Doctor Twilight Sparkle stared intently at the thaumometer, not daring to look away at this stage of the experiment. The unicorn inched closer to the glowing display like she was afraid to miss even the smallest twitch of the needle.

“Connecting the test unit to the dummy body,” reported her assistant. Sunburst looked over at the intimidating mare, but couldn't make out her expression past the light reflecting from her thick glasses.

Beyond the thick wall of safety glass, a complicated mechanism bolted together from a half-dozen types of metal and gems was connected with thick tubes to a ponyquin, the modified dressform wearing a half-finished suit of armor. The plates gleamed darkly in the harsh lights, a wet sheen on their surface like they'd been sprayed down with thick oil.

“Leylines are forming in the test unit as expected,” Sunburst reported. Twilight watched the needle as it fluctuated, vibrating and wiggling back and forth as the power started to climb.

“Increase the gain,” Doctor Sparkle ordered, not looking up. "Give me sixty percent."

Sunburst nodded. “Activating secondary contacts. SS-10 leyline connections to the simulated network are normal. Thaumatic energy is starting to circulate.”

The needle jumped, hitting the peak and staying there. One of the thick lines connecting the device to the armor burst, cracking open like a rupturing pipe. The air filled with acid-green sparks as the ambient magical field fought the pressure.

“Shut it down!” Sparkle snapped. Sunburst started wildly flipping switches, but the damage was already done, wires smoking and crystals blackened from the heat. “Even the test set I used managed to get to sixty-five before the flow got that turbulent. What did we do wrong?"

“Ma'am? What should we do?” Sunburst asked.

“Run it at one-third power for now. Find the parts that aren’t letting the energy flow freely. Pull them and analyze them for defects. I need to know if it’s a manufacturing flaw or design errors.” Doctor Sparkle threw her clipboard down and let Sunburst get to work, stomping out of the test lab and back to her office, already picturing the report she was going to have to write up, the hours of work wasted, the materials and manufacturing that had gone into it.

The Institute was on the other side of the Canterhorn from the city, to help keep the research there a secret and protect civilians from potentially explosive experiments. It left her with a view right down into the forest and valley below the mountain. And somewhere far to the north, the front lines. Sometimes she felt like she could almost see it from here, on a clear day.

Sparkle took off her glasses, rubbing her tired eyes. She hadn't slept in two days and the bags under her eyes were developing into a full set of luggage.

“Another failure?” Asked a gentle voice. Sparkle glanced to the side. Moondancer was there, with two cups of coffee hovering in her magic. Doctor Sparkle grabbed one with her hoof.

“It should work. There’s no reason it wouldn’t,” Doctor Sparkle said.

“And you should rest, but neither you nor the suit are doing what you need. You’ve been burning yourself at both ends lately,” Moondancer said. “Take a day off. You need to decompress. Your heart almost stopped and you didn't even spend one full day in bed. You're not immortal.”

Doctor Sparkle looked up at the moon, shining overhead, a pale and almost featureless disk. When she’d been a foal, it had been half-covered with darkness.

“The stars are beautiful tonight,” she said. “It was a night like this when we set things into motion. If we can’t move on to the next stage soon, all that work will be for nothing.”

A shadow passed over the moon, an airship moving from Canterlot towards the front, probably loaded with supplies and fresh troops.

“I've got almost no time left,” She muttered.

“He played hoofball for Canterlot U,” Moondancer reported, putting a file in front of her superior. “Ranked first among his peers at school. Thirteen championships. I think Flash Sentry is exactly the kind of stallion you’re looking for. His strength, physical aptitude, and constitution likely exceed even what you see here.”

“There’s a note of commendation in his file,” Doctor Sparkle muttered.

“He’s attending West Hoof now. Top of his class. General Nickel Plated has him earmarked for special duty after he completes his training.”

“He’s useless.” Sparkle flipped the file closed and shoved it across the table. “I don’t want somepony who will follow orders blindly!”

“This is the three-hundred ninety-fourth candidate you’ve rejected,” Moondancer said. She had either been keeping track or, more likely, had looked it up after months of constant rejections.

"We need somepony who can handle the equipment," Doctor Sparkle said. "I still don't have all the feeling back in my left forehoof."

There was a knock on the door. Sparkle glanced up. Sunburst opened the door and looked into the room.

“Ma’am? The Princess wanted me to remind you that you have a meeting with her--”

“It can wait!” Doctor Sparkle shouted, Sunburst fleeing her wrath and closing the door behind him. She turned back to Moondancer. “I need ponies that have a strong will! Strong hooves aren’t enough.”

“You’ve rejected combat veterans, top recruits, even Wonderbolts members. There’s nowhere left to look!” Moondancer frowned, meeting her gaze.

“I don’t care if there’s nowhere left to look!” Sparkle yelled. “I need somepony who can handle this without breaking down! That’s the job you were given! You need to realize the gravity of the situation! Try the military files again. Go through the medical discharges."

"There aren't going to be a lot of ponies there we can use. Anypony able-bodied will be reassigned instead of discharged."

"If they're just missing a limb or two we can put them back together. See if our contacts can get you prison records."

"Prison records?"

"If nothing else, getting somepony out of military prison might make them more willing to cooperate with us, and they aren't likely to be missed if something goes wrong."

There was another timid knock. Sunburst looked in, slightly pale. “Um, Doctor Sparkle? The Princess said there’s no hurry.” Sunburst said, his voice shaky.

Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes, rubbing her temples. Moondancer sighed. Sunburst scurried out of the room, more than bright enough to know that he was only going to get screamed at if he didn't flee.

“I’ll scour the records for anypony that might meet your qualifications,” she said.

The Doctor nodded. Moondancer started to leave.

“Wait,” Sparkle said, calm now. “I’m counting on you. The fate of Equestria is in your hooves.”

“I’ll do my best,” Moondancer assured her. Doctor Sparkle nodded.

“Ma’am?” Sunburst coughed, looking back into the room, pale and shaking. “Princess Celestia--”

“Tch,” Sparkle huffed, annoyed. She looked out at the rain. She could feel it, from somewhere close by. She was being watched. “Fine. I’m coming. Get the tea started.”

It was raining. It rained a lot these days, in uncontrolled, wild weather. There weren’t any weather teams here to clean it up. The few ponies from the weather department that weren’t reassigned to active duty had been moved to secure farms and try to head off a growing famine. They certainly weren’t going to bother watching the weather in a city like Neigh Orleans, where even weeds had trouble growing among the crowded buildings.

There were a few inches of water in the streets, sloshing around the hooves of the few that needed to get somewhere and couldn’t wait for a break in the rain. It would have been a disaster, but these days it was just business as usual. Ponies had gotten used to moving things upstairs and wading through muddy water. The whole town was falling apart.

Lightning Dust downed another shot of cheap, bathtub gin. It was getting impossible to find anything to drink these days. Everything was rationed, and what little there was went to the front, and the war with the Crystal Empire.

She should have been at the front. She had been, until everything went wrong. Her poncho was proof enough of that, the dull green rainwear still showing the fading logos and print of military gear.

Lightning Dust grimaced and tapped her hoof on the bar, the bartender silently pouring her another. She didn’t have the money for it, but who did, these days?

The door opened, and ponies trotted in, laughing and splashing through the murky tide.

“Bartender! We’ll take whatever ya got, and dry seats if you have ‘em.”

Lightning Dust glanced back and wished she hadn’t.

“Great,” she muttered. “Of all the ponies to walk in here…”

“Endless Night.” Rainbow Dash smirked. ”What do we have here? Pinks, Maud, look at this. We got us a piece of trash that thinks she can drink in the same bar as the Stormbreakers!”

“Clop off, Dash,” Lightning Dust growled.

“Is that what you told Spitfire before you decked her in the face and went AWOL?” Dash asked.

Lightning Dust hopped down from her barstool, resting a hoof on it and trying to look casual. “I didn’t go AWOL. She wanted to surrender. I wasn’t gonna become one of Sombra’s bucking crystal slaves!”

“That’s not what her report says. And no one else from the 108th is around to dispute it. But guess what, Dust? Spitfire’s my friend, and I trust her.” Dash cracked her neck. “Now, I think I owe you a few bruises from her. Apparently they didn’t bother giving you fifty lashes when you were drummed out, but I can fix that.”

“I’d like to see you try.” Lightning Dust waited for Dash to get closer, then grabbed the stool with two hooves and swung it like a bat. It smashed into Dash’s bad side, her technomagic wing sparking and cracking.

“Buck!” Dash swore, as electricity crackled along her left flank from ruptured power lines.

“Leave her alone!” Pinkamina yelled, galloping into Lightning Dust and body-slamming her back into the bar. Lightning Dust ducked to the side, using the edge of the bar to swing herself into the air as the pink pony followed up with a hoof-strike that smashed entirely through the wood.

“Hey!” the bartender yelled.

“You asked for it,” Lightning Dust said, landing on Pinkie’s back. She grabbed around her neck, choking her from behind.

A hoof slammed into the side of her head, and Dust was knocked free, smashing through a table. Maud lowered her hoof and helped Pinkie back up.

“Too scared to face me alone? That’s fine. Come on.” Dust reared up, taunting them.

“You cannot cut my funding,” Doctor Sparkle said, coldly.

“You’ve had years to produce something,” Princess Celestia noted. “So far all you’ve done is spend time and energy with nothing to show for it, Doctor Sparkle. If we were at peace it would merely be wasteful, but we are stretched thinly.” Celestia frowned and looked at her tea. It was awful, poorly-filtered water and teabags left to boil in a pan and steeped until what was left was as bitter and dark as Sombra. She wondered if it was intentional or if Twilight Sparkle was simply that bad at making tea.

“This research will change everything,” Sparkle said, glaring across the conference table.

“Your theories on magical circulation are fascinating,” Celestia said. “But they’re just theory.”

“It is not theory!” Twilight snapped. “If you cut my funding, we will lose this war. That is a fact. Only the Unity suits can give us the edge we need.”

“Even if you can make it work, the cost is astonishing,” Celestia continued. “When you proposed this research project, the intent was to get soldiers that could spearhead an attack against Sombra. But now the cost overruns--”

“Irrelevant,” Twilight snapped.

“Are they? And the other items? The experiments on animals? On ponies? The cadavers you appropriated?"

Sparkle didn't flinch at the mention of the cadavers. Celestia was impressed by that. The EIS had spent a lot of effort undoing Sparkle's efforts to conceal it, but didn't react at all when Celestia brought it up.

“They are necessary. We have several working prototypes, and we’re searching for a candidate for the Engine Heart. The prototypes work fine as a proof of concept, at least while their magical condensers have fuel.”

“Doctor Sparkle,” Princess Celestia said, softly. “Both of us know what this is really about. I know you’re sensitive about your condition, but--”

“Irrelevant,” the unicorn growled.

“I’ll give you two weeks to shut things down gracefully. Then your materials and supplies will be given to the Iron Pegasus project.”

Doctor Sparkle scoffed. “That doll that Flim and Flam made? Useless.”

“They’ve already put models in the field. They work. Commander Leaf Raker has sent glowing reports of their performance in combat.”

Sparkle laughed. “I’ve seen the pictures. Working is a very generous way to put it. They’re little better than toys.”

“If you assisted with the project--”

Sparkle cut her off again. “No. This is important. More important than bits. This is about the future.”

“If we lose this war, we won’t have one. Two weeks, Doctor.” Celestia got up. “I’ll be back then, and we can discuss your reassignment.”

Sparkle watched her go, then threw her cup across the room, the mug shattering.

“Moondancer! Get me the files! I need a candidate and I need it now!”

Lightning Dust kicked open the door to her house. It was a dilapidated mess. The constant rain meant it needed maintenance, and she didn’t have the bits to even replace the lead that had been stolen from the roof. She’d patched it with clouds, but they were, surprisingly, not all that great at keeping the rain out. They just soaked it up like a sponge until it leaked through,

“I’m home,” she muttered, spitting out a clot of blood, her mouth torn up from a few lucky punches. Not that she expected anypony to be there to answer. Even the rats had left Neigh Orleans as it slowly sunk back into the swamp.

This one time, though, she wasn’t entirely alone. A half-dozen steel stars flashed out of the darkness, barely missing her and hitting the wall with enough force to bury themselves into the plaster. Lightning Dust glanced at them. She was vaguely aware of what they were. Unicorn weapons, blades with no handle that were designed to be used with a telekinetic throw.

“Who’s there?!” She demanded. “Come out here and fight me!”

A scruffy-looking unicorn stepped out of the shadows and charged Dust, holding two more of the blades in his acid-green magical grip. She jumped into the air, cracking a front hoof into his horn and making him drop the knives as she vaulted over him.

She landed on her hooves and spun to face him, skidding on the tile floor, the faded ceramic slick with a layer of muck from the constant rain.

The wall behind Lightning Dust exploded as a huge earth pony burst through the cracked plaster, grabbing her and squeezing hard enough that she felt a rib crack. She braced her hooves and used her wings to push up, flipping him over her head and into the unicorn.

“Who in Tartarus are you two? Crash wouldn’t have sent ponies after me. She’d do it on her own.” Lightning Dust circled them. She’d done something stupid and reckless and put them between her and the way out. No problem, of course. She’d just go through them.

Lightning Dust jumped into the air, avoiding the Earth Pony as he tried to tackle her, and landed on the unicorn's back while he was standing, sending him back to the ground. Hopping away, she charged through the door, flaring her wings to stop short as steel flashed in front of her, an edge like a razor blade opening a shallow cut on her neck. If she'd kept moving she would have run right into the killing blow.

Another pegasus was waiting outside, wearing cheap-looking wingblades that had been worked to a deadly sharpness.

“Oh wow, full house today, huh?” Dust asked. She dodged under a second swipe and caught the third with her hooves, the blade digging into her frog painfully and drawing blood, red dripping onto the ground while she held it at bay, the other pegasus sneering as he used leverage and his wings - naturally stronger than Dust’s hooves - to slowly push her back.

The earth pony loomed behind her, and Dust twisted her grip, ignoring the pain and driving the caught wingblade into his neck, snapping bones in the wing the blade was strapped to at the same time. The earth pony gurgled and fell, and the pegasus screamed as his wing was mangled. It was a bad enough break that he might never fly again with it.

Lightning Dust breathed heavily for a moment, until a star-shaped blade slashed past her cheek, narrowly missing.

“Oh right, that guy,” she muttered. She sensed something behind her, swooping through the air, and ducked, the spinning blade boomeranging around and still held in the grip of the unicorn’s magic.

Dust jumped up and grabbed it in her teeth, breaking his grasp and jumping towards him, twisting her neck and slamming it into his snout. The unicorn screamed and fell, clutching his face. Dust spat the knife out, her lip cut and dripping blood.

“That’s right, clophole,” Dust said, panting. “No one feathering messes with me. Now I wanna know who the buck sent you here--”

There was a soft sound, and a sharp moment of pain. Lightning Dust blinked and looked at her flank. There was a dart sticking out of her cutie mark. She turned to look, and saw a purple unicorn in a labcoat glaring at her, flanked by one dark-suited pony with a brace of darts and a white-coated mare in a military uniform.

Lightning Dust charged, trying to fight off a wave of sudden tiredness. A third dart hit her, and she punched one of the suited ponies. As she stepped over to the unicorn, still filled with rage, the purple pony slapped her. Lightning Dust stopped, surprised, and touched her cheek. It hadn’t hurt at all, but it had distracted her for just a moment.

The drugged darts finally kicked in, and she fell.

Doctor Sparkle smiled. “Well. That was exciting. Get her to the lab, and get rid of the bodies before they change back and ponies start asking questions.”

Princess Celestia sat back, trying to resist the urge to just close her eyes and take a nap. It probably wouldn't look good to fall asleep in the middle of the War Room during a report. She certainly wouldn't want ponies following that bad example.

"Ma'am?" A voice prompted from nearby, little more than a whisper.

"Mm?" Celestia turned to look. A tall unicorn mare in uniform was carrying a plate of tea and biscuits.

"I know you didn't order it, but I thought you might want a cup," she replied quietly.

"That would be lovely. I didn't catch your name."

"Ensign Alias." The mare saluted smartly "I just got transferred here, Ma'am."

Celestia nodded and turned back to what she should have been paying attention to. One of General Nickel's lieutenants was going over proposed changes to Canterlot's defenses and a schedule for rotating exhausted troops away from the front to be replaced.

"Lieutenant," Celestia said, interrupting him. He snapped into a salute, almost falling over in surprise. "I'll go over the troop movements later once we have word from the field. I know they're tired, but this is a war. I'm afraid we can't rotate troops away unless they're severely under strength."

"Ma'am, with all due respect morale is going to drop to nothing with orders like that," Captain Armor said. "I know we can't pull everypony, but maybe we could look at sending exhausted troops back in limited numbers? They could pull guard duty for prisoner transports, get a little rest and hot foot, then go back as guards on supply trains. If we rotate the duty among the troops it'll mean everypony gets a chance to get home once in a while."

Celestia mulled it over. "The danger is that we'll have exhausted troops with prisoners. In the event of a breakout they'll be mostly useless."

"Knowing they're heading home will give them a second wind," Shining Armor countered. "And this will mean the troops we're sending with supply trains will be rested and ready. With how many we've lost just this month, having extra ponies there might be worth having them away from the front, especially if they're too tired to do any good there."

The Princess tapped a hoof against the floor in thought. "I do see some wisdom in your plan, Captain Armor, but there's another flaw. Moving ponies from duty to duty like that means none of them will have experience. We'll still have to keep some ponies assigned permanently to make sure things are done by the book. Fresh eyes on the supply line won't be good if they don't know how to keep a caravan safe."

"Might I suggest the officers, ma'am?" Captain Armor said. "They'll be in charge anyway, and if we keep the seargeants with their squads, they'll be able to advise them on how to use the troops rotating through their command."

"Excellent. Have a proposal written up and on my desk in the morning." Celestia smiled. "And this tea is excellent, Ensign. Thank you."

Princess Cadance pecked Shining Armor's cheek once he'd escaped the meeting.

"You always smell like cigar smoke after you spend time in there," she complained.

"Commander Raker and General Nickel smoke like they have chimney cutie marks," Shining Armor said. "I hear it's pretty cool and manly. Maybe I should try it so the soldiers see me as being a big tough soldier."

"Don't you dare!" Cadance huffed. "I'm not kissing an ashtray!"

"I'm only kidding, Cady! I swear!"

Cadance stuck out her tongue. "You know you don't have to go in there. You're my Guard Captain! You get to choose your own duty."

"I stayed here in Canterlot because I promised you I'd stay safe," Armor said, nuzzling Cadance's neck. "I still want to help out."

"You are helping."

"I know. Celestia would want you there if I wasn't going in your place, and I don't think General Nickel likes you very much after he caught you making his troop markers kiss."

"I thought they were dolls!"

"He does, too, and that's the problem," Shiny sighed. "I can't imagine how much trouble we'd get into if Princess Celestia and I weren't there to make sure he didn't do something, um, brave."

"You mean stupid."

"If you're in a war, brave and stupid can mean the same thing," Armor smiled. "I'm going to head over to Twily's place to see how she's getting along."

"She had another fight with Auntie." Cadance sighed. "I'm really worried about them. They never had a good relationship, but Princess Celestia has been under a lot of stress lately, and I'm worried either she or Twilight will do something they'll regret later."

"I'll tell her to take it easy," Armor assured her. "We're all on the same team."

"Excuse me, Captain Armor, Sir?" A pony cleared their throat.

Shining Armor turned to the unicorn that had appeared behind him. Cadance looked over his shoulder.

Ensign Alias presented a file folder to him. "Sir, Princess Celestia wanted you to take the latest data from the Iron Pegasus tests over to Doctor Sparkle. She said you'd be leaving soon."

"Thanks," Armor took the papers, stuffing them into a saddlebag.

"Sir, if I may?"

Shining Armor nodded. "Go ahead."

Alias smiled sweetly. "I just wanted to congratulate you. I heard that you finally proposed to Princess Cadance. You two make a lovely couple."

What is an Alicorn?

Ask a foal, they'll tell you it's a pony with wings and a horn. An adult might give the more correct answer that they can use the magic of all three pony tribes.

Neither answer is correct because foals are uneducated and most adults are educated badly.

Alicorns look like ponies. But a biologist would define a pony or, indeed, any animal by way of its anatomy. An alicorn's anatomy, especially internally, is incompatable with any real definition of the typical pony. The closest comparison would in fact be between an Alicorn and a dragon.

Dragons are famous for their thaumobiological dependence. A normal animal cannot breathe fire, and normal bone and muscle simply couldn't support the massive frame of an adult dragon. Dragons can survive - and even enjoy! - conditions that should be almost instantly fatal. Almost no poisons will work on a dragon, and those that do are notably magical in their effect or source.

All of these facts (save size, despite the easy jokes involving one subject and her posterior) are also true of alicorns.

- Doctor Twilight Sparkle, Notes on Project A, Universal Harmony Theory