"Have you spoken to Princess Celestia yet?" Moondancer asked. Doctor Sparkle was half-slumped at the head of the conference table, the other seats empty. Most of them had never been used.

Twilight grunted and grabbed for the cup of tea Moondancer was making, not even letting her finish the pour. Stains spread across the scattered papers across her desk, and Moondancer just sighed and started moving things to contain the spill.

Doctor Sparkle rarely slept, anymore. Instead, she just spent hours working, pouring over documents and blueprints when she wasn't busy building prototypes or tearing down failed projects to find what hadn't worked. The last time she'd seen Sparkle asleep was two days ago, and she'd been at her desk, head down on a pile of forms, tossing and turning in the grip of some nightmare.

"Of course not," Doctor Sparkle mumbled, taking a long sip of the steaming tea, not bothering with sugar or lemon. "In the art of war, the key to victory is deception. I don't know which of us is lying more to the other, at this point. I'm sure she has a few questions about Cloudsdale but she hasn't actually asked them yet."

"You're not going to report what you're doing?" Moondancer raised her eyebrows.

"What would be the point? At this stage, we're still collecting data. My test subject is recovering from surgery. When Celestia sees what I’ve created, it’s going to be at a time and place of my choosing, and she will be forced to recognize my work. I'd put the armor on and walk up to her myself if I thought my heart could take the strain.”

“If you say so,” Moondancer said, quietly.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Doctor Sparkle said. “It’s time for a meeting with our investors.”

Moondancer nodded and left like there were hounds at her heels.

Doctor Sparkle waited in the conference room, leaning on the table and waiting, the tea growing cold at her side. She was being made to wait, to prove that the person she was meeting with had the power to command her time and presence.

A black mirror gleamed at the far end of the long table, the surface like a pool of ink, Doctor Sparkle's reflection a tableau of shadow and glare from the spotlight beating down on her. Something shifted in its depths, not quite like a ripple, the angles of the reflection shifting.

"Was the public display really required?" Asked a voice from the darkness, somewhere between the hiss of a snake and the tinkling of glass bells. The mirror didn't reflect Doctor Sparkle now. It was so dark it was like an open doorway into the void.

"It was necessary," Doctor Sparkle said.

"One subject is not enough," the voice said. "Not even if they had the strength of the Sun. More must be found."

"I have a pony in mind."

Lightning Dust prodded her chest with a hoof, feeling the line of stitches going from her sternum all the way down to her liver. They were healing nicely, even with how much stress she'd put on her healing body during the Games.

She stretched out a wing, expecting muscles to complain and tug where they'd been torn, but instead it just felt a little stiff.

"One of the many benefits," Moondancer said, as she checked Lightning Dust's back, making sure the stitches weren't tearing and applying an ointment along the line where her wound had been closed.

"...Are you reading my mind?" Lightning Dust asked.

"No, but you're a very physical pony," Moondancer said. "I don't need to read your mind when I can read your muscles." She patted Lightning Dust's shoulder. "You're healing well. A day or two and your coat will even grow back in."

"That's not just healing well, that's impossibly fast," Lightning Dust said.

"Not impossible," Doctor Sparkle said, from the doorway. "The Princesses heal even faster than that. I once saw Princess Cadance heal from a cut so quickly you could watch the wound close."

Lightning Dust looked over at her. Doctor Sparkle seemed at ease. That probably meant something terrible was about to happen. The unicorn seemed more at home in the middle of a disaster than anywhere at peace.

"How do you feel?" Doctor Sparkle asked.

"Like I'm in the best shape of my life," Dust said, stretching out a leg. She'd swear her muscles were more toned than they had been even a few hours ago. "Part of me just wants to run another marathon or fly until my wings can't hold me."

"Good. I need you to bring in a new candidate," Doctor Sparkle said. "Evaluate her. Drag her in by the ear if you have to."

"The same way you had me evaluated?" Lightning Dust asked.

"Mm. It might come down to a fight," Doctor Sparkle admitted. "Try not to damage her permanently."

"I could use a little fun," Lightning Dust said, hopping down from the table. "So where are we going?"

The Manehattan Archives were one of the most secure locations outside of Canterlot. They were a repository of restricted information, artifacts of dark magic and sinister purpose, and occasionally of entities that couldn't be contained through mundane means.

The guards took their jobs seriously. They were impossible to bribe or blackmail. That's why, at the service entrance underneath Manehattan Station, two guards were already lying face-down in the dirt with their manes standing on end from the strength of the stun spell that had been used on them. Three ponies waited around the lock, their leader leaning against the wall and watching back the way they came.

"I hate magical locks," said the pony working the locking mechanism. "Normal locks, you just get a key or a few bits of wire and you can pop it open."

"How hard can it be?" another asked.

"Parts of it don't completely exist here," the first pony said. "It's using skewed geometry. Inside the mechanism, you have to turn around two and a half times to get back to where you started."

"What in Tartarus does that mean?" the second pony asked.

"It means shut up and let him work," the third said, looking nervously at their fiery employer. She was watching them and tapping her hoof, her expression clearly saying mistakes meant they'd be lucky if they only got the same treatment as the guards. "The boss wouldn't have chosen him if he couldn't do the job."

"I think I got it," the first pony said, levitating a tuning fork up and tapping it against the mechanism, turning it in two directions at once at the same time, struggling to manipulate five tools simultaneously. Something inside the lock struggled and then turned, the tools slipping through each other as they shifted around.

The door hissed open, revealing a dark corridor.

"Let's go!" the second pony rushed forwards, picking up a crossbow.

The pony in charge walked casually behind the other three, her eyes gleaming with excitement.

"You probably won't remember her, but she was fairly famous a decade or so ago," Doctor Sparkle said, opening a file and giving it to Lightning Dust. A young pony was pictured inside, glaring defiantly at the camera.

"Who is she?" Dust asked, flipping through the pages. School transcripts, a few police reports, but no military papers.

"Her name is Sunset Shimmer. She was Princess Celestia's personal student, before she disappeared into thin air."

"Most of these papers are almost old enough to drink," Lightning Dust said.

"She vanished a few years ago, after having some kind of falling out with the Princess."

Lightning Dust flipped to the end. The reports abruptly stopped with a heavily-censored report from the Equestrian Intelligence Service, everything blacked out except a few words here and there and a final report.

'As per HRH Princess Celestia's testimony, we have suspended operations to locate Sunset Shimmer. Her assumed location is beyond the scope of operation of EIS and its assets.'

"Where did she go?" Lightning Dust asked.

"Irrelevant. We know where she is now," Doctor Sparkle said. "This was taken from a security camera last night in Manehattan." She gave Lightning Dust an envelope. Inside, there was a picture of Sunset Shimmer.

"The heck?" Lightning Dust picked up the cover picture from the report, comparing the two. "There's no way these were taken more than a decade apart."

"Interesting, isn't it?" Doctor Sparkle smiled. "It even makes me curious about just where she's been."

"And why she came back. What was she doing in Manehattan?" Lightning Dust asked.

"Open the door," Sunset said, holding the clerk in her magic and pushing him against the magically-reinforced gate.

"D-do you know what's in there?" The clerk winced in pain as the force holding him in place shifted, making his bones creak. "It's dangerous! The books alone--"

"I know how dangerous it is," Sunset said, her voice like ice. "Open the door."

"If these fall into Sombra's hooves..."

"They'll be too busy falling into mine," Sunset noted. The door opened as the clerk keyed the complex spell-lock. Sunset pushed it open, then threw a stun spell at the guard that would put him in a coma for weeks, leaving the unconscious pony in the doorway to make sure it didn't close behind her.

"What are we looking for?" One of Sunset's minions asked. She glanced back at him.

"Secure our escape route," Sunset said, not bothering to answer the question. She scanned the shelves. If there was one good thing about the Manehattan Archive it was that they were meticulous about labeling things.

She pulled down a box.

"Let's see what you've been keeping under wraps, Princess..." she muttered.

Lightning Dust bit into the falafel and watched the hotel from across the street. She chewed a few times before putting down her binoculars and looking at it the food in surprise.

"Wow, that's good," she said. It didn't look any different from the street food she'd had a hundred times before.

"Earth ponies have considerably better senses of taste than pegasi," Doctor Sparkle said, through the crystal radio earpiece Dust was wearing. "Your body is adapting well to the Engine."

"Does that mean everything's going to taste better?" Dust asked.

"Mm. I wouldn't say better," Doctor Sparkle said. "More intense. If I'm wearing my glasses and I look at an ugly painting, the glasses don't make the painting look better, they just let me see more details."

"You sound like you're in a good mood," Dust noted, taking another bite of her lunch.

"Of course. Things are going according to plan. For once. Sunset Shimmer is staying in the penthouse of this hotel under an assumed name."

"I'm surprised the Princess hasn't had her arrested."

"She doesn't know yet. My sources are delaying the reports as long as possible. We'll have a few days before she's aware that Miss Shimmer is back in Equestria."

"Keeping secrets, huh?" Dust picked the binoculars up again, and looked through them into slitted, dragon-like eyes in a black face, staring right into her. She jumped in shock, dropping them and backing up a step.

"What's wrong?" Doctor Sparkle asked. "I just saw your thaum readings spike."

"I thought I saw--" Lightning Dust's wings flexed as she looked around, still ready to flee. "--something," she finished lamely. Whatever she'd seen, it wasn't there now. "I don't know what that was."

"Focus on the mission for now and include it in the report later."

"Report? You're going to make me fill out paperwork?" Lightning Dust frowned.

"You were in the military. You’ve written after-action reports before."

"I was dishonorably discharged!"

"Not because of poor penmanship!"

"I'm--" Lightning Dust dropped what she was about to say when she saw movement. "Hold on. I see her."

Sunset paced back and forth in the penthouse, reading the report she'd taken. It was dense and full of implications with very few actual facts. It was clear that somepony had been following in her hoofsteps. And just like her own research, it was locked away somewhere nopony could look at it.

"Sealed and classified like every other clue on how to make an alicorn,” Sunset muttered. “That’s just like you, Celestia. You can’t stand the idea of anyone else sharing the view from the top.”

"Hey, boss?" One of her henchponies asked. Sunset glanced at him. She hadn't bothered learning his name. Names made things complicated. All she cared was that he very rarely asked questions more complicated than 'can I go to the bathroom?'

"What?" She asked, pausing for a moment.

"There's, uh. There's a pegasus on the balcony." He looked to the glass door. Sunset followed his gaze. A cyan pony smirked at her through the glass door.

"Thanks," Sunset said. She gave him the file. "Hold this. I'm gonna go fry up a chicken." She opened the door and pushed the pegasus back, stepping outside.

"Wow, rude. Not even going to invite me in?" Lightning Dust's wings twitched as she hopped back a little. Not that she was afraid of Sunset Shimmer, just that she didn't want to be so close that they'd kiss if one of them moved the wrong way.

Sunset said nothing, eyes looking over her body before fixing on her ear and narrowing. She smiled grimly.

"You know, I didn't think EIS was this smart," she said. "I figured I had at least two more days before they found me."

"EIS?" Lightning Dust snorted. "Are you kidding? The only spooks I've met spent most of their time trying to get me to confess to a bunch of bullshit charges."

"So what, the radio is just for show?" Sunset started walking calmly, circling Lightning Dust and glancing over the edge of the balcony like she expected to see something below.

"Unfortunately not. I have a pretty annoying boss these days. She wants to meet you and offer you a job."

"An offer I can't refuse?" Sunset sniped, raising an eyebrow.

"Huh?"

"Never mind. I shouldn't have expected you to get that reference." Sunset waved a hoof dismissively. "Tell your boss I don't need a new job. I'm self-employed. No princesses, no superiors. Just me."

"Cool," Lightning Dust nodded. "That means I get to drag you in." She grinned and reared up, cracking her neck.

"You think you can?" Sunset asked. She stood up on her hind legs, mirroring Lightning Dust's stance. That made the pegasus blink in surprise. It was one thing to balance on two hooves with wings, but most ponies couldn't manage to stay on their hind legs for long.

Sunset clearly saw the surprise on her face. "I spent a lot of time on two legs. You get used to it pretty quickly." She lunged before explaining more. Dust was ready to block a hoof-strike, but the magical blade wasn’t something she expected.

She barely ducked out of the way as the crackling edge of arcane energy swept past her, drawing a long, shallow cut along her cheek.

"You're pretty good for some pampered unicorn brat," Lightning Dust said, hopping back. Sunset had a clear range advantage with that blade, hovering next to her hoof and hissing as it boiled the air. The ragged edge of cyan magic was a blur of movement, like the blade of a chainsaw.

"Please. I was never pampered." Sunset raised her blade up. "Not for one moment of my life."

She lunged, forcing Lightning Dust back.

"Not by the bullies in the orphanage!"

She swept to the side, actually flipping over Dust's kick to land on the railing.

"Not by Celestia and her endless testing!"

Sunset used the railing to kick off, ramming into Lightning Dust with a shoulder and seeming surprised when the pegasus didn't budge.

"I'm no lightweight," Dust said, shoving Sunset back.

"I guess not," Sunset admitted. "Fatso."

Dust frowned, ears folding back.

"What did you call me?"

"I said you're a big stuffed goose--" Sunset stopped as the glass door slid open, one of her henchponies falling out, bleeding badly. Her eyes went wide and she fell back down to four hooves, running over to him. One of his forelegs was just gone, torn off at the joint. He grabbed her, looking into her eyes.

"M-monster! There's a monster..." His eyes started leaking black energy, and the wounds along his body clotted with dark crystals.

"What the hell?!" Sunset dropped him, backing away.

"Damn. I guess we're only half a step ahead of King Mule-face," Lightning Dust huffed. The wounded pony got to his remaining hooves, dragged up like a puppet on a string.

"What is this?!" Sunset demanded.

"It's what Sombra does to ponies," Dust said. "He's basically dead already."

Sunset reformed her blade and stabbed him through the chest. He lurched forwards, driving the blade deeper like he couldn't even feel it.

"The Doc says that you can't just use half-measures," Dust said, leaning back casually on the railing. "You need to go all out and destroy the head. It's the only way to be sure."

Sunset fired a blast of flame, incinerating everything above the pony's neck. Dust whistled.

"That'll do. Glad you didn't try that on me."

"There's always time for it later," Sunset said.

Dust shook her head. "We've got bigger worries." She slipped inside, looking around the penthouse. Sunset followed her, keeping out of reach in case it was some kind of trick. A trail of blood led back towards the front door, presumably towards whatever had divested Sunset's minion of his limb.

The leg was probably still there too, as they generally didn't get up and about on their own without the rest of the pony attached.

"Doc, I think we've got a Linnorm in here," Lightning Dust said, after prodding her radio to turn it back on.

"Get the target and pull out of the hotel if needed," Sparkle said.

"I'll take a look first," Dust said.

"Fine. I'll trust your judgment."

"That seems like a mistake."

"Not the worst I've made," Sparkle mumbled.

"Who are you talking to?" Sunset asked, having only heard half of the conversation.

"My boss. Not going to ask about the Linnorm?"

"No. With a name like that, I'll probably know it when I see it."

"Smarter than you look," Dust smirked. She followed the trail of blood to the front door. Well, where the front door had been. Now there were splinters and a doorframe and a surprising lack of monsters.

Dust cautiously stepped forward. She hadn't expected that she'd have to go looking for vicious monsters.

"Stop," Sunset said, sharply, turning around to look. Sunset was charging up a spell, her horn glowing with sharp light.

"Hang on, don't tell me you're-" Dust braced herself. Sunset fired a bolt of sparkling energy, the spell going right past Lightning Dust and into the wall. Dust thought it was a near miss, until the wall screamed. The wallpaper shifted as a shape like a huge, flattened turtle with a shield-shaped shell peeled away from the wall, the edges sharpening as it pulled itself together. Sunset's blast had raised a line of black along its shell, which remained burned in even as the Linnorm' plating changed color, changing almost as fast as it moved, looking like a lizard squashed under a magical mirror.

"Good catch!" Lightning Dust said. The beast jumped for Sunset, and Lightning caught it in midair, hooves wrapping around its neck. She pumped her wings and got it off balance, sending it over a coffee table and smashing into a mirror. Shards of glass dug into her as she rolled with the monster, straining herself until something snapped loudly and the beast went limp, the salamander's head twisted almost completely around.

Lightning Dust backed up quickly, keeping her eye on the twitching thing.

"Burn it," she said. "You have to destroy the whole--"

The Linnorm flashed white-hot, roaring and screaming as it burned.

"Huh. That was easier than usual," Dust muttered.

"So tell me more about this job offer," Sunset said.

"The Engine Heart is the key," Doctor Sparkle said, tapping a diagram. "It's an artificial wellspring." The small space had been an office once, thought it looked like it hadn't been used in some time, desks and chairs and boxes of office supplies left in place under a slowly settling blanket of dust.

Sunset Shimmer looked at it. Then she turned the paper around like it would make more sense from another angle. Unfortunately, this only made the scribbled notes in Doctor Sparkle's awful hoofwriting even more difficult to read.

"Is this in code?" She asked, finally.

"Do I look like Starswirl the Bearded?" Sparkle asked, glaring. Not a full glare, which she reserved for stupid ponies that she had no use for, but the sort of half-glare that she used when somepony was merely annoying her at the moment but that she couldn't afford to scare off.

"No, he'd have bells on," Sunset said, tossing the paper down. "From what I can make out, this looks like one hell of a piece of engineering. I'm not even sure some parts of it are possible. I can't see how any material could have the properties you'd need for this proposed 'thaumatic distortion blanket'."

"It's very possible," Doctor Sparkle said. "How much did you study thaumobiology when you were studying under Celestia?" She smiled a little like she already knew the answer. Which she did. It was starting to grate on Sunset's patience. Celestia did the same thing - she only asked a question when she was sure that she knew what your answer would be.

Sunset took a deep breath. "Quite a bit. As you know. Most of it was independent study."

"All organisms that can sense or manipulate magic in some way have a wellspring. Ponies, griffons, twittermites, even many plants." Sparkle paced around the small room, displacing dust bunnies from the floor as she walked. "As I'm sure you're aware, it's not a real, physical organ that you can hold. It's more like... a standing wave, or a gateway, or both at once."

"I know the principle," Sunset said. "Do you want me to give you a lecture on how power is collected in a higher dimensional bubble or depression that forms the phase-space of the wellspring? Or I could give a speech on the way leylines appear as a three-dimensional lattice but are actually a higher-dimensional shadow. Oh right, that's what you wrote your thesis on! It was a little derivative."

Doctor Sparkle gave her a long look, as if evaluating something new. It was another expression Sunset knew well. It was the look a smart pony used while deciding what direction to steer the conversation and a dumb pony used while totally perplexed and hoping that fate would intervene and save them from having to reveal their ignorance.

"I know what you want," Sparkle said, bluntly, apparently having made a decision.

"I could really go a hayburger and fries."

Doctor Sparkle smiled a little at that. "Mm. Sunset Shimmer. I want to give you wings. I suppose we could manage a hayburger as well, if you behave yourself."

"I've been studying that for years. I doubt you've figured out a way to force an ascension. And if you could, you'd use it on yourself first." Sunset's smirk twisted. "Or maybe you can't. After all, it must be hard for a blank flank like you to get anything done."

Doctor Sparkle's gaze twitched for a moment towards her flank, covered by her long white coat.

"I noticed it when you were pacing," Sunset explained. "Though I suspected it earlier when you weren't using magic to pick up the pages."

Doctor Sparkle closed her eyes, frowning. "It's a medical condition. My personal leylines never developed properly. I was able to use a little magic as a foal, but as I got older they atrophied."

"And let me guess, you went to the Princess for help and kept getting told it was part of your destiny, or something about friendship."

"I sought out a second opinion," Doctor Sparkle said.

"Does Sunbutt know you're doing this?"

Sparkle snorted, smirking. She didn't bother answering. They shared a knowing look, and the building shook under them.

"What was that?" Sunset asked. Sparkle touched her ear, listening to something on her crystal radio.

"Another Linnorm. If you're in, come with me. If not, get out." Doctor Sparkle walked into the back room, Sunset following her. It had, at one point, been a workshop of some kind. Old tools had been thrown in piles on the side, and three ponyquins were set out, each of them with a set of armor.

"Moondancer, get the P-type equipment ready for Miss Shimmer. Sunburst, make sure the E-type suit is-" She turned to the suit and frowned. "Who painted it red? Where in Tartarus is Lightning Dust?" Doctor Sparkle looked around, annoyed.

"Up here, boss," Lightning Dust said. Sparkle looked up. The pegasus was hanging from the rafters by her hind legs, doing inverted sit-ups. "Gotta stretch before exercise, right?"

"Why did you paint the armor? I didn't give you authorization for that!"

"Well I was thinking that we want to go as fast as possible, right? And everypony knows red means fast."

"I just..." Doctor Sparkle took a deep, bracing breath. "Fine. Whatever. Red."

"Very professional operation you've got here," Sunset muttered.

Doctor Sparkle grumbled and tossed her head, motioning for Sunset to follow her over to a white and blue set of armor. "Moondancer will help you with this. Don't touch anything until I tell you."

"What, you don't trust me not to break anything?" Sunset asked.

"I would just appreciate it if you would read the manual before you attempt to steal it, hm?"

Sunset tugged at the straps. Doctor Sparkle's voice blared in her ear through the radio she'd been given. She looked over the edge of the building she was standing on, mentally preparing herself to jump off of the roof. Unlike most unicorns jumping from a roof, this wasn't a result of a stock market crash.

"The P-type strike equipment will give you five minutes of activation time at normal output," Doctor Sparkle said. "Consider it a sort of free sample."

Sunset looked back at her sides. There were wings there, of a sort, a light framework of metal and feathers made of copper.
"If I just wanted fake wings, I could have made them myself," Sunset said. "I've got a couple of spells that would do it. I can't even move these."

"They have the same design core as off-the-shelf prosthetics," Sparkle said. "The mounting is somewhat different. Once you activate the suit, the forced leylines will move the wings. You'll be able to feel them."

"That doesn't seem right. Not without nerve induction."

"Feedback through the induced magical flow. Stop worrying about the details! Ponies are dying while you ask useless questions."

"Do you really care about that?" Sunset asked.

"I want this done before the EUP can move in and make a hash of it," Doctor Sparkle growled.

"I could do that without the suit."

"Oh, I'm sure you could," Doctor Sparkle agreed. Below Sunset, the street cracked as something started pushing up out of it. "Here we go. Prepare yourselves. Lightning Dust?"

"I'm ready. I wish I was a little more heavily armed, though."

She hovered across the street, holding an axe that looked like it was sized more for a minotaur than a pony.

"It's the best I can do for massive tissue damage and shock," Doctor Sparkle said.

"What about that magic cannon thing you had in the lab?"

"The one that got red-hot after a few shots? The one that goes out of alignment if it's jostled too hard? The one that breaks if dirt gets into the mechanism? That cannon?"

"Yeah! It'd be great to have!"

"I see why you needed somepony with brains on your team," Sunset said.

"Hey, I'm smart! And I've got experience! I've killed a couple of these things already!" Dust waved her axe from across the street, gesturing rudely as best a pony could. "Just remember not to let it bite you or I'll have to take you out, too!"

"That won't be an issue," Doctor Sparkle said. "The suits will provide protection against encroachment effects and dark magic. The doubled leylines cause a type of resonance effect that prevents control crystals from forming."

"So what happened to Shining Armor won't..." Lightning Dust asked, trailing off.

"Correct. It's not a concern for you." Doctor Sparkle paused. "The readings are increasing. I expect a good showing."

The asphalt finally gave way as a long body pulled itself out of the ground, a serpentine shape with two small, clawed limbs. The pale hide was covered in scales the size of a pony, shifting color as it came into the light and reflecting the buildings around it. It was hard to focus on, like a slithering hall of mirrors.

"Let see if this thing works..." Sunset hit the switch on her suit, and the copper-colored wings shot out to full extension, green energy sparking between the feathers as magic surged through her body, leylines forming and stretching out of her body and into the metal.

Sunset's eyes flashed green, and everything was so obvious. It had been invisible before, the currents and motion of the air. Now she could feel it. Not like the spells she'd tried before that just let her float or levitate through the air. It was the difference between hearing the ocean in a seashell and swimming in it, buoyed up by it, the salt and surf surging around you.

"I don't have time to give you flying lessons," Lightning Dust shouted. "So you better learn quickly!"

Sunset slowly flapped the wings. It felt natural. She shot a grin at the pegasus and dove off of the building towards the Linnorm below.

Vertigo surged in her chest, battling with the feeling of freedom. The wind was strong enough to push her ears back, and got in her eyes, making her tear up until she realized she could just push it aside, the wind listening to her like the friend she’d never had and leaving her vision clear.

The Linnorm looked up at her and opened its mouth. Streams of dark energy tore out of it, curving around and seeking her like tendrils from some deep-sea creature. Sunset curved her path with a twist of her wings, grinning at the sheer novelty of it, the acid-green magic stretching behind her in a wake of crackling, wet fire.

One came too close, snapping through her mane, only missing her neck by luck instead of skill. That close, she could see the crystalline spike at the end, a crossbow bolt made of stone. Sunset threw a forcefield in front of herself, the next volley bouncing away and the turbulence throwing her off-course. She could feel the wind stopping dead at the flat magical barrier, curling around the edges and slowing her course.

She focused, and the force-field changed shape, from a wall to a sphere to a cone, the airflow smoothing out around her. Sunset's path cleared as her wings caught the air again, the copper feathers flaring with light.

"This is amazing!" She yelled.

"You have to do more than just dodge if you want to win!" Lightning Dust yelled. She charged the titanic creature, slamming her axe into the mirrored scales. The blade bit deep, slicing into the soft flesh underneath. The scale's luster faded to black, and it came loose, falling free and almost taking Dust with it, her blade stuck fast.

"Watch out!" Sparkle yelled. "Something's happening!"

"Hold on, I just have to-" Dust grunted and twisted the axe. "Come on you stupid-"

A half-dozen claws grabbed for Dust, emerging from the scales around Dust as they shifted around.

Dust swore and dropped the weapon to flit back out of their reach, three of the closest creatures dislodging themselves from the larger linnorm to lunge at her.

A bolt of fire and thunder caught them halfway to the pegasus, blasting them out of the air.

"Looks like the same thing that attacked the hotel," Sunset said, flapping her wings in an effort to hover next to Lightning Dust. "Guess this is where it came from."

"And why it was so easy to kill," Sparkle agreed. "It must be some kind of parasite or sub-creature. I can see more of them dropping off the linnorm from here. Sombra must have brought it here to conquer the city in one fell swoop."

"If he's smart, he probably decided to attack early to get rid of the most powerful unicorn in Equestria."

"Mm?" Sparkle made an amused sound. "That's quite a boast."

"It's not boasting if I can prove it," Sunset said. "How do I kill this thing?"

"There should be a big crystal ball thing," Dust said.

"A central crystal core," Doctor Sparkle corrected, her voice steady over the radio link. "The dark magic will keep the rest moving and eventually regenerate it unless you destroy the focus."

"How do I find that?" Sunset flared her wings and shot upwards, turning her dive into a swoop. The creature turned to follow her, its long tail smashing through the facade of the building Lightning Dust had been standing on, the pegasus launching into the air as the structure collapsed.

"You're going to have to improvise. You might be able to use scrying spells or auguries to try and pinpoint it."

"I've got a better idea," Sunset said. She raised her hoof and a magical blade sprang out, hovering parallel to her foreleg. "I'm gonna carve it like a Thanksgiving turkey and look for the wishbone."

"Like a what?" Lightning Dust asked.

Sunset rolled as she dove back towards the monster, leading with her blade. The beast's mouth opened, and Sunset twitched her path to the side by a fraction of a degree, the edge of the blade biting into the Linnorm' hide and splitting its grin wide open, carving down the neck and along the back before Sunset had to twist aside and fly up to avoid the spike-covered tail. Blood as black as oil spilled onto the ground in a torrent, splattering and hissing on Sunset's armor.

"I think I made it angry," she reported.

"You need me to save your butt?" Lightning Dust asked.

"I can handle it," Sunset said, her expression hardening. "I never needed help from anypony."

"You've only got one minute left of activation time," Doctor Sparkle said. "You're burning through the thaumatic batteries more quickly than expected. Find somewhere safe to land and let Lightning Dust deal with it."

"No way," Sunset said. "Sixty seconds is more than long enough."

Below, ponies were pouring into the streets from the damaged buildings, trying to flee from the wounded monster.

Sunset swooped down, snapping to a halt with a burst of green magic from her wings, flaring bright enough to dazzle the ponies on the road. She stabbed her blade into the Linnorm' neck, piercing it through to the other side, and spun around, slicing its throat open and then coming all the way back around to slash through the spine, the head falling away from the neck.

Dozens of monsters reached for her, and she shoved them away with a wall of force, her eye-catching a pulsing light from inside the creature.

"Take this!" She yelled, pushing as much magic as she could into her magical blade, the whirring edge doubling in length. Sunset slashed through pitted steel and dark bone, exposing the core and, with a flourish, stabbing it through neatly.

The creature went limp, collapsing in a heap against a skyscraper and sliding down, shattering windows as it went. The parasites it carried screamed and seized up, littering the streets with blackened, dead monsters.

"They look like cockroaches from here," Dust said. "Nice work. Maybe you should be an exterminator!"

"Come over here and I'll squash you, too," Sunset growled.

Sparkle coughed into the radio. "Try to look like you get along in front of the public," she said.

"What public?" Sunset looked down.

Ponies were slowly emerging from where they'd hidden during the fight, pouring into the street from their shelters in coffee shops and office buildings and subway stations. One of them kicked one of the fallen creatures, and it didn't react.

Somepony started cheering.

"What should I do?" she mumbled, color coming to her cheeks.

"Whatever you do, you've got about fifteen seconds before you do it while crashing," Sparkle warned. "Finish up and get back here."

"Yeah, right," Sunset said, subdued. She turned to the crowd, waves of lime energy pulsing from her wings like an erratic heartbeat. She saluted with her blade and took off, the ponies behind her still cheering.

Celestia looked at the paper. It had hit the presses within an hour of her own intelligence agents rushing a report to her door. They'd been caught unprepared in a way that suggested either deliberate sabotage or incredible negligence, and either way it meant that heads would roll.

'Mystery Alicorn Saves Manehattan: Princess Celestia's Secret Weapon?'

She stared at the headline for a few more moments, a number of emotions welling up. The only picture of the presumed alicorn had been taken with an unsteady hoof, showing a blurry, out-of-focus armored shape.

"Raven," Celestia said, calmly. "Cancel my meetings for today."

After my daughter's accident, I had a lot of questions, and I didn't like the answers I found.

Obviously, her health was my first concern. The doctors told me her life wasn't in danger. She'd never be able to use magic again. In the long term? There was a strong chance I'd end up outliving her. It was well-known that unicorns with a lot of magic had longer lives. Having no magic was a terminal diagnosis.

It was the worst news I could have gotten.

And then there were the other questions. It had happened in Celestia's school, and the Princess was evasive about too many details. I started to dig with the help of my friends and contacts, and one name came up again and again. Sunset Shimmer.

She was the Princess' personal student, and she'd vanished in strange circumstances.

Some ponies said she'd been banished. I never found any evidence to support it. Others said the Princess had been afraid of Sunset's magical talent.

There hadn't been any effort to find her. No official statements. Even asking about her was forbidden.

If Celestia had been afraid of Sunset, had she decided to act? What really happened to my daughter during her exam? Was her offer to help simply kindness, or was it an admission of guilt?