feeling more than slightly awkward.

“I’m sorry, I’m sure this musn’t be pleasant to hear, but UNAC and the PHL do seem to get terribly… stubborn, where you’re involved.”

“They would,” Yarrow said shortly. She shook her head. “Plenty of bad blood there. Forgive me if I don’t think either side are entirely unbiased about the whole thing.”

“I… suppose that makes sense,” Cadance said quietly. “However, when I broached the issue of Spike– the dragon– after some wrangling, they appear to have said they’d be fine with Luna and me taking him back, provided we work it out with you personally.”

“Ah,” said Yarrow. “Methinks they’re testing your mettle, Princess Cadance. It isn’t like HLF and UNAC are completely incapable of co-operating, after all. How else do you think I’d have a working base in this city?”

“I suspected as much,” Cadance acknowledged. “But Commander, will this really be as complicated as they think it’ll be? When I last saw you and my Aunt, I was left with the sense of favorable impressions.”

“Well…” said Yarrow, in a measured tone. “Our first impressions were good, yes. And I promised your Aunt that our resources would be at her disposal. Which is a promise I do intend to abide by. However… there’s a grey area.”

Cadance had dreaded this. “And what grey area might that be?”

“Right now, the dragon is under Reaver custody,” Yarrow said. “But there’s an agreement the Reavers are part of under the Charter, regarding any new ‘unknown factors’ from Equus–”

“Which Charter?”

“The HLF’s Charter,” Yarrow explained, politely ignoring Cadance’s interrupting. “The agreement would stipulate that, if possible, these ‘factors’ be directed to one particular officer of the HLF. Commodore Daniel Romero. You may have heard of him already.”

“Sorry, I can’t say that I have…”

“Really? Huh, that’s surprising,” Yarrow said. “Guess they didn’t want to shout his name off the rooftops either, mind you. The thing is, Your Highness, that technically you and your Aunt would count as ‘unknown factors’. But I’m no fool, nor so ungrateful as to treat you like study projects. A live dragon, though… Some people may see that differently.”

“Alright...” Cadance said warily. “Then, where is the Commodore now? I would like to sort this out with him.”

Yarrow smiled. “I was hoping you’d say that,” she replied, nodding. “His ship arrived in Boston not one hour ago. If you’d follow me, I’ll take you to him.”

Cadance nodded slowly. The whole business had an air of the prepared to it, but Yarrow spoke like she genuinely meant to be helpful. The woman turned, heading down the street, and Cadance followed, matching her strident pace with relative ease.

“I am curious,” Cadance said after a few moments. “What can you tell me about this person I’ll be meeting?”

“That’s a… complicated question,” Yarrow replied with a small smirk. “He’s… well, he’s clever. One of the HLF’s best officers.”

‘Not a metric the PHL hold to a high standard,’ Cadance thought. ‘At least, not from what I’ve been hearing.’

“Honestly, we’d be lost without him,” Yarrow continued. “He and… and my father…”

She trailed off, and Cadance didn’t press. She could tell it was not something that the woman wanted to discuss.

‘At least, not now, not with me.’

“He’s also half the reason the HLF have the equipment to stay in the fight,” Yarrow continued. “When I think back to the old days…” She shook her head. “Well, let’s just say, I’d rather not think about the old days.” She tapped her armor. “We’re better off, now.”

“I see,” Cadance said. “If I may… I don’t know much about the HLF.”

“You mean apart from what UNAC might have said?” Yarrow replied, smirking. “What would you like to know?”

“I… haven’t really got a specific question,” Cadance admitted sheepishly. “I’m just curious about the organization.”

“I see,” Yarrow said pensively. “Alright. Cliffnotes, then. Back when Conversion was new, but there were already concerns, the governments of the world did fuck all. So this guy, an American reverend called James Thomas, founded a group, the HTF– or Harriet Thomas Foundation, named after his daughter, one of the most prominent Newfoals to ‘go native’ and vanish off the face of the planet.” Her expression soured. “People were angry. Scared. Somehow, we knew war was coming.”

“It sounds like a desperate time,” Cadance said quietly.

“You’ve no idea,” Yarrow said. “Into all this step a few key people. The one my HLF comrades of today look up to most was a man named Algernon Spader. Ex-SAS, he was pro-militant on the basis that the world’s governments weren’t doing enough. When the war started, he brought together many disparate groups of wannabe soldiers from Great Britain and North America, and created our ‘Magna Charter’.”

“He organized an army?” Cadance asked, frowning. “How? With what support?”

“At first, just bringing people together off the back of the war,” Yarrow said. “UNAC was in its nascent stage, and people didn’t trust their governments– bear in mind, government agencies had been okay-ing Conversion for months, if not years.”

“So this Spader formed an army independent of government?” Cadance supplied queryingly.

Yarrow nodded. “Like I said, he drew up the charter. Basic things, like putting us all under one umbrella, having each Commander answer to a triumvirate of upper-echelon commanders– namely Thomas, Spader himself... and a man named Mike Carter.”

Cadance nodded. It all sounded good, but Reiner’s descriptions of the HLF had admittedly been less than stellar, and the reference Mike Carter had absolutely not been favorable.

“Then,” she said. “What happened?”

Yarrow clicked her tongue. “Spader was killed and nobody knows who did it. Mike Carter wanted to kill all of your kind, not just Imperials. James Thomas stepped back from the HLF. We got a split.” She shook her head. “The Northern Anglosphere’s HLF is mostly unified, now, but between the split and its fallout, public opinion hasn’t been kind to us. Especially not what UNAC wants to people to hear.”

Cadance nodded slowly. There was doubtless more to the story than Yarrow was saying, but at the same time, what she was saying did make sense.

“Why would you not just join UNAC, though?” she asked. “Once they were formed…”

“Because like I said, the government had lost a lot of people’s trust,” Yarrow replied. “Actually, correction, the governments, plural, had lost trust. Most countries had let Bureaus be built without even listening to the protestors. And now, suddenly, UNAC wanted people to trust them to fight the war?”

She shook her head. Yarrow didn’t exactly look angry, but there was an edge of disappointment.

“I was never one of those anti-government people,” she continued. “Actually, I spent quite a long time as an attaché to PHL weapon’s research, helping with the distribution of the newest weapons funnelled from our corporate allies.” She sighed. “But other people didn’t trust… Well. My father in particular had a habit of saying he didn’t trust a flag, he trusted the people..” She gave a rueful smile. “That’s probably the sentiment that dominates our side of the split. And, in a nastier way, the other side of the split too.”

Cadance nodded again. Somehow, ‘not trusting a flag’ didn’t feel like a genuine excuse to her, but as she reminded herself, she hadn’t been here for what Yarrow was talking about.

“Anyway,” Yarrow continued. “History lessons can be boring, and I’m not very good at them.” She chuckled. “Actually, I’m not too good at a lot of the things I ought to be.”

“Oh?” Cadance asked. That was something of an odd admission. “Like?”

Yarrow gave a rueful smile. “Like dealing with foreign dignitaries. Not exactly much call for it when you’re a ragtag militia that the government likes to ignore, y’know? I get the feeling if things had been different, you’d have never met a single HLF soldier.”

‘I wonder what she means be ‘different’,’ Cadance thought. Still, whatever she thought of the HLF, she was gaining a valuable sense of this world she had come to.

“Perhaps,” she finally said, “but I think I might have been worse off for it.”

Yarrow smiled at that, and Cadance did too.

They had been walking a quarter of an hour before they found what Yarrow was looking for.

“Ah,” Yarrow said, pointing ahead of them. “There she is.”

The Columbia was a sleek, shiny vessel. Her hull was gunmetal grey, and there were a handful of blue markings across her, as well as the name Columbia printed in neat letters on her side. There were a few other human ships visible at the port, but none presented the same smoothed-out lines as this ship.

Cadance frowned. There was a man standing on the dock, surrounded by soldiers in black full-body armor. A few people in the full armor of UNAC’s troops were watching him and the ship from a careful distance, while the man was flanked by troops in the same black armor as Yarrow. He, however, was dressed in a mere cloth uniform. A blue zip-up jacket with a high collar, white piping down the arms and the sides of the torso, and neat, matching slim blue cargo trousers that led down to high black boots. His hair was black, cut short and neatly combed, and he had piercing blue eyes which took in everything with a careful gaze.

“Dan!” Yarrow said as she and Cadance approached him.

He looked up, a soft smile appearing on his face at the sight of Yarrow. He held out his arms, and despite the incongruity of it in a warzone, he hugged Yarrow right where she stood.

“You alright?” he asked her.

“Yeah,” she said. “What about you? Weren’t you in New York?”

“Peddled fast,” the man replied with a cocky grin. “The Columbia is waiting, ready to step in if things get rough. Despite protests from certain sorts.” He gave Yarrow a weary smile, as though used to such things. “No big deal, though.”

Yarrow was turning to Cadance. “Ah, Dan, this is Princess– uh, forgive me, ma’am, I never learned the full thing.”

“Mi Amore Cadenza,” Cadance said with an easy smile. “But Cadance will do fine, Commodore.”

“Oh? My reputation precedes me, does it?” He folded his arms with a guarded smile. “I notice that you addressed me by the correct title. Courtesy of Sam, I presume? Not like UNAC people pay much attention to things like that.”

“Well, yes, your friend told me, plus you don’t really meet that many Commodores,” said Cadance evenly. “Who promoted you?”

“Me, ‘bout a year ago,” Commodore Romero said easily. “Sam and the Reavers are heads of the local HLF, but I’ve been left a lot of leeway, and… well,” he chuckled, “a man in command of a flotilla of ships is a Commodore, not a Captain. I figured I might as well start taking up the proverbial mantle. Doesn’t really change the workload much, but it does make it feel cooler.”

As serious as this conversation was, Cadance couldn’t help but let out a little giggle.

“Forgive me,” she said, “but if you’re the highest ranked officer in your own organization’s navy, why not call yourself an Admiral, instead?”

“Because ‘my own organization’s navy’ is two bonafide warships, an old cruise-liner with guns bolted on it, an old Royal Navy patrol boat from Hull, and a few converted yachts,” Romero replied with an easy smile. “I’m arrogant, ma’am, as I’m sure your UNAC friends might’ve said, but I’m not that arrogant.”

Cadance nodded slowly. “Yes… And I’ll say it twice, one doesn’t come across many Commodores.” She paused. “Not in fiction, anyway.”

“Oh, it’s a good old rank,” Romero said easily. “And if you mention fiction, well, old Hornblower himself did it proud.”

“I have to admit,” Cadance said, “I have only a little knowledge of naval ranks and tradition– my relative, Prince Blueblood, would be more knowledgeable about such things, although I was interested in joining. At least partly,” she admitted with a grin, “because I always loved wearing those double-breasted peacoats the navy had.”

“I’m a fan of snappy uniforms myself,” Romero said, motioning to his own matching two-piece. “And if you’ve got a relative who’s a naval fellow, I look forward to meeting him.” His smile grew a little melancholic. “In any case, Max Yarrow always used to say that people didn’t follow a title, so it doesn’t matter what people call me either way.”

Samantha Yarrow’s expression turned glum, and she bowed her head briefly. Cadance hadn’t heard much about ‘Max Yarrow’ beyond the name, but judging from the way they acted, he had long since passed away.

‘Good thing I didn’t press,’ Cadance thought. She took a breath, gathering her thoughts. “I’m told you might be able to help me with something.”

“What about?” Romero asked, putting his hands on his hips.

Cadance prepared to say one thing. Then she stopped.

A new idea had come to her.

“Unknown factors,” said Cadance, to a glance of some surprise from Yarrow. “The Commander explained you specialize in ‘unknown factors’ in this war. And… Well, from where I’m standing, there’s no greater unknown factor than the Newfoals.”

Jarden, USA.

The sky was not overcast, and yet the clouds, Luna thought, seemed to gather over one particular place in Jarden. It was a property like many other houses they’d passed. A single house sitting on a patch of green land. What set this house apart were a scant number of details – the color, a garish-looking yellow, seemed rather faded, the structure was fairly aged with a peeling surface; and there was the worn feeling one got from looking at it.

So of course, this happened to be the Radwick household, even if the rusting mailbox didn’t give that away.

“It’s still that damn color…” Luna heard Maxine muttering, in the manner one would speak of an old deficiency that’s been around for years.

They walked past a lone wooden post adorned by a metal equine figure.

“That’s a horse, not a pony.” Maxine said dismissively, marching towards the front door without batting an eye at the silhouette. “Ack... The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we can move on.”

“But isn’t this your house?” asked Luna, tilting her head. “Shouldn’t you spend some time here to, I don’t know, relax?”

“No,” was all Maxine said, stopping to reach into a pocket and pull out a key.

In short order, the door was unlocked and Maxine entered, Luna following soon after, though wary about the implications.

Amazingly, the inside was far more prepossessing than the exterior. It was fairly average decor, if Luna had to guess, but she immediately took note of the simple, cozy layout. Beyond floors with half-decent carpenting, to the left there was a staircase to the second level, to the right, an old wall clock that still told the time, a loud screeching sound–

“No, that’s not it,” wheezed a voice not far from the front door, sounding weary and dismayed. “Still needs to be fixed.”

“And that’s him,” Maxine muttered. The woman looked to Luna. “Now don’t you say anything, unless you have to.”

“Okay,” said Luna, nodding vigorously. “Oh. Right, sorry.”

“Whoever is here is trespassing,” said the voice, sounding gruff and annoyed. “I’ve got the Sheriff's department on speed dial after the last time someone broke in, and a protection order.” So, state your business now, or you’ll be forced off the property in handcuffs.”

“Tourists, they come here from time to time,” Maxine whispered.

Luna looked down at her flowery shirt, then bit her lip nervously. She pocketed her sunglasses.

“Dad? It’s Maxine,” the woman called, but in a softer tone than Luna had heard before “I need to talk to you about something important. It’s about Mom, and Alex.”

There was a brief moment of silence, only broken up by the wall clock’s ticking, before there was a clicking sound. It continued, until Luna saw a figure standing not far from them in what was probably the living room.

Said figure was a man, dressed in what could be assumed as casual wear, except for the rather prominent brace on his left knee. The man himself had a bushy beard and greying dark hair. His eyes were a brown color, in a different shade than Maxine’s, yet Luna could perceive that the two humans were related, despite nothing immediately suggesting such.

“Max?” he whispered, stunned. “How are you here? I thought you were in Boston.”

“I was,” Maxine said quickly, “but I was given leave of absence after the battle ended.” Which was a partial truth. “Look, I need–”

“Who is this?” the man asked, his eyes now on Luna. “I'd have never thought to have seen you with a friend after DC.”

“Dad, please–”

“What’s your name?” he asked Luna, his eyes boring into hers.

“I’m…” said Luna, with a polite, friendly smile. She offered a forehoof. “I’m Claire. Claire de Lune. I’m a friend of Maxine’s from Canterlot. We… um, we first met a couple weeks ago.” She laughed anxiously. “Sorry… I’ve never been to a small town before. It’s all so, so new to me so, please excuse my… well… you know. It’s an honor to meet you.”

There was a pause as Maxine’s father stood for a moment before turning away.

“If you say so,” he remarked, walking further down into the hall. “Come in and rest your legs. I have got some leftovers, if you’re hungry… Besides, it’s better to have one misinformed tourist rather than a bunch.”

Luna shot Radwick a nervous look.

Boston, USA.

It seemed odd to Cadance that a man working for an organization outside of governmental military should have access to a warship, and she had said as much.

Romero had only smiled. “It always pays to have friends in high places,” his words had been. “Or in low places. Or both, really. Friends are always good.”

There was something about the sentiment – one Cadance might ordinarily have agreed with – that gave her pause. Just what kind of ‘friends’ did he have? It would have been a lie to claim she wasn’t apprehensive. Yet these people were supposedly her allies.

‘It’s worth remembering this,’ she thought firmly as she followed Romero up the ship’s ramp. ‘No matter how… dubious they might seem.’

Multiple human soldiers surrounded them. Tension lay in the air – not one that felt like violence was coming, in Cadance’s estimation, but tension nonetheless.

“You’ll have to forgive them,” Romero said, apparently noticing the glares as well. “Some of it is, regrettably, that you’re not human.”

“After so long?” Cadance asked.

“You’ve the luxury of other sentient beings as a reality for your entire existence,” Romero pointed out. “We didn’t. Most of us grew up expecting the apocalypse to be something out of Tom Clancy, not the pastel Covenant.”

“I… don’t know what either of those things are, I’m afraid,” Cadance said slowly.

He shrugged. “Fair enough. Point is, we were totally unprepared for non-human sentience to just… pop up. And then the first non-human civilization we do meet tries to wipe us out in arguably the cruelest way imaginable.” He smiled sadly. “It didn’t help that it wasn’t just one species. Makes for a mighty poor first impression.”

“But shouldn’t your soldiers learn to move past such grievances?” Cadance asked. “This war requires cooperation, even with– well, us.”

“They have,” Romero said. “Which is why they’re only glaring.”

“Even so,” Cadance said, “as much as I know it can’t have been a good first impression, surely the good the UNAC and PHL have done outweighs that.”

“Now, we both know it’s always more complex than that,” Romero said. “Emotion isn’t a rational thing. And the people who say that people should ‘just move past’ things like that are people with no experience in feelings.” He gave her a look. “But we’re not here to talk about that, are we, Princess?”

Cadance shook her head. “No, I suppose we’re not.”

They reached the top of the ramp, which came up to the top deck of the Columbia. It was metal-plated, and Cadance could see a certain level of artisanship in the design. The part of her that had loved ships as a child could appreciate the elegance as the upper superstructure stuck out from the main deck, in a manner unobtrusive and yet dominant.

“I am curious, Commodore,” Cadance said as they walked. “I’ve only heard the most cursory information about you. Yet Samantha Yarrow told my Aunt you are some sort of expert. So tell me, what is it that you ‘actually do’?”

“Come with me, ma’am, and we’ll show you,” Romero replied, motioning for her to follow him. He headed for one of the doors to the superstructure, and Cadance fell into step next to him.

The corridors inside the Columbia weren’t exactly cramped, but Cadance didn’t exactly find them spacious. Her wings were tightly knit to her sides. She frowned as she walked along the metal deck.

‘So bare, she thought. ‘So utilitarian. There is love in this design, but so much of it is stripped away for functionality.’

“My unit of the HLF is called ‘Ex Astris Victoria’,” Romero began talking, and Cadance shook her head slightly, bringing her attention to the task at hand. “Roughly translated, that means–”

“‘Victory from the Stars’,” Cadance finished. At his surprised look, she laughed. “I have a Gift of Tongues, sir. But that sounded similar to Old Ponish. Is this a dead language here, too?”

“Yes, actually,” Romero replied, smiling. “In any case, as I told you before, we have the two primary vessels. Columbia here, and Challenger, Captain Brooke’s ship. Aboard Challenger, the work that Brooke and her team do is largely weapons-based.”

He trailed off, his expression becoming pensive, before he stopped walking, his hands going behind his back.

“Columbia’s remit is more to do with the magical side of the equation,” he said after a moment. “Please, step inside.”

After a few minutes’ walking, including down stairs just a tad too steep for an alicorn, they reached a deck with several larger rooms, each with a window that one could look through.

“As I was saying,” Romero said, motioning to one of the windows, “we work with specialists. Some of our work is weapons-based, like Challenger. Modified crystals, that sort of thing.”

Sure enough, there were humans in science coats working on what appeared to be human weapons in there. Cadance saw one person contemplating a pile of crystal, while others tested what appeared to be wrist-strapped weapons.

“It’s slow-going work,” Romero admitted as they watched the engineers toil, “but even an incremental gain is still a gain.” He paused. “The part that I think would interest you, however, is our work with prisoners from the Solar Empire.”

Cadance’s ears perked slightly at that. ‘Prisoners… now we get to Spike.’

“Yes, I believe that might be work that answers my questions,” she said, nodding. Then she picked up on one word from his sentence. “Although…” She frowned. “Your ‘work’ with prisoners. You… experiment on them?”

“‘Experiment’, not ‘torture’,” Romero said, “or at least, we try to be as– forgive me– humane as we can.” His expression remained unreadably thoughtful. “Some experiments unfortunately necessitate extremities, given the extreme magic we’re working with.”

He began walking off again, and Cadance moved to match his pace.

“I find it hard to believe anything necessitates extremities,” she said, her tone cooling, “and, forgive me, I’m not sure I’d trust anybeing who says they are.”

Romero frowned, turning to look over his shoulder as he walked. “With respect, ma’am, there’s no way to learn anything about Newfoals or the Geas without experimentation. They’re not going to volunteer themselves for our benefit. And like I said, we try to be merciful.”

They reached a lift, and Romero pressed the call button. Cadance was frowning.

“And, pray tell, what constitutes merciful?” she asked.

Romero began counting off on his fingers. “I’ve never killed a subject, though they have died as a result of things beyond my control. I don’t dissect people, I don’t cut them up, I don’t stick drugs into them except in direst need–”

“What need?” Cadance said, appalled. “What possible need could there be to–”

“If you knew the way to save brainwashed Imperial Guards out there was a psychotropic drug, or to bring a Newfoal’s original personality out, you’d want to know the drug!” Romero snapped.

He took a deep breath, calming himself. Cadance forced herself to hold her tongue, even as she began wondering if this man was more barbarian than soldier.

“We test ways of breaking the Geas,” Romero said at last. “Psychotropic drugs were one of our tests. We hoped they could trigger the Geas being circumvented or switched off. We also experimented with hypnosis…”

“And did that work?” she asked, trying to keep the edge out of her voice.

He shook his head. “God, I wish it had. Sticking drugs in brainwashed pastel horses and hypnotizing them is not exactly how I envisioned spending my fifties, y’know?”

The lift arrived, and he stepped inside.

“Were there other tests of this sort?” she asked him, following.

“Well, another was putting Geas-bound Royal Guards in sensory-deprivation tanks,” he replied, pressing one of the buttons. Cadance’s eyes widened in horror at that almost blasé reference, but he held up a placating hand, clearly realizing how that sounded. “It’s nothing dangerous for them. Usually, it does make them catatonic, which has some… interesting connotations.”

“I… see,” Cadance said slowly. (‘Catatonia isn’t torture?’) “And among your prisoners… there are Newfoals?”

A shadow seemed to pass over Romero’s face as he considered the question. The lift trundled, making the only noise in the confined space.

“Ma’am,” he said after a moment, “I suspect that outside the best of PHL R&D, there’s no-one who’s done more with Newfoals than us.”

Something in his tone that gave Cadance pause. “That… Then have you some special insight?”

“I hope so,” Romero said darkly. “After everything we’ve lost to get it.”

A moment passed, and the lift dinged, disgorging the pair of them on a much cleaner deck. Romero walked along, until they reached a door with the nameplate ‘D. Romero’ installed on it, in neat letters. He entered a code on a keypad next to the door, and then opened it.

She went into the office, taking a moment to drink it in. It was sparse space, smaller than she’d have considered ‘comfortable’. A door to her left was closed, which she assumed led to a bedroom, based on her knowledge of ships’ officers cabins. There was also a desk filled out by what she recognized as a laptop, and a high-backed leather chair. Another chair waited before the desk. But the space did have some personalization. To Cadance’s right was a wall upon which hung human firearms of many designs, a small trophy on a shelf, and a pair of pictures on the desk, though Cadance couldn’t see what they were pictures of.

Romero moved to the chair, pressing a button on his keyboard. “I’d offer you a seat, ma’am, but I don’t think you’d fit in the one I’ve got.”

Cadance smiled. “I’ll make do, Commodore.”

He took a deep breath. “So. What is it you’d like to know, ma’am?”

“Just… anything you’ve learned about the Geas or the Newfoals that might be of use.”

“We’ve learned a great many things,” Romero replied, meeting her gaze evenly. “For example, the potion violates what you would consider basic laws of magic. Some Newfoal… variants, such as brain-foals, Newcalves…”

He trailed off at Cadance’s expression. She had never heard those names, but the implications were already horrific.

“There’s… a lot you need to catch up on,” Romero said after a moment, wetting his lips. “But, as I was saying, some Newfoal variants violate laws of magic, such as conservation of mass, or laws like thermodynamics.”

“And… what conclusion do you draw from that?” Cadance asked. She was already considering. It sounded like high-level magic, moreso than she was necessarily familiar with on the surface.

“Only that it is high level,” Romero replied, “higher than any Mystic specialist I’ve spoken to understands.” He paused again. “And then there was Sharon.”

“‘Sharon’?” Cadance repeated.

Romero took a deep breath. “There’s a long history in this war of what’s called ‘anomalous Newfoals’. Newfoals made in mysterious circumstances, or endowed with unique, what some might call ‘freakish’ abilities. Common sentiment in the Solar Empire is that they’re neither quite pony nor human. There was even a PER high-ranker, named Shieldwall, whose entire modus operandi was the creation and exploitation of such creatures.”

“That…” Cadance blinked, swallowing. “They… deliberately engineered such beings?”

Also, the name ‘Shieldwall’ sounded familiar…

“That’s right,” Romero said quietly. His tone turned bitter. “Ones that could raise the dead. Ones that could use powers like mind control, unusual magics, or ones that were military geniuses.”

He paused, wetting his lips again, and something suddenly struck Cadance.

‘He doesn’t want to talk about this,’ she realized. ‘He’s procrastinating, putting it off as long as he can. Every time he’s made that gesture…’

“There was…” Romero finally said, speaking slowly, almost mournfully, “an… incident… aboard Columbia. It was a couple of years ago, now. One of our mechanics, Sharon… We never figured everything out. It was my focus for two months, and I kept at it for longer after that as other considerations took hold.” He sighed, shaking his head. “The resulting Newfoal called herself ‘Sunbeam’. And she was the dictionary definition of anomalous. No inbuilt programming, beyond what I can only call extreme religiousness, worshipping Queen Celestia. She even ended up resuming Sharon’s duties, after we made sure she wasn’t likely to free any prisoners.”

“Was there anything else unusual about her?” Cadance asked.

“Yes,” Romero said quietly, “and this is the part that, in a sick, twisted way, gives me hope.” He paused. “She… she would relapse, more than once.”

“‘Relapse’?” Cadance repeated. “How could this ‘Sunbeam’ relapse?”

“Only word for it,” Romero said quietly. “She would revert to her original, human, personality.”

“I… is that possible?” Cadance asked quietly. “Colonel Reiner never mentioned it.”

“I don’t think he knows about Sharon, but no, it doesn’t happen often. If ever. Except… Maybe one other time.”

Romero looked like he was thinking over his next words carefully.

“I’ve also had the privilege of meeting the last ‘Slow Newfoal’,” he finally said, “and I know she was the luckiest of them.” He pursed his lips. “Poor woman. But no matter what, you had to respect her. If you threw her out of a helicopter, she’d either teach herself to fly or hold onto a rope with her teeth for miles and miles. The idea of giving up was like poison to her.”

“And how long did she last?” Cadance asked.

“Kept most of her mind intact for five years, against all odds. She was, for the record, just as confused about Sharon as anyone else.”

Cadance thought over everything that Romero had said.

“I would very much like to meet this ‘Sunbeam’, wherever she is,” she said after a moment.

Romero pursed his lips. “Her name is Sharon. And… you can’t.”

Cadance frowned at that. “What do you mean ‘can’t’?”

“I mean can’t,” Romero repeated. “Even if she was the answer for the Newfoal problem, which I was never really sure on, she’s gone. That’s… all I’m at liberty to say about that.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. Really.”

Cadance nodded, though she still felt disappointed. There was something in his tone that sounded familiar…

‘Wait, she thought, frowning. ‘He couldn’t have…’

“But… if she held some sort of important secret… she might have given us answers!”

“I already gleaned more than enough from her existing,” Romero said softy, though there was a vehemence in his tone that didn’t match his words. “And there are times where an individual’s needs matter far more than the needs of others. Sharon, of all people, deserves to find whatever she’s seeking.”

‘Oh. I understand now.’

“You loved her,” Cadance said quietly. “That’s it, isn’t it?” Romero didn’t react. After a minute, he lowered his eyes and looked away from Cadance. “You did… Oh… oh, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s… not a unique situation. Everyone’s lost someone in this war.”

‘He doesn’t wish to discuss it. He loved her, and she’s gone now, and he hides the pain because he doesn’t want it to distract him from what he does.’

“I am… truly sorry.”

He nodded slowly, still not looking at her. “I appreciate that.”

Cadance nodded again. “So, then… what did you glean from her?”

Romero finally looked back up at her. “Even in association with Hiro Mifune and his Mystics, I can’t claim to know better mages than the PHL– we’re all stumbling around in the dark, in our own way. But the existence of Sharon… doesn’t it suggest this transformation doesn’t have to come at the cost of the soul? What drains the souls from the serum’s victims?”

“Commodore,” Cadance said dolefully. “The ‘soul’ is a tenuous concept. Even on Equus, we do not know for sure if it exists. How would you guess this has anything to do with souls?”

“I wish I could say logic,” Romero replied, “but actually, it’s pop-culture. Being genre savvy can be pretty useful.”

Cadance blinked, before letting out a short, wistful laugh. “‘Genre savvy’. Yeah, I can understand that, definitely.”

‘I really, really should ask Shining if we’re gonna finish that Ogres and Oubliettes session one day…’

Her laughter eventually subsided. “I can appreciate what you’re saying, Commodore, but I do have to ask… are you alone in this ‘logic’?”

“I’ve had plenty of time to give the matter thought,” Romero said evasively. “And as I mentioned, I keep up with the Mystics as I can. Commander Yarrow knows her share of such characters. And I understand that, in her last year, Ambassador Heartstrings personally got in touch with those humans who’ve begun to display their own magic.”

Casually mentioned though it was, this phrase hit Cadance like a ton of bricks.

“What?” she said. “How many of them are there?”

“Fewer than there are anomalous Newfoals,” Romero said regretfully. “Mostly low-level stuff, too, nothing fancy. Hovering coins, cheating at cards, that sort of thing. But it feeds into a theory I’ve got. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. That’s not just logic, or just physics, that’s the basis of your magic in every textbook I’ve read… there’s nothing you can’t reverse.”

And Cadance’s mind went back.

‘That golden heart-shaped locket of Reiner’s… the one he’d said someone told him might have the power to reverse the Barrier… Wasn’t it Galatea?’

But her mind went back not only to the Hall of Unity, but an event many, many years ago, all the way back in her own childhood.

‘The Alicorn Amulet, she thought sharply. ‘How I got it off… Prismia.’

“I can see what you mean.” She paused, her expression becoming more melancholy. “But there’s an old saying. ‘To say a thing and to do it are two separate matters’.”

“That might be true,” Romero said, smiling. “But I get the feeling you’re pretty good at ‘doing things’, Your Highness. You’ll find a way. You, and your Aunt.”

Cadance inclined her head. “So, then… In all this time, we’ve not once referred to the elephant in the room. Or should that be, the dragon.”

“That is so,” Romero acknowledged calmly.

“But I see now this was never really about Spike, was it?” Cadance said, fixing him in her sights. “Commander Yarrow telling me… You giving me a tour of your ship… Our private conversation in here… You wanted to show me. You wanted to make me understand.”

‘Just like Aunt Luna wants to understand about Alexander Reiner and where he came from. Who his family was. Except that was her initiative…

“You catch on pretty quick, Your Highness.”

‘Still, I’m not such a passive princess.’

“Don’t get me wrong. It’d be cool to have a dragon,” the man said. “But I have no need for one. There’s nothing I could do with a dragon that wouldn’t involve weaponizing him. So if our goals in aiding the healing process align… I agree, he’s better off with you.”

He gave her a long stare.

“If you promise me that’s what you’ll do.”

Cadance stood up.

“Then… thank you, Commodore Romero. It’s been… a more ‘illuminating conversation than I thought it’d be.”

“I get that a lot,” Romero replied with a wink. “If you’ll excuse me, however, ma’am, I do have work to get back to.” He tapped a small button on his laptop’s keyboard. “Commander Strike, please send someone to escort Princess Cadance back to the dock.”

“‘On my way, sir,”

Romero paused for a moment, before looking at Cadance. “In case we don’t meet again, it was… nice to meet you. Wish it could’ve been in more pleasant times.”

“I think we all wish that. Goodbye, Commodore Romero.”

There were certainly more questions than answers, still, but there was one thing clear. Something else was at play.

‘The only question now,’ Cadance thought, ‘is what?’

Jarden, USA.

Maxine’s father sat upon a sofa, pressing a button to elevate a kickstand to support his legs. Luna’s eyes took a cursory glance of the living room – by the sofa, there was an old coffee table in front of its midsection, the rather worn love chair Maxine was sitting on, a sliding glass door with a screen to the outside; and a small kitchen with a table to the right.

“So, what do you need?” Maxine’s father asked, his right hand briefly touching the rather frayed looking violin beside him. “And no, Maxi. I’m talking to you. I’d like to know what your friend wants,” he addedd, before she could answer. His brown eyes looked again at Luna, who saw a faded spirit in them. “My name is Dan, by the way. Dan Radwick.”

“Well, it’s still–”

“You’re not fooling me with that name,” Dan said with sudden bluntness. “I’ve done sales long enough to spot an alias. So I’d appreciate a full truth. rather than a discounted one.”

Luna sighed resignedly. “I suppose I overdid it, didn’t I?”

“Maybe. Now, if you would be kind, who are you? I know my daughter well enough that after--”

“If I may ask first, Mister Radwick,” said Luna. “Do you have eyes watching in here?”

“She means cameras.”

“Maxine, you know I don’t trust that kind of shit.” Dan said friskily, “people can have a private conversation between themselves without needing others to listening in.”

Luna nodded.

“Very well, then. I am Luna,” she said simply. “Apologies for the alias, Mister Radwick. I thought it was appropriate.”

Dan gazed at Luna for a moment, before looking to Maxine, who gave a slight nod. he seemed to pause, processing what he’d just been told before sinking into his sofa.

“A Princess.” He sighed deeply, before rubbing his eyes, “I’ve got royalty in my house. Perfect. Juuust perfect.”

“I hope this isn’t too much of… well, a surprise, Mister Radwick,” Luna continued. “And if I may be honest, this is not my true form, so, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to stay like this for now. I don’t wish to intimidate anyone.”

“Couple of things,” he began. “First off, my name is Dan. My kids call me Dad, my wife calls me Daniel if she needs or has to, and, if I need to be a professional business attorney, then it’s Mister Radwick. I would prefer it if you called me Dan, Princess Luna.”

‘He’s taking this… rather well,’ Luna thought.

“If you would call me Luna, then, we are in agreement,” said Luna, tapping her breast-pocket. “I’m not here on official business either.”

“I’m gonna tell you something real quick,” Dan rambled. “These past few years have been a total mindfuck. Starting with the country almost tearing itself apart in 2016, this whole pony thing has made less sense than making a book out of expired coupons. And now, the world’s either insane or getting destroyed because of a Barrier that vaporizes anything it touches, and from the grapevine, Alex’s disappeared to do God knows what.”

“Dad, she’s here to help.” Maxine said quietly, “all we need–”

“I know. I heard it before.” Dan said sharply, “but I’d like to know one thing first. Where is Alex?”

“Alex is alive... Dan,” said Luna. “In Equestria. And I am here to see where he came from, and what he holds dear. I wish to hear his, and your family’s story.”

“Equestria?” Dan said, eyes narrowing.

“My Equestria,” Luna repeated. “An Equestria that did not know of this war, until your son revealed it to us. Now, Alex has told us much about your world, that which I now tread upon. But I wish to hear his story, too. To understand.”

She leaned forward, resting her chin on a forehoof, and tilting her head curiously.

“Please?” she said.

Dan rubbed his eyes again.

“Okay, then... I’m gonna go through this like you’re not just my meds acting up,” he said. “Here’s the short of it. Megan and I met at a rodeo. I was trying to sell some product that went nowhere. She was there because she needed time out, time out of the house, after her first husband… Andrew, got killed overseas…”

He paused sadly.

“We chatted a bit, kept in touch afterwards, and boy, I even managed to get an important ‘yes’ from her later on. From there, I became little Alex’s stepdad… but never his father.”

The man said it bitterly, shaking his head.

“Then we had Maxine,” Dan gestured to his daughter, “and, because of my work, we had to make a choice. Me being away for months, or us moving together as a family. Megan decided the latter, because her old house had too many memories in it.”

‘That’s right…’ thought Luna, ‘they moved around… Reiner even said his mother and father met somewhere other than where she grew up. This isn’t her house…’

“Alex probably never forgave me for that.” Dan murmured, “I tried to connect, Luna, I really did, but Alex never did get around to letting me in. Or Megan for that matter.”

He laughed croakily.

“Almost have to wonder if that’s genetic.”

“What do you mean?” Maxine asked, a slight curiosity in her voice.

“Megan never talked that much about her history, Max,” Dan said firmly, “I met her brother at the wedding, and never so much as got a Christmas card from him. I never once met her younger sister.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Dad?”

“Better question is why they didn’t, Max,” Dan said. “That whole family… none of them liked talking that much. Megan would sooner talk about Danny than Molly, and that would only be once in a blue moon… if you’ll forgive the expression, Your Highness. Their parents weren’t much help, either. Hell if I know whatever happened to them.”

“Do you know why?” Maxine pressed.

“... No, I don’t.” Dan admitted, “you’d think, being married for so long, Megan would’ve told me. Closest that I ever got was when… they showed up.”

He gestured towards Luna, who suddenly felt very cold. Colder, even, than when the Archmage had stepped forth to greet her in the confines of that great airship.

“For a while, she was stuck watching TV, like it was 9/11 all over again,” Dan continued. “Kept muttering about how ‘impossible’ this should be… But she never said anything else, and if I tried to press her, she’d just brush me off.”

“So, nothing then?”

“No, not nothing. I got something– wait here.”

He pressed a button that moved the sofa back to how it was previously. He then limped away into some other part of the house.

“Maxine, does Dan… does he dream?” Luna asked in the lull. “He doesn’t look like he sleeps very well. Yet he’s taking all this better than I expected him to."

“Whatever his state of mind, Dad’s just been able to shrug off anything.” Maxine said solemnly.

Yet her eyes were focused on the roughed-up violin. Luna could tell it’d taken a lot of damage that went beyond simple wear and tear. The biggest indicators were the cracks and chips on the instrument’s neck. It gave the impression of much-needed repairs or fine-tuning, by the way the strings were lined.

Perhaps its state was not due to the ravages of time. Maybe it had been damaged in a fit of rage or frustration. Maybe Dan hadn’t always been that stoic.

The lull was broken when the ‘click’ of Dan’s leg announced his return. Luna and Maxine watched him approach with two leather-bound books tucked under his arm

“I found these in Megan’s hope chest, alongside some of her other personal items,” Dan explained, taking one out and showing it for both of them to see. “Hell if I know these’ll be important to ending all this shit, but who am I to say? Perhaps I’m missing something I’m just too dumb to pick up on. See if you can figure ‘em out.”

“Oh, do not worry, Dan,” said Luna. “We have just the right person for the task. And… thank you.”

“I have one condition first,” Dan said, tucking the book back under his arm. “It has been a long while since you’ve visited, Maxi. Bit late for lunch, but I’d appreciated it if you could stay tonight, have some dinner with me. Your friend is welcome too, of course, Southern hospitality and all. Be nice to have a visitor who isn’t trying to kill or abduct me.”

Maxine seemed to contemplate this. She kept her eyes on the floor and gave a slight nod. Luna, meanwhile, smiled brightly.

“Thank you, once again.” she said. “It’s an afternoon off, then. We’ve still got a long way to go, I feel…”

Canterlot, Equestrian Solar Empire. Thirteenth Day of the Month of Ocyrhoe, Year 18 – Anno Imperator.

The Royal Gardens weren’t always so forlorn in their atmosphere, especially at dusk. Once, these gardens here welcomed the company of many, from curious fillies in guided tours, to lonesome souls taking a break from a weary day at work, to young lovers seeking a secluded place to frolic in private. A place that welcomed and sheltered all, in hardship and in peace.

Now there stood a lone statue, and her stony, defiant gaze loomed over the gardens as she had in life, during her final waking hours.

Archmage Twilight sat there in its shadow, reclining on the bench. After fifteen hours’ sleep, reason and duty dictated she had catching-up to do. So she was trying to read. But her mind kept wanting to drag her back to sleep… Even through the phantom pain of what remained of her left ear, covered by bandages.

Her horn glowed dimly, just enough to illuminate the books and textbooks that accompanied her, from Mount Aris and Seaquestria: Two Worlds, One People, to Canterlot, A History, to a meticulously copied version of Starswhirl’s Journal.

No comforts took her mind off the tiniest of errors, though, and her face scrunched up.

“I thought we made it clear not everything needs an exhaust shaft this big! Especially this airship engine model! That’s the new stabilizer’s job, why would they–”

Closing the cover of her edition of Crystals and You: A Pocket Guide, she flipped the pages back, all the way to its table of contents.

“Year 15, Anno Imperator,” Twilight read. “Great, guess I’ll have to ask First Folio if she’s got a newer edition… right, that’s for tomorrow then.”

Shaking her head, she set aside the book onto the pile next to her, and settled for Starswhirl’s Journal. Which, to her chagrin, still hadn’t been translated right, from the plethora amount of grammatical errors. And a mistranslated book was no pleasant read.

“Now that’s another thing to do, ugh. Thanks, Sunburst,” she complained. “If you want something done right, gotta do it yourself… well, sleep it is, then.”

Setting aside the future project, she closed the book. Try as she could, not even the thought of personally translating Starswhirl’s book of spells could take her mind off of the events that had transpired on Earth, barely a day ago.

And the dark alicorn that encompassed her thoughts loomed behind her, even superseding Spike, wherever he was.

‘We’ll get you back, Spike… we’ll... we’ll get everyone back.’

With a yawn, Twilight hopped off the bench. But just as she was to leave, she paused, and looked back at the stone Luna. Though the statue remained as inert as ever, part of Twilight remembered how the two of them had reunited, fought, and almost killed one another.

Still grey, lifeless, as it should not be…

Shaking her head, Twilight picked up her books, and moved on. “Sweet dreams, Luna…”

No reply came, but this didn’t trouble her as much as it had before.

Yet her rooms, the Archmage’s Quarters of the Palace, never felt as comfortable as her beloved Golden Oaks, or even her old observatory. On the surface, it had everything she could’ve wanted. There were bookshelves on every wall, a small loft with a bed, the finest armchairs and coffeemaker that the Palace could buy, a long dark wooden table, but…

It just didn’t feel like home. All three rooms felt so lonely and cold, ever since Spike became too big for them. And since her move from Ponyville, it was where she would conduct her official business, along with some research in the attached laboratory. It made all her new responsibilities as Archmage feel inseparable from life itself. As if no matter how long she spent in the admittedly soft bed, the war would always be in the next room.

And that wasn’t going into, how so long ago, she had shared long-forgotten laughter with Shining Armor… and Cadance.

Suppressing the bitterness that welled up, she trotted down the corridor, and paused, to listen in to what two of the nearby Loyalty Guards were talking about.

“...I’m telling you, she doesn’t actually like salmon juice all that much,” said the first one – Terramar, as deadpan and honest as ever.

“What, your sis had a change of heart or something?” replied the second one, in the tell-tale, laid back tone of Gallus. At first, Twilight hadn’t thought much of him, but for a Griffonstone orphan to rise all the way to the Loyalty Guard, the Captain of the Canterlot Branch no less, was something to be appreciated.

“Nah, she got used to other stuff. Like what the Kirin make. Besides, she likes a fancy dinner. So, might as well go all the way, Cap’n.”

Twilight blinked. Gallus had, of course, not-so-subtly hinted that he wished for a transfer to Mount Aris. Now she knew why.

‘Sorry, champ,’ she thought, with an apologetic sigh. ‘Still need you here.’

“Right, yeah, count that out then. When’s the next tour to Mount Aris anyway...”

“Beats me, Cap’n,” Terramar replied. “you’re the one who made the schedule.”

“What?” said Gallus, his tone so indignant that Twilight had to let a smirk creep up on her. “Argh... darn it. I wasn’t so much of an… egghead before this assignment, y’know? Now all the homework is on me–”

His voice died down. Twilight had chosen that precise moment to turn the corner, and greet them both with a serene smile.

“Gallus, Terramar,” Twilight said. The two Guards snapped to attention in a split second, yet there was a blush in the to the griffon’s cheeks. It contrasted so strongly to his vibrant blue feathers and fur. “Fancy seeing you two here.”

“Lady Archmage, ma’am!” exclaimed Gallus, with a crisp salute, followed by Terramar’s own. Twilight returned it in kind. “My apologies. I did not expect you to be up this late.”

“At ease, Captain,” said Twilight. “To be honest, neither did I, but reading always takes up time. Well, might as well make it quick.” Normally, briefings were to be held at her office, but with the headache that threatened to resurface beneath her bandages, good sleep was something she’d rather have sooner than later. “How’s the attendance list looking for the Joint Council session?”

Terramar cleared his throat. “Chief Mage Sunburst will be arriving this morning, just before the meeting, Lady Archmage. The ‘Great Equestrian’ is still at Hollow One and, um, High Captain Shining Armor wishes to remain there for now.”

“As I thought. I really need to talk to him about going down with the ship these days… Dash was right. And I expect Clever Ace will be filling in for him tomorrow, right,” said Twilight. She held back a yawn. “I’ll best be on my way. We’ve got a long day ahead.”

“Ahem, Lady Archmage?” Gallus said. “What of the Queen?”

Twilight contemplated it briefly.

“I’m afraid I must retire for the evening soon, Captain,” said Twilight. “Please, inform the Queen I shall be available after tomorrow’s session is adjourned.”

“Understood, Your Ladyship,” said Gallus.

“What would you like for breakfast, Your Ladyship?” Terramar piped up. “Something after a good night’s sleep?”

“Some hayfries would be nice,” Twilight replied. “Something quick, you know?”

Terramar’s nod was all that she needed. Without any further queries, she gave them a nod, and turned to leave.

Then something occurred to her.

“Princess Silverstream likes roasted salmon, by the way,” Twilight said casually. “I’m sure she’ll be delighted for some, next time you visit, Gallus.”

“Oh,” said Gallus. Even without looking, Twilight could imagine a nervous smile. “T-thank you, uh, Lady Archmage. I don’t know how to make one–”

She heard Terramar give Gallus a nudge, tapping on his armor. She turned around, and levitated a book towards Gallus. The griffon’s eyes widened when he saw what it was.

“Fifth edition, so that’s page 117,” said Twilight. “Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as you think. I mean, if I can do it… heh.”

Gallus, for all the times she’d overheard him lament the reading he had to do as an Imperial Guard, nodded vigorously. She exchanged an amused smile with Terramar. Whose gaze, Twilight noticed, had drifted towards the bandaged side of her head...

“My Lady,” said Terramar. “I’m… I’m really sor–”

“It’s okay, Terramar,” said Twilight. “Look… just relax, okay? It wasn’t your fault.”

She shook her head, then smiled reassuringly.

“Just enjoy the night, you and Gallus. And really, if Shearwater also wants to say she’s sorry, well, she knows what I told her.”

Her bodyguard looked like he wanted to ask further, but he kept his beak shut, and simply nodded.

“Thank you, Lady Archmage,” said Gallus. He saluted. “Have a good evening.”

“And a good rest, Lady Archmage,” added Terramar. “Oh, and uh, Scootaloo wishes you well.”

“Good evening, Terramar, Gallus, and rest well.”

And with that, she was off to her room at last. From the moment she crossed the doorway and closed it behind her, nothing else crossed her mind. She barely had time to place her diadem on the bedside table, before she slumped onto the bed, with nothing but her dreams of an ethereal mare in blue to accompany her sleep.

Boston, USA.

Cadance was with Spike. Outside the tent, snow had begun to fall, and night was falling anew.

She heard Lady Cadenza push upon the tent-flap. Silently, her counterpart, whatever other business she’d had for the day sorted, approached them both, staring melancholically at the heavily-slumbering dragon.

“So,” she said, breaking the silence. “Commodore Romero has relinquished his claim?”

Cadance nodded. “Yes.”

“Well, then.”

“He seems a proud man,” Cadance commented. “But underneath his pride, so very sad…”

Cadenza sighed. “That’s humans for you,” she said. “They’re like griffons, or…” She stared at Spike. “Dragons. They love to talk big game about how tough they are, but at heart, they’re far more soft and sentimental than they let on…”

“But shouldn’t that be a good thing?”

“Not necessarily,” Cadenza said gloomily. “There’s no creature so dangerous as one that hides from and lies about its own nature. And humans are masters at doing just that.”

She glanced at the tents’ sides, as if to make sure no-one was listening, then spoke in whisper.

“Lieutenant Ze’ev reported the capture of an Imperial officer. A Trailblazer,” Cadenza told her. “Her squad have not filled in the paperwork yet, and he hasn’t left the city. We can arrange for his transport. Although…”

When she didn’t finish her sentence, Cadance knew something was off.

“What’s the matter?”

Cadenza shook her head. “I was thinking about that little speech you made,” she said. “I can’t tell you how… peculiar it feels, to hear those words coming from your own mouth. Especially considering where we’re standing at this moment.”

That wasn’t it, Cadance sensed, but she went with this. “You mean in the HLF camp?”

“Yeah…” Cadenza said. “It pains me to break this to you, but… As high-principled and heartwarming your words were about helping all mankind, there’s a hundred tiny ways things could have gone wrong, today or last night. Like Commander Yarrow meeting Lieutenant Ze’ev, for example.”

Cadance raised an eyebrow. “I take it they don’t like each other.”

“That’s putting it lightly!” Cadenza snorted. “Nope, there’s an ugly history there. It might have led to some interesting situations, but be glad we dodged that possible drama… for now, anyway.”

“You know,” Cadance said. “I never thought I’d develop such gallows humor…”

Cadenza laughed softly. “I guess we’ll have to get to know ourselves again, Cadance. Though I wouldn’t worry too much, if I were you. We may have more time than you think.”

“More time? Why?”

A palpable unease etched into Cadenza’s features. “There’s… someone outside I think you ought to meet. She can explain it better than me. It’s about getting you home.”

“With Spike,” Cadance emphasized. “Spike, and the… Trailblazer. We need them both.”

“I hope so…” her counterpart said. Cold air invaded the tent as she lifted the flap, bidding Cadance she go first. “But that… depends a lot on what she says.”

Cadance stepped outside, wondering who ‘she’ was. It turned out that awaiting her in the snow, with the Reaver camps’ milling occupants giving them a polite berth, was not one ‘she’, but two.

One was a small unicorn. Though covered by the uniform of the PHL, her coat was strikingly of richest magenta. Her mane, a two-tone of violet hues. Purple was her color in every regard, but for her mark – three cyan-blue diamonds.

And next to her, held under a comforting forehoof, there was a beige, wild-eyed earthmare, clutching a battered golden lyre.

Cadance’s heart skipped as she recognized the latter. Shocked, she turned to her other self, who nodded sadly.

“Yes,” Cadenza said. “When Lyra died, she left someone behind…”

Bonbon, the inseparable companion of little Lyra all grown-up. Was this what she had become in this blighted place, Cadance thought in horror, as she observed the twitching, sobbing mare, who never seemed to notice her presence in return. Snowflakes covered her, and she did nothing to shake them off.

Not bearing to look any longer, Cadance’s eyes drifted to the figure next to the broken Bonbon. And here again, she felt invaded by a flicker of recognition. Perhaps it was that, colors aside, the stranger had a face a lot like Lyra’s.

“Pardon me, Miss,” said Cadance. “Have we met?”

The magenta unicorn smiled faintly.

“Maybe?” she said. “My business is with crystals, Your Highness. If you come from a world where you reclaimed the Crystal Realm from Sombra without heartbreak, then it’s quite possible we crossed paths early into your reign. Or you and my otherworldly mirror-image, anyway.”

She straightened herself up, dusting snow off her vest.

“But I’m just plain Amethyst, a jeweller from Ponyville. My father’s the one you want, if you’re looking for help returning home.”

Cadenza chuckled, though with Bonbon still nearby, it felt forced.

“She sells herself short,” she told Cadance. “It’s Amethyst’s whole family who’ve allowed us to keep the Empire from cornering a monopoly on travel between Earth and our homeworld.”

Cadance remembered what her counterpart had mentioned earlier.

“You’re here to talk about getting us back,” she said to Amethyst. “Me and Luna, and Spike.”

“And opening a channel between our worlds,” Amethyst said warmly. “Though part of the reason I came all the way down here is because I wanted to see you for myself, Princess Cadance… But mostly how to get you back, ahem, yes.”

Some of the twinkle left her eye.

“And I’m sorry to say, this may be a little easier said than done.”

“What?” said Cadance. “Why?”

Amethyst looked at her seriously.

“The specifics of how you got here remain somewhat… undefined, Princess, though eyewitness reports of Princess Luna being initially accompanied by Discord help paint a clearer picture. But his absence now is very conspicuous. Luckily, UNAC’s leaders don’t really know who Discord is, but I think now’s the time to tell. The PHL will want to know. What happened?”

What to say? Cadance felt put on the spot, like she was the child trying to hide a secret. Luna had advised, probably wisely, against telling too much, too soon.

But UNAC and the PHL had been given a day to deliberate already. If not now, when would the time be right?

“There was a mishap,” she said unhappily. “Aunt Luna told me about it. The Archmage came prepared, and she petrified Discord. We weren’t able to save him.”

She saw Amethyst glance not at her, but the other Cadance behind her.

“That’s deeply unfortunate…” Amethyst said at last. “Yet if we act fast, perhaps not unsalvageable. We have agents in Equestria– that is, our Equestria, who given the time, might be able to interfere before the Imperials can do their worst with him. I shall inform Commandant Cheerilee.”

Before she turned away, though, Amethyst leant to speak gently to Bonbon.

“I’ll be right back, Bonnie… Lady Cadance, if you’ll take over?”

Acquiescing, Cadenza walked up to take Amethyst’s place next to Bonbon. Without goodbye, Amethyst hurried away, tapping something in her ear and muttering breathlessly as she did so.

For a time, both Cadances stood facing each other, unspeaking.

“I’m sorry,” Cadance whispered. “We came here to help, but it looks as if–”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Cadenza said firmly. “Queen Celestia has a plan for everything… Helped in no small part by her Archmage, of course. I’m sure the Security Council will consider what you’ve brought them today worth far more than your stumblings.”

She looked herself over, then at Bonbon, and sighed.

“Especially after how we’ve stumbled far worse…”

“Worse…”

A reedy, haunted voice echoed her. Cadenza and Cadance were each surprised to realized that it had come from Bonbon, who’d raised her gaze from the lyre she held.

Cadance stepped forward. “Bonbon?”

“Worse… then… better.”

She felt a jolt as Bonbon took her forehoof.

Something was different about Bonbon’s eyes. It took Cadance a moment to figure out, before it hit her. The bright blue irises had realigned, and they stared at her – not with the glazed, unseeing reflection of madness, but focused.

Bonbon’s lips parted. “Two by two, the same are you… Yet also not… One from a lost past, the other from a future that might have been.” She grimaced with painful concentration. “Please… Is this… now?”

And Cadenza gasped softly. “Oh, Bonnie…” Lovingly, she patted Bonbon’s arched back. “Yes… Yes, this is now. What you’re seeing is real.” She pointed at Cadance. “That really is me. Another me. Bonbon… You’re… back with us?”

“No,” Bonbon winced. “Worse… Better… And worse again… Not forever, but who can know how it shall end. However… for now, my mind is quite clear… Only for a moment.”

She kept staring at Cadance, tightening her grip, while the other forehoof stroked the lyre she had set down on the snow-covered ground.

“I feel you… Even when I cannot see you. Tell… tell… my love… Always I am her Bonnie.” She breathed out mournfully. “Her and me, nevermore…”

Her eyes unfocused. As before, they drifted in different directions. Bonbon released her grip.

Princess Cadance and Lady Cadenza – the same person reflected, one a mirror to the past, one to the future, as was said – contemplated the broken soul between them, each knowing that the other thought the same thing.

“How did it get to this?” Cadance whispered. “How could we have let this happen?”

Cadenza shook her head. “I fear that somehow, I wasn’t blessed like you,” she said, feebly ruffling the wings beneath her vest. “When Celestia found me in Florentina, when I discovered I had a family in Prince Blueblood, when my Shiney loved me for who I was, I thought I’d got my pony-tale ending… And then I learnt it wasn’t enough…”

“But I don’t understand,” Cadance said, almost beggingly. “What about the Alicorn Amulet?”

“A trinket, gathering dust somewhere,” Cadenza said bleakly. “I tried it once. It had no effect upon me. And then, much later, it disappeared.”

“No, how can that be? Did you…” Cadance swallowed. “Could you have… done something wrong when you got it off Prismia?”

Her stunted mirror-image returned her gaze with a frown, and blinked.

“Who?”

Author's Notes:

Sledge115:

How Luna would have reacted to the PHL-UNAC meeting had she attended it instead of Cadance. She doesn’t like paperwork. Or bureaucrats.

This chapter was supposed to be the last of Act Two; however, fact is that we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and it was bordering around 40,000 words total. So, we’ve decided to split it in two, and if you squint at the two of them, you can tell it was meant to be one very long chapter Splitting the chapter came with its own benefits, as it allows some breathing space and scenes that wouldn’t have otherwise been in the chapter, such as the Lady Archmage’s nighttime rituals.

The decision came recently, thanks to The Rise of Skywalker - personally, I thought it felt like two films crammed into one, with J.J. Abrams writing his own Episode 8 and shoving it into Episode 9, and, well, I didn’t want Chapter Nineteen to feel like it was rushed, too. Besides, now Act Two is a neat seven chapters long!

Yep! Luna’s youthful appearance is her Season 1 design, and her voice (as well as behavior) is based off the fan animation Spare, which adapts a deleted Frozen song. She briefly sings that, and the fan-made song Midnight Frenzy to Maxine.

She was the one who picked out the shirts worn by her and Celestia in Season 9, Episode 13 (“Between Dark and Dawn”) so her being a tourist here is a little nod to that, too.

(Yeah. Big Luna fan here, hehe More on that, and a few closing notes, on the next Authors’ Note.)

There are a few deleted scenes from the chapter’s first drafts, and I thought it’d be a shame to see them go to waste even if they were repurposed. If you wish to see how it would have gone with, say, Luna instead of Cadance in certain scenes, I’ll leave a thread on the forums for said scenes. Some of the scenes were deleted from the now-Chapter Twenty, so it’ll be posted alongside Chapter Twenty’s publishing.

Keep in mind that they are non-canon, so they aren’t spoilers, don’t worry.

Not to worry, we made sure the chapter as a whole was actually finished first before publishing the first half. Expect the finale to Act Two – Moonrise to come very soon As always, let us know what you think in the comments!

P.S. I’ve also introduced an outline thread – it doesn’t spoil much, and it should be handy as an improvised table of contents. You can find it right HERE

Jed R: Nope, not “back”. But when I was told there was going to be a scene with Daniel Romero of the Columbia, I knew I wanted to write that particular scene. Mainly because I like Romero too much to let anyone do anything with him :p

On a serious note, thanks to the guys for letting me have a shot at this one. They didn’t have to, and I know it wasn’t necessarily an easy call for them to make. So cheers, guys.

(Also, wrote 9,000ish words for this in less than five days. Nailed it, mudderkuffers!)

DoctorFluffy: I halped. Mostly around Jed’s scene there. And yes! Hope is making a cameo! I won’t tell you where she is, though. That’s a seeeecret.

VoxAdam: So as Sledge said in his note, this was originally going to be one long chapter, much like ‘Concordia Maxima’. And you can tell this chapter is still pretty long, equal in length to the previous one titled ‘Moonrise Over Boston’, in fact – if that was the climactic battle chapter of the Boston/Moonrise Arc, complete with both these terms included in its title, then this a mirror to it as the dénouement or battle’s aftermath.

But whereas ‘Concordia Maxima’ could justify its extreme length as a gathering of people from all four corners of the world, cramming to have Luna and Cadance go through all the steps on Earth and then return home in the space of one chapter wasn’t working. This was pretty much how things went down in ‘Trust’, the equivalent from OG Spectrum, which was that story’s longest chapter, and it suffered for a rushed pace.

Also… While I’ve primarily stayed out of writing for Act Two, this chapter marks my return to writing full scenes. Maybe none so long as the 9,000 words mentioned by Jed for Romero and the Columbia – and, while pared down in the final published version, what you see here is majorly representative of the original draft, bar Cadance’s reasons for visiting Romero’s ship, which were reclarified later as part of her efforts to secure Spike. However, this isn’t the focus of anything I can claim to have written personally.

The opening scene between the two Cadances? That one is Sledge’s. And a fine scene I’m happy to see at last in Spectrum, too, because as far back that I can recall, there never was a meeting between Cadances in OG Spectrum. Not even TB3’s side-stories, though he did have plans which sadly didn’t come to fruition when we were co-writing The Beatification of Lyra Heartstrings.

On the other hand, the very last scene here of both Cadances? Boy, I hope that’s one heck of a “Wham” which I’ve left you with.

Cheers,
~Vox

TheIdiot: So, it's been a rather crazy time for me. I survive a lot though (ranging from my first semester at college, a 19-hour car ride (yes, like a National Lampoon's movie, and coming back to the college only to discover that they took my toaster for, quite honestly, stupid reasons) but I'm here. I'm through the second week and have bought a new toaster today. So, all is well for the most part.

Now, for the chapter, this is where gets interesting. We get the aftermath from both sides and insight. What this will mean in the future? Take care and look forward as things unfold...

Also, Dan Radwick's behavior is kind of an outlet for most of the things I've had to deal with these past few months. It was therapeutic to have.

With nothing else to say, I hope you all have enjoyed the chapter and will be with us as the second arc draws to a close.

Until next time, everyone,

Carpe diem.