"How does it feel?" Doctor Sparkle asked, her voice distorted slightly by the crystal radio.

"Kind of heavy," Flash Sentry said, adjusting his stance in the purple and orange armor. He tried to cross his eyes to look at the metal horn protruding from the helmet. "And it's tight across my chest."

"Mm. The U-type equipment is still in the prototype stage. The final suit will be modified for the wearer."

"Is this safe?" Flash asked. He raised an armored leg, looking at the sloshing metal tanks hanging from his chest.

"That's an interesting and unique question that I've never been asked before," Doctor Sparkle said. She looked at Sunburst. "Are the diagnostic spells ready?"

"The divination effects are at full strength," Sunburst reported.

"Is there supposed to be that much interference?" Sunset Shimmer asked, leaning closer to the readouts. "I didn't see power cycling variations like that with my readings."

"E-type equipment, for earth pony magic, has four focus points," Doctor Sparkle said. "Through the hooves. P-type equipment has two, with wing nodes. U-type, like this, only has the one." She tapped her horn.

"So it's a power balancing issue?" Sunset asked.

"Among other things. The point of this is to give unicorn magic to a pony without it. With no experience." Doctor Sparkle frowned. "It's probably more dangerous to us than him."

"What, like a foal having magic surges?"

"Like a foal with ten thousand thaums being pumped through its horn," Sparkle muttered. "There's a minimum threshold before forced leyline synchronization will take place. Unfortunately, it's two orders of magnitude larger than I'd like."

"What if it surges back through his brain?" Sunset asked.

"Well, he's a Royal Guard recruit. He probably wasn't using it anyway," Sparkle said.

"What was that about my brain?" Flash asked.

"Start the activation sequence," Doctor Sparkle ordered. "Once the leylines have formed, cut the feed from the thaumatic batteries to the minimum sustained level."

"Beginning SS-10 leyline connection," Sunburst said, adjusting his glasses and pulling a lever. "Raising thaumatic pressure levels."

"Hm..." Sunset's horn lit with a dim light as she extended her magical senses.

"I felt something," Flash reported.

"That was the leyline induction starting," Doctor Sparkle said. She tapped a hoof on one of the gauges. "Mm..."

"Approaching the absolute borderline," Sunburst slowly turned a dial. "Five, four, three, two, one..."

Flash Sentry screamed, and both wings lit up with discharging magic for a moment before erupting into green flame.

"Cut the leyline synchronization!" Sparkle ordered, grabbing a fire extinguisher and kicking open the door to the test chamber. Sunset ran with her, pulling at the armor with her magic while Doctor Sparkle sprayed foam over the pegasus.

"Is he...?" Sunset asked.

"Mm. No." Doctor Sparkle held up a wing. It was only scorched around the edges. "The fire was uncontrolled magical discharge. Fairie fire. Almost no real heat at all. Lucky for him."

"His leylines are totally blown out," Sunburst reported, from the control room. "He'll be fine, but won't be flying anywhere for a week or two."

"I told Moondancer he belonged in the reject pile," Doctor Sparkle sighed. "Clean up this mess. I'll be in my office."

Doctor Sparkle sat in her office, looking at the blueprints for the U-type equipment, pages and pages of them, pinned to the walls and dense with arcane script.

"You know the Seelie aren't going to like that you're letting Celestia dictate terms to you," Moondancer said.

"I've already spoken to the Court. They understand." Doctor Sparkle rested her chin on her hoof, thinking.

"If she starts asking too many questions, you're going to have to start giving her answers. The materials alone would be a clue." Moondancer followed Sparkle's gaze to a diagram of unicorn leylines, a branching structure along the spine focused on the single point of the horn.

"They don't show up in the official expense report." Doctor Sparkle snorted. "Though I'm sure if it did, it would just be another line item for the accountants."

"Do you want me to send you a list of the other candidates Celestia put forward?" Moondancer asked. "There's a file on my desk that was sent over this morning."

"She wants to have a pony she can trust on the team," Sparkle said. "I'll look over her list of spies and soldiers. Maybe we'll get lucky. If any of them are suited to Project A I'd be happy to have them."

"Really?" Moondancer seemed surprised.

"The qualifications are rare. One in a million. I'd even take one of her spies if it meant getting a little closer to the goal."

Lightning Dust perched on top of the lab, watching Sunset Shimmer. The facility was shaped almost like a horseshoe, with an artificial pond full of koi in the center and a garden wrapping around it. The only connections to Canterlot proper were a precarious trail that led around the mountain and a train that came twice a day on a circuitous route through the nearest pass.

Sunset closed her eyes and focused, the wind circling around her as pale, glittering wings of energy stretched from her sides. She rose up into the air, just an inch, before she started to tilt and panicked, dropping back to the ground.

"Trying to fly without the suit?" Lightning Dust asked, from the roof.

Sunset turned, scowling.

"Did the doctor tell you to follow me? For someone younger than I am she can act like an old nag sometimes." Sunset snorted.

"Nah. I just don't like hanging out in her lab. Something about it gives me the creeps." Lightning Dust hopped down, landing without even spreading her wings. The stone tiles cracked under her. "I figured I should give you some pointers."

"I don't need your help," Sunset snapped.

"Come on. We're part of a team." Lightning Dust grinned. "We should work together."

"You think we're a team? What a joke." Sunset smirked. "I was already the strongest unicorn in Equestria, and now I've got pegasus magic. All you've got is muscle."

"So you think you can beat me in a race?" Lightning Dust asked.

Sunset opened her mouth to say something, then she stopped and smiled. "You know what? I think I can."

"Fine. We'll make it short and sweet. We'll race to that cloud." Lightning Dust pointed. "See it?"

"The dark one?" Sunset asked. Wild rain clouds were becoming an unfortunately common sight across Equestria, even this close to the capital.

"That's it. If you want, I'll give you a head start."

"I've got a better idea," Sunset said. "How about we make it interesting?"

"Ma'am?" Moondancer knocked on the door to the lab. Doctor Sparkle looked up from what she was doing, fetlock deep in revising the U-type equipment, her hooves dripping with green slime.

"What is it?" Doctor Sparkle asked. "I trust it's important."

"Some of our sources intercepted an EUP dispatch. The scouting reports are inconclusive, but preliminary analysis suggests a Linnorm coming this way."

"I see." Sparkle sighed and stepped back, stripping the protective socks from her front hooves and tossing them to the side into a sink. "Sombra is very persistent, isn't he? How long do we have?"

"The EUP scout reported it near the D7 point on the Canterlot security perimeter." Moondancer pulled a map out of the documents floating at her side and pointed. "It seems like it's following the river upstream. It must have gotten this close by staying underwater."

"We'll intercept it at the falls here." Sparkle tapped a hoof on the floating map. "It's going to have to leave the water there. Get the idiot and the hothead suited up."

"Yes, Ma'am. And the EUP?"

"See that they're notified of our operation. I'm sure they'll want to have their own soldiers posted. They won't be much use, but... it should be a good learning experience for somepony."

"It doesn't count," Lightning Dust grumbled, adjusting one of the straps across her leg. She was used to getting herself ready for battle in a tent in the middle of nowhere, but having to put up with Sunset Shimmer being smug was breaking her patience in ways she hadn't known was possible.

"Maybe someone should have thought of that rule before we raced," Sunset said, smiling to herself. "I mean, it's not my fault that teleportation is the fastest way to travel."

"It's cheating! I'm not paying up."

"I got there before you," Sunset pointed out. Not that she was worried about the fifty bits. It wasn't about that. It was just about winning, and making sure that ponies remembered that she was the winner.

In a way, it was even sweeter that she'd done it this way, with Lightning Dust accusing her of cheating. It made her feel smart. She'd thought around the problem instead of brute-forcing a solution.

Technically. Teleportation itself was something of a brute-force solution, requiring magical talent far in excess of the average unicorn and the will to punch a hole in spacetime. But it was still clever, and even more to the point, it was something Lightning Dust couldn't do, another reminder from Sunset to Sunset that she was superior.

"It's not a race if you don't even pass through the space between the start and end," Lightning Dust grumbled. "I don't care if you got there first, Princess."

"Don't call me Princess," Sunset said, though she did smirk a little.

"Both of you stop complaining," Doctor Sparkle said, as she pushed open the tent flap. "The commander of the EUP forces has, after considerable persuasion--"

"You threatened him," Sunset corrected.

"Mm. After considerable threats," Doctor Sparkle acknowledged. "I was briefed on the plan. Such as it is. She pulled a rolled-up scroll out of her white labcoat. "Hold this."

Sunset unrolled it, holding it in the air at eye level with her magic. It was a map of the local area, roughly divided in half by a cliff face from east to west and the river from north to south. In the center of the map, at the bottom of the cliff where the river turned briefly into a waterfall, was a deep pool of water where the soft limestone had been beaten down by ages of erosion.

"There are scrying sensors placed along the path of the river," Twilight Sparkle said. "The Linnorm is hard to miss, but the EUP simply isn't equipped for underwater combat. The plan they've put forward has two stages."

Twilight gestured to the river mouth where it widened into the pool at the base of the cliff. "Phase one begins when the Linnorm passes this net of scrying sensors. A limited number of pegasi will deploy from the clifftops and drop demolition charges into the water to act as improvised depth charges and force the Linnorm out into the open."

"Assuming it isn't already out in the open by then," Lightning Dust noted. "What if it comes ashore early?"

"For phase two, earth pony forces are deployed around the pond in four phalanxes, and are going to engage the Linnorm and delay it while the unicorn artillery, safe on the clifftop, cast restraining spells to attempt to capture it alive."

"That seems like a terrible decision," Sunset said.

"Princess Celestia doesn't like to kill when she doesn't have to," Doctor Sparkle said. "She wants to capture a Linnorm to try and... free it from Sombra's control, or at least study it."

"Don't you have enough parts of them already?" Lightning Dust asked. "You had a whole lab full, plus all the ones we've killed."

Doctor Sparkle shrugged. "I wouldn't mind getting my hooves on an intact crystal control core, but I'm not naive enough to think we have enough of a margin for error to attempt it."

"What's our part in this amazing plan?" Sunset asked.

"We're on standby," Doctor Sparkle said. "Officially, our previous actions were unsanctioned and just undertaken in self-defense. This is our first official deployment and the EUP doesn't trust us. That last part, by the way, is in writing. I believe the General added it himself."

"A mad scientist, a dishonorable discharge, and a wanted criminal," Lightning Dust said. "I can't imagine why they're not putting us in charge."

"I wish them the best of luck with their operation," Doctor Sparkle said. "We are ordered, by the Princess, not to interfere. If we receive an official request, we will render aid."

"They'll be slaughtered," Sunset warned.

"Are you saying you don't have faith in our armed forces, Sunset Shimmer?" Doctor Sparkle asked. "That's a very negative view of things. I look forward to them having an exciting and eventful learning experience."

General Nickel Plated crumpled up the scroll he'd received from the Princess. She'd suggested that he use Doctor Sparkle and her test subjects as a key component of the operation.

It wasn't quite an order. Nickel was glad about that, because he'd have felt awful about disregarding an order from his direct superior.

He would have felt responsible to his troops to disobey it if it had been an order. It was still an insane request - he'd rather apologize to the Princess later about disobeying her wishes than risk his soldiers by relying on unstable elements.

"Sir," Lieutenant Raker stood at the open flap of the tent and saluted. "The target has passed the second marker. We estimate five minutes until it reaches our final sensor net."

"Tell the pegasi to get into the air. As soon as the scouting teams have confirmed that the target is in the combat zone, begin the operation."

Lieutenant Raker saluted again and trotted away to relay the orders. The General tossed the crumpled scroll aside and walked out into the sunshine, looking across the river to where Doctor Sparkle's tent had been set up. The young mare was watching him from across the river with an intense gaze, the weight of it making him shiver despite the warmth of the day.

He forced himself to look away to where the pegasi were circling over the area where the pool narrowed and turned back into a river after its journey over the falls.

Horns sounded, and General Nickel could see a pony waving semaphore flags below. A dark shape surged through the water, the river splashing against its banks as the monster swam through the current.

"Force it out of the water!" Nickel Plated yelled. One of the ponies nearby started signaling the pegasus squad. The circling ponies dropped their satchel charges, the packages falling into the water. There was a dull roar of thunder as they went off, bright flashes beneath the murky turbulence of the river's surface.

The monster breached the rapids, roaring as it revealed itself, its skin smooth like a salamander and the orange color of rust. It was huge, broad shoulders as wide as a house and with a fat, bulbous tail dragging behind it.

"Move the phalanxes in to flank it! Hit it from both sides and pin it while the battle magi restrain it!" General Nickel yelled. The two phalanxes on that side of the river closed in on the Linnorm, moving as organized, unified blocks of soldiers.

The beast was still disoriented from the blasts, stumbling forwards and ignoring them. The earth pony ranks pressed it, pushing the monster towards the cliff just as planned. With a wall behind it, it would be easier to keep it from escaping and keep it in range of the spells from the battle magi.

Rings of light formed around the monster's limbs, each a different color, the battle magi coordinating flawlessly and each working to restrain a single limb, making sure no mage was a single point of failure for containment.

It was a simple, reliable method. Like most things that were simple and reliable, things went wrong almost immediately.

The Linnorm finally took notice of the ponies around it and roared before spitting a hissing silvery paste, splattering against the shields of the phalanxes arrayed against it. It didn't seem to do anything for a long moment, then it all erupted at once in a chain of explosions.

"What in Tartarus was that?" Lightning Dust swore.

"I believe that the Linnorm is breathing liquid sodium metal." Doctor Sparkle narrowed her gaze. "Interesting. I wonder- Ah." She nodded as greenish gas seeped from the monster and rolled across the ground, the remaining earth ponies breaking formation and scattering.

"Chlorine gas," Sunset Shimmer said. "It must be breaking salt down into its component elements."

"Should we help them?" Lightning Dust asked. "They're getting slaughtered out there."

"Mm. Let's go speak to the General," Sparkle said. "You'll have to carry me over."

Sunset Shimmer gave Lightning Dust a look and took off, leaving the pegasus to carry Doctor Sparkle over to where the EUP officers were trying to yell orders loudly enough to regain control of the situation, in the great tradition of all military commands close enough to the front to be caught in the confusion but not so close that they would be distracted by having to fight the enemy themselves when they were busy arguing about who was going to be blamed.

"Perhaps we can assist?" Doctor Sparkle asked, not really raising her voice but managing a tone that cut through the barked orders.

"The last thing we need is your damn pet projects getting in the way!" Nickel Plated snapped. "Get out of here! Ponies are dying!"

"Mm." Doctor Sparkle frowned.

"This is stupid," Sunset Shimmer said. "I'm going to take care of this."

"Don't you dare!" General Nickel Plated took a step towards her as the unicorn dove off the ledge, copper wings catching the air and jetting her forwards on green magic.

"Lightning Dust," Doctor Sparkle said. She didn't even need to give an order. The pegasus took off without a word, chasing after Sunset.

"I'll have you arrested!" Nickel Plated hissed.

"The traditional response would be to ask 'you and what army?'" Doctor Sparkle said, her voice calm.

"I have an army right--"

"You won't for much longer unless you sit down, shut up, and let them take care of this," Sparkle said. There was so much edge in her tone that if she'd directed it toward a bakery the loaves would have come out of the oven pre-sliced.

When confronting an enemy that had, moments ago, defeated a small army, most ponies (and, frankly, also most people that weren't ponies, though dragons and badgers are notably excluded from this list) would want to devise a plan before starting an attack.

The key difference between most ponies and Sunset Shimmer was enough self-assurance and foolhardy, bloodthirsty confidence to push any thoughts of failure right out of her head.

"Take this!" Sunset's star saber slashed through the monster's flesh easily, going right through bone and muscle and blubber and dividing it neatly in two parts that slumped off to the sides.

Sunset landed smartly and looked back at the bisected monster. It hadn't actually bled at all. It had just sort of fallen apart like a ripe fruit, splitting apart at the seams.

"Huh. That wasn't such a task," she said, apparently unaware of all the dead and dying that the creature had left on the battlefield. Or, more accurately, dismissing them as unimportant.

"You actually did it," Lightning Dust said. "That was... kind of impressive."

"Easy," Sunset said. The two piles of monster quivered behind her. The first shiver, sure, maybe that was a corpse finally understanding that it was a corpse and trying briefly to fight it with a few spasms and tremors.

The second time, when the skin split and tore, the creature shivering back into motion, Sunset regretted her words. The two halves peeled open, slightly smaller versions of the original creature emerging from the discarded skin of the old.

Lighting Dust was faster into the air, Sunset caught flat-footed and almost hit by metallic gunk that splattered to the ground around her, hissing briefly before exploding in a wave of chemical nastiness.

"That's interesting," Doctor Sparkle said over the radio, her voice detached.

"I don't know if I'd really call it interesting, Doc!" Lightning Dust shouted. She circled one, swooping low and trying to kick it in the vulnerables, not that a Linnorm really had vulnerables. Something in its narrow hips broke, and the scales split in a spray of blood.

The other monster paused for a moment, and its body flashed with purple light. The injuries on the first Linnorm sealed up in an instant, hip popping back into place.

"You have to hit them hard, remember?" Sunset said. She fired a burst of flame at the second Linnorm, blowing its head off. The monster slumped for a moment, before both pulsed with light, the skull regenerating in less than a second.

"I see," Doctor Sparkle said. "That's really interesting. I assume you're familiar with the concept of a lich?"

"An undead pony that keeps moving through force of will," Sunset said.

"A zombie?" Lightning Dust asked, only picking up on the word 'undead'.

"Mm. Not quite. A zombie is a corpse animated with negative energy. A lich is a pony where the soul has been separated from the body and placed in something else. Typically a book or some ritual object."

Lightning Dust was so far out of her depth she needed a lifeguard. "So the monsters are books?"

"No," Doctor Sparkle said, her voice taking on the subtle grinding edge of someone deeply annoyed and unable to do anything about it.

"She means that their bodies and souls aren't strongly linked," Sunset said. "That's why they're so hard to kill."

"In this case it's even worse," Sparkle said. "The crystal core is the key component that animates a Linnorm. I believe that creature has two cores."

"That's no big deal," Lightning Dust said.

"It wouldn't be a big deal except the core for each creature is contained in the other!" Sparkle snapped. "It's why they're healing so quickly!"

"Then all we have to do is take out both of them at once!" Lightning Dust said. "No problem!"

"You'll have to defeat both within a fraction of a second of each other," Doctor Sparkle said. "The regeneration is almost instantaneous at these high energy levels."

A wave of pale green gas surged from the Linnormes below, flooding the river valley. Lightning Dust and Sunset circled around, watching the retreating EUP forces, or at least what was left of them.

"I can't get both of them at once with any of my spells," Sunset said. "Well... maybe if they were lined up perfectly and held still for a minute or two while I charged up something that could go through two monsters."

"I doubt they'll cooperate. You'll need a better plan than being lucky," Sparkle retorted.

"Maybe I could... blast a hole in front of them, and they'll fall in? We could keep them contained until-"

"They'll dig their way out. I have an idea, but I can't do it alone," Lightning Dust said, cutting Sunset off. "We can use a tornado to hold them in place, then hit both of them at once. If they're off the ground, they won't be able to dodge."

"And I won't be able to hit both of them, because they'll be in the middle of a tornado, you idiot!" Sunset snapped.

"You only have to hit one," Lightning Dust clarified. "I'll take the other. If we have perfect timing, we can take them out."

"Oh great, perfect timing." Sunset mumbled, the radio thankfully not picking up her sarcasm, as the device wasn't designed to handle such large amounts at once and would undoubtedly explode violently.

"If you fail, you probably won't get a second try," Doctor Sparkle said. "So don't fail."

"Right, so, what do we do?" Sunset asked. "Just fly around it as fast as we can?"

"Are you asking me for flying lessons?" Lightning Dust grinned.

"It's your stupid plan, so you better explain it!"

"Alright, so there are two ways to make a tornado," Lightning Dust said. "The safe way, you push really hot and really cold fronts together like a big wave of air then draw one end down to the ground. It's kinda slow and imprecise, but even a small weather team can do it."

"Slow and imprecise won't work," Sunset said, as she dodged to the side to avoid a spray of liquid sodium metal.

"Right. So we're gonna have to do this like tornado day. Pure pegasus magic. It's gonna be tough with just two of us. Usually it takes a couple hundred pegasi working together, not just me and a rookie who couldn't do a split-s if her life depended on it unless she was allowed to cheat midway through."

"What in the hell is tornado day?" Sunset asked.

"Tornado day! You know, when Cloudsdale picks a city and the local weather teams make a tornado to refill Cloudsdale's water reservoirs to redistribute rain from areas with a lot of precipitation to areas without it?"

"Never heard of it," Sunset said. She would have shrugged but that was difficult to do while still trying to fly evasively.

"The point is, Tornado Day tornados are made vertically from the start. You need a lot of wingpower to do it. You grab as much air as you can and, uh, go really fast in a circle." Lightning Dust flipped over. "The big thing is to create a magic gradient between the top and bottom of the funnel cloud. It draws magic from the ground towards the sky and makes the tornado self-sustaining for a while."

"That seems really inefficient. Couldn't you just use wild clouds or some safer method than a tornado to get the water?"

"It also replenishes leylines in the air that get depleted by overmanaged weather," Doctor Sparkle explained. "Without the occasional large thunderstorm or tornado, it would eventually become impossible to manage the weather at all in some areas."

"We're gonna have a lot of drag, and we need to maintain a constant speed," Lightning Dust said. "You can't minimize the turbulence or drag because you need it there to get the funnel cloud forming. We have to match our speeds as closely as possible, too."

"This plan sounds better all the time," Sunset complained.

"Stay on opposites sides of the Linnorm." Lightning Dust banked away to circle lower, closer to the ground. "We'll start further out and spiral inwards once the walls start to form!"

Sunset tried to match her. Lightning Dust wasn't going at nearly her top speed, letting the unicorn catch up. She spread her new pegasus magic out, not quite like telekinesis, more like a gossamer net. When she'd just been a unicorn, Sunset Shimmer hadn't really thought of the air at all except as empty space. Intellectually, she knew it was there (and she probably knew more about it on a purely scientific level than any other pony alive thanks to her unique experiences) but it was like pure math - there might be some applications in the real world, but most of the time it was invisible and all in your head.

Now, she could see it for the sea it really was, the currents and flow, the fluid motion of the air, the weight and resistance of it all. It was almost humbling to know how blind she'd been, though of course it would take much more than that to actually humble Sunset.

Sunset suddenly realized she was starting to fall behind, her pace lagging. She swore under her breath and fought to keep up with Lightning Dust, copper wings straining. Even with as much as Doctor Sparkle had reinforced them, making a tornado wasn't something they'd ever been intended for.

A funnel started to form, the air circulating in a rising twist threaded with magic.

The drag increased. Sunset felt herself blown to the side by a crosswind. She slowed for a moment, enough that Lightning Dust had to do the same to keep her distance. The tornado started to break apart, the winds escaping the magical hold they had on it.

"Focus!" Lightning Dust yelled. "You can't let the weather tell you what to do! Smash through it!"

Sunset grit her teeth, forcing herself forwards. A green trail of flames flickered behind her as her backwash ignited. Her magic expanded, bumping up against the wall of wind Lightning Dust was pulling along behind her. Sparks started to form as the ambient magic collided, green bolts of lightning grounding at random.

Lightning Dust and Sunset felt it at the same time. A connection that hadn't been there before.

Doctor Sparkle turned from the display to look at the assembled officers. Here and there, unseen by the others watching the cataclysmic display, eyes flashed with green energy.

"A resonance effect?" Sparkle muttered.

The twin Linnorms lifted from the dirt, the strong winds overcoming gravity in their giant swell, pulling them up along with dozens of trees, boulders, and a spray of water. Green gas swirled away from them, dispersing harmlessly into the air.

Wordlessly, Sunset Shimmer and Lightning Dust knew what they had to do. They could feel what the other was thinking. For the span of a few seconds they were greater than just the sum of their parts, a single mind with two bodies.

The linnorms were slammed together by the vortex, and Lightning Dust was the first to move, green and yellow electric force surging around her hooves as she spun in the air to angle a flying kick into one of the monsters.

An instant before she hit, Sunset teleported in front of the other, swinging her star sabre through the soft flesh.

The crystal cores at the heart of both monsters cracked, energy surging as they tried to repair each other, the scattering energy building up as it failed to discharge until the Linnorms were blown apart in a sphere of fire, debris falling to the ground and crackling, the sodium sputtering and burning in noxious clouds.

Lightning Dust's momentum carried her through where the Linnorm had been. Unfortunately, while the monster wasn't there, Sunset Shimmer still was, and she'd lost all her momentum after the teleportation, leaving her wide open.

They looked at each other with perfect understanding of each other and that there was absolutely nothing they could do to prevent what was about to happen.

Lightning Dust slammed into Sunset Shimmer and both of them tumbled down into the pool of ice-cold water, the tornado breaking apart as the magic faded.

Lightning Dust pulled herself out of the freezing water, shivering from the chilly mountain stream.

"You're an idiot," Sunset said, helping her out onto the beach. Both of them collapsed after a moment, exhausted.

"Not bad for a rookie," Lightning Dust said, when she stopped coughing up water. "Too bad we couldn't stick the landing."

"What's this we part of it?" Sunset asked. "I would have been fine. It was your fat flank that crashed into me."

"If you hadn't stalled out in mid-air, I wouldn't have hit you!" Lightning Dust stood up, shaking a hoof at Sunset. "You stupid bonehead!"

Sunset rolled to her hooves and stood at her full height, raising her chin to look down at Lightning Dust. "What was that? Did you just call me a bonehead, you featherbrain?"

"Featherbrain?! I'll feathering- knock your stupid feathering horn right up your stupid feathering flank!"

"Did you run out of vocabulary already?" Sunset asked.

Lightning Dust jumped at her, tackling her to the ground and reaching for her throat.

Doctor Sparkle sighed, watching the two grapple in the rocks and sand. "How is it that they can be older than I am and as mature as foals?"

It's notable that a dragon doesn't grow simply through age. Some elder dragons can be quite small. They grow because the size of their hoard increases.

I spoke to experts at length, and the process is fascinating. A hoard is more than just property. It becomes an extension of the dragon itself. A dragon with a large hoard will grow on its own in a relationship that seems more related to how much the dragon values its possessions instead of any real monetary consideration.

The current theory is that the hoard acts as a kind of external wellspring, though I myself believe it has more to do with a dragon's sense of self. The important thing is that regardless of why it happens, large piles of treasure always belong to large dragons, and their relationship means dragons will do anything to protect their wealth.

Why doesn't this work for ponies? The rich are no more powerful than the poor. Many of the strongest unicorns in the last few generations have come from humble backgrounds.

The simple answer is that we are not dragons.