“Good morning, Trottingham! It’s your new pal DJ Clear Skies back again for your sun up update! It’s been two days since those Flusher fuckers attacked Gigaton unprovoked and killed our beloved Sheriff Will and Steel Bill. If not for the efforts of Trottingham’s own Nightmare Knight and the Steel Rangers, then we all might be dragon chow. Speaking of that asshole, Jack, I can confirm without a shadow of a doubt that he is one hundred and bajillion percent dead.”

“But I know what some of you are thinking, loyal listeners. What about rumors of the Nightmare Knight’s death? How about what happened to Jack’s body? Where the hell did that tree and mural come from that appeared after the battle? I’ve got news for you, the inside scoop is coming up in just a second. Right after the weather report… Today, mostly cloudy with a chance of Flusher remnants. Shoot on sight, I say. Tonight, still mostly cloudy with a chance of voidowls. Stay inside and blast away if you’ve got some magical energy weapons.”

My eyes opened to a world filled with blurry images, dry mouth, and a throbbing headache. As my vision slowly started to come back into focus, I realized the voice I was hearing was Crumpets coming out of the radio on the nightstand next to my bed. A low, raspy groan scratched at my throat as I tried to move to no avail. My legs felt heavy and lifting my foreleg towards the radio was just too much for me to take at the moment. I guess a little news break would do me some good. I couldn’t quite process how long I had been asleep just yet.

“Weather’s done. On to the good stuff. On the newsmakers line, live via Pipbuck Broadcaster, is the mare we all know and love from Moorheart’s Tavern and a personal friend of the Nightmare Knight, Check.”

“Howdy Clear Skies. Great first couple of days on the air, girl,” Check said.

“Thanks. First things first, the big question everypony’s been asking, is the Nightmare Knight still alive. A lot of blokes have been saying that she and Jack killed each other, but I just cannot believe such rumor and malarky on a bunch of hearsay,” DJ Clear Skies said suspiciously. “Especially after seeing her fight out here on White Tower Island.”

“Yeah,” Check laughed. “I can tell ya, Aria, I mean the Nightmare Knight, is still alive and is just resting.”

“Resting? So are the rumors that she was badly hurt true?” Clear Skies questioned.

“Ain’t gonna lie, she was pretty banged up after taking down Jack. Tekash attacking her didn’t make things any better, but Compass is one hell of a doctor and she’s recovering nicely.”

“Compass. That’s the doctor, right? Melody’s main squeeze?” Clear Skies asked before adding, “Melody’s the pegasus in the Nightmare Knight’s group. You can’t miss her. She’s the only pony with wings in the entire Trottingham Ruins now that Brownstone lost Lefty. Fucking Flushers.”

“Can’t agree with you any more than I already do there, C.S. Yeah, Compass can fix almost anything short of death… And he just left the room blushing something fierce. Said something about going to go check on his patient, but I just think he’s a little embarrassed,” Check chuckled, followed by a door slamming shut in the back ground. “And there goes Melody too.”

“Right. So on to question two.”

“That question about Doc Compass was question two,” Check interjected.

“Then on to question three. If Jack’s really dead like the Steel Rangers have been claiming, where’s his body?”

“Oh…” Check said, her voice trailing off slightly before taking a deep breath and sighing into the microphone. “That’s kind of tricky, but I guess it can’t be helped. I’ll preemptively answer your next question as well. Yes, the balefire maned unicorn in the Lunar Guard armor was the Nightmare Knight.”

Damn it, Check…

“What? Really? How in the hell does that work?”

“Like I said, I ain’t gonna lie, but it’s a long story and it’s actually kind of crazy. I’d think I was nuts if I hadn’t seen the crap I’ve seen travelling around with Aria and her group. See, the thing is, Aria’s not wearing that armor as a fashion statement. She actually earned it. She’s an honest to goodness Lunar Guard in Luna’s service. She even knew Luna.”

“Okay, if I didn’t know you Check, then I’d be calling you a liar and cutting you off right now. What the fuck are you on about? I thought she came from Stable Sixty-Three with Melody and Compass,” Clear Skies asked incredulously.

“Nope. You see, two hundred years ago, during the war, the Nightmare Knight was a Lunar Guard who sacrificed herself to stop a balefire bomb from taking out Canterlot, but she had to jump on a batch of balefire eggs and stop them from destroying the Ministry of Arcane Sciences building. She was buried a hero and memorialized in the museum in Stable Sixty-Three by her brother, Prince Golden Star.”

“Ooookay?”

“Like I said, sounds crazy, but Aria didn’t die when blown up by those eggs, she got thrown through time into the future, or our present. She’s a warrior princess from the past who’s here to bring back the old Equestria and save us all.”

Luna lick a lemon lollipop! Damn it, Check! I wanted to scream, but it just came out as a loud groan.

“Celestia… You mean Cherry Scones was actually not crazy about that part…” Clear Skies said, a tinge of sadness and regret in her voice that made my chest ache along with the rest of my body. “But what does that have to do with the literal nightmare that galloped through the streets and across the rooftops of Gigaton two nights ago?”

“Compass thinks it’s a mutation caused by her being blown up by balefire eggs, surviving, and not becoming a ghoul.”

“That’s a pretty scary mutation. Is she radioactive like a glowing one?”

“Not all the time, just when she’s in that nightmare form. The other thing is that when she stops being a nightmare, she pukes up Taint.”

“Taint!?” DJ Clear Skies exclaimed.

“Yeah. And that explains what happened to Jack. She vomited that shit on him, it ate away at him until nothing was left, then it mixed in with the ground and grew into that RAD tree outside the walls.”

“RAD tree?”

“Yeah. That’s what we’re calling them. Same thing happened after she killed King. The fruit on those things act like natural Rad Away. It’s actually pretty cool and they taste a whole hell of a lot better,” Check laughed as she continued explaining way too much information to the ponies of Trottingham.

“Well damn… At least King and Jack are really dead and their bodies could be used for fertilizer for something good, you know?” Clear Skies added.

“Oh yeah, I know.”

“Miss Nightmare Knight? Are you awake?” a sweet little girl's voice asked from the doorway. Rolling over, which took a lot more of my remaining willpower to accomplish than I had thought, my breath caught and my eyes widened at the sight of the zebra filly in the doorway. “You are awake. I’ll go tell Compass.”

I watched as she ran off, calling out for my friends as I released a shaky breath and my forelegs spasmed, adrenaline seeping away and cooling my extremities. I glanced around, looking for my weapons and armor, but they were nowhere to be found. All I had was my Pipbuck weighing down my foreleg while the Star Sapphire was missing from my other fetlock. As the door opened again, I reached out with my magic to grab the nearby radio, but stopped as an veridian streak flew through the door and took me into an overly tight hug.

“Aria!” Melody cried as she squeezed me much harder than I thought possible for a pegasus with such a small frame. “I was so scared you weren’t…”

“I know. I’m sorry, Melody,” I said softly.

“You have no reason to be sorry. You were the victim,” Kaiari said, a hint of sorrow weighing down her voice. “My brother’s actions were inexcusable.”

“No,” I snapped irritably before sighing and shaking my head. “I let the Nightmare take hold again. I broke my promise to you. Again.”

“It’s alright,” Melody said while giving me a soft smile. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. You were fighting Jack all by yourself. He almost killed you. I understand. I’d rather you break a promise and still be alive than be…”

“Dead,” Compass said bluntly before taking a deep breath. “Which is something I need to talk to you about, Aria. How are you feeling?”

“Honestly, pretty weak, thirsty, and a little nauseous. Why?”

“Just as I thought. You were in really bad shape. We had to get you back to the Ministry Hub and use the last healing talisman just to stabilize you and heal your wounds, but even its magic wasn’t able to cleanse the radiation from your system,” Compass said before taking my foreleg and switching my Pipbuck’s screen to the RAD readout. “Your radiation levels are getting too high. You’re at six hundred RADs and experiencing full on radiation poisoning. It’s manageable, but that’s three hundred added with this transformation. If you transform one more time…”

“I’ll die,” I said, staring down at my Pipbuck’s screen and the ominous line ending at one thousand RADs. After a few moments of somber silence, my mind started to make random connections again before I shot a look at Kaiari that made her start. “If we’re in the Ministry Hub building, then how did she get past the robot guards? She’s a zebra.”

“That would be my doing,” Shadow said as he casually strolled into my hospital room.

“Shadow! You’re alive!” I cried, flailing a bit while I tried to hug him as he walked to the other side of the bed.

“Of course I am. You’re the one we’ve all been worried about. It was pretty touch and go for a while there,” he said as I hugged him tight.

“But you were shot. And then there was an explosion.”

“That would be Check’s explosion. Ace had me, my armor barely saved my life and the meds and chems barely brought me back, but I was down. If Check hadn’t set up explosives around the building and brought it down on Ace, I’d be dead.”

“Thank…” I said reflexively before looking to my friends. Thanking Celestia or Luna didn’t seem appropriate since they were dead and Lifebloom and Death had been focused on helping me, not any of my friends. A moment later the only word I could think of blurted out past any kind of barrier I had between my brain and my mouth, but it seemed appropriate. “Check?”

“You can do that when she’s done with her radio interview. She’s using my Pipbuck and your broadcaster right now,” Melody explained, waving her bare foreleg at me.

“Lady Death was not destined to take you yesterday, Shadowbuck,” Kaiari said, her voice giving me chills. I knew she had been instrumental in saving my life, but having a zebra so close to me, even if she was a filly, made me wary. My worries were even more heightened as I realized that the bone with the blue flower of death hidden beneath its wrapping was still on her back.

“That still doesn’t explain how you got a zebra into a Ministry building guarded by robots who think the war is still going on,” I said, shooting Kaiari another sidelong look.

“Those bucketheads know me as a Paladin of the Steel Rangers. I told them that terrorists and dissenters had attacked Trottingham and almost killed you. I then told them that Kaiari’s parents were spies for Equestria who died getting us intel and she even saved your life. Even a bunch of robots aren’t heartless enough to turn away a little filly whose family died saving Equestrian lives or risked her life to save one of Luna’s guard,” he explained before giving Kaiari a supportive smile. “They let her in, but she has to stay with one of us. They said they’d kill her if she was caught without an escort.”

“Yes, an escort,” Kaiari mumbled. Her ears lay flat against her head and her breathing was tense as she glanced back towards the open door. Following her gaze, I immediately noticed a familiar looking Mr. Gutsy floating in the hallway, its eyes peering into the room and locked on Kaiari with a strange unfocused intensity that only robots could achieve.

“That was quick thinking,” I said, swallowing hard against a sudden wave of nausea that my friends and Kaiari obviously noticed.

“Are you okay? What is it? Can you breathe?” Melody asked, running a hoof across my neck along a thin line of scar tissue I could feel just under my coat.

“No, I can. Just a little queasy,” I said, fighting through the urge to dry heave. Meanwhile, Compass was pulling various bottles out of his bag and popping pills out of them before offering them to me with a bottle of clear water.

“Take these. This little cocktail should be able to counteract the radiation poisoning for a short time.”

Grabbing the water and pills with my telekinesis, I shot the medicine down my throat and drained the bottle as fast as I could. Letting out a long gasp, my stomach clenched and I winced, shaking from a mixture of pain and weakness before, after thirty or so seconds of Melody rubbing my back while the others watched with worried looks on their faces, my nausea subsided and my body stopped convulsing.

“It worked,” I said breathily.

“Yes, but it’s only a temporary measure. That cocktail should last about four hours, but with their potency and addictive nature I would advise against taking them for often than every six hours. I’m sorry I couldn’t figure out a better stopgap or a cure,” Compass said methodically. I, however, was focused much more on his earlier statement about their potency.

“What do you mean they’re addictive? What did you just give me?” I asked, feeling my stomach clench again, this time from disgust over what I might have just put into my body.

“It’s just a simply cocktail of Rad X, Mentats, and Buck. The Rad X will help stem the physical effects of the RAD sickness such as hair loss, skin sagging, and loss of sensation in your extremities while the Buck and Mentats will help with the weakness and vertigo that come with it as well.”

“You gave me Mentats and Buck? Those are illegal,” I shouted. “Mentats are a zebra drug and Buck is a steroid.”

“I already explained this, Aria. There’s isn’t any more ‘illegal’ substances and unless you’re going to retire from this hero stuff, then I think you’re going to need to take your medicine,” Shadow said, frowning at me. My coltfriend and my doctor were both looking down on me for not wanting to taking drugs? I knew the future was crazy, but this was ridiculous.

“I went my entire life without taking a single drug and now I have to take two of the worst drugs in Equestria just to survive,” I moaned, laying back in the bed and covering my eyes with my hooves.

“They’re actually not the worst drugs anymore, but yeah, you do have to take them. Just until we figure out a cure for those super RADs you’ve got, okay?” Shadow said calmly.

“You can always stop being the Nightmare Knight,” Compass suggested. “It would definitely be better for your health.”

“Not until we find a way to fix Stable Sixty-Three’s door. I won’t go back on that promise,” I moaned, suddenly feeling very tired.

“Why don’t you get some rest and we’ll come back with some food? They have vending machines that actually have hot freeze dried vegetable soup in this wing,” Shadow said, giving me a sympathetic smile that somehow made me feel better even though freeze dried vegetable soup sounded awful.

“Yeah. It’s actually really good,” Melody said, obviously trying to comfort me, but I just wasn’t having it.

Rolling over so that the majority of them couldn’t see me, my friends eventually took the hint, said their goodnights, and left me alone. And it was at that moment, the very second I knew that I was alone, that I let the tears come. However, true to his nature, I felt Shadow’s hoof on my shoulder before he carefully climbed into bed with me. Looking into his cool gray eyes through a wall of tears, choked sobs crashed and died inside my throat.

“I’m dying, Shadow. I’m dying,” I cried, burying my face in his chest.

“I know. I know,” was all he said as he held me close and stroked my mane. It was all he could say. There was nothing he could do but hold me and try his hardest to comfort me. As I eventually let the exhaustion of my crying take me, I slipped off into a restless, mostly dreamless sleep while Shadow cradled me into unconsciousness.

When I awoke again it was midday. At first I thought I was alone in my hospital room, but after a cursory glance I noticed the zebra filly reading a magazine in the chair to my right. The door to my room was closed while a platter of cold soup and water sat on the end table beside Kaiari. I lay there in silence, unable to really think about what I should do as I stared at the strange filly who should be my enemy, but instead saved my life. In my sleepy daze, I couldn’t be afraid or angry at the girl sitting next to my bed and keeping watch over me as I slept. Confusion at her very presence in my room was all I felt.

“You’re awake,” she said softly when she finally noticed me. Placing an old subscription postcard in the magazine as to mark her place, Kaiari smiled. “How are you feeling?”

“Still pretty rotten,” I said without thinking. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she replied politely. For a moment she stopped to ponder her words before adding, “I needed to speak with you about something important, Miss Nightmare Knight.”

“Just call me, Aria,” I said, not out of friendliness, but more out of annoyance at my stupid nickname. “What do you want?”

“I understand you are not feeling well, Aria, but this is of some importance to both of us. It’s about my curse and how Lady Lifebloom and Lady Death said you would be the one to cure me of it,” she explained calmly.

“Cheese and crackers. Has anypony ever told you that you speak like somepony much much older than you?” I grumbled as I sat up, wiped the sand from my eyes, and picked up the glass of water. “What are you anyway? Ten? Twelve?”

“That’s the thing,” she said as I began downing the room temperature water that was already soothing my raw throat and aching body. “I’m actually eighteen years old.”

“What?” I cried, spitting out a mouthful of water back into the cup before it splashed against the back and sprayed me in the face. Dropping it and blinking the water out of my eyes, I glared at Kaiari. “What the hay do you mean you’re eighteen? Are you trying to tell me you’re actually older than me because you sure do not look it?”

“Yes. As I said, I am cursed,” Kaiari explained. “Although the fact that you can remember my admission gives me hope you can break it. Have you ever heard of a plant called killing joke?”

“No. I’ve heard of poison joke, but I don’t think it could ever be considered killer.”

“It is a mutated cousin of poison joke. While poison joke played mostly harmless pranks, exposure to the evils of necromantic radiation has caused its relative to develop a rather nasty sense of humor,” she explained, getting up to pull the bone from her back and unwrapping the blue flower contained beneath.

“Woah!” I cried, tensing up as I tried to back into the wall.

“Do not worry. It is preserved so it affects only those it touches. That is, as long as they were not already under its effects,” she reassured me, but I was a hair’s breadth away from screaming for help.

“So it’s poison joke that kills. If it cursed you, then why are you still alive?” I asked, readying my horn to grab the tray of soup off the end table and use it as a shield.

“The reason is only because it tailors its curses to be ironic or funny. My story is a little long; are you up for a bit of a tale?” Kaiari asked, giving me a small smile. “Although if the Eternal Ones are wrong, then you won’t remember this after I’m done so it shouldn’t matter.”

“Really? That’s a little weird,” I said, that last bit garnering my interest and allowing me to overcome my misgivings about having a zebra in the room with me. “I’m remembering this. I’m curious to see how deep this curse runs.”

“Yes. That is a good sign that you have not forgotten. Perhaps you are the only one who can help me," she said with a sad smile. "Where should I begin. You see, I am not originally from Trottingham. Neither was my brother. He sometimes said he was to ingratiate ponies to him, but the truth is we were born on the Summersand Islands.”

“He mentioned something about that. Your family were shamans or priests or something like that, right?” I asked. She simply nodded.

“My father was the chief, my mother was high shaman while his was a ranking hunter.”

“You had different mothers? What happened to his mother?” I asked, dreading the oncoming sad story about Tekash having lost his mother early on and that was why he was screwed up.

“She is fine. Most likely she is still with my father and my mother in the harem.” My jaw dropped. I had heard that males dominated females in zebra culture, which made them seem even more offensive to me, but I had always considered the rumors about harems to be a little too far fetched even more me to believe. How could she be so calm about her father taking on multiple mates? “Is something wrong?”

“Zebra actually have harems? I thought that was just a myth,” I said, still trying to wrap my brain around the idea without wandering into more perverted territory.

“Yes, in large settlements and groups it is usually required. There are far more mares than stallions born each year so harems are an unfortunate necessity,” she said with a sigh. “Personally, I like the idea you ponies have of love and monogamy. I would like that kind of thing to happen to me. Of course, in my cursed state, that is all but impossible.”

“Yeah, about that, so how did you get cursed to be a filly and how was that supposed to kill you?”

“Let me tell you a little about my home and my culture first. Shamans, those who are spiritually attuned enough to speak with the spirits of the dead and the earth and those who can commune with them as such, are highly prized and respected. A skilled shaman is almost as respected as the chief. The high shaman is the most venerated member of a village,” she explained, holding the bone between her hoof and fetlock and absentmindedly tapping it against the floor. Each rap on the linoleum tiles gave me pause as I nervously watched the killing joke blossom on the end bounce to the rhythm. “I was born daughter of the high shaman and chief. My spiritual affinity was strong, perhaps even stronger than my mother’s, and the tribe rejoiced when I received my glyph mark and was ready to become my mother’s apprentice.”

“So why are you here in Trottingham?”

“Because Tekash and I were so close. He was my big brother and a strong hunter. He had some shamanistic talent, but not even enough to be considered a neophyte. He watched over me from the moment I was born. Thus, he did not wish for me to go through the trials. In particular, the final trial. Are you not going to ask what the trials were?”

“Go on. I figured you’d explain it anyway,” I said drolly.

“After communing with my ancestors and days of meditation and starvation, I was to clear my mind of all thoughts and emotions and accept the killing joke. If my mind was clear and my emotions still as a pool of morning dew on a blade of grass, then the killing joke would not have the ability to read my mind and know what I knew. It seeks what you have said or done or something you are feeling and turns it against you in a highly lethal manner.”

“Good to know, but I still don’t understand what Tekash did and why turning you into a foal would kill you?”

“You are quite the inquisitive one, Aria. You and I will have much to discuss when it comes to matters of magic and the Eternal Ones, won’t we?” she asked with a hopeful grin.

“Uh, sure,” I said half heartedly. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings for some odd reason, but I really wasn’t excited about discussing anything with a zebra.

“Anyway, my brother was afraid I would be killed by the ritual and burst into the Chamber of the Headmistress with blade and buckler ready to fight. At that moment, a single thought crossed my mind just as the killing joke touched my hoof. ‘Why do you always treat me like a foal?’ That thought sealed my fate,” she said. Looking her over, I could see why she felt it was a curse. To be an adult trapped in a child’s body, robbed of your cutie mark, or glyph in her case, I couldn’t help feel some sympathy. “The pain of my transformation was unbearable. I passed out from the strain and when I awoke I was on a boat to Trottingham with my brother and a few criminals escaping with us on their boat.”

“I’m really not liking where this is going,” I muttered as a dark feeling began to coat the sickness in my stomach.

“I don’t remember much. I slept through much of it, but I believe one of them took advantage of me while I was unconscious throughout the trip. My brother could not be at my side at all times, he had to work on the boat sometimes while I slept, but I did wake up during one of those abuses,” she said, her eyes downcast to the ground and her face suddenly darkening. A small voice inside of me grumbled something about “I shouldn’t care about what happens to a zebra,” but the rest of my emotions shouted it down. Anyone, zebra, griffin or pony, especially pony, should not have to go through what she was talking about.

“I…” I didn’t know what to say.

“It was painful and terrifying. As I came to, I tried to scream, but he put a hoof down on my throat as he continued. I couldn’t breath and soon my vision was going dark. This was how I was meant to die, raped by a pedophile until he choked me to death. The killing joke had told its horrid joke,” she continued, her voice straining. I wanted to tell her to stop, to spare herself the pain of recounting her torment, but another thought had to charge through my mouth before I could stop it.

“But you’re not dead. How?” I immediately winced, mentally chastising myself for such a stupid question.

“Because the spirits were with me. I cried out for help from the sea and the spirits answered, drawing up a mighty wave that tossed the boat and my assailant with it. The spirits also granted me impeccable sea legs so I was able to run and find my brother while he was tossed about the ship along with his fellow criminals. I found Tekash, told him what happened and how we needed to escape. I then helped him into a life raft that we cut free. Just as we made it clear, the sea took out its rage and destroyed the ship,” she said before taking a deep breath. “We made it to land just outside of Gigaton and have lived here ever since. However, we were not the only survivors.”

“No… Don’t tell me he…” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Could the world be that cruel to a filly? Then I remembered Check’s story and knew it could.

“Yes, he survived and you know him, Aria. You killed him and cemented my faith in you,” she said firmly, taking my hoof even though the gesture made my skin crawl.

“I don’t remember killing any zebra, well, besides that ghoul shaman working for Starshine,” I said, trying to deflect this strange devotion she had for me. But in all honesty, if I had two goddesses come to me and tell me about somepony who would save me from a curse, I think I would be pretty enamoured myself.

“He wasn’t a zebra, but a pony. He survived the seas and joined the Royal Flush Raiders. You knew him as the lieutenant known as Ten Thousand Cuts.”

She could have just punched me in the mouth right there. While I hadn’t killed the psychopath myself, I had been responsible for him blowing himself up in an attempt to kill me. The first day I had arrived in Trottingham from my own time, I had killed a pony who was a murderer, I knew that. But to know that he had raped a filly, even if she was a zebra, made me feel… good?

For all of his evil deeds, I had felt a twinge of guilt at killing Starshine. He had been my brother’s father after all. I felt shame for Cherry Scones’ death because I was partially my fault. A part of me even felt some pity for Jack; he had been a crazy and a killer, but had been warped by Starshine and the unimaginable pain and loss he must have endured in Canterlot. But the fact that the Flusher I had killed only a week ago was that evil and I was responsible for his death filled me with a perverse pride.

I didn’t really know how I should feel, but what I was experiencing inside me gave me a moment of pause.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t have killed him sooner,” I finally said, a darkness falling upon me as it seeped out of me and filled the room with its metaphorical shadow.

“No, you did what you could. One should never wish death on another for death is final. There is no room for growth or repentance if one is dead,” Kaiari said calmly, hitting me with another verbal punch to the jaw and somehow dispelling the oncoming void of emotions that was beginning to take root. “But I thank you for it. Not out my need for vengeance, but because he was a horrible pony and now he can no longer hurt others as he hurt me.”

“I gotta keep reminding myself you’re not really a filly,” I said, shaking my head and sighing.

“Hey, Fire Flanks! Feeling better?” Check asked as she threw open the door. “Who’s not really a filly?”

“Kaiari,” I said, pointing to her, but the zebra sitting next to me just shook her head and sighed. Check looked at her a moment, curious as to my meaning, before blinking a few times and smiling.

“Hey, Fire Flanks! Feeling better?” she asked again as if the past five seconds had not even occurred.

“What?” I looked to Kaiari who just gave me a look as if to say ‘just go with it’ and so I did. “Um, yeah. A little.”

“Aw, come on. Don’t tell me you’re mad about my awesome interview this morning with Crumpets?” Check whined, looking at me sternly over the rims of her sunglasses. “I thought I did great for your PR.”

“By telling everypony I’m a freak that turns into a radioactive monster?” I snapped back.

“Hey, it's not my fault everyone in Gigaton saw your little midnight ride with a dragon on your ass. Telling ponies its a mutation like Compass thinks is much better than letting them jump to their own conclusions about weird stuff like Tekash did,” she said back before wincing and immediately regretting her choice of words. “Sorry, Kaiari. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“No, I understand, Check. You speak the truth. My brother was misguided,” she said solemnly, diverting her gaze from Check and towards the nightstand. For a moment I thought it was just sadness over losing her brother, but a slight flush rushed across her cheeks and she tried to hide it behind her striped mane and I knew it couldn’t be sorrow. Zebra were weird.

“Still, I’m sorry it had to end that way. Celestia help me, I wish I hadn’t taken you for that tarot reading, Aria,” Check said remorsefully.

“Why did you bring her for a reading anyway?” Kaiari asked, not quite meeting Check’s gaze.

“I tried to show Aria that not all zebras are the evil wartime stereotypes she grew up with.”

“The plural of zebra is zebra, Check. I’ve told you this before,” I corrected, slightly annoyed at her insistence at using the wrong word.

“Actually, it is either. In our language, the word zebra means ‘people.’ As such, you do not pluralize it. However, adding the letter ‘s’ to the end of words usually makes it plural so your people have been adding it to the end of our pluralized word for centuries,” Kaiari said so matter of factly that Check and I just stared for a few moments. Then, unable to contain herself, Check burst out laughing and pointing at me.

“Oh my Goddesses! Aria! You’re grammar legateness was so overpowering that it made you actually culturally sensitive towards zebras! It made you less racist!” Check laughed. I, on the other hoof, just wanted to melt into the bed and possibly melt away all together. Could radiation sickness let that happen?

“Racist?” Kaiari asked, confused.

“Yeah. Aria hates zebras and doesn’t like them all that much since she lived during the war and junk,” Check explained as her laughter started to die down. Kaiari looked hurt and disgusted as she looked at me for some form of answer that I didn’t have. I looked away, ashamed by her accusing eyes, while Check began to realize what she had done. “Oh… Um, but she’s getting better.”

“Do you really hate zebrakind? Do you really hate me?”

“I…” I couldn’t speak. A part of me felt awkward just sitting in the same room as her while another part told me to take revenge for Littlehorn while my more rational mind tried to wrestle with my feelings of gratitude and pity towards a zebra. “I don’t know.”

“I need to go,” Kaiari said after a long pause, getting to her hooves, she slowly walked to the door before asking, “Check, can you escort me to the bathrooms?”

“Sure thing, kiddo,” Check said before giving me a long look over the brim of her glasses. “You get better soon, Fire Flanks.”

I wanted to say something, anything to make this right, but I didn’t know how. For the first time in my life I realized something awful about myself, something that had existed long before I came to the future. I had hatred in my heart for an entire race without ever meeting any of their kind. I was tainted by more than just balefire and it had hurt someone who had given everything she had to help me. Kaiari had killed her own brother to save my life and I could say with one hundred percent certainty that if I was in the same position I would never have done the same for her. I had been suspicious and hateful towards someone who had done nothing but been kind to me just because of the stripes on her coat.

I realized then I really was a racist.

I spent quite a while in silence, arguing with myself and battling my steady fall into depression I was facing. I had always been taught since I was a foal that zebra, or zebras, were evil and fighting them and everything they stood for was the right thing to do. This was the driving ideology in Equestria even before Littlehorn. Now I had seen the hurt that such thinking caused and it tore me apart inside seeing Kaiari’s face when Check mentioned my racist inclinations. I knew now they were just that, racism and hate driven by wartime fear and propaganda, but the awful thoughts and feelings popping into my head from time to time made me realize that I wasn’t just wrong, I was sick.

Check had returned to apologize and even went to get Compass, Melody, and Shadow to try to pull me out of my funk, but their words could not penetrate the dark emotional cloud that had descended upon me. Compass did however get me back on my medication after we realized I hadn’t had a chance to take it in almost three days due to all the fighting and my miniature coma. Yet words and medication did little to pull me back from the brink and soon I gave into the cold embrace of sleep.

This time what awaited me on the other side of the Void Between Worlds was different, yet had a feeling of deja vu to it. Below me was a vast canopy of clouds while above me was the stark whiteness characteristic of this realm. Meanwhile, an exhibit of moving paintings surrounded me while a familiar purple horseshoe mirror stood in the corner of what I could assume was the room. But what was most interesting was the pool in the center, gurgling quietly as a pony in a silver cloak and hood stood before it.

The pony’s features were completely hidden by the cloak, only her hooves peeked out from beneath its hem but they were shod with golden shoes that glittered in the omnipresent light of the Void. I had met five of the seven Eternals and my heart began to race. There were only two left, one whose name I did not know, but was Timestream’s husband, and the other was Voidheart, the fallen one. I took a step back, my hoof somehow echoing across the emptiness and attracting the rather tall, obvious alicorn’s attention. Even though he/she lifted her head, I still couldn’t see into the darkness of his/her hood and my eyes widened. There was only one pony this could be. It had to be…

“I didn’t expect you to be so early,” she said softly. She didn’t sound like an old mare, she sounded as if she were maybe in her thirties or forties, but her voice carried kindness, maturity, and grace much akin to Celestia’s. “Welcome, Aria. I hope you don’t mind if I work while we talk. I am very busy.”

“You’re not Voidheart or Timestream’s husband or any of the Eternals I’ve met,” I said, realizing I was sounding much more accusatory and confrontational than I meant to be.

“This is true,” she said, returning her gaze to the pool.

“Then who are you?” I asked, taking a few nervous steps closer to the pool, wondering what was so fascinating within its waters that this strange new goddess would not fully address her attentions to me.

“That is a very good question,” she said with a small laugh. After a moment, I took another step closer and she replied, “You may call me the Headmistress.”

“Headmistress?” I asked, stopping at the edge of the bubbling pool as my mind reached out for where I had heard that name before. “You’re Psyche’s grandmother! I mean Cherry Blossom.”

“You are correct,” she said with a warmth that told me she was smiling beneath her hood. As to whether it was encouraging or patronizing, I couldn’t tell. “I am also Dream and Death’s mother.”

“What are you doing here? I thought they said they and the other Eternals were the only ones sent back in time,” I argued, feeling almost offended at the prospect that either they had lied to me or their own mother to them.

“They did and they were,” she responded cryptically before holding up a hoof. “Excuse me for a moment. I have to do this while the timing is right.”

“Huh?”

Looking down into the pool I could see a black and white cyberpony, her mane striped like a zebra’s but red where white should be, as she discussed something with a massive alicorn that looked remarkably like Twilight Sparkle, even down to the cutie mark. The cybernetically enhanced unicorn seemed to be pleading with the alicorn, her eyes glistening with tears, but I could not hear the words they exchanged. Then a strange stillness overcame the alicorn and she flew away, leaving the cyberpony to pick up a sniper rifle and follow her through its sights.

“Stop her! Don’t let her shoot!” I cried, but the Headmistress simply lifted a again hoof to silence me while a strange chill filled the room. The vision returned to the alicorn, who shivered slightly before flying over a demolished building within a green glowing crater to meet with a ditsy eyed pegasus ghoul. As the two radioactive creatures started sifting through the wreckage below them, the vision faded and the Headmistress hummed a note of accomplishment.

“There we are. It’s up to her now if the blank soul I gave her will bond to her memories of Hoofington and her friends so she can become a fully realized being,” she said calmly, adjusting the golden serpent clasp keeping the cloak around her neck. “Although, with time being relative to me here, I guess I could have done that at any time. Anyway, on to you, Aria. We have much to discuss and far too little time.”

“Wait… What? Did you just give that alicorn a soul?” I asked as she turned from me to walk towards a mahogany door materializing behind her.

“Figuratively, no. I cannot create true souls. That is power far beyond even my own abilities. I can, however, create blank souls that memories might latch on to and, theoretically, if a empty being has lived a life, lived through all the pain and pleasure it has to give, and experienced the unquantifiable magic of friendship, then that soulless vessel has a chance to be reborn a full pony, soul and all,” she explained before opening the door wide and gesturing for me to follow. “The experience will most likely be tragic and she may forget much, if not all, of her past life, but she will be given a new one and those memories of her time with her friends will remain with her to be rediscovered within her new soul. I have discovered it is the only way a certain timeline can come into being so I must interfere a bit.”

“Okay…” I said, slightly lost. I was able to follow most of it, but this was dealing with god tier magics that were far beyond my comprehension; I was barely able to keep up on a theoretical level. As I walked through the doorway, I realized I had stepped out onto Timestream’s balcony overlooking the Sea of Time. “Why are we on Timestream’s balcony?”

“Because I would rather us sit and enjoy some tea while we talk. Plus, my former student’s taste in furniture and tea was quite exquisite,” she said before sitting down at the table where I had sat with Timestream only a few days earlier. Waving her golden shod hoof towards the other seat, she summoned up a tea set and poured me a piping hot cup. “Two cubes of sugar, no milk, correct?”

“Yes, please. How did you know?” I asked as I sat across from the mysterious mare, trying in vain to see beneath her hood.

“I know much about you, Aria. I am the reason Death, Dream, and Lifebloom knew about you before your birth. I know much. I knew of my children’s entire lives even before they were conceived,” she said, placing the cup before me and taking hers with two sugars as well.

“But how? How could you know about your own children’s lives before you had them? What is your power?” I asked before taking a sip of the warm, soothing beverage.

“I’ve lived through far too much and continue living. Such is my blessing and curse. I have far too much power and far too little,” she replied, continuing to speak in riddles until she took a sip of her own.

“I can see where Death and Dream get their love of being enigmatic,” I said coyly. The Headmistress simply chuckled under her breath.

“Yes, I guess they do. Although I think Death gets her sarcastic wit more from her father than from me,” she said with a hint of mirth. “And to answer your question, my power is my own and of others. I can see far beyond Timestream’s currents or Dream’s visions. I can see into other worlds and timelines and watch over them. Learn from them. You are experiencing a bit of my power now since you are talking to me in the Void of my present, but what would be considered your future.”

“So you are in the future. That’s why they think they lost you,” I said before taking another sip. The tea, although only experienced in an astral sense as my only my mind and soul existed here, was absolutely delicious.

“Yes. I cannot speak with them so they are lost to me in your time,” she sighed. “It won’t be long before I lose them again.”

“Again?”

“Yes. Such is the burden of knowledge beyond your time. I have seen my own children die, Aria. It’s a fate I wish on no mare or stallion.”

“They… They’re going to die? But they’re alicorn gods,” I said, trying desperately not to acknowledge what I already knew. The last prophecy from the dead volcano that A.K. Yearling wrote about. Only one false god remained, waiting for another in a broken school.

“You have read the prophecy that Voidheart wrote, the one that all the Eternals heard as they fell through time and into the zebra lands so very long ago,” she said as if she were reading my mind. “You know their deaths were foretold before they even ascended to godhood. And yes, I did read your mind.”

“How… Wait… You can create blank souls, speak to me in dreams, know the past and future, and read minds. I also have a feeling you’re using shadow magic to obscure your features from me. Who are you really and how do you have so many of the Eternals’ powers?” I asked, setting my cup down angrily. The handle cracked under the pressure of my telekinetic grip and the Headmistress looked down at her broken cup with what I figured was sadness. Then she looked up at me and said one simple word that I was really beginning to hate.

“Spoilers.”

“Aria!” Shadow shouted as he barged into the room and roused me from my vision of the future. I wanted to lash out at him for interrupting my conversation with the mysterious Headmistress, but I knew it was not his fault nor would he even believe me.

“What? What? I’m awake,” I said, rolling over wildly as if my soul had been thrown back into my body far too fast for my mind to cope, but it was just sleep holding on to me for a little longer than needed.

“Compass and I were hanging out and having some soup and Marble Cake called me. There’s an emergency at Stable Sixty-Three and, hell, I think Crumpets is about to report in. She called Marble Cake during our conversation too,” Shadow said frantically as Compass and Melody rushed in after him. With a flip of a switch on my bedside radio, a report in progress cut through the static almost immediately.

“...under attack as I speak. Fisherponies off the coast radioed in to tell me what they saw only twenty minutes ago. To add to the confirmation, I spoke with Elder Marble Cake of the Trottingham Steel Rangers five minutes ago and he can confirm that head of Stable Sixty-Three Security, Starshine, has called for reinforcements from the Steel Rangers and the help of the Nightmare Knight and her crew.”

“I repeat, the E.M.S. Duchess Duchess, which vanished ten years ago from the Trottingham Palace Marina, has reappeared and is currently being crewed by a well armed, well dressed band of pirates and, as both the old codgers trying to hook some bass and Starshine described, Princess Cadence herself is leading them on the helm. That’s right, folks. Not Queen Cadence of the Queen’s Court, but Princess Candece. If you’re just tuning in, the Trottingham Steel Rangers are trying to mobilize and get to the aid of Stable Sixty-Three as the alicorn goddess of love, Princess Cadence, wings, horn, and all, is leading an assault against a dock beneath the Museum of Natural History and busting into Stable Sixty-Three from below.”

“Melody, Compass, Nightmare Knight, if you guys are hearing this, your families need you. Stable Sixty-Three is under attack.”

____________________________

Melody and I were frantic as we tried to get me into my armor. I had rushed out of my bed faster than my legs had been able to muster up the strength to carry me and face planted on the smudged linoleum floor, but that was merely a minor setback. While Check and Compass joined in the efforts to help me get ready, which was much harder now that my armor weighed down on me even more than before, Kaiari and Shadow tried to protest my eagerness to run into battle in my condition. My hardest glare silenced both of them, Shadow due to its stallion stopping powers and Kaiari because I think she was afraid I would actually hurt her.

“Dang it!” I shouted at myself before apologizing to them, although that little voice inside chastised me for saying I was sorry to a zebra.

Check, figuring I was probably hungry from all of my sleeping and moping, left me to go get a bowl of soup. Meanwhile, Shadow kept trying to tell me something, but I was too busy trying to get myself into a suit of armor that I was no longer physically fit enough to be wearing but refused to go into battle without. After a few minutes of fighting and a couple of dizzy steps, I at least had my hooves under me again and was clad in purple plates and carrying my sword and shield on my back. To say the weight was already pretty taxing would be an understatement.

“Alright, let’s get to the boat,” I said breathily.

“There’s a slight problem with that, Aria,” Shadow said with a nervous chuckle. I returned his chuckle with a tired one of my own.

“The Steel Rangers in Gigaton have Check’s boat.”

“What?” I asked dryly.

“They’re renting it right now,” Compass explained.

“What could they have possibly paid Check to get her to loan them her boat? Last time it was like pulling teeth!” I shouted.

“Four frag grenades, three plasma ones, two pulse bombs,” she sang as she took the corner in a merry trot and offered me a bowl of steaming hot vegetable soup with her telekinesis. “And a phoenix in a pear tree.”

“I hate that song. They used to play it non-stop during Hearth’s Warming Eve,” I said, taking the soup and blowing on it before taking a sip.

“Really? I didn’t think Hearth’s Warming Carolers sung about fragging ponies back in your day, Fire Flanks,” Check said with a wide grin. I ignored it even though she did make me smile internally.

“So how are we getting to Stable Sixty-Three before this fake Cadence and her pirates kill our family?” I said between sips of the absolutely delicious hospital food. I never thought I’d ever think those words before that moment.

“The boat’s not coming until tomorrow. You were supposed to get some more rest,” Compass said, following it up with a sigh. “I don’t see how we’re getting there now.”

“Does everypony have all their things?” I asked, blowing on and sipping up the soup as fast as I could. The freeze dried carrots and celery along with the hot broth warmed me up and filled me with a vigor that was just what I needed.

“Yeah,” Shadow said after looking at the harnesses, weapons, and saddlebags everyone was carrying.

“We can’t just sit here. I can at least fly out to help,” Melody whined as she trotted in place two feet off the ground.

“Or,” I said, slurping down the last of my soup and burning the roof of my mouth. My friends all stared at me while Kaiari just pursed her lips. Closing my eyes, I summoned up a very painful memory and said, “We can do this.”

“Don’t you-”

Flash!

“Dare!” Shadow finished as we all tumbled off the bed in Gigaton with me as a very uncomfortable metal pillow for them to roll off of and on to the floor.

“Woah… Okay… That…” I made a strange hurking sound as a dry heave rumbled up my throat and threatened to make itself very wet and messy, but I was far too stubborn to let myself lose the amazing dinner I had just eaten. “I need a moment.”

“Aria! You’re in no condition to be teleporting us five meters, much less half way across the city,” Compass cried, scrambling back onto the bed to give me a thorough examination.

“Yes, it was quite reckless,” Kaiari added sternly, however I caught a small smile cross her lips as she whispered, “But a bit fun too.”

“That’s the spirit, kiddo,” Check laughed, taking Kaiari into a one forelegged hug which set the tiny zebra not-filly’s face ablaze with a blush she tried to hide.

“You okay there, Rose?” Shadow asked as he helped me off the bed while Compass shined a penlight in my eyes.

“I’ll be okay. I’m just a little queasy. I’ll take that stupid cocktail before we get to the Stable and we’ll take care of business,” I ordered before giving Shadow a small smile and a kiss on the nose. However, I could feel all the energy and vigor that the soup had given me quickly fading away. “Thank you though.”

“No prob,” he said, returning the peck before pointing out the door. “Come on guys, I’ll radio ahead and make sure the boat’s ready for us,” Shadow said as he pulled on his helmet.

Walking through the bullet riddled and bombed out remains of Check’s street, the ponies of Gigaton were already out in the pre-dawn hours and continuing their efforts to rebuild the city. However, as we crossed their paths, every one of them turned to stare, exchanging hushed whispers between each other but never openly engaging us. As we turned the corner leading to the city square a pit grew in my stomach as I realized the townsfolk had removed Will and Bill’s body and had probably already buried them. I made a mental note to ask where their grave was after we saved Stable Sixty-Three so I could pay my final respects. They were my friends, they deserved more than that, but it was all I could do for now.

As we reached the town square, a large group had formed beneath the defused bomb while a second crowd had begun to follow us. As we approached, the first parted to let us pass, all except a zebra mare who seemed to be more focused on the stones she was shifting aside than paying attention to her surrounding. I was more than happy to just pass her by, but Kaiari trotted past us with a confused and slightly worried look on her face before making a joyful noise and tackling the mare into a hug that I could have sworn Melody had the patent on.

“Calamine! What are you doing here?” she asked.

“You know her?” Check asked, giving the mare a second glance and smiling. I took another look myself and didn’t see much to her. Calamine was small, hardly a head taller than Kaiari even though she was fully grown, while an orchid similar to Kaiari’s was nestled in her shoulder length stripe mane that hung partially over the mare’s amber colored eyes.

“Kaiari? Spirits be with me, it is you. I could ask you the same question. I haven’t seen you since… I… I can’t remember,” Calamine replied, stumbling over her words as her memories fought with the dark magic of the Killing Joke. “But I am here on my way back from my pilgrimage. My marefriend and I were attacked by those mirelurk creatures when we came to resupply and our boat sank. It is just our luck after escaping Isla del Sol.”

“It’s alright. It’s just good to see someone from back home again,” Kaiari said wearily. “You were never one for romance, Calamine. You always spoke of your duty to finding a mate, but I never expected you to like mares.”

“Marefriend, huh? So you’re taken?” Check said with a sigh. “So where’s this lucky girl?”

“She should be around here somewhere. I think she was helping fly some supplies to the other side of town,” Calamine said as she scanned the skies above.

“Fly? Is she a pegasus like me?” Melody asked excitedly.

“No.”

“You’re dating a griffin?” Kaiari asked, cocking an eyebrow at her friend.

“Oh no, she’s a pony,” Calamine laughed.

“So she’s a pegasus then?” Melody asked again, looking a little confused.

"She is not."

“She’s a thestral,” I said dryly.

“A what?” Shadow asked.

“A batpony,” I growled, my anger beginning to bubble up again. “Stable Sixty-Three’s under attack, remember? We don’t have time for this.”

“Right! Sorry,” Melody said sheepish before flying after me while everyone else trotted behind trying to catch up. “Nice to meet you!” she called back to Calamine.

“Why are we so attached to these idiots?” the Nightmare huffed.

Blowing my bangs out of my face, I marched forward towards the docks while the others gave quick little goodbyes to their new zebra friend. I know I was trying to be a little more tolerant, but some habits like being rude to zebras, especially when I was feeling sick and in a hurry, were not going to die easily. Hopefully my friends would understand. I was letting Kaiari tag along at Check’s urging; that was a start after all.

I marched up to the pier where the Four of a Kind was waiting for us along with a small squad of power armor clad ponies, a smattering of scribes and Elder Marble Cake. The scribes were busy hoisting a brand new sail while the rangers checked and rechecked their weapons. Their elder just stood at the end of the gangplank stoically, nodding as I approached.

“Nightmare Knight,” he said with a nod.

“Elder…” I mumbled.

“Shit. You look like shit.”

“I feel like it. My head is pounding, my shoulders are aching, and my stomach feels like somepony’s been applebucking it all day,” I replied before looking at the ramp up onto the boat behind him. “Can you please move, we’ve got a Stable to save.”

“That’s what these four are here for,” he said, waving a hoof at three rangers and a scribe already on deck. “They’ll be joining you. Our boat will be here soon and be following you and the rest of us, excluding a small force to protect Gigaton and Big Buck, we’ll take the rail lines as soon as the sun rises.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said, my voice much more monotonous than I had wanted.

“You going to be okay?” he asked as my friends started to board.

“I have a cocktail of medicine ready that should negate her symptoms for a few hours,” Compass explained before offering a small bottle full of pills. “It should last long enough for us to take back the Stable… I hope.”

“You’re really going to drug yourself and keep fighting for the rest of your life, kid?” Marble Cake asked, actually appearing worried about my well being. Looking from him to my friends and taking a long look at Shadow, I closed my eyes and sighed.

“We’re going to save Stable Sixty-Three, get that arc welder from Stableton’s mayor even if we have to beat it out of him, and then…” I paused, finding it almost insane that I was going to be saying these words at only seventeen years old. “And then I’m going to retire.”

“Well, you are two centuries old, Fire Flanks. You deserve to kick back and relax,” Check joked before taking the helm. “Ready to push us off, old buck?”

“Understood. Good luck,” Elder Marble Cake said, giving us a salute as three scribes used their telekinesis to push us away from the dock after the rangers had untied our moorings. The sails unfurled and the ship jerked as they caught an almost perfect breeze leading us right down the river to its mouth.

Sailing on a radsick stomach. Maybe that bowl of soup wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“Gurk.” I heaved one more time as I watched a mixture of brother and stomach acid get swept away by the dark waves beneath us. Melody gently rubbed my back as I vomited and continued while I hung my forelegs and head over the railing. The feeling of immense lethargy and burning in my throat left me feeling hollow, spent, and overall just useless. Looking at Melody weakly out of the corner of my eye, I let out a gravelly chuckle. “I’m a mess.”

“We’ll figure out a way to get rid of this RAD sickness. Compass is one of the best doctors in the world,” Melody said reassuringly.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Compass countered, his face reddening with embarrassment.

“I would. You’ve kept me going through a lot of cud and even figured out that stupid druggy cocktail to keep me going even through this,” I replied, waving a hoof at no one in particular. “You’ll get this. I have to believe you’ll get this.”

“Everyone needs hope,” Kaiari said softly. I gave a start and moaned as my joints throbbed against my muscles’ sudden contractions. “I’m sorry I scared you.”

“I thought you were mad at me for being a racist old foggey?” I asked bitterly.

“I still believe you are who the Eternal Ones say you are so I shall look past your flaws if you will try to look past mine,” she said before looking away from me. “Perceived or real, whichever they may be.”

I looked her over for a moment, mostly because my vision became fuzzy all of a sudden, before nodding and simply saying, “Deal.”

“Perhaps zebra herbalism and alchemy might know something. We should compare notes some time, Kaiari,” Compass added.

“That would be quite interesting. Pony medicine and magic has always fascinated me.”

“Old ass ship, ho!” Check shouted as we rounded an outcropping of stones and the hidden dock set within the cliff below the history museum came into view.

Set in the low cliffs the museum was built upon, a moderately sized cave had been used to build a dock. Probably made to allow easy transport of supplies to build the Stable underneath it, it wouldn’t surprise me if Stable Sixty-Three’s location had been chosen because of this feature. Make a Stable from above and below at the same time and the amount of intrusion on the museum would be minimal at best. However, the most jarring feature of the dock was its occupant, a wooden colonial style galleon, definitely pre-war or made to mimic the three hundred year old naval style, the Duchess Duchess barely fit inside the cave and its dual masts had to have scraped the ceiling as it enter.

“Look alive,” I said before downing my cocktail and half a canteen of water. Letting out a refreshed sigh, I regarded the new symbols on my EFS. Three red bars and three yellow. As I tried to figure out if the three were Stable dwellers or just sleeping raiders, a mare screamed and a moment later a yellow bar vanished. “Biscuits!” Before anypony could act, another mare’s scream was cut short and a bar disappeared. I had no line of sight on the deck as our ship was much smaller than theirs, but there was still one innocent left on board that ship.

Teleporting away, I reappeared above their deck by a good ten feet and barely had time to swing my sword as I fell towards the monstrosity on top of an orange unicorn mare in Stable Sixty-Three barding. The Blade of Everfree cut through thick chitin as glowing green blood sprayed all over the face of Golden Star’s Aegis and the Stable pony I had just saved. I then kicked the severed head of the beast whose kind had tormented my nightmares as a filly back towards the other two red bars and lifted my shield for combat because I knew exactly what the ponies standing behind me really were. Their hooves still standing in pools of blood beneath the victims whose faces they now wore, they were much more brash and barbaric, but still very much the same creatures as those who attacked my home when I was just a filly.

Changelings. While the insectoid pony-like creatures I had seen as a foal had had blue compound eyes while the one I had just killed bore green, I was more taken aback by the way these changelings had taken the form of the ponies they had killed. A green unicorn stallion and a chartreuse earth pony mare stared back at me with unfocused, dead eyes as thick red blood slowly trickled out of the gaping wounds in their necks. The sick monsters had ripped their throats out with their teeth.

“Aria? Is Compass and Melody with you?” the mare behind me asked after crawling out from under the decapitated changeling on top of her. Her eyes went wide at the sight of the stallion and her breath caught. “That’s not my husband. Those things… They killed him.”

“I know. They’re changelings,” I said, glaring at the two doppelgangers before adding, “And they’re dead.”

Charging forward, I fired off a lightning bolt that sparked off the first before he had a chance to dodge, his stolen form flailing as he collapsed to the ground, while the other leapt aside, only for a spark of electricity to jump to her under my magical guidance and send enough of a jolt through her to trip her up. That was the one I struck first, slamming my shield into her face with a definite crunch before I followed through with a slash across the monster’s throat that opened up like a clown’s horrifying smile across its neck.

Spinning around to the stunned changeling, I caught a flash of green as it reverted back to its insectoid form upon death. Little good it did me since I knew these two were murderous fakes and I also had an anti-shapeshifting spell that all unicorn guards had been forced to learn since the invasion during Princess Candece’s wedding, but at least no one would think I had just slit a pony’s throat. The other was already beginning to stir as I charged him, his eyes widening in surprise as I teleported behind him and stabbed him through the back. He shivered and looked back at me with half glazed eyes before whispering, “My queen knows.”

“Tell her I’m coming for her too,” I spat before wrenching my blade up through his shoulder and into his neck. The same emerald flames enveloped this one before a dead changeling hit the deck of the ship. I flicked the green blood off my sword and watched it bead off my shield before turning back to the mare. “Are you hurt? I’m sorry we couldn’t have been here sooner. If you're hurt, Compass is just about to land.”

“So my son is safe,” said Comapss’ mother, a look of relief washing over her face before her eyes fell on the body of her husband and the tears immediately began to flow. Looking down on the body of the stallion near my hooves, my heart feeling like somepony had gone to town on it with a sledgehammer, I barely heard the gasp above me as Melody flew in to join me, dropping her pistol to the deck before landing next to Compass’ mother.

“No. Celestia, no,” Compass’ mother cried as she fell to her knees next to her husband’s body.

“Aria…” Melody said, almost in a daze.

“I was too late. We were just a few seconds too late,” I said somberly. Melody looked sick, unable to stand as she fell back on her haunches.

“W-we stopped to talk to Calamine. If we had just kept going. Sweet Celestia, it’s our fault,” Melody said hollowly, her usually sparkling blue eyes dulled by sorrow.

“No, it’s not our fault. It’s those darn changelings,” I said sternly, but deep down I knew I hadn't been fast enough yet again. Stopping to chat had gotten Compass' dad killed.

Suddenly, a hatch on the deck burst open and another black bugpony sprang out of its depths, hissing and spitting as it flew directly at me. I lifted my shield, but as I did its head exploded; all I had protected myself from was a splatter of blood and gore. To my left I could see the Four of a Kind pulling up and Shadow, his scope to his eye, giving me a wave of the hoof. I nodded and peered down below deck to make sure nothing else appeared on my EFS before turning to Melody. “Compass shouldn’t see this. Take his mother and tell him, but don’t let him see this.”

“Right,” Melody said softly before getting back up and trotting over to Compass’ mother. Placing a wing around her, Melody helped Compass’ mother to her hooves and down the gangplank to the dock.

I quickly grabbed Melody’s laser pistol and levitated it into her holster. I knew she wasn’t in the right state to be thinking about fighting now, seeing a stallion who had probably been like a second father to her bloody and mutilated would do that, but she needed her pistol. We all needed to be ready to fight because Queen had made her move and the final fight in our war against the Royal Flush had struck home for Melody and Compass. Looking to the wide open steel door at the end of the dock, I rushed down the ramp after the mares were clear. The rest of Melody’s family was in there somewhere. My family was in danger and I wasn’t going to lose them too. I’d ask for Compass’ father’s name and the name of the mare later, but I’d have to add them to the list of those who were dead because of me.

Toffee Biscuits.

Brass Bugle.

Spelunker.

Bulletstorm.

Cherry Scones.

Iron Will.

Steel Bill.

Compass’ father.

The currently nameless mare.

The list just kept getting longer and it would never end until the day the Wasteland died. Until then the husk of what had once been Equestria demanded a toll of those who had killed it and that price was to be paid in blood. Until harmony returned and healed the land and its people’s wounds. Either that or I somehow became fast enough to save everypony. But that day wasn’t today and I had to keep on fighting. I had to keep moving.

“Aria! Wait!” Shadow called out as he, Check, and Kaiari galloped up to cut me off at the gangplank. The rangers would have followed, but as the first put a hoof on the dock a loud crack and a weak splash denoted one had almost fallen through the rickety old dock. Looking over at them, I noticed two holding the first by her metal plated tail and heaving with all their might to pull her back onto the deck of our boat.

“We can’t wait! We can’t slow down! Ponies are dying! We don’t have time to stop!” I shouted back as I ran up the stairs into Stable Sixty-Three.

“You’re going to need back up!” Check snapped, stopping me short. Behind them I could see Compass’ mother being lead up to her son and Compass’ eyes go wide as she told him about his father’s fate. For a moment, he stood in stunned silence before finally the tears came and his mother joined him while holding him close. Looking to the stableponies and then to my friends, I growled.

“You three, come with me. Melody, Rangers, keep Compass and his mom safe here. We’re going to send survivors back here, okay? Keep them all safe on the boat,” I ordered and turned towards the back entrance to Stable Sixty-Three before the power armor clad ponies had time to salute.

“Kaiari,” Compass said quietly, hardly able to get the foreign word out between choked off sobs. He simply pushed his Ministry of Peace marked Doctor’s Bag towards her, unable to concentrate enough to use his telekinesis, before Melody put a comforting wing around him and his mother and led them on board the Four of a Kind.

“I will make sure your friends remain safe and well,” she said, bowing graciously. Kaiari scooped the bag up in her mouth and followed me as I marched briskly through the door followed closely by Shadow and Check. Weapons drawn, we entered the lower levels of the stable, ready for anything.

What we didn’t expect was three stable ponies standing guard with rifles as we opened another door leading to the reactor level of the stable. We stared at them. They turned and stared back at us. Lucky for us, we had the element of surprise. Unlucky for us was that the middle one was disguised as a unicorn and already lifting the gun with telekinesis. Well, that decided it on whether these were changelings or not.

Drawing my shield through teleportation instead, I instantly was upon him, pushing the rifle away as he backpedalled down the hall. The two earth ponies lifted their weapons, but Shadow was already peppering them with silenced pistol rounds from the other side of his battle saddle. In these enclosed spaces, Shadow’s sniper rifle was all but useless, however his pistol rounds had little effect against the armored hide hidden beneath the changeling illusions. Knowing this, Shadow’s opponent opened fire on my coltfriend as he narrowly jumped back and took a bullet in the shoulder before ducking behind the door.

Meanwhile I continued to push back the unicorn with tight swings of my sword, he fell back further as his only means of defense. Check and Kaiari were completely in sync though. The tiny zebra landed a punch that disarmed their guard before twirling around him and allowing Check to bull rush him. Kneeling behind their changeling, he toppled over while Check picked Kaiari up and they bolted past the first, which Kaiari tripped with a quick tug of her tail.

“3, 2, 1!” Check shouted before a grenade attached to the first prone guard’s lapel went off, pasting the both of them in a cloud of green blood and black carapace as their death reverted their insides back to their normal form. The blast caught both my target and me off guard and I stupidly dropped mine. A moment later, I saw fangs as the monster in pony form lunged at my throat, hissing.

“Gah!” I screamed as I tried to dodge, but only avoided getting my throat ripped out or any major arteries severed by less than an inch as sharp teeth sunk into my neck. My entire body with rigid as it began drinking, but my horn still worked just fine. Swinging my sword wildly, I cut deep into its shoulder and it was forced to stop feeding and fall back. Suddenly, a gout of emerald flames erupted around it and a perfect copy of myself was standing over me with an evil grin. A quick pfft went off, narrowly missing the changeling, before the fake me’s horn erupted with an overglow of green magic and she vanished.

“Shit! I didn’t know changelings could teleport,” Shadow swore as he and Check rushed to my side. Kaiari had beat them to me, she was deceptively fast for such a small zebra, and was already applying a zebra ointment to my neck wound while thrusting one of Compass’ healing potions upon me. For a split second the irrational, stupid, racist voice inside me popped up about the potion probably being poisoned, but the rest of my psyche forced its negativity down and I graciously accepted and downed the healing brew.

“They can’t,” I coughed as I discarded the potion and felt the strange mix of zebra and pony medicine rapidly healing the holes in my neck. The Buck in my system probably helped a little although it was mostly combating the side effects of my radiation poisoning at the moment. “Even when their queen took the form of Princess Cadence, she could only use telekinesis and changeling manipulation magic. These changelings are different.”

“Yeah, if they can teleport too, then we’re in trouble,” Check added before giving me a smile. “But you’re the best teleporter in Gigaton so I don’t think they’ll get the one up on you.”

“That’s the problem, Check. It was falling back and running before it bit me and turned into me. I think these things are some sort of vampire changeling and that one didn’t just take my appearance; I think it took my spells too,” I said with dire determination in my voice. “We can’t let any more of these things bite us, especially you and me, Check.”

“Gotcha. Let’s hope that thing hasn’t raised the alarm yet,” Shadow said as he lead the way, marching towards the exit out of the reactor level.

“Attention! Queen’s Guard! This is drone eighty-two. The Nightmare Knight and her companions have breached the reactor level. Protect Queen!” my voice said over the intercom speakers.

“Shit. You had to jinx us, didn’t ya, Shadow?” Check sighed before pulling another couple grenades and hooking them to her bandolier. “We don’t have much time. Let’s roll.”

“Hold them off for at least a few more minutes. I’ve found the ponies we’ve been looking for. Protect the prisoners and get them out through the museum exit,” a familiar voice said over the intercom. I could tell it wasn’t Princess Cadence’s voice, but I knew I had heard it before. While it wasn't the Crystal Empire's monarch, this mare's voice had a similar quality to it. “Getting the prisoners to mother is top priority. The last two are held up in the Overmare’s office, but I think they’ll come quietly.”

“To the Overmare’s office!” I screamed, charging forward past Shadow with my shield raised just as my EFS popped up three more red pips and the door at the end of the hall opened up and three more raiders, most likely changelings in disguise, appeared with guns trained on us. “I’m coming for you, Queen!”

Blood. Be it the crimson pools leaking under the doors of stable dweller homes or the green ichor that covered my armor after I had killed a dozen or so imposters ponies, that was all we found in the lower levels of Stable Sixty-Three. All we found were bodies, their lifeless eyes peering through my soul every time we opened the door to their homes, and enemies as a macabre festival of Hearth’s Warming colors tried to dye the stainless steel that made up most of the stable.

Even we were starting to bleed and our medical supplies were beginning to run low. My armor was dented and my underbarding was in tatters. After I had been just a little too slow to dodge from one changeling’s attack, his shotgun blasting me in the left foreleg as I tried to jump away, Shadow had to rip off the sleeve to remove the shattered plating that was digging into my flesh and making every step painful. Having to use yet another potion to stop myself from wincing and limping with each step didn’t help our current situation.

On top of everything, Check had gotten a nasty cut down her side that she refused to waste a potion on and only allowed a medicate bandage to be wrapped around it, Shadow’s armor was beginning to run low on meds and chems on top of beginning to show wear, and Kaiari had to work furiously to keep us up and in the fight. Amazingly, the little zebra was so adept and speedy, she had yet to be hit even though she was in the thick of it with us, tripping up enemies and kicking male opponents below the buck where it was assured they’d be taken down long enough for her to crush a windpipe or allow one of us to finish him off. I knew she wasn’t really a child, but it still didn’t make seeing a zebra filly choke a pony to death any easier to watch, even if the pony would instantly turn into a insectoid changeling after its death.

“Celestia damn it, Kaiari. How’d you learn to do all that shit?” Check asked as we limped down the long hallway leading from the dormitories towards the atrium level.

“All members of the Summerset tribe tend learn at least one form of martial arts. The warrior castes learn Falling Caesar and Pouncing Lion styles while we shaman can learn the Leaf on the Wind or Buzzing Mosquito styles. The lower castes usually learn one of the lesser forms or the basics of the others,” she explained while digging through Compass’ bag and organizing its contents to her liking. The fact that she could do this with the bag resting on her rump and using her tail like a griffin’s claw made her martial arts skills even more scary.

“But why would everypo-er-zebra need to learn to fight?” I asked timidly.

“Because go through the forms as a daily means of exercise and meditation,” she said calmly.

I swallowed hard. If all of zebra kind were like Kaiari’s tribe, then it was no wonder the Zebra Empire were able to go hoof-to-hoof with Equestria for so long without earth pony strength, pegasus flight, or unicorn magic. If their entire society learned how to fight, it’s no wonder that their numbers had seemed almost never ending. The fact that zebrakind fought to relax made them even more scary. Whether it was my own racism or just simple paranoia, I can’t say, but I stared down at Kaiari as we trotted down the bloody hallways of Stable Sixty-Three with an even more watchful eye.

“Shh.” Shadow hushed us suddenly and lifted a hoof for us to stop. Almost immediately a score of yellow bars and a few red bars appeared on my EFS and I watched as my coltfriend melted into the background and crept forward. A few moments later I lost sight of him and the three of us were forced to wait. After about a minute of waiting, Shadow returned and whispered, “You’re going to want to see this.”

Carefully, we approached the end of the hall and a wide open door leading up a set of stairs to the atrium. We ascended the stairs one at a time, trying our best to not make a sound. To Shadow, Kaiari, and Check, sneaking up the stairs was easy enough, but metal horseshoes on metal surfaces plus dinged up metal armor made my climb slow and nerve wracking. Lucky for me, I somehow made it to the top without one of my armor’s plates clanking loudly or my hooves giving out position away.

Within the expansive hall at the top of the stairs was a mass of stable ponies surrounded by a gaggle of gangers with shotguns and rifles trained on them. A surge of adrenaline pumped through my veins as I readied myself to charge in, but Shadow quickly put a hoof on my shoulder and shook his head. Confused, I furrowed my brow, but then, with a simple gesture of his hoof, he pointed to my Pipbuck and then to the ponies gathered up in the Atrium.

None of their Pipbuck’s glowed like mine. Their screens were completely blank and the lights were dark. As I worked my lips into a confused ‘How?’, what he was trying to tell me suddenly became obvious the moment I really looked at many of the hostages’ faces and recalled their dead eyes staring back at me in the many butchering rooms on the lower levels. These weren’t ponies, they were changelings in disguise, but for what purpose?

“You see, Overmare Tea Leaves, we have your ponies right here. Open your door and give us the Stable’s genealogical records and we’ll leave,” Queen’s familiar voice said sweetly over the intercom, niggling at the back of my mind. I knew her voice, but I couldn’t place it to save my life. It was like a voice you heard in a dream or in passing. It was similar to another, but not quite the same. I knew I had heard it before, but her true identity continued to escape me.

“You’ll just take the other ponies descended from Prince Golden Star and their families just like you did with Starshine!” Tea Leaves snarled back.

“Will you truly be the Overmare who would rather let your entire Stable die instead of just giving my mother what she wants?” Queen rebutted quaintly, adding, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one.”

“How does she know Star Trot?” I whispered under my breath, realizing she was quoting a science fiction movie from before I was born.

Who was this fake alicorn that commanded changelings? Could a changeling queen really survive centuries? There was so much about changelings that we just didn’t know so I couldn’t make an informed guess one way or another. Looking upon the mass of ponies, unsure whether all of them were changeling, I gritted my teeth. I couldn’t take the time to cast my anti-illusion spell on them so there had to be another way of exposing them for the charlatans that they were. Some way of revealing them all as not being from Stable Sixty-Three.

“It doesn’t matter, Aria. We need to get past forty potential changelings, but we can’t be sure they’re all bug ponies,” Shadow whispered back.

“I think I might know a way,” I said before closing my eyes and thinking, “Psyche, can you tell me if any of those ponies in the Atrium are actually ponies or just changelings?”

Nothing.

“Dream?”

Silence again.

“Death? Can you hear me? Are their souls pony or changeling?”

“Sorry, Aria. Can’t tell you. Spoilers and all that jazz,” Death responded. Kaiari perked up and looked around, but there was no sign of the hallowed alicorn. Shadow and Check just stared at the two of us, obviously unable to hear her words.

“Is that why Psyche and Dream aren’t answering either? Cause if so that’s really stupid,” I thought at her, getting a little perturbed.

“Sorry, little busy with all the dead down here. I’ll tell you later,” she said, grunting with frustration. Great. The one time I needed all powerful alicorn gods butting into my business and they were nowhere to be found for the most part.

I needed an idea, some way to clear out a whole lot of enemies at once. Tea Leaves and any other ponies in the Overmare’s office were in danger and my family had been taken prisoner. I couldn’t wait. I had to act. I couldn’t be late again. I had to save somepony. So the question was how could I blow away forty plus enemies at once? Sitting here and waiting was killing me. The longer I waited, more ponies died. I couldn’t stop.

My lightning spell could spark off of one pony, possibly hitting two more if I was lucky, but there were six guards. My shield couldn’t help me protect the stable dwellers, especially if they really were changelings who would rip out my throat the moment I was distracted with keeping them busy. A grenade wouldn’t cut it and we didn’t have any firepower like rockets except…

“Check, mind if I borrow your balefire egg?” I asked, drawing a cocked eyebrow and a wicked smile from my friend.

“What have you got planned now, Fire Flanks?” she chuckled.

“Shadow, watch the prisoners. If any of them look hopeful when I arrive, tell me to abort,” I said, as I carefully placed the egg in my saddlebags and placed my Pipbuck’s ear bloom in my ear.

“What makes you think they will be hopefully?” Kaiari asked.

“Because one of the heroes of old that saved them before is going to come marching in to save them.”

“What? That’s suicide,” Shadow objected harshly, but he thankfully kept his voice down to a low growl.

“Maybe, but if they’re stable ponies, they’ll believe I can save them, which I will, but if they’re not, I don’t know how they’ll react, but if I pull the egg, take the shot. Otherwise…”

“Alright. You win… I’m opening the door,” Tea Leaves said, defeated.

“Biscuits,” I cursed before porting away.

I appeared in the center of the room next to a very suprised ganger. He tried to turn his shotgun on me, but I quickly smashed Golden Star’s Aegis into his muzzle and smiled as I raised my magical shield just in time to block a barrage of rounds. As I strained to keep my shield up, I watched as the ponies of Stable Sixty-Three just stayed put, including three ponies I distinctly remember from the stockades during the last raider attack. Those three had been willing to fight and die for their home, but now they just sat and watched. That was all the confirmation I needed.

“Nothing. They’re just sitting there watching you get attacked. Get out of there!” Shadow said in my ear and I nodded.

Pulling the egg out of my saddlebags and lifting it above my head, I dropped my shield and teleported away. Reappearing above my friends, I stretched out my legs, pulling the three down the stairs just as Shadow pulled the trigger and the atrium erupted in emerald green fire. As we tumbled, I lifted my magical shield just in time to take the brunt of the shockwave from the egg’s blast before we were all blasted with a gout of radiation that sent my RAD meter skyrocketing to nine hundred before we were out of the fallout. Groaning, I opened my eyes and peered back up towards the atrium.

No bars, red or yellow, remained.

“Here you go,” Kaiari said frantically as she poured a bag of putrid tasting RadAway down my throat before administering aid to the rest of us. One dose and I was back down to seven hundred, but I shook my head when a RadFruit was offered to me.

“I’m fine. We’ve gotta get to the Overmare’s office,” I said, slowly getting to my hooves.

“Easier said than done. You just mini nuked the Atrium,” Shadow sighed. “We’re going to have to hoof it across, aren’t we?”

“Then I suggest you eat this fruit and we all take some RadX,” Kaiari said calmly, thrusting the fruit into my mouth and I just shook my head.

“It’ll do us good,” I said after chomping down the fruit, seeds and all, and then popping the chalky pill down my throat for good measure. As I started climbing the stairs again, I cleared my throat. “But I have a faster and less radiation filled way of getting across. Kaiari, do you have any more of those radiation absorbing totems on you?”

“Yes, but we don’t have time to set them up and let them perform their magic,” she countered.

“Right, so Check, you stay with Kaiari and Shadow and I will teleport over to the Overmare’s office,” I said with a smirk as we reached the top of the stairs, my Pipbuck already ticking at a steady pace.

“Sounds like a plan,” Check said with a grin from half way down the stairs.

“I do not like it!” Kaiari protested

“Ready, Shadow?” I asked, my horn igniting before he could say another word.

“Aria! No!” he cried as we vanished and reappeared on the other side of the atrium.

Thankfully for me and my lowered threshold for RADs, the doorway to the Overmare’s office was out of the range of the balefire egg’s residual radiation. Unfortunately for me was the fact that two gangers were charging down the stairs at us. But back on the fortunate side of things, they were just as surprised to see us as we were of them. Thankfully, our reflexes were just a little bit better than theirs. One snap aim from Shadow and a SATS assisted lightning bolt later and our would be attackers had gained a few fried synapses and an extra hole in the head.

Charging past them as green flames returned them to their natural twisted forms, I had my sword and shield ready as me reached the first landing and turned to see two more enemies with rifles trained below. Bullets rang off my shield and bit into my armor, but I charged in, my sword knocking aside one of their rifles while I disarmed the other with my shield. Snarling, the first took the opening I left and lunged for my throat while the other drew a machete with his magic. However, his head exploded into paste and body erupted into emerald flames as Shadow’s near silent pfft brought about his doom.

I, on the other hoof, ducked under the leaping imposter pony and slammed my shoulder into her barrel, knocking the wind out of her and sending her sprawling. Bringing my shield back in close, I swung down with my sword and cut deep into her hide before kicking her back towards the stairwell for Shadow to take care of finishing off. Leaping over the changeling raider, I dashed through the open door as two final raider flanked a pink pony with purple and gold hair who held Tea Leaves in her magical grasp. To my right four stable ponies cowered before the raiders who had laid waste to their homes.

As the first went to draw a pistol, I launched my sword at his head and watched as the world slowed to a crawl and SATS helped propel my blade through the changeling’s chest. The Sword of Everfree impaled the fake unicorn causing his magic to instantly vanish mid draw and his magnum to fly off over Queen’s shoulder and beyond Tea Leaves’ desk. Meanwhile, I threw Golden Star’s Aegis as hard as I could on the same SATS queue. Like a deadly frisbee it spun through the air and watched as the edge of my orichalcum shield crushed my other opponents throat right as this changeling’s magnum fired and struck with with a glancing blow against my armor that staggered me.

But I wasn’t fazed mentally. I couldn’t stop. My entire focus was on the mare in front of me holding the Overmare up like she was but a mere doll. My horn flared a dark blue as a matching blade to my own made of pure magic formed beside me.

“Queen!” I screamed as I made my final charge. Lifting my blade, I gritted my teeth as I put every bit of force I could into decapitating the last of the Royal Flush’s leaders. She turned, her eyes a sickly green cold while her horn glowed the same wan hue as she faced her imminent death with such an lack of care for her own well being that it surprised me.

But that wasn’t the reason I stopped. My eldritch blade disappearing mere inches from her throat as I came to an abrupt halt before her. My eyes went wide as a long lost feeling began to surge within me. I had stared into those eyes so very long ago. Although they were tinted with an unnatural green, they yet again filled me with hope as they were meant to do. I knew this mare now and why her voice sounded so familiar. I had listened her mother speak so many times and heard her own pleas for peace on the radio when she was a young mare barely into adolescence. Before me stood Princess Skyla, alicorn princess of the Crystal Empire.

“Aria! What the fuck are you doing? Kill her!” Tea Leaves screamed from her position up on the wall as Skyla’s telekinesis remained steady to hold her there. Skyla looked down at me with a look of pure apathy as if my attempt on her life was merely an inconvenience like having to get up to go to the bathroom while in the middle of reading a good book.

“Princess Skyla?” I asked, what little hope I had left bubbling out as if her very presence brought it out of me. The alicorn calling herself Queen blinked, her eyes a bright blue for the briefest of moments, before she seemed to stumble in a daze. She dropped Tea Leaves as her focus was lost and he shivered visibly. Holding her head, she stared at we with anger and confusion.

“What are you doing to me? What did you call me?” she hissed, but that was all I needed. Taking a step forward, I smiled.

“Princess Skyla. You’re mother was Princess Cadence of the Crystal Empire and your father was Prince Shining Armor, Captain of the Equestrian Royal Guard,” I explained calmly. Again, the green haze in her eyes was dispersed, this time for a bit longer than before, as her mind and heart fought against the dark magics controlling her.

“Mother… Father…” she mumbled before the emerald sheen returned and she hissed. “Stop that! I am Queen of the Royal Flush! I serve my mother faithfully! This Cadence you speak of is not her and I have no father!”

“Aria, I… What’s going on here?” Shadow asked as he entered the room behind me.

“She’s fucking lost her mind, Paladin Shadowbuck! She won’t kill Queen!” Tea Leaves snarled as she pulled herself back up, using the wall to steady herself.

“You’re not Queen. You’re Princess Skyla. I would remember you no matter how long it’s been since I last saw you,” I said, taking another step closer. She tensed slightly, but I continued. “I remember when you were born.”

“What?” she asked, another flicker dancing across her eyes.

“Yeah, what?” Shadow asked while Tea Leaves silently inched away from us.

“I was four. I was just the bastard girl who stalked around Canterlot Castle. I usually did it to stay away from my cousins, but when you were born, your parents brought you to Canterlot. Not just to see your grandparents and aunts, but also to show the world the first alicorn child born in recorded history,” I explained, feeling a surge of long forgotten feelings flow through me as I remembered that day. “My entire family was there to see you and your parents. Giving their congratulations, schmoozing, and being seen as nobleponies usually do was their goal.

“But I was hiding, slowly making my way towards your crib from behind tables, waiters, and curtains. I couldn’t let my family see me then. My brother and his father were there talking with my grandmother and I had been asked to stay out of sights since my cousins enjoyed teasing and tormenting me so much. I would be a distraction from the festivities But I wanted to see you so badly. A real princess. Something I could never be. Your birth even eased tensions with the Zebra Empire for a bit. That’s how amazing you were.”

I watched as her eyes flickered again, the mind control beginning to slip as I poured every thought and emotion her appearance here brought up in me. The anger and hate I had felt for Queen vanished when I realized who she really was and what had been done to her. The happiness I felt at Skyla still being alive and the admiration for her and her family filled me with joy and made my heart ache all at the same time. I needed to break through to her. I needed to save her. I was a member of the royal guard; if I couldn’t save the last princess Equestria had left, I was the ultimate failure. I wasn’t too late to save her.

“How... Why… What?” she asked, sitting down gently and holding up a hoof to keep me at bay. “What are you doing? Whose memories are these?” she cried, tears beginning to pool in her eyes as her mind fought back against the changeling reprogramming that had obviously changed the sweet princess of the Crystal Empire into the abominable Queen of the Royal Flush. “No… I’m Queen… I’m…”

“I was almost there, everypony was focused on talking to each other and not paying too much attention to you. But she was. Princess Cadence, your mother saw me and I was terrified when she called me out.”

“What did she do?” Shadow asked, realizing what I was doing seemed to be having some effect as Skyla stared at me intently, her eyes alternating between baleful green and crystal blue with each blink.

“She asked me if I wanted to see the baby. Of course, my grandmother was embarrassed by my intrusion and Golden Star’s father shouted that I didn’t belong here, but Princess Cadence ignored them. She told them I did belong there. And when she lifted me up and I saw you, I felt something I had only felt once before when I met Princess Luna in the library a few months earlier,” I said, placing my hoof against her cheek as tears began to roll down her face. “Hope. That’s what you represented and that’s who you are. You’re Princess Skyla, the Princess of Hope.”

“But why do you care so much?” she whimpered, before snarling, “You don’t. You’re lying.”

“I’m not. Heck, Cadence was Celestia and Luna’s niece too so technically you're my cousin. Shouldn’t I care about my family?” I asked, trying to wipe away a tear. She flinched, but allowed the gesture timidly.

“Your cousin?” she asked, the mesmerizing spell now just a few sparkling stars of emerald across her eyes, almost mirroring my own. I had almost broken through. I just needed something more. I put my heart out there, but there was something else missing. There was only one thing that could break a changeling’s mind control fully and I didn’t know if I had it in me. If I told her the truth and bore my soul, I hoped it would be enough.

“Aria! Shadow!” Check called as she and Kaiari entered the room. They stopped, obviously confused, as Shadow put a hoof to his lips and shook his head.

“Yes, we’re distantly related. I’m your cousin and a member of the royal guard. As a guard, I promise I will always protect you, but as your cousin I will always be by your side. I need you to come back to us, Skyla. I know you can save Equestria.”

“Why?” she asked, practically bawling as the spell cast upon her neared breaking.

“Your mother accepted me just like Princess Luna did. I remember when you were born. You’re the only other pony who might remember when Equestria was still Equestria without being a ghoul. You’re my family, Skyla, and I love you,” I said, taking her into the tightest and most caring hug I could give. Hugs always helped. She leaned against me, shaking as the tears flowed and the spell was finally broken. The only thing that could break a changeling’s mind control was the one thing they truly craved and wished to consume. Love.

“Mom… Dad… Please forgive me… Oh Celestia, what have I done. The things she made me do… This stable. How can you ever forgive me?” she asked me between choked sobs.

“It wasn’t your fault. It’s the one you were calling mother. The changeling that did this to you,” I said comfortingly as I broke the hug and wiped her eyes with a gentle hoof. “Where is she? As a member of the Lunar guard, I’m going to make her pay.” I stopped and thought for a moment before adding, “It’s Queen Cadence, isn’t it? Only a changeling would be that cruel and try to make a joke like that.”

“No. She’s my granddaughter. Or great granddaughter. I can’t remember,” she said softly. “My memories. They’re a little frazzled. It’s been so long.”

“It’s okay,” I said, trying to reassure her. “The changeling’s were controlling your mind. You’re okay now. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“No, it’s fucking not!” Tea Leaves screamed as she popped out from behind her desk. Suddenly, an explosion of sound ripped through the room and blood and grey matter splattered across my face as Skyla’s head erupted in a shower of gore from the two holes on opposite sides of her head. The stable ponies screamed as she went limp, some rushing for the exit while others were paralyzed by shock, while Skyla stared at the far wall through dead eyes. In a daze, I held her tight in my hooves, refusing to let her go. Her blood stung my eyes and her limp body was getting heavy in my hooves, but I couldn’t let go.

“No! No, no, no! Skyla!” I screamed, holding her as we both collapsed to the floor. Crimson tears streaked down my face and I could taste her blood on my lips. My body felt numb as I shook Skyla, crying out her name, while Shadow rushed Tea Leaves and quickly disarmed her of the changeling’s magnum while Check tried to pull Tea leaves away. The Overmare was still screaming something as little globules of spit and froth formed and flew in my general direction, but I couldn’t hear her. The only voice calling to me was the flame’s as he whispered his seductive call.

“Give me your hate. I can feel it building up inside you. You despise Tea Leaves. Strike the Overmare down and avenge Princess Skyla.”

“I… I can’t...”

“Do not be afraid. You will not die. You will be reborn,” the flame said comfortingly, like a father to his frightened filly. “Give me your hate and you will have the power to save everypony in the world. Isn’t that what you want? To be fast enough and strong enough to save them?”

My mane began to tingle and my shoulders and back burned. My gums itched and a low growl rumbled in my throat. Emerald light filled the world as the balefire in my eyes began to consume my vision. I turned on the mare Shadow held to the ground, my eyes wide and unfocused, and I bore my teeth like an animal. She had to die. I couldn’t stop. I had to kill her for what she had done.

Then, just as I felt the bright red rage about to burst within me, a weight on my back was quickly followed by sudden pressure at the base of my neck where it met my barrel. I stumbled and fell to my knees, disoriented and confused as I found it suddenly very hard to stay awake. I looked back to see Kaiari’s hoof pressed hard against a bundle of nerves in my shoulder and she just shook her head.

“You cannot fulfill your destiny and break my curse if you are dead,” she said simply before twisting her hood and I collapsed to the ground, darkness quickly consuming me. As I lost consciousness, the last thing I saw was Skyla’s vacant eyes staring back at me. I had failed. This wasn’t just another pony I had failed to save, but a princess whom I had sworn to protect. As the darkness took my sight, it overtook my heart as well. Because that was the day hope had died.

______________________________________________________________

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Disarming Presence: You're scary at close range. Whenever you attempt to disarm an opponent with a melee weapon or unarmed attack, add your CHA x 2 to the appropriate opposing skill challenge.
Author’s Notes: And I’m back baby! My new jobs at the comic shop and GameStop along with the holidays slowed me down a bit, but a month and a half is pretty dang good if you ask me. (Technically two months if you count the editing process, but I'm not) Thanks again to my editor, Chimpso, pre-reader, Pistol Whip, and all of you loyal readers. I hope to see you all again for “Chapter Sixteen - Gala, Bloody Gala.” Next chapter almost all will be revealed, questions will be answered while even more will be raised. Only three more chapter left in the Trottingham Arc. Oh what a ride this has been and it’s only one third of the way over. See you guys next time!
Chimpso: So we’ve got another four years to go? I’m game! Bring it on!